With another chapter of The Scissor Wizard on the way, I wanted to share this little tidbit. It was written as a test/base fiction for a Call of Cthulhu By Gaslamp module. This fake excerpt from the real John Crane Whitin places the module in one of my favorite Northeast towns, a cradle of the industrial revolution and a weird lynchpin in the North/South industrial relationship.
From the personal diaries of John Crane Whitin
December 16th, 1867
It was in the evening of a tempestuous autumn that I was struck with a pressure in my head; one especially distinguishable in its severity and in the rapidity of its arrival. I had just finished my supper and gone to sit down when the ache in my head began. I found myself, all too immediately, in a fever-like state. Tremendous pain issued from my brow and behind my eyes so that even the fireplace, lit earlier by the butler, caused a pain worthy of aversion. I called up the butler for a towel made warm with heated water. I had hoped that after applying this to my brow that the pain would cease. It did not, though, to my benefit, the pain did not worsen.
I sat, labored in my pain, for a time that I could not count for I am now, while in recollection, unable to know if I was awake or asleep. What I can recollect with the utmost clarity is when, through the bright clashes of pain behind my eyes, I beheld, whether by my mind or by fancy or by descent of some mechanical muse, the possibility of mathematical calculation with two mechanical looms. I saw one of our standard looms fed by a row of spinner frames which, in turn, were fed by my patented pick & spreader. What I saw follow this line of connected machinery has occupied my mind and body for these past 4 months. The machine that my two assistants, Mr. Roger Shipley and Mr. Isaac Aldridge and I have completed in the utmost secret is, as Mr. Aldridge has put it, an anti-loom.
By working the first loom in an exacting manner one may weave calculations into the textile which are then solved by the de-construction of the textile by the second anti-loom. This, admittedly abstract, method of calculation will allow for the solving of large and complex problems. I most readily envision that it will be solve a persistent concern regarding the reliability of mill shaft ratios to transfer gears.
I know that Mother watches from Heaven as we prepare this evening to first engage the whole operation. O’ Mother! While these years following the war have been slight of material and of labor unaffiliated by that grievous harm upon our nation and its men, I know, that this evening, the future shines bright for Whitin Machine Works! Our family’s name will continue to adorn the machines of American Industry for generations to come. The Pick & Spreader will be a minor piece to the connected Textile Calculation Manifold. May God look upon and bless this trial of machinery and mathematical engineering. May God continue to hold up our family and carry us into that bright and glorious future that I glimpsed from my pain some 4 months ago.
It certainly has been awhile since I posted on this blog. It has been an even longer time since I was able to play in a Dungeons & Dragons game instead of running one. It will be my first time playing in the Eberron setting so I was tasked with some lore bingeing. Know that Eberron is a setting of high magic in which most people can do minor magic and utilize magic to assist menial tasks. High technology exists but is powered by magic; a high speed rail train exists and is powered by bound lightening elementals, airships exist and are powered by bound air elementals. There appears to be harsh class stratification with international politics dominated by twelve hereditary “apolitical” houses with members having genetic predispositions to magic birthmarks (Dragonmarks). Each house has almost monopolistic control over the industry in their purview, be it medicine, hospitality, or transportation. I defer my judgement of the setting’s themes for a much later time. This short story introduces my character, an alcoholic barber who lives in a barrel by the docks; his magic scissors do the work while he drinks and encourages the scissors to do a good job.
An evening storm blew in eastward from across Lake Galifar. The lake’s warm breath spittled its way past the docks and through the still bustling Old City of Passage, up the hills to the towering stone and glass construction of Journey’s Home, the seat of House Orien. As the disrespectful rain spattered at the windows, a scarlet dressed man caressed a carefully shaped eyebrow and regarded the rain with equal disrespect.
The short melodic whinny of a unicorn made him turn away from the window and across a magnificently appointed office. His soft wide eyes looked toward the pair of carved Eldeen mahogany doors.
“Enter”
One door silently pivoted open and a lithe woman in silver evening gown gave a facetious curtsy, then slid into the room.
“So formal sister.”
He gave a wry smile as the woman walked her way past the large leather chairs and around the meeting table which filled the center of the room.
“Brother Baron sulking here in his dark office atop the hill. Stranded, despite his empire of travel, because the elements wish to take their revenge.”
She sat on the corner of the desk which stood at the head of the meeting table; from a decanter set on silver tray beside her she poured a glass of wine and extended it within reach of the Baron d’Orien. As he reached, the glass was gracefully pulled away and sipped through the familiar wry smile which ran through the family more frequently than the Dragonmark.
“I am happy to see you Elvera.” He said as he poured himself a glass and took a measured sip.
“When did we get so busy?” She asked, “Our paths cross so rarely these days. It is nice to see you in the Home Office, regardless of the circumstances of rail maintenance.”
The two clinked their glasses over the desk and took a sip.
“Did you have this wine decanted, Vera? I do not remember doing so.”
“That is what happens when you leave for too long Kwanti, you forget what is left out.”
The Baron creased his forehead and looked down with narrowed eyes.
“I am sorry. You know I have been trying to secure support for the rail rebuilding – and those House Lyrandar squirts, they are out to ruin us Vera, I know it.”
Elvera gave a gentle shake of her finger.
“You are letting the pressure get to you.”
As the storm grew in anger over Lake Galifar, the Baron turned back toward the window, lit by increasingly frequent lightning strikes. The low glow of the flameless torches and the bright flashes of lightning highlighted the dark chestnut fuzz obscuring the Baron’s normally shaved and oiled scalp.
“Brother”
The Baron turned back to look at the hard eyes and wide soft face of his sister.
“Stay as long as you can. You have not been taking care of yourself, leave the office and get your head shaved. You look like shit.” She stood up, downed the rest of the wine, and placed her empty glass back on the silver tray.
“Orders of the Chief Executive of Journey’s Home, Home Office of House Orien.”
Kwanti smiled and Elvera stuck her tongue out, then turned, walked out of the room and shut the door behind her.
The Baron turned back to the window and looked down at the wet and wide streets of The City of Passage, which sloped gently toward Old Town and the docks on Lake Galifar. He took a sip of wine and creased his scalp in thought once again.
—
The spray of the lake whipped the docks. Sailors cussed and brothel keepers shut their doors and windows against the stinging waters. Rocking slightly in the wind was a large wine cask, lashed to a dock post just across from an Inn of Intimate Company. Painted on the side in rough letters of black pitch read “Barber.” Laying on his back inside the barrel a lanky man in tattered robes woke abruptly from a noisy sleep with an uncomfortable groan. He unstopped a clay jug and inverted it over his mouth, letting out another uncomfortable groan when the jug provided not a drop. The man sat up. Despite his disheveled clothing his dark brown hair and beard were perfectly trimmed, his skin clean, and his eyebrows pointed in the currently popular style of Khorvaire’s lofty persons. He scooted out of the barrel feet first into the rain and wind. He stood and immediately walked, grumbling, across the street and knocked on the door of the Inn.
“Ayy ayy. I’m out here. I’m out here.” He croaked.
The door was flung inward by The Matron, a large woman of strong and handsome features stood in the way.
“Scissor Wizard I told you that we ain’t your Inn. You can’t stay in here.”
“Ayy ayyy I juss want a drink. Fill my jug and I’ll…I’ll style for free, any a the crew. Yus name it, any style free colors.”
The man held out the wood-stoppered clay jug.
“Ya couldn’t look more pitiful if ya tried in this rain. Come on I’ll fill your jug.” The Matron grabbed the jug from his hand and walked inside, followed by the dripping barber.
“Not any further than the rugs Wizard,” the Matron called from behind the bar. The Inn was warm and busy inside. Sailors and the Inn’s Intimate Caretakers paid little attention to the raggedy dripping man on the rug beside the door. The matron approached and handed the barber his jug, stoppered and heavy with wine. She drew close to his face.
“Now you’re coming in tomorrow and styling all of my caretakers before the lumber ships arrive at the end of the week. You got that Scissor Wizard?”
The barber unstoppered the jug and took a swig of wine. Dark red liquid dribbled on his lips.
“Thank you Mam, I got it ya got it style the whole crew got it.”
The barber stumbled back out into the rain as the Inn door closed hard behind him. He took another swig from the jug and turned around to look upward into the hills. The glass and stone structure of Journey’s Home glowed in scarlett and lightning blue in the fog through the rain. He took another swig of wine, turned around, walked across the road and crawled back into the barrel.
I’m not on cocaine; I just bought this new book, Steering the Craft: A 21st Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story by my favorite author Ursula K. Le Guin.
She said it is a writing guide for the intermediate writer, and I think I am one of those things. It includes a bunch of great exercises among its chapters and, since this is my experimental writing blog, I thought I’d post some of them here. I’m not the most proud of this first exercise but it’s something and that’s the important part. This is paraphrased from a real conversation I heard shouted over a beach.
Exercise One, Part One: Being Gorgeous
“Write a paragraph to a page of narrative that’s meant to be read aloud. Use onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, rhythmic effects, made-up words or names, dialect – any kind of sound effect you like – but NOT rhyme or meter.”
Pashoooshcrmbshdshsiszzzzzz
“Ya done puttin sunscreen awn Bahby?”
Psst Psst Psst
“Yeah I’m comin hol on!”
Psst Psst Psst
“How much ya need?”
Psst Psst
“‘M gonna beat his ayuss owt theyah”
Psst Psst Psst Psst
“Bahby! Rome weren’t build in a day but a bitch is made now!”
Psst Psst Psst Psst
“I sweah he yells for me one moh time.”
Psst Psst Psst
“AYY BAHAHBAY!”
Psst Psst
“Alright. Time to beat his ayuss.”
As the air rushed past my ears the spring slammed the storm door behind me. Bounding down the front steps and through the development’s car lot, escaping from stifling cigarette smoke and alcohol fumes, I knew the clubhouse to which I was running – my sister and I had booby trapped it against the other kids.
Few cars traveled the enclosed streets and they were perfect for the 2 dozen kids that lived there. Ball games, manhunts, and bbqs were frequent. Often, when I would run away and into the neighborhood, I would find another kid conducting their own escape. In this case, no other kids had entered our “clubhouse,” the assemblage of sticks and branches and planks that made a little hut under the tree at the center of the seldom traveled rotary. The booby-traps were effective only in name and rumor. It was well known that my sister and I trapped the hideout and this was good enough to prevent interlopers. In practice, you just had to make sure you weren’t cut by strategically placed broken glass.
Crawling on my hands and knees around the known shards I entered the club and immediately took inventory of my collection of special rocks. Everything was there, nobody had stolen my treasure. I listened to the twitter of song birds and in the rapidly chilling air, stared into my rocks. Surely, they could tell me something. The rocks could share their wisdom with me. How can I be like my treasures? Strong but beautiful. Angular but graceful. Peaceful and stoic. As the sun set and people called for me, the rocks kept their secrets and I stayed hidden among the glass shards.
You first smell the seasons change. The feeling of the temperature dropping below 70* for the first time in months is only a pleasant sensation. It is the smell, as I walk past an open window, that tells me that autumn is coming. It is a feeling of disassociation. Smell, for whatever reason, is most closely tied to our sense of memory. The season change is an experience in time travel. I am brought back to every instance of that autumn smell. All instances occur at once, in a flash that drawls on and slips through events like a dream. I am walking to gradeschool. I am walking to highschool. I am collecting acorns to throw at my friend. I spot a cute classmate in college. I am sewing furry pants. I am climbing into a make up chair to have a plastic mask gummed to my face. I slide down a plastic slide into a pile of leaves. I am crushing countless leaves with a slight twist of foot. Each crunch echoes all of the others until I am standing once more by that open window.
__________
It has been a while since I last wrote to this blog but I check it frequently. I reread my past writings and wonder when I will settle down and figure out for what I am actually writing.
I went to an unexpected concert. Small venue just outside of Boston, in one of the connected suburbs.
The weather was shitty. 2017 snuck up on much of the room, filled with wet weird goths and punks and cybermen, well dressed in various blacks and neons.
Some of us had clear plastic cups filled with champagne and when the ball dropped on one of the small tvs in the front corner of the bar we all said happy new year to each other.
In that moment, the room filled with people who regarded each other warily became more jovial. The punks smiled and wished each other a happy new year. “Clinked” plastic to plastic and added no extra words.
The eulogy to 2016 was given by a man in a skull mask covered in esoteric tattoos.
Last night I was laying in bed beside the window. As the moon lit my face I was nodding off to sleep, fighting it every step of the way, as I do. Before sleep took me, I opened a document and, without looking at the screen, typed this poem in a daze. I don’t remember saving it, it was saved as “.”
—
Under cold Nuit, the Northern sky and Southern
feathers flit in passing wind crisp as a cold river
The moon, bow strung, sings as she draws the string
the arrow falls to the forest and takes with it..nothing
the silver shaft cleans in the light cast by the mother who cast it
In a glen leaves strnen to strike nothing living
Nothing to hunt, nothing to hunt
The forest barren only me only me
there’s nothing to hunt
Slick wet plastic, stretch a wet balloon onto your face, held on with tacky alcohol stinking gum. Tap it for extra tackiness. Inside my new face, much of my new skin feels normal. My chin, as it waggles, beyond the monstrous sound that I make, gets wet, moist, and sagging from my face. Hot breath colliding with cool latex on a chill Autumn night. In the dark shadows of a winding playhouse the screamers can’t see or don’t notice that below my terrifying sharp teeth that crunch and chomp, the damp space that exists between my two chins.
Dispatches From The Decided Apocalypse 