Cinemorphosis

Tag: fiction

  • C.Crane Solar Radio: Attention to Details Makes It a Winner

    C.Crane Solar Radio: Attention to Details Makes It a Winner

    20250115_153540

    The C. Crane Solar Radio, paired with the optional AC adapter, arrived on Day 9 of the Los Angeles fires—perfect timing for some disaster preparedness. My first impression? Surprisingly compact and, dare I say, stylish. Its buttons and controls are refreshingly intuitive, a rare quality in emergency gadgets that usually look like they were cobbled together by paranoid survivalists.

    Then I met the battery door—a stubborn slab of plastic that wouldn’t budge. My fingers failed, so out came the Swiss Army knife, turning what should’ve been a simple battery swap into minor surgery.

    20250115_150949

    Once powered up (on batteries, to avoid interference), I tested FM reception. Not bad. It’s sensitive, though slightly weaker than my Sangean PR-D12 when pulling in 89.3, a notoriously tricky station here in Torrance. Still, it handled it well. KUSC 91.5, though, was a lost cause—same as the PR-D12. Odd, since during my obsessive radio blogging days in the mid-2000s, 91.5 was crystal clear. Maybe it’s not the radios. Maybe it’s today’s electromagnetic smog choking the airwaves.

    Later that evening, as I tackled the dishes, the FM sound impressed me. 89.3 came through loud and clear, delivering crisp voices on the news.

    AM performance? Initially disappointing—distant, hollow, like voices echoing from a well. My friend Mark reminded me that modern homes are electronic war zones. Between Wi-Fi routers, smart devices, and God knows what else, AM hardly stands a chance.

    But then I tweaked the settings. Switching the bandwidth filter from 2.5kHz to 4kHz transformed the AM performance. Suddenly, it shined.

    The speaker is pleasant but modest. This is a small radio, after all. Luckily, the hidden High Power Audio Mode (press buttons 1 and 5) gives it a subtle boost—not exactly concert hall quality, but enough to rise above kitchen noise.

    Where the C. Crane Solar Radio really excels is in its power versatility—two battery types, a solar panel, and a hand crank. Practical, yet it doesn’t scream apocalypse gear.

    So, where does it fit in my collection? The PR-D12 stays in the garage for kettlebell workouts. The Solar Radio earns a spot over the kitchen sink, likely becoming my wife’s go-to. With solid FM performance, customizable AM tuning, and thoughtful design, the C. Crane Solar Radio gets the details right—and comes out a winner.

    20250115_150937
  • A Nostalgic Ode to the Tecsun PL-660

    A Nostalgic Ode to the Tecsun PL-660

    20250123_150400

    Against every shred of common sense I possess, I’ve joined several Tecsun radio forums—a decision akin to a sugar addict moving into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and sleeping under the chocolate river. It’s not just unwise; it’s a slow, delicious path to ruin. Within minutes, the forum zealots were chanting in unison: “You must own a PL-660 or PL-680! These are relics from the Pre-DSP Glory Era, back when Tecsun radios were free from the infernal chuffing, muting, and choppy tuning that plague DSP models. Think smooth analog cruising versus a hyper-caffeinated, turbocharged sports car.” Naturally, I bit the bait.

    The timing was serendipitous—or dangerous, depending on your perspective. During the height of my radio obsession, circa 2008, I owned a black Tecsun PL-660, and it was the crown jewel of my collection. But, as is the curse of all obsessions, I sold it during a fleeting moment of sanity, a decision that haunted me. When the January 2025 Los Angeles Fires reignited my passion for radios—because what better time to tinker with antennas than during a climate apocalypse?—the one radio I truly mourned was the PL-660.

    Enter eBay, the Pandora’s box of impulse purchases. I tracked down a silver PL-660 from a seller in Canada. At $68, it felt like a steal. Add $30 for shipping, tax, a Tecsun adapter from Anon-Co, and four AA rechargeable batteries, and suddenly my “steal” was a $140 splurge. But what’s money when you’re reuniting with a long-lost love?

    When the silver PL-660 arrived, it was nearly pristine, as if frozen in time. The box, manual, and accessories were all there, minus the adapter. I tested its AM and FM performance and, unsurprisingly, found it nearly indistinguishable from my PL-880—a radio I’d been coddling like a newborn in my bedroom. Sure, the 880’s speaker has a richer timbre, but the 660 holds its own. AM reception? The 660 might edge out the 880, but given the ever-shifting electrical interference in my house, testing it felt like comparing snowflakes in a blizzard. FM? Practically identical.

    And yet, here’s the kicker: I prefer the PL-660. Why? Nostalgia, for starters. It’s been 15 years since I last held one, and its reunion felt like meeting an old friend who hasn’t aged a day. But it’s more than sentimentality. The PL-660 exudes Pre-DSP mystique, wearing its analog pedigree like a hero’s badge of honor. Add to that the rumors swirling on the forums about the PL-680 taking its final lap before extinction, and I developed a textbook case of FOMO.

    Aesthetically, the 660 is a triumph. The PL-880, while a solid performer, looks like it was designed by two committees: one in charge of the radio chassis, the other tasked with slapping on an oversized speaker as an afterthought. In contrast, the PL-660 feels like it was forged from a single, unified block of silver (or black, if you’re lucky enough to find one). It’s monolithic, almost talismanic, with a heft that whispers, “This is not a toy.” Holding it feels like gripping a miniature obelisk of radio perfection.

    PL 880 & Uemura 1

    Naturally, I’m already scheming to buy a second PL-660 or perhaps its sibling, the PL-680, to keep as a “backup”—because if you love a radio enough, redundancy becomes an art form. And, because I can never leave well enough alone, I know I’ll spend the coming weeks obsessively swapping locations, putting the 660 in the bedroom, then the kitchen, then back again, until my brain short-circuits. Who needs stability when you can have perpetual indecision?

    In fact, I barely made it to my office to write this without feeling pangs of longing for the 660, which I’d left momentarily in the kitchen. Thirty minutes apart, and I was already waxing poetic about its brilliance, muttering, “Dude, you really love radios.” And it’s true—I do. Probably too much. But that’s the magic of radios: they’re not just devices; they’re companions, time machines, and portals to a world that feels more tactile and real than anything on your smartphone.

    Do I still love my PL-880? Of course. It’s a marvel of engineering, a steady presence in my life. But the PL-660? That’s my muse, my reminder of why I fell in love with radios in the first place. The 660 isn’t just a radio; it’s a reflection of who I am—an overthinking, signal-chasing, nostalgia-driven mess. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  • Sangean PR-D12 Is Solid on FM and AM in the Right Environment

    Sangean PR-D12 Is Solid on FM and AM in the Right Environment

    The following is from my now defunct Herculodge blog. I realized when I did radio testing again in 2025 that RFI (radio frequency interference) is a far greater challenge than it was in 2008. I need to play my radios on batteries, not AC adapters, and keep them away from walls, which is a shame because I really want the Sangean HDR-19, a wall adapter-only radio, which has gone up in price about $80 since even a couple of months ago.

    Since the Los Angeles Fires tore through Southern California in January 2025, I realized my household was embarrassingly underprepared for live news coverage. Streaming devices and smart speakers suddenly felt flimsy when the sky turns orange. I needed something sturdier, more reliable—like a good, old-fashioned radio.

    Enter Sangean, a brand I trusted a decade ago. I fondly remembered their radios delivering a warm, bass-heavy sound—pleasant, if not exactly hi-fi. My ancient PR-D4 still hums along in the garage, proof that Sangean builds workhorses. So, naturally, I picked up their new DSP-chip PR-D12, curious to see how it stacked up against its analog ancestor.

    The verdict? The D12 is brighter and more balanced than the D4, though the warmth I loved has cooled a bit. FM reception is a mixed bag. From Torrance, Pasadena’s 89.3 comes in strong with three bars and crystal clarity on the D12. On the D4? Same signal strength but with a thin veil of static, unless I awkwardly angle the antenna like I’m searching for alien life.

    But then things get weird. 91.5, my go-to classical station, sings smoothly on the D4 but sputters on the D12—two weak bars and static, no matter how I threaten the antenna.

    AM? Forget it. 640 AM is listenable but laced with floor noise on both radios. I twist and turn the radios to align the internal ferrite antennas like I’m cracking a safe, but the noise stays. Worse, AM talk radio voices sound like they’re broadcasting through a burlap sack. Long-term listening? Not a chance.

    What the D12 does have going for it is user-friendliness. Four preset pages with five slots each make navigating stations painless—perfect for my wife, who refuses to wrestle with complex manuals that read like an SAT prep book. She’s happy with 89.3 and 89.9 blasting clear and loud, so the D12 earns its spot in the kitchen.

    Still, I can’t shake the feeling I need something more commanding, like the soon-to-arrive Tecsun PL-990x. Maybe it’ll crack the code on AM audio bliss. Until then, the PR-D12 holds the line—solid, if not inspiring.

    Moderate recommendation.

    Update:

    I told my fellow radio enthusiast friend Gary about how I could not listen to the AM sound on the PR-D12 or my PR-D4, and he expressed the same sentiment. He said the only AM he can listen to from his vast radio collection is his now defunct C.Crane CC Radio-SW, which is a clone of the Redsun RP-2100. This made me sad because many years ago I enjoyed listening to AM on my Redsun RP-2100, but I fried it when I put the wrong AC adapter in it. Getting good AM sound out of a radio is hard these days. 

    Second Update:

    Three days after writing this review, I moved the PR-D12 to the garage where it sounds great on AM so I blame the kitchen, not the PR-D12. 

  • The Lobster That Lifted Kettlebells

    The Lobster That Lifted Kettlebells

    Last night, I slipped into a dream where I was less man and more detective cliché: trench coat, team at my side, the whole noir package. We prowled the tiled underworld of a health club, where women lay dead in the shower stalls. The air carried a rank perfume—pungent, briny, unmistakable. It was the signature of our quarry, The Alligator Man, a serial killer who apparently marinated in fish guts before slaughter.

    Our trap was absurd but effective. We laced another health club’s showers with his own scent, as if baiting him with eau de swamp monster. Sure enough, the predator slithered into the stall, and I lunged. But instead of the hulking brute I expected, I clutched a young, handsome man, small enough to vanish in a crowd. His boyish face said innocent; his stench said otherwise. I locked eyes with him and announced, with grim satisfaction, that he was evil—and that evil was about to rot in a cell forever.

    Then, with dream logic’s usual whiplash, I found myself at a holiday party with my family. My wife had crafted me a lobster costume: claws for hands, a scarlet exoskeleton, and a hat shaped like a boiled crustacean’s head. I looked like a seafood platter at a masquerade ball. I ate cake while dodging feline landmines—the hosts’ cats had redecorated the house with cat mess. The carpet was stained with these “accidents.” With cake fork in hand, I declared this exhibit A for my lifelong “no pets policy.”

    The party oozed past midnight into the pale gray of morning. Bored stiff and craving endorphins, I trudged home. Still zipped inside my lobster suit, I cranked up a kettlebell workout in the living room. My claws clacked as I swung iron, the sweat pooling beneath my polyester shellfish skin.

    Headlights swept across the window. My wife and twin daughters walked in. I assumed they, too, had abandoned the litter-box bacchanal. She spotted me mid-squat, lobster claws snapping, and didn’t so much as flinch. I worried she’d rage over my soaking her handmade costume in salt and sweat. Instead, she simply yawned, brushed past my lobster theatrics, and announced she was going to bed. Evil had been vanquished, cats had soiled carpets, and the lobster workout was apparently just another Tuesday in her world.

  • The Fallacy of False Priorities, Watch Edition

    The Fallacy of False Priorities, Watch Edition

    “The double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Guilty as charged. Case in point: my tortured relationship with FKM Divecore straps.

    The Notre Dame study had me spiraling—researchers tortured the material with solvents, heat, and abrasion until they squeezed out PFAS “forever chemicals” and then warned these might leach into human skin. Ever since, I’ve gone back and forth, back and forth, like a malfunctioning metronome, on whether to keep wearing the straps I love more than any other rubber I’ve tried in two decades of watch collecting.

    Of course, no one wants to think of their wristwear as a poison delivery system. But context matters. First, FKM is highly stable under real-world conditions; the lab tests were more horror show than practical scenario. Second, it’s the manufacturing process that endangers workers, not the end-user. Third, if we’re ranking PFAS risks, drinking unfiltered water, eating from PFAS-coated packaging, or cooking on scratched Teflon are solid tens on the risk scale, while wearing an FKM strap is a lonely little one. That’s the Fallacy of False Priorities: panic over the trivial while ignoring the obvious.

    Even so, the issue isn’t a Nothing Burger. Divecore’s own Paul admits handling FKM worries him, and he’s working on alternative materials—silicone, vulcanized silicone, HNBR—to protect his workers and reassure consumers. That’s just smart business.

    Meanwhile, I’m not without options. My strap drawer holds factory Seiko silicones and urethanes, plus top-tier Tropic straps made of vulcanized rubber. They’re fine, but none hold a candle to the sleek perfection of Divecore FKM. I tried swapping them in, but they feel like consolation prizes—serviceable, never glorious.

    So I made a deal with myself: enjoy my pristine FKMs for now, and when the new HNBR or silicone Divecore straps arrive, I’ll switch. Sounds reasonable. Except once you’ve let the idea of PFAS seeping into your skin lodge in your brain, it refuses to leave. I’ve written about it on Instagram, made a YouTube video, and now I’m stuck in an obsessive loop, second-guessing every strap change as though I were rewriting my will.

    Which brings me back to my original point: the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. And right now, that man is staring at seven watches, toggling between glory and paranoia, wishing he could strap on peace of mind.

  • Classroom Playback: What a Football Player Taught Me About the Hedonic Treadmill

    Classroom Playback: What a Football Player Taught Me About the Hedonic Treadmill

    I’m starting a series I’m calling The Classroom Playback, where I revisit conversations from class discussions and reflect on how they challenged my assumptions. More often than not, I’ve found it isn’t the instructor who does the teaching—it’s the students. This is my first installment.

    I teach a college writing class to the athletic department—an eclectic mix of football bruisers, soccer strikers, volleyball hitters, and water polo warriors. Two days ago, in the context of an essay that addresses a generation of young men who don’t work or study but play computer games in their bedrooms, I introduced the concept of the hedonic treadmill, the cruel little loop in which humans adapt to pleasure until the buzz wears off and they need to crank the dial higher, faster, and louder, until finally the machine spits them out, exhausted and miserable.

    To make the point vivid, I shared a story from a former student. His older brother had dropped out of college, moved back in with mom, and made a religion out of lying in bed. His life consisted of Netflix marathons on a laptop, constant texts to his girlfriend, and a bong glued to his lips. A self-sedated sloth with Wi-Fi.

    So I asked my athletes, “Does this guy sound happy to you?”

    One of the football players, a psychology major with a grin as wide as the end zone, shot up his hand and said, absolutely—this guy was living the dream. No responsibilities, no alarms, no essays. Everyone, he insisted, would be content to live such a life.

    My jaw dropped. A psychology major dazzled by the ecstasy of permanent adolescence? I reminded him—gently but with a sharp edge—that life demands connection, structure, and purpose if humans are to flourish. Without it, the brain rots. He smiled, nodded, and conceded my point. But the nod was polite, the smile indulgent. I wasn’t sure I had actually shaken his conviction that the guy with the bong had cracked the code.

    After the football player declared his envy for the bong-hugging bed-dweller texting his girlfriend, I scanned the room and realized my grand metaphor had belly-flopped. My hedonic treadmill example didn’t land, to use modern parlance. What I intended as a cautionary tale of mental rot registered instead as a spa brochure: Netflix, weed, and endless texting looked less like disintegration and more like a vacation package.

    With fifteen weeks left in the semester, I’ve had to remind myself of two things. First: I can’t demolish their fantasies in one lesson. The hedonic treadmill requires repeat assaults, examples from all angles, until they feel—not just know—the despair of a life without meaning. Clearly, Bong Boy failed to deliver the emotional punch.

    Second: these kids belong to the “I’ll Never Buy a House” Generation. Their skepticism is hardwired. To them, the fantasy of collapsing in bed with Netflix and THC isn’t just laziness; it’s an antidote to the endless hustle culture they know they’ll never escape.

    Therefore, my football player presented me with a lesson: As an instructor, I can’t be myopic and teach ideas such as the hedonic treadmill from a limited point of view. I have to see things through my students’ eyes. 

    I’m close to sixty-four. My students are nineteen. If I want to reach them, I need to remember the golden rule of teaching—or sales, or persuasion of any kind: know your audience, speak to their anxieties, and try to see life through their eyes. Otherwise, you’re not a communicator—you’re just an old, out-of-touch crank with a lecture.

    I want to thank my football player for opening my eyes and reminding me that the classroom is instructional for both instructors and students alike. 

  • The Paradise Hangover

    The Paradise Hangover

    Yesterday I posted a 24-minute video on my YouTube channel about my family’s trip to Oahu—about slipping into what I call Sacred Time—and about the sullen resentment that comes when you’re yanked back into Profane Time. In Sacred Time, there are no utility bills, no kitchen repairs, no inbox choked with memos. In Profane Time, there’s nothing but.

    There’s a lag between the two realms. The body may be back at the desk, moving through the motions of Profane Time, but the mind and heart are still on an island, half-convinced they’ve found a loophole in the laws of mortality.

    In that sacred dimension, we become a mythic version of ourselves—effortless raconteurs, irresistible charmers. The hotel bartender laughs at your jokes. The maître d’ nods in worldly agreement when you talk about sunsets and seared ahi. Their warmth feels real, not transactional. And you start believing the PR you’ve written for yourself. Then you fly home, and the whiplash from god-king to bill-payer is too much to bear.

    It reminded me of a woman I met nearly twenty years ago in a frozen-yogurt shop in Torrance. My wife and I were waiting in line when she appeared: tall, angular, maybe in her sixties, the ghost of a former beauty. Short blonde hair with a whiff of style still clinging to it, smeared red lipstick, tight leopard-print pants, and high heels that had seen better decades. She carried her currency—hundreds of pennies—in a crumpled paper bag.

    She spilled them, along with her dessert, across the tile floor. I bent to help her, feeling the full weight of her story without knowing any details. I imagined her as a former starlet who once walked red carpets, who’d been adored, flattered, invited everywhere—until one day she wasn’t. She’d never made the identity shift from somebody to nobody, and that inability had swallowed her whole.

    Self-mythologizing is dangerous. Whether you’re a faded Hollywood beauty or a sun-dazed tourist just off the plane from paradise, you have to face the comedown. Adult life demands it. The mythical and the mundane need each other—without the grind, the magic loses its shine.

    So yes, I’m sulking about my return from Hawaii. Yes, I’d rather be sipping mai tais than buying new blinds and a desk for my daughter. But that’s the deal. Profane Time pays for Sacred Time. You can’t live in one without surviving the other.

  • Scaling the Walls of Forgetting

    Scaling the Walls of Forgetting

    Last night I dreamed I was trapped between two bodies—one fixed at nineteen, the other at sixty-three—and the hands kept swinging me back and forth. Each shift rewired me. My skin would tighten, my mind sharpen, and then in the next instant my knees ached, my thoughts clouded, and the mirror refused to settle on one face.

    In the confusion, I kept losing my keys. Not just keys—wallet, watch, phone. Every few minutes I’d pat my pockets and feel the hollow absence. I lived in a commune that was equal parts office, recording studio, and half-forgotten alumni reunion. The place was enclosed by towering steel walls, the kind that promised protection while making you wonder what you were being kept from.

    We scaled those walls to glimpse the outside world and, somehow, the higher we climbed, the further we could travel through our own memories. But altitude brought obstacles—massive gates stacked one atop another, each locked, each requiring a key.

    I had a locker at the base of the camp with everything I needed: my belongings, my one precious key. And then it was gone, lost to the dream’s careless currents. I cursed myself, replaying the loss in my mind until it stung.

    Kevin, an old friend with a voice like a warm blanket, told me it was fine. Not to worry. That I was okay. Ted, wiry and restless, was already at the top, peering over. He called down, telling us to follow his example, that freedom was just beyond the next barrier.

    Meanwhile, Charlie lounged at the compound’s base, getting his hair trimmed and his shoes polished by a contented employee, as if this walled-in world was good enough.

    The forgetting pressed in on me, thick and airless. Ted’s optimism couldn’t lift me, Kevin’s comfort couldn’t steady me. Without the key, I felt stripped of competence. I teetered there—between the clock faces, between the steel walls—on the edge of hopelessness, afraid that even if I found the lock, I wouldn’t remember what it opened.

  • The Other Place Has QR Codes

    The Other Place Has QR Codes

    Of all the Twilight Zone episodes that have taken up residence in my psyche, none clings more tenaciously than “A Nice Place to Visit.” A petty crook named Rocky Valentine gets gunned down during a botched robbery and wakes up in what appears to be paradise. He’s greeted by Pip, a genial, rotund guide played by Sebastian Cabot, who grants him everything his larcenous heart ever wanted: money, women, luck, luxury. No struggle, no stress. Every desire fulfilled on command.

    At first, Rocky revels in this frictionless dreamscape. It’s Vegas without losing streaks, heaven without requirements. But gradually, pleasure without purpose curdles into a thick, syrupy dread. He realizes that gratification without resistance is just another form of punishment. Bored out of his mind and desperate for meaning, Rocky pleads with Pip to send him “to the other place.”

    Pip laughs and delivers the gut punch: “Heaven? Whatever gave you the idea that you were in Heaven, Mr. Valentine? This is the other place!” And then, with glee, Pip cackles like the well-fed devil he is.

    Which brings me to paid parking.

    There is a hell, and it lives in the infrastructure of modern urban parking. It’s a realm of QR codes, license plate entries, and apps that want your soul—or at least your email and billing zip code. Some kiosks accept coins, others demand smartphone apps, two-step verification, and an MFA code just to stand still without being ticketed. My wife, tech-literate and cool-headed, usually handles this logistical hellscape while I loiter nearby, pretending to study the map of downtown like it’s a sacred text.

    But this week she’s out of town at a teaching convention, and I’m taking our twin daughters to Laguna Beach. This means I have to drive, find a parking structure, and—here’s the true horror—navigate the digital rigmarole of paid parking without her guidance. The thought of it has me sweating harder than Rocky in his silk suit.

    The absurd part? It’s not the traffic, the tides, or the teenagers that unnerve me. It’s the parking meter. The existential shame of standing in front of a digital payment kiosk, poking at it like a confused ape while my daughters wait patiently (or impatiently) beside me. I don’t fear the unknown. I fear looking like an idiot in front of my kids.

    But here’s the deeper, darker realization: this is just a symptom. My wife, through years of effort and mental load, has become the de facto logistics commander of our household. She knows which airport lines move faster. She’s the one strangers approach at terminals, sensing her Jedi-level calm. Meanwhile, I shuffle behind her like an NPC in a bad video game—directionless, frictionless, practically translucent.

    Frictionless living has a cost. It breeds detachment. It robs you of engagement, resilience, and presence. And like Rocky Valentine, I’ve grown too used to being served instead of showing up.

    Ironically, I’m obsessed with watches—those exquisite tools designed to remind you where you are in time. And yet, I’ve spent years drifting, distracted, floating outside the dial. It takes a solo day trip with my daughters—an hour drive, some shopping, a good lunch, and possibly a tantrum or two—to pull me back into the present.

    When my wife heard about my plan, she said, “You don’t know how happy this makes me.” And I believed her. She wasn’t just relieved that I was giving her a break. She was glad to see me step into the friction. To stop spectating and start parenting in real time.

    No, I don’t want to be Rocky. I don’t want a life where every parking spot is perfect, every line is short, and every meal arrives on time. I want the chaos. I want the curveballs. I want the real thing.

    Even if it means downloading the stupid parking app.

  • This Is the Life You Have Chosen

    This Is the Life You Have Chosen

    I’ve never forgotten a story one of my college students told me back in the fall of 1998. She was a re-entry student—a nurse in her early forties—juggling coursework at UCLA with overnight hospital shifts. The kind of woman who sticks in your memory: short, sturdy, glasses perched low on her nose, with the weary, perceptive eyes of someone who’d seen too much and lips that knew how to pace a punchline.

    Most afternoons, after class let out, she’d linger by my desk and recount episodes from her Louisiana backwoods childhood or from the fluorescent netherworld of her hospital’s VIP wing. Her stories ricocheted between absurdity and horror—tales told with the calm authority of someone who could handle arterial spray with one hand and chart notes with the other.

    But one story gripped me by the spine and never let go. It wasn’t about dying celebrities or ER gore. It was about something far worse. A visitation. A monster.

    She and her cousin Carmen were feral children, raised in the lawless heat of rural Louisiana, where school attendance was optional and adult supervision was more myth than fact. Left to their own devices, the two girls invented what she called “mean games”—they tortured frogs, pulled wings off insects, and hinted at darker cruelties she refused to name. Lord of the Flies in sundresses.

    And then one afternoon, the visitor arrived.

    They were holed up in a decaying house, conspiring over their next cruelty, when the porch door creaked open and something stepped inside. It looked like a man. But it wasn’t. It had a tail—thick, muscled, and disturbingly animate. It moved with a will of its own, curling and flicking behind him like a fleshy metronome. His body was bristled with wiry hair. His voice? Low, hoarse, and calm in the most terrifying way. He didn’t threaten. He simply listed.

    Sitting in a rocking chair, the creature described, in brutal detail, everything the girls had done—every frog mutilated, every insect dissected. Nothing vague. He named the acts like he had them on file. And then he made his offer: Keep going, he said, and I’ll recruit you.

    He stayed for three hours. Just sat there. Breathing. Flicking that tail. Describing their path toward damnation with the steady tone of a bureaucrat explaining retirement benefits. When he finally left, dissolving into the heat shimmer of the Louisiana dusk, the girls were too stunned to move. Carmen whispered, “Did you see that?” My student just nodded.

    They never spoke of it again. But they changed. Overnight. Sunday school. Prayer. Kindness, enforced not by conscience but by fear. The kind that settles in your bones and never leaves. Whatever that thing was, it did its job.

    And this is the part that haunts me: she wasn’t a kook. She wasn’t mystical, manic, or given to exaggeration. She was a nurse—clear-eyed, grounded, more familiar with death than most people are with taxes. She wasn’t telling a ghost story. She was giving a deposition.

    To this day, I see those two girls, wide-eyed and paralyzed, staring down a thing that knew them intimately and promised them a future in hell’s apprenticeship program. Whether it was a demon, a shared psychotic break, or some mythological construct formed by childhood guilt and Southern humidity, I don’t know. But I do know what it meant.

    The creature’s message was brutal in its simplicity: Keep practicing cruelty, and you’ll lose the ability to stop. You’ll become it.

    That’s not just folklore. That’s biblical. The idea that if you repeat your wickedness long enough, God—or whatever you believe in—stops interrupting you. He doesn’t smite you. He simply steps aside and says, Go ahead. This is the life you’ve chosen.

    No wonder Kierkegaard was obsessed with working out your salvation with fear and trembling. There’s nothing more terrifying than the idea that damnation is self-inflicted, not by a thunderbolt, but by repetition. That the road to hell is paved with muscle memory.