Pseudopod 132: The Valknut

[Heradel]

Pseudopod 132: The Valknut

By Dan Dworkin
Read by Ben Phillips

When I wake I’m craving almonds and want to die. Pretzeled in the top sheet, fighting the light… hurts when I move, go easy… something died in my mouth, breath could bring down a plane, and the light… Jesus, that’s… fuck, that’s bright. Hot too… pores fuming booze… sheets wet, what the… oh God I must’ve… I mean, I haven’t been that fucked up since… clothes on still, one shoe, nice touch… stomach in revolt, just thinking about it makes… aw Christ, I’m gonna… run for it, wait… that was close. Too close. Why do I do this? Now if only I could remem– Wait a… I catch my reflection in the mirror, one shoe on, halfway to the bathroom… I approach, stick out my neck and the new mark there… what the f…? Is that…? Aww man, what did I do? What the hell did I do?!



Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

(Edit: Fixed a misplaced tag in the title)

[Mister Freign]

Best one in quite a while.  Perfect for Mr. Phillips' reading style.  Really feels as if it were set in Atlanta, but maybe I only feel that way because Atlanta's best feature is the bleak, irritated, and soulless hungover horror.

[Poppydragon]

Loved this, uncomfortable listening in places, but Ben's reading of it was spot on. I know the idea has been done before but I thought this captured a really dark feel that made it stand out.

[Zathras]

Fan-fucking-tastic!

[Poppydragon]

Fan-fucking-tastic!

  What he said 

[Mister Freign]

Fan fucking:

is there anything it can't do?

[DKT]

I was a bit worried about this one at the beginning -- it took a while for me to get into it. Once it got rolling, though, pretty much after the opening scene, I was pretty well hooked into it.

[MacArthurBug]

wheee! Truly horror-end-us. Well put together supurbly read. Huzzah for creepy tattoos!

[Listener]

Dissenting opinion time:

The beginning was hard to get into. The middle was pretty good. But Our Hero got pretty damn lucky to only spend one day finding the person who could answer his questions (when he went on his quest with Gil to find the tattoo artist). That's where the story lost me, and it never gained me back.

The reading was annoying in the very beginning, though it got better.

[Loz]

Although somewhat predictable I found it a fun little read and Sir Benjamin Phillips reading made up for a number of it's flaws. However, I rather assumed the story was going somewhere with the deeply misanthropic main character, or the epileptic seizures that people had around him, but those didn't seem to lead anywhere, other than the latter being a useful excuse for the dermatologist not helping him get rid of the tattoo. And speaking of which, why tattoo on the neck? Why not on the cheek or hell, round the ear itself? I know, I know, then we wouldn't have a story. Still, a fun diversion for half an hour.

[eytanz]

And speaking of which, why tattoo on the neck? Why not on the cheek or hell, round the ear itself?

I think the tattoo started out where the dead guy had it when he was still alive.

The problem I have with this story, which is a problem I have with similar "indiscriminating vengence from beyond the grave" stories like "The Grudge", is that I find it really difficult to accept that people who have no particular power in life will suddenly become a supernatural scurge in death. It's not that I cannot be scare by ghost stories - I certainly can - but stories that stack so much in favor of the ghost/deadly tattoo/whatnot make it really hard for me to suspend disbelief.

[JoeFitz]

Frankly, this story was greatly diminished by the memory of Infected. I was perplexed by the tattoo power of sending people in seizure. Plus I was taught never to place anything in the mouth of a person in seizure but the ink = poison was appropriate image.

Great reading, as usual.

And why almonds? The first guy liked them, but it seems I'm missing something.

[Ben Phillips]

I interpreted the almonds as a preference inherited because he was possessed by the man's spirit, and the seizures as attacks the spirit launched.  But granted, I'm doing a lot of interpreting.  (I guess you didn't know I'm also a medium.)

[Russell Nash]

It seems that the official stand of PP is that tattoos are evil.  It just seems like there are a whole lot of stories with some sort of avenging(or whatever) tattoo.

[DarkKnightJRK]

Unlike the others, I found the beginning interesting--it made me think of The Hangover, only that there's probably going to be some monster or somethin' instead of what happens during one's usual black-out binge drinking.

And I liked Alistar's little monologue about tattoos in the end--the ability to literally be able to change our appearence the way we do is probably one of the bigger things that seperates us from the other animals of the world.

[Listener]

It seems that the official stand of PP is that tattoos are evil.  It just seems like there are a whole lot of stories with some sort of avenging(or whatever) tattoo.

I regrettably must say that the evil female lead in my first (uber-crappy) novel had quite a lot of tattoos. The tattoos weren't evil, and heaven knows most of my tattoed friends were (and are) pretty cool people, but I used them to indicate her evil-ness.

[Unblinking]

This one wasn't too bad, though a little predictable, and I'm not a huge fan of a "waking up" beginning.
I knew there was a reason I don't have a tattoo. 

[Millenium_King]

This one was pretty solid.  The story progressed quickly and held my interest.  I was really interested to know what the tatoo was and how it came to be (was it some sort of implanted creature? a poisonous, alien bite? etc.).

The beginning, I thought, was a little overwrought and the stoner/drunk diction got on my nerves real fast.  Later, it tightened up and certainly fit the character (a kind of person, certainly, we all know and loathe).  The post-script was also a little heavy-handed.  Certainly it could have been done a bit more subtly (not that I know anything about how to pull that off...).

[Fenrix]

Frankly, this story was greatly diminished by the memory of Infected. I was perplexed by the tattoo power of sending people in seizure. Plus I was taught never to place anything in the mouth of a person in seizure but the ink = poison was appropriate image.

The choice of the pen breaking and the ink doing wrong things to the doctor as it was doing to the protagonist was nice.

Something swirls up in my memory about placing a spoon in the mouth of an epileptic to keep them from swallowing their tongue. This could very well be the wrong thing to do, but I still remember being told that.