2022 Reading List Monthly Update: December (Finale)

 Books read in December of 2022:

"What is Love" (Manuel Magallanes Moure) 12-1-22

"The Missing Magoox" (Tom Champagne) 12-2-22

"The Killing God" (Stephen R. Donaldson) 12-11-22

"Stella Maris" (Cormac McCarthy) 12-16-22

"The Things That Matter" (George Wines) 12-18-22

"Octopus Pie Volume 5" (Meredith Gran) 12-19-22

"Life in a Medieval Village" (Francis and Joseph Gies) 12-23-22

"Happiness and Other Fictions" (Hersh Dovid Nomberg) 12-29-22

"Berserk Deluxe Edition 12" (Kentaro Miura) 12-29-22

"Eastern Blocks: Concrete Landscapes of the Former Eastern Bloc" (Zupagrafika) 12-30-22

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2022 Reading List Total:

-

1. "Kingdom Come" (J.G. Ballard) 1-6-22

2. "Dune Messiah" (Frank Herbert) 1-21-22

3. "Nana" (Émile Zola) 1-24-22

4. "Introduction to Jungian Psychology" (C.G. Jung) 2-7-22

5. "Schoolgirl" (Osamu Dazai) 2-21-22

6. "Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages" (Dan Jones) 2-25-22

7. "Rough" (Callum Leckie and Sailor Stephens) 2-27-22

8. "The Ironic Skeletons" (Colby Smith) 3-1-22

9. "Paradoxes From Hell" (Thomas Ligotti) 3-2-22

10. "Agitation" (Alexandrine Ogundimu) 3-3-22

11. "A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible" (Kristin Swenson) 3-7-22

12. "The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral" (Robert Westall) 3-12-22

13. "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" (Brian Stableford) 3-18-22

14. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (Josiah Morgan) 3-21-22

15. "The Topiary Cat: A Bushy Tale" (Richard Saunders) 3-22-22

16. "The Orchard Keeper" (Cormac McCarthy) 3-29-22

17. "A Shakespeare Motley: An Illustrated Compendium" (The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust) 4-5-22

18. "The Green Man" (Kingsley Amis) 4-10-22

19. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 1" (Kentaro Miura) 4-18-22

20. "Outer Dark" (Cormac McCarthy) 4-20-22 *

21. "When the Train Runs out of Tracks" (Tom Champagne) 4-22-22

22. "Heqet" (Brendan Connell) 4-23-22

23. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 2" (Kentaro Miura) 4-28-22

24. "Child of God" (Cormac McCarthy) 5-8-22 *

25. "The Temple of Gnide" (Montesquieu) 5-10-22

26. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 3" (Kentaro Miura) 5-13-22

27. "Road: a Postlapsarian Comedy" (Josiah Morgan) 5-16-22

28. "Zealous Immaculate" (Audrey Szasz) 5-20-22

29. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 4"(Kentaro Miura) 5-27-22

30. "Whimsical Tales" (Jean Printemps) 5-30-22

31. "The Assassins and Other Stories" (Marcel Schwob) 6-4-22

32. "Suttree" (Cormac McCarthy) 6-18-22

33. "Lazy Eyes" (James Nulick) 6-23-22\

34. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 5" (Kentaro Miura) 6-23-22

35. "The Driver's Seat" (Muriel Spark) 6-26-22

36. "Catholica: The Visual Culture of Catholicism" (Suzanna Ivanic) 6-28-22

37. “Hieroglyphics and Other Essays” (Arthur Machen/edited by S.T. Joshi) 7-10-22 

38. “Sanctuary” (William Faulkner) 7-10-22 

39. “Stricture” (Isabelle Nicou) 7-15-22 

40. “Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West” (Cormac McCarthy) 7-18-22 *

41. “Berserk Deluxe 6” (Kentaro Miura) 7-24-22 

42. “The Liminal Zone” (Junji Ito) 7-25-22 

43. “The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England” (Ian Mortimer) 7-28-22 

44. “A Medieval Book of Seasons” (Marie Collins & Virginia Davis) 7-29-22  

45. "Instagrimoire//Fax Screen Sect: The Cancellation of Graham Greene, Volume 1: Tales from Orthographic Oceans, or: A Room with a View (Self-Portrait in a Concave Mirror with Interior Landscape & Key to the Scriptures)" (Justin Isis) 8-5-22

46. "Octopus Pie Volume 1" (Meredith Gran) 8-7-22

47. "Life in a Medieval Castle" (Joseph and Frances Gies) 8-9-22

48. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 7" (Kentaro Miura) 8-14-22

49. "Life in the Medieval Cloister" (Julie Kerr) 8-19-22

50. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 8" (Kentaro Miura) 8-26-22

51. "En ménage" (J.-K. Huysmans) 8-30-22

52. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 9" (Kentaro Miura) 8-31-22

53. "Peppermint Werewolf" (Aaron Lange) 9-1-22

54. "The Road" (Cormac McCarthy) 9-7-22 *

55. "Octopus Pie Volume 2" (Meredith Gran) 9-12-22

56. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 10" (Kentaro Miura) 9-24-22

57. "Luda" (Grant Morrison) 9-30-22

58. "How To Slay a Dragon: A Fantasy Hero's Guide to the Real Middle Ages" (Cait Stevenson) 10-13-22

59. "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages" (Sabine Baring-Gould/edited by Edward Hardy) 10-19-22

60. "Black Paradox" (Junji Ito) 10-20-22

61. "Octopus Pie Volume 3" (Meredith Gran) 10-24-22

62. "Generation Bloodbath" (Paul Curran) 10-24-22

63. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 11" (Kentaro Miura) 10-28-22

64. "The Passenger" (Cormac McCarthy) 11-10-22

65. "Cinema Speculation" (Quentin Tarantino) 11-10-22

66. "The Illustrated History of Knights & the Golden Age of Chivalry" (Charles Phillips) 11-13-22

67. "Octopus Pie Volume 4" (Meredith Gran) 11-14-22

68. "Autumn and Spring Annals" (Quentin S. Crisp) 11-27-22

69. "The Middle Ages: Everyday Life in Medieval Europe" (Jeffrey L. Singman) 11-29-22

70. "What is Love" (Manuel Magallanes Moure) 12-1-22

71. "The Missing Magoox" (Tom Champagne) 12-2-22

72. "The Killing God" (Stephen R. Donaldson) 12-11-22

73. "Stella Maris" (Cormac McCarthy) 12-16-22

74. "The Things That Matter" (George Wines) 12-18-22

75. "Octopus Pie Volume 5" (Meredith Gran) 12-19-22

76. "Life in a Medieval Village" (Francis and Joseph Gies) 12-23-22

77. "Happiness and Other Fictions" (Hersh Dovid Nomberg) 12-29-22

78. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 12" (Kentaro Miura) 12-29-22

79. "Eastern Blocks: Concrete Landscapes of the Former Eastern Bloc" (Zupagrafika) 12-30-22

*= book I have read at least once in the past
+= book I have read before, but not this reprint/edition/translation

Currently Reading: 

"Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire" (Judith Herrin) 

"The Medieval Underworld" (Andrew McCall) 

RIP Amber (2007-2022)

It saddens me to report the death of one of our longtime pets, our beloved cat Amber, who some of you who have known me awhile knew well, and also knew was so very close to my heart and soul. At the time of her death she was 16+ years old. She’d been on the decline since March of this year (which was when she began throwing up her food more often, along with losing much weight), but things escalated very quickly over the last few days.

My mother adopted Amber from a shelter on April 19^th, 2007 (prior to that, Amber had been living homeless on the streets of Providence): I think she was around a year or younger at the time. I can still remember the first day she was brought home, and I saw that pointy little face staring out at me from between the bars of the cat carrier: my gut told me then that here was a unique animal. She was a female tortoiseshell, a breed of cats known for being VERY demanding, high maintenance and possessing a dive-like attitude (though we didn’t know this when we adopted her). And boy, did she live up to the stereotype: when she wanted anything (be it food, water, attention, and so on), she was sure to aggressively let you know it in a vocal or physical way, and while she didn’t mind being petted, it was only on HER terms: pet her one time too often and watch out! She had a most curious face: when she was annoyed, it would often narrow to a point, but when she was happy, it would assume a very round and friendly shape (hence why we would oft refer to her “pointy face” and “round face”). More so than anyone else in our house, she attached to me very quickly, and tended to be way more patient with me than she was with almost anyone else at our home. It probably helped that I let her stay on my lap very often, almost every day we had her in fact (with the exception of when we were on vacation or things like that). A lot of my published books were typed with her napping on my lap, actually. Of all the pets we’ve ever had, she was probably the one I was closest to, and vice-versa, so needless to say, these last few months (and the last few days in particular) have been gut-wrenching, even though I’ve been bracing myself for it for awhile now.

As befitting a cat of her melodramatic nature, her death had, to me, an equally dramatic nature. We knew she was on her way out today when she stopped drinking water and was barely able to walk (she had quit eating food a few days ago), but I still wasn’t 100% sure that today, December 10^th, would be the day she died. For the last few months, every day, I’ve been touching the statue of the Egyptian cat goddess Bast that I keep atop my computer desk and asking her to keep Amber alive for another day (along with my prayers to other entities, because when it comes to praying it never hurts to cover as many bases as you can). Today, breaking protocol, I said, “Bast, if it truly is her time to go, please take her, but give her a good death.” I also wished that if she would die it would be at home and not at the vet: because she had been a hardy cat all her life, she had only ever been to the vet a few times (only like 4 times really) in her 16+ years of life, and the last time she went (in July of this year), it had really traumatized her for a few days afterwards. About an hour before I left for work tonight, I spent some time in the family den with her on my lap (the family den being pretty much the place where she’s spent most of her time these last few months, when she wasn’t upstairs that is, upstairs being a place she would go almost every day because that’s where my room is: the last day she went upstairs was Thursday, after that the stairs were too much for her). As I stroked her fur I told her that I loved her, but that if it was her time to go, I understood, and that we would always be together in spirit. Then I went to work. I figured that was safe to do because I was working a shorter shift. But about halfway through my shift I got a call from home from my dad, saying that her condition had taken a turn for the worse and that I should consider coming home quickly. Explaining to my manager I had a family emergency, I promptly left work and headed straight home, though I had to stop for gas on the way as my tank was nearly empty. I got home at 7:10 or so and found Amber in the den on my mother’s lap, still barely breathing but very out of it. Not 10 minutes later, around 7:19-7:20 PM, my mom and I saw her take a big breath. We were talking about something or other after that, then looking down at Amber and noticing something amiss I asked my mom, “Has Amber stopped breathing?” Sure enough, she had. A few bodily spasms followed, but she had died. So at least I got to say I was by her side when she died, that I got to see her breathe her last breath, that I was the first to notice she had died, and that she died at home, surrounded by her loved ones, in a warm place. So yes, my prayers were answered: it was indeed a good death, or as good as such a sad thing can possibly be. I know she was in a stupor her last few hours and was probably not totally aware of her surroundings and what was going on, but in some ways it really did seem like she waited to die until I was there, that on some deeper level that transcends the merely physical she was aware that I had come back to see her off, and for that, I will be eternally grateful.

What more can I say? Amber enjoyed playing with her catnip toys, looking at the birds outside and clacking her jaws at them (her prior circumstances notwithstanding, she was a lifelong indoor cat), drinking water from the sink or tub faucet, climbing into boxes and bags (no matter how big or small), sunning herself in sunbeams/patches of sun, scratching at the old basketball jerseys on the doorknob of my bedroom door, burrowing under blankets in the winter months (or sprawling out on a heater), climbing onto high surfaces, getting stroked underneath her neck with a ruler or pen, playing with her fellow pet “siblings,” and, more than almost anything else, curling up into a ball on my lap and gazing up into my eyes with a look of content fondness on her face before drifting off to sleep... ah, that is a look that I will never forget and which I already deeply miss. As with many of our other pets, Amber had a variety of nicknames over the course of her life (some of which fell out of fashion as the years went by including: Paris, the Diva, Amberlina, Amberlina Jolie, Ambient, Tortie, Khaleesi, Peanut Butter Cup, Checkerboard Face (due to her distinctive facial markings around her nose/mouth), Pointy Face, the Old Lady, the Bag Lady, the Crone, the Buzzard, the Gargoyle, the Old Catfish, the Loudmouth Bass, the Little Bit, the Little Bitch, the Queen of Sheba, Lap Cat, Jersey Cat, Cranky, Pippy, and Pippy Longstocking. A bit of trivia I’ve never shared: my mother wanted to name her Penny. Amber leaves behind two siblings, Spencer the cat, and Sydney the dog. She joins in Heaven her “brother” cat Cooper and “brother” dogs Griffin and Joey. She was loved and will be greatly missed.

I’m reminded of a popular Sunday School hymn that I recently came across, reprinted as it was in the book CURIOUS MYTHS OF THE MIDDLE AGES:

“Shall we meet beyond the river,

Where the surges cease to roll,

Where in all the bright For-ever

Sorrow ne’er shall press the soul?

 

Shall we meet in that blest harbour

When our stormy voyage is o’er?

Shall we meet and cast the anchor

By the fair celestial shore?

 

Shall we meet with many loved ones

Who were torn from our embrace?

Shall we listen to their voices

And behold them face to face?”

 

Anyway, here’s 25 pictures of Amber, a sort of “greatest hits” of some of my favorites... perhaps you might remember some of these?

Amber looking her most regal. Of all the pictures I ever took of her, this one is my favorite.

This is what I meant when I mentioned Amber sitting on my lap and looking up at me fondly.

The "possum pose" she would often assume in the warmer months.

Assuming her place in a pantheon of divas

no bag was too small...

I love how angry she looked here

with one of her favorite toys

in the sun

with Cooper (who died in 2019)

With Spencer 

in July of 2022, when her health really began its decline

2022 Reading List Monthly Update: November

Books read in November of 2022:

"The Passenger" (Cormac McCarthy) 11-10-22

"Cinema Speculation" (Quentin Tarantino) 11-10-22

"The Illustrated History of Knights & the Golden Age of Chivalry" (Charles Phillips) 11-13-22

"Octopus Pie Volume 4" (Meredith Gran) 11-14-22

"Autumn and Spring Annals" (Quentin S. Crisp) 11-27-22

"The Middle Ages: Everyday Life in Medieval Europe" (Jeffrey L. Singman) 11-29-22

-

2022 Reading List Total:

-

1. "Kingdom Come" (J.G. Ballard) 1-6-22

2. "Dune Messiah" (Frank Herbert) 1-21-22

3. "Nana" (Émile Zola) 1-24-22

4. "Introduction to Jungian Psychology" (C.G. Jung) 2-7-22

5. "Schoolgirl" (Osamu Dazai) 2-21-22

6. "Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages" (Dan Jones) 2-25-22

7. "Rough" (Callum Leckie and Sailor Stephens) 2-27-22

8. "The Ironic Skeletons" (Colby Smith) 3-1-22

9. "Paradoxes From Hell" (Thomas Ligotti) 3-2-22

10. "Agitation" (Alexandrine Ogundimu) 3-3-22

11. "A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible" (Kristin Swenson) 3-7-22

12. "The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral" (Robert Westall) 3-12-22

13. "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" (Brian Stableford) 3-18-22

14. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (Josiah Morgan) 3-21-22

15. "The Topiary Cat: A Bushy Tale" (Richard Saunders) 3-22-22

16. "The Orchard Keeper" (Cormac McCarthy) 3-29-22

17. "A Shakespeare Motley: An Illustrated Compendium" (The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust) 4-5-22

18. "The Green Man" (Kingsley Amis) 4-10-22

19. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 1" (Kentaro Miura) 4-18-22

20. "Outer Dark" (Cormac McCarthy) 4-20-22 *

21. "When the Train Runs out of Tracks" (Tom Champagne) 4-22-22

22. "Heqet" (Brendan Connell) 4-23-22

23. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 2" (Kentaro Miura) 4-28-22

24. "Child of God" (Cormac McCarthy) 5-8-22 *

25. "The Temple of Gnide" (Montesquieu) 5-10-22

26. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 3" (Kentaro Miura) 5-13-22

27. "Road: a Postlapsarian Comedy" (Josiah Morgan) 5-16-22

28. "Zealous Immaculate" (Audrey Szasz) 5-20-22

29. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 4"(Kentaro Miura) 5-27-22

30. "Whimsical Tales" (Jean Printemps) 5-30-22

31. "The Assassins and Other Stories" (Marcel Schwob) 6-4-22

32. "Suttree" (Cormac McCarthy) 6-18-22

33. "Lazy Eyes" (James Nulick) 6-23-22\

34. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 5" (Kentaro Miura) 6-23-22

35. "The Driver's Seat" (Muriel Spark) 6-26-22

36. "Catholica: The Visual Culture of Catholicism" (Suzanna Ivanic) 6-28-22

37. “Hieroglyphics and Other Essays” (Arthur Machen/edited by S.T. Joshi) 7-10-22 

38. “Sanctuary” (William Faulkner) 7-10-22 

39. “Stricture” (Isabelle Nicou) 7-15-22 

40. “Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West” (Cormac McCarthy) 7-18-22 *

41. “Berserk Deluxe 6” (Kentaro Miura) 7-24-22 

42. “The Liminal Zone” (Junji Ito) 7-25-22 

43. “The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England” (Ian Mortimer) 7-28-22 

44. “A Medieval Book of Seasons” (Marie Collins & Virginia Davis) 7-29-22  

45. "Instagrimoire//Fax Screen Sect: The Cancellation of Graham Greene, Volume 1: Tales from Orthographic Oceans, or: A Room with a View (Self-Portrait in a Concave Mirror with Interior Landscape & Key to the Scriptures)" (Justin Isis) 8-5-22

46. "Octopus Pie Volume 1" (Meredith Gran) 8-7-22

47. "Life in a Medieval Castle" (Joseph and Frances Gies) 8-9-22

48. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 7" (Kentaro Miura) 8-14-22

49. "Life in the Medieval Cloister" (Julie Kerr) 8-19-22

50. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 8" (Kentaro Miura) 8-26-22

51. "En ménage" (J.-K. Huysmans) 8-30-22

52. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 9" (Kentaro Miura) 8-31-22

53. "Peppermint Werewolf" (Aaron Lange) 9-1-22

54. "The Road" (Cormac McCarthy) 9-7-22 *

55. "Octopus Pie Volume 2" (Meredith Gran) 9-12-22

56. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 10" (Kentaro Miura) 9-24-22

57. "Luda" (Grant Morrison) 9-30-22

58. "How To Slay a Dragon: A Fantasy Hero's Guide to the Real Middle Ages" (Cait Stevenson) 10-13-22

59. "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages" (Sabine Baring-Gould/edited by Edward Hardy) 10-19-22

60. "Black Paradox" (Junji Ito) 10-20-22

61. "Octopus Pie Volume 3" (Meredith Gran) 10-24-22

62. "Generation Bloodbath" (Paul Curran) 10-24-22

63. "Berserk Deluxe Edition 11" (Kentaro Miura) 10-28-22

64. "The Passenger" (Cormac McCarthy) 11-10-22

65. "Cinema Speculation" (Quentin Tarantino) 11-10-22

66. "The Illustrated History of Knights & the Golden Age of Chivalry" (Charles Phillips) 11-13-22

67. "Octopus Pie Volume 4" (Meredith Gran) 11-14-22

68. "Autumn and Spring Annals" (Quentin S. Crisp) 11-27-22

69. "The Middle Ages: Everyday Life in Medieval Europe" (Jeffrey L. Singman) 11-29-22

*= book I have read at least once in the past
+= book I have read before, but not this reprint/edition/translation

Currently Reading: 

"The Killing God" (Stephen R. Donaldson) 

"What is Love" (Manuel Magallanes Moure) 

Memories Dreams Reflections 10: Kindergarten, Churchgoing, First Experience of Death, and a Digression on my First Communion

In previous entries in this series I've talked about Bernon Heights Elementary School, the grade school I went to back in the 1980's. What I haven't mentioned is that I didn't go to kindergarten there. For kindergarten, I went to a private Catholic school at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church (OLQM for short, though it has a new name now: Holy Trinity Parish). But I was only there for that one grade. After kindergarten my parents enrolled me at Bernon Heights: being a public school, I suppose that was the less expensive option. Later on, my 3 younger brothers also all went to Bernon Heights, and they got to go to kindergarten there. Growing up, I was very jealous about this, because it seems like they got the fun kindergarten experience, whereas my own kindergarten experience was kind of dour and serious. 

Like many of the ancestors of Woonsocket's original French-Canadian immigrants, my parents were Catholics, and that’s how my siblings and I were raised as well. We even went to Mass every Sunday, at the aforementioned Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church. I wasn’t baptized at this church (as at the time of my birth my parents belonged to a different parish, though they switched to Queen of Martyrs not too long after I was born), but I did receive my First Communion there (on May 14^th, 1989), and my Confirmation took place there in 1996. A number of years ago I described Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in my short story collection Autopsy of an Eldritch City, though I used a different name for it there, Our Lady of Sorrows:

“Our Lady of Sorrows Church had been founded back on September 1953, though the church itself hadn’t been completed until March of the following year. The inside of the church was made from red cedar imported from Oregon (funded, as it were, almost entirely from small donations), and visually it resembled the interior of an ark. In the 1970’s, the decision was unfortunately made to modernize the place, and the tile floor was replaced by red carpeting. Also, two furnished reconciliation chapels adorned with bronze decorations were created for the sacrament of penance, and a special devotional chapel was erected near the main entrance. This devotional chapel was dedicated to the Virgin Mary (who, after all, was the Lady of Sorrows that the church was named after), and within it was a statue of the Blessed Mother, a statue that was continually spot lit and surrounded by red and blue votive candles. The fourteen Stations of the Cross could be found on the walls to the left and right of the main aisles in the nave. Above the doors leading to the vestibule was a large statue of Christ on the cross, while high up on the wall behind the altar was a statue of Christ resurrected. That was pretty much the extent of the decoration of Our Lady of Sorrows Church.”

The impression that the above passage should leave you with was that, architecturally speaking, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church was a pretty staid place, as far as churches went, and I can easily think of several local churches (like St. Ann's Cathedral with its colorful frescos) that were far grander and awe-inspiring. I suppose you could almost say that in aesthetics it resembles a Post-Vatican II-style church, despite being built BEFORE Vatican II! Here are two pictures of the interior, both looking at the altar and looking away from it, as taken from the "150 Churches" blog: http://150churches.blogspot.com/2015/06/church-25-our-lady-queen-of-martyrs.html

For some reason, though (and while on the subject and all) I’ve always been nostalgic about my First Communion. I have even kept all of the cards I had received from my friends and relatives for my First Communion, though some I preferred more than others. One of my favorites was a white card manufactured by Alfred Mainzer, Inc. and given to me by my grandparents. On the front of this card there were the words “God’s Blessing on Your Communion DEAR GRANDSON” in gold gilt lettering, and below that was an oval-shaped image (also surrounded by gold gilt) which depicted a boy dressed in a white robe and his hands were held up before him, clasped in prayer, and floating in front of him was a golden grail, and emerging from this grail was a Communion wafer inscribed with the letters JHS, and this wafer was surrounded by a golden halo. Inside the card there was a generic inspirational message and a quote from the Bible, Proverbs 28:20, “A faithful man shall abound with blessings.” 

Another card I received that day was a pale blue card, also manufactured by Alfred Mainzer, Inc., though this one was given to me by my parents. On the front of the card were the words “For you, dear Son, on Your Communion,” and below those words there was an illustration of another boy, this one clad in a white and blue robe, his hair blonde, and he was standing in the middle of some field and in his white hand he was holding up a fistful of palms and in his left hand he was holding a golden grail, yet another Communion wafer emerging forth from it like a tiny white sun. There was a biblical quote inside this one as well, from Isaiah 60:19: “The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light.” 

But to get back to the main subject at hand, that is, kindergarten: one of the only real memories I have about kindergarten at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church was that it was there that I first learnt about death. I can still remember that morning vividly: I suppose I must have been 5 years old or so. The nun was showing us a book about death and inside this book there was an illustration of two airplanes: the plane at the top of the page was new and shiny, while the one at the bottom was old, rusted and falling apart. I can't remember the name or even the cover of this book, but I can remember the page with the two planes. The nun told us that the same thing would happen to our parents one day, along with ourselves… along with anything that lives, really. Most of my classmates appeared blissfully confused, but I was the only one that burst into tears. Perhaps I grasped the concept of what she was saying faster than they did: or maybe I was just overtly sensitive. But on that day I realized the true names of the Adversary, and it wasn’t Satan or the Devil: rather, it was Time and Death.

Time tends to assume a malevolent, almost parasitical nature in many of my books, such as in my first novel Confusion or my short story "The Yellow Notebook." Perhaps this is why, at a young age, I gravitated towards Ancient Egypt and its myths. Something about the Ancient Egyptian obsession with immortality and their desire to triumph over death appealed to the young me (and I suppose still does). And I adore the following 12th-century Arab proverb: "Man fears time, but time fears the Pyramids." 

I should stress that apart from attending Mass every week I wasn’t particularly religious (spiritual would be a more fitting term), and to be honest, the only reason I went was because my parents made us: it wasn't until my late 20's that I took a serious interest in the subject, though I suppose that it could be said that Christian iconography and symbolism has pretty much appeared in almost everything I've written. We did have a copy of the Bible in our home, the 1963 Saint Joseph Textbook Edition Confraternity Version with a green cover and red-lined pages, and every now and then when I was bored I would crack it open. I never read the whole thing, but there were certain sections that I would go back to over and over again because they had captured my interest. The Book of Genesis was a favorite: I liked reading about God creating the Earth from nothing, the Serpent’s temptation of Eve, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, Cain’s slaying of Abel, and the story of Noah’s Ark and the Flood, though after that I found most of the rest of it boring. The Seven Plagues of Egypt fascinated me, as did the pessimism of Ecclesiastes and the Four Gospels of the New Testament: Christ was a source of endless fascination to me back then, and he remains so to this day. But my favorite book of the Bible, by far, was the Book of Revelations, which captivated me like no other section of the Bible did. The lurid descriptions of multi-headed beasts rising from the oceans to lay waste to the cities of Man reminded me of the Japanese monster movies I so enjoyed watching on Saturday afternoons (to quote from Revelation 13:1: “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy”). One thing I loved about this Bible (so much so that in 2019 I would end up buying my own copy of it, off eBay), was how when you first opened the book, on the inner cover pages, there were pictures of Old Testament patriarchs and prophets, along with two images of Yahweh, one of which depicted Him as a very Illuminati-looking "Eye in the Pyramid." This was an illustration that fascinated me, when I was a child.