Summer

It is time again, Dear Readers, for the summer holiday. I will be away, longer this year than usual. There will be no blogging until I come back and that is in August. I am a privileged person, I know, but I can assure you I will try my best to make the most of my summer...smiles.

Take care and be kind to yourself and don't forget to let your minds wander. We need our imaginations, that is something I am sure of. Have a great time.

Another Strange Dream

I have to say that you are a very encouraging lot. Thank you for all the support. You are, really, the best. What can I do in return? Publish the things I write, strange and weird. Here is a story (note my choice of words, here). Be kind to yourselves.

'It is strange how you dream.'

'Well, yeah, that's true.'

'Sometimes you don't know where your mind wanders in the night, or why.'

'I gather you have had some weird dream.'

'Very weird.'

'Won't you tell me?'

'Something tells me I shouldn't.'

'But some other part says you should?'

'Yes, I did mention it, didn't I?'

'You did.'

'It was terrible.'

'What happened?'

'I was in this city and it was dark. Or maybe I just saw it. Anyway, I had this sense of danger or like if there was a disaster happening. Perhaps it was war and the city was being sacked. There were fires and light so I could see quite clearly.'

'Light and dark, dreams are strange.'

'Well, this was more or less a sensation, a mood, or something, or a part of the dream that I have forgot. I remember the rest much better. I am not sure it was me or if I just saw her, but there was this girl, not like a young girl, more like a young woman. She was slender and thin and very fair, almost pale. I think it was me, or I became her, later. I don't remember. There was a crowd gathered and they stood around her...or me. She was being held by these men. And they were like black clad, in leather jackets and boots and that sort of thing. They didn't look like soldiers but somehow I knew that it was they who were sacking the city or whatever it was that was happening. In front of her was this man, also dressed in black, he was quite young, had long dark hair, looked like a rocker or goth or whatever it is called.'

'Emo?'

'Whatever! He looked at the girl, woman, and had this terrible grin on his face and in some way I knew she was the enemy, a spoil from the plunder or had done something terrible according to the man in black. He made this sign with his hand, quite elaborate and strange and although I can almost see it before me, still, I can't tell you what he did.'

'Dreams!'

'The men holding her grinned in response and began tugging at her clothes. She was dressed in red shorts and a striped tank top. When I think of it now, this is weird, the modern clothes. I got the impression that it was some ancient city being conquered but the clothes were modern. Anyway, they tugged at her clothes and made clear they wanted her to take them off. She looked around and saw that there was no escape, then I slipped my top off. They all looked at me. The leader, the man in black, made another sign and I was dragged backwards and thrown on the ground, on my back. There was this wooden beam I was held down onto and my hands were pulled out. And then, this is really horrible, they brought big nails, like those you see in museums, that are made by hand, by some smith. Then they nailed her arms to the wood, like if she was being crucified. I remember seeing her bend her back, in agony. But it didn't hurt.'

'It didn't?'

'No, I remember no pain, but it was horrible, all the same, like some kind of terrible fear or anxiety cutting through my body. The worst thing was that she was beautiful, in a way, something about her arching body, her outstretched arms and her agony was weirdly beautiful...beautiful but terrible.'

'Sounds grim.'

'Grim is the word, it was like some dark horror painting, with me in the middle of the darkness, all pale and white and being nailed to the crossbar of a cross. The beam was lifted and I was pulled backwards to some great pole or pillar, the cross. There was a strange silence in the crowd but I had this sense of animals, of predators licking their lips, eager to watch, but also full of pity and anger.'

'Pity?'

'Yes, some kind of pity, that kind of pity that almost enjoys it.'

'Glee?'

'Perhaps, I don't know. Then came the harsh bit. I had to be lifted and they had ropes and ladders and it was a lot of people around me. And when the girl was hoisted in the air, she cried out. There was a bit of panic, as if she couldn't believe she would be able to hang from her arms, her nailed wrists. Still there were no pain, no proper pain.'

'Haven't thought of it, maybe it doesn't happen in dreams?'

'What doesn't happen?'

'Real pain.'

'Perhaps. She was lifted and she was hanging from her arms. The crowd didn't cheer, but there was this sense of a wave going through it, a kind of awe or fascination, as they saw her breast heave in agony. Then I was hanging there, overlooking the crowd and I remember looking down on my body, thinking of those red shorts. Remember, I was dressed only in those shorts and they were quite small, not extremely small but I felt them to be tiny. For some reason, that seemed to be more on my mind than having my wrists penetrated by nails, that I was almost naked, that everyone could now look at me, on display, so to speak.'

'Stranger things happen in dreams.'

'They do. There was this weird sensation in me, as if this terror, this agony, this horrible thing happening to me, was, somehow, also satisfying. Maybe satisfying is the wrong word, maybe it touched something in me, that wasn't just horrible, something that, somehow liked it.'

'You weren't crucified for real, dreams are symbolic.'

'I know, but it didn't feel symbolic while I was there. But as I was hanging there, feeling looked at, ogled and exposed to this horror, I thought how utterly helpless I was. If someone wanted to do something to me, I could no longer defend myself. I hadn't thought that thought to the end before the guards came up to me and reached out for me. I was suddenly terribly scared they would take my shorts. This was something I really didn't want to happen. They reached for me and unbuttoned the shorts and I remember sighing in frustration. The crowd was silent, as if it was holding its breath. Then the guards yanked my shorts down from my hips and there was a giant sigh and I whimpered. Strange thing, that I heard myself whimper! Or maybe it was me hearing the girl whimper, I don't know? Anyway, shorts were removed and she was naked, I was naked. And somehow this seemed to be the worst humiliation of them all, that I was denied the last item of clothing. And yet, there was a kind of surge in me, as if I found this exciting, arousing or something.'

'Not so strange.'

'I think it is strange.'

'Naked on a cross, in a symbolic way, it can be sexual.'

'I suppose. Then they nailed my feet to the cross and I could see in the body of the girl, that it hurt. Then something happened that was like in a film. The sound seemed to disappear and I began to see the cross from a distance. I clearly saw the naked girl on the cross, the girl who was, or had been, me. And there was like a circle around her, a circle of black clad people, with torches and banners and then I think I woke up.'

'Some dream.'

'Why do I dream such things? Why does it happen like that?'

'Why should you worry? You weren't crucified for real, it was a dream, it didn't happen and it was just an image.'

'It was scary.'

'And nice.'

'Scary and nice, yeah.'

Coincidence?

I know it is a dangerous thing to start looking for coincidences, things that seem to have a hidden meaning or being set in a pattern, in films or book. You tend to find what you want to find, so it is with some trepidation I will now write about something of the kind, which I found quite amusing.

Colin Dexter created the character of Chief Inspector Morse of the Thames Valley Police. His stories and some have been transformed into a very brilliant series of films, or episodes, where Morse is portrayed by the late John Thaw. The brilliant detective has an assistant called Robert Lewis played by Kevin Whately and after the death of Inspector Morse he solves his own murder mysteries in a tv-series that is showing at the moment.

Not long ago the 4th episode of of the 4th series was aired and the title was Falling Darkness. It begins with a gruesome murder of a Professor Ligeia Willard. She has been knocked down and a stake has been driven through her heart. The murder was committed at All Hallows Eve or Halloween.

Some of you may have reacted to the name Ligeia, which is the title of a story by Edgar Allen Poe, the brilliant American horror writer and inventor of the detective story. A coincidence, a reference to the great master? Perhaps? But there is more.

There is an Alec Pickman among the characters and this struck me as interesting. Richard Upton Pickman is a person in some stories by Howard Phillips Lovecraft, another brilliant American horror writer. Pickman is found in the stories Pickman's Model and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.

Coincidence, perhaps? To add to the pattern, there is a Mrs Renfield. She has the same surname as the poor fellow who visits Count Dracula's castle and becomes mad in the novel by Bram Stoker, another writer of horror fiction, Irish this time.

At this time I began to check out the other names in the list of roles. Some of them may be long shots, but I will mention them anyway.

One character is called Victor Clerval and if you know your Mary Shelley, you will know that the mad scientist is called Victor Frankenstein, and to add to it, Henry Clerval is another character in the very same book.

Ursula van Tessel is an unusual name and as it happens, I found a Catriena Ecker van Tessel who is said to be the inspiration for Katrina in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

The list of roles contains a Charlotte Corwin and this is the same surname as one of the judges of the Salem witch trials and the old name of the Salem Township, Warren County, Ohio, USA, was, you have guessed it, Corwin.

Professor Rufus Strickfaden has a very unusual surname, one that he shares with Kenneth Strickfaden, electrician and film set designer who is mostly famous for creating the laboratory of Victor Frankenstein in the 1931 film, directed by James Whale.

Lastly, and this may be the worst of all these long shots, Rowena Trevanion, may be associated with a building, Trevanion, famous for its Gothic architecture.

This could all be in my mind, I know that, or maybe someone with a sense of humour and a knowledge of horror fiction in writing and on screen put these references there for anyone to find.

At least one other person found this interesting.

Blog and Blogging

As you may have noticed, I haven't written much for the blog lately. It's not as if I am running out of ideas, more that I am not sure what happens in my head is good for the blog or is about fantasies, about the delightful pastime it can be.

I do often question my reasons for blogging. I began because I needed to know that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't the weirdest person on the planet and you have truly helped me with this. You have given me confidence in my writing and that means a lot to me, more than most other things, really.

The way I feel now, I find it hard to sit down and write stories for the blog. Maybe I am becoming to cautious, thinking that what I write will be too weird. This, I think is being unfair to you, Dear Readers, because you have always been very kind and not the least judgemental. I tend to write things that are too grim or too silly, and not fantasies as such and I fear they won't fit the blog. Maybe I am just being unfair to you, I don't know.

Maybe I am taking my writing too seriously and is becoming bigheaded. I have always felt that fantasies, for me, are about more than just something nice and exciting I can use when I don't have anything else to do. I am not implying it is like that for anybody else, but I think that some people take it far more easy than I do. For me there is the matter of deeper emotions that are expressed through fantasies and I think I am moving on to more painful things, and the images in my head sometimes appear strange and unappealing.

And, again, you have always told me to just write and don't be too bothered with what you as readers will think. Yes, there is a lot of agony in this, because I have truly loved blogging and now I don't know what to do. It seems a bad thing to abandon it, because my mind is moving somewhere else, but on the other hand, I am not so good at writing the kind of stories I have so far been doing, anymore.

I know my blog isn't the most popular out there, but I also know that you who come back to it are very caring and kind people and I do care about you in return, in my own strange way. I don't want to let you down but I am not good at trying to please you either with the blog. It has been too personal for that and that has been the magic of it all, that when I am personal and selfish, you have enjoyed it too. I really don't want to lose that.

Maybe there will appear a weird and unpleasant story here, now and then, we'll see. In the meantime, take care and be kind to yourselves.

By the way, I am fascinated and a little surprised by the comments to my last piece. It is amazing how the minds works. I have replied in the comments, which I always do (almost), although it takes some time.