My shoggoth took Elbows Junior along to his mum’s uniting church and my mum got worried they were gonna?? Baptise her??? Which a) wrong church and b) mother I’m an atheist????? I have no opinions about this event that, again, isn’t gonna happen
How to Bury a Gentile
I wrote a short vaguely historical vaguely spooky ghost story about Jews and burial rites and I have to justify it existing so here it is.
“Are you the leader of the Jews?”
There was no good that ever came from that question. Rabbi Jacob stood in the doorway, one hand on the knob and the other on the frame, ready to yank it closed at a moment’s notice.
“Well, not all of the Jews.”
The man at the door made a frustrated little grunt. He was clad almost completely in dark grey clothing that seemed to fade into the shadows of the darkened street behind him. The collar of his coat was pulled up so high that it was impossible to make out more than a pair of sharp grey eyes beneath the brim of his hat, and the cloak he wore over the top of it concealed most of his body. There could be any number of guns, knives, or angry mobs hidden under there.
“But the ones in this town, yes? You are their priest, you lead prayers and weddings and so on?” the man said impatiently.
“Rabbi. Yes. I’m the rabbi, that’s correct.” Jacob said, stiffening his posture and assuming the most neutral expression he could manage. Being completely ignorant didn’t exclude someone from being completely dangerous–if anything, that heightened the risk. “What can I do for you?”
“Rabbi,” the man repeated, as if to seal it into his memory properly. One gloved hand squeezed the pommel of his walking stick. “And you preside over the funerals of your people, and perform the rites to send them to the next world?”
“Yyyyyes?” Jacob shifted his weight to his back foot, poised to slam the door in his face. This sounded unpleasantly like an opening for a death threat.
“To any of them, regardless of the sins they carried in life?” An eagerness entered the man’s voice.
“Of course. Though sin as a Jewish concept differs from the Christian…mm. Yes, of course.” The scholars of old might have debated the nature of the evil in men’s souls until the crack of dawn but Jacob had no intention of doing so at half-past midnight with a complete stranger.
The shadowed man took a half step forward and Jacob leaned back to maintain the distance between him. “What about a gentile?” the man pressed. “Would you tend to his corpse too?”
“Huh?”
“There is a man needing to be buried tonight who requires absolution. He is not a Jew, but a Jew’s prayers may be close enough for what is needed.”
“Um. It’s not usually a request I get.” Jacob tried to keep his voice calm and soothing. There was some kind of entrapment lingering in the conversation, he just knew it. That or a giant box of crazy that had managed to dress itself stylishly. Gentiles asking Jews intrusive but urgent questions never turned out well for their target–a day-long case of irritation was the best outcome the target could hope for.
The man’s hands pressed together as he completed the full step forward, making Jacob back up into the doorframe. Desperation was in his tone and Jacob was forced back over the threshold just to stay out of his grip “All I need is someone to accompany me to the cemetery to consecrate the body and pray for its soul. Barely an hour of your time. I cannot pay you with anything but my gratitude, but you will have it eternally.”
“And you came to me?”
The man sighed. Even the top hat seemed to slouch slightly as his body slumped. “I have asked every holy man in the city, Catholic and Protestant alike, and they have refused to come to the cemetery,“ he bemoaned. “The last one told me to visit you. Likely a ploy to make me leave faster, but you are all I have left.”
“What did this man do, that so many people refused him? Who was he?”
The man at the door hesitated. The sharp eyes vanished as his eyelids slid down, and then appeared a few moments later.
“Must you ask?” he said quietly. “Is it not enough that it is a corpse which can do no man harm any longer, and you will lose nothing but a half-night of sleep?”
The inside of Jacob’s head was ringing with warning bells like the frantic clanging of gongs announcing a fire. He swallowed and tried to ignore them.
“You say he wasn’t Jewish?”
“He was not…much of anything. He felt God had no interest in him, and returned a lack of interest in kind. Perhaps if he had been more attentive he wouldn’t lie in a pauper’s grave…or perhaps he would have not changed a whit.” The man’s voice was bitter and the sharp eyes briefly looked away from Jacob, to Jacob’s deep relief.
“Who was this man, to you?” he asked.
“Close. I would prefer to say no more. Please, rabbi. It must be done, and it must be tonight.”
Seminary did not prepare me for this, Jacob thought, and then thought again. There is absolutely something in the Talmud about this and I’ve just forgotten it, because I’m an idiot and I’m half asleep and there is a goy on my doorstep asking me to go out to the cemetery with him at midnight to bury a man whose name he won’t tell me.
“Look, I’ll need someone to help dig the grave.”
“Of course.”
“And a coffin. A plain pine box. And I’ll need to get my supplies from the–”
“But you’ll do it?” said the man excitedly, standing up even taller. “And do it tonight, before the cock crows?”
Jacob held up his hands to keep the man from getting even further into his personal space. “Fine. Yes. Give me half an hour and a lazy rooster.”
The cloak almost seem to inflate as the man gasped for joy. He grabbed Jacob’s hands and shook both with enthusiasm, sending Jacob stumbling. “Thank God for you, my good rabbit! Whatever God there is, thank God for you!”
The man ran off into the shadowed streets and was out of sight almost immediately.
Jacob’s hands slowly fell back to his side as he mumbled, “Rabbi,” to the darkness.
My wife is going to kill me if whatever’s at the cemetery doesn’t.
“Vasilisa Mikulishna” by Boris Olshansky.
Vasilisa Mikulisha is a polenitsa - a woman warrior in russian epics (bylina).
In the epic, her husband Stavr Godinovich impertinently boasted about his wife’s beauty and intelligence in a court of Prince Vladimir. For that the Prince put him in a jail, and Vasilisa Mikulishna had to save her husband.
where can i watch this film (godinovich played by dwayne johnson, mikulishna by gwendolyn christie. the price can be played by gerard way)
You’re right, I haven’t seen Gerard Way have the opportunity to chew some quality scenery in years
Neglected pastures thrive under solar panels
Solar panels could increase productivity on pastures that are not irrigated and even water-stressed, a new study finds. The new study published in PLOS One by researchers at Oregon State College finds that grasses and plants flourish in the shade underneath solar panels because of a significant change in moisture. The results bolster the argument for agrovoltaics, the concept of using the same area of land for solar arrays and farming. The idea is to grow food and produce clean energy at the same time.
Serge N. Kozintsev, Morning Tea
I know this is meant to be a skull but two ladies drinking some tasty tea with one naked and sitting basically on top of the other who is wearing a pretty dress is definitely some lesbian art right there
Kids break into radio station, swear at listeners
A group of children broke into a radio station in Western Australia’s remote Kimberley region and put themselves live on air for an impromptu late-night show full of swearing.
The first police knew of it was a phone call from a listener, concerned at swear words being broadcast.
Station manager Angie Stahl says she had previously given the children lessons in community radio, and they worked out how to make the studio go live.
“But unfortunately their show mainly involved swearing, which was a bit punk, a bit avant-garde, but also breaches the broadcasting laws, and our codes of practice.
“So the cops got a call from an outlaying station ringing up to say, ‘I think you’ve got some kids on the radio, they’re busy swearing, you’d better go bust them’.”
Ms Stahl said the children appear to have entered through a window in her house, which adjoins the studios.
While in the house they ate some chicken nuggets and dyed their hair.
Not long after going on-air with their expletive-ridden jokes, police officers arrived to put a stop to the radio broadcast.
Ms Stahl said the children may have a future in broadcasting.
“They’d come in a couple of times before to do a couple of shows and programs, so I’d taught them the basics,” she said.
“So it’s good to see the knowledge was used correctly.”
“While in the house they ate some chicken nuggets and dyed their hair”
“A bit punk”
Amazing.
this is from a town in spain that in San fermines instead of bulls uses a giant ball and its so funny watching it on tumblr
UNMUTE
oh my god they were roommates
Anonymousgive me one million words of probably very unhealthy murderdock/foggy: the college years, please
I already HAVE a Murderdock AU, I don’t need to write TWO.
………………………But maybe.Also, because one of my best friends did a misread of a text I sent them, and because you two are, well, you two. I would like to submit for the consideration of the council: Murdercock.
is this… is this a crossover or fusion between murderdock and mikey murcock universes
