Mastodawn

Contrast, color, and texture transform familiar structures into surreal, otherworldly landscapes. And we chat with Julian to gain insight into his process. 🖖

https://gls.photo/RPjBOU

#photography #photographycommunity #glass #darkitecture #alienworld

C.L. Who Writes Jun 9

Bleeding Stranger’s Blood

Back home in this house, after 3 days at a hospital. The EMTs, doctors, nurses, the vascular surgeon Doctor Omid, and who ever donated the blood for the transfusions saved my life. It was an accident, just an accident. I didn’t want to kill myself. Reading over the instructions from the doctors, how and when to take the antibiotics and how to treat the wound. I knew how to treat a wound, I’ve done it so much. Otherwise I would have died of infection. I don’t want to die.

It was an accident, I didn’t want to die. I didn’t.

I sit in the living room of this house, this damn house, putting on a movie, trying to distract myself. I feel nothing from it. I feel nothing, not from streaming, games, or music. I feel nothing. Briefly I look at my scarred arm. What happens to transfused blood? Does it remain or does the body get rid of it? Looking down at the blood stain on the rug, the blood I lost, the blood that needed replacing. wandering, thinking, but feeling nothing. It was a nice rug. Damn this house!

There’s small spider crawling across the rug. A common spider in this aria, non-venomous to people. I capture it in a glass, let it out into my hand, watch as it crawls up my arm, onto my other hand. If only I could have been a spider. Make my web, capture bugs, mate and die. Or a squirrel, no a bird, soaring in the sky. I take the little spider outside, it ropes down from my hand into a bush. “By spider,” I tell it and go back inside, into this house.

This house, this damn house!

Alone, with nothing to give me any feeling I think about what the psychologist said to me.

“Hello I am Angela Green, I-” she began.

“They think I tried to kill myself,” I interrupted her, “I didn’t, it was an accident, I just cut too deep.” And I didn’t want to kill myself, it was an accident. I didn’t, I don’t. Damn this house!

“Even if it was, self harm is a problem. Why do you cut yourself?”

“It feels good,” I answered.

“Do you feel in control of your life?”

“I have a house,” this damn house, “a job, not usually stressful.”

“When you have a stressful day, do you cut more or less?”

I had to think about it. “Less, mostly because I’m too tired.” I don’t know if I was lying, I don’t know if it’s true.

“Are you in a relationship?”

“Single.”

“How did your last relationship end.”

“I don’t see how that has anything to do with this!” I exclaimed.

“I don’t know if it does or not. I need to ask to find out.”

“Three days before our wedding I caught her with another man. We argued for over an hour, she tried to blame it on me. I called it off.” All true, the first thing this house took from me.

“Did you self harm before that?”

“Some when I was a teenager, some in college. But no, not in a long time.”

“Did you start after the break up?”

“Yes but not right away, I was over her.” Again I don’t know if I lied. Thinking about it I don’t know if I am or not.

“Did anything happen when you started self harming?”

Yes, but I could not tell her, she would think I’m crazy. Maybe I am. It was this house, this damn house. I inherited it from my grandfather. His death was a surprise to us all, he looked like a man half his age, but a bullet from an idiot with a gun ended his life. My father and aunt already had houses, I was living in a small apartment. This was when I was still engaged. I thought we’d build a family here. With the house came books and research on occult things. I found it fascinating, My grandfather never told us he researched anything. I read though his notes, I thought it was all bullshit, but fascinating bullshit.

Then I caught her with that bastard she worked with. I got off early, she knew I was getting off early that day, I don’t understand why they chose that time to fuck in our bedroom, on our bed! On that damn bed! Damn this house!

Maybe part of her wanted to get caught. Part of her wanted to get caught. Maybe- No! It was an accident, I don’t want to die! I don’t.

I caught them. We yelled at each other, I kicked her out. It was my house, I inherited it. The next day I called her and broke it off. I haven’t talked to her since.

I through myself into granddad’s notes to distract myself. I didn’t want to think about her, or what we could have had. In those notes I found a ritual to open a gate to another world. It never occurred to me something would actual happen, at the most I thought I would go into some trance and dream up something. Something did happen, something came through. There is no describing it, it was utterly inhuman, utterly unearthly. I could feel it’s mind, a mind so large it was like looking up at a titan. Terror overcame me and I fled. I boarded up the basement door, in case it was still down there. I can not move from this house, this damn house! If it is still down there, or even if the opening is still there, I need to keep it locked away. I am stuck in this house, this damn house!

“I- I can’t tell you what happened,” I finally answered her.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t! Won’t and Can’t.”

“Okay. How do you feel most of the time?”

“Normal, regular, I don’t know,” I shrugged.

“Happy, sad, depressed, angry, numb?”

Numb! That was it! I was numb. Every time I saw the basement door, every time I came home, every time I went to bed, the bed I caught her fucking another man, I could see her- it, feel it again. A terror that went down to my bones. The only way to escape it was to stop feeling, to become numb. Shows, music, reading, work, even with family, I feel nothing.

“People need to feel,” Angela explained to me, “sometimes when people are emotionally numb they seek physical sensations, like pain or sex, they may seek feelings from drugs or adrenaline. I can point you to people who can help. If you have trouble paying there are support groups.”

She gave me cards and a paper with phone numbers and web sites. I threw them out when I left the hospital. No one would believe me or understand. So I am alone in this damn house again, numb.

Blood drips from my leg. The pain lets me know I’m alive, it is a feeling. I won’t do it again, won’t cut too deep again. I don’t want to die. Shallow, at the skin, just enough to hurt, enough to bleed. Not too deep, not this deep. I don’t want to die.

Looking at the blood running from the cut. Is that even my blood? They gave me a transfusion after I bled out, after I cut too deep. Is it my blood? Is this blood gifted to me by a stranger? A stranger who donated blood, a person I would not recognize if I saw them. Am I wasting the blood gifted to me by someone I’ll never meet!?

Maybe a little deeper. I don’t want to die. I don’t. A little deeper. No! I can’t do this anymore! I can’t live like this! I don’t want to die. I really don’t! But I can’t live like this!

Sobbing and crying I fall to the floor, bang my head against the floor because I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to escape this. I can’t live like this but I don’t want to die. If I keep going I will die, I will choose to die, I will kill myself.

There is only one thing I can do, face it!

Ripping the dry wall I put over the door off, taking out the screws and nails used to seal the door, I must face it! The room hasn’t changed, a partly finished basement with the drawing of a door and writing on the wall, writing I put there. It isn’t here, the door is closed. But it is not enough, it is in my memory, in my dreams, in my nightmares.

All my grand fathers research is destroyed, I burned his notes, destroyed his computer and external drives. I even burned his books in the fire place. I must remember. Iron, salt, cross road dirt, sage, frankincense. No! Myrrh.

After acquiring the ingredients I make a circle with a mix of salt, iron shavings, graveyard soil, and cross road dirt. I draw the symbols into the circle with a reed. In the middle a pot with myrrh and dry sage, with some of the sage bundled into a cone. On a hot plate I heat fresh olive oil until it just starts smoking. I pore in the hot oil, just covering the bottom layer of sage. Lighting the cone of dry sage I begin the summoning.

Chanting, projecting myself out of this world, the door opens, I call it through. Opening my eyes, beyond the opening to another world, I see it in all of it’s horrific glory. I can not describe what it looks like, it is utterly alien, utterly unworldly. Some might say it looks like a spider but it’s limbs, if that’s what they are, don’t move like a spider’s legs. Lovecraft might say it has tentacles but those are not tentacles. They split and fork like the limbs or roots of a tree but they move like it was an animal. It seems to have a body in it’s center, it’s body seemed to be a mass of something, maybe those tendrils that make up it’s limbs, perhaps it’s some kind of liquid but it also seemed to be solid. Could it be both? Maybe something else? I don’t know! It seems to have many eyes but I don’t know if those are eyes or if my mind is imposing something familiar onto it. The most horrifying part is it’s mind. It’s mind extends beyond it’s body, I can feel it. It’s mind is beyond any human comprehension, so big and alien that the human mind can only respond with “run” and “hide”.

Ignoring my instincts and fear I stay, look, and feel. I’m so scared, every fiber of my being tells me to flee but fleeing would mean death after a life unlivable. What ever awaits, death or far worse, I have to do this!

It’s reaching through with it’s tendril like limbs. Despite my fear I reach out. The end of it’s limb splits into five, each touches the ends of my fingers. Another limb is coming through, we touch. I can feel it in my mind even stronger than before. There is something familiar in its mind, something human, or at least common in life, curiosity. It must have decoded the language of my mind as no human could decode theirs. They let me in. I can see their world! A turquoise sky, seven suns, great pillars reach into the sky, all equally spaced apart with paths between them. Their minds are so big and incomprehensible yet I experience their thoughts and sensations, I can feel my mind melding with theirs. There are no human words to describe their thoughts, they are too different, too alien, to far beyond us. Even as we meld it’s mind is too far beyond mine, my mind is like a bug held in their mental hand.

Their bodies intertwine into the great pillars. Some untangle, leaving, some return home entangling themselves with others. Their minds extend beyond their bodies, overlapping into a consciousness of billions across an alien world. Great creatures with teardrop shaped bodies and membranous wings fly overhead, small creatures ran on the grounds between the pillars. The towering collections of beings dominate the landscape for miles like an alien forest.

There are others here, I feel them. Thoughts feelings and sensations more human. I feel someone, someone I know, someone I knew. Granddad? Is that you? It can’t be! A man holding a baby, feeling joy and love. I recognize the room, it was my home as a child. I see my Dad and Mom, twenty seven years younger. They look so happy, Granddad is so happy holding me. A memory! A memory Granddad left with them. There are others here, I can feel them, the peaces they left behind. Thoughts, feelings and memories. Good and bad, love and hate, lust and indifference. How many have seen this place?

I am becoming myself again, splitting from the great minds. The door closed and I am alone. Calm, a real calm, not numbness, I feel a smile on my face, a coolness from the moisture on my face, tears of happiness. Wiping my face I see my arm, the scars are gone! I pull off my shirt, the many scars on my torso are gone, that tattoo I drunkenly got in college was also gone but the tattoo on my right arm I got to celebrate my graduation remained. I run up to the bathroom, look at myself in the mirror. The scars are all gone, even the scar from that mole I had removed. My skin hasn’t felt this smooth in a long time. My face even looks younger, I haven’t looked like this in years.

I can’t help but cry. All that fear, all that trauma, all the blood bled, all that time wasted, all of it was unnecessary. I ran from fear the first time, if I had stayed I could have learned, understood. So much unneeded pain brought by a primal irrational fear. So much suffering and waste from my inability to see beyond my own fear. No more!

Outside, I feel the sun om my refreshed skin, feel the cool spring air. I hadn’t done this in years. I laugh at myself, so afraid I numbed myself only to crave feeling when I had nothing to fear. What a fool!

Looking down I see a spider web where I left the little spider. A little creature with their little home. Looking at the house I blamed for my troubles, “it’s just a house,” I say out loud, it did nothing. Looking back now I see that Leigh and I would never have worked. The signs where there from the beginning but I chose to ignore them. I should call her, see how she’s doing. Right now, though, I need to start over. I have to repair the door to the basement. Granddad’s notes and books are gone, some are in my memory. More are in my memory, more than I remembered before, it all must have come from them. After I write it all down I will look for books, start a collection. I do need to get out though, meet someone, it is not good to be alone all the time.

I don’t want to die, I really didn’t want to die, but for the first time in a long time, I want to live.

Background image in header by Fadime Demirtaş.

Do you like this? Hated but enjoyed getting angry at it? Then please support my work on Kofi. Those who support my work at Kofi get access to high rez versions of my photography and art.