Jeff Mach's Blog, page 53

Dating the Mythical

I’m hard to love, I think. And if I remember the mythical beings I dated with a certain unkindness, I am sure they remember me with an equal unfondness. But this is my blog, and therefore, these are my tales. And worry not; everything here is imaginary. How could it be real? I’m talking about my life, and I know for a fact I didn’t even exist until January, 2018.

I dated a Vampire once. It was nicer than you’d expect. The blood-sucking was entirely literal, which was an extremely pleasant change of pace. Her tastes were, admittedly, ancient and outside of any culture we understand today; but I quite like the 1980s, so I was fine. And in terms of our intimate life, let me say that Anne Rice was underselling just how beguilingly freaky are the tastes of the restless undead. I was cool with that.

I dated a social worker once, ready to root out every evil in the world and oppose them. I told him, from the start, that I was evil, but he didn’t care until it became a popular sort of evil. Social work is an honorable profession which often grinds its practitioners into a fine mist, or makes them cynical, but a few are lucky; some of them only liked the idea of having ideals, and they get to choose whatever side seems cool at the time, as opposed to things which will actually help.

I dated a Fairy once, and she left me with no memory of her face, and a ton of Fool’s Gold, aka Pyrite, which she dropped in my foot. I’ve still got a limp, but at least I’ve forgotten the rest of her.

I dedicated a Completely Normal Person once, who was so normal, and loved me so much for me, that she looked around for someone to take my place before the first blush of love had grown stale, and now, she never talks to me.

I dated The Girl from Wonderland, but her story’s not mine to tell. Not here, not now, not yet. If that seems mysterious, you should try dating her. If you’re in the afterlife, which is where she currently resides.

I dated the loyal, loving Dog for almost a decade and a half years, married for much of that time, and he left me for a list of very good reasons which I totally, totally believe. He was a Hero, and he thought I was a Hero, and he was probably as surprised as I to find out I was a Villain masquerading as a Hero, and I have no idea if he’s happy or sad now, because I never plan to see him again. I first wrote “He still blames me, because who else would he blame, himself?”⁠—but that’s unkind, because when last I looked, he was doing that, too. I’d feel bad for him, but there’s a certain quantum of solace lost now, so I won’t worry. I’m sure he’s found a better home; I know I have.

I dated a modest Goblin who kept saying she may not been as pretty or as supportive or as loving or as kind as a human, but at least she was loyal, which she proved by betraying me, deceiving me, and stabbing me in the front hundreds of times.  I like Goblins in general, just not that one. I can’t imagine she thinks terribly highly of Dark Lords, either; but I’m sure she can tell her own side of the story. I’m sure she does.

Now I trust myself alone, and I love on the basis of those who know what I was forced to learn: that love takes courage, determination, and strength; that love is not easy; that loving in the good times is like smiling only when you go on vacation. I was never easy to love, myself; I could tell you stories about me, but I don’t have to; the Internet has made up so many already.

I do have a hot date with myself. I’m going to write these words and then cook myself a steak dinner, and the words are nearly done and the meat is the opposite of the words⁠. See, I covered the meat with salt two days ago, and left it in a covered pan, and the salt entered the meat and drew out the moisture, and the mineral lost some of its bite, and the meat is now very tender.

In contrast, I was covered in wounds three years ago, and then covered in salt, and I’ve recovered from the wounds, but I’m still salty, and far tougher than before.

 

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

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A Stolen Story

Once there was a story that stopped before it began, but you could not help but suspect that, somewhere, there were a thousand missing words which had been stolen.

And they were.

But they weren’t stolen from you.

They were stolen for you.

We are forming a Cabal of thoughtcriminals, preparing to thieve the World of its painful madness, and put, in its stead, a merry band of strange and defiant weirdos amidst a chaotic backdrop where we are taught to fear everything.

But we will steal the fear and put flowers in its place; we will disrupt the tidal wave of uncertainty with support, and we will do so, not because we claim to be good or to know what’s right, but because we are monsters, misfits, and in a moment when it seems like the whole World is against everyone, it’s time for a few people to rise up and be against the World.

We’ve never fit in before, not even when fitting in meant security and sanity and safety. So we sure as Hell won’t fit in now, when it means pure burning misery for all and sundry.

Come with us, if you want to see how the story ends. We promise: we’ve stored the Ending in a very safe place with a bottle of wine, a good meal, a warm bed, and plenty of moonlight.

What more could you ask for?

So this is THE END of the story for some people, and THE BEGINNING for an army of freaks and strange-souled malefactors.

Let’s get this party started.

Somewhere, hidden in the lack of words below, is a secret message. It’s a secret to me, too, so don’t worry; we’re equal here. All of us exist together in this peculiar little time; and a surreal Universe calls for surreal makers of strange and sinister plots.

Join us! Join us! Join us!

We’ll be Villainpunks for life, and, for some of us, all the way straight through to Undeath, as well.

Hoist a pirate flag and a pirate flagon, and let’s set a course for What Might Be.

And steal it, of course.

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

 

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The Unending Song

This is the song that never ends

Much as we dearly wish it would.

Like so many of my songs, it doesn’t even rhyme.

And it never ends.

Oh, it has a finite number of words,

a finite number of characters,

it can be read, or sung

in a finite amount of time,

but you will find

that this is the song that never ends,

not as long as you cling to it,

not as long as you hold on to it,

not as long as you permit and force it

to be a part of your life,

and sure,

in this case,

you can just let go.

but that’s because I made the conscious,

kindly choice

not to make this horrifying.

I don’t mean “scary”,

“spooky”,

“Halloweenish”,

I mean,

if I were to pull from my life

or, say,

the life of my murdered ex,

some particularly awful detail,

something you felt obligated to remember,

then this actually would be

a song that doesn’t end

because we have taught ourselves

that being, not simply conscious of horror,

but holding on to it,

holding it tightly,

grinding it into our brains,

twisting it around inside,

is a moral and philosophical duty.

This is the song that never ends,

and if this version of the song lies,

and flees your head,

realize that it’s because I’ve taken some degree

of pity on you.

I didn’t have to do that.

I’ve known things we’re not allowed to forget,

societal abominations we are not permitted

to put out of our heads.

I’m sorry,

dearest friends,

that this skeleton

has forgotten how to dance;

I may be a pile of undead bones,

but I do, in general, want to entertain,

to create laughter,

even if it’s sometimes laughter with tears.

I’m sorry,

The Girl From Wonderland hated me,

and I hated her

by the time we parted ways,

but it’s been so much harder to laugh

since all her friends told her she was brave

and strong

and mighty

and powerful

and so

she was unafraid

to be

where she got murdered

and now I think about

the way we shove the wrong ideas into our

heads

and it is the song that doesn’t end,

the song of our certainty of failure,

the song of the toxicity of our faith

in faithlessness,

our faith that there is nothing to have faith in,

our faith is that the world is how we want it

if we want it to be bad,

our certainty that these things will change the world

for the better

by making us see it

as the worst place imaginable,

and in the meantime,

we are sure

that this is the worst place imaginable,

and this is our song,

and I hate this song

and you hate this song

and soon,

soon,

I’m going to get up out of this grave,

and try to write a few better songs,

and it’s scary to see the undead walk,

but there are those who welcome a skeleton,

especially a funny little skeleton,

so I promise you:

I’ll sing happier songs,

and I’ll remember how to dance,

but first I need to unlearn

the song

that never

ends.

 

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

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Firework Defense

One of the challenges of knowing the Secret History of the World is that it somewhat spoils you for most other versions of history.

I’ve heard various ideas about the origin of firecrackers. It does look like they originated in ancient China, and, as you know, that period of history as part of the Secret War of the Alchemists, heavily torn between those who wanted more Ancient Alien knowledge, and those who thought that the human race needed to expand and grow on its own.

I’d like to honor the origin of the firecracker, and, of course, the particularly clever alchemists involved. Because, even if we exclude the whole Wan Hu incident, which was, admittedly, hilarious, they showed us what I think is some of the best of human ingenuity: the idea that we ought to combine the utility of technology with the technology of culture.

Would we have otherwise been able to forget the memories of the Pyramid Wars? Perhaps. I mean, I really think that Set and Enkidu went over some lines, and it probably wasn’t actually necessary to send that gigantic mechanized snake to devour the Sun, simply to piss off the Sun-Eating Alien Invaders.

But it did set a bit of a precedent: “Those Earthlings are insane enough that they’ll destroy their OWN Sun rather than let you eat it!”

Obviously, yes, we had lost the majority of the Hidden Technology of the Seventh Age by the time firecrackers came into vogue. But what a brilliant idea! First, teaching humans to associate brightly-colored explosions in the sky with celebrations, rather than various attempts by warring extraterrestrials to steal our pineal glands…I mean, that, right there, was genius.

Sure, in general, I mourn our lost knowledge. I’m sad that most humans no longer realize how important the Pineal Gland is in understanding the general surreality of the Universe, and the Neocortex alone isn’t particularly able to make sense of the word without it. But at least, if some sort of big blue-yellow-orange thing explodes in the sky on a holiday, nobody has to leap out of bed screaming, “NO, THAT’S MY THIRD EYE AND YOU CAN’T HAVE IT!”

And yeah, obviously extraterrestrials can tell the difference between decorative kabooms, and Pyramidal Techno-Magic. But the message we’re sending is clear:

“That wacky planet is STILL WACKY; and they may no longer control the Sphinx, but if we get them mad, who knows what they’re going to do?”

Which is true. The ingenious human mind is capable of just about anything. And we make DAMN sure that Aliens know it.

I mean, okay, probably being perpetually on the brink of total self-annihilation is also intimidating. But seriously, fellow humans, that part really is optional. They’re already scared of us. We bluffed them good.

We don’t have to actually prove them right, you know.

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The Door That Fears You

(If you’re reading the raw version, transcribed by voice to text before I edit it, I’m sure I’ve said at least one ridiculous thing I didn’t catch.

Most of the rest of the ridiculous things are, as usual, on purpose.)

There is no door to nowhere.

Some are doors that don’t go anywhere, but they don’t take you away from where you are, so they’re not exactly journeys. They don’t take you out of somewhere and plant you in a place that isn’t anywhere. I suppose such a thing could metaphorically be death, but I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic enough to consider that to be a journey. Or at least, I would consider that a relinquishing of this particular journey, and it may or may not begin another one, one in which we probably have less control over what happens to us. So the only solution is to assume that any door can lead anywhere.

Now, I am as vaguely human as any monstrous horrifying creature of myth and legends, which is to say that I was human for most of my life, and after I underwent my transformation (which is not actually important to this particular story) I remain human enough that I don’t attempt to do this trick with every single portal. There are literal doors through which I would prefer to never walk, even though my head is better than it was before.

And I don’t know if I will ever reach a state of mind wherein all of these things become positive for me. Although I can reach a state of mental awareness during which I strip them of their potential for fear. I mean, when I was transformed into a monster, it give me at least a couple of benefits. For a while, the hand of every right-thinking person was against me, which really toughened up my hide. I am also told by thousands that I am a thing to be feared, and if that is true, then certainly the door has more reason for anxiety than I.

What I am saying, Villains, is it the world is a product of perceptions. It was perception which turned me from a hero into a Villain, at least from the outside. And it was seeing what people would like underneath, what they really felt like and what they really thought when they felt able to throw any kind of monstrous name on me, with impunity, that I realized: I do not need to live by the same rules as those who prefer to live in fear of monsters.

Because while it is not necessarily the Monstrous that always occupies our minds, that is definitely a piece of what we are told should make us anxious or uneasy. No, I had to go through the Journey for complicated and unexpected reasons, largely relating to one of my main villain is qualities, which is having much too much trust in human beings. But you can benefit from the Transfiguration I experienced.

Because it’s not actually necessary to have others transform you into a monster in order for you to give up the habit of living in Terror. Horribleness is a state of mind. There is no reason to believe that whatever is in the dark should really worry you more than you worry it. They say that those pain and fear are natural Warning Systems. This is not untrue, but there are very crude systems, often triggered when they are not helpful, or not needed, or not indicating something real. Or sometimes, they give us a warning, and then instead of letting us proceed along to do the things we might want to do to take advantage of that warning, they keep us frozen in place.

When this happens to me, I remind myself that some people claim the entire world is against me, and yet I managed to do things. I’d love to think that this is because I’m exceptional, but honestly, every human has this ability. And you don’t technically need to be an enemy of all civilized persons and things in order to possess this quality. I had to learn this lesson through spending a long time as the product of other people’s imagination. But I’m giving you this lesson for free: Every door, everywhere, can lead you somewhere better.

Even if what’s on the other side is bad, even if we don’t like it, it will take you to a better place. And if it isn’t a better place, then impose your will on that place and make it better. You are a Villain, and when others are told they have no options, you can break the rules. If this sounds like I’m using villainy of some kind of scheme to make people feel better, think about what you’re saying. That would be ridiculous.

Obviously, I have some horrible plan in mind. But if you’re already living in a great deal of unpleasant mental sensation, you might as well go along with my hideous ideas. They might be even worse, but at least they’re usually pretty imaginative. And until I actually enact my scheme, you’re going to have the power to enforce your own imagination upon reality.

Be careful. Try to use this for your benefit as opposed to harming others. This is not because you should be nice, which is a ridiculous idea. It’s because you are capable of making yourself stronger with your mind, whereas it takes a great deal of training to actually damage someone else using the powers of your brain alone. Trust me on this one. So yes, ask anyone. They will tell you that I’m teaching you this technique for feeling better because I have some horrible ulterior motive.

But that’s okay. You already feeling bad. Why not just jump into this totally different kind of bad? I mean, at least the kind of terrible that I am flicked is probably going to be reasonably well written, or as reality has clearly had a script writer’s strike going on for like half a decade now. So the lesson here is, anytime you go through a door, you are allowed to be going into a better world, or at least a world over which you have more control. And this is pleasant and desirable.

And yeah, there’s probably some sort of terrible consequence, since you’re getting this for advice from a villain. But I promise you, whatever it is, I will do my best to make sure that it is an interesting and unexpected twist which causes you some moments of pleasant Delight before you enter whatever state of abject unhappiness comes next. And we both know that’s a way better deal than you are currently getting from reality.

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

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Writer’s Block For Cthulhu Cultists

Dear Initiate,

Congratulations upon making it to, and surviving, the Third Level Initiation!

We realize that after the many dreadful oaths; the threats of fates so far worse than death that human language, in self-defense, have never found words to describe; the utter secrecy; the repeated understanding that letting a single ignorant Mere Human know our actions would result in punishments which would make the average Borgia say, “Hey, now, that’s a bit much, don’t you think?”—that in light of all that stuff, it’s odd that you’re now getting your instructions from public posts on the Internet.

The fact is, the early stages of your Cthulhu Culthood are tests of sincerity, of ability to keep a secret, of not being some sort of meddling do-gooder, and also, of whether or not, if we really need someone to jump on the sacrificial altar, you’ll do your part and push someone else onto the damn thing.

But the truth is, all of the Order’s more important secrets are freely available on the Internet. We simply call them ‘fiction’. You’ve seen this before; people think that the writer is simply playing out the tired trope of pretending that their fiction is reality pretending to be fiction, but in fact, it is the lively and dynamic trope of pretending that one’s reality is fiction pretending to be reality pretending to be fiction pretending to be reality.

Got it? Great.

Now, as usual, we’ll explain the esoteric meaning of yet another seemingly-harmless action which has penetrated into mainstream culture. As usual, they believe there are Secret Monsters everywhere; as usual, they are right; and as usual, they are terrible at detecting the actual monsters. But it keeps them too busy to find us, and they seem to enjoy it, so, hey, more power to them, eh?

While this one goes out to the writers, it’s become so prevalent (good on us!) that even most readers are aware of it: “If you’ve got writer’s block, then one cure is to sit down for 15 minutes a day, every day, and write down 15 minutes of whatever comes into your head. Even if it’s silly, even if it’s nonsense. You’ll break through the writer’s block, and start writing freely again!”

Now, those of you of the Fifth Level or higher are already chuckling, of course. Like every joke, it’s not as funny if you explain it, but we feel like you deserve to know:

All humans, as you’re aware, are capable of performing magic. It is the Psychic Censor, the part of our consciousness which isn’t mapped in our brains, but hangs out near our astral centers of projection, which saves us from ourselves. It’s why you can say “DAMN YOU!” without immediately opening up a rift between here and Hell and sucking your enemy straight down to the 9th Level. It’s why we don’t all win the lottery, thus bankrupting whatever state might have provided the lottery ticket. It’s why most attempts to wield The Force end up as nothing more than foolish wand-waving.

Now we, ourselves, aren’t exactly interested in Magic in general, except (as with everything else in this world) as a means to an end. Obviously, we want to use sorcery to bring about the thing we’ve wanted for millennia: an opening of the gates between Here and There, which will bring our Eldritch Masters through and into this world.

But we just can’t find the right combination of words to do it.

Every time we try, we go mad.

People keep talking about the brilliant Abdul Alhazred, and, of course, we all revere him, so much as we revere any members of the puny race whose only purpose is to be extinguished to feed the hunger of the Great Old Ones. But, like most people who managed to disable his Psychic Censor sufficient to intentionally write something monstrous, he went mad and was, as we all know, shredded by invisible demons in broad daylight.

Don’t worry. It won’t happen to you. You’ll be different.

But in the meantime, the best thing for us would be for some human who is ignorant of That Which Lurks Beyond to do the summoning for us.

And many have come close. Many writers, doing this exercise day after day for a few weeks, begin feeling peculiar emotions and hearing strange sounds; most of all, cats and dogs and other household pets (unless they’re snakes, obviously) begin to act very alarmed during the writing process.

So far, none have quite succeeded. Either they’ve broken the writer’s block just before opening the gate, or they’ve opened it only long enough for the writers, themselves, to be sucked through—and then it shuts again. This scarcely ever happens, and when it does, we try to provide homunculi as substitutes. (Sorry about Mr. Martin; we were looking forward to reading the end of that series as much as you were.)

But if you keep encouraging people to just relax, sit down, and write or type, and let whatever’s within come out…

…as you know, that’s one invitation magic can never resist. So far, it’s mostly just made the world a lot more surreal, but that’s okay. We’ve waited for millennia. We can wait a little longer.

In conclusion, if you ever have writer’s block, it’s definitely your mind torturing you with a lack of words because it’s mean, and certainly not your mind trying to save you from yourself. So break through the…barrier. That way you can do lots and lots of writing. You can write ’til the end of the world, if you want.

That’s just an expression, of course.

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

 

 

 

 

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“No Sonnet” – a love poem

[It was 2014. I was young. I was full of passion for romance. I was married. I was trapped, far away from what really matters: writing as many useful words as possible before the flesh falls off this mortal frame. Now I’m free.

Still, I thought this would make a good change of pace.

The relationship is gone. The love is gone. The connection is gone. The faith is gone.

But the words remain.

And in the end, I couldn’t care less about everything else. ] 

_____

Sonnets lack muscle. They’re far too neat.

My poems for you should be like wire

The words I’d say I would repeat:

Love. Love. Fire!

My poems for you should be like wire

Tough and thin. Lightning-attracting.

Love. Love. Fire!

Sonnets feel like stiff play-acting

Tough and thin. Lightning-attracting.

I’d describe our bond that way

Sonnets feel like stiff play-acting,

I’ve much more I want to say.

I’d describe our bond like that.

Strong metal. That twists.

I’ve much more I want to say.

Our love’s a thing of maze and mists.

I’d write our love in sonnet form – but:

Sonnets lack muscle. They’re far too neat.

If words might touch and taste and cut –

The words I’d say I would repeat.

 

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

The post “No Sonnet” – a love poem appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.

The Un-Spider

[This really did start as a gentle metaphor about the unreliability of memory, and then turned into an unabashed piece about recent recurrence of another purge in a fandom community, and if it’s triggery for me, it might be triggery for you. Triggers? The Satanic Ritual Abuse of the 1980s, sexual trauma, and the fear that we’re not only forgetting some of the useful knowledge of history, but actively unlearning it.

This is about something I have known and lived through, both as hunter and hunted: sexual ‘predator’ purges: their roles, their goals, their possible bad outcomes for all involved. This has nothing to do with any other current events. This is more than enough.]

The un-spider

travels close behind you,

unweaving your memories.

It’s not age,

not in and of itself,

it’s the way we remember things.

memory

is more a construct

than a library,

more a rendering,

a dynamic generation,

than an exactitude.

here is a way to make a memory:

have something happen,

remember it.

here is a way to make a memory:

have someone tell you something happened,

remember it.

here is a way to make a memory:

reconsider something that happened,

remember it.

here is a way the body removes trauma:

we forget.

here is a way the body deals with trauma:

we process.

here is a way the body creates trauma:

we focus on how traumatizing

a thing was, or is, or is and was and still is,

anything.

that’s not to say that we make trauma,

or that we are to “blame” for it.

it is, however, to say that

if you want to build trauma

into someone,

enforce,

as hard as you can,

how traumatic something must have been.

call them brave for enduring it,

call them strong for living through it,

and maybe you mean it,

and maybe they are,

but I had a friend once

who had to inject her grandmother with insulin

every day,

and my friend hated needles,

and we were basically kids,

and I asked,

“How do you deal with

knowing that you’ll

have to do this

every day

and every day

and every day,

or else your grandmother

will die,

and the only way it stops is

if your grandmother does die,

and ‘Nita rounded on me and shouted,

“I don’t think about it,

I don’t think about it,

and I don’t want to think about it,

so drop it,”

and I did.

(did I mention

we were children?

It was a thoughtless thing to ask,

at best,

and I’d like to erase the memory,

and I could.

I could visualize her being grateful that

I asked,

that I cared,

think of a story,

tell it to myself,

you know,

not a lie,

just storytelling,

papering it over,

it was a long time ago,

maybe she just shrugged.

I can remember

a time she smiled;

what if the smile

was that time?

In my youth,

the same youth, actually,

or just shortly before,

we’d just finished a dark time,

a strange time,

in our history,

when therapists began uncovering

the worst possible abuse

you could imagine

in lots and lots of small kids,

whose parents had done unspeakable

things

in Satanic rituals,

things so horrifying

and insane

that they only made sense,

if they were intentionally

as horrifying

and insane

as possible,

if they were offerings

of the worship

of madness

and evil.

if you look it up,

you will see a lot of things.

false memories

implanted memories

dissociative disorders

and, in rare cases,

environments where

children suddenly realized

they had power over adults

if they said certain things.

I’m sorry;

this tale is stuck inside me,

and needs to get halfway out,

needs to get out far enough

to be told,

and then

it sinks deep

into me again,

I recently saw

another community

purged of all of its

abusive monsters,

and I wish I had the ignorance

to think that the people it caught

were monsters,

that they were the only monsters,

that the techniques of belief and hope

were not, at any time,

used by the small population of monsters

to divert attention away from themselves,

and I wish,

I wish to believe

that this is the end

of trauma

for those who hurt,

and not

the beginning

of an endless cycle

of new fears

and new traumas

as new monsters

are found everywhere.

and I’m sorry,

little spider

who unwinds memories;

this was supposed to be a poem

about you,

perhaps a sweet poem,

perhaps a gentle poem,

but then there was screaming,

so much screaming,

and I forgot to remember

you, and forgot to forget

the hurt.

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That Murderer Next Door

Who am I to say that she wasn’t really a murderer? I wasn’t there. Who was I to say they shouldn’t have killed her when the legal system refused to do so? I wasn’t there. Laws aren’t perfect, any more than humans are perfect. And I might not approve of ‘street justice’, but then again, it wasn’t my street, eh?

People tend to believe that “innocent until proven guilty” is some kind of loophole that makes it easier for criminals to escape, because it makes convictions more difficult. But it’s actually a clear response to tyranny. Nobody likes seeing someone potentially get away with misdeeds. But presumption of guilt leads to either governmental tyranny, or private mobs, and the challenge is, these things don’t work out very well.

Because once she’d been executed by the crowd, the crowd thought they’d made the world a better place. And more specifically, they thought they’d made their lives a better place.

And what they did not count on was her ghost.

…and no, this is not a story of the supernatural. She did, in fact, come back as a sad spirit, but nobody was psychic, so nobody heard her rattling chains in the attic, and she had no corporeal existence or telekinetic powers, so she couldn’t go around stabbing people, even if she wanted to. And nobody knows what she wants, because people aren’t psychic.

(This is a bit ironic, considering that some people claimed she was a murderess specifically because they said that they could tell what she was secretly thinking and feeling. But that turned out not to be the case.)

No, I mean her figurative ghost. Which is to say, the results of deciding they had been living alongside a homicidal maniac.

First they spoke to each other in half-excited, half-scared tones. “That one time I was alone with her, she might have killed me! I got lucky!”

And then, as a matter of course, the stories became more vivid. This is hardly wickedness; sure, fishermen exaggerate the size of the fish that got away, but that’s also partly because they aren’t totally sure about how big that thing was in the first place.

“I just realized…I was down in her basement, and I could have sworn she was looking at me oddly. But then I got a phone call and had to go upstairs for better reception, and if I hadn’t headed upstairs right away, who knows what would have happened?”

And the response: “Oh, that’s nothing! That one day when she ‘accidentally’ bumped into me at the garage sale…that was no accident. There was…something sharp, maybe it was a knife set? Something bad, I’m sure of it, and it was right on the table next to where I was, and if I’d lost my balance, I’d have been impaled. She tried to kill me in broad daylight!”

Some people were exaggerating. Some were showing off for their friends. Some were telling the truth as they remembered it.

Funny thing about memory. Go look it up. We don’t “remember” things in a consistent way. For example, I think that my ex-husband and I were happy for most of our 13 years together, but I don’t really remember being close. Everything I remember feels like it was tinged with the distance and the icy cold of our divorce, and that’s all; I can remember a dozen times when he said something that I now hear as being an absolute dismissal of my life or my actions or my goals, but I can’t remember our first kiss.

I don’t want to, either.

We know that memory works this way.

And yet it’s still our judge and jury.

Which would be fine…if it worked. If it made us feel better.

If the people we thought we cared about, those who—we thought—cared about us, would just obligingly vanish from the Earth love turned to hate…

…that would be grand, wouldn’t it? So that we could bury those memories, as a murderer (ought to) (more carefully) bury her victims.

And if that’s your hope…prepare, in this regard, as with so many things in your life, to be disappointed.

But because these things roam through the mind, they don’t stay dead. Even if the person dies, the memories scream to us with new pain.

This is not a system that works; not unless you want to be haunted by horrifying ghosts.

But the more they’re convinced that they got it right, the more they’re encouraged to step up and speak their tales of horror. And again: if that were cathartic, then, fair or not, true or not, at least someone would benefit.

But the stories only feed the ghost; and the ghost is in their heads; and their heads are, now, never at peace.

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

 

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Brainsmirched

It’s been almost three years since I was murdered by my own foolish pride, by my belief in the basic goodness of human beings, by the creature known as Yandy.

This is just a metaphor. They told me to break down the doors between them and life, smash it to bits with my face, breaking my jaw, and all the delicate mandibles of my face. Eventually, when I could barely rise, they picked me up and threw me against their barriers and shattered; I was nothing but willing, and persistent.

But one day, they started telling me that they had solved History, and it said I was in the wrong place. And I said I had worked and fought to be in that place, learned and tried to be in that place, gave my heart and soul and mind and body and legacy to that place.

So they killed me. Ego-death, direct. It was not at cost; every moment my brain exists, it hurts them. They think it hurts me; let’s not tell them otherwise.

I am the Zombie of Words, the Lich of Naming Magic, the Sorcerer of Undeath’s Construction; I am weird, and I know that they got to me through my first love, words.

They taught me that I knew all the worlds wrong, thought them wrong, saw them wrong, knew them wrong. And by “wrong”, all they meant was, “in a manner which stood in their way”; but that was the only wrong they knew. It still is.

Now they send Chosen Ones after me, but no-one’s landed a kill-shot. So I live this peculiar life, with one-tenth of what I have, as ten times what I am.

Come, gather round the fire they tried to make with my books, and let’s get warm and tell tales and drink tall drinks and listen to the Moon. Because she might know how to be a better place.

Come. Come. Come. Change comes soon.

The world is a better, happier place than Yeats ever knew, and if it’s full of weeping, some of it is tears of joy. Beware, beware! those who would suit our mouths must first shut their minds, and while their minds are off, we’ll steal their damn pineal glands and go for a very long jaunt indeed.

My fellow accused, alleged, unproven, untrialed walkers through fire, what, by now, do we truly have to fear?

Nothing, and O! how they hate us for it.

~Jeff Mach

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.

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