Syndicate Of Silly

We’re a secret organisation,
We tell everybody,
This is a wacky institution,
The syndicate of silly,
And we’re always open,
So open the door and climb in the window,
Wipe your hat,
And hang up those moccasins,
There’s a brew boiling in the bath,
But to business my friend,
We’re all in the basement upstairs,

So best go up the down staircase,
Don’t trip,
These stairs bite you know,
We’ve been debating,
And arguing,
And debating about arguing,
We’re scholars of senselessness,
Humans to a man,
It’s all a bit silly,
That’s undeniable,
But that’s life in a nutshell.

Asylum Jaunt

A crossroads in my life,
I remember it well,

Mundanity one way,
A tiresome future,
A pointless existence,
Eccentricity over yonder,
The way of the top hat,
The path of the face-paint,

I chose the only path I could,

Now I jaunt along it,
A cane in one gloved hand,
And a pen in the other,
A jester marotte in my pocket,
My top hat standing tall,
A capricious design upon my face,

Where my grin goes,
Kaleidoscopic and macabre images follow me,
There can be no end to the madness,
This procession of the asylum continues.

Mr. Ash

He’s coming for me,
Even the storm outside does not cloak his steps,
Mr. Ash,
The frigid wind tries to hold him back in vain,
The rain whispers “flee”,
Each stroke of lightning is a plea of “run!”,

My attempts at going underground failed,
My thieving insult to him will be repaid in blood,
I glance out of the window fearfully,
I see him nearing even in the black,
It’s like staring into evil itself,
It’s like looking at the apocalypse in slow motion,

A demon,
A God,
Or something altogether more alien,
Long spindly limbs,
Pale and hairless,
He is dressed literally to kill,

His emaciated limbs bear barbarous claws,
Claws that have ended lives since time began,
And perhaps even before,
His mad eyes are wide open,
His grin filled with murderous intent,
He’s coming for me,

His form appeared at my door,
That grin still glistening,
Despite the horror that was about to ensue,
His rangy form must nearly crouch,
But I still feel like a frightened child,
The monster under the bed is real,

Even the bravest slink in terror,
And fear the name of Mr. Ash,
Even the maddest see reason,
And fear the name of Mr. Ash,
Even as my body is torn limb from limb,
The storm continues unabated.

Book of Nightmares

As I stare blankly at the page,
Me and my mind make a pact,
A pact with this book of nightmares,
This monster I put my pen to,
A sanctum for every horror that crosses my minds eye,
Or perhaps an asylum?

This is my unholy gift to you,
A window into my mind,
Full of horrors and abominations as it is,
I must continue to write regardless,
I must keep creating these literary monsters,
The book demands it.

I begin to write,
And the nightmares come out to play,
Letters and words creep from recesses,
Punctuation slivers hither-and-thither,
Sentences of madness begin to form,
I’ve released a monster.

Or am I creating it?

Quite The Milestone

Good day inmates!

This is truly a joyous day for me! I don’t think I ever expected to be writing a post like this. Or rather, a post about this. It’s extremely good news and i feel rather proud to announce it.

WorldofHarley has finally passed 1000 followers!!

Huzzah! The big one triple zero! I could scarcely believe it. It’s possible that you already knew about this if you’re one of our Twitter followers but still, I felt it necessary to make a short post (are they ever short?) on this wonderful milestone. I never expected it to get this far at all. I know I say that quite a lot but it’s true, I simply find myself dumbfounded each day! Each and every like, follow or comment is a reason to celebrate here at the asylum.

So basically, I’d like to thank each and every one of you that check the blog out, follower or not. You’re all amazing and you simply must be mad! Thank you, thank you and thank you! We simply must try to keep the madness going, no?

So, until next time, have an extra crazy day inmates!

My Absence

Hello there inmates!

Well, I’ve been away from the asylum for a little while now. You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t posted anything in what seems like an age. Well, it certainly feels like an age to me anyway. I have missed the asylum and the blog, that’s for sure!

Well, you see, I have been moving into a new flat with Lee recently. It’s been a long time coming really and we’re both very happy about it. It feels so uplifting and grand to finally be living with Lee, it’s really quite special. It’s a great little place that is just the right size for us. We’re both working all the time as well, so we don’t get a huge amount of free time either. It’s tiring, but it’s worth it. As we have just moved into a new place, we do not currently have internet. We’re in the process of rectifying that, but it will take some time as you can imagine.

All of these things add up to the lack of blogging time. I’m only able to post this from my parents house. I don’t really want to make a habit of this, since I feel guilty about it really. However, I have managed to get some writing down, between days off and break times. I have several writings and poems ready for posting already. I’m not sure exactly when they will be posted but it shall be soon. I may use the parents laptop to post one soon though, we shall see.

So yes, I simply wanted to give my beloved inmates something of an update to what’s been going on. WorldofHarley is very much still alive and the madness shall resume in earnest presently! I hope you’ve all been very abnormal in my absence!

As always, have a very crazy day inmates!

The Asylum Mythos: The Pint-Sized Cult

“Madness is a funny thing isn’t it? I don’t mean amusing funny, but curious funny. Alright, sometimes it can be amusing funny too! I once saw a man kissing his cell-wall. Very amusing! However, I mostly find madness interesting. Since finding my way here after getting lost, I’ve seen many mentally damaged individuals who were simply fascinating. The scientist in me finds it all very invigorating. I see a new manifestation of insanity every day it seems. Just yesterday there was a woman who spoke compulsively and inexplicably in a completely new language every time she opened her mouth. Fascinating! Now obviously, I’m not insane, I’m the Hag-Man after all. I just got lost and ended up here. Nope, I’m not mad even if we are all mad here.

I wanted to tell you about a particularly mad man I met just the other day. We spoke over the space of a few hours, about many different subjects. He has odd views on the weather, I’ll tell you that for nothing. We spoke at length over a few mugs of ale and were rather jolly. This man called himself the “Cultmaster”. He told me of his past, over many ales. Oddly enough, he never became intoxicated. I daresay he was some kind of sorcerer. That lot tends to be able to avoid drunkenness. He was a small, stout man. With short, parted blond hair and a clean shaven face. Quite unremarkable really, apart from having quite brilliantly blue eyes. They almost glowed eerily.

He claimed that he was from a small town in the USA. He told me of a relatively uninteresting childhood and young life, I mostly switched off for that part. The most intriguing things he told me about were his love of theater and of a particular disdain for romance. He adored tragedies. I believe he said he loved to see partnerships shattered and marriages collapsed. His words, not mine. He didn’t actually tell me where that thought came from. Where this unrestrained hate came from. I’m assuming he had a particularly terrible love life. Most likely insane as well. He was bitter when talking about people he knew getting married and gritted his teeth often. He said he was beyond that. Far too good for that. Ahh, yes, quite the narcissist he was.

He told me more about his love of the theater, how he watched everything ever written  by Shakespeare and commonly listening to opera. A man of culture, you could say. He told me how he wished to be a playwright of some kind. He had been practicing with puppets, which he called “Lost Souls”. He wasn’t a huge fan of people so he had learned how to fashion small doll actors out of cotton and arcane power. He then produced from his coat a pair of little dolls. They were about a foot tall. Entirely black, with cartoonishly large heads. They had a red cross on their torsos and green crosses for eyes. They were inanimate and silent. The Cultmaster then clicked his fingers and the dolls sprang to life. At first they just stood there staring at one another. Then one started to softly smile, and waved at the other. The other doll then smiled back and waved in response. It was as if these dolls were friends. The dolls waddled closer and then embraced. The Cultmaster looked on, unflinchingly.

The dolls became closer, embracing more and more. The first doll even managed a simple kiss on the cheek of the second. These dolls seemed to be in love. It seemed so real and poignant, despite the toy-like features of the actors involved. These so-called Lost Souls didn’t seem all that lost to me. Then it all seemed to go wrong. The Cultmaster clicked his fingers again. The second doll stepped away from the first, looking away, and held out a hand to push the first doll away. It appeared to be sobbing all of a sudden. The first doll began to cry uncontrollably. Were they breaking up? Why? Why did I care so much? Was this the Cultmasters influence?

The Cultmaster pulled out a third doll and clicked his fingers once more, bringing it to life. The third doll walked quickly over the second doll and took its hand. It was stealing it away from the first! The second doll embraced the third and then kissed it soundly on the mouth. The second and third dolls then waddled to the other end of the table hand in hand, leaving the first alone and apparently heartbroken. The Cultmaster grinned quite menacingly. He threw what could only be described as a miniature rope to the first doll and clicked his damned fingers again. What happened next is almost burned into my eyes. The first doll, still sobbing, picked up the miniature rope and tied it around its own neck. It then slowly looked longingly at the other two dolls and walked to the edge of the table. I couldn’t watch. The doll attached the end of the rope to the edge and, sobbing softly, leaped from the table. There was a short silence and then nothing.

A doll committing suicide sounds insane, in and of itself. But somehow this really hit me in the gut. I don’t usually show emotions, but I somehow couldn’t help tearing up, watching the lifeless form of the doll hanging from the table. The Cultmaster laughed hysterically at this point and clicked his fingers a final time. All three dolls went limp and lifeless. The feelings of sorrow and misery suddenly and bizarrely vanished. It felt like it had all been drained out of me in an instant. He laughed for what seemed like an age and then collected his little actors. He didn’t seem at all fazed by the horror that we both just witnessed. This was some kind of magical puppet show.

The Cultmaster called the little Lost Souls the Pint-Sized Cult. He was their master and he told me how he made them fulfill those same acts we just witnessed constantly. Sometimes he would vary the act somewhat, but the result was the same. It was a miniature shattered romance, but with full sized emotions. He told me that he watched these same acts over and over again, savoring the heartbreak and melancholy. Not only is he a narcissist, but he’s also a monster in my eyes. The Cultmaster traveled around and outside the Asylum, “performing” this play to crowds and taking in all of the sorrow. He seemed to feed on the heartache somehow. Perhaps it was the sorrow that gave him his powers? Did he simply live to create grief? With a slight grin and a wave, the Cultmaster promptly left after his show, leaving me feeling somewhat empty and violated.

I didn’t really know what to make of this madness. The Cultmaster had an amazing power, to be sure. Begrudgingly, I can’t deny that. The way he manipulated the Pint-Sized Cult was marvelous, but the sickening stories he imposed on the Lost Souls was not something to applaud. I couldn’t help feeling that there was some kind of intelligence behind the dolls eyes. Almost as if someone was trapped within them. Perhaps that is where the name Lost Soul comes from? That thought left me shaken. The horror of witnessing the play could not be anything compared to the horror of acting it in over and over again. Terrible.

So there you go, I’ve told you a story of the one of the most bizarre individuals I’ve met thus far. If you ever were to meet him, be sure to leave swiftly. Do not watch the play, it could be the end of your heart…”

The Asylum Mythos: The Brain-Beast

“Not only humans reside here in the asylum. Oh no indeed! There are myriad entities in these halls. From demons to vampires, from faefolk to sorcerers, from beasts to things ever more unknowable. The asylum is a menagerie of sorts. Anybody or anything can potentially find its way here. The more bizarre and demented they are, the easier they can find it. I get along with the majority of things here, even the most unusual inmates. In fact, the cellmate opposite me, a good friend, is a cyclops. The cell at the end of the hall is said to hold a man who can turn anything he licks into diamond. You’re never far from something strange or unexplainable. That’s just the nature of the asylum. There is never a dull moment!

It’s true that the asylum is endless. It’s our own dimension. There are as many cell-blocks as there are stars in the sky and nobody is tied to one cell. Oh, apart from that one man who is literally attached to his cell walls, but I digress. There is one cell-block few dare to enter however. This cell-block is said to contain one of the strangest beings I know of. Yes indeed, even the Hag-Man is lost for words. They call it the Brain-Beast.

In all honesty, nobody really knows what it is. Even I. Is it a demon? Some lost monster? An old god? What ever it is, it’s certainly powerful. It wouldn’t have been able to carve out something a territory otherwise. They say it resembles an over-sized human brain with a bizarre and unnerving mask, emblazoned in orange and dark green. The expression is ever-staring and freakishly gormless. There are said to be four eye holes, so I suppose the creature has four eyes. From the brain hangs something of a vestigial spinal cord, like an inanimate tail. From the flanks of the brain are four iron joints, from which four fleshy arms sprout. The arms are said to be of differing lengths. At the ends of these fleshy arms are skeletal hands in white silken globes. Very unusual.

They say the Brain-Beast was once man. An insane man, by all accounts. Mad, yes, but a genius if there ever was one. Genius and insanity often go hand in hand don’t they? Typical really. He was a man that not only displayed signs of multiple-personality disorder, but also ironically wished to be able to be in several places at once. I daresay this was due to a demanding occupation and an ever more demanding married life. The man wished to be able to work 24 hours a day every day, while still having a home life. He also wanted sorely to have an active social life. Simply too much, even for a genius. You could say he was innately a busybody. A true workaholic, as well as an aspiring barfly.

The man was a scientist, a professor or perhaps a doctor. It’s not entirely clear. As all men of science are known to do, he began to concoct a plan. A plan to cure his ailing life. He was going to be in several places at once, ethics be damned. What happened at this point is something of a mystery. How did a scientific and prodigious busybody with a mental disorder become the abominable being we hear of today? Some say he made some kind of deal with a powerful demon. Others say he conducted an experiment so foul that nobody wishes to speak of it. Some inmates speak of unknown sorcery. Some say he summoned the Brain-Beast and was consumed by it. Nobody knows for sure. Myself? I believe that one of his more ugly personalities took over and caused the experiment to go awry. The man was turned into the Brain-Beast by accident. Naturally I would take my own theory over any other.

What ever the case was, the mans wish was fulfilled, in a sense. As the Brain-Beast wanders, reportedly by floating in mid-air through telepathic means, it carries in each hand a lifeless puppet. The creature somehow fashions each of these puppets into a human figure. Each one different, each one random. Perhaps one is his original form? Others could be people he knew or people he has seen before. Perhaps they are simply from the creatures imagination. The figures change seemingly at a whim. One could be a young blond man, another could be elderly woman, while yet another could be a one-legged man. It simply doesn’t appear to offer any challenged to the creature. It gets stranger though. The creature hangs each of these puppets from strings attached to its fingers, like an old puppeteer. The Brain-Beasts true body vanishes into thin air, leaving only the puppets. The puppets are horrifically lifelike, they look like real people. Expressionless faces stare outwards. Then the strangest thing happens.

The puppets come to life, each of them imitating human beings. Each puppet acts independently. The Brain-Beast seemingly controlling each one individually, with absolutely perfect aptitude.  Oddly these puppet people are able to move unhindered, as if there were no strings holding them up. Distance doesn’t seem to matter. One puppet could be doing something at one end of a building while another could be in a different room, on a different floor. It must be some form of magic. The Brain-Beast can now be in several locations at once, acting and seeing through these puppets. It could be building something with one puppet, while getting materials at the other end of the asylum with another puppet. These puppets can be dangerous, perhaps due to the creatures power, by possessing immense physical strength and appearing to feel no pain or fear. The Brain-Beast can fight with these puppets, since an aggressor can never know exactly where the creature is at a given time due to its invisibility. It could be behind them in the same room or in another location altogether. The man got his wish, he essentially became several people, controlled by a tremendously powerful mind. I daresay the creature is as insane as the man whom it used to be. Acting at random and without an end goal. It is simply content with fulfilling it’s wish of being in several places at once.

I found it hard to believe when I first heard the legend of the Brain-Beast. It seems anything can exist and even thrive in this asylum. It does highlight just how bizarre this place is. I do not yet understand why the Harlequin fashioned this asylum. Why would any being create such a place? Is it a reflection of himself? Is it a hiding place? Or perhaps a prison? It simply makes no sense. I intend to find out someday though. Not even the Harlequin can outsmart the Hag-Man, I swear it…”

The Asylum Mythos: The Hag-Man

“Hello there! You look a little bit lost. I got lost once. How did you find your way here, into the Asylum? They, the voices in the walls, call this place the Asylum. It’s some kind of dimensional plane outside of our own world. You can be strange and kept safe here. It’s a place of oddness, but at the same time, individuality. You can be utterly yourself here. I can be myself here. That gent over there can be himself here. Any man, woman, child, monster, devil or creature can be themselves here. I live here now you know. They call me the Hag-Man. Who knows why. They found me in the desert. I’m something of a scholar you see. I search up and down for all sorts of knowledge. Knowledge of the other side, of magic, of madness, of mystery. I like to know things you see. I’m definitely the smartest man here. They found me in the desert. I’m not mad.

I hail from Germany originally, Frankfurt I believe. However, I spent most of my life in Nevada. You see, I was a scientist once. I was something of an Egyptologist and a geologist. I know I look rather fair, but I spent a number of years in the Valley of the Dead and the Saharan Dunes before I got lost. Did I tell you I got lost once? I got lost and now I’m here.

I was testing a theory you see. I detected something of a spiritual channel sprouting out of the Egyptian tombs, out into the Sahara. I believe I called it a “Leyline” at the time. Much to the disbelief and arguments of my oafish colleagues, I followed the Leyline into the desert. Mad perhaps? Perhaps not. We’re all made here but I’m not. Not. Not. Not. Not. Not. Not. What happened? Don’t you listen? I got lost and now I’m here.

Inmates and seekers of knowledge both would do well to seek me out. Keep me interested and I’ll tell you where to find something or how to kill something or what something does. I’m definitely the most knowledgeable person in here. This Asylum has an odd effect on people within it. This place changed me, my mind has never felt so liberated. I’m quite literally a know-it-all now. Magic is straight forward now. The unknown is known to me. Monsters are childs play. Science is a breeze. Easy. Easy. Easy.

I’ll tell you what isn’t straight forward though. The purpose of this place and what it is. We’re not sealed in here, many have left the Asylum and returned to the mundane world. A separate dimension yes, but why and where? Why does this place exist? Why do the curious members of society end up here? Why do we change while within its archaic halls? I know everything obviously, but I don’t know the answers to these questions. I theorize it has something to do with the mysterious creator of this place: Big papa Harlequin. The Oldschool Harlequin they call him. I haven’t really seen this being before, but I sort of feel him nearby at all times. I don’t really know how to explain that. He’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time in this place. He never speaks to us. Silent. Silent. Silent.

Personally I like it within these halls. It’s a calm, chilled place. It’s oddly familiar, mostly resembling a typical insane asylum from the real world, yet with the most alien array of residents imaginable. I get along with the majority of other denizens, despite their eccentricities. Oh, and their inferiority of course. It feels safe here and I’ve never felt so free. I was lost and now I found myself here. I’ll tell you more about it eventually I reckon, you seem curious enough to me. I think I’m going to stay here, forever…”

The Hag-Man

The world is an asylum

The world is an asylum you know.
Think about it.
The world is crazy.
You don’t know what anyone is going to do one minute from the next.
Everyone is unpredictable.
Everyone is dangerous.
Everyone is manic in some form.
We are all brothers and sisters in madness.
We are all inmates.

If God is real, he’s definitely head of a wing.
His followers blindly and obediently follow.
Preaching the words of long dead prophets.
Voices in the heads of the god fearing.
Faithful schizophrenia.

The banker too is an official of this asylum.
With his abhorrent condition called wealth.
He enslaves his flock with earthly desires.
Kleptomania for the masses.

Politicians would be wardens of course.
Fooling the inmates into obedience.
Flip-flopping opinions.
Flip-flopping personalities.
Multiple personality disorder governance.

We all must be mad.
Absolutely crazed.
We made the world the way it is.
Mad world.
Mad populace.
The world is our asylum.
We are all inmates.