Jeremy Thompson's Blog, page 4
August 25, 2022
"Aetheric IPA": Narrated!
The Night's End podcast just released its narrated version of my Brewtality story, "Aetheric IPA". Being several IPAs deep myself (what else is new), I literally couldn’t be happier to have listened to Alvan Bolling II’s incredible performance of my prose tonight. What a talent!
Stream or download it for free at: https://www.nightsendpodcast.com/podc...
For more of my Night’s End collaborations, check out their narrated versions of my tales “A Myth We Call Emptiness” and “Bloodletting and Intrigue on All Hallows’ Eve”.
https://www.nightsendpodcast.com/podc...
https://www.nightsendpodcast.com/podc...
Stream or download it for free at: https://www.nightsendpodcast.com/podc...
For more of my Night’s End collaborations, check out their narrated versions of my tales “A Myth We Call Emptiness” and “Bloodletting and Intrigue on All Hallows’ Eve”.
https://www.nightsendpodcast.com/podc...
https://www.nightsendpodcast.com/podc...
June 7, 2022
Outréverse: Out Now!
My novel Outréverse is out now via The Evil Cookie Publishing. Please buy it.
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B...
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0B2TH...
Synopsis:
People from three separate Earths, menaced by bizarre extraterrestrials with ghastly intentions for humanity, face threats from within and without in this far-spanning narrative. Learning of that which connects them, can they overthrow their oppressors?
On one Earth, superpowers emerge to reshape humanity. Visiting another Earth entirely, extraterrestrial mummies abduct an All Hallows’ Eve-obsessed serial killer. A third Earth, a sphere whose ocean stretches endless, produces a genetic triumvirate: a human-Atlantean-Lemurian infant. Separated by Big Bangs and Big Crunches, these three tales yet converge.
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B...
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0B2TH...
Synopsis:
People from three separate Earths, menaced by bizarre extraterrestrials with ghastly intentions for humanity, face threats from within and without in this far-spanning narrative. Learning of that which connects them, can they overthrow their oppressors?
On one Earth, superpowers emerge to reshape humanity. Visiting another Earth entirely, extraterrestrial mummies abduct an All Hallows’ Eve-obsessed serial killer. A third Earth, a sphere whose ocean stretches endless, produces a genetic triumvirate: a human-Atlantean-Lemurian infant. Separated by Big Bangs and Big Crunches, these three tales yet converge.
May 30, 2022
Outréverse: Kindle Edition Pre-Order
The Kindle edition of my novel Outréverse can now be pre-ordered, with a June 8th release date. Buy a copy, please.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2NHVCLW/...
Synopsis:
People from three separate Earths, menaced by bizarre extraterrestrials with ghastly intentions for humanity, face threats from within and without in this far-spanning narrative. Learning of that which connects them, can they overthrow their oppressors?
On one Earth, superpowers emerge to reshape humanity. Visiting another Earth entirely, extraterrestrial mummies abduct an All Hallows’ Eve-obsessed serial killer. A third Earth, a sphere whose ocean stretches endless, produces a genetic triumvirate: a human-Atlantean-Lemurian infant. Separated by Big Bangs and Big Crunches, these three tales yet converge.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2NHVCLW/...
Synopsis:
People from three separate Earths, menaced by bizarre extraterrestrials with ghastly intentions for humanity, face threats from within and without in this far-spanning narrative. Learning of that which connects them, can they overthrow their oppressors?
On one Earth, superpowers emerge to reshape humanity. Visiting another Earth entirely, extraterrestrial mummies abduct an All Hallows’ Eve-obsessed serial killer. A third Earth, a sphere whose ocean stretches endless, produces a genetic triumvirate: a human-Atlantean-Lemurian infant. Separated by Big Bangs and Big Crunches, these three tales yet converge.
May 20, 2022
Outréverse
Well, the contract is signed, and I’m thrilled to announce that The Evil Cookie Publishing will be releasing my novel Outréverse! Cheers, party people!
February 23, 2022
"I Belong to the Church in My Room and the Circle Is Dead"
Well, since it didn't make it into the Nicolas Cage tribute anthology that I wrote it for, and I've nowhere else to send the thing, here's my story "I Belong to the Church in My Room and the Circle Is Dead", free of charge.
I Belong to the Church in My Room and the Circle Is Dead
by Jeremy Thompson
Crimson curtains, parted, frame the projector’s target, upon which imagery spills, unrelenting. Embedded in the side walls and rear wall, direct-radiating speakers supply sonance: dialogue, orchestration, and thunder-crash sound design.
Victorian Gothic is the screening room’s décor. Damask wallpaper stretches tendrils of faux fillagree toward wrought-iron sconces and chiropteran crown molding. Antique medallion back settees, whose carved walnut and velvet constructions evoke open coffins, face the screen. Statues with frozen, billowing stone shrouds lurk peripherally.
The room seems to exist apart from the Hollywood Hills locality that hosts the mansion, as if it manifested in the mind of its owner and never quite reached terra firma. Haunted it seems, not by chain-rattling specters, but by the maddened inspirations that shape and ultimately annihilate artists.
The man in the room, in fact, is a creative art practitioner, an actor by vocation. Since his late teens, his image has slid across screens great and small, propelled by spirits he’d constructed from memories and observations and allowed to possess him, then set loose on the world. From art house films to blockbusters, he’s encompassed dozens of short-term figures who’ll outlive him by many years, perhaps even an eternity.
See him there, in the centermost settee, in the jacket, pants and boots, all form-fitting black leather, so often associated with his characters and public outings. Take particular notice of his face as it rests. Away from the eyes of the public and the cameras of paparazzi, it has settled into an expression that might belong to a super intelligent anteater/ape hybrid.
Having dry fasted for over twenty-four hours, ingesting neither food nor drink to achieve a certain, sanctified mind state, the actor has reached the condition in which he might best appraise his latest film, whose official Hollywood premiere will occur the next day. He always watches them alone first; it’s written into his contract. First viewings are sacred, after all, so often blasphemed against by cellphone screens glimpsed peripherally, by whispers and sneezes, by the amalgamated stenches of squished-together, impatient humanity.
Absentmindedly, the actor scrapes his fingernails against his under-chin stubble. Otherwise, the man is unmoving, indeed, hardly seems to breathe. His eyes remain locked on the screen as his form strides across it, carried by the adamantine conviction that only he, the teeth gritting protagonist, can set the world right.
Both the actor and his character are dressed the same. He’d brought his own clothes to the set, having sown hieroglyphic-laden papyrus into the lining of his pants to help him better embody his role. Purchased at an illegal auction for a tidy sum, its unfading characters describe Djedi of Djed-Sneferu and the wonders he wrought.
On the screen, the protagonist has embarked on a slapdash tour of Los Angeles. Pushing his Lamborghini Veneno’s V12 engine to its limit, he intends to thwart the mad machinations of Armageddon-hungry occultists by collecting their desired artefacts—grave masks, small statues and stelae—with a buxom, feisty blonde with a tragic backstory alongside him. The streets and freeways that he navigates are strangely uncongested, nothing like the actor’s own frustrating experiences as an LA motorist. Everything is so vibrant, so immediate, and so blaring, it’s indeed a wonder that, mid-viewing, the actor’s eyelids start to sag. Soon, they have closed altogether.
The actor’s head tilts back; his mouth parts. As the ultimate indignity, he begins to snore. On the screen, the protagonist, ostensibly watching the road for the next turnoff, realizes that he’s lost his audience. That just won’t do.
A dust mote drifts in front of the projector’s lens, creating a tiny hole in the film for the character to slip through. Into the real world he slides, composed solely of light. Abandoned, the film freezes behind him.
He passes between the lips of the actor and flows down his throat. The throat becomes a tunnel, seven different hues in succession, each dimmer than the last. At the end of it, a dramatic mise en scene awaits him: a shadowy courtyard surrounded by sinister-angled buildings, which loom and weave to the rhythm of dissonant orchestration. Filling the courtyard are dozens of men who look just like the protagonist. Silently, in perfect synchronization, they exercise, segueing from kettlebells to dive bomber pushups, hardly breaking a sweat.
“What is all this?” the protagonist asks.
“We’re training to fight ghosts…shadow aspects untethered,” a voice just like his answers. “Perhaps you’ll join us?”
“If only I had the time,” the protagonist says. “I guess I’ll leave you gentlemen to it.”
He spies an open manhole and beelines right for it, as theatrical fog begins to billow in from all corners. “Assume your positions,” shouts one of the exercise enthusiasts, none of whom remain visible.
As the protagonist drops into the manhole, as his feet meet the rungs of a ladder and he begins to descend, he sees neon skeletons manifesting in the mist, hurling punches and kicks against unseen opponents. “Looks like a heck of a lot of fun,” he remarks.
Descending below the lip of the manhole, he realizes that the rungs of the ladder are composed of clear quartz and emanate near blinding radiance. Initially cool to the touch, they grow warmer by the second. Soon, they’ll be scalding, the protagonist thinks, but by that point, he has already reached the ground.
Revolving on his heels, he sees more men that resemble him, though were they to wash off their kumadori makeup—swirling red patterns over white foundations—and doff their crab-legged wigs, they’d appear perhaps two decades younger. Their many-layered kimonos dazzle with eye-scalding hues.
As they take note of him, the men strike emotional poses and freeze, statuesque. The combined weight of their gazes is nigh crippling, so much so that it takes a moment for the protagonist to perceive his surroundings and realize that he and the others are standing upon a gable roof stage. Behind them, a painted backdrop exhibits cherry trees and distant mountains. Rows of empty chairs stretch before them, bisected by a raised platform, a walkway for entrances and exits.
“Uh, excuse me,” says the protagonist, striding for the nearest posed fellow. The colorful figure flies away, borne into the shadows by costume-attached wires.
Addressing another frozen performer, the protagonist asks, “Can you help me?” That man, too, glides away, as do the rest of them, when approached.
The stage lighting dims. A trapdoor in the walkway pops open. Again, the protagonist makes a descent.
Finding himself in a lightless, low-ceilinged realm, he drops to his knees and begins to crawl. The passage is narrow. Its walls are covered in sponges. Reaching a dead end, he has to backtrack. “Some kind of maze,” he mutters.
Countless minutes he spends in subjective reality, advancing and retreating, attempting new pathways. At last, when it seems that he’ll be spending an eternity frustration-mired, an avuncular voice cries out from the darkness, “Make a left!”
“Who’s there?” the protagonist shouts, doing as instructed. “What the hell’s going on? Is that which I’m seeking here? If not, how do I reach the next level?”
The only answer that he receives is, “Make a right, then continue straight until I tell you otherwise!”
The protagonist does so.
“Okay, now make another right, and then your first left.” Moments later: “Just one more left. That’s a good fellow. Almost here…almost here. Now stop, if you know what’s good for ya.”
The protagonist stills and is immediately nuzzled by cartilage. “A snout,” he says, running his hands over a large, dry head, then further, across a bristly back. He chuckles, then adds, “I’ve discovered a pig.”
“I’m your power animal, dummy,” says the swine, matter-of-factly, “your tutelary spirit. You should be kissing my hooves, or maybe feeding me pumpkins. This maze is larger than you could ever imagine. If not for me, you’d never escape it.”
“That a fact?”
“Damn right it is. You’re a slow crawler, too…a real patience tester. Here, grab my tail and I’ll drag ya.”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“Don’t worry, you can’t hurt me. Just make sure to hold on tight. All sorts of beasties wander this maze. Some would gobble you up before you even realized it. Others would ride you for the rest of your existence.”
“You don’t say. Well, I guess I’ll have to take your word for it. So, where’s that tail of yours? I can’t see anything in this pitch black. Okay, I’m feeling some kind of corkscrew-shaped protuberance. I think I’ve got a good grip on it.”
“Sir, that’s my penis.”
“Sweet fuckin’ yuck. Are you sure?”
“Indeed, I am. Now, if you want to avoid feeling and hearing me orgasm, I suggest you let go.”
“Alright, alright. Sorry. Let’s try again, fella. Okay, what am I touching now? Your tail…correct?”
“Second try’s the charm. Have you got a good grip on it?”
“Why, yes, I believe that I do.”
“Then away we go!” The pig lets loose with a squeal and then the protagonist is sliding, fishtailing around corners, grunting through his clenched teeth. Fortunately, the floor is perfectly polished and he sustains not a scratch.
After many subjective minutes, without slowing down an iota, the pig says, “I’m gonna count to three now. That’s your cue to let go.”
“Sure, sure. Whatever you say. I sure do appreciate the ride, pal.”
“One…two…three!”
As the pig rounds a corner, the protagonist releases his grip. His sliding trajectory carries him down a steep ramp, which leads to a coffinesque trough filled with a wet amalgamation of old bread, melon rinds and apple cores.
“I’ve been slopped,” the protagonist remarks, just before the trough crumbles beneath him and he plummets downward.
After the immaculate darkness of the previous level, the protagonist is hardly prepared for the midday sun he now encounters, whose rays bore into his eyes from a cloudless firmament. Grimacing, wiping slop from his flesh and clothing the best that he can, he blinks until his vision clears, and finds himself firmly embedded in a scene from an earlier time.
A nondescript cul-de-sac—a ring of identical single-story houses with carefully maintained lawns—hosts two dozen children engaging in games of red rover and leapfrog. Their vivid, eye-catching attire, with plaids and paisley patterns reigning predominant, places the decade as the seventies. Faintly, from an open garage, drifts the sound of James Taylor crooning “Fire and Rain.”
A slender child rides past the protagonist on a Raleigh Chopper, grinning as if his mouth might escape the boundaries of his skull. That smile is wiped from his face by a rather girthy young fellow, who tackles the bicyclist into the grass and declares, “Your ride’s mine now, dick breath.”
“Is not,” the smaller child whines, jutting his lower lip out. “My daddy bought it for me last Tuesday. I still have the receipt.”
The bully delivers a punch to the boy’s gut and says, “You’re a liar. Say one more word about this bike being yours and I’ll kill you.”
The other children, losing interest in their activities, begin crowding around. They’ve witnessed violence before; most of them have grown to enjoy it. Just as the protagonist is about to step in, about to invoke his adult authority to prevent needless child suffering, from their ranks emerges a dark-haired, intense-eyed newcomer. The boy’s slacks, vest, and ivy cap exhibit a herringbone pattern. Pinned to the back of his shirt is a Superman cape. “Knock it off, Hank,” he says, just loud enough to be heard.
Reluctantly dragging his focus away from his victim, the bully turns the full force of his rage upon the newcomer. Scratching a whitehead at the base of his ear, Hank says, “Get outta here, Nicky, or I’ll make you swallow your teeth.”
“I’m not Nicky,” is the response he receives, delivered with maximal bravado. “I’m Kal-El, the last son of Krypton, here to stop your injustice.”
As his victim climbs back onto his bike and pedals away, unnoticed, Hank slams a fist into his palm, flares his nostrils, and takes a few slow steps forward. Perspiration beads sprout on his forehead; he squints and he sneers.
But the boy masquerading as Superman doesn’t flinch, retreats not a millimeter. Keeping his cool, steady gaze on the bully, keeping his stance loose enough to respond to any attack, he conveys a level of power his slight frame can’t possibly possess.
“Whatever, asshole,” Hank says. “It’s lunch time now, anyway. I’ll come around and whup your ass later.”
Hank ambles away. The other children, disappointed, return to their games. Only the boy in the cape remains behind.
“That was mighty brave of you, kid,” says the protagonist, once everybody else is out of earshot. “You’ll be a fine actor one day, when you’re older.”
“If you say so, sir. Who are you, anyway? Someone’s dad?”
“Just a stranger passing through. A man with a mission, you might call me. Before I leave here, however, perhaps you’ll lend me that cape of yours.”
* * *
Back in a more ordinary reality sometime later, the actor shakes himself from his slumber and wipes drool from his chin. “The strangest of dreams overtook me,” he mutters, dragging his gaze about his screening room to remind himself where he is.
His attention returns to his film. The character he recently played, or perhaps who played him, now leaps from the basket of one paisley-patterned hot air balloon to another, escaping six brawny occultists. Moments later, the bomb that he left behind detonates. Fire fills the sky and unravels. Armageddon is averted. All is well.
Observing the spectacle, the actor is enrapt. What had seemed cardboard characterization in yet another shoddy special effects showcase prior to his nap has somehow attained substance. He now empathizes with his cinematic doppelganger, indeed thrills at the sight of him. His heart is jackhammering; he’s on the edge of his seat. Never before has he felt this way about his own film.
On the screen, the blonde bombshell love interest hurls herself into the protagonist’s arms and kisses him, deeply, as they drift amidst cauliflower-shaped clouds. “You did it,” she declares, eventually. “Against all odds, you saved the world.”
“We did it,” is the response that makes her megawatt smile all the brighter, that drags her lips forward for another long kiss.
“So, now that we’ve shared this grand adventure, are you finally gonna tell me your name?” she then asks.
“Call me Kal-El,” says the protagonist, winking at every viewer.
What else remains but to fade to black?
I Belong to the Church in My Room and the Circle Is Dead
by Jeremy Thompson
Crimson curtains, parted, frame the projector’s target, upon which imagery spills, unrelenting. Embedded in the side walls and rear wall, direct-radiating speakers supply sonance: dialogue, orchestration, and thunder-crash sound design.
Victorian Gothic is the screening room’s décor. Damask wallpaper stretches tendrils of faux fillagree toward wrought-iron sconces and chiropteran crown molding. Antique medallion back settees, whose carved walnut and velvet constructions evoke open coffins, face the screen. Statues with frozen, billowing stone shrouds lurk peripherally.
The room seems to exist apart from the Hollywood Hills locality that hosts the mansion, as if it manifested in the mind of its owner and never quite reached terra firma. Haunted it seems, not by chain-rattling specters, but by the maddened inspirations that shape and ultimately annihilate artists.
The man in the room, in fact, is a creative art practitioner, an actor by vocation. Since his late teens, his image has slid across screens great and small, propelled by spirits he’d constructed from memories and observations and allowed to possess him, then set loose on the world. From art house films to blockbusters, he’s encompassed dozens of short-term figures who’ll outlive him by many years, perhaps even an eternity.
See him there, in the centermost settee, in the jacket, pants and boots, all form-fitting black leather, so often associated with his characters and public outings. Take particular notice of his face as it rests. Away from the eyes of the public and the cameras of paparazzi, it has settled into an expression that might belong to a super intelligent anteater/ape hybrid.
Having dry fasted for over twenty-four hours, ingesting neither food nor drink to achieve a certain, sanctified mind state, the actor has reached the condition in which he might best appraise his latest film, whose official Hollywood premiere will occur the next day. He always watches them alone first; it’s written into his contract. First viewings are sacred, after all, so often blasphemed against by cellphone screens glimpsed peripherally, by whispers and sneezes, by the amalgamated stenches of squished-together, impatient humanity.
Absentmindedly, the actor scrapes his fingernails against his under-chin stubble. Otherwise, the man is unmoving, indeed, hardly seems to breathe. His eyes remain locked on the screen as his form strides across it, carried by the adamantine conviction that only he, the teeth gritting protagonist, can set the world right.
Both the actor and his character are dressed the same. He’d brought his own clothes to the set, having sown hieroglyphic-laden papyrus into the lining of his pants to help him better embody his role. Purchased at an illegal auction for a tidy sum, its unfading characters describe Djedi of Djed-Sneferu and the wonders he wrought.
On the screen, the protagonist has embarked on a slapdash tour of Los Angeles. Pushing his Lamborghini Veneno’s V12 engine to its limit, he intends to thwart the mad machinations of Armageddon-hungry occultists by collecting their desired artefacts—grave masks, small statues and stelae—with a buxom, feisty blonde with a tragic backstory alongside him. The streets and freeways that he navigates are strangely uncongested, nothing like the actor’s own frustrating experiences as an LA motorist. Everything is so vibrant, so immediate, and so blaring, it’s indeed a wonder that, mid-viewing, the actor’s eyelids start to sag. Soon, they have closed altogether.
The actor’s head tilts back; his mouth parts. As the ultimate indignity, he begins to snore. On the screen, the protagonist, ostensibly watching the road for the next turnoff, realizes that he’s lost his audience. That just won’t do.
A dust mote drifts in front of the projector’s lens, creating a tiny hole in the film for the character to slip through. Into the real world he slides, composed solely of light. Abandoned, the film freezes behind him.
He passes between the lips of the actor and flows down his throat. The throat becomes a tunnel, seven different hues in succession, each dimmer than the last. At the end of it, a dramatic mise en scene awaits him: a shadowy courtyard surrounded by sinister-angled buildings, which loom and weave to the rhythm of dissonant orchestration. Filling the courtyard are dozens of men who look just like the protagonist. Silently, in perfect synchronization, they exercise, segueing from kettlebells to dive bomber pushups, hardly breaking a sweat.
“What is all this?” the protagonist asks.
“We’re training to fight ghosts…shadow aspects untethered,” a voice just like his answers. “Perhaps you’ll join us?”
“If only I had the time,” the protagonist says. “I guess I’ll leave you gentlemen to it.”
He spies an open manhole and beelines right for it, as theatrical fog begins to billow in from all corners. “Assume your positions,” shouts one of the exercise enthusiasts, none of whom remain visible.
As the protagonist drops into the manhole, as his feet meet the rungs of a ladder and he begins to descend, he sees neon skeletons manifesting in the mist, hurling punches and kicks against unseen opponents. “Looks like a heck of a lot of fun,” he remarks.
Descending below the lip of the manhole, he realizes that the rungs of the ladder are composed of clear quartz and emanate near blinding radiance. Initially cool to the touch, they grow warmer by the second. Soon, they’ll be scalding, the protagonist thinks, but by that point, he has already reached the ground.
Revolving on his heels, he sees more men that resemble him, though were they to wash off their kumadori makeup—swirling red patterns over white foundations—and doff their crab-legged wigs, they’d appear perhaps two decades younger. Their many-layered kimonos dazzle with eye-scalding hues.
As they take note of him, the men strike emotional poses and freeze, statuesque. The combined weight of their gazes is nigh crippling, so much so that it takes a moment for the protagonist to perceive his surroundings and realize that he and the others are standing upon a gable roof stage. Behind them, a painted backdrop exhibits cherry trees and distant mountains. Rows of empty chairs stretch before them, bisected by a raised platform, a walkway for entrances and exits.
“Uh, excuse me,” says the protagonist, striding for the nearest posed fellow. The colorful figure flies away, borne into the shadows by costume-attached wires.
Addressing another frozen performer, the protagonist asks, “Can you help me?” That man, too, glides away, as do the rest of them, when approached.
The stage lighting dims. A trapdoor in the walkway pops open. Again, the protagonist makes a descent.
Finding himself in a lightless, low-ceilinged realm, he drops to his knees and begins to crawl. The passage is narrow. Its walls are covered in sponges. Reaching a dead end, he has to backtrack. “Some kind of maze,” he mutters.
Countless minutes he spends in subjective reality, advancing and retreating, attempting new pathways. At last, when it seems that he’ll be spending an eternity frustration-mired, an avuncular voice cries out from the darkness, “Make a left!”
“Who’s there?” the protagonist shouts, doing as instructed. “What the hell’s going on? Is that which I’m seeking here? If not, how do I reach the next level?”
The only answer that he receives is, “Make a right, then continue straight until I tell you otherwise!”
The protagonist does so.
“Okay, now make another right, and then your first left.” Moments later: “Just one more left. That’s a good fellow. Almost here…almost here. Now stop, if you know what’s good for ya.”
The protagonist stills and is immediately nuzzled by cartilage. “A snout,” he says, running his hands over a large, dry head, then further, across a bristly back. He chuckles, then adds, “I’ve discovered a pig.”
“I’m your power animal, dummy,” says the swine, matter-of-factly, “your tutelary spirit. You should be kissing my hooves, or maybe feeding me pumpkins. This maze is larger than you could ever imagine. If not for me, you’d never escape it.”
“That a fact?”
“Damn right it is. You’re a slow crawler, too…a real patience tester. Here, grab my tail and I’ll drag ya.”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“Don’t worry, you can’t hurt me. Just make sure to hold on tight. All sorts of beasties wander this maze. Some would gobble you up before you even realized it. Others would ride you for the rest of your existence.”
“You don’t say. Well, I guess I’ll have to take your word for it. So, where’s that tail of yours? I can’t see anything in this pitch black. Okay, I’m feeling some kind of corkscrew-shaped protuberance. I think I’ve got a good grip on it.”
“Sir, that’s my penis.”
“Sweet fuckin’ yuck. Are you sure?”
“Indeed, I am. Now, if you want to avoid feeling and hearing me orgasm, I suggest you let go.”
“Alright, alright. Sorry. Let’s try again, fella. Okay, what am I touching now? Your tail…correct?”
“Second try’s the charm. Have you got a good grip on it?”
“Why, yes, I believe that I do.”
“Then away we go!” The pig lets loose with a squeal and then the protagonist is sliding, fishtailing around corners, grunting through his clenched teeth. Fortunately, the floor is perfectly polished and he sustains not a scratch.
After many subjective minutes, without slowing down an iota, the pig says, “I’m gonna count to three now. That’s your cue to let go.”
“Sure, sure. Whatever you say. I sure do appreciate the ride, pal.”
“One…two…three!”
As the pig rounds a corner, the protagonist releases his grip. His sliding trajectory carries him down a steep ramp, which leads to a coffinesque trough filled with a wet amalgamation of old bread, melon rinds and apple cores.
“I’ve been slopped,” the protagonist remarks, just before the trough crumbles beneath him and he plummets downward.
After the immaculate darkness of the previous level, the protagonist is hardly prepared for the midday sun he now encounters, whose rays bore into his eyes from a cloudless firmament. Grimacing, wiping slop from his flesh and clothing the best that he can, he blinks until his vision clears, and finds himself firmly embedded in a scene from an earlier time.
A nondescript cul-de-sac—a ring of identical single-story houses with carefully maintained lawns—hosts two dozen children engaging in games of red rover and leapfrog. Their vivid, eye-catching attire, with plaids and paisley patterns reigning predominant, places the decade as the seventies. Faintly, from an open garage, drifts the sound of James Taylor crooning “Fire and Rain.”
A slender child rides past the protagonist on a Raleigh Chopper, grinning as if his mouth might escape the boundaries of his skull. That smile is wiped from his face by a rather girthy young fellow, who tackles the bicyclist into the grass and declares, “Your ride’s mine now, dick breath.”
“Is not,” the smaller child whines, jutting his lower lip out. “My daddy bought it for me last Tuesday. I still have the receipt.”
The bully delivers a punch to the boy’s gut and says, “You’re a liar. Say one more word about this bike being yours and I’ll kill you.”
The other children, losing interest in their activities, begin crowding around. They’ve witnessed violence before; most of them have grown to enjoy it. Just as the protagonist is about to step in, about to invoke his adult authority to prevent needless child suffering, from their ranks emerges a dark-haired, intense-eyed newcomer. The boy’s slacks, vest, and ivy cap exhibit a herringbone pattern. Pinned to the back of his shirt is a Superman cape. “Knock it off, Hank,” he says, just loud enough to be heard.
Reluctantly dragging his focus away from his victim, the bully turns the full force of his rage upon the newcomer. Scratching a whitehead at the base of his ear, Hank says, “Get outta here, Nicky, or I’ll make you swallow your teeth.”
“I’m not Nicky,” is the response he receives, delivered with maximal bravado. “I’m Kal-El, the last son of Krypton, here to stop your injustice.”
As his victim climbs back onto his bike and pedals away, unnoticed, Hank slams a fist into his palm, flares his nostrils, and takes a few slow steps forward. Perspiration beads sprout on his forehead; he squints and he sneers.
But the boy masquerading as Superman doesn’t flinch, retreats not a millimeter. Keeping his cool, steady gaze on the bully, keeping his stance loose enough to respond to any attack, he conveys a level of power his slight frame can’t possibly possess.
“Whatever, asshole,” Hank says. “It’s lunch time now, anyway. I’ll come around and whup your ass later.”
Hank ambles away. The other children, disappointed, return to their games. Only the boy in the cape remains behind.
“That was mighty brave of you, kid,” says the protagonist, once everybody else is out of earshot. “You’ll be a fine actor one day, when you’re older.”
“If you say so, sir. Who are you, anyway? Someone’s dad?”
“Just a stranger passing through. A man with a mission, you might call me. Before I leave here, however, perhaps you’ll lend me that cape of yours.”
* * *
Back in a more ordinary reality sometime later, the actor shakes himself from his slumber and wipes drool from his chin. “The strangest of dreams overtook me,” he mutters, dragging his gaze about his screening room to remind himself where he is.
His attention returns to his film. The character he recently played, or perhaps who played him, now leaps from the basket of one paisley-patterned hot air balloon to another, escaping six brawny occultists. Moments later, the bomb that he left behind detonates. Fire fills the sky and unravels. Armageddon is averted. All is well.
Observing the spectacle, the actor is enrapt. What had seemed cardboard characterization in yet another shoddy special effects showcase prior to his nap has somehow attained substance. He now empathizes with his cinematic doppelganger, indeed thrills at the sight of him. His heart is jackhammering; he’s on the edge of his seat. Never before has he felt this way about his own film.
On the screen, the blonde bombshell love interest hurls herself into the protagonist’s arms and kisses him, deeply, as they drift amidst cauliflower-shaped clouds. “You did it,” she declares, eventually. “Against all odds, you saved the world.”
“We did it,” is the response that makes her megawatt smile all the brighter, that drags her lips forward for another long kiss.
“So, now that we’ve shared this grand adventure, are you finally gonna tell me your name?” she then asks.
“Call me Kal-El,” says the protagonist, winking at every viewer.
What else remains but to fade to black?
October 31, 2021
“The Hallowfiend Remembers”
Happy Halloween, earthlings! Here’s my story “The Hallowfiend Remembers,” which has appeared in Sanitarium Magazine Issue # 41, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, and Halloween Horror: Volume 1. For more Hallowfiend action, check out “Bloodletting and Intrigue on All Hallows’ Eve.”
THE HALLOWFIEND REMEMBERS
by Jeremy Thompson
The first recollection: age sixteen, that unforgettable All Hallows’ Eve. Nestled in a Ford Tourneo’s rearward seat between two brawny accomplices, he fingers an aluminum bat, spray-painted Day-Glo orange. His sweatshirt and sweatpants match that fluorescent shade, as does his skeleton mask. As a matter of fact, scrutinizing the eight individuals filling the minibus, one would be hard-pressed to distinguish one from the other.
And when the mucky vehicle screeches to a standstill—on a desolate street, where skeletal trees grope toward fog stars, and it seems that every deity has been blinded—the group bursts nightward, whooping and howling. Down come their clubs, again and again, obliterating the intoxicated plead-murmurs of a homeless encampment, shattering glass, staining frayed sleeping bags crimson.
Piling back into the Tourneo, treacherously giggling, they exchange congratulations.
“Man, did you see…one of ’em was a woman,” the Hallowfiend’s younger self gasps. “Ya know, we probably should’ve abducted her.”
Silence meets the declaration, as it is too ludicrous to respond to. After all, how does one kidnap a corpse?
* * *
The second recollection: age seven, an earlier All Hallows’. Having ditched the neighborhood family he’d accompanied on their trick-or-treating trek, the Hallowfiend’s childhood self ascends a paved hill, one slow step at a time. His weighted down pillowcase makes his arms ache. Sweat clouds his corpse paint, and stench-soaks his reaper hood. Silver-streaking the sidewalk, his cheap plastic scythe drags behind him.
Rightward, he sees parallel streets teeming with ghouls, bats, arachnids and goblins—frozen upon green lawnscapes, string-tethered to overhangs—with masquerading families parading from household to household, spewing the customary catchphrase in exchange for sugared confections.
Leftward, he spies only shadowy underbrush: shrubs and saplings, wherein sting-insects lurk. Soon, the vegetation will be slaughtered, the site paved over to birth additional neighborhoods, resembling those rightward residences glimpsed in a mirrorscape. Perhaps aware of this factoid, the shrubs seem to whisper, until screaming, a young unicorn bursts out from their depths.
Upon closer inspection, the unicorn is actually a costumed human: a young female wearing a coral fleece onesie. Her hoof slippers are muddy. Integrating with downflowing lacrimae, snot slides from her nostrils. Her face ripples as she moans, “Where’s my mommy?”
Shrugging, the Hallowfiend’s childhood self continues on his way.
Reaching the cul-de-sac of his latest foster family, he takes one last look at the moon. For him, it reveals its true countenance: a fanged jack-o'-lantern, ethereal radiance spilling through its sharp features. Smiling, the boy enters the residence.
He sprints to his bedroom, to toss the pillowcase into the closet before his faux family can spot its widening gore blotch.
* * *
The third recollection: infancy, his first Halloween. Contentedly gurgling, he lies on the sidewalk, staring up into the night sky, from which rain just ceased plummeting.
Suddenly, a strawberry-costumed female looms over him, her flaccid, friendly features overwritten with concern.
“Oh my!” she exclaims, crouching to lift him. “Somebody left you alone in a puddle. Who would do such a thing?”
As her fingers brush his midsection, the better to heft him, a thunderous crack sounds, and the woman topples over. Where her friendly face was, flesh tendrils flank a shattered-bone cavity. Hair clumps and cerebral chunks curl into a pulpy grin as she settles.
A younger woman materializes, gripping a revolver. Under her felt cowboy hat and purple domino mask, she chews her lower lip bloody. Passing the firearm to her correspondingly costumed husband, she tenderly scoops the Hallowfiend’s infant self into her arms.
The couple’s soaked ebon locks hang down to their shoulders, resembling spider legs layered in olive oil. Their glittering oculi strain from their sockets, as they bustle their way into a battered Saab.
As the man places one trembling hand on the steering wheel, and with his other keys the engine to life, the woman reclines in the passenger seat, her undernourished arms a child cage.
“Quick, before the pigs come,” she implores.
Tittering, her husband complies.
Accelerating down a street of smirking pumpkins, they see no neighbors emerge from their homes. Mutilated, arranged in otherworldly tableaus, all are too busy decomposing.
“Ya know, covered in bitch blood, our boy resembles a lil’ devil, doesn’t he?” the woman remarks, finger-tracing pagan symbols on the child’s crimson forehead.
“His first costume,” her husband agrees.
* * *
In the candy apple room decades later, wherein flame gutters from ebon candles, beneath rows of frozen latex faces, a guidance counselor cavorts. Snickers bars squelch beneath his footfalls. Fog machine vapor hangs heavy. Mummy moans and graveyard winds sound from hidden speakers.
Disclosing three recollections as he skins a fresh All Saints’ Eve victim, peeling back the boy’s dermis and subcutaneous tissues to unveil a wet-gleaming ribcage, he then asks the pain-delirious young fellow a question:
“At which point did I become the Hallowfiend?”
THE HALLOWFIEND REMEMBERS
by Jeremy Thompson
The first recollection: age sixteen, that unforgettable All Hallows’ Eve. Nestled in a Ford Tourneo’s rearward seat between two brawny accomplices, he fingers an aluminum bat, spray-painted Day-Glo orange. His sweatshirt and sweatpants match that fluorescent shade, as does his skeleton mask. As a matter of fact, scrutinizing the eight individuals filling the minibus, one would be hard-pressed to distinguish one from the other.
And when the mucky vehicle screeches to a standstill—on a desolate street, where skeletal trees grope toward fog stars, and it seems that every deity has been blinded—the group bursts nightward, whooping and howling. Down come their clubs, again and again, obliterating the intoxicated plead-murmurs of a homeless encampment, shattering glass, staining frayed sleeping bags crimson.
Piling back into the Tourneo, treacherously giggling, they exchange congratulations.
“Man, did you see…one of ’em was a woman,” the Hallowfiend’s younger self gasps. “Ya know, we probably should’ve abducted her.”
Silence meets the declaration, as it is too ludicrous to respond to. After all, how does one kidnap a corpse?
* * *
The second recollection: age seven, an earlier All Hallows’. Having ditched the neighborhood family he’d accompanied on their trick-or-treating trek, the Hallowfiend’s childhood self ascends a paved hill, one slow step at a time. His weighted down pillowcase makes his arms ache. Sweat clouds his corpse paint, and stench-soaks his reaper hood. Silver-streaking the sidewalk, his cheap plastic scythe drags behind him.
Rightward, he sees parallel streets teeming with ghouls, bats, arachnids and goblins—frozen upon green lawnscapes, string-tethered to overhangs—with masquerading families parading from household to household, spewing the customary catchphrase in exchange for sugared confections.
Leftward, he spies only shadowy underbrush: shrubs and saplings, wherein sting-insects lurk. Soon, the vegetation will be slaughtered, the site paved over to birth additional neighborhoods, resembling those rightward residences glimpsed in a mirrorscape. Perhaps aware of this factoid, the shrubs seem to whisper, until screaming, a young unicorn bursts out from their depths.
Upon closer inspection, the unicorn is actually a costumed human: a young female wearing a coral fleece onesie. Her hoof slippers are muddy. Integrating with downflowing lacrimae, snot slides from her nostrils. Her face ripples as she moans, “Where’s my mommy?”
Shrugging, the Hallowfiend’s childhood self continues on his way.
Reaching the cul-de-sac of his latest foster family, he takes one last look at the moon. For him, it reveals its true countenance: a fanged jack-o'-lantern, ethereal radiance spilling through its sharp features. Smiling, the boy enters the residence.
He sprints to his bedroom, to toss the pillowcase into the closet before his faux family can spot its widening gore blotch.
* * *
The third recollection: infancy, his first Halloween. Contentedly gurgling, he lies on the sidewalk, staring up into the night sky, from which rain just ceased plummeting.
Suddenly, a strawberry-costumed female looms over him, her flaccid, friendly features overwritten with concern.
“Oh my!” she exclaims, crouching to lift him. “Somebody left you alone in a puddle. Who would do such a thing?”
As her fingers brush his midsection, the better to heft him, a thunderous crack sounds, and the woman topples over. Where her friendly face was, flesh tendrils flank a shattered-bone cavity. Hair clumps and cerebral chunks curl into a pulpy grin as she settles.
A younger woman materializes, gripping a revolver. Under her felt cowboy hat and purple domino mask, she chews her lower lip bloody. Passing the firearm to her correspondingly costumed husband, she tenderly scoops the Hallowfiend’s infant self into her arms.
The couple’s soaked ebon locks hang down to their shoulders, resembling spider legs layered in olive oil. Their glittering oculi strain from their sockets, as they bustle their way into a battered Saab.
As the man places one trembling hand on the steering wheel, and with his other keys the engine to life, the woman reclines in the passenger seat, her undernourished arms a child cage.
“Quick, before the pigs come,” she implores.
Tittering, her husband complies.
Accelerating down a street of smirking pumpkins, they see no neighbors emerge from their homes. Mutilated, arranged in otherworldly tableaus, all are too busy decomposing.
“Ya know, covered in bitch blood, our boy resembles a lil’ devil, doesn’t he?” the woman remarks, finger-tracing pagan symbols on the child’s crimson forehead.
“His first costume,” her husband agrees.
* * *
In the candy apple room decades later, wherein flame gutters from ebon candles, beneath rows of frozen latex faces, a guidance counselor cavorts. Snickers bars squelch beneath his footfalls. Fog machine vapor hangs heavy. Mummy moans and graveyard winds sound from hidden speakers.
Disclosing three recollections as he skins a fresh All Saints’ Eve victim, peeling back the boy’s dermis and subcutaneous tissues to unveil a wet-gleaming ribcage, he then asks the pain-delirious young fellow a question:
“At which point did I become the Hallowfiend?”
October 29, 2021
“Bloodletting and Intrigue on All Hallows’ Eve”: Narrated!
The Night’s End podcast has just released its version of my story “Bloodletting and Intrigue on All Hallows’ Eve”, narrated by James Barnett (aka Jimmy Horrors). Stream or download this terrifying autumnal experience for free!
https://www.nightsendpodcast.com/podc...
https://www.nightsendpodcast.com/podc...
October 20, 2021
Sweet Chuckling Morbidity: Now Available in Hardcover!
My 2018 collection, Sweet Chuckling Morbidity, is now available in hardcover. This book includes my Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 4 story, “Bloodletting and Intrigue on All Hallows’ Eve.” Buy it…please.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09HHW...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09HHW...
October 1, 2021
Free Books for October!
Well, since Barnes & Noble is ignoring my copyright claim (though everyone else removed my titles from sale), and until that situation is resolved one way or another, none of my six Necro Publications books are earning me any royalties, I’m giving the ebooks of The Phantom Cabinet, Let's Destroy Investutech, The Land of Broken Sky, Toby Chalmers Commits "Career" Suicide, Toby Chalmers Hits a New Low, and The Forever Big Top away for free. Enjoy!
The Phantom Cabinet:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/hegmvs...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/opm4y0...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/sgg431...
Let's Destroy Investutech:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ca7hly...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/mkilrt...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/n8px0x...
The Land of Broken Sky:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/4cbsjl...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ml6hfa...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ok0c9z...
Toby Chalmers Commits "Career" Suicide:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/wa1ldl...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ro4bo3...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/am2z95...
Toby Chalmers Hits a New Low:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/n1nv4w...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/but4ix...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/9mj2jc...
The Forever Big Top:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/g134aw...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/3fmdi6...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/z56mfv...
The Phantom Cabinet:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/hegmvs...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/opm4y0...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/sgg431...
Let's Destroy Investutech:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ca7hly...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/mkilrt...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/n8px0x...
The Land of Broken Sky:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/4cbsjl...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ml6hfa...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ok0c9z...
Toby Chalmers Commits "Career" Suicide:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/wa1ldl...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ro4bo3...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/am2z95...
Toby Chalmers Hits a New Low:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/n1nv4w...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/but4ix...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/9mj2jc...
The Forever Big Top:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/g134aw...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/3fmdi6...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/z56mfv...
July 4, 2021
"Our Forecast Reads Stygian"
Here’s my story “Our Forecast Reads Stygian,” which has appeared on The New Accelerator’s website, in the anthology Strange Aeon: 2020: Lovecraftian Tales, and can also be found in my collection Sweet Chuckling Morbidity.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...
Our Forecast Reads Stygian
by Jeremy Thompson
Some claim that the Creator has infinite facets, that every deity ever prayed to is one and the same. Following that line of thought, one might conclude that every temple ever constructed is equally valid, that He of Infinite Aspects exists in every church and sanctum, and can be praised and pleaded with pretty much wherever. Such an assertion is surprisingly accurate, but only up to a point.
Similarly, in the realm of quantum mechanics, there exists a many-worlds interpretation, which states that every single event—from stomping a snail to detonating a thermonuclear weapon—acts as a branch point, birthing parallel realities where things happened differently. Thus, every possible past, and every imaginable future, exists somewhere, somewhen in the multiverse.
Eternally oscillating, infinite universes cycle from Big Bang deliveries to Big Crunch departures. Eventually, every dead reality’s contracting quantum foam grows so dense that it bounces, and another Big Bang arrives, spewing forth matter to birth a fresh universe. Ad infinitum, the process continues. This is also true, save for one exception.
You see, between Big Crunch and Big Bang, there exists a point of singularity, wherein matter is infinitely compressed, and all physical laws are rendered invalid. This embryonic singularity is unique. Every universe springs from it and eventually returns to it. Were one to picture the multiverse as a unicycle wheel with infinite spokes—each representing one universe—the singularity would be its hub, and also the rubber tire that each spoke stretches toward. For endless noninteractive realities, it exists as a common denominator.
Within this metaphysical netherworld, there somehow stands a city—uncompressed, anchored to nothing. Divinely enchanted, the city evades inescapable density, as do all those who trod therein. This realm of Cyclopean masonry—irregular stone blocks fitted together without mortar—is far too ancient and massive to have been assembled by humanity. It is a city of whispering sepulchers, a necropolis wherein all physics, dreams, and philosophies lie entombed. Inscribed in indecipherable hieroglyphics, its pillars stretch beyond sight. Above each building’s gaping entryway, a corbel arch curls. The steps that descend from the city’s well-fortified main gate plunge deep into nothingness, and are tall enough for Nephilim footfalls.
Seen from above, the city appears roughly circular, concentrically constructed around a citadel: a majestic fortress crowned with a titanic carven monolith. Were one to stare at the monolith, glance away, and then refocus upon it, they’d find the statue’s subject to have changed. Upon first glance, it might seem a kindly geriatric, whose beard flows down to His robe, frozen in an unfelt breeze. On second glance, however, one might see a six-headed, shark-toothed monstrosity, or a regal woman garbed in veil and diadem. In fact, the monolith possesses infinite forms, many beyond human imagining.
Illimitable vastness existing within infinite density, the city stands as the ultimate incongruity, enkindling cognitive dissonance for even the bravest contemplator. It endures beyond conception, apart from eons and afterlives, and simplistic “good and evil” dichotomies.
Having transcended every law of physics, the city is beholden to no geometric principle. Thus, curvatures behave irrationally: concave and convex interchangeable, indistinguishable. Before the eyes of a stunned observer, an angle might flip from acute to obtuse, or exhibit the reciprocal phenomenon. Some angles appear impossibly vast; others measure less than zero degrees. Within the city’s susurrant chambers, corners double, then triple, unfolding into tesseracts.
Save for the citadel, every room in the city is a burial vault. Were one prone to wandering their strange marble flooring, they’d encounter a succession of upright sarcophagi exhibited in orphic splendor. Varying in size, they range from fetal proportions to mountainous magnitudes. Each, in itself, is exquisite.
Pondering them, one might wonder whether any living hand carved the sarcophagi. Or perhaps they were procured directly from the realm of the forms, wherein every thing exists immaculate.
Carved limestone, each coffin is so expertly inlaid with materials—amethyst, gold, emerald, sapphire, carnelian, bone, obsidian, platinum, glass, pearl, turquoise and diamond, plus substances unidentifiable, not entirely solid—that it seems half-alive, suffused with inscrutable intelligence. Considering them, one inevitably wonders: Are these miracles occupied? If so, what lies within them, eternally?
Their carven exteriors vary mightily—some being humanoid, others possessing dimensions so alien, so peculiar and severe, that they are excruciating to glance upon. Perhaps demigods rest within them, or the multiverse’s vilest monsters. Do they stand forever empty? Do they devour rotting flesh, and thus attain faultless vitality?
Standing before such a sarcophagus, one might be tempted to slide its lid open, and thus satisfy a clamorous curiosity. Reaching a quivering hand out, they will inevitably draw it back, wondering, Is this coffin seducing me? If I drag it open, will grotesque gravities suck me inward, right before the lid reseals? Will this be my sepulcher, too?
Spending enough time in their proximity, one becomes aware of a murmuring, ranging from agonizingly comprehensible to expressions more sensation than sound. Am I imagining this? the visitor deliberates, as their mind is borne along illimitable vistas, a progression of mental phantasmagorias juxtaposing transcendent beauty with heterochthonous morbidity. Is this city haunted? Are past actualities echoing through me?
Eventually, one might tire of the sepulchers—whose networking passages multiply inestimably—and exit toward the citadel. What manner of being dwells therein? they will wonder, as the air begins thrumming.
Truly, the fortress could contain but one occupant: He of Infinite Aspects, the Supreme Being that embodies every god ever prayed to, plus all those yet uninvented. Where else could such a being monitor unbounded realities, eras uncountable, but in an environment beyond spacetime? Only from impossible distance can such a being shape celestial evolution, slathering cosmoi with gradations of growth and entropy. Only from exquisite remoteness can He distribute blessings and condemnations.
In perfect silence, inside His forbidding citadel, He of Infinite Aspects awaits all visitors.
* * *
On this night that is all nights, the city endures inundation. From each of infinite possible futures, from endless parallel realities, an ambassador has been plucked, to wander awestricken through the sepulchers, before inevitably turning their footfalls toward the citadel. Each exists out of sync with the others, though occasionally one ambassador bleeds into another’s peripheral vision, only to be dismissed as a phantom.
Entering the citadel, after trudging through its southern gate, and fearfully ascending a declivitous ramp, each visitor encounters a vast emptiness—antediluvian walls and flooring devoid of furniture and decoration. Simultaneously, infinite ambassadors arrive, each being ignorant of the others.
There seems to be no far wall. Instead, both sidewalls stretch into a churning murk, from which tendrils of the purest ebon radiate. As in a black hole, no light escapes this preternatural curtain. Still, every ambassador feels a presence: the impossible weight of an unknowable intellect’s scrutiny. Called before their Creator, most find themselves quailing.
Why have I been called here? is the prime speculation. What brought me to this timeless void, this habitation beyond rationality?
Hearing such thoughts, He of Infinite Aspects grants understanding. Within each mind, grim knowledge unfurls: The multiverse is compacting, infinite realities amalgamating into one solitary universe. Similarly, every possible future is to be unraveled, save for one. Before making His selection, He of Infinite Aspects offers each ambassador a chance to petition for their own future’s implementation.
With the fate of their entire realities resting upon them, most ambassadors wonder, Why is He doing this? Did humanity provoke His anger? But the Creator’s mind is impenetrable, and so entreaties are made.
Though endless pleas arrive simultaneously, He of Infinite Aspects considers every utterance.
* * *
Smirking, a self-assured man in uniform—a golden velour shirt bearing an embroidered emblem, plus black pants and boots—strides forward. “To you who is most exalted,” he intones, “I offer you my greetings.” He pauses, expecting a reply.
“Okay then, let’s get right on down to it. Lord, I beseech you on behalf of my present, the best of all possible futures. In my era, mankind has transcended greed and pettiness, and colonized the galaxy for the benefit of all. In exquisite silver spacecraft, crews such as mine soar from planet to planet, imparting peacekeeping and humanitarianism. Surely, you acknowledge our validity.”
There arrives no answer. For the first time in his life, the captain seems to deflate.
* * *
Even as the star captain bloviates, a broken man steps forward. Months prior, a howling vacancy expanded within him. Two weeks after a comet struck, it was—the night he witnessed the unspeakable brutalization of his beloved wife and daughter.
From the comet’s metropolitan impact point, a great eruption of unearthly particles had disseminated throughout Earth’s biosphere, bringing man’s bestial side to the forefront, dragging irate dead from the soil.
A grimy wretch in ragged attire, the broken fellow opens his mouth…only to close it seconds later. Something has occurred to him, a notion worth pondering. In his post-comet world of sunless, soot-dark firmament—each city an inferno, with tidal wave upon tidal wave impacting every coastline—he had been losing time of late. Minutes passed in an eye blink, sometimes hours and days. Was I here in the lost time? he wonders. This place has a grim familiarity, an obscene inevitability. Have I been here before?
Then mental imagery surfaces: a torn family portrait, blood welling through its frame. The ambassador’s face becomes a rictus. He finally musters elocution. “Please,” he begs. “Have mercy. End it. Take it all away. Make everything so it never was.”
Bewilderment reaches the broken man’s countenance. Though his Creator remains obscured, he cocks his head as if to listen. Curling fissured lips, a bittersweet grin manifests.
* * *
Another ambassador describes a different sort of singularity, a spacetime point wherein the interface between computers and humans evolved to such a degree as to birth a new species: genetically-engineered folk sculpted of flesh and nanotech, within whom all lusts and hatreds have long been extinguished.
Within complex artificial wombs, sperm and ova fuse, gathered from parents deemed genetically compatible, fated never to know their progeny. Having stripped Earth of every resource, this ambassador’s species now hurls spacecraft across the cosmos, to claim uncharted planets and immediately begin terraforming. From globe to globe, the computer folk travel, molding each in their image, birthing technomorphogenesis.
“We have eliminated every crime, abolished every social distinction,” the ambassador states, staring with unblinking bionic eyes, smiling its default setting smile. Its shiny synthetic flesh is unblemished, its speech immaculately modulated. “We have done away with all religion, and thus have little use for you. Science rules everything, and your realm registers to this one as an irregularity. Restore this one to its proper spacetime point, and trouble our reality no more.”
The ambassador receives no reply.
* * *
Still they petition:
Talking animals, having evolved extraordinarily in the wake of mankind’s nuclear obliteration, point out the global prosperity enabled by humanity’s passing.
Clad in loincloth and leather sandals, an alluringly feminine ambassador relates the wonders of Planet Eden, a renamed Earth whereupon the human race abandoned technology and consumerism. Retreating to the primitive simplicities found in farms and log cabins, her reality’s natives have replaced currency with communal bartering, and done away with corrupt political systems to achieve true democracy.
Others speak of Dyson spheres, tortoises the size of dinosaurs, victories over Martians, and colonizing dead stars. A mermaid relates the subaqueous glories achieved after mankind’s return to the sea; a child praises the beatific innocence of an adult-free planet. There are cannibals, warpies, sorcerers, Aryan supermen, asexuals, and pansexuals petitioning. A tusked scientist lectures on bioengineered manimals.
Utopias and dystopias, and every reality in-between—infinite ambassadors voice endless appeals, addressing the unseen totality lurking behind His curtain of living darkness. Taking into account the boundlessness of the multiverse, it stands to reason that many universes are near-duplicates of others, separated by the minutest of details. Each ambassador, in fact, has infinite doppelgangers, all speaking simultaneously.
No answers are provided. Inscrutably, He of Infinite Aspects contemplates.
* * *
A flaccid-faced man in military garb skulks forward, lurching as if unaccustomed to humanoid locomotion. His face contains no intelligence. Empty-eyed and slack-jawed, at first he seems an empty vessel, an ambulatory coma patient.
Upon closer scrutiny, however—considering the man’s camouflage field jacket, parted with no underlying shirt—one realizes that there is somebody home after all. An incongruity has sprouted from the soldier’s abdomen: a massive oculus, green-painted with feculence, whose starfield iris encircles a clotted cream pupil. Within that eye, intelligence dwells—ancient for a humanoid, infantile when measured against He of Infinite Aspects.
Neither plea nor curse is voiced. Deathly silent, the occupied man faces forward, his unblinking abdominal oculus radiating depraved intent.
* * *
In the citadel, a great disturbance is birthed: arctic winds of such intensity as to signify the beating of colossal wings. Seized by inescapable air currents, every ambassador but one is swept from the citadel, into endless whispering sepulchers, wherein each finds a sarcophagus awaiting, its lid pulled back. Some protest; others accept their fates with serenity. Around them, infinite jeweled coffins close irrevocably.
Forever entombed within solemn limestone, the ambassadors exist now as mementoes, shibboleths, trophies of all the Might Have Beens. In the time that is no time, somewhere between death and creation, they dwell immortally in nonexistence. Paralyzed by a soul-piercing chill, each peers past the singularity to watch their home reality unravel into entropy.
Only one universe remains now. Were they permitted to move, the unchosen would recoil at the sight of it.
* * *
Back in the citadel, an Aspect finally emerges. What face will the Creator show? Which theosophy embodied? Underlying the wing beats, a repellant sonorousness can be discerned now: a slopping, gelatinous sliding.
Out from the ebon curtain, a face of writhing feelers pushes, undulating before two malignantly gleaming oculi. A physique materializes. The clawed, patagium-winged behemoth is scaled, bloated and pulpous.
With the Aspect’s emergence, spatial distortion twists every dimension askew. Is the Aspect in the citadel? an observer might wonder. Or is the citadel within the Aspect? But the remaining ambassador is beyond such considerations.
The soldier’s abdominal eye meets those of the Aspect. Wordlessly, they communicate.
* * *
The cephalopodan countenance nods. Back into the murk, toward imponderable deliberations, the Aspect trudges. To a now solitary universe’s timestream, the ambassador returns.
And all throughout the city, only whispers can be heard.
The story continues in my novel The Land of Broken Sky, which can be attained for free via these links:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/4cbsjl...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ml6hfa...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ok0c9z...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...
Our Forecast Reads Stygian
by Jeremy Thompson
Some claim that the Creator has infinite facets, that every deity ever prayed to is one and the same. Following that line of thought, one might conclude that every temple ever constructed is equally valid, that He of Infinite Aspects exists in every church and sanctum, and can be praised and pleaded with pretty much wherever. Such an assertion is surprisingly accurate, but only up to a point.
Similarly, in the realm of quantum mechanics, there exists a many-worlds interpretation, which states that every single event—from stomping a snail to detonating a thermonuclear weapon—acts as a branch point, birthing parallel realities where things happened differently. Thus, every possible past, and every imaginable future, exists somewhere, somewhen in the multiverse.
Eternally oscillating, infinite universes cycle from Big Bang deliveries to Big Crunch departures. Eventually, every dead reality’s contracting quantum foam grows so dense that it bounces, and another Big Bang arrives, spewing forth matter to birth a fresh universe. Ad infinitum, the process continues. This is also true, save for one exception.
You see, between Big Crunch and Big Bang, there exists a point of singularity, wherein matter is infinitely compressed, and all physical laws are rendered invalid. This embryonic singularity is unique. Every universe springs from it and eventually returns to it. Were one to picture the multiverse as a unicycle wheel with infinite spokes—each representing one universe—the singularity would be its hub, and also the rubber tire that each spoke stretches toward. For endless noninteractive realities, it exists as a common denominator.
Within this metaphysical netherworld, there somehow stands a city—uncompressed, anchored to nothing. Divinely enchanted, the city evades inescapable density, as do all those who trod therein. This realm of Cyclopean masonry—irregular stone blocks fitted together without mortar—is far too ancient and massive to have been assembled by humanity. It is a city of whispering sepulchers, a necropolis wherein all physics, dreams, and philosophies lie entombed. Inscribed in indecipherable hieroglyphics, its pillars stretch beyond sight. Above each building’s gaping entryway, a corbel arch curls. The steps that descend from the city’s well-fortified main gate plunge deep into nothingness, and are tall enough for Nephilim footfalls.
Seen from above, the city appears roughly circular, concentrically constructed around a citadel: a majestic fortress crowned with a titanic carven monolith. Were one to stare at the monolith, glance away, and then refocus upon it, they’d find the statue’s subject to have changed. Upon first glance, it might seem a kindly geriatric, whose beard flows down to His robe, frozen in an unfelt breeze. On second glance, however, one might see a six-headed, shark-toothed monstrosity, or a regal woman garbed in veil and diadem. In fact, the monolith possesses infinite forms, many beyond human imagining.
Illimitable vastness existing within infinite density, the city stands as the ultimate incongruity, enkindling cognitive dissonance for even the bravest contemplator. It endures beyond conception, apart from eons and afterlives, and simplistic “good and evil” dichotomies.
Having transcended every law of physics, the city is beholden to no geometric principle. Thus, curvatures behave irrationally: concave and convex interchangeable, indistinguishable. Before the eyes of a stunned observer, an angle might flip from acute to obtuse, or exhibit the reciprocal phenomenon. Some angles appear impossibly vast; others measure less than zero degrees. Within the city’s susurrant chambers, corners double, then triple, unfolding into tesseracts.
Save for the citadel, every room in the city is a burial vault. Were one prone to wandering their strange marble flooring, they’d encounter a succession of upright sarcophagi exhibited in orphic splendor. Varying in size, they range from fetal proportions to mountainous magnitudes. Each, in itself, is exquisite.
Pondering them, one might wonder whether any living hand carved the sarcophagi. Or perhaps they were procured directly from the realm of the forms, wherein every thing exists immaculate.
Carved limestone, each coffin is so expertly inlaid with materials—amethyst, gold, emerald, sapphire, carnelian, bone, obsidian, platinum, glass, pearl, turquoise and diamond, plus substances unidentifiable, not entirely solid—that it seems half-alive, suffused with inscrutable intelligence. Considering them, one inevitably wonders: Are these miracles occupied? If so, what lies within them, eternally?
Their carven exteriors vary mightily—some being humanoid, others possessing dimensions so alien, so peculiar and severe, that they are excruciating to glance upon. Perhaps demigods rest within them, or the multiverse’s vilest monsters. Do they stand forever empty? Do they devour rotting flesh, and thus attain faultless vitality?
Standing before such a sarcophagus, one might be tempted to slide its lid open, and thus satisfy a clamorous curiosity. Reaching a quivering hand out, they will inevitably draw it back, wondering, Is this coffin seducing me? If I drag it open, will grotesque gravities suck me inward, right before the lid reseals? Will this be my sepulcher, too?
Spending enough time in their proximity, one becomes aware of a murmuring, ranging from agonizingly comprehensible to expressions more sensation than sound. Am I imagining this? the visitor deliberates, as their mind is borne along illimitable vistas, a progression of mental phantasmagorias juxtaposing transcendent beauty with heterochthonous morbidity. Is this city haunted? Are past actualities echoing through me?
Eventually, one might tire of the sepulchers—whose networking passages multiply inestimably—and exit toward the citadel. What manner of being dwells therein? they will wonder, as the air begins thrumming.
Truly, the fortress could contain but one occupant: He of Infinite Aspects, the Supreme Being that embodies every god ever prayed to, plus all those yet uninvented. Where else could such a being monitor unbounded realities, eras uncountable, but in an environment beyond spacetime? Only from impossible distance can such a being shape celestial evolution, slathering cosmoi with gradations of growth and entropy. Only from exquisite remoteness can He distribute blessings and condemnations.
In perfect silence, inside His forbidding citadel, He of Infinite Aspects awaits all visitors.
* * *
On this night that is all nights, the city endures inundation. From each of infinite possible futures, from endless parallel realities, an ambassador has been plucked, to wander awestricken through the sepulchers, before inevitably turning their footfalls toward the citadel. Each exists out of sync with the others, though occasionally one ambassador bleeds into another’s peripheral vision, only to be dismissed as a phantom.
Entering the citadel, after trudging through its southern gate, and fearfully ascending a declivitous ramp, each visitor encounters a vast emptiness—antediluvian walls and flooring devoid of furniture and decoration. Simultaneously, infinite ambassadors arrive, each being ignorant of the others.
There seems to be no far wall. Instead, both sidewalls stretch into a churning murk, from which tendrils of the purest ebon radiate. As in a black hole, no light escapes this preternatural curtain. Still, every ambassador feels a presence: the impossible weight of an unknowable intellect’s scrutiny. Called before their Creator, most find themselves quailing.
Why have I been called here? is the prime speculation. What brought me to this timeless void, this habitation beyond rationality?
Hearing such thoughts, He of Infinite Aspects grants understanding. Within each mind, grim knowledge unfurls: The multiverse is compacting, infinite realities amalgamating into one solitary universe. Similarly, every possible future is to be unraveled, save for one. Before making His selection, He of Infinite Aspects offers each ambassador a chance to petition for their own future’s implementation.
With the fate of their entire realities resting upon them, most ambassadors wonder, Why is He doing this? Did humanity provoke His anger? But the Creator’s mind is impenetrable, and so entreaties are made.
Though endless pleas arrive simultaneously, He of Infinite Aspects considers every utterance.
* * *
Smirking, a self-assured man in uniform—a golden velour shirt bearing an embroidered emblem, plus black pants and boots—strides forward. “To you who is most exalted,” he intones, “I offer you my greetings.” He pauses, expecting a reply.
“Okay then, let’s get right on down to it. Lord, I beseech you on behalf of my present, the best of all possible futures. In my era, mankind has transcended greed and pettiness, and colonized the galaxy for the benefit of all. In exquisite silver spacecraft, crews such as mine soar from planet to planet, imparting peacekeeping and humanitarianism. Surely, you acknowledge our validity.”
There arrives no answer. For the first time in his life, the captain seems to deflate.
* * *
Even as the star captain bloviates, a broken man steps forward. Months prior, a howling vacancy expanded within him. Two weeks after a comet struck, it was—the night he witnessed the unspeakable brutalization of his beloved wife and daughter.
From the comet’s metropolitan impact point, a great eruption of unearthly particles had disseminated throughout Earth’s biosphere, bringing man’s bestial side to the forefront, dragging irate dead from the soil.
A grimy wretch in ragged attire, the broken fellow opens his mouth…only to close it seconds later. Something has occurred to him, a notion worth pondering. In his post-comet world of sunless, soot-dark firmament—each city an inferno, with tidal wave upon tidal wave impacting every coastline—he had been losing time of late. Minutes passed in an eye blink, sometimes hours and days. Was I here in the lost time? he wonders. This place has a grim familiarity, an obscene inevitability. Have I been here before?
Then mental imagery surfaces: a torn family portrait, blood welling through its frame. The ambassador’s face becomes a rictus. He finally musters elocution. “Please,” he begs. “Have mercy. End it. Take it all away. Make everything so it never was.”
Bewilderment reaches the broken man’s countenance. Though his Creator remains obscured, he cocks his head as if to listen. Curling fissured lips, a bittersweet grin manifests.
* * *
Another ambassador describes a different sort of singularity, a spacetime point wherein the interface between computers and humans evolved to such a degree as to birth a new species: genetically-engineered folk sculpted of flesh and nanotech, within whom all lusts and hatreds have long been extinguished.
Within complex artificial wombs, sperm and ova fuse, gathered from parents deemed genetically compatible, fated never to know their progeny. Having stripped Earth of every resource, this ambassador’s species now hurls spacecraft across the cosmos, to claim uncharted planets and immediately begin terraforming. From globe to globe, the computer folk travel, molding each in their image, birthing technomorphogenesis.
“We have eliminated every crime, abolished every social distinction,” the ambassador states, staring with unblinking bionic eyes, smiling its default setting smile. Its shiny synthetic flesh is unblemished, its speech immaculately modulated. “We have done away with all religion, and thus have little use for you. Science rules everything, and your realm registers to this one as an irregularity. Restore this one to its proper spacetime point, and trouble our reality no more.”
The ambassador receives no reply.
* * *
Still they petition:
Talking animals, having evolved extraordinarily in the wake of mankind’s nuclear obliteration, point out the global prosperity enabled by humanity’s passing.
Clad in loincloth and leather sandals, an alluringly feminine ambassador relates the wonders of Planet Eden, a renamed Earth whereupon the human race abandoned technology and consumerism. Retreating to the primitive simplicities found in farms and log cabins, her reality’s natives have replaced currency with communal bartering, and done away with corrupt political systems to achieve true democracy.
Others speak of Dyson spheres, tortoises the size of dinosaurs, victories over Martians, and colonizing dead stars. A mermaid relates the subaqueous glories achieved after mankind’s return to the sea; a child praises the beatific innocence of an adult-free planet. There are cannibals, warpies, sorcerers, Aryan supermen, asexuals, and pansexuals petitioning. A tusked scientist lectures on bioengineered manimals.
Utopias and dystopias, and every reality in-between—infinite ambassadors voice endless appeals, addressing the unseen totality lurking behind His curtain of living darkness. Taking into account the boundlessness of the multiverse, it stands to reason that many universes are near-duplicates of others, separated by the minutest of details. Each ambassador, in fact, has infinite doppelgangers, all speaking simultaneously.
No answers are provided. Inscrutably, He of Infinite Aspects contemplates.
* * *
A flaccid-faced man in military garb skulks forward, lurching as if unaccustomed to humanoid locomotion. His face contains no intelligence. Empty-eyed and slack-jawed, at first he seems an empty vessel, an ambulatory coma patient.
Upon closer scrutiny, however—considering the man’s camouflage field jacket, parted with no underlying shirt—one realizes that there is somebody home after all. An incongruity has sprouted from the soldier’s abdomen: a massive oculus, green-painted with feculence, whose starfield iris encircles a clotted cream pupil. Within that eye, intelligence dwells—ancient for a humanoid, infantile when measured against He of Infinite Aspects.
Neither plea nor curse is voiced. Deathly silent, the occupied man faces forward, his unblinking abdominal oculus radiating depraved intent.
* * *
In the citadel, a great disturbance is birthed: arctic winds of such intensity as to signify the beating of colossal wings. Seized by inescapable air currents, every ambassador but one is swept from the citadel, into endless whispering sepulchers, wherein each finds a sarcophagus awaiting, its lid pulled back. Some protest; others accept their fates with serenity. Around them, infinite jeweled coffins close irrevocably.
Forever entombed within solemn limestone, the ambassadors exist now as mementoes, shibboleths, trophies of all the Might Have Beens. In the time that is no time, somewhere between death and creation, they dwell immortally in nonexistence. Paralyzed by a soul-piercing chill, each peers past the singularity to watch their home reality unravel into entropy.
Only one universe remains now. Were they permitted to move, the unchosen would recoil at the sight of it.
* * *
Back in the citadel, an Aspect finally emerges. What face will the Creator show? Which theosophy embodied? Underlying the wing beats, a repellant sonorousness can be discerned now: a slopping, gelatinous sliding.
Out from the ebon curtain, a face of writhing feelers pushes, undulating before two malignantly gleaming oculi. A physique materializes. The clawed, patagium-winged behemoth is scaled, bloated and pulpous.
With the Aspect’s emergence, spatial distortion twists every dimension askew. Is the Aspect in the citadel? an observer might wonder. Or is the citadel within the Aspect? But the remaining ambassador is beyond such considerations.
The soldier’s abdominal eye meets those of the Aspect. Wordlessly, they communicate.
* * *
The cephalopodan countenance nods. Back into the murk, toward imponderable deliberations, the Aspect trudges. To a now solitary universe’s timestream, the ambassador returns.
And all throughout the city, only whispers can be heard.
The story continues in my novel The Land of Broken Sky, which can be attained for free via these links:
Mobi: https://www.mediafire.com/file/4cbsjl...
Epub: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ml6hfa...
PDF: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ok0c9z...
