A vampire lives in a constant state of desire and disgust. His nature often revolts him, but he doesn't have the will to deny his indulgences. There's the killing, but there's also the pleasure, the sensuality, the lust. The sheer ecstasy of it all.

-

LaCroix

I have a whole stormfront of deadlines to push through over the next couple of months, so Denizens is on a bit of a hiatus. I am looking to getting back to it, though. Especially as I've just been listening to a think piece about suicide machines on Darker Days.

http://darkerdays.podbean.com/page/2/

Hunger knows no friend but its feeder

-

Aristophanes

The stem was twice as thick as a middle finger and as hairy as a spider’s leg. It ended in a fat green bulb which had been split open by six white petals. Each was as big as a sweaty palm, and a fleshy purple stamen thrust from between their limp applause. It bobbed obscenely as I picked it up.

‘Eat the whole thing and you’ll satisfy even the most demanding of ladies,’ the stall keeper told me with an oily leer.

‘How much?’ I asked. He shrugged, pulled on his earlobe and contrived to look as though the question hadn't crossed his mind until that very moment.

‘Say half a dozen milk teeth,’ he decided.

I nodded non-committally and strolled down the table to examine a cluster of fruits which looked a little like plastic grapes. The berries were as big as a thumbnail, and so hard and green that they looked more like a promise of indigestion than anything else.

‘Wards off dogs,’ the stall keeper promised.

‘I like dogs,’ I said.

‘Wards off wolves too,’ he added hopefully but I had already moved on to what I had wanted all along.

The seed pods were as yellow as turmeric and as sweet smelling as sandalwood. They were perfectly dessicated, and the seeds within rattled like maracas when I picked them up. They would have made a fine pot pouri. As food they looked as appetising as wood shavings, but I knew their worth.

‘What are these?’ I asked ingenuously.

‘Slake pods,’ the stall keeper told me. ‘Boil one in enough water and it will feed six people for a day. Tastes good, too.’

I raised a questioning eyebrow and the stall keeper, scenting a sale, spat into his hand and offered it to me.

‘My word on it,’ he said ‘And all I ask in return is the same weight in hair.’

I pretended to hesitate, then shrugged and grasped his sticky hand. It was a fair price, and I’d already spent a morning looking for them.

‘Blond good enough for you?’ I asked, producing a paper bag of shorn hair.

‘Lovely,’ he said, rubbing his hands eagerly together. ‘Lovely.’

It was always a pleasure to go shopping at the market.

Before all else, be armed.

-

Niccolo Machiavelli

Notice of Termination of Contract

Dear Mr Hayes,

I am writing to inform you that we are terminating the contract we have with Viking Recruitment for the recruitment of personnel for the Big Creek lumber camp (reference number GL/45/A). We are doing this with immediate effect and, in accordance with clause 32, subclauses I through to IV, we are offering neither notice nor compensation.

We must also insist that the commission that we paid for the following recruits (see attached document) be repaid in full and within one calender month of the date of this letter. Their failure to complete the first month of the contract makes you fully liable, as stated in clause 12.

I would also like to inform you that we will be taking further legal action against your company. This is because we were assured, both verbally and in writing, that you would check both the employment history and the personal suitability of all the personnel that you sent to us. It would seem that you failed to adequately do either.

As was explained at the time, Big Creek is a simple and isolated camp which sits in newly opened forestry. The desertion of the entire crew has cost us in excess of one million dollars. Some of their ‘practical jokes’ have also caused us considerable embarrassment with local law enforcement, and our legal department has been subjected to a barrage of fraudulent claims for compensation from dependants.

I sincerely hope that you review your practices before taking on any similar contracts in the future. In the meantime, I await your cheque.

Yours

Jon Thornton
CEO Ariadne Timber

We are the pilgrims, master:

We shall go always a little further:

It may be beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow,
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,

For white on a throne or guarded in a cave

There lives a prophet who can understand

Why men are born: but surely we are brave,
Who make the golden journey to Samarkand.

-

James Elroy Flecker

Shopping

Bacon (1kgs)
Bread (1 Sliced, 1 Baguette)
Chile Sauce
Chocolate (Fruit & Nut, 1 kgs)
Diesel (2000 L)
Eggs (12)
Fertiliser (1000 kgs)
Matches
Milk (1 L)
Nails (2000 x 1 kg boxes)
Onions (1 kgs)
Padlocks (12)
Potatoes (5 kgs)
Reggae Reggae Sauce
Rice (1 kgs)
Rizlas
Sardines (6 tins)
Sausages (12)
Screw top water bottles (1000)
String (50 rolls)
Tea (200 bags)
Tomatoes (6 tins)
Tobacco (1 kgs)
TV Guide (cheap one)

Twenty four hours a day somebody is running, somebody else is trying to catch him. Out there in the night, people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel, feverish, shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness.

-

Raymond Chandler

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

-

Dr Johnson

I used to finish the bottle in a single swig, then throw it out of the window into the ditch that ran alongside the road. If it made a clink, that was good. That meant that it was going to be a good day. But if it smashed, that was bad. It meant lost order forms and idiot customers and lectures from the supervisor about turning up to work drunk again.

Then, that May, it stopped making any noise. I even took to slowing down, trying to hear the gin bottle ringing out my future as I drove past. But there was nothing. I wondered what that meant.

Two days later I got fired. It was an acrimonious affair, and in retrospect I’m grateful that nobody pressed charges. At the time, though, I was just pissed. It took me a few days to get around to checking out the ditch, and when I did I saw immediately why the bottle hadn’t been ringing out any more good news. Beneath the grass, the ditch was full of clothes. And I mean, full. They were all women's’ clothes, and the weird thing was that in between all the torn bras and ripped skirts there were valuables. Jewelry, credit cards, purses full of cash, you name it.

I didn’t so much make the decision to stake the place out as end up sitting drunk in the car there one night. I had a bag of lemons and a bottle of gin to keep me company. A typical night out for me. I’d bite a lemon, take a swig. Repeat. Fade to black.

I remember it well because it was the last time I ever took a drink.

When the thing came I was just about gone. Things had started to get so soft and comfortable and blurry that I forgot why I was so angry all the time. A few minutes later and I probably would have passed out. But when it came, I wasn’t passed out. I was awake.

I watched it climb through the briar hedge that ran along the side of the road. It looked left and right, peering through the orange glow of the streetlights to make sure that there was no traffic.There wasn’t any. Then it emerged, bag slung over its shoulder.

It looked human, which surprised me a little. For some reason I’d been expecting aliens. I thought about this as it opened the sack and started throwing the clothes into the ditch. Aliens would have been something. Something interested. I’d brought my camera. Sat up all night. And for what ? For this stinking hobo.

I opened the car door and staggered across the road.The rag man saw me even before I began to remonstrate. His eyes narrowed with a certain cold calculation, then darted up and down the road again. After satisfying himself that we were alone, he dropped his bag and produced a revolver.

Shit, I thought, and flinched as he stepped forward and aimed at me. I tried to say something, but I couldn’t make my throat work properly. For the first time I saw the face beneath the rag man’s wool cap. The most horrible thing about it was the complete lack of expression. He didn’t look any more interested in what he was going to do to me than he would have about stepping on a bug.

He fired, but as he did he slipped on a pair of knickers. One foot flew up into the air and he landed on his back, pure slapstick. I was laughing as he struggled back up to his feet, gun waving dangerously, and then I remembered that he was trying to kill me. So I threw the bottle, a perfect crystal arc that ended by bouncing off of his head.

I can still hear the clink of it now.

I wasn’t sure that I’d killed him until I felt the cold of his skin and the stillness of his heart. I don't know why I took the body with me. Some drunken impulse to remove the evidence, I suppose, although why I would have thought I'd be safer with the body in my garage I don't know. Like I said, I don't drink now, and it's difficult to remember how crazy I was back then.

The next day I woke up. I examined my kill through bloodshot eyes. It didn't make sense. Beneath the rags the limbs were all different. Some were white, ginger haired. Others were brown. The left arm seemed to belong to a man, the left to a woman. But the injury that had killed it was weirdest. Beneath the torn skin of the forehead the skull seemed to have been made of glass.

I threw up for a while, although no more than usual. Then I ate something. When the hang-over had cleared enough to let me walk without difficulty I went to the doctors, then to a clinic.

I ended up being their star pupil. I stopped drinking, and I stayed stopped. I started working out, too. And studying. Studying all kinds of things. Biology. Chemistry. News reports.

Then, when I was ready, I started hunting.

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

-

Milton

The faithful are never at rest. Theirs is such a pressing endeavour that they have no time for it. Fortunately, in their enlightened condition, they have little need of it either.

A few hours of blank eyed meditation upon the recorded voice of the leader is all that they require. It's certainly more than they deserve. For although they strive to bring the leader's love to others they often fail, blunting the truth and the beauty of his message with their own inadequacies.

Luckily for them, he is as forgiving as he is wise. Back at the centre his appointees are always ready to help those who fail to meet their quotas. Under the leader's guidance these people have perfected a variety of educational techniques. Some involve fasts or cold baths or public humilation. Others involve silence or darkness or spiders, or things which are unique to the individual.

Things which are secret.

It is sometimes a hard life, but it is worth it. Anything is worth it to know that, however worthless they are, the leader loves his followers and will protect them from the world outside.

He who fights with monsters must take care

lest he thereby becomes a monster.

And if you gaze for too long into an abyss

then the abyss gazes also into you.

-

Fredrich Nietzche

Blood in, blood out.

That was the way it always had been, that was they way it always would be, and that was the way that it was. Alvin had known it. Everybody who knew about the Brotherhood knew it. That's why he hadn't hesitated when they'd lined him up with the nigger in cell 43/K. He'd just gone straight in and done what was required.

Sometimes, when he thought about it afterwards, he felt kind of funny. Kind of sick. He never let on, though. He wanted people to think that he was a cold blooded killer. He wanted them to remember that fire-hardened plastic was as dangerous as an AK in his hands, and that the coroner had said that the body was already dead by the time he'd inflicted the twelfth stab wound, let alone the forty seventh.

He wanted them to think these things because he wanted respect.

People talked about prison currency. They talked about cigarettes, or drugs, or sex. But Alvin didn't give a shit about any of that because he knew, right down in the middle of him, that the only currency that mattered was respect.

That was why, when the order had come down from the Grand Master to off the governor, he hadn't hesitated. The governor had failed to show respect. Perhaps he'd let his job and his uniform and his pension go to his head. Perhaps there was some other reason. Alvin didn't care. He just slipped the splinter of razor blade under his tongue, got himself within striking distance, and sliced open the governor's carotid.

It was incredible really, the amount of blood. Even when Alvin was on the floor, wondering if the guards were going to carry on beating him until he was dead, he was amazed by it.

The guards didn't kill him. Not quite. But by the time he'd been transferred from the infirmary to the isolation cell, the new governor had settled in. He'd brought his own guards with him, and they were the ugliest bunch of weirdos Alvin had ever seen. Then, after a while, he started to hear the stories. Stories about cons disappearing and going crazy and committing suicide on the wire. He didn't care, but still. It was interesting. The new governor seemed to be having some sort of effect.

Then, one night, the new governor came to visit.

He wasn't wear a uniform. He hadn't shaved. He didn't even seem to have washed. He stank of stale sweat and pickled cloves and Alvin smelled him before he even entered the cell. Before he could comment, though, he caught the new governor's eye and all of a sudden he didn't want to talk. He just wanted to listen.

Afterwards, they went for a walk. The lights in the halls had all been smashed, so the only thing Alvin saw of the guards was the hungry glitter of their eyes as they padded past. He was pretty sure that removing the lights like this was against regulations, but the strangest thing was that it was so quiet. There were no whistles, no catcalls, not even any screams of men gripped by nightmares. Instead there was a heavy, liquid silence, breathless and terrified.

When they stepped outside into the moonlit sand of the exercise yard the first thing Alvin noticed was the archway. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the night sunlight, gold and green as if filtered through a forest, streamed out of it. Things moved on the other side, too. Fascinating things that he couldn't quite make out.

The governor smiled when he asked Alvin if he wanted to go through, because of course Alvin did. He'd never wanted anything so much in his entire life.

Then the governor asked him if he was prepared to pay the price. He gestured to a shadow on the sand, and Alvin found that he wasn't surprised to see the Grand Master of the Brotherhood, gagged and tightly bound. When the governor gave Alvin the familiar shard of razor blade, rusty but still sharp, the Grand Master whimpered but it did him no good.

Alvin didn't hesitate. Blood in, blood out. That was the way it always had been, the way it always would be, and the way that it was. How could it be any different ?

After he had finished he stepped though the arch and into the sunlight, as gory and innocent as a new born babe.

Now if there's a smile on my face

It's only there trying to fool the public

But when it comes down to fooling you

Now honey that's quite a different subject

-

But don't let my glad expression

Give you the wrong impression

Coz really I'm sad, Oh I'm sadder than sad

Well I'm hurt and I want you so bad

-

Smokey Robinson

Milo doesn't so much wear his string vest as inhabit it. Thick curls of body hair and the occasional bulge of fat attempt to escape through tears in the fabric, but they never do. Nothing escapes from Milo. Ever.

His pawn shop isn't much more attractive than he is himself. Apart from the endless war which is fought between the spiders and small insects which inhabit the window display, there isn't much to entice the casual shopper. A set of bent golf clubs, a couple of sewing machines which will never be antiques no matter how old they get, a mouldering display card of some plastic things which appear to have no human purpose whatsoever. An empty birdcage.

As Milo himself admits, it ain't Harrods.

Somehow, though, this doesn't seem to discourage the steady flow of customers that he receives. They are an eclectic bunch, Milo's customers, but they have one thing in common and that is their furtive air. Some of them even go so far as to hide their faces behind pashminas or scarves or even, in one case, a false beard.

All of their transactions are done in cash, and all are done swiftly. And regularly. An innocent bystander, if he were paid enough to innocently bystand for long enough, might suspect Milo of being a drug dealer.

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

There is black and there is white

And there is wrong and there is right

And there is nothing

Nothing

In between

-

Alan Moore

" . . . The desperation of the increasingly hard pressed defenders took many forms. As well as suicide, desertion and drunkenness, increasingly wild stories also began to circulate. Most were no more than the usual soldiers' tales, but such was the stress of the situation that some of these rumours do seem to have been triggered by genuine instances of mass hallucination.

One of the most famous of these was of a young lady who the troopers initially referred to as the Tsarina, but later as Mother Russia. This change in nomenclature seems to have been at the insistence of the Konsomol, who were more worried by the counter revolutionary sentiment the nickname implied than the fact that the troops were seeing phantasms.

Whatever her name, the lady in question invariably appeared in the midst of the most ferocious night attacks. As well as being immune to bullets, she also seemed immune to the subzero temperatures of the Russian winters, for she always appeared barefoot and wearing only a negligee. There the initial descriptions usually trail off, although they were later embellished with the usual barrack room eroticism.

There were various stories of what she did during these night attacks, although details of these actions were also hazy. Even Red Army soldiers, hardly the most squeamish of individuals, would only talk vaguely of the 'terrible things' that she did to the 'Fritzs'. Given the popularity of Ilyha Erenberg's bloodthirsty broadcasts at the time, and also the treatment of German civilians by the same soldiers later in the war, these descriptions show a surprising lack of imagination.

But even as the remaining resistance fell prey to hunger and stress induced hallucinations, Stalin was preparing his counter strike. Operation Uranus was to be one of the most ambitious and decisive . . . (etc)"

Stalingrad
Anthony Beaver

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds

awake in the day to find that all is vanity;

but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,

for they may act their dream with open eyes

and make it possible

-

T E Lawrence

When life is gone, what's left ?

Hunger, yes, alright, when life's gone hunger's left, but that's got no meaning. It's just an animal impulse. The quest for power, yes, that's left too, but that's no more than a silly game. A way for the empty to distract themselves from the whisper of the void within.

So what's left ? I'll tell you what's left. Art. Only art. In death as in life, art retains its power both to transcend and to offer transcendance. It creates meaning where there is none, and consumes us even as we consume it. It makes us whole. Makes us real.

That's why it's a sin to lose an artist, a truly great artist, to oblivion. That's why its our duty to offer them the embrace.

I truly believe that it is our ability to offer this gift that led to our creation. A human life is pitiably short, and most human lives are so pitiable that this itself is no bad thing. But to lose a Beethoven, a Shakespeare, a Dali to such a fate is unconscionable.

Of course, not all survive their deaths intact. Some awake to find that in their requiem they have lost their muse along with their heartbeat. It's tragic, but there it is. It happens. All we can do in these cases is to destroy the poor creatures and continue the search for candidates more worthy.

It can be a hard path, but it is one I walk willingly. And so my childer are scattered throughout the world, glittering like diamonds on black velvet long after their mortal spans have elapsed. They don't all thank me, but that's alright. I don't do it for thanks.

I do it for art.

We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots ?

-

Christina Rossetti

Mr and Mrs Nolan have lived at 83 Accacia Avenue for the best part of fifty years, and during that time it is fair to say that they have become true pillars of the community.

Mrs Nolan is an active member of both the Women's Institute and the local Conservative Association. A keen Daily Mail reader, she maintains a keen interest in current affairs, and is a plain spoken critic of politial correctness. She also runs one of the best soup kitchens in the city. In between coming and going, the transients who frequent it often say so.

Mr Nolan, now retired, is as popular a character as his wife. When not chatting over the fence of his allotment or tinkering in his shed, he is often to be found holding court in the Golf club bar. He is famous for his repertoire of funny stories. Although the stories themselves haven't changed much over the years, the heros have. They used to be Blacks. Then they were Pakistanis. At the moment, they're Muslims.

He is a wag.

But although Mr and Mrs Nolan may seem the perfect couple, they have their cross to bear. Not that they see their son Michael that way. It is just that he is special. It's true that he doesn't have the sort of cleverness which has brought so much misery to the world, but he does have a good heart and a genuine affection for those around him. That has always been enough for Mr and Mrs Nolan, and if it isn't good enough for the world then the world can (pardon their french) go to hell.

It's just a shame that Michael fell in with such a bad crowd. It was all the fault of that greasy haired social worker. Mrs Nolan should have known better than to trust Michael with her. She had known straight away that the little slut was no better than she should be. But how could she have known that she would go so far as to expose Michael to such undesirables ? Immigrants, probably, who had never done an honest day's work in their lives.

Poor Michael couldn't be blamed for picking up their strange ways.

Not that it matters. The Nolans still love their son, and after some initial unpleasantness they have found a way of handling the situation. The soup kitchen really was the perfect solution, and what with one thing and another Michael seems to have settled into his new routine. It isn't easy, but it is neccessary.

After all, no mother can be expected to see her son going hungry.

Alas, the time is up

With a last kiss, I depart

Are your lips tingling?

-

Renu Rakheja

Klimt spends his days hidden in the warehouse he shares with a pack of stray dogs.

The animals are well muscled, thick furred and sharp toothed. They are also as devoted to Klimt as he is to them, and with good reason. Most of them are better fed than their former owners, and many have neat scars from perfectly stitched wounds beneath their pelts.

During his waking hours Klimt runs the Night Clinic. This is a clean and well-lit basement from where he dispenses free medical treatment to the poor and the destitute. He is a competent medic and able pharmacist, and although his facilities are basic he has used them to save many a life and limb.

His clients pay what they can. Sometimes they pay in kind, although they never remember exactly what this entails. At other times they pay with nothing but their gratitude and respect. To Klimt, who has spent most of his long life being reviled, this currency is perhaps the most valuable of all.

When not in the clinic Klimt spends his nights in his workshop, his peculiarities comfortably hidden behind thick goggles and a shapeless leather apron. He is at his happiest here, especially when lost in the complexities of an old engine or the molecular structure of a new compound. Compared to the riddles of his existence, such things have a soothing simplicity.

At other times he goes drinking, slipping through the darkness of sewers and alleyways as he finds ways of slaking his thirst.

During these jaunts Klimt occasionally stumbles upon particularly disturbing scenes. Lovers walking arm in arm, blind to everything but each other. Families clustered around tables, sharing the rewards of their labour even as they share the hardships of their lives. Friends laughing in bars.

He usually shrugs off the feelings these encounters provoke, but sometimes the shrugging isn’t so easy. On such nights he takes his saxophone to one of the jazz clubs where he knows he will be, if not welcomed, then at least tolerated. There he lends his talent to bands sorely in need of it, and lets the dead voice of his instrument sob and howl and wail and if it’s lonely at least it's not alone.