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 Happy Halloween all you drunk, overfed, devil-worshiping Americanos.

I just had dinner with my old friend Mateus, the spirit medium. The last time I’d seen Mateus was on a visit to Los Angeles where he came and stayed with me during that Halloween Hell in Hollywood Babylon for a few days around this same time of occult, profane popular celebrations last year…
 He described how one day, just after reading the first draft of “Narcisa”, he’d had a powerful and unusual other-world experience.

  He’d been resting up in a hotel room in Lisbon, Portugal, where he’d been stationed for a few months, directing a movie there. Then, all of a sudden he went into a deep psychic trance.

  “It’s like reading that book of yours suddenly opened up some real powerful portal for me, Cigano,” he explained as I sat there in my Hollywood office, wide eyed, riveted to his every word.

  “…and I went into one of the deepest trances I’ve ever been in… It’s like I was out of my physical body, in spirit body form, and then I was taken right into her energy field, and I was there with HER, your girl Narcisa you know, like I WAS her, even though I’ve never even met her, never SEEN her, you know… and then I was doing all this spiritual healing work on her at the same time… It’s very hard to describe how it all works. But I’ll tell you this, man. It was a real battle! It was more like an exorcism than just a regular cleansing or healing visit… I was writhing on the floor in that hotel room, duking it out with all sorts of dark forces for over eight hours straight. If anybody had walked in and seen me there like
that, they would’ve thought I was having the world’s record epileptic fit or something. There were some really terrible demonic things there that were attached to her. I was working with other spirits of light there, they just came in and surrounde her, you know? We finally managed to clean out alot of her ‘obsessores’ and psychic parasites from her energy field… But there’s still work to be done there. You can’t just go in and clear it all up at once or you could actually wind up killing the person you’re trying to help. It’s really like an exorcismo de verdade. It was definitely the most draining experience I’ve had ever since I started doing this kind of spirit helper work…”

 That’s my friend Mateus and his weird paranormal relationship and experience with my weird paranormal partner, Narcisa.

It was nice to get to see him and tell him all the latest happenings, as if he were a close friend of Narcisa’s too. Even though He’s never actually “met” her in person, I guess he really is.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

Narcisa just woke up after 20 hours out and said she dreamed that the three of us, me, her and Alessandra were traveling around the world in a big helicopter- limousine hybrid UFO thing, doing press interviews for the new edition of the book I’ve been working on over the last 9 months, which I hope to finish and republish in the next 6 months…
Remember, she is prophetic…
Example: the other day she was sitting around building one of her bizarre sculptures out of bottle caps and cigarette butts. Suddenly, she grabbed a copy of the first printing of Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes and turned to the chapter of the book that references the Parque Lage.
She read the part about the park, and then “something” just “told” her to go into my library… and, of course, out of a thousand books she picked out the English translation of a book called Nosso Lar, the Brazilian Spiritist classic by Chico Xavier. She turned right to a page about a character called Narcissa in a park in the afterlife. I swear to God. I’d read that book years ago and it was one of the most influential books in my life and worldview and philosophy, but I never even remembered there being a character called Narcissa there… weird weird, strange….. Spooky. By the way, you all MUST read it. Now. Go go gooo!
I have spoken.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

Joy Ride- first installment.

Narcisa’s eyes began to dart like pinballs around in her head. Like she was looking for the escape hatch, or more likely, looking around to make sure everyone was watching.
She drew a deep breath in and on the exhale emitted a low growl that built into a steady loud whine. “Go go go go go go go go. Gotta go now Cigano! Please please please. Go!”
She stood up like a venomous spider had just bitten her ass, and announced “I am leaving this place Cigano. Good bye.”
And she walked out the door, onto the busy street.
Jonathan looked at me and shook his head disapprovingly, shrugging.
“Whatever.” He said. “You guys go, I’ll stay here and pay.”
Things were about to get weird. I could feel it in the pre-dusk misty air as I walked out to find her.
“Narcisa?” I shouted.
“Yes! I’m right here!” She was across the street looking at diamonds in a glass case of a store.
Disregarding all traffic, she walked into the middle of the street, stood in front of a taxi and put her hand out.
“Come on Ale!”  She called to me.
I walked over and got in the cab. What else could I do?
“Where are you going?” The cabbie asked.
“We going up in Lapa right now okey? Go!”
It was silent for a minute. The traffic was thick.
“Where are you from?” The cabbie asked.
“Resende,” She answered.
“Really? Me too! I was just there…”
She nodded. It was silent again. The next question was a golf ball in my stomach.
“You smoke crack?” He asked.
“Yeah… why?”
“Me too…” He said. “You know about the extra terrestrials then…”
Narcisa sat up straight, her big eyes practically popping out of her perfectly round white face.
I looked at her pleadingly. It was too late…
I was in the middle of witnessing what I had heard about many times, Narcisa’s absurdly perverse synchronicity. This was the middle of a cosmic shit storm and, now already on the highway towards Cinelandia, I didn’t see any way out.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw e Alessandra DeBenedetti. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

deal of energy over the ensuing years scratching his head trying to understand my strange and powerful, seemingly fatal attraction for such an eccentric, loathsome creature….

The story:

Today Narcisa made a new friend.

“Come and talk to her, Cigano. She’s nice.”

“I don’t wanna meet anymore of your man-hating lesbian bitch friends, Narcisa,” I said, still stinging from the trauma of the last time she ditched me for an ugly old demented alcoholic lesbian poet who hated me, hated all men, putting me through the torments of Hell for an entire month.

“She’s no the lesbian, man. She’s just a girl who ran from the crazy house an’ she don’ know anybody an’ she got nowhere to go. Please Cigano, just come an’ talk to her. Narcisa need some friend, these is all. Don’ be jealous. You know I love only you.”

Perfect.

So once again she managed to get her way with me, like she always gets her way with everybody, like she’s long gotten her way with hundreds of young girls and old men and everybody in between, all across the length and breadth of Brazil, one day at a time for years and years, as her cherished survival skills open all doors for her along her slippery, slimy path to Hell. Manipulating, conniving, convincing her way into the lives of a few unfortunate bastards. Her “friends”.

Welcome home, new friend. Welcome home.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better. 

Carl Jung 

This morning Narcisa started in with a symphony of tortured genius:

“You know, I was born in the middle of all the machines making so much noise and confusion. Motors and drills and saws… And then I go to live in the middle of nature. Right by a waterfall, wind in the trees
and rain, birds singing…”

She started telling me all her life story, again, detail by detail, the people, places and events of her childhood and adolescence, all the multi-colored, flavored details and happenings she remembered so sharply with her uncanny super-sensitive photographic memory, describing each thing in such an avalanche of minutia that I marveled at what a paranormal genius mutant she would be if she hadn’t spent
the last decade - over half her life on earth -dedicated to erasing so many of those memories. Systematically killing off many brain cells as fast as she could, ingesting as much of the most harmful drugs she could get her hands on. Sometimes you just gotta wonder…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

Healed or No Deal?

The Reike woman continued her healing process on Narcisa’s slumbering carcass, knowing that, in Narcisa’s case, sleep was just as crucial a form healing as any, since for the past two and a half years Narcisa had not once willingly fallen asleep. She was afraid of it, and it usually happened without her permission, as her body would often shut down between hits of crack or even mid-sentence.

This sleep was different and we all knew it.

It was peaceful and serene and nothing resembling the usual tormented nightmare reel that ran through Narcisa’s tortured brain every other time it’s been lights out. We all breathed silently, afraid to interrupt it.
A good twenty minutes went by, and she woke up as Ana Lucia finished her magic. Jonathan and I stared in awe, waiting for her to start speaking in tongues, or shape shift into an angel, or the devil… or anything.
Anything. A sign.

She lay still for a beat with her eyes lit up before looking over at Jonathan and suggesting in a half-whispered croak, “Sushi?”
“Uhh… Sure,” We both said, shuffling to our feet.

Ana Lucia chuckled as she handed Narcisa her clothes. As Jonathan thanked the healer profusely, Narcisa got dressed and it was big hugs and kisses all around as we left the building with an overwhelming sense of ease.

The sushi restaurant was closed so we settled on a kilo joint next door. Narcisa ran to the buffet while Jonathan and I claimed a table.

“So,” He whispered to me, looking back at Narcisa who was ritualistically plucking palm hearts from a big bowl of salad with her chopstick fingers. “What do you think?”
“I donno…” I replied. “It’s hard to tell.”
“More will be revealed, I guess,” Jonathan nodded as he stood up to go grab some food for himself.

Narcisa sat down next to me.
“Well?” I said.
“Well. I feel good,” she told me as she ravaged a plate of mashed potatoes and palm hearts. “I trust these lady, man. It’s hard to explain. She make me feel comfort-able…. Is only first time I can relax when some body putting the hands on me an’ I don’ feel like they gonna molesting to me.. Is good like these, an’ then I can relax, got it?”
I got it, alright. “I could tell you were relaxed.. you were snoring…” I laughed.
“Oh man, It was SO good. I don’ sleep like these in a long time.”

Jonathan returned from the buffet with his plate of food, smiling brightly. We were all having a pretty successful day and he was finally letting his guard down enough to show it, which is the reason why, I believe, it was precisely that moment that Narcisa was hit full-force with a wave of madness.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw e Alessandra DeBenedetti. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

It’s fucking 10am now.
I never got back to sleep after she came blasting through my door like Hurricane Infantile Ego for her 8am tantrum/feeding frenzy.
“Where WERE you for TWO fucking DAYS?!?!?” I asked.
“Catha Fezzze” she answered, stuffing her face with leftovers from my poor tiny raped fridge. She took a big sip of passion fruit juice. ”Casa Verde. Now shut the fuck up. No questions, Cigano. Menos…”

I went back up to my little loft bed.
And now its another blazing hot pre-summer morning outside my shuttered windows, just like it was almost 2 years ago when I first started documenting my day to day existence with Narcisa.
That casual little practice eventually pushed and shoved its way right into the forefront of my consciousness, emerging now as my first published novel, Narcisa- Our Lady of Ashes.
Now she’s fast asleep again, farting and snoring on my sofa as I lay up here in the loft bed above looking down at her in endless fascination and befuddlement.
Looking down at this devastating, compelling, paranormal creature, wracking my brains out under the lash of this merciless crackhead muse…
And I’m thinking, what a great fucking gig it must be for an eternal muse.
Just sit around all day smoking crack until you drop, then sleep the sleep of the righteous, waking up briefly from time to time only to bark out savage curses and orders and demands for food and drink and cigarettes.
Nice work if ya can get it..
I’m working on showing her what multiple orgasms feel like too, as well as the desire to survive an unhappy, abusive childhood and, eventually the will to live…
Little perks like that come with the job too, at least in my Narcisa’s case..
Fucking eternal muse even merits a full time on-call sex therapist and life coach!
Nothing but the best for an eternal fucking muse. Awesome work if you can get it, and my only advise to most of the lazy, overfed American cunts is to get off their pampered TV-watching asses and lose about
40 lbs and take up whoring and we’ll talk…
And I think when I finally do depart this crappy little veil of tears, I’d really like to put my request in to the big mother upstairs to be reincarnated, whenever the old karma clock swings around, as a crack
smoking homicidal whore with a pathological bad attitude and a wee bit of mental and emotional retardation thrown in for good measure…
Why not?
It all seems to be working out pretty well for Narcisa.
Right now she is passed out like a dead sausage on my sofa.
Later, she’ll be firing up a rock…
And then after that… Well you get the picture, boys!
Another hard day’s work for my beloved eternal muse, Narcisa. Our Lady Of Ashes.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

I woke up with the noonday sun scorching my face through the open window.
Shit. Instant panic! I looked over to the table.
My cell phone was sitting there and it was on. She hasn’t called me.
That’s a sign she must’ve run out of crack and just passed out.
It’s been many days now since she’s eaten anything she didn’t spit right up or rested her body with any sleep. A body can only take so much abuse.
But what about the other bitch? Narcisa had told me before I left her standing there that she wanted to give the other one some crack, “just to see her reaction.”
Another evil deed for her accumulating burden of rancid karma. But Narcisa claims not to believe in karma.
I knew a guy once who fried his brains out on bad trailer park acid and said he didn’t believe in gravity right before he took a swan dive off the roof of an 8 story building, shattering his spine like a popsicle stick on the cold pavement below… Whatever.
All The different possible scenarios flashed like an ugly slideshow through my frazzled mind as I dressed in a hurry.
I imagined them burning the Casa Verde to the ground with Narcisa’s stolen macumba candles. That was one brief vision.
But I hadn’t heard any fire sirens and that was good. Then I envisioned them floating back-side-up in the pool at my friend Dolo’s place, drowned in some toxic crack inflamed battle to the death.
That one flew by like a frantic sparrow as I briefly wondered who I could enlist to help me dispose of the bodies. Tonico wouldn’t want to get involved with that kinda shit and run the risk of fucking up his prestigious family’s good name…
Why hadn’t she called? Another more likely scenario I pictured was Narcisa succeeding in her dark plot to get the other one strung on out crack and off they have gone off together on a whirlwind of drug-fueled whore adventures together.
Yeh. That’s the one.
Cunts…
Narcisa.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.