September 23, 2016
The love of
My life
Left me for a
Serial killer
He says she
Challanges him
He says she
Loves her job
Now he wants
To carve out
My heart for
A wedding ring
When he said
Baby, I want to
Tug on your
Heartstrings
This was not
What I had
In mind
At all
September 16, 2016
“Sverdlovsk-83,” said Yuri. Even with headphones it was difficult to hear him over the roar of the Crocodile’s rotors. “Down there.”
Jen looked out the window. The snow was blinding at first, even with the goggles she’d been issued, but once her pupils painfully jerked smaller she could see a number of structures casting stark shadows against the snow. “How far are we from the actual Sverdlovsk?”
“We call it Ykatrianburg now. Hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away!”
“Why did they call it Sverdlovsk-83 then?” Jen said, shouting a little to be heard. “They didn’t really brief us very well,” she added.
“Of course not, why brief you when we have a nice long quiet helicopter ride?” laughed Yuri. “It was a closed city used for research. Aerospace and the space program mostly. They chose the name to throw people off the scent. But if you knew someone who worked there, they’d get their mail through post office box 83 in Sverdlovsk. Hence it has a name like an isotope!”
The Crocodile banked, and Jen felt her stomach protest roundly. “Does he have to do that?” she cried.
“Looking for a lading spot!” Yuri answered. “There should be an old helicopter pad, but it’s covered with snow!”
Jen pointed out the window. “There,” she said. “Right there. That’s the building from the schamatics I saw.” A large satellite dish loomed over the complex, pointed skyward. “That’s the RB-1 Reciever?”
“Correct,” Yuri said. “The centerpiece of Secretary Brezhnev’s plans for space, and the only one we ever built.”
“The original purpose of the RB-1 was communications with astronauts on the moon,” said Jen. “We ultimately didn’t need them for that, so they were never built. What was this one being used for?”
The Crocodile banked hard again. “You’re going to laugh at this,” said Yuri. “But it was intended to recieve transmissions from Soviet space colonies on Mars. He was an ambitious fellow, our Secretary Brezhnev. Loved medals. Never did anything small.”
“So what’s the problem?” Jen said. “The dish clealy isn’t calibrated properly anymore, and couldn’t be without major repairs.”
“The problem,” said Yuri, “is that last week, our RB-1 recieved a signal.”
Inspired by this.
September 12, 2016
Secret Cat!
More secret than other cats! (which is an achievement)
Secret Cat!
He lives in the shadows! (other cats merely rent in the shadows)
Secret Cat!
An assassin for hire! (if you can afford his fee)
Secret Cat!
You can’t prove he exists (better men than you have tried)
Secret Cat!
He holds back the darkness of the universe! (behold it not for it bring madness)
Secret Cat!
He opposes Public Domain Dog at every turn! (intellectual property is a cornerstone of society)
Secret Cat!
Learn about his adventures once a week (but don’t tell anybody)
Secret Cat!
If you see him on the street, keep walking! (he is not your friend)
Secret Cat!
He holds the reins of the very globe! (don’t test him on this)
Secret Cat!
You may pet his back, but not his belly! (never his belly)
Secret Cat!
Too many secrets! (too many secrets)
too many secrets
too many secrets
too many secrets
too many secrets
September 4, 2016
It sits there, 25 feet above the ground.
The Elder Shroom.
It has been there since the earth cooled. The tree on which it seems to rest grew into it.
To see it is to behold the universe from the outside. To touch it is to feel the tingle of the pin on which the world turns. To taste it is to die, but also to transcrend.
September 3, 2016
Across
01. Where you buried the body.
02. “__________, your son’s real father.”
03. An unknowable field sown with rusty blades.
04. Notable Canadian war criminal.
05. “__________, rhymes with month.”
06. The last speaker of Yanguia, a tongue never heard by the West.
07. The 666th unspeakable name of the Emperor of the Night.
08. Carcosa, a city in __________.
09. Stately Virigina home larger on the inside.
10. Second president of the Confederate States of America.
Down
11. The sound of a scream in a vacuum.
12. Her last words to you.
13. The 168,334th digit of pi.
14. Experimental wingless airliner.
15. The true mortal author of Revelations.
16. He is coming.
17. __________, the beast we all fear to name.
18. One syllable that leads to madness.
19. The sigil of the gibbering moon.
20. “__________, my home on Jupiter’s surface.”
August 27, 2016
I held onto the stone lever, feeling the deepwoods moss gently caress my palm.
“There’s a lever in the woods/the old folks say/and when you pull it/things fly away.” I whispered the old schoolyard rhyme through lips thick with the sweat of a summer that had reached even the normally cool forests outside town.
Horatio had stayed where I’d put him, mewling quietly. That wouldn’t do; I’d chosen him because he was the most rambunctious of Clover’s litter. After a few moments I tossed his favorite toy out with my spare hand. A little ball that jingled and was full of catnip, it landed squarely in the middle of the great stone trapdoor that the lever activated.
The soft little kitten immediately bounded over to it, and at the first jingle I pulled the lever.
As it had the first time I’d tried it, the sound of impossibly ancient subterranean gears ground out a doleful bass melody beneath my feet. A second later, the trapdoor opened. Horatio yowled as he plunged into the inky blackness. A moment later, he reappeared, speeding up and out at a rocket’s pace, launched in the air as if from a catapult.
That sequence of events should have ended with Horatio as an adorable damp spot on the old glacier cliffs. Instead, he glided gently back down next to me on a pair of small wings that matched the motley pattern of his fur. Seemingly instinctively, ths kit folded his new appendaged up and took to licking himself delicately.
“That’s it, then,” I said. “It’s time.” I stepped onto the trapdoor, once again closed by now. I looped a piece of sturdy rope over the lever, and took a deep breath.
August 11, 2016
The message appeared at 11:49:17 AM on Thursday, August 11, 2016. It was writ across every computer screen, every television set, every bank teller, every cell phone. People with headphones in heard it in an unrecognizable voice. Printers, from reciepts to inkjets, also conveyed the message. In short, unless you were asleep in Deerton, you heard the message.
It was this: “I’VE CHANGED.”
July 28, 2016
“Another one,” said Helena. She leaned over to extinguish her cigarette in an ashtray shaped like a pig. She’d brought it from home; smoking wasn’t technically allowed in the Violet Hill City Council chambers, but as the mayor she considered it to be the least of her concerns.
“Yeah,” said Chief Strong of the VHPD. “We found her in her bathroom. Marble, this time, not granite like the Smithson lady.” He cleared his throat. “We think. It’s not like we had a minerologist chipping at them.”
“We’ll hold her at Memory Fields along with the rest of them, for now.” Annette, city council member #4, was owner and operator of Violet Hill’s most robust growth industry: the local tombstone maker. They’d been concealing the victims in her back lot for three weeks.
“That brings us to, what, 17?” said Helena, lighting a new Marlboro with the smouldering stub of the old one.
“18,” said Strong. “You’re forgetting the Kettering girl.”
“Right,” said Helena. “Anette. How much longer can we keep this under wraps without creating a panic?”
“I’m not know for statuary, Helena. People are starting to ask questions. I’ve already turned down three offers to buy one of them.”
“We haven’t had any missing persons reports aside from the two already on the books,” said Strong. “But we’ve been lucky. This one might be too much.”
“Dammit, that’s not good enough!” cried Helena. “Women in my town are turning to stone, and I can’t have this town dissolving in a panic!”
“The only connecting thread we’ve found is the anti-aging skin cream found in the abodes of the various victims,” Strong said. “But there’s no trace of the actual products anywhere to be seen. And they’re not even the same products.”
July 18, 2016
The name for this item comes from the Rome Codex, a compilation of artifacts offered for sale in 1799 to pay for war debts. The name has stuck despite its inaccuracy–as a metal shield made in Pisa it is neither Florentine nor an escutcheon (which is strictly reserved for heraldry).
From an engraving prepared by one of his students in 1410, it appears that the Florentine Escutcheon was fashioned by master craftsman Gaetano Vitelli (fl. 1367-1409) of Pisa. Records indicate that he presented it to Giancarlo Peruzzi, the Florentine Gonfaloniere of Justice, in 1409. Peruzzi was one of the most powerful men in the Republic of Florence, and had been a key architect of Pisa’s conquest at their hands.
The 1410 engraving shows that the Florentine Escutcheon has a smooth surface. A 1420 painting shows it with five figures embossed in the metal, mounted on a wall behind its then-owner, the Podestà of Florence Luigi Ranieri (another high-ranking Florentine official). By 1430, when the item was sketched by Guido Nobili of the University of Pisa, it had a total of eight figures.
It is worth noting that, in the period 1409-1430, the Florentine Escutcheon appears to have had exactly eight owners aside fom Vitelli himself.
July 11, 2016
After the breakup of the Aachen Case in the mid-18th century, the last blade of the set was the only one to travel east to the German states rather than west to France. It was purchased by the Graf von Ansberg, a noted collector of fine steel and weapons, and added to his magnificent collection in 1785. Six months later, the Graf, the Gräfin, their seven children, and all the members of their household staff were dead, having fallen victim to a particularly virulent form of scarlet fever that had swept through the household.
To cover outstandind debts, the collection was purchased by Rudolf Freihold of Stuttgart. Freihold, who lived in Berlin and left his business to subordinates, soon grew frustrated with his inability to sell the blade. The Prince of Lüneswick purchased the dagger in 1786; it was returned to Freihold’s shop at the former’s death from smallpox 18 months later. The next sale, to the Archbishop of Tainz, was cut short by the Plague of Tainz. That outbreak of typhus caused the deaths of over 5000 people in Tainz, including the archbishop. The dagger was once again returned to Freihold.
Rudolf Freihold was a shrewd businessman, and kept trying to sell the blade even as his own staff in Stuttgart was constantly falling ill. Attempted or aborted sales from 1789 include:
-The Lord Mayor of Bad Kesel, who died of dengue in 1790.
-The Bishop of Herburg, who died of stomach cancer in 1791.
-Gräfin Elizabeth of Rhineholdt, who perished of puerperal fever in 1792.
-General Herrmann von Glaintz, whose death in 1793 cost Prussia its victory at the Battle of Dordrecht.
In 1797, frustrated at his inability to sell the dagger, which he had taken to calling der Schüttelfroster (“the Ague-causer”), Freihold donated it to the personal collection of Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg. The Duke died within the year, but the blade remained in the treasury, dutifully enumerated each time an inventory was taken. The royal inventories correspond with outbreaks of cholera in 1866 and 1881, and smallpox in 1870.
Excerpts From Nonexistent Books 