Astronomers denied entrance to Underworld

By Peter Berry,
Senior Mythological Implications Analyst

Styx, Hades. Normally, things progress smoothly at the border between the world of the living and the abode of the dead. Souls waiting for transport across the river Styx queue up, and on this reporter's several visits here in the pass, it has been a somber, almost stately affair. But today, in this time of border skirmishes, prejudice, and overly zealous customs officials, even the historically neutral Underworld is seeing its borders shaken.

A cluster of recently-deceased astronomers gather at the small pier where Charon, ferryman of the Underworld, stood. The astronomers repeatedly attempted to board Charon's boat, but were repelled by the elderly pilot.

"For the last time, you bastards can't come across!" said an irate Charon. Reached later for comment, he stated, "I've worked this job for over three thousand years now, and suddenly some upstart 'scientists' think they can insult my celestial namesake without any backlash!"

"The boss and I have spent a lot of time in the soul-tending business, we put in really long hours. And they want to take away our best publicity because of some rock with more numbers than letters in its name? Well, the boss has issued a moritorium on all astronomers until further notice."

One ghostly astronomer chuckled at the ferryman's pun, but was met with annoyed glares from his companions.

Persephone, spokeswoman for the Cthonic Anti-Defamation Society, was defensive. "The mythic figures we represent did not receive the same celestial recognition as the Olympians until 1930. Now they face further discrimination at the hands of the small, 'representative' body of the IAU. The cessation of astronomer soul-transport is our protest against their bigoted demotion of Pluto." She indicated that a lawsuit may be another possibility.

Following the IAU's announcement, Sisyphus' trademark giant stone had been replaced with a facsimile of the planet in question. Watching the ball of dirt and ice roll back to the base of the hill, the eternally cursed man shrugged and stated, "Yeah, it's a lot colder than my old stone, but I think it's a little smaller."

Pluto could not be reached for comment.

Picture of Charon by marriedtothesea.com

Garou, Part III

They wove between the trees for several minutes before Greg broke the silence. “Did you catch any of what Hans and Frans said about a cub?” Greg called the Svenson brothers by the name that everyone used, but never to their faces.

“Yeah. Something about the girl who they said frenzied. That’s pretty weird though, wouldn’t we have heard something about that? There’s someone at the caern from pretty much every tribe, so you’d think they’d have been ready to pick up any cubs. And she’s not a Get, or else Hans and Frans would have brought her back with them.” Kathy lost the scent for a moment, and then noticed a trod-upon plant and set off again.

“You’re right. Someone in the sept would have mentioned something. This is pretty unusual. Then again, there’s nothing normal about a Black Spiral Dancer this close to the caern.” The continued for a few minutes in silence, and then Greg paused mid-stride. “What if she’s a Lost Cub?”

Kathy turned her head and looked back at Greg, cocking her head to one side. The future of a Garou’s offspring was a quicksilver thing; there was no reliable way of telling whether the parent’s nature would be inherited until the child underwent its First Change. Most never did, and rather than subject otherwise normal human children to the rigors and frequent terrors of a werewolf’s life, most cubs were given over to surrogate, human parents - Kinfolk of the tribe. All Garou’s children were carefully watched and protected, but only a few ever came to know of their parentage. In the joyous event that the child did turn out to be a cub, a full Garou, then members of the cub’s tribe were usually close at hand, ready to intercept and adopt the cub after the carnage that all too often accompanied the First Change and the realization that, as you were entering the already beastly phase of your life known as puberty, you were actually a creature typically reserved for bad horror flicks and vaguely Goth role-playing games. Once the bedraggled cub settles down enough, she is taken to the nearest caern to learn the ways of her people, the Garou: Gaia’s warrior children.

But this is not always the case, as Greg well knew. Sometimes the overseeing Garou and their servant spirits lose track of their charge, and the unfortunate cub is left to fend for herself. Greg had only once before encountered a Lost Cub, and he had a scar in his right side to prove it. Greg had been young at the time, barely rid of the title “cub” himself. He had met the boy wandering the bawn, the woods near the caern, and had instinctively recognized him as a werewolf. Greg had no idea, however, that the boy himself was not yet aware of his lycanthropy. Greg had also been in the terrifying crinos form at the time when he hailed the young werewolf.

The youth, terrified at Greg’s half-man, half-wolf form, had reacted on instinct and underwent his First Change, also transforming into the crinos war-form and frenzying in fear. Greg, taken completely aback by the boy’s furor, had barely escaped death at the cub’s claws, and had had to do grievous injury to the cub before he could be subdued.

Shaking his head at the memory, Greg recalled his grief at the scars he had caused the unsuspecting child. He also grimaced at the scar forever present in his flesh. Although no one blamed him for the results of that encounter, he had kept it a secret from almost everyone; only the cub and the caern elders knew. He doubted that his friends would think any less of him for it, but still he hid it from them as he had no desire to dredge it up from his memories. His train of thought, however, was derailed by Kathy’s voice.

“Greg? You okay? You're not talking like usual.”

Greg shook his head clear and looked over to Kathy. She sniffed at a large tree along a narrow deer path that wove through the forest.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” replied Greg. “Just zoning.” He scratched the back of his head self-consciously.

Kathy nodded slowly and gave him a look as though she didn’t quite believe him. “I think we’re where the fight was.”

“Why do you say tha-” Greg was cut off as Kathy motioned to the path. Greg turned from her and for the first time saw the scene laid out before them.

Almost directly in front of them was a huge, black corpse. He recognized it easily as a Black Spiral Dancer. Its snout was short and thick, its face was spotted and shaped distinctly like a hyena’s, but its enormous ears resembled those one might find on a huge bat. As if the innate ugliness of the beast were not enough, its head hung limply back from its shoulders. The tendons of its neck had been severed, and most of the throat had been torn out. The rest of the body was in little better condition; bite marks and claw slashes, black with blood, crisscrossed the creature’s torso and limbs.

Greg noted that the Wyrm-beast had not gone down quickly or cleanly, and took a grim satisfaction in it. Kathy looked on with similar approval. Though Greg had little love of killing, he reveled in the slaying of the Wyrm’s. This Black Spiral Dancer was one such creature, and a particularly hated one at that. Its roots stretched back in a story that every Garou knew well, if they did not often speak of it.

There was once a tribe known as the White Howlers. A strong and proud tribe, descended from the Picts of old northern Britain, the White Howlers led many crusades against the Wyrm and other enemies of Gaia. Flushed with victory and howling for more Wyrm-blood, the White Howlers embarked on their greatest quest – to pass through the Black Spiral Labyrinth, into Malfeas, where they could slay the Wyrm in its very den. No word ever came from the White Howlers. Centuries later, those who emerged were twisted, both physically and mentally, forever driven mad by the defiling energies and depravities they had tempted. The Black Spiral Dancers, as they came to be known, persisted since that ancient day in spreading chaos and slaughter throughout the world. They are also one of the Garou’s greatest enemies, being of the same nature, inverted. While their minds may be warped by insanity, they still hold many secrets that the Garou would prefer kept from their enemies.

Kathy turned and urinated on the dead abomination, and Greg spit. Both were startled to hear a faint groan behind them, a ways off the deer path. They pushed through the abused undergrowth, and found another gruesome sight. Neither Garou recognized it as anything but the bloodied, wounded body of a young woman. Her shirt had been torn apart and hung in limp strips from her shoulders, and her pants had been similarly destroyed. Despite the shredded clothing, she was largely covered by a splotchy coat of dried, blackened blood. It was obvious that she had several major wounds across her chest and legs, though most of the blood flow had stopped.

“Jesus,” whispered Kathy. “Did she do all this?”

Greg’s eyes were wide at the poor girl’s condition. He moved forward and knelt by the girl’s head, listening to her shallow breaths. He nodded nervously. “She’s alive, but barely. How in Gaia’s name did she survive a Black Spiral attack? If she’s a cub like they said, I don’t know how. I wonder if the Svensons pitched in after all. I-” Greg cut off as he brushed long, red hair off of the girl’s face. He blanched. Kathy opened her mouth to speak, but Greg spoke first. “Kathy,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Kathy. It’s Meghan!”

This beats the pants off Karate Kid: The Musical

A recent music discovery is Ludo - I've heard a few of their songs, but I'm still waiting for their main CD. The CD I have received already is "Broken Bride". It is a rock opera. It is amazing. And very sad, actually, albeit in a rockin' way. A scientist's wife dies in a car accident, and he builds a time machine to go back and save her - but by accident, he's transported alternately to the distant past and to the far, apocalyptic future. It has dinosaurs, zombies (a chorus of them), tragedy, mayoral suicide and a dragon. I suggest you check it out.


Excerpt from Part II: Save Our City

Mr. Mayor, the Mission burns
the zombies are marching, they close on the square
Families are cold, look down at their souls
huddled in camps on the old marble steps of City Hall
Faith in their God, that's all that they've got
Across the room, beyond the pane
the whole world is churning, bleeding and burning, hailstorms and ash
The moon is as blood
over the soldiers who sag in the mud.

CHORUS
Save our city
Keep our souls, Lord
Through the rapture
of this world.

Little boy, I'm just a man, a mere civil servant
against this tyrant God
I've allied with our King, salvation he brings
protecting the city against all the troops Heaven sent
but the dead walk again, this is the end.
Oh I'm just a man, my time has come
Long live King Simius! May he deliver us from this nightmare!
And with a blast like the sun
his lips are unwrapped from the barrel of his gun.

REPEAT CHORUS (Chorus OF ZOMBIES!)

Fought and fell for our great king
we burned alive and boiled
The dragon, red and wrathful calls
We rise and march once more.
Cursed in death, we starve for flesh
Our skin is cooked and curled
We'll eat our skin and smash them in
In Hell, we'll grind their bones.

Cyberpunk'd!

I suggest to you, For Your Reading Pleasure, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Given that my main exposure to the cyberpunk genre up to this point has been Blade Runner, The Matrix, Carl's work-in-progress comic Middlemen and, in a looser definition of the genre, Ghost in the Shell, I was kind of surprised to find as much humor as I did in the novel. Certainly, there's an overarching philosophy to the book, expounding on some very post-modern and linguistic theories and involving somewhat far-fetched linguistic theories and neo-Sumerian cultists, and the requisite cynicism of our technophilic society.

But, this books is FUNNY. Consistently! Battle scenes are actually not taken particularly seriously - they seem highly realistic, and always gritty, but the descriptions keep it from seeming like the combat is the focus of the plot. So, all in all, very entertaining! Much more cerebral towards the end than I thought at first, but it has a hilarious, scary, and oddly tenable view of the future. Plus, the main character is named Hiro Protagonist. Yup.

Office work here is increasingly lonely - my comrades-in-arms and fellow procrastinators are now going off to school (suckers!) but I still have a few weeks left...you don't really realize how much of a difference having company makes until they're not there anymore! So, I poke at blogs and e-mails and essays and read articles excessively.

It's funny how jumpy one can get about terrorist threats and such, even when one doesn't see it as at all likely. Like, just now, there was a huge, loud jet noise that sounded very low over the city - I heard it loudly and I'm inside and have headphones on - and my first thought was "plane flying into something! crap on a crap stick!" Then I realized that it was just the jets from the Air & Water Show doing practice passes. Still, scary, and goes to show what repetition of propoganda and 9/11 images and movies can do, even to skeptics.

______________
Meetings and goodbyes at airports and train stations are, in fact, a force of their own.

Smiting the smitten

So, work continues to roll over much of my time, though sadly I'm no longer working on a cool project, I've been reduced to counting articles for the next inventory. Slightly demeaning, but I suppose that if I don't do it, some real editor will have to, so at least I'm being productive. When I can focus on it, that is...heh. At least work hasn't raised my ire this summer like it did last year...a little bit after this time last summer, my friends who were working there with me had already gone back to school and I was left basically alone to do the same mind-numbing task I'd been doing all summer.

This summer is already vastly ahead of that on a number of levels - most of my projects have been interesting, and fighting Communism is good exercise.

Saw A Scanner Darkly a few days ago, and the trailers don't do it justice. The trailers are about as confusing as the movie itself is, however, but in the end it DOES make sense; you just have to think about it a little *gasp!* Yes folks, this is what science fiction should be - it asks questions about the human condition and about social issues through the filter of fictional science, rather than relying simply on ZOMGLAZERSPEWPEWPEW!!!!!!111eleven! This is what I feel makes Battlestar so good; yes, there are spaceships and explosions and drama, but you can have profound philosophical, psychological, and moral discussions out of it. A Scanner Darkly deals, very subsersively, with the drug culture and, when you look closely at what Philip K. Dick is saying, the pharmaceuticals industry. If you get a chance to see it, do so, it's quite thought provoking, actually pretty damn funny, and is beautifully stylized. I shudder to think how long it took to take a live-action film and basically replace everything with cell-shaded quasi-CGI.

Jewish tanks roll into Gaza Strip...and Chicago?

So, I'm walking through Wrigleyville, stopping at various used bookstores (the mustiness was palpable, it was great) and a couple of hardcore stores (it's strange when you walk into a storefront guarded by life-size models of Aliens and Predators wearing spiked metal collars and stuff) which somehow also contain hippie shoppes. Doy de doy, walking down the street and what do I see? A very Orthodox Jew driving down the street in a huge RV labeled as a "Mitzvah Tank". Its other text offered help with all sorts of Jewish services...and who wouldn't want a tank at their Bris? I mean really. Sadly, I lacked a camera and could not get a picture, but the Inter-Net came to the rescue, and so here is a close approximation of what I saw. Except that it was driving down the street towards Wrigley Field past shops with fat, male mannequins in dresses in the windows, so it was rather more humerous at the time.

Apparently the Mitzvah tanks are not particularly rare in big cities, which raises the question - why did the Hebrew Hammer not drive one? And if you're asking who the Hebrew Hammer is, watch the movie. It's awesome, even if it was a Comedy Central original movie.

I think that my battle with the communists is over (for now...) as we've finished most of the revisions we decided to allow and sent off a final draft of the "problem" articles to see what's what. But wherever truth is being twisted, where innocent texts are under assault by the bestial paws of Censorship, I will be there, For Great Justice!

The latest "episode" of my werewolf story is below, back after a ridiculously long hiatus. I had no idea I'd gone quite that long without posting a new chunk of it; as much as I love it, I'm a hideous slacker when it comes to writing. So, if you're bored and want to refresh your memories, Garou, Prelude and Garou, Part I are there for your mnemonic pleasure.

And as if I haven't already gone over my quota for hyperlinks, here's a little tidbit of Zombiology.

Garou, Part II

Greg whirled around, his fingernails beginning to lengthen into wolf’s claws until he saw who had startled him. With a reproachful look he let his nails return to normal. Then, Greg smiled at his friend. “Do you have to do that every time you see me?” Greg walked over to the bench where she sat.

The girl seated on the log bench grinned up at him. “Only as long as you keep falling for it!” She laughed, and leaned back to look up into the night sky. Greg scowled a little. “Oh, I’m just teasing you. Chill, Greg.”

Kathy Friedman was a tall girl, although she still fell several inches short of Greg. Greg had always thought her quite attractive, but they had met as friends and it had, though it sometimes disappointed him, stayed that way for the five years since. Greg liked spending time with Kathy; he especially enjoyed the banter that highlighted their time together, though he did have to watch his mouth at times, as Kathy had a deserved reputation for being a bit caustic. It seemed, though, that she was in an easy mood tonight; Greg reasoned that it must be because so little of Luna’s face was showing in the sky. He too usually felt more at ease the farther the moon was from full.

“You’re more jumpy than normal tonight, Greg. What’s up?” Kathy turned towards him and scooted backwards, making room for him on the bench.

Greg sat down heavily beside her. It was then that he noticed her clothing, and why she had been a bit hard to see, aside from her impressive skill at stealth. She wore dark blue jeans, and her ponytail of blonde hair, resplendent with streaks of red, green, blue and other dyes, touched the top of her tight, black shirt. Other than her hair and fair-skinned face, she blended very neatly into the night. “The Svensons found a Black Spiral Dancer northwest of here,” Greg said grimly. Kathy raised her eyebrows. “It was a little while ago, have you been out here long?”

“A few minutes, but I haven’t heard anything.” replied Kathy.

“You’re probably too busy sneaking up on poor, unsuspecting people like me to hear the warning calls. You’re getting pretty damn good, though, I have to say. I didn’t even smell you, this time,” Greg jibed.

Kathy grinned, and in response chucked a bundle at Greg. “You forgot your coat in the woods.”

“Oh, thanks. You cold?”

“No. Hey,” said Kathy, “I think I see Hans and Frans.” She pointed to the far side of the clearing, where a pair of wolves had just trotted out of the trees. Both were large and dark, with black patches overlaid on their lighter gray hides. As they entered the clearing they slowed to a walk, and their fur began to thin as their limbs changed into human arms and legs. Fur was replaced by jeans and dusty jackets, and the Svensons rose up onto their hind legs.

“Oh, joy. The Svensons. Well, let’s see what happened,” said Greg, rising from the bench. Kathy followed as Greg approached the werewolf brothers. “Was that you with the hunting call earlier?” He regarded the pair coldly. It was no secret that Greg had no fondness for this pair. He considered the pair overly violent and careless, even for the Get of Fenris, the brothers’ tribe. Still, they were strong, even for Garou, and easily angered, so nobody who knew better was openly hostile towards them.

“Yeah, that was me.” The smaller of the two grinned, showing several teeth broken by his frequent brawling. “I knew we could handle the Spiral, so there was no need to call for help,” he said, quite biting off the last word contemptuously.

Kathy groaned quietly and rolled her eyes, and Greg sighed noisily. “You two took on a Black Spiral Dancer alone? Why did you risk that? What if its pack had been around too? You’re pretty damn lucky to have escaped with just that,” he finished, pointing to the long gash in Olie’s side. It shone with blood, and Olie was doing his best to conceal the pain that obviously ran through his abdomen.

“Hey, fuck you, man!” shouted Olie, who cringed only slightly as he did.

“Yeah,” retorted Lars, “you’re just jealous you didn’t get in on this fight! It was a good one, too! Man, Olie, you remember that chick shredding the Spiral? That was some good-”

“Chick?” Kathy cut in, her eyes narrowing at the brothers. “There was someone besides you and the Spiral in the fight?”

“Yeah, some crazy girl. I guess she was a cub or something.” Lars shrugged. “But I pissed her off pretty good, and she frenzied. Tore that Spiral’s throat out! Fuck yeah!” said Lars, high-fiving Olie, who clutched his side afterwards. Greg’s anger was now bubbling almost to the surface, held back only by practice and force of will. Kathy was whispering to Cathryn, who had just emerged from the caern stone.

“Hey, I don’t want to have to wait a week for this shit Black Spiral wound to heal!” Olie barked.

Macho, like only a Get of Fenris can be. Greg was, however, impressed that Olie could withstand the Black Spiral’s claw wound with so little outward signs of pain. Black Spiral Dancers were creatures of the Wyrm, and their claws and teeth often carried venoms and plagues that could cause excruciating pain and slow even a werewolf’s healing process.

Olie continued. “I know Gaia gave you the healing Gift, that’s what your tribe’s good for. So make with the healing, Mama’s Boy.”

At this, Greg knew that he had to distance himself from the brothers before he was driven to give them a scar of his own. Greg could have shrugged off any normal insult, but Get has just used the particularly hateful nickname of Greg’s tribe. The Children of Gaia, of which both he and Cathryn were members, were sometimes mocked for their intimate connection to the Earth Mother.

“Hey, he was talking to you, Greg!” Greg heard Lars’ shout and steadfastly ignored it, walking past the two Get of Fenris and heading for the woods to pick up the trail back to the scene of the fight. He almost hoped one would try to stop him, but they made no move; Greg knew they wouldn’t try anything while Cathryn was around. She might be a Child of Gaia, he thought, grinning, but those guys sure are intimidated by her! And it takes some doing to get through their skulls with anything short of a klaive. Greg brushed these thoughts out of his head as he moved into the forest; most of his attention was filled with the trampled brush and drops of blood the pair had left as they plowed back to the caern.

“Do you know where the fight was?”

Greg paused and glanced over his shoulder. A wolf trailed him closely, its mouth open and tongue out as it panted. Kathy had run after him into the woods. The Brightcoat certainly deserved her Garou name; the various and sundry dyes which chased through her hair ran just as brightly through her otherwise light fur and, in this form, made her easier to spot in the dark and very distinctive in the light. The green patches appeared to glow in the dark, and Greg smiled. In lupus form, Kathy looked like a huge, feral golden retriever making a fashion statement.

The same was true for most Glass Walkers, and Kathy was not one to be left out. Her tribe was heavily influenced by human trends, and they were far more active in human politics and business than any other tribe; the tribe was also filled with technophiles, though a proclivity for gadgets was often looked upon with suspicion and disdain in Garou society. Technology was a tool of the Weaver, an enemy of Gaia and of the werewolves.

“What’s funny?” asked Kathy, cocking her head at the look Greg had given her. Even when wearing the form of the wolf, Garou could easily speak to each other – Kathy’s barks and yips, combined with her instinctual lupine body language, let her clearly “say” anything a wolf could need to communicate, and a crude form of the Garou tongue aided with more complex subjects like feelings or humor.

“Just that your green patch glows. It looks pretty cool.” Greg let his eyes glow a similar green, but he had lost the trail of broken branches and blood-smeared leaves that had led him. “They came from this way. Can you help me track them back? The girl they mentioned must be in trouble, otherwise she would have come back with them.”

“Unless she realized how ass-annoying those two are.” Greg laughed, and Kathy lowered her nose to the ground and started sniffing. “Good point, though, we should hurry.” She quickly picked up the trail and trotted off through the trees, Greg close behind.

This week, on ADVENTURES IN DEMOCRACY...

But first, huzzah for being 21! I bought my first alcomoholic beverages last night, and they were tasty. Good, local microbrews, a couple of good friends, and a good time. I'm not sure how I feel about this whole "aging" thing, but that is neither here nor there.

I started work at Encyclopaedia Britannica this Monday - I worked there last summer as a "fact checker", as Jimmy so frequently enjoyed commenting upon, and this summer they invited me back. I'm not sure what my technical position is, so I think that for now I'm just going to have to go with Defender of Democracy.

Why this odd burst of ideological patriotism, you ask? Mostly I'm just proud of what Britannica is doing, and I think it's spiffy that I have a part in it. In the process of getting an edition of Britannica ready for distribution in China, the Chinese powers that be have given us a number of "issues" with some articles that they want "corrected" - i.e. removed or altered, and we want to avoid as much change as possible because hey, we actually like having a reputation of intellectual objectivity and integrity. So, not surprisingly, most of these issues revolve around Taiwan, Tibet, and differing conceptions of Chinese communism, ideology, etc.

So right now, I'm going through the complaints and figuring out what are acceptable changes (a lot of terminology, such as "Tibet Autonomous Region" replacing "Tibet"), and to do some work on the more problematic ones, such as the article on "censorship". China wanted its name removed from a list of regimes which commonly employed censorship; I just about had an aneurism trying to think about that one.

The poor "Pandaren" article never stood a chance....*sniff*

Anyway, my job is to go through the problematic changes and re-word things to make them both true and accurate, so that the Chinese will allow it to go through but more importantly so that the article's integrity isn't compromised by whatever changes we make. It's not only really interesting to see what they object to, but also to actually use my brain when I'm suggesting what to do with an article. It's pretty rewarding work.