Sunday, December 22, 2013

DER KRAMPUS MANN...... (google it)...... 12/22/13

Sometimes people disappear... and no one takes credit.  It's like a big, old, celestial trolley car goes 'clang-clang-clang' jams on them breaks and snatches them up. Ain't no body. Ain't no chipped finger nail or ripped-out piece a hair. No eyeball. No nothin'. They just gone. 

A lot of times it's night-folks, vampires, who do that. Occasionally a little part of the corpse might 'survive.' ... Might be a baby toe in some grease, or the outer rim of an ear. Looks like that 'very rare' phenomenon known as spontaneous human combustion. But if you been with us a while... you know.... Ain't no such thing as spontaneous human combustion. If there was, why don't we see it all the time? Why ain't dead dogs and cats and pigeons and rats lightin' up too? They got the same chemicals as us and a dead dog can weigh the same as a dead human. That 'combustion' crap just a story cops made up, vampires too, to fool folks. 'Cause Jack Nicholson was right. You CAN'T handle the truth... Well, you can, 'cause you're reading this, but lots a people can't. That's what saves vampires, other 'strange folk' too. They're like aliens and Santa Claus. Either you do, or you don't. OK, OK, OK, maybe aliens a little more real than that, but you know what I mean. Look, government KNOWS aliens are real, even without the evidence, mathematically they have to be. Yet some people feel threatened by that and believe, or pretend to believe otherwise. Just feels better that way. 'Reality' goes on.

Look, who'd believe what went on last night? Some folks might have legends about stuff like that.... scary stories from 'the old country.' But, you know, gorillas and orangutans were legends too, 'fore they found them out.

And I don't even know if it happened on top a the Comcast Building, 'cause they don't got the roof for it. Got like a pyramid, a pinnacle, up there and how people gonna stand on that? They'd all slide down and go splat! Probably went off somewhere else and just said that to fool us. But the thing is, it DID happen on some other tall redoubt out there. Why not? This city full a magic since the beginning... Here's an everyday example all of 'em know about. That Comcast Building do got somethin' funny on top. Got a little, bronze statue of William Penn. Think it's like about eighteen inches tall and just like that big, forty foot, artificial, flagpole sitter they got balancin' hisself on top a City Hall (you know, high above the spot where the gallows used to be). Had an unwritten law around here. No buildin' taller than 'Billy' Penn's hat. From eighteen seventy six to nineteen seventy six that was it. Six hundred feet (includin' the statue)... Plenty a room. But then business people start gettin' 'uppity.' They strart goin' higher. Folks get nervous. Fire start, or team lose they whisper.... 'Billy Penn's Curse... He don't like it... The Lord Protector wants his due.'... Few years back, big building goes up, a 'top ten tallest' in United States... Comcast Building.... You know, '30 Roc' ain't the jewel in the crown. THIS is. This where all the money sits. Little statue sits there too.... right on top... bolted down an' everything.... Billy Penn got a hat... and it the tallest thing around. But we meanderin' a bit. Lemme get back to the weirdness at hand.....

Last night was 'Dark Night,' the longest stretch of blackness in the year.... clear and strangely warm too. Wiccans held 'skraelings.' Godly folk stay inside.... 'Jump in bed and cover up your head, 'cause Santa Claus comes tonight.'..... Well, maybe not Santa Claus, and maybe not tonight, but somebody else does. If you got like a great-grandmother, or better yet a great-great grandmother what came from where folks wear little suede shorts and eat bratwurst an' all, you know.

Der Krampus Mann ist Kommen... a shadowy, rustic, stunted being from the forest.. a Rumpelstiltskin, but for real. Strong, he is. Enduring... When the natives jettisoned Polytheism for what they claim to follow now, he remained. To avoid the terror they bound him to Santa Claus... a runty, little helper who punished wicked children by chopping them up, entombing them alive, or spiriting them to hell. Happy Holidays, y'all. 

Now vampires recognize the spirit world. Most of them retain some form of their mortal faith, but they know other things too. Certain rites must be observed and Winter Solstice is one of them. So they gathered on a roof top, high above the city, to play it out. Tomas was there with his consort, Sarah. Leo and Conrad, the two stepbrother vampires stood close by. Baylah, our Beyonce look-alike, attended with her rich, mortal, financier boyfriend. The elferinos and elferinas watched expectantly from the background. I'm told I can tell you 'Papa' was there. He did not manifest in a physical form, but he was there. Lesser known night-folk, such as Blackie and Minnie were there too. Some vampires brought mortal guests... well liked 'familiars' and all that. And a really very good jazz quintet played Dave Brubeck's 'Take five' in the corner. Tuxedo'ed waiters circulated with little trays of chilled vodkas. I think there were other savories for the mortals, but I'm not sure what they were. A discrete, unnamed vampire or two hovered on the periphery. Just another smart, little soiree during 'The Season,' though one of the guests had yet to arrive....

A mortal, some sort of 'familiar' and his self-conscious wife came over to chat... Hello - he said. Quite a view from up here... The wife grinned and nodded. But she looked right at the mouth. That's a sign. Not used to vampires. Wants to see the teeth. Maybe afraid to see the teeth. Tomas understood. He knew, so he didn't expose them.... Yes - he answered. Obviously, we can see Jersey, over there, quite easily. And off to the west, those far, little twinkling lights in the distance form part of The Main Line.... Then he introduced them to Sarah. She's always gracious. The mortal woman complimented her diamond drop. Sarah responded with niceties about the woman's clutch. Vampires know how to act. Quite a civilized evening. Eleven thirty it was. The 'best' was yet to come.

Winter Solstice is one of the few nights of the year when midnight, twelve o'clock, falls precisely when it should... seven hours from dusk and seven hours from false dawn. And when the huge, illuminated, pale yellow, clock face high atop the tower of City Hall began to strike, they heard him. One or two brave souls looked over the balustrade, but most pulled back. A gnarled, little man, quite stricken in years ascended the facade like a fly. No ropes. No hooks. No aids. Just his fingers. Just his toes. A dense, full, wiry beard covered his body, or at least the front of it. And a similar thatch falling from his head almost did the same to his back. A few pigeons fluttered 'round him. But closer inspection revealed them to be large, bug-eyed moths. Was he visible to others around the city? Who knew? Magic is as magic does. On the twelfth stroke he pulled himself up over the top. Conversation ceased. The jazz group fell silent, except for the drummer who continued to lightly brush one cymbal, providing a troubling pulse to the proceedings. The old man studied the people. Everyone froze under the black, hard, knowing gaze.... He hobbled closer, sniffing as he went. Each inspected intimately... the mouth... the heart... the groin... never touching the person, or the fabric of their dress, but smelling and evaluating just the same. Some chanced a look, taking in the mottled flesh and swollen knuckles. But der krampus mann guards his dignity and suffers not such affronts. One man, a mortal guest, lost his eyes, gouged out by the dirty nails of the strange visitor. Tomas hated this thing. His faith is real. But every year, and he'd be hard pressed to tell you why, he takes part. Sarah and most of the others just closed their eyes and endured, kissed by the fluttering wings of the huge moths.

A waiter dropped a tray. He almost died right then and there. But der krampus just looked. His prey was elsewhere. Three heartbeats later he grabbed the woman before him 'round her waist and hoisted her up over his shoulder. She screamed. Her husband yelled - NO!... But Baylah hugged him close and pulled him back, as the loathsome monster spat out something in a gutteral tongue, jumped up into the midnight sky and sped away, disappearing high among the stars. And all that was left of the woman was her shoes.

No one moved, til the combo started to play. Tomas quietly whispered the prayer for the dead. And Marianne, one of the pubescent vampire 'elferinas' ministered to the trembling, newly blind man with tiny droplets of her blood. Let's hope his eyes grow back.

You think everyone would have streamed out right then and there, but they didn't. All I know is they downed a lot of vodka, even the night-folk. Some sat still on little chairs and stared. There was a lot of that.

And when the other waiter came out with a tray filled with piping hot 'pigs in the blankets.' they disappeared real fast too.

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