"Killing the Devil"

"And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death." -Matthew 10:21

The sun hangs high over my head. The farther down I go, the hotter it gets. I turn up the air conditioning, panting heavily in the heat like a dog. I gently press a little harder on the gas pedal. I speed up, the world around me blurring and bleeding together until I can't see what's outside. I don't want to see. I've seen enough of the world to know that it's hot and empty and evil and cold. That's why I'm going to Hell. I didn't want it to come to this. I hoped I'd be able to succeed, to walk out of the underworld with my love and never once look back, but that hope was denied with all the rest. There's nothing left for me to do. Nothing left but to kill the devil.

            Kill the devil. So simple. The devil is the father of all that is evil in this world. Kill the devil, and you kill evil. Makes perfect sense. I still remember the day before the journey began. Everyone else, all those fucking Bildads so content with all the suffering, said not to do it. They said I couldn't kill the devil, that I'd simply have to live with all the evil he had wrought. They thought that I was mad. I think the wicked should be punished, and this makes me mad. I refuse to keep carrying the devil's heavy wounds, all of which a single word can cut deeper, and this makes me mad. Sometimes I suspect the whole damn world's with the devil, all of them working together to destroy me. But I'm not mad. I might even be the only person left who hasn't gone mad. My mind is more rational than all the others, and that is why I've taken the initiative to go down to Hell and kill the devil.

            Time passes and the sky grows dark. I stop the car. I'll have to make the rest of the journey on foot. I can't be seen. I reach over and grab my weapons. I pick up the gun. I look carefully at its barrel. I imagine the bullet flying out, piercing the devil's head, ridding the world of its evils, and for the briefest moment I feel relieved. I take the wooden bat. I swing it into the air, seeing the devil wherever the club may land. To simply kill the devil is not enough. I must make him hurt. I must let him feel the smallest fraction of what he had done to me.

            I approach the monstrous castle. It is the devil's lair. I have been here before. I begin to climb over the gate, clenching my teeth. I wasn't prepared for this. I press my foot against the gate, looking carefully to be sure there are no minions to alert the devil of my presence. The climb is difficult, but I dare not fail my quest. Not after everything else. I hide by the foliage, stuck among the trees in Hell. My heart grows excited, knowing justice will come soon. The devil will step out soon enough. Until then I wait. I don't mind. I've waited so many years to punish the devil. What difference is a few hours more?

            My mind wanders back to my past as I wait. I think about the devil, about what he had done to me before. I try to keep the bad thoughts away, but sometimes they still poke through. I see the devil tempting me with sin, performing his false miracles and claiming authority. I see another victim of his manipulation struggling to go on with the pain it carries. Still trying to live in spite of it all. I see people crying in pain as he condemns them to an eternity of punishment, smiling in sadistic pleasure. Punishment, he always called it. All the atrocities, all the pain, all the agonies Hell has to offer justified by calling it punishment. I will feel no qualm when I punish him.

            "Don't do it," a voice whispers to me. "It won't bring you peace. Avenge not yourself, but rather give place unto wrath." I brush the daemon away. I've waited so long, and the devil has yet to suffer. I won't wait anymore. I did not go through a life of struggle only to die without what I was promised. This isn't a sin. I am not murdering the righteous without cause. I am going to kill the devil. God will forgive me.

            The wait grows harder. I remember more of the devil's treachery. He made me into a slave. I don't remember being a free man. I don't remember living without orders, not struggling to please a cruel master. I remember begging for decent treatment from rulers I never see. I remember all the pain I've felt. I remember all the filthy painted whores. I wish I had the time for them. I wish I had the time to take every one of the devil's servants down with him. Every last one of them who conspired against me would scream like the damned they are. Mustn't think like that. I shall not want. I will kill the devil, and that is enough.

            Concentration is slipping. Can't wait much longer. The sun has returned. It'll be hot again soon. Feeling sleepy. Maybe I should...no! I hear a noise. Footprints. I look up just slightly. He appears so harmless, so well-meaning. Before he sinned we thought him the most beautiful of all the angels. But I know who it is. My hands begin shaking. The devil is here. The devil doesn't see me. The time has finally come. I ready my bat.

            I leap from the bushes and strike him in the back of the head! The devil turns around. I strike again, this time in the face. He falls to the ground. I raise my bat high and strike again. The devil writhes on the ground in pain, and I know that for but a brief moment all is good in the world.

            "Please stop!" he pleads. He speaks of his innocence and how I have sinned and I DO NOT LISTEN. I mock his word and I spit on his face. The devil offered me no defense, why should I? He is the father of all liars. It was he who sought to usurp the Creator! It was he who promised we would live in paradise but instead brought the start of all our suffering. The real sin is to let him go unpunished. I kick his stomach. As he moans in agony, pleading for me to stop, the sin of Onan tempts me.

            I slowly reach for the gun, savoring every second. "No," the devil begs me. "No, no, please, no." He fears me. He's lying on the ground, helpless, completely at the mercy of someone who wants nothing but to hurt him more. I wish I could let him live. I wish I could leave him just like this, bleeding and crying and hurting forever. But I have a job to do. I pull the trigger and the angels sing of how I've rid the world of evil. Blood washes over my face, cleansing me of sin. I look at the devil. He cannot hurt me anymore. Nothing remains of him but the body. I've erased him. He's gone. For the first time in years, I smile.

            A woman appears, screaming. The devil's whore. Why does she lament that I have freed her from her captor? She calls upon rogue angels. There are sirens in the distance. It doesn't matter. I close my eyes, place my hand to my forehead, and make peace with the Lord. They can do nothing to me, for I have succeeded where God Himself has failed. I have killed the devil! I have killed the devil, and now Hell is mine!

"Per Astra" One-Year Progress Report

On May 12, 2011, one year ago today, I started work on my hopefully soon to be released second novel, "Per Astra Ad Aspera." It's hard to believe how fast time has gone, but I thought I'd take advantage of the anniversary to give a sort of one-year progress report.

I'm still aiming for a 2012 release (preferably this summer, though I'm not sure if that's a realistic goal at this point). I know I previously announced my plans to self-publish the novel on Kindle, though at the moment the book is under consideration with a publisher. Hopefully they'll accept, but I suppose I can still self-publish if all else fails.

Looking back, it's interesting how quickly I was able to write "Per Astra." I had finished the first draft in only three months (for reference, the first draft of But Whether Men Do, which was also considerably shorter, took six). A year after I started BWMD, I was still in the revision stages, while a year after "Per Astra" I'm already searching for a publisher. You think such a quick schedule would lead to a rushed product, but when I look at Per Astra, I have to say I'm pretty proud. But Whether Men Do was an admirable first effort, I think, but I wrote the majority of it when I was in high school (and going through a pretty bad phase, no less). It's the work of an amateur, and it shows. When I look at "Per Astra Ad Aspera," I see a much more refined work. I really think I've grown as a writer in the time since publishing But Whether Men Do, and I can't wait to show that to the world.

On that note, I know I say this a lot, but at the moment I'm largely dependent on word of mouth to draw attention. If you know anybody who's a big science fiction/fantasy fan that you think would be interested in my writing, please let them know. It's been my dream for a long time to have tons of people enjoying my writing, so every person you tell helps.

One last bit of news to close off this blog post. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with the SCP Foundation, but it's full of some pretty interesting stuff. Yours truly is now the creator of SCP-1122, and I might write some more for that site in the future, so keep an eye out.

Anyway, hopefully "Per Astra" will be out soon. I really think you'll all be pleased with the result.

"The Daemon"

“They say some people think in dialogues. You know, a little voice in your head thinks one thing, and then a second voice thinks something back.”

“So who’s the other voice, then?”

I don’t remember when I first saw the daemon. He claims he’s always been there, ever since I was just a baby. I wish I could call him a liar, but after all the shit he’s said to me I’m not sure what’s true anymore. I know the earliest time I remember seeing him. It was a little over a year ago, I think. I’d just stepped into the apartment. As far as I cared, it was another day that may as well have never happened at all. No adventure, no romance. That stuff is somewhere out there in the world, but it’s not here. It’s never here. Here there’s just horrible, soul-crushing banality, a place to burn away the days of your life.

            So I stepped into the same empty apartment I always did, swallowed down an anti-depressant, then dropped into my bed, waiting for a new day to come so I could do it all over again.

            “Another one of those days, huh?” I heard a little voice say.

            “Yeah,” I sighed. “I wish things could be different, you know?” That’s the part that really freaks the shit out of me. I heard a voice out of nowhere, and I don’t get surprised. I don’t ask where it’s coming from. I just talk back. Maybe the daemon was right about being there before that day. Maybe he’s right about everything.

            “Different isn’t always a good thing,” the voice replied. “Remember in fifth grade when you wouldn’t shut up about that one cartoon? The one about the dinosaurs?”

            “Hehe, yeah,” I said with a laugh. I thought I’d forgotten all about that show.

            “It’s important to remember things can always be worse.”

            “They can always be better, too,” I told him, jumping out from my bed. “I want it to stop, you know? I’d give anything to never have to go through another day like this.”

            “Anything?” asked the voice.

            “Anything.” He didn’t say anything back then. Not for a while, at least.

            “Why don’t you just get some rest?” asked the voice. “Maybe things will be better in the morning.” So I do what he says, fall back into my bed and take a long sleep. That was the first time I remember him. He was only a voice then. I didn’t actually see him until…I think about two weeks or so afterwards.

           

            I was at work, sitting at my desk, filling out another stupid spreadsheet I didn’t understand the first thing about, when my supervisor comes out. She’s a real cranky bitch. I’ve worked at this godforsaken office for three years and not once have I seen her smile. She was chewing me out over something, just another part of my daily routine. I always wished she could step into my shoes for a day. I spend every day thinking I’m inadequate, that I’m not good enough for people, and the last thing I need is someone trying to make me feel even worse about it.

            Suddenly, I see a tiny old man floating around her head. He’s got a long white beard and a twinkling look in his eyes, almost like Santa Claus. His face was worn and wrinkled, but there was something about its structure that seemed oddly familiar to me. The daemon looked almost like an older version of myself.

            “She sure likes to talk, doesn’t she?” the daemon said with a smile, sitting with his legs crossed on my supervisor’s shoulder. She was still chewing me out, not noticing the little man on her shoulders was there. I’m the only one who can see the daemon. For now, at least.

            I gave a little smile, happy to see a friendly face in this hellhole. Eventually, the bitch walks away, and I go back to typing down shit I don’t understand.

            “You didn’t like that, did you?” asked the daemon, jumping down onto one of the keys on my keyboard. I noticed the pressure of the jump didn’t move the key at all.

            “Of course I didn’t like it,” I whispered. “I don’t like anything about this place.” I stared up at the ceiling. My mind flashed to visions of another place, visions where everyone was happy, where women laughed and danced. Why couldn’t I be there?

            “Why don’t you leave?” asked the daemon, floating up into the air until he was around my head. I was able to see the brilliant white teeth in his smile.

            “Because I don’t get out for another four hours.” The daemon chuckled at my answer.

            “No, no. I mean, why don’t you leave…you know…leave it all?”

            “What, quit the whole job? And how am I going to pay my bills? I’d either end up on the streets or at another place that’s the same as this dump.” The daemon laughed to himself, slowly floating around my head in circles.

            “There’s a solution!” the daemon answered whimsically, an almost musical tone in his voice. “There’s a solution for everything!”

           

            As time passed, I listened to the daemon more, and he grew larger with each new visitation. A few days after I first saw him near my supervisor, he was the size of my head. Eventually he stopped floating altogether and just stood on the ground. When he first started doing that, he went up to my knees. About a week from that, he was the size of an actual human being. There was always something about his presence that made me comfortable. I don’t know, it was just good to think how, in spite of all the bad shit in this world, there was something that existed to make me feel better. At the end of a bad day, he’d by my bed, assuring me “There’s a solution for everything” before I fell asleep.

            I wish I did something about him. I wish just once I questioned him, said “You’re not real, you can’t be talking to me.” I don’t know, I guess I was just too grateful to have someone on my side to even think about stopping him. I don’t know what made him change, if he even changed in the first place. But I’ll remember the day things went wrong for the rest of my life, however long that may be.

            It was another day in my miserable excuse for a routine, exactly like all the ones before it. As soon as I got back from work, I reached for the bottle of anti-depressants, struggled a little to get the cap off, then took a pill as I lay down on the bed.

            “My whole damn life is wrong,” I said aloud. I couldn’t see him, but I knew the daemon was listening. “Not just now, but everything, you know? I was born with the wrong brain, had the wrong father, met all the wrong people…” With a quiet frustration, I rolled over to the other side of my bed. “I just don’t know how things were supposed to turn out for me. Maybe I was just fucked from the start.” All of a sudden, the daemon is standing in front of me. I look up to see his smiling face.

            “You wish things were better, don’t you?” he asked.

            “Of course I wish things were better. I want to go out and do something. I want to be noticed. I want to be loved! I just want to…” I looked around my apartment, as barren as a grave. “I don’t want things to be like this anymore.” The daemon sat down on the bed next to me.

            “You don’t have to,” he whispered to me assuringly. “There’s a solution, you know. There’s a solution for everything.”

            “You always say that,” I replied. “I’m not sure if you even believe it yourself. If you’re so smart, tell me what I need to do to fix all of this, huh? What’s the solution to everything.” For what felt like ages, the daemon stayed silent, staring at me with this serious look in his eyes. Then the smile left his face for the first time, and he finally spoke.

            “You need to kill yourself,” the daemon said to me. I looked at him, my mouth half-open.

            “E…excuse me?” I asked weakly.

            “If you kill yourself, it’ll all be gone,” he said, getting up from the bed and walking towards my kitchen. “No more loneliness. No more bad memories. No more of that bitch at work screaming at you. No more sitting around at night wishing things could be better.”

            “You can’t be serious.”

            “Why can’t I be?” scoffed the daemon, making his way towards my refrigerator. “It’s one of the world’s little miracles, I think. No matter how bad life gets, there’s always a way for you to get out! It’s a solution for everything!” The daemon grabbed the handle of the door of my fridge, and pulled it open. My heart skipped a beat. I’ve never seen him move an object before. I’ve never seen him do anything physical. Anything…real.

            “Why don’t you have yourself a drink?” the daemon asked. He pulled a bottle of beer from the fridge, then hurried over to me, sticking the bottle out in my direction. I slowly stuck out my hand, placing a single finger to the bottle. I felt the smooth, glass surface. This was no hallucination. The bottle was floating in front of me, and it was very real. I was tempted to touch the daemon’s hands, but decided that much I’d rather not know.

            “I, uh…I don’t think you’re supposed to mix alcohol with these,” I said, holding up my bottle of pills.

            “And why should you care?” asked the daemon crossly. “You hate being alive, yet you’re unwilling to embrace the alternative? That’s hypocritical, is what it is.”

            “Yeah, but…I…” I stammered in disbelief. “I mean, I don’t want…that. I just want things to be better.”

            “And they can be better! Just swallow down all those pills, finish it off with a drink, and you can have a long, well-deserved rest. No pain, no wishes, just peace. Peace and contentment.”

            The next day, I threw out my pills and my booze. I got rid of the knives in my kitchen, the pillows on my bed, the rat poison in the cupboard, and anything else that the daemon could use. I even tossed away every pair of shoes I had with shoelaces. I called my supervisor and demanded to work every damn day for as long as they’d allow. I figured things were less likely to happen if I was in public.

            It wasn’t the best plan, but what was I supposed to do?  The daemon was a part of me, that much I knew. I couldn’t run away from him, and I don’t think I could kill him either. So I fought back as best I could. I would do everything in my power to stay alive. After all, the shit the daemon’s saying can’t be right. I don’t think so, at least.

            It’s been a week since the daemon told me I had to die. I haven’t seen him since then. I’d been surviving for a week now. A full week of stressing out over all the shitty work I have to do, of being alone, being told I’m not good enough, then going back to my empty apartment and getting the scarcest amount of sleep before I have to do it all again. It seemed the only way for me to live was to make life worse, but I persevered.

            At the end of the day, I saw him sitting in my apartment as I opened the door. His arms were crossed, and an impatient look was on his face.

            “Are you going to do it yet?” he asked.

            “No,” I answered bluntly. “I’m never going to do it.”

            “You’re only hurting yourself, you know. You’re even more miserable than before. So why are you doing it? Why are you clinging so desperately to life when life has no regard for you?” I opened my mouth, but realized I couldn’t answer.

            “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” I asked nervously.

            “Only you can do that,” the daemon said plainly, standing up from his chair. He seemed slightly taller than me now. “All I can do is guide you along the right path. I’m here to help you. I’m your friend.”

            I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I’ll keep fighting back, there’s no doubt about that, but every day I wonder more and more just what’s in it for me if I win. The daemon and I are inseparable now. Every day he gets stronger, whispering to me, planting the seeds of despair. His smile is different now. It’s wicked.

            No matter what else, I’ll be sure the world knows I didn’t give up easy, if anyone cares to hear. But at the same time, I know I’m only delaying the inevitable. All the evil things in the world that created the daemon, that made me hate life, those won’t go away. The only thing that changes is the daemon’s strength. One day, maybe today, maybe next week, maybe twenty years from now, he will overpower me. The will of the daemon will have an inescapable grip over my mind, and I will succumb.

What is "Per Astra Ad Aspera?"

Space fascinates us. For as long as anyone can remember, mankind has fantasized about what lies beyond the stars, and if we could ever go there ourselves. Countless works of science fiction have entertained the idea of what space has in store for us. However, over time the world of fiction has changed the cosmos into something it is not. Part of what always fascinated me about space is the incomprehensible size of it all. Earth and Mars are, at their closest, 56 million kilometers apart from each other. You could travel across the world a hundred times and still only cover the scarcest fraction of that distance. It's difficult for the human mind to imagine anything of such size exists, and yet it does. And this is just the distance between two planets. The distance between two stars, or even two galaxies, is even more astounding. It seems almost disrespectful to the grandeur of the universe to have a character cross such tremendous space instantly.

"Per Astra Ad Aspera" may take place in outer space, but its setting is one of realism. There is no faster-than-light travel, and with that, no aliens. The novel takes place entirely within our own solar system, and all space travel must be done the slow way. Mankind has long since set up colonies throughout the solar system, with a government organization called the League of Interplanetary Relations managing affairs between the colonies and Earth. The problems that come with extraterrestrial colonization plays an important role in the novel, as the concept raises not only many scientific quandaries (What do we do about heat? How do we adjust to the lower gravity?), but political ones as well (How would Earth react to colonial independence? Is Earth responsible for an independent colony's well-being?) The book's plot begins when the colony on Saturn's moon of Enceladus threatens to declare war on Earth. The League sends a ship to carry out negotiations with the Enceladeans...a trip that will take two years to complete.

However, at its core, "Per Astra" is a work of drama as much as it is science fiction. Early works of science fiction often envisioned a utopia where intellect, through science and technology, would cure the evils of the world. Yet no matter how far our technology advances, it seems unlikely that we will ever create a machine that can change human nature.

Caught in the middle of this saga of a war against Earth is Timothy Clear, a new recruit for the League who's dreamt of going into space and becoming a great hero ever since he was a child. Tim begins the novel cheerful and optimistic, so eager to achieve his dreams that he gladly leaves everything he knew on Earth behind for it. However, spending two years trapped in the isolation of the League's ship gradually takes its toll on Tim's mind. Humanity has never ventured farther out into space than the Moon, and even that was just a brief visit. If man were to travel deeper into the void of space, what would it do to his mind? What happens when he feels each of the millions of miles separating him from home? What happens when he stares Jupiter in the face? Among other questions, "Per Astra" attempts to imagine what long-term space travel could do to a person psychologically.

Stuck with a crew of hostile strangers, Tim's sole sources of comfort are his mentor, a bitter, elderly science officer named Arthur Kane, and a shy communications officer named Christine Williamson. Each of them have their own reasons for coming aboard the ship, their own dark stories to tell. If long-term space travel existed, who would agree to do it? What motivation would one have to leave the planet? The League is a group for the world's pariahs, and Tim has unknowingly been destined to be among them. As Tim spends two years being spent through emotional hell, he anxiously awaits when the ship reaches its destination, hoping the long trip will finally pay off by the time they reach Enceladus.

"Per Astra Ad Aspera" will be coming to Kindle later this year. It's a title fans of both science fiction and character-driven drama should be sure not to miss.

"Per Astra Ad Aspera" Coming To Smoke Signal!

As my new novel, "Per Astra Ad Aspera," nears its release, I've spent a lot of time wondering the best format to release it in. Obviously at first I wanted nothing more than to see it released as a good old-fashioned book, yet others told me "Books are on the way out! E-books are all the rage now!"

I spent a long time considering that route as well. Perhaps the best home for Per Astra was on the Kindle. But wait, I began to think. What if e-books are just a passing fad? For all I knew they could be on the way out themselves in a few years. No, I want my book to be remembered, so it has to be released on a format that'll last. One that's proven to stand the test of time. And so, after much consideration, I'm pleased to announce that Per Astra Ad Aspera will be released exclusively as a smoke signal.

Smoke signals have been in use for millennia, and they're guaranteed not to go obsolete anytime soon. Can a computer float up into the air? That's what I thought!

So here's how it'll work. On the big day of my novel's release, a team of professional smoke signalers will be dispatched to the hill nearest you with a set of two torches. The torches will then be used to signal out the entire text of my novel in accordance with the Polybius square. Just step outside, look up in the sky, and watch the magic of literature rise up into the air! If you ever wish to read the book again, simply notify your local smoke signalers, and they'll signal the novel again, all the way from the beginning.

I know you'll all love Per Astra when it releases, especially now that I've made the right format choice. Smoke signals are all-natural and environmentally-friendly, unlike those stupid tree-killing books. You don't have to spend a bundle on an e-Reader to look at them. They can be seen in the dark. They're accessible to everyone. You don't even need to know how to read to appreciate a smoke signal novel (although you do need to understand a Polybius square). Most importantly, however, is that this format guarantees my book will still be remembered decades, maybe even centuries, from now. For as we all know, smoke signals are guaranteed to never, ever become a dated format.

(DISCLAIMER: Promise of dispatching smoke signalers to "the hill nearest you" is void for residents of anywhere outside Alpharetta, Georgia. R. Anthony Mahan is not responsible for any injuries, illnesses, or deaths incurred from having a 98,000-word novel's worth of smoke being dispersed into the air. It is illegal for anyone under 18 to read a smoke signal novel. Smoke signal novels cause lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy. If the smoke from Per Astra Ad Aspera turns black, the new Pope has not yet been chosen. April Fool's.)

"The Madness Over Arkham"

Being a cop isn't easy. Especially not in Arkham. Our asylum's got to be the most famous in the country, and almost every one of the crazies locked up in there has had to go through me first. It's the same thing every day, you know? The force makes an arrest, I've gotta hear the newest nutball of the day's crazy rant, maybe get attacked once every other week just to make things interesting, and then put all their nonsense into clean, boring paperwork for the judge to look through.

            Every time we send another one away, I tell myself "That's it! We're done. This is the last one." We must have locked up half of Arkham by now. There can't be any more crazies left, right? But no matter what we do, little kids will still disappear at night. And I still hear stories about the freaky shit that happens within the prestigious halls of Miskatonic University. Hey, you got a light? Thanks.

            Anyway, as I was saying, fuck Arkham. I'm only still there because of the peanuts you get on a policeman's salary. If I could, I'd move away. Not like to Innsmouth or anywhere like that. That'd be just as bad. No, I'd move somewhere far. As far away from Arkham as possible. If that R'lyeh place the cultists talked about was real, I'd start packing. Then I wouldn't even need to be in the same goddamned dimension as Arkham. Dead serious.

            Oh, right, the cultists. That's what you wanted to talk to me about, wasn't it? I'm sorry, I'm a rambler. Well, it had started just like any other day. A little better than a usual day, actually. I showed up at the station a little later than usual. I wasn't scheduled to patrol the streets until later that night, and that's how I like it. Sure, the really bad crazies come out at night, but so do the whores.

            Anyway, I walk into the station, and I see a whole bunch of crazies in robes cuffed up. I don't know, must have been at least twenty of them. One of the officers, Howard, he wipes some sweat off his forehead, catches sight of me, and heads toward me. Howard's a nice guy, but he gets a little too into his work. He tells himself "I'm a policeman! People depend on me to bring order!" crap like that. No offense to Howard, but if he's the one responsible for order in Arkham, he's not doing a good job. But anyway, the guy's nice to have a smoke with when he's off duty, but if he tells you to do something, he's gonna expect it done perfectly. So I wasn't too excited when he started heading my way.

            "What the hell is this?" I asked him. "A speakeasy bust?"

            "Like the chief would let us take down the speakeasy," he laughed to himself. "It's a cultist ring."

            "Cultist ring?" I repeated. It's not a phrase that comes up too often in everyday conversation, you know?

            "Yeah, a cultist ring. Weird voodoo shit. I don't even know how to describe it. There was dancing, and fire, and dead bodies, and...it was the craziest thing I ever saw." That's when I knew this wasn't a typical case. "Craziest thing I ever saw," Howard said. That's not a phrase he'd toss around lightly. I met Howard fighting in the trenches, so if this was the craziest thing he ever saw, that meant it had topped the fucking Great War.

            "What was it all about?" I ask him.

            "That's your job," he says to me. He wanted me to interrogate every last one of those cultists. All by myself. I was tempted to take my piece and shoot myself in the head right there. Then he says "Be sure to ask them about this," and gives me this statue.

            You know it? Yes, that's right! The statue of the freaky octopus thing. Did I think it was weird? Sure. I think Picasso's weird too. That's art for you. Didn't really faze me. So they send me into a room with the first cultist. He didn't look like I expected. I thought it was going to be some kind of hick, but he looked presentable. Aside from the robe and how he'd just had the tar beaten out of him by the police, I mean. He was young, too. Couldn't have been over twenty-five. I took a sip from my cup of coffee. This is great, I tell myself. I'm expected to ask a whole bunch of crazies about something I have no clue about. Howard could barely even begin to describe this cultist stuff, and he's the one who had seen it. What chance did I have? So anyway, I take a good look at the statue in my hand. It was actually kind of pretty, you know. If it wasn't evidence I might have kept it. I set it on the table, just slightly out of his reach.

            "Do you-" I say to him. I only get two words in, and he starts shouting gibberish at me. Yeah, yeah, that was it. "Cthulhu fhtagn." I didn't react to it. Wasn't the first time a crazy babbled at me, and it wasn't the last either. I just look straight at him, calm as I can be, and I ask him "Do you want to tell us what was going on when we found you?"

            And he tells me the story. I've got a feeling you know what it is already. He told me all about the Great Old Ones, and the evil underwater city, and the blind idiot god, and how when the stars were ready the little guy on the statue will show up and kill us all. By the time he finished his story, I didn't feel so good. My hands started shaking. Spilled coffee all over my shirt. I thought I had figured it all out, but hearing this Cthulhu stuff made me think good and hard about the world around me. You know why that is? Because it was the most bullshit story I had ever heard in my life!

            Wait, what are you doing? Don't leave. You showed up to my house uninvited to hear what I had to say, so you'd better well let me finish. It's a long ride to here from Providence, and I know you don't want to have come this way for nothing. Now listen, I know you're upset about everything I've said. I'm sorry I can't answer your questions. I don't know who Professor Angell is. Only professors I know are those creepy old Miskatonic fucks who diddle little boys in their spare time. I haven't had any strange dreams lately, at least no stranger than usual. I wouldn't know about the arrests made by any department but my own, especially all the way over in New Orleans. I've never heard of a boat called the Vigilant in my life, and I've got no clue what a Necronomicon is. But there's one question I think I can answer for you. A question that you're not asking, but maybe you should. What the hell makes a guy join some crazy devil cult like this anyway? Oh, you're right, it's part of something primal, but probably not what you're thinking.

            As I was saying, this guy had rattled off a story about this giant octopus man, and he was as sure about it as if he was telling me his own name. Even for Arkham, this was crazy. I stared at the guy for a long time, and I started thinking. He seriously believes all of this. Why? For years my job was pretending to listen to what the crazies had to say, then sending them off to the asylum, never to be seen again. I never gave a shit about who they were or where they came from. As far as I cared, they were just a part of Arkham. This town's made of roads, it's made of houses, it's made of the university, and it's made of crazies. But the Cthulhu story...I couldn't treat that as normal, especially when the station's packed with people who think the same thing. These are all human beings. They were children once. And they have stories.

            "Why did you join this cult?" I ask him. He stares at me, scowling, and then he speaks.

            "Because the time for Cthulhu's reawakening is..."

            "I heard that part already!" I interrupt. "I want to hear about you. What's your name?" His face started to soften up a bit there.

            "Phil," he said quietly. "Phil Dunwich."

            "Dunwich, eh? Like the town? You from there?"

            "No. I've lived in Arkham my whole life." I start smiling here. The big bad cultist's starting to open up.

            "Really?" I say. "What do your parents do for a living? Maybe I know them."

            "Maybe you do," he says, so weakly I could just barely hear him. Soon he opens up to me. His father died when he was just a kid. Afterwards his mother went crazy, and he suffered the worst of it. Maybe they're together at the asylum now. Anyway, eventually his mom's locked up, and Mr. Dunwich is an adult without a childhood, without a guide. He's wandering the darker parts of Arkham, and eventually the cult finds him.

            I open the door, and Phil's taken by two cops, never to be seen again. I looked at him as he was dragged away. He wasn't smiling, of course. Nobody smiles when they're carted off to the asylum, but when I looked at his face there was a certain something in his eyes. He looked almost...relieved. Howard comes toward me.

            "Did you find anything out, Grass?" he asks.

            "Oh, I found out quite a bit." I don't say anything more than that. I know he'd lose his shit if I told him what I asked about. "Bring in the next cultist."

            I spent that whole day listening to them. Really listening, not the fake shit I usually did to crazies. I know figuring this out doesn't really make me a genius, but it turns out happy, well-adjusted people don't go joining devil cults. Every last one of them had been screwed-over. These were the people that, for who knows why, the world decided they needed to suffer. There were rape victims, beggars, parents who lost their children to Arkham's famous kidnappings. A woman who lost her husband in the war. Some of them ended up there after something small, though maybe it wasn't so small to them. One of the guys joined the cult after some bitch decided she wanted nothing to do with him. And one of them was an accountant who just got sick of doing the same old shit again. It's all sort of funny, isn't it? I've spent my whole life ignoring the crazies, just being one more stop in their shitty life. But if things had went just a little differently, for me and for them, maybe I'd be in the asylum and they'd be outside. It's amazing what being screwed over can do to you. All it takes is for your life to head the wrong way just once, and you could be making sacrifices to some crazy octopus god.

            It was night by the time I had finished. I called Howard outside for a smoke. I try looking as relaxed as I can. I didn't want him to know I was exhausted. He lights up, then looks up into the sky.

            "The stars are nice," he says to me quietly.

            "Real nice," I said back. You know, I don't think I ever stopped to just take a look at the stars before that night. Not since I was a kid, anyway.

            "So did you find out what that cult was doing?" Howard asks me. I blow a puff of smoke into the air.

            "They were being crazy, Howard," I tell him. "It's nothing to act surprised about. You know damn well what it's like in this town."

            "I've never seen anything like that before, though. I mean...Christ, what drives man to do some crazy cult shit like that?"

            "Christ," I say to myself. Now, here comes the important part. I look right back at Howard, and I say to him "Why do you believe in Jesus?" The cigarette nearly fell out of his mouth. I guess there's no way to ask a question like that without looking like an ass.

            "W...Well," he stammers. "I believe that the Bible is..."

            "But why do you believe?" I ask him again. "People wouldn't make a big deal about it unless there was something personal involved. What is it?"

            "Well...comfort, I suppose," he says to me. "I think the idea of God caring for us all is...comforting."

            "Yeah, me too," I tell him. I'm back to looking at the stars now. "I guess there's more than one kind of comfort, though. That's where the cultists came from." Howard's angry at me now. He's trying to hide it, but he is.

            "What the hell does that mean?" he asked. And I explain.

            "The cultists are ordinary people, Howard. They were ordinary people, and then something came around that they couldn't handle. That's why they think this...this thing is out there." I reached into my pocket and pulled out the statue. "They want it to be real. They want some huge monster to show up and destroy everything, because as far as they're concerned it'd be an improvement."

            So there's my story. Hope it helps you on your investigation, whatever it is you're looking for. I may not be a genius, but I know where this cult comes from. It comes from something primal, something as old as man itself: unhappiness. There's plenty of reasons for it. Maybe it's the oldest emotion of them all. What's that? Well, I guess fear is a kind of unhappiness, isn't it?

            Before you go, I've got one thing to say. A little confession. I know it sounds crazy, but I think I'm one of them. I still think the story's a load of crock, but...I kind of do want to see this Cthulhu guy. I really would want him to wake up. It beats another day in Arkham.

"Per Astra" Status Update And Future of Blog

Well, it's been a rough process bringing it to completion, but I'm pleased to say that I'm happy with "Per Astra Ad Aspera", consider it to be essentially complete (though you never know when you'll need another revision!), and am now ready to search for a publisher.

You think after getting published once, it'd be easier the second time, but this isn't always the case. Hearing back from a publisher can take a long time, and the editing/publishing process can take even longer. A while ago I said I was aiming for a 2012 release for Per Astra, and I still am, but at this point it may be unwise to make that into a guarantee. Fortunately, the year's still young, and a 2012 release is still my goal, but again, no promises. But don't worry, the instant any news regarding Per Astra comes up (and hopefully there will be some soon), I'll be sure to post about it. Until then, cross your fingers for me.

I'd also like to take a moment to discuss this blog itself. The blog has been kind of...sparsely visited lately, but to be fair a large factor in that is that it's been sparsely updated. I had planned to use this blog exclusively for short stories and news about my novels, but lately both of those have been pretty rare.

For those reading this, I was wondering if you'd be interested if I started putting essays on the blog, telling giving my thoughts about the art of storytelling (among other things?). If enough people are interested, not only would I blog more, but if I can find the time amidst the never-ending sea of schoolwork, I might even be motivated to do more short stories.

Anyway, sound off on your thoughts in the comments. And if you're interested in hearing more from me, be sure to let your friends know about this blog too. I've got a lot of short stories up already (the most recent one being "The Carnival of the Equinox") that are worth a look.

Let me know what you think. If enough people ask for it, you can count on a lot more posts in the future soon.