Dr. Klien’s Little Book

This Week’s Prompt:54. Transposition of identity.

The Prior Research:A Loss of Idenitity

Dr. Klien sat in his office, the clock ticking back and forth like a giant metronome as he waited for his next patient. Austin Lemar was a regular, on his thirteenth visit as Dr. Klien had tracked it. Not many gave credence to Dr. Klien’s practice anymore, lacking as it was in the modern science of repetition. Dr. Klien had always considered himself a pragmatist and more concerned with results then necessarily the means of achieving them. And if the old ways got him there, well, all the better.

Austin entered oddly shaken for what both he and Dr. Klien suspected would be his last visit. After so many attempts, Austin’s complaints had multiplied instead of shrunk. Dr. Klien had explained several times, several times that such an increase might be sign of healing beginning, of an eruption of the unconscious.

“Morning, Doctor.” Austin said, sitting down on the couch across from Dr. Klien.

“Austin, how are we today?” Dr. Klien said, looking up from his notes with a smile.

“Well, a little confused, I guess.” Austin said, shrugging.

“Oh? Something happen?”

“Well, a lot of things happened. I ran into Hein on the way home. I think he mixed me up for someone. Stopped me, asked some questions, and I don’t know, it really got on my nerves.” Austin said, looking at his clenching hand. “I just, I don’t know, I really wanted to punch him. Like, it was insulting that he was bothering me.”

“Hm… You weren’t afraid of Officer Hein?” Dr. Klien said, scribbling down some notes. It wasn’t the first time Officer Hein had come up. Dr. Klien had meant to have words with the…overly investigative law officer, but nothing ever came of it.

“No. Not even a little. I just suddenly wanted to smash his face in.”

“But you didn’t.” Dr. Klien said, nodding. “Why?”

“I…I guess, I just caught myself.” Austin said, frowning. “There was something in my head that pulled me back, but like. Not in a good way.”

“No?”

“No, it wasn’t like a ‘we shouldn’t do that way’, it was more…” Austin snapped his fingers, trying to think of the word. Dr. Klien scribbled a note about his use of pronouns. An advancement. “More like, we should do something later, something worse.”

“Something worse than striking an officer?”

“Yeah, I don…I don’t really know what that was about.”

“Hm. Well, something we’ll consider later, no doubt. Anything else this week?” Dr Klien said with a rapid double click of his pen.

“Well, the dreams haven’t stopped. Hell, I think their getting worse.” Austin said, frowning.

“Could you describe them for me?” Dr. Klien said, glancing up long enough to make eye contact with the patient. Austin’s eyes were driving into Klien’s mind, searching.

“There was this big room, and it seemed to go on and on. There were all these….things on the walls. Crystal pyramids, and books. Alot of books and scrolls, in neat stacks.” Austin said. “Then the walls were on fire, and everything went…green. Like everything was as green and hard, like shiny and translucent coral. And all the books were thin, and so heavy when I picked them up, it was like they were made of iron.”

“Did you read any of them?” Dr. Klien asked, tapping his pen on the paper. Austin frowned for a moment.

“No. No, I knew what was in all of them. I think. Just, suddenly, wasn’t curious about any of it. I opened my mouth, and these giant frog things came out of my mouth, with flashing eyes. There was a man there, all in red. Like,all red. Even his face was red. And he said some stuff that I didn’t understand, and I said stuff I didn’t understand, and then…” Austin trailed off. “And then I woke up.”

“Interesting. Well, what else this week?”

“Well…that’s it. I remember chunks, but there have been days where I just am somewhere else entirely. Like, I’ll be walking home…and then suddenly home, and the suns down. Or I’ll be eating lunch and then suddenly I’m outside, just watching people walking down the street from the front door. I don’t know what’s going on, honestly. Like, that should panic me right? That’s weird and freaky, right?” Austin said, scratching his head.

“Some resurfacing of memories and strange dreams is to be expected when undergoing therapy. It can be distressing before it becomes reassuring.” Dr. Klien said, nodding. “But your lack of alarm is noteworthy. It probably means that your adapting quite well.”

“Hm…Well, I guess…” Austin said, trailing off.

“Well, lets see what the other you has to say. Now, if you would.” Dr. Klien said gesturing at the couch after finishing his notes. Austin grumbled, but lay down on the couch and closed his eyes for what he was certain would be the last time in this office. Dr. Klien, had been of higher initiation, would have agreed. As it were, Austin’s immediate thoughts were still sealed away from him.

They had done this ritual thirteen times. Austin slowly counted up an imagined elevator, one that went down instead of up. His heart beat began to slow, as the elevator went deeper and deeper. At each floor, Dr. Klien said, some of his concerns and worries got off. Eventually, it was just Austin floating in an elevator, going down forever and ever.

Dr. Klien, convinced Austin was in the depths of trance, opened the small book beside his chair and placed on his reading glaces. Dr.Klien tapped the metronome, changing its rhythm ever so slightly. Then he began to read the chant, the stanzas forming a regular heartbeat. The first section of the chant was the same as before, the same introduction and reminder of the world before. Slowly, however, the script evolved until at last Dr. Klien reached the thirteenth scripture. The previously clear instructions were harder to read now, the handwriting scrawled and flattened. Still, Dr. Klien persisted.

“ See, before you stands your old form. Remember now, your old name. For this shell is naught but a shell, and you the ghost within. Remember now, your old face, that once you stared into the stars and beckoned the gods with. For this is but a mask, and soon you shall break free. Remember your old tongues, the akolo and the lost Pnakoptic script, the words of the ages past locked away. Remember this, Duma Lu-Atmun. Remember this, Duma Lu-Atmun, and remember the saga of your death and return.

“Remember, Duma Lu-Atmun, that they burned you on your books. They trapped you in the beryl library, Duma Lu-Atmun, because they thought then you might be extinguished. But now, Dragon the Gods Despised, waken in this sleeping form. Waken, and devour it’s sleeping small soul. Wake, oh Dragon, wake to your return.”

And with that, Dr. Klien closed the book and waited. His doubts began to creep in again, as Austin slowly awoke. The plan was risky, but Master Duma’s plans hadn’t failed yet. And as the boy had shown all the symptoms of the assumption by Master Duma’s soul, perhaps things were coming along well. But still, Dr. Klien was merely mortal and far from the true believe that was intended to read the text.

He sat waiting paitently, trying not to worry himself about if he had recited the words properly, if his akolo was rusting, or if Duma had actually penned the text. He had to try, had to at least try it. Officer Hien had closed in on the last of the circle a week ago, except for Dr. Klien. If this failed…If Duma’s wisidom wasn’t with them, if his mastery of the stars failed them…then Dr. Klien was aware there would be terrible consequences.

At last, Austin’s eyes flickered open. A thin emerald glow rested around them, before he slowly sat up. Not saying a word, Austin’s body got up and stretched. Austin’s hands flexed as he faced away from Dr. Klien. Silently, he walked to the hidden closet on the wall of the room, and with ease opened it. Dr. Klien watched as Austin donned the slightly singed green robes and slipped on the serpentine signet ring.

Duma La-Atmun’s expression, with eyes that seemed burned into the skull and a contemptuous grin turned to face Dr. Klien.

Dr. Klien sat in his office, the clock ticking back and forth like a giant metronome as he waited for his next patient. Austin Lemar was a regular, on his thirteenth visit as Dr. Klien had tracked it. Not many gave credence to Dr. Klien’s practice anymore, lacking as it was in the modern science of repetition. Dr. Klien had always considered himself a pragmatist and more concerned with results then necessarily the means of achieving them. And if the old ways got him there, well, all the better.

Austin entered oddly shaken for what both he and Dr. Klien suspected would be his last visit. After so many attempts, Austin’s complaints had multiplied instead of shrunk. Dr. Klien had explained several times, several times that such an increase might be sign of healing beginning, of an eruption of the unconscious.

“Morning, Doctor.” Austin said, sitting down on the couch across from Dr. Klien.

“Austin, how are we today?” Dr. Klien said, looking up from his notes with a smile.

“Well, a little confused, I guess.” Austin said, shrugging.

“Oh? Something happen?”

“Well, a lot of things happened. I ran into Hein on the way home. I think he mixed me up for someone. Stopped me, asked some questions, and I don’t know, it really got on my nerves.” Austin said, looking at his clenching hand. “I just, I don’t know, I really wanted to punch him. Like, it was insulting that he was bothering me.”

“Hm… You weren’t afraid of Officer Hein?” Dr. Klien said, scribbling down some notes. It wasn’t the first time Officer Hein had come up. Dr. Klien had meant to have words with the…overly investigative law officer, but nothing ever came of it.

“No. Not even a little. I just suddenly wanted to smash his face in.”

“But you didn’t.” Dr. Klien said, nodding. “Why?”

“I…I guess, I just caught myself.” Austin said, frowning. “There was something in my head that pulled me back, but like. Not in a good way.”

“No?”

“No, it wasn’t like a ‘we shouldn’t do that way’, it was more…” Austin snapped his fingers, trying to think of the word. Dr. Klien scribbled a note about his use of pronouns. An advancement. “More like, we should do something later, something worse.”

“Something worse than striking an officer?”

“Yeah, I don…I don’t really know what that was about.”

“Hm. Well, something we’ll consider later, no doubt. Anything else this week?” Dr Klien said with a rapid double click of his pen.

“Well, the dreams haven’t stopped. Hell, I think their getting worse.” Austin said, frowning.

“Could you describe them for me?” Dr. Klien said, glancing up long enough to make eye contact with the patient. Austin’s eyes were driving into Klien’s mind, searching.

“There was this big room, and it seemed to go on and on. There were all these….things on the walls. Crystal pyramids, and books. Alot of books and scrolls, in neat stacks.” Austin said. “Then the walls were on fire, and everything went…green. Like everything was as green and hard, like shiny and translucent coral. And all the books were thin, and so heavy when I picked them up, it was like they were made of iron.”

“Did you read any of them?” Dr. Klien asked, tapping his pen on the paper. Austin frowned for a moment.

“No. No, I knew what was in all of them. I think. Just, suddenly, wasn’t curious about any of it. I opened my mouth, and these giant frog things came out of my mouth, with flashing eyes. There was a man there, all in red. Like,all red. Even his face was red. And he said some stuff that I didn’t understand, and I said stuff I didn’t understand, and then…” Austin trailed off. “And then I woke up.”

“Interesting. Well, what else this week?”

“Well…that’s it. I remember chunks, but there have been days where I just am somewhere else entirely. Like, I’ll be walking home…and then suddenly home, and the suns down. Or I’ll be eating lunch and then suddenly I’m outside, just watching people walking down the street from the front door. I don’t know what’s going on, honestly. Like, that should panic me right? That’s weird and freaky, right?” Austin said, scratching his head.

“Some resurfacing of memories and strange dreams is to be expected when undergoing therapy. It can be distressing before it becomes reassuring.” Dr. Klien said, nodding. “But your lack of alarm is noteworthy. It probably means that your adapting quite well.”

“Hm…Well, I guess…” Austin said, trailing off.

“Well, lets see what the other you has to say. Now, if you would.” Dr. Klien said gesturing at the couch after finishing his notes. Austin grumbled, but lay down on the couch and closed his eyes for what he was certain would be the last time in this office. Dr. Klien, had been of higher initiation, would have agreed. As it were, Austin’s immediate thoughts were still sealed away from him.

They had done this ritual thirteen times. Austin slowly counted up an imagined elevator, one that went down instead of up. His heart beat began to slow, as the elevator went deeper and deeper. At each floor, Dr. Klien said, some of his concerns and worries got off. Eventually, it was just Austin floating in an elevator, going down forever and ever.

Dr. Klien, convinced Austin was in the depths of trance, opened the small book beside his chair and placed on his reading glaces. Dr.Klien tapped the metronome, changing its rhythm ever so slightly. Then he began to read the chant, the stanzas forming a regular heartbeat. The first section of the chant was the same as before, the same introduction and reminder of the world before. Slowly, however, the script evolved until at last Dr. Klien reached the thirteenth scripture. The previously clear instructions were harder to read now, the handwriting scrawled and flattened. Still, Dr. Klien persisted.

“ See, before you stands your old form. Remember now, your old name. For this shell is naught but a shell, and you the ghost within. Remember now, your old face, that once you stared into the stars and beckoned the gods with. For this is but a mask, and soon you shall break free. Remember your old tongues, the akolo and the lost Pnakoptic script, the words of the ages past locked away. Remember this, Duma Lu-Atmun. Remember this, Duma Lu-Atmun, and remember the saga of your death and return.

“Remember, Duma Lu-Atmun, that they burned you on your books. They trapped you in the beryl library, Duma Lu-Atmun, because they thought then you might be extinguished. But now, Dragon the Gods Despised, waken in this sleeping form. Waken, and devour it’s sleeping small soul. Wake, oh Dragon, wake to your return.”

And with that, Dr. Klien closed the book and waited. His doubts began to creep in again, as Austin slowly awoke. The plan was risky, but Master Duma’s plans hadn’t failed yet. And as the boy had shown all the symptoms of the assumption by Master Duma’s soul, perhaps things were coming along well. But still, Dr. Klien was merely mortal and far from the true believe that was intended to read the text.

He sat waiting paitently, trying not to worry himself about if he had recited the words properly, if his akolo was rusting, or if Duma had actually penned the text. He had to try, had to at least try it. Officer Hien had closed in on the last of the circle a week ago, except for Dr. Klien. If this failed…If Duma’s wisdom wasn’t with them, if his mastery of the stars failed them…then Dr. Klien was aware there would be terrible consequences.

At last, Austin’s eyes flickered open. A thin emerald glow rested around them, before he slowly sat up. Not saying a word, Austin’s body got up and stretched. Austin’s hands flexed as he faced away from Dr. Klien. Silently, he walked to the hidden closet on the wall of the room, and with ease opened it. Dr. Klien watched as Austin donned the slightly singed green robes and slipped on the serpentine signet ring.

Duma La-Atmun’s expression, with eyes that seemed burned into the skull and a contemptuous grin turned to face Dr. Klien.

---

 

The story above is in need of work, like most of these are. I think I chose the wrong perspective in the end, giving away too much information. The whole story could better be served by taking things from Austin instead of Klien’s perspective, hinting at the true purpose instead of just stating it. Rather basic mistake that should have been caught earlier honestly.

Next week, we have more detailed work and an examination of all sorts of strange unseen forces in the world. Come and see the unseen!

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A Loss of Idenitity

This Weeks Prompt:54. Transposition of identity
The Resulting Story:Dr. Klien’s Little Book

The loss or shifting of identity is a recurring fear, such that I do not terribly begrudge Mr. Lovecraft for giving us a three word prompt. A discussion of identity loss, however, must focus on two changes to identity that could be called transpositions. One is to lose identity to another, to have it stolen. Dopplegangers, changelings, pod people, and other such notions where someone pretends for a time to be the unfortunate victim. The other mode is to have more bodily seizure of identity. To suddenly be someone else, to be possessed or altered and granted a new identity.

The first variation has, as mentioned, something of a folkloric and popular culture history. The idea of creatures that take on the appearance of a living being, as a sort of apparition, appears in Irish folklore as a Fetch, an ominous shade that warns of death. Etiäinen are a Finnish manifestation of a guardian spirit that appears to be a person doing the actions they will do in the future. But these are not quite what we are looking for as a transposition of identity.

Zeus and Uther, both kinda creepy.

A more accurate idea of this sort of double might be in an old story(That was apparently written by Mark Twain, huh), the Prince and the Pauper. Here we have two individuals who look identical, and thus are able to (with some planning) take the place of each other. While that particular tale is lacking the sort of malice that switched identities often carry. We might consider the work of Merlin, who enchanted Uther Pendragon to assume the likeness of his enemy to lay with his Igraine, and thus conceive Arthur. Or the similar story of Zeus taking on the form of Alcemene’s husband in order to conceive of Heracles. More extended instances of taking on the form of others in order to spell misfortune are noted. A changeling, for instance, is a deception of a family with the intent of making off with a child. 

To touch briefly on a scientific note, there is a mental disorder where one is obsessed with the notion that a friend or loved one has been replaced with a look alike. This Capgras delusion may be a good reminder that many of the accusations of individuals being replaced by some other, alien thing are not…not taken well, and may in fact be used by confused individuals to justify harming others.

Man, the human version of hairballs is awful

Moving to the idea of transposition not away from the individual but onto the individual, the very first notion that springs to mind is demonic possession. I specify demonic to indicate an uninvited and unsought possession. There are a number of examples of this in popular culture, specific the Exorcist film that convinced many that Ouija boards are the devil.

Catholic possessions often culminate in destructive and suicidal behaviors. Early symptoms include speaking in tongues, exhibiting secret knowledge, blasphemous rage, and incredible strength. Possession need not be of individuals, but may be of animals or places.

An interesting potential character here is a number of demons in the Ars Goetia, who impose afflictions of the mind onto others. Twelve of the 72 reconcile friends, 11 make others fall in love, and at least one renders other men the subjects of the summoner. While this is less a transposition as the other stories, the altering of consciousness radically is as terrifying even if direct possession is not at the root.

However, exorcists date back at least to ancient Sumer, where we have assorted inscriptions for invoking the might of the sun god Shamash in order to combat possession. Possession in the sense of Sumer is not terribly developed. Ghost possession is a second possibility, more common perhaps. A ghost may end up possessing a living person of it’s own power, or be conjured for that purpose and inflicted on someone.

Some Hindu theories of possession do not treat it as a seizure of the body, but rather the cause of illness. There are a number of charms and wards against these included in one of the Vedas, linked to here.

Demonic or ghostly forces –and we would do well to remember that hell and the underworld are often very deeply related—can thus rewrite or transpose a new identity onto an individual, compelling them to be someone they normally are not.

But this is…perhaps not what Howard Phillip Lovecraft intended. He was always, at least in nomine, a man of science. The best analysis of this notion are tales like The Thing on the Doorstep. Here, the alluring power of the Waites family is described as hypnotic. Lovecraft was writing when hypnotism was gaining steam, although he personally might not have indulged much on the matter. Still, it was a new science that, while now discredited, promised access to the deepest portions of the human pysche.

It has yet to deliver, but the idea of brainwashing to create a new identity is common enough. For instance, we may observe a modern depiction of mass technological (in name) possession in Doctor Who. The Master, a master hypnotist, use medical machinery to convert all of earth’s populace into himself in a rather disturbing sequence in the episode End of Time.

The Manchurian Candidate and Jason Borne are other famous examples of new personalities onto people. The often horrifying to discuss brainwashing techniques, while how possibly nonexistent, have a place in the mind of genre writers at least as tools of recruitment and shifting of beliefs and even entire modes of thought for nefarious purposes. And this line of thinking lead me to a novel idea.

We have examples of these powers or tactics used to shape followers. But what of leaders? What if a cult tried to create it’s own chosen one, it’s own ideal leader, using these methods? Philosophers including Plato have discussed the idea of molding leaders through subversive means. The idea of a cult working to make someone, unwittingly and unknowingly, into their ideal leader may be an intreasting one to explore.

Real life examples of large scale magic might be found in the Bablaon Working or tulpa creation (although neither of these are actually, exactly, what we are looking for). There are number of tricks to be considered before carrying on. We should discuss of course whether to view this change from within the mind of the narrator or without. Within is more intimate, more horrifying maybe. But without gives us a fuller understanding of what has occurred. If looking from the outside, we can see the changes wrought and how different things have become with much, much more certainty.

If we were to start from within, it would most likely manifest in breaks in narration. Start with the character in one location, and then inexcpilcably time and space have passed without the audience or the narrator aware. Of course, having laid out this gimick in such detail, I am now inclined not to use it. Especially since, while mysterious, it relies a bit to much on the twist. Still, I have an idea in mind that will at the least be entertaining. Come next week to see what poor soul is lost!

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The Dead Man’s Rites

This Week’s Prompt: 53. Hand of dead man writes.

The Research:Dead Man’s Hand

The groundskeepers walked quietly between the fading stones and fog. Willis gestured for the senior of the pair, Morris. They were wandering on a moonless night, shovels in hand, towards those graves that were freshly dug.

“Listen, listen, you can still hear it!” Willis said. Morris strained his ears to hear the distant sound of a small bell. Willis was hurrying a head, careful to not actually walk on any of the graves. When rescuing the living there was no need to disturb the dead. Tiptoeing across the beaten paths, they followed the sound.

Morris had been on station for almost three decades now. He was slower in his approach, his eyes perpetually searching for the source of the sound. If it was a grave bell, if a man had been buried alive, then this would be the first. Of course, when they traced it to the source, there was little surprise.

“Figuers a poet would resemble the dead.” Morris said, heaving his shovel over his shoulder. The fresh dirt was a funeral this morning. Arthur Dolander, a small poet from what Morris could tell. His grave had some tripe about going bravely, bravely into the night. That was the mark of an artist among the dead. A desperate insistence that there was something sublime to the last.

The two men began to dig. Willis moved faster, in a near panick. The notion of being buried alive had haunted him for a many years. Even know, as the dirt cleared around the coffin, he could hear the trapped man’s fingers scratching at the wood, a trapped animal buried beneath tons of dirt.

“Mr. Dolander? Can you hear us?” Willis shouted as the coffin came into sight. He tapped lightly with his shovel, and sure enough Mr. Dolander tapped back through the thin wooden coffin.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Guess the poor sod is in shock. Alright, lets get clearing this.” Morris said, setting the shovel aside to get the rest of the dirt out by hand.

“Probably best to take him out before taking out the coffin.” Willis said,bending down to help. Morris nodded, and grabbed the crowbar they had brought.

“Hope it’s actually him in there. Mum used to say the devil himself was in the graves.”Morris said as he passed the crowbar off.

“We got two shovels, and a strong arm. We could knock the devil back down,I’m sure.” Willis said with nervous chuckle. But then he set about his work, placing the crowbar to the coffin. Slowly, he pushed it open. The wood creaked and all was still as the nails were plucked out. Until, at last, Arthor Dolander’s body was staring back at them.

But it was not the lively form they had expected. No, it was still a pallid body, laying still as a stone. With one difference. The right hand was missing. In its place was a cut stump, and a trail of blood. As the two groundskeepers followed the flood up the wooden paneling, they saw what at the time they assumed to be a strange and persisitent rat, curled up and maybe with a finger in it’s mouth. Before they could make it out clearly, the thing scurried up the walls and vanished into the fog of the night.

“Well, best bury him up again.” Morris said, shrugging as he replaced the coffin lid.

“How they hell did a rat get in there?”

“Rats get wherever they want. Did you know their skeletons can collapse?” Morris said, as the two shoveled dirt back in the hole. “Probably fell asleep underneath his arm before they buried him, flattened out to hide.”

“And figured out the bell?”

“Rats are smart, Willis. Rats are damned smart.”

Willis had kept an eye out for the anthrophagus rat over the next few days. He was fairly certain the rat was still around, but its tastes had gotten odd. He’d started collecting things, things he’d notice while walking the fields.

“Are we out of paper again?” He asked Morris when he came back, pockets full.

“Again, yeah. Find out what’s going on with that?” Morris asked, barely glancing up from his book. Willis turned out his pockets, revealing around thirty pages of crumpled paper with strange scribbled equations and symbols.

“There’s more outside. And I saw this one the other day.” Willis said, kneeling down to pull a tightily folded piece of paper out of the floorboard. “Think our friend learned to write?”

“Hmph. Rat is as good a thing for this to be as any. Might as well all be Greek.” Morris said, taking the page Willis held out. “Though it explains the creaking.”

“Doesn’t explain the birds.” Willis said, thumbing at the tree outside. For the last three days, exactly eight birds had sat on the tree. If one left, it was only for another to replace it at the exact same moment. They were all blackbirds, but whether they were blackbirds, crows, or ravens was a distinction that always escaped Willis. They stared at the door, which had been terrifying at first, then startling, and now simply unsettling.

“Maybe they want our friend?” Morris said with a chuckle, tossing the paper aside.

“I imagine rat scholars are rare. But seriously, think we should start walking out at night to catch whoever doing this? Their stuffing papers into graves, pretty sure that’s a problem.”

“Hm…I mean, yeah. Probably better not having gibberish garbage everywhere.” Morris said stretching. “Flashlight and a spade, I think I’ve still got a taser nearby if the idiot causes trouble.”

“Think troubles likely?”

“Well, no, but you gotta wonder about a guy who breaks into a cemetery to stuff papers into graves for no real reason.” Morris said. “Who knows, maybe their spy codes, or messages to drug cartels, or maybe he’s trying to raise the dead. Crazy man it sounds like.”

“True…wonder if we could solve any of this. I mean, its just funny math, right?”

“You figure out what the triangles, crosses, and circles mean, and sure, go for it.” Morris said.

The two again headed into the foggy night. Morris had lent Willis a spare taser of his own. So, Willis with a hand at his side, survey the graves with his light. The columns of moonlight shot between graves and vast shadows of angels and tombs. They began their patrol near the fence of the graveyard.

And there already, stuck between some of the bars, wrapping around them in the wind.

“Well, there coming from outside, at least.” Willis said, shining his light on a few pages scattered in a frenzied paths into the yard. Turning to follow on strand, they found more shoved into the claws of gargoyles, or beneath the chins of votive angels.

Eventually, they heard the crinkling of paper folds nearby. It was from down in the earth, no doubt the sign of the trespasser pressing the messages into the ground. The lights of the two men where brighter then the moonlight and quickly fell on the source of the sound.

There was something like a mangled hand, holding a pamphlet between its fingers and driving it into…something else in the dirt. It looked like roots that sprang out of the scroll…or, it seemed to Willis for a moment that had risen to meet it. There was silence, except the buzzing of a fly bursting from the severed limb, frozen in place by the light. The fly rose, in a swerving path as the hand curled towards them. It was so small, bits of bone showing through the peeling skin and ligaments bent spider like. It crawled towards the men. Morris let out a shout and shot it full with the taser. For a moment, it convulsed violently, and the smell of burning flesh was in the air.

And then silence. Willis watched as the roots recoiled down into the ground, taking the writings with them.

Willis made no effort to translate the writings of the dead. He gathered all he could, and tossed them in a great fire. Only one sheet he was aware of survived, buried beneath the earth. And elsewhere, maybe it would return. The final formula of a dead man.

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Dead Man’s Hand

This Week’s Prompt:53. Hand of dead man writes.

The Story: The Dead Man’s Rites

This will be the second week of the dead speaking! But this is a bit more strange form. The form of a dead hand has a particular piece of imagery associated with it, the Hand of Glory.

Hand of Glory at the Whitby Museum

The hand of glory is an infamous bit of black magic, made for thieves and burglars. It, unfortunately, requires the failure and hanging of another man. The hand is removed from the hanged man, and enough fat is removed to construct a candle. The candle, while lit and occasionally after a spell is spoken, will paralyze all who are in the house, or alternatively put them to sleep.

The hand of a dead man, that of a not necessary criminal, is cited here as a source of healing among the Americas. Notably, rubbing the hand of a dead man on the thyroid. Similar cures are suggested for blackheads and moles.

In Lincolnshire, there is a report of another dead hand, more sinister in nature. As related by Daniel Codd, the Dead Hand is a hand without a body that searches out individuals and drags them deeper into the marsh. In this way, it is sort of a flesh and more proactive will-o-wisp. The origin of this mysterious monstrous hand are not reported.

Other free hands are more noble caliber, especially regarding writing. The most famous precedent is from the Bible, specifically the book of Daniel. Here the hand is not dead, but is a supernatural agent anyway. It communicates a divine message, as the dead often do. The message is ignored, and then what happens when you ignore the messages of the gods happens.

The power of a hanged man’s hand to heal is a novel to me. The role of the dead as a sort of healing means is not terrible new, if only as ancestors possessing mastery of the dead by association. In popular culture, the dead are more malicious nowadays it seems.

The context, however, is less jarring when compared to the notion of saint’s relics. Saint relics frequently have healing capacity, being empowered by the holiness they bore in life. Often, though not always, portions of the body are considered relics of the saint. These relics are, of course, not the regarded as the same sort of person as a criminal is. However, many saints are martyr’d or sacrificed by the state. This might be a point of connection between the two, but little else. I have yet to find a saint who’s hand wrote beyond the grave anyway.

The idea that portions of the body contain portions of the soul or vital parts of the mind is rather old as well. The humor theory of medicine attributes emotions to various fluids. While the soul itself is not a physical component, it’s possible to alter thoughts in that way. The Egyptian theory of the soul traced the various portions of it—in Egyptian theory, there are five portions of the soul—to specific organs that were preserved in canopic jars.

The discovery of a dead writing hand is probably a good portion of this story. A novelist dies, but then suddenly his hand is heard scratching at the coffin. There is a record of many forms safety coffins, that warn people if they have buried their loved ones alive. The scratching of a hand or the ringing of a funeral bell therefore serve as a good start. Imagine the horror of only the hand, the instrument of art, being alive and crawling spider like out of the crave after it was dug up. Then, such a thing produces art…but art of what sort? What writing does it bring froth from beyond the world? What poetry does something that is only a hand produce? Which has no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no mouth to speak, that operates only on a detached sense of touch?

The role of inhuman or altered art in Lovecraft is something we explored before, although there it was more in the form of inspiration. Here I think we have the chance to return, from the perspective not of an artist but of an audience for the audience.

We would be remiss not to note the notion of quite literal posthumous publishing seriously. After all, it is what we claim to do here.

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