Flesh of Her Flesh

Sylvan didn't consider himself a ghoul, even if that was what they technically called his kind of work. He considered himself an ex-med student, for the most part, and an artist, at times. He offered a commodity (skin) and a talent (the cleanest scalpel-work a careful eye ever thought it saw). He made enough money to keep himself and her in their flat. He realized it wasn't a permanent arrangement, but it would do.

"Her" or "she" meant his mum. He stopped thinking of her as "Mom" or "mother" for now. It wasn't that he didn't love her, he had, it was just that she had contracted a severe form of narcovirus and simply wouldn't wake up, as far as anyone knew. No one ever did. He wasn't even sure there were trials, although at first, he sincerely looked for them. It was just that there were so many, many other New Plagues that fought for grant dollars. He got discouraged, and then got wrapped up in trying to kit out their place with proper equipment for her long-term care.

He was just over the line, what with his scholarship and her savings. And it wouldn't feel right, anyway, leaving her as a ward of the state, where anything might happen to her. Not after she worked so hard to get him into school with the burning faith that he could do something about the scary reality that was settling in.

She developed dropsy. It wasn't to be unexpected. He left her alone for great periods at a time while he still tried to pursue his studies. She. He was sure she wasn't uncomfortable, breathing normal, he fought to get Lasix to pump through her IV to work out the fluid and stabilize her blood pressure. But she just expanded on the bed. He moved her with difficulty as he regularly checked for atrophy or bedsores, flexing her legs for intervals in the hopes that she wouldn't curl into a grim fetal position. But she lay her damp form on the bed, straight, and with skin entirely smooth...

The kind of care he tried to provide between classes and tutoring was just the humane requirement she deserved, was all. The penalty for victim-dumping was high for people inclined to shorten their loved-one's lives, whether for compassion or financial reasons, probably because everyone was supposed to keep up hope. But he didn't even consider an alternative, even if it kept him trotting. He didn't really even have the cash to hire a migrant nurse under the table, anyway, not that he would entirely trust one. He heard things.

But that skin. So much of it.

Netflix finds: Byzantium

Deep down, I think I always wanted a feminist vampire story where women were vampires and Dracula could fuck himself. Where vampires weren't  magically titled or fabulously rich, but just lived as folks do. This is what Byzantium is like.
Gemma Atherton owns as the mother/older sister "Clara" and Saoirse Ronan is luminous "Ella". It's a two hundred year old tragedy/love story. It's off-beat, and that is what is good about it. I totally recommend it.

The Vampire Riviera

I dreamed about something called the Vampire Riviera the other night, so I figured I might blog about it. The area was near the waterfront, like Penns Landing. There were restaurants, open 24 hours, but they didn't seem like places meant for buying food. There were cobwebs strewn with fruit flies decorating them. The area was by no means luxe. The Vampire Riviera was an area along the waterfront where vampires gathered, no more, no less. Young vampires who accosted passersby were a lot like panhandlers. There was nothing romantic about being a vampire, unlike most novels. Talking to a vampire was like talking to a junkie--except more terrifing, in the sense that you might be bit by them. On the whole, I do not think anything called the "Vampire Riviera" should be considered a good thing. It was not a bad dream, only one that cancelled out how modern fiction treats the undead.

It Came From Beneath The Sea

So, it would probably not surprise my readers too much if I mentioned that I was pretty well influenced by H.P. Lovecraft regarding my estimation of what the creepiness threshhold might be.(HINT: the creepy is everywhere.) As a result, I'm sensitive to the idea the nature itself could be overturned and chaos could take over our expected pardigm of a happy, life-giving planet. I also would not be surprised if the "horror" came from the sea, just as life is supposed to have done. In fact, given that we use the oceans as our dumping ground, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't some horror from the sea that we should very well expect--and thus,  I find that I, like the folks at Grist, appreciate the plucky resolve of the humble jellyfish in their bid to shut down powerplants.

I don't know what it is about powerplants that has attracted the collective wrath of the mucosal marine menace, but I do know that, thanks to global warming, the jelly fish as a variety of lifeform has exploded in population. And I also know that most of our forms of energy have a baleful impact on the rest of the oceanic biota, especially in the form of acidification, which is outright harmful to corals, fish, the whole oceanic foodchain.

Could it be possible that, at this very simple level of evolution, the jellyfish boasts the complexity to follow orders and the simplicity to be subject to primal influences--perhaps originating from the planet, herself? Or, perhaps, some other, ocean-dwelling being(s) of greater complexity?

In other words, are the Deep Ones sending jellyfish into nuclear reactors to fuck shit up?

And if so, is it smart of us tool-using primates to send robots to do battle with them?



I welcome the eventual oceanic cybershoggothic overlords that will cap the oil wells and deliver retribution upon the overreaching monkeyfolks of the future. (No I don't. It sounds terrible. Let's don't provoke them.)

We Interrupt this Blog for An Advertisement That May be of Interest

It strikes me that October is Halloween Month, and I am momentarily fascinated by horrific things. Not ghosts, at present--I am reading Varney the Vampire, a Victorian Penny Dreadful, though, and most of my birthday booty included similarly spooky fare. I think for the next month I might undertake to regale you with things I find pertaining to dread and wonderful happenings. And suchlike boo bidness.

Do You Like Vampires and Movies? Kim Newman has Somethin' for ya.

I'm going to preface this by saying it does help a little if you are already a reader of Kim Newman's awesome takes on the supernatural, vampires, and alternate history through his other "Anno Dracula" tales and maybe his Diogenes Club stories as well (You guys! What I'm technically saying is you might like everything he writes!) But if you like movies and tv, and genre fiction--if you like subtle name-dropping and pastiche, if you like fast-paced stories and a developed fictional alternate history--and if you reaaaalllly dig vampires?

Oh, baby--this is for you. Because Newman covers the last quarter of the 20th century Hollywood style with some fangs for the memories, looking back through a cinematic lens while developing a story that will entertain as it chills. In it, the young get of Dracula slogs his way from the slums of Transylvania to the Hollywood stars, and there's no stopping him--or is there?

Well, you just have to read to see, and maybe you, too, will be aware of "the horror". I don't want to give away too much of the episodic doings that bring together characters from Anno Dracula novels past and some of the fixtures of moviedom's firmament, but it's good old fashioned disturbing social satire and art crit fun.