The Dark Verse

Where the wild things are.

Excerpt:

The movie man found me at an awards banquet. It was for my swim team, and it was the last place I expected to meet someone who would change my life. When his greeting occurred, all of the awards and speeches had been given and made, and things had just begun to wind down. Loose conversations were forming around the dining room and some people were already making their way out of the country club. I had been caught in an in-between moment of solitude, casually meandering through the patches of bodies, trying to look intent as to give my uniqueness purpose.

Of course, when the movie man first spoke, I did not notice, but by the third time he said my name, I had located him and noticed his need of my attention. He sat at a table with his chair positioned out. A group of people swelled on the side, talking and laughing very loudly. I had never seen him at any of my team’s swim meets or at any other team function. A large, brown beard covered his face and though he was dressed up, he looked untidy.

He stuck out his hand and I shook it.

“Mr. Masselton,” he said, “so glad to meet you. I am privileged to have caught your attention. I have an opportunity you might be interested in. Throughout the course of the next few months, I will be traveling to different oceans around the world to shoot some scenes for a movie that is currently in production. For these scenes, I will need someone of your swimming ability. You will be paid handsomely and you will not have to worry about any expenses, whether travel or trivial.”

I was about to interrupt him, but he stopped me.

“Please do not answer me now. Just think about it and then if you would like to join me, you can call me, but I must know your answer by the end of the month.” He handed me a worn business card that he pulled from an even more worn wallet. “Goodnight, Mr. Masselton, and congratulations on the great year.”

 15: Bringing Back The Unordinary [20:21m]: Download

What you see is what you get.

Excerpt:

There were certain shops that had no seizing affects outside of a planned visit, and then there were certain shops that quite brutally tortured if their magical, if not haunting, space was not investigated. Alluring displays, unorthodox merchandise, and toys—these were some of the things that made me curious, but the latter, the toys—those trinkets of deep imagining minds—had the greatest pull on me. I had my dates with ordinary toyshops, but it was the hole-in-the-wall, washed-out places that really got my heart yearning. I wondered how they even existed. They were the shops of the strange and unique; the ones that sold old card decks, antique dolls, foreign games, and much, much more. Things that did not even have the right to be made were somehow resting on the shelves of these hidden and cavernous places.

I was not much of a collector; the mere and occasional trifling of these objects was enough to satisfy my taste. I touched them and played with them, though I rarely purchased them. There were a number of shops I frequented, but I was always on the lookout for somewhere new.

There was one particular shop that gave me much more than satisfaction, something much greater, but also much worse. The shop’s name was Timeless Fortunes, and its entrance rested in the shadows of a hall, tucked away between two much larger stores on either side. The name, Timeless Fortunes, was labeled on the door, but nowhere else could it be found—not outside or inside of the place. The door chimed when opened and rattled as it closed. Inside, the hall continued on with old, worn posters covering the surfaces of the walls. Each poster was of a toy or contraption no one would have ever known about: laser guns with bulbous designs, masks made in the likeness of mice and rats, build-your-own fire block kits, centipede growth inducers, headache relief halos, Corpse: The Game of Fancy Graves, and human body part sculptor sets, to name a few. At the end of the hall was a short flight of stairs—this led into the shop.

 14: The Captive Inside [15:25m]: Download