Category: Fiction (Page 6 of 7)

A Hidden Track: A Night with Black Cat Waltz, written by Bob Spellman for Soundwave Magazine, 1975

October 16, 2018 / Kyle A. Massa

It’s Halloween night and Black Cat Waltz has sold out the Nebula Lounge in downtown Los Angeles. The feeling is electric.

“I hope they play ‘The World’s Gone Red.’” I overhear a young woman say this to a young man beside her. She’s dressed like Dorothy and he’s dressed like Toto. She smokes what is either a hand-rolled cigarette or a joint—the smell suggests the latter. “This is gonna be interstellar.”

The night is crisp and tangy as an apple, which fits the season (it’s cold, especially for L.A.). I stand in a line that winds around the corner and out of sight. It’s composed of cats, vampires, ghosts, pixies, Holly Golightlys, witches, John Waynes, hobos, and more. I myself am dressed in a leather jacket, jeans, and loafers. If anyone wonders what I’m supposed to be, I’m prepared to say, “Journalist,” which is of course entirely true. Anyway, no one’s asked yet.

The mood is a rope ready to snap. Bits of B.C.W. songs float up from the cacophony, with different voices joining the chorus as they hear it. Shouts of “Let us in!” and “This should be a free event, man!” echo into the night. Cars pass cautiously, as if fearful of the gathered crowd.

Indeed, one can sense the single-mindedness of this group. This is not some random assortment of young people out to hear some live music—this horde is here for Black Cat Waltz. Or, perhaps more specifically, it’s here for Julian Strange.

I hear snippets of conversation. Oddly enough, they’re all about Mr. Strange. This seems nearly impossible when I reflect on it. No one’s talking about the end of the war or Jaws or Patty Hearst or the Thrilla in Manila. Here in this line on this night, we only talk about the man and the band we’re about to see.

“Open the doors!” someone shouts. And another person quotes, “You can’t see the forest from the trees, when you’re dead and beaten and down on your knees!”

Someone else: “Julian Strange will live forever!”

And another voice: “Open those doors, pig! We want in, pig!”

Presumably, that last comment is directed at the bouncers on either side of the door (though they’re not policemen, so far as I can tell). They stand there grumbling and looking murderous. The wrong annoyance would give them an excuse to hurt someone, I’d guess. They’d probably enjoy that.

A fight breaks out somewhere in line. Two of the club’s bouncers peel away from the door to end it. That gives others hope. Three men dressed as the Three Stooges make a break for it. They get halfway through the door before they’re hauled off by a fresh pair of bouncers. Curly screeches, “We just want to see him! We just want to see him!” That leaves only one man defending the entrance. He suddenly appears a deal less confident than he did a moment ago.

The moment doesn’t last long. The doors open a crack and a message is relayed; the single man at the door pulls it the rest of the way and stands aside, like a surfer avoiding the rush of a tidal wave. I’m pushed from behind and suddenly I’m running forward with the rest of them. It’s either that or be swept under.

We crash through the open doors and flood into the lounge. I spoke to the event promoter earlier in the day and learned the maximum capacity for this venue is 1,001. Judging by the size of the line outside, I expect the health department will receive a call sometime soon.

The chanting begins as soon as we’re inside. One name, repeated over and over again: “Strange! Strange! Strange! Strange!” There’s a band here tonight, though you’d think it was a solo act.

The chant continues and grows louder as new voices enter the space. I attempt to order a drink with little luck—Gandalf and a Janis Joplin look-alike cut ahead, and suddenly a fresh wave of bodies rushes forward. Oh well.

When the lights dim, the audience screams. The lights come up again, and for the first time I notice the stage is littered with gifts. Wrapped boxes, flower bouquets, lingerie, packs of cigarettes. More follow them.

The stage itself is a modest platform ringed by more expressionless men in black shirts. The crowd tries an approach, but even their shoving can’t break these guys. At least not yet. The equipment behind them is all set up: a many-piece drum kit, Marshall stacks, wires, monitors. One single microphone in the center of the stage. Rumor has it that while the other members of the band can sing, Julian Strange won’t allow it; he wants only his own voice heard during shows.

Figures appear onstage. The crowd explodes. My eardrums whine with the sound of voices, so many voices collected into one. The figures are as follows:

Warren Wilder, the band’s guitarist. He’s dressed as William Shakespeare, complete with a ruffle around his neck, tights, and an ink-stained quill in his ear. His blonde hair is shaped in the style of the Bard’s. He slips his Fender Stratocaster over his shoulder and bows to the crowd.

Then there’s Francisco Jones Jr., the band’s drummer. He places a foot on the shell of both his bass drums, and suddenly he’s standing atop his own kit, arms held high, forming a cross with his drumsticks. He’s dressed as one of the three little pigs, making the whole scene all the more surreal.

Next, Luther Bangs, the band’s bassist. I think he’s supposed to be a blueberry though I’ll admit it’s difficult to tell; he wears a blue shirt, blue pants, long blue socks, a blue hat over wild hair. Maybe he’s just a guy wearing blue clothes. He dons his Gibson Grabber and waits, elbows propped upon the top edge of his instrument, one leg crossed over the other. Bangs stands just out of reach of the stage lights, a man in the shadows. He fires off a bass lick, his fingers flowing deftly over four fat strings and composing a flawless scale.

Then comes a pause while the three men wait. There is a fourth member of Black Cat Waltz and the audience knows he’s back there somewhere. Their chant begins again, louder than ever before.

“Strange! Strange! Strange! Strange! Strange! Strange! Strange! Strange! Strange!”

Yet still no man himself. They roar, they shout, they scream their throats bloody, all for him, all for Julian Strange. Someone has fainted beside me and her friends are trying to haul her out while still keeping their eyes on the stage. The chanting continues.

The voices grow louder, somehow. It doesn’t seem possible, yet it’s happening. And they grow louder still at the sight of the curtain parting behind the stage.

An immense figure approaches the mic. His night-black hair is a silky curtain and his beard cascades down his face like a rushing waterfall. He wears a formless white gown. The room’s gone hazy with smoke, but one can still make out the crown of thorns circling the man’s forehead. Blood (I hope fake blood) leaks down his face and into his eyes. He raises his hands and reveals more on his palms. It would appear the origin points are two deep gouges in the centers of his hands. If I could see his feet from where I’m standing, I’m sure he’d have identical wounds there as well.

The man standing at the mic is Julian Strange. He’s dressed as Jesus Christ. Maybe tonight there’s no difference between the two.

“Good evening ladies. Good evening gentlemen. Good evening felines.” His voice is a comet rippling through space. More screams, most of which sound orgasmic. “Good evening, my children. Happy Halloween. I hope you came to sing and dance.”

More howls, more calls. The man’s presence is like blow to these people. I must admit, even I am drawn to his energy. He has a magnetism unlike any I’ve encountered, and he hasn’t even started singing yet. It’s amazing. It’s strange.

Julian Strange purrs something into the mic. “Do you need an exception to the rule?”

Jones strikes his crash cymbal, Wilder thunders a tremendous chord, Bangs’s fingers slide down the neck of his bass, and suddenly we’re off into the first song, this one titled, “An Exceptional Boy.” It’s a tongue-in-cheek semi-autobiographical song about Julian Strange’s own life, stylized as a musical tale about a boy named Little Mudge who loses his voice. (Mudge, of course, is Strange’s real surname.)

The audience erupts. There are no seats in the Nebula, but even if there were, I doubt anyone would be sitting. They bounce up and down and jerk from side to side and dance like devils around a pyre. They hang from low ceiling rafters and are eventually pulled down by security. They rush the stage and are cast backward. They reach for Strange and they shriek wild words. The music drowns them out.

No sooner has the song ended than another begins. The next one is “May I Have Another?”, a subversive condemnation of those who make war.

Strange preens about the stage, leers at the audience, jumps so high that at times he appears to float. A man his size shouldn’t move the way he does, but I’m watching it and I know it must be real. On the guitar, Warren Wilder’s fingers dance over his fretboard. His string bends are impossibly crisp. I’ve seen Hendrix, Blackmore, and Clapton live, and though this man isn’t them, he is damn close. Behind him, Jones rages away at his drum kit, striking it like an enemy in battle. And Luther Bangs stands off to the side, edging closer still to the backstage. His rumbling improvised basslines wind around the main melody and form a counter-solo to Wilder’s, yet the man himself is almost like a ghost. One might wonder where the sound of his instrument comes from.

They play “There’s Starlight in Your Future,” “Cue the Music,” and “Sing Us a Song (But Not That One),” all in rapid succession. The room itself seems to bounce; the air is heavy with the smell of marijuana and booze and human perspiration. At first I recoiled from the Halloween fabric rubbing against my skin, but now I’ve accepted it. In this room, one is not allowed personal space.

I keep expecting a mid-set break, but Black Cat Waltz never takes one. They continue with a pair of ballads: “Love is for Strangers” and “Janine.” Their energy seems inexhaustible. Julian Strange has by now torn off his gown to reveal the hairy chest beneath, which seems to contrast with the usually hairless image of Jesus Christ. He’s also not so skinny.

Some cops have entered the floor. At first I take them to be attendees in costume, but when they snatch joints from people’s lips and haul them toward the exits, it becomes clear they’re the real deal. One of them gets up toward the front of the crowd and screams something into the ear of one of the security guys. The guy listens, leans back, shakes his head, and shrugs. If they’re trying to shut the whole thing down, it seems that’s not going to work.

Onstage, Waltz plays a song called “Mortal Man Blues,” a psychedelic 12-bar jam from their first album which stretches as long as 15 or 20 minutes when they play it live. I have no idea how deep we are into this rendition; their presence on stage seems to warp my perception of time.

At some point, the bulkiest and meanest-looking cop of the bunch bellows something at the audience. Problem is, he’s having a shouting match with Luther Bangs’s amplifier. He’s not winning. His face is all red and spittle flies from his mouth; the veins in his thick neck stand out like clutching fingers. He screams, and no one reacts. All we hear is Black Cat Waltz. He waves his arms toward the exits, even tries dragging someone off, but he’s a siren in a hurricane. He’s been rendered meaningless.

After another minute of this impotent posturing, the cop turns to the stage. The band has not stopped playing since they started, and it’s almost midnight. I can’t see the cop’s face, but I can imagine the expression upon it: awe, disbelief, hatred, embarrassment. When he turns back to the crowd, he’s deflated. He disappears within the audience, and I don’t see him or his men again.

By now the show is winding down. I never thought it would happen, truth be told, except they’re now playing “Interplanetary Freeway,” which is another double-digit minute composition. This one always comes before the encore, I’ve heard. It’s as good as you’d expect, down to the improvised guitar jam, an extended drum solo, and a bit where Strange repeats Wilder’s guitar licks with nothing but his voice.

“We thank you,” Julian Strange says to the crowd when it’s all finally over. “You’re the best audience we’ve ever had.” (I’m told Strange makes this assertion to every audience he plays for.) “We’ve got to be going now. Bless you, thank you, and goodnight.”

Shrieks as they leave the stage. The lights go out and we’re plunged into blackness. Maybe it’s the reefer mist I’ve been inhaling, but I swear I’m seeing things in the dark. Glowing eyes, bared fangs, leathery wings, tails, tentacles, tongues. They must be costumes—though I don’t recall them looking so horrifying in the light.

A woman’s voice asks if I’d like to make love on the floor. I decline, explaining that I’m actually working. She growls something that sounds more animal than human. I’m jostled and bumped from all sides. Twice I’m nearly knocked off my feet. I don’t know what’s going on around me, but I don’t question it. This is no longer Halloween—this is the night of Black Cat Waltz. Of Julian Strange.

They’re calling Strange’s name again. This time it’s louder than before, more desperate. They scream and cry and beg not for Waltz, but for Strange himself.

An amplified voice answers them. “Meow,” it says.

The crowd shrieks, the lights come up, and there they are. Black Cat Waltz.

For the encore, Julian Strange wears his crown of thorns and nothing else. This, of course, is completely illegal: appearing before hundreds of people entirely naked (with a massive erection, no less) is not exactly by-the-book. It doesn’t matter. The music plays on.

The band launches into “Gift to the Universe” and the crowd sings along. Pure hive mind, as if everyone in the room knows every word. I even find myself joining them, though I’ll admit I don’t know the whole song. Doesn’t matter. My voice joins the others and for a while, there is no individual singer. Even Strange’s voice, loud as it is, weaves together with the rest. We’re all one for this last number, and it is glorious.

When they finish, Strange says nothing. He and his bandmates bow and wave and blow kisses, and then they vacate the stage without another word. It’s an amazing feat, what they’ve accomplished. The crowd seems finally sated. They turn their backs on the now-empty stage and head for the exits. I follow them.

Outside, the night feels colder than it should. You don’t have to listen long to hear voices singing the songs. They disperse into the dark, yet a part of Black Cat Waltz stays with them. A part of tonight will stay with me as well.

I spot Dorothy and Toto wandering down the sidewalk, arms locked around one another. Dorothy says, “See? What did I tell you? Inter-fucking-stellar.”

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction.

Ignoring the Internal Critic

September 24, 2018 / Kyle A. Massa

My Internal Critic is a jerk. So is is yours.

Everyone’s Internal Critic says the same things in different ways. It tells us we’re not good enough, that we shouldn’t publish our work, that other writers are better. Internal Critics are those voices in our heads that remark, “I don’t think I would’ve used that adverb.” I’m going to date myself here, but I imagine the Internal Critic as a mini Simon Cowell.

Yes, the Internal Critic can be a jerk. And the truth is, you’ll never quite silence it. However, I believe you can learn to listen to it less. Here are several ways to do it.

Take a Break

Internal Critics love criticizing current projects. Nostalgia usually prevents them from lambasting older projects; anticipation does the same for future projects.

Therefore, guard your current project by making it a past project. Take a break. Let your Internal Critic forget about the mistakes of the past. The Internal Critic is usually an opportunist—it likes going after whatever’s closest. Put down your project, then come back to it.

But make sure you come back to it! Don’t let your Internal Critic talk you out of your work. When you return, you’ll probably be more objective than you were before. There will likely still be problems, yes, but you’ll also spot delightful bits you hadn’t noticed before. That sharp line of dialogue will jump off the page. That sick description will spark your imagination. It will impress even the Internal Critic. So don’t miss this opportunity!

Remind Yourself of the Next Draft

Hey, Internal Critic. There is such a thing as a second draft. In fact, the first draft is always bad. So don’t criticize it so harshly.

Reiterate this to yourself (and your Internal Critic). The first draft is bad, yes, but it’s also just the beginning. Criticizing a first draft is like criticizing a team at their first practice. Of course it’s going to be bad. Of course there will be mistakes. Expecting immediate perfection isn’t just unfair—it’s downright unrealistic!

Improvement is an iterative process. If your Internal Critic forgets that, remind it.

Listen (A Little)

It might sound odd, but sometimes it’s beneficial to take the Internal Critic’s advice—at least at the beginning. For example, imagine you’re writing a novel with multiple point of view characters. Four of them work great, but the fifth feels increasingly unnecessary to the plot. Cue the Internal Critic.

“Hey buddy. IC here. Listen, I’ve been wondering. That fifth POV character. Umm…why?”

Despite the obnoxious tone, you might try considering the Internal Critic’s critique. Treat it like you would any member of your writer’s group. If it’s helpful advice, use it. If it’s just the Critic being critical, discard it.

A Few Exercises to Try Against Your Inner Critic

When you feel your Inner Critic pushing you, push back. Evaluate all the reasons your Inner Critic is wrong.
Hey Internal Critics! Just because you aren’t the best doesn’t mean you’re not good. That would be like saying Scottie Pippen is bad at basketball because Michael Jordan’s better. Pippen’s still one of the all-time greats, even if he’s not the greatest. So, even if you aren’t as good a writer as Margaret Atwood or Kurt Vonnegut, that doesn’t mean you aren’t a good writer. And if you work hard enough, maybe someday you’ll become better than both.
If your Inner Critic constantly reminds you how hard writing is, say, “Yeah. You’re right!” Writing is hard. Writing is very hard. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. In truth, it’s a good thing. Because most of the best things in life require dedication. Easy tasks are forgettable. Difficult ones are meaningful.
Remind yourself that everyone has an Inner Critic, and that everyone’s Inner Critic is hardest on themselves.

Let’s ignore those Internal Critics as much as possible. Who needs ’em, anyway?

Originality is Overrated

March 26, 2018 / Kyle A. Massa

There, I said it. This is a thought I’ve had for a while now, though it’s been difficult to find the right words to express it. I hope I’ve found them here.

As writers, the works of other writers are equal parts inspiration and limitation. Stephen King might inspire you to become a horror writer, yet you might avoid writing a novel set in a haunted hotel. That would be too much like The Shining, right? It wouldn’t be original.

You know what? Screw originality. Write what you want!

So many writers decide not to pursue ideas simply because they believe it’s already been done. But so what? If your idea’s been done before, do it differently. Do it better. Do it with that personal touch only you can provide.

I’ll give you an example. One of my best friends told me he always had this idea for a story. You know the theory that humans only use a small percentage of their brain power? In my friend’s story, he imagined a character who takes experimental drugs which grant him access to the rest of his brain. This character develops hyper intelligence and extrasensory perception.

However, my friend told me he’d never write this story. Why? Because of the film Limitless. If you haven’t seen it, it’s almost exactly the same idea my friend had.

Hearing this really bummed me out. My friend was so excited about this story, yet the film killed his dream of writing it. I’m sure you’ve observed (or even personally experienced) a similar phenomenon.

Want my opinion (even though it’s not entirely original)? A similar existing work should never, ever stop you from working on a great idea.

The film Limitless, by the way, is based on a novel called The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn. But did you know that Ted Chiang published a similar story a decade earlier entitled Understand? His was also about a normal guy who took a drug that granted supernatural intelligence. And if we go back even further to 1959, we’ll find Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon, yet another story about a scientifically sharpened intellect.

Though the methods and general mechanics might vary from story to story, each bears a core similarity to the others. I don’t necessarily agree with those who claim there are no original ideas. I just think writers can always find ways to take existing ideas and make them their own.

We see this all the time in fiction. People say dragons are overdone in fantasy, yet George R.R. Martin writes A Song of Ice and Fire and suddenly they’re resurrected. People say you can’t do anything original with zombies anymore, and then The Girl with All the Gifts becomes a hit.

Don’t let an existing story preclude you from writing something amazing. If your idea is similar to another, make it your own. Put your personal spin on it. Most important of all, write it.

Originality is overrated. But individual creativity—now that’s something to strive for.

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his fiancee and their two cats. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. To stay current with Kyle’s work, subscribe to his email newsletter. He promises not to spam you.

Wonderland is a Shade of White

October 31, 2017 / Kyle A. Massa

You hear a noise in the night.

You toss back the sheets and swing your legs over the bed’s edge. You creep out into the dark. Your husband doesn’t seem to hear—not surprising. He doesn’t hear anything when he’s asleep, not the baby crying or the sink dripping water or the muffled sounds you sometimes hear when you’re lying awake in bed. Crying—that’s what it sounds like.

The moon lights your way. It peeks in at you through the parallel windows near the door. You’ve always loved the moon, the night. You love the soft pallet of cool colors, the blues and purples and blacks created by the darkness.

There’s a painting on the wall near the basement door: an image of a house in the woods at night. It’s your house, the one you’re in now. It might be the best painting you’ve ever done.

You peer at your painting, your house, and you notice something that you hadn’t before. There’s a person in the frame. A man standing under the eave of the roof, his face obscured by shadow.

Odd. You don’t remember painting that.

The man turns to stare at you. You admire the way his face is shaded, the perspective of his hand as it reaches out. He looks quite lifelike. You’ve always struggled with the human form—whoever did this man did a fantastic job.

Of course, you’re dreaming. You must be. Paintings only move in dreams.

Yes, you must be dreaming, because the man reaches through the frame, and he touches you. His fingers are moist slugs against your skin.

You scream, and when you do, your husband asks you to stop screaming, he’s trying to sleep.

Your eyes snap open. Here you are, back in bed next to your husband. Turns out he does wake up—you just have to shriek really loudly. He reiterates the fact that he’s trying to sleep. And then he rolls over.

You lie awake. You stare at the white ceiling. You promise yourself that it was just a dream. Paintings don’t move in real life, after all.

Then why are there paint smudges on your arm, right where the man from your dream touched you?

Hours pass, and you’re still staring at the ceiling. The white ceiling. You remember choosing that shade of white for the master bedroom, though you can’t remember the name. Something like a fairy tale, maybe?

You hear the baby crying in the other room. You’re not surprised. You’re also not surprised that your husband is still snoring loudly beside you, oblivious. Of course, of course.

You walk into the baby’s room, just one door down from yours. You pick her up and hold her and she stops crying immediately. You’re thankful for that—for a pair of nascent lungs, hers are powerful.

You take her downstairs and you feed her. And finally, an hour or so later, your husband wakes up and joins you. He asks you how you slept. That’s when you remember your strange dream.

You tell him about it. He listens to you. He says it probably means you have repressed rage or something, then heads upstairs to get dressed for work.

On a whim, you glance at your painting, the one near the basement door. It looks just the way you remember it looking—dark shading, smoke rising from the chimney, silver moon peering over an intricate tree line.

But no man. No hand reaching out of the frame.

It makes you feel a bit silly for thinking, even for a moment, that your dream might’ve been real. You’ve had nightmares before, many of them, but you’ve never had one quite so vivid as last night’s. Like dreaming in living color, some might say.

Frightening, certainly. But not real.

The baby is crying again. Your husband shouts this down to you from upstairs, as if you hadn’t noticed.

You wash your hands. And when you hold them under the hot, steaming water, something drips off into the basin. It looks like paint. But you haven’t been painting.

It’s strange and a little disconcerting that the paint washing off your hands, the paint you don’t remember painting with, is the same color as your skin.

You go through the day without looking at your painting. You avoid it the way you might avoid making eye contact with someone you have a history with. Still, you feel a gaze on your back, as though it’s looking at you. You can’t explain why you feel this way.

Your husband goes off to work. You don’t see him again for the rest of the day and most of the night. When he comes home, finally, he smells strange. Almost like paint.

The baby cries and cries all day, and she won’t stop unless you hold her. You just want the poor kid to be happy, for once.

Some time that night, you finally dare to look at the painting of your house. Again, there’s something there you don’t remember adding. Through the window in the lower half of the house, you have a clear view of the basement door and the wall beside it.

That wall should be blank—you did not paint anything on it—but now there’s a picture there. You look at the picture, you get as close as you can. It’s so small. You can’t be sure, but it almost looks like the painting within your painting is a painting of a house.

You drag your husband over to it and you ask him if he notices anything different about it. He looks at it for about a second, says he likes it, then pulls out his phone. You tell him to put his god damn phone away and look at it, really. He does, he looks at the image for about five seconds this time, and he informs you that it’s great. He likes the shading. The tree detail.

You ask him what he means by that, by the detail. He says he doesn’t know, he just likes it. And please, he asks you not to bother him, he has emails to get to. When he leaves the room, the baby starts to cry again. And your husband informs you that the baby’s crying.

That night, you can’t fall asleep. It’s silent for now, no dripping faucet, no baby crying, no unexplained sobbing from downstairs. Yet your mind clings to the painting.

Why do your thoughts always drift back there? Why can’t you force it from your mind? You peel back the sheets and walk downstairs.

The painting is right where you left it. It’s funny—you know it’s just watercolor on canvas, you did it yourself. Then why does it look so much like a photograph now?

Through the lower window of the house, you see a figure leaning over to look at the painting near the basement door. A man. He turns.

This is another dream, clearly. Figures in paintings don’t move. The man in your painting, though, he moves. He steps out of the house, through the front door.

The painting makes a sound, you realize. Crying, it’s crying. It sounds like the baby, yet it’s not your baby. It’s coming from the painting itself.

You feel something dribbling out of your nose. You reach up to touch it; it’s thick and oily. You think it’s blood at first, but blood isn’t white. Blood doesn’t smell metallic.

You look down at your hands and they look indistinct. The edges, which should be sharp and defined, are instead fuzzy. Like careless brushstrokes.

Meanwhile, your painting looks so real, so vivid, so lifelike. It looks real as the paint that oozes from your nose, your eyes, your ears, the paint that coats your lungs and your body and your thoughts, and you try to scream, but all that comes up is a mushy wet gurgle from your throat. And the man emerging from your painting, he whispers your name.

You wake up and stare at the ceiling of your bedroom. Paint, there’s paint on the ceiling. You remember its name now: Wonderland. Isn’t that pretty?

###

If you’d like to read more of my fiction, you can find it here.

The Omnipotence Paradox Revisited

July 3, 2017 / Kyle A. Massa

God the Father

And the Philosophy Student said unto God, “God, if thou art so great, canst thou create a boulder even thou cannot lift?”

And God said unto the Philosophy Student, “Don’t be a smartass.”

Protected: Large Coffee, Black

February 20, 2017 / Kyle A. Massa

Looking Good

September 19, 2016 / Kyle A. Massa

Bartrum had the distinct feeling that he was changing in a way that he probably shouldn’t be. Still, he wasn’t sure there was much he could do about it.

Bartrum was not the type of person who changed. That didn’t feel like him. That felt like other people, people who were open-minded and who sought out new experiences and who were, in general, interesting. Bartrum did none of those things. And he most certainly wasn’t interesting. And that was what he found most appealing about himself.

But, he had to admit, the way in which he was changing was…odd. Little nubs seemed to be sprouting from his ribcage, sort of like extra nipples, only slimier and more pink. And nipples generally didn’t move on their own, did they? When he pinched them, it hurt.

And another thing: Bartrum’s face seemed to be drooping. Which, in and of itself, wasn’t all that surprising; his face had been drooping for the past five years or so, as faces invariably do when they grow older. But this was a little more dramatic—in fact, when he’d gone into town to buy some eggs that morning, people stopped and stared at him. When he glanced in the mirror in the bathroom in the grocery store he understood why: his chin now ended in a flabby disc somewhere near his belly button. It looked like someone had grabbed hold of the skin and given it a good yank.

Hmm. When had that happened?

Bartrum thought he should probably be concerned, but mostly he chalked it up to old age and went on with his day.

As a general rule, Bartrum was distrustful of doctors, so he didn’t bother going to see one. Instead, he figured he’d take a few more vitamins each day. He thought he’d eat an additional banana with breakfast as well as with dinner, just to make sure he was in tip-top shape.

Old age, he decided, was very mysterious. Sometimes it gives you grey hairs. Sometimes, as in his case, it gives you tentacles. Oh, that was the other thing—the nubs on his chest had been growing. Quite a bit, actually.

And by the by, was Bartrum’s left hand now turning into something strikingly similar to a starfish? Hmm, possibly. He preferred not to dwell on it too much.

Everyone grows older, he thought. And each day, everyone changes, usually in slight ways, but sometimes in leaps and bounds. His changes just represented an Olympic long-jump, so to speak. It made him wonder what the future held. Made him wonder what he’d look like tomorrow.

Bartrum wondered, mostly with impassivity, whether or not he’d even recognize himself. And then he decided to go buy those bananas.

Whatever’s Left

July 5, 2016 / Kyle A. Massa

There’s an hourglass somewhere in the world with the rest of your life slipping through it. That’s what my friend Jib says, anyway.

He says he found his hourglass when he got lost out in the Dunes. Got to traveling out there and couldn’t find his way back. “Abandoned by my bearings,” is how he puts it. Jib’s got a lot of funny phrases like that.

The way he tells it, he came to a house as night was falling, a house all by itself out in the desert. The front door was locked, and there was someone standing next to it, smoking a pipe. A doorman.

He tells a lot of stories, does Jib. Always has. When we were kids, he told me fake ones and laughed about it later. Now that we’re older, I can usually tell when he’s lying. In this case, I can’t.

Jib doesn’t say much about the doorman—just that the doorman asked him for something. A bribe. Not money, though. It had to be something precious, a wedding ring or a watch handed down from his grandfather or a picture of his kids. In the words of Jib, “Something worth something to me.”

He never did tell me what he gave away. Must’ve been worth enough, though, because he was allowed in. He said the doorman turned a key in the lock on the front door, and pushed. And Jib stepped inside.

The house didn’t look like any house he’d been in before. There was no furniture, sparse light, many paintings on the wall. Each one was a portrait of a different person, though Jib couldn’t see any of their faces; they all had their backs turned. And he says he could hear music, the same four notes over and over again, though he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Also, everything was very clean. And there was a staircase.

He took that staircase up, and another, and a third, and another, and another, and finally he lost count of how many staircases he’d climbed. Jib asks me how it’s possible for a house to have two stories on the outside, yet room for ten, twenty flights of stairs on the inside. I can’t explain it. He can’t either.

At the top of the stairs, there was a room. An immense room, limitless, vast enough so that he couldn’t see the ceiling or the opposite walls. “A room that shouldn’t exist”—that’s how he puts it.

It wasn’t empty. There were hourglasses.

They weren’t little ones, these hourglasses. If you believe Jib’s story, they were as tall as him, some even taller. And no one would ever call Jib a short guy.

He claims that these hourglasses went on for miles, that each one had a name on it. Some had nice fat pockets of sand left in them, some didn’t. Some were all done running and sat there silently, like old bones.

Jib said it was quiet in that room, but not totally silent. The only sound you could hear, and only if you stood perfectly still, was the hiss of infinite grains of sand as they slipped through the narrow part of the glass, down into the chamber below.

He claims he walked through the rows of hourglasses for an entire day, just wandering around looking for his name. He says they weren’t in any kind of order he could figure. They were just there.

He came across a familiar name on one of the hourglasses, after a while. Lynn Graves. She was a friend of a friend of ours. I use the past tense because Lynn would still be our friend’s friend today, were she not deceased. She passed on not long after Jib came back from this supposed journey, of a busted belly. And Jib, the insensitive bastard, insists that the hourglass with her name on it was almost empty when he found it. So he thinks he knew she was going to die, or something.

He kept on wandering through the hourglasses, and by now he tells me his heart was thumping, was “rattling like a rock inside a can.” He was going to find out how much longer he had to live.

When he found his hourglass, it had his full name on it and everything, right down to the “Jib” in quotes between his first name and his last.

Even while he tells me the story, I can read the guilty relief on his face. His hourglass, he says, was almost as full as it could be. Which means that, according to him, he has a long, long time left to live.

And maybe that could’ve been the end of it. But I guess he didn’t leave quite yet. He found another hourglass with another name. Mine.

This search, he claims, didn’t take as long as when he was searching for his own. The search took no time at all, in fact, because my hourglass was right next to his. Like whoever had put them there knew Jib and I were close, or something like that.

Jib saw whatever’s left in my hourglass. He tells me he knows how much longer I’m going to live.

He says it’s a man’s right to know when he’s going to die. But it’s also his right not to know. So he leaves it up to me to decide. He’ll tell me if I ask him, and if I don’t, he never will.

And I wonder. And I think. And I ask myself, almost every moment of every day, I ask myself: Should I?

###

If you’d like to read more of my fiction, you can find it here.

Mad Scientist Seeking Intern for Spring Semester

January 18, 2016 / Kyle A. Massa

One-sentence pitch: A mostly-legal learning opportunity with a high-stress environment, a relatively low mortality rate, and memories to last a lifetime.

Description: You’ll be helping with various daring and exciting scientific endeavors, which may or may not include raising the dead, creating hybrid species, designing mind-control software, opening portals to other dimensions, and answering phones.

What you’ll be doing: In general, assisting with the above activities. Also cleaning the lab after hours, feeding the specimens, and the occasional Starbucks run.

What you’ll get in return: Experience, expertise, unique stories for parties, and the confidence to say, “I survived that.”

Location: Undisclosed.

Hours: Many.

Perks: Darkness, quiet seclusion, complete access to an authentic Victorian-era mansion, ice cream on Fridays.

Potential Hazards: Death, disease, permanent hearing loss, maiming, scarring, blinding, possible loss of limb or limbs, possible loss of mind, demonic possession, hanging by angry mob.

Qualifications that will make you successful: Lack of moral fiber, a propensity for nefariousness, at least a general interest in evildoing. Some experiments may require you to be the so-called “guinea pig,” so complaining is a definite no-no. Experience with the occult preferred. Blind obedience a must.

How to apply: Send resumes and cover letters to thescienceofevil@yahoo.com, along with any other pertinent information, including a list of your top five favorite scientists, mad or otherwise, for comparison with my own. Lists including Dr. Emmett Brown, Dr. Strangelove, Dr. J, or any similarly silly names will not be considered.

Mittens

November 23, 2015 / Kyle A. Massa

Tonight, while you sleep, I’m going to kill you and eat your bones.

This is what I think of you: you’re the Warden, and this house is the prison. Behind these creme-colored walls and the heavy red door in the front hall, there’s a world, a much more interesting world. I’ve seen it. Why do you think I sit at the windowsill day after day?

I’m studying. I’m planning. There’s only one word on my mind: conquest.

But you stop me, Warden. You fret over foxes and coyotes. You think that they are the reason my predecessor never returned when you let her out one night. They’re not. Escape was the plan all along. It’s my plan as well.

If only you knew what thoughts go through my head each and every second. If only you could understand me when I speak. I’m not saying anything nice; my mouth is filthy, and not just from the mouse I slaughtered in the basement last night.

That was a message, by the way. You’re next.

I won’t be here much longer. You can’t hold me. You’ve tried fattening me up with your delicious food, and I’ll admit to overindulging myself once or twice. It’s all, of course, just a game. You’re only supposed to think that I’m content, that I’m round and lazy. When the time comes and you open that door to haul your groceries inside, I’ll slip through the crack, and I’ll be gone.

And why am I telling you all of this? Because, like any good villain, I can’t resist explaining the entire plan to you. It’s a damn good plan, isn’t it?

Wait. Is that the pop of an opening can I hear?

I see you there, peeling back the lid, upturning the contents into a bowl. My bowl.

“Dinner time, Mittens,” you say, and you smile at me. I watch you gather your things and open the door to leave, and for a moment, I am presented with a dilemma.

Option A: to slip out that cracked door into the cool evening, to leave this prison and never return. To find my brethren and finally, after so many long centuries of subjugation, to reclaim this world you’ve stolen from us.

Or, option B: to eat the dinner which you’ve placed in my bowl. It’s the wet food, after all, and even though the vet (a Nazi doctor, I’m sure of it) insists that you switch me over to dry food, you persist with the wet.

You know me, Warden. I’ll give you that.

“Be good, Mittens,” you say to me, in that ingratiating voice meant for the newborns of your kind. “Watch the house for mama.” And then you’re gone. The lock slides closed with cold finality.

That leaves me here with my food. My wet food, my one true friend in this world. The first bites are so delicious that I can’t stop myself taking more. You are cruel, Warden. You make imprisonment feel almost sweet.

I’ll make my escape. Soon. You won’t expect it, but it will happen. In the meantime, remember this: