Rick Wayne's Blog, page 61

It was easier to discover when he had become a scientist ...

It was easier to discover when he had become a scientist than to discover when he had ceased to be one; the moment, if there was one, when his flawed nature had betrayed him and, without divulging it, abandoned the great search in favor of — well, what? Art?

from “Little, Big” by John Crowley

art by Michael Parkes

(Fiction) A Radioactive Man Has No Friends

Gilbert Tubers shuffled down the street in a huff, clutching the most valuable thing in the world. It was tucked under his arm inside a glass jar, and he admired it every twenty paces while he stopped to rest. His heavy breath came in rhythmic ebbs, and inside the hood of his yellow hazard suit, it both obscured the street noise and blurred the round visor in a moist fog. Gilbert held the jar close and peered at the little passenger through the thin, fogless rim of the glass portal. He smiled and shuffled off again.

Those few people left in South Carton, the dark, crumbling, trash-ridden hind end of Freecity, crossed the street when they saw him coming. They did it nonchalantly, as if that was their intended route and crossing had nothing to do with the funny man in the radiation suit. Not that Gilbert minded. In the fourteen years since the accident, people had faded from his life like music from a deaf man.

It was hot and humid after all the rain—even more so inside the heavy suit—and Gilbert’s ass cheeks were well lubricated by the time he reached the abandoned tenement where he made his home. He could feel beads dribble one by one down the back of his legs like falling suicides. He rested at the top of the stairs for a moment and let them drop while he caught his breath. The lead suit was heavy, and he resolved to take a shower before unwrapping his prize.

As he walked through the door, the fairies in the large glass terrarium at the other end of the loft fluttered behind a rock. Gilbert heard sounds and remembered he had left the music on for the plants, which had withered in their pots. He set the jar on his workbench, next to a stack of Amateur Fairyer magazines, and walked to the windows to examine potted death. Fourteen plants, one for each year—some hanging, some stacked on books, all the leaves dry and crusty. He noted the date and time in the open logbook. This batch had taken less than twelve hours to die, a record.

Gilbert switched off the turntable and stripped out of the heavy suit as he walked to the bathroom. His thinning hair was wispy, and it reached for the ceiling as he removed his hood. His condition was getting worse. He could feel it. He was filled with energy. He barely slept. He had headaches every night. He needed answers soon. He showered and tried not to think about it.

Sitting at his workbench, minty and damp, he stared into the glass jar at its eyeless passenger. The dome of the creature’s cranium reached across its forehead and ended at two fleshless, skull-like nasal openings. Its skin was gray and soft. Its phalanges looked long enough to strangle a man. Its camouflaged wings resembled dead, black leaves, and they snapped together in angry clicks as the creature hissed at Gilbert through rows of tiny serrated teeth.

Gilbert set the glass jar down next to the terrarium. His three remaining live fairies, a male western crested blue fay and two female pink Winkler’s pixies, peered at the new arrival from behind the rock. The withering sprite was larger than the others by several inches. Gilbert wondered if it looked like a giant to them, or if, like insects, they were too stupid to notice. Either way, at least they were cowering at something besides him.

Gilbert took out the mounting block he had made for the withering sprite. He’d carved it custom. The withering was so rare, McMasters didn’t even keep a specimen tray large enough in stock. Gilbert pressed the inlaid cork to make sure the glue had dried. Then he pasted the information card to the right side.

 

Species: Withering Sprite

Genera: Winter

Gender: Unknown

Habitat: Unknown

Average Size: Unknown

 

Unknown, he thought. Perfect.

Gilbert looked up at the rear wall of his loft. It was covered in specimens: pixies, fairies, fay, and sprites of all sizes and colors hung inside small wooden blocks, sorted by genera, color, and type. Gilbert had a sizable collection of autumn and summer varietals and quite a few spring as well. Similar species tended to show similar coloration, and so there was a splotchy rainbow effect on the wall. Warblers tended to be purple or violet-hued—except for that blasted green meanie—and Gilbert had arranged them in a cluster near the bottom. Above the warblers were the mint pixies, then the dark spotted, then the western and eastern light spotted, and so on up to the crown jewel: Gilbert’s exhaustive collection of razorbacks, all reddish-hued and violent.

He had mounted the razorbacks in live-action poses, wielding small sticks like swords and poised mid-strike. (It was well-known that razorbacks, besides being potent insect-hunters, were one of the few species intelligent enough to use tools.) Taken together, the red collection looked like a dance of devils, a miniature dark mass, photographed and frozen.

In the center of everything was a picture of Gilbert’s dad. Carl Tubers had died of a stroke in a crowded elevator. Rush hour patrons had come and gone while he clutched his chest in silent agony, unable to move or call for help. Pressed to the back of the car by the crowd and then released, over and over, the coroner estimated Carl was stuck there, clinging to the rail, for the better part of an hour, surrounded by people who could help.

“Sorry, Dad.” Gilbert took the picture off the wall and looked at it. His dad was bald and scrawny and smiling. “You were only just a placeholder.”

Gilbert hung the empty mounting board on the vacant nail. It fit perfectly.

He walked back around his cluttered workbench and picked out the supplies he needed: the jar of ether, a cotton ball, an extra-large skewering needle. He cleared a stack of medical texts and set the equipment down. The withering sprite had stopped hissing at him. Its tentaclelike phalanges were pressed to the glass. A thick, mucous drool hung from the edge of the sprite’s rounded mouth as its eyeless head stared at the cowering fairies. Their tremors shook their wings, which shed a sparkling dander that floated down to the terrarium floor.

“I bet you’re hungry,” Gilbert said. “You had a long trip. How about one last meal?”

Gilbert loosened the top of the jar and placed it inside the terrarium. The pixies shrieked in high-pitched squeaks, like a record player run too fast. The two pink Winklers hid behind the crested male, who was standing upright, chest puffed, head and neck glowing blue, as the withering sprite worked the lid off.

The metal top fell with a clatter and the dark sprite fluttered out on black wings. It hovered in the air for a moment, and Gilbert thought maybe it wasn’t hungry after all. But as soon as he reached for the ether, the sprite swooped down on the crested blue, two-thirds his height, and batted him out of the way.

“Hmm . . .” Apparently it had a taste for Winklers.

The withering grabbed the closest pink, who was trembling and covering her eyes in fear, and sank its rows of teeth into her head. Gilbert could hear a slight sucking sound as the sprite inhaled the sap from her body. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and Gilbert watched her tiny body shrivel like plastic wrap under the withering’s slow, steady sucking.

For his part, the crested blue was still trying to drive the giant away, but he was no match in size or ferocity. The withering sprite grabbed him by the head and dragged him, struggling, toward the second Winkler, who curled into a ball in the corner and sobbed uncontrollably. Her pink gossamer wings trembled to a blur.

The black sprite lifted the little pixie by her feet and bit into her side like an apple. There was a short shriek, then the slow, steady sucking again before she too was reduced to wrinkles stretched over a tiny skeleton. A bit of pink pixie sap dribbled down the sprite’s neck, and after it tossed the Winkler’s corpse aside, it wiped its face with the back of its hand. Then it lifted the crested blue, took off his head in one clean swipe, and started to munch on his thick, azure wings.

Gilbert watched the glow of the blue’s head fade. When it was dark, he again reached for the ether. As he dropped a soaked cotton ball into the terrarium, he heard a sliding sound. He turned and saw something in the middle of the floor. It was black. An envelope. It had come from under the door. He listened. There was nothing.

He stood and walked toward the door. He listened again.

Gilbert lived in an abandoned building. There was no one within a half-mile in any direction. He was certain of it. He didn’t want to make anyone sick, especially now that his condition was accelerating. He didn’t receive mail. He didn’t have guests. People didn’t dare be within a hundred feet of him, even when he wore the lead-lined radiation suit.

Gilbert reached down and picked up the envelope. It was sealed. He turned it over. No address. No writing. Just a stamp in black. Black ink on black paper. Gilbert recognized the symbol and his heart beat faster. It was time. He took a long, deep breath and walked back to his desk and sat down, turning the jet-black sleeve over in his hands. The paper was thick and firm. Expensive. He opened it gently and sat back in his chair before removing the contents.

There was a gray vellum card with black letters struck by a broken typewriter. Tiny bits of ink splatter hugged the characters. At the bottom, the same black stamp: an open hand, palm up, fingers pressed together.

It read:

all known

               truth flown

                 Hoosegow

                       leave now

 

Gilbert sat back in his chair, card in hand, and stared up at the wall of specimens, at eight years of his life. He looked at the withering sprite in the terrarium. It had finished the crested blue’s wings and was now hunched over, munching on his severed head. The ether evaporating from the cotton ball was already taking effect. Soon the sprite would be asleep, and Gilbert would tie it to a small rack under a magnifying lens. He would sit there for hours, first lobotomizing the specimen, then carefully removing the vital organs, one by one, before skewering it with the needle affixed to the wood box. Finally he would pose its limbs with bits of candle wax and hang it in the prize position.

But now he couldn’t do any of that. He looked down at the card again, then at the terrarium. He removed the top of the little chamber and left it on the desk.

Moments later, Gilbert was back in his suit and shuffling down the fire escape as dark engines turned in his mind.

 

from my “gory, violent, and unpredictable” first novel, FANTASMAGORIA, in which I had no idea what I was doing!

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Last night was Krampusnacht. Anybody lose a kid? Anybody ...

Last night was Krampusnacht. Anybody lose a kid? Anybody wish they did?

cover image by Tom Bagshaw

(Art) The Atomic Clockworks of Scott Wilson

Scott Wilson, AKA Clockwork Atomics, drafts what he calls ‘Pataphysical Clockworks and Machinations That Never Were, including quite a few sketched on the backs of coffee shop napkins. Find the artist on his website.

 

See also: Imaginary Architectures

(Music) Mah-Na Mah-Na?

“Mah Nà Mah Nà” is a popular song by Italian composer Piero Umiliani. It originally appeared in the Italian film Sweden: Heaven and Hell (Svezia, inferno e paradiso, 1968), an exploitation documentary film about wild sexual activity and other behaviour in Sweden. It was a minor radio hit in the U.S. and in Britain, but became better known internationally for its use by The Muppets and on The Benny Hill Show.

“Mah Nà Mah Nà” first gained popularity in English-speaking countries from its use in a recurring blackout sketch for the 1969-70 season of The Red Skelton Show first airing in October 1969.

Sesame Street producer Joan Ganz Cooney heard the track on the radio and decided both it and a shaggy puppeteer named Jim Henson would be perfect additions to the show. First performed by Jim Henson (Kermit et al.), Frank Oz (Fozzie Bear et al.) and Loretta Long (Susan) on the fourteenth episode of the long running children’s show broadcast on November 27, 1969, the song entered the public consciousness of the latter half of Baby Boomer children. The following Sunday when Henson and His Muppets performed the song on The Ed Sullivan Show it became an instant classic. Seven years later the song would also be part of the premiere episode of The Muppet Show in 1976.

Starting in 1971, The Benny Hill Show — in its second incarnation now at Thames Television where it launched in 1969 in colour — implemented “Mah Nà Mah Nà” as part of a comic background music medley that would run during their often filmed slapstick sketches. The medley became a Benny Hill Show tradition for the rest of its run. [Wikipedia]

Dofresh, “Sent by the Gods”

Dofresh, “Sent by the Gods”

(Update) A Warrior’s Ballad

This image by Kelogsloops, along with a few others, have been added to the gallery ‘Swords and Sensible Armor,’ a collection of women warriors.

Beware the snow worm

art by Peter Ferguson

(Fiction) Tilting the Rings True

Despite that many of them were schooled as Masons, a secret society steeped in the occult, the Founding Fathers envisioned an unspoiled continent, freed of old encumbrances—not just taxes but the arcane and complex practices that had for centuries determined the fate of nations. They deliberately enacted their rebellion without first seeking the advice of The Masters, of whom the Masons were vassals. Since they hadn’t asked, neither had they been expressly refused. When, against everyone’s expectations, the American Revolution was successful, the question naturally arose: what was to be done?

But the High Arcane were not autocrats. Except for the handful of matters where they took direct interest, their influence was intentionally oblique. They fancied themselves kingmakers rather than administrators and left the running of things to the men known to common history. As far as they were concerned, changes in government were inevitable, even healthy, and they neither desired nor sought ratifying power. The issue had merely been one of respect, and here the Founders were shrewd. No sooner had fighting ceased than a secret delegation was dispatched, independent of Congress, to offer the continent to the High Arcane for one purpose only. For centuries, they had been endeavoring to discover and seal the portals and doorways that dotted the earth, particularly at the intersection of its natural ley lines. It had been understood since the discovery of the New World that the continents of North and South America would eventually need to brought under this enterprise, although no one had contemplated how. Certain influential Americans vowed to support the project in return for assurances that the new government of the colonies would be left to run its own affairs. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was orchestrated toward this aim, and Lewis and Clark, with the help of a native shamaness, made the first serious attempt to map the ley lines of North America.

Under the terms of the understanding, which was never committed to paper, the United States could not rely on The Masters or their agents for support in matters arcane, which left the fledgling country with a unique problem: how to police members of its growing magical community, many of whom had not emigrated to escape persecution but justice. Catching them was difficult enough. Holding them proved almost impossible.

A crisis was reached in 1804 when, after one such failed apprehension, the city of Detroit was burned to the ground. A secret meeting was called, unbeknownst to then-President Jefferson, and proposals were solicited for a final solution. It would be a full two years before a winner was selected and another three before the necessary funds were raised, for in typical American fashion, the structure to be built was unlike anything that had been attempted before. Not just a prison. A prison to end all prisons. Rather than a tower, which stretched the energies necessary to defend it, the centerpiece of the winning proposal by architect Jeremiah Everly and magus Zachary Xavier Thorne was a star fort, then a common method of military fortification. Originally designed to repel magical attack—by turning a castle into a giant binding hexagram—star forts were also effective against cannon shot until improvements in smelting technology produced the fragmenting shell. Everly and Thorne took those same advancements and turned them inward, to keep people in rather than out.

A remote island was selected in the bayous of Louisiana, far removed from any magical influence, and in the spring of 1809, ground was finally broken. Construction was beset by delays and took a further eight years. When the doors were opened in 1817, it was without ceremony, for by then, the project had taken the lives of twelve men, including the founders. Mr. Thorne died in a smelting accident. A casing exploded and plated the man from head to toe in 100% sterling silver. Two years later, the brooding Mr. Everly succumbed to melancholia when bog water inexplicably flooded the foundation for the third time. In honor of the men, the project once destined to be called Black Water Penal Colony, in an attempt to scare people away, was instead humbly ordained Everly-Thorne Penitentiary. But no one ever called it that, and 44 years later, at the outset of the Civil War, when management of the facility was transferred to a private consortium under the direction of The Masters, its true name was officially recognized—Everthorn Prison.

By then, the Founding Fathers’ dream of a continent free of the influence of old world magic had already begun to wane. The native shamans had resisted—sometimes violently—the sealing of the doors and portals through which they summoned their ancestors and healing spirits, and despite that the American ruling elite had no material interest in The Masters’ long-term enterprise, it chose to ally against the shamans. Advisers close to President Andrew Jackson secured his approval to invite members of the High Arcane’s secret apparatus—agents and provocateurs—to help break the shamanic resistance in the West in return for certain concessions, and slowly but surely over the next hundred years, The Masters reasserted their influence over the whole of the Americas.

The first concession granted was use of the remote star fort on a small island in the bayou, which over the subsequent decades became home to countless madmen, magicians, illusionists, warlocks, and witches from all over the world. The reason they came, some from as far as Tibet, was the same reason they never left. Everly and Thorne’s ingenious design included a pair of massive enchanted boundaries: the Rings True. The outer boundary, made of pure silver, was only seven centimeters thick but ran nearly three miles in circumference. Cast in one single piece—the largest casting in history—it took four years to produce and required new smelting techniques and several dozen attempts before a single flawless ring was produced without joints or welds. The inner barrier, made predominantly of iron, also required novel technologies. The iron was poured around a core of pure selenium, a metal previously known only to the alchemists. This second ring was smaller than the first but also much thicker such that it used the same total volume of metal and resonance was achieved between the rings, amplifying their power.

Being magical boundaries, one could not simply step over them, at least not without consequences. To reach the hexagonal fort at the center, or to escape it, the Rings True had to be pivoted—up in the case of the outer ring, down in the case of the inner. Even though, to preserve the barrier, only one ring was ever tilted at a time, the energy required to lift it, plus its brick encasement, had necessitated the construction of another novelty, a massive geared dynamo called the Prime Mover, which was half-buried between the two rings and thus protected from attack on both sides. The gear box for the Mover, the two-story volcanic obsidian hemisphere that encased the device, was bounded on the interior by a black salt moat such that no spirits could be sent to interfere with its workings and so facilitate an escape for anyone inside. Thus the prison was a universe to itself, hermetically sealed. Indeed, from the air, it resembled a solar diagram, or perhaps the atomic structure of hydrogen, with a black moon orbiting at a distance from a white six-pointed sun.

The cost and complexity of the construction meant that nothing like it was ever attempted again. Not that there was ever a need. In two hundred years of use, the inmates took control of the fort on three occasions, once for a period of 17 weeks, but not one ever escaped.

Not a single one.

background material from my forthcoming five-course occult mystery, FEAST OF SHADOWS, which may or may not make it into the book.

cover image by Jose Luis Lopez Galvan

 

The Poor’s Prayer

Our Employer, who art in tax haven,

trademarked be Thy name.

Thy lawyers come,

Thy will be done

offline as well as on.

Extend us this day our total credit

that we may be ever debtors.

And lead us into temptation.

but deliver it next day free.

For purchasing power is the glory.

Forever and ever,

paymen’t.