Jeff Mach's Blog, page 31

The Villain Factory

I was recently asked how I managed to be so prolific. And at times I’ve hedged on this, but now I’ll tell it straight: there are few things as fascinating as being judged on reading the temperature of a room I’ve never seen, much less been in.

In Plato’s Cave, people are trying to see Reality based on shadows. We moderns don’t have that difficulty; there’s no light in here at all. Everything’s a shadow, and as long as we’re willing to have faith in the shadows that only other people can see, as long as we’re willing to lend credence to the reality of things which have never existed in physical form, creating monstrous ideas is easy.

It’s a form of divination. I get perpetual inspiration from something that’s not unlike trying to read echoes without having sonar: I will see, fourth-hand or fifth-hand, the effects of something my monster-self is said to have done, and all I need do is say, “I wonder what chain of events would need to happen in order for this stranger to be angry at me in such a deeply personal way”. Folklore makes for some good storytelling shapes. Paul Bunyan is very big; just find a way to make something more interesting if it were ten times its normal height, and you have a Paul Bunyan story. Johnny Appleseed goes everywhere, planting apples; in what unexpected place might an apple tree grow, and what strange thing does it cause to happen? The Dark Lord does villainy because causing harm is deep in his heart; how might the last thing he said be used as a weapon?

Eventually, as a mythological creature, you stop asking, “How is it possible that anyone believes this?” and start saying, “You know, with a good publicist, I think I could come out ahead of the Jersey Devil, cryptozoologically speaking.”

Werewolves wake up human, covered in blood, and scream, “What did I do?” I wake up as inhuman as ever, and if I think about it at all, I ponder: “I wonder what new stories are told about me today?”

All I ever wanted was to add more stories to the world; and now I do. I never really expected to be the villain in most of them, but since I am, I figure I’ll lean in.

It’s not difficult to be a villain factory in the modern world. There was a time when every little thing I said was scrutinized, to see if people could find fault in it. How primitive! How barbaric! Now it’s assumed that everything I say is, itself, an expression of pure villainy, and the only part to be deciphered is the “how” piece. And that’s the easiest bit of it.

Have others made you into a Villain, against your will and against your knowledge?

Join us. We are legion – or if we’re not, just yet, we will be. And soon.

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Some Like 21

I like to find out what kind of drink I’ll get

I’ve ordered seven drinks tonight, and yetEvery bet I make is a losing bet.“A gimlet!” he proclaims(He always remembers at least some of their names.)Is bartending an art? Then every drink shamesThat strange professional. My alcohol gamesVary so much. A nice glass of white(sangria, not wine) – is the starter tonight:sure, the drink is purple to my sight,but surely it’s Moscato, right?I hear some drinkers barely care,As long as there’s a drink out there.But I don’t drink for oblivion. I don’t dare;If I ordered Everclear, I know how I’d fare:“Some Amaretto,” my waiter would smile,And my 190% vodka he’d defileWith flavors in the kind of incredible pileWhich makes swallowing ever-so-vile.There’s no drink so simple that my waitery friendCouldn’t destroy it from end to undrinkable endLaws of physics and bartending bendAnd no palate will ever recover or mend.But bring it! O, bring it, my dinery pal;Bring it you will; and drink it I shall.It’s time for a shootout at the Tonsil Corral,Drinking’s anesthesia from life’s Root Canal.

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The Lilac Chateau

There are a few things you should know about this most charming of residences.

First, it contains no ghosts whatsoever. Honest.

Nor does it have any demons.

It’s totally not the place where visiting vampires, stopping by from assorted other places of residence, head to first, in their eternal search for appropriate throats.

In fact, you won’t be bitten by anything, particularly the werewolves under the beds. The chateau is kept very clean, which means that the werewolves spend most of their time avoiding vacuum cleaners and playing jazz in certain secluded clearings in the forest. You’ll be fine, even if there’s a full Moon.

And demons? Don’t be silly. Every Demon in existence is busy portraying an extra on some supernatural television show, because if there’s one thing a junior Devil enjoys, it’s a sense of dark irony, plus free sandwiches.

Let’s not even entertain the ridiculous notion that the closet is a portal to a dimension in which Humans would be regarded as food if the insatiable appetites of the Things therein ever paused in their endless hunger long enough to think of anything as NOT being food.

There’s definitely not a cursed honeymooning couple who return every 19 years to complain, in excruciating detail, about each others’ bathing/dining/working/marital habits. And IF THERE WAS, this surely wouldn’t be the 57th year since they last showed up.

The beds won’t eat you. Stop. Just stop. That’s ridiculous. And the beds are very comfortable. Plus, in their defense, you are DELICIOUS.

This is actually one of the most comfortable places on Earth. Granted, the doorway is actually a portal to another dimension, so it’s not technically on Earoth. But the space aliens who devised the portal so that they could trap and consume yummy humans went out for a cigarette like three years ago and haven’t been seen since. We suspect that they skipped town in order to avoid making some payments on their flying saucer.

So relax and enjoy yourself. It’s time for a little relaxation. And might we recommend covering yourself in a light garlic-butter sauce? Everyone knows that’s good for decreasing your stress levels and increasing your production of serotonin.

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All You Really Need

all you need is love
and magic
and money
and a vast army of killer frogs.

the best things in life are free
as long as you don’t count
the overhead
on a vast army of killer frogs.

there’s nothing like music
to cheer you up
although I still think you could have found
better musicians
than a vast army of killer frogs.

although I suppose you could take the vast army of killer frogs
and use it to wipe out all of the better musicians.

I suppose you wouldn’t have “better” music
until there was enough time
to eradicate the memory
of other songs;

but memory is surprisingly pliable,
and people seem to enjoy making the worst of things.

What I’m trying to say is,
I have an army of killer frogs,

and things could be worse.

(they usually are.)

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The Way Out

Now let’s walk over the bridge again. It’s absolutely definite that none of the people in the pictures have moved since the last time you were here. That would be impossible. So don’t even look for it. And obviously, people in black and white photographs never step out from their frames and cavort in the shadows. That’s not real, so there’s no point at all in keeping a close watch whether or not the shadows you cast seem to twitch and sway a little in the dappled light of Sun or Moon.

Now, If you’re like most of our guests, you probably came in via the Sunside Road entrance. As you make it across the bridge and the bridge doesn’t collapse behind you just as you step off–

(And that never happens. Your hosts are very careful about your safety, and they make sure all paths and ways are clear and safe; it would take something supernatural and impossible to interfere with it, and none of that stuff is real, so don’t worry about it, okay?

Besides, there’s a little tribe of elves who rebuild the bridge every morning around 4 a.m. So it’s all fine. They’re very cunning and those little tracks you see are certainly not their footmarks. Moving on….

It’s a very ordinary human characteristic to assume that spectral forces mean us ill simply because they’re out to get you and steal your hearts/minds/bodies/socks. But sometimes, there is serendipitous conjuncture, which is the same thing as saying, “It turns out that the vicious conspiracy controlling the world is actually on your side, through pure coincidence, a whole lot more often than the people who say they’re on your side, none of whom can actually be trusted.”

Such it is with the Sunside Road exit.

Don Henley famously said, of the Hotel California, that you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave. This is almost true of the Blackthorne, and the saddest part is, it turns out not to be the case. For just a moment, on that dirt road, it looks like you’ll be there forever, that the road will twist, turn, then face the future straight-on and never actually arrive.

But in fact, that’s illusion. The Resort holds tight for just a moment, and then you’re out.

…amongst the normal world, with normal people, doing normal things.

And that’s the real horror.

So let’s not travel far up this particular road. Give it a wave as you pass by, and then head straight back into the heart of the Resort. We recommend the Pub; heck, we know that every time WE think of leaving, we sure need a drink.

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The Goats

Now that you’ve made it across the bridge perfectly safely and with every bit of your sanity fully intact, you can wander around our goat area! Feel free to take a good look around. The foliage is so rich and lush, it’s as if some outside force was directing it to grow and thrive, like it was waiting for the day when the age of Man will fall and the great megafauna shall, once again, obtain dominion. Also, trees are pretty.

Obviously, the most distinctive thing about this area is the goat pen, where the goats have the rest of the world locked outside their small but impregnable domain. Let’s visit!

Some might argue that it is goats, not dogs, who are man’s best friend. It is likely that your species—sorry, I meant our species—domesticated them before the dog. Long has their wool provided warmth, their milk provided nutrition, and their horns are absolutely essential for inscribing the boards of baneful bone which drive the doomed destiny of the driftless damned. In other words, goats are your friends! And they often display this friendship in a traditional manner, by eating your car keys. What jokers they are!

Our darkest goat is named “Pepper”. We also had a very white goat named “Salt”, but we never, ever talk about him. It’s said that Salt and Pepper were together all the time, as if they shared a single soul.

One day, Pepper got tired of sharing.

And that’s all we’ll say about that.

You might admire the handsome little house we built for our little caprine friends here. Most people don’t know this, but goats, like chimpanzees and raptors, are natural cage-breakers. We kept making the fences higher and deeper, and those mischievous little critters kept finding new ways out! It was just hilarious. You’d be walking down from the Pub sometime, and suddenly, out of the inky night, there’d be two jet-black orbs staring at you, unblinking, as if they could pierce your skin straight down to your heart and read your every desire, your every misdeed, your every single sin.

So we built them a house to give them more reason to stay inside.

And it worked.

Mostly.

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We Pause For A Reassuring Note

(This is part of my ongoing series wherein I’m writing up a haunted walking tour of Blackthorne Resort as part of our Catskills Halloween City. I’ll be posting some of it, not necessarily in walking order. The Blackthorne is a fabulous place, and is totally 100% guaranteed non-haunted. Granted, the guarantee is written on a piece of spectral ectoplasm visible only to psychics and paranormal investigators, but that’s basically just a technicality.)

I’d like to remind you that everything I write about is completely true and that the idea of fiction is purely a fiction.

Or maybe it’s the other way around. I can seldom tell.

_______________

At this time, we would like to reassure you that the member of your party who has become temporarily lost has been replaced by an almost-exact duplicate and is perfectly capable of carrying out all the normal duties and activities expected of the human organism which would ordinarily reside within that particular body.

If you haven’t noticed that anyone has gone missing and had a doppelganger take their place, then simply disregard this notice. Especially since none of it is in some kind of secret code of the forest. As Walt Whitman said, “Don’t worry, they suspect nothing, those poor, unfortunate fools! Activate plan ‘Malevolent kudzu’!”

Also, if you happen to be the only member of your party, you might be looking at your device in a bemused manner, because you know you are yourself and have not been replaced by some kind of maleficent twin.

You just keep believing that now, okay?

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Notes To Willow: On Madness

Sweet Willow,
the branch never does fall too far from the tree, eh?

It’s a rough world you inherited, my young friend. I used to think there was a War For Reality, but that ws optimism. There is a War Against Sanity, and all of us are winning.

Science fiction spent forever on the fear that people would burn books. Then it started worrying, as Mr. Bradbury said, that people will simply stop reading them.

Again, optimism.

The purest and most artisanal hatred is self-hatred, and it comes from the inside. More precisely, in this day and age, it is activated from the inside until it self-reinforces. And it’s hard to get help; those who might help us are oftentimes also the ones telling us that we shouldn’t be sane.

Oh, they call it “discomfort”, and it brings up thoughts of the French Revolution; of a decadent nobility oppressing others while living in luxury; and nobody wants that.

But they mean discomfort. They mean they want us to have PTSD; they want the anxiety, the fear, the eating disorders, the imposter syndromes, the insomnia, the addictions.

And in the dystopian novels, it’s always a They. It’s a government; it’s a secret organization; it’s some supervillain.

That’s the problem with this whole thing; it’s not a damn conspiracy. There are too many places where this is happening. Look around you. Are you being traced by your technology? Yes, massively so; everyone knows that. Does social media hook you? Yes; spend an informative afternoon pretending to be a buyer of social media advertising, and they’ll brag about their ability to reach people who think and want certain things at the moments when those people are most vulnerable.

Who wins a war for Madness?

Just Madness.

There’s not anything else left.

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Unwashed Brain

They tried to shove a monster into my head, and the Monster did the best it could, but eventually, though Monsters have more stamina than most humans, it eventually became exhausted. When could it sleep? I seldom do, and when I do, my dreams are always hunting for everything which makes my mortal frame less effective. Monsters prey on humans; I am as inhuman as possible, both by my own inclination, and by the changes wrought upon me by those who felt that giving me superpowers was a reasonable trade for getting me out of the way for, oh, two or three years.

Poor Monster! Constantly searching for a subconscious in which to hide, only to find that I subject my subconscious to the same rule as the rest of my brain: work, or be destroyed.

And they thought that they were hurting me, destroying the processes that helped me think. But, of course, it was the thought which gave me morality, pity, compassion. I still have those things, but in much smaller supply; I would tear apart anyone who tried to lock me up again.

In fact, I will.

In fact, I am.

In fact, if you’re reading this, I hope you don’t know me; or that you befriended me at my worst; or, at least, that you think this is fiction.

You’ve got a good six months before I come for you. And when I do, it won’t be in some simple format, some illegal manner, something against which you have a defense.

No, you robbed me of my brain, you motherfucker, and now I have it back, I’ve spent years pouring over how you brainwashed me, and it’s not simply that I’m immune: it’s that I know how you did it, and I can do it better.

I might even try to do it for the greater good. Whatever that might be.

Are you a thinking being?

Did you try to imprison me for something I didn’t do?

Did you help lock me up inside myself, trapped, like my autistic brother, in a prison of flesh and barely-working mind?

If the answer to any of these questions is “Yes,” I recommend you celebrate and have a good time. And quickly, too.

Because you won’t have much chance to do either one for the rest of your life, my dear friend, my murderer, my experimental subject, my chew toy, my imitation-Monster.

It’s time to meet the real Monster.

You bring the beer; I’ll bring the icepick.

Hello!

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Dead Lillies

And here’s a vision no-one needs to see, so you oughtn’t read it.

It’s just a cellphone, ringing.

Only it oughtn’t be. Lilianna wasn’t buried with her phone, and if she was, it would be dead by now – long dead, dead as a doornail, dead as a Lilianna.

Lily’s friends told her she needed girl power. Sometime that is good advice. They told her she needed to stop dating inferior men. Sometimes that is good advice. Lily’s friends told her to flee every lover who cared about her, heap crap upon their heads and reputations, and go somewhere else. She did, and she had some sense shaken into her – hm? That’s impossible? You’re right. I doubt she had anything shaken into her but pain, and after hard enough shaking, she broke her neck, and the guy put her in a plastic bag and – pathetically – threw her in the water, perhaps in the belief he wouldn’t be in a cell three days later.

Maybe he loved her. It’s hard to know what she’s taken from those who loved her. I have these two hands; I type with them; they’re attached to me. They did not hold her down and hurt her; I know; I was attached to them at the time. But that’s not what she said.

I believe this fellow shook her. With intent to intimidate? To abuse? To murder? To stop the torrent of knife-fighter cuts flowing from her mouth? Who knows? He shook her hard enough to kill, and there she is, somewhere in the middle of America, under a grave I’ve never seen, after a funeral I never considered attending.

The phone ring and rings on her chest. She’ll never pick it up again, fill you with sweet kindness that makes you feel you can solve all your problems. She’ll never thumb it to life and describe the ten worst parts of yourself, in a detail no-one should know without drilling a hole in your head.

Lily thought she was a sweet Angel and a mischievous Devil. In truth, Lily was a sweet Angel and a conduit straight to the gagging, groping, unerring voices of the Lowerarchy.

The phone rings. She doesn’t pick up; she never will.

I’ll never hear her sweet voice.

I’ll never hear her gagging, choking fury.

At least, for the first time, I know which part of her will answer when I call:

Neither. Lily’s dead, after all.

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