Punishment By Hope

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Punishment By Hope - book excerpt

TO SWIM DARK WATERS

TIM WAGGONER

“Reality is, you know, the tip of an iceberg of irrationality that we’ve managed to drag ourselves up onto for a few panting moments before we slip back into the sea of the unreal.” – Terence McKenna

For me, I think my love affair with the truly bizarre began the first time I saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the original, not the Tim Burton remake). I watched it at home on television in the 1970’s, not long after it was first released in theaters. It was probably some holiday or other, although I can’t recall which one. (In those pre-cable, pre-VCR days, movies like Willy Wonka and The Wizard of Oz were only broadcast during holidays.) I’m sure I sat too close to the TV – I always did in those days – legs crossed and motionless, barely blinking, mesmerized by the story taking place in front of me. I empathized with Charlie Bucket, who wanted a golden ticket more than anything in the world, and I was fascinated by the strange, enigmatic, and more than a little frightening Willy Wonka himself. But what I remember most – and what had the deepest impact on me – is what’s sometimes called The Scary Tunnel Scene.

Wonka has invited his guests, the children and their parents, onto a boat he calls his Wonkatania. They’re going to travel on his chocolate river to another part of his wondrous candy factory, but to get there, they have to go through a tunnel. The trip starts out sedately enough, but once inside the tunnel, things start to get weird – really weird. The boat begins traveling at insane speeds through a kaleidoscopic nightmare-scape of rapidly-changing colors and disturbing images (including what looks like actual footage of a chicken getting its head cut off). As the Wonkatania races through this tunnel of horrors, Wonka begins singing a nonsensical song, face expressionless, his voice that of a serene madman. Toward the end of the song, he begins shouting the words, sounding terrified and on the verge of losing what few shreds of sanity remain to him.

And then, just like that, it’s over. Wonka and his guests have reached their destination, although the trip has left them emotionally shaken.

That scene blew my preteen mind. I was already a horror fan, and I was well familiar with the various tropes in the movies I loved: monsters, ghosts, graveyards, full moons, mad scientists, haunted houses . . . The Scary Tunnel Scene had none of these elements, yet it was by far the most disquieting thing I had ever experienced. For several minutes, my head was filled with chaos and insanity, and I loved every second of it. As the years passed, I gravitated increasingly toward nightmarish, surreal, and existential horror, and eventually that’s the territory where I planted my own flag as a writer.

So I’m certain it will come as no surprise that I love Erik Hofstatter’s “Punishment by Hope.” Like Willy Wonka’s Scary Tunnel Scene, this story gets to the core of what makes the very best horror. Underlying both is the sense that the universe isn’t orderly or benign, but rather chaotic and malicious – unknowable, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and above all, dangerous. In run-of-the-mill horror stories, characters are threatened with violence, injury, and ultimately death. But the mental, emotional, and spiritual wounds characters suffer can be far worse than mere physical pain. That’s what makes The Scary Tunnel Scene so effective, and it’s the thematic DNA of “Punishment by Hope.” And the grotesque images invoked in each are both wonderfully repulsive and strangely beautiful. Erik’s story is one hardly meant for children, though, and while the waters its hero swims are dark – damn dark – they sure as hell aren’t chocolate. “Punishment by Hope” is an erotic, splattery fever dream of a story, as disorienting for the reader as it is for the poor bastard that’s trapped within its pages. This shit is my jam, and if you’re reading these words, my guess is that it’s yours too.

So if you’re ready – or even if you’re not – take my hand and let me help you aboard. Your captain’s name is Erik, and he’s going to take you on a voyage you’ll never forget . . .

No matter how hard you try.

Hell Is The Eyes of a Lost Lover

Her face was a broken mirror of rust-tinged waves. Nim swam through her eyes and mouth, breathing in angry droplets. She hissed at him with each stroke. The coppery taste of menses soaked his tongue. He stopped and peered across his scarred shoulder, bouncing like a stranded buoy. This was his life. His penance. To swim and carry. He knew the distance by heart. A tarnished box floated in a mariner’s net tied around his waist. No other man on the island could survive her burning rage. His body ached. Not from exhaustion, but from desire to touch her. The sea smelled of freshly torn hymen skin. He pushed on, watery palms slapping him with perverted memories.

Sirilo paced the shore’s end as wails of forsaken daughters sang in far-flung caverns. Nimlesh shut his blood-filled eyes.

Another sleepless night.

Tomorrow’s promise fed him hope. He’d catch a glimpse of her again—if only for a darkened moment. He stumbled and crossed jagged rocks decorated with blackened tongues. The giant half-lizard observed, his reduced eyes calculating patience. His skin changed shades from red to orange and back to black in the bright star-fire that burned behind him. Nimlesh untied the net and removed its contents.

“You know, one of these days you’ll tell me what’s inside.”

Sirilo flashed his little teeth and spoke in a human speech.

“Does it matter? Collecting these tins is the only way you get to see her.”

Nimlesh bit his lip. It still tasted like menstrual tsunami.

“What if I wanted to speak to her?”

“Impossible. She tosses, you fetch. That’s how it’s always been.”

His heart drummed a fast rhythm in protest—but Sirilo was right.

I swim and collect. Nothing more. But your eyes. They glow like wet stars.

“Stay behind the line and focus on your task. Get some sleep.”

Nimlesh chewed on words spiced with vexation and resentment. He snatched his empty net and sauntered to the grave of the unknown mariner where eternal fire burned. The flames narrated a story if he listened hard enough. But not tonight. The grieving ship’s solitary figure consumed all his thoughts.

She was short, but fierce. The wind tossed her hair like red sails.

What if the albatross line is your bluff?

A chance to speak to her was all he hungered for. To remind her how he felt.

Maybe if I shouted, the wind lords would deliver my words. But would you reply?

Nimlesh thought about her eyes—an aquamarine prison for his heart.

You’re my sentence and I am yours.

Gruelling ocean labour tensed his shoulders and he fidgeted inside a structure built from whale bones. The daughters of promiscuous mothers still sang an agonizing chorus in the caverns above. Their voices ferried no words—only melodies, conducted by splintered souls. Their tears crashed and echoed on the glass cold ground. The sky was a dying bruise. There were no clocks—only passing moments. He wished for the hand of sleep to pluck him far from these strange waters.

***

The plateau shone like scales of murdered carps. Sirilo’s old tails formed a breakfast tower near the unforgiving sea. Nim roasted and chomped on a slice. Flavour was a lost friend. He fed to survive. Life of a mariner branded him with a cruel fate.

We are who we are.

Hope walked hand in hand with him. She wore eternity’s face and stilled his mind. A mist of veiled orphan eyes clouded his vision. The charred flesh crunched and blackened his teeth. Temptation invited him to lick flames.

That gift belongs to Sirilo.

Souvenirs of stolen kisses cut him like judgement shards. The grave.

Whose ashes…?

The grieving ship teased horizon’s soul. A mariner’s net hung from a protruding bone. Nimlesh tied frayed cord around his waist—a ritual of habit. He stood on shore’s end, searing water eating his toes—but he felt nothing. Black tears painted his cheeks when gonads of castrated rapists rained down from the sky. The sea waited. Her fingers modified waves and they caressed his weeping face.

Nim swam closer and closer towards his heart—held hostage onboard the frigate.

Maybe you don’t recognize me?

Sirilo was a shepherd of many.

Failure is not an option. I must cross the line. Just this once.

He missed the champagne voice flowing out of her mouth, where a colossal tongue hid behind walls of lustrous teeth—sometimes gently poking out when she spoke. Words smudged with a sweet lisp.

God. I ache for you.

The mariner backstroked for a nautical mile. A tampon-shaped cloud followed him, soaking his mind in crimson memories. He remembered when his tongue swam inside her menstrual cycles.

The albatross border—it’s near.

More thoughts of her rushed in. How her face escaped from teasing words into the small dark world of her child-like palms. How her breathing changed when he quietly touched her.

Love handcuffs us to simple mannerisms.

Something brushed his hand. Nimlesh trod water, feet jaded but eyes alert. A white line of plaited albatross necks glimmered yonder. She hurled tattered rope from the quarterdeck. In the heart of the knot was an ancient box.

“Esiteri! Talk to me! Please!”

The rust-haired girl lifted her elfin visage. She was a pale ghost drowned in tyrannical waves.

Are you crying?

“Please! Esiteri! It’s me! Say something!”

Silence—the cruelest weapon in your arsenal.

She pointed at the container. A ring with colours of the past decorated her finger. For endless nights he ached to feel her porcelain-smooth skin. To hear those sensual lips say his name.

Fuck the box and fuck Sirilo.

A deep breath entered his lungs and he vanished underwater. Pain ignited her eyes as he resurfaced on the other side.

“Don’t be afraid! I just want to talk to you!” he shouted from below.