Archive for the ‘Series’ Category
Paranormal Kansas: Garden of Eden
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
In 1905, a retired Civil War veteran named Samuel Dinsmoor began to build a sculpture garden out of concrete in Lucas, Kansas. Incorporating both religious and political motifs, his labors continued until his death in 1933, at which point his body was prepared and placed inside of a glass-sided coffin within a limestone mausoleum on the garden grounds. Today, thousands of tourists visit the gardens each year, ending their trip with a viewing of it’s creator’s corpse, which even 74 years after death, remains remarkably well preserved. It was this preservation that first drew my suspicions.
Few locals visit the garden, and even fewer tourists return more than once to view the monochrome spectacle. This accounts for why few have noticed that construction within the sculpture garden continues. New pieces representing Lot and his wife have appeared in the northwest corner within the last year, fashioned in Dinsmoor’s characteristically crude style. The non-profit group responsible for the upkeep of the site claims they are the product of local pranksters, but if that were so, would they not remove them? They have thus far refused to answer any further questions on the matter, and I suspect they have blocked my email address, as so many do when my lines of query draw close to the truth!
Twice, I snuck within Dinsmoor’s crypt to take samples only to find his body missing. And I have heard the rumble of a cement mixer outside, somewhere among the statues, but always the sound vanishes if I approach.
The third and final time I attempted to sneak within the garden, I climbed over a fence at the perimeter. Arriving within, I felt a fear that I could not explain. I glanced up and saw the silhouette of a thin figure standing among the statues built atop a concrete tree, a figure that had not been there in the day. It was as motionless as the sculptures, but I could feel it watching me. I departed with haste, and I have never returned, not even in the day. When I pass the gardens occasionally on business, the statues seem to gaze out at me in hostility. I leave the gardens’ mystery for some other researcher to uncover.
Belter Skelter
Monday, October 15th, 2007
Driven. Obsessed. Fixated. Those words seem weak when applied to David Mattucio Paradise. Sure, you’ve heard of him. Everybody has. He’s the poor little rich boy who grew up sculpting asteroids.
It started thirty years ago when he turned twelve. All seven of his parents gathered for his birthday, and just before he got there a shield generator failed and they all got sucked out to space and died. Made him faboo wealthy, of course; they were Reagans and Gateses, Murdocks and Rossums, and like that.
David took it a bit badly.
As soon as he held the reins, he repurposed entire divisions of many of his companies. Design, fabrication, IT, transport, demolition–he called for quite a lot of demolition.
The first seven asteroids were reshaped within a month into busts of his seven parents. They were designed to rotate in a circle fifteen klicks in diameter. Not satisfied, he moved on to transform another ring of rocks into famous ancestors. Movie stars were next: Greta Garbo, Humphrey Bogart, Groucho Marx. Then presidents, then musicians. He’s got forty thousand asteroids over a half-mile wide to work with, so I figure he’ll be down to plumbers before he’s done.
Just to show he hadn’t entirely lost his marbles he transformed the largest asteroid, Ceres, into the spitting image of Marilyn Monroe and hollowed her out to make a hotel. It’s phenomenally popular.
That’s where I come in. Patrick Pindaccio Paradise. David’s younger brother. I was ten when mom and mom and mother and dad and dad and father and Laura died. Where David was calm I was the wild one. Where losing his parents drove him crazy, it drove me sane. I graduated from playing with shield generators, for one thing.
Now, I play with English. ‘English’, as in snooker. In my armored darksuit I carom off asteroids in carefully computed strikes. Hit one just so and in eight months its orbit is perturbed enough to collide with another asteroid, then they bounce off two more. I’ve already ruined Russell Crowe and Frank Sinatra. David’s got his goons out searching for me, but it’s too late.
Four years down the line Marilyn’s history.