| �We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until to-morrow; and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse, using the word with no comprehension of the principle.� - Excerpt from The Imp of the Perverse by Edgar Allen Poe That is my problem, I suppose. My malady - my disease, to be quite honest - is that I�ve have too many perversions. And too many tomorrows to tempt me further with new perversions that unfold before me like a rotting landscape I will never cross and never turn away from; walking through orchards of disease and evil thoughts, plucking these distasteful fruits off crooked limbs and chomping down as if they contained the sweetest nectar in all the world. I know other things matter - crisis, anticipation, eagerness - do they mean anything when I am forced to haunt this earth as a ghastly soul that cannot look forward to the day when I will no longer have to be shamed by my own footprints? But I forget myself. I forget my purpose here. It is to reveal myself to the world so that some knowledgeable priest or forgiving force can forgive my malicious perversions and drive my poisoned personae from this earth. It is true, I wish to return to Hell, so that I may pester the devil himself with my confused ramblings, my odorous presence, my melted and ruined visage. He is to blame for my endless life, my endless suffering, my enduring perversions. The devil cannot escape me forever. My name was once Allen Cypress Everhart. At least I think it was. I�m fairly certain. I began to call myself the Ace of Spades, thinking myself clever by combining the acronym with the card that symbolizes death. How juvenile was my cleverness! How downright childish. Since I took on that infernal moniker many, many years ago, I have been referred to many ways: Ace Spade, being the least offensive. More insulting, I have been labeled as Ace the Ghost or Ace the Zombie. Calling me the latter will hasten your death at my hands. I abhor that ghastly title - probably because it is most apt. I refer to myself now only as Ace. I informed you that I rambled. It is not my fault, but alas it is my penchant for rambling that brings us here. Together, you and I. For now you have no choice but to listen. If you don�t, you shall... Alas, I have no need to threaten. You will listen, friend, to my stories. My history is filled with everything you need. Love. Tragedy. Hope. Despair. And of course, perversion. And thus let us begin. Let my life and unending state of death stain the following pages - and likely your soul. When you see the devil, relay my stories and he will be so offended that he will cast you out from Hell. I am to him what he was to God. I am not the angel of death, but the devil of life. |
| Tales of Ace the Zombie Foreword |