New Eyes of Old: Quince Años - Part I

Quince años.

Fifteen years I have kept those stories, those dark truths manacled and fettered, securely locked away within that forlorn closet of mine (well, it is more that of a Spanish Inquisition prison cell, complete with all those lovely torturous amenities whose maws salivate with the anticipation of rending flesh from bone). Ten of those years thinking I had lost my Muse, mis demonios, and would never place pen to paper again.

The past three, however, I have intentionally kept them locked away, refuting to share them – those horrors, those Cervantine and Shakespearian tragedies, those nightmares – with the world for fear of the sanguine feast they might make of you, Dear Reader.

And should I elect to free them, do I permit them to roam freely to wrought their mischief or do I build them a Menagerie as Moctezuma II did for his “oddities” of animals and humans, placing them on public display in all their horrific beauty for all to see?

Al diablo con mis miedos! My fears be damned! It is time I set those demons free, confess those sins which have painted my soul black as the halls of my Mexica ancestors' Mictlan. The time has come for me to dig that old rusty skeleton key out from the tin atop my nightstand, slide it with a clammy, trembling hand into that decrepit keyhole, turning it until -

KA-CLICK!

- it catches that single tumbler within and that door -

KA-REAAAAK...

- slowly swings open to the darkness that looms there between madness and sanity, setting those horrors free....

Quince años.

Fifteen years have plummeted through Padre Tiempo hourglass since last I placed pen to paper (but one of many methods to my esteemed madness; all of my manuscripts, initially, are hand-written in my diminutive long-hand) to share with you, Dear Reader, those voices that I hear.

The vespers of those fantasmas who lurk about the graveyard mists. The salesman cajole of that demonio at the crossroads awaiting the Deed of Soul in exchange for love, fame, fortune...revenge. Other unnamed things that fall into no specific category but tread among us all the same. Those voices, those fantasmas, those unnamable and unholy things that, for as long as I can recollect, have always begged - threatened even from time-to-time - with me to tell their dark tales. To share their stygian stories with the world.

Ahhhhh - there it is! That look I have been waiting for!

You know the one. That look spawned from either pure shock or genuine disgust. Perhaps some bastard offspring of the two? And the silent scream refuting to dislodge itself from the catacomb of your throat saying, far more poignantly than any voiced words, that, "You're not just loco - You're FUCKING loco!"

Perhaps.

I cannot readily contend with such an argument in clear conscience. I possess neither the formal Psychological Doctorate nor APA licensing to make such a diagnosis. Best we leave that burdensome task to those Psychiatric professionals whose care I should probably be under.

Or to that of mis Amigos más cercanos. Those poor select few who (somehow) manage to, still, after all these years, tolerate my insanity at times.

Regardless of what my official diagnosis may or may not be, it is well-known that artists (writers more so than most others), in a creative respect, are tormented, if not regularly accosted, by their demonios.

Mis demonios –

- Well, my demons are merely far more prominent, if not louder (and at times far more obnoxious) than most.

Suffice it to say then, that I have always heeded their cries. If not to prevent myself from being completely swallowed by that ever-gaping-wider Mouth of Madness, then to afford myself some viable means, at the least, of living in relative harmony with them.

However, such a task is far easier said than done.

Any self-respecting escritor worth half their merit knows that, in a fictional respect, one can only live in relative harmony with their demonios for so long. At some point, the truth of their existence will turn on the escritor, clawing, gnashing, tearing through the fabric of this world, demanding the slow letting of mortal blood - that warm, coppery tang oozing down the gullet - to satiate their salivating maws.

All fiction has some element of the truth woven into its narrative. It may be the right amount of truth that lends credence to the entire story. Or it could prove such an overwhelming amount of the truth that you, Dear Reader, find such far harder to swallow, let alone digest, than even the most unbelievable of fiction. It may be that of the author's truth, a truth born of history’s musty parchments, or that of another's elicited experiences. Regardless, the truth is there. Yet the truth, in its entirety, can only be passed off (or hidden within) the fiction for so long.

And the truth, be it benevolent or malevolent in its revelation, the truth -

- the truth always rises to the surface, SNARRRLing and SCREEECHing over all the other voices to be heard, regardless of what fiction the author might attempt and conceal it behind.

I have always felt compelled to write. For as long as I can recall.

Such is my gift from Los Dioses. Granted, some of those Gods may be cruel, demanding, and bloodthirsty Gods, but a gift all the same. It is both my benediction and my malediction. My one true passion. A talent that has always come naturally to me.

So, I have always written.

I have always felt compelled towards la Oscuridad - those unnamable things that skulk about the shadows' depths in search of souls to corrupt...or devour; those fantasmas looming within the hazy gossamer of the morning mists, whispering their dark secrets to the intentness of your ear; that inhuman condition of the human condition which you fear, yet welcome with open arms, all the same.

It is only natural then that I have always written about la Oscuridad, those creepy-crawly things that go –

BUMP!

- in the night.

It has always been a maxim of mine that all writers, regardless of what genre they might practice in, hold within their hands the literary and moral obligation to write what they know.

Consider this: You wouldn't take your $90K luxury sedan to some toothless wonder meth-monster shade tree mechanic in the local trailer park for routine maintenance, would you?

Please, Dear Reader, tell me that you have never committed such an atrocious sin? FUCKING loco, that I might very well be, but that - Well, that is just GODDAMNED insane! So, why then would you expect to reap literary marvel within the pages of a new sci-fi novel penned by an author who has practiced in the genre of Western Fiction his or her entire career?

All writers hold within their hands the literary and moral obligation to write what they know.

I know la Oscuridad - those childhood monstruos you fear, that you know still lurk just within the closet's dark depths, within the shadows beneath your bed, yet you deny all the same; that monster inside yourself deep below the layers of flesh, blood and bone that you hate, you fear, yet are powerless to resist; those things unholy, born of those molten pits of Infierno, that in all her American Christian fanaticism, mi madre would have (and has) given me a good "sulfur and brimstone" tongue-lashing for humoring the plausibility of their existence, let alone, believing in and writing about.

I assure you, Dear Reader, that the concept of such horrors is not that abstract of a concept: They do hold a form and they do tread among us.

There is a far darker side to the dark side of this world of the flesh. A realm lurking within the shadows of your pristine snow globe reality and "Apple Pie" life. Some - a select few - are privy to seeing it, hearing it, feeling it, to interacting with it. Most, however, are not.

I am but one of those select few - one who is both blessed and cursed - bequeathed such a privy.

I travel there, into the cold, familiar comforts of that Darkness, heed the cries of those voices from the ether, face those horrors born of those writhing shadows, and collect those dark tales bequeathed to the intentness of my ear so that you, Dear Reader, do not have too. And I bring them back with me to share so that you may enjoy them from the relative comfort and safety of your pristine little Bob Ross world of a happy little sun shining down on a copse of happy little trees atop a happy little hill.

If such confession validates my incrimination of being not just loco, but FUCKING loco, then so be it. Hey, Doc! Crank up the voices in my head, have your tailor fit me for your finest straight-jacket, and let’s do the Thorazine Shuffle!

However, there are those times when something more than just mere stories return with me.

Obsidian Skull Press is the result of one such instance.

The Menagerie to my Moctezuma II.

PART I

I

II

III

Human Eye by Darian Rodriguez Mederos Cuba

Springfield, MO

April 27, 2025