The Dark Furie

Why is it that when people hear about troubles others are having they're determined to make it worse? Okay, okay, maybe they don't actually do it on purpose but surely anyone with a modicum of common sense wouldn't do what the majority of people do. Am I losing you here? Let me explain.

Okay, a while ago I was visiting someone who'd just been in hospital. She's an elderly woman and had been in to get a pacemaker. As she'd come close to dying and been rushed into hospital she had developed some minor problems - having small panic attacks and the like. Now while we were visiting some other people came over with some flowers to cheer her up. When the woman mentioned the panic attacks she'd been having, these people started talking about heart attacks and brain tumors they'd heard of with similar symptoms, terrifying her. They didn't even think about what they were saying and just kept flapping their lips and scaring this poor woman. Have you ever heard of anything so inconsiderate?

It happens all over the world as well, in almost any situation. You book a flight and people start telling you about plane crashes, change medication and people start listing harmful side effects they've experienced or heard of or seen in a movie, eat a hot dog and someone is bound to list the things on the factory floor (insects, human faecal matter, the cast of Neighbours) that every worker is obviously instructed to pick up and put into the mix. Why? What is the point? Are these people so eager to make a contribution to a conversation that they're willing to destroy someone's sense of well being in order to do it? Are they so stupid that they actually think horror stories are the thing to tell someone who's already worried about something?

So is there a point to all this? Yeah, I like to think there's a point.

As many of you know I've had quite a bit of psychiatric training and have been exposed to people with various mental health problems and personality disorders for a lot of my life. The thing that really gets to me about this subject is how these people would react if they were confronted with such horror stories. When a person has these sort of problems they go on medication in order to help them deal with their problems and lead a normal life. Sometimes it can take years to find the correct combination of medications and doses in order to help the individual involved. In most cases it's best if someone the person trusts knows the possible side effects and monitors the person themselves without them knowing any of them. It lets the patient get a feel for the new medication without their mind being given a list of the side effects to physically manifest on the body. As many forms of mental illness or personality disorder will do just that if given a list of side effects I find it to be the safer route to follow until the person is used to the new medication.

Now if each time they change their medication some idiot decides to give them a horror story about worst case scenarios that can possibly happen to them, that ruins that and just gives the mind more ammunition to use against the person. Side effects that may not even be caused by that medication may manifest physically simply because the person is fearful enough of them.

Think about how you feel when you're afraid of something. Do you want someone telling you how much worse it could get? Does it matter that it's a million to one shot that it could get that bad when you're too scared to figure out those odds?

We already live in a society of fear. If you listen to the news you'd think you can't get out your front door without being attacked by a gang of heroin addicted, AIDS infected rottweilers who'll video your suffering and put it on Youtube. So you don't leave the house. But you can't eat while indoors because everything in the world causes Cancer or heart disease or is fatal in some other way. Oh, but don't worry about any of this fearmongering that is forced in our faces twenty-four hours a day, every day of our lives, because worrying is bad for you. Do you really want to contribute to the fear?

This is my suggestion to the entire world - Think before you speak. Simple isn't it? If you think about the story you're about to tell and you realise that it may scare people unnecessarily, then just don't tell it. There's no reason to, and many reasons not to. If someone you know is fearful of something and you actually care about them then try setting their mind at ease. Now I'm not talking about going all Disney, and talking to them like they're kids, but there is a happy medium. Let them know that you believe they've got nothing to be afraid of. Let them know it's perfectly natural to feel that way and you'll support them through it and be there when they're over it. But, for the sake of the person you're talking to, don't try to make them more afraid and remember to think before you say anything that may make them that way. After all, you wouldn't like it if it happened to you.

Meet Adam, a regular 19th century teenaged boy with a few problems. You can probably tell what some of those problems are from the torch wielding mob behind him.

When Adam was born his mother loved him more than anything in the world until she died an hour later from blood loss. Adam's father came home that night to find his wife dead and his new son suckling at her blood covered nipple. Distraught he settled Adam in his crib by the window and ran to the local town for help. When he returned with the doctor his son was gone without a trace, still unnamed by his family.

Adam was given his name by the Baron of that area. One of his manservants had found Adam crying and recognised him as having the same condition as his master. He brought the boy to the Baron, who raised him as his own, naming him after the first man as presented in the Bible. The Baron's manservant later explained to his wife how he'd found the child in his crib covered in burns with his flesh bubbling away in the sunlight as if it were being stewed.

When Adam was seven years old his nanny tripped over one of his toys, fell down the stairs and broke her neck. Adam was the only witness. When the body was later found it had been cannibalised. The Baron went to see the boy and noticed traces of blood around his lips and on his fingers. It was then that he knew for sure and started to explain to the boy exactly what he was.

Understanding Adam

Adam actually suffers from the following three problems all at once.
Porphyria
Hyperglycemia
Anemia

These leave him with a constant hunger, a severe skin problem caused by sunlight and a severe reaction to sulphur heavy foods such as garlic, as well as an almost constant rage. Each of these diseases feeds the others, making their symptoms more pronunced than they would normally be. He is treating these by regular blood transfusions (a new science pioneered by the Baron yet not perfected yet) from paid members of the lower classes, leaving them with small wounds from the apparatus and a pale countenance. They are forced to keep the procedure a secret on pain of death, causing many to claim not to know how the wounds had occurred. Unfortunately for Adam, his early experiences lying in his mother's blood has given him a subconscious association of blood and food. This "fetish" is bringing his actions in pursuing his medical needs closer and closer to his eventual ruin.

At thirteen years of age Adam suffered the loss of another parent when the Baron died. The funeral, held in the grounds of the castle at night, was a sombre affair. Adam was the only person to attend who wasn't a servant at the castle. As the funeral drew to a close, the castle butler handed over the Baron's keys to Adam and told him to take the master's room as his own.

At fifteen, after two years as Baron, Adam was coming back from a visit to one of the furthest villages in his land. His black coach with curtained windows pulled up in front of a roadside inn and the driver entered to order food. Witnesses say that the meal was taken into the coach to be consumed there. Suddenly the coach began rocking as if some great beast were inside, pounding on the walls. The door opened and the plate was hurled against the wall of the inn, the meal barely touched. Later that night the inn was broken into by persons unknown and all the garlic in the place was burned.

During his seventeenth summer, unable to take long trips anymore, Adam began visiting the nearest village at night. He romanced the local girls, arranging to elope with them, meeting them at prearranged spots then cutting their throats and feasting on their blood. He remembered the Baron's warning to only take a little and never locally but had no choice left. The summer was brutal that year, and any exposure would surely kill him. He needed this for his own life to continue as normal.

One night a farmer happened across Adam feeding and a mob was formed. They wont catch him alive though. Later that day a woodsman, who so many years ago lost his own wife and son, will find a blackened corpse lying in a clearing almost shining in the sunlight that streams from above.

Did you hear about the dyslexic devil worshipper?
He sold his soul to Santa.

Yeah it's an old joke. Yeah, it's a bad joke. But it's actually a lot more accurate than you might think. After all...

Santa Claus is real and I can prove it!

• 270CE - Nicholas is born in Licea (now Turkey).
• 325CE - Nicholas, now Bishop of Myra is part of the Council of Nicaea, the people who created the new testament of the Bible. It has been theorised that his personal beliefs lead to the inclusion of several anti-semetic lines of text.
• 345CE - Nicholas dies on December 6th.
• Time Unknown - A cult arises worshipping Nicholas. Different variations of the cult start calling Nicholas a Saint, although what he is saint of varies from person to person. Some say families, others say seafaring and these varied beliefs have travelled all over the world today. Nicholas has never officially been canonised.
• 1087AD - A group of italian sailors who are part of the cult that worships Nicholas, take Nicholas' bones from their resting place in Turkey by force and move them to Bari, Italy. In this area the Grandmother, a gift giving deity who puts presents in children's stockings is replaced by Nicholas when her shrine is taken over by Nicholas' worshippers. Members gave each other gifts on the eve of Nicholas' death, during a festival.
• Time Unknown - The cult spreads to Germanic and Celtic pagans where Nicholas starts to replace Odin. Legends of Odin give him a long, white beard and have him riding a flying horse through the heavens every Autumn. As Nicholas supplants Odin his Turkish looks are replaced with Odin's description, the character starts to wear winter clothing and the flight through the heavens is rescheduled as being December 6th.
• Time Unknown - The Catholic Church decides to bring the pagans "into the flock". The Catholics adapt the Nicholas cult and start to teach that he sent gifts on December 25th, not December 6th. Followers of both religions start to bring this into their Christmas beliefs.
• 1809AD - Washington Irving (author of The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow) writes a satire of Dutch culture called Knickerbocker History. In the book he refers several times to the white bearded, flying horse riding Saint Nicholas, using his Dutch name - Santa Claus.
• 1822AD - Dr Clement Moore, reads Knickerbocker History and publishes a poem based on Santa Claus - Twas The Night Before Christmas. In this poem the flying horse is replaced by eight flying reindeer and Santa is portrayed as coming down chimneys for the first time.
• 1862AD - Harper's Weekly starts to publish cartoons based on The Night Before Christmas. These cartoons elaborated on the myth by portraying Santa as a jolly fat man who lives in the North Pole and has a workshop full of elves helping to make toys.
• 1931 - The myth is finally completed. The Coca Cola corporation hires an artist to create a version of Santa drinking Coke, with one directive - Santa's suit must be Coca Cola red.

So there you have it folks. Santa Claus is a real person but, far from being the lovable fat guy we all know, he's from Turkey, displaced several gods, wrote the bible, was possibly a racist and sold a hell of a lot of soft drinks.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Ah, Bower Lake. There really is no more beautiful sight in the entire land of Albion than the sunset reflecting off the lake. Of everyone in the world I should know that best. I've travelled across the entire land from mountain to swamp, bustling city to peaceful farming village, haunted tombs to balverine infested coastal roads. Yet it is here, where I grew up that I can finally find peace. Well, I didn't grow up only in this place. For a while I had a family. A loving mother and father, and a sister who used to set up games on the farm where we lived. Time is truly the cruelest of my enemies though, taking each of them from me, forcing me to scrape by on the cold streets of Bowerstone, then taking the last thing I could call my own and leaving me for dead. So many tragedies in my life, yet each is a distant memory now. I've always been a survivor; always had the will to put my hardships behind me until I was ready to face them. And that's why I'm here now.

I stroll casually past Hero Hill, wondering what past heroes had glorious moments there and if they'd felt even a fraction of the pain that place had caused me. A travelling games master passes me on the road and offers me a game of spinnerbox. For a second I imagine a vast city of lights filled with spinnerboxes and people piling their life savings into them. It's a beautiful place yet corrupt to the core. Shuddering from this thought, I decline his invitation and make my way to the camp.

Ten long years I spent in this camp. They took care of me when I was all but dead. Raised me to be one of their own. As I set out into the world and made a name for myself they were the first to benefit. I bought the entire camp from the lord of the land and set the rents to free as repayment for their kindness. I even put a friendly word in with traders to decrease the prices they have to pay in shops. They saved my life so I gave them a better life. It seemed so simple back then.

I can see her caravan as I enter the camp site. Theresa - it was she who saved my life that fateful night when destiny took everything from me, she who set me on the path of revenge. Funny thing about revenge is that it's an acquired taste, and once you've got the feel for it you want more and more.

The first of my former family falls beneath my blade easily. The gypsies react in shock, some instinctively drawing their pistols, others running for shelter. But there is no hiding place for them. I run them through one by one until all that remains are the children and Bob, the guy who runs the general store. Calling forth the power in my blood I conjure a ball of fire in my hands and pour more of my energies into it. Bob stands paralysed with fear as the raging inferno grows ever larger until I can contain it no longer and hurl it into his face, frying him in his own juices. I turn my attention to the children and tell them that they have been spared so that the camp might live on. They're crying. Poor kids are just too young understand that I grew up here and had to endure ten damn years of being called Little Sparrow by these people, all cause a bird crapped on my head once. Once, damn it!

Crossing the gypsies off my list I head back to the lake to catch the first glimpses of sunrise. Yes, revenge has a distinct flavour, Theresa. And I, Albion's Little Dumpling, like it.