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Jim here. This is both a bit personal and a bit of a repost. Originally printed in the Floidoip issue of the LGBTQ Trevor Project charity issue of our old punk ‘zine Ricky’s Backyard, this poem is actually a letter slightly askew. I won’t rewrite the introduction to the poem (you can find that in this book, though…amazon affiliate link, etc etc). For this year, a still pandemic world of fuckdom, I thought about showing a different side of Jim (Hyde, not Phoenix).

Jim was a gay man. He was HIV positive. In his own words, he had AIDS. Jim lived with that for more years than allotted for most people. He was on state insurance and they would take away his prescription plan when he got ‘too healthy’ so he would have to get extremely sick before being allowed to take HIV meds again. That was a cycle that followed him until death.

Jim was a complicated man and showed that complication, warts and all. If you did get a chance to check out his book Up the Hill Backwards, you’ll seen what I mean. A few private moments with Jim I won’t share, but I will say that as a college prof, I was lucky enough to have him write to my class about HIV, being Gay, and all the shit he had to do just to try to live.

I can’t find the exact moment anymore (memory will do that to you) but I’ll share this song (below the poem) that was dedicated to Jim at a concert that took, well a lot of magic (and a bit of lying by ol’ Doc here), to pull off. Lying to man dying of AIDS, well, that’s for another time. Maybe.

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HYDE

Clean from crack one year this month.

       it started as a self-medication
and grew into my whole life.
I live in a building where there are a few dealers
                                          on each floor
                              and I have nowhere else to go,
so I was tough as a cocksucker with them all
                                                       and now I am left alone.
    No
desire,
  more
    like disdain is the 

                                                   blessing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8NBpfkpyZw
This one’s still for Jim…

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Original Creations

Beyond the Veil: Video Script by Jennifer Weigel

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I wrote this script for Beyond the Veil awhile back, exploring the bond between two twin sisters, Edith and Edna, who had lived their lives together. There was a terrible car crash and someone didn’t make it.  The other is trying to contact them beyond the veil…

Spirit Witch altered doll sculpture by Jennifer Weigel
Spirit Witch altered doll sculpture by Jennifer Weigel

Beyond the Veil Setting:

Two women reach out to one another individually in a séance setting.

One sits on one side of a dining table.  The other sits at the other side.  Each studies a candle just beyond her reach; there is darkness between the two candles.  The long table is barely hinted at in the interstice between the two but it is clearly present.

The camera is stationary showing both in profile staring through each other.

The women are both portrayed by the same actress who is also the voice of the narrator, who is unseen.  All three voices are identical so that it is impossible to tell which of the two women the narrator is supposed to represent.

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Both women are spliced into the same scene.  They are together but apart.  The two candles remain for the duration of filming so that the two halves of the film can either be overlapped (so that both women appear incorporeal) or cut and sandwiched in the middle between the candles (so both women appear physically present).  It is possible to set the scene thusly using both methods in different parts of the story, with both women seemingly flickering in and out of being, both individually and apart.

Script:

I. Black, audio only.

Narrator:

I was riding with my twin sister.

We were in a terrible car crash.

The car drove over the median and rolled.

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It spun off the road where it caught fire.

There was smoke everywhere.

My sister didn’t make it.

II. Fade in to the long table with two lit candles; flames flickering.

Two women are just sitting at either end.

They stare blankly through each other.

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Call and Response

                        Edith: Now I’m trying to contact her…

                        Edna: …beyond the veil.

Simultaneous:

                        Edith: Edna, do you hear me?

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                        Edna: Edith, do you hear me?

Together (In Unison):

                        If you hear me, knock three times.

Narrator:

Knock.

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Knock.

Knock.

Call and Response:

                        Edith: I miss you terribly.

                        Edna: I miss you so much.

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                        Edith: Do you remember…

                        Edna: … the car crash?

                        Edith: We rolled…

                        Edna: … over the median.

                        Edith: There was fire.

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                        Edna: There was smoke.

                        Edith: I could hear the sirens.

                        Edna: They were coming…

                        Edith: … to rescue us.

                        Edna: But they were so far away.

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                        Edith: So far…

                        Edna: … away….

Simultaneous:

                        Edith: Are you okay?

                        Edna: Are you hurt?

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Together (In Unison):

                        Knock three times for yes.  Knock once for no.

Narrator:

Knock

– pause –

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Knock

  – pause –

 Together (Syncopated):

                        What’s it like, on the other side?

– long pause –

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   Simultaneous:

                        Edith: I miss you, Edna.

                        Edna: I miss you, Edith.

  Together (Syncopated):

                        It’s so lonely here.

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 Call and Response:

                        Edith: There’s no one here.

                        Edna: I’m all alone.

                        Edith: Without you…

                        Edna: …the spark of life…

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                        Edith: …is gone…

                        Edna: … so far away.

                        – pause –

Together (Entirely Out of Sync):

                        It’s so dark.

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III. Fade out to black

Narrator:

I was riding with my twin sister.

We were in a terrible car crash.

The car drove over the median and rolled.

It spun off the road where it caught fire.

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There was smoke everywhere.

I didn’t make it.

Close up of sculpture
Close Up of sculpture

I had planned to actually turn this into the video for which it was written, but quickly discovered that my plans for recording required a space that was too drastically different from my new house (and new large gaming table) and that my vision for filming could not be well-fully executed or realized. So now it exists as a script only.

Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.

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Original Series

Nightmarish Nature: Screwed Up Screwworms

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Yeah yeah, the insects tend to get ALL the attention here on Nightmarish Nature. But honestly, this one takes the beefcake. It’s the New World Screwworm Fly, and it’s as terrifying as the name suggests. And they aren’t limited to the Americas, there is an Old World version as well, as they can be found pretty much anywhere tropical or seasonably suited.

Warm weather woes...  Screwworm fly sipping a boat drink out of a coconut with a text bubble "Take me to the tropics."
Warm weather woes…

Revolting Little Buggers

The Screwworm Fly is a parasitic fly larvae that burrows into its host to feed, named because it seems to screw deeper and deeper into the flesh over time. This process is called myiasis and do NOT look it up online, you WILL regret it. They blur those images out for very valid reasons, trust me (and not because of pornographic content). And these maggots will continue to burrow en masse, rather than staying put as a botfly larvae would.

Do Not Do an Image Search on Screwworm Myiasis, Like Seriously – You Will NEVER Unsee That

The female Screwworm fly lays her eggs on an open wound or orifice of her chosen host… And not just one egg or a couple of eggs, no – hundreds, even thousands of them. Let’s let that sink in a bit, shall we? Or screw in as it were. Although any warm-blooded animal is a prime target, cattle are a fly favorite, costing millions of head of cattle to this sick and disgusting horror annually. And if beef isn’t on the menu, Fido or even yourself might be.

Too many maggots...  Showing one is maddening enough.  One screwfly larva with text bubble "I just keep on digging" and caption Multiply this by at least two orders of magnitude (regarding quantity not size).
Too many maggots… Showing one is maddening enough.

The Great American Worm Wall

In fact, this particular feature here on Nightmarish Nature is so terrifying that the United States has made agreements with all of Central America, even including countries that do not generally share its interests, in order to create a “Great American Worm Wall” to prevent them from spreading back into the United States. I’m not going to go into all of the creepy and juicy details of this bizarre science fiction freak fact, you’ll just have to watch it here on Half As Interesting’s YouTube channel.

Essentially, the Worm Wall is a complicated byproduct of scientists studying radioactivity on the flies’ maturity as well as the flies’ sexual lives and using this information against them to nearly eradicate the species and banish it from much of its former range. So, Peter Parker, if you thought everyone was messing with your love life before, be glad you weren’t bitten by a radioactive Screwworm.

If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:

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Vampires Among Us

Perilous Parenting

Freaky Fungus

Worrisome Wasps

Cannibalism

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Terrifying Tardigrades

Reindeer Give Pause

Komodo Dragons

Zombie Snails

Horrifying Humans

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Giants Among Spiders

Flesh in Flowers

Assassin Fashion

Baby Bomb

Orca Antics

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Creepy Spider Facts

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Original Creations

On Becoming Hallowed, All Hallows Eve Poem by Jennifer Weigel

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Like I said before, I’m really getting into the spirit of the season this year. So reconsidering The Mourners yet again, and haunting the faith a bit, I decided to share a poem that I wrote thinking about All Hallows Eve as a preview of more things to come this month of October.

Mourners drawing by Jennifer Weigel, graphite on paper
Mourners drawing by Jennifer Weigel

On Becoming Hallowed

Holy.  Holy.  Holy.  Light the candle.  Chant the hymn.

For now the veil between the living and the dead grows thin.

Fingers held to lips in silence; lies beneath their skin.

Family found, ancestral ghosts return to haunt their kin.

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Skeletons in closets, grotesque yearnings trapped within.

A bleached and bony face flashes a slightly knowing grin.

It’s not the shadows but the darkness that we fear therein.

Bless this Church whose saintly bodies live and dwell herein.

Unto Death, they claim to sanctify our souls from sin.

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Those familiar faces shame; this fight we cannot win.

Come what may, they betray.  Pray/prey and heads will spin.

Forevermore and evermore to nevermore…  Amen.

Mourners drawing by Jennifer Weigel, graphite on paper
Mourners drawing by Jennifer Weigel

I thought this poem really captured All Hallows Eve, in some of the same sentiments as the movie High Spirits, which I loved almost as much as Beetlejuice back in the day.

Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.

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