Further in

Being dead is rubbish and it doesn't get any easier the second time, let me tell you. The whole cave without walls feeling is very unsettling. Like I said a few months ago, it's easy to underestimate the importance of a good ceiling. Anyway, the cave thing is only one of many tricks that the Stygian authorities lay on to welcome the newly deceased. Flapping along, jammed in this crow's horrible feet, I was able to make out all sorts of unpleasantness going on in the darkness below. There were the moaning shades of the suicides, wailing in the darkness. Then, even worse, the shades of the suicides who were only really going for the whole attempted suicide thing but accidentally overdid it. The people who found themselves, to their horror, not quite able to vomit up the sleeping pills, or whose relatives stopped on the way home to buy a chocolate bar and turned up a little late for their grisly cue. They were depressing.

Further on we hit a little procession of the red tailed devils that are provided for traditional sorts, looking like a gang of smelly trick-or-treaters. Then the mythical creatures, the Sirens and Harpies, Scylla squelching about aimlessly, trying to stop her doggy parts from eating everyone. Soon afterward, we arrived at the fields of the Succubi. For a chap who, as you know, has always been a bit of a soft touch when it comes to demonesses, those legions of pallid beauties are a particular torment - all soft and delicious and evil. I did try to shout up at the crow to see if we could squeeze in an extra stop, but hell-birds never were much for talking. On and on we went, flapping flapping, further into the dark.....

echt echt

Cragh! Splutter.... Hrrgh.

Back at last. Been far away. Far, cold, horrid. The life I'd found - this life and body that I borrowed or stole - was clawed away from me. One morning I woke, and yet was not awake. A rod of iron lay across my chest and pinned me, and my eyes were gummed. my arms tangled with the sheets, that bound themselves wetly around me like sea fronds. A hammering thrust itself brassily amongst the cavities of my skull and brains, and shook everything to chaos.

Then I was lifted and flying through dark air. My eyes cracked and I saw myself gripped in the mottled claws of a monstrous crow, that beat heavily through this space that was cold and vast and yet was not sky. A cave, damp and black, with no walls and no ceiling, and no mouth.

I opened mine to speak, but my tongue filled it like a dead fish and sagged against my throat. My limbs were stiff, now burning with ice that crept up my legs and into the nooks of my arms. For the second time in my life, I was dead.

Seductions

As I mentioned not too long ago, I woke up from my millennia of death in a body that was not only alien to me, but rather - shall we say - lived in. One not especially careful owner; mileage unknown, but large. Did I mention then how horrified I was by the sagging white flesh around the middle? By the hairs that sprouted in delicate pairs from the nostrils? By the spindly arms and failing eyes? In my day, we understood that the body is the image of the soul, and took these things with the seriousness they deserve! Even in my advancing years I managed to keep my chest broad and brown and my waist narrow, and my beard (a kingly affectation) was always oiled into the neatest little curls.

It won't surprise you then that my charms did not go un-noticed by the various girl-folk of my palaces and villas. And the young men too were powerless to resist me, though the barbarian morals of my ghastly subjects prevented me from straying in that direction over-much. Un-charitable indeed to think that my success was a consequence of my rank! Quite the contrary - I was a most accomplished seducer, winking and insinuating myself into more beds than anyone else in Tiberias. There was one young man who was my rival, but after I (quite humourously!) threated to cut his nose off, he left town. Cowardly swine!

Alas, those days are gone now. This morning I directed my sweetest and most saucy stare at a passing beauty, and received the most aweful grimmace in return. I was quite shattered! It seems that the science of sex has advanced in the years that I've been gone, so I've spent the evening catching up by reading poetry. Poets always had all the girls in the old days; a few anapaests and a sad look and the girls would eat from their hands. Now I've learnt the way things are done these days - and as soon as I can get this scruffy, horrible body into some sort of shape - I'll be unstoppable. Mark but this flea!

Misunderestimations

I'm sad that I arrived too late for George Bush. He had a certain verbal panache that you moderns are sadly missing. Why not make up words I say, and mash up grammar. Ambrose Bierce (whose works my predecessor in this body appears to have read) had the following definition in his dictionary:

GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.

Very nice I think. Not that old George seems to have done a great deal of self-making, but still - to be mean about a man's grammar betrays a paucity of spirit.

Or maybe it doesn't. I'm having an indecisive day today (probably because of my new job, which is exhausting). I used to have indecisive days back in Galilee too - generally while trying to manage my horrid little armies. I thoroughly applaud the coming of the new age, when all wars will be conducted by robot. Actually, even Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles are a significant step up from soldiers. Military men are always so self important. And they smell terrible, or did in my day at any rate. Always chewing onions and shitting and swaggering about. Yes, my wars would have ben much more fun if I'd been able to wage them via video uplink, sitting in some highly technogized command chair and pressing big red buttons, rather than strapped to that very hoity-toity and over-sexed white stallion that the stable-men dug out for me. How I hated the brute, swaying around in my absurd armour. I had my revenge on his prancing highness in the end though. Had the horse killed and ate him in a stew. Hah! Take that quadruped! Teach the stupid donkey to misunderestimate me!

I know I've been being coy about the job. The truth is I can hardly think about it. Maybe tomorrow.

Feet

What a lot of drinking I've done this last two days! This evening I've been drinking whiskey. An extraordinary idea, may I say, to make a drink that's essentially flavoured by mud, and yet it's curiously pleasant. Bravo.

I deserved it too. Spent today walking by the Thames - many miles of stinking river slime thrown up by floods onto the bank, and half naked men in bushes, and brave rowers sweating through the haze. Now my feet hurt, and they're occupying much more of my attention than they deserve. On the upside - I've been thinking about Ella's feet too, which are lovely. Knobbled like a pair of elaborate cakes.

Oh don't mind me. I'm off to bed anyhow. Good-night good-night!

Post Scriptum

I found this nice picture of a party on your marvellous internet. Reminded me of old times, though I was horrified to discover incidentally what happened to Pompeii! I have some happy memories of parties in the bay of Naples - we young men never were allowed to go to Baiae, but I made it there once, and I never saw anything like it before or since. Parties aren't bad these days - like I said, good wine - but to get up to proper Campanian standards there really needs to be a lot more nudity. That's my two sestercii worth at any rate. Good night good night!

Stumblings

A brief and hobbledy update this evening. I've been a-making party, and drinking wine. The wine has definitely got better over the last two millennia by the way. I've been dancing, very merrily, with some friends who have promised that they'll be saying hello here soon. A happy note on which to leave, and stumble toward my familiar, unfamiliar bed...

Before I disappear, a juicy nugget of information that I've picked up: the legendary Mahatma Ghandi used to sleep nakedly in bed with teenage girls in order to test his piety and holy resolve. What are we to think?! This I read in a rather nice book I've been absorbed in. Lots of history been going on while I've been away, so I thought I ought to start somewhere and ended up reading a history of the end of the British Raj in India. Fascinating stuff. May I say that as imperialists, you (we?!) Brits might even have taught the Romans a thing or two.

But this all by the by. Must shuffle onward. Buenas noches...