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Nightmares

Nightmare #306 – Robbed in the Amusement Park

(Male, 30’s) I don’t normally have nightmares but I woke from this dream so deeply disturbed that I couldn’t go back to sleep. On the surface, it’s a simple story. I was at an amusement park of some kind. Maybe not one aimed exclusively at children. Maybe something more like a World’s Fair or an Expo or something. It was downtown in a big city but a city I didn’t know. The park was set aside from the city somehow, that is, it was it’s own world.

I had started out enjoying my time there with others, friends, acquaintances, I think even my wife might have been there too. But as the day wore on, I found myself alone. It was dark. The park was emptying.

I made my way between two areas, through what felt a little like a baseball field. As I crossed, I drew the attention of several beings. They appeared human, a gang. But the gang members were only superficially human. They were made of darkness, like compressed smoke. But they moved exactly like humans, almost like dancers in the sense of exaggerated, expressive gestures.

They moved quickly to surround me. I knew they were going to rob me so I offered to give them all the money in my wallet. I thought this was clever because then I wouldn’t have to replace my driver’s license, my credit cards, etc. (I suppose I was only giving my assets, not surrendering my identity.) I opened my wallet and pulled out many bills. Then I reached in again and there were more bills, including at least one $50 bill. I never carry such large denominations. The cash distracted them and I was able to slip away.

When I got away safely, I discovered that I had left my jacket somewhere, a lemon colored jacket that I quite liked – even though I don’t actually own such a jacket. I had also left my camera somewhere. When I realized that I had lost my camera and with it all of the photos I had made, I collapsed and had to support myself on a trash can. How was I going to get home? Where was I?

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This Just In

This Just In – 3-D Printable Skull Dice

Polygonal dice as if assembled from tiny human skulls. 3-d printable at your command, of course.

Dig it.

http://www.shapeways.com/model/285240/

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Other Haunts

Other Haunts: Comparative Skeletons

I am a serious fan of skeletal systems, those bits of organic sculpture / architecture that each of us carry around inside us — pardon, of course to the readers of this blog that are cephalopod or who have exoskeletons. You critters are too wonderful for mention. Don’t go changing.

So imagine my delight when I found eskeletons.org, an electronic archive of primate skeletons. (http://eskeletons.org/index.html)

Certainly IMHO the skulls are the coolest, like this multi-view scan of a human skull but the other bones are fascinating as well.

The only thing you can’t do with these bones is make broth.

http://www.eskeletons.org/

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Other Haunts

Other Haunts – Theatre Bizarre

Theatre Bizarre had the best spread at the Maker Faire Detroit this weekend. These humble photos don’t do proper justice. Six foot tall hand-painted banners. Carefully decrepitized ticket booths. The works. They were so awesome my first assumption was that they weren’t local. But I was wrong. Theatre Bizarre host (ed) a miscreant Halloween party down by the old Michigan State Fairgrounds. The parties went on for nearly a decade until they were shut down last year.

A documentary is in process about Theatre Bizarre. It’s actively soliciting funds. Toss ’em a few if you get a chance.

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Nightmares

Nightmare #305 – Father Stabber

(Male, 30’s) Before I start I feel like I have to say that my relationship with my father, now dearly departed, was always friendly and never came to attempted murder and bloodshed.

So imagine my surprise with this nightmare. My wife and I were visiting my father at what must have been his apartment. It was the first floor of a house on a quiet residential street. We were sitting down to have tea and some kind of cake in the dining room. There was a bay window with many tiny panes of glass. My wife sat down in her chair, took a couple sips of tea and abruptly passed out. “It was a long drive to get here,” I tried to explain to my father. He encouraged me to have some of the tea as well while he stood over the tea cake, brandishing a huge chef’s knife. He seemed agitated and was quite insistent. I mimed sipping some tea. He relaxed his grip on the knife but he didn’t drink any tea. Clearly it was poisoned. He cut me a piece of cake which I tasted, then he put the knife down on the table.

I leaped up from my chair and grabbed the knife. But I was already feeling dizzy. Evidently the cake had been poisoned too! I took the knife and I plunged it into my father’s belly. The blade only penetrated an inch or so, hardly enough to get past the belly fat and damage any essential organs. I dropped the knife and ran… actually I stumbled away. I considered trying to use his telephone… and as I write this down, I realize that it was one of those old style rotary phones like we had when I was a kid. I figured he could cut the phone’s cord before the call went through. I continued making my way toward the front door. I braced myself against furniture that crashed down behind me. Fortunately, the wreckage of furniture slowed my father’s pursuit. I had nearly reached the front door when I woke up.

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This Just In

This Just In – Man in Morgue Not Quite Dead

You’ve heard this advice before but it bears repeating: double check before sending someone to the morgue. This goes for family members, “private undertakers” and heck, probably especially for the folks who work at the morgue.

Sometimes folks are just unconscious, not fully deceased.

http://www.capetimes.co.za/man-wakes-up-in-morgue-1.1104810

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This Just In

This Just In – “Certainly Someone’s Head”… For Sale


They don’t make souvenirs like they used to.

The BBC reports (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13522546)that up for auction this week is a human skull complete with hand-crafted display box. It likely came to the British Isles from Europe under the arm of some young landed gentry during a Grand Tour of the continent. “Grand Tour” was their loftier version of “Spring Break.”

There are rumors that it’s the head of a saint, perhaps Saint Vitalis of Assisi, the “Saint of Venereal Diseases” but that’s not the key part of the story, for me at least. I believe the auctioneer said it best himself “….it’s certainly the head of someone.” Indeed. It’s a HUMAN HEAD and it’s FOR SALE. Oh and the box looks cool as hell. It would look perfect atop the antique spinet I inherited from Aunt Gertrude.

I can’t bid on this item-a bit short on cash. But I take some comfort in a classic line from The Big Lebowski “You want a toe? I can get you a toe.” When I have the money, likely there’ll be a dessicated relic on the market somewhere in this wonderful, global economy.

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Nightmares

Nightmare #304 – Murder!

(Male, 30’s) All throughout my dreams last night, I kept coming across a murderer. He wasn’t always trying to kill me, though he was always threatening me – sometimes I saw him while he was either preparing to kill someone else, or disposing of the body. Once, I was at a funeral and at a certain point in the middle of a conversation with the mourners, I realized that this person must have been killed by the murderer. Another time, I came across him as he was speaking with someone who I later realized he was stalking. Another time I saw him driving a truck down a long winding mountain highway. He looked me right in the eyes and I was chilled to the core. He had another body with him and he was daring me to do something about it. I’d be next.

The most interesting thing about this dream is that it wasn’t primarily about the murderer. He was just a recurrent though highly disturbing character. And actually, if I had to physically describe the murderer, he looked different each time I saw him on a purely physical level. But he was in fact, the same guy, if not just the same malevolent force.

Eventually, he started stalking me. I was home in a house that isn’t actually my house. It was dark outside. A motion sensor light turned on in the back yard. I knew it was him. He was back there but I couldn’t see him. There were the reflective circles of a half dozen creatures out there, staring back at me – racoons, possum maybe. I couldn’t see their outlines, only their eyes. I knew that they could see me and see the murderer and they didn’t care if I was about to be murdered. I flipped on another light but couldn’t see him any better.

I was waiting for a bus. All the newspaper boxes had run out of local papers, which disturbed the other people waiting for the bus. I realized that I was standing in front of the factory where the murderer worked. I could confront him and turn the tables. It was a big brick building. I had to walk around it to find a door. I passed by a large window. Inside, I saw the murderer acting out his next murder. He held an absurdly large piece of glass as if it was an ax. He shouted “I’m going to kill you like this” and he waved the glass shard around and around like he was stabbing someone. Then the murderer saw me and he ran at the window. I stepped back, both the window and the glass shattered but I was unhurt. I pursued him around to a loading dock where there were other workers.

I finally got a good look at the murderer. His most disturbing feature was a poorly trimmed mustache. Half of it was cut extremely close while the other half was bushy. It looked like it had been hacked at with a knife. The workers were being called in for a staff meeting. I stretched my finger out at the murderer, accusingly. He was angry, viciously angry but he was broken, exhausted. I was extorting him to be good, to stop murdering people, to stop stalking me. He agreed.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #303 – My Gothic Vacation

(Male, 40’s) This was one of those dreams that starts off so real then goes straight into craziness. I was sleeping next to my wife — as I must have been when I was having this dream — and in the dream I was cold and uncomfortable — again as I was while I was sleeping. So I roll over and try to get comfortable and I realize that we’re trying to sleep on this pretty narrow stone pew. It’s wide for a pew but far too narrow for a bed. And I look around the room which is dark. I can only make out the outlines of the windows which all have pointed gothic arches… and I remember that we’re on vacation somewhere in Europe and we’re staying in a castle.

And I wonder if the castle is haunted.

I am not going to be able to sleep any more so I get up and start poking around the place. There are no light switches or candles but my eyes gradually get adjusted to the dark. I met a friend in the next room and he was getting his shoes on. We must have gone on vacation with this other couple. He spoke on and on about all the places we’ll have to go to and somewhere in the middle of his monologue I realize that I don’t really like him all that much. It’s funny how one can have friends that you don’t really like.

Then I’m distracted by something in the next room. It’s another friend of mine. She’s sitting in the middle of the room weeping. I go over to comfort her and when I get there she is a child. A baby. Smaller than a baby. A fetus. A doll. I pick her up in my hands and she’s smaller than the breadth of my two palms. Her arms are fastened behind her back with a rubber band. I remove the rubber band and she stops crying. She asked for some food. I looked over at a table that had a white lace cloth on it and silver candelabras. It was set out for breakfast but I didn’t know what this child-thing could eat.

Underneath the table, I could see a large dog-like creature. It was moving so fast, it appeared to flash in and out of existence in different places. It was dangerous. I didn’t want to get close to the table. Then it appeared behind me. I recognized it as actually someone I knew, sort of. He was larger and had a line of spikes down his back. His shirt or maybe it was his skin was a thick brown leather like a lizard. He ran at me. I braced for impact and as he hit me, the force knocked him over. He fell to the ground, stunned then he scuttled off.

A phone rang. I went into another room to answer it. I was now entirely out of the castle because this felt like the front room of yet another friend. The phone was an old style phone and it sat on top of an old TV. I answered it. It was my mother who has been dead for years. When she was alive she would talk on the phone for hours, frantic about one thing or another. This time in the dream she was worried about two life insurance policies she had. What should she do with them? How should they show up on her income taxes. They amounted to $4,732 – that number was very precise in the dream. I told her she should just sign them over to me and I’d worry about them. Then I swelled up with such anxiety I had to put the phone down and walk away. I haven’t felt that anxious since my mother died, in fact. I came back to the phone and she was still talking. I told her I didn’t hear that last part. She asked why. I told her. She asked why I had set the phone down. “Why? Why? Why?” Over and over. Finally I simply hung up on her.

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Nightmares

Nightmare #302 – Tasty, tasty Infection

(Male, 30’s) This nightmare ended up a lot like a zombie dream but it really was different. The whole set up was strange. I was feeling sick, dizzy or out of balance so I went to the hospital. I was waiting to see a doctor in a long white corridor. I was trying to read a magazine but I felt really uncomfortable. Then I noticed that there was a strange substance coming out from around the joints of my body. It was a little like there were actual seams where the parts of my arm connected at the elbow. The stuff that leaked out was a lot like that spray foam sealant. Except this stuff didn’t set up. It just stayed soft foam.

Needless to say I was concerned.

I went up to the attending nurse and showed the condition. He squinted, looked at the foam very seriously, then he poked his finger into it and tasted it. Yup, he took a dollop of this goo that was slowly seeping from my body and he put it in his mouth.

“It’s… delicious. Light, creamy and sweet.” the nurse declared. His eyes changed and he clearly became possessed with some kind of demonic hunger. He leapt on top of me, his teeth gnashing like he wanted to eat my insides. I hit him forcibly with something heavy and metallic. Maybe it was a bedpan. I looked around for assistance. Up and down the long hallway, doctors and nurses were attacking patients, trying to devour their guts.

I had turned into a cream-filled doughnut. It would be very difficult to get out alive.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #301 – Dear Dead Dad

(Male, 50’s) I dreamt about my dad last night. He’s been dead for over twenty years. I was cleaning in his basement which was a mess when he died. Crap everywhere. All sorts of stuff. Half finished projects, materials to do other jobs around the house, papers spilling out of filing cabinets and a far amount of crap I had no idea what the hell it was. By the way, this is pretty true to what happened when he died. His basement work area was a mess and it took me an awfully long time to clean it up and get the house sold. But I suppose if anyone dies unexpectedly there’s going to be a lot of unfinished business. In the dream I moved a piece of furniture in the basement and I found a doorway in the floor. I never knew THAT was there, I remember thinking in the dream. It was just big enough for me to crawl through. There was another basement underneath the first one. It was a mess too, though just a bit more organized perhaps. Maybe like an over stocked thrift store.

But the weirdest thing was that my dad was there. He was the same age as he was when he died. He was wearing a white t-shirt and work pants. He’d been down there the whole time, I figured. It would take some getting used to, him being alive again. I’d have to introduce him to folks. We didn’t exactly have a bad relationship but we didn’t always get along. I don’t think it was his fault or my fault. We just didn’t get along as well as we could have. He was kind of surprised to see me and not exactly happy either. I was interrupting. I didn’t really want to tell him I’d been clearing out his workshop in the upper basement but he figured out anyway. He was more than irritated. He was angry about what had happened since he died, about how I’d tried to clear his stuff out of the basement.

Next thing I know, he’s got my brother in a death hold, like he’s trying to kill him. A couple things strange with this picture. My old man was NEVER violent. He was always calm and gentle. Very peaceful, really. A real gentleman. But the guy in my dream was murderous and enraged. He was physically destroying my brother, wrestling with him, battering him. And the other strange thing is that I don’t have a brother. Never did. I knew I had to save this guy, this “brother,” so I looked around for something I could use. I found a long bread knife and a sledge hammer. And I hit my dad with the hammer. Only I don’t hit him with the head of the hammer. I use the handle of the hammer which is hardly effective.

Then things get really weird. I tell my dad to relax and imagine all the pieces of paper that were written about him during his entire life. Every document, every record, every report card, every bill, every bank statement, every love letter. Then add to that pile every piece of paper he read or even looked at. Every magazine, every book, every porno picture, every postcard. It would be a huge pile but it still would be a finite amount. Then I told him to imagine selecting out only the most important pages, the ones that really “got” him, whether they were good or bad. Imagine someone who loved him saved all the pages that described him in a favorable light, but that that collection of pages got lost. All that remained was the collection of pages that described his unfavorable characteristics. I told him not to worry. No one who found that other collection of pages, those bad descriptions, no one who found those pages would ever think that they fully described him. They’d know there were good things that weren’t mentioned.

Then I woke up. Strangest thing.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #300 – Trapped like a Thief

(Male, 30’s) The nightmare was like an old movie. It was brown and white and a little bit blurry. I was in a room about the size of my living room, except there were no windows and no doors. It’s not obvious how I got in there, though it felt a little bit like I was on-stage, that one of the walls was the “4th wall” where the audience watches from. Except all the walls appeared real.

I was with this other guy and we were busy trying to crack into this safe. The safe was huge, probably 5 feet tall, 4 feet deep and wide. It obviously didn’t belong in this room but again, I have no idea how we got it in there. I knew that we had stolen it somehow. It didn’t belong to us.

And if all this wasn’t bad enough, I wasn’t really sure if opening it was the best idea. For some reason, I thought that it could contain either an immense fortune… or an extremely powerful bomb that would blow up the entire building. My partner, however, didn’t have any worries and he kept fiddling with the lock like he knew how to open it. I didn’t know whether to help or try to find a way out of the room.

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Blog James Frederick Leach

Blog – Prospectus for my Doctoral Dissertation on Fear… Submitted!

Please forgive the dust, the cobwebs, the sepulchral silence that has befallen this site as of late… unless you’re into that thing, and given the topic, it’s likely you might. But it’s no excuse for the appalling boredom and lack of new material. My only excuse is that I’ve been hammered, er, I mean, hammering away at the prospectus for my doctoral dissertation. And yesterday morning, Boxing Day, I boxed it up and sent it off. There will be pain – oh, yes, overflowing tumblers of sweet, delicious pain and hours, dreadful hours stretched to ennui before I can rightfully assume the title of “Doktor Leech” but this first hurdle has been, well, hurdled.

The topic of the dissertation might also amuse readers of this blog because it is about fear. Specifically it’s a philosophical examination of fear from the perspective of epistemology (how we know the things we know) and aesthetics (the meaning of our sensations.) I eschew both enlightenment rationality and postmodern irony for an approach I’m calling encouragement. Blah-blah, blah and blah. My favorite section is the one where I get to talk about horror movies. I picked the Saw franchise because it’s a franchise which allowed me to discuss it as an economic object, it got sucked up in the whole “torture porn” discussion which allowed me to discuss it as a social object. And then of course it’s relatively novel with respect to the serial killer as social critic sub genre. Yawn. I know you’re falling out of your chairs. But there’s also dollops of Hegel and Adorno and Nietzsche and maybe a spatter of Freud and Sun Tzu and Seneca, Aristotle, Horace… yup, it’s a regular Kellog Variety Pack of philosophers.

It’s not done — in fact, I’ve just *started* throwing my heart to the dogs — but it’s noticeably closer than it was a week ago. Someone give me a shout out, will ya?

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Nightmares

Nightmare# 299 – Bad, Bad Roommates

(Male, 20’s) I had this nightmare about an hour after I fell asleep and when I woke up, I seriously considered just not going back to sleep.

I was in a house with a half dozen other guys. It felt like we were in college and we had rented a house together. What a weird house though. It was like a hollowed out tower but a loft had been built inside that stretched up three full stories. The top floor had a floor entirely covered with mattresses, so I guess that was the bed room.

Most of the guys seemed friendly but shallow, always smiling but just skin deep. I didn’t know if they really were dumb or if there was something else underneath that silly happiness.

One of the guys was very disturbed and very disturbing. He gave off “serial killer vibes.” Tall, wore a wide brimmed hat and a black raincoat that always seemed to be wet. On one occasion he was actually dragging in a plastic bag that looked like it could have contained a dead human body.

I accidentally crossed his path. I was using my computer and I was watching a movie / playing a game about a serial killer. It was a horror survival thing. But then I realized that I had somehow hacked into his computer and I was actually seeing what was live on his screen. And worse, he knew I had seen him. He used the camera in my computer to spy on me all the time.

I was freaked. He was coming for me but I figured I’d be safest if I climbed up to the top of lofts, to the bedroom floor. There were two other guys there. They told me not to worry, that the crazy serial killer guy never climbed up the ladder. We started wrestling for some reason and then I discovered gradually that I couldn’t move my arms or legs. One of the guys laughed, “That’s because we drugged you.” I started to foam at the mouth. “We’re going to rape you and then give you to the serial killer so he can chop up the evidence.” I fell over face down on the mattress, paralyzed, my mouth filled with foam. I was unable to scream but eventually I shook myself hard enough that I woke up.

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"What We Fear" This Just In

This Just In – Send More Exorcists!!!

When I was a kid, everyone I knew thought “The Exorcist” was the scariest movie they’d ever seen. Me? When I watched it, I had the overwhelmed sensation “Damn, that looks cool.” Forget fireman or doctor or lawyer, I wanted to be an EXORCIST!

Trouble was, the high school guidance counselor didn’t really have much advice for that career path. Things might be changing though, following this report:

Catholic Bishops: “More Exorcists Needed”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40151974/ns/us_news

The most recent guidelines appear to have been updated in 1999 – so they won’t be able to address any juicy new demons that the 21st century has spawned. And of course, they’re written in Latin, which wasn’t exactly one of my strongest classes. I suppose the most damning blow to my demon-evicting job search is that I’m not Catholic must less a priest nor am I likely to become one in the near future… like this life-time.

Maybe I’ll have to fall back on my other childhood dream job: astronaut who leaves earth never to return.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #298 – House, Plans and Zombie

(Male, 50’s) Extremely strange and disturbing dream that only incidentally had a zombie in it. I guess that’s enough to make it a nightmare, right?

I was in this house which at times was the house where I live now and at times was the house where I grew up, even though it really didn’t resemble either of those actual houses very much. There was a big apple tree in the back yard.

And there was Richard Pryor. He was just hanging out. He might have been a relative or he might have been just a friend but he was just there and we were all acting like it was no big thing. I haven’t thought of Richard Pryor for years by the way though I used to think he was pretty funny. He looked good, like he did back in the 70’s before all the freebasing coke stories came out. So there was me, Richard Pryor, the girl who later became my wife and a couple other people.

We were working on plans to remodel the house. We all were inside standing around the dining room table and then one of us would make a change to the set of plans, then we’d all walk out side to see what that would look like on the house. It was like as soon as we made a decision, it actually changed the house.

But we got mixed up a little. Some of us were changing the plans while others were checking the results, so I passed people coming back in as I was going out. And one time when I passed Richard Pryor, he wasn’t looking very good. His hair had changed to white and his skin was ashy grey. He was dead alright but he was still walking around. No one else seemed to realize it yet, and Richard Pryor didn’t even realize that he was a zombie yet so I still had some time before things got ugly.

But the only weapon I had was a hammer. I got it in my hand and I came up behind Richard Pryor. I knew that the only way to kill a zombie was to take its head completely off – at least that’s what I “knew” in my dream. So I was preparing to hammer at the back of his spine, over and over until his head fell off. It was going to be awful. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about all the gore and blood. When I raised the hammer behind my head, I woke up.

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Nightmares

Nightmare #297 – Zombie U

(Female, 40’s) I’ve been watching *Lost* on dvd so maybe that’s what brought on this dream about a group of zombie apocalypse survivors.

My partner and I were on a camping trip in a mountainous area. We had put up our tent and were making dinner when a group of armed people came into our camp. They started asking us questions like who we were and what we were doing there. When we answered them, they seemed relieved. They explained that now they knew that we were okay. Because we could talk, we weren’t zombies. Somehow my partner and I had missed the news reports that there was a zombie outbreak in this place. We weren’t safe in the woods, they said, so those people led us out of the mountains and back into town.

The town had a large university campus, and most of the survivors had moved to this area, we were told. Everything looked normal, but we were not to let that fool us. Danger was everywhere and especially after dark. Zombies were fast and clever but unable to talk.

My partner and I stayed at the university. We made a few friends and got to know the area. We went out to the bars with friends in the evening. I didn’t understand how life could appear to be going along normally if there was this zombie problem. Everything looked like it was working normally: the university had classes, the electricity was on, college students were playing frisbee and getting suntans.

My view of that relative ‘safety’ changed abruptly. My partner and I were walking home from the bar with four friends and a zombie appeared. We all ran as fast as we could. Someone fell down, and someone ran back to help him, hitting the zombie with a shovel. Then we all ran into a house and collapsed in the chairs and on the floor, gasping and trying to catch our breath. We looked at the friend who fell. “Are you alright?” someone asked him. He just nodded, out of breath. We should have been worried at that point, but we weren’t paying attention.

My partner and I went into the kitchen for a drink of water and so did two of the others, leaving the falling down guy and another guy alone in the living room. When we came back into the room, we realized our mistake. Both of them were silent, staring at us, hungry-looking.

We had been told that zombies couldn’t talk, but no one had told me they could communicate. As we watched, one guy’s head turned into a gray wavering smokey head sitting on his shoulders, and the other guy opened his mouth wide and inhaled this entire head, nodding like he understood. He exhaled the smoke, and the head materialized like normal. Then the second guy’s head turned into the same kind of gray wavering smoke, and the first breathed him in. This was how the zombies communicated. If we hadn’t been so utterly fascinated, we would have hauled our asses out of there, but we survivors just stood there watching.

When the zombies turned toward us and started to advance, we scrambled out of the house, pulling the door shut and holding it. “Hurry! Get the fire department!” the guys holding the door shut told me. The fire department would come and set the house on fire. That was a change, right? But it was the only way to deal with zombies.

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"What We Fear" Other Haunts This Just In

Other Haunts: Hexing Hitler

In 1941, a group of folks assembled to put a “hex” on Hitler. Life Magazine – the internet of those times – was on hand to record the event with some snappy photojournalism. Godwin’s Law be damned: this is a hoot, that is, using the “forces of Darkness” to combat “Evil incarnate.”

http://www.life.com/image/ugc1017252/in-gallery/36172/putting-a-hex-on-hitler-1941

Your position on the utility of hexes or the authenticity of these particular would-be pagans is not the point. We humans need to feel as if we are doing something that is meaningful, that our actions have an effect especially during times of distress. During WWII, we had collections for scrap metal. We grew “victory gardens.” Contemporary reflection somewhat pessimistically notes that these activities didn’t really help the war effort as much as they bolstered the moral of those on the home front. So why not “hexes?”

There was great recent controversy when someone planned to burn multiple copies of the Qu’ran. It prompted folks across the Muslim world to burn effigies of just about everyone they didn’t like… even though, as I read it, it’s a cultural proscription, if not cardinal no-no to make graven images of humans. This emphasis on non-representative art is a contributing factor to the splendor of Islamic geometric mosaics, I’m told. Would there have been such an outrage if the American protest only burned – or put a hex – on representations of Bin Laden?

If you’re getting hung up on the whole black magic thing, perhaps because of christian baggage, then call it an “imprecatory prayer.” Lord knows there are enough bible-belters using such language as veiled threats against the president. You’ve maybe seen the bumper stickers that say “Pray for Obama – Psalm 108 8 & 9” Look those lines up, will ya? They’re not the cuddly Loving Shepherd. They say “May the days of his reign be few; let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.” Ah, explain to me how that’s NOT outright sedition?

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Nightmares

Nightmare #296 – Test Anxiety Too Late

(Male, 30’s) This was one of those classic nightmares, the kind everyone talks about having but it was so vivid, so real. It didn’t seem like a joke at the time. I was really on edge.

I was walking down a hallway very similar to the hallways at the place where I work but it was crowded. It felt like there were hundreds of people trying to go one way or the other in the hallway. People were desperate. It struck me as not very professional.

I finally got to the room where I was headed and I sat down. Then I realized it was a chemistry lab, a high school chemistry lab. I remembered that I had enrolled in a science class and that I guess I hadn’t attended in months. I recognized the room but I didn’t know anything about what was going on.

The teacher started off with a game. I sort of caught on and I thought, maybe, I could fake my way through the whole class period. Then the teacher handed out the test.

It was actually kind of cool. We each pulled a plastic figurine out of a large cardboard box and we had to describe its molecular structure… that is, pretending that it represented a molecule. The guy next to me had something that looked like a clear glass giraffe. Even I knew that was supposed to be CH4 – which is a “realization” that is simply hilarious in retrospect.

The thing I pulled out looked like a sea anenome with maybe a dozen long spikes pointing out of it, some of which had jointed articulations. Even the teacher seemed to think I’d selected a hard one. I was confused and I started to panic a bit. It got worse when I realized I hadn’t brought any paper or even a pen. I do all my work on a computer so it’s probably been a week or so since I’ve used paper as part of my job.

I looked up at the door. It seemed so far away. Just then two of my actual co-workers walked by. They looked in at me and just shook their heads in pity. These are two people who I admire and the way they looked at me was crushing. I found that part the most disturbing.

I looked around the room. I was wearing a suit and tie, a normal business suit and I was crouching on this chair that was too small, sitting in a room full of teenagers in jeans and greasy hair. Teenagers who also seemed to know more chemistry that I did. The teacher was collecting the tests. I still didn’t even have a paper to hand in. The creature I had selected was beautiful, intriguing but it wasn’t a chemical. I think it might have actually been alive. I held it in my hand even though I knew its long spines might prick me.

I woke up just as I was about to be found out as a fake.

Categories
"What We Fear" Fears & Phobias

Public Service Announcement: Wolfsbane in Bloom

“Even those who are pure of heart, and say their prayers at night,
can become a wolf, when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.”

As a public service announcement to all readers who are werewolves, shape-shifters or otherwise lycanthropic, this is what wolfsbane looks like. It comes into full bloom this time of year, right around the time when animosity against the lycan community tends to be highest.

Be aware.