EDITORIAL
Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

Once upon a time, a community in Texas, near where I once lived -- about midway between Jonestown and Leander are today, to be specific -- tried to have their little collection of homes called a town. Or a city; I forget. In any case, in order to be a city -- or a town -- they needed a name. Both for the post office, and their town. Or city.

Six times they sent in names. I don't know what the names were; perhaps no one knows today. And six times, the federal government rejected them, denying those names for those townspeople. Six times they tried, and six times they failed, and six times they were denied the chance to have their community of people recognized as such by the forces that be. After the sixth time, the decision was made: "Let the post office be nameless and be damned!"

And from then on, the town was known as Nameless. Today, it can still be found, by knowing where to look, by searching for an historical marker, a few fences, a building. A clearing in the woods, beside the biggest testament to it's existence: Nameless Road. The clearing in the woods where I brought the first runaway teenager I was counseling, years before that would become my job. The clearing in the woods I visited with many a friend, and not a few girls, both in person and later, in the journals, in the stories, in the memories. The memories where Nameless still stands.

The town, Nameless, did not last long, and has moved a couple of times, ending up eventually as Leander, chasing the train. Losing it's name, losing it's history, losing itself, to modernity. To progress. All that is left today is, appropriately enough, a cemetery and a schoolhouse, death and art. Nameless was always a city rejected, doomed, damned, more existent first as dream, as projection, and then as memory, then ever it was as reality. It has been a couple of years now since I went to visit the town, in the cemetery of which I spent many hours of my teenage years and early twenties, but it remains for me the archetype of a lost town, a lost homeland, an attempt to exist rejected, nothing but the shells of knowledge and death remaining.

Four hundred thirteen years ago, give or take a dozen days, another of my homelands was lost, in a sense, one king losing to an invading, foreign army. Another homeland for which people fight, and of which I dream. And now again, today, men of freedom risk losing another homeland, the new Republic becoming the new Empire, entering the new Decadence. The death -- that too slow death -- that inevitably comes with tyranny. And perhaps that's the way homelands are: Always in a state of either fighting to be born, or struggling into death. And every generation, every day, we either fight, or we die. Probably forgotten, seldom lamented, remembered if at all for what we might have been, not for what we happened to end up. For the dream, not the reality. We either let our homelands be swept away, or we fight to build new ones.

And so, a new zine. A new homeland. A new struggle, against the forces of decay, slowly rotting away at any land we build, like the ocean eating away at the island where I write this, year by year, until it sinks. And a new land has to be found. Discovered, created, called into being. Unknown perhaps; forgotten someday. Nameless and damned.

So welcome, boys and girls, to the first issue of Nameless and Damned. Kick off your shoes, make yourself at home, I hope you stay a while. A few years, at least. Until this homeland, too, ceases to be. And until that time, I will be struggling to hold it together, and I hope some of you readers out there will, too.

Some of the people you see on the masthead you may recognize as refugees from another homeland which seems no longer to exist: State of unBeing. Some of us are coming out from behind our masks; some of us are not. Some of us cut our literary teeth in that land, but today we are colonists. There is no institutional bond between them. This is not the new SoB, nor a successor thereto. State of unBeing remains properly Kilgore's domain. But, aside from inspiration, we do draw some things from our sojourn in the motherland, most important of these being our freewheeling editorial position. This is a magazine for all interesting writing: fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose. So long as it's interesting, this is a place to come. Experimental, obscure, whatever floats your boat. The huddled masses thing, the yearning to breathe free thing, you know the drill. If you'd like to appear in a later issue, send it in to the zine at [email protected], or myself at [email protected]. Check out the webpage at http://www.geocities.com/nadmagazine/, where you can find a link to join us in chat. Or just sit back and enjoy the show. Your level of involvement is up to you.

Particular thanks to the associate editor, for the assistance and, more important, for the prodding.

And so, without further ado, I introduce you to the newest zine on the net. Let it be Nameless and Damned.

Editor:
Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

Associate Editor:
Marc A. Beherec

Writers This Issue:
Irrelevant Being
I Wish My Name Were Nathan
Lucifer's Sunflower

[articles]

"In the Fullness of Time:"
Thoughts of a Catholic Anthropologist on Religion and Evolution
Marc A. Beherec

Myth of the Middle Class
Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

[poetry]

Two Poems
Marc A. Beherec

Four Poems
Irrelevant Being

Two Sonnets
Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

[fiction]

Dementia
Lucifer's Sunflower

Legend of Virtual Man
I Wish My Name Were Nathan

Hell
Lucifer's Sunflower

The Suicide Society
Marc A. Beherec

"IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME:"
THOUGHTS OF A CATHOLIC ANTHROPOLOGIST ON RELIGION AND EVOLUTION
Marc A. Beherec

One of the great problems of trying to understand how it could be that "the theory of evolution of more than a hypothesis" (Pope John Paul II, Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 22 October 1996), and yet that the Catholic faith is the one true faith, is the problem of timing. Why an all-powerful, all-knowing God should create the earth and then wait six hundred million years to create life is a difficult enough problem, but when one considers that He then waited about another four billion years to create humans, the question is mind-boggling. One could simply quote the famous line from The Song of Bernadette, "To those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. To those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible." There is a great deal of truth in that statement, but of course it is not entirely satisfying.

Rather, I would like to open this discourse with a slightly less-famous story of St. Augustine. I once heard a sermon delivered by Fr. Anthony Odozi, Jr., on the nature of the Trinity, the thesis of which was basically that we cannot know anything true about God. He told us of how St. Augustine of Hippo, the great Father of the Church, withdrew to a seaside to meditate in preparation of writing a book about the proper understanding of the Triune Nature of God. Walking along the beach one day, he came across a young girl who was gathering sea water in a bucket and pouring it into a tiny hole in the ground. Augustine watched her for some time, puzzled, as she walked back and forth in this task. Finally, he asked her, "Little girl, what are you doing?"

"Why, I'm emptying the sea by pouring it into this hole," was the prompt response.

St. Augustine exclaimed, "But the sea is so large, you'll never be able to do such a thing!"

"So says the man who is trying to force the majesty of God into his tiny head!" retorted the girl, who then vanished.

Of course, Augustine wrote his book anyway.

And so, gentle reader, I begin this brief treatise on evolution, religion, and timing with the caveat that I have a very tiny brain, and it is by no means Augustine's. Also, I am neither priest nor biologist -- I am an archaeologist, and a lowly graduate student at that. I have, however, thought about these things a great deal, and putting them in writing is helping me think about them still more. These are some of the ideas I have had, or that God has allowed me to have, or that God has put in my tiny brain. "Now, God grant I speak suitably . . . For both we and our words are in his hand" (Wisdom 7:15-16).

Everything in the entire universe is connected. This concept goes back at least as far as the New Testament authors. St. Paul tells us that one man, Adam, brought sin into the world, and one man, Jesus, destroys sin's power (Romans 5:18). A single action can have consequences on all humanity in ways that humans themselves could never predict or understand.

The concept goes beyond mere humanity. St. Paul pointed out that "creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Romans 8:20-22). A single action held within it consequences for all of creation, and a later action impacted all of creation. It makes sense that the rest of creation impacts humanity in ways not understood, though of course different ways.

It took the Chaosians to show us another way to think of these connections. Since Jurassic Park Chaos has been cliche, but it is well worth thinking about. James Gleick's popular history of the subject, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), brought the concept before the public in a readable way. Non-linear science is a broad field (or, more correctly, a broad way of understanding many scientific fields), but among the things these Chaosians have been attempting to understand is how apparently minor events can trigger vast changes in the world. The most famous example is that of a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and causing a tornado in Texas: a scenario delivered by the meteorologist Edward Lorenz to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

And if a butterfly can cause a tornado by beating its wings, by can't a Cornish witch create a wind by untying a knot?

Such a thing is difficult to comprehend, but what is even more difficult to understand is the fact that such events happen every second of every minute of every day. And tornados are not the only result of minor variations. Changes in the sea surface temperature of the Pacific have been shown to cause drought in South Africa. These droughts affect the flow of the Nile, and archaeologist Brian Fagan has argued, in Floods, Famines, and Emperors (New York: Basic Books, 1999), that even the collapse of Old Kingdom Egypt may have been related to famines caused by a simple change in the temperature of Pacific Ocean waters. What would seem to be minor events upset the entire world's weather, which in turn affected an entire civilization.

For a proper understanding of archaeology, I would have to know everything about the world. Just to know how Sub-Saharan Africans made their lives a hundred years ago, I would have to know how their lives were affected by the weather. And to understand the weather, I would have to understand the temperature of the Pacific. And to understand the temperature of the Pacific, I would have to understand everything that impacted the temperature of the Pacific -- from the smallest grain of sand to the largest whale -- and I would have to understand every event in which those things were involved. I can never honestly say I completely understand human society in Kwa-Zulu in 1903 because I do not completely understand everything that impacted that society at that time. In part, this is because I do not know what every individual in Kwa-Zulu was doing and thinking in 1903. But it is also because I do not know how many whales were killed in the South Pacific at that time, and I do not know how much blood was spilt into the Ocean and how that affected the water temperature. And to understand that, I would have to understand why so many countries sent whalers out at that time. And that is simply a minor event in consideration of all things that had a bearing on life in Kwa-Zulu in 1905. In essence, not only would I have to know the mind of every man, woman, and child in Kwa-Zulu at every moment in 1905, but I would also have to know the minds of countless Norwegians, Americans, Japanese, and others -- whalers, consumers, investors, and countless others. And that is before we even consider the actions of the sun, and of Arctic cooling of ocean currents. Only an infinite mind could understand Kwa-Zulu in 1905.

It is also important to remember that everything is cumulative. There is no reset button for the temperature of the Pacific. The temperature of today is impacted by yesterday's temperature, and the temperature tomorrow will be a modified extension of today's. Similarly, the New Kingdom of Egypt cannot be understood except as a reflection of Old Kingdom Egypt. And Old Kingdom Egypt cannot be understood except as a modified extension of Predynastic Egypt. And Predynastic Egypt was merely a link in the chain -- or rather, in the web -- that extends back to the earliest humans. Just like us.

All of this was not a digression. Since the present is merely an extension of what has happened in the past, and since everything in the universe is connected -- connected to the point that minor events can bring about completely unexpected changes in the universe system -- it stands to reason that everything in the past has affected everything in the present to some degree or another. It is true that humans never walked with dinosaurs, but humans would never be the same without the fact that dinosaurs existed. Nor would humans be the same were it not for the fact that thousands of extinct species, some of which we shall never even know about, existed.

Christians have always held that all Christians are united in one Body of Christ; a theme that goes back to the epistles of St. Paul. On a broader scale, humans are united in a single community. The Jews were the first to be shown favor, and in time the rest of humanity followed, as St. Paul explains in Romans. And just as "[i]f a foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,' it does not for this reason belong any less to the body" (I Corinthians 12:14), we are no less bound to each other simply because we do not want it so. There is a reality beyond that which is seen, and it is simple self-interest to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:39). And all of creation is also tied to humanity.

It seems the logical conclusion of all this is that, just as "when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4:4), humans came to exist in the fullness of time. When the stage was set, the actors appeared, and, just as in any play, the scene had to be perfect. Just as everything in the world was building to the point when God would appear Incarnate, all creation was building to the point when humans would exist. And we shall never know how the universe would be different if but a single cephalopod had not lived.

It seems to be the fear among some who deny evolution that a Darwinian concept of evolution would be a retreat into deism's "blind watchmaker" concept, that God created the universe and then withdrew. But an admission of Darwinism is no more deism than admission of gravity is deism. If, when dropped, an apple falls to the earth, it is only because God wills it so.

At least since Augustine, it has been Catholic teaching that God never removes Himself from creation. Since God created everything out of nothing, God is the only existence. It is summed up in His words to Moses: "I am who am" (Exodus 3:14). If God were to cease the act of conscious will that initiated creation, everything would cease to exist, and it would be as though it had never existed, for time, too, exists only in God. Therefore, every creation is a special creation, because if God did not actively will it so then no child would ever be born, to wombat or woman. The move forward of the Chaosians is that they have seen the order hidden in chaos. Even a child that dies before she is born has an impact on all of humanity, and the seeming chaos of natural selection may merely be an order that it is impossible for humans to understand. For as God told Isaiah (55:9), "As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts."

The point of all this is that God did what He did because it was a good idea. He could have done things differently, but, if 4.6 billion years had not passed between the time God created the earth and the time God created humans, everything would have been different. And as Moses passed down to us, "The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 29:29).

"The man of intelligence -- he who will never agree with anybody -- should study to acquire a love of the conversation of imbeciles, and a love of ill-written books. From these he will obtain bitter delights that will very largely compensate for his fatigue."

-- Charles Baudelaire, My Heart Laid Bare

THE MYTH OF THE MIDDLE CLASS
Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

The middle class does not exist. I understand that all our lives we have been taught to believe that, not only does a middle class exist, but we *are* that class. I propose that this class is a myth. This allegation can be proven with only a definition, a brief analysis of to what and whose benefit it was created, and why this ridiculousness is still flung around in every economic debate.

First, look to see what the term "Middle Class" means. First, the term "class" is assumed here to be short for "classification of persons, organized by economic status." Obviously. That means that the integral word here is "Middle." "Middle" means, herein, the center or average of any group. To have meaning, then, a "middle" requires an "upper" and a "lower." Most economists agree that, previous to the Industrial Revolution (c. 1760-1860 in most Northern European nations and North America) there was no middle class. The upper class was known as the Aristocracy and the lower as the Serfs. These were easy to tell apart, because the Aristocracy owned everything, and the Serfs didn't. During the Age of Industry, the Merchant supposedly founded the Middle Class, or bourgeois, as those who had something, but not everything. Today, instead of the Merchant class, it is applied to all workers not in poverty. The division between the Merchant and the Aristocracy became hazy rapidly, but the gap was fairly existent between the Serfs, who still had nothing (and lots of it), the Aristocracy, who had quite a bit, and the Merchant, who had less, but still a fair surplus. It is from this group that we get the "Nouveau Riche", the Morgans, the Rockefellers, John Hancock; all of these were Middle Class, but would be upper today. Today, the term Middle Class is applied to any person above the poverty level, but below the level of the upper class. While the border is hard to locate, the division is clear. The rich are very rich, and the "lower class" are very poor, and the "middle class" are slightly less poor than the lower. If you compare the upper and lower class, however, the extremes balance considerably higher than the middle class. The effective point of balance is slightly less than poor. To define "Middle Class" operationally today, you would get a meaningless phrase reading something like "A Bit Less Starving Than The Really Poor People."

To bring about any New Order, however, someone has to benefit. Someone does benefit from the conception that the common man is not so common. Politicians benefit from the ability to pacify their constituents by calling them middle class. Faith is put into the prosperity of any nation's economy, and, by conduction, into that nation's leaders, when it appears that most citizens are affluent. Therefore, incumbents benefit from telling their governed that they are Middle Class citizens. A challenger would be noticeably damaged, however, should he attempt to say to the voters that they were lower class citizens. The now insulted voters would, and the hopeful future office holder wouldn't. The other major group to benefit from the deluding of the people would be the Big Business. The small business owner, an admirable fellow about whom many things are written, just doesn't own a percentage of the market share to reflect the number out there. The statistics of failed small businesses each year is adequate testimony to where the average small business owner lies on the "Very Rich - Very Poor" axis. Somewhere above poverty, but not much higher than the break-even point. But the market places of this nation are busy. Where does all our money go? Take a look at your cassette or CD collection, look closely, and see who publishes the music. Skinny Puppy is on Nettwork and Alpha Team is on Strictly Hype, but most of the others, Geffen, Reprise, Atlantic, Sire, Paisley Park, are all subdivisions of Warner Brothers. Even Tommy Boy is half Warner at last I heard. Look at your television channels. CNN, CNN 2, TBS, TNT, etc. belong to Turner, and MTV, VH-1, ABC, FOX, Nickelodeon, Disney (!), etc. (as well as Pepsi and Pizza Hut, coincidentally) all belong to the same people. Most of the money in our nation today go to the Big Business. These are the Merchants of the Industrial Age, and they are the Upper Class of today, as surely as the Borgias were in their day. A belief that they are just amalgams of Middle Class people distracts the people from the massive amounts of money at their disposal, and from the increasingly political role they are taking in this Lobbied and Multi-Nationaled time. (Remember recently when a Pakistani national shot a CIA man in DC during rush hour traffic? Well, that car held a couple of CIA men, their wives (I think), and a couple of AT&T employees...)

Why does this go on? What could lead the no-longer-looking-so-middle class to put up with this? Well, if we ignore the fact that the media doesn't do a very good job of releasing this data, and that our rich and our leaders have a vested interest in not publicizing this, we are left with the minds of the "middle class" themselves. If you tell a person he is pretty well off, he will be happy. If we just face it, the pride of the middle class is what leads to a belief in one. Much of the delusion is self-induced. Once we understand this, we can understand why the middle class is so low today. As each income bracket became fringe Middle Class, they (quite understandably) began to think of themselves as fully middle class people. This, though, made the next lower bracket fringe Middle Class, and the cycle continues. (Thus leading to the related phenomenon of the Upper Middle Class, aka the Richer-Not-So-Rich People, and, the most humorous, the Middle Middle Class, or the Not-So-Rich People of the Not-So-Rich People.) Hence, the Middle Class becomes, not only meaningless, but *believed* by the people in general.

Therefore, the Middle Class does not exist. It is a myth created by those with something to gain, and believed by those with something to hide.

TWO POEMS
Marc A. Beherec

"Age"

Time devours me --
A parasite ripping me apart.
It gnaws at every part of me --
But its greatest victim is my heart.

"Through the Doorway"

The key turns in the rusted grate,
And an uncertain future awaits.
The bolt slides back, and in the gloom,
I see lurking in a neglected room
The Demons Loneliness and Remorse.

I panic at the dreadful sight;
My spirit quails before those denizens of night.
I try to slam shut those hated doors,
But am overwhelmed, and out the tide pours.
They fly out with a single goal:
To feed their gluttony on mortal souls.

"He who knows true pain has learned a great deal."

-- The Song of Roland, ln. 2524

FOUR POEMS
Irrelevant Being

The Girl

I sit in my room
with paper before me.
How can I begin to express...
the way she made me feel?
The way she made me high?
The way she shot me down?
The way she broke my heart?
The way she made me want to die?
The reasons I wanted her dead?
Why I still love her?

"I know..."

I know you didn't mean the rude things you said,
and I know that I am not "better off dead".
I hope that you don't want to cut my throat,
Despite my leaving you for your hairy pet goat.

Emotional Sadist

Can it be true?
I no longer care
to be in your presence
or be loved by you?

How can it be
that in just a few days
my love for you
escaped us like the breeze?

When I see your picture,
I no longer see
the one that I care for,
only a self-centered beast.

Perhaps this is because
you blew me off,
never gave me a chance,
or allowed me to talk.

You hurt me,
and maybe, someday,
I can return the favor.

Continue to ignore me,
because I know
you hurt just for fun.
You are an emotional sadist!

Falling

I'm falling
into the unmistakable,
familiar spiral.
Down, down, down
to the pit of depression.
As I go,
the spiral tightens
and its treads hold me close,
I'm no longer alone,
I have company.

"Well, Christus tells us that little children suffer --
It's only right that we should learn to suffer too!"

-- Current 93, "Black Flowers Please"

TWO SONNETS
Patrick Beherec/Crux Ansata

"Sonnet Pessimiste"

Life is an agonizing pilgrimage
To a maggot infested cathedral.
We can never reach the end together,
But cling to each other as we travel.
We can find no rest as we travel on;
We can find only rest in each other.
Carry my heavy heart; I'll carry yours;
And let us find rest, each in each other.
So let us lean our bodies together,
So let me drink your nectar from your lips,
And let me find rest, sore hard in your arms,
And let me find sleep, sheltered in your hips.
So clutch my hand as we walk on the path
And clutch me in your heart when I have passed.

"I no longer gaze..."

I no longer gaze on you, Sophia.
Your light dazzles, makes your absence too harsh.
I turn my back, and walk into your world,
For I've sat alone, and loved you too much.
Instead of love you, I serve you, a Man.
You Logos -- You Christ, similarly cast --
You beaten Jesus -- You suffering fool!
You eternal first; You pierced, putrid last.
Close my eyes to Your beauty, mercy, grace...
Let me smell God's Body, rotted and hung.
Let me stumble blind; let memory fly;
Silence Your spheres. Scream, you suffering ones!
For, to live lacking is already hell.
An empty heart, where You refuse to dwell.

DEMENTIA
Lucifer's Sunflower

It's cold, and it's dark, and the weight of what feels like centuries rests on my shoulders. My heart aches for what has long passed, and my lungs burn for air as I clutch the damp, soft earth in my hands. I buried myself alive, to protect the world from my flaws, my insanity, my madness. I told them I was a vampire; I told them I craved human blood. And cried out to them for help. They simply laughed at me and told me, "You are mad, Isaac Grenville, to think that you need drink of others." I could not bear the laughter! I could no sleep, for the wind carried with it the cascades of the laughter of the townspeople! It rang in my ears, night and day! But I stopped it. Aye, I stopped it.

It was October, when the autumn wind begins to nip at your ears and nose. I had been behind the church building crying, and one of the devout God-fearers who had been inside praying came out and asked me, "Why, what is wrong, Isaac Grenville?" A beautiful lass she was. Dark blonde hair falling in curls around her face from under her lavender bonnet, and blue eyes, deep as the sea. Her lavender dress billowed around her. "Oh!" I cried, startled by her inquiry. "I am a lost soul! God has forsaken me to allow such torment!" And she looked at me with compassionate eyes. "Why, Isaac Grenville," she told me, "we are God's children. And he would never forsake his children; he loves them so!" I watched her lips move, scarcely hearing the words she spoke. Such beauty! I fancied I could smell her blood. I couldn't hold myself back anymore. I stood up quickly, and this startled her. She took a step back. She looked into my eyes, and knew what I was seeking. She tried to run, but I grabbed her wrist. I must have her! I tore her dress in the front so I could see her breasts. I tore her dress off, I did! And the smell of her blood was so strong! I sank my teeth into her exposed neck as she struggled to get free of my groping hands. She screamed. Such a beautiful voice! And she was mine! Her blood and her body, it was mine! I raped her until I couldn't feel her struggling beneath me anymore. The sun had long since set. I stood up, and looked at her. The skin of her neck was torn and tattered. I put my hands to my mouth, feeling my teeth. Had I done that? I looked down her body. Her breasts were bleeding, nearly torn from her chest, and from between her legs came a river of blood. Had I done this? Had I mauled this creature to death in my lust? I looked around. There was no one to be seen. Oh, what the townsfolk would say to me when they saw what I had done! "Isaac Grenville, you are a monster!" And I would say to them, "I told you!" And they would burn me at the stake. Oh, I couldn't bear it! I tore at my hair. What would I do? I must hide it! Hide this that had once been a woman so that none of the living man would see! I picked her up gently, and carries her, as a man carries his bride, into the forest where I lay her beside an old, gnarled oak tree. I labored for little more than an hour with a shovel I had found in the churchyard. Scraping away at the earth, I thought I heard whispers, "Men shouldn't pretend to be things they are not, Isaac Grenville." I ignored them, concentrating on my work. I had a hole deep enough now. I picked up the corpse and lay her in it. "G'night, lassie," I told her as I began to scrape the loose soil over her. With my work finished, I walked back to the churchyard to replace the shovel and headed home.

The days crawled by and turned to weeks, and the weeks turned to months. I told no one about my crime, but I heard whisperings about the disappearance of Cecilia Martin. I hid in the shadows. I didn't plead for help. I stayed at home, in the corner of my bedchamber. I stayed alone. But the voices -- oh the voices! -- never let me be. They scolded me. "Isaac Grenville, how could you do such a thing?" "You will surely go to Hell, Isaac Grenville!" "Men shouldn't pretend to be things they are not, Isaac Grenville!" I began to tear at my hair, as I had done that night in the churchyard. "Be quiet!" I shouted at these voices. "Be silent and leave me in peace!" I wept as they began again, "Isaac Grenville, how could you do such a thing?" I could bear it no longer! I stood up and ran from my house. The sun was beginning to set, and people were going home. I knocked one man over in my frenzy. "Isaac Grenville, you madman! Watch where your feet are running!" he called after me. I ignored him, and ran and ran and ran until I came to the gnarled oak tree where I had buried that beautiful creature that horrible night. "I am a vampire!" I shouted at the tree. "I committed no crime less than others of my kind!" The voices came again: "You will surely go to Hell, Isaac Grenville!" I shouted back at them, "Leave me alone!" I fell to my knees and clutched my head as I pondered how to rid myself of the voices. And then it came to me. I am one of the undead, who sleep as the dead sleep! I will bury myself in the ground, and when I awaken, the voices will have left me. I began to scratch at the ground beside the makeshift grave of the girl. After an hour or so, I had clawed a grave for myself. I jumped down into it, and began to sweep the dirt back over me. Suddenly, I felt something hit my head, and I fell. I saw the dirt fly on my face.

And now, I do not know how long I have been here. Oh, my lungs burn! When I open my mouth to breathe, my tongue tastes dirt. I cannot move to dig myself free. I open my eyes to try to see, but the soil irritates my eyes. I weep as the blackness settles around me, and I fall into black dreaming.

"We last as a strain of music lasts. And we go where it goes."

-- Santayana

LEGEND OF VIRTUAL MAN
I Wish My Name Were Nathan

At some time in the future or the past, somewhere in the West, there lives a citizen called Virtual Man. Through an intense period of training in early adulthood, this ordinary man has learned how to predict the future, as far as his life was concerned. When any circumstance arises, he can gather facts from his environment and follow the ingrained laws of causality to determine the eventual result. He uses this power to great effect in exercising his free will: he can always determine with exacting precision what sort of traps and troubles could arise from any action, and thus avoid wasted time and failure. Every step he takes guarantees success. His technique is a testament to ingenuity, security, and foresight.

Most citizens will never see Virtual Man. He does not travel, due to well- educated concerns about the safety of our transport systems, greatly lacking in repair and maintenance, as well as teeming with you citizens. He does not even leave his apartment that often. Highways are slaughterhouses, and city streets are logician's nightmares. He doesn't even consider walking on sidewalks (mosquitoes, knee damage, sunspot activity, precipitation and wind). In fact, Virtual Man is unencumbered by the ordinary person's tendency to get stubbed toes or sprained muscles: he stays securely in bed.

Have you ever heard of Virtual Man? It's a wonder more citizens have not. He's heard of you, surely, or will soon enough. With a few glances, he can know you, your face, your movements, your desires and dreams, which he includes in his planning. Unfortunately, he has decided or will decide that you are too dangerous. You may catch him at a vulnerable time and hurt him. Don't take it personally. He must guarantee his safety and well-being. Woe that our banks are not as cautious!

After a few years of successful results, Virtual Man enhanced his powers. Like any good security system, instead of waiting to fall prey to the possibility of being hurt, he devised an ingenious prevention system. He does not use a gun or a taser. Instead, he has utilized the natural energies of his body and mind to ward off evildoers. Anyone who comes within fifteen feet of him immediately feels this veritable force field and quickly shies away. It repels insects, animals, landlords, police, and psychiatrists as well, all of these creatures mere vessels for wanton destruction and pain.

Virtual Man is happy, as far as we can tell, through the telescope we have aimed at his bedroom window (in the rare event he peeks through the blinds). He does only those things that guarantee his happiness. We are sure that in the universe of his thoughts, he experiences occasional happiness along the myriad paths of action he considers and eventually rejects. Every action has its consequences, and by taking none at all, he triumphs. So while we toil in this uncertain world and endure immeasurable suffering, Virtual Man remains untouched. He is an inspiration to us all.

Long live Virtual Man!

"I content myself with writing what I am able, and I dream all I possibly can dream."

-- Madame Marquise de Sevigne

HELL
Lucifer's Sunflower

The room was barely lit by the torches in the corners. The walls were stone grey and dressed in chains and ropes on three walls. An iron door surrounded by whips and spikes adorned the fourth. In the middle of the room was what, upon further inspection, one would discover it to be more of a table than a bed, and it was tilted at an angle. There were steel loops at each of the four corners. Tonight, there were ropes looped around it. The ropes were secured to a girl, naked and helpless, restrained on the table. She laid there, her head tilted to her left. Her dark red hair fell over her face, shielding from the whole room the tears that fell from her golden eyes. Sounds of approaching footsteps echoed beyond the door.

The door swung open, and hit the wall with a loud clang. The light from the hall shone brightly, encasing a black silhouette. It stepped inside, and reached for the door. With a push, the door was closed once more. The silhouette gained features. It was a man, dark of hair and fair of skin. His green eyes were luminescent. His silver shirt was sheer, and gleamed in the light. His elegant fingers lifted a whip and a silver object from their places on the wall. His leather pants made a soft swoosh sound as he walked toward the girl. She looked up, her eyes pleading for freedom. He smiled, and spoke in a gentle, almost mocking voice.

"And how are you today, love?" He ran his hand lightly from her wrist to her shoulder.

"Please let me go," she whispered, tears saturating her voice.

"And why would I do that?" His caress continued from her shoulder to her breasts. "I enjoy you so."

"Please." She lifted her head. "Please, this is Hell for me."

"Hell?" The man's countenance darkened. "Hell, you say?" His hands encircled the girl's bound wrists. The whip dug into her right wrist, and the silver object, a blade, sliced into her left. He moved his face close to hers, his lips curling back in a snarl. "I can show you Hell."

The girl whimpered as the first drops of red life began spilling to the floor. "Please..."

"Hell is when you hear the singing of angels every morning. When you see a glory so divine you don't dare touch it, for fear of tainting it. Hell is going through your miserable existence trapped in a church, where you are constantly reminded that God is perfect, and you are not. You are scum; you are filth; you are sin. Dirty, dirty sin." His grip tightened, and his lips brushed her ear as he spoke.

"Please let me go." Her tears choked her, and drops of her blood fell to the floor like a heavy red rain. Her breathing came in shallow gasps.

The man let out a growl, nearly a scream, and put his mouth on her neck. Teeth met and broke skin. He bit down harder when the girl screamed. Blood began to trickle into his mouth, then it poured. It flowed out of his mouth as he drank; it ran down her body. It ran down the table. It dripped onto the floor, joining with the pool from her wrist. She writhed, trying to free herself, but he held her firmly in place, gulping down mouthfuls of blood and letting the rest drench the floor.

Her gasps for breath came less and less frequently. Her attempts to wrench herself free came to a still. He released her, and took a step back. His clothes were as red as the floor he stood on. He looked at the body, and then at the floor. He wiped his mouth, and looked at himself. Nonchalantly, he turned and walked to the door. He pulled it open, stepped back, and let it hit the wall, the loud clang resounding through the room and the hall. He grabbed the door handle, and pulled the large, iron door to a close behind him.

"The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life. Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the sufferer will but make the best, rather than the worst, of the accident which has befallen him."

-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

THE SUICIDE SOCIETY
Marc A. Beherec

The ugly pair lay upon the bed, he snoring uproariously and she, slack-jawed, drooling on her pillow. A faint breeze blew through the doorway from open window in the next room, and I approached quietly, kukri in hand. Carefully, I tried a few practice swings, making sure the slut was out of the knife's path. I hated her, but she had not bound herself to his oaths. Finally, I let the kukri swing with my full might, the angry curved blade ripping through muscle and sinew and shattering the stillness of the night.

Suddenly he started flailing about, waking her up. Immediately she began to scream, clutching the bloody mess that was her companion. I'm not sure if she even saw me as I ran out the door, tripped over something in the dark, and banged my head as I climbed through the open window. Madly I ran down the alley, leapt into my car, and drove off. My lungs ached and my body shook as I tried to steer straight. I had nearly reached the Lodge before I realized I was covered in the apostate's blood. I never knew death could be so ugly.

The bastard I dispatched deserved a more horrible fate than that I dispensed. He and I were brothers in a sense, both members of a Society created to raise consciousnesses. That Society, I am told, was founded in the late nineties. It was a time of great prosperity but, for men who think, great anxiety. At first the Society was merely a collective of nihilists, modeled on the suicide clubs of the nineteenth century. In those days they merely drank hard, partied harder, and played occasional bouts of Russian Roulette in the woods. They hated life and this world, it is true, but they lacked a grander vision. Of course, none of them live to tell about those days, but I have heard the history from reliable sources.

At some point, fate brought the Society the grace it needed to become a more meaningful thing; grace in the form of Stephen Bruckenkopf. I never met the man, but I am told he hated this revolting world with a passion unknown now. It was he who wrote the oaths, he who developed the quarterly Lottery of Souls, and he who established the organization of the Society financially and through proselytizing on college campuses. But most importantly it was he who saw in a Society of intelligent individuals sworn to suicide an incredible power for those who lived. Somewhere Bruckenkopf had learned of other, ancient suicide societies. He knew of gates and of keys, and he knew that through the death of a willing sacrifice great spiritual power could be reached. And finally Bruckenkopf supported the Society in death as faithfully as he had in life.

The one I killed last night -- may his name be forever forgotten! -- was nothing like our father Bruckenkopf. I was told he joined our grand Society after a failed relationship, and, though I hate to criticize even after this incident, I doubt he was properly screened by the fathers. He enjoyed the fellowship of our gatherings at the Lodge, but his mind never seemed to rise above their carnal nature. He enjoyed the whores and the strange drug that only fathers know how to make, that is meant to raise men's minds, but he enjoyed them as a dog or a pig would. In short, he was nothing but a common man.

He was with us at the Feast of Preparation, the week before the Vernal Equinox. We all sat in the Lodge around the long oaken table, with the fathers at its head. He sat across from me and a few seats closer to the fathers, so I saw him out of my eye's corner as the grandfather read the outcome of the Lottery of Souls. His face turned white as the tablecloth, and as we rose he walked unsteadily to the Room of Evocations.

Once in the Room he underwent the Ritual of Preparation. For those who know it, I need give no description, and for those who do not know it, I must give no description. But I can say that he was less prepared than I had imagined. Other men have trembled when their time came, but recovered their resolution. But when the climax of the ritual came, and the grandfather opened the ebony box, he screamed with a terror I had never before beheld. He had seen the Key that only the chosen may see, and he had proven unworthy of the Key. After the Ritual, we dispersed to our rooms, some selecting prostitutes, others shutting themselves up alone for their private rituals.

The apostate was given a week to arrange his will. He would sacrifice himself in his own manner, in solitude, so as to keep eyes away from the Society. He knew the date and the time it must be done. But on the Equinox, as we gathered for the Grand Ritual, the fathers seemed to know something was wrong. We performed as much of the Ritual as we could alone, and then waited, listening for the cry overhead, the scream of the suicide soul streaking to its destination, that would allow us to continue. The time came and went, and still we waited. But the sound we all knew, a strange musical cry sounding almost as though it came from within the listener rather than without, never came. Finally, disappointingly, we were forced to abandon the Ritual, cursing the apostate as we did so.

But it seems such things have happened before, for the fathers were prepared. I was chosen by them, because of my devotion and honor, to slay the infidel and then to sacrifice myself for the Grand Ritual. For the sacrifice must be willing, but the laws of the dead must not be ignored. The fathers arranged for witnesses to tie the murder to me, and when my own body is found the police will be happy to close another murder-suicide without delving too deeply.

I sit in my room of the Lodge now, having rested, bathed and prepared myself. Soon I will undergo the Ritual of Preparation. I shall see the Key, whatever it is, that drove the apostate screeching mad but which all faithful men long to see. And then I will take myself off to a lonely place in the wilds of the forest I have loved since youth. Then it will be my own throat that I lay open with the kukri, but I shall die beautifully; the lovely death of the martyr.

About the Authors:

Editor Patrick Beherec has been known, inter alia, as Crux Ansata. He has spent the last couple of years in social work in Atlantic City, and vigilantly postponing his writing career. His webpage is http://www.geocities.com/c_ansata/ and he can be emailed at [email protected]

Associate Editor Marc Andrew Beherec was born in the United Kingdom in 1979. He has a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently studying anthropological archaeology at the University of California at San Diego. Marc formerly wrote for State of unBeing as Dark Crystal Sphere Floating Between Two Universes and as Captain Moonlight; his writing, ranging from politics to poetry, appeared in that e-zine from issue three (March 1994) until issue seventy (July 2001). His writing will also appear in a forthcoming issue of Necronomicon Press' Lovecraft Studies. He considers his primary literary influences to be H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and William Seabrook. His webpage is http://www.geocities.com/mabeherec/mabwrite.html and he may be reached at [email protected]

Nobody knows anything about Irrelevant Being. And that's exactly how he likes it. He can be emailed at [email protected]

I Wish My Name Were Nathan is well known from State of unBeing. Contact him care of the editors.

Lucifer's Sunflower can be emailed at [email protected]

Copyright

Nameless and Damned is copyrighted (c) 2003 by Patrick Beherec and Nameless and Damned. All rights are reserved to cover, format, editorials, and all incidental material. All individual items are copyrighted (c) 2003 by the individual author, unless otherwise stated. This file may be disseminated without restriction for nonprofit purposes so long as it is preserved complete and unmodified. Quotes and ideas not already in the public domain may be freely used so long as due recognition is provided. Nameless and Damned is available at http://www.geocities.com/nadmagazine/. Submissions may also be sent to the editor at [email protected]. The NaD distribution list may also be joined by sending email to the editor.