The Heroic Human

If you were going to condense every random tracer streak that flies through my rotted head and stony heart at any given moment, to tie Snorri Sturluson to Klaus Nomi, the Aeneid to Fear of Girls, King Uzziah to Andrew Koenig, Borges and Eco to Lovecraft and Barker and E.E. Knight, James Cagney to Tom Lommel, Flannery O'Connor to Felicia Day, Muhammed Ali, Floyd Patterson and Jack Vance, Cicero and Dracula, Ramses and the Baldwin Brothers, King Saul and Steve Wozniak, Frodo and Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Tom Waits, Warren Zevon, and LazyTown, machine language and Anglo-Saxon...to bind them all into one, pre-apocalyptic gainland of the strange and it would be this:

The heroic human is the one who knows his smallness all too well, yet stands in the way of the strange, spreading roots of evil.

As a troll on the sidelines of the human story, I look on those precious few among your race who turn bravely to be swallowed by the dark. What madness compels you, what joy inspires?

Who made you a hero?

Rack and O-pinion Steering Me Wrong

Core beliefs lived out and publicly expressed?

What is this nonsense?

Don't these people know that opinions are for keeping to oneself and living quite contrary to without reflection?

This underscores the problem I have with modern humans. In the old days, I'd clamber through the woods, sniffing for Christian blood. When I caught wind of the little juicy buggers, they'd pray and fight (thus, the God and axe scars running down my face) as they went down.

Simple.

Today, however they get into a debate with me over my existence, telling me flat to my face that I don't exist, as if they don't believe in me! They feel my hot rancid breath* in their face, bear bruises from my battering, and insist that I'm not there.

The whole thing degenerates into a debate...a debate(!)...over things that neither my victim nor I believe for a minute. It is exhausting. I fall for it so frequently that I come home, more often than not, hungry, though I had easy spoils in my grasp not an hour before.

These humans, they entertain opinions. They do not hold them.

We beasts are forced, by our very nature, to live the beliefs we express (which is why we do not express them.) How did these humans figure out how to goof the system and invent duplicitousness?

Hrmph. The kicker is that they seem to miss fewer meals than I do.

*Yes, I've been reduced to Italian submarine sandwiches with onions, the people have been so elusive lately.

Robots Welcome, Humans Not

I've had a little trouble lately with humans coming to visit my internet home. I know that it shouldn't bother me in the least: I'm nearly eight feet tall and half as wide, and otherwise reasonably able to defend myself (reasonably able to offend myself, too.)

But it does. Humans, with their small, delicate ways, their charm-laden, soft tones, their scarecrow lightness and thoughtful expressions are not to be trusted. Their culture is fast: their minds ablur and their smiles shoot out knives and burning stars.

I'm troll enough* to admit that, yes, I have some trouble with these humans and their condition.

I'm much more amenable to Internet robots, spiders and their pet spams. These Internet humans...that's a different thing.

So if you come here, try to slip past. I snore loudly and sleep hard and often, so it shouldn't be too difficult. If I do find you, I may leap on to a stool, screaming and clutching my skir--I mean launch a mind-bogglingly threatening defense of my homecave and shoats.

On the other hand, spam messages, of course, will be treated like family.

*You know what? I haven't used an asterisk in a very long time.