Month: September 2013

New Story

Started a new story today that’s going to be a part of our Mid-World Arts Christmas collection. As you would expect from me, it’s not what most people think of when they think Christmas. Here’s the beginning first draft.

A Death in the Family

James L. Wilber

 

I blame my brother. All the shit that went down. All the people that suffered. I never wanted any of that to happen. But to be perfectly honest, I have a hard time feeling sorry about it. Still, I blame Zeus. I know he planned the whole thing. It would be nice if someone told me why.

He had come down from Olympus for the first time in years. That should have been my first clue. I had taken him out to a club because that’s what you do in Necropolis. It’s all about the nightlife. We stood on a balcony overlooking the dance floor, drinks in our hands. Below us, the well-dressed partiers writhed to a languid tune. I lifted a knowing eyebrow at him and he smiled at what he surveyed. He never saw shit like this back home. Olympus was all about pubs and “ladies night” and drink until you puke. Here, we did things in style.

“You don’t fool me,” he said, his booming voice cutting through the music.

I turned around and leaned my back against the railing. “Oh?” I said as I swished the ice around in my empty glass. No need to yell. Talking in the clubs is all about pitch. My voice always managed to slither under and through the throbbing bass.

“You hate this. It bores the fuck out of you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

But the bastard had already done it. He had planted the seed. Did I hate this place? This city? These people? Hate was a strong word. Bored, maybe. I had seen it all. Done it all. I had built this town to be my own personal playpen and now I was stuck in it. All the jaded fucks who lived here were obsessed with fashion, which included wearing a persona that pretend not to give a fuck about anything. They all went to great lengths to show each other how unimpressed they were. All of them were so wrapped up in the galleries and the clubs and the parties and their own fucking image. Not a single one of them noticed they weren’t actually living.

 Zeus turned to face me. He stood out with his cream colored shirt, grey hair and beard. No one in Necropolis would suffer a grey hair to go undyed. Keep young and beautiful, that’s their motto. I guess I should consider myself lucky. My black hair and beard are still natural, even though I’m the elder.

“It’s not an irreparable problem,” he said, looking me in the eye. “You just need to get out. Get away. Stop worrying so much about your job.”

“Yeah, well if I didn’t worry about this place no one else would.”

“Perhaps, but maybe it’s not a place that requires all that much worry.” He drained his drink and softened his tone. “Look, I’m not saying quit. Fuck knows I don’t want the job.”

That’s one thing about my family. You can’t count on them for shit. Just ask our parents.

“What I’m saying is, get out. Take a vacation. Take a trip to the wine country. See something else than this gloomy fucking place.”

Actually, I liked the weather down in the valley. Cold and dark suited me just fine. But getting out didn’t sound too bad. I did like wine.

“Gather up an entourage. Take a limo. Just a day trip. Get trashed. Here….”

He handed me an old pack of cigarettes. I peaked inside and saw three perfectly rolled Js. “I don’t need this. I got plenty of coke.”

I went to hand them back but he waved it away. “That’s the problem. You take all that shit that winds you up. You need to relax. I’m telling you, this is the good shit.”

I looked at the joints again. They were, of course, just joints. “What makes them so special?”

“It’s a special hybrid. It’s called narcissus. It chills you out but doesn’t make you sleepy. I know how you hate that.”

Sleep always reminded me of being dead.

“Plus, it’ll get your pecker up.” He winked as he said it.

That sealed the deal. Not that I cared for an aphrodisiac, I just thought it best to keep it out of his hands. The last thing my brother needed was another excuse for a hard-on.

scrollofthoth:

Today I am proud to announce that another Mid-World Arts writer has a book on Amazon. Dick Thomas has just released Ghostvision – Book One: The Legend, the first part of his horror/contemporary fantasy saga.

I promote Mid-World writers because I truly enjoy their work. This one is no exception. I was particularly impressed on how even though the book has fantastic elements, that the characters have real problems that are in many ways more horrific than the supernatural threats they face. 

He also treads on ground few have gone before in creating an “epic horror.” If you’re a fan of ensemble books containing many characters with interweaving plots and enjoy classic horror, this book is for you.

It’s only 99 cents right now for Kindle on Amazon.

* * *

Ghostvision – Book One: The Legend

Autumn Faust has been tormented all her life with visions of ghosts.

Ike Isaacs, a man she knows only from the Internet, claims he can rid her of her curse.

Cristina Fuentes, a paranormal investigator with psychic abilities of her own, arrives in Autumn’s hometown to investigate the local legend of the Ice BItch, a ghost rumored to kill hapless victims on snowy nights.

As a blizzard looms, Autumn and her friends seek to uncover the truth about the Ice Bitch. Is she the ghost of a teenage girl, or something even more terrifying, and much more dangerous?

mylittleillumination:

The Worlds of Creation

In Egyptian cosmology, the forces of creation are mirrored in nature-they are both transcendent and cyclic. In this view, all of the lifestreams, including human beings, nature, and the gods, partake of a process that ordains a return to the cre­ative source and a reappearance in the phenomenal world, in a perpetual cycle of renewal, called Neheh (“forever”, “eternity”).

Returning to the world of creation was a theme continually emphasized in the liturgies of the temple and tomb. The powers that brought the deity into the temple were believed to originate even beyond the sway of divine beings, yet they could be harnessed to bring human beings into the realm of the gods. This return was not only possible, but an inevitability of mortal existence because hu­mans, natural forces, and even the gods were subject to the cyclic forces that op­erate in the creative realms.

In the temple, the worlds of creation were ever present. On approaching the holy precinct, a temenos wall emulated the primeval ocean, from which life arose in the beginning of time. Passing through the portals to the house of the god, entry into the sphere of creative powers was indicated by forests of soaring columns that mirrored the initial appearance of life in the form of aquatic plants. And on entering the temple proper, the foundation of the material world was de­picted in artistic representations of divine beings manifesting their nature through acts of creation in the physical world-the birth of royal persons, the initiation of natural laws and cycles, and the establishment of order in society.

In the first phase, the world of Manu (“horizon of waters”) comes into being as the macrocosm or celestial sphere, from which the elements of creation emerge. Its image is a watery mass of undefined powers, where all possibilities are articu­lated, but not manifest.

In the second phase, the world of Aakhut (“luminous horizon”) appears, in the fiery form of light that illuminates the primeval waters and impels patterns or forms to come into being.

In the third phase, the world of Rostau (‘horizon of spirits”) comes into being, symbolized as a mound upon which the forces of the upper worlds come to rest. This phase expresses the containment of the sacred fire in matter, the genesis of material life in microcosmic form.

The last phase of creation, the world of Ament (“horizon of the west”) repre­sents the phenomenal world that we experience, where cyclic forces govern the conditions of existence-birth and death. Here, the return to the upper worlds becomes possible, as this realm expresses the fulfillment of the creative forces as well as their predestination for cyclic renewal. This world also possesses the mechanisms for the mutation of the physical form, which make possible the con­scious experience of moving through several phases of existence.

— Rosemary Clark: The Sacred Magic of Ancient Egypt