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Hello all. Welcome back to another episode of Southern Demonology. And as always, I'm JJ. So this episode is going to be a little bit different. I am still working on the part two of The Name of the Devil. I've gotten quite a few inquiries about when that's going to be coming out. I'm writing it as we speak, uh, but it does require a decent bit of research and it's you know taking some time. So while that is ongoing, I had an idea to do a different kind of episode. So for the past uh couple of weeks now, um I have been reading with my family.
Um, you know, my daughters and my wife are from a different country, and then when they came here, uh they started school here late, around middle school and high school, respectively, and they didn't get a time to read a whole bunch of the classics. And by classics I mean horror classics, Edgar Allan Poe, uh H. P. Lovecraft, etc.
And so I have been holding reading nights, uh, just about every single night with them, and you know, we've read The Pit and the Pendulum and Um Pikeman's Letter and quite a few others, and it's been a ton of fun, and I wanted to do something similar for the podcast, but I don't want to just read an existing work because that's kind of boring. But then I thought to myself, but wait, you have a partially finished novel that's all about zombies that might be kind of interesting to read here. And it serves a couple of purposes. A, it allows me to keep writing on the more important episode.
B, it allows me to not skip another week, something that I absolutely hate doing. C, it allows me to actually uh once again promote our uh holiday giveaway promotion that is currently going on. Um if you don't know about that, uh I have details on the Southern Demonology website and on our Facebook page, but essentially, if you go to our website, Southerndemonology.com, and go to blogs, I have an entire article about it. All you have to do is join our Discord, uh, go into the giveaways channel and tell us about your favorite legend or ghost story and why that is your favorite. And that's it.
Bam! You are then qualified to uh to be uh in the giveaway, and you have pretty high chances because we don't have an absolute you know ton of entries. So I would give it a go if you want to get five phenomenal books uh all for free. So anyway, and then lastly, it allows me to hear back from everybody here to see is this thing worthwhile? Is it not? Is it utter crap? Whatever it may be. So we are going to read an excerpt from the eating apology. And in this case, you know, apology does not just simply mean, you know, I'm sorry.
Uh in this case, it is a discourse on why something is truly important to an individual, and that's where eating comes into play. It is a mix of a zombie novel, it's a mix of some philosophy. I I kinda like it. Uh, I've actually been pretty proud of this. I've had other people that have read it and told me they liked it, and I'm not the kind of person who suffers sunshine being you know blown up my butt and accept that to be truth. So I'm hoping that's the case, but I would love for outside feedback. So if you loved it, you can tell me.
If you hated it, please tell me, you know, just be kind and nice is the only thing I asked. But we're going to read a couple of pages here from the Eating Apology. So thank y'all very much. Chapter one The Background of the Topic Heidegger's invisible them theory has always fascinated me. The last great master philosopher of the twentieth century, I suppose the last great ever now, repugnant Nazi learnings aside, hypothesized that all members of a society were act in certain predefined ways, even when rebelling against these unseen principles.
I suppose this theory was further defined by the advent of deconstructive postmodernism, mainly in that language as a vehicle of cognition itself will impose a necessary worldview with its indoctrination. Yet the idea of a force of nature imbued with totalitarian humanoid form, with its implied sense of menace and nearly metaphysical inevitableness, gravity with fists, in other words, was so much more appealing and, I suppose, darkly romantic.
That is, until the invisible them forgot about the whole unknown and unseen aspect, and decided to make their presence known by sinking their teeth into anything that moved. God, did poor Miss Clemens even know about Heidegger as his hypothetical agents were dipping their faces into her stomach cavity? Dear lord, there was so much blood. Dear reader, I apologize for the tangent. I have always wanted to write a proper philosophical treatise or a doctrine, or an apology, yet I kept putting it off, letting this stack of papers degrade or this particular class get in the way.
Now that I have nothing but time on my hands, well time and terror, I finally I find the ready use of high philosophical jargon completely beyond my grasp. Then again, now that I think upon the matter, there is probably a severe shortage of properly trained and classically educated philosophers in the world right about now. In fact, I'm guessing that unless mere happenstance acted a savior as it did in my case, that such training puts one at a severe disadvantage when it comes to simple survival. How can knowledge of Kant compared to running laps every day?
God, I trade all of my books for a simple gun and knowledge of how to operate it, and looking back upon my life, I don't think I've ever even held a again with the tangents. Considering that I'm just beginning my writing and have already fallen off the path a few times, I'm quite comfortable warning whoever whoever shall read this work that there will probably be many more to come. Yet I assure you that I will attempt to keep them to a minimum. Towards that end, I think it's best I cease the much less clever than I imagined introduction and began at the beginning, as they say.
My name is doctor Henry Thrallings, and I am an adjunct professor of philosophy at Rondale College in Virginia, a small liberal arts college located in the southwest portion of the state. My specialty is continental philosophy, though I've been known to dabble in postmodernism from time to time. In the old world order that type of introduction it would have been enough. After all, who one is and what one does is all one would ever need to categorize an individual.
That is because everyone had time vast gulfs of time to live, to contemplate, free to worry beyond the minor inconsequentials of the day to day existence. To bring up Heidegger once again seems trite, but he framed being so well when he brought time into the picture. Life now, however, has become so much more immediate where seconds can frame one's existence. Thus this new world order takes the further demands of dictating my current predicament. To that end I am currently still in my faculty office here on campus. And I'm afraid I shall be here for whatever length of time is allotted to me.
When I was first hired on at the university, I considered myself extremely fortunate for a number of reasons. First, I was simply happy to be employed. With the sheer number of fresh press doctorates being produced every year compared to the ever dwindling number of tenured positions, I despaired of ever finding a permanent professorship at all. Second, Rondell was my alma mater. I roamed the hills of its wide open campus when I myself was an impressionable lad, and seeing the university with both sets of eyes was an awe inspiring phenomenon.
Third and finally, my office is absolutely amazing. Rondell is an old university, founded in seventeen eighty. Yet instead of going with the Georgian architecture at the time, it diverged and imitated the gothic motif of Princeton. Thus the school is dominated by low squat buildings that have probably inflicted numerous nightmares upon its students over the years. This architecture, however, is now not just suprimely made physical, but also having my also being my saving grace. Each door is made of thick iron bound wood.
Each office is akin to a small fortress, complete with freezing drafts in the winter. And the windows they are gigantic affairs in order to let in enough light to fill these burrows of knowledge. This office is now my world. In times past I gladly accepted these walls around me. I would stay in here for hours. The atmosphere of my room away from the world was impeccable, and I could stare through the windows for hours, gazing at the views of the gently rolling campus, of students lounging and laughing amongst themselves. Now these benefits are cruel barbs that catch upon my skin.
My abode has transformed into half refuge, half prison, and the visages the windows provide are of an of a hell unfathomable. Chapter two on the morality of death and eating One of the strangest classes I ever had while I was a student in my undergrad days here at Rondell was in a higher level continental philosophy course. On this particular day, the professor came into class much more somber than usual and announced that we would be discussing the ethics of death. He had lost his grandmother the night before, so he confessed that the topic had occupied his mind a tremendous amount.
We started with the basics of is death evil and progressed onward from there. Class discussion waged back and forth until a central proposition was put forth. Life is itself priceless, so anything that robs us of life is negative. Feeling a bit contrary, which I admit I do more than a little I challenge the supposition with a admittedly dramatic example. Say that you're kidnapped and chained to a wall in a dank closet. Every month, your captor would drag you out, chain you to the floor, and then proceed to spread a flammable paste-like substance onto your back.
The tormentor would then set your back on fire and then douse it. After treating you for the injuries, except for the extreme pain, you would then be reconfined to your closet to await the next ProFootball is back, and so are the predictions.
It's dose. In this situation, life is nothing but pain and misery. Therefore, anything that robbed you of it would be a positive rather than a negative, no? The class became absolutely silent. The professor, whose face was even paler than before, asked another question in order to brush mine aside. That situation left me feeling rather conflicted. I was initially ashamed of inspiring such a shocked silence, but later I also felt perversely proud of it as well.
After all, it isn't every day that you can inspire a class full of individuals used to the rigors of debate and systematic approaches to stun silence. Yet I unfortunately left such hypotheticals in the past, and I believed that it would be the last time I would encounter such a reaction. That is until last week. I was about to teach my course on postmodernism when one of my students came in looking horrid. He was so pale I thought he was going to pass out at any moment, and he was clutching his hand to his chest, a hand that was hastily bandaged but still seeping blood.
More than a little alarmed, I asked him what had happened. Staring off into space, he said in a mechanical voice My mother bit me. I had to rip my hand from her mouth in order to get away. The silence I had inspired so many years ago was in comparison a paltry thing. More like a laugh shared over dessert rather than an encounter with the absurd. Yet strangely enough, no one gasped. No one leapt to their feet. Everyone simply stared at this poor soul whose blood was now dripping onto the parquet floor.
Before I could recover and ask if he was alright, the young gentleman's eyes rolled up into his head, and he collapsed first face first onto the floor. At first my mind refused to accept the sight before me. Then the visage was replaced by one more absurd. The body The body gushed forth blood from every orifice the boy had in a sudden volcanic eruption. Streamers of fluid erupted from his mouth, splattering the students nearby. The stuff streamed out of his baggy cargo pants, painting them reddish brown all the way down to his legs and beyond. Even his ears, nose and eyes leaked blood.
Suddenly I was standing in front of the world's most horrific snow angel. That broke the silence. Yet when he began lumbering to his feet was when the screaming began. Chapter three Broken Cycles Emmanuel Kant, master philosopher of the Romantic age, was a creature of habit. From the age of twenty until his death at the ripe old age of eighty, he would walk up and down a street in his hometown of Konigsburg, now regarded as the philosopher's walk eight times a day at exactly the same time. In fact, he was so regular at this habit that people would set their watches by him.
The one time he missed his walk due to illness, the impact to lost minutes was felt by the entire neighborhood. Why do we feel the need to capture the details of the lives of those whom history has chosen to remember, whether through ideas or actions? Though a weighty question and not directly related to this work, I feel that nevertheless captures a piece of the spirit of the theme. For one, looking at the lives of others perhaps sheds insight into our own. As we are our own island, peering through the lenses at others can offer validation and corrections.
For another, knowing that the giants that walked through the fog of time were not continuously consuming greatness is a relief. To capture the mundane or even the negatives of their existence highlights their humanity. I have been trapped in my office for several days now, and all that has afforded to me are windows of the hell in which I find myself trapped. I have a small flat screen TV set up directly across my desk, and no longer does it provide information or even diversion. By and far, the device simply shows a void.
Most stations appear to be permanently off the air, playing either static or a simple logo. Occasionally though, something will slip through. A screen a plea for help. At one point I saw an impromptu news anchor come onto the air to read a bulletin on where to find the latest shelters that had not been overrun. Supposedly that same television station was on the list. Before he could even finish, he was swarmed by a group of eaters and eviscerated before his viewing audience. The camera was thankfully knocked over shortly thereafter, ending the broadcast.
The two windows in my office used to be of ultimate comfort to me. Alternating between the beautiful and the sublime, they would offer visages of sunlight streaming through the heavens or rain lashing the world from thunderous clouds. Now though they are portals and a terror. The sights they show me run the gambit from heartbreaking to vomit inducing. I've seen innocent students chased by a mob of their fellows. When mercy is bestowed upon me, the results are taken away from my vantage point. Yet that has happened only twice.
Otherwise I see exactly what happens when they are dragged down to be consumed and then resurrected in a shower of gore. Yet worse are the sounds. The wonders are old and were never upgraded to buffer the noises of the outside world. Yells from over enthusiastic students or the blaring of car horns used to be my greatest enemies back when the world was following its normal circuitous path of normalcy. I find myself weeping to hear a car horn again, for the alternatives are so much worse.
When I was a boy growing up in Tennessee, one summer night I found myself on the back porch looking at the stars. My heart froze a second later though, when a scream came echoing out of the woods a mere hundred yards away. I dashed into the house to alert my mom and uncle, who were sitting at the kitchen table, that there was a woman screaming right outside, and rather than display concern or shock, I was greeted with raucous laughter. Upon seeing my frightened eyes and reddening face, my family calmed down and informed me that no human was making that sound, but rather a screech owl.
Embarrassment and relief poured into my veins that night in equal measure. The screens I hear now unfortunately do not do come from people ripped out forcefully from their throats while their flesh is violently separated from their bones. Chapter four An interruption Routines, whether personal or societal, seem immutable. Philosophical exercises on whether the sun shall arise or poised as mere thought exercises or as lenses to explore metaphysics. Disaster management is a concept relegated to IT departments, government agencies and training videos.
In fact, the very idea of disaster management is deeply flawed, as it depends upon the disaster bit to be a bubble, a zone that is surrounded by a sea of normalcy. For only if there is a foundation of the mundane can the management bit be brought to bear. Though most people know, at least in a theoretical sense, that disaster can strike fast and hard, these very same individuals also know, again, theoretically, that aid will come swooping down from the vast swaths of the everyday. Dear Lord, I realize that I've just used parenthetical phrases. What other grammar atrocity shall I commit next?
Shall I bang out an ellipses or a few dangling participles? Oh grammar ex patron saint of the lexical goodness, did I just use an ellipses and this my philosophical apology? Though compared to what is going on, can perhaps atrocities a tadstrong of a descriptor. The sounds are getting to me, dear reader. I'm reminded of when the college started construction of a new library dedicated to some obscenely rich alumnus. When the building began the construction crew hammered giant pylons into the ground for some insane reason or another.
The sound of the strikings reverberated off from buildings, crescindling into a horrid melody of ghastly echoes that struck the mind so thoroughly that the that they create the creative feeling grew into a rapidly feral thing. That sound is nothing compared to what those creatures down below make. The world ended with neither a bang nor a whimper, but with a resounding clack. These things all the time are constantly in motion. Their eyes rove around, their hands jitter. Yet the most profound and easily noticeable difference is their jaws.
And forgive me, Grammar X, for such a horrid, horrid punch. Well, dear listeners, I hope you enjoyed that, or at least tolerated it a tad bit. That is my example um from the kind of okay novel, I suppose, uh called the Eating Apology. I would welcome your thoughts if you enjoyed it, if you hated it, if you can just put it nicely, that's all I asked. Um I would really appreciate to hear comments and opinions. So but I hope you didn't mind this um kind of strange episode of Southern Demonology.
I promise not to repeat it too much, but if you would be interested in similar types of divergent episodes, please let me know. Reach out, uh, tell us. And uh or if nothing else, you know, feel free to rate the episode, and that way, you know, it might be able to climb up the charts a little bit. Who knows? But anyway, um this is it for this episode of Southern Demonology. You can find us as always on Facebook at facebook.com slash Southern Demonology or on our website at Southern Demonology.com. Uh we also have a Discord community which has been growing by leaps and bounds.
Uh it's a very friendly place, uh, very accepting. Everyone is polite. Um, so you know, I would love if you joined it, even if it was just to lurk. Um, and more especially, you can join the holiday giveaway that we have now, which is going until uh December 20th. Uh so join our Discord. And then lastly, we have a Patreon group. Uh, so if you have a few dollars to spare and you want to support this podcast, then please feel free to do so. I would greatly appreciate it. Hope you have a wonderful time. This may be our last episode before the holidays. Uh, and if so, then happy holidays.
Please stay safe. I know the temptation is to get out and celebrate like always, but you know, we now have a vaccine around the corner. Please play it safe just for a little bit longer. Anyway, um, thank you so much for listening, and uh, we'll see you next time.