Happy Halloween!

Here's a little something for the holiday.


What Horror Unfolded

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the capacity of the human mind for forgetting its contents. Our consciousness is informed by little more than a faint, distorted reflection of memory in the infinite darkness of time, a flickering candle casting a smoky glow over uncertain shadows of the past. Who can truly say what awful terrors lurk beyond the edge of recollection, and who would be foolish enough to want to know? Who could live with the memory of every care, every mistake, every pain without sinking into madness? As warm clothes and wine protect us from the cold and tedium, so forgetfulness protects us from the past. I praise Lethe, but in truth I can now do so only in envy: though my normally tenuous grasp of the mundane has weakened considerably, one experience alone shall always be seared in my mind while I live, and I fear shall remain so even after I have passed from this world.

I had spent a pleasant enough evening at a public house amongst the company of colleagues and a cheery fire. My friends had been arguing over beer and politics, but my attention wandered to a nearby table, where an old man expounded at length on the history of the area to a stooped, hooded companion who nodded occasionally, but curiously never replied to the old man's increasingly ecstatic account.

Having of my own accord a certain interest in local history, I was fascinated to learn that the city, once a small village, had centuries ago been set aside for the greatest artisans and builders of the realm. Several years after the establishment of the village as a cultural mecca, a tremendous earthquake had ripped through the land, decimating the population. The survivors were overcome by a horrible, wasting plague, which spread like fire through the population, causing mad ravings, lesions, convulsions, and finally gruesome death. Rather than see his entire kingdom brought to ruin by the infestation, the local daimyo had condemned the village, sending his second-greatest warriors to kill every living soul. These he had had killed by his greatest warriors, who then set themselves and the remains of the village on fire, so destroying every last remnant of the illness. Without its warriors the kingdom was soon overrun by bandits, and the area was lost to time.

The deserted village had remained abandoned until shortly after the second world war, when a rice paper mill was haplessly built directly over the fault. The mill operated for several years until it inevitably closed after its entire workforce died of complications resulting from severe paper cuts, and was lost to the passing years.

I had been so rapt in the old man's story that I quite lost track of time, and even failed to notice when my erstwhile friends left me with the bill. I grudgingly settled up, and with the last train long since gone set off for a lengthy walk home.

It was a brisk night, with an enormous full moon casting cold, angular shadows, and a frigid wind that cut through my clothes. I was soon chilled to the bone, and, encouraged by the brightness of the moon decided to follow an old trail through the forest in what I hoped would be a shortcut. Would that I had stayed on the road! I had been walking for half an hour when the moon disappeared behind a large cloud, and I was left in complete darkness.

To those who would mock me for panicking, for hearing a thousand bloodthirsty wolves behind every stirring leaf, for being too afraid to move and too afraid to stay and failing at both I can offer no defense, but suggest only that they try it. My apprehension growing with every breath, I started at the smallest sound, futilely straining my eyes for the faintest ray of light, and soon gave over to shivering terror. A large branch snapped nearby and I fled as it crashed to the ground. I stumbled over roots, crashed through trees, and lost my bearings completely. After an eternity of running my strength gave out just as my shin struck something sharp and heavy and launched me into the air. I collapsed in a heap.

My head throbbed, my body ached, and I felt a small trickle of blood down my calf. I was assessing my other scrapes and bruises when I heard a small noise.

rustle

The wind had died completely, but I could see the faint silvery outline of a cloud as it gradually flowed past the moon.

rustle

I gave up worrying about bruises and looked around wildly, but could see nothing through the darkness.

rustle

The moon burst out from behind the clouds, blinding me with its intensity. My surroundings were thrown into sharp relief, and once my eyes adjusted I gasped in amazement. An imposing set of ruins stretched off into the distance, the once proud brick walls long since collapsed. Rotted wooden crates were scattered everywhere, and I could see the rusted remains of the enormous, crushing rollers of a Fourdrinier machine. I had stumbled across the ancient paper mill!

crackle

The sound jarred me from my speculations, and I turned to find the source of the rustling. I had tripped over a crate, and my shin had knocked the cover loose. Entranced in the moonlight, I crawled toward the crate, heedless of whatever dangers might lie within.

rustle

The the wind had caught the mildewed corner of a blackened, worm-eaten sheet of paper, perhaps a meter square. As I watched in stupefied fascination, a sudden gust lifted the corner and caught the whole sheet, sending it whirling high into the air. It hovered in the moonlight for a moment until the wind died, and then wafted back down, landing on a tree branch. The ancient paper, weakened from years of rot, collapsed over itself and formed a crease. Some unseen, unholy hand lifted a corner and the sheet of paper fell off the tree, folding in half again as it hit the ground.

rustle
rustle

The wind picked up again, and sent sheet after sheet of paper whirling into the sky. As the wind grew it peeled off more and more paper, filling the air with dozens, now hundreds of flying sheets and blotting out the moon. They blew against trees and rocks, folding and creasing with demonic precision and folding still more until the wind blew them again into the sky. The jagged, angular creases seemed random at first, but soon began to take terrible form, and before my eyes a vast blizzard of malformed monsters danced through the air. Dragons, bloated demons, roses with teeth, angry camels, paper tigers and sharpened shrimp flitted past, growing denser with each fold. A grim-looking deer with horns coming from its eyes struck me square in the forehead, and landed heavily in a small pool of the blood from my shin.

At once the wind stopped, and a thousand twisted figures clattered to the ground. They laboriously clambered to their flappy claws, and surrounded the crimson deer. Soaked in blood, the deer raised its hooves in some corrupted benediction, and for a moment all was still. Then as one the assembled masses attacked, biting and bludgeoning the demonic deer to a bloody pulp. I turned away, unable to watch the savage beating of that hideous hart.

When it was over the bloodied masses turned in my direction with a ravenous look, and I quailed, fearing that I too was to be cut to ribbons. Instead, the horde trudged past me, driven now by some new, horrible hunger that neither blood nor paper could sate. Petrified, I watched the awful procession of these crumpled ghosts, these origami zombies, and shivered at their raspy shriek as they cried out for their next meal.

"CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANES!!!!!!!!!!!"

Bullicks v. Stanleys, Oct. 2009

Well, we have made our trip to Virginia to visit a little late this year. We had a beautiful 75 degree fall day to visit Busch Gardens, though. There were a few rides for little miss Penny to ride on, but mainly it was spent going coaster hopping. It's nice to visit with friends and chill.