My Imaginary Talk With Stephen King.

A blustery day at the ToT Lot with the EmmyDozer like any other.  

She is wearing her Black Marshmallow Puff Coat and Pink Jester Hat.  She carries a Princess Sippy Cup and Hello Kitty Happy Meal Toy.  She drops both to pick up a large stick that she then points to the sky, says something in what I can only imagine translates into a phrase that would offend someone from Germany, and begins to stir up a pile of leaves.

A wonderful day indeed.

I sit down, because I am dog tired from work, sickness and lack of sleep.  I open my current read which happens to be World War Z by Max Brooks.  I'm really digging it if you must know because he, unlike myself, is a fantastic writer not unlike Mr. Neil Gaiman whose Good Omens I finished a few days past.  

I sit reading about my most hated enemy and greatest fear (Minus Women), Zombies, whilst watching the 'Dozer enjoying herself and wiping snot on anything in sight from the corner of my eyes.  You know, like a good parent that still watches their bloody child even in a fenced in environment because God only knows what the Filth have left laying around in that park (Read: Broken Beer bottle that Emmy discovered two seconds before I did).  

Anyway, as I sat reading about the most horrible thing that could ever happen in the history of the world I began to drift.  My first thoughts were of the pork roast sitting at home in the crock pot on the counter because I am a chubby fellow and I loves me a good roast.  Deal with it.  I'm trying to slim down and the first step in that process was to walk away from Damnable Azeroth after SEVEN BLOODY YEARS and X Amount of money spent on a monthly subscription.  Keep your Pandas, you sons of bitches, I am done.

Ahem.  

In my mindscape a man sits down next to me and lights a Chesterfield.  Now, I don't think he smokes anymore but I feel that this was my brain punishing me for the years that I did and making me sick to my stomach even in my own psyche.  If he smokes, good for him.  He got hit by a van once.  He can do whatever the hell he wants.

He appears in his thirties in my minds eye.  Why?  Because its my imagination I suppose.  You don't like it, write your senator.  He looks at what I'm reading and snickers.  He mumbles something about my choice to read that over The Stand which he knows is next on my pile.  He knows this because Tyler Durden knows this.  

"Cute kid" he says.

"Uhm...thanks." I respond.  "Please don't do anything horrible to her.  I understand that this is in my head but somehow I don't doubt that you could hijack my Brain Pen and make her into some kind of energy vampire clown thing.  Now, I know that sounds awesome but for posterity, please hold back."

He laughs at me.  It's a good, deep laugh.  He coughs at the end.

"You should quit that shit, man" sayeth I, "it's poison."

"It's your image of me, boss.  It's like the Matrix.  The first one.  Not the two shitty ones that followed." he says to me through a toothy grin.

"Gotcha.  So whats up?  Why are you here?  I didn't die or something did I?  Are we on our way to the Tower???" I said with the candor of a schoolgirl.

"No.  What?  Jesus man.  Why don't you just chill out for a second." he responded,  "I'm here to tell you to stop writing.  Because you suck at it.  And you will never be me.  Because that is clearly what you want."

"Nuh-uh.  I want to be Warren Ellis.  I can find a ton of creative ways to say the F-Word and make up a Bunch of BS about InnerSpace and MacroVirus nonsense."  I said, holding back a little anger.  

"Shuddup.  You're a worse liar than a writer." he chuckled.

I nodded at the man.  He knows whats up.  He is me after all.  I don't feel right about this thought.  Not even a little bit.  So of course, like any adult, I argue with myself in my own head.  

The EmmyDozer in my head has become the EmmyNaut and is blitzing her way through a city that my mind has built for her.  As I watch her tear down the St. Louis Arch and straighten it so that she has a giant metal stick to now dig through piles of leaves.  She is now wearing Bright Neon Pink Body Armor is currently 20ft tall.  She is speaking fluent Russian.  I am proud.  The military are firing rockets at her.  The rockets are Ice Cream Cones.  She is smiling.

Imaginary Stephen King is smiling.  He is amused.  Good.  I'm glad that I can make my own subconscious happy in some regard.

"Something special about you, kid." he says, "Now if only you had talent."

"Uhm...what about this whole thing going down right here in front of us?"  I responded.

"Child's Play" he grinned.

It is now snowing on the 'Dozer,  She is building a giant snowman that she has named "Frosty" (Duh).  She is teaching it to speak French.  It is struggling.  She smiles at it.  She builds a small family for Frosty.  She builds a small SnowDozer.  

There is much laughter.

"It's such a bummer that my own brain thinks I suck at something I feel that I'm good at."  I said, sadly.

"Don't be such a wuss about the whole thing.  Just keep trying if you feel that's what you need to do.  Maybe some day you won't be terrible.  Hell, I was bad at some point."

"Really?"

"No, I'm Stephen King.  Taste the Beast."

And with that he smiled at me, waved to the 'Dozer and walked in the Ether.

I'm sure that he would never in a million years say Taste the Beast but in my head he did.  

That man is my hero.  He has written so many wonderful stories.  Someday, maybe god willing, I can write something even half as good as him.  

Until then, I'll just keep trying.

As long as at least one of you keeps reading.

*Also, if somehow Mr. King ever reads this PLEASE DON'T SUE ME.  Thank You.*

Fever Dream

*I wrote this a few years back after mixing a few medications that probably shouldn't have been mixed.  I was horribly ill and not thinking clearly.  Also, I decided to watch Apocalypse Now while riding this wave.  That film and multiple pots of coffee broke a friend of mine once.  I don't know if he reads this but sorry to bring it back up Jonathon.  I found this and for some reason decided to post it.  I'm sure it is terrible and makes no sense.  Call it modern art or something if it helps with the digestion.  As Barry Ween once said, "Modern Art is Mule Cum".*

Tick Tock.

Tick Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Tock.

Tock.  Tick.

Backwards world with colors of nightmare.  Walk into the mirror, silver reflection washes over you in waves of madness. 

Sit in the room.  The chair and you.  The cat stares beyond you.

Black as night, eyes of jade.  Sees through your lies.  Watches through air solid like love.  Ephemeral for eternity.

Touches upon the soul, wasting away as famine will do.  Watch the cat, it watches you.  The voices outside grow even louder.  Howling for you but the door is locked.  Safer than you could ever dream.

All of the windows are broken.  Bars protect, as do screens.  The bats on the roof sleep soundly.  

Move little but dance in a circle, by yourself or with the cat.  It cares not for what you want.  It is here as your warden of life.  Guardian?  Ask it.

It will not respond, it is a cat.  

You blink and it is gone.  You smile and it shrieks form the ether.  

The rain is falling on your head from above although there is no hole in the roof.  

Why are you here?  Where are you?  This is?  Questions?

Myths are dreams with answers pending, taste of your fears never ending.  

An odd way to spend your day wrapped in the plastic of dreams that smell of strawberries and taste like suspense.  

Its all fake you tell yourself in the mirror as the you that you see becomes a beast and flies off into the moon set.  You try to cry but only laugh which in turn makes you cry harder.  Madness is the ocean in which you float.  Your boat is made of joy and slowly is crumbling beneath you.

Wake up you scream to the moon.  

Not the moon but a hole in the velvet sky darkness staring down at you with uncompromising disregard.

Taste the world, drink it in.  

Sideways and crooked.

The cat stares at you from the chair, it smells your insanity.

Tick Tock goes the clock.  Water drips on your head. Tock Tick.

Wake Up.

World's Edge: Into the Rift by M. & K.

*Kaytlin has become incredibly busy so I have gotten her permission to continue the tale for the time being. Much love K, get back with us when you can.*

We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Awesomeness...

Naz hated how she looked when she smoked.  He found the act of smoking in itself to be utterly disgusting even though he had done it for longer than he could remember.  When he no longer needed his lungs to function he was not sad to see it go.  More habit than anything, he found other ways to sate his oral fixation.  Mostly he would just grind his teeth.  His companions hated the sound, it was like two mountains scraping against one another.  He did it often. He did it when he was angry, happy, stressed or just when the mood struck him.  He enjoyed making others miserable.  It was part of the reason that he traveled alone now.  His taste for company had left him shortly after the events of the Reckoning.  


He hated when she smoked because she was still beautiful.  He hated her beauty.  He hated their past.


"Come" she spoke, with smoke trailing from her lips.  From his vantage it appeared that the blue-grey smoke was coming from her eyes as well.  


Vain Whore...he thought to himself.  Using your gifts for aesthetic appeal.  How...immature.   How...alluring.  

Damn You.  Damn all of you.  Why couldn't you have just left me to myself?  Why did you have to come and find me now...after all we went through and everything that we lost.  If only there was a way to make it all right again.  Well, as right as it could be.  Something so broken can only be mended a finite amount of times before it shatters away into dust and ash.  This world is no Phoenix.  


He followed her through the alley.  He sloshed through the muck as she seemed to float just above the surface.  He couldn't stop thinking about Talyn and what he had said.  If the Aspect of Madness had come out of hiding who else would soon make an appearance?  How long before Rage appeared or Deception?  It didn't matter to him truly, the only one that he was wary of was the Damnable Doctor that Nischa felt the need to grant the gift too.  Atrocities that never should have seen the light of day were what that man, if you could call him that, had given this world.  Uncontrollable abominations with otherworldly hungers and prone to escaping the Well in which he called home.  It was impossible for the man to keep a low profile, always needing fresh material to work with.  He was wasteful and careless.  Nischa had commissioned Kallibur to watch over him but even he was driven Strange over time.  Now instead of being a warden and watch keeper  he was more the gatherer of the damned.  To think of what the Doctor had done to his own wife and child...


She stopped at the end of the alley and was drawing a door on the wall with a Green Glowing Finger.  When she was finished, she reached her hand to her mouth, spoke a word into a closed fist and placed it upon the form of the door.  The drawing vanished leaving only a swirling red ether.  


It had been a long time since Naz had stepped into this Abyss.  He was going home again.  He was going to see his Brothers.


"If you don't hurry, I will not hesitate to shove you through.  You will not find my touch to be...kind."  she glared, clearly impatient.


"Continue to speak to me in that tone, wench, and I will teach you everything I have learned about being unkind.  Rest assured, I will keep you occupied for some time".  he spat.


"Promises, Promises."


They stepped into the swirling madness.

Dorothy's Toys: Prologue

D"On the day that I melt that godforsaken grin from your nightmare face I will finally find peace"  she told herself as she trudged through snow that was nearly at her knees and still falling.  

"Gods above and below how I hate this frigid hellhole" she said through chattering teeth.  

"Excuse me, mistress, but what is troubling you this day?"  a tiny voice squeaked at her side.

"That you have to ask is enough to make me wish that you had died that day.  The day he burned Haven to the ground."  she spat at him.

"Oh...I..." he mumbled.

"Just keep walking" she replied.  Her voice as cold as the world around them.

Her name was Dorothy and she hated this world.  She hated everything about it.  She hated that she was summoned here and she hated how her story had made her famous.  She was not a hero.  She never killed that witch.  She hit her head and dreamed the whole bloody thing.  She knows this because it's what the doctors had told her for years.  She drove her father to the bottle at first with her stories and her mother far, far away.  After she returned from her magical adventure life was never good enough for her.  She needed the talking lions, flying monkeys and magical little people in her life again.  She refused to listen to her friends or family.  She wrote everything that she could remember  down and sent her story to every magazine and newspaper she could.  No one believed her.  Why would they?  


Depression set in first...then the Delusions began.  


She wanted nothing more than to go back to that world and the friends that she had made.  She decided to take herself there.  


She tried pills the first time but didn't take enough.  She was horribly ill when they found her but still alive.  


After the bathtub incident she moved onto ropes in the barn.  Her mother left somewhere in between and her father just seemed to become a ghost of himself.  He withdrew into his room and wouldn't come out until he needed more whiskey or cigarettes.  


Her aunt had come to live with them after her mother left.  She cared enough to not let her finish the job but beyond that she was just interested in her father and his money. 


It was her idea to send Dorothy to the doctors.  The doctors with the needles and the tables that shocked you.  The doctors and the pills that made you see strange things like cats that sang songs in German and would walk through walls.  She had made a friend at the hospital that introduced her to the cat.  Her name was Alice.  


Alice was...unbalanced.

She had stories too.  Her story was much less pleasant than Dorothy's.  She talked of strange creatures and an evil queen.  About a Mad Man and the beheading of those that didn't tow the line

She wanted to go back there too but not for her friends.

She wanted to burn it to the ground.  Dorothy promised that she would take her there.

She checked herself into this place in hopes that she would find some way to get back there.  Find someone else that had been there too perhaps.  Someone that could show her the way.

Dorothy seemed like the answer to her question.  She had gone to another world as well after all.  It was no coincidence that they ended up in this hospital together.

After ten years of intense therapy and other...physical experimentation's they were released from the hospital.  They were cured.  


Actually, the state was running out of money and decided that the Asylum would make a better shopping mall than sanitarium.  


Dorothy's father passed away while she was in treatment and left everything to her aunt.  No family and no money, all she had was her friend Alice.  

Alice lived with a strange old man.  He was a hundred years old if he was a day.  Alice called him Sir.  She suggested that Dorothy not address him at all.

They spent their days in his rather extensive library, looking for anything that would help them get where they wanted to go.


They pursued any idea that sounded promising, from the white magic to the green to the black.  Sadly, nothing ever worked.  


They began to think that maybe they were both crazy after all.  Maybe the hospital was the best place for them.  Maybe they should find another one and just waste away in a padded room until they were dust.


The answer that they were looking for came several days later.  


A knock on a door.  A door in the middle of the floor.  A door that neither of them knew was there.  


He knew it was there.  He made it. He could change things.  Make things exist where they weren't before.  Make things...strange.


He knew Alice from long ago.  Time passed differently between worlds and things were not going well.  There had been a shift of power in the Wishing Well.  A great power was deposed and absorbed into another being.  A being once jolly and loved by millions had become as cold as his namesake over the centuries.  He tired of the stories and the laughter.  He decided that he was going to run the show from now on.  


His name was Frosty.  Now he was called King Snow.

The Calm Before or Give Me a Minute to Share a Memory Before We Kick This Pig.

Before we start I want to explain.  A story began over ten years ago.  It began when two awkward teenagers started to share ideas in gym class.  Two guys that had some weird ideas and liked things to be a little on the dark and strange side.  These two boys had one major shared interest: comic books.  They wanted nothing more than to put a book together, get picked up by a major publisher and tell the world stories that they thought were wicked.  Sadly, years pass and people fall out of touch.  I, personally, am absolutely terrible about maintaining friendships.  I am aware of this, you don't need to tell me (Talking to you Facebook).  Years pass and friendships fade but ideas are eternal.  The story has been in my head for years and yes, I'm sure its changed a million times just like I'm sure that my writing is just as terrible as it was then (I.E Worse) but I want to tell it.  It's probably a terrible story but we loved the idea.  Hell, I think he even drew the first issue.  I don't know if he still draws but if he does, man, he needs to share it.  This ninja has a gift.  I know that I have the story with Kaytlin and another currently nameless story that He is beginning to tell me about an Angel wandering a wasteland but I want to do this too.  I don't know what prompted me to start writing again after years of nothing but I am grateful.  I'm also grateful to those of you that take the time to read this drivel, even if you hate it, you still read it.

So, before we begin, thank you all for your support and love.

Thank you Mr. Santel for giving me permission to tell this story again after all these years.  You have always been one of my best friends, even with the distance between us.  A better brother than any of my blood.

I just hope I don't let you down.

I Hope that Malaysian Reader is the Prime Minister...

Traffic Stats for the Site -  I'm World Wide.   Now, if only I could make some monies off this.  Ha!   United States - 498

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Malaysia -  1

World's Edge: Diabolyk

The world is full of forests.

Those forests are vast.  Those forests are full of secrets.  

Secrets are kept from the world in various ways.  

This secret is kept by a Well.

This well is in a forest.  The forest is dark, dense and deep.  Creatures live here.  Things of various shapes and sizes.  The creatures here are different than elsewhere.  They are unnatural.  

They have a keeper.  Once a man, now he considers himself a living Nightmare.  Once he was called James.  Now he calls himself Diabolyk.

A doctor in a previous life, he treasured life above all else.  Happy to save it, grieving at loss.  A noble man.  Noble until someone Changed him.  Someone, something, it matters not.

A frantic patient brought into the ER suffering from what appeared to be wounds given by some fierce beast changed this mans life.  The patient was different than any other.  She was tall and thin, porcelain white and when she spoke the room got cold.  

His first thought when he saw her was that she was dead already. She had the look of a banshee.  Long silver hair, dark rimmed eyes and pale blue lips.

It was her kiss that set him down the darkest road he could never have imagined.  Her kiss robbed him of his wife.  It took his two children.  They were gone yet thanks to his gifts...they would always be with him, just not as they were in life.

There is a well in a forest, the forest is dark and dense.  The forest hides the screams of the poor souls that have the displeasure of meeting Diabolyk. The screams go on for hours.  There is no shortage of unwilling participants for the good doctors experiments.  

Short in stature, broad in shoulder, strong and willful.  Often he would boast of his accomplishments to those in the scientific community, of the accolades and awards.  No longer was he competing with their Filth.  Now he was on a plain all his own.  His business was life itself.  

His life and that of Nischa, the one who burned his old eyes to give him his new sight.  

She took him away to the forest so dark, gave him the tools he needed to perform his work and the foundations for his research.  

He loved children the best.  He needed a steady supply of children for his work.  

Children make the best host bodies for The Aspects.

It's because of the Purity.

World's Edge: Madness Smiling by M. & K.

The World turned to waves.  He felt as if he was submerged in the waters of the Arctic.  His breath was frost.  His eyes were frozen.  

The pressure was crushing his body, he could feel his ribs cracking.

"Stop. This. Nonsense. Now." he choked through gritted teeth, "Talyn".

"Oh...whose son are you to stop my fun?  Oh no no no no, nowhere near done MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!".  


The words echoed from all around him.  The pressure let up and his eyes focused.  A tall slender man, so thin that when he turned sideways he seemed to disappear, stood before him.  He was dressed in a Red Velvet suit with matching Red Loafers.  A toothy grim that spread from ear to ear, eyes as large as saucers...his hair was short with blue tips and shined like a black star.  His voice was so high that only the Chosen could hear him.  If he spoke around the Filth you could watch the blood trickle from their ears...He liked to torture the Filth...He had no respect for anyone, either above or below in station.  To the Chosen it was like rubbing glass shards together when he spoke.  He spoke at length and always in rhyme.  He was not well liked but he had a job and he did it well.

"Talyn.  To what do I owe this displeasure?"

"I've come to say, that on this day, you must choose to pay or play."

"Above and below, how I hate your words.  Speak Plainly you Buffoon."

"Plain as I can ever be, where once were Four now there are Three.  The Horse still rides without its owner and now look at you, the Textbook Loner.  Shots you are big, this is true, you seem to forget there are more than you.  Do the work I love so well even unto those that fell. A warning perhaps or maybe more, maybe less, I don't keep score.  I would tell you who to trust but you listen as well as Dust.  Soon enough You shall see, The Safest Place is In Sanity"  

"Why have I been summoned?  Where is she leading me?  What do they want?" in a low grumble, he spoke.

"Mazikeen takes you where they want you now but don't despair.  Rahziel wants to meet, about what I know but will not speak.  More fun for me to watch you squirm. I owe you one, you unholy worm.  You'll survive, you always do and I'll always be there with you.  You might see me, you might not but rest assured, I know the plot."

Naz watched as Talyn began to disappear,  piece by piece he faded out of existence.  His eyes were last to go, always unblinking, wide with Emerald centers.  

His laughter haunting the alley way.

Mazikeen looked back and saw Naz stumble to regain himself.

"Talyn...I knew I felt reality go sideways" she said.  "Pathetic little man.  Always rhyming.  Its a shame that they have let him live this long."

"He is an Aspect, you imbecile" said Naz, "He is the embodiment of Madness.  You would do well not to underestimate him."

She reached into her jacket, pulled out a cigarette, lit it and said "You dare not Underestimate me either".

World's Edge: Disassociative by M. & K.

He lowered his eyes, searching in vain for something to say. Anything that wouldn't seem desperate or petty.

"Where is he?" he asked, not really caring what the answer was. If he could prolong this moment, he may be able to escape her gaze. He knew he could never escape her completely, or him for that matter, but here, in the diner, with the dead laying nearby, was certainly too close for comfort.

"You know where he is. And he's become impatient. Do you want your coffee to go?" She moved swiftly to hand him his cup of coffee and her graceful movements momentarily stunned him. "Nazareph. Now." She broke his trance by speaking brusquely and thrusting the cup his way. "Let's go."

She dared not touch him, nor he, her but there was a magnetic force that pulled him along as she walked out of the diner, now strewn with dead bodies. The lights still buzzed outside and the rain had slowed to an annoying drizzle. She moved gracefully through the alleys and before the Change, he would have had difficulties keeping up. She was moving north, toward the area he had just come from.

He thought he knew where she was going but then she took an abrupt turn down an alley darker than the previous ones. He noticed a hesitation in her step and suddenly the air became thick. Something had gone awry.