Lost’s “Solitary:” Karma Hole

December 24, 2019March 21, 2020 ~ Piece, of the Sky

Said would be very good in the Gulf Wars version of Apocalypse Now, (not Jarhead, although that’s also a good movie). The Men Who Stare at Goats also comes to mind. Intel and comms.

In Survivor: Borneo, and other seasons, the tribe-mates eat rat. They’re not eating rabbits on the Lost Island. Speaking of rodents, here comes the Island plague. The Losties begin lathering up, to prevent disease. Got to stop the boar rash. Avoid a genetic bottleneck.

Rousseau is a genius. She built her whole bunker and several bunkers – like my underground Minecraft lair, in 2011-2013. She is good at signal, SERE and EOD. She knows her weapons: can’t shoot an M9 without a firing pin.

Rousseau says there are no monsters. Hell is other people. Some people, on the island, are way scarier than random beasts, like polar bears or obscure smoke monsters. Sartre. Cut to Soldier Said executing a prisoner. Nadia’s real name is Nur, Arabic for Light.

There are polar bears on the island, but humans are the most dangerous animal. In a museum I went to, as a kid, they would show you a mirror, after asking you what the most dangerous animal was. They were holding up a mirror to the darkness of the human condition. The true heart of darkness.

As noted earlier, the B plot is a bamboo aqueduct. The Losties get a plumbing system, like in ancient Rome. Showers and bathrooms. Unfortunately, for Rome, many of those pipes, back then, were made of lead. Plumbum. Pb. That certainly made for some wild Saturnalia feasts, near the Winter Solstice.

The Staff Station reminds me of the caduceus, carried by the god Mercury, namesake of another dangerous element. This mystical staff is also often connected, mistakenly, to medicine. Moses lifted up a serpent, on a staff, to heal the Israelites of a disease, in the Old Testament.

Rousseau faced the disease that killed her expedition – an epidemic from the slave ship, the Black Rock, like smallpox blankets, given to the New World. The Black Plague followed one of the Crusades, and was featured in the film, The Seventh Seal. The flu outbreak, that followed World War I, took the lives of millions.

The Others. Polar Bears. Two shipwrecks. Dharma Stations. There are so many threats on the Island. It is a quantum space-time sinkhole, the bottom of the world. One step above the Netherworld, the Other Side. One Step away from the global spirit world. Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun believed that there was life after death. He created the Saturn V rocket that took us to the moon.

The Dark Territory. Smoke monsters. Remnants. The island is a very dangerous pocket dimension. Survivor: Ghost Island is the Lost Island. Rousseau’s expedition was there to study space-time. The Numbers (from the equation) involve all of the planet’s history and time. And of course, the Hatch is a time capsule.

The whole island, itself, is a conduit and a time capsule, from ancient times. It folded away, from the rest of the world, almost 6000 years ago, only to be reconnected by wormholes. The Lost Island is a place that is a medium. The spirit of that place is very strong, like Genius Loci, in ancient Roman spirituality. Some of the statues, of those spirits, that have survived, held up snakes, to offer pilgrims protection and healing. Snakes and rats. Mercury and lead.

Thrown-Away Ship

June 29, 2018July 31, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

Dan stood by the window of Hod’s study, watching the storm outside. The fire cracked and popped in the hearth. Hod sat on a huge, scarlet armchair, patterned with subtle, yellow flowers, in his magenta smoking jacket, – with the black, velvet trim – the paragon of fine sensibility and sophistication.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for such a dandy,” Dan remarked, still looking out the window, holding his familiar snifter of whiskey.

Hod also had a snifter on the table, at his side. In his delicate fingers, he held a cigar, Honduran tobacco. As he took a drag, the butt burned crimson. “Do you know why you’re here?” he said.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Dan answered, finally turning around. He was in a black blazer, no tie, no socks, burnt sienna loafers. A Persian rug lay between them.

“Do you know why serial killers act the way they do?” Hod asked, taking a sip of whiskey.

Dan came closer, into the light of the flames. He could see a bleached skull and a golden Solar System ellipse on Hod’s desk, “Again, I haven’t the foggiest clue.”

He chewed slightly on the end of his cigar, even though he wasn’t supposed to do that, “The first step, is that serial killers – or unsubs, as we call them – won’t, or can’t, communicate with the entity that’s really bothering them.”

“Like their mothers or ‘the system,’ right?” Dan guessed.

Hod nodded, “Their own lives are chaotic, confused, frustrating. They won’t, or can’t, establish control, in what we consider to be ‘normal’ life.”

“For whatever reason, they don’t feel like they’re getting their due,” Dan added again.

A degree from Yale, lay behind glass, glittering in the darkness beyond, near the bookcase, “People break up; people get rejected. These are things that happen to everyone – but to the unsub, they are stressors. Why?”

Dan put out a hand and leaned on the mantelpiece, “The problem lies in the way the unsub thinks…”

“Yes,” Hod answered, looking at Dan directly for the first time, “Rob Ressler thought so, too.”

“You know,” Hod said, getting up and topping off his whiskey, “unsubs crave power and control; they just wall it off into one area of their lives. This process of reasserting power and control, though, eliminates the one witness to their great exhibit of dominance – the victim.”

“The nature of their crime thus becomes serial!” Dan realized, slapping his hand on the mantel.

“Correct,” Hod said, as he turned back around. Where his head had been, when he was seated in the chair, was a photo on Hod’s desk, of himself, Sebastian and a sandy-haired teenager.

“Your son?” Dan indicated the direction, with a slight movement of his head.

“Yes!” Hod raised his heavy eyebrows and looked behind him, picking up the frame, “Jon’s visiting his aunt this weekend.” He smiled for the first time that evening.

Dan looked wistful, “It’s a hard job, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Hod replied, solemn, setting the picture back down.

“Why did Cai bring me into this?” Dan wondered aloud.

Hod laughed, “That lothario with the curls, wearing coats redolent of Lord Dracula’s cape? The anti-avatars we’ll be hunting, are like the unsubs I mentioned, if not worse…”

The blood in Dan’s veins dried up. “Really?” he rasped.

“Of course,” Hod spread his arms wide, glass in one hand, cigar in another, “You didn’t think the spirit world was some sort of heaven, did you?”

Rain beat a staccato on the windowpane. Dan set his snifter down on the mantel and looked at his shoes on the 18th century rug. “He really pulled the rug out from under me, eh?” Dan said, glancing up, with a painful, rueful grin.

“The earth is shaky beneath everyone’s feet,” Hod intoned, as he reclined in the armchair once more.