July 10, 2016

From “The Merkurs Dagger” by Anonymous

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Acquired in 1788 from an unknown dealer by Jean Rennes, 2nd Marquis du Fourquevaux, this dagger passed from his ownership after only a few years. The Marquis was primarily a tenant farmer, relying on crops from Forquevaux to cover his extravagant spending. However, the harvest of 1788 was a spectacular failure, contributing to the general famine in France at the time and utterly ruining the Marquis. He sold off all his property and holdings at auction, a process interrupted by his death in 1791 during the Reign of Terror.

Purchased by a General in the National Guard, Auguste Des Jardins of Lyon, the dagger appears in his official 1811 portrait after the campaigns in Germany and Poland. Official dispatches indicate that General Des Jardins had a reputation as a whiner, constantly complaining that the areas in which he operated did not have sufficient forage and that his men were constantly shortchanged in the supply chain. This was apparently borne out when the general and most of his command starved to death near Minsk in 1812.

The dagger was lost for some time after that, with rumored owners in Ireland and India. It appears next in a catalogue of items seized from a Jewish importer in Amsterdam by Nazi officials in 1943. A local SS official used it as a ceremonial dirk for a time before giving it to his mistress, who died in the Hongerwinter of 1944-1945. It was recovered by American troops in 1945 at the salt mine at Merkurs, and recognized by one of the MFAA members as belonging to the Aachen set.

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July 7, 2016

From “The Richat Dagger” by Anonymous

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The blade is named after its earliest known owner, Henri Delacroix, 5th Duc du Richat. Records seized in 1789 and now part of the Archives Nationales indicate that the Duc purchased the blade at auction for 12 écu d’argent. The auction, which dispersed the worldly goods of a metalworker who had vanished and was presumed to be dead, furnished a number of other impressive antiquities at surprisingly reasonable prices.

The Duc was taken enough with the dagger that he wore it on his person, ostensibly for self-defense. Its prominence in the Duc’s 1787 portrait in the Louvre indicates that he enjoyed flouting it, though the painting does notably show a much different handle than the later extant photographs. When the Duc disappeared in 1788, failing to appear in his chambers and presumed to have drowned during a late-night walk, the dagger passed into his estate’s general collection.

After being looted the following year, the dagger did not reappear in the official record until 1863, when it was listed in a catalog of antiquities for sale by Hans Colbert, a dealer in Aachen. His catalog photograph of the Richat Dagger is the only know represenation from life, as both Colbert and his house photographer, Jean-Baptiste Girodoux, vanished before the dagger could be sold.

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June 28, 2016

From “A Statistical Analysis of M&M Colors” by Phobos Murrie

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The frequency of colors in factory-fresh M&Ms is as follows!

20% Blue

Blue is the most recent addition to the stable, having been added after a vote in 1995 in which it crushed pink and purple by double digits. It took the place of tan, whose essence it ingested.

20% Orange

Added in 1976 to replace red, orange is the newest color that did not require the permanent death of another to give it life. Its composition was changed in 1981 after the species of taro root used to color it went extinct.

15% Green

Green has been with M&Ms since the beginning, but is currently the least popular color. Powerful forces within the company have already begun to agitate for its replacement with a “young, hip” color like mustard or marsala.

14% Brown

Staid, boring brown is the same on the outside as it is on the inside. Can you say the same of yourself? Can anyone? Brown has managed to endure despite being thought a fool and a pushover, and those who question its relevence are seldom seen again.

14% Yellow

All M&Ms have the same flavor, but some have described yellow as “lemon flavored” like a Skittle. This is grave misinformation, and an unforgivable slight. Do not wonder when those who speak such lies are found with every orifice choked by hard yellow candies; instead, vow to let their mistake be your education.

13% Red

A scare over the dyes used to create red M&Ms led to their removal from bags nationwide for a time, from 1976 to 1987, but now they’re back. Only those closest to the candy recognize that something is subtly different, subtly hollow, and that the candy they lost and got back again may in fact truly be dead.

3% Violet

Violet was an original color introduced in 1941. Officially discontinued in 1954, purple remains and can be found by those that know where to look. Violet’s ambitions to return thrwarted in 1995, purple nevertheless will continue to be made even though the machine has been turned off and padlocked. Violet will not be denied.

2% Pink

There are those who say pink M&Ms never existed. There are those why say you never existed. People who have never seen one have dreamed of pink M&Ms; who who has never seen you, never met you, has done the same?

1% Grey

Supposedly a production error, these colorless candies are prized delicacies. For many years, it was possible to bring one to the great monestary of Hazin Gudo to recieve enlightment, but the quote has been filled. One day, grey M&Ms will shake the universe to its foundations.

.01% Indigo

The color of the earth before time was time, the color of the skies before they were differentiated from the earth. .01% of everything that exists is indigo, and M&Ms are no exception.

.001% White

It is blinding. A truth you cannot comprehend. Is it a white M&M, or is it a color you can’t concieve because you lack the eyes for it? Yes. Yes.

.0001% Black

A singularity. It devours light, devours hope. The end, our end, wrapped in a candy shell. The few who have seen, the even fewer who have eaten…they are the only ones who come close to understanding. To eat the black M&M is to eat the universe in which you are contained, to tumble headfirst into neverending quantum night. Death before this. Death and chocolate.

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June 15, 2016

From “Thin, Thin Mr. Hezadura” by Nina Rosin Abram

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“Excuse me,” said Mr. Hezurdura. “I was wondering if you have anything smaller than a 28 waist with a men’s inseam of 36 or 38. I just can’t seem to find anything that’ll fit this bony waist.”

“Aaah!” shrieked Miranda the sales lady. “A skeleton!”

“Of course, madam,” said Hezurdura. “Didn’t I just say it was a bony waist?”

Miranda the sales girl, and her entire floor staff, fled before he could finish.

“Honestly, what’s a skeleton got to do to find a good pair of trousers in this town?” he said. Tossing away the size 28s that he was carrying, he added: “What a bony waste.”

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June 13, 2016

From “X-Sweep Paranormal Cleanups” by Anonymous

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I was ready for the blood. It’s the first thing that you numb over like a scabbed wound. By the third or fourth time, the blood had no more horrors for me, though I’ll admit the first time left me gagging in a bathroom.

It’s not the uncertainty either. That’s what does it for a lot of the guys on my crew, since half the hazards we face are invisible and undetectable. You might as well stress over being hit by a meteor or clobbered by a city bus in your blind spot, the way I see it.

It’s the silence.

Whether it’s ectoplasm left over from a haunting, the rind left from an alien ectoparasite pupating, or even the crispy bits left over from exposing something cthonic to daylight, it’s wreathed in silence. Things that make sound, hell, even the sounds themselves, they stay away for days. Weeks sometimes.

Often as not, that’s how long cleanup takes. It’s a long time for the only sound to be in your headphones.

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June 11, 2016

From “The Dreamer Sleeps” by Emelda Presser

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The bargain they reached was thus:

The Dreamer had committed sins of untold ugliness and depravity, sins that could not be atoned for because the Dreamer could not regret them. Infernus was the only possibility should the Dreamer die.

It was offered this escape: an eternal dream of light and beauty, populated by beings that were the echoes of the souls the Dreamer had destroyed in one way or another and were thus bound to it. In this place, the Dreamer would be all of them and none of them, with none of its sins and none of its vices. Its body, wasted and twisted but immortal, would be but a vessel.

Naturally, there was another side to the bargain, as there often is. In exchange for this private heaven apart from the blistering embrace of Infernus, the Dreamer agreed that if ever its physica body were destroyed, or if ever it were awakened from within the dream, it would immediately die and go to its just reward. The deal was sealed, and the Dreamer secreted itself in a well-guarded, obscure place of hiding.

And the dream-specters inhabiting its visions? Why, that is us. All of us.

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June 7, 2016

From “The Dirge’s Finery” by Ferris Gidney

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In time, the Dirge became aware of the need to present itself in a favorable light when dealing with outsiders.

It therefore acquired a magnificent embroidered robe, spun from the finest burial shrouds and grave goods.Gold and silver from raided tombs provided the materials to craft a pair of glittering metal gauntlets and greaves.

Finally, it created a mask to conceal its hideous “head” from the world. Adapted from the death mask of an emperor long since dust, it was fine-featured and porcelain, with sunken eyes and a neutral, regal expression. Naturally, the Dirge spoke from the various mouths scattered about its form, making the mouth purely decorative in that respect, but the mask did reduce its field of vision to two eyes.

When the Dirge was seen in its finery, that meant that it was relatively safe to approach, at least from a position of strength. Plenty died and had their corpses absorbed into its writhing flesh despite this, but only those who had at least somewhat earned that ire.

But woe to those who saw the towering form of bubbling and running necrotic flesh unveiled. For that was when the Dirge hunted, and that was when a hundred dead eyes looked out in all directions from every crevasse of its body.

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June 6, 2016

From “The Symbol on the Barn” by Lyman Robbs

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They said it was tradition.

He said it was superstition.

Neighbors watched, sullen and withdrawn, as the Stokes boy painted over the curved symbol on his family’s barn, one that had been there since it had been raised.

His father had carefully repainted it every year, but the Stokes boy was fresh from ag school and knew better.

Two weeks later they found him dead in the paddock. Someting had trampled him to death. The coroner’s report said horses or cows, but the neighbors knew what was a hoof print and what wasn’t.

The day after the wake, the youngest Stokes was up on a ladder, painting the symbol from memory.

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June 5, 2016

From “The Bubblegum Resource Wars” by Norris Suncress

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At least his dad doesn’t get to hear it, he became deaf after a rainbowmine exploded near his trench during the second and a half world war! LEST WE FORGET.

Those were dark days. Many gumdrop unicorns came back maimed and hornless from rainbombs. Luckily, he survived, but at what cost. AT WHAT COST?

Why do we keep up with this mayhem?

The war is still going on, in those countries that nobody dares to pronounce. Like MOLISE. But we don’t care, we turn a blind eye. All for our own egotistical profit. Who cares if we’re not going to see rainbows crossng our clear blue skies anymore? All they care about is their black gold: the licorice mines.

You can see a thousand of documentaries on the black market behind those precious goods. Some say its worth sky-rocketed after the first and a half war exploded, creating an ever growing popular demand due to the relevancy of the news. But why do we keep mining it? The government lies, but what can that business of baboons hide from us? Especially when it pollutes our environment so?

We do know the reason: if we don’t, somebody else will, and we can’t let that happen.

Sustainable red licorice has been available for decades, and it doesn’t taste like butt either. Yet, no research progress has been made it that field. NOT EVEN A LITTLE. It’s as if they were trying to milk everything they could from the black kind only to finally destroy our ecosystem.

They’re beasts. BEASTS I TELL YOU. AND YET WE PAY THEM. RUN OUR BUBBLECARS ON THEIR BLACK EVIL. USE IT IN RAINBOW GENERATORS.

It has to stop.

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June 3, 2016

From “The Skywish Message” by Mariana Brinson

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At 21:37 local time, on June 3, 2016, a radio array in Argentina suddenly received an unscheduled high-frequency burst transmission. The array was primarily used for researchers communicating with geosynchronous satellites to run experiments, so it was equipped to handle the sudden flood of information, if only barely. It took two blown fuses, a backup generator, and the local intranet server #2 with it when it arrived, 11.2 terrabytes of data.

The data was raw, and in a format that none of the staff there was prepared to decode. Thinking that it might have been an accidental data dump from a military satellite, they contacted NATO and surrendered the information in return for assistance in rebuilding their facility.

Of interest are the two following events, presented without commentary:

First: the Argentine facility never ran again. No matter how many parts were replaced, no matter how many times repairs were made, any channel through which the data had passed never worked again. Even a 100% re-install with factory sealed parts made no difference. It eventually had to be abandoned, and none of the installed parts would ever work when reinstalled elsewhere. Even the drives that had housed the data failed as soon as the transfer had been made.

Second: After eighteen months of work, NATO was able to decode the transmission. They had devoted considerable resources to it under the assumption that it was a Chinese high military code, but in that they were disappointed. The transmission was not traceable back to any orbiting satellite, nor did its trajectory indicate any nearby origin. Translated, the message read:

“You see, they say that every single star in the sky is a wish somebody made…human beings are so pitiful. They fill the simple reality of their world with poetry and false promises. They think WE are the ones taking their sanity away, but the truth is that we’re only completing the job that they started when they first began to dream.”

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