I’ve been around for .. well I think maybe forever, something I’ve learned is that heroes never die. Oh sure the people grow old ( some do ), or end up at the wrong end of a blunt instrument , or bladed, or a chunk of metal moving between 600 and 1500 mps. But really is the Hero the person behind the mask or is the Hero a symbol, as much of a symbol as the mask, or the emblem? As an example we can look at one of the most enduring of the modern heroes. But lets do more than look at the lineage, let’s talk about what happens when you combine mythology with urban legend, throw in familial responsibility and public perception just for fun.
It’s starts , if you can believe the gossip ( and I assure you , you can ) In the Habsburg Monarchy as early as the 10th century, and It starts with Vampires.
To understand the Myth of the Vampire you don’t need to understand what they are, just that they are, and since they feed on people, then to feel safe, people need protection. In some villages, if a person was born on a Saturday, if they had a strong attraction to eating the meat of a sheep killed by a wolf, and if they showed any sort of special talent… if all of these conditions were met, they were sent to a monastery of sorts.
These individuals were trained to hunt and kill Vampires. One of the things they were taught is how to embrace the power of natural hunters in their task. The most powerful natural hunter in the region was the wolf. So they would dress in wolf skins when they hunted, and fashion helmets that resemble the wolf silhouette , some were said to be able to turn into a wolf. Follow me so far? For the record they were often referred to as Kresniks. You can still see some of their armour if you go to a certain home deep in the Croatian wilderness. But call first , the caretaker has an itchy trigger finger. If you do manage to get a chance to see their armour note the long ears on the helmet.
Lets jump ahead a lot shall we, to more recent events ( from my perspective ). The 1920’s, The Great War is well underway, and in a rare example of wisdom the Empire has enforced the rule of rationing, the staples of living are carefully doled out, certain things are reserved only for military use, like booze. Actually, it makes sense, alcohol is not only useful as a mind number it also is a quick way to disinfect. A war means casualties, casualties mean surgery , and for that you need a lot of disinfectant. Distilleries quickly converted from making whiskey and rum to making giant bottles of medical alcohol. The barley used for beer went to make bread for the troops, the sugar used was diverted to foodstuffs. The Empire had become like a stern aunt, responsible and thrifty.
Of course the average man still needed to get drunk. He always will. And since booze was no longer available legally it became available illegally. Now a days we all know about the gangsters of that time, Capone and Segal and Luciano, we know about the crime fighters who went up against the big boys. But in Chicago at the time of Capone there was a smaller family. A group straight out of hell’s sitting room, They never rose much higher than street level, and in a way that suited them fine. The street was where their food was. Of course they were vampires, organised, hidden … they maintained their position by appearing as low level bootleggers, pickpockets, thieves… they chose their victims carefully from the poor and the disenfranchised. No one cares about poor people getting disappeared. Well no one but the poor.
So , in 1921, it was in a back alley in Chicago ( that toddling’ town ) that a young Roberto Cancuso saw his parents killed and fed upon by a small group of these vampires. The 12 year old would have been a snack as well but the feeding was interrupted by a British recruiting officer on his way home.
I have spoken about how it just takes one trauma to turn a regularly sane person into the type who would dress up and go hunt criminals, watching your family get fed upon is such a trauma, and Rob Cancuso had been set on that path.
In his research, he learned about the Kresniks, and their methods. In time he fashioned his own helmet that matched theirs, painted it black, and started his own vendetta. The symbol he used was a vampire bat as seen through the crosshairs of a hunting rifle. It all seems fairly straight forward, doesn’t it? But then it gets muddled up. The truth is one thing, what people see is another.
This is what people saw, there was a guy dressed entirely in black, with a helmet that covered the top of his face that had large pointy ears on it. He had a long coat that looked like a cape when he ran, The only color was on his chest. It was a yellow circle with a bat in the center ( it was a brass plate used to protect his heart .. The bat was etched in , so were the lines of the crosshairs.. But they were not very large and people never saw them , well… they never remembered them ). And this guy only came out at night to clean up the streets…
If any one had asked he would have told them that his name was Knight Wulf, ( after Jarl Wulf, the last great leader of the Kresniks ). He would have told them that he had carefully crafted his image to put fear in the hearts of the vampires of Chicago. But no one asked him, and you know what they called him.
Cancuso was incredibly religious, he would go to the same cathedral before and after every mission, to pray for success, to pray for forgiveness. In time, one of the alter boys ( Paul Valli ) became curious about this man. That curiosity led to the boy learning Cancuso’s secret. A young boy can be very impressionable. Valli put together his own costume using colors of the Cardinals of the church and a cloak similar to the one he wore as an alter boy, and a few things he had laying around from Halloween. Where Cancuso wanted to be unseen Valli wanted the spotlight, over his breast he sewed an ‘R’, it symbolised “ REPENT/REDEMTION” something he would say as he beat on criminals…. “Repent sinner, Redemption is in my hands!” One would argue that Valli didn’t have all the sandwiches needed for a proper picnic, one might also wonder why an alter boy had such a strong attraction to strange older men. ( I will not delve too deeply into these topics )
Cancuso saw in Valli the hopeful youth he was at a time, he also saw potential. They both shared a strong conviction in the church, despite his age Valli was an exceptional acrobat and fighter, and on top of it all Valli was useful as a distraction, a decoy.
The first time they met, Valli told Cancuso that his name was “Redeemer”, but the papers had a different name for him as well. And so a legend had been born.
Knight Wulf and Redeemer actually had a good run. They were never caught, despite being higher up on the ‘Wanted List’ than the people they stalked. Time told that they didn’t always hunt Vampires, in fact by the end of his career Knight Wulf actually brought more regular criminals to justice than vampires turned to dust. In the end Cancuso was bitten, the last act that Valli did as the Redeemer was to drive a stake of hawthorn through his heart. That was in 1940. And that seemed like an end of Chicago’s Knight and his sidekick.
By ‘45 Valli was 29 and living in Philadelphia working as a night watchman. He was approached by A young woman named Karen Burton. Burton had been a star in the Empire’s Child Battalion, and had returned after a short tour in the European theatre ( women were not allowed in combat until ‘47). She offered Valli another chance to be a Hero, this time for the War effort. Burton knew who Valli was because her Grandfather was the man who had rescued and raised Cancuso. Burton guessed ( correctly ) that while Cancuso was just a man, Valli was one of the enhanced.
Strings were pulled and the two were outfitted in special armour based ( loosely ) on the original costumes of Chicago’s Duo. Valli and Burton were given the code names Knightstrike and Harrier ( respectively ) The yellow and crosshairs were taken out of Valli’s symbol ( and the vampire bat given a little more style ) and the “R” of the Redeemer was replaced with the small hawk’s profile.
The two worked together for seven years until Harrier became pregnant with Knightstrike’s child. Both were granted a 5 year leave and returned to live in Philly. Knightstrike still fought crime while Karen raised the child.
The spring of 1957, the Valli home was broken into, Paul Valli and his son were killed in their sleep. Karen was away at a rally for the war effort. Once again trauma plays it’s role. Karen Valli slipped into drug addiction and paranoia, she was certain that the two were killed by the Empire to ensure that she would once again take up the costume of the Harrier and serve her country. She disappeared from Philly.
Two years later Knightstrike was seen again , this time in California. With him was another costumed hero called Knightbird, and an older heroine calling herself Bahdra, Goddess of the Hunt. Knightstrike and Knightbird were the Vanus brothers, Rhys Vanus was the young Knightbird and Thomas was Knightstrike, and of course the return of Karen Valli who had taken up a skimpier costume and the name Bahdra.
The goal of the three was to fight against any threat against the new country that was California. Bahdra was quite driven and a little unbalanced by this point. However, they were successful as vigilantes and lauded as heroes. In ‘64, Thomas was killed and Karen was captured in an effort to assassinate a visiting member of the Royal Family. A few months before the failed attempt , 19 year old Rhys disappeared from California. Suggestions of a love triangle with Karen in the center abounded.
In 1967, a random incident changed the life of Rhys and, in retrospect , the world. The incident involved an attempt on the life of Donald Krae, his twin brother Roland, and their families. The Krae family were often targets of enemies of the Empire, and when the train they were travelling on was attacked and forced off the rails into a river, Rhys (Travelling under the name of Bryce Van) jumped in and managed to pull only two people out before the train disappeared under the brown waters. Bryce’s face was terribly injured during the rescue and the two men were taken to the same hospital. Donald died a year later, finally succumbing to pneumonia, but not before leaving the whole of the Krae Conglomerate to the young man.
The fall of 1970, saw Bryce Van moving to the Krae estates in Boston. He brought with him controlling shares of the Krae Conglomerate, and the other survivor from the train wreck, 8 year old Richard Gordon. Boston saw the first appearance of the New Knightstrike and the Redeemer on Halloween of 1972.
Many crime historians view the next twenty- five years as the golden age for the Knightstrike family ( it doesn’t matter what the media called them ). Van and Gordon prowled the streets and roof tops of Boston, often travelling to New York and Chicago and most of the eastern sea board. Van built a massive base of operations under the Krae estates, and used the varied companies to develop gadgets, weapons and other mechanisms to help in the task. The role of the Redeeemer passed from Gordon to a few other children after an adult Gordon took the mantle of Knightbird. A young woman ( Kasey Kane ) went from Redeemer, to the previously unseen role of Knightharrier. And eventually the role of Redeemer landed on the shoulders of Damian Todd.
The way the KnightStrike family ( no matter what they were called ) was perceived often slipped over the line from hero to vigilante to criminal. Van had his own set of morality, and often found himself on the wrong side of the Empire. The last 5 years of his career as Knightstrike he was dubbed the Dark Knight Terrorist and made the #2 slot of the regulators wanted list. Despite that, he was still considered a hero by many and his counterpart in comics and radio plays ( under that very well known name based on his insignia ) never wavered in fame. During his time as the patriarch of the family, Bryce gathered every scrap of information on the history of the ‘family‘, even visiting an elderly Karen Valli in a rockhall sanatorium.
Bryce Van was gunned down on the Krae estates in 1997 by Ghostface, A high ranking official of the regulators. Before the Empire’s Legion responsible for Enhance Control found the caves, the remainders of the family took all they could from the headquarters under the estate and disappeared into the world.
Again the world believed that that was the last they would see of the KnightStrike family. Gordon, Todd and Kane disappeared without a trace, but they took al of Van’s files ( thoughtfully copied on microfiche ) and over ten million in funds ( thoughtfully stashed in safe houses in the form of gold and jewels ). The files in the caves had been torched and much of the technology had been destroyed before the Regulators could get to it. More importantly, the survivors were angry.
When they did come to public attention in 2001, it was with a vengeance, literally. Gordon wore the costume of KnightRage, Kane took the name Felina, Todd became Crimson Harrier, and they were joined by a young lady named Jane Jones who took the name ‘1450’ ( the muzzle velocity of her sniper rifle ) mostly she was called ‘four’ . It seemed like their only task was to hunt members of the Regulators. And they were armed for it.
This incarnation of the Knightstrike family were dressed for urban warfare and armed with the most advanced fire power their money could buy. They were fairly successful in their quest of hunting down regulators who showed a lust for too much violence, but he violence itself took it’s toll. Even though Gordon eased back on the killing, and became more proactive in crime fighting ( as opposed to revenge ) the obsession with killing Ghost face ate away at them all.
In 2009 Gordon failed to kill Ghostface and while the regulator was seriously wounded it was the end of KnightRage. Gordon convinced Kane to go with him to California where they started a fairly successful Motion Picture company. Damian Todd spent a little too much time on the wrong side of the law and developed a taste for it. When Kane and Gordon quit he went all the way to the other side and is running a small gang of villians on the eastern seaboard He‘s using the name of Krasnyi and wears a red helmet. Jones abandoned the costume and name ‘1450’ taking up the mantle of Felina, and started the task of foiling Todd’s plan. But that’s not the end.
The current Felina has two sidekicks, a young man she calls Wulf, and a young lady wearing the colors of the Redeemer. They have no solid base of operations but seem to go wherever Krasnyi goes. The cycle continues.
In gathering all the facts of this tale I encountered many other names , places and incidents. Sure only Bryce Van is known publicly as Knight strike, but there are government files on many of the others, and other files on everyone who tried to take up the cowl and cape. It should be noted that not only the people I mentioned here were effected by the Mythos surrounding the “family”. Others, enhanced and not , have been encouraged by the tales ( the true and the media made ) and have tried to make a difference outside of the law, or inside of the morals held by most of the family.
And while we know them by different names, we all know the symbol, and it calls from us a belief that even tragedy can lead to something greater ( for better or for worse )
-the Macedonian.
I call 'heads'
There are people who believe that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are definitive. Most of them, when forced to look at their list of lifetime milestones, will come up with various excuses for allowing a little toe to cross the line. But if you really want to understand the border between the two remarkably similar areas, all you have to do is have tea with a master villain.
I’ve tried villainy, it suits me like sushi suit’s a texas cowboy. I’d rather have it Bbq’d. However, in our world of Heroes and Villains and the grey area of Vigilantes the only one you know where you stand with is the Villain.
A villain will rob, murder, steal, lie, trick, manipulate, wash your whites with one red sock, make fun of your mother, put all your comics in a box for the dustbin men, take candy from babies, plot the fall of the empire, stab you in the back .. In some cases they will even stab themselves in the back. And .. And.. And.. They wont come to the window at 3 am when you are drunk and just want to talk to them about why you both broke up… no wait. I’m talking about Villains not ex girlfriends….
Any way … they will do the most despicable things and if you ask them why. You will receive an answer that is clearly either on the side of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Nine times out of ten a Villain will be able to tell you why what they did was ‘right’ and, you know, they believe it. The tenth time they will admit it was wrong but it will be deliciously wrong and if you have any appreciation for the human condition you will see the beauty of it.
On the bell curve of ‘Sanity’ I believe that most of the most nefarious of histories villains have been right near the edges. Maybe more have been ‘sane’ or at least ‘sanerer’ than the heroes that chase them. But no matter , they certainly have a clear idea of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’… and you never see a proper villain running the grey area between…
They truly are horrid people mind you, although I do appreciate their innovation when it comes to names. You never see them just grab up an old Villians name and changing it or adding ‘New’ or ‘2’ to it. ( take note New Haphazard and Queenie 2) Even Darkkat, I mean changing the name from ‘Darkcat’ to ‘Darkkat’ isn’t a big change.. Although the original Cat was female and this one is Male-ish. Speaking of Names, do you think anyone ever tried to correct Gardsman about the spelling of his name?
Villains names. Of them all my favourite is the group known only as ‘the Curtain’, a more aggressive and brilliantly violent group of ne’er do wells you have never seen and yet they call themselves ‘The Curtain’… makes me think of pastel colours and lace edgings… But say it in the right context and people will call in the children they like the most….
Think on it
ode to how greecians earned
I remember , long ago, sitting in a marble hall next to a pool under the shade of many palm trees listening to wise men in toga’s talk about the future.
“Mankind will own the earth, there will be no need for gods!” said one.
“Blasphemer!” shouted another, “ The gods of men will be more powerful than they are now and will hold court only in the presence of deserving and virtuous men!”
“I believe that men and the gods will share the earth and will be akin to brothers.” A third said.
“Perhaps it will be a time of great leisure, with all of our deeds being done by creations of men, and through men thusly the creations of the gods…” this was mused by a fatter that usual philosopher as he waited for a slave to peel him a grape. The was much serious nodding.
“With the blessings of the gods that we have now, and the incredible rate we are evolving~ we must all agree that the average man will be able of feats that are rarely heard of now, More so ~ we shall of course live longer , as we now live longer than the men who fathered our father’s father’s fathers.” It should be noted that this speaker was killed before he had children, it wasn’t that he was young, he was just a tad infertile and liked other men’s wives. And sheep.
“We must agree, as civilised men, that there could be great wars. Epic battles fought by great Heroes and Horrible Monsters, and that much of our land may be destroyed, as the great oasis were destroyed far to the east.” This was spoken by a young man, who liked, for unknown reason, to be the latest of risers waking near dusk and always wearing black, he grew his hair over his eyes and dyed his nails black. He was very pale of skin. He thought it would get him virgins.
“Surely, the gods only make monsters as a test for Heroes! The virtuous man will be un harmed by these monsters as the gods protect the virtuous!” Again the second speaker.
This is when I spoke up “ Shut it you git!”
My contribution was also nodded to in a serious way. They continued to speak of how the world would be a better place as long as the world took heed of the lessons they would be willing to offer, for a modest amount of wealth and power.
I wonder what they would think of the world now. Heroes exist but are in far fewer numbers ( per capita) than they were then. There are few truly amazing Heroes or Monsters, most of the Enhanced Humans are just a little faster, a little stronger, a little smarter than the average man. True there are a few who could fly, some with amazing mind reading powers, a few hideous creatures, and yes, Werewolves, Vampires, and Ghosts. There was an example of every myth from every culture. If you look in Libraries and book depositories you can find proof. Clipping services release new Almanacks every year cataloguing the monsters and myths from the past.
There are few humans with amazing powers, I find this a comfort. There are more ‘Heroes’ and ‘Villains’ though, making due with what every they have. And some have nothing at all.
You know what I miss the most? There is not one person in this whole damn city who knows how to peel a grape.
Herstory.
Here’s the basic truth.
Every Hero I have ever gotten to know is entirely insane.
And I have gotten to know quite a few in my years.
For some reason they end up coming to me, sometimes by accident, mainly they hunt me down. Actually now if I get to know a hero it’s because they have made the effort to find me and have just kept pestering me until I let them in. I guess instead of having born again Christians coming to my door with pamphlets I get Heroes. If you look at it that way I guess I kind of have the better end of the deal. Although I still get the odd missionary knocking on my door. And I am currently living in a sub sewer. They are more tenacious than rats. And I mean that. I have three guard dogs. They are really vicious. I don’t have any rats near where I live.
There was a time when I went out looking for Heroes. I would befriend them, help them teach them, once I was a butler for one. But he was really crazy, and have you ever tried to deal with an alter ego. Let’s call a spade a shovel shall we, an alter ego is just a split personality with a mask on it.
But yeah… Nuts, crazy, not all there, a little off, koo koo banana leaves. You would have to be. To wear a mask, to fight crime, to come up with those comic book names.
Something inside them is switched and it only switches because of a “bad event” and that bad event makes them want to …. Well I guess it makes them want to run around in really tight clothes and use terms like “ evil doers!” that’s just not right. A doer of evil! By using absolute definitions all humans are evil doers but I guess the evil does that heroes chase down are doing dire evil. Scrape any Hero and you will find a traumatic event. There are one or two exceptions of course , but you get my point.
Case in point. And I’ll choose a Hero from the fifties who is probably dead and certainly retired.
When she was 13 her mother chocked to death on a button. This happened while the mother was sewing a costume for a stripper. Should I say exotic dancer? Anyway, little girl comes home from school, mom is dead in the kitchen. The strippers costume is pretty much finished it just needs one button to complete it. In my opinion that is a rather good costume for a stripper. Just one button and BAM nekkid. A little lazy but still good. Where was I?
Or right so the little girl in a state of shock takes the costume and buries it. I don’t ask why at this point. I stopped asking why right around the time what’s his name had all the corners cut off his table and let his best friend sleep with his wife. Y’know the guy who thought he would come back when the world needs him . Maybe he hit the snooze button…
Years later, the same girl is eating junior mints but one is too old and she’s laughing at a radio play and she almost chokes to death. I mean it’s really close to the pearly gates. But she falls out of her chair when she blacks out and good luck slips in an dislodges the junior mint.
She wakes up and goes to her old house in the middle of the night and digs up the Stripper costume. She very carefully sews a button on it and proceeds to go out and fight crime wearing this darned thing. An interesting factoid. The original stripper the costume was designed for was a size 2 with a 34 b chest , Our aforementioned Hero is a size 8 with a 36 DD chest. I don’t need to tell you that there were some very innocent and law abiding citizens who considered a life of crime just to get arrested by her. Or would have been if she didn’t kill almost every one she went after.
Why did she do it? She said the Ghost of her mother told her to. She was enhanced, errr I mean she did have a few powers. One of them seemed to be the ability to run in spiked heels the other was the ability to distract almost anyone. Those and limited telekinesis. She brought down a lot of bad guys and I’m sure of one good guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And she was revered by many people as opening the gates for scantily clad heroes.
But still , her elevator didn’t go to the penthouse.
And don’t get me started on Villains….
What are your peers like?
You know what really pisses me off???
I have the gift of Longevity. I may live forever. I certainly feel like I have lived for forever ( usually because the night before I have been drinking pints of slightly off beer in some sewer tunnel bar and woken up with some distant cousin growing on my tongue … or very possibly a small mouse living in my mouth. )
And since I have been gifted with Longevity I am a member of “The Club” as in “if you need to know what it takes to be in The Club then you are certainly not in THE CLUB!!!” and we meet every 84 years for a bit of a fry up and drinks. There are short term-ers expected to last no more than two meetings and of course there is the Old Guard who were at the first official meeting ( the games in 796 BC in Greece back when they let anyone in , ) Point of reference. Our charter was ratified on our 22nd supper and we each got a perfect copy thanks to Bi Sheng and his movable type machine ( yuh, 400 years before Gutenberg.. But when J.G. was popular we were shopping around for another version anyway because reading old Chinese is hard after too much good wine… oh and good wine is like the Egyptian wine aged properly .. You know how hard it is to find wine from 4000 bc? Can’t just pop into a local and get it, but I know a guy.)
But I was sitting and looking at my scrap book and there was daguerreotype ( in a very nice silk wallet ) and standing next to me ( I think at the time I was on an American Revolutionary named Cricket, or so? ) Was Swindle to my left and Perseus to my right.. It always seemed like I was next to them or someone like them.
And this then is what pisses me off.
Hang out with any so called “immortal” and you will hear stories like “ I was there when the American war of independence was ended just three months after the upstarts dumped tea into the Boston harbour” or “ How; in 1810 I convinced head of the British Empire to give the colonies their limited independence and thus ended potential war!” or “I was there when the Greek Gods closed the borders !” or “ I remember being at the signing of the ratification of the Constitution for ( fill in with one of these Cascadia/California/Texas/New Brighton)” or “ I served tea when the Circle met with the Dragon Empire and the National Workers and plotted the fall of the British Empire”.
But get them all in the same room and by the time they are done one upping each other you realise that if everyone had been in the damned stable in Bethlehem as said there was then some would have to have been standing on top of the quietly lowing donkey!
Worse part was when they turned to me I’d have very little to say. I always managed to be on entirely the wrong continent when most of the earth shattering events had happened. When the Armistice ending the Great War was signed in 1974 I was in a brothel in New Brighton dealing with a rather embarrassing situation as I had forgotten momentarily what sex I was and technically insulted the madam’s favourite houseboy in a most personal manner. I was there when the city was given all the rights of a nation and I certainly was there when the explosion effectively crippled the Empires Jewel. ( in a panic I had infested 5 separate individuals and it took me almost 30 years to get myself together. ) Where was I when Tesla won the Nobel prize? I was playing poker with a bunch of telepathics ( I learned later ). Where was I during The last coronation? I was trapped on a train in a tunnel because goats were on the track. Where was I when Prime Minister Kennedy was shot? I was hanging out with some guys shooting craps. Where was I when slavery was absolved? Sea sick just off a port somewhere near the horn. That thing in Bethlehem . I was there. Well not really, I got there early and I got a room. Taxes are the only thing that is constant in my life. Well taxes and death but taxes happen to everyone, death to me is a spectator sport.
I was there when the middle level Enhanced Hero “Haphazard” was born from the ashes. But in retrospect that might not be something to bring up… the best part is that as of this writing it will be another 69 years before the next meeting and thankfully I can either tell lies or say nothing and blame it on the fact that I will have just infested a new host so my memories are not what they used to be.
We could meet on thursdays?
This is the tough part, it’s like the first day at a twelve step meeting where you have to stand up and say “Hi, my name is Mac and I’m a slime mold.” only to be greeted by the gurgling of all the other slime molds sitting in folding chairs waiting their turn. I mean if it wasn’t for the oatmeal cookies and free coffee would anyone else be there? And nothing is as lame as listening to someone try to turn a negative into a positive with that strained, and in my opinion fake, cheerful attitude! Actually I would go… if there was one… but there isn’t because aside from myself I have never encountered anyone such as myself. Oh ! Wait! there was that time after the Horde invasion of Rome when I was accidentally split into two and found two hosts and then bumped into myself during the Spring festival near Cambridge. That was a bit awkward, I would assume it would be like finding out that you had accidentally been making out with a cousin. Or a second cousin… maybe not. My point is that once we re-connected and then jointly infested another host we were one again and aside from periodically screwing up pronouns and having two sets of memories for the same thousand or so years not a bad thing to say about it.
As far as I can tell I have been around since the primordial ooze oozed from where ever ooze oozes from. I may be the base building block of all humanity. Wouldn’t that be the thing. Imagine the tower of gifts I would get at Christmas! But the thank you cards would be tedious, and in any case I doubt that is the case. Hmmm I could use a case to keep all these notes in .
So my earliest memories, just fragments of moments, are of Mesopotamia. It’s hard to describe how my memory works. I mean every forty or fifty years I need to find a new host and infest it. Some memories come along on a cellular level . But even then they need space to stretch out so for the first few years until I have grown on my host I only have the basic memories that are important to my survival; like oatmeal is good, stay away from any automat that has more grease on the window than a city truck, and never ever insult a nine fingered pianist with a straight razor in his shirt sleeve. But after a while my memories come back and by the time I have to infest a new host I can tell you the color of the toga that Jules wore the day he married Cifany. ( no! neither of them are important in the history of the world but they had a really nice wine at the ceremony and the orgy afterwards was unforgettable.)
Oh yes, my hosts. For the most part they have been human , but there is a stretch of time where I remember doing nothing but eating , sleeping, and scratching hands that fed me .. So maybe I infested a cat out of necessity. So…. mostly Human, and recently they have been mostly voluntary. But voluntary or not for the Macedonian to survive I need hosts to carry me about , do my bidding, and generally keep me active or I get bored and dormant. Sadly though something about my infestation makes for a slightly shortened host-life. Well maybe they are alive after but it’s hard to tell. A side effect of being worn by me is calcification of their organic components. It’s actually quite pretty. And I try my best to put them in interesting positions before I leave them completely. Go to a museum and look at some of the best marble statues. That’s my work that is! Of course in the event of untimely death I need to leapfrog onto whatever is warm-blooded and close at hand. Let me tell you that a running speed of 5 cm an hour is not optimal for stalking anything other than a sloth or a slug or a snail. But I have managed to survive for eons so there you go . The calcification process often allows for my hosts to perform just as the Enhanced. And some of the Great Heroes of the past ( all of who died young ) are actually my work also. So , You are welcome civilisation.
But yes, we are slime mold, I mean, I am slime mold . I like dark cool places, I avoid sunlight, and I love oatmeal. Please do not confuse me for a Vampire who shares some of my traits. Not that you would; I rarely wear dark velvet , I have a sense of humour, I do not pretend to be tragic, I have never written bad poetry, and most importantly I would never hit on underage girls in coffee houses just to get a quick bite in before tea. Don’t get me wrong I have had friends in the past who had to suck blood, and if my memory is not playing tricks I took one as a host for a while … about 150 years… but then I got confused and tried to drain a bag of “Granny McGullies” raisin and walnut cookies and we parted ways. Its just they tend to be a bit elitist and touchy.
What's in a name?
Firstly Mesopotamia is not Macedonia, not even close. I mean look on a map … if you can find a map that has one of those things that is transparent and goes over a paper map to show you different things. A good library would have one. A good library !Not that any library “now” is a “good” library ~ now the Library of Alexander the Great was a good library. It was a bit smoky , and of course then it burned to the ground and was a lot smoky and burny. ~ But, back then when you asked for a map of Mesopotamia they had one! Well actually they wouldn’t have . What with time being linear and all that and the way people remember things. They also wouldn’t have a map of Macedonia. But my point is. And this is important. My point is that Macedonia is not Mesopotamia so calling me the “Macedonian” is completely wrong. For a while I tried to get people to call me “So-PO”, but it never caught on. So like the kid after one bad day I am stuck with a bad nickname. At least they don’t call me Stinky! Okay they did call me “stinky” for about three generations but then I infested a general and wiped out their villages. Heh! That showed them! They never called me “stinky” again. Most of them never called anyone anything and leave a body in the sun for a few weeks and then who’s stinky, not me, not me at all! So for convenience sake I am the Macedonian. Currently I am called “buddy”… but to the club members I am the “Macedonian” or “Mac”.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)