killed whilst making short

A man was killed whilst making short between two cars on the New York underground.

Dear me.

Now…stick with me, if you will, I do intend to go somewhere with this.  Many’s the time I’ve been asked, and indeed have asked myself, why I do what I do.  Why do I battle the dreadly forces of the hein?  Why place myself in such mortal peril on a nigh daily basis.  Why risk my own death so often for so little reward?

Normally I cite duty (please hold your childish jokes until I’m out of the room), but when I see such a shameful death as this, duty falls to number two (again, save your sniggers until I’m out of earshot) You see, I have a strong sense of my own mortality, and I’d rather die in battle than in such an embarrassing manner as this man.  Think of it.  This man lived.  He experienced…life.  Surely no person’s life is a total waste, surely at some point in his life, this man touched the lives of others.  All the memories, both good and bad, all the experiences, both good and bad, all the…forgive me for returning to the word…life…all the life snuffed out of him…whilst defecating in public.  Yes, it is funny, but it is also rather sad.

And so, by doing battle with the evil nasties of this and other worlds, my death will most likely not be cause of ridicule, but of respect and perhaps celebration.

I say most likely, of course.  It’s still possible I’ll die bunglingly.  I wouldn’t be the first man or woman of adventure to die so.

There was Madam Collette Fachaud, who drunkenly passed out slumped on a chaise lounge, where she smothered herself in her own grandiose bosom.

There was Sir Christopher Fairbaron, who took a bet that he could eat 500 leprechaun testicles in one sitting without dying.  How so many leprechaun testicles were collected is still a mystery, but suffice it to say that Sir Christopher lost the bet.

There was Mr. Allister Packard, who died whilst making a plaster casting of his engorged member for his lady love.  In order to remain engorged long enough for the plaster to dry, he performed the Nopatik ritual of the blood spire.  It takes a fair amount of dexterity, and normally Allister would be more than capable of performing it safely.  That day, however, must have been an off day.  He was found, dead of course, his head in a dried pail of plaster of Paris.  To his credit, he was still erect.  As far as I know, the woman the casting was intended for still has it upon her mantel.

These people were heroic.  In their own lives, they saved countless others.  And yet now, the best that can be said for them is that at least they did not die whilst making short between cars on the New York underground.

ms. megan fox

I know, I know.  You perhaps supposed it beneath me to comment on the cultural maladies of this modern age.  But alas this modern age seems to be almost entirely about cultural maladies- recognizing them, ridiculing them, thoroughly enjoying them and yet learning nothing from them.  For good or ill, it is the age of schadenfreude. And as I still take up residence in this world, I am not such a fool to think I am immune to it.  My fight is against evil, not insouciance.  That is a fight I would lose.

And so, I find my head turning toward one Megan Fox, an American woman who is in the profession of being beautiful.  Mine is not the first head she’s turned and nor is it the first time she has turned it.  While I can certainly admire her radiant face and pleasing form, her thumbs are what first caught my ken, which made me think she was perhaps goblinbreed, and that I would need to do battle against her.  The fact that I’ve allowed her to live and to procreate should indicate the lack of goblin blood in her veins.  Believe me, I was thorough in my investigation.

But what caught me up this time was this muddled bungthuggery.

Take note of how Ms. Fox hides her thumbs. It’s almost as if she knew I’d see this photo.

In an article with Esquire magazine (a magazine that if it lived up to its name would have featured me by now), Ms. Fox claims to speak in tongues.  Now, there are any number of nefarious things that could cause a person to speak gibberish.  And yes, it’s true that when someone like Ms. Fox claims to believe in the Loch Ness monster, it’s hardly a surprise that she speaks gibberish.  (Goblins yes, Nessy, no.)  But at this time, I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.  Not that I believe she is receiving the Holy Spirit, of course.  That would be ridiculous.  No, the power that compels her is a generally positive one:  Community.  One must never, ever underestimate the power of a large group of people doing and believing the same thing.  Of course, community can also be used to evil effect.  Therefore, in case I need to do battle against her after all, I shall keep my eye on Ms. Fox.

I doubt my eye will object.

a belated holiday toast

Mr. Sterling Silva is alive and ready to do battle against the dreadly forces of the hein!

That is my battle cry to start off this new year.

In response to the many cards and messages of concern over my recently demolished heart- I’m sorry for my lack of acknowledgement to your well-wishes.  Rest easy knowing that I am fine.  Or I shall be.  It’s never palatable accepting that the recipient of one’s love will not respond in kind.  Recipients should reciprocate, it seems, based solely on the similarity of the two words.  And in most matters, it is considered polite to do so.  In matters of love and affection, however, such etiquette is impossible.  It is the one time it is acceptable to return an empty dish, though the disappointment it invokes is an order of magnitude worse than an unreplenished plate of biscuits.

The holidays were a troublesome time, of course.  It is their very nature to be so, and the fact that we muscle our way through them is, in itself, a gift we give to ourselves and to the world.  I’d meant at least to offer my customary new year’s toast.  I offered one last year, as you may remember, and it was fairly well received.  I feel a new toast is owed both to you, and to myself.

Here it is.  Raise a glass, if you will.

When your wanderlust enthralls you, and you feel the need to roam, may your travels make you weary, and once weary, take you home.

the bottle

Yes, I know.  It’s been a good length of time since I’ve corresponded.  The blame for this most recent disappearance falls upon one thing:  the bottle.  I’ve crawled to the bottom of it and I’m still loathe to come out.  Had I the sobriety to mumble the malmellifluous incantation, I’d shrink myself to the size of a toe nail and crawl to the bottom, literally.  As it is, I can’t even say “malmellifluous.”  Nor am I sure “malmellifluous” is a proper word, not that that’s ever stopped me.  So though I feel smaller than the tip of a pygmy’s cob, I must content myself with crawling to the bottom of a bottle only in the figurative sense.  And I am content.  In that sense, anyway.  Not so, in others.

Dear me, I just found a note of some foreign currency I do not recognize in the lining of my vomit-stained waistcoat.  What have I been up to?  Perhaps…no…perhaps…yes…no.  No.  Perhaps.

What was I on about?

Ah.  Yes.

The point is, drear friends, that I’ve been drinking myself silly these past several weeks, which begs the question, “Why?”

Because of Rose.

I’ve been rejected, you see.  Either she wishes not the pleasure of my company or she finds not my company pleasurable.  A woman does not owe a man an explanation for her refusal, but…all gods be damned, I want one.  I remember well the advice I gave young Welles Dunston, and I am doing my best to follow it myself, but heartbreak is just that:  a broken heart.  To expect it to operate properly is asking too much.

It makes no sense!  She has nothing at all in this world.  Nothing.  No thing.  Not even a soul she could call friend.  I could rescue her from her dreary state.  I could save her from all manner of threat, worldy and non.  And yet when given the chance for rescue, even though she feels not the same for me as I do for her, she politely, but firmly, spurns it.  It makes no sense!

It’s almost as if she does not need saving at all!

…

Oh ho!  Yes, I see!  Oh, she’s good.  She’s very, very good.

courtship

Tell me, dear friends, what does one get for the woman who has absolutely nothing?  I’ve been rattling my gourd trying to think of a proper token of affection to give to my dear Rose.

At first I thought I’d give her the tower shield of Sir Pelk the Demiser.  It would protect her from elements and elementals alike.  But it is a cumbersome thing to tote and she has no squire.

Then I thought, perhaps a squire.  But so few young men are willing to enter in to such servitude these days.

Then I thought, perhaps another day.  Actually give her an extra day to live.  The evocation is simple enough.  But then I realized that the last thing the liver of a life of misery wants, is one more day of it.

Then I thought, perhaps I’ll giver her it.  But that was far too vague.

After that, for some reason, I couldn’t think of anything specific.

And so I ask you, gentle readers, to help me.  Were you Rose, what would you desire from a suitor?  Anything at all.

this, my friends, is rose

This is the beautiful woman I’ve been hinting at.  Behold her.

Her hair looks as though someone shat their bloody flux into a birds nest and tossed it out the window- landing, a tangled, disgusting mess, upon her pale frame- a large chunk of rancid tallow discarded by even the meanest of renderers.

Her eyes are near-rotted mushrooms with the stems wilted off, and their near-vacant stares look only back to past horrors and forward to her death.

Her lips, though full, are full of what can only be secrets and pus.  And if she ever dared speak, both would surely come pouring down her disappointed bosom.

And when she walks…oh when she walks, my friends.  Every move she makes makes it clear that she was much better off where she was.

This is my love.  My Rose Pillard.  We met at Cornerstone bridge.  Wish me luck in my conquest.

 

at the theater

This Rose woman has me out of sorts.  It takes a special effort just to keep from dribbling my food and drink all down the front of me.  Hmm…I’d be a fool not to suspect witchcraft.  Sad that in my line of work one cannot just give one’s heart the benefit of the doubt.

To get my mind off her beauty, which I promise to fully describe at a later date, I offered my patronage to the local theatrical society.  They presented the results of their annual short-form play contest.  When I could pay attention, my attention was well deserved.  Though amateurs, the actors and crew performed admirably.  The last play of the evening, however, raised my hackles.  The premise was a young newspaper reporter interviewing the head of a zombie rights advocacy group, herself undead.  They presented her as articulate, elegant, smart, and caring.  In a word, human.  I was appalled.  The undead are many things, but by no means are they human.  The sympathetic depiction of the undead- even in a comedic fashion, is not something I can get behind.  It’s rather insensitive, I think.  Was no mind paid to those who have fallen to zombie hordes?  The legion of soldiers who’ve lost their lives keeping the plague at bay?  Their comrades who have had to dispose of those soldiers again once the corpses reanimated?

Perhaps I’m overly sensitive on this issue.  With my own battles against the undead, you can see how I would be.  I left before the play finished, disgusted by the laughter of my fellow audience members.  I attempted to right the wrong with a visit to the nearest graveyard, where I dispatched the few undead that managed to crawl to the surface.  This, more than my visit to the theater, put Rose from my mind.

But now she’s back and more and more it seems that on my mind is exactly where she belongs, if not in my heart.  I’m sorry I’ve not described her fully.  If I did you might better know what I’m going through right now.  Perhaps I lack the courage to do so.  Perhaps doing so will make her more real and therefore put my heart in greater danger.  And it is in danger, friends.  Grave danger.