TALES OF TORTURE

This is the post I told you about. It's me, wilkravitz. I'm back from the Jersey Pines. Edith the 'Pow Wow' woman said it was all right to come back to the city. She said that things were starting to settle down. I don't know where Zebulon is. Usually I channel things through him. I don't know who was doing the typing when I wasn't here. What's yet another magical mystery around here? Right? Although some of the Red Paint folks, good seers in their own right, think he's hovering over the Pacific Coast, putting words in Charlie Sheen's mouth. Zebulon thinks that kind of thing is funny. Listen to the words. Pay attention to the interviews. You'll recognize the cadence and the phraseology....Put Papa picked me up real fast. He found me on the street and took me back here. The museum, I'm talking about. My room is all right. But that stringy haired, little vampire brat is torture. She already killed one guard. One of the familiars, I mean. He just could not keep up with her and he had a heart attack. She laughed. Annie thought that was real funny. Papa was mad, real mad. Said he was gonna pour wet cement down her throat and let it harden. Vampire kids hate that, especially the bad ones. I guess they have some experience with it. But he treats me all right. Yeah, sure, I'm scared of him. He's got a lot of powers. No one can tell what he might do. What? He promised to tell you some sickening stories from the old days? I see him getting comfortable. He's sitting in his leather chair. Look at him. He's thinking. Now he's staring at me. God I hate when he does that. It's a signal. It means empty my mind and get ready.....OK, here goes.......There was one king. I believe he ruled back before the great flood from a vast palace complex somewhere along the Ganges River. Now people were well versed in metallurgy back then and made a very fine, strong alloy of stainless steel. This king used  to build little rooms of it. The walls were one  cubit thick. The length about seven cubits. The width about the same. I think the ceiling was high., too high for a man to reach, even if he jumped. There was a whole series of these rooms and they were buried in a row deep under ground. They said the depth was about one hundred cubits. But I do not remember. A prisoner, some poor soul, would be placed into each one. There was a drain in a corner of the floor. And when each room was 'taken' the roof would be welded into place. A thin pipe lead up to the surface. Once a day, some small water skins and food packets would be slid down. In this way prisoners could be kept alive for years. The drain was wide enough to handle the water skins and the wrappings from the food packets,  so trash was not a problem. And even if it was, who cared. Imagine the lives of those so encased. Buried deep within the earth. Sealed into darkness. Cut off from sound and sight, with only the smooth, cool walls for comfort. From time to time, small tympanic listening devices would be silently lowered down the pipe. They were like primitive stethoscopes. And they worked quite well. Some prisoners prayed. Others sang songs or had long, drawn out conversations with family and friends. There were those who made no sounds at all. Occasionally someone would refrain from eating. They'd try to starve to death. But instinct soon took over, foiling that plan. Courtiers of the  king swore that one man survived in this manner for seventy nine years, dying at one hundred years of age. What was his crime? Nothing. No, really it was nothing. He was in the way. Someone at court wanted his land. The holding was not great, a small plot he'd inherited from his father. But a well placed, high born party had plans for it ( I think they put in a reflecting pool) and so the poor young man was buried alive.....Such was the world back then....And not only then, for there have been worse tortures nearer to your own time.....I do not feel like communicating anymore right now...It is over...Maybe on another night, I will rell you more........

AND NOW TODAY

So I returned to my village upon the lake, traveling by moonlight and hiding from the sky fire during the day. My people. What would I tell them? They expected an experienced life-eater, or at least the possibility of one. And I had failed. Oh, the woman, the older one, Renate (yes, she told me her name) was still abroad in the world. I did not know where she was. At times I'd get an inkling. Still, I did not know how to interpret those things. So she was completely lost to me. At least back then, during the early days she was. I came into the village late one autumn night. The people were seated 'round the communal hearth sharing new experiences and old stories. I stood back in the shadow of a dwelling and listened to the voices of my clan. I remembered how much I'd missed them. Then I stepped out into the firelight. They looked up. They smiled. People jumped up to embrace me. Someone found a stool and shoved  it under me. I sat down. Children were called. Old folks shuffled out from dwellings. All eyes were upon me, waiting for my tale. Did I bring one? Did I get one? Where is the new shaman? What miracles can they do? And then they waited as I composed my thoughts. Yes, I brought back a life-eater. There was a collective exhalation in response. They were relieved. And the life-eater, the shaman is here with us right now....People asked - Where is this person? We cannot see them. Are they hiding in the ether?.... No, I said. They are right here.....And then I performed one of the first feats I'd discovered. I sublimated my hand through a beer bowl placed before me. All were silent. All were thinking. Some actually inched away from me. They could accept such enchantment in an outsider, but not in one of their own, not in a contemporary. So I rose  to my feet and addressed them. I said - I am the new shaman. I am a life-eater now, created by one most venerable and knowing. And I shall guard our lives from this day forth. A few of them, mostly the spiritual older women, came up to embrace me. They cried and I cried. Heads nodded. Drums and pipes appeared. Songs were sung. A bit later, when I sensed the coming of the dawn, I told them I would retreat to a small, winding cave near the shore, for daylight was my time to rest and meet with the spirits. Heads bobbed in understanding. And they formed a column behind me, singing softly as I went to my new sacred home...........Now some night I will tell you of events long ago. Of times spent in royal courts and in the spell chambers of long dead alchemists. But not tonight. For I am lonely. I acted in haist. And now I must go about rebuilding a family. So I wander 'round this one-time shipyard, listening through walls and waiting for a chance to do what I must do.......Maybe later, If I am in the mood, I will tell you fearsome tales of killings and tortures in the past.... There, I knew you'd like that.......