IMPACT TEXT: get you a cauldron that can do both
[image 1 – a cauldron bubbling with unknown contents]
[image 2 – the same cauldron as image 1, shot from a different angle, bubbling with unknown contents]
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The Oil of Nabgaranth – Drawn from the depths beneath the Lost City of Xxn, this oil coats your skin in a silky layer of luxuriance. As a kicky extra, it’ll also give you the perfect beach body once the tentacles finish growing in and stop aching! Surf’s up!
Product 18 – Sorry, we signed a non-disclosure agreement, but our lawyers have informed us that we must say, in this public forum, that this oil is essential.
S-oil – We mean “soil.” For agriculture. Just wanted to end the list with a fun little joke. But seriously, if we lose our topsoil, we’ve lost everything. You can’t eat sand.
The job markets are flooded with artists these days, all with the same lament: “It used to be that if you drew someone /higher/ than someone else, you knew they were further away. But kids these days, they demand that all artwork be representational! That figures should foreshorten relative to their distance from the viewer!”
With that, an art style now joins other destroyed practices such as pyramids, hunting/gathering, and even blood sacrifice.
It’s Sunday and we all know what that means! Time to steer your family into a boat and out into the middle of Lake Unnamed, the lake that has yet to be named or put on any map.
“There’s no lake there,” say the map-makers, shivering and afraid of what they’ve seen of our beloved lake, where cold hands stretch above the surface on Sundays. The whole family can paddle about, shaking hands with the water-logged residents of the deep. Nice to see you, nice to see you.
Sure, sometimes the cold wet hands tug an elderly relative whose handshake has grown weak out of the boat and into the dark water, but little is lost. After all, we can see Gran or Gramps next Sunday, their familiar fingers now pushed above the water’s lip with all the others, waiting for our return.
PATREON SUPPORT LEVELS
$1/mo. – Only haunted on holidays by spirits that help improve behavior
$5/mo. – Haunted between 3 and 4 a.m. nightly by spirits in ancient garb, silent comforting presence only
$10/mo. – Basic poltergeist activity. Closed doors, broken dishes, bruises on limbs.
$50/mo. – A shrieking spirit will drag you out of this world. (Please ensure autopay is in place if you select this option)
$100/mo. – Custom message in calligraphy sent to your home that will reveal that you’ve been a ghost this whole time, haunting my Patreon… and now you’re free!
It’s time for every witch’s favorite game show, SOUP or POTION, the game show where we give an ingredient and you have to guess if it goes in SOUP or a POTION.
Let’s meet our contestants.
Welcome to [a collection of shadows in the shape of a woman]! It says here your hobbies include manifesting in dark corners and lowering a room’s temperature?
[in response, the studio’s temperature plummets]
Ha ha! That’s just great.
You’ll be competing against The Soft Lady who lives down by the brackish river. I see today, Lady, that you’re wearing a shirt that says I Don’t Kidnap Children. That’s fun!
SELECT YOUR PARTY MEMBERS:
Your parents – Average stats, but they seem to mean well. For now.
A plastic bag full of rain water and a feather – High stealth
Half a donut – High stamina
A crow that will leave as soon as the adventure starts – High wisdom
It’s dangerous to go alone! Choose two! Or take this blanket and stay home!
lost time incident 71
Hello how are you I’m fine.
Okay, that’s the formalities out of the way.
I know you haven’t heard from me for a while via this newsletter. I don’t know how you’ve gotten by during the interim. It can’t have been easy for you.
I was thinking I’d start this newsletter back up, on no fixed schedule, because I’m still writing little micro-fiction things and there’s no reason not to share ’em. Especially since I’m on a social media diet at present, so I have the time back I would have spent browsing otherwise.
It’s kind of working already. A few days ago I had a multi-hour productive streak and finished gathering together bits of fiction that I’ll be turning into a self-published e-book this year. Now all that’s left is to rearrange everything, rewrite, edit, come up with a title, etc. etc. etc. But the heavy lifting of cutting-and-pasting-stuff-all-into-one-place is done.
When I’m not working on that e-book project, maybe I’ll be here on this newsletter, making something smaller that can go out the door with much less effort, so I can get that immediate serotonin hit that comes from accomplishment. Thanks for reading this and helping my brain get high on drugs it makes for itself! BAM!
Anyway here’s some stuff to read:
trying to save some time on this script by setting up all the characters in advance so I can just cut and paste later
GOOD COP:
BAD COP:
OK COP:
FORENSICS COP:
YET ANOTHER COP:
COP ON ANOTHER COP’S BACK, PART OF A SECOND LEVEL OF COPS JUST BELOW THE CEILING:
COPS CRASHING THROUGH 1-WAY GLASS, PUSHED FROM BEHIND BY CROWD OF ADDITIONAL COPS BEHIND THEM, ALL TUMBLING FORWARD AT ONCE:
A ROARING SEA OF COPS OUTSIDE, STRETCHING TO THE HORIZON, ALL OF THEIR SUNGLASSES GLINTING, EACH WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT WHERE YOU WERE ON THE DATE OF:
THE CHIEF:
oh heck
A general storms into a computer-filled room at the Pentagon, klaxons blaring, red alert lights spinning everywhere.
GENERAL: What’s going on, soldier?
A soldier taps at his unresponsive keyboard and every key causes his computer to make a “darn!” sound. “darn! darn-darn-darn!”
SOLDIER: I’m afraid… we’ve been hecked, General. Someone hecked our system.
“darn!”
wallets out
Okay, wallets out, capitalist scum, ’cause we’re disrupting the dirt market.
How? Easy: There’s an app. Duh.
You want dirt: Use the dirt app. Dirt comes to you. Fills your home. So much dirt. You unlock loyalty rewards like a marble stone with your name on it, says you’re in the dirt right there.
We got the dirt network in place. My pal Dave knows coding. You give us the funding and we’ll have everyone six feet under and the profits won’t stop ever, not ever. Money forever, dirt forever.
ending theme song
That’ll do it for this installment! Thanks again for reading. If you’re an artist and you’d like to know how much money I’d spend purchasing art to go into a vanity e-book project because you might want to exchange art for that money, please do get in touch because the number given will almost certainly be “More than would be reasonable.” What can I say? I like my creative projects to lose money.
Just… a lot of money.
I am a fool.
What else. If you like horror movies, THE RITUAL on Netflix is quite good. If you don’t like horror movies, uh, don’t ask any questions about the small piles of dirt that have been appearing outside your front door in the morning or the sounds of soft breathing that can be heard if you press your ear against that door, all the way up until dawn breaks and everything goes quiet.
If you like all sorts of music, well, so do I, so you might want to subscribe to The Tuned In, a different mailing list I run where I send folks 45-minute music mixes of sounds from around the world, which critics have called “exactly 45 minutes long”.
I think that’s everything, now get out.
—Michael Van Vleet
Hey! Did you enjoy reading this? But did you find yourself thinking “Dang, if only this sort of thing were delivered directly into my inbox so I didn’t have to spend time on a website as if it were still the 90s or something!”?
You’re in luck! You can subscribe to the LOST TIME INCIDENT newsletter and finally class up your inbox.
GOOD COP:
BAD COP:
OK COP:
FORENSICS COP:
YET ANOTHER COP:
COP ON ANOTHER COP’S BACK, PART OF A SECOND LEVEL OF COPS JUST BELOW THE CEILING:
COPS CRASHING THROUGH 1-WAY GLASS, PUSHED FROM BEHIND BY CROWD OF ADDITIONAL COPS BEHIND THEM, ALL TUMBLING FORWARD AT ONCE:
A ROARING SEA OF COPS OUTSIDE, STRETCHING TO THE HORIZON, ALL OF THEIR SUNGLASSES GLINTING, EACH WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT WHERE YOU WERE ON THE DATE OF:
THE CHIEF:
Hey, it happens. Some days, the pointy hat, the sulfurous familiar, the moons & stars on your robe… they don’t dissuade a thug who’s asked for your wallet.
Take a deep breath. You have options. You could:
1) Explode into a thousand beetles (and make sure at least 10 of those beetles carry your wallet out of there)
2) Fly away on a whirlwind of dirt (or “filthnado”) leaving the criminal all gross
3) Swallow an Emerald of the Deep and, gazing through time, pluck out individual bad choices in your assailant’s life & make them a better person
4) Just give ’em yer wallet, dude. What’s money to a wizard?