What is Gambling? What is the view of Islam on Gambling ...

You ever sit around all day don’t know what to do? So bored of yourself that you just look at anything until you feel the rot creep up on you trying to drag you down. Well if you’re reading this, you must have some time on your hands. The name is Don Kowalski by the way.
My uncle used to say ,Gotta get out boy’ he said, ,You’re in a dark spot some time and when you’re in it keep going. Take it all, breath it in. Keep going. Always keep going.’ – ironic since he killed himself in a hunting accident out somewhere in woodland. I suppose he didn’t want to miss his prey and kept going after it. Kept going.
It started to work. For a few days you fight, and you struggle as sailors in a dry ditch or on a dry glass and you keep going, push forward and nothing comes from it until you know nothing will come from it. Such was time for me at the outbreak of our lovely new friend Covid. My one-part-off-part girlfriend Alessandra was with her family in Florida and so I shared the sunriddled apartment only with booze and screens.
Time was the enemy although it hadn’t been so from on early. It didn’t have to be this way. In the beginning, I was thrilled staying put, living only at home, downing a bottle here a bottle there took me months to realize that getting drunk wasn’t much exciting when you could do it every day. Lifting was no fun at home without the showoff.
The thrill wasn’t there without the mirrors and the others and I would not give empty testament. So I was stuck, down deep in my black chair with my greying hair clinging greasy to my head and the stubble on my face growing thicker and thicker like hedges and forests of dry metallic wires drilling themselves deep in my naked skin.
I sat on the chair, blue light penetrated me and I watched into it like someone getting lost in the sun to see caleidoscopic patterns afterwards for minutes and some stare in the dark ponds in gardens and across them and I stared into the unknown abbeys of the internet until I found something that hooked me. Interest was reborn, the cherubim and thrones sang, and I was again digging for knowledge on the riddle.
It was the case of Nathan, not Lessing’s I mind you. You got to know I’m, and I know this sounds like the start of a bad pulpy novel, I’m a PI or what the cool cats call it now. Private Investigation, looking at lives for a fuck of money but better than to slither up buttholes at the ordinary stational sedentary life I once had and was led in. I was called up, by a Mrs. Anderson, whose voice sounded like a whisky drowned chimney.
Carry Ann Anderson had called about a friend who was now dead meat. The case was solved she said but somehow it was not, not for her. There was rot on the inside of fresh timber. A fair warning here – there won’t be no solution, cause certainly me didn’t solve it. I told her so, when she called again. I hadn’t been to LA and going there was a waste, I knew as much already. For her sake I called the department over there and talked to the detective. She wasn’t going to be happy with my findings.
Gluing a mask of false politeness to my voice I asked, “So what’s the matter hm?”
“They say it’s all real simple: kid snapped and did it. But something ain’t right. You see I knew her back from the day, from Sacramento. I can tell you, this boy was no of these Columbines or Sandy Hooks, he would never hurt them.”
“That’s what the parents of those kids said too,” I said, uncomfortable silence on the other end.
“Something’s just off about this. You saw the files already?”
“Mhm. Didn’t do much good.”
“Tell you this: the officers said the same. Said it’s all there orderly and not like some coverup or some shit they tell you like the conspiracy theories on TV you know? Like they had to dig for it you know? Not too difficult and not too easy but also not in between not your textbook stuff either. Not odd he said. But said that it all around made it odd. Made it seem odd, still, somehow. Seems like not the type to do it. You know he said type? He spat them words out on me,” she said.
There I was. I made some calls asked about the kid that chopped down his family, sat his flat up like a Christmas tree and coaled it down to the ground, all in a cozy night. One day to the other and a bunch of people gone.
I find a pal of his, named Erica Cremonte. She was willing to talk. Told me when it happened and went down and all the other stuff. Other guys didn’t talk or told me how shitty they feel about it all. I dug a bit deeper inside Erica since she was the only source of water in the land of dry lands, she told me a bit more, opened up like an old lady to the cashier or waiter or the poor sod at the bus. Told me about Nathan and his family and his brother and his girlfriend her few idle feel-good weeks in Africa and the funeral. And that it didn’t make sense to her either.
And the days go by and I start to forget about the whole thing since there’s no leads and none won’t talk and I give up. Call Mrs. Anderson and tell her there is nothing and she doesn’t understand the whys in my words but she knows them and we agree to part ways and wish each other a nice day and she’s gone.
Days and weeks and months go by and I forget. Then I am locked here in front of the monitor and it all comes back and something in me stirs and after hours I stare at the profile of one Margaret Suarez and see the condolences on her Facebook profile.
I write to her and days pass me by, drinking lifting reading and boredom, the old familiar gent from around the corner walks up again until there’s a response. Asks me how I found her, what I wanted. Calls me and tells me all about the disfigured creep that slashed her mother in the office. Digs deeper and finds all the glory all the madness in the last mail, sent from her mother’s account.
He left something for us and I will share it with you. Keep in mind it’s all ludicrous but it will help pass some hours. So, the following is the written word of Nathan Cohen, brought to paper after he killed his therapist while locked up in the cuckoo’s nest.
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Sometimes I look up at the sky, at night. I wonder, is the lightning of the stars hidden by the vast dark, or is the darkness a shield? A shield that keeps us safe and calm from countless eyes that stare at us?
Back then I didn’t care for the night. The air was on fire from the red morning sun, every time the same, from grad school to that day when those good Fast Times at Ridgemont High started. In the beginning it was only dark shades of purple and crimson until the firmament turned to face blood.
A line of mystic clouds was in the sky, creeping forward like a white river. The street came alive minute by minute, looming trashmen came to empty our waste in the stark dust flying around. It was better in the hills with the cooling breeze before the onset of dawn.
Back then life was soft and kind and sometimes the only touch of madness was a killed hedgehog on the street or two poisoned cats in the neighborhood. Now, the sky is blue and white and partly covered in striped clouds standing static on the package of my pills. My name is Nate Cohen. Or was. A sitting corpse though I might sit and breath and eat and drink but I don't laugh or sing or cry. The laid out actions of others, that brought me here, might seem untrue for they can’t be proven, but I assure you they are true.
All of them. I don't know what will happen after I hit the "send" button but you all need to know there is a shade of acid in the world you don't taste or smell, but it burns your face like brimstone like flame-gas scorching your eyes like the sun was just the backside of a black hole. You'll see.
I was born Nathaniel Cohen in 1991 in the glory land of sunshine, to Ira and Susan. We lived down in Sacramento, my father running flocks of cars from behind a stuffed desk, and my mother gave pottery classes every Tuesday and Thursday night, taught a few friends how to make halfskilled molds of clay. Dad was a bold man always chasing dreams of living without a mortgage, and Mum supported but was like a happy young girl and bathed in the sounds of Sunday lawnmowers and plastic pools, water from the hose filtered the rays of solar bronze.
I guess in their own ways both were not real, maybe that was what tied them together. We weren't rich but not poor.
Playful on weekends I built forts and donjons between California sycamores and gray pine and hunted and ran with classmates and friends and neighbor's kids that grew grizzled worker’s brown over their small shapes.
I was happy before and afterwards, but loss is like a sharp pin in the foot, long lost by a sewing woman, too lazy to pick up her needles. Until then, when I was under or over 11 and my progenitor decided he needed to be home faster or sooner or was just hungry, and crashed into 2 men and 1 woman and one dog. Insurance and my grandparents (now long dead) kept us from sinking in the shelters of the homeless ones, but my mother needed work or we faced to lose the house.
The first months she worked as waitress at Ear’s, a rundown bar I wasn’t allowed to enter and so sat for hours on the warm sidewalks, gleaming red in the drowning sunlight and grey and sad under the smile of Mother Selene. Some days Mrs. Anderson watched me and I watched her, sipping slowly but frequent on cheap Chadonay. This went until some better showed up, and the months turned to over a year until that happened. My mother had studied contemporary art spending hours devouring Roy Lichtenstein and the likes and to find paying employment had never been on her mind, until some time as now.
Finally, after two years my mother got an offer from a small magazine in Los Angeles and we moved to this strange new world. Surprisingly, moving at the age of 13 was no fun but new friends found me as I slowly settled, when something changed.
Robert Berkowitz came into our life and took us in. He was a bald man with blonde eyebrows and eyes like glowing azures, he was no stranger to money and art, which was the way he’d gotten involved with Mum. They hit it right at each other and after some months or weeks, might it was just some weeks, he took us to his house in Beverly Hills, not far from where Foothill Road hits Park Way.
Beverly Palm Plaza was soon my second living room. Later, in the foul age of 16, I used all chances to leave the house into the mass of the 30.000 inhabitants living there, crossing the invisible line south of the tracks, where Pacific Electric had once worked streetcars on the Red Line. Eons ago in another world.
I did everything to leave home, my newborn half-brother Seth a crying shitting mess, stomping out silent thoughts with such vigor, that I agreed to join my mother on her monthly expeditions to the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, near the buzzing Wilshire Boulevard. It was well worth the laughter from the beauties in blonde and black, and the cute Valley Girl that lived across from me. Life was good.
Robert tried to be a father, but in the end we formed a bond. He was there for me when I wanted and offered counsel and paid for my life while I enrolled in college, even helped my shallow dream to join in true Hollywood. After college I enrolled in the UCLA TFT program and, with help from my stepfather, finally landed a job at a production company, Reality TV. I started out as trainee and clawed my way finally to second assistant of the executive director of scripted TV development at Geronimo Grande Productions.
It wasn’t what I had dreamt of but at last I sustained myself, though Robert insisted to help with the rent for my flat on Kelton Avenue, where I still lived after graduating. Life was good back then, without the staring stars that tried to break through the night, away, far far away, Racing with the Moon.
I was 28 when the shades and clouds came over me. I was out with friends, a steamed night in the cool warm air’s vibrations around us.
We found a small restaurant near my place. Pitfire Artisan Pizza on 2018 Westwood Boulevard had brilliant Pesto Chicken and a damn fine Field Mushroom. I was there with Jules and Erica, enjoying dinner outside to the left of the entrance, a silent small tree our only companion, until she walked by. Inside there was a meeting of some charity organization, The Cotton Club or something.
Hair like ironed black jasper and ascetic nude makeup, she strolled by in a white tank top and black yoga pants, the matt casually under her arm. I didn’t stop staring at her. I couldn’t. Some birds in some nearby trees seemed to whistle after her and she turned around, just for a second, as if to say come after me Birdy.
“You in love Naty?” asked Erica, the flower from the valley with the flaxen mob on her head, sitting across from me.
“No,” I stuttered “Just caught my eye. Nothing.”
“Sure,” grinned Jules between his teeth, “Mine too.” he said, folding his tattooed arms in front of his chest, tongue shoved in the corner of his mouth smiling like a bobcat dressed in jeans and shirt of the same fabric, The Boy in Blue.
“Why don’t ask for her number? She’s just down the corner.”
“Isn’t that kinda creepy?”
“Most women like a bit of creeps, ” Jules howled up at his own joke, his hat nearly falling from the back of his head as he raised it up and slapped his left knee.
“Oh, shut up predator,” I waved off, before I turned to Erica “You don’t think that’s awkward?”
“Not if a guy like you asked. I remember a friend of mine met her husband like that, now Peggy Sue Got Married,” she smiled and put her head to the side. Too perfect white Hollywooddream teeth.
I had seen the Girl turning left and jogged away from the Pitfire, still hearing Jules laughing, when I saw her near La Grange Ave. She cut another corner up right so I ran after her, praying to find her. Yet to the grace of my bad luck, she was gone. The street in front of me was not crowded but the vixen from my dreams was vanished. Hands empty and defeated I returned to the table.
“Vae victis,” announced Jules, as he saw my hollow eyes. I never had a poker face until now. With half your face in mashed up molten scartissue it’s difficult to show emotion and I wonder, so far from home will the sun ever show herself again, will it fill anyone out her, raise itself, Raising Arizona?
“Did she say no?” blonde Erica asked with true empathy.
“Seems I lost her,” I said, trying to hide my disappoint. Just a few seconds more decisiveness and my life might have changed.
“Well let’s go, search a new one,” Jules sprang up and clapped.
Let’s go. The words rang, as I tumbled out of the cab up to my flat, the Girl long forgotten for the next few months until another fateful day, when I went to my gym. Workout and work kept me focused for a time and it was mostly night when I came home.
I admit I was a glutton. I had to work out at least three times a week, gym rats they call them. Muscled sweat pouring gales of raw testosterone into the halls. The Equinox Gym was my favorite in Westwood and I had been a paying patron for years now and knew more faces there than in the streets around my neighborhood. I had just left after a session of pumping my brains out, when I saw her crossing me by.
“Hey,” I blurted out in reflex.
She tilted her hand. Black hair, a shimmer of brown in the dusky sunlight, dark eyes and a friendly smile took me right home. Right where I belonged.
“Hey yourself,” she said, raising one eyebrow.
“Do I know you?” she asked, without arrogance, her black-brown hair gently thrown over the left shoulder. Love leaking out of every pore I muttered a plain “Yes”. Before she had a chance to pass me by.
“Sorry. I meet a lot of people lately,” she smiled “Are you in one of my courses?”
“Courses?”
“Well, here,” she grinned. Small white teeth and a thick red snail that crouched behind them, giving them shelter and backup, all the same.
“Ah no. I think, you passed by a pizza palor couple of weeks ago?” I stuttered in embarrassment, trying to suppress redness swelling on my cheek.
“Yes, that’s on my way. So, you’re my new stalker?” She laughed.
“Well, don’t I feel honored,” I extended my hand “My name’s Nate, by the way.”
“Amy. Amy Gallagher,” she raised a slim white wrist in the shade of the California sundown.
This was the day I really met Amy Gallagher for the first time. I rue it every moment in the coffin of my sterile being with the stars laughing at me and the disc in the sky calling my name making me all Moonstruck.
We set a date for the Saturday to come. I thought it fitting to go for Italian and led her to Sammy’s down at Santa Monica Boulevard. It wasn’t too expensive (I didn’t want to come across as one of those guys) but stylish enough to show her I had some taste stored in me. She wore a stunning babyblue dress just touching the tips of her knees, and her black mane was straightened in a long tail crowning her right pale shoulder. When she saw me, she licked her lips as if to prepare me for her Vampire’s Kiss. Sammy was a first gen from Palermo, old now he longed for his home and always liked to impress with native extravaganza.
“Ciao ragazzi!” he said as I walked my stunning Kypris down the cheap red carpet between trashy fake Roman plastic pillars.
“Come stai?” Amy replied, took his arm and left me somber.
They chatted a bit in Italian, what they said I do not know, but I knew the small thing in my belly, the knot of discomfort in my stomach. Laughs and eyes on me. Cheers swallow the jokes.
“You’re full of surprises,” I tried to gain control of the tilting ship, unnecessarily clawing my black hair back.
“You got no idea,” she pressed her tongue between a marble row of perfect teeth, a small red viper watched out from the cave of her mouth.
We talked of hard work, of idle time, of family the usual first-date-topics broken up by a hand of awkward pauses in between, like flashes in the storm.
“My family’s not from around here.”
“Neither’s mine.”
“So whose Italian? Mom or Dad? I bet your Dad.”
“None of them,” she grinned “I picked it up couple years ago.”
Movies, theater, literature, antipasti, strange people, more hobbies, main dish, skipping desert and I rolled from over her in my half of the bed (thank god I had cleaned up before I left).
Time flew like night owls and bats and the days were filled with wet noises. I visited some of her Yoga classes, though it didn’t suit me. She visited me on my work. I showed her around the crappy little rooms we sat in and all awed at her body and face.
The nights were like Sunday afternoons with her and all ungood became stored noise in the corner, so became my dead father and her dead family and my aspirations in Hollywood and her degree from John Hopkins and my love for seafood and her fishnet dress and here working Never on Tuesday. Three months and there was the big day.
“So you’re the famous Amy!” mother opened her arms to greet her, eager to impress. Hard embarrassment as Robert did the same, while Seth waved at her and whispered a shy “Hi”, acting so often like young male teens, caught in the web of a child’s mind and a growing body.
Mother had insisted to cook and so we all chowed away on something resembling orange Lasagna, chowing away with the Time to Kill until it was all over. Robert tried to save grace by filling up after each bite and putting on some of his favorite tunes. Wine spilled on the tablecloth like the face of Christ.
“Nothing better than the master,” he prophesized while laying on a small fortune in the body of an old vinyl version of “Sweet Home Chicago”, his second most favorite behind “Fire Birds”.
“You like to make deals yourself Nate told me,” Amy teased with a smile, Wild at Heart but calm and in control.
“Oh, we got an expert over here!” he teased back.
“I knew some devils myself,” she curled her pink lips, deviously looking from my chest to my eyes.
“I bet you still do,” Robert winked and tucked away as my mother gave him a noticeable kick under the table with a smile on her face.
“So, you’re a Yoga-instructor?” asked the former waitress, sucking out the air of the room.
“Amy is actually a doctor,” I deflected as she took my forearm softly, clinging for support.
“A doctor? That sounds nearly like what Zandalee did! Remember Zandalee? She was the girl down the street who had that accident a few years ago?” asked Robert, ignored by the rest.
“Why not work in a hospital or a clinic?” asked my mother.
“You must know, Western medicine is very limiting. There are many ways to keep oneself healthy, but you got to be open minded and have the stomach for it,” she laughed.
“You mean like this Eastern stuff?”
“Well there’s many older tricks to keep oneself in good shape,” she said before switching the topic “Nate says you two are art enthusiasts?”
“I don’t want to brag but I know my way around,” said Mum.
“Well me certainly not,” said Seth annoyed, a bored sigh escaped his lips, barely noticeable the runt of the egomaniac litter.
“Who made that wristband?” Amy inquired “It looks really cool!”, prompting a hidden prideful smile from my little brother who had put a small plastic pearl on a leather band knotted around his wrist.
“I did,” Seth said, as he stared awkwardly at the table.
“Don’t be shy baby,” said my mother “he’s usually not like that.”
“Just not interested in girls yet.”
“Are you famous?” asked the child, his cheeks bright red.
“No, I’m afraid I’m not,” said my love, giggling like an imbecile on her Honeymoon in Vegas.
“You sure? Aren’t you from the poor family?” asked the child again.
“Why do you ask?”
“I saw you on TV. You’re in that show about it.”
“Seth what are you talking? Stop that nonsense!” insisted my mother.
“It’s not nonsense,” said the child
“Enough now!” said mother.
“Ready for some games?” asked Robert as we dropped Seth’s fantasy.
“As ready as Amos & Andrew,” answered my Mum.
We spent the rest of the eve with talk and drink and spilled chips and even attempted to gamble on a bit of Ma-Jong before everyone sighed in boredom and we drove back to Amy’s place at Red Rock West with the Deadfall of the evening behind us. Usually, I had no trouble sleeping somewhere else and I had been to her little house at the fringes of the city’s civilization more often than not and when I woke at 03:00 a.m. the room smelled like gasoline. The TV was dead. We had watched something didn’t we? I thought “Guarding Tess” or “It Could Happen to You” was just starting when we dropped in. The things I knew were all so useless, I thought, what did it all do me good to know A Century of Cinema?
The bed was empty except for my own sweaty body, the smell like tiny razors in my nose, and when I called out, the only response was nothing from the hallway. I made my way outside on the corridor when I heard the whispers. At first I thought they came from the dirty bathroom but the closer I came towards the stairway the clearer it was.
Some voice was talking in the kitchen. Hiding my presence, I gazed through the open door and saw my girlfriend stare up at the moon, her voice barely a sound in it’s dead light. I didn’t hear what she said but for a while it seemed like there was someone else with us, someone who saw me and pointed a finger, led to her turning around, her eyes open and wide locking on my face. I jumped back at the swift surprise, as she called my name.
“Nate?” she asked me with a hunted voice, as if ready to give me the Kiss of Death.
“Y-Yeah. Everything all right Babe?”
“Sure. What you doing down here?”
“You were talking.”
“Did I wake you up?” she opened her arms to hug and we embraced another. Something wasn’t right.
“What you doing here? It’s after 4 in the morning and you here in the kitchen.” I left the words hanging in the air.
“You never noticed? I sleepwalk, always have. You really never woke up to this before? Did it since I was a baby when we were Leaving Las Vegas.”
I had no idea what she said. She told me it had happened to her since she was a child and that she had strange dreams of the moon and would wake up in the kitchen or the living room, mouth dry which meant she talked for long times, though to whom or what, she never said. Said it happened when she fell with the head right on the top of The Rock. We went back to bed but something was off. There was a noise. Or was there? I tried to turn around, roll over, Amy’s soft snoring next to me. Still a noise. Or not? Yes, yes definitely a noise. Or not?
A crackling sound, I jumped up. Slowly I crept outside the bed. Maybe just a bird had hit a window, had happened before. I crouched into the hallway, it came from the door. There was someone outside. Someone whistling. Slowly I made my way towards it, careful not to make the outsider aware of my presence.
I heard him breath or something that seemed like breathing. Half-breathing. Through the peephole I saw the void outside. There was nothing, just darkness and that whistling noise, soft and barley hearable.
It changed. Like light but not light, maybe orange or red. Did someone make a fire? Who would make fire in a building? It was like a bright red ring surrounding the black void. Then it blinked and I fainted.
Weeks came about and went by and work took me up as our next big project came, on my side always dutiful two new interns who often filled the whole office with the smell of fries they brought with them. We were in one of the smaller conference rooms, clean metal filled with flecks from cheap food, taking short breaks in between the longing working hours.
Sometimes I would use the breaks to talk some things through with my boss, always eager to show him how dedicated and thankful I was. His office had his name on the door but every time I couldn’t suppress the image of Very Important Pennis: Uncut on it. My tow fellow working drones were out to grab some snacks and I enjoyed the insularity of the room and took deep breaths, breathing through, Con Air from its powerful oxygen.
In my hand, a cup of coffee laying my eyes on the window, down on the people who passed another on the concrete between the pavements, when at the corner a man stood still. He was not ordinary. He just stood there. Had he stood here before? I don’t know but he stood and watched and then waved. Did he wave his hand at me? I came closer and tried to see what he was doing.
He raised his arm up in 45 degrees, and a single finger pointed at me like a spear as I gasped. Was this man mad? Was he seriously looking at me? There was something odd with him, I knew. There was something with his grimace, his Face/Off like he didn’t belong here.
Not on the street, but right here right that he was wrong in the City of Angles with his staring and unblinking Snake Eyes. As if he licked the thoughts in my head he violently shook his face up and down, loosening his slicked back brown hair and he smiled like a kid until for a moment his skin shook looked like a loosened mask. Then he hopped from one leg to the other, passers just ignored him, one to the other one to the other one to the other and bang he had fallen flat on the street crushing his head on the ground.
He lifted himself, blood tripling down on his brown suit and his white shirt and he did the same again. With full force he cracked his face on the hot concrete, again and again, sputtering teeth in all directions, still everyone ignored him and laughed at the sunfilled day.
As sudden as before he stood up, waved at me and ran away around the corner. In disbelief I kept standing and saw him look around the corner, staring at me until he produced an 8mm camera he pointed downwards. Then he started to spit around, all over the place as if that would have some effect like melting the stone or Bringing Out the Dead (which of course it didn’t).
Then he was gone in no time, Gone in 60 Seconds. Unbelievable what I had seen. When the interns returned, I pointed the spot out but the blood wasn’t there and the street so dirty clean like ever, and they thought I joked at them and turned their pimpled faces into smiles. Maybe it had just been bizarre performance, stranger things happened.
I told Amy of it and she agreed that it was nothing but an act or maybe really just a party clown or maybe someone who wanted to perform for his kids like The Family Man that he might be. I snugged up to her and pulled her close. I was happy and lucky and had to suppress that crunching emotion of bliss for a single time in my life only to accept the beauty in it with my shortloved heart.
I didn’t think about the man until a month later, it was weekend and Amy had her courses to give so I decided to grab my brother for a time at the beach. The hot sand around us we were lain out in the sun, talked about girls our mother and that his encroaching puberty started to cause tidal waves in the house. He was a good child and I tried to be as much a brother as I was. We were out in the water and then dried in the sun, palyed volleyball and disturbed elder people with it, when the sun tingled away.
Time had flown and I was glad I took the day to spend it with him. On our route home I filled up the car at the next gas station. There I met the Man again. Seth had taken time to make a visit to the toilet as I waited in the car. I was on my phone and scrolled through reviews for the coming movie night. I made a selection, “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” it was and “Christmas Carol: The Movie” and “Windtalkers” but a newer Adaptation, I looked up and saw the Man in the front of the car. His blue eyes examined my face, brown suit brown hair, and he hopped back in one jump and picked something up.
It was a little beagle and he pulled the puppy tight to his chest and scratched him gently behind the ears, whispering something into them that sounded like Sonny, but I’m not sure. He looked again at my eyes and he smiled. I didn’t know how to react, so I smiled back at him and showed him my thumb up and prayed he may go away. He did not.
He dropped the puppy to the ground and kicked it and jumped on it.
I heard the yelp and whimpering from outside but was too shocked to do something. He jumped up and down time after time my mouth opened in terror as I saw the blood on his black shoes. Through all this he had this relaxed smile and looked at me.
The howls of the puppy stopped and he picked up the furry meat, the head a mess of bone shards and brain, one eyeball broken out, dangled down form the rest of the defiled carcass. The Man pulled the puppy tight to his chest and lifted his thumb, cradling his face in the red stew. He let it fell down to the ground again and kicked it again and again until it was bloods-and-bones-stew.
I opened the car door when Seth shouted, “Where are you going?” I turned around to see he poked his head in the rustic car and as I nudged to the front, I saw the Man was gone.
Headfirst I sprang out the car and nosedived on the street, my face nearly touched the asphalt. He was gone and so was the blood. Seth shouted out but I was inside the shop already and begged the young cashier for aid, asked her if she hadn’t seen the Man outside. Headlight eyes looked at me in fear as I tried to grab her shoulders over the counter. Dirt blew up all around me as I touched the dusty bins and shelves. After a babbling tirade I looked at the hand that clenched my arm. Seth looked bewildered at me, his eyes asked if I gone maniac.
I had scared him but it brought me back to reality, for a short time. We sat silent in the car until angry hoops of late afternoon commuters called for banishment. I turned around and parked on the lot, then called police. They weren’t skeptical like in the films, especially when I told them that I had seen the man before. An understanding face took notes and went inside to consult with the cashier. I called Mum.
“What you guys up to? What’s going on?”
“Mum,” I said. “There was this guy.”
“Did something happen with Seth? What did he do?”
“Nothing,” I said and watched from the frame of my sight how my brother curled up in the passenger seat. “It was just odd.”
“What’s the matter with you? You scared me to death,” she said. I couldn’t scare her with this. Had I really imagined it all? I called Amy but she didn’t answer.
There was nothing on the video, they said. Just me in the car staring bewildered then stumbling out like drunk. They gave me various explanations from dehydration to stress and left me and my brother there on the road.
I opened the door and fell on the couch. I told him about my encounters with the man and tried to find reasons for the strange behavior until he asked if I couldn’t file against a stalker. Was this Man stalking me? From one second to the other things made sense and didn’t seem as bad, or bad in a different way. I pulled over a stoic mask on my mad face and cheered him up as I felt his angst. I called Mum and told her everything was fine, just a misunderstanding, and she accepted my explanation with weary ease.
I ditched my list and let Seth choose a film and slumped on the couch with dry eyelids covering my headache.
I woke up from a noise at the door, Seth crouched on my shoulder in sleep. I was scared and turned around to see my Amy standing in front of me, trying to plug in her dead phone. We embraced and sat down in the bedroom far off from troubling my brother with my disturbing tale. Amy didn’t doubt me but seemed more skeptic crafting mighty fine tales of pranksters and jokers wandering around town scaring people to practice their grotesqueries.
After a half slice of pizza and a cold shower we sat down with Seth on the couch, he somewhat checking out my girlfriend’s body under the green summer dress, a piece of cloth befitting a city not in tune with itself but always in fake summer. We lied in bed afterwards, she behind me, pressed against my back. I drifted away with a headache and the blazing last sunrays shone behind my eyelids again, a flash of a smile of the Man and his rat teeth and his chopstick-dress and he all set on fire, just standing and smiling. I woke and stared in darkness, the moon smirking at my anguish. Night bathed the room and I heard the deep snoring sound of Amy, still behind me.
The pillow was hot and cooked my ear and brought back memories of a headache as to command to turn over my headrest to the cooling side of the equator, to hopefully fall fast back asleep but as I lifted up there in the split of the halfclosed door to the dark of the halls behind I saw the blazing eyes. Red glowing in the dark for a lifetime and a second, staring and blinking and a soft tickle of laughter. I crouched myself at Amy’s side and shook her softly, she mumbling as her eyes opened awake.
I told her there was a thing at the door in the apartment. Sober from sleep her grogginess fell in an instant, and stiff like a white candle, she was up in the bed next to me. Her hands turned on the light and I moved a finger to the mouth and slowly crawled out from the bed, scared and slow steps I leaped forward looking behind me to see her face. She got up after me and held a hand on my back, a sign of watchful reassurance.
The rest of my home was dark and silent but for the breathing of Seth on the couch who woke as I switched on the lightbulbs tingling above his hair. Questioning eyes, he asked what was going on, Amy sat down with him as I went through all rooms again.
Then in the bedroom I looked under the bed and there was nothing. Back in the darkness of the hallway, Amy whispered to me of talking to someone a therapist or a psychiatrist, as I just stared at the shadow of a Man that was next to me, his face inches away from mine.

This thread will be added to as I write more over time.
We believe in Scientific fact, and do NOT worship Satan or any deities. Satan is a symbol, a myth, a representation.
We do not sacrifice anything- other than braincells and time, trying to explain this. We do not harm Animals. We do not eat babies, or harm children in anyway and besides- they are too chewy.. And we do not curse people.
We are GODS among men. We are our own gods.
Satanism is a very individual path. The left hand path, away from the "norm" always is a lonely one. But with individualism, comes creation.
I would say that no Satanist is the same, even those who are pure Church of Satan followers for example. Things would be similar and things believed would be near identical, but nothing exactly the same. Ideology in Satanism is subjective.
I would share common Ideologies with most Satanists, but then our lines no longer cross.
I may base myself in the Church of Satan's teachings and the Satanic Bibles pages, but everyone needs to start somewhere. Otherwise it's like building in sand on a hill, your foundations won't stay put.
When we say Ave Satanas (Hail Satan in Latin) we aren't Hailing a dark lord or king of demons, we are Hailing ourselves.. I prefer to say, and encourage members to say- Ave Satanas, over just saying Hail Satan as it's a bit cringey in my opinion, but still, feel free. Ah-vay- Say-tan-ass.
We are not "Anti-religion", as this is a religion as well as a Prophecy.
We may have choice words against Christians and their teachings, and may call them names, insult and poke fun, but at the end of the day there are some real good and fantastic people out there who happen to believe in God. Do not forget that.
Christianity is the biggest slave trade, they are the great indoctrinaters of people, making them sheep, and prisoners of sin- sin that is unfairly placed upon them from birth, and they must live lesser lives in order to die sinless. More like Spineless.
The churches go untaxed, when the rest of us toil and grind.
They are hypocrites and liars.
The Bible is full of contradictions and ancient morals that need to be erased.
They will doom you to hell. Then beg and pray for their own sins to be forgotten.
A boy born from a Virgin mother in the desert can walk on water and cure blindness. The son of God. More like the son of a cheating mother, a lie taken too far. Lucifer, the Light bringer- cast out of Heaven, for shining the light on the lies and hypocrisy of Christianity. Known thus forth as Satan the ruler of Hell.
Yet from any rational person, Satan and Hell is a far better place to go. I would rather chill with demons than be frolicking around the clouds with child molesting priests, Homophobes, Racists, Nazi's, Animal sacrificers, and the Lord of slavery himself, God. The all mighty; child killer, famine bringer, natural disaster causing, chronic illness inducing, virus, infection and disease spreading, grim reaper. More heads have rolled due to his so called "works" than any other. More war and heartbreak. More pain and suffering. More vicious deceit and lies. All from his glory.
His sheep led to the slaughter one by one. All thinking they live these special holy lives. Holyer than thou. Lambs of God, manipulated into sin. Warped and bent over by sin. Raped of their human rights by sin. Weakened by sin. Asking for forgiveness for sinning, to sin again. To sin then go to church, and act like they are sin free.
To feel their actions can be undone because someone with a collar said so, because some imaginary friend let's them be forgiven. That is the stupidity of a Christian.
Falsely lead to their demise.
Islam the so called religion of peace, Islam is brutal and violent and disgusting. Peace through terrorism, bombing people, mass slaughter? Sickening.
We create God's, God's don't create us.
We are definitely Anti-God. Be it Christian, Islam, Judaism. As really and truly, if anyone is evil between Satan and God, God is the true king of evil.
One type of religion/sets of religions with gods I feel need our support and love, even if we don't believe in the gods ourselves, are Pagan religions and the associated practices. I personally have deep connections to Germanic Paganism, North and Norse. My ancestors are Germanic tribes from the North-Sea, Norsemen from Norway and Sweded and Iceland, and Celt. Pagans, heathens, have been oppressed victims of Christianity for thousands of years and they did not deserve any of it. And let's be honest, Pagan religions are so cool.
And if we look back through history something that really catches my eye is the fact that pretty much all European religions, are near identical in pantheon, ways of worship, and more. Looking at; Greek, Roman, Germanic Paganism alone, they all have similar gods, in number too, all with similar characteristics, "powers" for lack of a better word. So how can people thousands of miles apart, only brought together in war, but worshipped these deities before meeting eachother- Have such similar religions?
To me, that means that if anyone is right, it's one of the Pagans.
BUT, logically, still none are right.
An individual all holy spirit and God only cane about from the deserts of the East. And a lot of Christian practice and events and days and well, quite a lot, is stolen from Norse Paganism- such as Christmas is Yule, Easter is Eaostre.
Another mark against the Christian lies.
Satanists can celebrate Christmas and other events that are stolen by Christians, because we are celebrating their origins, not the Christian way. And celebrate it how we want, if it's stolen anyway!
But feel free to call it Christmas, and Easter still if you wish. It's all mainstream media now anyway.
Members of STO are expected to be good moral people, loyal to those who deserve it but especially yourself, and overall law abiding. They must be 'sensibly and self preservingly selfless', when it comes to the aid of those who need it, BUT most importantly, only to those who deserve it. But, ??? members should not be WEAK or push-overs. Animals deserve our love and care, and no harm unless in defence or survival, should be brought upon them by your hand especially and you shouldn't stand by and witness such acts either.
And by no means does that mean you must stop the meat trade if you see a Farmer readying his cows for for slaughter. You can eat meat. You can love and care for animals and their rights while still eating a burger, in fact you eating that Animal honours it's death. As not eating meat only wastes the meat, meaning the death of that animal was purposeless. If you wish to be a Vegan for example, or have any other dietary preferences, that's great. And your choice.
We are not political, any members who wish to be involved in Politics is up to them, with freedom to choose what they support. But do not preach it. Or act like you know what's best, like you see all over the Social Media's these days. Unless you are an actual Politician. Focus more on yourself and your loved ones, over others.
Also, in regards to being Political. We will not cater for the new generations Political correctness pathetic weakness.
We are all inclusive; Race, Gender, Sexuality all welcome. But let's keep this simple. You are either a MAN or a WOMAN. Be that through natural birth or through successful transitional operation.
Science allows for that change.
Science however does not allow for you to choose depending on the day, anyday. Or to make up something new, just because. You can't just "Identify" as anything. You simply are- Man or Woman. Look between your legs if you are confused. YOU CANNOT BE "FLUID".
If you go through authentic transition medically and scientifically, then you are Man or Woman still. But, that must be a final extreme, seek help first. As it is unfortunately not natural to feel that you need to change so drastically. From the bottom of our hearts, cover all grounds first.
Anything else is a mental illness, and you need to seek professional help. Please. And we mean that with genuine care, not insult.
And DO NOT force it on children.
Of course there are genuine medical causes from birth where some people are both Male and Female, for example, etc, the list is extensive- this is different to mentally feeling you need to change your Gender.
We do not care if you are; Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, you cannot help who you love. Or don't love. Love is beautiful. Unless you are in love with an; Object, building, car, or whatever else- that is not natural, get help, please.
Just always make sure your partner, or all involved are all consenting adults.
And no abuse, unless asked for (Like if it's a kink, but then it's not abuse) is done to them. Physical, mental and Sexual abuse to your spouse, is strictly prohibited and you deserve to feel their pain for as long as you live if you do such acts!
Abuse of any kind towards Minors, especially Sexually- I.e, Pedophilia, should get you executed, but our country is too soft for that.
And do not Sexually abuse animals either, you are a freak if you do. And deserve to be treated as such.
Adultery, cheating is also a NO. If you are not happy, as a Satanist it's your duty to change that for yourself- not hurt someone else who doesn't deserve it in the process. If you are in a bad relationship, abused and hurt, you must leave. Even though the cruelty you face is foul and evil, you cheating on that person only makes things worse for you. It makes you look bad. It could make them worse. Be strong and leave. And don't go back.
Going back is akin to grovelling on your hands and knees to them and that level of weakness is pathetic. It may feel like they will change, you could change them, but that isn't true. They change if they want to. It may feel like you have no one else- that's their poison that they planted inside you making you feel like that. Please seek help if this is a real circumstance for you and you don't feel strong enough to deal with it alone. No one should live with Abuse of any kind.
Skin colour is just skin colour. We are all equal, beautiful animals. And while the earth has real Racial issues, that need sorting, it's safe to say that we here at the STO, Do NOT agree with racism of any kind. You are safe here.
But, we also condemn any activist groups like; Black Lives Matter or Antifa, as people blindly join them and march in protests that not only always seem to lead to violence, anarchy, and the Police being attacked- but don't seem to realise that BLM/Antifa are in fact Racists themselves!! They want to breakdown the White family and White people's rights. It has been written in their agendas! But people turn a blind eye to it to ensure they stay a special little snowflake Social justice warrior. The white people marching in those protests blindly marched against themselves and their families. Shameful.
The matter of the fact is- that is not true Equality.
True Equality is everyone united together, as one, no "this life matters" marches against eachother! It should be- good people fighting against bad people. Simple. No matter what skin colour, respectively on both sides of that coin.
I will never, ever, apologise for being white, I shouldn't ever have to.
Much like no one should have to apologise for being black. Or any other Race, or Male or Female. Etc.
Especially as a Satanist. We shall never grovel to please the masses. As we do things right anyway! The old school way most the time- But it never failed before- until these weaklings created problems they wanted to see.
What happened in the past, in history, DOES NOT define people today.
If you are good to me, I am good to you. It's truly as simple as that. And that should be widely recognised as the way to be!
How that has been so lost recently is beyond me.
Unless you are a known horrible person, for whatever reason, then I won't equal your positive approach with me, but doesn't mean I will lower myself either.
There is a time and a place for that.
If you are bad to me, I either cut you out of my life, or make you regret it. Depending on the scenarios and events.
This is a Satanists right. A HUMANS right.
Self defence is also a right. A very very strong right. You must defend yourself, your home, your loves ones, your possessions (in consideration of the worth of that possession vs your Life), violently if needs be. Within the law as best you can. And trying to preserve your life and those around you. Even in defence of those who you don't know. We must protect the good people. Just within reason. As depending on the situation, your life and your loved ones lives are far more important than someone's you don't know. But never discount the feeling to help as many people as you can.
Even the right to Kill another human, when you know you have no choice, you know you will die or someone else will.
The rule number Eleven also means this. As well as "destroying" someone verbally. Etc.
If situations can be avoided, avoid them. If situations can be escaped, make sure you get your loved ones safe, then yourself, and if possible but not always advisable, anyone around you too.
However, it's better to die a hero, if you're going to die- to die for something than to die a coward. I personally would do my best for everyone but after making sure my loved ones are safe. And in the defence of my loved ones, it would be a bloody, painful battle to the death if needs be. That's your choice and only yours. The above is just my best advice to preserve your life as you are one of few, a Satanist.
Woman's rights are hugely important.
But Feminism and Feminists are not!
They aren't for true equality like the BLM/Antifa movements also aren't, as mentioned before. Feminists are anti-men. That solves nothing, and in honesty, is laughable.
They spit upon true strong women. Women who fought for their rights when sexism was truly in force.
I am sure Sexism, much like racism still exists to this day and some disgusting scenarios take place. But, like in both, nowhere near as previous history. And nowhere near as much as these "movements" advertise.
Ironically, I believe that sexist and racist crime has increased DUE TO THESE MOVEMENTS, because they paint the picture against themselves with their extreme notions and anarchy.
The patriarchy doesn't exist, Mansplaining is a ridiculous, sad little word.
Rape used as a weapon and a safety blanket, false accusations thrown like daggers and hope they stick. Those that do ruin lives in a brutal attack against men. Disgusting. I could say so much more but that right there, is enough. Shameful and vile.
Woman are; incredible, beautiful, strong humans.
They do not need Feminism or pathetic movements to know this.
Female Satanists, I strongly urge you do not ever conform to such ridiculous movements.
You will be doing yourself and womankind an injustice.
If you do, for whatever reason, need a place to be to know your worth. The Satanic Templar Order is more than enough. We understand.
As Satanists, I strongly advise you to not become one of the new generations; weak, thin skinned, wet wipes. The last 10 years it has been getting worse and worse.
Those who cry and need safe spaces over things they read, see and hear. Grow up!
Those who are offended all the time and bitch and moan about it, trying to change things because it causes them so much harm deep inside their fragile little existence. Grow up!
Ruining things for others because they are so weak and futile that nobody should see or do anything that damages their awfully low self esteem.
Easily offended means easily manipulated!
It's embarrassing. It's sad. It's a cancer.
Satanists should never be this pathetic and weak. For we need to fight this weakness. It's not unlike radical Christian followers, sheep trapped in their worlds.
I believe this type of weakness to be a sin. It is an additional sin!
When I mention weakness as a sin, I do not mean you must be a strong person physically, strength comes in many forms. A skinny, small, person- could be strong mentally, a born leader, or a teacher. Someone who is chronically sick, are strong because they battle everyday.
As with most things in Satanism, it's all subjective.
As does strength, weakness comes in many forms. Not being able to lift a weight is weakness but not really important either in the grand scheme of things. And can be changed.
But being so weak that you can't sleep at night because of a Joke. So weak you are offended by such pathetic things. That's a sin.
Offense is taken, not given. You make that choice.
You choose to step in the excrement instead of walking around it.
You choose to ram the stick into your bicycle wheel and flip yourself over and injure yourself then blame someone or something else.
A Satanist should not censor oneself to protect these fragile imbeciles..
I believe that it is Vital we should look after ourselves; health, fitness, diet, and mental health.
And especially members of this particular Order- You should consider Martial arts and Combat Sport training. As we are Warrior's by name. Templars of Satan. Dark templars of Atheistic Satanism.
The Abrahamic religions would fall.
You shouldn't touch drugs and alcohol in my opinion, but if you drink make sure it's in moderation as at the end of the day it's your choice and your happiness. Just remember, Intoxication is unbecoming of you and Satanism.
But with alcohol in moderation aloud, I firmly state that-
Drugs is completely restricted.
What a awful creation drugs was. Drugs are something I would make sure never got created if I had the power to travel back in time. You want to talk about good and evil. Well Drugs is a true evil.
((Unless medical.)) Drugs used for medicines, are all allowed.
Please try to cut down and quit smoking as well.
A Satanist needs to be in sound, sensible mind at all times, to be rational and in control of oneself. I am very anti-drug. They are all illegal as well. Satanists don't belong behind bars, if we wanted to be trapped we would be Christian. So that is an additional rule/sin- No Drugs, unless medical.
Another additional rule- Members are expected to be clean, hygienic and to look after themselves. Mind and body, fitness, health. Just because you are a Satanist with free will doesn't mean you need to stop looking after yourself.
I want you to enjoy good food, but not let it take you over and cause health issues!
Satanism is about living your best life. A fulfilled life.
I understand that loving food, for example, brings joy and a full belly is a great feeling. Fast food and many other indulgences bring happiness. I too, enjoy it all.
But unfortunately it comes with a moderation warning. As not in moderation could lead to a unhappier life or a shorter one!
Find the balance with such things.
Find balance with a lot of things.
Addiction isn't a free rational mind. It isn't healthy and it isn't fun. It isn't Satanism.
Gambling, feel free to bet and gamble, but once again- moderate it!! Crippling debt isn't exactly the best life we aim for.
If someone doesn't believe you and what you say about Satanism, they will not educate themselves, they will not read the Satanic bible, they won't accept anything but what they want to hear, they won't change their view for even a second because they are stubborn to anything but their way. That's on them. They are lost.
You may, of course, flaunt your free will, your love of Satanism, your Satanic beliefs. Of course you may wear what you like and what Satanic jewellery you wish to wear, of course you can tattoo oneself with the imagery of the Occult and the symbols. You can have a Baphomet tattoo covering your whole back if you so wish. That, friends, is down to the individual.
I personally do not make anyone aware who doesn't care/need to know and who I don't want to know will never know unless they personally dig into my life. We are Templars of Satan, here in the Satanic Templar Order, but not visibly unless called for. Be a ranger, a rogue, a watcher in the shadows. Be eyes, be ears, be the cloak and the mystery.
Let people make up what they assume to be true about you.
I said there that you can dress how you want etc etc, and you can, but let's be sensible about it, the time of "Emo" and Goth has aged, there are other ways to do it now. Other ways that look better for Satanism. Embrace your individuality, be a Goth or a Emo if you wish, I wouldn't deny anyone that, but I feel that over the top display doesn't fit as much as it used to with Satanism as a whole. Especially not here in the STO. I do not wish to be seen as a "Edgy" club. I don't want that for all of Satanism. Satanism is far more grown up and not a phase.
I am a firm believer that GOOD people deserve good things, and BAD people deserve the worst.
It is a natural balance.
Yes, some people are bad or even good depending on circumstances, but does that really justify it?
Is the crack addict, who got themselves addicted, who roams the streets at night robbing people to get his next fix a bad person? Yes.
Is the crack addict who was forced onto drug addiction through a, lets say- a kidnapping style scenario, or a forced ownership style situation where a organised crime group force drug use to make sure the people they "own" don't think for themselves, or through an abusive partner who would pin them down and inject them, are they a bad person? No. Chances are they want to be rid of that life, that addiction and that awful circumstance.
But can turn bad if they let their life they didn't ask for become the life they want and turn into the above "bad person" example.
"Devil Worship", those who worship the devil/Satan, that the Christians made, not the true way Satan should be seen. But, they are not Satanists.
Devil Worshipers seem to be as close to the Media's impression of Satanism as a whole. They still aren't Satanists though!
The type of Satanism you see in films, the crazy cults etc, the killers, etc. Although still far from the truth even then. And still not Satanism. . .
Ironically, no TRUE satanist has caused mass murder, there are no Satanist cults, criminals, mass hysteria. That is all the work of God and Christians. They may just say they done it for Satan instead of God, but most the time it's all for God. No world leaders who caused mass destruction, death, war and slaughter have been Satanists. They have been Christian/Other. Far Cry 5 the video game, a crazy Christian fanatic family take over with a extremist cult of followers and kill in the name of god, is far more accurate than any Satanist cult depiction. . .
I have a very close friend who is a Christian, he is devoutly Christian.
He has for all intensive purposes converted his partner (My Fiancée's twin sister), to Christianity- she isn't as devoutly into it like he, but she is definitely more "God loving and believing" than ever before. Previously she and my Fiancée, have felt comfort in feeling there COULD be a god, a heaven, but more so an afterlife. As it is less scary to feel like when we die, there is nothing but black. Nothing.
I except that. I love my friend like family, despite that fact he is Christian- I love his partner, my future sister in law like I love my actual sisters. And of course I love my Fiancée to my utter core of my being.
And yet they all, someway or another, believe in Esoteric things, as far as believing in God or the possibility of an Afterlife. Something I fiercely oppose.
The funny thing about it, is, all of them are "sinners". Myself especially. So would all end up in Hell together anyway, if such a place did somehow exist! I'd rather go there anyway. Bet they have badass Boxing gyms there.
Even the most devoutly Christian friend. He stopped "sinning" after a talk with I believe his devoutly Christian parents, or one of them, and has since seeked forgiveness and went through all that nonsense Christians do, to "clear his name". His particular sin, was premarital Sexual intercourse. He has stopped that to such an extent that his partner must now wait until they are married, so he tells me. That could be years away.
My inner animal and my carnal needs felt like they got shot personally, when I thought how painfully testing that would be for him and her. I just couldn't imagine anything like that for me.
I can't really give credit for the "strength" required to resist. Because it isn't a strength. It's just being stripped of your nature. It's sad. It's stupid.
My future wife, she turned to me and said "Have you become a bible basher!?" When my Satanic bible arrived. Thinking I turned all Christian, just because of the word "BIBLE". Yet hates the idea that there is nothing when we die. That all her lost loved ones are just non existent anymore.
I think here, is the confusion most face.
The idea of a mystical giant god, all in white, in a mystical cloud land and pearly gold gates, and a Devil in fire, looking over lava and a land of torture and infinite pain, being remotely logical is damn near impossible. But the comfort one brings to even non-religious people is enough to catch them, hook and line.
The human mind is so susceptible to stimulants. It's so easily manipulated and simply poked at to get a response.
I can't blame people for falling trap to such wonderful things that even go against logic and science.
Children, although they don't deserve to be abused, they often need proper discipline! When I was growing up, a good shake or a smacked bottom did me far better than this softy softy waste of time rubbish. Do not allow your child to be a nasty, tantrum throwing, spoiled little brat. Raise them right or not at all. Discipline only hurts at the time, not in the future. But once again, I can't stress this enough. DO NOT ABUSE CHILDREN. Discipline and abuse are very different things.
The Satanic Templar Order also doesn't feel the need for ritual, and magic. But feel free do so if it makes you happy. It just doesn't seem very, well, useful, or like it does anything. I understand that the magic spoken about in the Satanic bible is all internal psychology and external psychology against other people, but really you can just... Live your life?

You ever sit around all day don’t know what to do? So bored of yourself that you just look at anything until you feel the rot creep up on you trying to drag you down. Well if you’re reading this, you must have some time on your hands. The name is Don Kowalski by the way.
Time was the enemy although it hadn’t been so from on early. It didn’t have to be this way. In the beginning, I was thrilled staying put, living only at home, downing a bottle here a bottle there took me months to realize that getting drunk wasn’t much exciting when you could do it every day. Lifting was no fun at home without the showoff.
The thrill wasn’t there without the mirrors and the others and I would not give empty testament. So I was stuck, down deep in my black chair with my greying hair clinging greasy to my head and the stubble on my face growing thicker and thicker like hedges and forests of dry metallic wires drilling themselves deep in my naked skin.
I sat on the chair, blue light penetrated me and I watched into it like someone getting lost in the sun to see caleidoscopic patterns afterwards for minutes and some stare in the dark ponds in gardens and across them and I stared into the unknown abbeys of the internet until I found something that hooked me. Interest was reborn, the cherubim and thrones sang, and I was again digging for knowledge on the riddle.
It was the case of Nathan, not Lessing’s I mind you. You got to know I’m, and I know this sounds like the start of a bad pulpy novel, I’m a PI or what the cool cats call it now. Private Investigation, looking at lives for a fuck of money but better than to slither up buttholes at the ordinary stational sedentary life I once had and was led in. I was called up, by a Mrs. Anderson, whose voice sounded like a whisky drowned chimney.
Carry Ann Anderson had called about a friend who was now dead meat. The case was solved she said but somehow it was not, not for her. There was rot on the inside of fresh timber. A fair warning here – there won’t be no solution, cause certainly me didn’t solve it. I told her so, when she called again. I hadn’t been to LA and going there was a waste, I knew as much already. For her sake I called the department over there and talked to the detective. She wasn’t going to be happy with my findings.
Gluing a mask of false politeness to my voice I asked, “So what’s the matter hm?”
“They say it’s all real simple: kid snapped and did it. But something ain’t right. You see I knew her back from the day, from Sacramento. I can tell you, this boy was no of these Columbines or Sandy Hooks, he would never hurt them.”
“That’s what the parents of those kids said too,” I said, uncomfortable silence on the other end.
“Something’s just off about this. You saw the files already?”
“Mhm. Didn’t do much good.”
“Tell you this: the officers said the same. Said it’s all there orderly and not like some coverup or some shit they tell you like the conspiracy theories on TV you know? Like they had to dig for it you know? Not too difficult and not too easy but also not in between not your textbook stuff either. Not odd he said. But said that it all around made it odd. Made it seem odd, still, somehow. Seems like not the type to do it. You know he said type? He spat them words out on me,” she said.
There I was. I made some calls asked about the kid that chopped down his family, sat his flat up like a Christmas tree and coaled it down to the ground, all in a cozy night. One day to the other and a bunch of people gone.
I find a pal of his, named Erica Cremonte. She was willing to talk. Told me when it happened and went down and all the other stuff. Other guys didn’t talk or told me how shitty they feel about it all. I dug a bit deeper inside Erica since she was the only source of water in the land of dry lands, she told me a bit more, opened up like an old lady to the cashier or waiter or the poor sod at the bus. Told me about Nathan and his family and his brother and his girlfriend her few idle feel-good weeks in Africa and the funeral. And that it didn’t make sense to her either.
And the days go by and I start to forget about the whole thing since there’s no leads and none won’t talk and I give up. Call Mrs. Anderson and tell her there is nothing and she doesn’t understand the whys in my words but she knows them and we agree to part ways and wish each other a nice day and she’s gone.
Days and weeks and months go by and I forget. Then I am locked here in front of the monitor and it all comes back and something in me stirs and after hours I stare at the profile of one Margaret Suarez and see the condolences on her Facebook profile.
I write to her and days pass me by, drinking lifting reading and boredom, the old familiar gent from around the corner walks up again until there’s a response. Asks me how I found her, what I wanted. Calls me and tells me all about the disfigured creep that slashed her mother in the office. Digs deeper and finds all the glory all the madness in the last mail, sent from her mother’s account.
He left something for us and I will share it with you. Keep in mind it’s all ludicrous but it will help pass some hours. So, the following is the written word of Nathan Cohen, brought to paper after he killed his therapist while locked up in the cuckoo’s nest.
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Sometimes I look up at the sky, at night. I wonder, is the lightning of the stars hidden by the vast dark, or is the darkness a shield? A shield that keeps us safe and calm from countless eyes that stare at us?
Back then I didn’t care for the night. The air was on fire from the red morning sun, every time the same, from grad school to that day when those good Fast Times at Ridgemont High started. In the beginning it was only dark shades of purple and crimson until the firmament turned to face blood.
A line of mystic clouds was in the sky, creeping forward like a white river. The street came alive minute by minute, looming trashmen came to empty our waste in the stark dust flying around. It was better in the hills with the cooling breeze before the onset of dawn.
Back then life was soft and kind and sometimes the only touch of madness was a killed hedgehog on the street or two poisoned cats in the neighborhood. Now, the sky is blue and white and partly covered in striped clouds standing static on the package of my pills. My name is Nate Cohen. Or was. A sitting corpse though I might sit and breath and eat and drink but I don't laugh or sing or cry. The laid out actions of others, that brought me here, might seem untrue for they can’t be proven, but I assure you they are true.
All of them. I don't know what will happen after I hit the "send" button but you all need to know there is a shade of acid in the world you don't taste or smell, but it burns your face like brimstone like flame-gas scorching your eyes like the sun was just the backside of a black hole. You'll see.
I was born Nathaniel Cohen in 1991 in the glory land of sunshine, to Ira and Susan. We lived down in Sacramento, my father running flocks of cars from behind a stuffed desk, and my mother gave pottery classes every Tuesday and Thursday night, taught a few friends how to make halfskilled molds of clay. Dad was a bold man always chasing dreams of living without a mortgage, and Mum supported but was like a happy young girl and bathed in the sounds of Sunday lawnmowers and plastic pools, water from the hose filtered the rays of solar bronze.
I guess in their own ways both were not real, maybe that was what tied them together. We weren't rich but not poor.
Playful on weekends I built forts and donjons between California sycamores and gray pine and hunted and ran with classmates and friends and neighbor's kids that grew grizzled worker’s brown over their small shapes.
I was happy before and afterwards, but loss is like a sharp pin in the foot, long lost by a sewing woman, too lazy to pick up her needles. Until then, when I was under or over 11 and my progenitor decided he needed to be home faster or sooner or was just hungry, and crashed into 2 men and 1 woman and one dog. Insurance and my grandparents (now long dead) kept us from sinking in the shelters of the homeless ones, but my mother needed work or we faced to lose the house.
The first months she worked as waitress at Ear’s, a rundown bar I wasn’t allowed to enter and so sat for hours on the warm sidewalks, gleaming red in the drowning sunlight and grey and sad under the smile of Mother Selene. Some days Mrs. Anderson watched me and I watched her, sipping slowly but frequent on cheap Chadonay. This went until some better showed up, and the months turned to over a year until that happened. My mother had studied contemporary art spending hours devouring Roy Lichtenstein and the likes and to find paying employment had never been on her mind, until some time as now.
Finally, after two years my mother got an offer from a small magazine in Los Angeles and we moved to this strange new world. Surprisingly, moving at the age of 13 was no fun but new friends found me as I slowly settled, when something changed.
Robert Berkowitz came into our life and took us in. He was a bald man with blonde eyebrows and eyes like glowing azures, he was no stranger to money and art, which was the way he’d gotten involved with Mum. They hit it right at each other and after some months or weeks, might it was just some weeks, he took us to his house in Beverly Hills, not far from where Foothill Road hits Park Way.
Beverly Palm Plaza was soon my second living room. Later, in the foul age of 16, I used all chances to leave the house into the mass of the 30.000 inhabitants living there, crossing the invisible line south of the tracks, where Pacific Electric had once worked streetcars on the Red Line. Eons ago in another world.
Robert tried to be a father, but in the end we formed a bond. He was there for me when I wanted and offered counsel and paid for my life while I enrolled in college, even helped my shallow dream to join in true Hollywood. After college I enrolled in the UCLA TFT program and, with help from my stepfather, finally landed a job at a production company, Reality TV. I started out as trainee and clawed my way finally to second assistant of the executive director of scripted TV development at Geronimo Grande Productions.
It wasn’t what I had dreamt of but at last I sustained myself, though Robert insisted to help with the rent for my flat on Kelton Avenue, where I still lived after graduating. Life was good back then, without the staring stars that tried to break through the night, away, far far away, Racing with the Moon.
I was 28 when the shades and clouds came over me. I was out with friends, a steamed night in the cool warm air’s vibrations around us.
We found a small restaurant near my place. Pitfire Artisan Pizza on 2018 Westwood Boulevard had brilliant Pesto Chicken and a damn fine Field Mushroom. I was there with Jules and Erica, enjoying dinner outside to the left of the entrance, a silent small tree our only companion, until she walked by. Inside there was a meeting of some charity organization, The Cotton Club or something.
Hair like ironed black jasper and ascetic nude makeup, she strolled by in a white tank top and black yoga pants, the matt casually under her arm. I didn’t stop staring at her. I couldn’t. Some birds in some nearby trees seemed to whistle after her and she turned around, just for a second, as if to say come after me Birdy.
“You in love Naty?” asked Erica, the flower from the valley with the flaxen mob on her head, sitting across from me.
“No,” I stuttered “Just caught my eye. Nothing.”
“Sure,” grinned Jules between his teeth, “Mine too.” he said, folding his tattooed arms in front of his chest, tongue shoved in the corner of his mouth smiling like a bobcat dressed in jeans and shirt of the same fabric, The Boy in Blue.
“Why don’t ask for her number? She’s just down the corner.”
“Isn’t that kinda creepy?”
“Most women like a bit of creeps, ” Jules howled up at his own joke, his hat nearly falling from the back of his head as he raised it up and slapped his left knee.
“Oh, shut up predator,” I waved off, before I turned to Erica “You don’t think that’s awkward?”
“Not if a guy like you asked. I remember a friend of mine met her husband like that, now Peggy Sue Got Married,” she smiled and put her head to the side. Too perfect white Hollywooddream teeth.
I had seen the Girl turning left and jogged away from the Pitfire, still hearing Jules laughing, when I saw her near La Grange Ave. She cut another corner up right so I ran after her, praying to find her. Yet to the grace of my bad luck, she was gone. The street in front of me was not crowded but the vixen from my dreams was vanished. Hands empty and defeated I returned to the table.
“Vae victis,” announced Jules, as he saw my hollow eyes. I never had a poker face until now. With half your face in mashed up molten scartissue it’s difficult to show emotion and I wonder, so far from home will the sun ever show herself again, will it fill anyone out her, raise itself, Raising Arizona?
“Did she say no?” blonde Erica asked with true empathy.
“Seems I lost her,” I said, trying to hide my disappoint. Just a few seconds more decisiveness and my life might have changed.
“Well let’s go, search a new one,” Jules sprang up and clapped.
Let’s go. The words rang, as I tumbled out of the cab up to my flat, the Girl long forgotten for the next few months until another fateful day, when I went to my gym. Workout and work kept me focused for a time and it was mostly night when I came home.
I admit I was a glutton. I had to work out at least three times a week, gym rats they call them. Muscled sweat pouring gales of raw testosterone into the halls. The Equinox Gym was my favorite in Westwood and I had been a paying patron for years now and knew more faces there than in the streets around my neighborhood. I had just left after a session of pumping my brains out, when I saw her crossing me by.
“Hey,” I blurted out in reflex.
She tilted her hand. Black hair, a shimmer of brown in the dusky sunlight, dark eyes and a friendly smile took me right home. Right where I belonged.
“Hey yourself,” she said, raising one eyebrow.
“Do I know you?” she asked, without arrogance, her black-brown hair gently thrown over the left shoulder. Love leaking out of every pore I muttered a plain “Yes”. Before she had a chance to pass me by.
“Sorry. I meet a lot of people lately,” she smiled “Are you in one of my courses?”
“Courses?”
“Well, here,” she grinned. Small white teeth and a thick red snail that crouched behind them, giving them shelter and backup, all the same.
“Ah no. I think, you passed by a pizza palor couple of weeks ago?” I stuttered in embarrassment, trying to suppress redness swelling on my cheek.
“Yes, that’s on my way. So, you’re my new stalker?” She laughed.
“Well, don’t I feel honored,” I extended my hand “My name’s Nate, by the way.”
“Amy. Amy Gallagher,” she raised a slim white wrist in the shade of the California sundown.
This was the day I really met Amy Gallagher for the first time. I rue it every moment in the coffin of my sterile being with the stars laughing at me and the disc in the sky calling my name making me all Moonstruck.
We set a date for the Saturday to come. I thought it fitting to go for Italian and led her to Sammy’s down at Santa Monica Boulevard. It wasn’t too expensive (I didn’t want to come across as one of those guys) but stylish enough to show her I had some taste stored in me. She wore a stunning babyblue dress just touching the tips of her knees, and her black mane was straightened in a long tail crowning her right pale shoulder. When she saw me, she licked her lips as if to prepare me for her Vampire’s Kiss. Sammy was a first gen from Palermo, old now he longed for his home and always liked to impress with native extravaganza.
“Ciao ragazzi!” he said as I walked my stunning Kypris down the cheap red carpet between trashy fake Roman plastic pillars.
“Come stai?” Amy replied, took his arm and left me somber.
They chatted a bit in Italian, what they said I do not know, but I knew the small thing in my belly, the knot of discomfort in my stomach. Laughs and eyes on me. Cheers swallow the jokes.
“You’re full of surprises,” I tried to gain control of the tilting ship, unnecessarily clawing my black hair back.
“You got no idea,” she pressed her tongue between a marble row of perfect teeth, a small red viper watched out from the cave of her mouth.
We talked of hard work, of idle time, of family the usual first-date-topics broken up by a hand of awkward pauses in between, like flashes in the storm.
“My family’s not from around here.”
“Neither’s mine.”
“So whose Italian? Mom or Dad? I bet your Dad.”
“None of them,” she grinned “I picked it up couple years ago.”
Movies, theater, literature, antipasti, strange people, more hobbies, main dish, skipping desert and I rolled from over her in my half of the bed (thank god I had cleaned up before I left).
Time flew like night owls and bats and the days were filled with wet noises. I visited some of her Yoga classes, though it didn’t suit me. She visited me on my work. I showed her around the crappy little rooms we sat in and all awed at her body and face.
The nights were like Sunday afternoons with her and all ungood became stored noise in the corner, so became my dead father and her dead family and my aspirations in Hollywood and her degree from John Hopkins and my love for seafood and her fishnet dress and here working Never on Tuesday. Three months and there was the big day.
“So you’re the famous Amy!” mother opened her arms to greet her, eager to impress. Hard embarrassment as Robert did the same, while Seth waved at her and whispered a shy “Hi”, acting so often like young male teens, caught in the web of a child’s mind and a growing body.
Mother had insisted to cook and so we all chowed away on something resembling orange Lasagna, chowing away with the Time to Kill until it was all over. Robert tried to save grace by filling up after each bite and putting on some of his favorite tunes. Wine spilled on the tablecloth like the face of Christ.
“Nothing better than the master,” he prophesized while laying on a small fortune in the body of an old vinyl version of “Sweet Home Chicago”, his second most favorite behind “Fire Birds”.
“You like to make deals yourself Nate told me,” Amy teased with a smile, Wild at Heart but calm and in control.
“Oh, we got an expert over here!” he teased back.
“I knew some devils myself,” she curled her pink lips, deviously looking from my chest to my eyes.
“I bet you still do,” Robert winked and tucked away as my mother gave him a noticeable kick under the table with a smile on her face.
“So, you’re a Yoga-instructor?” asked the former waitress, sucking out the air of the room.
“Amy is actually a doctor,” I deflected as she took my forearm softly, clinging for support.
“A doctor? That sounds nearly like what Zandalee did! Remember Zandalee? She was the girl down the street who had that accident a few years ago?” asked Robert, ignored by the rest.
“Why not work in a hospital or a clinic?” asked my mother.
“You must know, Western medicine is very limiting. There are many ways to keep oneself healthy, but you got to be open minded and have the stomach for it,” she laughed.
“You mean like this Eastern stuff?”
“Well there’s many older tricks to keep oneself in good shape,” she said before switching the topic “Nate says you two are art enthusiasts?”
“I don’t want to brag but I know my way around,” said Mum.
“Well me certainly not,” said Seth annoyed, a bored sigh escaped his lips, barely noticeable the runt of the egomaniac litter.
“Who made that wristband?” Amy inquired “It looks really cool!”, prompting a hidden prideful smile from my little brother who had put a small plastic pearl on a leather band knotted around his wrist.
“I did,” Seth said, as he stared awkwardly at the table.
“Don’t be shy baby,” said my mother “he’s usually not like that.”
“Just not interested in girls yet.”
“Are you famous?” asked the child, his cheeks bright red.
“No, I’m afraid I’m not,” said my love, giggling like an imbecile on her Honeymoon in Vegas.
“You sure? Aren’t you from the poor family?” asked the child again.
“Why do you ask?”
“I saw you on TV. You’re in that show about it.”
“Seth what are you talking? Stop that nonsense!” insisted my mother.
“It’s not nonsense,” said the child
“Enough now!” said mother.
“Ready for some games?” asked Robert as we dropped Seth’s fantasy.
“As ready as Amos & Andrew,” answered my Mum.
We spent the rest of the eve with talk and drink and spilled chips and even attempted to gamble on a bit of Ma-Jong before everyone sighed in boredom and we drove back to Amy’s place at Red Rock West with the Deadfall of the evening behind us. Usually, I had no trouble sleeping somewhere else and I had been to her little house at the fringes of the city’s civilization more often than not and when I woke at 03:00 a.m. the room smelled like gasoline. The TV was dead. We had watched something didn’t we? I thought “Guarding Tess” or “It Could Happen to You” was just starting when we dropped in. The things I knew were all so useless, I thought, what did it all do me good to know A Century of Cinema?
The bed was empty except for my own sweaty body, the smell like tiny razors in my nose, and when I called out, the only response was nothing from the hallway. I made my way outside on the corridor when I heard the whispers. At first I thought they came from the dirty bathroom but the closer I came towards the stairway the clearer it was.
Some voice was talking in the kitchen. Hiding my presence, I gazed through the open door and saw my girlfriend stare up at the moon, her voice barely a sound in it’s dead light. I didn’t hear what she said but for a while it seemed like there was someone else with us, someone who saw me and pointed a finger, led to her turning around, her eyes open and wide locking on my face. I jumped back at the swift surprise, as she called my name.
“Nate?” she asked me with a hunted voice, as if ready to give me the Kiss of Death.
“Y-Yeah. Everything all right Babe?”
“Sure. What you doing down here?”
“You were talking.”
“Did I wake you up?” she opened her arms to hug and we embraced another. Something wasn’t right.
“What you doing here? It’s after 4 in the morning and you here in the kitchen.” I left the words hanging in the air.
“You never noticed? I sleepwalk, always have. You really never woke up to this before? Did it since I was a baby when we were Leaving Las Vegas.”
I had no idea what she said. She told me it had happened to her since she was a child and that she had strange dreams of the moon and would wake up in the kitchen or the living room, mouth dry which meant she talked for long times, though to whom or what, she never said. Said it happened when she fell with the head right on the top of The Rock. We went back to bed but something was off. There was a noise. Or was there? I tried to turn around, roll over, Amy’s soft snoring next to me. Still a noise. Or not? Yes, yes definitely a noise. Or not?
A crackling sound, I jumped up. Slowly I crept outside the bed. Maybe just a bird had hit a window, had happened before. I crouched into the hallway, it came from the door. There was someone outside. Someone whistling. Slowly I made my way towards it, careful not to make the outsider aware of my presence.
I heard him breath or something that seemed like breathing. Half-breathing. Through the peephole I saw the void outside. There was nothing, just darkness and that whistling noise, soft and barley hearable.
It changed. Like light but not light, maybe orange or red. Did someone make a fire? Who would make fire in a building? It was like a bright red ring surrounding the black void. Then it blinked and I fainted.
Weeks came about and went by and work took me up as our next big project came, on my side always dutiful two new interns who often filled the whole office with the smell of fries they brought with them. We were in one of the smaller conference rooms, clean metal filled with flecks from cheap food, taking short breaks in between the longing working hours.
Sometimes I would use the breaks to talk some things through with my boss, always eager to show him how dedicated and thankful I was. His office had his name on the door but every time I couldn’t suppress the image of Very Important Pennis: Uncut on it. My tow fellow working drones were out to grab some snacks and I enjoyed the insularity of the room and took deep breaths, breathing through, Con Air from its powerful oxygen.
In my hand, a cup of coffee laying my eyes on the window, down on the people who passed another on the concrete between the pavements, when at the corner a man stood still. He was not ordinary. He just stood there. Had he stood here before? I don’t know but he stood and watched and then waved. Did he wave his hand at me? I came closer and tried to see what he was doing.
He raised his arm up in 45 degrees, and a single finger pointed at me like a spear as I gasped. Was this man mad? Was he seriously looking at me? There was something odd with him, I knew. There was something with his grimace, his Face/Off like he didn’t belong here.
Not on the street, but right here right that he was wrong in the City of Angles with his staring and unblinking Snake Eyes. As if he licked the thoughts in my head he violently shook his face up and down, loosening his slicked back brown hair and he smiled like a kid until for a moment his skin shook looked like a loosened mask. Then he hopped from one leg to the other, passers just ignored him, one to the other one to the other one to the other and bang he had fallen flat on the street crushing his head on the ground.
He lifted himself, blood tripling down on his brown suit and his white shirt and he did the same again. With full force he cracked his face on the hot concrete, again and again, sputtering teeth in all directions, still everyone ignored him and laughed at the sunfilled day.
As sudden as before he stood up, waved at me and ran away around the corner. In disbelief I kept standing and saw him look around the corner, staring at me until he produced an 8mm camera he pointed downwards. Then he started to spit around, all over the place as if that would have some effect like melting the stone or Bringing Out the Dead (which of course it didn’t).
Then he was gone in no time, Gone in 60 Seconds. Unbelievable what I had seen. When the interns returned, I pointed the spot out but the blood wasn’t there and the street so dirty clean like ever, and they thought I joked at them and turned their pimpled faces into smiles. Maybe it had just been bizarre performance, stranger things happened.
I told Amy of it and she agreed that it was nothing but an act or maybe really just a party clown or maybe someone who wanted to perform for his kids like The Family Man that he might be. I snugged up to her and pulled her close. I was happy and lucky and had to suppress that crunching emotion of bliss for a single time in my life only to accept the beauty in it with my shortloved heart.
I didn’t think about the man until a month later, it was weekend and Amy had her courses to give so I decided to grab my brother for a time at the beach. The hot sand around us we were lain out in the sun, talked about girls our mother and that his encroaching puberty started to cause tidal waves in the house. He was a good child and I tried to be as much a brother as I was. We were out in the water and then dried in the sun, palyed volleyball and disturbed elder people with it, when the sun tingled away.
Time had flown and I was glad I took the day to spend it with him. On our route home I filled up the car at the next gas station. There I met the Man again. Seth had taken time to make a visit to the toilet as I waited in the car. I was on my phone and scrolled through reviews for the coming movie night. I made a selection, “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” it was and “Christmas Carol: The Movie” and “Windtalkers” but a newer Adaptation, I looked up and saw the Man in the front of the car. His blue eyes examined my face, brown suit brown hair, and he hopped back in one jump and picked something up.
It was a little beagle and he pulled the puppy tight to his chest and scratched him gently behind the ears, whispering something into them that sounded like Sonny, but I’m not sure. He looked again at my eyes and he smiled. I didn’t know how to react, so I smiled back at him and showed him my thumb up and prayed he may go away. He did not.
He dropped the puppy to the ground and kicked it and jumped on it.
I heard the yelp and whimpering from outside but was too shocked to do something. He jumped up and down time after time my mouth opened in terror as I saw the blood on his black shoes. Through all this he had this relaxed smile and looked at me.
The howls of the puppy stopped and he picked up the furry meat, the head a mess of bone shards and brain, one eyeball broken out, dangled down form the rest of the defiled carcass. The Man pulled the puppy tight to his chest and lifted his thumb, cradling his face in the red stew. He let it fell down to the ground again and kicked it again and again until it was bloods-and-bones-stew.
I opened the car door when Seth shouted, “Where are you going?” I turned around to see he poked his head in the rustic car and as I nudged to the front, I saw the Man was gone.
Headfirst I sprang out the car and nosedived on the street, my face nearly touched the asphalt. He was gone and so was the blood. Seth shouted out but I was inside the shop already and begged the young cashier for aid, asked her if she hadn’t seen the Man outside. Headlight eyes looked at me in fear as I tried to grab her shoulders over the counter. Dirt blew up all around me as I touched the dusty bins and shelves. After a babbling tirade I looked at the hand that clenched my arm. Seth looked bewildered at me, his eyes asked if I gone maniac.
I had scared him but it brought me back to reality, for a short time. We sat silent in the car until angry hoops of late afternoon commuters called for banishment. I turned around and parked on the lot, then called police. They weren’t skeptical like in the films, especially when I told them that I had seen the man before. An understanding face took notes and went inside to consult with the cashier. I called Mum.
“What you guys up to? What’s going on?”
“Mum,” I said. “There was this guy.”
“Did something happen with Seth? What did he do?”
“Nothing,” I said and watched from the frame of my sight how my brother curled up in the passenger seat. “It was just odd.”
“What’s the matter with you? You scared me to death,” she said. I couldn’t scare her with this. Had I really imagined it all? I called Amy but she didn’t answer.
There was nothing on the video, they said. Just me in the car staring bewildered then stumbling out like drunk. They gave me various explanations from dehydration to stress and left me and my brother there on the road.
I opened the door and fell on the couch. I told him about my encounters with the man and tried to find reasons for the strange behavior until he asked if I couldn’t file against a stalker. Was this Man stalking me? From one second to the other things made sense and didn’t seem as bad, or bad in a different way. I pulled over a stoic mask on my mad face and cheered him up as I felt his angst. I called Mum and told her everything was fine, just a misunderstanding, and she accepted my explanation with weary ease.
I ditched my list and let Seth choose a film and slumped on the couch with dry eyelids covering my headache.
I woke up from a noise at the door, Seth crouched on my shoulder in sleep. I was scared and turned around to see my Amy standing in front of me, trying to plug in her dead phone. We embraced and sat down in the bedroom far off from troubling my brother with my disturbing tale. Amy didn’t doubt me but seemed more skeptic crafting mighty fine tales of pranksters and jokers wandering around town scaring people to practice their grotesqueries.
We lied in bed afterwards, she behind me, pressed against my back. I drifted away with a headache and the blazing last sunrays shone behind my eyelids again, a flash of a smile of the Man and his rat teeth and his chopstick-dress and he all set on fire, just standing and smiling. I woke and stared in darkness, the moon smirking at my anguish. Night bathed the room and I heard the deep snoring sound of Amy, still behind me.
The pillow was hot and cooked my ear and brought back memories of a headache as to command to turn over my headrest to the cooling side of the equator, to hopefully fall fast back asleep but as I lifted up there in the split of the halfclosed door to the dark of the halls behind I saw the blazing eyes. Red glowing in the dark for a lifetime and a second, staring and blinking and a soft tickle of laughter. I crouched myself at Amy’s side and shook her softly, she mumbling as her eyes opened awake.
I told her there was a thing at the door in the apartment. Sober from sleep her grogginess fell in an instant, and stiff like a white candle, she was up in the bed next to me. Her hands turned on the light and I moved a finger to the mouth and slowly crawled out from the bed, scared and slow steps I leaped forward looking behind me to see her face. She got up after me and held a hand on my back, a sign of watchful reassurance.
The rest of my home was dark and silent but for the breathing of Seth on the couch who woke as I switched on the lightbulbs tingling above his hair. Questioning eyes, he asked what was going on, Amy sat down with him as I went through all rooms again.
Then in the bedroom I looked under the bed and there was nothing. Back in the darkness of the hallway, Amy whispered to me of talking to someone a therapist or a psychiatrist, as I just stared at the shadow of a Man that was next to me, his face inches away from mine.
Part 2

d100 Ways to end up in the Feywild

The Feywild is one of the most exiting places in RPGs. The vibrant home of the fair folk gives many a low-fantasy setting a way to escape into high-fantasy with exaggerated and irrealistic magical Flora, Fauna and societies, if only for a few sessions. There are many ways to enter this magical land, I'd like to, with your help, list a few:

1. You see a giant rabbit, holding a golden pocket watch, sprint past you and dive into a big rabbit hole. You wonder where he's going.
   
2. After a long day of work, you go to bed. You wake up in a magical land. The next morning it all seems like a dream, but you are very tired and, come to think of it, where did your arm go?
   
3. You push back some coats in a closet and behind them, in the distance, you see a light.
   
4. You wake up to bright lights shining around you. A hidden door has opened up in a nearby hill, the fairies are hailing you as their monarch. What could possibly go wrong?
   
5. You and your friends are moments away from being gored on a boar's tusks, when Fae enter the glade to save you. They blindfold you and transport you to their court. Now you owe their lord a favour. Great.
   
6. You see a unicorn captured by bandits in a magical net. After you have saved it, a dragon appears. To save you in return it teleports you to the Feywild. Now you must stay there until it recharges it's ability to teleport. [flinjager123]
   
7. Journeying through the woods, your party begins to notice that the coming season is arriving far sooner than expected. Spring, summer, and fall occur within three day spans before the party ends deep within an Unseelie Feywild domain.[Bellwright]
   
8. A natural arch formed between groves of ash and oak trees leads deep within Summerisle.[Bellwright]
   
9. A murky pond by day shines clear at night . Unwary travelers find themselves compelled to leap in during their sleep and surface on the Sea of Mirrors.[Bellwright]
   
10. During a storm (which suddenly appears from nowhere) fallen leaves and other foliage are whipped into a small tornado which envelops you. As the storm dies down, your character has noticeably vanished. [Sobek6]
    
11. Your characters accidentally stumble into a fairy ring during a full moon.[Sobek6]
    
12. You are carried off suddenly by a giant butterfly which flies through the clouds and into the Feywilds.[Sobek6]
    
13. The PCs, having accepted a quest from a aristocratic couple to find their missing daughter, have traced her steps to a little-used room in the family mansion containing an old mirror. Investigating the mirror reveals it to be a portal.[Moon_Dew]
    
14. Tomb trap of a king from long ago. Opening the sarcophagus causes the chamber to move to the fey-wild.[ColdTalon]
    
15. Your fey patron transports you there. As a reward? As a punishment? For shits and giggles? Who knows? [emorson]
    
16. You get very drunk and gamble with a fey-looking person in a tavern. When you wake up, you're in the Feywild. You also have been a. turned into a dryad, b. Turned into a satyr, c. Naked and without possessions, d. Turned into a frog, e. Being auctioned off at a goblin market, f. Gotten some rather embarrassing tattoos that may or may not have magical properties.[emorson]
    
17. During a full solar eclipse, close your eyes, turn counter clockwise 3 full rotations and take one giant step forward.
    
18. Entered a mysterious cave. Got lost in it's many twist and turns. Finally found an exit. Entered the Feywilds.[World_of_Ideas]
    
19. Fall asleep in a fairy circle. Wake up in the Feywild.[World_of_Ideas]
    
20. Find a Fae, bet them that they cant take you there.[World_of_Ideas]
    
21. On a foggy day, crossed a bridge that you never knew was there before. [Bridge to Faywilds][World_of_Ideas]
    
22. Stepped into a small pub or tavern that you never knew was there before.[World_of_Ideas]
    
23. Walked through an archway formed from 2 trees growing together.[World_of_Ideas]
    
24. Walked through an archway formed from vines.[World_of_Ideas]
    
25. Walked through a stone archway.[World_of_Ideas]
    
26. You awaken in the morning in the Feywild after a long night of drunken partying. What was in those drinks? [Thomy151]
    
27. A warlock broke his pact with his fey patron, and is dragged back into the feywild - along with everybody in his immediate vicinity.[B-Chaos]
    
28. Digging into the Underdark with a Silver shovel. [HWGA_Gallifrey]
    
29. You and your childhood friends had a game you liked to play when you were kids: you imagined you were in a land of fairies. You played the same game for years until one of you had to move away. You have so many vivid memories from those days, and miss the childish play. At a get together, as you reminisce about the good old days, you notice a leaf fall onto one of your friends' shoulder.[eulershiddenidentity]
    
30. You are a college student who is at a houseparty. A gorgeous girl that you have never met before is also at this party, and you guys get intimate. She takes you to one of the rooms, and as you are making out, you notice that you are not in a room anymore.[eulershiddenidentity]
    
31. You are a member of a movie club, where you guys go and see obscure, unnoticed movies and review them. One particular movie you decide to see has no other audience but you guys, and after a few minutes into the movie, you find yourself in the Feywild.[eulershiddenidentity]
    
32. You like to take hours-long walks to collect your thoughts. One day, because you are upset, you decide to take a walk in the nearby woods. Because you are so preoccupied, you don't notice how far you have gone into the woods.[eulershiddenidentity]
    
33. You use a magical artifact as a sex toy, transporting both you and your partner(s) into the Feywild.[eulershiddenidentity]
    
34. You and your party are on a two-week journey on your way to an urgent quest. In spite of all of your objections, one party member, who claims to be very good at 'orienteering' (whatever that is), convinces the party to take a shortcut through the unmapped woods. Even though you have been traveling in a straight line for two hours, you realize you have circled back.[eulershiddenidentity]
    
35. You throw a coin into a well, but are startled by a black cat. You trip and fall into the well, splashing into the water below, but cannot swim back to the surface of the water. You fall down, down, down, and actually fall out of the water going down, and land in a circular glade of short grass. You look up and the water is gone, replaced by a ring of sparkling trees all around you.[SteelOwl]
    
36. Trixie flowers (twin soul flowers in elvish because they exist on both sides), so called for there mutating color. Many are highly allergic to them and if you sneeze in close proximity to the flowers you will pop into the feywild.[badlions]
    
37. Along the road you spot a strange fountain full of water. After you take a hearty sip you stand up to see the world around you has changed into a strange and foreign land. [Carter723]
    
38. Taking a country road you've travelled back and forth countless times, on your way to take care of some errands in the snow, your thoughts drift to memories of summer, and they fill you with warmth. Or maybe that came from the sudden sunlight? [DresnarTheSwampKing]
    
39. The signpost at the crossroads seems to have been turned around, and the sign pointing in the direction you're headed is written in an unfamiliar language. As you continue on, familiar scenery gives way to fantastic foliage.[DresnarTheSwampKing]
    
40. An archfey has been visiting the same town in disguise for centuries, gambling at a cozy tavern for fun. An old man has waited 70 years to win back a ring he foolishly gambled away, and his dedication impressed the archfey so much, he got it back with an enchantment. He, and each of his descendents, could use it to travel to and from the Feywild once in their life.[DresnarTheSwampKing]
    
41. An image of an alluring and irresistable person appears, luring you deeper into the woods until you end up lost in the feywild, lured there by an avatar of a fey. [parad0xchild]
    
42. Against your better judgement, you decided to give the gnome's "magic powder" a try. [E3RIE_]
    
43. You try to open a door that you didn't realize was already open and end up in the Feywild.[sanorace]
    
44. This book is very well written. It really draws you in...[ElZoof]
    
45. Have you ever noticed how the waves in that picture seem to move?[ElZoof]
    
46. How have Dibbler’s pies gotten worse?[ElZoof]
    
47. Alright, so the board is set up, we’ve all chosen our pieces, let’s play Feymanji![ElZoof]
    
48. What is that little door at the back of the train?[ElZoof]
    
49. while walking in the woods you come upon a clearing, in the clearing there is a mushroom circle. You walk towards the circle to get a better look. You look up and notice on the other side of the clearing in the shadows there is a figure, eyes shining. You didn't realize, but part of your body has crossed into the circle. You're falling.[IllusoryWist]
    
50. Everytime you fall asleep you end up in the feywild, you are whisked into a frenzied dance by masked beings and given fae wine. At some point the beings disappear, you wake up exhausted.[IllusoryWist]
    
51. You intentionally took some drugs that were supposed to allow you to see into the fey wild temporarily, but the duration time has passed and you don’t seem to be coming down. [SDRLemonMoon]
    
52. You performed a ritual to summon a Fae. Well, you got Fae but they weren't summoned. [World_of_Ideas]
    
53. Too much sex in the sacred Eladrin grove! Grotesque horny mortals, mating twice in a year! Sometimes, ugh... more![Ziensar]
    
54. Not enough sex in the sacred nymph grove! (~conveniently switches places with the above according to fae's clearly posted and amended schedule in the- where did we put the schedule? Kevin has it why did you give it to kevin? well where is he oh im not going to edit it out now it's on the parchemnt )~Experiecne a genuine Fae experience at one of our two sacred locations where mortals never get sex-shamed into the Feydark and eaten by Fomorians.[Ziensar]
    
55. You're walking through a particularly deep portion of the woods, perhaps off the beaten trail and you turn left. No hokey magic, mysterious mist, swarm of leaves or anything else just, you turn left at just the right spot and now there is a satyr who just stopped playing his pipe to a grove of nymphs to stare at your confused ass.[Flaredragoon1]
    
56. You notice a plain worn down wooden gate placed in the middle of a meadow. It is just a gate without any fence or signs that their used to be one. You jokingly open the gate and walk through it ending up in the Feywild.[BwabbitV3S]
    
57. As you are walking through the forest you notice a large rune stone that is a different coloured stone than those around it. When you go up to investigate it a cloud of darkness erupts from the stone and everyone is swept up by it. When the darkness disperses you find yourself in a quarry made of the same kind of stone as the rune stone.[BwabbitV3S]
    
58. Something spooks your mounts/pack mules and they race off causing everyone to pass through a strange distortion in the air. (reroll if you do not have any mounts or pack mules)[BwabbitV3S]
    
59. Suddenly the baying of giant hounds echo through the air and day becomes twilight. The sound strikes fear into everyone as the baying gets louder and hoof beats join in. You find yourself on the run from the wild hunt![BwabbitV3S]
    

You ever sit around all day don’t know what to do? So bored of yourself that you just look at anything until you feel the rot creep up on you trying to drag you down. Well if you’re reading this, you must have some time on your hands. The name is Don Kowalski by the way.
My uncle used to say ,Gotta get out boy’ he said, ,You’re in a dark spot some time and when you’re in it keep going. Take it all, breath it in. Keep going. Always keep going.’ – ironic since he killed himself in a hunting accident out somewhere in woodland. I suppose he didn’t want to miss his prey and kept going after it. Kept going.
It started to work. For a few days you fight, and you struggle as sailors in a dry ditch or on a dry glass and you keep going, push forward and nothing comes from it until you know nothing will come from it. Such was time for me at the outbreak of our lovely new friend Covid. My one-part-off-part girlfriend Alessandra was with her family in Florida and so I shared the sunriddled apartment only with booze and screens.
Time was the enemy although it hadn’t been so from on early. It didn’t have to be this way. In the beginning, I was thrilled staying put, living only at home, downing a bottle here a bottle there took me months to realize that getting drunk wasn’t much exciting when you could do it every day. Lifting was no fun at home without the showoff.
The thrill wasn’t there without the mirrors and the others and I would not give empty testament. So I was stuck, down deep in my black chair with my greying hair clinging greasy to my head and the stubble on my face growing thicker and thicker like hedges and forests of dry metallic wires drilling themselves deep in my naked skin.
I sat on the chair, blue light penetrated me and I watched into it like someone getting lost in the sun to see caleidoscopic patterns afterwards for minutes and some stare in the dark ponds in gardens and across them and I stared into the unknown abbeys of the internet until I found something that hooked me. Interest was reborn, the cherubim and thrones sang, and I was again digging for knowledge on the riddle.
It was the case of Nathan, not Lessing’s I mind you. You got to know I’m, and I know this sounds like the start of a bad pulpy novel, I’m a PI or what the cool cats call it now. Private Investigation, looking at lives for a fuck of money but better than to slither up buttholes at the ordinary stational sedentary life I once had and was led in. I was called up, by a Mrs. Anderson, whose voice sounded like a whisky drowned chimney.
Carry Ann Anderson had called about a friend who was now dead meat. The case was solved she said but somehow it was not, not for her. There was rot on the inside of fresh timber. A fair warning here – there won’t be no solution, cause certainly me didn’t solve it. I told her so, when she called again. I hadn’t been to LA and going there was a waste, I knew as much already. For her sake I called the department over there and talked to the detective. She wasn’t going to be happy with my findings.
Gluing a mask of false politeness to my voice I asked, “So what’s the matter hm?”
“They say it’s all real simple: kid snapped and did it. But something ain’t right. You see I knew her back from the day, from Sacramento. I can tell you, this boy was no of these Columbines or Sandy Hooks, he would never hurt them.”
“That’s what the parents of those kids said too,” I said, uncomfortable silence on the other end.
“Something’s just off about this. You saw the files already?”
“Mhm. Didn’t do much good.”
“Tell you this: the officers said the same. Said it’s all there orderly and not like some coverup or some shit they tell you like the conspiracy theories on TV you know? Like they had to dig for it you know? Not too difficult and not too easy but also not in between not your textbook stuff either. Not odd he said. But said that it all around made it odd. Made it seem odd, still, somehow. Seems like not the type to do it. You know he said type? He spat them words out on me,” she said.
There I was. I made some calls asked about the kid that chopped down his family, sat his flat up like a Christmas tree and coaled it down to the ground, all in a cozy night. One day to the other and a bunch of people gone.
I find a pal of his, named Erica Cremonte. She was willing to talk. Told me when it happened and went down and all the other stuff. Other guys didn’t talk or told me how shitty they feel about it all. I dug a bit deeper inside Erica since she was the only source of water in the land of dry lands, she told me a bit more, opened up like an old lady to the cashier or waiter or the poor sod at the bus. Told me about Nathan and his family and his brother and his girlfriend her few idle feel-good weeks in Africa and the funeral. And that it didn’t make sense to her either.
And the days go by and I start to forget about the whole thing since there’s no leads and none won’t talk and I give up. Call Mrs. Anderson and tell her there is nothing and she doesn’t understand the whys in my words but she knows them and we agree to part ways and wish each other a nice day and she’s gone.
Days and weeks and months go by and I forget. Then I am locked here in front of the monitor and it all comes back and something in me stirs and after hours I stare at the profile of one Margaret Suarez and see the condolences on her Facebook profile.
I write to her and days pass me by, drinking lifting reading and boredom, the old familiar gent from around the corner walks up again until there’s a response. Asks me how I found her, what I wanted. Calls me and tells me all about the disfigured creep that slashed her mother in the office. Digs deeper and finds all the glory all the madness in the last mail, sent from her mother’s account.
He left something for us and I will share it with you. Keep in mind it’s all ludicrous but it will help pass some hours. So, the following is the written word of Nathan Cohen, brought to paper after he killed his therapist while locked up in the cuckoo’s nest.
##########################################################################
Sometimes I look up at the sky, at night. I wonder, is the lightning of the stars hidden by the vast dark, or is the darkness a shield? A shield that keeps us safe and calm from countless eyes that stare at us?
Back then I didn’t care for the night. The air was on fire from the red morning sun, every time the same, from grad school to that day when those good Fast Times at Ridgemont High started. In the beginning it was only dark shades of purple and crimson until the firmament turned to face blood.
A line of mystic clouds was in the sky, creeping forward like a white river. The street came alive minute by minute, looming trashmen came to empty our waste in the stark dust flying around. It was better in the hills with the cooling breeze before the onset of dawn.
Back then life was soft and kind and sometimes the only touch of madness was a killed hedgehog on the street or two poisoned cats in the neighborhood. Now, the sky is blue and white and partly covered in striped clouds standing static on the package of my pills. My name is Nate Cohen. Or was. A sitting corpse though I might sit and breath and eat and drink but I don't laugh or sing or cry. The laid out actions of others, that brought me here, might seem untrue for they can’t be proven, but I assure you they are true.
All of them. I don't know what will happen after I hit the "send" button but you all need to know there is a shade of acid in the world you don't taste or smell, but it burns your face like brimstone like flame-gas scorching your eyes like the sun was just the backside of a black hole. You'll see.
I was born Nathaniel Cohen in 1991 in the glory land of sunshine, to Ira and Susan. We lived down in Sacramento, my father running flocks of cars from behind a stuffed desk, and my mother gave pottery classes every Tuesday and Thursday night, taught a few friends how to make halfskilled molds of clay. Dad was a bold man always chasing dreams of living without a mortgage, and Mum supported but was like a happy young girl and bathed in the sounds of Sunday lawnmowers and plastic pools, water from the hose filtered the rays of solar bronze.
I guess in their own ways both were not real, maybe that was what tied them together. We weren't rich but not poor.
Playful on weekends I built forts and donjons between California sycamores and gray pine and hunted and ran with classmates and friends and neighbor's kids that grew grizzled worker’s brown over their small shapes.
I was happy before and afterwards, but loss is like a sharp pin in the foot, long lost by a sewing woman, too lazy to pick up her needles. Until then, when I was under or over 11 and my progenitor decided he needed to be home faster or sooner or was just hungry, and crashed into 2 men and 1 woman and one dog. Insurance and my grandparents (now long dead) kept us from sinking in the shelters of the homeless ones, but my mother needed work or we faced to lose the house.
The first months she worked as waitress at Ear’s, a rundown bar I wasn’t allowed to enter and so sat for hours on the warm sidewalks, gleaming red in the drowning sunlight and grey and sad under the smile of Mother Selene. Some days Mrs. Anderson watched me and I watched her, sipping slowly but frequent on cheap Chadonay. This went until some better showed up, and the months turned to over a year until that happened. My mother had studied contemporary art spending hours devouring Roy Lichtenstein and the likes and to find paying employment had never been on her mind, until some time as now.
Finally, after two years my mother got an offer from a small magazine in Los Angeles and we moved to this strange new world. Surprisingly, moving at the age of 13 was no fun but new friends found me as I slowly settled, when something changed.
Robert Berkowitz came into our life and took us in. He was a bald man with blonde eyebrows and eyes like glowing azures, he was no stranger to money and art, which was the way he’d gotten involved with Mum. They hit it right at each other and after some months or weeks, might it was just some weeks, he took us to his house in Beverly Hills, not far from where Foothill Road hits Park Way.
Beverly Palm Plaza was soon my second living room. Later, in the foul age of 16, I used all chances to leave the house into the mass of the 30.000 inhabitants living there, crossing the invisible line south of the tracks, where Pacific Electric had once worked streetcars on the Red Line. Eons ago in another world.
I did everything to leave home, my newborn half-brother Seth a crying shitting mess, stomping out silent thoughts with such vigor, that I agreed to join my mother on her monthly expeditions to the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, near the buzzing Wilshire Boulevard. It was well worth the laughter from the beauties in blonde and black, and the cute Valley Girl that lived across from me. Life was good.
Robert tried to be a father, but in the end we formed a bond. He was there for me when I wanted and offered counsel and paid for my life while I enrolled in college, even helped my shallow dream to join in true Hollywood. After college I enrolled in the UCLA TFT program and, with help from my stepfather, finally landed a job at a production company, Reality TV. I started out as trainee and clawed my way finally to second assistant of the executive director of scripted TV development at Geronimo Grande Productions.
It wasn’t what I had dreamt of but at last I sustained myself, though Robert insisted to help with the rent for my flat on Kelton Avenue, where I still lived after graduating. Life was good back then, without the staring stars that tried to break through the night, away, far far away, Racing with the Moon.
I was 28 when the shades and clouds came over me. I was out with friends, a steamed night in the cool warm air’s vibrations around us.
We found a small restaurant near my place. Pitfire Artisan Pizza on 2018 Westwood Boulevard had brilliant Pesto Chicken and a damn fine Field Mushroom. I was there with Jules and Erica, enjoying dinner outside to the left of the entrance, a silent small tree our only companion, until she walked by. Inside there was a meeting of some charity organization, The Cotton Club or something.
Hair like ironed black jasper and ascetic nude makeup, she strolled by in a white tank top and black yoga pants, the matt casually under her arm. I didn’t stop staring at her. I couldn’t. Some birds in some nearby trees seemed to whistle after her and she turned around, just for a second, as if to say come after me Birdy.
“You in love Naty?” asked Erica, the flower from the valley with the flaxen mob on her head, sitting across from me.
“No,” I stuttered “Just caught my eye. Nothing.”
“Sure,” grinned Jules between his teeth, “Mine too.” he said, folding his tattooed arms in front of his chest, tongue shoved in the corner of his mouth smiling like a bobcat dressed in jeans and shirt of the same fabric, The Boy in Blue.
“Why don’t ask for her number? She’s just down the corner.”
“Isn’t that kinda creepy?”
“Most women like a bit of creeps, ” Jules howled up at his own joke, his hat nearly falling from the back of his head as he raised it up and slapped his left knee.
“Oh, shut up predator,” I waved off, before I turned to Erica “You don’t think that’s awkward?”
“Not if a guy like you asked. I remember a friend of mine met her husband like that, now Peggy Sue Got Married,” she smiled and put her head to the side. Too perfect white Hollywooddream teeth.
I had seen the Girl turning left and jogged away from the Pitfire, still hearing Jules laughing, when I saw her near La Grange Ave. She cut another corner up right so I ran after her, praying to find her. Yet to the grace of my bad luck, she was gone. The street in front of me was not crowded but the vixen from my dreams was vanished. Hands empty and defeated I returned to the table.
“Vae victis,” announced Jules, as he saw my hollow eyes. I never had a poker face until now. With half your face in mashed up molten scartissue it’s difficult to show emotion and I wonder, so far from home will the sun ever show herself again, will it fill anyone out her, raise itself, Raising Arizona?
“Did she say no?” blonde Erica asked with true empathy.
“Seems I lost her,” I said, trying to hide my disappoint. Just a few seconds more decisiveness and my life might have changed.
“Well let’s go, search a new one,” Jules sprang up and clapped.
Let’s go. The words rang, as I tumbled out of the cab up to my flat, the Girl long forgotten for the next few months until another fateful day, when I went to my gym. Workout and work kept me focused for a time and it was mostly night when I came home.
I admit I was a glutton. I had to work out at least three times a week, gym rats they call them. Muscled sweat pouring gales of raw testosterone into the halls. The Equinox Gym was my favorite in Westwood and I had been a paying patron for years now and knew more faces there than in the streets around my neighborhood. I had just left after a session of pumping my brains out, when I saw her crossing me by.
“Hey,” I blurted out in reflex.
She tilted her hand. Black hair, a shimmer of brown in the dusky sunlight, dark eyes and a friendly smile took me right home. Right where I belonged.
“Hey yourself,” she said, raising one eyebrow.
“Do I know you?” she asked, without arrogance, her black-brown hair gently thrown over the left shoulder. Love leaking out of every pore I muttered a plain “Yes”. Before she had a chance to pass me by.
“Sorry. I meet a lot of people lately,” she smiled “Are you in one of my courses?”
“Courses?”
“Well, here,” she grinned. Small white teeth and a thick red snail that crouched behind them, giving them shelter and backup, all the same.
“Ah no. I think, you passed by a pizza palor couple of weeks ago?” I stuttered in embarrassment, trying to suppress redness swelling on my cheek.
“Yes, that’s on my way. So, you’re my new stalker?” She laughed.
“Well, don’t I feel honored,” I extended my hand “My name’s Nate, by the way.”
“Amy. Amy Gallagher,” she raised a slim white wrist in the shade of the California sundown.
This was the day I really met Amy Gallagher for the first time. I rue it every moment in the coffin of my sterile being with the stars laughing at me and the disc in the sky calling my name making me all Moonstruck.
We set a date for the Saturday to come. I thought it fitting to go for Italian and led her to Sammy’s down at Santa Monica Boulevard. It wasn’t too expensive (I didn’t want to come across as one of those guys) but stylish enough to show her I had some taste stored in me. She wore a stunning babyblue dress just touching the tips of her knees, and her black mane was straightened in a long tail crowning her right pale shoulder. When she saw me, she licked her lips as if to prepare me for her Vampire’s Kiss. Sammy was a first gen from Palermo, old now he longed for his home and always liked to impress with native extravaganza.
“Ciao ragazzi!” he said as I walked my stunning Kypris down the cheap red carpet between trashy fake Roman plastic pillars.
“Come stai?” Amy replied, took his arm and left me somber.
They chatted a bit in Italian, what they said I do not know, but I knew the small thing in my belly, the knot of discomfort in my stomach. Laughs and eyes on me. Cheers swallow the jokes.
“You’re full of surprises,” I tried to gain control of the tilting ship, unnecessarily clawing my black hair back.
“You got no idea,” she pressed her tongue between a marble row of perfect teeth, a small red viper watched out from the cave of her mouth.
We talked of hard work, of idle time, of family the usual first-date-topics broken up by a hand of awkward pauses in between, like flashes in the storm.
“My family’s not from around here.”
“Neither’s mine.”
“So whose Italian? Mom or Dad? I bet your Dad.”
“None of them,” she grinned “I picked it up couple years ago.”
Movies, theater, literature, antipasti, strange people, more hobbies, main dish, skipping desert and I rolled from over her in my half of the bed (thank god I had cleaned up before I left).
Time flew like night owls and bats and the days were filled with wet noises. I visited some of her Yoga classes, though it didn’t suit me. She visited me on my work. I showed her around the crappy little rooms we sat in and all awed at her body and face.
The nights were like Sunday afternoons with her and all ungood became stored noise in the corner, so became my dead father and her dead family and my aspirations in Hollywood and her degree from John Hopkins and my love for seafood and her fishnet dress and here working Never on Tuesday. Three months and there was the big day.
“So you’re the famous Amy!” mother opened her arms to greet her, eager to impress. Hard embarrassment as Robert did the same, while Seth waved at her and whispered a shy “Hi”, acting so often like young male teens, caught in the web of a child’s mind and a growing body.
Mother had insisted to cook and so we all chowed away on something resembling orange Lasagna, chowing away with the Time to Kill until it was all over. Robert tried to save grace by filling up after each bite and putting on some of his favorite tunes. Wine spilled on the tablecloth like the face of Christ.
“Nothing better than the master,” he prophesized while laying on a small fortune in the body of an old vinyl version of “Sweet Home Chicago”, his second most favorite behind “Fire Birds”.
“You like to make deals yourself Nate told me,” Amy teased with a smile, Wild at Heart but calm and in control.
“Oh, we got an expert over here!” he teased back.
“I knew some devils myself,” she curled her pink lips, deviously looking from my chest to my eyes.
“I bet you still do,” Robert winked and tucked away as my mother gave him a noticeable kick under the table with a smile on her face.
“So, you’re a Yoga-instructor?” asked the former waitress, sucking out the air of the room.
“Amy is actually a doctor,” I deflected as she took my forearm softly, clinging for support.
“A doctor? That sounds nearly like what Zandalee did! Remember Zandalee? She was the girl down the street who had that accident a few years ago?” asked Robert, ignored by the rest.
“Why not work in a hospital or a clinic?” asked my mother.
“You must know, Western medicine is very limiting. There are many ways to keep oneself healthy, but you got to be open minded and have the stomach for it,” she laughed.
“You mean like this Eastern stuff?”
“Well there’s many older tricks to keep oneself in good shape,” she said before switching the topic “Nate says you two are art enthusiasts?”
“I don’t want to brag but I know my way around,” said Mum.
“Well me certainly not,” said Seth annoyed, a bored sigh escaped his lips, barely noticeable the runt of the egomaniac litter.
“Who made that wristband?” Amy inquired “It looks really cool!”, prompting a hidden prideful smile from my little brother who had put a small plastic pearl on a leather band knotted around his wrist.
“I did,” Seth said, as he stared awkwardly at the table.
“Don’t be shy baby,” said my mother “he’s usually not like that.”
“Just not interested in girls yet.”
“Are you famous?” asked the child, his cheeks bright red.
“No, I’m afraid I’m not,” said my love, giggling like an imbecile on her Honeymoon in Vegas.
“You sure? Aren’t you from the poor family?” asked the child again.
“Why do you ask?”
“I saw you on TV. You’re in that show about it.”
“Seth what are you talking? Stop that nonsense!” insisted my mother.
“It’s not nonsense,” said the child
“Enough now!” said mother.
“Ready for some games?” asked Robert as we dropped Seth’s fantasy.
“As ready as Amos & Andrew,” answered my Mum.
We spent the rest of the eve with talk and drink and spilled chips and even attempted to gamble on a bit of Ma-Jong before everyone sighed in boredom and we drove back to Amy’s place at Red Rock West with the Deadfall of the evening behind us. Usually, I had no trouble sleeping somewhere else and I had been to her little house at the fringes of the city’s civilization more often than not and when I woke at 03:00 a.m. the room smelled like gasoline. The TV was dead. We had watched something didn’t we? I thought “Guarding Tess” or “It Could Happen to You” was just starting when we dropped in. The things I knew were all so useless, I thought, what did it all do me good to know A Century of Cinema?
The bed was empty except for my own sweaty body, the smell like tiny razors in my nose, and when I called out, the only response was nothing from the hallway. I made my way outside on the corridor when I heard the whispers. At first I thought they came from the dirty bathroom but the closer I came towards the stairway the clearer it was.
Some voice was talking in the kitchen. Hiding my presence, I gazed through the open door and saw my girlfriend stare up at the moon, her voice barely a sound in it’s dead light. I didn’t hear what she said but for a while it seemed like there was someone else with us, someone who saw me and pointed a finger, led to her turning around, her eyes open and wide locking on my face. I jumped back at the swift surprise, as she called my name.
“Nate?” she asked me with a hunted voice, as if ready to give me the Kiss of Death.
“Y-Yeah. Everything all right Babe?”
“Sure. What you doing down here?”
“You were talking.”
“Did I wake you up?” she opened her arms to hug and we embraced another. Something wasn’t right.
“What you doing here? It’s after 4 in the morning and you here in the kitchen.” I left the words hanging in the air.
“You never noticed? I sleepwalk, always have. You really never woke up to this before? Did it since I was a baby when we were Leaving Las Vegas.”
I had no idea what she said. She told me it had happened to her since she was a child and that she had strange dreams of the moon and would wake up in the kitchen or the living room, mouth dry which meant she talked for long times, though to whom or what, she never said. Said it happened when she fell with the head right on the top of The Rock. We went back to bed but something was off. There was a noise. Or was there? I tried to turn around, roll over, Amy’s soft snoring next to me. Still a noise. Or not? Yes, yes definitely a noise. Or not?
A crackling sound, I jumped up. Slowly I crept outside the bed. Maybe just a bird had hit a window, had happened before. I crouched into the hallway, it came from the door. There was someone outside. Someone whistling. Slowly I made my way towards it, careful not to make the outsider aware of my presence.
I heard him breath or something that seemed like breathing. Half-breathing. Through the peephole I saw the void outside. There was nothing, just darkness and that whistling noise, soft and barley hearable.
It changed. Like light but not light, maybe orange or red. Did someone make a fire? Who would make fire in a building? It was like a bright red ring surrounding the black void. Then it blinked and I fainted.
Weeks came about and went by and work took me up as our next big project came, on my side always dutiful two new interns who often filled the whole office with the smell of fries they brought with them. We were in one of the smaller conference rooms, clean metal filled with flecks from cheap food, taking short breaks in between the longing working hours.
Sometimes I would use the breaks to talk some things through with my boss, always eager to show him how dedicated and thankful I was. His office had his name on the door but every time I couldn’t suppress the image of Very Important Pennis: Uncut on it. My tow fellow working drones were out to grab some snacks and I enjoyed the insularity of the room and took deep breaths, breathing through, Con Air from its powerful oxygen.
In my hand, a cup of coffee laying my eyes on the window, down on the people who passed another on the concrete between the pavements, when at the corner a man stood still. He was not ordinary. He just stood there. Had he stood here before? I don’t know but he stood and watched and then waved. Did he wave his hand at me? I came closer and tried to see what he was doing.
He raised his arm up in 45 degrees, and a single finger pointed at me like a spear as I gasped. Was this man mad? Was he seriously looking at me? There was something odd with him, I knew. There was something with his grimace, his Face/Off like he didn’t belong here.
Not on the street, but right here right that he was wrong in the City of Angles with his staring and unblinking Snake Eyes. As if he licked the thoughts in my head he violently shook his face up and down, loosening his slicked back brown hair and he smiled like a kid until for a moment his skin shook looked like a loosened mask. Then he hopped from one leg to the other, passers just ignored him, one to the other one to the other one to the other and bang he had fallen flat on the street crushing his head on the ground.
He lifted himself, blood tripling down on his brown suit and his white shirt and he did the same again. With full force he cracked his face on the hot concrete, again and again, sputtering teeth in all directions, still everyone ignored him and laughed at the sunfilled day.
As sudden as before he stood up, waved at me and ran away around the corner. In disbelief I kept standing and saw him look around the corner, staring at me until he produced an 8mm camera he pointed downwards. Then he started to spit around, all over the place as if that would have some effect like melting the stone or Bringing Out the Dead (which of course it didn’t).
Then he was gone in no time, Gone in 60 Seconds. Unbelievable what I had seen. When the interns returned, I pointed the spot out but the blood wasn’t there and the street so dirty clean like ever, and they thought I joked at them and turned their pimpled faces into smiles. Maybe it had just been bizarre performance, stranger things happened.
I told Amy of it and she agreed that it was nothing but an act or maybe really just a party clown or maybe someone who wanted to perform for his kids like The Family Man that he might be. I snugged up to her and pulled her close. I was happy and lucky and had to suppress that crunching emotion of bliss for a single time in my life only to accept the beauty in it with my shortloved heart.
I didn’t think about the man until a month later, it was weekend and Amy had her courses to give so I decided to grab my brother for a time at the beach. The hot sand around us we were lain out in the sun, talked about girls our mother and that his encroaching puberty started to cause tidal waves in the house. He was a good child and I tried to be as much a brother as I was. We were out in the water and then dried in the sun, palyed volleyball and disturbed elder people with it, when the sun tingled away.
Time had flown and I was glad I took the day to spend it with him. On our route home I filled up the car at the next gas station. There I met the Man again. Seth had taken time to make a visit to the toilet as I waited in the car. I was on my phone and scrolled through reviews for the coming movie night. I made a selection, “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” it was and “Christmas Carol: The Movie” and “Windtalkers” but a newer Adaptation, I looked up and saw the Man in the front of the car. His blue eyes examined my face, brown suit brown hair, and he hopped back in one jump and picked something up.
It was a little beagle and he pulled the puppy tight to his chest and scratched him gently behind the ears, whispering something into them that sounded like Sonny, but I’m not sure. He looked again at my eyes and he smiled. I didn’t know how to react, so I smiled back at him and showed him my thumb up and prayed he may go away. He did not.
He dropped the puppy to the ground and kicked it and jumped on it.
I heard the yelp and whimpering from outside but was too shocked to do something. He jumped up and down time after time my mouth opened in terror as I saw the blood on his black shoes. Through all this he had this relaxed smile and looked at me.
The howls of the puppy stopped and he picked up the furry meat, the head a mess of bone shards and brain, one eyeball broken out, dangled down form the rest of the defiled carcass. The Man pulled the puppy tight to his chest and lifted his thumb, cradling his face in the red stew. He let it fell down to the ground again and kicked it again and again until it was bloods-and-bones-stew.
I opened the car door when Seth shouted, “Where are you going?” I turned around to see he poked his head in the rustic car and as I nudged to the front, I saw the Man was gone.
Headfirst I sprang out the car and nosedived on the street, my face nearly touched the asphalt. He was gone and so was the blood. Seth shouted out but I was inside the shop already and begged the young cashier for aid, asked her if she hadn’t seen the Man outside. Headlight eyes looked at me in fear as I tried to grab her shoulders over the counter. Dirt blew up all around me as I touched the dusty bins and shelves. After a babbling tirade I looked at the hand that clenched my arm. Seth looked bewildered at me, his eyes asked if I gone maniac.
I had scared him but it brought me back to reality, for a short time. We sat silent in the car until angry hoops of late afternoon commuters called for banishment. I turned around and parked on the lot, then called police. They weren’t skeptical like in the films, especially when I told them that I had seen the man before. An understanding face took notes and went inside to consult with the cashier. I called Mum.
“What you guys up to? What’s going on?”
“Mum,” I said. “There was this guy.”
“Did something happen with Seth? What did he do?”
“Nothing,” I said and watched from the frame of my sight how my brother curled up in the passenger seat. “It was just odd.”
“What’s the matter with you? You scared me to death,” she said. I couldn’t scare her with this. Had I really imagined it all? I called Amy but she didn’t answer.
There was nothing on the video, they said. Just me in the car staring bewildered then stumbling out like drunk. They gave me various explanations from dehydration to stress and left me and my brother there on the road.
I opened the door and fell on the couch. I told him about my encounters with the man and tried to find reasons for the strange behavior until he asked if I couldn’t file against a stalker. Was this Man stalking me? From one second to the other things made sense and didn’t seem as bad, or bad in a different way. I pulled over a stoic mask on my mad face and cheered him up as I felt his angst. I called Mum and told her everything was fine, just a misunderstanding, and she accepted my explanation with weary ease.
I ditched my list and let Seth choose a film and slumped on the couch with dry eyelids covering my headache.
I woke up from a noise at the door, Seth crouched on my shoulder in sleep. I was scared and turned around to see my Amy standing in front of me, trying to plug in her dead phone. We embraced and sat down in the bedroom far off from troubling my brother with my disturbing tale. Amy didn’t doubt me but seemed more skeptic crafting mighty fine tales of pranksters and jokers wandering around town scaring people to practice their grotesqueries.
After a half slice of pizza and a cold shower we sat down with Seth on the couch, he somewhat checking out my girlfriend’s body under the green summer dress, a piece of cloth befitting a city not in tune with itself but always in fake summer. We lied in bed afterwards, she behind me, pressed against my back. I drifted away with a headache and the blazing last sunrays shone behind my eyelids again, a flash of a smile of the Man and his rat teeth and his chopstick-dress and he all set on fire, just standing and smiling. I woke and stared in darkness, the moon smirking at my anguish. Night bathed the room and I heard the deep snoring sound of Amy, still behind me.
The pillow was hot and cooked my ear and brought back memories of a headache as to command to turn over my headrest to the cooling side of the equator, to hopefully fall fast back asleep but as I lifted up there in the split of the halfclosed door to the dark of the halls behind I saw the blazing eyes. Red glowing in the dark for a lifetime and a second, staring and blinking and a soft tickle of laughter. I crouched myself at Amy’s side and shook her softly, she mumbling as her eyes opened awake.
I told her there was a thing at the door in the apartment. Sober from sleep her grogginess fell in an instant, and stiff like a white candle, she was up in the bed next to me. Her hands turned on the light and I moved a finger to the mouth and slowly crawled out from the bed, scared and slow steps I leaped forward looking behind me to see her face. She got up after me and held a hand on my back, a sign of watchful reassurance.
The rest of my home was dark and silent but for the breathing of Seth on the couch who woke as I switched on the lightbulbs tingling above his hair. Questioning eyes, he asked what was going on, Amy sat down with him as I went through all rooms again.
Then in the bedroom I looked under the bed and there was nothing. Back in the darkness of the hallway, Amy whispered to me of talking to someone a therapist or a psychiatrist, as I just stared at the shadow of a Man that was next to me, his face inches away from mine.