the ’70s – A Piece, of the Sky

Locke has the same car as Ted Bundy: The VW bug – speaking of a serial killers, on the Lost Island. Locke isn’t the son of God, but the son of Hades, and his inheritance is the Netherworld (quite literally with the Man in Black being stuck in his own pocket dimension: the Island).

Both his parents betray Locke. His mom was a typical, gold digging, ’70s hippie. His mom didn’t even want to acknowledge the pregnancy. Locke’s parents deserved each other. Poor Locke.

When I built my whole underground complex, in Minecraft, there was a huge main entrance and two small “hatches.” I built my fortress in 2013, before I first saw Lost, in 2014. Locke and Boone could have looked for another opening.

Boone’s death wasn’t Locke’s fault, per se, but running away and lying (like his con man dad would have done) didn’t do his guilty image any favors. Faith, the opiate of the masses, can fail. Makes sense that priests and heroin would be on the same plane.

Locke, runs away, after bringing Boone to the camp. His dad abandons him, after taking away his kidney. Like father, like son. Cooper tricks Locke. Locke tricks Boone. The sin repeats. Locke was supposedly immaculately conceived. The Virgin Mary statues on the plane were hollowed out, to smuggle heroin. Faith unrewarded – or at least defeated, temporarily, by reason. Clothes decaying would take only a few years, in a jungle.

Boone’s whole horror movie reveal, about the maid, in his childhood, was pretty much a huge bit of foreshadowing. It was a sideways prophecy, (like a flash sideways), that Boone wouldn’t survive the episode. Lost Island group telepathy. Hive mind. Boone survived one plane crash, just to die, in another. Boone was the true Icarus, for the surviving Locke, who is Daedalus.

Abandoned by Heaven and Hell – but not by the Island. At the last moment, a light comes on in the Hatch. Desmond has been down there, in the Hatch time capsule, for decades. He has learned to ignore whatever is up there, on the Surface. The light was both happenstance, and fate. Desmond turned on the light, and the Man in the Black sent Locke a sign.

A light comes on in the Hatch. It was big, when I saw it, half a decade ago. Like finding out we’re not the only intelligent life, in the universe – whether that life is in outer space, or in some warped, quantum dimension / timeline continuity.

Locke regaining his power to walk, on the island, is, in part, due to his faith. When his faith wavers, he suddenly can’t walk anymore, or feel his lower limbs and feet. Psychosomatic v. The Island giveth and the Island taketh away.

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.