I Lay Eggs to Feel Mystical

The pouring rain the parallel the plantation a thousand miles beneath the ground. 

A second sound a simple sign a manifested fading call. 

A long long time ago. 

The celebration of artistry coronates Donatello, a king through a statue of light and devotion

A few thoughts on asparagus pee.

Asparagus pee. Oddly comforting. 

Biology at work. Replicable process. 

Science. Cause and effect illustrated in the Plato Porcelain Cave. The world makes sense. I can stand up. Here is ground, there is sky, this is how it works. 

Science indeed. And also, maybe, just maybe, a flickering shadow of the countenance of god in a stream of tinkle. 

Visage.

Penelope Ghosthead Brings the Thunder Down to the Tavern of Taciturn Despair. She is truly a rocker.

Rodney Crawbaby sat at the circular oaken table located by the bay window of the Dead Fucking Snake Tavern. The leaded glass of the window let in the light of the street lamps as Rodney Crawbaby pored over the manuscripts spread out across the table. 

He cracked his knuckles. He told the server to leave him alone. He spit on the floor, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 

He looked at the papers. Here is what he knew:

- Downton Abbey was an ancient seat of English political power, but

- Downton Abbey was in dire financial straits. 

- The woods around the Abbey was a hotbed of Druidic activity. They were still active, doing activities in the wooded woods, and

- there were rumors that the Druids were now attempting to contact the cosmic power that exists beyond in the space between space. That was confusing. 

- The dowager countess had enlisted the help of the Arabian sultanate for something. The end result had to be monetary, but what was the angle? What was their game. 

- and what do they have to do with the Druids?

Crawbaby looked at the calendar. Nearly the solstice. Something would happen. He held his head in frustration. He was missing something. 

Across the table the light shimmered like the rippling surface of a Swiss lake in the moonlight. Full of stars and blood and twinkling. A golden glow cut through the center, like a wolf peeing in the lake. 

Rodney looked up and saw Penelope. 

Penelope, who had been the most beautiful girl in all the abbey. It was said that she made the flowers bloom because god had a crush oh her. 

She was killed by a bear. Rodney had been about to propose. It was quite a mess. He was never able to clean the blood and grass out of the knees of his pants.

Rodney's mouth fell open agape. He suspected he might see her. But he did not know what to say. 

Penelope did not give him the chance to think. 

"Rodney. You must listen. The future of time depends on it. You must create an army. An Army of Righteous Light to combat the darkness of the Cult of Ys. They will rise up to tear the sky asunder and allow the scary space squid to enter our universe and lay its eggs in the hair nests of our children. Death will ride high if this happens and England will slowly fall into the sea as the children eat the earth. You need to bring together a righteous force of justice, each with their own special skill like radio, languages, Kung fu, wisecracking, and squeezing into a little ball to hide. First, you must talk to the monster."

Penelope began to fade away. Rodney lurched forward in his chair and opened his mouth to beg her to stay. He was so lonely. But Penelope put a finger to his lips. 

"Find the monster"

Win Forever Pyramids

Out of the way Marvin

The Druids crowd round the bright light.  Toes figurative and literal have been stepped on.  A polite shoving not energetic enough to froth into a full scrum.  

"Why the robes?" Tony the Druid wondered.  As if visibility wasn't difficult enough through the tiny eyes of their ghost machine.  He blows his hood up but it falls right down.  He is too packed in to move his arms so there he is uncomfortable with an itchy hood in front of his eyes.  It is like an inconvenient holiday tradition perpetuated out of shame and duty rather than formatted joy.  

"Just like us Druids."  Sighed Tony.  Cutting corners on some things like these cut rate Brillo pad robes.  Then going all out on a Stonehenge which gets used like what twice a year.  It is a fine henge but maybe if they went with the floor model they could've afforded a better haunting spirit.  Wasn't very scary at all this Pee Nope A Lee.  

"It's really designed for longing." Said the salesman.  "Longing is much more scary than you know scary scary." Said the salesman.

"Fuck that salesman" thought Tony.

The Deacon Digs the Fire

Francis Marbury had been the Deacon of Downton for 45 years. 

In that time he had overseen the births, marriages, and deaths of the entire village. 

He knew the village inside and out. He spent his days listening to the problems of the citizenry and his nights praying for guidance from The Lord above to pass along to them. When he slept, he slept in a chair. 

Deacon Marbury did not believe in ghosts, and he did not believe in the dark forces that pulsed through the ground around Downton Abbey. The void, the black, the elder monsters that slumbered restlessly in the bog, in the stars, chained to the space between by the ancient Druids of long past millennia. 

He did not believe in that, and he did not believe in ghosts. He'd had many one sided conversations with The Lord and he believed that if there were souls of the lost trapped in this plane, that there would be some indication, some sign. 

He say in his leather chair, by his leaded window, the rain pouring down. He supped and sipped his tea. He could make out some sort of activity on the moor. Lights in the distance. Fires on the horizon? It was probably that traveling circus the cult of Ys. He set his tea cup down and scratched at his cheek. 

What were they on about again? He couldn't recall. At his age it was hard to make room for new things in his cluttered brain. They were some sort of creative group? There had had been a lot of activity in the bog. He assumed it was them. 

Yes. The deacon didn't do well with novelty. He did not believe in monsters. He had no conception of the scary space squid. Druids were a rotten lot. There was no such thing as ghosts. 

As he gaze out the window at the hazy dots of light on the horizon, fire in the mist, the ghost of Penelope drifted through the wall and approached him. She was always doing things like that. 

Antics in the Bone Hospital

A Trip to Downton 

Yesterday I made a trip to Downton by Derry, because I wanted to buy some electric shoes. After a two hour coachride I entered the wooden gates leading up to the the high street. Along the gravel paths there were ladies in blankets and men with eyepatches selling exotic birds. The city smelled of mince pies and fish heads. I can only assume that it was delivery day at the docks on the other side of town. The spire of the church stood out on the horizon, as it was the tallest construction within the city walls. Circled ornately by clumps of flowers and prickley bushes, the church was the second oldest building in County Derry. The oldest being the guarderobe, although that particular claim had been the subject of debate for many years because, pursuant to the classic view, guarderobes are parts of a seperate building, and not actually "buildings" themselves. However, the head of the historical society was partial to the guarderobe, having been built by his great-grandfater Phinneus as a gift to his great grandmother Mildred Porridge. In recent years the County had become divided along the lines of the Historical Society and the Toilette Nihilists, a clandestine group engaged in the study of mysticism and hermetics, who staunchly supported the idea that, in fact, NO building in the county could be considered the oldest, as they were all simply mental constructs.

Standard compound by the shore, promoting injustice, farting out intolerance.

And once again more ham.

Six and a Half Minutes left in the First Half

White horses by ten a complete cross + against the native men in the white plains of giant spot light blank craze I could it if make the wheels go round? The lead is seven now phenomeona like the incomes spiraling off like a rocket with the rockets that go off the bank told me to ugly sweater we werent suppsed to knnow the ephemera br istling breistling walked throught the fences by the park to fuck up to do much old docks now things come from where who the bridge the barge men the prefrence

Death Comes Hunting for Rodney Crawbaby

English weather has a cold steely spine that runs up the middle of each gust of wind. An invisible bamboo shoot of icy strength that snaps sharply and breaks off on your face and your hands. Blowing off the moor, the sooty peaty air covered a man like ice on a lake. Ice that was frozen. Frozen solid. Solid as a rock. 

Rodney Crawbaby had seen it all. He had seen Afghanistan, charging the hills with her majesty's service; India, where he had survived the adventure of the ruby ring; China, where he had solved the mystery of the emperor's facade... Most recently, he had returned from Japan, and the case of the lotus blossom shogunate. 

It was a good life, that of an imperial detective. He lived hard and he learned much and he answered to no one, save of course his dear Queen Victoria. And most recently her son Edward of course. King Edward. That would take some getting used to...

Rodney Crawbaby looked out the window of the third floor room he had rented off the high street. The large figure of Downton Abbey loomed in the distance. Ominous and omnipresent. Squatting over the village. Monstrous. Like its master. 

Rodney had first heard the whispers of prophecy in Tibet, and then again in the islands that speckle the sea, far to the south. 

Someone or something was building a gate. The elder would be drawn to it, the circle broken, the world thrown into a state of calamity. Rodney Crawbaby had read the ancient texts on the islands of the Azores; Had seen the glyphs on the walls of the brocade pyramids of the new world. He knew that a past existed, an age now shrouded in darkness, where mankind was subservient to much larger forces, and lived in the shadow of giants. 

Rodney looked up at the grey featureless sky, imagining the miasma swirl that must have oppressed the men of the earth so many years ago. 

Now, he had learned that someone was working to relight the ancient fire of obscene knowledge and call the leviathan back from the stars. He had also heard there were opposing forces at work. A counter movement dedicated to the primacy of man. 

Rodney Crawbaby came to Downton Abbey for answers, and to kick a little ass. And to solve mysteries. 

But he didn't have any more questions. And he was cool with a little mystery...

The siren song of the Crawbaby rang out, and it echoed across the rooftops, mingling with the monster's breath

The head was a planet and the scary space squid existed between.

Snow. My job is boring.

Spectral Archeology: the return of the Abbey.

The dowager countess closed the door behind her and exhaled. 

She had dismissed the butler earlier. She needed to be alone now, to recoup her strength. Something about Walli Wud exhausted her. Perhaps the stark black and white contrast, masked by the soft feathering of the points he made...

Regardless, she felt as if she had appeased him, put him off the scent for now. 

She crossed the darkened room, and sank into her puffy chair. Shadows played along the wall (in the cave, with the bone...) and the only light in the room came from the picture window, casting 8 rectangles of light on the floor, each growing in size as the spread across the boards. (It was a dark and stormy night. Outside the monster painted)

The dowager countess sighed. She looked at her tiny wrinkly hands. The gold rings clicky clacked as she moved her little Vienna sausage fingers. 

Things were going according to plan. With the help of the Arabs, the makeshift temple would soon be complete. England's history with the dark monsters of other was inchoate compared to the rich history of mystery of the east. Stonehenge was barely a construction compared to the mosques and palaces of the orient. True temples for the elder gods to call home. Here, you stack up a pile of rocks and throw on some mushrooms and a few fairies come to dance. If you are lucky. 

The pyramids of Egypt, the Gardens of Babylon. The guardian statue that held the mouth of the sea for millennia, THOSE were worthy structures. She glanced at the desk seeing the plans for the sporting court and the pig run. 

Well, with the Arabs help, soon Downton Abbey would take its proper place as a gateway to beyond. 

In the shadows, out of sight, the ghost of Penelope looked on the dowager countess and was concerned

Courtroom Drama Part Three: The Majestic Interlude staring at the supernova.

Ladies and gentlemen. You're going to hear a lot more things today. A lot of things that are going to befuddle  you, possibly disinterring long buried emotions and dreams, hazily reflected in shadow on a cave wall by a fire with a bone. A lot of things that we all wish we were able to put behind us. Leave behind in the past, violent artifacts of a tortured past; mankind's dark secrets.  But the past is not through with us. 

<the barrister pauses, lifts his arms up from his sides and wiggles his fingers. "Spoooooooky" he whispers>

The fact is that we all thought we moved beyond this. In this exciting new age of Internet and cloud, and being anonymously racist, tools for communication to bring us closer to each other, we can still be shocked, as we are shocked now, by what occurred on the evening of November 9th.  

You're going to hear a lot of things from the district attorney, Mr. Fact over there, about what was done to Ms. Understanding in that screed on the web, lifted from the scrap bin of a twilight zone episode from so many years ago. And your going to hear a lot from the assistant DA Mr. Roundhole, about what was done with that ham handed attempt at irony, allegedly by my client, God. 

At this point Mr. Fence waves his hand towards the defendant who is sitting in the box. God is a quiet and taciturn lump of a man, restrained by his own insecurities. His hair has retreated upward and dark circles under his eyes betray his lack of interest in washing up first thing in the morning. Your god clears his throat and then swallows whatever came up so as not to be too much trouble.  

You see ladies and gentlemen, my client, God, is innocent of these crimes. He stands here, accused of nothing, but STILL he laments his half formed attempt at sub creation.  innocent. It all seemed so much truer when it was conceived in the night, in that slow light of insight and gently farting in the bed. So many things come out!

The defendant yawns and the reek of donuts fills the room.

Basically, something about advancement and technology and blaming the radio and frozen food technology for man's troubles. His fall, if you will. 

A horse fell in the street yesterday and everyone went on Twitter to say that horses don't belong in cities, that it's cruel, and that this dead horse was something lost that would never be regained.

But the horse wasn't dead and the only ones who fell was US. Just like the bible. 

You see ladies and gentlemen, my client mr. God is innocent. There is a story there somewhere. Probably, the judge should have said more funny things. Witty interjections and ohnohedidnts. Lessons for the children. Anyway folks, Mr. God is ... The Electro Man. 

No one is paying attention because of a kitty gif.  Some woman on Bravo tweets that this is a nice purse. It is your move on words with friends. Help Eve beat this level of candy crush. Do you know this simple trick to save $$$$ on your mortgage? Student loans!  Penis. Kansas City 14, Miami 7. Woman says she was hung up like a fish. Debt ceiling. Dads. Obamacare. People are dying every day. All the time. Right now. Cancer. Scary space squid. Electro Man. 

Verdicts Resonance

Oh I guess I will have to put someting in to take ups spaces so we can see in side the dearth 

machinge. There was a thick sopping sweat smell billowing from the judges robes as he walked across the room. Air lurid in sweat mosquitoes and donkey step. The lawyer exhausted breathing heavily the exhaust of last stands making him hallow light like being a solid bird bone. The gallery exhausted the novelty of the proceedings had worn off but they would not under any circumstances would they give up their seats. Bathroom breaks were taken in shifts. Those who went alone just had to hold it. And it was hours snacks and meals ago until the most twinkling lights. The judge emerged with a tidy solemnity.

This court finds guilty: the hallow ring of progress.

The future is tearing at the cerebellum of the youth: a courtroom drama part 1, starring Vance Bunkmeyer and Cecily Bloodbloom.

Ladies and gentlemen. You're going to hear a lot of things today. A lot of things that are going to upset you. A lot of things that we all wish we were able to put behind us. Leave behind in the past, violent artifacts of a tortured past; mankind's dark secrets. 

The fact is that we all thought we moved beyond this. In this exciting new age of space travel and television, tools for communication to bring us closer to each other, we can still be shocked, as we are shocked now, by what occurred on the evening of March 23rd.  

You're going to hear a lot of things from the district attorney, Mr. Rich over there, about what was done to Ms. Lent in that alley by the harbor where the ships come in. And your going to hear a lot from the assistant DA Mr. Mann, about what was done with those farm implements, allegedly by client, Mr. Sparks Pullman. 

At this point Mr. Story waves his hand towards the defendant who is sitting in the box. Story is a grunting and savage beast of a man, restrained by a faded yellow straight jacket. His wild hair has grown unkempt and dark circles under his eyes betray his mental state and the extent to which exhaustion has set in. Sparks Pullman spits on the floor by the defendants box. It pools on the floor, viscous and tinged with blood. 

You see ladies and gentlemen, my client, Mr. Sparks Pullman, is innocent of these crimes. He did nothing that he is accused of, but f he did, he only did it because he was driven to such destruction by society. You see, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Sparks Pullman was driven to horror by the hollow ring of progress that tolls with the lunch whistle at the microwave factory and resonates across the country as Ike's workmen dredge up the soil and lay concrete scars across the great American west and wireless communication means a telegram I wore to Europe will be heard mere minutes later. 

You see ladies and gentlemen, my client mr. Sparks Pullman is innocent. Driven mad by this atomic age, Mr. Sparks Pullman is ... what I am calling ... The Electro Man. 

The defendant snarls and the reek of feces fills the room. 

Sleep Steered Autumnal Skylines

She was

speaking japanese.  The Dowager awoke.  She had been speaking japanese.  The cart ride the ham that beast at the table.  The weight of prepositions.  The marble specter atrophying.  She didn't know the string patterns in an incessant brutish loop.  Things that are known only beautiful in not all sense.  She had never misspelled a word.  It could've been all the pork.  The episodes the dream the life and this place.  Sacred and hallow.  Protecting in its need for protection.  Thumb in the dike.  Even she was knew this expression entendra'd magnificiently but she knew she could get away with it due to age good to throw a green upstart and charlatan banker boys.

In the camps

of the Y's the debate over whether the pig slaughter was a healthy ritual or ecological disaster and whether to support it and whether that was the ideal of a lazy Y to go on pervailing social winds to not disturb the presence of time and leave continuity so that effect would not be thought through then there were those who argued that instead the truly lazy event would be to disturb time since it the easiest then to go without to much thought into the bouncy house of life.  But keys can pop the house some said.  Your worry is effort responded.  Deflated bouncy houses are also effort.  It became exhausting.  No one wanted to cook.  They wen to the hog stand.

The hit man

Get in there.

I'd rather not.

C'mon.

Can't you go?

Well, technically we both are. We both live in this walnut you call a brain.

Walnut? What am I? A brontosaurus?

Apatosaurus.

What?

They're called apata---Never mind. Gun loaded?

Yeah, its loaded, but I've never done this before.

Well, we owe a lot of money. Who told you to bluff on a pair of sixes?

You did.

Heh. Yeah. But now we're in the hole. And it won't be easy to climb out with a pair of broken legs. Hey, thats kind of funny. Pair of legs for a pair of sixes. Write that down.

Look, can we focus please?

You're right. This guy isn't going to kill himself.

......But what if he did?

.....What?

What if he killed himself?

Hey, yeah. Get your pad out.

(scribble)

Done.

What did you write?

"No one likes you."  Then I drew a picture of him.

Add stink lines.

Too rough.

Yeah. Too much.

Slip it under the door.

(knock knock)

Run!

********

Now what?

Wait I guess.

Yeah.

Is there a Waffle House nearby?

I think there's one of the highway

Thats a Cracker Barrel.

Are you sure? With the rocking chairs?

When in your life have you seen rocking chairs at a Waff---

(BLAM!)

Oh, shit. Was that a gun shot?

Sure was.

Get the room key. Hey, that was really cool how you charmed that girl at the counter for the key. You're really cool.

.....I wish you said that more.

Then I will.

Thanks. Ok, in we go.

Aww! He blew his jaw off! Is that fatal?

He looks dead to me.

Poke him. Get a stick.

"Get a stick?" Where? From the garden?

Y'know what? You're not cool anymore......He shit himself.

What?

Shit. In his pants. He's dead.

What have we wrought?

Dunno. Maybe the stink lines were too much.

We didn't draw the stink lines.

Oh. yeah.

Well...mission accomplished, I guess. Lets get some food.

I wanna go to Waffle House. They have that golf tee game.

Thats Cracker Barrel!

HERE WE GO AGAAAIN!

i know you won't read this. Someone might. But you won't. I'm not stupid. Naive perhaps, but not stupid. This account will change nothing. Barely a catharsis. A poorly structured narrative with a crumbling foundation built on wet sand.

But maybe theres a hope. A slim, follicle thin, foxhole prayer of a hope that the very mention of what you did will somehow initiate a modicum of change. A butterfly flapping its wings causing tremors in the pacific kind of alteration. Maybe, once the final period is in place, you'll get a chill or pinpricks on the back of your oily neck. You'll wake from a dream of a familiar place and you'll be stricken with an overwhelming sense of deja vu. Cold sweat, maybe. A tremor, hopefully. Some sort of physiological chain reaction that will freeze blood. Shock will set in. Veins will shunt. Limbs will go numb. You won't know why.

But you'll know. You'll know.

And I'll know. That you know. 

And maybe I'll sleep better. Maybe my unease will transfer to you like some sort of ethereal presence.

   But I know better.

This is mine to carry. For good. For all time. White knuckle on the steering wheel with the remembrance.  It hits me often, but with no warning. Because its mine.

What you did is mine.

May, 2008. It was hot. Dusty. Dirty.

You went into the laundry room. You took my laundry bag. Not my clothes. Just the bag.

I had to tie the sleeves on a t- shirt and carry the laundry inside of that, instead.

You owe me a bag.

My Dog Spot

My Dog Spot

Spot is a good dog. Except the day that he wasn't. but that day passed. I've forgiven Spot. His room is the basement.

He does tricks. He can even talk.

He sits on his haunches, stares at me with big chocolate eyes.

He says, " I'm sorry, Daddy."

I say "its ok Spot."

But Spot, crying, messes on the floor. He's five. He's not a puppy anymore. It makes me angry. I lose my temper.

I hurt Spot. He cowers. I shove his nose in the mess. He whimpers. But I keep hurting Spot.

I leave the basement. Spot stopped crying and he lays on the floor. But I know he's ok.

He's a good dog.

I remember the day Spot was born. I took him home, but his mother didn't join us.

That was Spot's fault. He was too big. "Complications." They had said.

He still smelled of bloody afterbirth. Even years later.

He's getting big. We go on walks. Spot is good. He doesn't need a leash.

Strangers pass. They look at Spot curiously. They say hello. I say hello

But Spot knows better than to talk to strangers. I told him never to sat anything. Anything at all.

Never about the basement. Or the mess.

"Because they won't believe you." I tell him. " Because of what you did to mommy."

He stops crying. Stops talking.

He used to think he was a person,

But now he knows he's a dog.

A good dog.

Quantam leap. Exploring the solar plexus under water.

Post apocalyptic self-deprivation chamber is this in the dark and waiting and waiting to reveal the squid bill. Sharp is his mind dull is his projection for now and pointilized is his perception of this questioningly crafted containment.
In a phone booth in an eddy in a vortex with a smitten grin he rubs his hands together. And dials. And then...tones. Transcending sonar resonance there is no echo. This reminds squid of soft grey dust and staring at photos on the mantle. Reminiscing in this what have you. Reflection is important but squid must be like prism and project into future. So he slips into his ready man jacket and sets out to unravel quite a yarn.

-Sweet Jane, I'll be your mirror-

And lo the Lord said unto the children "They look like good strong hands don't they? I always thought that's what they were..."

Deep out into the night sky, a velvet curtain streaked with brilliant gaseous power. Meteoric energy rending darkness asunder and throwing light into the black expanse of the universe. Millions of planets, small crusts of rock, exist and revolve and resolve. Days fade away and time changes. Everything floats, simply existing in an endless sea of inky blackness...

The scary squid monster sleeps.

Suspended in the nothingness of space, eternal and unyielding...

the scary squid monster dreams of Downton Abbey. 

Pulp Horror: Spicy Adventure Stories!

True Crime Stories: Gore Pulp!

His teeth were coarse and gristly, like the deadly dreams and fantastic consequence of a hobo drifting through time immortal, clutching the cold fingers of the goddess head. And putting them in his mouth. Chompy chomp.

The Old Demon of Canberra

Maurice balanced the plates along his arm, their lips interlocking in the crook of his elbow. He then began to stack the teacups on the plates, the gravy boat, the butter dish. He took the Duchesses silver in his left hand. He reached down the table with two fingers to take Abdul Walli Wud's silver. 

He backed away from the table and walked across the purple carpet, beneath the spinning candelabras, and entered the kitchen. 

Wud had not touched his food, Maurice noted with disgust. This heathen. This savage dressed in linen who had no appreciation for the hospitality of the duchess...

Maurice stopped himself from going down that dark mental rabbit hole that descended into bile and anger and invariably ended with bloody knuckles and a rumpled cummerbund. 

He set down the dishes and considered speaking to Chef Chuck, but thought better of it. The rotund chef stood over the stove, tasting soups, holding the spoon with his pinky out, and generally acting like a stereotype. 

Maurice didn't feel like opening that door. 

He sighed, and stood there in the kitchen, stealing a moments contemplation before he returned to the dining room. 

Maurice was eternally grateful to the noble family of Downton Abbey for allowing him a place in their household, and allowing him to ascend from lowly assistant chauffeur to footman to valet and finally to butler. It was a huge transformation for the man who spent his adolescence on the wrong side of the law, on the other side of the world. 

Maurice spent his youth as the most dangerous and reviled outlaw the Australian outback would ever know. At 9 years old he killed his first man, immediately followed by the man's entire family. There was a savagery to his attacks that set the entire country on edge. 

Maurice had been born the son of convicts. His father was a rapist and his mother had been a flim flam artist, robbing rich men blind with her looks and charm. 

They were bad parents though. They had no delusions about their abilities however, and as a baby they sold Maurice to an aboriginal tribe. The tribes shaman took the boy in, and locked him in the Cave of Dreams. Maurice spent the next 7 years in the cave, immersed in that mystical transcendent ether the natives called the Dreaming. He communed with gods and monsters before he developed a spark of humanity, and when he emerged as a child of seven years, he had no relation to his fellow man, and no concept of good or evil. He was a force for action, and the shaman quickly sent him out to destroy the white settlers, and restore the natural balance of the sand. 

Maurice recalled all of this with a cold hard look. He had set out across the desert where he was taken in by the rancher and his family. He witnessed the slaughter that occurred on the farm, and when the rancher attempted to extract payment for room and board, late at night and through bodily means, Maurice had no qualms about beginning his ten year journey of destruction and bloodshed in the name of natural order. 

That all drew to a close in the Red mountains that day long ago, when Elizabeth had sacrificed herself for him, and that black deep nightmare had left her arcane mark on his soul...

Maurice shook his head. Memories of the tramp steamer, the port at Cornwall, and his circuitous route to Downton tumbled through his mind. Everything lost shape after Elizabeth. 

Maurice was shaken out of his reverie when he felt a tug at his sleeve. He looked down with fury, ready to snap when he saw the young kitchen boy, Little Tommy Hanks, staring up at him. 

"Mister Maurice! They are ready for dessert!"

The Day After Lou Reed Died Someone Did Something Stupid While Listening to White Light White Heat

After their work, they slogged through the bog until they reached the roadway outside Downtonderry. 

The sun was rising and the air was cold and it was a nice day. The road by the bog was covered fog that was misty and crispy and fey. 

They walked down the road with the puppies in tow, being dragged in the slats of a barrel.

They made a quick stop at the medicine shop where they sold the misc. bits via haggle. 

And once they were done it was time for some rum, so they hit up the pub, Claude and Daryl. 

And they found themselves again arguing, over needless details disarming. Their lives had descended in cadence when the lost the dread dark queen's radiance in the murk and the mire's allegiance. 

...

Claude looked up from the scrawls on the paper; his whiskey and his porridge were set aside on the pub common table. He turned the paper over, and over again. Daryl had written his name in large block letters on the back, and the words "beyewtiful pomes" at the top of the page followed by "our story" beneath it. There was a lot of exposition on the page. He looked across the table where he met Daryl's eyes, staring back expectantly at him. Daryl's hands cradled his chin, elbows on the table. They were still spattered with puppy blood. 

Claude drew in a breathe. 

"Sure sure. Yeah..."

This magic lamp takes a lot of goddamn time

More Ham

The Dowager sat across from Abdul Walli Wud.  Even with the space of twelve spinning candleabras and the china with the disaproving faces it still seemed far too intimate for her.  If her father had only seen this.  Uppity bog people, science disproving angels, and now this across from this man whose name sounded as if a child was having a seizure with a mouth full of grapes.  I must make sure he doesn't mistake any of the draperies for his evening suit.  She almost laughed inside and put her napkin up to her mouth.  No that would never do she coughed a little.   She wondered if el Walli Wud was using a napkin and she wondered how one could even tell.  She almost laughed again and checked her wine glass thinking she may have had a sip too many.

Abdul's dark eyes were darting about the dinning hall.  She had seated him next to the most colonel in the service and her most flatuent distant cousin.  But even still Abdul was ripping through the carefully crafted and finely honed stuffiness.  He was aware of his alieness and was careful not to alienate but at the same time never appeared to be shrinking into one of the countesses diminutive breeding experiments.

It was at least a time when she could appreciate her age.  As she watched Abdul from across the table she saw the sly smirk of his lips and the quick dark pools of his eyes that some how despite their color transmitted a lightness that was almost ethereal.  All things have a place and when the flesh is no longer soft it must stay hard.  As the kore that hold up the parthenon.  The aged must stand firm while the young flesh squibles about and when they finally recoil in shame then they shall take the place.  And with any luck like the Kore of Greece may she one day be retired to the British Museums permanent collection.  She could see that smile of his.  The sly boy thought he could pry the world open with a look and maybe he could to most it was entirely possible the whole world has lost its head. 

"Yes my dear, once, when Gilbert was still alive, we traveled to Constantinoble.  He was research a branch of his family tree that he believied had fled after the fall of the empire. "

"Oh! yes my lady then you have been to the east."

"Yes you can tell that the Hagia Sophia must have, at one time, been a very lovely place."

"Yes outstanding a true jewel!  I was wondering if you have ever traveled abroad, I noticed you must not be aware of our peculiar habit of not eating pork.  I have noticed that every dish is largely pork based."

"Why! Abdul Walli Wud, I am ever so sorry.  I am sure I had mentioned it to Maurice, I don't know why he didn't adjust the menu.  He must've been to busy it has been the harvest time for us.  It is habit, that is just how we do things here."

"Madame don't think any more of it.  As it happens this is earlier then I am accustomed to dine and in fact I was worried I would have to feign an appetite.  But the whole reason for these dinners is for the company and for your immense hospitality I propose a toast.  You see I do not share all the asceticism of my country men, to Downtown Abbey!"

"To Downtown Abbey!"

As the glasses clinked the waitstaff brought out desert, pistachios and figs suspended in a pork lard.

Carriage Black

The Two Towers

The interior of the west tower looked more like a root cellar. Once you got inside, the eaves of the roof made the ceiling droop and hang around your shoulders. The atmosphere was hot and oppressive. A large desk sat squat under the small window. It was covered with melted candles and scraps of paper.
In the dark corners of the tower, clouded shapes undulated in the shadows. A slow breath; a Heartbeat.
The doctor's instruments were laid out on a small table to the side of the  desk. There were various steel probes and knives. A roll of gauze. Some unidentifiable remnants of gore that were missed in the routine cleaning. A large tome lay open on the floor, the pages dog eared and stained. The writing was inscrutable.
This was Dr. Eustratio Bananis' laboratory, perched high above the Downton Abbey courtyard.
A plaintive mewling groan came from the dark recesses of the shadows; the sound of chains clinking.

The second tower was located 50 miles east. In London.
The House of Lords met in Big Ben. There was a little room underneath the clock face, and  there the lord representatives sat, discussing fox hunts and steamer ships and the latest scientific research disproving the existence of angels. The House of Commons met in the Parliament building proper, but the lords preferred the secret room in the clock tower, were everyone sat around on pillowed cushions, smoking the hookah and composing haikus. When they were bored, they would venture out onto the rail underneath the clock face and act out scenes for the public, who never questioned the uncanny humanity of Big Ben's automatons.
Here Lord Kevin Pancreus sat with The Earl of Steve.
"We have a problem at the Downton Abbey, dear Earl. Lady Bathilde does not want to marry our Persian lord."

"That's no problem seat Kevin" said the earl. I never understood why the council was so fixated on bringing the easterners into the picture anyway."  The earl lazily tore the head off a fish and squeezed the body into a bowl. He rubbed the contents on his hands and face.

"The sin eaters have ... Experience with the matters in which we find ourselves involved, dear Earl. Abdul Walli Wud is a strong player to have in our corner when all of the pieces come to play."

"I disagree dear Kevin. I have the utmost faith in our dear doctor. He will come through for us, as his line always has. The uprising in the bog is standard. The gypsies have been a small annoyance since the days of Caerma'coth. I have no doubt that they will continue to be a non factor. We must keep our faith in Bananis, and trust his scions to hold up their end of the bargain. The ceremony will proceed as planned."

Lord Kevin opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He looked at the Earl.

They were interrupted by the grand doors opening and a procession of naked young ladies, with flowers in their hair, leading a dozen goats into the room on leashes of braided heather.
"Delightful!" said the Earl, before Kevin had formed a response. "Here come the goats!"

Claude and Daryl Score

"This where we came out last spring, Cecila and I after the maypole celebration I had some of the strand left from the pole the good kind you now from Joseph with the beady little eyes and the breath like dank horse vomit he's a real fuck but he knows about making the lines for the poles he makes is straps from scraps cause they let him clean the abatior the filthy fuck he does it for the scraps dries em on the line of that filthy little encampment of his down where the creek gets shallow and it either smells like deer piss or is flooding some grand muddy mess.  Anyway so I had this strap and I was holding it you know kind of behind my back well I actually had two you see and Cilla was holding the other wrapped around her wrist like holding herself up she was so drunk I said I know this is the way back to the village don't worry about a thing were going of course thats what I'm saying you know but right where veering a little I was sort of you know whatching her face and I know you know what I know, a path diverge in the woods like..."

Claude and Daryl where on the other side of the bog and Claude was getting seriously tired of Daryls shit.  He had no idea why Daryl was compelled to paint himself in this light.  This boy who bathes in a smock. 

"an then so her arms wrapped around the log and I have the other one there and her bare ass in the moon light I take the other strap and..."

Is this how people think they are to impress me?  Is there some rumor that I am the mushroom of the village thriving on ample bullshit.  Is it just to amuse.  Dear lord does he have an erection. 

"Shh Daryl I think I hear something..."

The soft rustle.  It was near now.

"You want me to?"

"Daryl, you are the best"

Daryl's face goes calm he sniffs a bit then pips a little squeeky bark.  He waits a minute then again.  Then waiting and as Claude is about to step on a response.  A pip.  Daryl does it again shuffling feet to not disturb a branch.  The pips return louder this time and then they move closer.  Daryl massaging the call and response to a frenzy until they are right over it.

"And here lad"

Claude puts a shovel in the dark earth and the earth collapses revealing the dugout and 6 tiny mewing pups.

"Ah no seven look at that one"
"I don't even know if that one will count"
"Bird in the hand my friend"
"Well quickly now"

They lift the pups and begin chopping off their tails.  Claude is done with three before the Daryl even completes one.  He never sharpens his blade.  No rocks on the bog he always says.  The short and gruesome work is done the whimpering pups back in the disturbed nest in a state of shock or death.  Claude realizes how close to dusk it is momentarily worried.  They should be fine.  They will have a good collection by the time the boar hunters come back.  They will take the tails and curl them and sell them to the hunters.  The hunters after dropping the pig carcasses off at the abattoir get paid by the tails they present the field accountant.  The unscrupulous hunters which are nearly all of them will pay for the counterfeit tails.  This is one of the ways the people across the bog have managed to cling on since their land and husbandry rights where stripped after they rose up against the Abbey three generations ago.

The mewing pups could still be heard as they walked briskly through the forest.  The blood drying on his hands the weight of the limp worms in his satchel.  The hunger in his belly the discomfort of his shoes and clothing. 

"So then Cecila.." started Claude
"Oh yeah man well she was howling like a banshee and of course at that time I'm getting a bit wicked myself so then yeah did I say I had three straps thats right I had three so anyway..."

And so it was across the bog.

They always seem longer when I am writing them on the toilet

Deep in the mire of the moor, laden with wisps of fog laced through dead trees, the cult of Ys gathered around the standing stone.
A blue green haze drifted through the crowd, buoyed by the thick English air.
A man stood atop the cairn and held court over the crowd. Cecil stood at the edge of the group, and strained on his toes to see to the center.
The man looked like a caricature of a bushman from the Strand. A Dr. Livingstonesque cartoon, a pile of leaves and hair with four naked limbs sprouting out. Two bright clear eyes exploded from the tangle, and their expression was urgent.
"Brothers! He said" he said to the crowd.
"The brotherhood of Ys must stand strong in the face of opposition and holocaust! He roared to the crowd" he roared to the crowd.
"THE CROWD ROARED BACK!"
Taking his cue, the crowd of men roared back in support.
"Brothers we are defined by our genetics and the difference in stem of a piece of science. One branch of X removed to become more, the Y. We, the sons of Ygdrassil, the world root, must remain strong! We hold the earth in our hands and it sifts through our fingers like yeast on a bakers bench. Jerks are a universe thick brothers!"
Moonlight broke through the most and outlined the speaker against the standing stone. Behind him, Ygdrassil, the world tree, climbed up to the sky, shooting beams of light into the eyes of the watchers.
"You have seen what they call progress. You know what they profess. With their automatons and their telegraphs. They cling to the tea service like it was the teat of the wolf mother of Romulus and Remus. But we say no! No to your humanity and your social mores. No to tea service and concrete! We follow the night! The nocturnal! A trio of trios, the nine breasted provider K'Mallmamoth! A wedding of the gods of the north with the goddess of the universe's deepest abyss! The man SCREAMED!" the man screamed at the rapt audience.
"THE CROWD ROARED IN REPLY, THE MAN SCREAMED!"
The crowd roared in reply.
"DOWNTON ABBEY WILL BE RENT ASUNDER AND FALL INTO DARKNESS!"

Across the moor, the Dowager Countess vomited again. This time just a little, in her mouth.

In which the Fisher King wears a new face and crumbles into the sea.

The carriage rolled to a stop in front of the monster and the dying girl.

Tall and black and full of ghosts, the window to the car was dark entropy. It breathed in and out.

The door opened and the stair mechanism descended. The witch came first, followed by the squat and decaying dowager countess, dressed in black and sagging under the weight of her giant Indian headdress, as was the style in America at the time.

The monster looked up from his painting, his hand resting above the canvas. It was a painting of nine boobies.

The countess ignored the artist and walked past, to the pile of pig carcasses stacked in the field next to the railroad car. The witch turned to address the monster.

"Foreman, is the delivery ready?"

"Yes it is ready to go."

"Where is the train? Shouldn't it be here by now? This meat shouldn't sit in the sun like this."

The monster looked up at the grey sky. The sun hadn't shined in a week. The air felt like a dead thing draped on the shoulders of a bear, emulating the appearance of a rich old lady.
"The meat will be fine" he said.

The duchess did not turn away from the meat. She stuck a finger in the pile. She pulled away a pig's ear and stuffed it in her mouth, chewing large bites. The ear began to dissolve, masticated in her little goblin teeth.

The duchess's eyes went wide. She froze.

The witch turned to her. "What is the matter mistress?" She asked.

There was no answer. The witch turned to the monster. "Where is this meat from?"

The monster pointed across the moor, to the barren swamp. The witch went cold.

Her back still turned to them, the dowager countess, the duchess of muchess, spoke, quietly, softly, but with an unearthly force:

"I said I can see through time. This is a crime story. A true tale of crime."

Her hand fell to her side.

What lies the Ys?

The Dowager Princess threw up in the car as Cecil while walking upstream encountered a dead goose in the water it was a terrible sight to see filtered through hydration patterns

Cecil sat down in the sun until his stomach settled then he walked like a giant bobble head back to the camp.



The group is men who have breed a lazy double Y chromosome <gif of Y laying down> this was out of love for efficiency  
They travel in time and have sex in exotic places

The guys talk:
When will a sociopath do the decent thing and holocost sociopaths
I think thats what they do do
When will those sociopaths do something for society
That happened
If you were a sociopath
whose every gesture had unintended miraculous consequences
would you feel bad about yourself?
I guess as long as your sociopath engine is humming
Society would be something if it wasn't for those sociopaths
Everybody smiling and happy
Orderly completion of projects
The smiling trashmen
The smiling trashpeople
Yeah happy because people put their trash in an orderly manner
Traffic  in general
Traffic without sociopaths
Thats amazing
Thats something to think about
This is good yeah
But it could never work
who would perform all the atrocities on the socioopaths
Maybe a poison
Or a pill
Sometthing you know that a normal non sociopath could tolerate doing before wiping out the entire population of sociopathic individuals
For better traffic
The traffic is ghastly
We travel through time
We might be immortals
Stop talking about it
Its off topic
Just get a suicidal sociopath and have program a machine to kill sociopaths
Give the sociopaths medicine for sociopathy but gives them cancer                                     ...?
Then you would have a bunch of sociopaths with nothing to live for
Isn't that what we want want them to live for
or as it does
Might not want to have the sociopaths program the robots
Jerks are a universe thick

Grace fights the terror and retreats outward to the canopy of silence

The monster, looking down at his cracked and dried hands, crusted with pigment and pig shit, imagined. He breathed deeply, and as the air filled his lungs it buoyed his vision as he rolled his head back.
Straight ahead he saw the mists on the moor, rolling in like a lunar tidal wave trapped in time. He saw men and horses and demon dogs leaping, in mid stride across the grassy field from the sullen bogs in the distance.
His head lolled up, ignoring the girl in his periphery, and his eyes scanned the heavens.
A miasma of white milky stars exploded in his field of vision. They moved with the same urgency of the specters on the moor, a difference in degree but not in kind.
The monster blinked and the bells of Downton Abbey rang out across the field.
It was two o'clock and the black carriage had arrived.

The watchers from the cloistered parapet of privilege

The dowager countess exhaled a noise like gas releasing into an autumn morning from deep beneath a primordial swamp; covering a millennia worth of sunlight and life. She pulled the curtain shut on her carriage with a snap of her wrist and settled into the carriage seat, resting like a toad.

"I abhor the future" she said. "Every day I awaken to the morning and I feel the degree to which my body has wound down over night.  Then, after I reconcile my mind to my corporeal fate, I must face the day and THIS nonsense."  She waved a hand, indicating the field through which the carriage trundled. On the horizon there were mounds of tents, around which which naked "aristocrats" were clustered. Closer to the road a man was scratching something into a yew tree, but darted under cover as the carriage came into view.

"It's disgusting Vosanya. It's reprehensible.  I do not even know  the nature of the things I see. Sometimes I see  men, sometimes they seem ants. No doubt they think themselves gods.  When I was a child, I went to balls. I attended court. There was a regality to our lives. Now look at me. Reduced to a token appearance at that damnable stone athletic abomination to rubber stamp a shipment.  It is a tragedy."

Vosanya, the Russian witch looked across at the dowager countess serenely.

"Time will roll through our lives, intersecting an punctuating, enunciating and shining a light on our own decisions and automations. To age is to grow is to be elucidated my lady."
The witch slid down into her seat, against the window.  Languid and lithe, with eyes like a cat, she brushed the curtain aside with the back of her hand.

"Those ones outside in the mud are merely seeking a thing which they do not know. They spend their lives waiting and waiting. They wait for you my lady. They wait for age of light. The future is not to be feared or met with disdain my countess. It is to be controlled and to be embraced" purred the witch.

The countess turned her head to look squarely at the ageless Russian, who had come to her family from the icy steppes so long ago. The countess remembered her arrival when the countess herself was but a girl, yet Vosanya appeared not to have aged a day.

"It is a simple thing to say 'Do not fight the future' when there is no cost to the passage of time, Vosanya. When your own existence takes no toll on your experience, what comes next must be a small thing indeed." The countess hissed the gas sound again as she spoke.   "I do not know, and I do not ask what drives your aid to my family, but I put my trust in you to see us through these troubled times."

The witch smiled and purred "All will be well, lady."
She glanced out the window. "We have arrived. Your niece and the monster are there, waiting with the pigs and their painting."

The Passing Black Carriage

                Ive often cried

     inside

                            the warm mule barrel

of a

           tin drum

Cecil was begining to carve it into the tree it had taken a bit to find a good rock for a chisel and then attending to the bark scraping his fingernails to produce an opening of nakedness on the massive tree.
-What kind of tree is this?  I wish I knew the names of more trees.
-thought Cecil

He forgot what the whole phrase was went to write mule drum started stopped when it felt empty started on a too big D laughed as it wouldn't fit the scrapped off tree.  The D was pretty cool it was all but one or two places that a consistent lightning bolt effect was around the letter it was well he couldn't remember what it was he intended to write, it wouldve taken forever to write out the thing any way.  He quickly chipped out a tiny om under the D and then smeared the tree with some left over syrup from breakfast.

Cecil reasoned this would help the tree heal.  He still had no idea what the plant was called.

He walked out into a clearing to wash his hands in the stream. 
The grass was green the sun was warm the stream twinkling just as bucolic as a the decoded dreams of bleats dissolving in a damp sun.

The carriage passed the lady dowager looked out and saw the naked man she must have seen him, at least that was what Cecil imagined surely she mustve noticed the growing camps of naked homosexual aristocrats assembling on her yard.  Or was it that she really could not see all these men.  And if she couldn't see them, would that work out to their advantage
or hers?

Interlude from the Godhead

By his logic, we are probably ALREADY in a digital reality, having apotheosized an infinity ago, and having created an endless cycle of virtual existence, beating like the now primordial memory of a human heart. Early on in this infinity it was discovered that infinite possibility makes man insane, so existence is cut into life sized chunks, replicating another faint memory of nature. 

Once more death makes redundant the mastery of their lives in its ultimate endgame

Days passed as monster sat there, amidst the pig carcasses rotting away, looking at young vivienne. The sun raced through the sky overhead and cracks appeared in her milky complexion, around her eyes and around her lips, as she stared back at him expectantly. Her skin began to moulder and slough off as age and time wrecked havoc upon her countenance. Her body shrank inside her dress as the meat shriveled and dried on her bones. Dust blew through the sleeves of her dress and her hair disappeared in the wind. Her neck broke and her skull cracked on the hard pavement. The dress collapsed and blew away, like a ghost. Bart monster looked away, towards the sunset and breathed deeply. He looked down at his unfinished painting. 

"Barty?" Vivienne asked. "Barty what ever is the matter?"

He calmly looked up, shaken from his reverie, and found himself staring into the reformed deep blue eyes of Vivienne once again. The world had turned back

The merry path to the place where time becomes abstract and the flies consume the pigs.

As she walked down the gravel path to the shore of the basketball court, the bulkhead of the omnibus loomed over head, in the sky, peering through the clouds. It looked like a black smiling god, head in hands, amused by the mechanic intricacy of the lives below. 

She hiked up her skirt to step over the radiation markers and she walked toward Bart monster who was sitting at the far end of the court. 

The copper smell of death hung in the air, and the silence had an oppressive humidity. Bart monster was playing a game on his view screen while he waited for the butcher crew to pick up the weekly pig shipment. 

"Isn't it beautiful? Everything is coming together now. Interlocking in a fractal. Perspectives pieced together like a bugs eye. The multitude of it moves my heart."

He looked up at her, not knowing what to say. 

Lord Clarence Blunderbuss was a hard man who, due to his parents’ inflexible nature, filled the lake with cement and allocated 20% of the manor budget to eliminating the geese who lived around the edge of the shore.

Downton Abbey was built in 984 by Clovis Blunderbuss, the barbarian king who pacified the region of Sureshirecire by chopping off heads and hanging things from spikes.  Clovis’ third wife decided that her husband should get good with the Lord, and build a nice and godly summer home on the shore of Blood Lake.  Downton Abbey was constructed in just under 77 years, and although that was a good pace, Clovis never saw the manor in it’s wonder and glory, having been chopped into pieces by Viking raiders and fed to chickens. 

The Abbey anchored the quaint English town of Little Englandtown for 1000 years.  900 years in however, the geese at Loch Bloomers ruined the annual Summer Solstice Festival and Lord Clarence destroyed the lake to save face for his wife Jemima.  It’s a complicated story involving a May pole, a thunderstorm,  a baker’s dozen of lady fingers, and a standard dozen of lady’s underpants, but the resulting spectacle involved a flock of geese dressed in lace and defecating into the Solstice Feast.  Also, Jemima became barren as a result, and the proud blunderbuss line was eliminated.

In the 100 years since, the concrete lake became home to England’s first basketball court.  It is also a favorite spot of local artists to paint still life, and capture the majestic image of the courts standing tall, outlined in shadow against the setting English sun, much like that scene in Joe vs. The Volcano.  Here he find Sir Barty Monster painting, and Vivienne St. Loopy who has undertaken a constitutional along the shores of the basketball court and encountered young Mister Monster.