Index for posts concerning The Odd Tale of Jack and Leigh

The Manipulated Dead (Chinvat Peretum) by invot
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The Manipulated Living (Charitas) by invot
1 comment

Sliced Bread (pt. 2) by invot
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Sliced Bread (pt. 1) by invot
3 comments

Water and Metal (Pamatarus) by invot
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The Manipulated Dead (Chinvat Peretum)

Posted on May 17th, 2009 by invot.
Categories: Creative Writing, The Odd Tale of Jack and Leigh.

Your last letter to me was very encouraging. Especially at a time like this. Thank you. It’s nice to know that I can talk to someone who has the ability to sympathize with what I’m going through. However, your predictions about Leigh are a little bit off. He’s not as hideous as you think him to be.

Really, what it is, is that he simply says some funny things at times. Then again, a creature such as him is likely to say some goofy stuff. I think about all the weird things my grandparents say and they’re only 90, this guy has been around for thousands of years! Senile is just the tip of the iceberg.

This bit of writing was also cut short, but at least it has more of a sense of finality to it. I’m really enjoying writing to you and am trying to fit more time to do so in my schedule. However, I’ll be meeting with some people from the state all this weekend, so I’m not sure if I’ll have a chance to write again anytime soon.

*

Leigh refused to talk much about his existence within the spiritual realm. “Why jump the gun? You’ll find out all about it, soon enough.” He told me.

Work was the subject closest to Leigh’s heart. He took great pride in all the messes he caused throughout history:

“…he was the most gullible man,” said Leigh. “I claimed to be a messenger of God, and conceived the name ‘Moroni’ out of thin air, right there on the spot. The rest fell into place from there on…”

Leigh claimed to be the cause for the great depression, the death of Martin Luther King, and the Beatles’ break up. “Lennon was far too easy to manipulate,” he explained. “When you’re rich and famous, you’ll believe any sentence that has ‘you’ as the subject.”

Supposedly, Leigh held a very high position in the demonic kingdom. He mentioned that he knew Satan personally, although the two of them do not get along very well. “He rants on and on about seizing the throne of God someday, and we all just roll our eyes. I have more realistic expectations myself…”

It was early in the morning, the sun about to rise up from the ocean, when I lead Leigh back to my hotel room. Sleep sounded like a good idea right about then, but Leigh was in a chatty mood and I didn’t want to be rude. However, my fatigue began to overwhelm me after about an hour of talking. I sat on the bed’s corner, pulled off my shoes and decided to rest my eyes.

The sound of Leigh searching through the dresser drawer jolted me back into conciseness; I didn’t even notice that I’ve drifted off. “What are you doing?” I asked, half whining. I noticed him pulling out a red covered Bible from the drawer. He held it at arm’s length away from his body, carrying it over to the door, then plopping it outside into a puddle. I rubbed my eyes, “Why did you do that?”

“Those cursed Gideons. You don’t need your head to be filled with any of that trash.” With that, Leigh playfully slammed the drawer shut.

“How can you call the Bible trash?”

“I can call it what it is, Jack.”

“We both know that isn’t true.” I laid flat on my bed and spread my arms out. “Why are you so mad at God? Why did you decide to become a demon?” At this point I was really just saying whatever popped into my head.

Spinning an ashtray on the top of the television, Leigh collected his thoughts; then he murmured, “You think I had a choice?”

He waited for my response, but there was none.

He breathed in deeply, and after a long pause he continued, “You say God is good, God is great. Well, you know what? God isn’t this ‘Mr. Hugs-n-Kisses’ that you make him out to be!” There was a growl in his voice now as he shouted, “He created Satan! He created hell!” Leigh paused a moment to laugh at his contemplations. “He created us, too - the representation of evil. He created us with the ability to be evil, knowing what would happen, and now we’re responsible!? He’s the one who did all of this! He’s the one to blame!” Leigh’s eyes began to quiver, and his voice suddenly lost it’s intensity; It became a trembling whisper, “God allowed us to sin; He’s the one who should be punished. He should suffer for our sin…”

With that Leigh disappeared from my sight, and the morning light broke through the window a mere moment later.

The last thing I remeber before drifting off into slumber land was my voice: “…but, He did suffer.” I said.

3 comments.

The Manipulated Living (Charitas)

Posted on May 17th, 2009 by invot.
Categories: Creative Writing, The Odd Tale of Jack and Leigh.

You likely have a lot of questions about Leigh, and about how I spent my vacation. Last time I wrote you, I completely forgot to mention the night that I actually sat down and had my first conversation with him. He’s a very engaging conversationalist. Good listener. Very polite. He’d be a hit at any social gathering. My hopes are that he’ll come back out of hiding and acquaint himself with you. Chances are, you’d enjoy his company just as much as I did.

While on the bus, riding back to Sunny Hills, I had some time to write a little bit more about what happened. I had to cut it a bit short though, as someone else on the bus began to cause a scene and needed my attention. I’ll write more when I find the time. Sunny Hills is overall a nice place, but there’s so many planned activities you rarely have time to wonder around freely, watch television, or just sit down and write. No wonder everyone here is so restless.

*

I can imagine my body nestled tightly within the sheets of a warm bed. I am sleeping heavily, dreaming of cowboys and Indians and space pirates. The ocean whispers gently into my ears. My breath accords with its rhythm. I can imagine the most peaceful sleep that I had ever had.

I can imagine what it would have been like, if I hadn’t of lost my key to the hotel room…

*

The night sounded alive. Disembodied voices roamed the streets, filling the air with the shadows of bodies just outside of view. I had that feeling like someone had their hand pressed against my back, as if I was being hunted. Every time I turned around I saw no-one, but I could still feel that feeling. It just would not go away.

I would hate to be murdered by a complete stranger. Murder is an act of intimacy. It’s an act of some sort of pesudo-love. You are taking a life afterall. You should do it with care. I would like to be murdered by someone close to me, like a brother or sister. A sibling, I feel, would be rather appropriate to commit the act. I would want to be killed by someone who I would never want to press charges against. I want to be killed by someone I can forgive for killing me.

Across the street, a few blocks down, I spotted a well-lit building with people weaving in and out the front doors. There was no sign - no indication of what this place was. The people were all very quiet from what I could tell. There was no loud music playing or the loud babbling of human voices. In fact, it was as if this place seemed to have sucked up all the noise within a mile’s radius. The ocean, the constant racket of traffic congestion, the seagulls circling overhead, was all silenced by it’s spell.

Just then I heard a voice from close behind me. “I would avoid that place if I were you.”

I turned around and there was that small demon creature. I thought I’ve seen the last of it, come that odd night in my bedroom, but I was wrong. “Are you here to eat my soul?” I said.

“No.” The creature stepped into the the yellowish light of a street lamp, and was suddenly different in appearance. His face transformed. It was no longer blood red with deep wrinkles. His hands collapsed into his arms and his claws were gone. He seemed to fold up like origami and then open into the form of an ordinary man. His voice became more human as he spoke, “I came to make you a deal.”

That was the night Leigh and I became friends.

He wouldn’t tell me many details about this “deal” of his, but assured me he would answer all the questions I had for him after he finished apologizing for how rude he was during our last encounter. He told me he’d like to make it up to me, and asked what it is I wanted more than anything in the world.

The answer was simple, I wanted in my hotel room.

Thus, Leigh had me lead him back to my room, where he slid through the wall and unlocked the door from inside.

“Old party trick.” He explained with a smile.

1 comment.

Sliced Bread (pt. 2)

Posted on April 21st, 2009 by invot.
Categories: Creative Writing, The Odd Tale of Jack and Leigh.

When telling the story of Emeric C. Dracula, one cannot convey the details of his childhood precisely. The rumor goes that Emeric received the eccentricities he’s famed for through a series of events that are only known to be tragic and perverse. It’s a subject Emeric himself is notorious for dodging. Nobody, not even his beloved wife, carries a scarp of evidence that he even was a child at one time. It’s as if his life truly did begin at twenty-four, the day he stepped into Vienna, carrying with him the gift of astounding theatrical ability. He was sourceless. He was mysterious. He was incongruous towards anyone’s understanding. And Emeric enjoyed the stir his unknown origin caused far too much to ever say just how wrong the rumors were.

There were stories of wild nights where an impressionable, young Emeric stowed away with sailors and prostitutes learning the ins and outs of the dredge life. Some rumors told a story of a young mother disposing her infant in the catacombs of Paris, and the infant being discovered by the creatures that call the dreary place home, taking him in and raising him as one of their own. He later emerged into the streets and reunited with his mother, who, plagued with remorse, attempted to teach her son etiquette, but managed to teach him little more than proper french and eventually abandoned him for a second time.

All of these stories failed to grasp the unseen essence of Emeric the man, beside Emeric the entertainer. Truth be told, Emeric grew up in a privileged home -the son of a french bishop. Well manners were imputed upon him at a young age. He grew up alongside the fresh gardens of a royal villa nestled within the valley of the Rhine. His teachers were prestigious. His prepubescent colleges were of the highest esteem and all boasted of their promising futures in politics.

However, the good life was beginning to weigh on young Emeric. Though his father has taught him the teaching of the Bible and the ways in which every righteous man should follow, though his father has purchased his right to greatness in the kingdom of heaven, though he lived a life of privilege and luxury and holiness, Emeric grew weary of the glamorous and righteous life he was born into.

Secretly, Emeric would wonder far from any commonly traveled path, weaving through the woods and across forgotten streams, until he reached the hidden camps of pagan travelers. There he learned their forms of magic: the art of illusion.

His fascination with magicianship was boundless and he invented new ticks each week, if not daily. When he came to share the tricks with his pagan teachers, they were commonly dumbfounded and had to ask him to go through the tick several times before they could understand how he performed it.

Now, of course this kind of tomfoolery would not only summon a wave of disapproval from Emeric’s father, it would also dismember the future that his father has so painstakingly sorted out for his son. Little did his father know that while his son read from the scriptures at mass, his mind wondered back to the woods where his passions lied.

I know this, because Leigh knows this: and that’s where the story gets interesting.

Leigh had a way of levitating towards the places where the pagans met. Usually he would pass right by, just giving a glace to make sure all things were being performed properly, and occasionally performing a miraculous sign involving fire or rain or something of the sort. But one day, amongst his travels, he found a young boy holding a bird by the tail. Now, this would not be all too uncommon if it was not for the fact that the bird, wasn’t a bird at all upon second inspection. Somehow, between his two glances, the bird lost it’s form, and melted into thin tissue. Leigh has never seen such trickery. And at that moment, Leigh devised a plan.

He offered Emerick greatness, with only one simple string attached: one day, after all his dreams have been realized, Leigh would return for his soul. But not to worry, Leigh would not take his soul, as many would assume. Instead, Leigh would transform it. He would bind Emeric to his desires and create for himself a being of spectacular features. He would be much, much more than human. He would be immortal. Sounded like quite the amazing deal to Emerick at the time, so Emerick took the bait.

Emerick’s father shortly after became ill, and prepared his son to take his place after his impending departure from this world. On the day of his father’s death (the only tragic loss of a loved one Emeric ever experienced in his youth), Emerick was absent from the initiation ceremony. The royal guests could not, for the life of them, imagine where Emerick could be. Was he hurt? Did some jealous contemporary execute a kidnapping? They could only assume the worst, and fathomed nothing near the truth. Emerick had run away with his pagan friends, escaping to the mountains of Austria to ignite a career as an entertainer.

And did he ever ignite. With the help of Leigh, his illusions surpassed the realm of possibility. Members of his audience faced shock and amazement as they levitated out of their seats and into the air, no strings, no mirrors, no smoke involved. Fire shot from his hands and fell from the sky. Orbs of light danced across the room, bouncing off of spectators heads. Mysterious sounds came from the floorboards, from the ceiling, and from the mouths of the unassuming. It was spectacular and bone-chilling all at once. People feared attending his shows, but that same fear kept them coming back.

It almost goes without saying, his fame spread like the fire that came from his hands. And Leigh was there, by his side, the whole time. He taught him wilder and more outlandish tricks and his career progressed into realms that never exisited before.

But the day came, after Emerick had settled comfortably with his wife in the hills of Romania, when Leigh came for his soul.

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Sliced Bread (pt. 1)

Posted on April 20th, 2009 by invot.
Categories: Creative Writing, The Odd Tale of Jack and Leigh.

During his lifetime, Emerick C. Dracula maintained a sturdy reputation as being the greatest entertainer in all of central Europe. Critics likened his shows to a telepathic brain surgery gone terribly wrong, leaving the victim with permanent mental abnormalities. The shows were dark. They were disturbing. They were horrifying. The public couldn’t get enough.

It was during a show in Vienna when he met his wife. The theater was enveloped in it’s usual darkness as he walked onto the stage and sat comfortably on his stool, like he did every night. And like every night, he took his first cue and waited for the stage crew to unveil the candle-lit chandleries.

The Royal Vienna Theater is not known as the first theater in all of Austria to use electricity - due in all part to the stage manager at the time. A Frenchman by the name of Frederic Muldoon installed a web of electrical wires throughout the entire building - more as an experiment than anything else. If you look up at the ceiling, you can still see the wires he braided through the chains supporting the chandleries. Evidently, he placed lightbulbs throughout the tangled network of wires at random and just hoped for the best.

Frederic Muldoon died by electrocution. All his hard labor never truly yielded a return investment. However, as Muldoon convulsed wildly within the electrical spray of light which marked his coming departure from life, a single lightbulb shined magnificently over the orchestra pit, like the light at the end of the tunnel, catching the corner of his failing eye.

The Royal Vienna Theater is not known as the first theater in all of Austria to use electricity - and that is why Emerick was unable to start his show as usual that night.

There, above what once was the orchestra pit, shined a light of unimaginable brilliance as if the very soul of Muldoon was hovering above the room –fully arched in angelic light. And in that light, there sat Guenevere Hoyden, blinded and disoriented. Her image was burnt into Emericks mind and all he could see, even with his eyes pinched closed, was her delicate hand shielding her eyes.

Punh-drunk by her image, Emerick began his show that night by asking for Guenevere’s name from the stage.

People thought poorly of Guenevere Hoyden, calling her tomboyish and improper. At parties she was known to drink too much and try to initiate fist fights with other women. Her clothes were always dirty or wrinkled - one or the other, never the two together. When she was a child, her father caught her with a pair of scissors. All her hair lay in a pile on her shoulders and the floor behind her. A wig was made immediately, but she often misplaced it and ventured into public squares giving the faint at heart something to faint over.

Another major issue was her hygiene. I’ll spare you the details.

Her parents were enthralled by the news of her marriage, until they met the groom. Emerick and Guenevere were a match made far from heaven. Nonetheless, one could not argue that they were made for one another, and their romance surpassed the most passionate of any love story you can read today.

Wanting to settle down, Emerick used his wealth to purchase an estate somewhere in the mountains of northern Romania. The house was a 4500 square foot Gothic revival, painted gray with black trim, extending into the sky at the peak of a sharp mountain. Pushing out of the steep roof was an odd abundance of cylinder shaped towers. It had a sort of haunting presence to it and visitors were rare.

With the encouragement of her husband, Guenevere spent most of her time in the basement, perusing her passion for inventing. After being plagued by the frequent thunderstorms in their area, she invented earplugs and those blindfolds people use on airplanes nowadays so they can sleep. While trying to discover a cure for papercuts, she unwittingly invented sliced bread. Once, after a strange incident in her garden, she invented the grapple –which is a cross between a grape and an apple. She found her passion in the laboratory and dedicated her life to science. Emerick couldn’t be more pleased that his wife was happy. Her discoveries were beginning to attract the public’s eye and encroaching worldwide fame ensured her name would be in the history books.

That is, of course, if Leigh hadn’t intervened.

3 comments.

Water and Metal (Pamatarus)

Posted on April 6th, 2009 by invot.
Categories: The Odd Tale of Jack and Leigh.

I’ll try my best to tell you everything, though I am not sure how well I can recollect the details.  I’ve always been a hideous storyteller, all my English teachers described me as a burden. But I know how an explanation for what I’ve done is nothing short of mandatory. Also, I heard an enchanting phrase the other day: “effecting it’s egress.” Writing this gives me the opportunity to use it in a sentence, which is exciting.

Hopefully this will help you understand that what happened at the beach was a complete accident. Send my best wishes to the preacher and his lovely wife. I’m sure she’s worried about me, so tell her I’m doing fine… even though that’s not exactly the case.

*

One night I am alone in my room looking into the vast blankness of my ceiling. By now, the traffic outside begins to subside to a quiet pulse of cars’ engines purring past my apartment. The night comes early and the darkness outside my window is thinned only by a distant stoplight.

There is a scratching at the foot of my door, and absently I open it, assuming that I must have locked my cat in the hallway. To my dismay, a small devil-creature, salivating with anticipation, leaps earnestly onto my bed with a heavy thud, which is when I remember I don’t even have a cat. I recognize it immediately as being the type to possess a man’s body, and, backing myself into a corner, I begin to panic.

Then, struck with a sudden jolt of inspiration, and without a moment of hesitation, I announce to the devil-creature that it is yesterday, and today I am dead.

The creature pauses for a moment, knitting it’s furrowed brow in contemplation at what I just said. Still, the devil-creature tries to keep hold of my fear by letting out a hungry growl.

I insist that it has made an error, “It is yesterday, and later tonight I will be smashed by a stray mass of lumber that compels itself off the back of a truck. I am dead. You, Mr. devil-creature, are too late.”

It looks at me puzzled, but I explain calmly that this is really a simple matter. “As I am already dead, there is no point in attempting to possess my body, Mr. devil-creature.” I tell it to come back in a week. The manager of the complex will have found new tenants for the apartment by then, and there will be fresh prey.

Huffing and puffing, the creature waddles off of my bed, and lurches past my front door, effecting it’s egress (!) into the night.

Congratulating myself on my quick thinking, I close the door, locking it, and decide to celebrate by partaking in a late-night snack.

This isn’t the first time he came for my soul. No, there has been many times. The most embarrassing one was a month ago while I was shopping at the grocery store. As I recall, he was the one who initiated it - the argument, I mean. It started when the both of us reached for the last gallon of skim milk on the shelf. Being the gentleman I am, I politely told him that the only fair way to settle this predicament was to cast lots, as they did in the Bible. He gave me quite the queer glance and spouted out some distorted snare.

I venture into the kitchen for that late-night snack and pull a box of pizza byproducts out of the freezer. They spin merrily in the microwave, occasionally gushing out their contents. My attention is fixed on the box of metal until it beeps to let me know my food is ready.

My mind wonders as the television flickers. I think of my odd encounter with that odd demon-creature and wonder what odd things I might have to do if or when he oddly returns. I think of calling in sick tomorrow and staying home.

Then, incidentally, I begin to think about my childhood. Specifically, the ranch I used to visit in the summer.

To signify his retirement, my grandfather purchased a large plot of land on the outskirts of the county. There he raised cattle and, on occasion, his grandchildren.

It’s one of those places that hails a storybook ending, a place one runs away to, where nothing is complicated or upsetting. Every summer I explored the riverbanks the surrounded the ranch. I laid alongside them on my stomach, flattening the long blades of grass below me, with my chin resting heavily on my tiny fists. For hours I studied my reflection as it swayed in the river. The stream of water ruffled side to side through the meadow like a strand of endless silver ribbon - glittering proudly, as if proclaiming its purity with countless bursts of sunlight.

Being next to it always made a person feel awfully filthy. They could have just stepped out of a shower, they could be wearing a brand new suit, it didn’t matter…

My attention returns to the eleven-o-clock news. They’re doing a story on dentists. As I glide my tongue across my front teeth, I feel an overwhelming urge to get my toothbrush.

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