Liaison At The Palais Garnier
Sitting alongside her friend Estelle in her opera box at the Palais Garnier Opera House in Paris, Nicole read a message that had been delivered to her.
It was a May evening in Paris in the year 1889.
And the 1888-1889 season of the Palais Garnier Paris Opera Company was coming to an end.
The season had begun in September with Verdi’s Aida.
And was coming to an end this May with Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
Nicole and Estelle had thoroughly enjoyed Act I of tonight’s opera.
During intermission there was one man who kept his eyes on Nicole the whole time they were in the lobby.
Returning to their box minutes before Act 2 was to begin, they discussed the excitement surrounding this particular night at the opera.
Aside from the usual rumours surrounding the possible appearance of Erik the Phantom of the Opera, there were other rumours surrounding tonight’s performance.
It was rumoured that Queen Victoria’s eldest son Edward Prince of Wales (who would be the future King Edward VII of Britain) would be attending tonight’s performance incognito under the name Monsieur Claude Adonais.
Various opera goers cast their glances around the seats on the floor and in the opera boxes to see if Monsieur Claude Adonais (aka Edward Prince of Wales) was there.
Just minutes before Act 2 of Don Giovanni was to begin, Nicole received a note.
“What does the note say?” Estelle asked excitedly.
“It says,” Nicole read the note aloud, “My dearest and fairest Mademoiselle, do I have permission to enter your box before tonight’s performance is finished?” And it’s signed Claude Adonais. Then in brackets it says Edward Prince of Wales.”
“The cheek of him,” Estelle shook her head, “Asking to enter your box.”
“I do believe he’s talking about my opera box,” Nicole replied.
“You never know with Edward Prince of Wales,” Estelle noted, “He has quite the reputation.”
Nicole sent a note back.
“What did you say?” Estelle asked.
“I said Oui,” Nicole answered.
“Oh, Nicole,” Estelle sighed.
Just as the scene where Don Giovanni encounters the statue of the slain dead Commendatore (whose daughter Don Giovanni had sexually violated and the Commendatore had died in a sword fight against Don Giovanni defending his daughter’s honour) unfolds, Monsieur Claude Adonais (aka Edward Prince of Wales) entered Nicole’s box (her opera box that is).
“Would you care to come to my hotel room after dinner?” Monsieur Claude Adonais asked, “We’ll have wine, a midnight snack and a most scrumptuous shish kebab of a sword for your dessert.”
Just as on stage the statue of the Commendatore dragged Don Giovanni down to Hell, so too Erik the Phantom of the Opera arrived on his chandelier, grabbed the Prince of Wales and carried him down to the subterranean lake below the Palais Grenier Opera House.
Just as the Phantom was about to drag the Prince of Wales below the depths of the lake, London’s famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes arrived on the scene.
“Your Highness,” Holmes explained, “Your mother the Queen hired me to look out for you. After she heard you were traveling incognito to Paris sans Alexandra your wife, she figured something like this would happen.”
Holmes ripped off the Phantom’s mask.
Erik with a loud cry vanished beneath the waters of the lake.
Holmes then turned to Edward Prince of Wales (under his incognito nom-de-plume Monsieur Claude Adonais), “And as for you, your naughty Royal Highness, your mother has booked a three hour session with my twin sister Sherrielock Holmes for you.”
Edward turned pale, “But isn’t your sister a dominatrix?”.
“She is, your Highness,” Holmes nodded, “And you’ve had it coming.”
Meanwhile Nicole and Estelle sat in a small cafe on the Champs-Elysees.
Nicole opened up a box of chocolates (that had been given her by Edward Prince of Wales Monsieur Claude Adonais) and said, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”
-A short story
and
vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Thursday May 20th
2021.
Just Another Day In Paradise
“I didn’t expect you to be back so soon,” the woman smiled at Carson Cody Albion Private Eye as she sat on the stairs leading up to his apartment.
The year was 1950.
“Do I know you?”
Albion inquired
After the woman greeted him on the stairs.
“Sadly, we’ve never met before,” the woman continued to smile at him.
“Are you a widow?” Albion asked her, “I notice you’re wearing a black dress and a black veil.”
“I am wearing what you say,” she continued to smile, “But I’m also wearing white flowers in my hair.”
“And wearing a smile,” Albion noted.
“That too,” the woman laughed.
“So you’re not a recent widow?” Albion asked.
“I am a recent widow,” the woman nodded, “but only in the stage play I’m acting in. I murdered my husband. I am a villainess… in the play.”
“Oh,” was Albion’s response as he rolled himself a cigarette.
“I walked direcly from the playhouse to here without stopping to change,” the woman explained.
“And who are you in real life?” Albion asked.
“My name is Sherrielock Holmes,” the woman answered.
“The name sounds familiar,” Albion lit his cigarette.
“Sherlock Holmes was my twin brother,” the woman lifted her veil and accepted a cigarette from Albion.
“But he’s dead and he’d be almost 100 if he was alive and…” Albion did not finish the sentence.
“I’m alive and I’m immortal,” the woman accepted a light.
“That explains everything,” Albion blew out the match.
“It does,” Sherrielock smiled.
“Do you wish to hire me?” Albion sat on a step below her.
“I do,” Sherrielock smiled.
“For what purpose?” Albion wanted to know.
“To investigate Richard M. Nixon,” Sherrielock answered.
“The presumed Republican Party candidate for U.S. Senator from California this year?” Albion took a bottle of bourbon from his coat pocket and took a sip.
“Yes,” Sherrielock nodded.
“Why?” Albion wanted to know.
“To see why Mei-ling Manchu is interested in him,” Sherrielock raised the hem of her skirt.
“Mei-ling Manchu?” Albion blew smoke rings.
“She’s a vampiress and a member of the CCP,” Sherrielock stated.
“CCP?” Albion was quizzical.
“Chinese Communist Party,” Sherrielock smiled, “Not Coca-Cola Playtime.”
“That’s good,” Albion raised his fedora, “Because I hear Nixon drinks Pepsi.”
“And here I was going to offer Tahiti Treat,” Sherrielock laughed.
“What’s Tahiti Treat?” Albion wasn’t familiar with that beverage.
“Well,” Sherrielock spoke breathlessly, “Why don’t we go up to your apartment and I’ll show you?”.
“Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse,” said Albion.
A young actor named Marlon Brando cast a glance up the stairwell.
Now there was a line he’d like to be able to use someday or a line like it.
-A Carson Cody Albion narrative poem
and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Sunday April 11th
2021.
Jack The Ripper Nosferatu
British MP Renfield R. Renfield received an email from Peter Whitstable the man they call the Fox Mulder of Interpol.
Whitstable was doing research into Count Orlok Nosferatu the bald-headed vampire who was the subject of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 German Expressionist silent film Nosferatu.
Whitstable had come across a diary from 1888 in which Count Orlok Nosferatu claimed that he had turned the man Scotland Yard called Jack the Ripper into a nosferatu back in the spring of 1888.
And that the murders of the Ripper’s Autumn of Terror in London in the late summer and early autumn of 1888 was Jack the Ripper going through an intense blood lust common to beginning nosferatu.
As he matured in his nosferatuhood, Jack settled down and just bit women on the neck to remove their blood instead of cutting their throats and removing their internal organs like he did when he was the Leather Apron Whitechapel Murderer of the Autumn of 1888.
After reading the email, Renfield recalled an antique journal that London art gallery curator Dashwood Forrest had come across written by a woman named Colleen Darcy O’ Derby who had apparently worked in a brothel in the seaside town resort of Brighton.
The experience that happened to Miss O’ Derby one spring night in 1889 struck Renfield as being an encounter with a nosferatu.
Renfield rang Forrest up and asked if he could take a look at the journal.
Forrest agreed and Renfield drove over in his 1937 Peugeot 402 Darl’mat to the Dashwood Forrest Art Gallery.
Taking a look at the March 31st 1889 Journal entry, Renfield read in Miss Colleen Darcy O’Derby’s own words,
“This Jack as he called himself was a peculiar client.
Peculiar and repugnant.
He had a bald head, an elongated face, a flat nose, sinister lips, a mountainous chin and deadset eyes.
Like a human skull that still had a thin layer of flesh attached to it.
I could not sleep with the man no matter how much he paid me.
I ran from the room.
Along a boardwalked path that still had a chill in the air.
It felt more like winter than spring.
The few trees and few bushes along the path had the look of dead late autumn to them.
I felt like something was behind me.
A giant head without a body.
I turned and that’s exactly what it was.
A giant head without a body.
I screamed.
He gave a leering smile and a body of a caped figure carrying a walking stick suddenly appeared below the giant head as it shrank in size and attached itself to the body of the caped figure carrying the walking stick.
He spoke, in a hiss, like a snake, “I should do to you what I did to those women in Whitechapel last fall.”
I froze.
Was he the Whitechapel Murderer?
Leather Apron?
Jack the Ripper?
“But you’re too beautiful for that,” he grinned like the face of sinister Death as depicted in Churches built during the era of the Black Death.
Fangs protruded from his sinister lips and he bit me on the neck.
I could feel the blood and the life force drifting out of me.
He stopped.
He spoke, “You have only one ounce of blood left my dear. Should I drain it and turn you into a nosferatu? No. No, my dear. Your hair is far too beautiful for that. Baldness does not become you. A mere vampiress you shall be. Not nosferatu.”
And with that, he departed into the dark stormy sky from whence he came.
And I became a vampiress.”
“Very interesting,” Renfield made notes.
He then closed the journal, thanked Dashwood Forrest and returned to his car.
A beautiful woman with beautiful beautiful long long dark hair stood watching him as he got into his 1937 Peugeot 402 Darl’mat Roadster.
She smiled.
Her fangs glistened in the dark.
She put her hands through her long dark luxurious hair and laughed.
She was definitely vampiress.
But not nosferatu.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Wednesday March 31st
2021.
Michelangelo’s Dream of Bogey and Bacall
Michelangelo the Psychic Lobster had a dream where he was playing Humphrey Bogart’s character of Philip Marlowe and having an encounter with Lauren Bacall.
After waking up, he decided to write a narrative poem about his dream.
He went over to his waterproof laptop to start writing but then decided to use his recently bought old vintage Underwood typewriter that had been custom refurbished to work underwater.
Grabbing some waterproof sheets of paper, he inserted them into his waterproof old vintage Underwood typewriter and started typing the poem.
Bogey and Bacall: Philip Marlowe’s Right On The Ball
A narrative poem
By Michelangelo the Psychic Lobster
Narrated in the First Person
By Philip Marlowe
(As played by Humphrey Bogart)
So I had come home after a hard day on the case
Rather difficult to try to sleep on a case of bourbon
I did do some work on that other case
Trying to find Max Spellbein’s younger daughter
Where do younger daughters hang out these days anyways?
I went down to Frankie’s Jazz Cafe
The Pink Flamingo Lounge
And even The Silverstar Nightclub
Nothing.
No sign of her.
I even went down to the bus depot and the shipyard
Her ship must have sailed when my bus came in
Does that make any sense?
Probably not.
Difficult to make sense
When one’s mind is adrift
In a sea of bourbon.
I lit a cigarette
Put it in my mouth
And made a silent prayer
That this combination of alcohol and flame
Didn’t send me up like a rocket on New Year’s Eve.
I thought I heard piano music coming from my piano
Which was strange
I rarely play the piano these days
Not since I got my fingers caught in that mousetrap
Under the altar of Saint Ignatius’ Church
When I said to the good priest,
“Pray it again, Sam.”
After sitting in my chair
Looking up at the ceiling
And watching the paint dry
It suddenly hit me
That I hadn’t painted this place in ages
So there was no drying paint to watch
That was definitely music I was hearing
So either someone was playing the piano
Or the angels were calling me
So I walked into the piano room
And there at the piano
Sat Max Spellbein’s elder daughter
Lauren Bacall: Playing the piano and singing, “When smoke gets in your eyes…”
I stood there
Inhaled the air from the open window
And realized I wouldn’t be spending the night alone.
-A narrative poem
and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Saturday March 27th
2021.
Kendra Rai Private Eye
Kendra Rai Private Eye
Dashwood Forrest the owner and curator of The Dashwood Forrest Art Gallery in London had had one of his paintings stolen from his gallery the past week.
The painting was a rare oil painting painted by Oscar Wilde.
Forrest was one of the few people in the world who knew that Wilde had painted some pictures and set out to find them through his various contacts.
This particular Wilde painting was of Alexander the Great having himself anointed and crowned Pharaoh of Egypt after having conquered Egypt in 332 BC.
On one of the pillars next to where Alexander was being crowned was an interesting set of hieroglyphs in the picture.
According to the story Forrest received, Wilde painted the picture of the hieroglyphs in conjunction with some research that writer Bram Stoker (the eventual author of Dracula and later The Jewel of Seven Stars) was doing.
Of course during the pandemic and Boris Johnson’s massive UK lockdown, The Dashwood Forrest Art Gallery was not open to the public.
However Forrest had virtual exhibits of his paintings and art treasures on-line.
And appropriately socially distant private viewings could be arranged via emails with Forrest.
Last week he had shown the Oscar Wilde painting of Pharaoh Alexander the Great and the pillar of hieroglyphs on-line in a virtual exhibit.
The next night the painting was stolen.
On the advice of a friend, he hired London private investigator Kendra Rai to find it being told that she was the best private investigator in London.
London Private Investigator Kendra Rai the best private eye in London
Kendra Rai took the case immediately.
A case that would satisfy her intense intellectual curiosity and challenge her mind.
Kendra emailed a photo of the original Wilde painting of Pharaoh Alexander with the hieroglyphically inscribed pillar to an Egyptologist she knew at the British Museum wanting a translation of the hieroglyphs from him.
Kendra received an excited middle of the night phone call from the Egyptologist once he had translated them.
She was angry about being awakened in the middle of the night but once he told her the translation, she was no longer angry.
Kendra thanked the Egyptologist and put her phone down.
She now knew the reason why the painting was probably stolen.
And suspected who might be behind it.
Rogue MI-5 agents (although MI-5 was still unaware that these agents were rogue) Benedict Pence and Mike Arnold came mincing into their luxury apartment after a night on the town.
Of course they shouldn’t be on a night on the town during lockdown but both fancied that rules didn’t apply to them (God knew that certain rules laid down in Deuteronomy and Leviticus they didn’t follow).
On the wall of their apartment by the door they had a painting of Brutus and Cassius stabbing Julius Caesar to death.
On the opposite side of the room, they had a painting of Judas Iscariot getting paid his 30 pieces of silver from the Jerusalem Temple priests.
Both men as they entered noticed a bottle of champagne with two glasses in the middle of the room.
Thinking that the other had ordered it, both men took the glasses, poured themselves some champagne and had a toast.
They drank.
A light went on in a corner of the darkened room showing Kendra Rai Private Eye sitting there.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Kendra Rai smiled at them, “I don’t bring you tidings of great joy like on a certain evening of March 13th 2013 when someone else wished the world a “Good evening”. Rather to let you know that your champagne has been poisoned. I have the antidote in my purse along with my gun. So don’t try anything rash. I will give you the antidote when you tell me where the painting you stole is. And don’t tell me what painting. I’ve had the hieroglyphs translated. I know it was probably you who took it.”
“You’re bluffing,” Pence gulped.
“Try me,” Kendra laughed, “I have nothing to lose. You do.”
“We sold it to a certain billionaire,” Arnold gulped, “We won’t mention the billionaire. He doesn’t have it yet. It’s being shipped out of the country tonight.”
“Do you know the location of where it’s being shipped from?” Kendra asked.
“We do,” Pence and Arnold both nodded at the same time.
“Come, gentlemen,” Kendra held up a vial and also pointed a gun at them, “We’re going for a ride. And you better hope we get there in time to stop that painting leaving the country.”
Kendra did get there in time.
The painting was retrieved.
An anxiously sweating Pence and Arnold were given the vial.
And Kendra Rai returned the painting to Dashwood Forrest telling him to lock the painting in his safe and to no longer display it in any exhibits virtual or otherwise.
When she told him what the hieroglyphs on the pillar in the painting said, Forrest knew the reason.
The hieroglyphs gave the formula for making a deadly plague to be released on the world capable of killing most of the planet’s population.
Kendra had an idea which global billionaire probably wanted it.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Saturday February 20th
2021.
Carson Cody Albion Encounters Greek Goddess Psyche In Shanghai
The Greek goddess Psyche in Shanghai
The year was 1947.
And Los Angeles Private Eye Carson Cody Albion was pursuing an arms smuggler to Shanghai.
Albion had been hired by Howard Hughes of all people.
Howard Hughes, one evening after drinking far too much, had taken to his room what one Hughes accomplice called “the ugliest looking woman that he had ever seen”.
The “ugliest looking woman” turned out to be FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in drag.
The equally inebriated Mr./Ms. Hoover told Hughes that there was a Hollywood film mogul that was strongly suspected of Communist sympathies.
This film mogul had paid for arms to be shipped to Mao Tse-tung’s Communist forces in China.
And an arms dealer would soon be sailing to Shanghai China from the Port of Los Angeles carrying arms to be delivered to a Mao Tse-tung associate in Shanghai.
Hughes did not trust the FBI to capture the arms dealer and his arms.
He felt leery of an agency headed by a man who dressed in drag.
So he hired Carson Cody Albion to sail aboard the ship S.S. Call of The Orient and to be on the lookout for any suspicious people who might be arms dealers.
Albion recognized a Greek importer of Persian rugs on the ship Alexander Darius and wondered why he wasn’t on the U.S. East Coast sailing a ship to Greece or Iran.
Albion suspected that Darius was the arms dealer.
Upon arrival in Shanghai, he noticed Darius had large amounts of crates delivered to a warehouse in the city.
Albion entered the warehouse and opened one of the crates.
It was full of various guns.
He alerted Shanghai Police Authorities and the warehouse was raided and the arms were seized by forces loyal to the Nationalist Kuomintang Government of China under President Chiang Kai-shek.
That night Alexander Darius visited Albion’s hotel room and labelled his room full of bullets.
It was fortunate for Albion that he wasn’t in his hotel room that night.
However the noise of the bullets disturbed the occupants of the next room to Albion’s which were a powerful Shanghai courtesan and her client.
The noise of the bullets caused the courtesan’s client to ejaculate prematurely leaving an enormous stain on the courtesan’s expensive silk sheets.
Angered the courtesan left her room and carrying her own gun encountered Alexander Darius who now stood holding an empty gun after spraying bullets around Albion’s room.
She shot Alexander Darius dead.
He wouldn’t be importing any more Persian rugs to America or exporting any more U.S. arms to China.
Meanwhile Albion had gone to a bar called The Shanghai Scorpion.
While there, he happened to glance in the direction of the lounge’s statue of Kwan Yin the Buddhist goddess of mercy and noticed a woman standing in front of the statue.
Albion recognized the woman from his Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology.
She was the Greek goddess Psyche wife of Eros/Cupid the Greco-Roman god of love (who was the son of Aphrodite/Venus).
“Aren’t you the Greek goddess Psyche?” Albion approached her with his drink in hand.
“I am,” Psyche answered.
“What are you doing here in Shanghai?” Albion asked, “So far from Greece?”.
“It’s getting close to Valentine’s Day and I’m sick of my hubby Cupid going around shooting arrows into people’s hearts,” Psyche sighed, “So I came to Shanghai to escape all his Valentine’s Day madness.”
“Can I buy you a drink?” Albion asked.
“Why not?” Psyche agreed.
After The Shanghai Scorpion Lounge closed, Albion and Psyche went back to Psyche’s hotel room.
Thus saving Albion’s life.
Of course Albion had become immortal a few years ago so the bullets of Alexander Darius might not have had an effect.
But they were silver bullets.
So then again they might have.
Still Albion got to watch the Shanghai sunrise with the Greek goddess Psyche.
The same could not be said for Alexander Darius.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Friday February 12th
2021.
Purr-lock Holmes The Purr-fect Detective
Purr-lock Holmes the Purr-fect Detective
He was Purr-lock Holmes the purr-fect detective
His reasoning was definitely not defective
With a meow here and a meow there
His magnifying glass looked everywhere
He was hot on the trail
With a flash of his tail
Les-trod of Barnyard Yard could not keep up
And he was often left holding the cup
Doctor Barksome was a cocker spaniel
Whose name wasn’t mentioned in the Book of Daniel
He was Purr-lock’s chronicler and sidekick
Who often gave his paw a lick
And Purr-lock’s most frightening case
Whose tale when told gives one’s heart a race
Was the Hound of the Basket-villes
Whose mere mention gave one the chills
And made one forget to take Dodd’s Kidney Pills
The Hound of the Basket-villes terrorized the countryside
And Inspector Les-trod wasn’t taking it in stride
Purr-lock Holmes was called in on the case
Thus with trusty pipe in place
Firmly in mouth on his face
Purr-lock set out on the trail
Travelling by train on the rail
He arrived near the manor of Basket-ville Hall
Where it seemed that his fur was starting to crawl
So Purr-lock set out on the trail of Hugo Basket-ville
And what he saw hence gave him quite the thrill
For there was Hugo with his mistress so fine
That it made one want to stop and dine
For Hugo’s mistress was Marilyn most fair
When you’ve got her, why chase a hare?
For Hugo was looking for fair flowers to pick
And didn’t know his barking would break the candlestick
Causing rumours to surface of a hound of Old Nick
So the case was solved and the hound was no ghost
And Les-trod’s career was now nothing but toast
Purr-lock and Barksome returned to London
And Hugo was left having nothing but fun-some
-A poem written by Christopher
Sunday February 7th 2021.
A Date With Destiny
It was approaching Christmas 1940
Less than a month away
And Carson Cody Albion
Private Eye
And resident of
Los Angeles, California
decided to spend
Christmas
Like the Christmas of his childhood
Surrounded by crisp white snow on the ground
And glistening frost on the trees
As such he decided to spend Christmas
In the blue Canadian Rockies
On the banks of Lake Louise
Well it wasn’t exactly Lake Louise
But it was a beautiful townhouse chalet
In the beautiful mountain town of Banff
Not far from Lake Louise
He looked up at the clock
And watched the ticking of it
His mind seemed to be transported
forward in time
How far forward he did not know
But he was traveling with a father and a son
In a car
But a car far different from any he had seen
They were traveling across the high plains
of Washington State
Past Electric City
where the father remarked
Not quite the metropolis people hoped it would become
When it was built not far
From the Grand Coulee Dam
And the hydroelectric generating facility there
Past Lake Roosevelt
The lake created by the dam
What was this Electric City?
What was this Grand Coulee Dam?
Carson Cody Albion wondered.
A Lake Roosevelt?
In Washington state?
The father and son drove along the road
They had left what seemed to be desert country
And were now traveling through farmland
On a distant hill they could see what appeared
to be an abandoned one room schoolhouse
On top of the hill
On the side of the schoolhouse
Was faded ancient lettering
That read “Class of ’41”
I suppose, the son remarked,
That school was closed
shortly after the last class there
The Class of ’41 had graduated.
Little did that class of ’41
know the struggles they were about to face
And how the world they knew
Would change forever.
Albion thought to himself
Surely there were no one room schoolhouses
In Washington state (then a territory)
In 1841.
The class of ’41 they were talking about
Must surely be the class that graduated
In June 1941
Next year Albion reflected.
Albion’s mind returned to the present
His present
The last days of November 1940
He turned on the radio
The radio was delivering news bulletins
From the date May 10th 1940
Germany had just invaded
Belgium, France, Luxembourg
and the Netherlands
Neville “Peace in our time” Chamberlain
has just resigned as British Prime Minister
And Winston Churchill has just been summoned
to Buckingham Palace
There in the presence of King George VI
to be sworn in as Prime Minister
and to preside over a wartime UK
coalition government
After being sworn in,
Churchill later talks
to a BBC radio reporter,
“I feel all my life
I have been walking with destiny
And that all my life has
been but a trial and preparation
for this hour…”
The radio seemed to move forward
In time to a month later
June 18th 1940
When Churchill was giving a speech
In Parliament
Giving a summation of the impending Battle of Britain
“This was their finest hour…”
Albion then looked over towards the chair
By the window
And noticed a beautiful woman sitting there
Dressed in the most beautiful dress
And the finest shoulder length
Black leather gloves
Albion had no idea
How the woman got there
He had never even seen her enter the room
And believe me, Albion thought to himself,
She’s definitely one woman you would notice
enter a room.
“Who are you?” He asked her.
The woman smiled and answered, “I am Destiny”
Albion walked over to her
And embraced Destiny.
-A Carson Cody Albion
narrative poem
written by Christopher
Saturday November 28th
2020.
The Beautiful Annabel Lee
The beautiful Annabel Lee walked up the stairs of the old mansion
Carson Cody Albion the Los Angeles Private Eye was working on an unusual case.
He had recently been hired by a Dr. Lionel Jarrett who was a Professor of Classics at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada to check out an old allegedly haunted mansion in San Francisco.
Dr. Jarrett, from Albion’s understanding of the man, often engaged in unusual research.
Jarrett had recently tracked down an oil painting of the Greek mythological tragic figure Medusa that had been painted by writer Oscar Wilde.
Albion had received an email from Dr. Jarrett last night.
The collector of rare and unusual antiquities had just purchased the Wilde painting of Medusa from an art gallery in London, England called The Dashwood Forrest Art Gallery.
In addition to tracking down Wilde’s paintings of mythological themes, Dr. Jarrett was also interested in the writings and life of writer Edgar Allan Poe.
Poe apparently knew a woman named Annabel Lee in Baltimore in 1849, Dr. Jarrett discovered from examining a collection of letters from a family called Lee.
Annabel found the writer somewhat creepy and therefore left Baltimore for California.
Annabel told a friend to tell Poe that she (Annabel) had died so he wouldn’t follow her to California.
Poe apparently didn’t take the news of Annabel Lee’s death very well.
Although he did write a good poem from it.
Even creepily imagining that they had known one another since youth.
Annabel Lee went to San Francisco where she apparently bought herself a beautiful mansion.
A few years later she died in an unusual thunder storm when she was struck by lightning.
People to this day, apparently, still report seeing her ghost walking up the stairs of her San Francisco mansion.
Dr. Jarrett had asked Albion to visit the mansion to see if he could get a photo of her ghost.
Albion had gone to the mansion with an old black and white camera.
At the stroke of midnight, she appeared walking up the elegant stairwell of the old mansion.
. . .
“You know what’s crazy, man?” Joe Biden in his basement was addressing his pet pot smoking desert cactus plant Sweet Dementia, “I had a dream last night where the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe appeared to me and put a ghostly spectral millstone around my neck. Why would he put a millstone around my neck?”.
Sweet Dementia said nothing but continued to exhale marijuana smoke.
. . .
As Carson Cody Albion was taking a photo of the beautiful Annabel Lee’s ghost, British MP Renfield R. Renfield was in London reading a dossier that the Set Enterprises Intelligence Unit had put together on Joe Biden’s Vice-Presidential running mate Kamala Harris.
Apparently when Ms. Harris was San Francisco District Attorney from 2004 to 2011, she refused to prosecute cases of priests’ sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
Not one single case did she prosecute.
She was the only District Attorney among all the District Attorneys in the top 50 metropolitan areas across the U.S. not to lay any charges against Catholic clergy for valid accusations of sexual abuse.
If you looked at the top 50 metropolitan areas in the U.S during that time period of 2004 to 2011, 49 of those prosecuted at least one case, the sole exception being Kamala Harris in San Francisco.
Who prosecuted not a single case.
After first being elected District Attorney, Ms. Harris terminated her predecessor’s plans to publicly release “clergy abuse files” naming names of priests accused of sexual abuse.
Her predecessor Terence Hallinan talked about the fact that he was going to pursue prosecutions. He was going to release records to the public as had been done in various other jurisdictions across the country.
Unfortunately for Mr. Hallinan and the numerous victims of priestly sexual abuse in the San Francisco Archdiocese, Hallinan lost the 2003 election to Kamala Harris.
When Kamala Harris came in, she deep-sixed those documents and put them under seal so they could never be released publicly.
Why would Kamala Harris do this?, Renfield wondered as he turned the page.
The next page had the answer.
The law firms and lawyers who represented the Archdiocese of San Francisco gave large contributions to Harris’ political campaign.
Some of them had never given contributions to a District Attorney electoral race before but they loaded up her campaign coffers.
Money talks like the old saying goes.
Renfield read further.
. . .
Kamala Harris screamed when she woke up in her hotel room.
For standing there was the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe holding a ghostly spectral millstone.
Poe’s ghost put the spectral ghostly millstone around her neck.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Friday August 14th
2020.
The Vicar of Morwenstow
Carson Cody Albion Private Eye
was walking through the Morwenstow parish district
of Cornwall in England
He had been hired by a wealthy American to track down traces of Arthurian lore
And that mission had brought him to this wild and desolate
but beautiful part of this “sceptered isle”
Here the Church of Saint Morwenna stood
A church built in the Norman period
to honour Saint Morwenna
a Welsh princess and Saint
who lived in the district
The most famous Vicar of Morwenstow
was Rev. Robert Stephen Hawker
The man who introduced the Harvest Festival to the Church of England
A commemoration that soon spread to all parts of the worldwide Anglican communion
Rev. Hawker was also the author of The Song of The Western Men
which is the unofficial anthem of the Duchy of Cornwall
with its stirring lines
“And shall Trelawny die?/ Here’s twenty thousand Cornish men/ Will know the reason why!/”
Rev. Hawker was a noted eccentric among his 19th Century rural Cornwall congregants
Known for wearing colourful bright colours
And the only traditional clerical black things he wore
were his socks
Rev. Hawker also built himself a small hut known as Hawker’s Hut
on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean
Here it was said that he was visited by Saint Morwenna who spoke to him
Albion thought to himself that these visits would certainly be condemned by most Protestants as necromancy and spiritism
That she who claimed to be Saint Morwenna was actually a demon in disguise would be their argument
But such was not the view behind the term Communion of Saints an expression recited in both the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds
For the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox and Anglo-Catholic Anglicans and Episcopalians believe that with Christ’s Death and Resurrection,
the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead
had been radically thinned
Whereas prior to Christ’s Death and Resurrection, there had indeed
been the spiritual equivalent of a brick wall between the living and the dead
Therefore condemnations of necromancy as in Deuteronomy Chapter 18
and Samuel’s spirit’s rebuke to King Saul
when Samuel himself was actually brought forth
from the realm of Sheol
much to the surprise of the Witch of Endor
were perfectly justified
To deliberately seek out the spirits of the dead
and try to consult them
was still necromancy and spiritism
but if God allowed the spirits of the departed
in paradise and Heaven
to visit mortals on Earth
nothing unholy is taking place
provided it’s done on God’s terms
and not through some occultic invocation
on the part of some mortal would-be recipient
The ironic thing is because most Protestants
particularly those of a Calvinistic disposition
did not have the consolation of the Communion of Saints
as noted in the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds
some Protestants would actually go to spiritist
mediums and seances to find out if their loved ones are all right
Thereby breaking the Deuteronomy 18 prohibition against necromancy
It was at a seance at his Irish family castle in 1830
that John Nelson Darby the future founder of the Plymouth Brethren
was visited by a “ghost” who told him that Christian believers
would be raptured before the Great Tribulation
and they would escape many of the plagues, natural calamities and persecutions prophesied in the Book of Revelation
John Nelson Darby’s “seance ghostly” revelation of a pre-Tribulation rapture
would be made popular in a book published by Hal Lindsay 50 years ago in 1970
although it is doubtful that Lindsay was aware of the occultic necromantic origins of Darby’s pre-Trib rapture theory
Although whether Scofield the translator and author of the Scofield Reference Bible was unaware is another matter
Christ asked His Apostles the question that when He returned, would He find Faith on the Earth?
The answer being that He would probably not.
I guess if one is expecting to be raptured before all Hell breaks loose on the Earth (like Darby’s ghostly seance visitor promised Darby)
and it doesn’t happen like the (unholy) ghost of Darby’s seance promised
then one would lose faith in Christ (who never actually promised a pre-Tribulation rapure).
As for Saint Morwenna herself,
she was the daughter of a Welsh king Brychan Brycheiniog
She had crossed over to Cornwall
and made her home in a little hermitage at Hennacliff (the Raven’s Crag)
It stands near the top of a high cliff overlooking the Atlantic
where the sea is constantly stormy
and when it is not stormy, the coast of her native Wales can be seen.
Her father King Brychan knew the real historical King Arthur
Whether Saint Morwenna told Rev. Hawker about the real historical Arthur or not
Albion could only speculate
For Hawker did begin a poem about Arthur in 1864
called The Quest of The Sangraal
a poem he never finished
Albion went to a teashop near Morwenstow to meet his girlfriend
There to begin their own quest for the Sangraal
-A poem and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Wednesday July 8th
The Feast Day of Saint Morwenna
2020.
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