The Night Before Halloween

Writing Horror on Halloween

 

It was the night before Halloween on which I sat up late, editing a scene which I'd written many moons ago. 

It seemed to get dark earlier that night, and the only thing that was to be seen in the windows was the reflections of the candles I had burning within. 

 

 

Ironically, I wrote about the darkness too. In the scene in which I dwelt that night, there was no light to see by. But, if there is not sight to write about, the writer's pen takes up other senses. The touchless dark has no surfaces or scents. But sounds it has aplenty; sounds to make the imagination go wild, conceiving apparitions, fabricating frightful fancies. I forced them all onto the poor soul who had wandered into the pitch darkness of my scene. 

 

I paused. 

It's dangerous to live this way, I thought, to be so immersed in the page before you that you do not see what goes on around. Anything could happen when the writer is so engrossed in the fictional; anything at all. 

People might be peering into their windows; a cat might creep by through the flickering shadows; a raven may call on the tree just outside. 

Would the writer notice?

Probably not. 

 

Its dangerous to live this way, to take up one's laptop and sit in a chapter all night, neither seeing nor hearing what goes on behind you, or underneath your chair. 

Better not look, that's what I say. It'll only distract you. It'll only give you a fright. 

 

And what goes on in the night is better left up to the imagination. 

Papa Bear Goes for a Stroll

Papa Bear went for a stroll that night, thinking bearish thoughts about literature and life, and the poem he had read the night before by the fire after baby bear was snoring softly. 

 

It was such a nice night for a walk, he thought. 

 

He walked for quite some time, till his thoughts were less thoughtly, and more musings, till he barely noticed he was walking at all. He walked till long after dark, till the edge of the wood, the edge of the page even. 

 

And so it was that Papa Bear walked right out of the book of fairy tales where he lived with Mama Bear and Baby Bear and into the forest I happened to be painting.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I see a work of art on the internet and I just want to paint someone into it. So it was with this one when I saw a painting of a cluster of trees and couldn't help but feel that they looked lonely and unappreciated. 

 

I once again started by staining my paper with tea. I find that staining it first (even if you cannot see it once I've added the foreground) makes it seem as if I am painting an illustration in an old storybook. 

 

 

So bit by bit the stained back ground was covered, as a forest appeared on the edge of my brush. As I worked on this one on and off for the following weeks, I thought a great deal about who would come walking through this painting. Eventually, Papa Bear appeared. 

The Perks of Living in Disarray

Being a sort of "Story" but also a Pro and Con List (of sorts)

 

Written on the theme of Anticipation in Fall 2018

The Germans have a word called vorfreude which basically means the joy that comes from anticipation. This joy is one shared by all those who lead ordinary lives, when they mark dates of anticipation in their calendars and count down the days till birthdays or anniversaries; days when loved ones come home or important events take place; moments of anticipation which come with grand roles of the drum, like dramatic climaxes or a grand crescendo. Anticipation is a part of life, and it is the closest to which ordinary folk ever come to pertaining any sense of foresight in their lives.

I say ordinary folk because I do not consider myself ordinary. You see, I have never experienced this thing which the Germans call "vorfreude". The closest I get to anticipation of any kind is a sneeze. This is because, for as long as I can remember, I have lived my life in disarray.

Most folk think that it comes with the regulation of calendars that all days are to be lived in their proper order. Wednesday follows Tuesday, and if September comes, one can always be sure that October will follow. But I myself have never been very organized, and personally I have always had a blatant disregard for rules.

For example, I consider Mondays to be optional. Birthdays is another thing which I immensely enjoy, but the act of growing up need not necessarily be done in an efficient manner. I only have one life, after all, and I like to live according to my mood. I choose days like some people choose what to wear in the morning. What’s the point of waiting for something when you can just enjoy it now? –That's what I always say.

 Of course, I still keep a calendar. But, while some folk cross off days all tidy and orderly, I cross off mine at random. Even living one’s life in a disarray needs to have some sort of order, you can only live each day once, after all. (I don't really feel like getting into what happens if you accidentally live the same day twice. The experience still gives me nightmares).

I particularly enjoy being eight. But there being only 365 days in which I get to be eight, I have to be sure not to out-live them all. I try to maintain some sort of balance in my chaotic lifestyle so as not to run out of good days before I die. Birthdays is another thing with which I take serious precautions. I don’t yet know when I die, but I know I only have a limited number of birthdays in my life, and I don’t plan on running out of those any time soon.

 Being seventeen has been another good year for me. That’s the year me and my best friend Max start a band. We have some good times together, but for some reason I’ve never run into Max anywhere beyond the age of twenty. I considered contacting him once, beyond the brink of my twentieth birthday, but I try and live as spoiler-free as I can. I find it’s the most care-free way of living. And so if I find myself living in the aftermath of some sort of disaster, I usually mark the days pertaining to that time with some sort of warning. So, while anticipation remains something which I have never experienced, I am a master of avoidance. Who knows, maybe mine and Max’s short-lived friendship was for the best. There are some things only my past self knows, and I like to keep it that way.

Though every once in a while, I inevitably stumble across a spoiler. I know that I get engaged to a girl named Anni around the time I’m twenty-five. I don’t know how I meet her yet, and so in an effort to avoid any unnecessary awkwardness, I stay away from any days past our estimated time of engagement.

 I also regret to admit that I still haven’t finished all my days of kindergarten. Those days to me are like a never-ending to-do list of slobbery children and alphabet songs. When it comes to years like those, 365 seems like a big number.

Of course, every once in a while, I come across a particularly bad day. Any day of being nine is bound to be awful. I know my dad walks out on us sometime that winter, and by springtime me and my mom have moved into a stuffy apartment in the city. I don’t like hearing my mom cry, so naturally, I try to avoid being nine as much as I can.

But no day will ever be as bad as the time I lived a day of twenty-one and found out my mom had died earlier that year.

I went back to being nine after that, not because I particularly wanted to, but because I had the sudden urge to hug my mom. Living in disarray has its ups and downs, but life has those anyway. There will always be bad days, only difference is, I get to choose when I want to live those. 

You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you about all this. I don’t usually take the time to write down my thoughts, because frankly, I’ve never had the patience to do so. But I recently learned about the German word of vorfreude, and it got me thinking.

It had never occurred to me before that anticipation could be a joy rather than a drag. My calendar with its shambles and unruliness used to be a catastrophe I reveled in. My life is like a chaotic jigsaw-puzzle with holes in the middle and pieces long since lost under the depths of a dusty couch. But I always thought I liked it that way. Now I somehow can't help but wonder what it might be like to live a life of vorfreude.

I thought I’d visit a particularly dreary day to give me time to think.

The day I chose was rather a muddle to me, I don’t remember much of it, but I do remember thinking that I rather liked fall, though I’d never realized it before. Aside from my mom having died, twenty-one has never been that bad a year for me, all things considered. Twenty-one-year-old me actually has a job, which I gotta say is both a nuisance and a convenience.

Halfway through the day I discovered some change in my pocket and decided to spend it on a drink. I sat at the counter for a while looking over my calendar at all the appointments I’ve never kept, the due-dates I’ve never met, all those times I avoided going to the dentist. I was trying to decide which day to live next, feeling a sense of hopelessness when this girl approached me. 

I had noticed her sitting across the room for a while, reading what appeared to be a leather-bound notebook. She didn’t say anything for a moment, just looked at me as if she wasn’t quite sure what she should say.

I don’t think I knew it then, but in that moment of silence, I think I felt a twinge of anticipation. I saw the thoughts flicker in her eyes, and then a spark came into them.

“Do you know what the date is?” she asked.

I didn’t. Heck, in that moment I don’t even think I knew how old I was. I glanced at my calendar. It was the 9th of October. Or was it November?

I’m not sure what I settled on in the end, but she laughed, so I’m sure I got it wrong.

We talked for a while after that. I’m not entirely sure about what exactly. Though I know we talked about music and about art, and at some point she ordered a vanilla sundae. She ate the entire thing but left the cherry in the plate.

It puzzled me for a while. Everyone knows you’re supposed to eat the cherry first, but there it was, sitting lopsided in her empty plate.

She must have noticed me staring at it, because she smiled, then picking it up she said, “I always save the best for last.”

She left not long after. She didn’t leave me with so much as a name, and I found myself feeling sad, and a little disappointed, though I wasn't entirely sure why. Yet somehow, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something important had just happened.

That’s when I noticed her notebook.

I didn’t want to touch it at first, though I briefly considered running after her and returning it, but then I caught a glimpse of the inside through the dog-eared curl of the cover.

It was a calendar.

I had never felt such a strong sense of climax in my un-climactic life than when I reached out and flipped the pages.

In many ways, it was just like mine. She had drawn it out herself in an untidy, disorganized way. The months were written on-top in funky lettering. There were scribbles and warning labels, messy doodles lined the edges and tally marks with which she counted down the days. The only difference was, her days were all crossed off.

Which brings me to today.

I have decided not to keep a calendar anymore. Living my life in disarray has been fun, but yesterday I experienced what I believe can only be vorfreude, and so I am leaving the chaos of my youth behind me. I’m still going to count down the days though, not because I’m waiting for something but simply for the joy of anticipation. As of right now though, I am merely looking forward to tomorrow. I’m not sure why yet, but I have never lived a tomorrow before, and who knows what it might bring. 

Turning it Around for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is always brighter when reflected upon, or when seen in pictures afterwards. 

 

We entered this same forest last year, but the sun was not shining then like it did now. Last year the forest was a fairie one, full of moss, and little mushrooms and tiny timid snails. The dainty webs of spiders were bejeweled. Little streams stole through the leaves then, creeping through the crannies on the ground, barely heard. We hopped over them last year, trailed them, tapped our booted-toes in them. Last year this forest was undiscovered, unwoven by our trails, every bend a mystery.

 

Not this year. This year, the sun was shining, and the leaves were painted, like I'd always dreamed I could paint them with my messy oil pastels, bronzed and bitten, flushed and florid; as if the trees themselves exhaled a sigh, blissfully remembering how wondrous the summer has been.

 

 

This year the sun warmed the leaves like pie; this year the world seemed illustrated, like a picture book that stretches through the hundred acres. This year we were no strangers to the forest, we knew which trees to pass. There were no streams to hop, but there were roots to tip toe across. This year two kitties waited back home for dessert to begin (instead of just the one); this year, our family was a little bigger.

 

 

But there are some things these pictures cannot capture: Like how that same morning the skies were bleak and grey and I did not feel thankful at all; how we fought first, then thanked. 

But then we got dressed in fall colors, and we drove to my mom's house, and there it smelt like cinnamon, and apples, and cranberries, and warm turkey, and all the other fine delicious things you read about in books about holidays or critters that live in a red wall.

 

 

 

 

 

Fall gives such magic, and this year it gave me an even greater gift than timid snails and bashful streams over which to hop. This year fall gave me time; time to drive home in this golden kingdom after turkey; time to taste the tender goodies only a mother can bake; time to walk with my dad; to snap pictures of my brothers; time to fight with my husband, and fall asleep in his arms that same night.

 

 

Beowulf, Fire and Flesh

There is a story about a book that is often talked about among scholars of medieval literature. 

 
The story occurred on the night of 23 October 1731, almost three hundred years ago when a tragedy struck in Ashburnham House in England. It was then that a fire consumed many great pieces of ancient literature. 

As fortune would have it, not among those that burned was what today has come to be the only surviving medieval manuscript of Beowulf. Legend tells that someone had the foresight to throw the priceless manuscript out of the window, thus saving it from the fire. Even so, none can deny that Beowulf was moments away from being destroyed by the flames.

The manuscript, however, was not wholly left undamaged. The edges were badly burned, the corners scorched, and while the words survived, the paper on which they are written is brittle and has only been preserved with extreme care.

The fame of this story among Beowulf scholars cannot be denied. What no one seems to talk about though is the deep irony this chance happening holds. Beowulf, after all, is a tale haunted by fire. Foretold in its outset is a future in which all that the dwellers of the tale seek to protect has been consumed by a mortal fire. Furthermore, the tale's teller, who in Beowulf looks back on a time and age now over,  seeks to keep alive what has been destroyed. 

How incredibly ironic it is that he almost failed because of a fire.

Still, the legendary tale of Beowulf the dragon slayer remain embedded like deep roots into literature, there mostly un-reached by the frosts of time.

How deep those roots go, no one knows. Indeed, no one can tell for certain the source of this epic tale or its origins. The legends of Beowulf the monster slayer have not survived by mistake, no doubt. But though the manuscript which was so nearly lost to us survives, we do not really know where it comes from. Even its original author remains unknown to us. 

Yet the narrator speaks vividly throughout the tale, moving through time as Beowulf grows old and eventually dies, vanquished by the dragons fiery venom. 

Even so, it is clear from the poem's first lines that in the time in which the teller writes he is already looking back to ages gone by. 

"Listen!" he writes

"The fame of Danish kings

in days gone by, the daring feats

worked by those heroes are well known to us."

From the very outset, the teller's words echo with reminiscence, astounded by the glory cast from days now over. 

Of course there is a bit of irony therein that the tale he is about to tell is the only one truly known to us. The heroes of the days gone by and the fame of the Danish kings that lived then remain to us only in fragments. Only that of Beowulf remains intact, though not unscathed. Though there is a bit of prophecy in king Hrothgar's words of praise to him after the monster is slain.

"You (Beowulf) have ensured that men will always sing

your praises, even to the end of the world"

With a little help from a scribe and a monk's foresight (to name a few), this rings true today, for indeed, Beowulf has been remembered.

  Beowulf in Heorot by Alan Lee 

(Note: My sincere apologies to artists Alan Lee and John Howe for burning your art for this project.)

The poem begins by accounting the building of a famous mead-hall. The battles of Hrothgar king of this great hall are accounted only in brief, for they lie outside this legend. It is the hall he builds and what it represents that truly resonates in this tale. 

"He," he are told, "resolved to build a hall,

a large and noble feasting-hall 

of whose splendours men would always speak ... 

In due course

(before very long) this greatest of halls

was completed. Hrothgar, whose very word was counted far and wide as a command, called it Heorot."

Needless to say, the common man no longer speaks of Heorot's splendor, just like the drinking of mead is a custom the meaning of which has been abandoned. 

Next the poem recounts how, here, in this hall of great splendor, the "warrior Danes lived joyful lives."

...until the hellish fiend 

began to perpetrate base crimes"

Thus, Grendel creeps up from some unknown lair, destroying the Danes' joyful lives. It is said that Heorot remained empty for 12 years after that.

"Thus, Grendel ruled, resisted justice, 

one against all, until the best of halls

stood deserted. And so it remained."

 Until Beowulf comes. (Remember that word: Until. It is a crucial word.)

Famously, Beowulf slays three monsters throughout the course of the poem, all of which have been probed and studied endlessly since slain by the famous warrior. In many ways, they are a mystery to us still.

The first to be slain was Grendel. He is described as a "hellish fiend", a "notorious prowler", and is a  "gruesome" man eating creature, said to be condemned by the creator himself. I will not here recount his slaying. It is of little importance when it comes to the force of fire in this tale.

The second to be slain is Grendel's mother, a more puzzling monster still. The poem describes her as a "monster of a woman" a "sea-wolf" with "ghastly claws". Otherwise, she remains mostly featureless, and thus, a mystery. But she swims with sea monsters and gives birth to fiends, that much we know from the story. 

Yet, despite these two monster's fiendish and possibly hellish origins, it is the third one, the dragon, that vanquishes Beowulf. 

Grendel's Mother by John Howe

I wrote a paper on this question once, for it puzzled me greatly that the dragon, a creature of flesh, fire, and bone, is the one to take down Beowulf the man. 

The two die side by side, each taken down by the other. And though, Beowulf proves victorious, it is only moments after the dragon's demise that he too dies, consumed by the serpent's fiery venom.

I no longer think it so strange now that the only truly fleshly creature is the one to slay the warrior. 

After all, the blood of Grendel's mother is enough to melt the iron of a sword. In the heat of battle, Grendel and the woman that birthed him are seen only in flashes, in a flurry of blows and swings. They remain mostly featureless. Truthfully, we will probably never fully know what the author's intent with these was. Indeed, they have been re-imagined and debated over ever since.

Still, the narrator makes it clear that there is something unholy about their nature, for they are not beings of flesh. Beowulf slays these apparently hellish beings as a younger man, and lives to tell the tale. Furthermore, he lives to rule Heorot after Hrothgar is gone. 

Thus, Beowulf rules into old age... Until the dragon comes.

Turin Turamber, The Children of Hurin, by Alan Lee

"It is not until he is himself is old and grey that the dragon appears, rising out of the deep where he has dwelt these last hundred years, sleeping on, unmentioned by the poem and unknown to men. The dragon comes into the story as if summoned by the destiny which binds him to Beowulf." 

So I wrote once in a paper discussing the question of why this fate befits the poem. I do believe somewhere within that paper I missed the point. 

Beowulf is slain by a creature of flesh, like he is himself. Indeed, even in the wake of monsters, in the end it is the battles of the flesh that prove fatal in this legend.

So, while the corpses of the fiends are never inspected after they are slain, the dragon's corpse remains, exposed under the light of day under an open sky.

Beowulf's men find his body there, lifeless in the sand. Beside him lies the creature. The poem tells us that it was

"a loathsome serpent...

the fire-dragon...

was scorched by its own flames."

How fitting this seems to me now, that the blood in the veins of the fiends was hot enough to burn the sword of the warrior who slays them, yet the dragon's own flesh can be burned by the fire he breathes. 

There is something I have not yet told you, reader. As I mentioned in brief, there is a prophecy at the outset of this poem. It appears right after the naming of the great hall of Heorot, the very place Beowulf fights to restore and later rules, the place he dies to protect. It is in this prophecy that there lies the greatest irony in all the poem. 

I mentioned at the start of this post the story of how the Beowulf manuscript was saved from a fire.We have already seen much fire in Beowulf. We have seen it in the fiery blood of Grendel's mother, and the fiery venom of the serpent that claims the warrior's life and scorches its own skin.

But there is a more fleshly and consuming fire in Beowulf, a fire lit by a mortal feud. 

The narrator tells us that the great hall of Heorot, the very hall the poem concerns itself with preserving, will burn to the ground. It will burn in a bitter feud between the Geatish people and the Swedes. It will be destroyed by men because of a rift of loyalty, thus maiming everything the tale of Beowulf celebrates: honor, glory, fame, and fellowship.

The narrator tells us this on page 3. 

Thus, we know before Beowulf even sets foot on the page that what he fights to preserve will not be destroyed by either of the three monsters that threaten it. It will be destroyed by men. 

 

We see the shadow of this prophecy come near in the poem's final pages. The poem ends with war on the kingdoms borders, now exposed without their warrior and king to protect it. Enemies surround its lands even as the smoke of Beowulf's funeral pyre rises to the sky. 

"There on Whaleness, the heroes kindled 

the most mighty of pyres; the dark wood-smoke

soared over the fire, roaring flames 

mingled with weeping ... 

until the body became ash, consumed even 

to its core... 

Heaven swallowed the smoke".

 

It is true that Beowulf survived time, survived fickle frost, and consuming fire. But it did not do so unscathed. Deep roots are not reached by the frost, which passes with the morning and fades with the seasons. But though we do not know when Beowulf was written, we know that by the time the poem was penned, these great ages were already over. 

The manuscript survives today, but it is a brittle remembrance of what Beowulf once symbolized. There are no more meadhalls; today, Lords give no rings for loyalty, and the monsters are all dead. All the dragons have been slain. 

One thing has stayed the same, though. Then, like today, it does not take monsters to topple kingdoms and nations. Men topple those themselves.

And as Tolkien wrote in this essay "The Monsters and the Critics", Beowulf is a poem about our land and our language.  

"(Beowulf) was made in this land,"he writes. "It moves in our northern world beneath our northern sky, and for those who are native to that tongue and land, it must ever call with a profound appeal –until the dragon comes."

 

Remember that word. The inevitably of until can crush the hopeful whisper of unless. As I already mentioned, Beowulf is fire-filled. With a fateful feud lingering on the horizon of its history, it reminds us that even a dragon's flesh can burn in its own fire; and what's more, that even men has hard to kill as Beowulf have been taken down by a dragon.

To the Character I Had Killed Off

Dear Deceased Character,

 

I don't know why I had you killed off. Perhaps your time was simply over. Perhaps I was simply bored. 

I admit, you bothered me a little. Your practices disturbed me. I think the story will be better off without you, if somewhat less interesting. 

I must also confess that I killed you off on a whim. I guess you bothered me more than I thought you did. If it helps, you were probably going to die sooner or later. I think that much we both knew. You were a frail creature, and I never liked you. 

You were so pesky, such a persistent nuisance to me and to others. I don't think the reader will miss you. In fact, I think they'll feel a lot better now that you're gone. Even if other things continue to go wrong, they'll have that solace.  

 

Even though you're dead, you're vivid to me still. Your face is one I see clearly. Where other's are sometimes blurry, your face shines through. 

Don't worry, I won't give you away. I won't spoil your ending; won't go so far as to describe the features of your face and deem you recognizable. Who knows who might read these words once I post them on the internet. But what can I say, you were fun to write about; you and your vile ways and your vile, vivid face. 

Now you're gone without a trace. Left only in my mind. The images will get old soon enough, now that I won't be writing about you anymore.

As of yet, no one else knows that you're dead. No one but my most trusted advisor who said with a smile that your death scene was one of the best I'd ever written.

What can I say, dear Deceased Character, killed by a the writer's whim: you were fun to write about, that much I've admitted. 

But the truth is, killing you off was more fun still. The second I thought of your demise, I was committed, and the plot permitted it just as well. 

And so, I thought, I might as well do it. As they say, all's well that ends well. 

And you know, I think you ended well, ended in good glorious drama. And because all's well that ends well, you've become better for it; become more sufferable now that you've ended, more manageable, really. 

I like you better now that you're dead.

 

And if I write a flash-back, well, all I can say is that I hope you're not in it; I pray the plot will not permit it.

May we never meet again,