Pegritz
07-03-2008, 04:53 AM
Hey, folks--just a heads-up to let you know that I have finally, finally posted the revised 3rd chapter of "City of Pillars" (http://footnotes.pegritz.com/category/city-of-pillars/) over at Footnotes to the Human Species (http://footnotes.pegritz.com)
You'd think that being unemployed would give me nothing but time to write...but not so. I've been so busy jobhunting lately, it's ridiculous. Haven't even gotten a single interview or even a "Thanks for sending us your resume" note, but...well, all I can do is keep sending resumes and praying to the Other Gods that someone gives me a goddamned job before I lose my house.
Anyway, there's some serious creepiness going on in the new chapter. Here's a teaser:
Now I noticed the graffiti. Graffiti everywhere—more than I’d ever seen. Almost every building had something spraypainted on it: tags, gang signs, strangely beautiful cartoons and murals…and weird sketches that made me feel antsy. My stomach knotted when I spied the stick-like device again. “Greg?” I asked, pointing. “What is that?”
“What—the graffiti? Idaknow. I think it’s somekinda new gang sign. You see it in Queens, too, and Staten Island, for that matter. Ever since half of Harlem got dumped into the Bronx we’ve had gang trouble like you wouldn’t believe. We even got some genuine homegrown Cthulhu cultists, can you believe that?”
Of course I could: they were everywhere these days. Even San Diego. Every year in early March the lunatics gathered at beaches up and down the West Coast to wade into the chilly waters and sing praises to their comatose god beyond the horizon. Since 9/11 their gathering had drawn mockers and increasing violence, to the point that police had to be called in to guard their ridiculous ceremonies. I could only imagine them doing the same here, gathering on shores facing the ruins of Manhattan….“How many?” I wondered.
Greg shrugged. “A few, here and there. Not as many as you’d think. Right after 9/11 they were fucking everyplace, but the police ran most of them out of town. The Church of the Great Old Ones had a little storefront on Whateley Street for a little while but the neighborhood, they didn’t take too kindly to them, for obvious reasons. Someone torched the place. I’ve got it on good authority that it was the FDNY themselves did it. The fire only destroyed the cultists building; didn’t damage anything else.”
“That symbol has something to do with them,” I muttered under my breath.
Greg still heard me. “Probably. Who knows. All kinds of whackjobs in this City these days.”
As we passed a building standing all alone between two vacant lots, I saw that the entire base of the building had been spraypainted with weird, jagged designs that almost looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs and, on one side there was a tall white blot where something had been sprayed over in white paint. You could still recognize the outline, though: the huge, cephalopod head, the wings, the bulbous body. One each side of the blob, an eight-pointed star had been painted. In the center of each star, an eyes with a tripartite pupil.
Feeling sick again, I turned away and looked straight ahead at the line of traffic creeping toward the onramp and said nothing. Greg fiddled with the radio until he settled on a classical station playing an odd, frantic violin piece. I closed my eyes, pretending that I hadn’t seen the coils of light writhing sickly in the weeds and brickpiles beneath that malevolent white stain.
Take a look! And enjoy. :)
You'd think that being unemployed would give me nothing but time to write...but not so. I've been so busy jobhunting lately, it's ridiculous. Haven't even gotten a single interview or even a "Thanks for sending us your resume" note, but...well, all I can do is keep sending resumes and praying to the Other Gods that someone gives me a goddamned job before I lose my house.
Anyway, there's some serious creepiness going on in the new chapter. Here's a teaser:
Now I noticed the graffiti. Graffiti everywhere—more than I’d ever seen. Almost every building had something spraypainted on it: tags, gang signs, strangely beautiful cartoons and murals…and weird sketches that made me feel antsy. My stomach knotted when I spied the stick-like device again. “Greg?” I asked, pointing. “What is that?”
“What—the graffiti? Idaknow. I think it’s somekinda new gang sign. You see it in Queens, too, and Staten Island, for that matter. Ever since half of Harlem got dumped into the Bronx we’ve had gang trouble like you wouldn’t believe. We even got some genuine homegrown Cthulhu cultists, can you believe that?”
Of course I could: they were everywhere these days. Even San Diego. Every year in early March the lunatics gathered at beaches up and down the West Coast to wade into the chilly waters and sing praises to their comatose god beyond the horizon. Since 9/11 their gathering had drawn mockers and increasing violence, to the point that police had to be called in to guard their ridiculous ceremonies. I could only imagine them doing the same here, gathering on shores facing the ruins of Manhattan….“How many?” I wondered.
Greg shrugged. “A few, here and there. Not as many as you’d think. Right after 9/11 they were fucking everyplace, but the police ran most of them out of town. The Church of the Great Old Ones had a little storefront on Whateley Street for a little while but the neighborhood, they didn’t take too kindly to them, for obvious reasons. Someone torched the place. I’ve got it on good authority that it was the FDNY themselves did it. The fire only destroyed the cultists building; didn’t damage anything else.”
“That symbol has something to do with them,” I muttered under my breath.
Greg still heard me. “Probably. Who knows. All kinds of whackjobs in this City these days.”
As we passed a building standing all alone between two vacant lots, I saw that the entire base of the building had been spraypainted with weird, jagged designs that almost looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs and, on one side there was a tall white blot where something had been sprayed over in white paint. You could still recognize the outline, though: the huge, cephalopod head, the wings, the bulbous body. One each side of the blob, an eight-pointed star had been painted. In the center of each star, an eyes with a tripartite pupil.
Feeling sick again, I turned away and looked straight ahead at the line of traffic creeping toward the onramp and said nothing. Greg fiddled with the radio until he settled on a classical station playing an odd, frantic violin piece. I closed my eyes, pretending that I hadn’t seen the coils of light writhing sickly in the weeds and brickpiles beneath that malevolent white stain.
Take a look! And enjoy. :)