Trail of Shadows

Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see…

TRANSMIT - initiate the imbalance of maat - RECEIVE - initiate the splitting of the Self - WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN? - initiate the Rite of Feeding - THE SHADOW KNOWS - dissect the soul - WITNESS - the Aspect of Shadows.

Do you know the story of Maro Uno? He killed prolifically. He was captured for a minor crime. He died, unknown, in prison. A giant corporation squeezed his meat into a cyborg. Something of the serial killer haunted its organs, and the cyborg went on a homicidal rampage. The corporation shut it down. And that is where the story of Maro Uno should have ended. But it didn't, did it, sweetling?

To the ancient Egyptian mind, a human being consisted of nine parts. The Khat, the physical body. The Ka, soul of sustenance, the body's spiritual double that resided inside of it. The Sheut or Khaibit, the shadow. The Ba, soul of mobility, the wandering soul that dwells in the heart. The Ab, the heart itself, seat of reason. The Sahu, the spirit-body, entering the afterlife when all is ready. The Khu, the spirit-soul, the immortal part, sustaining the Sahu as the Ka sustains the Khat. The Ren, the true name. The Sekhem, the incorporeal personification of the life force of humans.

Jungian psychology also breaks the singular Self down into a pantheon of archetypes. The Father, the Child, the Devil, the Wise Old Woman, the Shadow, and others, all living in one skull. A multiplicity-in-one. We understand this.

Normally, most of these parts remain with the body in the tomb. The Ka and Ba wander off, and need offerings of food and obeisance to sustain them, until they return to the body and the soul travels to the underworld. But what if it all went wrong? What if the corpse was dissected just right? What if it's heart was profaned, living on in a metal body? What if the soul was just wicked enough to sustain its shadow?

Now imagine an unhinged surgeon noticed this. Dr. Elswick combined what he knew of surgery, Egyptian spiritualism, and Jungian archetypes, and made something new. He took what was left of Maro Uno's body and gave it a shrine. He fed the Shadow. He helped it grow and refine its feeding. The starving Ka, you see, needs more than food. It requires the nutrient offerings of praise. Fear is a form of awe, and awe is involuntary praise. The Ka-Shuet, the Shadow, would find all of the sustenance it needed in nightmares.

But how can this be? How does a simple surgeon stumble upon the esoteric? How does he learn to dissect the soul? Well, sweetling, there are archetypes and patterns in the universe so well worn they call out with strange gravities. There are rituals that want to be performed, and they will find human hands to do it.

Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss--I am the urge of zombie snails--let me in.

Hiya, Chuck.

The idiot buzzing didn't tell you the careful attention Maro Uno put into arranging the bodies of his kills. He had an inspired eye. I don't know art, but I know what I like. The muttering voices didn't tell you what they saw when they looked into his head, that the same parts of his brain lit up that lit up in Michael Angel's brain when he painted the Sistine Chapel. I know, Chuck. I heard them murmuring. What else aren't they telling you?

More food for thought: why does the universe save the wicked ones? It's only the dreadful actions of the Maro Unos of the world that live on in echo. We're never haunted by the child selling lemonade or the couple that celebrated their 70th anniversary. Norman Rockwell never reaches out of the mirror. What does that say about the universe's selective memory? Eternity's favoured children.