A TALL TALE HEART ( Will Always Tell Tales on You)

A TALL TALE HEART ( Will Always Tell Tales on You)

                                        By JUDYTH VARY POE( Based on a fragment by Edgar Allen Vary)

  Gorgons, chimeras,  aye,   even doppelgangers exist, indeed they have always  done so, and,  I daresay they forever will. In the dimmer corners of humanity's consciousness. They are merely the shadows of ourselves,  the darker selves , we spend so much time trying to deny. I say this to you,  now, there is often more truth to be found in one grain of darkness than in a whole dreamfull of light. For what is darkness if not the orphan cast out from the dream palace of light ? 

   JOSEPH GLANVILL 

                                     THE TALL TALE HEART  
      
                                     1 PROLOGUE 

Just as the church bells of St Bertie the Bilocator of Berlin ,on nearby Carto Boulevard  had rung themselves out - announcing,  at once the arrival , and the concurrent departure of,   the witching hour; the dull lacrimose chimes filling the midnight air with their doleful ripples,  as if 12 great weights had been dropped into the sullen pools of night, each one hidden by a sombre chime, or hidden  deeper,  like  silent  tears cascading into a secret reservoir of pain l, for the pain that passes unheard and unheeded  is often greater than the pain that stirs the whole  world  with  its gaudy fanfare-the old couple came tottering out of Prouty's Passage,  passing under the dimly lit archway before turning onto Lansdale Avenue

As they had done countless times before. As they  wasted countless dreams,  dreaming of never doing so again. 

Lansdale  Avenue is a grim seedy thoroughfare,  full of dingy flophouses, rundown apartment blocks, pawnbrokers and grubby little shops,  selling gut rot booze to the shipwrecked flotsam who go drifting aimlessly by.

The elderly couple - the man,  painfully thin, almost emaciated,  with a battered overcoat hanging from his hollow shoulder blades, a mop of wispy red hair,  long streaked with the slivery threads of autumn and the snow white flurries of winter, framing  a pale gaunt hatchet face dominated by an imposing beak like nose ,  he walks with an arthritic shuffle,   clinging  to his metal walking frame as if his life depended upon in. The woman  looks younger.  She's plump, voluptuous  even,  but in a faintly pathetic way. Her body, curvy, over endowed and well insulated by rolls of flab, is crammed into a bright red PVC raincoat,  she wobbles along on stumpy yet spindly varicose veined legs,  in white high heels and sheer silk stockings,  resembling an extra from a rather down market reimagining of Cabaret - still cling tightly to each other. Tighter than their memories or the cold metal that now encased them 

Yet , somehow the woman has somehow contrived to maintain and exude an air of playful haughtiness,  coquettish  almost  girlish pride : the first timid blooms of the flowering beauty, despite the maze of wrinkles,  sagging  jowls,  broken veins,  mottled  discoloured blotches  enhanced not hidden by the grotesque smears of make up and the absurd pneumatic blonde bouffant. Piled up like a fright wig on the death mask of an ancient queen 

No doubt they are both  expecting to see the same old sights. The sights that have perhaps hastened the old man's descent into sneering apathy and the woman's into the comforting,  psuedo narcotic embrace of fantasy. A palette that mixes memories with wish dreams,  blurring them both until they become unrecognisable. 

The sickly jaundice yellow splutter of the street lights,  the pallid reflection dribbling like tears down the cast iron shutters,  covering the graffiti and the winking eyes of alarm systems,  frowning out , as watchful as they are blind. They flicker unsteadily across  the vague outlines of the buildings too ,  looming above them , reflecting the darkened windows ( the  way light reflects from a corpses  eye) each one disguising an universe of it's own, but yet  gazing vacantly down,  bored and impassive,  like giants who long ago grown  weary of the inane, insane antics of the silly little creatures they once watched,  clambering around,  way down below. Each  building as unfriendly and friendless as the last 

Most especially their own building. A rundown  7 storey  red brick tenement. Erich Zann Towers, once the Ernst Zundelhaus,  until the librul snowflakes down at Cityhall got their frilly knickers in a twist. 

But , to their horror,  the street,  their street,  Lansdale Avenue is ablaze with light. 

It makes for an unnatural, almost surreal sight. For even in the brightest sunlight,  as the rest of the city basks,  the shadows cling on stubbornly here.

For Lansdale Avenue is a place made  of , and  for darkness. A  place for those who come seeking only darkness.  A repository of secrets. Each inhabitant a little secret unto themselves. 

" What?" the old man growls , his accent broad Texan albeit with a curious Teutonic lisp, " are those Jews from Hollywood making one of their Satanic NWO Illuminati propaganda films here?"

" Shush" the old woman hisses, glaring at the chaotic swirl spread before them, a hectic flurry of uniforms , onlookers and permatanned presenters,  no doubt wishing someone would invent viagra for their microphones,  all eerily illuminated by the ferocious  beams  of the ever rapacious kleig lights,  " just keep your eyes open for anyone in INS jackets, or any schweinhunds from the War Crimes tribunal "  she pauses before she spits,  contemptuously,  on the sidewalk,  her face twisted i, no contorted into a fierce grimace. 

Lansdale Avenue is alive, or rather,  undead :crisscrossed with crime scene tape, indeed one of those forensic tents has  been erected,  the luminous arc from bright spotlight falling on the HAZMAT suited figures moving cautiously gives it a surreal,  almost unearthly ambience. A knot of apathetic onlookers: habitual ghouls,  voyeurs and those with nothing else to do are clustered listlessly in front of the tape, behind an impassive phalanx of black suited,  masked and heavily armed SWAT team operatives.

The Avenue itself is absolutely congested with all manner of official looking vehicles. Regular police cruisers, ambulances,  normal cars , most with a red light flashing from the roof, as if advertising a mobile brothel, way back,  in the deepest shadows a row of sinister looking unmarked black vans,  Humvees and heavily armoured SUVs, try to look incongruous, there,  drifting in between the spaces carved between each individual shadow,  are several ominous looking figures: each trim muscular with a military physique,  in dark glasses and suits,  they wear the weight of their near temporal invisibility as lightly as a kid wearing a vampire costume to a Halloween party. 

" What the fuck is going on ?" , the old man enquires,  in an agitated wheeze,  tugging at the elbow of the nearest onlooker. 

A tall gormless looking character in a bedraggled looking grey trenchcoat,  greasy red curls sticking out from beneath a " Black Ops Radio " baseball cap,  pulled low over a rather bloated unprepossessing amphibian countenance. 

" Some old geezer took a dive from a window " He nods in the general direction of their building,  " out the 5th floor window,  I think " he pointed a not overclean nicotine stained claw up at a window. The pane of glass looked like it was completely shattered, and a sea of busily bobbing figures were moving around,  dusting,  measuring or else,  just standing,  deep in conversation. 

The bright lights from without and within, made the figures appear like kabuki  shadows,  or animated ghosts,  getting ready to hold an afterlife warming party for their new roomie 

" Mein Gott" the woman gasps,  gazing up at the window with wide horror dilated eyes,  " That's our building,  and if it's the 5th floor,  one below us, that means.."

The old man hurriedly claps a gnarled talon over her mouth,  " Be silent " he snarls..

Ignoring this exchange - seemingly too engrossed by 3 figures,  wearing what looks like bomb proof armour,  stomping heavily out of the tent,  like an astronot who has  just heard about  Jack White,  blowing  the llid on the  whole  Apollo  scam, with several cages, one has some sort of large aggressive looking furry animal gripped in a metal claw, the animal , which  resembles a  gigantic  weaponized squirrel,  is  wriggling and squirming,  gnashing and spitting furiously,  revealing no less than 4 rows of ferocious white fangs, that glint murderously in the light, the onlooker continues. In a ponderous backwoods drawl

" I was in the neighbourhood,  at an alterationists convention,  see? I'm trying to learn how to Loveladyfy myself" He grins,  pointing at his forehead " Actually i was one of the first on the scene, having stopped for a wan..eh I mean a piss ,  before the feds and the Illuminati footsoldiers showed up " he scowls,  two dull red sparks flashing under the visor of his cap, " when I gets here some " he pauses,  and shrugs, " I don't quite know what it was, some weird human/ alien hybrid,  maybe like the telepathic fish creature from Hellboy, with a ponytail and " the red sparks widen and  deepen into muted  flames,  " a freaking unicorns horn stuck  on its forehead, like its brain had a stiffy,  with a great big ballsac too,  more herniated than Great Uncle Jobbies,  just dangling there, it sat itself on the old dudes face...  who was lying splattered on the sidewalk, his skull totally shattered,  his brains oozing out " he adds in a conversational aside, with obvious relish,  " shrieking about " ass to mouth resuscitation " and saying " this is what I woulda done to save Jimi if I had gotten there on time". Then , this even freakier cat comes running around the corner,  stark bollock naked , except for filthy  raincoat,  aflasher's coat y'know? Remember the the opening sequence of Cagney and Lacey? Just like that guy's coat , he had  a preacher's collar,  a paint smeared cap too,  at least I think it was paint, and " the red sparks widen even further,  looking like an sasquatch,  who had just woken up, strapped to a gurney,  in a basement,  down Sanibel way, " a great big freaking Mr Noseybonk mask, you know from that BBC kids show,  when they were all made by nonces and paedos, a nose like  a great  big plastic  dildo  "" he sniggers,  " Well,  he begins flapping the coat and exposing himself while hollering  and  ranting on about the " Second coming,  how he was John the Baptist,  sent to baptise the sinful world , especially hot   middle  aged Asian  divorcees in turpentine" ,  that's when the feds showed up. Look" he points across to a large armour plated ambulance,  with a crowd of HAZMAT suited medicos and guards buzzing  around two stretchers,  over the general hubbub and commotion they could just make out the occasional guttural shriek " the feds took them over there, figured they escaped outa some MK Ultra facility " 

Muttering a few garbled words of thanks the old couple hobbled their way through the crowd,  almost tripping over the spreadeagled figure of a large unsettlingly plump goateed hobbity looking individual,  in a bright pink shellsuit,  who was sprawled  on the  sidewalk seemingly oblivious  of his  present  surroundings  , croaking coarsely, while fumbling  hungrily in his pants, seeing him the woman took a sharp intake of breath before blessing herself,  " Mein Gott , A hobbit is lying  on sidewalk  stroking his picklestrudel " she barks , whacking him with the old man's metal walker, she has just grabbed and now proceeds to wield expertly,  poking at  the  protuberant gut before jabbing  the semi delirious hobbit in his tenderest zones, " Just down a little bit madam and maybe just a bit harder? In fact make that a lot harder" the picklestrudel stroking  hobbit sighs  dreamly , as he begins writhing lasciviously,  goatee bristling. 

The old woman gives an animated growl of disgust,  before spearing  and hopefully impaling his hobbity bits ,  she glowers down at the hobbit,  slithering  orgasmically across the  filthy  sidewalk like  some overengorged giant worm, with a look of sheer disgust  she spits  on the wriggling hobbit,  " oh yes,  thank you ma'am " he moans ecstatically,  the mucus trickling  down his flabby jowls, as the old pair shuffle towards the row of heavily armed SWAT personnel. Seeing a youngish blonde woman in a FBI jacket the old man cries out, while pushing his way into the front of the crowd,  " Excuse me miss, but we live in that building "

He points a metallic leg up at the broken window,  " Erich Zann Towers,  used to be Ernst.."

The FBI agent cuts him off in a brisk business like tone, turning to the nearest SWAT team member " Let this elderly couple through the cordon,  Mike, the chief will wanna question them "

Grabbing the old man's arm rather brusquely the FBI agent leads them towards one of the unmarked black Humvees. 

The wholly surrealistic ambience is further emphasised by a lewd bellow,  " I need turps to feed John the Baptist's seed"

EPILOGUE  TO PROLOGUE 

Hours later, after a sometimes arduous interrogation,  the old couple stagger into their modest apartment,  without even bothering to switch on the lights,  relying instead upon the sickly greyish pinpricks of dawn, threading their way through their ragged curtains,  they slump on a dilapidated looking couch , and  clasping each other's hands tightly,  they stare deeply into each other's eyes 

TO BE CONTINUED

2 THE CONFESSION OF A REPENTANT MONK

  " I  did not do it! I did not  throttle the old man to within an inch of his wretched life,  before throwing him out the window of his miserable 5th floor garret.

My tale is a strange tale. Full of bizarre coincidences,  events beyond the wildest scope of high conspiratorial  strangeness,  convoluted twists and impossible turns. But, what is perhaps strangest of all is my innocence. 

I am innocent. Although I don't deny I had often dreamt of,  and long fantasised about killing the old man,  as he lay there, helpless and at my mercy,  watching me with that terrible gimlet eye of his..

I am innocent I say"

( INTERMISSION LORD GORDO PRODUCTIONS ARE SORRY TO ANNOUNCE,  THAT DUE TO SOME UNFORESEEN TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES,  THE 2ND PART OF " THE TALL TALE HEART " MUST BE POSTPONED UNTIL TOMORROW 

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