Shoestring Spellcraft: Tarot without a deck

So, here's a semi-regular series of posts that mixes two of my great loves, magick and being a cheap wanker, and gives it to the verminous, venemous and I'm also betting, venereal vox populi. The real secret to magic/k, spells, and fuck it I'll just come out with it, getting a cheat-sheet for you everyday life, is this: Any old cunt can do it.


So, let's start it off with something really simple. Tarot.
Sure it's surrounded in a lot of old rigmarole, and it's the mainstay for any fortune teller who's looking for a quick buck. Just a tip, unless someone's offering you a free reading, and you trust them with judging yourself and your life, then it's probably a scam. Frankly, the best reading come from yourself. YOU should be the one who knows yourself the best, and if you aren't, playing with the tarot will probably help.
The Tarot is essentially two decks joined together. 56 minor arcana cards which divide themselves into 4 suits, cups, swords, pentacles, wands. And the Major Arcana, which has 22 (21 numbered, along with number none, The Fool) cards in it. In here you have your Tower, Sun, Moon and Death cards in it.
Usually the Minor Arcana is more day to day in its scope, while the Major Arcana traditionally shows stages of deep personal or spiritual growth.
Regardless of what you might have glimpsed from the media and fucking idiots, the Major Arcana are generally pretty rare to pick up in a spread, and generally a good practitioner of Tarot would re-contextualise an entire spread for every time one turns up in a reading.
The point of Tarot isn't to tell your future. Anyone who says so or uses it specifically for that purpose is going to be disappointed, and laughed at all the best parties. The point of the Tarot is WAY more archetypal. It shows the broad-strokes of persons, trials and relationships that appear in peoples lives, and it's, to a fault, VERY GENERAL. The greatest specifics you're going to find is the crap that you equate the imagery and metaphorical intensity attached to a card. Technically, you could use it to get a broad outline of your future, but if you somehow get it into your head that an actual, physical manifestation of the future is going to happen after you've looked into the cards, I'm either going to call you a liar and to please your clothes back on, or ask you for some of that primo-voodoo-space shit that you've been smoking.
But, at the same time, the generality of the cards also comes to your advantage. YOU DON'T NEED A FANCY DECK MOTHAFUCKA*. You see them in stores, and the traditional Rider-Waite deck that you know just cost 20 cents to make is almost 40 bucks. Well fuck 'em all. Here's a way I read that works just as well. And al you need is a normal deck of playing cards and the internet.

"All this nature, and dogs, and flowers and shit... Just makes me want to look up into the sky wistfully."

Kay, so, you can buy any standard pack, I got mine for $2.50 at a $2 store. It has a truly ugly photoshop-ed image of Sydney on it (why it was for sale in a Melbourne store is one of those mysteries of the universe). Open the pack. Take out the Jokers (which don't correspond to any Tarot card) and shuffle and cut like a demon.
Now, all you have to do is attribute swords to spades, wands to clubs, diamonds to pentacles and hearts to cups and you've got yourself a Minor Arcana deck.
An easy reading I've devised with this requires maybe a little drawing ability or a good printer.
First, get in the mood, use whatever aesthetics you need to get you into the "magick"/wicca zone, fancy robes maybe, incense, whatever. Then, use a Major Arcana card (or, an image of/from a card) that typifies a problem or a challenge you're feeling at the moment. Maybe you're feeling socially alienated, so you pick The Hermit which stands for introspection and solitude (in most readings). Or, you're a tad between projects and feeling torn between them, so you Choose the Hanged Man, which stands for-okay, I'll just quit telling you the meanings for the cards here, because it's all contended between a million different interpretations and you may as well just find a site or an app that you like the feel of. Yeah, so anyway, the card you picked is a signifier.
Any who, then pick a card that describes what you want to be, or what you want the outcome to specify. Maybe if you grabbed the Hermit before, you'll pick the Lovers, or the World (okay, I'll shut up now.) Place that a bit underneath the first image/card.
So finally, you use your Minor Arcana deck. Cut three times. While you're doing that, focus on your desire, and put them all back together. Draw your first card and put it on your left between the two signifiers face up. This represents a past context that's shaped your need for the thing. You know, the thing. That you want. Second card in the middle, right between the two signifiers. This is the present context, what you're experiencing now, and if you're savvy enough, you could probably scout out any problem you have with just these two. But then... The Third card represents future events that transpire from the second minor arcana card to the second signifier.
It requires a load of interpretation, and you can't get distracted in any way while you're doing it. Not for snacks, not for sex and definitely not for other social interaction. Cloister yourself somewhere where you won't be disturbed for this. Then again, I'm suggesting you use the internet, so good luck with that.
Anyway, if you want to zazz up your cards, or alter the reading in any way that makes you feel more comfortable, whatever, I'm not your mother. Do what thalt will shall be the whole of the lore (he said, badly paraphrasing).
So that's me for now, until the next time when I have something interesting to write. Bloody Babbler out.


(*Sorry I said that. It was to get your attention. And not because I'm a racist. Assuming that makes you a racistist.)

Hellblazer: Fish in a Barrel (Prologue)

The rasping, grinding sound of the rusty hacksaw as it made it's way through the last of the padlock set Gavin's teeth on edge. With a hard nudge from his shoulder, he barged the door open with a jarring thud. The hinges, corroded with age, still held firm.
Gavin McCloud wasn't very big, had a very general kind of face, and wasn't particularly notable in any sort of sense save one: He was a real Bastard. As if the crowbar on his back and the thirty eight crammed in his Levi's couldn't tell you that already. He also had the virtue of being one of the best burglars left in the country. He'd never been snuck up on his whole life.
Gavin had heard the rumours like anyone else in the East End had. Donny Wilkins, newest hot young thing to try for the position of Crime-lord, had a dirty little secret. He'd made his way in the Lansbury estates the traditional way, scrapping with the other hoods for the biggest take, with a healthy amount of death and violence to consolidate his hold, but his recent moves over a dozen different territories had been meteoritic to say the least. Small-time gangs were being swept into line by him left right and centre, and some of the older families had put aside old grievances to end his reign. He had twice the cannon fodder on them though, but the bosses had heard rumours about his bizarre extra-cirrucular activities...
Which is what brought Gavin here. He had a camera in a bumbag, and he'd been told to snap up anything "interesting" that could maybe be put in the morning papers. They'd heard rumours of snuff films, kiddie porn, and there was a highly unbelievable rumour involving chickens and a wax figure, but Gavin was prepared for anything, including any kind of resistance that came his way.
As soon as he'd entered the threshold, he took out his gun. Felt the smooth action as he pointed it at the shadows, blasting away invisible phantoms, relishing the fear he imagined came from them as he mimed pulling his trigger. A grimy smile stretched across his face. He hoped, in the back of his mind, that he might meet some resistance so he could feel the recoil, smell the gunpowder and hear the bang of the thing in his hand.
He'd gone through an old staff entrance round the side, and honestly hadn't actually expected anyone to be around anyway. He could see the grot and the mildew from years of abandonment, and he knew he'd be safe here, off in the dead, decrepit portion of the warehouse. It was hard to concentrate though, he could hear the scrabble of rats and the pitter-patter of the evening rain falling, and kept twitching back to where he'd been. The silence of his approach being engulfed once again in a bevy of background noises.
His night-vision was excellent, and in between the feral blades of glass that raged trough the cracks in the floor, and the soft glint of distant street-lights that glowed through cavernous holes in the ceiling, he could make out an edge to the hulking filth of the building. Someone had taken the slightest of efforts to wipe it down, and make the space (at the very least) functional. The dust didn't seem so gagging here, and there was a faint but distinct trace of disinfectant in the air.
Through the half-lit corridors finally came a sliver of light just visible through the periphery corners that Gavin was creeping through. There was no movement, or sound, that indicated a living soul, but there was a definite warmth that seemed to stretch underneath the crack in the distant door, that implied, if not habitation, than at least some kind of application.
Gavin breathed tensely as he crept towards the flimsy, wooden door. It would be easy to break into, as far as he could tell, it didn't even have a handle. But Gavin steeled himself for bloody confrontation for what laid inside. At the foot of the door, he closed his eyes, inhaled, and exhaled sharply as he rushed through-
-To find the room empty. An ancient bulb hung from a fraying wire, the light that shone from it was dim and turgid. There were a couple of fold-out chairs that had been tipped on their sides, but the room was otherwise empty. Gavin was disappointed. A dead lead and a waste of time. He thought to himself sullenly. But at the same time, as sense of unease told him that something wasn't right.
He took a deep breath again, this time though, he tasted something different in the air. At first he thought it was nothing. The air was as foul as it was outside. But a second thought brought him back to a minute beforehand, where the hallways had been wiped down with detergent beforehand. This room was as clean as they were, but they still smelt like piss and rat-shit.
The Gavin took a closer look at the ground.
To say it was scorched was an understatement. What Gavin had mistaken for dirt and grime, was actually a deep soot, and burn-marks gouged through peeling Lino at odd intervals. Not all the burn seemed black either, some of them were mottled green, and other seemed a rusty brown.
Gavin stroked a finger across the floor, pulling away a thin streak of the brown stain onto his finger, it felt slightly greasy to the touch.
When he realised what he was looking at, Gavin took out his camera immediately.
The light was poor though. Gavin let out a muttered "fuck" as he strained to get a decent image. The best he could do was a faint, indeterminable series of scrawlings. He barely registered the soft clunk s a doorstopper slid on the other side of the door, and it took the soft smell of sulphur and burning hair to realise he wasn't alone.
Gavin turned to the door to find it blocked by a behemoth of a man. Seven feet tall, and bulging at every muscle. But that wasn't anywhere near as intimidating as his face, dark hair cropped to a widow's peak, pointed, sloping brows and a pair of eyes that seemed to contain nothing, just a blackness. He had a saucy grin though, which made a particularly disturbing contrast. A little like a shark. Gavin thought.
Gavin drew his gun again. "Oi, mate. I don't know what you're playing at, but if you don't shift your arse in two seconds, I'm gonna put another hole in it."
The big man kept on giving him a smile, "Ha, a second one. That' real clever that is." he said, walking towards Gavin slowly.
Gavin wouldn't give him a chance to get any closer, he raised his gum, aiming fro the head and squeezed.
CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.
The big man kept on coming.
"What the fuck-" Gavin looked down to his hands, and saw the camera in his hands, he took a moment to register it as impossible, before he was scooped up by the collar, and raised hight up from the ground.
As his face started turn a subtle shade of blue, he met the big man's lifeless gaze. "..H-how...?" he asked to himself as much as much to the man as to himself, how could he have gotten the drop on me?
as if to answer, the Big Man answered, "How? Well... Because I'm fucking magic, that's how."
As Gavin began to feel the life fade from himself, he could also see the light in the centre of the room fade, at first he thought it was because he was blacking out, but then as the darkness fell, an he saw what was in the shadows, he still felt enough breath left in him to scream...

The Amazing Spider-Man: Retro Rehash of The Sensational Youth Icon

Okay, so as many of you are probably aware, from billboards, TV Spots, Viral Internet campaigns, ect. that a "new" Spider-Man movie is coming out on the 4th of July. In America, it's expected to take over $150 million in the box-office on it's opening weekend alone.
 Except, as you can probably ascertain from my use of inverted comma's, It's hardly new. It's a prequel that reinvigorates the entire series, and sets everything back to year zero, where Peter Parker as recently gained control of his abilities, and is freshly exploring them. It was done in Sam Raimi's series, but they seem to have reinvented certain themes that were in the comics, the inclusion of Gwen Stacey as a (valid) love interest, the use of Peter's web-shooters, and the introduction of Curt Connors as The Lizard, who, as you can probably guess, is a giant lizard-man.
 And while certain of these themes are important to the Spider-Man Mythos, Peter inventing and using the Web Shooters shows his intelligence and altruism (he could have just patented the ultra-strong webbing material and retired), and Gwen Stacey opens up a love tetrahedron concerning Peter and his friends,it still feels a little... Pointless? I guess?
 Spider-Man has had a rich, 50 year history, and he's had plenty of notable stories that have affected fans, but at the present point, we've struck some kind of universal rut concerning how we tell Spider-Man stories. In the past 10-15 years, we've had a massive series of re-hashes and retcons (retro-continuity) in the Spider-Man stories spread across the media. The Sam Raimi films, the current film series, Spectacular Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man (both the comic book series AND the cartoon series),  Spider-Man Noir, Mary-Jane loves Spider-Man and the controversial comic book story line in "regular" continuity, Brand New Day, seem to have sent Spider-Man backwards instead of forwards.
 Either thematically, they've reintroduced a young, hip, in some way "new" version of the character, or reintroduced certain themes used by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko back in the 60's, the use of social-life intruding on his heroic alter ego, and visa-versa, the fusion of a Teen Drama/Soap-Opera/Super-Hero saga that it once was. In Spider-Man's early years, this was considered, edgy, original and was great for hooking young legions of fan's.

And so the tradition of telling Harry to shut up, a tradition carried out until this very day, began. 

 But in perhaps the last 20 years, the character hit a snag, he was growing up. He was no longer in college, he was a slave to the dollar like anyone else, he was married, he had, in essence, GROWN UP problems. Now, whether it was the difficulty for new writers to put him through the wringer in relatable, yet mature ways, or legions of ageing fan's putting down the comics or even Marvel's realisation of Spider-Man's merchandising potential, Marvel, and Spider-Man's fan's began to realise something.
 Spider-Man is not a grown-up character.
 Peter Parker is the constantly anguished, tortured soul who is often unable to ascertain the correct moral path, or recognise the consequences of his own actions, in other words, the perpetual teenager. Adults are usually more morally upstanding, someone to be replicated. It's probably the reason why a character like, say, Batman is considered mature. He's so righteous and morally justified in his actions, it's easy for more grown up fans to follow and place on a pedestal. Spider-Man's (ironic) irresponsibility, and striving for a consistent ethical path, the juggling of social life and other obligations is something younger fans find more relatable.
 Of course, I doubt even though we all do adult things, pay rent, work a job we don't like, and generally put on a brave face against the rest of the world, that we feel in control of our lives, or that we feel as grown up as we think we are, which I think still explains Spider-Man's appeal to older fans. Perhaps as a way to retain a piece of one's youth in the face of an overwhelming adulthood as much as anything.
 Spider-Man (despite the name) is an overgrown kid. A motormouth that's always poking fun and cracking jokes at his enemies expense, with near limitless energy and (dare I say it) archetypal "adult" enemies. The Vulture maintains a literally generational conflict, not to mention Norman Osborn's sinister connotations as a sadistic father-figure. Even Kraven the Hunter is testosterone dripping example of primal manhood.

"Hey, Kid, do you want to take a look at my sub-text, if  you know what I mean..."

 So the real problem is how to keep a character that's marketable as a youth icon, and be able to let him mature and grow at the same time. It's a tricky conundrum made worse by a sense of nostalgia, and the thoughts of writers and fan's that the Spider-Man stories of the 60's were part of a "Golden Age", a time of now unattainable originality and greatness that contained the absolute and concrete version of the character. that's why we've seen a resurgence in retcon's and redo's, where Spider-Man fights classic characters that are virtually the same fights as they were 40 years ago. Social relationships that have already reached their logical conclusion begin all over again to pander to a new generation. and all the while, the stories that allow a new kind of Spider-Man story to come into genesis are still-born or aborted to take a "fresh" take on an old formula.
 "Back in Black" a story arc where Peter Parker revealed his Identity to the world, and where his Aunt May was shot, his wife Mary-Jane was forced to flee underground, and his pantheon of villains baying for his blood allowed this new kind of story to appear. Peter's Past mistakes had caught up with him, and he had to face the music, either become mature enough to handle the loss of his sole parental figure and protect what was left of his family. This was a MAN'S story. Of course,  a retcon in the form of "One More Day", came calling, where Peter literally sold his marriage to the Devil so he could wipe out everyones memory of his identity, and the life of his Aunt back, occured. Conveniently allowing him to be free from the responsibility of marriage, AND guilt from the loss of his aunt, and continue his life as a Man-Child.
 Ultimate Spider-Man is even worse, this version of Peter Parker died at 16, only having started his career at 14, just as his character exhibited character growth and maturity, and then was replace by a new Spider-Man, Mike Morales, another 14 year old that has to get to grips with a complicated social life, alter ego and new powers. He still faces all the old enemies.
I think we've reached a stagnancy when it comes to Spider-Man stories. I'm sure it's not a problem for most people, but I've spent all of my teenage years reading and watching essentially the same story over and over again, and no matter how skilfully or innovative it is, it still isn't original, and that's something I need.
 Other comic book writers, like Scott Snyder and Grant Morrison are endeavouring to try and inject something that hasn't been done before into Batman stories (introducing cosmic and psychological motifs), a character that's been around 30 years more than Spider-Man, and they're actually doing a pretty good job, which makes me wonder what's wrong with the writers at Marvel.
 Regardless, I'm probably not going to go and see "The Amazing Spider-Man" in the cinemas. It's a little too depressing.

I'm raising my hands in the air, because at this point, I just don't care.

Danse Macabre

Best taken with an auditory aid, chiefly, this one:
Now let the Dance of Death... Begin!

Danse Macabre - poem by Paul Verlain

(translated from French)

    Zig, zig, zig, Death in cadence,
    Striking a tomb with his heel,
    Death at midnight plays a dance-tune,
    Zig, zig, zag, on his violin.
    The winter wind blows, and the night is dark;
    Moans are heard in the linden trees.
    White skeletons pass through the gloom,
    Running and leaping in their shrouds.
    Zig, zig, zig, each one is frisking,
    You can hear the cracking of the bones of the dancers.
    A lustful couple sits on the moss
    So as to taste long lost delights.
    Zig zig, zig, Death continues
    The unending scraping on his instrument.
    A veil has fallen! The dancer is naked.
    Her partner grasps her amorously.
    The lady, it's said, is a marchioness or baroness
    And her green gallant, a poor cartwright.
    Horror! Look how she gives herself to him,
    Like the rustic was a baron.
    Zig, zig, zig. What a saraband!
    They all hold hands and dance in circles.
    Zig, zig, zag. You can see in the crowd
    The king dancing among the peasants.
    But hist! All of a sudden, they leave the dance,
    They push forward, they fly; the cock has crowed.
    Oh what a beautiful night for the poor world!
    Long live death and equality!

To Frankie

Bottles and bottles and bottles of the stuff.
It burnt your nose just to sniff them, venomous vapours streaming off their corks and caps. Each held a viscous eerie fluid, hazy and undefinable, one second it was swirling, and contained a brilliant, opalescent sheen that captured the mind's imagination and held it giddy, on the lower shelves, further away from the day-lit windows, the fluid was voluptuously dark, as exquisitely murky and mysterious as the most exotic of sins.
A rum-runners ransom in liquor,  a veritable horde of hooch, In the year 1929, it was worth it's weight in gold. But today, a year later, it was all legal.
"It's not even very good. I've nipped turpentine that tastes smoother going down." Said Henry Peaks, hidden under a hat and twice his weight in trench-coat. His ratty little mouth held a cigarette limper than the two noodles he called arms.
"Well this gut-rot won't sell itself, Henry. What about Kenny Mc...Whositsname, over on Garland Street. You know, owns the Gilded Cherub...?" Marco Geraldo. Six and a half feet of muscle, gristle, and barely restrained rage. Also, suspenders and buzz-cut.
"...McGrady? That mook won't touch the stuff. He's found a legit supplier from Chicago. Apparently they make a mean gin. Frankly, Kenny only took from us after the Darmout Brothers started overcharging him on the bourbon."
"Those assholes have their place on Northburn. The... uh, I'm pretty sure it has a fox in the title..."
"The Jazz Joint? Yeah, but only cause they muscled in on Eddy the Ear. Poor guy. Heard he can only eat his meals through a straw these days. And then only when someones holding it for him." Henry took a brown, hefty bottle off the shelves, that was labelled "TWO HUNDERED PROOF, FINEST CHOICE GARUNTEEED!" and dragged it over to the water-warped lump of furniture that they used as a table. "Marco, do you ever wonder why it all happened like it did?"
Marco was casually trying to part back his hair with an inferior brand of hair-wax, but found that the quantity and the quality of the hair belonged somewhere closer to a scrubbing brush than a human head, and so instead wiped the wax across his mammoth chest, parting his chest hair evenly across his two biceps.
"It gotta be when Frankie died. Almost six months to the day, would you believe that?"
Both the fella's quickly crossed their hearts. Marco hadn't gone to church for almost two years, and Henry was Jewish, but it was a mark of respect to a man they had called their friend, their brother and their boss.
"We was about to own this town." Said Henry with a look of awe in his beady, ragged little eyes. "The Darbouts, the Francheski's Even Bobby Blanco gave us a piece of respect when Frankie was around."
Nostalgia seemed to be catching, as Marco joined in with the commemorating. "He used to just stand there and no what to say. He never had to hit anyone to get 'em to listen to him, and he always knew how to make someone shut their traps."
"Yeah. He's give 'em a look with those great big green eyes of his. Smile that smiles of him, and every politico to pimp would be butter in his fingers."
"Yeah..." Marco looked away fondly at nothing in particular. He caught himself though, and busied himself by grabbing some glasses from the crockery cupboard.
"Hey. You remember that time with Moses Sizzles?"
The story seemed to be one that they both knew, but still one they would mind retelling to one another a million times over.
"So, Sybil Raceway gets a hot tip that Moses and his boys have something hidden from The Law out on the Docks up with those slant-eyed Celestials."
"Why'd they call her Sybil Raceway, again?" Marco could never remember the names, probably one of the reasons he could never lead a gang of his own.
"Cause you ain't never seen so many people in and out of her so quick. Now anyways, Frankie, he's the smart type, and knows the scent of something big when it's screamin' on his lap. So he says to us: '"Now you two boys go turn over the chink love-house and the opium lounge and you see who's willing to play ball."' And so we go over and snatch up a squeaky little slant eye-"
"-I remember them being some o' the slantiest eyes I've ever gone seen-" Marco chimed in.
"-And so we's brings him back to Frankie, all squirmy like, I swear someones put him in Vaseline before we got to him, and Frankie just looks at him."
"With those green ol' eye's of his. Not slanty at all"
"And this little, yella fella crumbles. Like and eagle smashes a turtle, or a turtle smashes a head, or whatever, and he spills. Tells us what Moses is hiding down on the Docks, and boy is it big."
Marco took an opportunity during the pause in the tale to pour them both a considerable sized glass of the fiery amber liquid each.
"A treasure trove of the fanciest imported spirits you could think of: A million pesos worth of genuine Mezcal, worms all crawlin' through the bottom of each bottle. Crystal clear Vodka from the proletarians over in the Motherland. Rice wine from Japan so fresh you could almost still see the husks attached. And if you remember, we almost waded in like patoots to go get it ourselves."
"Man, back then we were dumber than a sack of... Elephants."
"I hears ya. But Frankie... Frankie had a mind clearer than a kike's ledger-book. Always tickin' away. So instead of us and Two Bars Charlie going to the Docks, and bustin' heads and taking the hooch, Frankie asks the little fella where Moses Sizzles was holed up."
" So. Like Satan's teapot, we get fired up and march out to Fiddlers Junker over in New Street, and while you're holdin' a baseball bat in one hand and a snub-nose in the other-"
"-and you've got a shotgun hidden in your trench-coat. You can't even see it."
"Yeah, yeah, Marco. But you ruined the story a bit. Anyway, Two Bars has his two bars and you two rush in, breakin' faces and that pelvis, when some old barfly takes out his .22 and is about to blow you one on the brain-pan when POW! I shoot him where the sun don't shine with a shotgun I've got hidden in my trench-coat all sneaky like see."
"Very sneaky."
"So we go up to Moses' room and you kicks the door down like it's made 'a' cheap cheddar. Frankie walks in on behind us, see's Moses puffin' away on one of his stinky ol' cigar's and sippin' on his brandy. Frankie just gives him the look, then he says '"Everything you own on the Docks now is mine, capish?"'
"And Moses laughed at him, I remember that. I was about to go over across that desk and turn his scrawny little neck around." Marco started to turn kind of raddish-ish with even the distant memory of the fact.
"Yeah, but then he would'a been called Moses Turnaround, not Sizzles. Anyways, so Frankie grabs that glass of brandy of his, takes a sip of it, swirling the glass a little, cause that's the ritzy thing to do, and then he tosses it full into Moses's face. FWOOSH, it goes up in smoke and so does Moses."
"Yeah, I still don't get why that happened. Frankie musta' known some hocus pocus from the old country, I guess."
"... It was the lit cigar that Moses was smoking, Marco. It made the brandy catch."
"...Oh. Still, pretty clever of Frankie."
"Yeah, never seen anything like it. To Frankie!" Henry and Marco had both let their glasses full until the story was over as a mark of respect. At the point that it petered out, they both raised their glasses in salute to Frankie."
"To the smartest, greatest guy I ever knew."
"Hear hear." chirped in Henry from underneath his fedora.
They drained their glasses dry.
"...pity about how he died."
"Yeah, that fire just came outta nowhere while he was drinkin' some of the haul from the Docks."
"Marco... he was smokin' while he was drinkin'."
"And?"
"...Nothing. It's just, everyone seems to have moved on and found a way to go Legit. Even Two Bar Charlie is running two bars on Elworth and Nobbs. I just know that if Frankie were still here..."
Henry's eyes drifted across the tabletop where the two's glasses sat. They weren't alone.
Marco saw it too. "I'm sorry. Must of just been a force of habit. My head's a bit fuzzy today."
Henry just gave a sad little sigh, and flicked his ashes into the third glass. Where it fizzled and was drowned.
"We've had to water down everything in this cellar so much you couldn't even get a kid drunk off the stuff. We're never going to be able to shift it."
"I bet Frankie would 'a' had a plan for it." Marco added.
"Yeah... He would have. Hey, Marco pour us another one."
The slosh and splash of the watered bourbon as it poured into each glass was so refreshing, you could have gotten drunk off the sound alone.
"To Frankie. Maybe not the smartest, but definitely the best guy I ever knew." said Henry with a heart filled with pride and starting to be filled with cheap hooch.
"Hear hear." Said Marco, gazing at the shelves of opulent scotches, murky jugs of Applejack, two bit  Rum sitting next to five hundred dollar Cognac, some a little bit drunken away, all of them dusty from being on the shelves too long, and wondered how long it would take for them to drink it all from Toasts to Frankie.
Not as long as you'd think.
 

The Hollow Wing: The Man with the Red Eye

And so the haunted cells that laid between the nefarious concrete monolith known as J Block, and the Administration offices, claimed yet another soul. The bricks that made up the squat rooms smelt of poisoned blood, and they reverberated with the crying of anguished maniacs. And there was the sense of hunger there. Hunger of something colossal, abnormal and monstrous that was sated by the ecstatic release of a tortured souls. The Hollow Wing.
And so the Man with the Bloody Eye rested there for the night. Dreaming of nothing and resting completely untroubled.
The Doctors didn't understand him. He had been a normal man once , He had a wife, parents, siblings, children, pets and neighbours who loved him and filled him, nourished him with purpose. He did everything in his life for them. Laboured tirelessly to please them. And each day he fell down in bed exhausted, he always knew he hadn't done enough for them, and rent at his mind with a secret shame.
 He had tried pills to quash this festering anxiety, saw all the best specialists, reached out hopelessly to strangers in an effort to fill this abyss in him. But every night he'd hear the words not good enough over and over. It became his mantra. And he'd sing it to himself every day to himself when he was alone.
One day, after a wearisome day of work. After he had taken a handful of bitter tablets to settle his nerves, and listened to the oblivious voices of his family, he blanched in privacy, and fell into a final fit that he would never awaken from.
He started to shudder, quivering in a quiet corner of the house, gibbering the familiar phrase he always chanted at times like there. Not good enough. Round and round in circles. Unexpectedly though, his limbs began to spasm in a mangled dervish, a tornado of flailing appendages, his back arched with tempestuous agony, and he thought that he would die from the way that he felt.
In truth, it was a kind of death. But only one of certainty.
NOT GOOD ENOUGH. The words that were a void in his soul. Except this time, instead of trying to bury it,  or cover it up, he finally surrendered himself to it. A journey into his own abyss. And in the dark, the light of truth gleams ever bright.
He was never good enough for the people around him that made him feel so loved, so needed, so purposeful. He couldn't ever do enough or be enough to pay back the way they made him feel. Their love for him, and his own for them had somehow toxified  his own love for himself.
The Doctors said that this was a minor stroke brought on by an epileptic fit. Certain blood vessels had burst like crimson fireworks in his left, sinister, eye. It had also brought about a complete shut-down in his empathy-centre. He would never feel another emotion again in his life that wasn't about himself. A sociopath in mere seconds.
The suicides and murder-suicides that followed in the surrounding months were noted by the media and the police. His distraught parents drowning themselves in the nearby dam. Two neighbours houses yielded freshly carbon-monoxide-ed cadavers. His wife's poisoning the children's school lunches before jumping off a bridge. The newspapers said that his sister burnt herself alive and they never found his brother's body.
They even said when they came for the Man, that they found his cat starved itself to death and his goldfish suffocated by forcing themselves up out of their water.
When asked why he thought all his loved ones killed themselves, the man spoke sincerely, but briefly, "I finally made them feel the same way I felt for all those years." And when asked if he felt sad about their passing, he uttered with an upturned lip, "Do you think this eye could still shed a tear?"
No-one ever visits him, no-one ever speaks to him. The nurses only stay as quickly as they can. Guards whisper superstitious mutterings about the horrible deaths that happen to those that feel the slightest hint of emotion for him.
The Man with the Red Eye sleeps content, or at least, in peace. Feeling nothing, and hearing only silence as he falls asleep.