SPOOKTOBER STORY 4.
Got a devil in my basement
Sez he wants to eat my dog
Already give him sister’s cat
But he’s a big dog hog
I say ‘devil you are greedy’
The devil laugh and shrug
I say ‘devil have a pretzel’
Give devil pretzel nug
Devil eats nugget quick
Says ‘ok dog time now’
Give him another pretzel
Tell him dog is not for chow
He eats another pretzel
And another after that
Feeding devil lots of pretzels
Now the devil’s getting fat
He likes the nugs with mustard
He likes the nugs with cheese
He likes cinnamon and sugar
But he never does say please :(
One day, a wicked fox stole all of the children from the village. Many of the parents were upset by this, and begged the old farmer, who was the leader of the village, to go talk to the fox and ask for their children back. The old farmer put down his pitchfork and picked up his walking cane, and for a day and night and day again climbed up the mountain to the fox’s den, as the sun was setting and the shadows were growing long. The fox met him at the entrance.
“Hello, wicked fox,” said the old farmer.
“Hello, old farmer,” said the wicked fox.
“Did you steal all of our children?” inquired the old farmer.
“Yes, that’s right,” replied the wicked fox. “I needed them for my wicked forest experiments.”
“I see,” said the old farmer. “May we please have them back?”
“No,” replied the wicked fox. “But I will give you something even better. This is a magic seed,” and upon saying this placed a small seed into the old farmer’s wizened hand, “and if you take it back to your village and plant it in the middle of the town square, and tend to it with water and sunlight, by the time it has opened its first flower, you will all have forgotten your woes, and the lives of everyone in the village will have improved tenfold. You will all have many new children and live prosperous lives you cannot even imagine.”
The old farmer accepted the seed with thanks, and walked down the mountain for a night and day and another night, and the fox returned to his wickedness.
Another day and a half later, the old farmer returned to the wicked fox’s den.
“Hello, old farmer,” said the wicked fox.
“Hello, wicked fox,” said the old farmer. “Everyone is very angry with me for taking this magic seed and leaving our children in your wicked clutches. I would like the children please.”
“Yes, that was very foolish of you,” conceded the wicked fox, taking the proffered magic seed. “I do not know why you did that.”
“I think that perhaps you placed a glamour on me, or befuddled my mind with wicked forest magic,” said the old farmer.
“No,” said the wicked fox. “You are simply somewhat stupid.”
“I see,” replied the old farmer, sullenly. “Well anyhow, may I please have the children back.”
“No,” said the wicked fox once more. “I am not done with my wicked forest experiments yet. However, I can solve your problem, which is even better. It is right that a leader be wise, and you are dim as a moonless night. Take this powder, and mix in with your evening glass of wine. Within a week you will be a wise and just leader, within a year, you will be among the wisest leaders who have ever lived, and within ten years, courts of kings and sultans will send envoys, seeking your wisdom, and you will be celebrated through time and time and time forever forward, talked about in songs and manuscripts and so forth.”
The old farmer accepted the powder with thanks, and walked down the mountain once more.
Another day and a half later, the old farmer returned for the third time to the wicked fox’s den.
“Okay. They said taking the powder was even worse than the seed. Everyone is extremely incensed with me and say that if I don’t come back with the children then I should not come back at all,” said the old farmer. His face was drawn and sallow.
“Yes,” said the wicked fox. “It was very strange that you didn’t ask questions or anything. You are pretty astoundingly uncurious about the world around you. Anyway, I have been really going to town on these village children for a pretty long time now, there’s not very many of them left. I don’t even know if you’d want the ones who are around any more.”
“I have to come back with the children,” explained the old farmer. “The villagers are really quite insistent.”
“Here’s what I’ll do for you,” said the wicked fox. “I’ll do you one better. This is a magic bucket, and whatever-”
“No no,” interrupted the old farmer. “None of that. No magic bucket, no magic seeds, no magic powder. I need to return to the village, with the children, there is no way around it.”
“Well…” conceded the wicked fox. “I guess you’re really standing your ground on this one. You’ve really talked me into a corner here. You’re a great negotiator.”
“Thank you,” said the old farmer.
The wicked fox removed a small ring from a satchel, placed it upon his finger, and gestured grandly, appearing to perform some sort of wizardry. “There you go,” said the wicked fox. “You have convinced me. The children have been returned to the village, and all is well. You should return there, and you will find the children asleep in their beds.”
The old farmer thanked the wicked fox, pleased with his cunning, and turned to the dense forest surrounding the den. “It’s all right!” he shouted. “You can come out now. The children are asleep back in the village, I have convinced the wicked fox of the errors of his ways!”
The parents from the village emerged from their hiding spots behind brush and tree, as they had followed the old farmer to the den, to observe the interaction. The baker frowned and spoke: “Old farmer, you are a dunderhead who has ruined everything, and you do not deserve to live.”
The parents from the village attacked the old farmer and hacked away at him with rather dull garden implements. It took him a long time to die, and when he did, they continued hacking, until he was mostly just a sticky red paste in the dirt in front of the den. The wicked fox watched all this impassively, and when they were done, he spoke.
“Okay, okay, point made. You can have back what’s left of your children.” He stepped aside and waved the parents inside the den. “Feel free to take any pieces of them you find along the way, I don’t need them any more.”
And so, this story is concluded.
Do not trust a wicked fox, even if he offers you powders or seeds, it will get you painfully hacked to death by dull garden implements.
I have stopped leaving out ghost pellets, and the ghost has gotten quite angry with me. “I cannot afford ghost pellets any more,” I tell it, or I try to, speaking out loud in the empty foyer, hoping the ghost is around to hear. “I am on a fixed income, I am old and cannot work any more. I can barely afford food for myself.”
The ghost howls and breaks some of my things. “Oh nooo,” I say, and “Dammit you,” but I know this is improper ghost etiquette, as ghosts do not respond well to negative reinforcement.
“That’s okay,” I say, picking up the pieces of the plates George and I bought on our honeymoon, and I am crying quite a lot. “You’re okay. I understand you are just upset about the ghost pellets. I will give you some now and again but it can’t be an everyday thing, okay?”
The ghost says “hooooo,” and a door slams several times somewhere upstairs.
“You will be okay,” I tell the ghost, although I do not think things will be okay. “You will be okay.”
Spooktober story ecks
Spooktober Holdover Single x
As it turns out, the world 𝘪𝘴 a vampire.
One that can be slain.
But it is 𝘐, Jon, who was sent as a secret destroyer.
To hold the vampire world and expose it to flame.
As for my pain, well, you’ll see.
I knew. I still know.
The guild saw me, cool and cold.
I’ve done well thus far.
In order to remain undetected I strip naked and paint my body midnight blue.
I paint my teeth, too, because I tend to smile as I smite.
I get the sense that my fellow guild members don’t believe in me.
They laugh at my naked form.
Slay the vampire, they say.
Slay the world.
Why don’t they do it?
Why won’t they help me?
The townsfolk need a spectacle, they say.
They need the novice to stand in glory.
To create a new legend.
I think I get it.
I feel the urge.
The support, however ethereal.
There can only be one, and the only one is me.
I grab my staff and my knuckles whiten.
The reincarnate.
They who made the sea stand still.
They who must be reborn.
They who must die once more, and then again.
I stand, backed only by spirit but not by force.
Alone.
I venture.
I journey.
I quest.
And yet, despite all my rage, I am still just a level 2 mage.
TEN YEARS OF SPOOKTOBER STORIES: A CONVERSATION WITH JON PHILLIPS
When I meet Jon Phillips on the patio of his Malibu home, he’s painting a pointillist landscape from memory. He stands back, peering, trying to get the clouds right, and begins to dab again with the brush. He’s healthy, lithe, his full head of black hair well coiffed and shot through with a little respectable grey, marking his thirty-five years. He’s clean shaven, and his lean, handsome face is tan and unlined by worry or self-doubt.
It’s a far cry from how most of us know him, playing a distorted version of himself on the hit “Spooktober Stories,” which is beginning its tenth year this October 1st.
The “Jon Phillips” in that show never left Phillips’ real-life university town of Milwaukee, is an underachieving slob, a layabout ne’er-do-well who fancies himself an undiscovered creative genius (despite never actually creating anything other than the titular ‘Spooktober Stories,’ which he inexplicably posts on Facebook just one month a year), can’t hold down a steady job, sabotages his relationships, and struggles to accomplish even the most basic tasks. ‘A schlub without much of a future,’ as the Spooktober Stories series bible succinctly describes him.
The real Jon Phillips hops off the patio with an athlete's grace to walk and talk with me through his elaborate garden, which he takes pride in growing and maintaining himself. I compliment him at maintaining such peak physical prowess, despite being best known for playing a role that’s quite the opposite.
“I always feel lighter when I’m not carrying him around,” he says, patting his belly and laughing. (Phillips is a streamlined 150 pounds, but to portray his rather more sedentary alter-ego, he has to go through a grueling makeup process every morning, concealing well-defined muscles, adding jowls, the beard, deep eye bags, putting in crooked, yellow teeth, and then strapping on a *sixty-five pound* prosthetic belly, sometimes heavier, depending on how hard “Jon” has been hitting the McDonalds and the McKenna that season.)
Phillips has a complicated relationship with the character. “He’s a comic character, obviously, and we’re supposed to laugh at his bumbling personal failures and rapidly disintegrating mental capacities, but honestly, sometimes I feel sorry for him. This could easily have been me, if I never did anything with my life, if I just gave up. But then sometimes I get really angry with him. I just want to reach through to him and scream in his face, ‘what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing! Why aren’t you doing anything! Please, God, please, you’ve wasted your whole f---ing life!’”
He stares off into the distance, ruminating on what he’s said, but soon enough the shadow passes from his face, and he turns to me with a boyish, charming, full-toothed smile. There’s always a twinkle in the real Jon Phillips’ eye, a little mischievous glint, and I joke that getting rid of that to achieve the famous dull-eyed glaze for “Jon Phillips” the character must take an extra hour in the makeup chair.
Jon laughs. “No joke, I’ve gotten in so much trouble for that. I’m always supposed to be avoiding certain lights and turning my head just so, and… Jessie [Fievan, series director of all ten years of Spooktober Stories] will shout ‘Less joy! Less joy! You’re supposed to hate yourself, get rid of that g-d-damned zeal for life, Phillips!’ It’s a struggle. It’s a struggle.”
Before I leave, I ask him, should we start gearing up for ten more years of Spooktober Stories?
“I think if we pretended with the direction his life is going that Jon was going to live another ten more years, CinemaSins would send a trained hit squad to ding us to death,” he chides, referencing the popular YouTube series that ‘dings’ when there are factual inaccuracies in movies and television. “No, no, we won’t hang it up prematurely, but I think when a natural ending presents itself, we’ll take it.”
“Besides,” he muses, walking me to the door. “It’s hard enough to watch a relatively young miserable bastard failure not doing anything. If I had to watch a program about a middle-aged miserable bastard failure not doing anything I think I’d shoot myself in my own f---ing head.”
WELCOME TO SPOOKTOBER STORIES: SEASON 10.
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The Planting, Part 2.
That morning, which morning I did not know for I no longer counted the days, the sky was painted orange and I felt its warmth on my bark and the thick curve of each of my leaves, and drank goodly from it. I now looked down on the plot of land which was my own, and saw my friends and felt it soon would be time again to change in the way which I did each year, the change which the chill of the first winds asked of me, and the change felt good.
Then I still retained some hearing and some sight, but it was as through a veil of gossamer, a distant sensation remembered but not present in the place I lived, and I could see the field, and I could see the dirt road leading to Mr. Friend’s field, not used for years, now, for the field around me was overgrown and I no longer thought of it as Mr. Friend’s field but as my own, and I could hear my birds and I could hear the swaying of the grasses, and I could see far, for these past years I had grown some many rings and some many branches and I now towered as high as the treeline that obscured the road to town.
There was an ugly sound, a gutteral, grunting sound, that I did not recognize, or almost did not recognize, but it reminded me of another time, another place I had been, and it grew louder and my hearing was no longer distant but I focused on it intently, and my leaves trembled with it, for what it reminded me of was not a pleasant time nor place. And then a second sound, which I realized was coming from the trees, and it was laughter, ugly laughter, the ugly laughter of three men which had planted me here many long years ago. Then I grew scared, and fear seeped up my trunk like sour water, and I could taste the fear.
Mr. Tice’s Studebaker sneaked out from between old old oaks and grumbled and grunted its way to the bare earth before me where in these long years nothing had ever grown, stained as it was with ugly things that I could not name. The Studebaker was worn, rusted, and barely able to move, but it moved, and in it it carried Mr. Tice and Mr. Friend, but Mr. Miller was not with them, and for this at least I felt some relief.
I saw to my surprise that Mr. Tice and Mr. Friend were old, now, the roundness of their backs bulging through their threadbare cotton shirts, their hair thinning and shot with gray. They were both smoking, and their near constant, manic laughter coughed clouds of smoke from lungs that I could almost see through their chests, throbbing with their laughter, their bones jangling loose inside them, their skin jangling loose atop.
They were speaking in between bouts of crazed giggling and their words sounded alien to me, I could not follow their words as I knew I once could, and they passed a bottle between themselves and though I tried I could not work out their intent. Were they here to finally destroy me, had they brought axes and saws and hammers to destroy me, even now, had they remembered, were they here to do as they had intended, years ago?
They tottled around to the Studebaker’s trunk and opened it, and I thought, here it is, here are the tools of my destruction, but instead they hauled out a young man, black as wet earth and dressed in an undershirt and briefs, his hands bound behind his back with jute twine. They danced around him, joking in their cruel way which was familiar to me, and dragged him to my base, to my roots.
Never did they look at me. They had forgotten me. I felt a sensation which I had long lost, but I found with a readiness which surprised me, and it filled me with warmth, but not the goodly warmth of the sun, but a burning, a fire, and I recognized it as anger. Fury. There was a horrible fury building inside of me. Not just at their actions towards this man, or the sorrow which they subjected me to long ago, but for being forgotten, forgotten! Bitter fire spread through me.
They handed the young man a spade and insisted he dig with wrists still bound behind him. He lay curled on one shoulder, and I could see now he was weeping, his face covered in sores from where they had beaten him, and he scratched at the soil at my base ineffectively, barely moving an inch at a time. They ignored him and leaned against the Studebaker, conversing, passing the bottle back and forth, watching the young man’s impossible task with disinterest.
Mr. Tice leaned over to Mr. Friend and whispered something, and that brought Mr. Friend’s laughing fit back. I watched down on them in my fury and did not know what to do. I prayed to God in Heaven for guidance. I wished lightning and roaring wildfire upon them, I wished for tornadoes and flood, for rot to fill their trunks and for sickness to weaken and blight their branches, and for blindness and disease.
But I could not reach them, for I was not able to move, nor speak, nor did God strike them down. Mr. Friend trod forth and spat hard on the boy, who had lost hold of the spade, and hauled him up to his knees and cut loose the twine with his bowie knife, and bade him dig hard and dig deep at my feet, which he began to do.
One long and spiteful Winter weakened me terribly, I tasted no sustenance and felt my own death riding near, a chill ran through me which I could not temper. I grew stooped and crooked, and even with the coming of a late Spring, my new branches paled and were laid through with weaknesses like brittle bones. The hale years which followed allowed them strength, but still I felt their weaknesses, spiraling, hidden fault lines which crossed their breadth.
I grew five new branches that bad year, four which came with faults, and I saw now that two of these laid over the dig site, over the young man, over the old men, over the rotting Studebaker.
And I found, with careful pressure
with careful pressure, at the right juncture, at the joint that I could feel the line’s crest
The fault burst and the first branch, a long, thin branch, but heavy, for it had grown in these past years, cracked off my body, and it crashed down upon the Studebaker’s windshield, bursting it and caving inward, knocking the steering wheel from its column, scattering glass and plastic through the cabin.
The old men leapt and cursed and tossed aside their cigarettes and the nearly empty bottle, and held their heads in their hands and circled the vehicle, its body caved. They howled and were no longer in such a hilarious mood, and chattered and cussed.
In their distraction, the young man with the spade rose, and instead of running away, as I had wished him to do, ran towards Mr. Tice with the spade raised, and brought it down on him. Mr. Tice turned quickly away and caught it on his shoulder, but it was a new spade with a sharp edge and went deep, separating tissue down to the bone. Mr. Tice cried out and swung a fist at the man, but missed, and the man used his foot to push Mr. Tice down and pull out the spade from the meat to protect himself from Mr. Friend, but Mr. Friend had gotten to him already and was tearing at his face and eyes with his fingernails.
They collapsed down in the dirt, and I had another branch I could loose with some effort but I did not want to hurt the young man. They rolled, and there was blood from both, the young man was knocked about the face by Mr. Friend’s open palmed hand, and they both screamed an awful, animal sound. The spade fell aside, and the young man looked as if he was lost, but then, he rolled over with a quick flip of his mass and pinned Mr. Friend down, down, his face in my dirt, and Mr. Friend could not breathe, he could not breathe and he could not reach the young man to pull him away, who was holding him by the scruff of his hair with one hand and pressing down on his neck with the other, and Mr. Friend jerked, and writhed, and jerked, and then lay limp in the pale earth.
The young man stood, and went over to Mr. Tice, who was rolling around on the dirt and moaning something terrible, and did something that I could not see, and then Mr. Tice was still and silent.
The young man thought for a very long time, and then he began to dig. He dug two deep holes and he buried Mr. Tice and Mr. Friend at the base of my roots, and he cursed my roots in his digging but I did not mind. He put dirt back on top of them, and got into the Studebaker, and drove it some where, and then returned hours later, and spat on the ground where he had buried Mr. Tice and Mr. Friend, twice, and then patted his hands on his bare and wounded thighs, and began to walk back towards the road.
I have not seen anyone since. I no longer see nor hear. I am happy. The seasons or years I have seen since have been good. I am well watered by the rain. I am safe. I am well fed by the bodies of Mr. Tice and Mr. Friend.
and like they said on the radio only they didn't say on the radio but i heard them the rock i found was the source of it all and that was why i was so laid up because the rock you see not because of what my doctor said only it was the rock you see because they told me there on the radio that it was the rock i found down by the bay and that makes sense the bay is big and old and carries with it many a curse and that is how i found out about what daddy was doing and that is where i found out that many things carry souls including the rock i found which is why i am here on this day at least that is what they said on the radio only i don't know whether or not they were talking to me or they were talking to the folks who are looking for me but i know now at least that it is public knowledge like perhaps the racing news which came up after anyhow like they said on the radio i have to take this rock i found and put it somewhere safe like where my daddy hid all those things and he was good at hiding and i know because i found those things he was hiding and that's how i found out that many things carry souls including the rock i found which is what i heard on the radio about the rock i found down by the bay and i am laid up because of it but i don't think that i need to be laid up about it any more instead i can go on and do the things my daddy tells me to do even though he is gone these seven years past even though he has been taken away and put on d e a t h r o w and even though he is there he is still telling me things to do such as find this rock down by the bay and i was curious about it but now i know what to do because of what they said on the radio in between the racing news and the tuna fish advertisement for the best sort of tuna fish around which is apparently canned even before the tuna fish lay around for an hour or two which must mean they're not canned down by the bay because those tuna fish lay all over for days and days upon their nets turning all sorts of shades and smelling of rot before the men take them away but with this rock i found down by the bay i can change all that and it is good to know that as they said on the radio
Party game idea: Halloween egg hunt. Easy setup. Don't find all the eggs on Easter.
When anon I first clambored into this barrel, I thought enlisting a particularly burly onlooker to hammer in the nails would both be an act of heroic showmanship and also a keen one which would keep me in safety were the tumble down the waterfall to knock me asconce and keep my unconscious form from drowning. However, I now curse that precaution, for I have been in this god damned barrel for what must be several days now, and those watching my death-defying stunt have clearly lost track of me. Still I attempt to call out and roll around, but I am caught in some tangled thicket, and can hear water rushing all around me. I cannot move an inch and my curled body aches terribly. I am dying of thirst surrounded by water. I would take some solace knowing that my public disappearance and death will drum up much needed publicity for my magnificent stage act, but --curses upon curses-- I will be too dead to perform it!
The alarm blares from its spiraling minaret. We huddle together in our improvised shelter, but we can't know if it will save any of us, won't know until it's over. It's time for the Froggy Freakout. The Hopping Hour. It starts, as always, with the music, the shaka-shaka Bo Diddley beat and Day of Judgement trumps, and we clamp our hands over our ears, but even so, it's louder than we can bear. We know they're coming, now. The distorted wak-wak of the guitar joins, and The Froggening has begun. How many of us will survive their pestilent doomed boogey boogey jitterbug of the Ribbit Jump? How much more can we take? How can we hold onto hope in the face of Ultimate Frog?
Ship Time: 0001408092, whatever that means.
Dear diary. I thought stowing away on this ark would be a good idea, but the “life support systems” just administered high doses of morphine to the legitimate passengers and they all fuckin died within moments of takeoff, except for that one guy Sven who survived the OD and asked me to kill him. I guess I should have, because he died anyway and the expression on his face and the claw marks on his throat when I found him a couple days later was NOT happy. Real bummer.
Anyway, so I’m just chillin in the ark. There’s a lot of nice amenities here, and enough canned food and canned water for probably the rest of my life, but man if it isn’t sort of a downer to be the only one alive here. I guess it’s better than dying scratching at my throat like Sven. None of the video game consoles work and there’s like four movies total, and how many times do I want to watch Cannonball Run. There are knives in the kitchen so I guess I’ll just, what, cut my wrists? My throat? with one of those once I get bored enough.
Can’t go into the lower decks for now, stinks of dead guys. No good place to ride my board, all the hallways are too narrow, NOT fun. Keep hearing weeping in any of the admin decks tho but I think that’s in my head because I’m going totally b-a-n-a-n-a-s. Gwen Stefani.
i'm a little teapot
short and stout
this is my fate
for stealing from a witch
"No, mother, he's real, you've got to believe me! Jenny and Bobby didn’t just get into an accident, like the newspapers said, they were chainsaw teethed to death! We all saw him on the stage at the midterm dance. The kids at school are all calling him Chainsaw Teeth Man."
“The Chainsaw Teeth Man? Why, I’ve never heard such ridiculous nonsense.”
“That’s what they’re calling him! I know you think it was just a dream, but we saw him, we saw him! I swear we did!”
"Stephanie, that's absurd, there's no such thing as Chainsaw Teeth Man. You're just upset that your friends were chainsaw teethed to death, I understand, but this happens all the time here in Harrowing Grove, it’s upsetting, but these things just happen at your age. Now, don't you have homework to do?"
"Like I can focus on homework when Chainsaw Teeth Man is running around chainsaw teething all my friends!"
"Oh, Stephanie, what am I going to do with you? Wait until your father gets home, he’s been sheriff for twenty years in this little burg, he can set you straight.”
“Just think about it, mother, Jenny and Bobby couldn’t have just gotten chainsaw teethed by accident. How do you even fall into a mouth of chainsaw teeth? They must have been chainsaw teethed on purpose!”
“They were just drinking at the midterm dance and fell into some chainsaw teeth because of their own recklessness, and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit, knowing Jenny’s mother, and that’s all I’m going to say about that!”
“Mother!”
“Now if you won’t listen to me, being chainsaw teethed to death will be the least of your worries! To your room, miss, and I won’t hear any back talk!”
"Oh, Mother, what will it take for you to believe me! The Chainsaw Teeth Man is real! And you're going to regret saying he's not!"
Dog Sause.
• skeletons without flesh, scary
• flesh without skeletons, even worse
• half one half the other? just sort of upsetting, not really frightening, more confusing
• just hair, not scary, barbershop floor
• flesh with no skeleton but yes hair, slightly less scary than flesh by itself, but much grosser
• skeleton with hair, very cool, probably rides a motorcycle
The Planting, Part 1.
They say I hurt the Harper girl only I didn't that was Mr. Friend and I know because I saw it. I say just ask her, she's my friend, and they say she don't do much talking any more because of what you done only I ain't do anything. And then as I was walking away from them Mr. Miller grabbed my arms from behind and they bound me tight with jute twine from momma's shed and momma saying no no no the whole time and shaking her head but Mr. Tice and Mr. Friend held her back. And then they hooked my feet with more jute twine to the back of Mr. Tice's Studebaker and drove me slow down the gravel road to the field behind Mr. Friend's house, and it hurt something terrible and when they got me up I was all covered in blood and dirt and autumn leaves and couldn't move my head on my neck no more.
Then they said I looked like a tree, all covered in leaves like that, and they seemed in a wild mind and full of beans and kept laughing when they spoke to me. They kept saying I was a tree and I said no sir I am not but then they cut loose the jute twine on my arms and handed me a shovel and bade me start digging in the field and so I did. The ground was rocky and full of hard clay and I was weak from being dragged and I only got a few feet down before they got restless and said it'll have to do. I couldn't help myself and I threw up my breakfast in the hole I dug and Mr. Friend laughed and said it was good fertilizer and Mr. Miller and Mr. Tice laughed too.
They had me set indian-style in the hole I dug and it was cold and wet with my puke and alive with creepy crawlies. I said please let me go home but the world was fuzzy now and I was having a hard time staying awake to look at them much less talk, and I am not sure they understood me. They said lay your roots out, tree, and I said what, and they said lay your roots out, and I saw they meant me to put my hands to my side and I did, cold earth and scrambled egg and coffee beneath my blistered fingers.
They did not talk while they refilled the hole and when I said please please please they told me to shut up and I did. Their air of humor had gone, this was now the silent work of men, with men's grunts and muttered curses, dirt and clay and rocks hitting my outstretched hands and body, the hole filling up as they took turns with the shovel, burying me up to my chest. They patted the earth with the shovel and nodded and said well that's that.
Mr. Tice said doesn’t he look like a tree now and the other two allowed that I did. He said, don’t you look like a tree now, and I started to respond that I cannot see whether or not I look like a tree, but he told me to shut up and that trees don’t talk, and shoved a handful of yellow leaves in my mouth, a bitter, earthen taste.
Then they left to go to find something to whet their whistles in town and said don’t go anywhere and then laughed, their good spirits returning. Then they climbed into Mr. Tice’s Studebaker and drove off and as its tail lights and the jute twine they tied me to it with disappeared away down the field I spit out some of the leaves but was too hazy and spiritless to get them all out.
The day passed and I was hot and tried to move, but the earth was too heavy. I could feel creepy crawlies moving around my body, tasting as I struggled against the weight of the dirt laid on me, and I imagined that they were tasting their dinner as it was prepared for them like when I steal a spoon of beans on momma’s stove while it is cooking.
My sight, blurred as it was, the shapes of the field melted into one another, and I had the feeling that I was melting into them, too, and if I didn’t escape then soon I didn’t know what would happen. But no matter how I struggled the heaviness of the earth held me fast, and I could not get even an inch in any direction.
I was faced East and so I saw the sun setting as the soft shapes of the field turning orange and black shadow spilling from them longer and longer like hosewater into a garden. Breathing was hard and I tasted irony blood and the bitterness of flecks of dead leaves on my dry tongue each time I did it, and my throat made whistling sounds like, and I thought, like a tree creaking in the wind.
Night came, and the cold grew colder. I was surprised to find I was not shivering, instead, I felt very warm, up through my middle. I could barely see in the blackness of night, for there was no moon. I wondered where the three men had gone, and if they were coming back, but it was late and they had not. I was very scared.
The night seemed to last forever. Maybe it did. Strange thoughts wandered through my head, and I welcomed the warmness of the dirt piled around me, which had been cold at first but now was heated by my body and the leftover heat of the sun. I saw less and less, and closed my eyes to the world, for all I saw or imagined I saw frightened me.
The part of me which grew from the earth was cold, but I could feel the warmth in my middle rise up to warm it. I was hungry, but more-so I was very, very thirsty. The leaves stuck to my body with blood and clay shuddered in the breeze from the east, but did not flight away, and still I did not shiver. In some way their presence soothed me, and I was grateful for their protection against the night chill.
Sounds. The sounds of the night frightened me, distant wind, animals of the night, moving and calling for each other in primal want. I felt trapped, in this place where I had been planted, and struggled still, but my struggles grew less and less violent. The thought of my thirst overwhelmed me. I drifted, dreaming of water, cool draughts from the sink, from a glass, from a hose, to nourish me, replenish me, and I prayed to God in heaven for the men to return, even to throw water on me in their cruel jesting way.
Fear. The fear ran through me like water, oh God, please, send me some water. My lips were cracked like oak bark. My spine ached, stuck in this position, ground by my roll behind the Studebaker to raggedness, to bare, aching pain, coated in dirt which caked to mud with my sweat, dried to woody patches in the freezing breeze. And still, I did not shiver, some warmth inside of me, from my lowest point rising to the crust of dirt which surrounded me.
Fear. Sounds. Distant crashes, booming across the field, sounds I know, not the crack of a gun, the sound of a post being driven into dry earth, but distant, staggered, and part of me perked to it, though I do not know why. I closed my eyes tighter against it. Please, please, please, I thought, but did not speak aloud. Please, please, please.
The crashes grew nearer. And only once they boomed, twice, overhead, did I recognize them for what they were, and then I heard the smatter of first rain hitting the earth around me, water, water! From the heavens! I yet could not move my head, to crane back to catch it in my mouth, but something in me told me to wait, I did not have to. The rain had come, a gift from God, a response to my unspoken prayer, and He would provide.
So I waited, until the smattering became a downpour. It was a roar of rain, thunder crashing overhead, my eyes squeezed closed and unable to see lightning, but I did not need to. The rain was real enough, dashing into me in solid stalks, the wind blustering me, and I moved as I could with it. It was as if a floodgate had been opened above me. The lifewater pooled in the mound I sat in, sank through the earth, and I felt it move around me, seeping into my limbs, my belly. I absorbed the water into me and it gave me life, life! I felt more alive than I had in years. Glory, glory!
Glory, glory! Praise to God in His Heaven!
In time, though I did not know how much, the storm waned, stuttered to a shower, and ended. I did not mind its ending. I had supped my fill, and was satiated. The night no longer held terror over me, as it had before. I allowed myself to simply live in it, washed, clean, anew.
When the sun rose, I felt its warmth on me as sweetest honey, golden and glowing through me like nothing I’d felt before. I no longer wanted for anything. I was warmed, and I straightened my trunk as I could in my spot, what I now thought of as my spot, and felt myself growing in the warm glow of morning sunlight.
Haunted by a egg.
The egg does not leave me alone. I have burnt sage and done many cleansing rituals. I have meditated on this for hours and I have diffused bergamot and also eucalyptus. Still the egg remains. It is a bad egg. I can tell from its aura. I am practicing gratitude and have sent out letters of thanks. Crystals have done jack shit to this egg. I have breathed in many different healing patterns and methods and still the egg lingers. I have journaled about the egg. I have gone to a yoga class and though it did not go very well it should have been enough to banish the egg. I have several apatites and amethysts around the space where the egg haunts me and still it haunts me. I have purchased a Taurus Judge .45 Long Colt/.410 Bore Revolver with a 3” barrel and if that does not do the trick against the egg I am going to start killing government officials and local co-op members with it until the egg is satisfied. They are very easy to find and I have a list written in my manifestation notepad pages that when laid out end to end are as long as my two arms outstretched in Virabhadrasana II pose. The egg is here right now and is telling me many ways in which it can be satisfied and it will not stop until I have satisfied the egg. The manifestation notebook paper is made of reclaimed material. For whatever sins I have committed I seek absolution. I shall find it.
The shower of blood has come for twenty days, and we dance beneath the shattered skull of the new moon, and though we swear fealty to the same Death, still my fellow acolytes whisper beneath their breath, "Why is he dancing like that," and "Can someone please teach him to dance better," and things of this nature. My companions, the eschaton is immanent, please, let us dance without judgement, please, stop recording me with your phones, for I am simply trying to bring glory to our... listen, guys, I'm not doing anything weird, we're all dancing in the blood fall, please, guys, I-