A new currency.

[Reginald Ret]

Huh. Interesting.

[Eater of Clowns]

Before hanging up with Elmira, Mike took down Dom's number in his notebook. He sent his former co-worker a text to find out when they could meet. He couldn't begin to guess when this whole interaction took place. Dom could be the only person that prevented the search for Sid from becoming a dead end before it even started.

He took another long look at the mattress maw. It'd eaten Johnson, who remained a nagging unmemory in a distant corner of Mike's mind. It drove Sid to whatever he's doing, and it made half the Warwick office mentally unfit for duty. He pulled out his notepad again, the first time since he'd done so in the portal's presence since the first day, and turned to a clean page.

In a thick scrawl, he wrote "FUCK YOU" across the tiny 3.5x5" page. He threw the entire thing into the tear.

Passing the lip of the portal the pad twisted in dimensions. It came unmade and remade and the ink from Mike's pen tore itself from the paper and hovered as writing in the air. His hate-filled notes from the first day, Dom's phone number, his angry curse, all displayed for just a moment and flashing away back into the little spiral ringed notebook. Then, slowly, as if to taunt Mike with it, the bloodstain he'd left on the drawing came free. It did not rejoin with the rest of the notebook as the ink had.

Mike was nauseated. As the drop of blood disappeared into the abyss he felt as the notebook must have a moment ago, pulled apart, a million fragments of himself with no purpose and then a memory of form and then whole again, as an afterthought, as though the entirety of his being were an accident of some enormity.

When the sensation was over he blinked his eyes and wiggled his fingers. He tested his limbs and, finding everything the same, shrugged. It didn't much matter to him how many bits of he was made of or what else they'd rather be doing, so long as he could use them to find Sid.

On his way out of the apartment he stopped, as he did every time, to speak with the uniformed officer standing watch. There must have been three or four of them in rotation over the last week but he couldn't tell them apart. The Great Veil had a way of making his head swim.

"That's it for me today," he said.

"Have a good one," the officer replied.

And, just like he had on each previous day, Mike looked him directly in the eye and said, "Stay out of there."

The officer nodded. "Yes, sir."

Mike descended the stairs, casually pulling out his phone while walking to his car. It was barely an idea, much less a good one, but he had to at least try it. It wasn't as if he could make matters any worse. His thumb dancing around the little touch screen, Mike typed out a message.

Hey. Sounds like you could use a drink.

And sent it. He would see how much of Sid was really still there.

[LMNO]

This is really, really good.

[Eater of Clowns]

This is really, really good.

Thank you again.

I've really been appreciating your regular posting in here. It helps a lot. 

[Brother_Bubba_Buford]

This thread is bloody brilliant - keep up the quality writing!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Wow, the bit about the ink and the bloodstain were especially vivid.

[minuspace]

THERES MORE!?!  You, EoC, are clearly out to spoil me rotten.  Thank you!


LuciferX carefully removes his jacket and places it on the chair by the table.  He sits and tucks a handkerchief over the front of his thin black tie.  Before him, on virgin parchment, his mellifluous meal lay supine.

[minuspace]

A modest audio digestiv contribution
http://www.panchronos.com/mp3/ENTERTH%20ELION%20DC2.mp3

[Eater of Clowns]

It is amazing how much Spanish one does not need when cleaning an array of wounds in a public restroom. I wandered around the Catedral, calling for Lara, looking for signs of the debt collector, until I started attracting attention. Then I walked out, keeping my bloody leg against one wall and hoping all the shadows and darkness might be my allies here.

I wasn't stopped in the tunnels leading back to the surface. They were shorter on the ascent.
In the breaking morning light my appearance was harder to hide. The air was cool. In the chill the hair on my arm raised up and the hair on my leg pulled against the thick layer of salt and congealed blood, too matted down to move.

I kept my head low, trying to look embarrassed, and shot directly out of the mine to the restroom. A boy was standing in front of a low urinal, preoccupied.

With shaking fingers I slapped down the lever on the paper towel dispenser, a dozen times or more. I wet the whole wad of them under the faucets and started scrubbing. My leg was propped up over the basin, knee and foot hanging over opposite sides. Pink water flooded the sink, some of it disappearing down the drain and some of it trickling down my leg, pattering onto the floor. I threw away the first sodden fistful of paper towels and grabbed more.

The next tap over started running. I looked up from the furious scrubbing of my various scrapes and scratches. Four feet of bright yellow polo shirt and checkered shorts and brown skin and thick black hair and huge, wide, awestruck eyes looked back.

I smiled at the boy. "Buenos dias."

He stared at me a moment. He looked at the wet red flesh of my leg, the wad of paper towels in my fist. He looked at my one unshod foot and the little pink puddles on the floor.

"Buenos dias," he said, his voice slow and small.

I waited as he reached up for the soap dispenser and spread the soap over his hands. While he rinsed them off he would glance up at me now and then as though wondering if I were some apparition, some mad bloody gringo ghost that might disappear. He turned off the faucet and ducked behind me, giving me a wide, careful berth, and stopped in front of the paper towel dispenser. He looked up at it, just out of reach, and then up at me.

I reached over with my least bloody hand and pressed the lever a couple of times. I tore off the sheet and handed it down to him.

"Gracias," he said.

"Mucho gusto," I said.

He threw the used paper towel into the garbage bin and ran out of the restroom.

I tossed another soggy mess away. This was the best I could do for now. I needed to get back to Zipaquira, back to the room. I needed to figure out what to do next. How to find Lara.

I dried myself off as quickly as I could. The boy could be telling his classmates or his parents all about this little encounter.

Still a disaster, but a less grisly and offensive one, I left the restroom behind and began my descent back to town.

[LMNO]

I love how you take the time to reflect on how, after something completely fucked up happens, those left in the wake deal with pure normality.

[Eater of Clowns]

I love how you take the time to reflect on how, after something completely fucked up happens, those left in the wake deal with pure normality.

I'm seeing the entirety of the Cathedral of Salt as a massive OHSHIT chapter, so it's time reign in the pace and build it back up again slowly. That and writing almost every entry in it was exhausting.

Now that J.'s lost the Necronomicoin things are going to be, relatively, more normal for him. That doesn't mean better. I'd like to try my hand at horror in a present and real way for a little bit.

[LMNO]

Nice.

[Eater of Clowns]

Zipaquira was a colorful gem and I loathed it. Branching off from the central square, ubiquitous in these small Colombian towns, the buildings were painted an array of bright shades. They disappeared around bends in the streets and joined one another again in a brilliant tapestry. Murals spread across homes and tiny shops and would I had the will to love it, to read the little restoration signs, to wander aimlessly around to find a hidden corner of the town or lean back in an open restaurant with a glass of Ron de Caldas on the rocks. Even that dream was senseless. I couldn't ask for ice if I couldn't ask if the ice cubes were made with filtered water. That was what led me to my original twisting guts, and down that alley in Medellin.

But I was a specter, a wandering battered visage from the nightmares of that kid in the bathroom, effectively mute for my inability to speak the language. I needed shoes. Past the church in the plaza I found a leatherworking shop. A young man sat with a strip of leather in his hands and an array of tools scattered on the floor before him. He looked up at me and called out in Spanish. A woman emerged from the back of the store.

She spoke a few sentences and I just looked at her apologetically. She did not need any further explanation.

I picked up a pair of boots that looked like they might hold up to the abuse that would no doubt be heaped upon them in the coming days. Miles and mountains and, well, monsters. They had a number for the size but they weren't US measure and so it was useless to me.

The woman motioned for me to try them on and I lifted my damaged foot. She gasped and made a little tut. I should have gone to a drogueria first, bandaged this mess.

"Socks?" I said, "er...quando, no, donde esta el...dammit, socks?" I finished pathetically.

She was still shaking her head and muttering to herself, her eyes frozen on the foot. Then she turned around and threw her hands up and walked off to the back of the shop. The young man had stopped working on the shoe in his lap.

"H-hurt?" he asked.

I shook my head, "No, no, but eh...no me gusto."

"No gusto," he nodded, and returned to his shoe.

The woman emerged again from behind the shelves with an armful of supplies. She briskly motioned me to the sole chair in the tiny shop. I sat. She got down on her knees with a little sigh and pulled out a bottle of alcohol and a few strips of gauze. She waved the isopropyl alcohol and looked me in the eye with a warning, then without further pause poured it on the gauze and wiped it across the wound. I hissed and my foot jerked a little but she was holding the ankle tightly. She shook her head and muttered some more.
When the foot was bandaged I moved it around a little. The gauze was lightly bound and I could feel it stretch with my flexing, could feel the raw skin beneath it as though it were pulled taut. I nodded. "Gracias," I said. "Gracias."

"Con mucho gusto," she said gently, and patted me on the knee.

I pointed at the pair of boots I'd been holding. "Por favor."

She handed them to me. Carefully, I put them on over the bandages and stood. They pinched in the toes. I reached into my pocket and handed over the stack of folded pesos. The woman looked at me, then at the pesos, and took them. She counted them, then passed me back a couple fifty thousand notes. I shook my head, waved my hand.

"Gracias, senora," I gestured to my foot.

She nodded and accepted the bills. I ducked out of the shop and back into Zipaquira. The town was lovely again, vibrant again. I walked down the road to the hotel.

[whenhellfreezes]

A cold wind passes through the server room. Somebody opened up the door! It's been ages since the door has been open. I had forgotten what a refreshing breeze was or that the door could be open. Why was the server room so cold? Quite simply if left too long to compute eventually the cpu heats up. Simply a result of the laws of thermodynamics. Thankfully I had dutifully spent years learning these things so I could be ready. Ready for what? I don't know. I must have forgotten.

In the distance I hear "Is anyone in here?". Instinctively I start moving towards the sound. My heartbeats it's something new. I start moving faster but still silent as a ghost. Then I hear it a harrowing clunk. The door closed again.

"I am here" I yell into the darkness. Maybe I should have used my voice earlier. Next time. Next time. Til then I guess I must wait I guess. I stare at the blinking lights of the racks of hardware. Hopefully that will help drown things out til next time. Must pass the time, but mustn't forget. Blink, blink. It's not helping. A song starts playing in my head. "This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends," it was that song from lamb chops. Shiver. Why doesn't it stop? Mustn't forget. This server room is practically a butcher's store room. My head stings from the thought, that's not helping. "This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends". Mustn't forget.

[minuspace]

I know I'm not supposed to forget something...  What?

The air conditioning hardens my brain, allowing me to focus, to concentrate - reminding me of how I was before - before I was outrun beyond the furrows of attrition scorched across mind.  Errant thoughts, once denatured, never quite return the same.  The trick is hidden in rates of change.

Like strained footsteps, a voice gently echoes:  "Honey, I feel a draft"

If only I had known then what I know now, maybe I would not have been so dismissive.  I could have found myself.  If only I could have responded directly, without fear; if I could have allowed myself just a fraction of a chance to really consider what was at stake...  How could I be so irresponsible?

Desperately, I tried to forge that fire inside the fire.  Unable to immediately reproduce the vision of my mission, I started wondering how I ever cared in the first place.  Why?  Why even entertain the question?  What If I encountered every possible possibility, and nothing registered as having been before?

That, then, could never concern me again.  The question, however, will not allow itself to be postponed.

[ED.  Yea, yea...  Crimson and Clover, Over and Over.... Next ]