Food-Mindedness and Body Horror

In case it wasn’t already abundantly clear from my 300 lb. belly, I’m very food-minded. Almost everything in my life reminds me of food in some way. Hell, the word Life will conjure images of the oat square cereal swirling around in milk. The word swirling will remind me of frosted cinnamon buns, keyword being frosted, as in enough frosting to cover the whole fucking thing. At least those words make a modicum of sense, but then there are names of people that remind me of food for no reason at all. Marcus reminds me of hotdogs and mustard. Brad reminds me of French bread. Rachel reminds me of apple juice. Erick reminds me of birthday cake-flavored milkshakes. How did this happen? Was it the constant advertising? Was there some trick of the brain during childhood I wasn’t aware of?

Already, my relationship with food is off to a rocky start. But then there are the things I find disgusting in life and how they find their way into my food. Not literally, but I imagine that they do and my imagination is powerful enough to make me vomit in some cases. For example, if you’ve ever seen the movie Clerks, the View Askew Productions logo at the beginning will serve as nightmare fuel to haunt you at every stage of life. There’s nothing wrong with men dressing in fishnet pantyhose, high heels, and leather thongs…even if they do have grotesque body hair. But it’s the unwanted sexual attention and creepiness of his flirtation that makes it such a traumatic logo. After seeing that logo for the first time, I kept involuntarily picturing his hairy disgusting body in pieces of my lunch meat. Every time I take a bite of ham or turkey, I imagine I’m taking a bite out of that man’s body. My stomach is aching and my fingers are convulsing just thinking about this.

But that’s just one example. If that was the only one, then I wouldn’t have been inspired to write an entire essay on it. What about the Calcobrena Puppets from Final Fantasy IV? You know, those creepy leotard-wearing dolls with buzzed heads, bloodshot eyes, zombie movements, and murderous intentions. They look like they could be Pee-Wee Herman’s children based on their buzz-cuts alone. Pee-Wee Herman once taught his audience how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on his show. Therefore…all of my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches will taste like the bodies of the Calcobrena Puppets. It’ll be like eating right off of their skulls, head lice, fleas, and maggots be damned. It’ll be like giving French kisses to each and every one of those dolls…while passing pre-chewed sandwiches back and forth! Again, my stomach is boiling and rotting while I’m typing this.

And what about the Simpsons from their Treehouse of Horror Episodes, particularly the ones where they turn into pale zombies. They chew flesh, they lose limbs, they groan like exhausted monsters, and did I mention that they have pale skin? You know what else is pale in color? Pasta covered in white sauce, whether it’s American cheese or Alfredo sauce. Every bite that I took of those macaroni shells made me believe I was eating pieces of the zombie Simpsons. I took a long time to swallow knowing that zombie flesh was going down my throat and was going to poison me to death. The macaroni turned to mush in my mouth, so when I finally swallowed, I gagged and brought up a little bit of bile with it.

If I rattled off every example of food-related body horror, then we’d be here forever and a day. I could talk about the faceless masks from Pink Floyd the Wall reminding me of melted cheese. I could talk about the diarrhea blasts in The Human Centipede reminding me of chocolate ice cream (that one’s too obvious, though). I could talk about dead flies reminding me of Butterfinger ice cream. How did this all happen? Why are these disgusting things finding their way into my every meal? Am I so linked up with food that every trauma will remind me of such? Suppose I was more inclined towards Legos instead of food. If I touched a Lego piece that had three holes in it, would it remind me of the Pink Floyd masks? What if I was geared towards clothing? Would the View Askew drag queen’s body hair remind me of a wool sweater that’s literally hugging my chest?

I can already hear fatphobic assholes using my food horror as motivation for me to lose weight…or is that just my schizophrenic voices? Nah, I’m pretty sure someone has thought of exploiting me at one point or another. To those fat-shamers, I say watch the Human Centipede and eat a bag of shit and then watch Pink Floyd the Wall and eat an entire McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese (there has to be cheese in it, no exceptions). Unlike drugs and alcohol, food is actually necessary to survive. A cheeseburger will carry you over into the next day. A pack of cigarettes will not. A pepperoni pizza will give you the nutrition you need, even if it’s bad. Alcohol will not. If I gave up all of my favorite foods due to the body horror I’ve witnessed over the years, I would die of anorexia. Imagine that: fat-shaming actually hurts people instead of helping them find motivation. It’s almost as if people are only fat-shaming to satisfy their sadistic urges and are just using motivation as a cover-up for their shitty behavior. Bullying never went away; it just adapted to the new world.

I could tell you all that I’ve found the perfect counter for body horror-induced trauma, but I haven’t. Yes, I’m still alive and eating like a pig, but that’s only because the trauma went away on its own. I eat ham sandwiches whenever I damn well please even though the View Askew drag queen lusted on me through the TV screen as a kid. I eat stuffed mushrooms despite the fact that it feels too much like I’m eating Phanto from Mario Brothers 2, the evilly-smiling little bastard. Trauma going away on its own is not a typical outcome for most people, especially if schizophrenia is a factor like it is for me. Sure, you can take away the stimulus and hope for the Law of Diminishing Returns to kick in, but it doesn’t always do that. I have no solutions for your body horror trauma. As a matter of fact, I may have given you some of that as I described examples of how they make their way into my food.

Sometimes I think I’m the only one who experiences things like this until I Google it and find entire communities full of people who share my problems. But that’s assuming I’m not too lazy on any given day to use Google. It’s such an easy thing, yet I find myself too lazy sometimes to type words into a search engine. If you’re out there and you’re as food-minded as me, I’m sorry I can’t provide solutions for you other than the occasional animal picture and some digital hugs. You know who can provide more than that? Your therapist. They can talk you through your trauma. They can encourage you to face your food-themed fears. They can be there for you when you feel like others would laugh at your plight. Yes, therapy can be expensive at times, but it’s worth every penny if it means you’ll be okay in the end. If you’re not okay, it’s not the end. Life is better alive. It’s a dumb thing to say, but the truth won’t wane away. Okay, now I’m just ripping off quotes and lyrics. I should stop doing that before I get sent to prison for copyright infringement and have my vanilla pudding remind me of my cell mate’s semen. Uh-oh! More body horror!

Blood Rain

One shot would be all it took. A flying diamond-tipped arrow to Shatter Man’s life core would earn Ino Kara the respect she deserved from her mercenary cohorts. No more jokes about her equine features. No more jokes about being ridden like a cowboy. They could forget about trying to feed her hay. They could spare her the horse dick references and anything else that had to do with bestiality. “You fuckers will put respect on my name,” she said in a low voice to nobody in particular.

Shatter Man was ripe for the snipe. Surrounded by a cluster fuck of dead bodies lying on the dirt and bone-covered ground, the necromantic machine sat cross-legged while his exhaust pipe belched red filth into the gray skies above. Ino could smell the ashen cloud it all the way from her sniper’s nest in the treetops. She had to be careful not to hack up a lung if she wanted to stay hidden.

With a bandana tied around her muzzle and stillness taking over her body, Ino pulled one of her diamond-tipped arrows out of her quiver and took aim with her golden edge bow. A shot to the head would have been her preference for any sniping mission, but Shatter Man’s mechanical dome wouldn’t allow it. She had to pierce through his chest at the exact spot and splatter his life core all over the ground. A filthy death indeed, but no more filthy than speeding up climate change with this necromantic smoke. Ino had to find her exact shot and make it quick.

She breathed deeply not only to calm her nerves, but steady her aim. Just when she was ready to release her arrow, a crow flew from out of nowhere and began pecking at Ino’s mask. “Shoo! Go away! Beat it!” she angrily whispered while swatting the bird away. She didn’t want to whack the poor guy too hard due to her respect for animals, but this wasn’t he best time to horse around. There was another mercenary joke that needed to be eradicated forever: horsing around.

Ino steadied her breathing once more and made a second attempt at aiming for the life core. “Easy…easy does it…you’ve got this…now take a shot!” she whispered to herself. The damn crow served as a distraction yet again, but this time perched its claws right over Shatter Man’s life core. The robot didn’t move an inch, just kept spewing garbage into the cloudy skies. “You asked for it, you stupid bird.” Respect would only go so far as Ino Kara finally took her shot.

Shatter Man looked so still and unaware this entire time, not unlike the zombies he was trying to wake up with his putrid smoke. Ino gasped when the mechanical nightmare grabbed the arrow just before it could pierce his life core. He crushed the arrow into dust, including the diamond tip, before ejecting bird seed from his hand as a reward for the crow.

“That little bastard,” whispered Ino, clutching her edge bow so tightly that a little crack formed.

Shatter Man spun his head towards Ino’s sniping nest. His visor flashed an eerie shade of red, making Ino’s heart race no matter how much she tried to suppress her fear. He pointed a drill bit finger at her and puffed even more pollutants into the sky. “My sacred ritual is not your payday!” he said in a monotone, demonic voice. “Arise, my children of the dead!”

A sprinkle of water landed on Ino’s furry head. And another. And another. When she wiped them away, her teeth and legs vibrated at the crimson color. The tiny droplets became heavier and denser until a full-on bloody rainstorm drenched Ino from head to hooves. Her purple battle dress and blue thigh high boots clung to her body like a frightened child wanting his mother’s undying love.

Ino’s own blood grew ice cold and a knot welled up in her stomach when the bloody rain caused the army of dead bodies to twitch. Limbs and heads awkwardly twisted around. Rotting flesh peeled and rolled. Bulging eyeballs retracted back into their owners’ skulls. Slowly and creepily, the shit-smelling dead bodies rose to their wobbly feet until Shatter Man and his crow informant had their own necromantic army.

The horse woman swallowed a golf ball sized lump while clutching her chest, hoping she wouldn’t die of a heart attack before this battle had a chance to begin. “Fuck it,” she said, tossing all caution to the wind. Even as crimson rain pelted her clothing and soaked her fur, Ino tossed aside her growing fear and ran into the fray.

“I want some goddamn respect!” she shouted, knowing assassinating Shatter Man was the only way she’d get it from her fellow mercenaries. As hordes of zombies trudged towards her with their rotten arms extended and their bloody mouths wide open, she fired multiple arrows at once and each one hit their marks. Chests exploded. Throats splattered on the ground. Guts spilled all over the dirt like a gory mudslide. When Ino ran out of arrows, she continued her assault by swinging her edge bow and smashing the skulls of anybody who dared take a bite out of her horse meat.

Shatter Man’s arms folded while the crow sat perched on his shoulder laughing his ass off at the equine warrior. “You little bastard!” shouted Ino as she trampled fallen zombies on her way to snatch the bird, wanting so desperately to rip his feathers out and snap his beak. The zombies wouldn’t stay down for long. As the blood rain continued to pour, they stood back up even with their detached heads and exploded bones. They grabbed at Ino’s shoulders with broken fingers, but she beat them down with her edge bow until they were little more than rivers of blood and organs.

Despite the aching in her own ribcage and limbs, Ino wouldn’t allow her waning energy to get in the way of her quest for respect, coin, and ultimately her life. She smashed more skulls, stomped on fallen bodies, ripped out spinal cords, but the zombies kept getting back up for more. Even the crow got in on the action when he pecked behind Ino’s ears. She swung at the bird, but he kept dodging and laughing the whole time, turning Ino’s ice cold blood into boiling magma. Even as more zombies grabbed her, she ripped her flesh away from their sharp grips and chased after the bird.

When Ino finally latched onto the crow’s tail feathers and seethed with bloodlust as she imagined ripping the little guy apart, a heavy metal punch to the gut doubled her over and caused her to dry heave on the ground. The zombies were called off as Ino touched her damp wound. She knew it was her own blood and not that of the crimson weather. She could feel her naked ribcage because there was no skin to protect it. That punch came from Shatter Man himself, who stood over her with his red visor glowing and blinding her with every flash.

“Go ahead…finish me off…what are you waiting for?!” begged Ino, spitting out blood in between words.

“You exhausted your body, battled my minions, and put your life at risk for a little bit of respect?” said Shatter Man. Ino tucked her head in shame as she laid in the fetal position waiting to die. “Everybody who tried to claim my life has the same story: a minority mercenary looking for acceptance from their peers. Killing me will suddenly net them the happiness they believe they’re entitled to. Truth is, young lady…you could cure cancer and end worldwide hunger all in the same day. You’re still going to be laughed at. You’re still going to be hated by society. Why? Because ignorance and fear are easier to accept than progressive values.”

Tears welled up in Ino’s eyes as this truth bomb hit her harder than Shatter Man’s punch to her guts. “I don’t want to be a horse anymore,” she sobbed. “If being a normal human will get them to leave me alone, then I’ll take it. I never got racial pride anyways.”

“It doesn’t get more ordinary and boring than laying six feet deep in the ground, no matter what race you identify as. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to please others to get the respect you deserve. You don’t have to conform to tradition. If you want respect, you’ve got to beat it out of those who deny it to you. You think I chose to be a robot? You think I was born with the name Shatter Man? I didn’t win any popularity contests with my background. Why do you think I have a price on my head? It would have only been a matter of time until you had a price on yours.”

Ino spit up more blood and wiped away her tears with her dress sleeve. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? I’m already on my way to hell. At least in hell, they’re honest about what kind of torture they’re going to give me. Here on earth, they just disguise it as making whatever country they live in ‘great again’.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” said Shatter Man, waving his arm in the sky to show off his bloody rain. “You can have a second chance at life just like my minions. As zombies, they don’t have the highest social ranking. But they take full advantage of their second chance. They hunger for revenge against a society that never wanted them when they were alive. They were and still are weirder than any horse woman they’ve ever seen. Let the blood rain flow into you. Join my army. Don’t wait for respect. Take it from them with both hands.”

The bloody rain poured through Ino Kara’s wounds as she laid on her back waiting for sweet necromancy to overtake her. A warming sensation spread throughout and she didn’t feel like shivering anymore, whether it was because of fear or cold weather. Her eyes rolled back in her head like she was in an orgasmic trance. Her tired body blazed with energy and happiness she hadn’t felt in a long time. Her pain numbed out and was replaced with a massaging sensation throughout her chest, legs, and head.

Slowly and shakily, she rose from the ground. Her stomach pounded with hunger, but not for food and certainly not for hay. She hungered for flesh. She thirsted for blood. Her tormentors would turn into victims. Her cannibalistic meals would taste juicier than a steak dinner. She licked her blood-covered lips and groaned with lust.

Shatter Man placed a hand on her shoulder. “Welcome to my army. You can stay for as long as you desire. They say the taste of vengeance is bittersweet, but you’ll find it to your liking. You will be loved and respected…or else!”

Ino Kara had no words for her seductive master, only groans. Then again, she wouldn’t have to debate the harmful effects of racism with the world ever again. Either her victims took yes for an answer…or they would get chewed up and spit out with no remorse. Ino smiled at that idea. Her newly rotten teeth would make her face look even more horrifying to the racists she would eventually devour. She was strangely okay with that. Fuck beauty. Fuck love. Fuck everybody in this butt ugly world!

"The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" by Max Allan Collins

BOOK TITLE: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

AUTHOR: Max Allan Collins

YEAR: 2008

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Urban Fantasy

GRADE: Pass

In the year 200 BC, China’s Dragon Emperor conquered his country with an iron fist and compassion for nobody. Karma would take the form of a sorceress’s curse, which covered him and his army in terra-cotta and banished them in suspended animation for eternity. Fast forward two millenniums and the Dragon Emperor is awakened from his curse by the greedy and zealous General Yang. The globetrotting O’Connell family must now put the mummy back into the ground by stabbing him in the heart with a mystical blade that was guarded for many generations. With an endless supply of firepower and unmatched martial arts skills, the O’Connells truly are the world’s last hope.

Even though this book earned its passing grade (four out of five stars), it’s not without its glaring flaws, particularly in the cheese department. The narrator constantly complimenting the female characters’ beauty, the gratuitous explosions, the sometimes off-color use of similes and metaphors, the instant chemistry between Alex O’Connell (the son) and Lin (Chinese tomb guardian), and the most obvious cheese of all, Alex and his father Rick using penis analogies to describe their submachine guns and pistols. Considering this was once a poorly received movie, I don’t doubt that these cheesy elements turned off plenty of viewers.

But that’s not to say that this book doesn’t deserve the praise it gets. All in all, it’s a fun little book filled with action, adventure, and opportunities for young authors to learn how to write in a fast-paced manner. It turns out that describing every punch and kick within a Jackie Chan-style fight isn’t one hundred percent necessary. In fact, that would take forever and impatient readers like me don’t have forever. We like hard-hitting action. We like hailstorms of bullets. We like tooth and nail struggles that bring the warriors to the edge of death and back again. Although the O’Connell family is blessed with martial arts skills and expensive firearms, they’re no doubt going to earn whatever victories they get. To put it in Rick’s terms, this struggle is going to make them HATE mummies!

The wild imagination of this story is something I also want to praise. Magical elements, bloodthirsty three-headed dragons, barbaric yetis, immortal Chinese warriors, a pool of eternal life, mystical artifacts, this urban fantasy has everything you need in order to get those inner wheels turning. While some of the magical occurrences come off as random at times, they don’t take away from the action or drama of the book and actually make sense in hindsight. Look at it this way: how else is a mere mortal named Rick O’Connell going to beat the crap out of a warrior mummy who won’t stay down? Anybody? Hello? Yes, the dragon dagger comes off as a McGuffin and McGuffins are considered literary sins, but if you’ve got a better way to kill off this seemingly immortal Dragon Emperor, I’d like to hear it.

Sometimes all a reader wants to do is have some fun and you’ll get that with this third installment of The Mummy series. You could also consider seeing the movie this book was adapted from, but diehard readers will want to choose the book instead. The writing style is cinematic in and of itself, so what are you waiting for? Pick up a copy of this four-star book today! Don’t be too turned off by the fact that this story has more cheese than a Domino’s pizza. After all, this kind of cheese would make even a vegan hungry.

King of Elves and Trees

Every strike of the axe against the Black Forest trees sent a shiver of rage up and down Saito Kabaka’s spine. The gigantic lumberjack’s swings created the deepest wooshing noises and seemed capable of tearing off a person’s head with one slice. But instead of human heads, the massive battleaxe chipped away quickly and efficiently at the thick redwoods. Saito watched from the bushes with a contorted frown, dying on the inside with every chop. This was ecocide. This was murder. The lumberjack wasn’t just chopping down trees; he was violating the spirits of this very forest.

After a while of nausea and gritted teeth, Saito couldn’t stand idly by any longer. When the elf samurai chucked one of his daggers, he forgot instantly that this man-beast was twice his size and ten times as lethal. The dagger missed its mark, but the flannel shirt and jeans wearing titan stumbled back a few paces and sucked in air at a rapid cadence. Saito’s fiery eyes bore a hole through the giant’s nervous baby blues. Decked out in golden leather armor, donning a glowing green crown of plant roots, and drawing his slender katana, the forest guardian made his presence and fury known.

“I don’t intrude into your home and eat your food. I don’t laze on your bed and fuck your wife. I don’t snatch your valuables from underneath your booger-encrusted schnoz. So why then do you believe it’s acceptable to come to my home and cut down my trees?” asked Saito while pointing his blade at the lumberjack. He slashed at the air and continued his slithery oratory with, “This forest is not your urban dystopia. It doesn’t exist so that you could build fancy hotels and burger joints for overfed human scumbags! Take that piece of shit you call a weapon and leave this place before I rip your intestines out and lynch you with them from the same tree you tried to cut down!”

The baldheaded beast of a man’s eyes darted frantically in every direction while cold sweat poured down his forehead. And then the shtick was over when he laughed his ass off and slapped his thick knees with an echoing thud. “Are you kidding me? A teeny tiny elf like you is going to lynch me with my own intestines? Goddamn, you’re a funny motherfucker!” The yuks poured out of his mouth like verbal diarrhea as he struggled to say, “Listen, man: that environmental bullshit is overrated. Take off that stupid hat; it looks fucking ridiculous on you! You might as well walk around with a salad bowl on your head!”

The lumberjack’s chuckle-filled tirade was cut off by a flying shuriken that narrowly missed his ear. But instead of feigning fear again, he dropped his axe and gave an even less sincere double slap on his cheeks with a wide open mouth.

“Perfect timing, Tifa, as usual,” smiled Saito. Floating down to the dirt like a feather was the silken dress wearing, golden haired female elf counterpart Tifa Croft, armed with claw bracers around her wrists and wearing a plant root crown like her fellow guardian. The two of them shared a peck on the lips much to the overdramatic coughing dismay of the seven-foot lumberjack.

“You guys actually fuck in this forest?” the man giant asked. “Is that how these trees grow, by the two of you sprinkling your seeds all over the ground?”

Tifa folded her arms and treated the lumberjack to a ball-shrinking death stare. “You have the sense of humor of a fucking five year old and probably the intelligence of one too. Saito here is the King of Elves and Trees and I am his Queen. Respect the crowns, you ignorant little shit!”

The lumberjack waved his arm dismissively and scoffed, “Well, I see a whole lot of trees out here, but very many elves, so I guess this ugly ass forest could do with some urban development.” He heaved his axe in the air and pointed at various parts of the forest with his weapon. “We can put a Mickey D’s over there, a Chicas Bonitas over there, and maybe a school all the way over there. You liberal whack jobs like schools, right?”

Saito swung his katana in the air and slithered, “And what do you plan on teaching this new generation of ignoramuses: how to eat a whole bucket of fried chicken in less than thirty seconds? Maybe that’s something you can teach the elves of this forest, who will be here sooner than you think.”

“You’d better hope those little pointy-eared fags run for the hills,” smirked the lumberjack while leaning his face into Saito’s. “I wasn’t planning on committing genocide today, but I just might change my mind if the two of you don’t fuck off and leave me to my work. I’m getting a lot of money for this project and I’ll be damned if you two hippies rip it away from me and my family! Remember the name of Rudiger Seran, but fuck it, you two are going to call me Daddy by the time I’m done with you!”

Rudiger threw the first swing of his axe and would have covered the whole forest in blood if Saito and Tifa didn’t duck out of the way in time. The two elves rolled and flipped their way out of every slash that the giant threw. They bounced off of trees hand in hand and found refuge at the top branches. They smiled down upon Rudiger while the lumberjack shouted, “You two cowards better get your asses down here and fight me before I cut this fucker down!”

Saito whispered in Tifa’s pointy ear, “You’ve got the supplies up here right?”

The lovely assassin brushed her hair away and pulled several pinecones out of an otherwise empty bird nest. She grinned, “It wouldn’t be the same without them.” With a wink, a nod, and a kiss, Tifa threw one of the pinecones down upon an unsuspecting Rudiger. The biomass exploded in a flash bang upon making contact with Mr. Seran’s thick skull. The giant hopped and head-banged in pain while belting every swear word known in the English language.

“You’re the best queen a man could ask for,” grinned Saito as he and Tifa threw more flash bang pinecones down upon their assailant. Rudiger tried to smack some of them away like he was playing baseball and managed to hit a few homers out in the distance. Others bounced off of his massive arms and legs while popping like firecrackers. The mighty Seran had struck out and his body ached with redness and scars. The King and Queen hugged each other and laughed like children.

Bruised skin wasn’t the only reason Rudiger was seeing red. He growled through clenched teeth and smacked himself on the cheek so many times he actually bled. His rage became evident in the way he swung his axe at the tree, ripping larger chunks out of the redwood and creating deeper wooshing noises. “Uh-oh!” Tifa quipped while she and Saito held hands and leapt to the next tree just in time for Rudiger’s ecocidal victim to crash to the ground.

Saito’s heart pounded in his chest like a war drum and the cold wetness of Tifa’s hand brought chills racing through his own body. She shook slightly and prompted the king to ask, “Are you okay, my love?”

“I…I think so,” Tifa stuttered before the branch underneath her cracked and crunched, causing her to drop to the forest ground with a resounding thud  Saito tried to hold out his hand and grab her, but all he could do was yell, “No!” as his wife crashed and burned. She lied there in the dirt breathing heavily and coughing up a geyser of blood.

Rudiger hung his battleaxe over his shoulder and strutted around Tifa with a shit-eating grin. “I guess that vegan diet isn’t helping you lose enough weight. And people call me a fat ass!” joked the lumberjack while slapping his knee and chuckling again.

Watching Rudiger Seran belittle his wife clouded Saito’s mind with scathing, bloody thoughts. As defenseless as she was, she still threw her claws around in the air hoping to hit something. Her weakness multiplied when Rudiger stomped on Tifa’s hand and crunched it so that it sounded more violent than when he whacked down the tree. Her screams of agony and shame echoed throughout the forest and caused nearby birds to fly away in fear. She tried to slash Rudiger’s thick ankles with her other claw, but that got stomped on too until there was just a bloody heap underneath his work boots.

Saito tried to remain calm and wait for his perfect opportunity to stealthily strike. But Tifa’s screams filled his gut with nuclear heat. Rudiger’s arrogant laughter filled his nerves with flaming gasoline. The more his heart pumped diesel, the more he forgot about the importance of his samurai training. With katana firmly grasped in both hands, he screamed like a demon and leapt on top of Rudiger with the intent to slash him in two vertically.

Saito could feel the ground hurtling at him at a million miles per hour. The landing was going to break his ankles, but not nearly as badly as he was going to break every bone in Rudiger’s body. And then the lumberjack swung his axe and snapped Saito in two from the waist down. The elf samurai could hear his wife roaring his name in pain as his vision went black and his wrecked body bounced off the tree with a deafening splat.

Even as what was left of him slid slowly and slimily down the tree, he could recall Rudiger asking in a mocking tone where all of the elves were at. The now pouring rain soothed Saito’s burning wounds, but it was already too late for the King of Elves and Trees.

The plant root crown slipped off of his sloppy skull and buried itself into the earth below. The rain poured down violently enough to represent the emotions of Mother Nature herself. She continued to weep as Rudiger thoughtlessly cut down more and more of her trees with vicious whacks while mocking her with cries of, “Where are your elves now, bitch?!” Tears of ecocidal agony turned into monsoons and floods. The crowns formerly worn by Tifa and Saito were drenched with nutrition as they began to take root underneath the forest.

The more Rudiger laughed his ass off, the more the roots spread across the ground. Even in the chilling rain, the arrogant giant chopped and chopped like his paycheck was that important too him. Trees crashed to the earth with sickening pounds, so much so that Rudiger was almost done with his work. But as he jokingly wiped away forehead sweat, he took a look around him and saw that his work was only just beginning.

“What the fuck?” he whispered as the tree stumps grew even more beautiful plants. Not redwoods, not roses, not berry-covered bushes, but the one species Rudiger kept asking for this entire time. Ask and ye shall receive in the form of naked green-skinned elves with blistering red eyes and thorn-covered swords. One by one they blossomed from the stumps and groaned like an army of zombies. Rudiger dropped his axe and cowered on the soaked ground, shivering for reasons other than the temperature.

The pathetic display did nothing to back off the hungry doppelganger elves as they chanted in monstrous unison, “You will feed us! You will feed us! You will feed us!” They closer they marched, the brighter their neon red eyes glowed and the more Rudiger shivered and quaked in his clumsy body. And then, the King and Queen’s beloved army of avengers dined upon the giant’s flesh like the entire menu at one of the lumberjack’s planned Mickey D’s. Rudiger’s flesh tasted more delicious than chocolate cake, meatier than a twenty-pound steak, and juicier than a bottle of Ocean Spray. So much for that vegan diet that Tifa Croft always enjoyed.

Necrocosm

***NECROCOSM***

This will be the first of many journal entries where I come up with an idea for a setting and hopefully a short story, D&D campaign, or novel will snowball from there. What are we kicking off with? The Necrocosm, of course. People who read my poetry will remember a heavy metal song called Necrocosm which basically described the audience at WWE Fast Lane 2015. Even though there was excitement and action going on in the ring, the Tennessee audience acted bored out of their minds. Therefore, they’re living in a necrocosm, or a death world (because they’re a dead audience). It seemed like an apt description to me.

The suffix “cosm” in the Greek language means “world”. I know this because I used to spend my time surfing You Tube for Clerks videos and in one of them, Randal says to Dante, “This is a life of convenience for you and any attempt to change it would shatter the pathetic microcosm you’ve fashioned for yourself.” I looked up the word microcosm on dictionary.com and it was defined as a “little world”, micro meaning “little” and cosm meaning “world”.

So then I thought, what other Greek prefixes could we pair up with the suffix cosm? I’ve done this exercise plenty of times with the suffix “mancer” and thus we have short stories like The Aeromancer (wind wizard), The Hydromancer (water wizard), and The Cryomancer (ice wizard). Let’s see what we can do with the word “cosm”. A pyrocosm would be a world of fire and can actually be an alternative word for the sun. A cryocosm would be a world of ice and that’s basically what Pluto is. A thermocosm would be a world of heat and Mercury would qualify since it’s the closest planet to the sun.

So what could we do with a necrocosm, or a world of death? Lots of things, actually. Some would say the earth in the year 2016 would qualify as a necrocosm since a lot of mass shootings and celebrity deaths took place. Some would say heaven and hell are necrocosms since according to Christianity, that’s where dead people go. Maybe the word necrocosm could apply to graveyards, funeral homes, and morgues.

Those are all valid interpretations, but what if I took it a step further? What if there was a planet in our solar system governed by an alien race of zombies? It doesn’t even have to be a structured government. It could be anarchy with zombies rising from the dirt to feast on trespassers. Maybe it could be an autocracy with an evil necromancer governing everything so that one day he can use his minions to conquer other worlds. Maybe it’s just one big farm where souls of the dead are kept and harvested. I’ve often thought of the possibilities of entire planets being used as seals for demons and undead creatures. Once that seal is broken, all bets are off, motherfuckers. Keegan Day from “Occupy Wrestling” never thought of this shit. Or did he? Hmm.

Okay, so we’ve got this world of reanimated dead bodies. What we need now is a reason for an adventurer to go there. Surely, traveling to such a violent and savage place would be a suicide mission. There must be something or someone of value on this necrocosm that would be worth wading through an army of dead bodies. A villain to fight, a prisoner to rescue, an artifact to steal, these are all good reasons to risk life and limb for a journey to that planet. If you know how to build tension, you can pull off this storyline and be successful at it.

So how about it, ladies and gentlemen? If this became a D&D campaign, would your character have the cajones to venture onto such a planet with the lingering fear of having his flesh and organs gnawed on? Would you have the solid steel spine to read through a novel that went behind fierce enemy lines like the war zone the necrocosm is? Could I possibly fit an entire world’s worth of action and drama into one short story? So many possibilities, so little time. Hell, if somebody else wants to expand upon this idea and do something with it, I’m not against it as long as you remember where you got this juicy creative fuel from. The table of opportunity has been set, people. What are you going to do?

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

It’s a brand new week and a brand new prompt has been put into place. Apparently, this suggestion was from many years ago when a former admin named Mike Ragland first posted it in the prompt ideas forum. The theme is Crumbling Well (that definitely has Mike’s fingerprints all over it), so my story this week will be called “The Ophidiomancer” (more Greek wordplay, for sure). It goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

Shaun Goldberg, Sheep Mask-Wearing Giant

Carlos Pierre, Psychotic Snake Handler

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Carlos keeps his poisonous snakes in a crumbling well in the middle of the field.

SYNOPSIS: Shaun is a thirty-year-old man child who recently escaped from his abusive mother and is wandering the plains like a mindless zombie. He stumbles upon Carlos and his followers in the middle of a snakebite ritual. Carlos offers to heal Shaun’s soul with a “test of faith”, but when the snake bites the man child, he goes berserk and starts throwing the followers around. Carlos tries to get out of dodge, but he keeps stumbling and rolling.

FUN FACT: For all of you WWE fans out there (both old school and new), these two main characters are based off of actual wrestlers that worked with the company. Shaun Goldberg is likened to Erick Rowan and Carlos Pierre has similarities to Jake “The Snake” Roberts. They come from two completely different eras of wrestling and bring their own form of creepiness to the table. Since a match between Rowan and Roberts won’t actually take place due to Roberts’ old age, this short story is the next best thing.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Elizabeth Wilson has been knocked out of the park and now it’s time for someone new. That someone is Desilu McCourt, the Amazonian hammer swinger from “Occupy Wrestling”. You know the one. She’s the ogre chick who nearly snapped Debra Winter’s spine in half before Mitch McLeod came to the rescue. I’ve done a drawing of Desilu in the past, but I don’t think very highly of it, so I’m going to attempt her again. Wish me luck!

***MOVIE REVIEWS***

The last time I did a movie review, it was for Zootopia and that was many months ago. I don’t do movie reviews very often, but that’s only because I can count the number of visits to the theater I’ve made this year on one hand. I don’t plan on doing a review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, because I’m still afraid of pissing off people who haven’t seen it yet with plot spoilers. That leaves me with two items on this short task list: the 2016 version of Ghostbusters and a little known documentary called Lucha Mexico. Ghost hunting and masked wrestling: such a delightful combination. Both movies will receive passing grades (four stars). It’s all a matter of putting the words and debating points together in a clean and crisp manner.

***BOOK REVIEW***

As most of you know, I’ve been doing some beta reading for my wonderful author friends Andy Peloquin and Marie Krepps. Their deadlines for publication are drawing near, so you can expect book reviews for them around those times. The first one to come up will be of Marie Krepps’ teen romance novel “What Money Can’t Buy”. It’s being published on August 11^th, the same day as my Slipknot X Marilyn Manson concert. We both have things to be excited for!

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“School uniforms: bad theory! It’s the idea that if kids wear uniforms to school it’ll help maintain order. Don’t these schools do enough damage trying to get these kids to think alike? Now they’re going to get them to look alike too? And it’s not a new idea. I once saw it in old newsreels from the 1930’s, though it was a little hard to understand because the narration was in German!”

-George Carlin-

Necrocosm

VERSE 1
We’ve got hot and heavy action all night long
We’ve got hard-hitting brawlers so fucking strong
We’ve got hulking ogres who lift shit with ease
We’ve got flying ninjas who float through the breeze
Yet no matter how hard they smash each other
You all bitch and whine like you want your mothers
You might as well be asleep or even clinically dead
There aren’t enough pillows for all of your heads


CHORUS
Did you come here under protest or to see a show?
Scream like a horde of demons so we all know
Instead you fall asleep in your shallow graves
The necrocosm is what you all secretly crave


VERSE 2
The battered warriors are wondering what went wrong
Was the violence and mania just a little too damn strong?
Were the battle cries and political speeches too damn long?
Have you all had enough of this heavy metal song?
Too fucking bad, sit your asses in your comfy seats
Enjoy the fucking show and let us know your heart beats
The necrocosm is going out of business forever
Because zombies don’t give a shit about fiery weather


CHORUS
Did you come here under protest or to see a show?
Scream like a horde of demons so we all know
Instead you fall asleep in your shallow graves
The necrocosm is what you all secretly crave


HOOK
You wasted your money for a ticket you didn’t want
Then you rant online in the biggest fucking word font
You bitch and whine like an entitled little baby brat
Still the bloody warriors slam each other to the mat


EXTENDED CHORUS
Did you come here under protest or to see a show?
Scream like a horde of demons so we all know
Instead you fall asleep in your shallow graves
The necrocosm is what you all secretly crave
A casket match is meant for the fighters only
Not for the bitchy fans so righteous and holy
The necrocosm doesn’t want your blood money
The necrocosm doesn’t think you’re fucking funny

Zombies

***ZOMBIES***

When it comes to the horror genre, the new generation is obsessed with three creatures in particular: vampires, werewolves, and zombies. The latter of those three is what this journal is about. We seem to have an unhealthy obsession with zombies these days whether it’s the zombie apocalypse, zombie strippers, or zombie lovers. What we don’t talk about, though, are the zombies who live in the real world. These zombies don’t hunger for brains. They don’t eat flesh. They’re not even necessarily dead. The only death they experience is on the inside. They’re mentally exhausted, emotionally heartbroken, and spiritually lifeless. They come in many forms whether it’s the working stiff, the mentally ill, the insomniac, or just someone who’s been dealt a shitty hand by life itself.

These are the zombies I want to talk about. Unfortunately, very few people want to talk about them with me. The zombies I empathize with are written off as “weak” and “lazy”. Those two slurs are used by the more fortune ones in our lives who don’t experience the same struggles the zombies do. There are two slurs for people like that as well: “spoiled” and “ignorant”. Do these people actually think the life of someone living in a constant haze is glorious? We all aspire to work hard and improve our situations. But if we can’t wake up from our hazy states, sometimes we have to take a step back and reevaluate things.

If you can’t get anything accomplished due to your constant state of numbness, know that you’re not alone and you’re certainly not “weak”. Your struggles don’t make you “lazy”. In the words of Maria Brink when she sings the In This Moment song “Out of Hell”, “Your struggles make you beautiful.” When you experience failures in your life that lead to emotional numbness, overcoming them is a sweet victory. But sometimes in your battles with the world, you have to lose a few. Nobody likes to lose, especially to an opponent as invisible as a mental wound.

The word “zombie” can also be a slur in and of itself, but know that when I use it, I don’t intend for it to be. In fact, giving a dark fantasy name to a modern world struggle is a good way to ignite anybody’s imagination. The thing about zombies in dark fantasy media is that it takes a lot to kill them. No matter how badly they’re beaten, they keep getting up and feasting on their opponents even more. If you’re experiencing a loss in your battles with your mind and body, know that it’s only temporary. You will have your victory in due time and when you do, it’ll be one well-earned. How’s that for being “weak”, Mr. Ignoramus?

We may be drowning in our own sorrows, but drown as we may, we know what fresh oxygen feels and tastes like. Our little victories aren’t little at all. To say otherwise would earn you the “ignorant” and “spoiled” slurs I spoke of earlier. If you’re an author who’s trying to wake up long enough to write a story, don’t beat yourself up for your story being imperfect. If you’re a mother dragging yourself along to get everything done in addition to tending to your children, then be proud of yourself no matter what the outcome. If you’re working nine to five in a call center and you fucking hate your job, don’t allow the negativity of customers to put you in a deeper slumber.

Waking up from the zombie-like state is a great victory no matter who you are. But when we wake up, it won’t be because of negative attitudes. It’ll be because we engaged this mental monster with our hearts and souls. We’ve got ears, say cheers! If for some reason you think I sound like Kevin McCarthy right now, know that I’m one of the zombies I talked about this whole time.

　

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

It’s a new week of contests and the prompt is “The Last Goodbye”, which was something I personally harvested from my new Disturbed CD called “Immortalized”. Most of my prompt ideas come from CD’s I’ve purchased recently and being the music hunter I am, that’s a lot of goddamn prompts. I’m happy that Ryan Stone used one of mine this week. He’s an awesome guy! This week’s story will be something I originally intended to do independently, but since it fits the prompt, I’ll write it for the contest. It’s called “The Happy Slasher” and it goes like this:

　

CHARACTERS:

　

Lisa Roberts, Sheriff
Cletus Jung, Serial Killer

　

PROMPT CONFORMITY: After this story is over, only one of these two characters will be saying their last goodbyes while the other perishes.

　

SYNOPSIS: In the wild west, Lisa has been investigating a string of murders in her desert town of Tombstone. She’s ready to call it a night and heads toward the saloon for a frosty beer. After a few chugs, she passes out on the ground and wakes up bound and gagged in Cletus’ dungeon. Cletus reveals himself to be “The Happy Slasher” and the reason for his string of murders is all because he asked Lisa on a date and she “rudely” turned him down. This loser in love now plans to butcher Lisa with an overly sharpened machete.

　

***POISON TONGUE TALES***

The most recent story from this series I edited was “The Beautiful People”. I thought it was going to be a miserable experience and it turned out to be yet another cakewalk. The next one I plan on doing is “Conform”, which is about two necromancers who try to control a single zombie (we’ve come full circle with the zombie theme). It’ll have a new title, but the story will be the same albeit improved.

　

　

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

For a novel that barely had the chance to take off, I’m sure taking a liking to drawing pictures of Blood Brawl characters. The next one I plan on doing is of Balrog Deathtrap, a Halfling monk who serves as the main villain of the demon town Aragon. Yes, his race says he’s a Halfling, but his hideous features will dictate otherwise. Hehe!

　

***WRESTLING DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

RICH BRENNAN: Do you think Renee Young was giving you a hard time about not being a real Canadian?
KEVIN OWENS: I don’t know, Rich, does anybody give you a hard time about looking like Millhouse from The Simpsons?