The Scarecrow

One of my assignments for the unit I'm currently doing for my BA is to write a remediation of a text and post it online. So here is my remediation of the song The Scarecrow by Avantasia.

The man woke in the dust. A pale blue, hazy sky greeted his eyes. A burning sun just beyond his peripheral vision made his eyes water. Already he could feel the skin on the back of his neck burning. Hmm, skin. That is interesting, the man thought as he pulled himself to his feet. He looked at the desert surrounding him and his heart ached for the beauty that could have been. It could have been sprawling green fields, rivers and waterfalls, cattle could have grazed on the land and survived, fit and healthy. But it was nothing.

The man moved, his thin, skeletal legs barely supporting his weight. A body, he thought, his mind filling with ideas and thoughts as he examined his hands and arms. He could feel the sun and the dirt beneath his feet. He was hot, his body burned, but it was nothing compared to the burning as his body fell from heaven.

Slowly the man made his way from the desert and entered marsh and swampland. His body struggled to push through tangled vines and peat mud. The cacophonous sounds the jungle insects did nothing to dispel the voice in his head demanding answers to questions he tried so hard to think about. He tried not to think about her, but he wanted to know what had happened to her. He wanted to know how he came to be down on earth, but he tried not to think of the answer he knew awaited him. But he knew there would come a time when he could run no more. There would always be time.

The jungle vines parted before him and he stopped in shock and fear. A bamboo chair took up space between two enormous trees and on it sat a tall, imposing figure in black. The man stepped back in fear, finding himself suddenly trapped as the trees and vines behind him moved to block his way.

‘Who are you?’ the man in the chair asked, straightening up and peering at the lost man.

‘Scarecrow,’ the man replied.

‘Yes,’ replied the man in the chair. ‘And you are very lost. Welcome to my domain, Scarecrow. I wondered how long it would take for you to find your way to me.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Hah! You have fallen from the sky, just as I once fell from the sky. You didn’t believe the rules applied to you, just as I don’t believe they applied to me. Yet you ask me who I am?’ the man did not seem angry, more amused than anything else and Scarecrow found himself trying to take another step backwards. There was something mystifying about the man, the way his face seemed to change from young to old without really changing, and the way his eyes seemed to hold the whole future of the world in them. Scarecrow looked deeply, and found he did not like what he saw.

‘I am, Mephistopheles,’ the man on the chair said at last, rising and moving towards Scarecrow. ‘I am the one to push the pained, I am here to take the fallen away and treat their fears by forcing them to confront them. I am here to penetrate your soul and drag it through this unholy ground until there is nothing left of you that was once holy.’

Scarecrow shivered, but he found himself immersed in what the man had just told him. He felt as if he should be trying to run, but the man’s voice was so sweet and peaceful that he did not know why he should be trying to run.

‘I don’t want to be here,’ Scarecrow managed to say, breaking from the trace the man’s voice had him under. His head left groggy, but the questions still pounded. He remembered her.

Mephistopheles outreached hand snapped back from the inch it had been from Scarecrows head. His face contorted in a glare and he snarled. ‘I can see your thoughts, you think they are pure.’ He spat. ‘Wake up to this world! If what you had was meant to be you would be with her now and not with me!’

Scarecrow stared, his pulse racing as he stared at the suddenly huge and menacing creature before him. It was huge, snarling and vicious, black and winged.

‘No!’ he cried. ‘It was meant to be. There was a time!’ He moved away from the beast, forcing his body through the vines and then his feet were running and he was breaking free.

Trees blurred and swayed, vines swished and creaked around him as he ran for his life. Behind him, he could feel the beat of the giant wings as whatever the man was chased him from above. He broke free from the trees and his bare feet burned as they touched the burning desert.

A dark shade covered and then Mephistopheles had landed before him. The shade disappeared and Mephistopheles was a man again. He held his hands up, non-threateningly, calmly wishing Scarecrow to stop and listen to him.

‘I’m sorry, my friend, if I scared you,’ he purred. ‘It’s obvious that you don’t want to believe she gave you up and made it seem like it was somehow your fault. But your time has come. The winds have changed and blown you here. You believe it’s divine, well push all your stakes in with me and join me, together we will fly away and live peacefully.’

Scarecrow knew, somewhere deep inside, that the sweet words were dangerous. It sounded like he had offered him help, comfort and pity. But what he had heard wasn’t what the man had actually said. Scarecrow also knew that he did not have a choice and that the man would always follow him until he gave in. He knew this stranger was dangerous, but he also knew his time was long since up. He nodded.

Mephistopheles grinned. It was a short flight to hell, but, for Scarecrow, it would last eternity.

NaNoWriMo and Dastardious Hollow Approaches.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is just around the corner, and a very special detective is about to return to life in The Cold Road, a Dastardious Hollow prequel.

Blood bodies are showing up tied to road signs, their hands pointing in the direction of the signs. In the silent dawn there are whispers of unholy things that happen out in the fields late at night, secret ceremonies attended to by hooded men. The townsfolk are freaked, and as the weight of the  deaths threatens to crush the town a young girl is kidnapped. The only evidence left at the scene is a note "The Moon rises in 6, Death rises in 7 and the first blood will water the crops". To James Holland, a fresh up and coming detective, the note makes little sense, but as it is his first case he knows he has one week to find the girl before the moon rises or risk having a black mark across his name.

I am very excited for this year's NaNoWriMo and can't wait to begin writing Hollow's prequel. It's going to be a very busy month as I will still be studying the two units I am taking as well as working. I am not sure how much of the novel I will actually be able to write, but the life of James Holland aka Dastardious Hollow will come to light.

Captain Von Delgo vs Peter Van Werkhoven

Captain Von Delgo is such an obscure name that, for a blog name, I don't know if it fits or not. How many people, if any, come across this blog of mine, read it, and think, 'who the hell is Captain Von Delgo? Why does he blog? And why doesn't the author, Peter Van Werkhoven, who actually writes the blog posts, whose name is actually on the side of the blog above a very brief bio, have his name in the title of the blog instead?'

It's a difficult answer. My name is Peter Van Werkhoven, I am an 18yr old from Australia, I enjoy writing and acting and am studying a BA in Professional Writing and Publishing and work as a kitchen hand in a restaurant. And that's me.

Captain Von Delgo, on the other hand, is also me, but a lot more complicated. Captain Von Delgo is a name that has a long history with me. The name itself is 5 years old and morphed from the nickname I always wanted to be called as a child -'Dingo'.

Dingo was the nickname of an Australian conman in one of the books in the Three Investigators series that I used to read as a kid. I read it, thought 'hey that is awesome, I want to be called that' and organised with my sister that we should call ourselves Australian animals as our nicknames. She choose Queen Brown after the snake and I called myself Dingo. The nickname lasted for a day because the only one we told the name to was our younger brother. The failure was probably due to the fact that I was close to either 11 or 12yrs old and had close to zero friends I could tell the name to.

So, fast forward to August 26, 2010, I was introduced to an online site called Shelfari. Shelfari is an online virtual bookshelf. On this site you can find any book you want, if you can't find it then you can create it and, once created or found, you can add it to your 'shelf' so everyone can see the books you have read, are planning to read, and are currently reading. To a 13yr old who loved to read this was fantastic sounding and I wanted an account. Just to put it out there, Shelfari is the first online site that I ever joined so it was equally exciting for me. I'd been on sites previously but they were always on accounts belonging to my Mum. This Shelfari account was to be mine, all mine. I could add the books I wanted, I could join the groups I wanted, I could write my own biography on my very own profile, I could even talk to who I wanted without having to begin the conversation with 'This is Peter' so that whoever I was talking to would not get confused thinking they were talking to my Mum. As a homeschooled kid this was my idea of a fun time.

However, before I could begin the exploration of this marvelous site, I had to create a username. Well, to a 13yr old who had no experience in these things the option was simple, 'Can I use my name?'

'Sorry, no, you can't use your own name for security reasons. You have to keep that private and choose a name that people won't be able to link back to you. You have to be careful of stalkers and be careful of people who pretend to be other people.'

That was not the answer I received in reply, but it was, however, all the warnings I did receive from my parents and older siblings.

Dilemma, what was I to do? If I couldn't use my real name I would have to think of something else. So... Dingo was the nickname I wanted, but the problem with me was that I could not for the life of me remember how to spell it. I spelled it wrong, but to me it looked correct so I kept the incorrect version which was 'Dengo'. But Dengo sounded so boring. What rhymed with Dengo? Delgo! It was at this moment that I began to add a little of my real name into the mix. I wrote Dengo Van Delgo. It was good, I was pleased, but it didn't quite sit right. Something was wrong. It didn't slide off the tongue. Van was Dutch, yet German's used 'Von'. So, Dengo Von Delgo. I liked it better. But, then, on further thinking, I realised that I had spelt Dingo wrong. Oh the embarrassment. Dingo Von Delgo I did not like so it had to go. What else could I put in to make the name sound better? After some serious thinking I decided that I would put a rank in there. I would be a Captain! I would henceforth be known on the virtual bookself site Shelfari as the Captain Von Delgo!

If you ever want to find me on a site I can tell you now that almost every single one my username will be Captain Von Delgo. I feel just as connected to that name as I am the one I was born with. The thought of naming my blog as 'Captain Von Delgo Blogs' just seemed the natural choice. However, if I want to be known as a writer and as an actor, owning a blog that does not even have my name in the title means that searching for it makes things very difficult. Unless you know I go by Captain Von Delgo how will you find me?

A while back I did change the title of my blog and put my own name in it, but I never really liked it so I changed it back to having my alias in the title. Now I am thinking again that maybe I should go back to using my own name, but it's difficult when I'm just as much Captain Von Delgo as I am Peter Van Werkhoven.

I would, and I have seriously considered it, use that as my pen name, but seeing as Captain Von Delgo is the name of my main character in my fantasy series that would look a little strange. So, because it is an obscure character name that no one really knows, it should go. When I think of a better title for this blog, that is...