Ethan Hoffman

O! Discordia/The Curse of Greyface

Discordianism noun

/dis-kor'di-n-ism/

If you want in on the Discordian Society
then declare yourself what you wish
do what you like
and tell us about it
or
if you prefer
don't.

There are no rules anywhere.
The Goddess Prevails.

—Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, Page 00032

The pavement was slick with rain. Saint Steppie, Patron Saint of Picture Frames scuffled through the street, his head bowed, and his moth-eaten brown coat pulled tightly around his body against the wind. Wisps of grey hair adorned his head like a crown, fading with each passing year. He was now nearly sixty-four years old and, not surprisingly, had the aged, weary body of a sixty-four year old man who was, in fact, going bald. His breath escaped through his mouth in thin curls, circled his head, and disintegrated in the wintery air.

Saint Steppie couldn't quite shake the dream—or more appropriately, nightmare—that had plagued him the night before, and the night before, and the night before, and even the night before that. It was the same dream every night, only tweaked slightly, ever so slightly; in fact, Steppie had not even noticed it until the fourth night, last night, when he had awoken in the middle of the night and had, luckily, stashed a pen and notepad on his nightstand, next to the glass of water, for this very purpose.

The moonlight is cool and gentle upon my face.

Snow falls thickly on the ground. The dirt and grass is turned white. All is lost. All is lost. All is lost.

I can no longer see my tracks in the snow behind me. I am lost. I am lost. I am lost.

There is a man.

He wears black. He is pale, pale as the moonlight playing upon my cheeks. His hair, white, falls to his shoulders like setting snow.

His eyes . . .

Those teeth . . .

That face . . .

All is lost.

This is what Saint Steppie had scrawled in the notebook. He could hardly remember writing it, but the images of the dream stuck so clearly, so vividly in his mind; every time he closed his eyes, Steppie saw the man grinning the kind of grin that you want to smash with a brick.

Once he had written out what played out in his head every night, Steppie began to see slight changes. On the first night, the night of his canonization, Steppie saw the Man of Many Faces, and of None. Looking at him was like gazing into the heart of the sun. It was like being sucked into a black hole—not that Steppie had ever had such a thing happen to him, obviously. All of the happiness in his body, upon sight of that face, disappeared as if it had never been there. Happiness? he had asked himself in his dream. What is this “happiness”?

On the second night, Steppie beheld a man akin to the Grim Reaper. His face, which at first was hidden, came into the stark light; the skin was leathery and grey; the eyes were sightless, unseeing, blind, staring off into the past, the present and the future; the mouth, if that is what one would call it, was stitched shut.

Nevertheless, all is lost, said Greyface.

The third night, however, bore no change that Steppie could decipher.

The fourth night, Steppie had met Greyface once again. Saying nothing, Greyface passed the threshold. Light twirled into darkness, and he awoke.

The startling discovery had kept Steppie up late into the night. He was even more tired now than ever; his back ached, in anticipation of the rain, which had already fallen and would come again. He would have stayed inside but for the simple fact that he was not personally a fan of starving to death for a day. He needed groceries, and although he did not like it, he was forced to leave the safety—or lack thereof—of his home.

Ever so slowly, Saint Steppie entered the bakery, where the smell of baking bread wafted out of the hot interior of the building in waves.

“Mornin’, Father,” said the clerk, a tall, gangly, buck-toothed teenager. His awkward body and silly appearance was only surpassed by the lisping way he talked. “Nice weather, neh?”

He giggled, his voice breaking and switching from high to low at the speed of light.

“Just two loaves of bread,” growled Steppie, shuffling over to the counter.

“News says it’ll blizzard tonight and that we’ll all be snowed-in by morning.”

Steppie fixed the boy with a piercing gaze. His blue eyes bored a hole through the clerk’s soul, watching ever tiny movement with deft vigilance, like a hawk; such a gaze was filled with such hatred, such contempt for human kind. As if to complete the hawk visage, a large, porous, beak of a nose jutted out of the middle of Steppie's face. The clerk blanched, ran to the back of the shop tripping over everything, and reappeared with two loaves of soft, fresh bread.

“Five-fifty—“

Steppie thrust his hand out. The clerk glanced at the claw, gulped, and began to pry open his customer’s gnarled hand. He succeeded and valiantly fled to the cash register, clutching his prize to his chest. Steppie retreated from the bakery, smirking. This was his favorite pleasure in life: torturing poor, innocent souls. Many inhabitants of the town called him a bastard under their breath (and often to his face), and Steppie was not one to disagree, except for the fact that Steppie’s second favorite pleasure in life was disagreeing with people—contradicting what they say, whether it's true or not.

And so, Saint Steppie, Patron Saint of Picture Frames proceeded to make his rounds through the town and get back to his house as quickly as humanly possible.

"Oy! Steppie!" shouted the local barkeep, waving fiercely—so fiercely, in fact, that Steppie was amused to see the obese, balding man nearly topple over backward. He was out to gather firewood from the shed, where it was kept dry from the rain. Steppie suspected that the man was inviting him in only to drum up business, because that was the only reason that he could think of why anyone would want him around. Certainly, no one enjoyed his company, and Steppie knew that, which was precisely why he took the innkeeper up on his offer. His plan was to look so utterly despondant that people would swell with pity and come near to offer their consolation. That would be Steppie's cue to puncture them like a balloon pricked with a pin.

The barkeep's name was Bruno, a name that Steppie associated with squat, balding men with large, brown moustaches, at least three chins, and protruding stomachs filled with beer.

Bruno was a squat, balding man with a large, brown moustache, and a protruding stomach filled with, presumably, beer—but to Bruno's credit, he only had two chins.

Steppie stashed his bread and two pieces of fruit into the inner pocket of his coat, hoping that it would give them more protection than it gave him. Clearly, he had gotten very little shopping done.

"Come in, I'll give you shelter from the storm," said Bruno, his chins wobbling frantically.

Bruno's observation was astute; there was a storm brewing.

Steppie, sighing loudly, crept into the inn, attempting to avoid as much ape-descendant contact as was possible. This proved to be a futile gesture, so he sighed loudly again and plopped himself down at the bar and made himself look as glum as possible—a look that he had practiced for years, and one that cannot be perfected without years of practice.

Steppie had perfected this look of irrevocable gloom.

"Hey! Congratulations!" shouted a particularly drunk man, clapping him on the back; "I heard you were Pope-ified, made a Pope of Discord! About time someone round these parts won something."

The drunkard tipped over and passed out on the floor, his beer spilling into his beard.

Steppie dipped his head forward onto the tips of his splayed fingers, which massaged his throbbing temples. Just as he was about to curse life for hating him so damn much, Bruno swaggered over from across the counter.

"Here," said the barkeep; " have a beer. It's on the house."

The innkeeper's cheeks were flushed a rosy red colour which Steppie found delightfully irritating. So, Steppie glared and accepted the beer ungraciously. He drank in small sips, still being haunted by the dream, and afraid that getting happily drunk would only hinder his newfound dedication to never go back to sleep—ever.

Outside, Steppie could hear the rain slashing against the ramshackled, dilapidated excuse for a bar in torrents. Thunder rolled across the hills from afar; lightning cracked through the air like the lion tamer's whip, before its owner is forced to stick his head in between the slavering jaws of a lion. In fact—not fifteen kilometers away from Midsomer Abbot, where Steppie unhappily called his home, a lion tamer was performing his show without a hitch so far (it seems appropriate to mention that said lion tamer will soon be missing a vital part of his anatomy in a few moments). Steppie, unfortunately, was getting happily drunk, and did not know of the poor lion tamer's death, though it would have put him in a better mood. He was on his third beer and the barkeep was making ready a fourth.

“So, anyway,” hiccupped a grisly old hag, “have you heard about that murderer mucking about! Greyface, they call ‘im.”

Steppie floundered, stared wildly around the room for the source of the comment, found the old hag, and proceeded to interrogate her.

“Greyface? Greyface!” he shouted over the din. “Did you say ‘Greyface’? What did you say?”

“Grey phase?” The wiry-haired old woman looked at him the same way one looks at a child who has said something utterly atrocious, yet strangely humorous.

“Never heard of such a thing,” she replied soberly. “And I certainly didn’t mention any grey phase,” she said not so soberly.

“Greyface,” said Steppie, patiently.

“What?” she crowed.

“It’s Greyface, not grey phase.”

She looked him up and down, disgustedly.

“Says you.”

She shrugged and turned round to an elderly gentleman in a monocle, who was smiling pleasantly and patiently.

“I think I should take you home, mother,” he said softly.

Steppie did not hear her response, as he walked over to the window to see if the rain had stopped.

It hadn’t.

He sighed loudly for a third time that night, thanked the barkeep for nothing, and trudged out into the now drizzling rain.

It was getting dark, so he decided to finish his grocery shopping the next morning.

“Hey, what?” said an intoxicated hippie standing outside of the bar, staring up into the hazy clouds that covered the sun. “Don’t take life so seriously, man. It’s just life, baby.”

Steppie pushed him into the mud, and continued home.

Passing by the green (which, at this time of year, was far from green), Steppie saw his house, silhouetted in the distance by the setting sun. T'was a quaint little cottage, with two rows of flower gardens on either side; all of the flowers were dead; it was winter; Steppie shivered.

Snowflakes began to drift down from the cottonball clouds. Steppie could feel the temperature dropping in his old, arthritic bones.

So, Steppie hoisted up his feet, which were numb from the bitter cold, and marched up to his door, digging the spare key out of a withered plant which, whether the plant itself was once alive, now resembled something from Steppie's left ear.

He battled the raging wind, won, slammed the door behind him, and set up the kettle on the stove.

The fire burned nonchalantly.

"Bah, you blasted fire, give me heat!"

The fire gave him heat, and it was good.

Several minutes later, the tea kettle whistled loudly.

There came a knock at the door.

"Coming!" shouted Steppie.

The pounding at the door increased, as did Steppie's heart beat. He knew who was at the door.

Saint Steppie, Patron Saint of Picture Frames opened the door.

"Come in, come in," he cried. "You'll freeze your arms off. You're just in time for tea."

Greyface lifted his scythe into the cold, frostbitten night.