Jean Jacque-Louie and the Secret Society of Lost Souls

By Clive Carr

Jean Jacque-Louie and the Secret Society of Lost Souls.
What it is:
It is a short story with illustrations.
It is set in the not too distant past.
It is old fashioned.
It is slightly surreal.
What it is not:
It is not an adventure story.
It is not a story that tries to tick all the boxes.
It is definitely not all inclusive, and nor does it try to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clive Carr
• Release date: Dec 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458141583

Clive Carr

English, born in 1963.

Book preview

Jean Jacque-Louie

and the Secret Society of Lost Souls

by

CLIVE CARR

Smashwords edition

Copyright 2019 Clive Carr

Originally published as an ebook 2010

Revised Edition 2019

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Illustrations by Clive Carr

Jean Jacque-Louie and the Secret Society of Lost Souls

Contents

Chapters

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Jean Jacque-Louie and the Secret Society of Lost Souls

Chapter 1

I hadn’t got that much further down the corridor when the detective shouted out after me:

‘But if you do, you know publish it. Do us both a favour and change the title, it's way too long for your average punter. Nowadays they prefer something that just trips off the tongue.’

‘Oh ok.’ I stopped and cheerfully called back relieved that that was all he was stopping me for. ‘Thanks for the advice, I’ll take that on board.’ I lied.

‘Do that, and if you don’t at least put it in brackets or something. It’ll make all the difference.’ he smiled just as he finished locking the door so he could finally have that fag break he told me he’d been craving.

So that’s what I’ve done, except of course I haven’t heeded any of his advice when it comes to the book’s title. Not because I didn’t want to mind you, but because the title wasn’t mine to begin with. Nor for that matter was the story either. No, that honour goes to my friend Jean Jacque Louie whose funeral I attended just a while back, on the thirtieth to be exact.

Funeral Attendees

Now normally because I’m only young myself, I prefer to avoid the subject of death whenever possible. However, because the manner of Jacque’s demise and the circumstances that surround it read like some ridiculous fiction, I felt compelled to write it down. Not that I think Jacque would have minded in the least. In fact, I’ll go one better and say: that I honestly believe that if he had had his way, he would have preferred it if his whole life had been played out that way. You know, just like it was pure theatre.

Which was a shame really, as that was the very last thing his funeral was. As in many ways it was a truly unremarkable affair attended in the main by those whose job it is to officiate over such matters. Or else those who, despite what most others would consider to be the ‘healthy’ norm, gain an almost macabre pleasure from attending occasions such as these. Yet funnily enough, that was also what my dearly departed good friend also liked to do. As there was nothing he used to say he liked better than to attend a good, old-fashioned funeral and watch the mourners cry.

‘It always manages to transport me to what I can only describe as an almost ethereal state of sumptuous melancholia.’ I’d hear him solemnly whisper as he tried his best to give his statement the correct amount of gravitas. But of course he never could as I always destroyed the mood by pointing out quite flatly that it all sounded like:

‘A right load of pompous fucking bollocks to me!’ and that he should: ‘Give it a bleeding rest! especially as we both know you’re fucking lying!’

And he was lying, because although he liked the ‘pose’ and Christ was he a poseur, he wasn’t really that way inclined, especially when it came to being melancholy and introspective. Though what he would have thought about the fact that not one single member of his own family had deemed it necessary to attend his own funeral is anyone’s guess. As be as macabre and dark as you like, everyone knows that any act of social perversity, no matter how trivial it may seem, is a waste of time if there is no one there of consequence to witness it. Which is why I suppose, he should of at least been grateful for those ‘others’ who were curious enough to attend, and I must admit that in that particular department there has at least been a few, all of them complete strangers mind you. The kind of people you just know have spent more time thinking about what to wear and how to act, than they ever have about the life they were supposed to be paying their last respects to. Not that I imagine that my friend would have had any problem with that. Me neither as it happens, as at least it allows me the opportunity to clarify the fact that although I at least put myself out and bothered to attend his funeral. I, like everyone else who actually knew him, see no sorrow in his actual demise. Now I know to some that might sound a bit harsh, but I’m sorry that’s just how it is.

Still saying that, there was a moment in the proceedings when I did feel some kind of, if not so much sorrow, then disappointment for the ‘deceased’ as the officials kept calling him. As considering at one stage in his life he would have insisted upon a big, pompous funeral with a glass hearse, four black horses, burning candles and loud, menacing organ music. His actual funeral was quite a light and airy affair, almost white in many ways. Mainly because although it was the end of November, the actual day itself was a really good one; lovely and bright with the sky that beautiful shade of silvery blue that you only ever appear to get at this time of year. And to prove it, whilst I was there I actually had to move twice, once before the sermon and once after, just to keep out of the bright light that had been streaming through the windows as the winter sun hurriedly made its way across the sky. It’s a natural phenomenon I know, but it was one that had for all that, caused me some quite considerable discomfort and anxiety earlier on in the proceedings. Especially when I was trying to weigh up the pros and cons of either enduring the sweltering heat until his eulogy had finished, or otherwise, unnecessarily disrupting the speaker’s flow whilst I struggled to take my coat off.

Luckily enough though, the eulogy didn’t last that long as there really wasn’t that much good that anyone had to say about Jacque, or for that matter, that many who really wanted to hear it; which was a bit of a relief thank God. As it meant that we the attendees got to that bit known as: ‘The time for quiet reflection and meditation’ a bit quicker than I’d previously expected. Which was good news, as that at least allowed me some time to observe with a cynical eye, the few who actually did bother to go up to inspect his coffin. Those who I can well imagine were a hell of a lot more ill at ease with their surroundings, than my friend was with his eventual death.

Not that he was always like that, as there was a time when he too would have found it very hard to have come to terms with the blunt, matter-of-fact-ness of death also.

Finally Turning Up To His Own Funeral

Preferring if he could, to have been allowed the opportunity to not only arrive late for his own funeral, but also after making a grand entrance, get the chance to casually stroll up to his own coffin looking like a young Oscar Wilde in his prime, just so he could loudly proclaim in a loud actor’s voice:

‘That the act of dying is just a farce and the afterlife itself just pure thee-at-rah!’ and steal the show. -Come to think of it, if he had managed to pull that off, then he definitely would have stolen the show wouldn’t he! - Saying that, and I know I shouldn’t try to make light of such things, but it is funny to think that he most probably looks more alive in that box over there, than he ever did for a good fifteen years of his actual life. Not because he was ill or nothing, but because for quite a few years of his adult life Damien… sorry, I mean Jean Jacque-Louie (on his mother’s side) lived the life of a Goth. No that’s wrong, he didn’t live the life of a Goth, he was a Goth, you know from the word: ‘Gothic’.

I mean why else would anyone spend the majority of their adult life choosing to dress like they were an ‘extra’ from a Mad Max film. Not to mention constantly wear loads of makeup, dye his hair numerous colours and sport various types of ‘piercings’. Of course he did have to tone it down for work, but not so much that you still couldn’t see what he was, it just wasn’t in your face so much. Still that was him all over, as he always somehow managed to fit in, no matter where he was or who he was with. Well that’s how I always saw it and to tell you the truth I often envied him for it. As from where I stood it always looked like he was lucky enough to be able to live the kind of life where he could be dabbling around the edges of satanic rituals and the black arts, (not to mention ‘Dungeons and Dragons’) during the weekend.

Everything A Goth Needs

Yet still manage to hold down a nice little regular nine to five as a small-time computer whiz in an even smaller publishing company during the week without any trouble. Mainly because and as I’ve already said, Jacque was the kind of guy who could go for a pint of Guinness with his mates from the office, and in the course of a short conversation jump from work to witchcraft and back again, all in the drop of a hat without anyone blinking an eye, like it was the norm and they all accepted it. But of course, being Jacque was a Goth, he never actually ‘dropped’ anything, unless he really felt like getting ‘completely stoned’, -his expression you understand not mine.

But all that is, as I say: all in the past now. As I doubt it will do either me, or him for that matter, any good to keep harping on about what he seemed to be like for most of his life. No, what would be far more sensible for me to do, would be to at least try and clarify the reason why none of his family or other friends bothered turning up to his funeral. And the best way I can think of doing that is by first saying: The reason I went to his funeral was because I eventually found out he wasn’t even half the monster most people believed him to be. So that must then mean: That the reason why none of his family or other friends attended, was basically because they still did believe he was as evil as they thought he was.

Family And Friends

Chapter 2

Now why, you may ask, should it be that a person with, what can only be described as an almost theatrical fascination with death in its many guises, be so detested by all those whom, when he was very young, loved him above anything else in the whole