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Tonight, Will Coffin, urban shaman, and Bunny, his tipsy roommate, find themselves discussing addictions and the dead.
The Skinner Co. Network
FP333 - Moderation Part 2 - Coffin: Cutting Back
Some days grew me, my hours are slumberless. Dear is the shadows I live with, I nonetheless. Little white flowers will never awaken you. Not where the bright culture solace taken you. Angels have no fire ever turning you. Or they'll be angry if I sort of join you. Welcome to Flashpope, episode 333. This evening we present Moderation, Part 2. Coffin, cutting back. This week's episodes are brought to you by Black Flag TV. In love, midnight movies don't you? But can you handle midnight movies 24 hours a day? Your death will be indescribable. Find out on Black Flag TV. The first viral television on the way. Black Flag TV is entirely dedicated to haunting horror, science within and of cold movements. Broadcast in life 24 hours a day of pure independent movies and classic horror. Make Black Flag TV your sanctuary for the horror and genre. They're coming to get you, Barbara. Visit us now, blackflag.tv. [Music] Flashpope is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age. Three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. Tonight, Will Coffin, Urban Shaman, and Bunny, his tipseamer mate, find themselves discussing addictions and the death. Moderation, Part 2. Coffin, cutting back. Written by J.R.D. Skinner. Art and narration by a Popenax. An audio produced by Jessica May. [Music] Coffin and Bunny were working hard to look like they had business at 3.24 Buffalo Drive, while not obviously staring at the house across the street. They'd been there a while. It started as just one sword, Will was saying. Along the way, it was named Hippocratic's scalpel, but from what I've read, it was probably originally made for rituals by some blood-swilling prehistoric mystic. See, there are three problems with human sacrifice, the brevity, reluctance, and the mess. The first is because of the second. The ceremonies are all long to take advantage of the high-quality offering. But if you cut off a hand or whatever, you know, to try and draw the showmanship out, then the sacrifice becomes pretty reluctant to stick around. Bunny nodded and said, "Oh, yeah. I once got a black eye for my eight-year-old after I made a bunch of cap and Picard jokes. How the fuck was I supposed to know she had cancer?" What the hell was a kid that age so familiar with Star Trek anyway? Touchy goddamn co-jack wannabe. Coffin raised an eyebrow. "All I'm saying," finished his tipsy roommate. "Is that I get that dying people can be cranky motherfuckers?" "So what's the solution?" asked Will. But his voice was hollow. He'd spotted a small, thin-faced boy of five, wedged between the heavy brown curtain and the house's front-facing bay window. And he'd suddenly become occupied with scanning the child's glass-pressed fingers. Bunny sipped unironically on a 7/11 cup that had been filled with more vodka than Slippery earlier that morning, then replied, "I don't know. High-powered narcotics?" "Actually, you've got the right idea," nodded Coffin. "It needs a payment of flesh to work, but the blade was created to cause anyone cut by it. A great amount of joy. Crippling euphoria, in fact." That's why it's called Hippocratic's scalpel. Though it hopefully closes the wound up behind it, to keep the mess down, and the sacrificial virgin, or whatever, lasting as long as possible. No doubt one day if some lotus-eater priest was buggering around with temple property and realized that it could, you know, cut both ways. I can't say if it was originally shattered during ceremonial use, or simply by some junkie looking to spread the love around. But eventually, the thing went from a sword to a dozen shards, then to a hundred razors of varying length. Whatever right-built the scalpel was also intended to keep it permanently sharp. When it was broken up, each piece remained honed. I mean, it's made for weak-risked clerics. You need to be able to cut through muscle and bone without ruffling their silky work uniforms. A woman's arm reached from beyond the window frame, pulling the boy into the darkness at the edges of the heavy drape. "Anyhow," said Coffin, his own hand going to his pocket. His fingers, three more than the apparent mothers, wrapped about the silver chain within. At the end of eight hours that they perceived to be the greatest emotional and physical experience of their lives, they're left feeling normal. Beyond the fact that they're missing whatever it is they cut off. Blackhall actually wrote about it. It's how he first met our friend, Sarah Thistle. There was a fellow by the name of Michigan Jim, who would establish what old Thomas referred to as a "shaving den." I guess absolute bliss is addictive even to the things that go bump in the night. This would fall in love, or as close as something like her can get. A pharaoh lord from the French territories, I believe Blackhall put it. A massive grey wolf named Garoo. Their responsibilities kept them apart most of the year, but I guess they were prone to sheltering through winters together. Some boyger who had stumbled onto his territory started it. The fur trapper was already hard up, having just one foot, and he couldn't do much to run away. He did manage, however, to give it a tempting swipe with his sliver of the scalpel. It was enough to get him back to his canoe. When it wore off, though, Garoo couldn't let it go. He stalked the river's edge to the outskirts of Quebec, but having to stay out of the city kept him from ever catching the terrified Frenchman. Instead of returning to his kingdom, the animal lord waited, sleeping in thickets and wheat fields. While that was happening, I guess the escapee got to the point where it was too hard to take off his own extremities, so he gave the job over to Michigan Gym. In exchange, Gym got to keep the blade. When, well, frankly, when there is no more the poor bugger left to slice off, Michigan moved on. He took another month for Garoo to find him, this time camping out in a two-story farmhouse. Gym had supposedly only planned to stay the night, but his addictive bit of joy easily turned the family inside into his ever-shrinking peons. I'm told the beast once consumed a platoon of French infantry who'd come hunting him after he'd been mistaken for a lichenthrope. And by consume, I mean everything. Funny hats, leather boots, brass buttons, muskets, gunpowder, and even their rations of wine. He was probably whining like a common mutt though when he crept back to that shack. Maybe the patheticness of his fall is why Sauer of this will send Blackhall looking for him a few weeks later. Michigan Gym was getting some supplies from town when he arrived, so Thomas just found the wolf and the jigsaw pieces that were the now dead former residents. Blackhall actually tried to rescue, but Garoo fought him off and started crawling back with one leg. The thing is, the addict had been paying his way by giving out magical secrets like creepy vans to Spence Candy. And that's a big no-no. The biggest by Sauer Thistle's book. Thomas had no option but to open the things throat. Or so he says. By the time the pusher got back, Blackhall was pretty upset. He used the razor to remove both Michigan Gym's hands, and then made him dig the graves for the family. "Huh," said Bunny. The plastic cup she'd held had spouted white wines under the pressure of her grip. "So what are we supposed to fucking do?" she asked. "I'm not sure I'm cool with turning these assholes under Captain Hook." Mmm, simple. We go in, collect the old school chop-arm paper cut arrive where they've attached their sliver to, and then we leave before the police show. Social workers can handle the rest. Bunny snorted. "Yeah, sounds great. We'll just take the Golden Goose because drug dealers are known for their fucking generosity and general lack of weaponry." Coffin slipped the crook of Ortiz from his pocket, and the talisman swung low with the weight of the meat plug that was entwined in its intricately wound arcane hook. "The only thing worse than a Jonesy-ing junkie banging on your door is a dead Jonesy-ing junkie creeping through your wall," he said. Using his free hand to retrieve a cell phone from his pocket, he punched 911 and began walking towards the house. With a sniff, Bunny dropped her still half-full cup and followed him onto the street's cracked pavement. Flashpulp is presented by Flashpulp.com and is released under the Creative Commons' attribution non-commercial 3.0 Unported License. Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com, but be aware that they may appear in a future flashcast. We'd also like to thank the Free Sound Project, found at freesound.org. For a full listing of effects used during the show, as well as credits for the users who provided them, check this episode's notes at flashpulp.com. And thanks to you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please tell your friends. ♪♪ ♪ Sunday is gloomy, my hours are stumbled ♪ ♪ Here is the shadows I live with are stumbled ♪ [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat music)