"According to the vague and somewhat unsatisfactory explanation vouchsafed by the god, this panel, being partly wrought from a kind of matter which belonged to another universe than man's, possessed uncommon radiative properties that served to ally it with some higher dimension of space, through which the distance to astronomically remote spheres was a mere step." -Clark Ashton Smith, "The Door to Saturn" (1932). Hang on, let me switch to my macro lens. "Never too late to hit the bricks!" "You absolutely have *got* to taste this!" "You’re a bad man! Go away, bad man!" "im not owned! im not owned!!" Monsters say "trans rights!" "He don’t wanna live, he don’t wanna die, he don’t wanna lose and he don't wanna try, he don’t wanna stay and he don’t wanna leave tonight" -Rob Cantor, "Ghost" (2014) Here they come, unburdened by conscience or soft tissue! "Make your teenagers jealous!" Ever heard of too much of a good thing? "Without the directions of a previous visitor to the library, investigators could spend hours rummaging through the millions of volumes here before finding a text they can even read, regardless of the contents." -"Day of the Beast," 4th printing (1998) "A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope the train will take you, but you can't know for sure." -Inception (2010) "The dead don't return," they say. Well, certainly not if we can help it! "The indignity! To have been outrun by a tree!" "With you busting their chops and my bypassing their doors, no one can stop us!" Most tales once told now have tellers now long-dead. I'm sorry to report, Count, that the review board has asked for your human subjects protocol to be revised. "Never gets real cold down here. 12.778°C." "You know how you said you were worried about living alone? Well, good news!" "Well, gentlemen, this is quite an historic moment. We're about to step across the threshold of a new era. Space Burial and Resurrection Now." -The Loved One (1965) This green won't Ever all by itself. Bullet heaven above, bullet hell below. "We're not so different, you and I..." "OK, so we can fit this on the shelf if we move this here and that there and this over here..." "I've been sleeping a thousand years, it seems." -Evanescence, "Bring Me To Life" (2003) A sweet treat that only gets better with age! In the culinary justice system, some candies are especially heinous. There's no need to chew if you simply open wide enough. It's only natural. These herbivores aren't going to eat themselves. Good heavens, it's all spilling forth, isn't it? "Sure enough, I must have been mokus and so out of focus to miss the first half of the show." - James Taylor, "Once More Go Round" 1991 "Still too soon, buddy, still too soon!" "I swear to God, if you don't do this, I will take your bones." -Angoose, as read by Drawfee in "Drawing Animals Based On Their Skulls" (2021-04-27) "I, too, enjoy eating fruit, it great that we have so much in common." If I'm being honest, the last one didn't so much get away as there just wasn't much left on those bones. You can help by keeping your distance and gathering some firewood. "And you know, you can expect hazardous travel later today with that, you know, that, uh, that blizzard thing." And we were both ghosts?! Hey, you ever wonder what the aliens find so interesting about about watching us struggle to survive? They're all around us, even now, even though we can't see or feel them. At first they gathered two by two, then rallied four by four, and finally in a sea of blue they breached the sealed tomb door. "Nurse come in, please, where are you?" -Dr. Octagon, "General Hospital" (1996). "Want something?" -VHS Head, "Frozen" (2014) Rejections by mail don't get any easier when they come from across the veil. "Stare into the subliminal for as long as you can." -They Might Be Giants They make me feel less alone, but I'm starting to worry it's not in the way I intended. Never mind what's fueling my unstoppable flurry of blows. Deception is a dish best served by an unwitting mail carrier. Big smile, head empty, ready to be filled with candy. "Open up for me, Max. I've got something I want to play for you." -Barry Convex, in *Videodrome* (1983). Fast fashion, you say? Well, they're available for a limited time, I'll tell you that much! I'm nourished by the lives that wove the web inside my haunted head. "starting to think these maidens are stumbling in soaked through from the rain just to steal my beautiful gowns and homewear are any of you actually lost" -vamprisms, 2022-09-17 Watch party at our place! We're going to binge Candle Cove! "My boy says he can eat fifty eggs, he can eat fifty eggs." -Dragline, in *Cool Hand Luke* (1967). Following the upheaval, life must go on. If the bounty of the earth is sate my every hunger, why do I still feel uneasy? "We will be the hands that lift you up and we will be the arms that hold you high. We will make you say our name forever. We will make you want another try." -Röyksopp, "Skulls" Once upon a noontime sunny, while I pondered something funny, written in a quaint and curious book of a romantic strain — while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my window pane. “’Tis the breezy trees,” I muttered, “tapping at my window pane, only this, the wind's refrain.” I'm just coming back from the shops. Hope these supplies aren't too haunted! Maybe you can't take it all with you, but this paraphernalia's gonna let me bring 'em all back! Sure, some things end, but in the grand scheme, everything keeps on going. You'd never guess which of the two has the higher power level. If it wasn't for the certification, you'd never even know the place was haunted. What a mysterious collection of bones, behaving in most unexpected ways! If enough of us force ourselves into this box, you won't even be able to tell there's an echo! Raise the iron curtain on the first of many acts, but never lower your guard! "In a logic that perhaps no man will ever understand, the true winner is the last to finish the race." -Dr. Nils Hellstrom, *The Hellstrom Chronicle* (1971). You can't surprise me! My vision's periphery all the way round! *On the Fresh Grave of Your Lifelong Love Who died of Consumption and Being Found the Next Morning Unconscious, Naked, and Nearly Frozen to Death by the Groundskeeper. On the Internet, everyone knows you can't possibly be a ghost who died before 1969, because they never received the necessary operating system upgrade. This motley crew of brash trend-setters are making their way downtown the way *they* would prefer to travel. In the future, music will consist of food sounds, and be prepared by those no longer among the living. The aftermath of deuterium and tritium loving not wisely, but too well. A feast fit for one or more rodents! American cereal manufacturers ask: What if the Bride of Frankenstine was instead his no-strings-attached DJ cousin? Long after the collapse of the imperial core, a long and cryptic shadow is still cast by its ghosts. Mary Anning (1799-1847) was one of the great paleontologists of the 19th century. This motley crew's only got one thing on the mind: Dem bones. This little sprawling gloom, she's gonna let it loom. These are *original* vampire characters, they are *not Dracula*! Three imposing figures consider their respective blades. Lady in stone, her crew made of bone. You can really feel the notes of regret and lament as it goes down. The future corpses of America face down the power behind the throne. Are we sure we want to keep spinning this particular wheel? A trio of big fans. Folks with skin untouched by the sun. I mean, what could the odds that this result is a fluke possibly be? Have you remembered the moon today? Some vampires being spooky, in a glamorous, aspirational way. "Don't do something we're both going to regret." Think about it. Have you ever *seen* your skull? Or anyone else's, for that matter? Various lights shine coldly in the dark, but do not assume that anyone is home. Auber on fiddle, K. K. Slider on guitar, Snake on flute, Turtle on drums, Oryx on lyre, Prizmatik on pipes, with vocals by Cool Cow. You don't know what you ask, traveler. My spiciest takes will kill a dragon, let alone a host. You'd better go to a guest that shares milder takes. Several minds are blown, either figuratively or literally. “They are real, and that’s why I will never work out that hard again, because nobody wanted to believe they were real." -Nicholas Cage, 2022 A continental mystic of some notoriety seeks to complete a quest amidst an array of assets and obstacles. Foreverer? More like foreverest. Five enemies defeated and only one round left to defeat the resulting sadness. Smitten lovers paint the town red. A variety of grim portents induce a melancholy atmosphere. An angel points at a skull, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." Amish women rise a horse-drawn carriage into Intercourse, Pennsylvania, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." Dr. Strange is attacked by a monster, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." A multi-purpose greeting card configured to read, "The animals will reflect on our shared humanity until the world forgets our names." A sixteenth century depiction of an autopsy, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." 
