Some piano music composed in memory of my recently deceased furry friend Chanel.  I'll miss you toasted marshmallow.

A little piano music with a electronic elements to add a touch of atmosphere.  Enjoy this low (low) budget video, and see if you can imagine "Walking Nowhere".

Last month I got the privilege of taking part in BYOT.  If you’re a regular here at Honesty is Not Contagious, you’ll already know what I’m talking about.  For those unfamiliar, BYOT stands for Bring Your Own Theater.  This is a production company in Chicago that assembles monthly to put together several one acts within 24 hours. 

Writers, performers, and directors get together on a Friday evening.  By Saturday morning writers have prepared a script based on a randomly assigned theme.  The cast and crew have the next twelve hours to rehearse and construct whatever kind of a show they can.

If nothing else, it’s always a wonderful evening with some fine folks.  As a writer, I also enjoy the challenge.  It’s unique, rewarding, and typically forces a person to think outside the box.  After all, there’s a good chance everyone will have the same idea about a theme.  The trick is to find perspectives others might not explore.  A good way to do that is to listen to the cast. 

In other news, BYOT is currently gearing up for a full production of an original piece called “Aces ‘N’ Eights” by Ross Childs.  He’s a troubadour behind songs such as “Crabman” and “Human Meat”.  (You can grab his album Kazoology off Amazon music.)  BYOT describes the show as follows:

“BYOT Productions presents the world premiere of Aces & Eights by Ross Childs. Detective Francine Noir’s private investigator career has hit a rough patch. But when two cases converge, a distraught dame trying to find a lost will and a rich art collector in search of a missing painting, she must descend into the dark, grimy, and gut-busting underworld to uncover the biggest case of her life and rescue the only person who knows her filing system… not to mention where to find the cheapest scotch.”

The road to that show is a hard one, however.  Though things are underway a few hurdles are left to climb.  As such, there are two things I’d like to mention.

August 20th at Mrs. Murphy’s and Sons Irish Bistro there will be a Semi-noir Cabaret fundraiser to assist the production.  A variety of marvelous acts will be performing, myself included.  I encourage anyone in the Chicago area to come down, have a drink, and a good time.  However, those not in the Chicago area are asked, if possible, to donate what you can to the production fundraiser in the link below.  Every little bit helps, and if a donation is out of the question for whatever reason – I have bills too and understand money can’t always be spared – doing us the simple favor of sharing the fundraiser on social media is greatly appreciated. 
 
A Semi-Noir Cabaret
https://www.facebook.com/events/1351839498317607/
 
BYOT fundraising page
https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/bring-your-own-theatre-productions/campaigns/2829?fbclid=IwAR0etFlFF7qc1RIf8ttYzLgIPWqpURCRnPRb_J_s1k6msUFTOKs6DK4xeGs

​Emry Timinski sat in his study.  Staring out the window the view meant nothing.  It used to be pleasing, a garden reminiscent of Versailles.  He thought about going to bed, though he doubted he’d sleep.  He rarely did these days.  His wife slept soundly, thanks to a burgeoning ether addiction.  He downed the last drops from a bottle of bourbon – his own self-medication.  Rising, he heard a floorboard creak. 
 
Collapsing back into the chair Emry said, “I knew you’d be back.”
 
“Don’t send anymore after me,” the voice shook the very air.
 
“He’s dead then?” Emry asked, already suspecting the answer.
 
A thud.  He glanced down.  Morty’s head and spine lay by his feet. 
 
“I can’t promise the others won’t keep coming for you.”
 
“Advise them otherwise.”
 
Emry nodded, “They might listen, but are we supposed to just sit back and take it?”  He turned, the sorrow in him transforming into reckless rage, “We won’t –”
 
A spindly claw-like hand clapped over his mouth.  He saw a black wooly form, its antlers scraping the ceiling.  It lifted him off the ground.
 
Snarling it said, “Look into my eyes.”
 
Emry felt a razorblade skip through his brain.
 
Cillian spoke without moving his mouth, “You will suffer unto me.”
 
He tossed Emry aside like a ragdoll.  The mob boss slammed into a bookcase.  Then the sack went over his head, and when it came off, he felt free from sorrow for the briefest moment.  Looking around, he saw nothing save for an empty study.  Slowly, the grief returned and with it, the guilt from feeling happier without it.  As such, Emry sat on the floor weeping.  For in that instance, he realized this would never end. 
 
Cillian, meanwhile, made his way through the woods on all fours.  He delivered the bag of sorrow to the scarecrow. 
 
Huffing on the sweet suffering therein, the scarecrow remarked, “Something on your mind?”
 
Cillian said, “This can’t last.  They won’t feel grief forever.”
 
The scarecrow said, “I didn’t think so, but I have a plan for that.”
 
#
 
Elizabeth struck a match.  In the tiny apartment the burning stick almost filled the room.  She touched it to a candle.  On the floorboards she already drew a red circle in chalk.  Around it she wrote the words the old woman told her. 
 
At the funeral, weeping over her little brother, Elizabeth felt her mind fracture.  The weight of her agony crushed like a piston.  She considered how much she endured over the course of her life – mother dying in childbirth, father shortly thereafter stabbed to death by a mugger; two brothers killed in gangster crossfire – her family seemed destined to die.  Especially now that her youngest brother died, falling through the ice hauling a carload of booze. 
 
She couldn’t stop saying things like, “They sucked him in.  Flashing cash in his face and making it all sound so glamorous.  Pretending lies are truth, that pig Sorisi got him killed.”
 
“Hush Lizzy,” a neighbor said, “Sorisi hears about this, even a rumor, you’ll be skinned alive.”
 
“Or worse,” someone said.
 
Elizabeth didn’t care.  Let the bastards come, she thought.  They already took so much from her, the rest of her life seemed minimal in comparison.  However, while each bit of caution sounded like attempts to distance from her, one old woman took her hand.
 
Elizabeth couldn’t recall the old woman.  She didn’t seem to be a neighbor, friend of the family, or anyone she knew.  The old woman introduced herself as Lilith.  A youthful spark glittered in her ancient eye, and something in the way she moved made her age seem immaterial. 
 
Lilith said, “You’ve been wronged sweet thing, but you do not have to bear it with a smile.  There are other ways.”
 
Taking Elizabeth aside, Lilith whispered instructions.  She told her to procure a candle, red chalk, and then what to do.
 
So, Elizabeth lit the candle, placed it in the red circle, and recited the words she wrote.  The language didn’t sound like anything Elizabeth ever heard.  It struck her as alien, words humans are unlikely to produce.  Still, the more she spoke the more the air gained a certain weight.  Then the candle flame intensified.  Dancing on the slender wick it climbed a foot high.  The candle melted in a matter of seconds; the fire snuffed out by the bubbling puddle of wax.
 
Darkness filled the room.  The little light from the street even vanished.  Elizabeth felt a breeze and started to realize she no longer occupied the apartment. 
 
Thunder sounded, and she saw red lightning in the distance.  In the light of flashes, she saw black rocky field that went on for miles, and a figure marching toward her on all fours, a great antlered entity like some demonic giraffe.  She heard the thump of its feet as it neared. 
 
It’s eyes, like burning embers, gazed down upon her.  She glanced up then down.  This didn’t feel right.

A deep resonating voice said, “You have need of me.”
 
Hesitantly, Elizabeth nodded. 
 
The voice said, “Don’t be afraid.  My name is Cillian.”
 
Elizabeth said, “My brothers… died…”
 
“Unfairly, or you would not be here.”
 
She said, “I can’t hurt the ones who hurt me, the Sorisi gang.  I need your help.”
 
“There is a price.”
 
“Lilith told me,” Elizabeth said, taking a deep breath, “I’ll pay it.”
 
She felt a spindly claw gently grasp her shoulder.  She flinched, but it held her firm.  A sack closed over her head.  After a moment, afraid she might suffocate, that she’d made a terrible mistake, the sack came off. 
 
Gasping Elizabeth felt such relief.  Her sorrow was gone entirely.  She smiled for the first time in weeks.
 
She said, “Is that it?”
 
“I’ll return when there’s more,” Cillian said.
 
“What about Sorisi?” Elizabeth asked. 
 
She looked up.  The eyes staring down bore into her.  Her head filled with a tornado of nails. 
 
Cillian’s voice growled inside her skull, “Constant pain disgrace; blood and screams – they suffer unto me.”
 
She did not look away.  Then the darkness closed in on itself.  Light spilled in through the window, the streetlamp piercing the shadows.  Elizabeth felt a warmth spread inside her.  The night would be filled with blood and screams.  She knew it; knew to trust the distributor of pain, the harvester of sorrow.  Everything would be alright. 

​That metal buckle coming down, every whip strike meant to a prove a point.  Whatever it intended, the slurred explanations, drunken screams never came close to assuring understanding.  Afterwards, brothers gathered to comfort.  Nothing said; wounds cleaned – the Lynch boys told jokes to keep the silence from crushing them.  All the while, Cillian assured with a grim smile he would bear the brunt.  Their father wouldn’t break him. 
 
Waking in the woods, Cillian sat up with a start.  Coughing, he hacked up a wad of ink black phlegm.  Tossing into the ashes of the fire, he kicked off his blanket.  Rising, he prepared for another day.
 
Piling wood into the fire pit, he focused his rage.  He pressed a hand to the log.  Letting the anger flow, he ignited the fire.  He watched it burn his hand a moment.  No pain.  He pulled his hand back, and watched the skin heal.  Although, it didn’t look quite the same.  The fingers longer, bonier, the skin darkened and furrier. 
 
Sighing, he shrugged it off as a trick of the twilight.  He sat by the fire until the scarecrow appeared.  It crept out from behind a tree. 
 
“You got what I want?” Sam asked.
 
Cillian nodded.  He went over to a small stack of supplies.  There he collected a burlap sack, bulging like an overinflated balloon.  He handed the sack to the scarecrow. 
 
It held the opening to its mouth, undid the drawstring, and sucked in the contents.  Sam shuddered.  It reminded Cillian of soldiers in London, hiding memories of the trenches behind a fog of opium.  They too shivered with the same delight. 
 
Branches snapped.  Vague horrifying whispers drifted on the wind.  Without looking, Cillian knew an antlered entity crept through the woods. 
 
Sam remarked, “I heard you made good use of our friends.”
 
“Knocked a car over like it was nothing,” Cillian said. 
 
The sack empty, Sam tossed it to Cillian.  Then the scarecrow produced a map of Detroit.  It pulled a jagged crystal out of a pocket.  Dangling on a chain the crystal swung like a pendulum over the map.  It eventually stopped at a rigid diagonal, pointing to one part of the city.
 
Sam tapped the map, “That’s where the child is.  Mistress’s kid, the old don thinks no one knows about.  A favorite too as the child’s too young to’ve done anything disappointing.”
 
Cillian said, “When should I go?”
 
“It’s always best after dark.”
 
The sun would set in a few hours.  Meanwhile, they sat around the fire.  The scarecrow occasionally snickered then related some tale from centuries ago; like the deaf monk who longed to compose music, Sam taught to steal ears – “Oh, but sadly such things never last.  He needed to keep stealing fresh pairs, but what music, my friend, if only you could’ve heard.”  Then night reigned, and Cillian went to work. 
 
He touched the map.  Closing his eyes, he focused on the spot the crystal indicated.  The world went wild, like tumbling unexpected downhill.  He felt himself falling then his feet hit solid ground. 
 
He now stood in an alley.  Walking out onto the street, he saw rowhouses stretching down the block.  Cillian strolled the street until he felt compelled to stop.  Eying the house, he saw a young woman playing with a small boy.  They sat in the window, a tangible happiness radiating from them.
 
Watching thru the window, she reminded him of the kind of woman Kyle always described.  Cillian scowled – little brother’s dream girl screwing the mob filth that killed him.  Her son’s smile minus a few teeth, perhaps lost the same as Sloane, li’l daredevil in training; proof of the beauty in imperfection Flynn might go on about for hours.  Cillian felt the anger rising, filling him to bursting then spilling out.  A nebulas cloud of ink flowing towards the house, engulfing it. 
 
The right kind of eyes might spy outlines; silhouettes; impressions of memories resurrected.  The boys laughing around a campfire; soldiers charging into cannon fire; Magdalene’s beautiful hair on fire – ruby lips turned to coals.  The lost moments never to come again, and the worst of times that’d never fade entirely out of mind.  Cillian stepped towards the house. 
 
The woman inside glanced out the window, perplexed by the growing darkness.  Its intensity unusual.  Cillian felt coldness filling his body.  A brief thought of his mother, begging him not to – he flinched – the darkness faded, and the woman saw him on the sidewalk.
 
She grabbed the boy, and hurried upstairs.  Cillian realized she knew, perhaps informed by rumors, but she knew. 
 
“Yo freakshow.”
 
He ignored the voice until three bullets ripped into him.
 
Cillian turned.  He saw a man in a slouch hat and a suit.
 
“Been waiting for you,” the man said then fired again.
 
Without a word, Cillian rushed him.  In a blink, he crossed the ten feet between them.  One deft motion, he tore the guard’s throat out.  He used to linger, watch them die.  Now he walked away.  The gurgling slow crawl towards death meant nothing to him now.  Instead, he went for the house.
 
Hurrying, he banged his head on the doorway.  That gave him pause.  Cillian recalled always being taller than others, but lately, he seemed to have grown.  Even his arms appeared longer than usual.  Ignoring that for now, he went inside. 
 
His hobnail boots thudded as he explored the house.  Ears pricked, he heard two rapid heartbeats.  He followed the sound upstairs to a secret panel, a hideaway of sorts.  The smell of fresh paint suggested a recent installation. 
 
He punched through the wall and ripped open the hiding place.
 
A scream followed by gunfire.  He felt something punch him in the face.  For a moment he couldn’t see out of one eye.  Slowly, the world came back into focus. 
 
He saw the woman put a hand over her son’s eyes.
 
Tearfully, she said, “Don’t look baby.  It’ll be okay.”
 
Cillian said, “No, it won’t.”
#
 
Morty stopped the car.  Parking along the roadside he regarded the woods.  The sun would be going down soon.  He never cared for nature, and certainly didn’t desire getting lost.  However, he wanted the matter closed. 
 
For weeks he watched Emry wither.  The suffocating grief strangled the man he knew, the friend he loved and respected, choked out of existence.  He went from a force of will to a shivering drunk, fading away in his study.  Morty determined to do whatever it took to set things right. 
 
So, “The Butcher” went to work.  He started in Kalamazoo.  From the diner where the Lynches died, he followed the roads, stopping in every small town he encountered.  Cash, for the most part, bought him information – pointing Morty in one direction or another.  When folks got a bit more resistant, he showed them why they called him “The Butcher”.
 
Snipping a fellow’s fingers off, he learned the Lynches tended to come from the North.  Everyone in the speakeasy agreed.  One even offered the notion, most folks suspected they hid out in the Lower Peninsula.  However, that made little sense to Morty.  Afterall, Lynch couldn’t be hopping between the two places unless he flew in and out of Detroit somehow.  Yet, it gave him a location to focus on.
 
Getting out of the car, Morty thought about the last time he talked to Emry.  He informed the boss of his plans before leaving.  The whole while Emry sat staring out a window.  The husk barely managed to look at Morty.  He simply nodded, a feeble wave of the hand sending “The Butcher” off.  About to leave, Morty hesitated.
 
He said, “I’m going to get him.”
 
Emry said, “He comes sometimes, in the night.  A sack goes over my head, and when it’s gone, I’m actually relieved.  I don’t feel… sorrow anymore.  Then it comes crashing back in, worse than before because there’s a guilt about the relief.”  He downed a glass of bourbon, “He’ll be back soon.  I’m full again.  That’s when he comes.”
 
Morty resolved then and there to do whatever it took to end this madness.  Although he doubted he’d run into Cillian Lynch in the woods – calling the organization to check on things, he heard about Lynch murdering another child; that put him in Detroit – Morty wanted to find his hideout.  That could give him a clue what to do next.
 
In Bay City, Morty met a woman named Polly.  She told him what Sloane Lynch once said.  Stop by the road, head into the woods, and look for the scarecrow.  Grabbing a flashlight out of the trunk, Morty did just that. 
 
Deeper and deeper into the woods “The Butcher” marched undaunted.  He saw no reason to worry.  Even as the trees began growing darker, he suspected little.  Though the sun still shone a bit, the forest grew more and more shadowed.  Bark darkening as if stained black.  He ignored it as the sun vanished.  Though he saw nothing, the thud of heavy footfalls suggested large animals nearby.  Just as it started occurring to him, something in the air didn’t feel right, Morty spotted a flickering glow in the distance. 
 
Correctly suspecting a fire, he crept toward it.  Closing in, he grinned.  Sure enough, there stood Cillian Lynch.  Morty saw him standing next to the scarecrow which sat on a trunk for some reason.  Cillian held a sack to the scarecrow’s mouth.
 
‘Nut job,’ Morty thought.  He pulled out his gun.  Stepping into the campsite he pointed the gun at Cillian. 
 
“Cillian Lynch?” 
 
The large man cocked his head to the side.
 
“Turn around.  Slowly,” Morty said.
 
Cillian turned.  His eyes shone like an animal’s.  Morty peered at him.  The firelight seemed to be playing tricks.  Cillian appeared to be growing stag antlers.  Morty shone the flashlight on him.  Cillian stepped back as if repelled by the light.  Oddly enough, he did indeed have the start of antlers protruding from his skull. 
 
Morty shook his head, “I got no idea what’s going on here, but you and I, we’re gonna spend some time together.”
 
For weeks Morty planned what he’d do if he got his hands on Cillian.  Days of torture lay ahead.  He tried not to smile at the prospect but found it difficult.
 
The scarecrow remarked, “I really don’t care for interruptions.”
 
It took a moment for Morty to realize the scarecrow spoke.  He assumed some ventriloquist trick, but then the scarecrow frowned.  It stood and tossed the deflated sack to one side.  Assuming some freak, lunatic accomplice, Morty shot the scarecrow in the head. 
 
Its head snapped back.  Straw blew out the back of its burlap skull.  Yet, it remained standing.  The damn thing even started laughing. 
 
Morty fired at the scarecrow again.  It continued laughing, louder this time.  Cillian moved towards him.  Morty pumped a few rounds into him.  Cillian stood unflinching, taking each bullet with barely a grunt. 
 
Regardless of the unreal nature of things, Morty knew a losing situation.  He ran.  The scarecrow’s laughter chased him through the woods.  Morty heard the rapid thud of pounding hooves.  Shining his light around, he caught half glimpses of giant antlered creatures pursuing him.  His foot caught on a fallen tree, and he fell.  Scrambling to stand again, something stomped on him. 
 
He felt a hand jam literally into his back.  The curious sensation of someone holding his spine.  Then what he could only describe as a rip.  For a moment, he couldn’t comprehend what he saw.  The tops of trees, the forest floor then the trees again, only upside down.  He felt pain yet it seemed far away as if it existed but didn’t really matter.  He also couldn’t feel his body.  Just as it started making sense, the world vanished entirely.