Creeping, Crawling, Horrors…. And Manacles of the Mind.
This is a Creeping, Crawling, Horror…
I wrote Manacles of the Mind in connection with the making of and release of my Creeping, Crawling, Horrors.
Creeping, Crawling, Horrors, are mugs with creepy coasters, resembling things that crawl and dissapear into dark corners. The concept for these mugs came out of an iteration of an already existinig idea of putting legs on mugs.
Getting customer feedback about the weight of the mugs with legs being too heavy, helped me form the idea of making them two separate pieces.
The new idea maintains its original intent of making the mugs owner feel like they walked through cobwebs after looking upon and handling it, while also making the art more funtional.
The dark nature of Manacles of the Mind gets its inspiration from the author Joe Abercrombie and his, The First Law Trilogy.
The character Sand dan Glokta a man tortured in war, tortured by pain for life as a result, and now a torturor for the inquisition, is my primary inspiration for this poem.
Please read the excellently dark books of Joe Abercrombie if you want to know more about him.
It has been a horrifically fun process….
Manacles of the Mind
A scraping sound.
A creaking joint.
Tapping, tapping, tapping, on the floor.
Scrape, tap, scrape, tap, creak.
Running away is no escape.
These are the sounds that follow.
The sound of unwanted pasts.
The sounds of the feared present.
The sounds of latched, manacled, hidden places of rot within.
Each an image of dark places unique to the tortured soul.
A trap door in the floor with rusty padlock, old grey boards, and flaking iron hardware, placed over a gaping dark secret place. Chains from manacles heard through the dark gaps between boards loosely nailed to the floor. Mad eyes seen through the leering cracks, the occasional violent shaking and beating upon the door.
An inverted trap door in the ceiling that leads to an attic where an unwanted specter is locked away, left to rot and rage, among the skeletal structure of the mind. Footsteps and pained voices heard through a thin ceiling that keep sleep from the mind.
A cell-like cage placed in the open where all who enter may see the horrors caged within. Not hidden but paraded before the world. A zoo of horrors that cannot be kept secret. A thing starved and thin and wailing. A wild yearning to be admired, replaced instead, with loathing.
A house full of jewels, gold, and priceless artifacts that no one can touch. An obsessive wretch living among it all. Unwilling to share yet unable to enjoy. A cackling lonely sound mixed with tinkling crystals and the jingling of coins that cannot be spent.
These are but some of the deep dark places of the mind.
Places that tap, scrape, creak, and wail.
They are carried with humanity unwillingly throughout life.
If only the dark places could be passed on to someone else.
Anyone else.
Why me?
Why not someone else?
The truth is whispered with foul rotting breath.
The tapping, creaking, scraping, and wailing of another, might break you entirely.
