Catherine Huff is known to readers worldwide as a writer who’s managed to break the last barriers of publishing material. Which was detailing the horrific, in the middle of children’s literature. Black Humor in the middle of a moral anecdote. Arachnids, her short-story for children, managed to do exactly that, by introducing disturbing humor without the use of symbolism to cover up the more disturbing details contained in the story. Needless to say, more parents were up in arms about the issue. The children hadn’t lost their innocent little minds reading this story; nor did they kill anyone, as most of the Schools and Parents claimed they would.
Somehow, the idea of Culture Shock always ends with the conclusion, that it would desecrate the traditions and sensibilities of established norms. In all probability, I suppose Establishment Types do not, ever, find faults and fallacies with their own rules, regulations, and rationalizations.
Huff has recently published her autobiography, with detailed descriptions of her career shift, from Law Enforcement to Writing, her subsequent three-year spell at a minimum-security prison as a result of her writing, and certain details about how the autobiography itself took shape in prison.
As a book reviewer, it is absolutely pointless to introduce a review with personal details of the author. Call it editorializing, but what follows is the short story she published first, followed by the Prologue to her autobiography. Combined, they form a potent insight into the mind of the author. I hope.
Arachnids
Once upon a time, there lived a family on a ceiling. They ate flies, webbed their home and their food, and were content. They would look down on the huge world below them, and marvel at the stupidity of the human race. How humans were capable of being smarter than most animals, and yet concerned themselves with brute force, to everything bigger and smaller than themselves. Even among themselves.
Tragedy struck the family, when one of the little arachnids ventured down to an alarm piece of the solitary human in the house. The alarm rang, and the little one was squashed with the alarm piece, flung right at the wall. The family wept, and decided to question the human being, as to why he was so cruel to the little one. They were spotted on their way and looked like a procession to the human, so the family were subsequently squashed by a gigantic whip-like broom.
The news of the Arachnid Genocide traveled far and wide across the Spider Society, and The Sacred Council of Spiders, in agreement with their gods and citizens, decided to wage war on this particular human being. The Outraged council sent in a spider SWAT Team (Spiders With Alien Tools), to investigate, infiltrate, and terminate the one called the Genocidal Fuck-Head. They were unfortunately disarmed, mid-mission, when the human made a fire in the gigantic cave known as the fireplace, and chased the arachnids into the flames with a cyclonic moving-portable fan. Count Spidula, the leader of the Democratic republic of Spider-world, was enraged at the news and decided to fight the human himself, to the death. He walked the great trek, passing the Mountains of Bypass to reach the Flat, and managed to surprise the human temporarily with his size, weight, and speed, but to his horror, the human picked up a deodorant and a lighter, and torched Great Spidula. Spidula bellowed in pain. Strangely, it sounded to the human, like a girl who’s being chased by a honeybee. The Greatest Arachnid who ever lived, screamed frantically like a schoolgirl with hypertension for about ten scorching seconds, until he settled down on the floor, disintegrating into dust. The all-powerful human, was soon decided to be their God.
And the Lord had a name.
It was after a couple of language-expert spiders stumbled upon the Lord’s Passport, that they glimpsed for the first time on his Holy name. They knew how to address him now, without the fear of being smashed to a pulp, or incinerated. They improvised a name, using the actual name of the Lord, in part. They named him Bob The Terrible.
fin
Black (or) White
A national emergency, unsettlingly brought about because of a terrorist strike. I think I can safely assume, that the nation would weep, and hold hands, and threaten to wage war, for a few months in agonizing harmony. Human Beings must be superior, to other forms of life; if human beings only get together in tragedies, and the first response to mayhem, death and desolation is threatening to inflict more mayhem, death and desolation, only Overseas; we must be special...
I’m a cop. All I do, however, is walk around, observing, grinning, sometimes in spasms of laughter, at the very things human beings are proud of building - which, in this case, are skyscrapers, modern equivalents to the Tower of Babel - are now trapping human beings. Like a creation turning into a curse to the creator. Now, that sounds like Shelley’s Modern Prometheus. Almost. I guess even the monster christened Adam, who was the Modern Prometheus; if you’re still confused at the reference; was an expansive rationalisation on the notion that Man becomes his worst enemy, and very often too. The self-proclaimed humble in society, either try playing God, or express the wild, incoherent concept that they know everything, because they’ve read A Book. Charming species, us humans. But for whatever reason, we seem to have this potential for Guilt. Guilt, at something that can never be changed, even when we knew the repercussions were going to be awful, but we stuck to the same actions, in the name of comfort, and success, and values.
Having said all that, I must confess - I couldn’t care less. Human Beings are hilarious to watch, only to watch. I am a Voyeur, I suppose. I’m one of those people who observe the inconsistencies, irrationalities and inconsequential fantasies of human beings, but choose to do nothing to improve it. I believe every single person is intelligent, but I also believe that people who aren’t capable of simple logic aren’t worth anyone’s time. Good theory, that. Although, the hole in the theory, is that the same idiotic fist-fucks run Governance, Censorship, Corporations, and a vague, inhumane Social Morality. It is Ignorance par Excellence, of sorts; we elect, justify, and entrust wealth, to the same ones who would fuck us over at the first chance they get. As if to lend credence to my theory, I see writhing, moaning, physically-broken, static specimens of the human race, trapped under, oh I don’t know, a mixture of concrete and steel. It’s like a life-size model of the Museum of Suffering.
I keep striding around. This is entertaining to me. It’s probably the same joy an Art historian derives upon physically seeing the Mona Lisa a few feet away at the Louvre. I slow down and come to a halt, when I notice two tiny heads within this open-for-public-viewing crematorium.
I see these two tiny figures - twins - a boy and a girl, maybe as old as four. For some unexplainable reason, I climb up to them. They’re both alive - just their heads sticking out from the rubble. And the girl’s quivering little hand. It’s unimaginable, but for the first time in my life, I felt true love. I was pretty sure their parents were dead. I wanted to save them, to nurse and encourage them back to a stable state of mind, and health. I wanted to watch them grow up. I wanted to watch the boy play his miniature versions of warfare on screen, get him his first car. I wanted to watch the girl read her first book, go to her first comedy show. I wanted to watch them pass through awkwardness, to rationality. I wanted to make sure they reminisced about their pasts, like it was wonderful, and educational, at the same time. I looked back at them.
Blank Expressions. Staring back at me.
Except the eyes.
The eyes represented anguish, and personal loss. And Terror. No crying, either, which must’ve meant they were trapped and disillusioned, but unhurt.
I looked around for rescue workers and volunteers, and found a bunch of them working their way towards me. I yelled and signaled to them. They looked up, and to my surprise, they’re yelling and signaling frantically back at me. Although, none of them makes any apparent attempt to come towards me. I looked back at the children, expecting to find blank expressions. To my surprise, their eyes are bloodshot, and wide open.
Something’s wrong.
My gaze diverts to the girl’s hand, and it’s trembling in convulsions, almost like it’s in a mind of its own. I looked up, and suddenly understood what an avalanche of concrete would look like. The rubble overhead just took it into it’s concrete head that this was the time it wanted to grace the ground. Probably why the children weren’t crying, they were stuck and numb with fear, because they understood what the immense pressure of the debris would do to them, if they moved an inch. The yells from the rescue volunteers ring louder, as a few of the brave ones rushed toward me, and frantically urged me, to get away…
I suppose I must have done.
That was two days ago, and now I’m suddenly awake in a recovery room, admitted with a mild concussion.
The kids. Are they alive? Were they alive?
I suppose it’s wishful thinking, but I can’t entirely be sure. The last I saw of them, their faces were blurry, as I saw those faces through a rain of concrete chunks, ending with a dust fog, until I abruptly lost consciousness. I suppose the concussion explains the last bit. I rip off my IV, and rush out with the clothes I happen to find at the time. I run the mile back to the site, and find rescue workers meticulously clearing away bits and slices of rubble.
Someone: I found two.
Me: Small heads?
Same someone (angrily): Does it matter?
In what seemed to be the most agonizing five minutes of my life, or it could’ve been an hour, they carried away two tiny figures, silent and limp. There was a brass-like light, reflected off these two children. Probably was a mixture of crimson blood, and gray rubble.
Having a cynical sense of humor helps us pick out life’s little ironies and hypocrisies, pretty sharply. Nothing, is plainly black or white. I’m not too sure on how to classify this, I’m too numb to care.
Here’s the only honest explanation, ever, to Violence. Violence is truly futile. With purely repugnant, purely symbolic repercussions. And we lose Lives and Resources. But it’s essential for modern society to thrive, and flourish. Profound, isn’t it?
So, Patriotism, Religion, Politics, Morals, and Biased Opinions, are good enough to enforce and legislate, are they?
Fuck you. Fuck you all.
C Huff
END
Somehow, the idea of Culture Shock always ends with the conclusion, that it would desecrate the traditions and sensibilities of established norms. In all probability, I suppose Establishment Types do not, ever, find faults and fallacies with their own rules, regulations, and rationalizations.
Huff has recently published her autobiography, with detailed descriptions of her career shift, from Law Enforcement to Writing, her subsequent three-year spell at a minimum-security prison as a result of her writing, and certain details about how the autobiography itself took shape in prison.
As a book reviewer, it is absolutely pointless to introduce a review with personal details of the author. Call it editorializing, but what follows is the short story she published first, followed by the Prologue to her autobiography. Combined, they form a potent insight into the mind of the author. I hope.
Arachnids
Once upon a time, there lived a family on a ceiling. They ate flies, webbed their home and their food, and were content. They would look down on the huge world below them, and marvel at the stupidity of the human race. How humans were capable of being smarter than most animals, and yet concerned themselves with brute force, to everything bigger and smaller than themselves. Even among themselves.
Tragedy struck the family, when one of the little arachnids ventured down to an alarm piece of the solitary human in the house. The alarm rang, and the little one was squashed with the alarm piece, flung right at the wall. The family wept, and decided to question the human being, as to why he was so cruel to the little one. They were spotted on their way and looked like a procession to the human, so the family were subsequently squashed by a gigantic whip-like broom.
The news of the Arachnid Genocide traveled far and wide across the Spider Society, and The Sacred Council of Spiders, in agreement with their gods and citizens, decided to wage war on this particular human being. The Outraged council sent in a spider SWAT Team (Spiders With Alien Tools), to investigate, infiltrate, and terminate the one called the Genocidal Fuck-Head. They were unfortunately disarmed, mid-mission, when the human made a fire in the gigantic cave known as the fireplace, and chased the arachnids into the flames with a cyclonic moving-portable fan. Count Spidula, the leader of the Democratic republic of Spider-world, was enraged at the news and decided to fight the human himself, to the death. He walked the great trek, passing the Mountains of Bypass to reach the Flat, and managed to surprise the human temporarily with his size, weight, and speed, but to his horror, the human picked up a deodorant and a lighter, and torched Great Spidula. Spidula bellowed in pain. Strangely, it sounded to the human, like a girl who’s being chased by a honeybee. The Greatest Arachnid who ever lived, screamed frantically like a schoolgirl with hypertension for about ten scorching seconds, until he settled down on the floor, disintegrating into dust. The all-powerful human, was soon decided to be their God.
And the Lord had a name.
It was after a couple of language-expert spiders stumbled upon the Lord’s Passport, that they glimpsed for the first time on his Holy name. They knew how to address him now, without the fear of being smashed to a pulp, or incinerated. They improvised a name, using the actual name of the Lord, in part. They named him Bob The Terrible.
fin
Black (or) White
A national emergency, unsettlingly brought about because of a terrorist strike. I think I can safely assume, that the nation would weep, and hold hands, and threaten to wage war, for a few months in agonizing harmony. Human Beings must be superior, to other forms of life; if human beings only get together in tragedies, and the first response to mayhem, death and desolation is threatening to inflict more mayhem, death and desolation, only Overseas; we must be special...
I’m a cop. All I do, however, is walk around, observing, grinning, sometimes in spasms of laughter, at the very things human beings are proud of building - which, in this case, are skyscrapers, modern equivalents to the Tower of Babel - are now trapping human beings. Like a creation turning into a curse to the creator. Now, that sounds like Shelley’s Modern Prometheus. Almost. I guess even the monster christened Adam, who was the Modern Prometheus; if you’re still confused at the reference; was an expansive rationalisation on the notion that Man becomes his worst enemy, and very often too. The self-proclaimed humble in society, either try playing God, or express the wild, incoherent concept that they know everything, because they’ve read A Book. Charming species, us humans. But for whatever reason, we seem to have this potential for Guilt. Guilt, at something that can never be changed, even when we knew the repercussions were going to be awful, but we stuck to the same actions, in the name of comfort, and success, and values.
Having said all that, I must confess - I couldn’t care less. Human Beings are hilarious to watch, only to watch. I am a Voyeur, I suppose. I’m one of those people who observe the inconsistencies, irrationalities and inconsequential fantasies of human beings, but choose to do nothing to improve it. I believe every single person is intelligent, but I also believe that people who aren’t capable of simple logic aren’t worth anyone’s time. Good theory, that. Although, the hole in the theory, is that the same idiotic fist-fucks run Governance, Censorship, Corporations, and a vague, inhumane Social Morality. It is Ignorance par Excellence, of sorts; we elect, justify, and entrust wealth, to the same ones who would fuck us over at the first chance they get. As if to lend credence to my theory, I see writhing, moaning, physically-broken, static specimens of the human race, trapped under, oh I don’t know, a mixture of concrete and steel. It’s like a life-size model of the Museum of Suffering.
I keep striding around. This is entertaining to me. It’s probably the same joy an Art historian derives upon physically seeing the Mona Lisa a few feet away at the Louvre. I slow down and come to a halt, when I notice two tiny heads within this open-for-public-viewing crematorium.
I see these two tiny figures - twins - a boy and a girl, maybe as old as four. For some unexplainable reason, I climb up to them. They’re both alive - just their heads sticking out from the rubble. And the girl’s quivering little hand. It’s unimaginable, but for the first time in my life, I felt true love. I was pretty sure their parents were dead. I wanted to save them, to nurse and encourage them back to a stable state of mind, and health. I wanted to watch them grow up. I wanted to watch the boy play his miniature versions of warfare on screen, get him his first car. I wanted to watch the girl read her first book, go to her first comedy show. I wanted to watch them pass through awkwardness, to rationality. I wanted to make sure they reminisced about their pasts, like it was wonderful, and educational, at the same time. I looked back at them.
Blank Expressions. Staring back at me.
Except the eyes.
The eyes represented anguish, and personal loss. And Terror. No crying, either, which must’ve meant they were trapped and disillusioned, but unhurt.
I looked around for rescue workers and volunteers, and found a bunch of them working their way towards me. I yelled and signaled to them. They looked up, and to my surprise, they’re yelling and signaling frantically back at me. Although, none of them makes any apparent attempt to come towards me. I looked back at the children, expecting to find blank expressions. To my surprise, their eyes are bloodshot, and wide open.
Something’s wrong.
My gaze diverts to the girl’s hand, and it’s trembling in convulsions, almost like it’s in a mind of its own. I looked up, and suddenly understood what an avalanche of concrete would look like. The rubble overhead just took it into it’s concrete head that this was the time it wanted to grace the ground. Probably why the children weren’t crying, they were stuck and numb with fear, because they understood what the immense pressure of the debris would do to them, if they moved an inch. The yells from the rescue volunteers ring louder, as a few of the brave ones rushed toward me, and frantically urged me, to get away…
I suppose I must have done.
That was two days ago, and now I’m suddenly awake in a recovery room, admitted with a mild concussion.
The kids. Are they alive? Were they alive?
I suppose it’s wishful thinking, but I can’t entirely be sure. The last I saw of them, their faces were blurry, as I saw those faces through a rain of concrete chunks, ending with a dust fog, until I abruptly lost consciousness. I suppose the concussion explains the last bit. I rip off my IV, and rush out with the clothes I happen to find at the time. I run the mile back to the site, and find rescue workers meticulously clearing away bits and slices of rubble.
Someone: I found two.
Me: Small heads?
Same someone (angrily): Does it matter?
In what seemed to be the most agonizing five minutes of my life, or it could’ve been an hour, they carried away two tiny figures, silent and limp. There was a brass-like light, reflected off these two children. Probably was a mixture of crimson blood, and gray rubble.
Having a cynical sense of humor helps us pick out life’s little ironies and hypocrisies, pretty sharply. Nothing, is plainly black or white. I’m not too sure on how to classify this, I’m too numb to care.
Here’s the only honest explanation, ever, to Violence. Violence is truly futile. With purely repugnant, purely symbolic repercussions. And we lose Lives and Resources. But it’s essential for modern society to thrive, and flourish. Profound, isn’t it?
So, Patriotism, Religion, Politics, Morals, and Biased Opinions, are good enough to enforce and legislate, are they?
Fuck you. Fuck you all.
C Huff
END
No comments:
Post a Comment