Ghostnotes

Transmission #1

…aybe those Germans had the right idea. Maybe there is such a thing as werewolves; people who are civilized and reasonable under normal circumstances, until an irresistible force pulls them out of true and makes their edges blur, turns them into something primal, incomprehensible, and monstrous. A creature that’s meant to claw through the bowels of the night, through India ink forests in a cloud of death and hunger that would rob even the bear of its courage.

Of course, Germany also had witches and, honey, you didn’t want those around. And, fine, you also had warlocks (which they called witch-masters, don’t you know), but the manual was a bit sketchy on that topic and anyway, you have witches and warlocks like you have whores and johns, because it’s the whore who peddles and the weak soul that can’t resist but when you come down to it the temptation is caused by the merchandise so the responsibility lies with the owner of said merchandise and they’re to blame when the goods are groped, pinched, bruised broken stabbed maimed tortured splashed with acid doused with gasoline and set on fire.

Because the merchandise looks so damned tempting.

So you get a room of your own. But that’s not enough. You want the door unlocked. You want to go street haunting. Experience. Let the world in through the mysteries of the opened door. But you know, the werewolves they had back in Germany? They never really found a way to get rid of them, and if a door is unlocked in the middle of a forest that sometimes doesn’t need to look like a forest and there’s a stranger who may or may not be a werewolf that may or may not be worse than a bear and something happens, did something actually happen, or is the experience of the experience completely different from the experience itself? A little like the riddle of the woman who was cut in half smiling and went from tragedy to travesty before she turned into a flower. She had asked for it, as it turns out. And you? Well, you won’t know, not until after they’ve deloused and dewormed the narrative with you, and helped pinpoint the exact moment you did something wrong. Learn from it. Fold, and fold again. Become small. Become frightened. Shrink back, into the circle of light, close together, trembling, while the monsters race around out of sight, running and drooling and huffing and puffing.

Another room then, vierzig quadratmeter, but the door doesn’t lock because this room is not one’s own and it’s not one’s door and not one’s lock— not when it comes down to it— and is what comes home today the same thing that will come home next week, next month, next year? Or will barked words, once upon a once upon, break into a bloodcurdling howl and will flinch turn to flight, scrabble-chased and stumbling, through trees that made you blind to the forest? Will you make it, or have the lies made you slow? Or have you been robbed of something deeper, something you didn’t even realize you were missing until you pause, staring out at the unknowable moon-slashed dark, just long enough to be torn back and do your eyes screw shut in that violent suspension of gravity, because what you taste is the complex bittersweet flavor of relief? The blind, mindless comfort of pits and earthen walls, of being returned to a depth you can still fathom. Because when a forest doesn’t need to look like a forest everything can be a forest and if the forest belongs to the werewolf and the werewolf is drawn to the moon and the moon is feminine where then do you stand? Is there even a lock or a door to shut? Or is it endless days of origami swan floating under flint eyes and doomscrolling through Hey girls and alpine divorces and yards and yards of silent takes of slow-swiveling purplish-blue faces, split-lipped and gleamy-eyed. Burning cheeks and straight spines. Soft eyes and plaster expressions. Harmless comments and papercut smiles. Empty chairs at Barbie. Empty eyes staring out through masks of wedding cake. Afraid to drink to laugh to look to sleep to go to stay. Afraid to speak. Afraid to stay quiet. Afraid to speak about staying quiet. Afraid to exist.

Servers full. Fields of servers full. Enough to fill a forest. Chop it down and turn it into furniture. Dark wood, soaked in blood and pain and fear. Not blessed but desecrated. Made for words that feel like flaying skin, like knife wounds and bubbling flesh, like well-placed fists and tearing cloth. Like the purifying heat of the pyre.

Because that’s easier than hoping a monster will raise a human. Quicker. It may not be a full moon, no. But nearly. Always nearly…

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While I’m never going to use paywalls, I am struggling through a very, very bad year. Should the mood strike, consider supporting a (not literally but only just) starving artist and his grievously injured muse by lighting a candle below. All revenue goes towards paying for physical therapy for said muse or paying the bills… which comes down to the same, doesn’t it?