Cullan Hudson's Blog, page 31

If you're in shouting distance of Enid, OK (about an hour...

If you're in shouting distance of Enid, OK (about an hour north of the Oklahoma City area) tomorrow, there's no reason to be bored. Ghostlahoma kicks off the haunting season early with an event that's more than just a "conference". Yes, there will be speakers and vendors (including Whorl Books, selling copies of Strange State and The Mound), but there is also an art walk, a car show with classic hearses and "haunt" rods, as well as giveaways, free beer (yeah, you heard me) and--I believe--some haunted tours are in the works. This should be a blast!!

http://www.ghouli.org/GHOSTLAHOMA2012/ghostlahoma2012

Periphery

At roughly 1500 words, this bit of micro fiction will hopefully inspire your own entry into Strange State's Flash Fiction writing contest. Good luck!

To: tconrad@mailnet.com
From: patient0@cnex.com

Crap! That was the worst flight ever in the history of aviation. Anyway, miss you already. This summer is gonna suck balls without you.  But I guess it will be a good experience.  If I don't learn crap at this internship, it will look good on my application. I mean, come on. They'll take one look at it, see Oxford Physics Department, and space on the rest.  LOL! I hope you're working on your tan, I don't think England has seen sun in weeks. Thought this was summer!!  The host family is really nice.  They're always cutting these really corny jokes.  I don't get half of it.  I mean, they're speaking English and yet... So much for my impression of a bunch of cold, stiff-upper-lippers.  :-D  The dad's a professor at Oxford himself and his wife bears an uncanny resemblance to the Queen.  I'll send you a pic.  There's a son around my age and their daughter is in her 20s. She's visiting right now with her fiancee.  Well, I gotta run, but I miss you big time and hope you're keeping busy.  The summer will be over before you know it. LOVES YOU!!

CNEXT CHAT with tconrad@mail.net (Trish)Mike:  Hey! You there?
Mike:  ?
Trish:  Hey, baby! Just got home from work.
Mike:  I keep forgetting I'm five hours ahead. LOL!
Trish:  Derrrrr. You dork :D
Mike:  LOL! Some scientist, huh?
Trish:  That's my genius. Just don't go looking for any braniac girls while you're there!!
Mike:  Nobody but you, sweetie! :-D
Trish:  I mean it, not even a sideways glance! >:|
Mike:  LOL! As if I could (he says feigning earnest sincerity)
Trish:  Goofball. You forget I know all about your unnatural peripheral vision and how you can practically read a book on the side of your head.
Mike:  Hardly. But you know my weird googly lizard eyes are just for you.  8-D
Trish:  Awww... You really know how to charm a girl. :D
Mike:  I'll e-mail you a video I just took. There are these really weird clouds. It's like the sky is one giant piece of fluffy corrugated cardboard. I think it's called undulatus. I'll search online. But it looks like it's glowing. It just the glow from the city, but it's cool anyway. Wish you were here.
Trish:  Awesome. Yeah, send me the video. And put your cute face in it. I miss yoU!!
ERROR: MESSAGE FAILED
Mike:  Just tried to send it, but something's wrong with the site. Maybe the file is too big.
Mike:  Trish?
Mike:  You there?
Mike:  Damn chat window. Must have frozen up. Don't know if you're getting this. I'll try to send you an e-mail.

To: tconrad@mailnet.com
From: patient0@cnex.com

Sorry about that. Site froze up, I guess. Anyway, I'll try to get that pic to you.  It's really weird.  I mean, it went from being cool to being weird and then REALLY weird. We were all standing in the garden (backyard to you and me) looking up at the sky and those strange clouds when we noticed that it was actually some bizarre optical illusion. I mean it was there, but it wasn't way up in the sky. The freaky cloud was probably only 15 or 20 feet about the roof. And it was glowing on its own. It wasn't the lights from the city. I'm thinking some physics experiment ran amok over at Oxford. LOL! It's kind of creepy. It's still there. I've never seen anything like this.

To: tconrad@mailnet.com
From: patient0@cnex.com

This shit is freaking me out. We finally got tired of looking at the weird cloud, so we come inside to turn on the TV and see if there's something on the news.  No TV. Mr. Miller can't get anyone on the phone either.  The internet seems to be working, but I can't pull up hardly any websites. I can access my cnex homepage and pull up my mail, but I'm not sure you're getting these e-mails. I'll keep trying.

To: tconrad@mailnet.com
From: patient0@cnex.com

Now it's really getting scary. About an hour ago, the cloud sort of...descended.  It was like someone was covering us with a big glowing blanket.  We're all inside. We've got the windows shut and blocked in case it's some toxic gas.  Fuck. I seriously want to go home now.

To: tconrad@mailnet.com
From: patient0@cnex.com

Maybe it's going away. The glow is getting fainter. I'm just too tired to stay up. It's like 3 in the morning. Hope you get these. Love you. :(

To: tconrad@mailnet.com
From: patient0@cnex.com

No, it didn't go away. It got worse. I woke up this morning and everyone was already up. We looked outside, but...I don't know how to put this. We can't see outside. The windows are covered in this milky looking rubbery tarp thing. It's translucent, so it lets in some light. Not much though. It's sticky and its composition doesn't seem very consistent, like the rough texture of a fruit rollup when you hold it up to the light. It's thicker in some places and thinner than others in a sort of stripe pattern. It's a milky white, rubbery, sticky, striped fruit roll up draped over the house like a fumigation tent. And it freaks the shit out of me!!

We're going to try to get outside.

To: tconrad@mailnet.com
From: patient0@cnex.com

The cloud is gone outside. But it's gray and foggy and still and quiet. I'd feel like we are the last people on earth if it weren't for a truck that passed by awhile ago. The people inside looked dead. There was just this vacant look of their faces like they'd just gone through hell. I thought of Eastern Europe for some reason. Refugees. Anyway, there are fruit roll ups on all the houses. It's like someone has boarded up the whole town and put dust cloths down over the furniture. At least we're out in the fresh air. It wasn't a gas, I guess. The lack of communication is really getting to us. We tried to find the neighbors, but no one's home. Other than that one car, we haven't seen anyone else. The Queen is losing it. Mr. Miller is trying to be brave, but... The sister is hysterical--especially since her fiancee seems to have run off in the middle of the night. Maybe it was this morning. Their car is still here, but he's gone. Ran off I guess. The only person who doesn't seem messed up by all this is the son. He has this weird calm about him. He doesn't exactly smile and laugh, but his face is so...pleasant. Gives me the freaks. I miss you. I'm beginning to think I'm not going to see you again and it scares me. I love you, baby.

To: tconrad@mailnet.com
From: patient0@cnex.com

Is this an attack? Terrorism?

To: tconrad@mailnet.com
From: patient0@cnex.com

More weird shit. Went outside again with Daniel, the son. Cripes, he's like some sort of citizen of Stepford. Anyway, we're looking at the giant tarp thing, trying to use some science about all this. As I'm looking at it, I spot this flash of light or something out of the corner of my googly lizard eyes. It's like an eye floaty though. If I look toward it directly, it disappears. But if I stare at the tarp and just look at it peripherally, I can just make out the faint outline of something in the sky above the house. It's like...looking at glass in water. I only get hints of it. I think there's something invisible over the neighborhood. I don't know if it's me cracking up or there's some sort of UFO or military weapon or interdimensional portal or mass hallucination going on. I just know it's weird and scary.

To: tconrad@mailnet.com
From: patient0@cnex.com

Fuck!!! I just showed the rest of the family the strange invisible structure in the sky. I'm not crazy. They see it, too. The odd thing is--now that I think about it--Daniel (the Stepford Son) was looking at it the whole time we were out there earlier. I'm sure of it. He knows something, but to be honest, I don't think I've heard him really say more than 5 words since the cloud showed up. Everyone else has been yelling and screaming and crying. I just never noticed. It's like he KNOWS something. Maybe I'm getting paranoid.

To: tconrad@mailnet.com
From: patient0@cnex.com

We're bolted inside! We've hammered the doors and windows shut and covered them with whatever we can find. We went out to look at the thing again when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Moving toward us are two shapes, like men walking in fog.  Smaller, but only slightly. Strange, dark forms. So gaunt. It scared the fuck out of me. I didn't want them to see that I could see them. They just kept creeping over to us. I pretended to be staring at the fruit roll up tarp while I reached out for a large shovel only inches to my right. I grabbed it real quick and swung it at the shadow. I hit it!! There really was something in the nothing. Something we can't see, something I can only glimpse. It screamed. It was like a rabbit's scream if it were loud like a lion. It scared the piss out of me. That's when we all ran back under the tarp and started boarding up the house. I don't know if you are getting these messages or if I will ever see you again. Know this: I love you.

NOTE: This was a dream I had on 8/12/2012. I awoke at 5 am to jot this down before I lost it all. As the notes took shape, I saw how easily they could lend themselves to an epistolic format as e-mails.

Copyright 2012 Cullan Hudson

The Cornish Litany: Invocation For Keeping Away The Heebie Jeebies

"From Ghoulies and Ghosties
and Long-leggety Beasties
and All Things that go Bump in the Night,
Good Lord deliver us!"
The Cornish Litany is a litany (prayer or invocation) that was popularized through souvenir crafts earlier in the last century, much like the multitude of Irish blessing and "Footprints in the Sand" plaques that adorn homes throughout the world.




The following postcards were published in the late 1920s; yet, interestingly enough, they are rendered in the art nouveau style of an earlier period.

Flash Fiction Contest

Get your pens out, sharpen your pencils, boot up your computer.... Do what you must, but submit your best flash fiction (less than 1,000 words)by September 30, 2012. The top 4 (or if there are only 4 entries, all) will be featuredthroughout October.  The final judging will take place October 31st.
These entries can be scenic or atmospheric or contain a fully realized plot; they can beexperimental or epistolic. Be creative!! Be Original!!
PRIZES WILL BE AWARDED (TO BE DETERMINED AT A LATER POINT)
A Few Rules...(totally borrowed from another contest)
No entry form is needed. This is an on-line competition. You can enter only once.The flash fiction contest is open to writers of any nationality writing in English.There is no restriction on theme or style apart from being within the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, and Horror--In short, something that would interest this site's readers.Word limit 1000.The winning stories must not have been published previously.Copyright remains with the author. However, entry grants Strange State / Cullan Hudson rights to showcase these works for up to one year.Notification of receipt of entry will be by email.Stories cannot be altered after they have been entered. Judging is done anonymously. The judges' verdict is final.Entry will be taken as acceptance of these conditions.
submit entries to: s t r a n g e s t a t e o k @ yahoo.com (Yeah, remove the spaces. I don't need breast enlargment spam)

Making Faces With Pareidolia

A random polygon generator constantly makes shapes until a facial-recognition algorithm detects a "face."

It's weird and telling. It's also informative for those in the paranormal field, reminding us how much "random" can look like something recognizable, especially when we want it to.

More HERE

Hello? Anybody Out There?

In going through my site, I have noticed that a great number of websites and blogs in my links and "following" lists have now gone dormant or been deleted altogether. In one case, an entry has not been posted for more than three years. Is this indicative of a larger exodus among parabloggers or simply a part of the ebb and flow online writing? Have these older sites been replaced by a fresh crop of musers? Am I, at over 5 years old, considered geriatric among these denizens of the digital wastes?

The Crazy Eyes Have It

Joe Navarro, a former FBI Counterintelligence Agent and author of What Every Body Is Saying is an expert on nonverbal communication. Among the more telling aspects of this are the eyes. Many among us have, by now, heard how if someone looks up and the left, it means one thing; if they look down and to the right, it means another. However, writing in Psychology Today, Navarro presents other indicators to an individual's emotions and cognitive states.

While he doesn't mention it here in his article on eyes, I am curious about how some people seem to exhibit "crazy eyes"--that is, that wide-eyed look that accompanies a fantastic story, as if the speaker is trying to use their eyes to physically force you to believe their statement. Some have posited that this look imitates the wide-eyed look of a child in hopes of fostering a sense of innocence and sincerity.

I'm still looking for semi-reputable sources of research on this. I'd certainly like to read more about "crazy eyes", as I have often witnessed it in paranormal witness testimony, including a woman who told me once of some hybrid bigfoot babies that lived in a cage at some woman's Oklahoma house. As I find more, I'll certainly share that data with you. Til then: beware the googley eyes!!

[FYI this is what I was watching that led to this topic: http://www.syfy.com/videos/Paranormal%20Witness/Full%20Episodes ]

Retro-Inspired Poster Designs For Classic Trek Eps

See More Here

Summer is Winding Down....

Which only means Fall is just around the corner, bringing Hallowe'en with it. Shop early for uniquely designed gifts at Kreepy Girl by freshEIRE design.

Hushing the Moon Hoax and 'Our Flag Was Still There'

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has snapped an image of the Apollo lander, which should (but probably won't) quell those pesky moon-landing-was-faked rumors that have plagued us for decades. The Orbiter also delivers proof that, as the anthem declares, our flags are still there. Read more HERE