It is a tragedy that I did not discover this man sooner. I’ve seen his most popular work referenced all over the web since I was about 12, but never thought anything of it really. Over the last few weeks I’d become more engrossed in his mythos and lore.

A few days ago I found myself adjacent a bookstore. They’re all over the state, but goddamnit, it was destiny. From what I had read about the guy, I had no idea where to look. Fiction & Literature? Science Fiction & Fantasy? Horror? But I eventually found a book, and read the first line in the first story:

“I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more.”

Fuck YES. (Literally, my initial reaction)

“Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below.”

Sixteen bucks later and this book was mine. I’m beginning to understand the ravenous following he has amassed, and I would very much enjoy one day taking my place among them.

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I’m underground, huddled with a group of 20 or 30 other people. Mostly families. People are shouting in confusion and panic. Men are reassuring the women, the women reassure the children. I’m alone with no one to comfort. The image becomes clearer that we are underneath a building. Below the foundations, in a dark pocket of earth.

Someone is shouting orders that we all need to get back. Get back. Get back. As the crowd moves, flashlights illuminate a small pool of water. An underground lake. As we cross the lake, a dock comes into view. People begin lifting themselves onto the dock and pulling others up to them. I’m worried that my backpack is getting wet. Books, writings, electronics, all are soaking by now. Ink is running off pages. I’ll have to buy a new cell phone.

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“Grandma Time”. That’s what the neighborhood children called her. They said she was older than time, and she would smile inwardly at their whispers. Despite her age she had extraordinary hearing. Coincidentally, thyme was her favorite thing to cook with. She put it in everything: soups, salads, bread, tea. Sprinkled over fish or massaged into poultry. She even baked it into cookies. But she lived alone, and had no one to cook for besides herself. A few brave young neighbor girls would approach her house when the boys dared them to, only to come back with a delicious cookie in each hand. The girls would smile smugly with their treats, refusing to share with the boys who would only start pushing and daring each other.

Every morning she ate a small breakfast. Just three strips of bacon and one egg with a glass of orange juice. She ate slowly, fully appreciating every aspect of the experience. There wasn’t a single meal that she rushed through.

“Never take the morning for granted”, she would tell her late husband, who passed away in the deep of winter three years ago.

The last morsel of crisp dark bacon crumbled loudly in her mouth as she re-folded the morning paper and cleared the table.

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“Wanderlust” is described as a desire to travel, so “wonderlust” should be pretty self-explanatory.

For all the time I spend pondering and daydreaming, I have a damn hard time expressing myself. The thoughts and images are perfect right up to the point that they reach my lips. As soon as I try to project, I clam up. Like a traffic jam of words. In a matter of seconds the honking and road rage begins to echo in my head. Everybody is stopped but nobody knows why.

Hopefully, this will help me overcome that. I’ve always liked writing. I probably wasn’t meant to be a speaker anyway.

The majority of these writings will be simple short stories. Characters pop into my head from time to time, but I never really follow them around. I never see where they’ve come from or where they’re going. I want to overcome that as well. Rather than transcribing the events of my life as in most blogs, though I’ll do that on occasion as well, I really just want to develop these pieces.

“Only those things are beautiful
which are inspired by madness.”
~Andre Gide

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