 Dark House of Hunger by L. A. Mallery/D. L. Myers Some rather strange things have happened to me since my last post. For one, my heart stopped four times over the course of a couple hours in the early moments of the day after Easter. For another, as a result of that, I had to have an ICD (Internal Cardioverter Defibrillator) implanted above my left pectoral muscle. I'm lucky to be alive--pardon the cliche--and since I've spent a significant amount of time talking about The Fear of Death, and its relationship to The Other, I thought it was only fair to share my experiences and how the Other played a part in them.
I had the beginnings of a headache Easter night, so I took one of my migraine pills and went to bed. I go to bed early, because I have to get up at 4:30AM for work. Well, I didn't make it to 4:30. At about 2, I was awakened by an intense pain in the middle of my chest. Now, I need to give you some back story, as the tale will have more impact once you know the full history. Two weeks, to the day, before, I was at work. I usually arrive 20-30 minutes early, so I have time to make coffee and grab a little breakfast. I was sitting at my desk eating my Jimmy Dean Croissant breakfast sandwich and drinking a cup of Columbian Supremo when suddenly I had intense mid-sternal pain that radiated into my arms, and I felt light-headed and dizzy. I knew that these could be symptoms of a heart attack or...a resurgence of my gastric reflux. Although to be honest, I didn't remember reflux causing arm pain and dizziness. It was very bad for a couple of minutes and then it backed-off, and I felt much better. I continued to feel a pressure and dull ache in the middle of my chest.
I was a trooper--or just stupid--and moved on to my start-of-the-day tasks. I continued to feel strange and the light-headedness had returned. I told one of my co-workers how I was feeling, and they said maybe I should go to the emergency room at the nearby hospital. Now, my first thought was, 'What if this turns out to be reflux--glorified heartburn--I'll feel like a fool, and I'll have possibly stuck one of the night-shift workers with a double shift.'--there always has to be at least two people present at all times. So, I asked one of my co-workers to start calling people who might be able to cover my shift. After calling everyone on the list without success, I decided to call the swing-shift employees who would be working that day. I waited hoping someone would call back and someone did. Diane, one of the swing-shifters, called very concerned and said she'd be in as quickly as she could. This left me free to head to the E.R., so I drove myself to the hospital--not the brightest choice if you think you're having a heart problem--because the thought of being taken by aid-car only to find I had heartburn seemed even more embarrassing.
When I got to the E.R. and described my symptoms, they rushed me in and started an I.V., drew blood, did an EKG, Echo-cardiogram and gave me a nitroglycerin tablet. All the tests were negative for heart problems, but I still had the chest pain. It improved for awhile after taking the nitro but then it would return. This worried them enough that they admitted me to the Cardiac Care Unit where they monitored me for several hours while I waited for the cardiologist to see me. When he arrived, he told me everything looked normal, and my symptoms were probably caused by reflux, but the only way to be sure was to do an angiogram. This is a procedure in which they introduce a wire into the femoral artery, from the groin into the heart, and then run a catheter over it into the heart. They inject x-ray dye through the catheter and watch the flow through the coronary arteries. The angiogram showed a 40% blockage in one of the arteries, but the cardiologist said this was not a serious problem, although I should work to lower my cholesterol so it wouldn't become one, and wouldn't have caused my symptoms. Reflux. It was just reflux.
Now, fast-forward to 2AM on the day after Easter.
The pain in my chest wakes me up, and I think, 'It's probably reflux because it feels the same as two weeks ago.' So, I prop myself up with some pillows hoping it will improve. It doesn't. I decide I need to be more verticle, so I sit on the edge of the bed. The next thing I know, my partner is helping me into some clothes and she and her daughter are helping me to walk to the guest room. They have me sit down on the bed, and I think, 'This is how it feels when you've been abducted by aliens. Lost Time. It's like someone flipped off a switch and your awareness ends. Then some time later, they flip the switch back on and what occurred while that switch is off is missing. Anyway, I feel really bad overall. Everyone looks terrorified, and that's scaring me which only makes me feel worse. Suddenly paramedics walk in with all sorts of equipment and start placing contacts all over my chest and their starting an IV and the light goes out just as I hear, 'Zero over zero.'
 The Forest Cabin by L. A. Mallery Suddenly I'm halfway down the stairs on a backboard being carried down by the medics. They put on a stretcher and wheel me into the ambulance. I hear my partner getting into the front seat and then we're off lights, siren and insane speed. At some point, the switch goes off again and when I next have awareness, I'm being rolled into the E.R. I fly into a room and there are people all around me sticking a nitro patch on my upper back, putting in another I.V., placing EKG wires and listening to my heart and lungs. Then a couple of guys slap these big, white conduction pads on my side and chest and someone tells me, 'We might have to shock you.' The switch goes off again and on again. They're talking to me, and I'm starting to feel better. The E.R. doc tells me I'm being addmitted, and as they say, 'The rest is history.'
There are other interesting details, but you've got the idea, and I don't want to drag on. The place where the Other touched this experience was on my last night in the hospital. My partner's daughter had brought me my DVDs of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' parts one and two. I asked her to put in part one before she left. I watched it, and I was transported to that place that I've written so much about. It made me feel less afraid of the situation I was in, and I slept better that night.
This whole experience doesn't feel real and my moments of absence make it all the more bizarre, unreal and as if it happened to someone else. I was in cardiac arrest four times and yet I made it through without any heart damage or neurological problems. I got the literal "Second Chance". I hope I make the most of it.
--D. L. Myers
 After my recent side trips from the true path of the Quest, I felt it was time to rejoin the march toward that benighted land of Other.
The next stop on my journey after The Shadow Over Innsmouth... was the Ballantine Books series of Lovecraft's work. I intended to own them all but I was limited by what the local B. Dalton Bookseller carried. These books exposed me to most of Lovecraft's fiction. I became obsessed with his stories and talked incessantly about them. My father did not appreciate my over indulgence in HPL. He believed a boy should play baseball or football and be "A well rounded person", but the more he criticized my focus the more I retreated into the land of Other that Lovecraft created with such aplomb.
I made my way through these books reveling in the atmosphere of fear and the sense that there were things much larger than us that viewed us as insects to control and destroy. It is his universe without a net that makes Lovecraft's stories so disturbing. There is no God to save us, we are on our own and greatly outmatched.
Lovecraft's stories were doorways to the land of Other, and I joyfully stepped through these portals. His universe at first seemed to be the world we know until he ripped away the veil to show the horror that lived just below the surface. Now as a boy, I had no cognizance of any of this. I only knew that I loved his stories and while I read them the world I felt so uncomfortable in fell away.
 My next discovery of the Quest was in two books in the Ballantine series that contained stories by other writers who admired the universe Lovecraft created. His work inspired them to write stories that fit within that universe, and this exposure to other writers broadened my experience of the mysterious and chilling Other.
One of my favorites, if not my absolute favorite, is Notebook Found in a Deserted House by Robert Bloch. (I recently discovered that Bloch signed the story for me probably at the World Science Fiction Convention in 1984!) It is in volume 2 of the series Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.
The narrator is a 12 year old boy locked in an old house by Them Ones. He doesn't know why they've taken him and what they plan to do with him, but he is sure it isn't anything good. I won't spoil the story by saying more. It is definitely something everyone on the quest for Other should read. You won't be disappointed.
Bloch shares HPL's ability to create an atmosphere of terror. Terror of the Unknown and malignant universe that lies just below the level of our awareness but which we sense in some dim, reptilian part of our being. This story and the others in this 2 volume collection pointed me in many directions and I went on to read other work by the writers who appeared in the series: Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Frank Belknap Long, August Derleth, Henry Kuttner, J. Vernon Shea, Robert Bloch, J. Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, James Wade and Colin Wilson.
My fascination with Lovecraft and his compatriots led me to discover Arkham House Publishers, the firm August Derleth and Donald Wandrei began to keep Lovecraft's work in print, and I began to collect their books as I could find and afford them.
And so the Quest marched on into the eternal twilight with its goal always shifting and shimmering like a mirage that dances just out of reach. I am still on that quest and in future entries I will continue to relate its story.
D. L. Myers
Bloch, Robert Notebook Found in a Deserted House from Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos Volume 2, edited by August Derleth. Ballantine Books, Inc. 1971 pp. 69-94
Lovecraft, H. P The Tomb and Other Tales, selected by August Derleth. Ballantine Books, Inc., 1970
Cover art by John Holmes
Lovecraft, H. P. and others Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos Volume 2., edited by August Derleth. Ballantine Books, Inc., 1971
Cover art by John Holmes
 My original concept for this blog was to discuss my experience of the Other--My Quest for that elusive thing that all of us who enjoy dark fiction, dark poetry, dark cinema, dark role-playing games and dark things in general knowingly or unknowingly seek. Along the way, I've got off on a few tangents, and I thought that I should get back to the meat and bones of my topic. I thought I would continue with the development of my quest--the books I read and how one led to another but then the idea came to me of discussing how this "quest" led me to want to write dark literature of my own.
As my bio indicates, I am a dark poet. (Several of my poems have appeared here at Dark River Press and in the first issue of Dark River--our magazine.) I started writing poetry in the fourth grade after being captivated by Alfred, Lord Tenneyson's poem 'The Eagle'. At first, I wrote poems about birds and animals. It wasn't until the next year that I stumbled upon H. P. Lovecraft, and it wasn't until I had read everything I could find by him that I began to think of writing my own stories inspired by Lovecraft. Poetry was laid aside, and I began to write stories that I never seemed to be able to finish. After many aborted efforts, I stopped, and I wrote very little until college.
Fear was the specter that blocked my way. My self-image and self-esteem were incredibly negative. I believed anything I wrote would be crap, and I avoided stories like the plague and only sporadically wrote poetry when the Muse spoke to me. This continued for many years and as time passed my poetry became darker and darker.
During this span of years, I began to try to create the disturbing atmosphere I loved in the dark books I read. I wanted my poems to give me that chill transport to a place I had begun to think existed in my imagination. A place of terror and the unknown that I could control--or seemed to control. This place was the Other.
My own fear drew me to dark literature and dark literature inspired me to write dark literature. I became a consumer and creator of the Other.
This is the journey of the writer of the dark, they are drawn relentlessly to dark writing by the quest for Other and perhaps that same quest as relentlessly drives them to create and perpetuate it.
D. L. Myers
 If all human beings experience fear then perhaps in one way or another they all seek the Other. My suggestion some time back that the dark tale may have come about as a way for our earliest ancestors to deal with their fears led me to think about the fear everyone carries. Perhaps, everyone in some way seeks the Other.
Most people--those who don't care for the stuff we like to read--must seek it in the myriad ways they try to divert their attention from the threatening world around them. After all that's what we're doing on our quest for that mysterious and terrifying entity the Other. Or at least that's my theory.
If fear is a universal emotion and the Other arises out of fear, then it follows that everyone on this planet has some acquaintance with it. They may not consciously be aware that the Other haunts their every step, but I believe it is there. Fear is universal therefore the Other must be universal, as well.
D. L. Myers
“If you look deeply into the Other, the Other will look deeply into you.”-- The Other
(or a paraphrase of a quote by an unknown author. If anyone knows the citation let me know.)
Fear. This is all about fear. The fear I carry and the fear you carry. The fear that drives us to dark tales and the searing poetry of the damned. The fear from which the Other grows like a viperous, twisted bramble that envelopes us and permeates us and ultimately sets us free.
So, where did I get a crazy idea like: Does the Other seek us? It started with a dream I had soon after my first post. It was the kind of dream in which you don’t realize your dreaming, where the world about you is familiar and comforting.
Almost every night I awaken in the dark of my bedroom and that is how the dream begins. I wake up and I’m lying on my back in bed. I see my dark room around me and the blankets and comforter of my bed, and I notice that my partner has piled her many pillows under the covers so that they rise up like a dark snow-covered mountain blocking my view--then suddenly she turns over, the covers shift and I see a figure standing at the foot of the bed. It looks like it’s covered with a sheet of black velvet, but the really strange thing about it is that the shape is wrong. It doesn’t look like a person covered with a sheet, there’s something too pointed about the head, and with this realization comes the unrelenting feeling that it is looking intently at me. Then I come screaming into wakefulness, my heart pounding like a Taiko drum, and fear is all I know. The next morning the line I quoted above comes to me, and the question follows it.
I suppose many would dismiss this as the misfiring of my twisted neurons, but that dream haunts me. Almost every night I fear it will return, but so far I have been spared that experience. What I find so disturbing is that the figure seemed as real as the rest of the room, but its Otherness made it terrifying. The idea that has swirled in my mind ever since is that the thing was the Other looking back at me. I have unconsciously sought it most of my life and now that I have realized its existence it has returned the favor.
Does the Other seek us? I believe that it does. Perhaps it is no more than a reflection of our fear, the thing we seek in dark literature, but then again perhaps it is more. I leave that to you to decide.
D. L. Myers
 Since I began this tale of my life’s quest for that ever elusive quarry the Other, I have found myself on a twisting road that took me far from my original path. So, finally I am returning to the tale of my first steps on that darkling trail into the fetid world of Other.
When last I spoke of it, I had just introduced the seminal book that truly started my plunge into its frigid waters: The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Other Stories of Horror by H. P. Lovecraft. What 9-year-old boy could resist this cover? (Especially if he was as fear-ridden and obsessed with the dark as me.) It may not be the finest cover art anyone’s ever seen, but it and the author’s strange name drew me like iron filings to a loadstone. The contents page was equally compelling: The Colour Out of Space, The Outsider, Imprisoned with the Pharaohs, The Transition of Juan Romero, In the Walls of Eryx, The Festival and the title story The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Through these stories, I was caught in the maw of the Other, and my life took a turn down that rutted, little used path that led away from the light into the nighted depths of a land I had earlier glimpsed in the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe.
The Colour Out of Space was the first Lovecraft story I ever read, and it remains one of my favorites. I have read it many times and each time I am relentlessly drawn out of this world into a dark, fey place that terrifies and compels me. This is Lovecraft’s power, the ability to create an atmosphere so unlike anything we have experienced before that we are torn from the everyday and cast into the unknown--the Other. Here is an excerpt from the story that exemplifies this power:
“It was quite dark inside, for the window was small and half-obscured by the crude wooden bars; and Ammi could see nothing at all on the wide-planked floor. The stench was beyond enduring, and before proceeding further he had to retreat to another room and return with his lungs filled with breathable air. When he did enter he saw something dark in the corner, and upon seeing it more clearly he screamed outright. While he screamed he thought a momentary cloud eclipsed the window, and a second later he felt himself brushed as if by some hateful current of vapour. Strange colours danced before his eyes; and had not a present horror numbed him he would have thought of the globule in the meteor that the geologist's hammer had shattered, and of the morbid vegetation that had sprouted in the spring. As it was he thought only of the blasphemous monstrosity which confronted him, and which all too clearly had shared the nameless fate of young Thaddeus and the livestock. But the terrible thing about the horror was that it very slowly and perceptibly moved as it continued to crumble.”
This story began my quest for Other, and I feel the quote above aptly demonstrates Lovecraft’s ability to transport the reader into that awesome place. I highly encourage anyone on the quest for Other to read these stories and the many other wonderful tales Lovecraft produced. Also, I would highly recommend perusing K. A. Opperman's blog entries on Lovecraft's poetry, as he clearly demonstrates that they have the same power to transport one into the strange and unknown world of Other.
Next time I’ll explore the question: Does the Other seek us?
I wish you successful journeying in the new year.
D. L. Myers
***
Excerpt from “The Colour Out of Space” from:
Lovecraft, H. P. The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Other Stories of Horror. Scholastic Book Services, a division of Scholastic Magazines, Inc., 1971
A couple of the comments I received after my last post asked me to expand on what they referred to as the “history of fear”. I did not use that phrase, but I did express some ideas I had about the origins of fear. I started with a quote by H. P. Lovecraft, and I would like to present it again but this time as the complete sentence that begins his wonderful essay Supernatural Horror in Literature which I would highly recommend to anyone on the quest for Other.
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”-- H. P. Lovecraft
Here Lovecraft’s words amplify the partial quote I presented last time. Fear is the first and foremost emotion of mankind and fear of the “unknown” is the greatest kind of fear. The unknown lies at the heart of Other--the unknown is the creator and the power of Other. For as I stated before, the Other is an entity beyond our experience and thus is the realm of the unknown.
Much of their world was unknown to our ancient ancestors, so fear was a daily companion. Their environment was a cold, uncaring place that was often unpredictable. Disease and other unexplainable death were terrifying things. Where did they come from? What was the reason they occurred? What happened afterward? We can imagine they pondered these and many other related questions, and we continue to do so today. We may understand the mechanics of death better than they did, but our understanding of what may lie beyond it remains a mystery. The unknown pervaded our ancestor’s world and the fear of it has been carried forward into ours. It has been passed from one generation to the next in oral and then written stories which, as I stated before are most likely the origin of the dark tale.
I believe that the fear of death is the central fear from which all other fears arise. It is the ultimate unknown. Our ancestors lived with this fear every day in very concrete ways and throughout human history this fear has been submerged in the ever growing trappings of civilization. Thus over time the focus of fear changed but the heart of fear remained the same. Perhaps civilization itself arose from this fear out of a desire to fend off and control death. We can speculate that the early hunter gatherers began to assemble into larger and larger groups to increase their ability to keep death at bay. The tales they told each other about the nature of the world around them may have been attempts to control this fear and in the process gain control of death.
In my opinion, the fear of death, the ultimate unknown, is the primary focus of dark literature. It is couched in an endless variety of forms, but in its deepest caverns of swirling horror crawls the serpentine nightmare called death. It has existed since before the first microbes appeared and will live eternally into the unknown future. We may not fear a lion attack as our distant ancestors did, but we do fear our fellow man, disease and natural disaster. We may understand these things better than the humans of the past, but we share the same fear in common.
Next time I want to return to my personal quest for Other, that is, unless the people will it otherwise. I hope you find your path to the unknown and in the process cross over into the dark realm of Other.
--D. L. Myers
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.” --H. P. Lovecraft
When I first conceived the approach I would use in relating my quest for Other, I believed that by relating my experiences reading Lovecraft, members of the Lovecraft circle and then fiction by other horror writers, I could define my personal journey to Other. I still think that is a viable path. However, in recent days, a deeper element of the drive toward Other has surfaced--fear.
The fear I am referring to is not the fear elicited by reading dark literature, but instead the fear Lovecraft referred to in his quote above. I am taking this apparent detour, because I feel it underlies everything I said in my first entry. I fully intend to return to the discussion of my own quest for Other through the blighted, serpentine worlds of dark literature in future posts.
So...fear. We all experience it in our lives in one form or another, whether it be from a traumatic experience, the lack of money to pay the rent or a myriad of other reasons. This real life fear becomes the trigger that sends us on our quest for Other.By experiencing the fear inherent in dark literature, we gain escape and perhaps perspective on our own fear. Now, the idea that a person’s real, day to day fear leads them to the sanctuary of dark literature is not original to me, however I do have my own personal perspective on it arising from my own fear.
Now, I would have to describe my relationship with fear as an extreme case, because with the exception of the last couple years fear has been an almost constant companion. Why this is so, I can’t say, even though I spent several years in therapy trying to figure it out. Perhaps some people are just magnets for fear, and I am one of those people. I think that is why my quest for Other began so early. I needed an escape from this constant barrage of fear and I found it in dark literature.
From my early exposure to Poe’s poetry onward, I became obsessed with all things dark, especially dark literature, although I also greatly enjoyed horror films. This obsession shifted into high gear when I discovered H. P. Lovecraft. His unique, dark and disturbing worlds were like a warm cavern of safety, although I was not consciously aware of that at the time.
When I read Lovecraft, I lost touch with the world around me and the fear it stirred in me. I was transported into the world of Other, and that was a game changing experience. I know all of you have experienced that same transport on your sacred quest for Other, and I believe it is for the same reason. We seek a buffer between ourselves and the very real fear that exists in our lives, and the Other provides it.
In closing, I want to return to Lovecraft’s quote. He states that fear is the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind, and I imagine that springs from the very real fear our most distant ancestors experienced: the fear of death. They had ferocious beasts, disease and starvation to contend with, as well as the many other guises the Grim Reaper can assume. Perhaps this is the origin of the dark tale.
We can imagine a group of ancient humans huddled in a cave. A fire burns at the cave mouth all through the long night, and to lessen that very real fear they begin to tell each other stories of the monsters in the dark beyond the fire. This is the beginning... Not an original idea but I like it.
Until next time, farewell and good journeying on your quest for Other.
What attracts someone to dark literature? From where does its power and sway originate? There are potentially endless answers to these questions. I will propose my own answer to this conundrum which has presented itself to me throughout my life, although it has not always been a concept I could put into words. It is simply this: all true followers of dark literature are on a quest. This is not a quest for fame, fortune or truth, but instead a sacred hunt for an elusive quarry, that I refer to as Other. I believe it is this longing and desire to experience Other--to be in its grasp, to feel its cold, fetid breath beating on our faces, that possesses and drives those of us who love dark literature.
So, what do I mean by Other? What is it? What are its dimensions? Of what does it consist? I envision it as the sense that one has moved beyond the confines of everyday experience into a realm of darkness, terror and boundless imagination. It is our desire to be drawn into another world of limitless possibilities. Perhaps this sounds as if I’m describing Rod Serling’s amazing series, The Twilight Zone, but this is an oversimplification. I envision Other as a cryptic, powerful beast and the land in which it dwells.
The French word outré means ‘to go beyond’. Excess is often associated with this idea, but the word is most often reduced to a simple synonym for bizarre, strange or queer. It may appear that my Other is no more than the English equivalent of this concept, but I believe it goes much deeper, that it embodies all the fears that we have dragged with us from our very origins.
So, how do I best describe this Other and the drive to achieve it? After considering this question for some time, I came to the conclusion that the best way I could approach this subject was by delving into the thing I am most familiar with: my own life and my own quest for the Holy Grail I name Other.
My quest began as a small boy of 6 or 7, when my mother read to me the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe. I distinctly remember her readings of The Raven, Annabelle Lee,and The Bells;and I can recall the chill of fear that these dark tales evoked in me. The next baby-steps in my quest came from the Scholastic books that I purchased at school. These compilations of ‘spooky stories’ about ghosts, vampires and werewolves, though simplistic, fed my growing interest in reading dark tales. The true beginning of my journey was at age 9, when, through the same venue of Scholastic books, I came upon a book of stories by an author with the strange name of H. P. Lovecraft. The book was entitled The Shadow over Innsmouth and Other Stories of Horror; and it was a revelation to me.
In future entries I want to discuss the impact of that book on my life and the dark quest for Other it sent me on. I would be very interested to hear the stories of others on this outré journey toward the mysterious, malign worlds of dark literature. I welcome your comments.
|
RSS Feed