Creature from the Haunted Sea (trailer)

(Movie theme) "Oh there's a creature
From the haunted sea,
And he doesn't
Like you, and he doesn't like me
He bounces up and down in the water
(boing, boing, guitar riff)
And doesn't really do what he oughter"

Know your Poe: The Cask of Amontillado

THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. AT LENGTH I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled -- but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile NOW was at the thought of his immolation.

He had a weak point -- this Fortunato -- although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity to practise imposture upon the British and Austrian MILLIONAIRES. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen , was a quack, but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially; I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.

It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him, that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.

I said to him -- "My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts."

"How?" said he, "Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible ? And in the middle of the carnival?"

"I have my doubts," I replied; "and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain."

"Amontillado!"

"I have my doubts."

"Amontillado!"

"And I must satisfy them."

"Amontillado!"

"As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me" --

"Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry."

"And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own."

"Come let us go."

"Whither?"

"To your vaults."

"My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement Luchesi" --

"I have no engagement; come."

"My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted . The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre."

"Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon; and as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado."

Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm. Putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.

There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honour of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance , one and all, as soon as my back was turned.

I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together on the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.

The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode.

"The pipe," said he.

"It is farther on," said I; "but observe the white webwork which gleams from these cavern walls."

He turned towards me and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication .

"Nitre?" he asked, at length

"Nitre," I replied. "How long have you had that cough!"

"Ugh! ugh! ugh! -- ugh! ugh! ugh! -- ugh! ugh! ugh! -- ugh! ugh! ugh! -- ugh! ugh! ugh!

My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.

"It is nothing," he said, at last.

"Come," I said, with decision, we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi" --

"Enough," he said; "the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough."

"True -- true," I replied; "and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily -- but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps."

Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

"Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.

He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.

"I drink," he said, "to the buried that repose around us."

"And I to your long life."

He again took my arm and we proceeded.

"These vaults," he said, are extensive."

"The Montresors," I replied, "were a great numerous family."

"I forget your arms."

"A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are embedded in the heel."

"And the motto?"

"Nemo me impune lacessit."

"Good!" he said.

The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.

"The nitre!" I said: see it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough" --

"It is nothing" he said; "let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc."

I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.

I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement -- a grotesque one.

"You do not comprehend?" he said.

"Not I," I replied.

"Then you are not of the brotherhood."

"How?"

"You are not of the masons."

"Yes, yes," I said "yes! yes."

"You? Impossible! A mason?"

"A mason," I replied.

"A sign," he said.

"It is this," I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the folds of my roquelaire.

"You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. "But let us proceed to the Amontillado."

"Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak, and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.

At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains piled to the vault overhead , in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use in itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite.

It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavoured to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.

"Proceed," I said; "herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi" --

"He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered . A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain. from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist . Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

"Pass your hand," I said, "over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed it is VERY damp. Once more let me IMPLORE you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power."

"The Amontillado!" ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.

"True," I replied; "the Amontillado."

As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.

I had scarcely laid the first tier of my masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was NOT the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided , I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.

A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated -- I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs , and felt satisfied. I reapproached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I reechoed -- I aided -- I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamourer grew still.

It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognising as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said --

"Ha! ha! ha! -- he! he! -- a very good joke indeed -- an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo -- he! he! he! -- over our wine -- he! he! he!"

"The Amontillado!" I said.

"He! he! he! -- he! he! he! -- yes, the Amontillado . But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone."

"Yes," I said "let us be gone."

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MONTRESOR!"

"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"

But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud --

"Fortunato!"

No answer. I called again --

"Fortunato!"

No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick -- on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I reerected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them.

In pace requiescat!

Order The Glass Character from:

Thistledown Press 

http://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/genre/Fiction/the_glass_character_p580.cfm

Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Character-Margaret-Gunning/dp/1927068886/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395534131&sr=1-1&keywords=the+glass+character

Chapters/Indigo.ca

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-glass-character/9781927068885-item.html?ikwid=the%2520glass%2520character%2520margaret%2520gunning&ikwsec=Home

Children of the Damned

                                                 
                                                 Cellophane Brand bread.

                                            Brings out the vampire in little girls.

  What is this gory mess, and why are there 1 1/2 hot dogs 

sitting on the table beside his plate?

Beware of Hamgirl!

Hamgirl's demented sister, Cakeface.

Mmmmm, mmm!

Fifty shades of black (a story of bondage)

 

 

She knew this was the last chance she was going to get to visit her favourite spot. Already leaves were curling under her feet, evening brought on a hint of frost, and she had put on the usual five or six pounds around her hips, a layer of bear-fat for the coming winter.

 

This special place of hers was called Burnish Lake, and she always liked the double-entendre in the name: the coppery surface of the water in the evening, the antique gold of early-fall leaves. Burnish Lake had lots of things going for it, but most of all it had ducks. Swarms of them, and due to the mild climate in these temperate parts they didn’t seem to migrate in the fall. No need. Being social animals, they congregated in swarms around the strange geometric wooden dock that jutted out into the shallow water where they all dabbled and splashed.

 

It was really just a big pond, and this dock – it was more of a boardwalk, really – went on forever. Besides the ducks, all there was to see around here were water lilies. She could imagine how the frogs must sound after dark.
 

 

The child in her came out when she saw those ducks, and she wished she had bread with her, knowing full well that feeding ducks made about as much sense as feeding bears (which she had done once. Cheesies, which the big guy had really relished, until he grabbed the plastic bag out of her hands and ate the whole thing.) Then they would truly swarm, revealing the rather nasty side of ducks and of birds in general, just dinosaurs reborn with all their primitive saurian instincts intact.

 

They were mostly female mallards, she guessed, with a few half-grown babies – juveniles – but no drakes. She looked and looked for the gorgeous iridescent green heads, but did not see one. What, no sultans to keep the harem in order? Guess not. She threw a few stones at them, meanly, watching them “waaak” and scatter.

 

She had her reasons to be mean, and her reasons for wanting to come out here alone and get some fresh air. She hadn’t had fresh air in a while. It hadn’t been her idea to go to the hospital, and in fact most of the time she felt just fine. Better than fine! She was exhilarated, and people were telling her things like, “You look ten years younger. What have you been doing?”

Yes. She felt special, more special than she had ever felt before. She wasn’t really going to act on those feelings, was she? But Burt thought she might.

 

When you’re in a certain state, you don’t know what effect you’re having on others. You’re oblivious. So even though she stepped on every sentence to the point that no one was willing to talk to her, even though she slept barely two hours a night, even though she had lost fifteen pounds (good!), even though she was one step away from sending out the mass email that would change everything (or was it Facebook?) – she didn’t think they needed to take that kind of drastic measure.
 

 

Something wonderful has happened, the email would begin, and I wanted to share it with all my closest and dearest friends. I have received some information recently that is very special, and very exciting. I have suspected this about myself for a very long time, but now it has been confirmed by a Higher Source.  I have been granted the ability to 

 

That was as far as she got. So what the hell was wrong with that? Or of thinking she saw Moses one day in the liquor store? If you think he’s Moses, he IS Moses, her writer friend said to her the other day. She wanted to see Moses again, to talk to him, to ask him just how he got that water out of the rock.

 

Burt kept saying she wouldn’t let him talk, that he couldn’t even get a word in, and that was ridiculous. Burt kept saying she was being abusive, that she was acting like a bitch, but didn’t she have it coming with all the rotten things that had happened to her as a child? Probably. But it bothered Burt to be called a cocksucking fuck-face in front of people.

 

So it was the hospital for a while, again, and medication, again, and more psychiatrists to beguile. She had been seducing psychiatrists (verbally, of course) since the age of fifteen, so she was awfully good at it by now. Most of their patients were so dull, she supposed, that her clever banter and sparkling irony must have been downright stimulating, if in a rather embarrassing way.

 

She hated to leave those ducks, but she had to go to the bathroom. She noticed there was nobody else around, just nobody, and thought it was odd.  Then she remembered the dates on the sign.  She was the very last visitor to Burnish Lake before the season ended. But what about the staff? Nobody around, but it didn’t matter, she didn’t like people anyway and was finished with them. They were all so full of shit.

 

She hated the bathroom here, so primitive, almost a privy. It was just a big plywood box with hardly any light, only a useless burnt-out bulb, and no windows. Just a slot for ventilation, up too high to be of any use. She used the smelly toilet, noticed there was no sink but only hand-sanitizer. Disgusted, she squirted some on her hands and rubbed it in.

 

Was that why the sliding bolt lock wouldn’t move, because her hands were so slippery?

 

Then she remembered there was a much larger sliding bolt on the outside of the door, for when they locked everything up for the winter. To keep out homeless people or whatever. But this was the inside lock, stuck. She wiggled it gently, then a little harder, then wiggled it some more.

 

Panic began to rise in her. Her worst fear, worse than falling or being raped or even of dying, was of being trapped, locked inside an unfamiliar building or unable to get out of some suffocating place. The worst feeling she had in the hospital was the sound of a big heavy institutional door clanging shut behind her. It seemed to happen every time.
 

 

She wiggled some more. Banged. Then shouted. Then shouted some more. But then she remembered that no one was there.


She screamed and screamed. Her throat began to grow raw. And it was getting dark out. The little ventilation slot was greying now, and the whole stinking room was turning into a black box.

 

She would die in here, alone, in a shithouse in the woods. They’d look for a body for a while, then give up. What would they find in the spring? Then she realized that by throwing herself so violently against the door, she had probably bent the bolt so badly that the lock was irrevocably jammed. Only a hammer or screwdriver would get her out of here, and even if there were somebody around, how would they get it to her?
 

 

It got dark so fast. She was tired. There was no air in this place. Panic turned to despair. She was like one of those stupid hikers who goes on a dangerous trail and doesn’t tell anyone. Who knew about Burnish Lake, anyway? Not Burt. He had never even heard of it.

 

It had nothing to do with the poetic word “burnish” anyway, but was the name of some hopelessly dull cocksucker of a statesman who’d been dead 100 years. Nobody gave a fuck about him anyway.

 

She had to fall asleep eventually: her quota was four hours at least, and she didn’t want to set herself back to her Healing the World campaign, in which people from all over the globe would come to her so she could lay her hands on them.

 

 

Bullshit thought, probably, but maybe not. She still didn’t see what was so wrong with it. Lots of those East Indian women all wrapped up in white gauze had people just flocking to them, and nobody said they were crazy. She had stopped a few people on the street and started to explain it to them, and they had pulled away, but weren’t most people full of it anyway? The average IQ is 100, her writer friend said to her, and they both laughed.

 

She had to sleep. She curled up on the dank floor, and all the meds she was on eventually pulled her under.
 

 

At the very bottom of the murky tank of her sleep, footsteps crunched on the grass outside, leaving deep imprints. Someone was humming to himself. He was a little bit happy, mind, but a little bit sad, too. This was always the final thing he did, the very last ritual before closing up for the year.

 

There was a fiddly noise, a wiggling. A little bit stuck, it was. He’d fix that. He gave it the special wiggle it needed to move. He had a way with this lock.

 

There was a thin screech of metal on metal, then the sure-handed slide and thunk of a bolt as it dropped into place. Satisfied, the man turned his head and looked around the place one last time, then headed over to his pickup.

Uhhhhhhh. . .

I don't know quite what to make of these (click on link, below). Most of them are, I think, real. But don't let your kids see them!

http://www.asylum.com/2010/11/18/creepy-kids-shows/

The girl with the flaxen hair

I have to admit off the top that this photo is way out of date. That little girl, one Erica Morgan, is now turning five, a momentous age that represents a developmental leap, and

a new readiness to read and write and sit still long enough to attend classes.

Plus she still breaks the cute-o-meter every time.

Erica Morgan is a princess from tip to toe, from her tossing curls to her crystal-blue eyes,with the longest eyelashes anyone has ever seen. They're like fans, for God's sake. When she flutters her eyelids, there's a breeze.

All my four grandkids are wondrous to me, representing the upspringing of new life in the midst of a very dry wasteland. My disillusion with the writing business (NOT with writing itself, which was still compelling) had parched my insides into those flakes you see in the desert, you know, in National Geographic or someplace.

Erica made her debut at such a time, and I will never forget rounding the corner in the hospital room and seeing her for the first time: she looked like a tiny, pink, compact, living rosebud, and she had that ineffable sweet baked-biscuit smell of the newly-arrived.

It's a fascinating thing watching any baby become themselves, evolve into

who they are going to be. I remember reading somewhere (maybe one of those myths we all ascribe to, like "you remember everything that ever happened to you" and "we only use 2% of our brains") that our personalities are basically set by age two. Yikes. Parents who've made any mistakes at all must shudder at such a statement.

But such is the fluidity and surprise of human nature that even the worst two years can cause the plant to grow around the obstacle. Cedars abound here, and many of them grow too near power lines. Often they have to be trimmed in a weird-looking circle. I saw one recently that had put out a lot of new branches, but they all came straight up within a couple of inches of the power line. The tree "knew".

So what does this have to do with Princess Erica? Even the best life in the world is burdened. If nothing else, it's burdened by turning on the TV (guaranteed to depress anyone) and finding out about oil spills and plane crashes and little children dismembered by fiends. Who can fail to feel something, not hopeful, but horrific?

We need to say to our kids and grandkids, it's all right, there are terrible things out there in the world, but here, in your own home, it's not like that. The odd emotional explosion clears quickly for the most part, and it's back to the twinkly, shrieky fun of two little blondies tearing around the living room.

I love them beyond endurance, sometimes, and I do worry about the sort of earth they will inherit. Is violence escalating, or is it just reported more accurately (the old saw that journalists fall back on)? What about the stress of a madly-accelerating world, with gadgets replacing real human contact and people swelling in gross obesity due to grabbing the easy drug of junk food?

It wasn't supposed to be that way. I remember back in the '60s, there

were all sorts of reports of Xanadu, the World of the Future, of a lean, fit population (all that low-fat cooking, remember?) only having to work three days a week, spending the rest of the time in creative and recreational pursuits.

(Oh, and remember those dumb-ass domed cities, like something out of the Jetsons?)

It isn't going to be that way for Erica, my little blondie. I hope she will manage. Acceleration tends to lead to more acceleration, unless stopped by a crash. Like the frog slowly stewed in increasingly-heated water, we just don't notice it, until we see the alarming increase of depression and addiction and autism and. . . fat.

It's doubtful Erica, in her sparkly little tutu and candystriped tights, will be anything other than sylphlike. I want a happy life for her, want it more than I want to live. I have the tremendous opportunity to love her without reservation, without the burdens of parenthood. I can be the fun nanny who chases them around the room, plays Barbies and PlayDoh and paper giraffes.

Sometimes I ask myself: What good will it do? Won't they forget? Is any of this banked in the psyche? How much do we remember?

No matter. Maybe it's for me, as much as them, and I will remember, remember every single sweet blessed day that I get to love them.