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| << November03, 2007 - Dark Windows #6 - Nov 1, 2007 |
December17, 2007 - Dark Windows #8 - Dec. 15, 2007 >> |
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DARK WINDOWS #7 - Dec. 1, 2007 ===== ===== ===================> INTRO For anyone who is keeping score, or focused on (nonexistent) schedules, you may have noticed that there was no Nov 15 issue. We were just getting over the fires -- making up for lost hours and depression -- when my Mom died on Nov. 13. I'm not going to focus on that here. I had many days (like Thanksgiving) when I didn't feel like doing anything, and wondered about the wisdom of compiling dark/horror works at a time like this, but I don't the kind of horror where people die, or come up with cool new ways to kill people. I deal with the "supernatural horror" as defined by H.P.Lovecraft, where non-human forces make us ponder our very reason for being. Real world sadness, or the passing of a single life, does not change this. Regardless of how we paint the world, or how we let the world be painted for us, we know on some level that we're walking a fine line between what is right and wrong, between creating wonders and facing our own oblivion. What is real beneath all the artificial layers of society? Things are always stirring, just out of reach. Frankly, we could all be wiped out and the outer darkness would not change -- it's just that nobody would be here to appreciate it. The other fine line that interests me is trying to entertain, help people escape their day-to-day reality, without pushing too far with lectures or too heavy with the darkness. I don't want to dwell on "bad things." It's all just a walk in the woods. We must explore. And exploring must always teach us things, even if they are never spoken aloud. = scott, 11/30/07 ===================> POEM My Creator --- Somewhere in a dark place where shadows never go, He sits spewing forth children who walk the earth for him and whisper his name. --- = written 8/86, Published in STARSONG #2 (12/87) ===================> ODD CLIPS: (clips from old "factual" sources) "During the carnival, the ladies amuse themselves in throwing oranges at their lovers: and he who has received one of these on his eye, or has a tooth beat out by it, is convinced, from that moment, that he is high favourite with the fair one who has done him so much honour. Sometimes a good hand-full of flour is thrown full in one's eyes, which gives the utmost satisfaction, and is a favour that is quickly followed by others of a less trifling nature."[1] "A library-myth that irritates me most is the classification of books under 'fiction' and 'non-fiction.'" [2] "Plutarch states that the possessor of the evil eye infects the air with a malign influence and this penetrates the eye, the nostrils, and the breath of the intended victim and carries with it the bitterness and hatred of the envy with which it is surcharged." 1. Armstrong, "History of Minorca", quoted in "Brand's Popular Antiquities" 2. Charles Fort, "Wild Talents", ch.V 3. Cesidio R. Simboli, "Disease-Spirits and Divine Cures Among the Greeks and Romans" (Columbia Univeristy, 1921), p.26, referring to Plutarch, "Symp." v.7.3. ===================> STORY For a Wooden Heart (PART 1 OF 2) I was talking to James Grey as we moved among the woods. Clouds above like fists, silence within the woodlands, these were the sounds of nowhere around us, away from the city. "Plantlife!" he exclaimed, enthralled with his studies. "A thousand missing spirits growing precisely, each with its own built-in equation for success." He brushed a low-lying juniper, and patted the majestic live oak towering above. His was a dance of knowledge, movements free with the innocence and intuition of counter-science. "Humans, when they shut up, can hear the world. A moment's meditation finds a thousand whispered secrets, yet we never actually touch the world. We can never truly be a part of it. So we go back to making noise instead, our smallness and insecurity tucked away, unadmitted." "We follow equations of our own," I proposed. "Chaos. Pure trickling water, distracting chaos. With all of our senses and rationality, we are missing an essential piece ..." I checked my watch. The sky was growing darker; the sun was tired, sinking on its eternal imaginary path. I admit that I was not listening closely to the ravings of James Grey. I enjoyed the outside world, which I saw so rarely. I wanted to pull some final deep breaths of the unexplainable air before starting back to the car. But James Grey gestured and spoke, whether I or the world paid any attention to him. In his own terms, he was a human making pointless noise, but I tried to be a little bit receptive. James Grey stepped behind a thick old oak, patting it with profound appreciation. I never saw him again. He was gone. For an instant, when I turned to see why he had stopped talking, I thought I saw a shadow clinging to the trunk of the tree. Then I was completely alone. The transition was sudden, frightening. I did not dismiss this as a gag. He had not invited me to the private woods behind his lodge just to run off and laugh at me. In some strange way, the air itself -- the sound of the trees -- told me that my friend was gone forever. I never called his name. I walked around the thick tree, assessing its ancient skin. Its strange, patterned bark begged me closer, and I found myself staring at its intricate details. It was a miraculous creature, with its millions of dots, cracks, and hidden patterns. The entire history of the world seemed written upon it, as if every breath of wind had left clues there on its living surface. Good and bad seasons had shaped it, and every touch of rain and dew changed it somehow, making it precisely what it was today. I wanted to touch it, then I was afraid. I knew a man, James Grey, who had touched this very same tree, and he was gone forever. It made no sense, but it happened. I could not resist. I reached out and stroked the dry mysteries. Each tiny sound of finger-on-wood crawled through the forest, turning leaves, changing the future of plantlives. I had never been so acutely aware of details before ... I had wandered through my life seeing the barest millionth of a percent of reality. The tree was a gateway, a place where many worlds -- from the microscopic to the infinite -- could be glimpsed, working together. I felt a strange falling sensation as I struggled to understand my place in the world. Then I broke the contact and staggered backwards. If I expected James Grey to appear next to me and continue raving like nothing had happened, I was wrong. I was still alone. The world seemed different now. The sun was nearly gone, yet I could see clearly. There was a sound like slow laughter among the branches around me. The world was alive, as though filled with peripheral shadows that could never hurt me. My mind filled with infinitesimal details, and struggled to hold the image of the world together. I sat against a comfortable chunk of granite, and the huge tree looked like a stack of totems, smiling. It spoke gently to me. "You are what you see." I shook my head. "But what am I seeing?" It was a tree again, solid and ordinary. Whatever I had glimpsed was now concealing itself. The tops of the trees were shrouded in a midnight fog, thick and swirling. Again the treevoice: "There is no limit to what you can see." "There is a limit to what I can understand." "Relax and see." "How can I relax?" It was easy. I was surrounded by such a sense of power and concern that I swam in warm memories. When I looked up again, the world was transformed. ...TO BE CONTINUED... ===================> DARKVISION: (captured dreams) After seeing the Transformers movie just for fun, I figured I could expect some fairly odd dreams. In the movie, a teenager's car comes to life, turns into a giant robot, blah blah. In the dream ... My car didn't come to life, not like in the movies. Instead, the transmission got a mind of its own, kept switching gears at awkward moments, kept trying to crash me into things. It popped into low gear as I was trying to slow down at some stoplights, refused to get on the freeway entirely, and when I finally parked outside the UCSD BioDome (which was having an open house) it went into reverse, drove me up an embankment and wedged the car between two pine trees. I had to climb out the rear window. I was deeper in the woods that I had thought, and when I came out I was somewhere on campus. I figured I should head for the top floor of the tallest building (about 15 stories up) and would be able to see the dome from there. The building was some kind of massive student lounge, or country club, judging from the lounging students and pop culture clone women walking around looking to score (with anyone but me). The top floor was just a narrow hallway full of hair salons, with the stink of exotic creams and shampoos and burnt toenails. When I turned to get back on the elevator, it hiccuped, then there was an uninviting grinding sound. A wall section slid down over the elevator doors -- the new chunk of wall had a mock door that said "Janitor's Closet," (ha ha) and a little sign saying "STAIRS --->" So I took the stairs. Some heavily painted clone girls were there, complaining about the exertion, how walking down stairs would make little wrinkles appear under their eyes some day. They went down only two floors, convinced that somehow the same elevator wouldn't be broken two floors down. I jogged the rest of the way but ended up in just my underwear. When I ran through the crowded lobby, I was the entertainment of the hour, the thing everyone had to laugh at so they could puff up and feel important about themselves. I grabbed some clothes off the rack at the little Gap store in the lobby, flashed my credit card, gave Starbucks the finger, and stepped out into the fresh air (free at last!) only to run smack into Bill Clinton and some Secret Service dudes. I was pretty frazzled by then. All I could do is scream, "What the hell are you guys looking at?" Clinton laughed. We all laughed. It was pretty damn funny, but nobody knew why. I was thinking, "Bill Clinton visiting a tower full of clone girls." He was probably thinking, "Some nerd from the computer lab. I wonder if he can fix my toaster." I told them to have a nice day, then ran off knowing I'd never be able to find my car. Later on I was home, reading emails from the uncles I hadn't spoken to in 30 years, all about their families. I must have wasted an hour reading them and taking notes, updating phone numbers & contact info, only to wake up and find that the messages were not real, and the real uncles hadn't responded yet. My car came home around 3 a.m., reeking of hydrogen & sulfur. ===================> MY NEWS: The new issue of Hungur magazine is out, with my cover design and my article "Unusual Vampire Lore". I did two new book cover design projects for SamsDot Publishing, but was otherwise busy trying to stay ahead of bills. a.k.a. my stamp/eBay business. Funny how I can sell over $2000 a month in stamps but barely make scratch with anything I create myself. Or NOT so funny. ===================> POEM My Town --- Yesterday the Post Office raped the Library. Main Street was cordoned off; cops buzzed about like flies. Nobody saw where the P.O. went, though it had never moved at all. --- = written 8/86, unpublished ===================> STORY BITES: (clips from old fictional sources) "It was rumoured, and was believed by more people than would probably like to confess it, that the strings of [Paganini's] violin were made of human intestines, according to all the rules and requirements of the Black Art." [1] "Fantastic, ghastly figures kept slowly swimming out of the penumbra of his small, dark room, in regular and uninterrupted procession, and he greeted each by name as he might greet old acquaintances." [2] "Of your old teacher there now remains but a clod of cold organic matter. I need not prompt you as to what you have to do with it." [3] 1-3. From "The Ensouled Violin" (story) in "Nightmare Tales" by H.P.Blavatsky. A creepy classic. ===================> POEM Forgiveness --- Some say I should be more forgiving ... *** So I let a spider build a web between two rafters, above my bed, I watched him and he watched me -- It wasn't so bad until one day he caught a big thing, I watched him make the snare, and when he was done feeding he cut the thing loose -- it landed in my mouth, I woke up unhappily and squashed the bastard flat *** Forgiveness has bounds. --- = written 8/86, unpublished ===================> CREDITS About the author: Scott Virtes has had over 400 stories & poems published since 1986. Look for them in Analog, Space & Time, Ideomancer, Dreams & Nightmares, Cafe Irreal, Planet, and more ... My Home page: http://tales.scvs.com?inw=dkw Notice: Odd Clips and Story Bites all come from original sources in the public domain, or are brief clips in the spirit of fair use (a.k.a. free advertising for the source). All other sections of this newsletter are copyright (c)2007 Scott Virtes. All rights reserved. Please don't grab chunks of my work and post them all over the place. If you ask permission, you'll find that I'm pretty easygoing. ;-) ===== this issue: 2,330 words cumulative: 14,940 words |
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| << November03, 2007 - Dark Windows #6 - Nov 1, 2007 |
December17, 2007 - Dark Windows #8 - Dec. 15, 2007 >> |
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