lost time incident 37
Halloween is just around the corner so this week we have a spooky story about responsible parenting. If you are pregnant, or prone to seizures, or are “spook-averse”, please consider coming back next week, unless you have consulted your doctor and asked your doctor to subscribe to this newsletter as well. (We don’t have much representation in the medical field in our subscriber base and this is the perfect chance to address it.)

For the rest of you: Are you ready? Braced?

Okay, let’s go!

 

100 children
Their parents were part of the quiverfull movement, which meant they made a full time job out of making babies, plus there were some adoptions, and honestly some of them might be kids from the neighborhood or from the hobo camp down by the river. But the last time anyone counted, there were about 100 of them.

And when the parents went missing, they had to go somewhere.

Rumors of where the parents went, ranked by popularity among the children:

• Got locked inside tanning beds, turned into human jerky, bodies hidden by the salon owners who are also now missing
• Now living somewhere in Europe, starting their second 100 child family in a country with a social safety net
• Car accident, probably
• Bringing 100 souls into the world (directly or indirectly) was a task set upon them by a malevolent spirit and now their curse is lifted and they’re in Heaven
• They’re still around, but they walk on their knees and wear kids clothes and have blended in with the 100 children, always standing in the back, keeping quiet
• Mexico

Luckily, they had a rich uncle they knew as Uncle Earwort. Unbeknownst to him, he was listed as next of kin and on October 1st, all 100 children dismounted county buses that had transported them and their worldly possessions to his clifftop mansion. Three of the children were lost somewhere in the garden maze on the way to the front door. Eight of them remembered, rather abruptly, that they were old enough to manage their own finances, and they left to find an apartment to rent on their own.

A social worker knocked on Earwort’s front door, on behalf of the remaining 89 children. After a clipboard exchange, some signing and initialling, the social worker re-entered the garden maze and probably made it home. Who can say.

The 89 children explored the mansion, claiming rooms and cupboards, corners and cabinets for their new sleeping space. Four of them found the secret second basement beneath the first basement, but unfortunately it was never completed and was without an exit.

After a family meeting and a speech about the importance of education, 23 children were told to pack up again as they were off to an exclusive boarding school in Bestonia (tourist slogan: The BEST of the -Onias!) where they would learn diplomacy, fencing, bird mastery, and forest-dwelling.

Soon, it was Halloween. 28 children didn’t come back from Trick-or-Treating. They may have eaten so much sugar that they’d gone feral, living in the town’s central park, their costumes patched up as they fell into disrepair with leaves, feathers and mud layered over rubber masks. That was Uncle Earwort’s theory, but as he never visited the central park, but this theory is not regarded as terribly likely by those investigating the absence.

“I find it more interesting that 34 made it back,” Earwort has been known to say. “Obviously, as that’s a majority, I must be doing something right.”

Two of them ran away from home. Two of them went to find the two that ran away from home. Eight were seduced by strangers in online chat rooms, but it worked out, and they’re all married now and living in Kansas.

“True love wins,” Uncle Earwort was quoted as saying. “How many of you are left?” he was often known to ask. “And do you all still have separate names?”

Thirteen of the remaining children got into politics, which lead to seven of them getting deported. (Turns out their original adoption lacked some important paperwork.) Of the remaining 15, 14 went on to endure lives of quiet desperation.

The last one … THE LAST ONE IS BEHIND YOU RIGHT NOW!

Oh man, Halloween season, am I right?

Seriously, though. Please take good care of this orphan.

 

twitter stuff

 

hand o’ glory courtesy of Amanda Summers

 

ending theme song

Thanks for joining us again this week, or for failing to notice the unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email. Or reading it as part of the Facebook page I set up to provide a forum for feedback, or to share behind the scenes info.

Whatever got you here, thanks for being the reason I’ve stuck to giving up swathes of Sundays to knock this project out.

—Michael Van Vleet

lost time incident 36
This week: Musing on the naming of clown-faced murder boys, a haunted podcast, and some other words all in a row.

Hey everyone! Welcome back, welcome back. It is hot as heck where I am, because summer comes late in these parts. But somehow I’m keeping my water-filled limbs moving to put this newsletter together. My shoes are full of sand. Sand that used to be my feet. This is climate change. It’s here already.

My eyeballs are like 3 week old grapes. Like a deflated soccer ball floating in an almost empty swimming pool. The sun outside has removed its cool guy sunglasses and is just muttering.

Just muttering.

Muttering’s not cool.

black birds and face-painted clown revenge
A subscriber to this very newsletter was complaining on social media last week about THE CROW. Do you remember that beloved entertainment franchise? Goth-zombie revenge fantasy? Cure lyrics and Brandon Lee? I saw that film opening night, as it fulfilled both “sad teen” and “superhero” entertainment requirements in one neat little package. Like all young men, I demanded brutal efficiency to maximise my idle time.

Anyway, our friend was complaining that Brandon Lee’s character, the protagonist of THE CROW, is named Eric Draven. Which is a short hop from Eric D. Raven. And ravens are a different species from crows.

I’m sure we’re all thinking: Well, it’s not like Eric chose for a supernatural crow to lead him back from death to avenge his own murder. He may not even have noticed how ridiculous his own name was in juxtaposition, considering his path to vigilante murder.

But did you know there’ve been a number of CROW sequels? And each protagonist has a name that’s bird adjacent? We have Ashe Corven (since crows are corvids), Jimmy Cuervo (which is Spanish for crow) and Alex Corvis.

Which lead me to imagine a meeting where a film producer helps a CROW writer get started.

PRODUCER: There’s two things I know about The Crow. ONE: He’s gotta wear make-up. TWO: He’s gotta have a name what means something like “crow.”

WRITER: Well, we were going to call this next one—

PRODUCER:    JOHN BLACKBIRDY

WRITER: Or we could—

PRODUCER:    JULIO JACKDAW-CAWFEATHERS

(hours later)

PRODUCER:     BEAKMAN THREETOES WINGFELLA

(The room is empty… a water bottle slowly rolls off the meeting room table onto the floor.)

PRODUCER: And maybe he could drink Crow-ca-Cola. Get me the Coke people on the line!

(The office lights, tied to motion sensors after hours, turn off, leaving the producer in the dark.)

twittery

Other spooky podcasts:

SOUNDS FROM OUR BASEMENT: Every week, a compilation of all the sounds the hosts heard, so you understand why they don’t go down there.

THE METAL DRAGGING ON CONCRETE POWER HOUR: Join a celebrity guest as they drag heavy tools along a concrete floor. This week: Charlie Day and a pitchfork!

I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER SUBSCRIBING TO THIS: Composed of the ambient sounds of your own home, but with some unfamiliar breathing. At first, you’re not sure you’re hearing anything, because you hear the same sounds with your headphones on or off (assuming you’re listening at home). But then there’s this weird breathing that only comes through on the podcast. What’s that about?

GOODBYE HICCUPS: Every week, at some point in this 30 minute show, someone’s going to yell BOO really loud. Should startle you and cure those hiccups.

ending theme song
It’s too hot. That’s all you get. I have to get back to letting all the water in my body return to its cloud kingdom. Please don’t miss me when I’m gone. I will be there any time it rains. If it ever rains again.

Also: You may recall that in a previous installment— and with the aid of the Facebook page I set up for this newsletter— I tried to host a giveaway for a free copy of SEXTRAP DUNGEON, a comedic choose-your-own-adventure ebook. But nobody won the thing.

So if you don’t already have a copy, and you’re quick on the draw, this ought to be the link you click on to claim the ebook for free. First come, first served. Luckily for the rest of you, just by virtue of subscribing, you’re also natural born winners! Hooray!

Okay. That’s enough of that.

—Michael Van Vleet