The Flying Dutchman

Of the many mysteries of the deep sea, the mystery of the ship that appears and disappears around the Cape of Good Hope (on the tip of South Africa) is one of the most enduring.

The Dutch frigate "De Fliegende Hollander" set sail for the East Indies in the mid-17th century under the command of Captain Hendrik Van Der Decker. Reaching the cape, which is not known for being very easy to navigate, especially at a time when it had become a grave for many sailors, Hendrik decided to sail around it at all costs, and as quickly as possible in spite of the stormy weather and currents that were against the "Flying Dutchman". Having failed on his first attempt, the persistent man that he was tried again...and again...and again...all in vain.

Persistence did not always pay off and the sailors were exhausted and angry, and that combination at that time often resulted in a mutiny and the captain being hanged from the windlass swinging the rope on the mast. The captain, aware of this, decided to reach out for help in a slightly... unorthodox way - calling on the Devil to personally assist him, after God had not done much to answer his prayers.

The Devil, being the devil, helped but demanded a signature, naturally - in blood.

Some sailors, disappointed by the captain's pro-satanic agreement, in keeping with their time - cursed the captain to never arrive in any port until the end of the world and the end of time. It did not occur to them that by doing so they themselves would not set foot on land until Judgment Day, and they were probably not the brightest...

Anyway, after passing the cape, the ship, the captain and the crew - disappeared. Their fate has remained unknown, though through the centuries and to this day - the sight of the Flying Dutchman is a common occurrence, for the more superstitious sailors a sign of impending trouble or facing sinking and death. Many famous people have seen the phantom ship wandering trapped in the region around the cape (and sometimes a little further), including the British King George V who, during a voyage on a cruiser of the British Navy, clearly saw the Dutchman together with the crew sailing in front of their ship at a short distance, a creepy appearance with torn sails and red lights on the deck.

Many writers and poets were obsessed with this mystery, the most famous being the composer Richard Wagner who immortalized the ship with his opera - "The Flying Dutchman". There is also a story about the most unfortunate sailor ever who, sailing for centuries on the Dutchman - after many vicissitudes, somehow managed to escape from the cursed ship, jump into the water and hope for salvation. And salvation came after a few hours when another sailing ship noticed the sailor and rescued him from the water. Finding himself safely on deck and thanking the sailors who noticed and saved him, the sailor asked for the name of the ship that had found him.

The answer was - Marie Celeste...

(Roger Mortis, 043)

Cult goes Atomic

What do a runaway cult and an atomic bomb have in common? Perhaps more than one might think at first glance.

One of the most creative cults in recent decades, the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo, famous for numerous murders and suicides and of course their "five minutes of fame", the Sarin nerve agent attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995 that claimed at least 12 lives and injured over 6,000.

Their theology consisted of a toxic mix consisting of Christian Revelation, dubious early Buddhist interpretations, the inevitable Shiva and a few passages from Nostradamus, all combined with the charisma of the leader and the expectation of the end of the world around the end of the Millennium.

However, the most shocking thing is the realization that they also experimented with a nuclear option.

The mysterious seismic event when seismometers registered a tremor as a result of an explosion in the Australian outback at the Banjawarn location on May 28, 1993, which would be the equivalent of a 2 kT detonation, together with the testimonies of Aborigines and farmers about a large explosion - suggests the possibility that the sect's scientific team created some kind of device that would place them in the nuclear club as the only non-governmental organization with nuclear potential in the world. Or that they brought a ready-made bomb from somewhere. Witnesses confirmed that the sect acquired protective suits, machinery, laboratory equipment, mechanical diggers, chemicals and mysterious boxes with unknown contents declared as `hydrochloric acid`...

t has been confirmed that the sect, which had a huge fan base in Russia at the time, was trying to acquire tactical nuclear weapons from the arsenal of the zombified Russian state. Whether they actually acquired and test-detonated such a weapon is difficult to say, but there are serious indications that point to such a conclusion.

The authorities did not react to the event because the sect did not yet have the reputation that it would gain with the attack in Tokyo, and the sect sold the 200,000-hectare ranch before it was ``celebrated`` with nerve gas. It was later discovered that, among other escapist activities, the sect members mined uranium ore on the ranch...One would think that such a creative cult would quickly disappear from the scene after the Japanese authorities' showdown with it and the death sentence of its leader Shoko Asahara - and they would be exposed.

The sect members are still as hardworking as ants and have rebranded themselves under the new name "Aleph", so they probably continue to dream of a new end of the world triggered by their atomic bomb, which would be the third to be detonated on Japanese soil.

(By Roger Mortis, 042)

First Love of a Freak

Trajko was a simple, let's say village kid.

He studied at a high school with city kids and didn't do well in all that urban hustle and bustle of boiling hormones, rapidly growing breasts and unannounced erections. In the village, everything was simpler and more appropriate for a village kid, tall and strong as only a cattle herder can be.

He had a sympathy for a girl. She wasn't overly beautiful, even less bright. But there was a certain cuteness, an attraction in her, which acted like a magnet for the village kid. Trajko didn't know how to approach her, no one had taught him how to behave with women, what he saw in the village seemed too rude to apply to her. And the cattle he was guarding weren't exactly a model of seductive abilities.

One fine day, Trajko decided to approach her anyway. He forgot what he was planning to say and just asked her if she would like to come to the schoolyard an hour and a half after classes ended. He had a vague plan to sit on the bench, and that was it.

After that, he couldn't think of what he would do. The girl agreed, further confusing Trajko who expected to be rejected. And so that class came, the opportunity for their first intimacy was very close. That fact only made Trajko even more nervous. They sat on the bench. They were silent, she expecting him to start a conversation first, he not knowing what to say. After a while, even Trajko's slow brain felt uncomfortable because of the silence, and that, combined with the strong erection, provoked him into action. He grabbed her breast.

A little harder than usual.

Although she expected something to happen, her mind was still more focused on trying to kiss her. She pushed his hand away and turned her head nervously. Trajko was in a daze, it seemed to him that it would be better to return to the village or collapse into the ground. But when will he have such an opportunity again, he thought to himself. Of course, the term `thought` is an overly optimistic assessment of his mental processes at that moment, but one should not judge too harshly.

Without much ceremony, he grabbed her vagina. She made a strange sound, previously unheard by Trajko, who could not decode what it all meant. Is it nice? Or does it cause her pain?

The girl again became defensive and roughly pushed his hand away. Trajko was already in a trance, namely, he grabbed her pussy!...literally, if not figuratively. And still not knowing what to do next, how to act, Trajko reflexively punched her hard in the face!

Not because he was a bully, but because he didn't know how to act differently. Trajko's hopes for sex and her hopes for getting a boyfriend ended in a pool of blood and a broken nasal bone. Tears were flowing uncontrollably, which is completely expected when you have a nose injury. The horrible mix of blood and mucus was flowing down her face like a faucet. Even Trajko knew this time that he had screwed up. He got angry with himself, and as we know, that anger is the most terrible of all. And he punched her a few more times, broke her from the swing and ran off somewhere in the distance...

Trajko never married and had no children. He was last seen on an Interpol wanted list.

The girl is now a government minister without portfolio.

(By Roger Mortis, 041)

The Greatest Wanderer

He was a nice guy named Roald Amundsen.

And so he wandered around the world, what we would call him today, he was an adrenaline junkie. He didn't really like talking to people, he was more understood by albatrosses and penguins. And just as his mother had given birth to him, unscathed, he set out across the seven seas to find work, and not like all male housewives, to get to work, to have nine children, to pay his bills on time, to plant something in the garden - as is proper, because tomorrow's house is not built, no man is made by wandering, he should have come to his senses, to work, to organize a family celebration and invite relatives and friends to prove his house holdership, and even to wait for a wedding from his sons, as the head of the family.

Otherwise a seriously elusive phenomenon, Roald managed to be the first to sail the Northwest Passage in 1906, a route that for 400 years sent all those who dared to try to conquer it - to their death.

After that, he headed south, where he was the first to set foot on the South Pole in 1911, and later returned north again, where he became the first to reach the North Pole in 1925, although this was later confirmed. What has never been determined is - where did the last great hero of planetary exploration disappear to?

In order to help and save a fellow wanderer and explorer from Italy who was trying to fly over the North Pole with a Zeppelin and experienced a disaster on the way - he organized a rescue expedition with another Norwegian and three Frenchmen. The group was supposed to search for survivors through the vast Arctic expanse with the help of a Latham L-47 seaplane, equipped to withstand flying through the harsh conditions of the far north.

Amundsen and company took off in June 1928...and no one ever heard or saw anything from them again. To this day, the cause and manner of Roald's death are unknown. Rescue and research expeditions later tried to find some trace, but in vain. Amundsen went into the dimension of the missing pioneers who were breaking the path for the rest of humanity.

The Italian Nobile, who was the target of the rescue expedition that led to Amundsen's disappearance, was found alive (although not very healthy) by another rescue team. Half of the members of the Italian expedition died. Amundsen was never found physically, just as he was never found psychologically - no one can say where the need for a lifetime of wandering in areas where no human foot has ever set foot comes from. And perhaps it is for the best that it is so.

In honor of Roald Amundsen, the patron saint of dreamers and wanderers.

(By Roger Mortis, 040)

The Roanoke Colony

One of the first English attempts to organize a colony in the New World (North America) and to make countless generations of native people happy, started well...only to end horribly.

In 1585, about 150 colonists settled on Roanoke Island on the Atlantic coast of present-day North Carolina. The colony was supplied by ships, but at that time there was no way to maintain regular traffic between England and the island-object of colonization.

On several occasions from 1585 to 1587 ships came and went from the island where, despite certain problems, the situation was fine, even the first English colonist born on American soil (the first `American`) was from the ranks of that colony. I don't believe they christened Hank and that he was born with a Bud Light sixpack in his hands, but whatever it was, he was the first.

Due to the Anglo-Spanish War (the one with the Great Armada and an even bigger storm) and reduced sea traffic - the colony was left without contact with the outside world for 3 years.

John White, the father of the first child born in the New World who returned to England in 1587 to procure material for the colony's needs - returned to the island, but not after a few months as he had planned but after three years due to circumstances. And he had something to see...or rather, he didn't have anything, because there was no trace of the inhabitants, all of them disappeared and to this day their fate is unknown.

Not only the people but also the houses, barns and other buildings disappeared. All the sailors found was an obscure inscription in an unknown language "Croatoan", a carved Maltese cross in wood, a few cannons and some small items...

One of the many unsolvable mysteries that our blue planet is so rich in, one of the many events that inspire millions of armchair Indiana Jones`s on an adventure through the brain synapses if not through the geographical location of the event.

And why not? Almost everything is known, all the songs have been sung and all the pictures painted. Only the incidents from the abyss of history remain unknown. And a few other small items, but that's another story.

(By Roger Mortis, 039)

Bentley

And so, a man wakes up in the morning and looks out the window...some dark shadow seems to hang over his soul, he is in agony, he screams at those closest to him, he furiously hits a spider crawling on the wall...he looks outside at his Punto - a contemporary of the Cranberries and depressive thoughts with a suicidal flavor suddenly come to his brain, that full coma.

Why? 

Because he doesn't have a Bentley, and a station wagon version at that, so that he can transport a bag of cement even a truck across the fast lane of the highway to...oh wait, if he had a Bentley he wouldn't have to transport a bag of cement anywhere...and a bag of money maybe!? Yes...great! A bag of money...and he'll count it at night before going to bed, stacks of 100 euros right before he fucks that girl who doesn't give a damn about him, the blonde one over there...

He'll just show her what a man he is, just to get rich, that's all he has... shushhh.

He doesn't know how or when the desperate need for the Bentley came to him, but the need is already here and here to stay, it has made a nest in the man's imagination and sits like a lazy cat in front of the stove.

And so, suffering and grumpy, he goes to work to argue with his boss who owes him three months of salary, three times two hundred - six hundred euros, and the bills don't ask... coming to the door of the company, he takes a breath and goes in. Seeing him, the boss smiles forcefully and says to him `Good morning boss, how are you boss, what are we going to do today, how is the wife? Is she okay, huh? Well, fine... and the little boy...?`

He doesn't even make a sound from the imagined argument and a resolute raised tone with which he would demand his money for the work done. He says to himself `"Is almost nothing at least something?" i mean so many people are unemployed, so why should I whine now?" And so, frowning, towards the end of the working day, the boss appears with the good news that it would be nice to stay for another two hours, since he got a call from Demonistan that the vehicle would arrive or something like that...in this way, the boss cruelly interrupted the vision of the Bentley that had come into action in our hero's mind, and it was a vision in High Definition, an incredible resolution, he could even recognize the pigeon droppings on the Bentley's windshield.

(By Roger Mortis, 038)

The Leather Man

In conversations, people often say that their lives revolve around a circle, sometimes a circle from which they can hardly see a way out.

But for one man, the circle of damnation became literal, a way to atone for some long-forgotten sin that remained in his soul, to forever remind him of the ruin of the possibility of a happy life. As a self-proclaimed realistic version of the being created by Dr. Victor Frankenstein - this man believed that he did not deserve to exist among people anymore, although unlike the ``child`` of the new Prometheus - his ugliness was moral and not physical. Or at least that's what he thought, adhering to some very strict moral principles...

In the North Eastern United States near the Saw Mill Woods area around 1858 Anno Domine, people began to notice a man dressed in rough leather clothes that he had ``tailored`` himself, appearing at regular intervals in certain places. At first, they didn't pay much attention to the strange giant, but after a while they realized that the interval at which he appeared in their place was the same, i.e. 36 days. What they later learned was that the Leather Man (as they called him) moved in a circle of 587 km around the Connecticut and Hudson rivers and always passed by their (and not only their) settlement.

Over time, the silent weirdo became likable to them, so they gave him food and tried to find out who he was and why he traveled to the same places without stopping, for years. In addition to mumbling and strange sounds, the man sometimes said something in French, but they couldn't understand him. And it was obvious that he didn't understand English. He never hurt anyone, on the contrary, he was kind to people despite his gloomy appearance.

Over the decades, the Leather Man became a part of local life, fathers told their children that in so many days the great Leather Man would pass through their settlement. And always the man really passed. He slept in caves and shelters that were strategically placed along his eternal route, he fed on what he found, caught or accepted from well-intentioned people.

No one knew his identity, although many stories and speculations were woven. Until 1889, when for the last time he passed the eternal path outlined in his head for the 360th time and was found dead of the cold due to the unusually harsh winter of that year when his worn-out leather clothing failed to save him. A Bible in French and some letters and objects were found in the cave, but his identity remained a secret.

Later, after he entered local folklore, journalists and researchers tried to uncover the secret.

The most famous speculation was that he was supposedly born in Lyon, France under the name Gilles Bourglet, where he worked as a carpenter. The ordeal began after he fell in love with a certain Margaret Laron and wanted to marry her. Since she was from a wealthy family, her father, in accordance with the values ​​of his time - refused to allow the marriage but still decided to give Gilles a chance by employing him in his tannery. If Gilles managed to make a career in a few years - he would also win Margaret's hand.

The beginning was promising, Gilles progressed well and gained confidence, but impatience was the ace up the sleeve of Misfortune, which had the task of capturing another soul. Gilles wanted to make one final move that would shorten the waiting time for the wedding and that was to invest in buying a large quantity of leather, expecting prices to increase drastically in the coming period. Instead, a new tanning technique appeared on the scene that the factory where he worked did not possess and the value of the purchase instead of increasing, fell by half.

All the savings, the trust, the big money from the owner and the opportunity to marry his love - disappeared as if they had never existed. Unable to face the new reality and the collapse of all dreams - Gilles disappeared from Lyon after a while, and soon from France. The story does not say how he got to the United States, but that is not important. Another version makes him a French Canadian who fled for similar reasons across the border to the United States.

Gilles became the Leather Man, turning the eternal circle in his conscience and in the forests of New York State. Voluntarily lonely for the rest of his life, isolated from the small and large pleasures of life and without hope that a human heart would dare to love him - he went into eternity and into the memory of generations of local people who to this day retell the alleged life story of the completely real Leather Man.

(By Roger Mortis 037)