Notes-To-Self: Accumulated Thoughts, Transferred Into Word Form

By Christopher Alan Broadstone

If you love POE, BARKER and THE TWILIGHT ZONE, you'll love “NOTES-TO-SELF”!

“Notes-To-Self: Accumulated Thoughts, Transferred Into Word Form” is a brand new version of an historical collection of works that comprises Christopher Alan Broadstone's long out-of-print, handmade ‘About 9 Times’ fan-book titled “Beyond Blue Sky, Nothing” (July 1988), which included an amalgam of 92 early poems (many of them ‘About 9 Times’ lyrics), along with two early short stories, “Again Once More” and “The Deformity”.

New to this edition are the very early, never before published tales “Grandma” and the experimental “The Dying Man: A Comedy Of Eschatology”, along with the unfinished incarnation tale “Homo Amphibious Burlesque”, which plays prominently in the feature film “Human No More” (2020). Spearheading this collection is the acclaimed, but rare, demonic serial-killer thriller “Note-To-Self”, previously featured in the “Journals Of Horror: Found Fiction” anthology (2014, out-of-print), and now updated with additional material. Also included is the very rare (as yet unproduced) screenplay for the short film “Roseblood”, based on Broadstone's controversial Christian horror story of the same name, first published in “Suicide The Hard Way: And Other Tales From The Innerzone”.

Bringing this enhanced collection into perspective, and linking Broadstone's earliest stories to his most current, is “Human No More” producer Matthew Sanderson, who also edited Broadstone’s “Suicide The Hard Way” and “A Catch In Time”. Sanderson’s comprehensive and fascinating essay “Truth & Tragedy: God Cakes Won’t Help You In Hell” completes “Notes-To-Self” with brand new perspective.

Last but not least, as with the original “Beyond Blue Sky, Nothing” fan-book, the ending section is comprised of all 92 of C.A. Broadstone’s poetry and lyrics, although now updated with an additional 26 entries––including two lost poems, “Abattoir” and “The Bloody Dead”, which were recently discovered sandwiched between old printouts of the stories “Grandma” and “The Dying Man”.

If you love Christopher Alan Broadstone's philosophical and macabre books and films, as well as his lyrics for the jazz/punk/new-wave band ‘About 9 Times’ and his grunge band ‘The Judas Engine’, you'll want to see where it all began. And where it all has come to.

"With razor-sharp precision, “Note-To-Self” explores a world of unhealed emotional scars and inescapable body horror. Broadstone captures the dislocation of being a stranger in your own skin, alongside the existential curiosity of commingling human reality with the dark void of the unknown." –– Jonny Numb, Crash Palace Productions

“As our [“Note-To-Self”] killer embarks on a twisted quest, his journey and mindset are the elements that unnerve us. Whether in the bosom of a benign tribe of Bedouins, or sojourning through a chaotic Cairo, Mr. Broadstone ensures that we the reader will find no comfort, or reprieve from horror.” –– Christopher Zisi, Zisi Emporium For B-Movies

• Language: English
• Publisher: BCP/Texas POĒtrope
• Release date: Dec 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005215897

Christopher Alan Broadstone

Christopher Alan Broadstone is the author of the macabre-thriller PUZZLEMAN. His novella A CATCH IN TIME (a dark alternative-history thriller) is now available on all eBook platforms and in trade paperback on Amazon and from Texas POĒtrope @ www.poetrope.com; the relative short film, A CATCH IN TIME: CHAPTER ONE is now available on the HUMAN NO MORE Blu-ray. SUICIDE THE HARD WAY: AND OTHER TALES FROM THE INNERZONE is an in-depth collection of Brodastone's never-before-released short stories, screenplays, and lyrics/poetry. Currently, he is completing his second macabre-thriller novel, HEATHER'S TREEHOUSE (due Summer 2022) and a new collection of short stories (and more) titled NOTES-TO-SELF: ACCUMULATED THOUGHTS, TRANSFERRED INTO WORD FORM (due Christmas 2021). Also, Broadstone has just released his first feature film HUMAN NO MORE, now available on Blu-ray from Amazon and at Texas POĒtrope––Books, Films, Music. Please find Texas POĒtrope @ www.poetrope.comServing as writer and director, C.A. Broadstone has also produced three award-winning short films: SCREAM FOR ME (Best Short Film: NYC Horror Film Festival, Best Underground Short: B-Independent.com), MY SKIN! (Best Horror Short: Shriekfest Film Festival [L.A.], Creative Vision Award: International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival [Phoenix, AZ], Best Film/Director: Cinema Edge Awards), and HUMAN NO MORE (Best Horror Short: The Indie Gathering Film Festival [OH]). Also, he has completed two feature length screenplays, COLOR OF FLAME, an erotic ghost story, and, with actor/writer John Franklin (Isaac from 'Children of the Corn'), R (Best Horror Feature Screenplay: Shriekfest Film Festival [L.A.]). In total, C.A. Broadstone's films have been showcased on several horror compilation DVDs, have screened at 30 international film festivals, and have won 15 'Best Of' awards. All three films are currently available on the anthology DVD, 3 DEAD GIRLS! at Texas POĒtrope––Books, Films, Music. Please find Texas POĒtrope @ www.poetrope.com.

Book preview

Special Thanks

First, I would like to thank all those About 9 Times fans who not only purchased, but embraced, the 1988 incarnation of this book, originally titled Beyond Blue Sky, Nothing: Accumulated Thoughts, Transferred Into Word Form.  I hope you will enjoy this new iteration, with spelling and typo fixes and additional material.

I would also like to thank Nisar Sufi (of LiteraryRetreat.com, book & film reviewer and palm reader extraordinaire) for turning me onto Krishnamurti’s book Freedom From The Known.  Although I did not always agree with Krishnamurti’s resolutions for solving mankind’s problems, I do agree with his concise explanation of the universal issues and innate sickness that cripple humans on almost every level.  Nisar strongly recommending I read Freedom From The Known, truly helped me put many of my own beliefs into a clearer perspective, resulting in a more passionate, eloquent, and updated, presentation of my short story Again Once More.

As always, last but not least, without a doubt, and happy as hell to do so, I must thank Notes-To-Self editor and curator Matthew Sanderson, without whose motivation (poking my creative brain with a stick) and whose tireless and perpetual faith in my work (writing, filmmaking, music) has not only kept me going when I’ve said To hell with it all!, but has subtly steered my creative path into projects I had not even considered.  You may thank him (or blame him) for the short film A Catch In Time: Chapter One, Human No More the feature film, and the newly enhanced version of this book, Notes-To-Self: Accumulated Thoughts, Transferred Into Word Form.  Enjoy.

This Book

...is dedicated to all the About 9 Times fans out there, near and far, who supported the band from the very beginning and still do to this day.  Times have changed, but the music and the words have remained the same.  I hope the passing of the years will only bring new and refreshing perspective to everyone, just as this book revives what was once on the page in July 1988, and marries it with words and thoughts from the present.

This book is also dedicated to my mother and father, Billie and D.C. Broadstone.  As the years have turned into decades, they have never failed to support me in my artistic madness and continue to insist I carry on tormenting the world with it.  And even though I’m much, much older now, Mom and Dad’s advice still seems as sound as ever.  Thus, I continue to shout out my creativity and imagination as loudly as if I were just slapped on my bare bottom on my first second on this lunatic planet.

Notes

on

Notes-To-Self

An Introduction

By

Christopher Alan Broadstone

Jim Cocke––pro piano-man and keyboardist, songwriter extraordinaire, band mate, weekly Blade Runner obsessed movie-pal, hot cheesy sandwich lover, and decades-long friend––once wrote a preface to the original incarnation of the book you now hold in your hands.  For the inaugural July 1988 edition, the literary muses smiled and granted me free copies of the interior content (thanks to a couple friends who snuck thousands of pages into the workload at Xerox Corporation), blessedly imprinting wonderfully collated 8.5x11 bundles, which I then had bound (ten or fifteen books at a time) in a navy or black VeloBind hardcover at a local AlphaGraphics. Titled Beyond Blue Sky, Nothing: Accumulated Thoughts, Transferred Into Word Form, it was primarily intended for the fans of our jazz-punk/new-wave band About 9 Times.  The contents included 92 lyrics/poetry and two short stories, all penned by yours truly.  To my thrill and surprise, quite a few fans (during set breaks and after shows) purchased autographed and numbered copies of this fledgling, handmade venture into the publishing industry.  And certainly more than a few fans were surprised, or even shocked, to read Jim’s own accumulated-thoughts summing up the preface––and me––with this paragraph:

So as you read, enjoy these writings and stories, but also, try to use your brain a little.  It won’t hurt; it might even help.  And Chris wants to help, which is ironic because the thing he hates the most (people) is the thing he cares enough about to try and help.  And Chris knows that in some small way, his music and his writing has the potential to help.  Because Chris believes as we all should––that beyond blue sky, there is something.  There is hope.

Today, however, in the year of our Lord (of certain chaos) 2021, as I sit here pondering (with the old Andy Griffith Show running on the Sundance Channel, reminding me of a simpler and happier world)––as I sit here struggling to write a brand new preface, expounding on the heretical trinity known as Me, Myself, and I, for this prodigal scionic edition, refashioned and retitled Notes-To-Self: Accumulated Thoughts, Transferred Into Word Form, I find that most of what has changed about Jim’s summation is the very last sentence: ‘There is hope.’

Hmmmmmmm…is there?

For quite some time––I mean my entire life since I advanced from crawling, stood erect, discovered my opposable thumb, and possessed enough brain continuity to form a conclusion––I’ve watched technology advance in leaps and bounds and people nearly not at all, and too often felt there really was no hope to speak of.  This is certainly a grim way to fresh-preface such an auspicious occasion as the birth of a book, but…well…the truth is, I’ve never really grown up either; i.e., advanced much.  But unlike most of puerile humanity (politicians, corporate multinational demagogues, professional business-suited dictators, Big Tech oppressors, as well as the average guy with a bigger stick) I don’t pretend to be a grownup.  Being in charge doesn’t automatically make you a grownup.  Owning the latest smartphone, tablet, or fossil-fuel-generated electric car and whining ‘save the planet!’, doesn’t make you a grownup either.  And, from my observation, very little of this authoritarian power or all-consuming technology has made humanity any wiser.  In fact, it only seems to wizen human wisdom.  And worst of all, not even procreating (making more, and maybe better, humans) transforms anyone into a grownup; it just makes more mommies and daddies older faster.  And, alas, as the heroine Amanda, in my novel Puzzleman pontificates:

Why in God’s name have another kid? Why create another loose end to be tied up?

Indeed, why?  If you bother to stop for a moment and take your eyes off your smartphone or tablet, or this book, and look around, you might notice you reside on a planet nearly overrun with loose-ends to be tied up.  And, sadly, most of those loose-ends are fraying faster and faster.  Sadder still, I openly admit that I am one of them.  I’m just not pretending to be a grownup in the process of all this group entropy.

Even at ten years old I can remember telling myself, ‘I never want to grow up.’   I certainly never had any desire to get a job to pay bills and taxes and accrue multiple insurances (you hope and pray you never have to use) and then one damn day just drop dead.  As we all eventually will.  So stop living your precious life as if you are going to salvage the Earth from the Anthropocene Age (the evil footprint of mankind!) and live forever among the idiot Eloi.  You aren’t.  The Morlocks will eventually eat you.  But I digress.  Or do I?

This train of loose-end thinking has surreptitiously and serendipitously brought me to an odd little tale contained in the new pages of Notes-To-Self.  Published here for the very first time, I present The Dying Man: A Comedy Of Eschatology, which my young mind bled out and coagulated way back in October 1988.  If you’ve read any of my current efforts, you will likely find this tale unexpected and a bizarrely absurd commentary on…(wait for it!)…taxes, insurance, dropping dead, and not wanting to grow up at all.  This story is also an example of me experimenting with what some call method-writing.  Like method-acting, method-writing involves the immersion of a writer in a lifestyle parallel, equivalent, or similar to what he/she is writing about.  Hence, me never wanting to grow up works very well for this particular story.  Yet The Dying Man is where my theory on writing morphs (some might say perverts and falls flat) into something else entirely; a stylization I call inverse method-writing.  By inverse method-writing I mean placing the reader inside the mental state of the character by writing the story in a relative style.  Which could mean visually on the page, with uncommon punctuation patterns utilizing parentheses, ellipses and em-dashes; or dialect and italics; or unusual line- or paragraph-breaks.  At this juncture you may also have noticed that I like to hyphenate words not commonly hyphenated, for impact or easier reading. 

In the unique case of The Dying Man, however, while using some of the above mentioned tricks, I wrote the narrative as a children’s story for grownups.  Oh, the irony.  What forces the irony even further up the reader’s wazoo is that The Dying Man is also a comedy.  A dark, satirical, and ludicrous one, but still a comedy.  A clue to this, of course, is the subtitle: A Comedy Of Eschatology.  Again, I’m not really trying to pretend to be a grownup.

As a companion piece to The Dying Man, and also never before published, is a story I more simply titled: Grandma (December 1988).

While I consider both Grandma and The Dying Man children’s stories for grownups, they might also be labeled as introspective theater-of-the-absurd; which is a style that has crept into my current and more mature efforts, although with greater subtlety.  In the beginning it was blatant.  In either case, however, past or present, all of my characters in every story I’ve ever written are introspective.  This is the purest tensile thread that weaves all of my tales together.  Introspection is my thumbprint, and so far it has proven to be indelible and incriminating.  I use the word incriminating with purpose here.  Not because I should be locked up as the writer (although there are several pretend-grownups out there on social media, in mental healthcare, and in government, who believe I should be), but because introspection often reveals the brightest, darkest, wisest, and most genuine sampling of who an individual is, fictional or real.  Introspection, at its most honest––most criminal, believe many––reveals individuality.  In the modern world of the 2020’s, via social-credit-score obsessed Big Tech, socialist-driven global-government-fantasizing powers, and radical mandate-fixated segregationist groups, the concept of individuality is again becoming a crime and a punishable offense; just as it was in fascist Nazi Germany, the communist Soviet Union, and today in communist China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and the fanatical super-spreading Islamic factions of the Middle East.  All are censors and oppressors of individuality and, therefore, introspection.  Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union should be remembered as failed regimes for attempting, and nearly succeeding, in decimating singular originality and identity.  In a word: freedom.  Nonetheless, the plethora of pretend-grownups who are now running the circus called Planet Earth are repeating history; most of whom don’t study the past at all, but prefer to base their biased beliefs and actions on propagandist memes and revisionist bestsellers.  Or maybe they are just too arrogant to have any regard for the historical lessons of cause and effect; and, as a result, are once again not advancing at all.  The Great Reset––(look it up)––is an aggression and a regression.  And there is nothing progressive about reinventing the wheel.  It’s a lateral move.  Which brings me to a third story, now haunting these new pages from the old Xeroxed bundles.  It’s also one of scathing anthropocentric commentary: Again Once More (November 1985; reworked and updated October 2021).

The first of two short stories published in the original version of this book, Again Once More is also a form of comedy, although a disturbing comedy of errors and, to spice things up, cosmology.  It is also a parable of cause and effect which the present day world is flat out ignoring and/or glossing over by way of propaganda of all kinds in all arenas––especially in race relations, financial equality, and climate alarm.  The truth is now being spun so viciously, violently, and pandemically, that it is quickly gaining a critical mass that just might crush humanity once and for all.  Too bad introspection and individuality are so feverishly suppressed, because we need it.  Yet world leaders and governments and social media and peer pressure are not the only guilty parties.  The most profound killers of introspection are individuals themselves.  Again the irony runs rampant.  The endless ants, collectively called mankind, that scrabble under and over each other everyday, and for entire lifetimes, that cannot bear to look inwardly at themselves and think for themselves, are the truest oppressors.  The censors of self.  And taking another selfie isn’t going resolve this dilemma––all those loose-ends to be tied up, which are fraying more and more and faster and faster, as Father Time tap dances along.  Such a ragged fabric of failure we weave for ourselves when we don’t stand alone and look in the mirror, into our own eyes, and into the vast depths of our own soul.  And, most importantly, admit to ourselves who and what we are, and simply stop blaming the other guy for everything we find wrong with ourselves.

Indeed, far too many simply follow the leader, click on the TV and the streaming, and are instantly and automatically self-censoring.  They are also too afraid to confront the others––the groups, the gangs, the cliques, the claques, the mobs, the taunting minstrels, and the angry villagers.  Possibly it’s just the fear of fear itself that results in marching lockstep.  Regardless of the whys, it’s the culmination of cognitive and moral goosestepping that the second story previously published in the 1988 iteration of this book, concerns itself.

While The Deformity (September 1987) is another comedy of errors and eschatology, it is one that explores the potential calamity resulting from blind unity and unquestioning allegiance to dogma and popular, often syncretized, beliefs.  The Deformity is also introspective theater-of-the-absurd, but introspection come too late.  Which finally brings me to the top of the heap of literary oddities in this collection, and the inspiration for the retitling of this new book as Notes-To-Self.

Note-To-Self is an original short story written specifically for the anthology Journals Of Horror: Found Fiction (2015, out-of-print as of 2021), edited by Terry M. West.  Personally I believe Note-To-Self is one of my very best stories––a perfect example representing how I currently write introspective fiction.  In 2015 I was under the restrictions of a limited word count for Journals Of Horror, but for this edition Note-To-Self has been expanded with original outtakes and brand new material providing further insight into the global serial killer Seimen Kleinend.  It’s true that like Seimen’s own innards, all of the narrative innards of this collection have been in some way freshened, tweaked, and scarified, to suit a much older never-grown-up me; not to mention a modern world that really hasn’t changed much at all.  There are also a few more entries added to the lyrics and poetry section, including two lost poems recently discovered in an old printout binder, Abattoir (February 1, 1989) and The Bloody Dead (February 3, 1989)––bringing the original 92 up to 118.

Furthermore, the works of prose I’ve already mentioned, as well as a few other curiosities newly published in this volume, will be elaborated on with intriguing and insightful commentary by editor and curator Matthew Sanderson.  Please read his words; Matthew excels at explaining literature and cinema and me.  He has also been an invaluable creative editor and producer, fan and friend, for many years, having worked directly with me since the creation of Note-To-Self (2015), Suicide The Hard Way: And Other Tales From The Innerzone (2015), A Catch In Time: A Macabre Novella And Short Stories (2016), the short film A Catch In Time: Chapter One (2017) and the feature film Human No More: A Macabre Thriller (2020).

At long last, I believe only one question remains to be answered: Why do I write anything at all?

Returning to Jim’s preface summation, he stated: And Chris wants to help, which is ironic because the thing he hates the most (people) is the thing he cares enough about to try and help.  And Chris knows that in some small way, his music and his writing has the potential to help.

I still believe that, but only to a degree.  As Mr. Blight, the Mirror Murders Killer, says in Human No More: "I'm pretty sure the reason I'm on planet doodoo, isn't to save the humans."

Honestly, I don’t fantasize I’m alive to educate or save anyone.  One thing I can’t stand is people, groups, and governments, that think they can––or should and must––save the planet and others from themselves.  Leave it all to Mother Nature, I say, and the truly introspective individual to make the difference in the whole.  Otherwise, we all might just end up collapsing into a spiraling black-hole of inanity.  I admit that a tremendous percentage of my individual thinking tells me humanity, and the madness and misery it breeds, should be destroyed once and for all.  As my VHEMt T-shirt reads: Visualize Human Extinction––Live long and die out.  So again, the big question remains: Why write––create––anything at all?

I don’t know.  I’m simply compelled to.  And the more I look inside myself, into my mirror, the more my compulsion to create grows.  I know this isn’t much of an answer.  I wish I could say I create because I make millions of dollars doing it, or even a reasonable living, but I can’t.  Nonetheless, in spite of all the endless frustration and lack of cold cash, one of my greatest fears is that I will have to, sooner than later, retire from creative output; that I simply won’t be able to go on because it costs more than I can financially afford or can emotionally sustain.  Trust me, creating is draining in more ways than one.  It is pure fact that when I give birth to music, a movie, or a book, I’m giving the world a piece of my heart and soul and mind.  To be a bit pompous: My art.  Honestly, I suppose this makes me no different than most artists.  I am merely a spark in the dark, hoping to ignite the imagination of another––those biological things Jim claims I hate: people.

Let me interject here.  I only dislike some people; usually those who are condescending ass-clowns and those who think they can put their thumb on me just because they are in a position of authority or believe they are superior.  As for these worthless monkeys, I have no problem detailing how I’d like to crucify and set them on fire.  The majority of humans, however, I am merely indifferent to.  I don’t automatically rate people as wonderful and special just because they’re breathing; they need to merit themselves and show some worth.  I value people who have value.  But that still doesn’t mean I wouldn’t help someone if they asked me nicely––because cordiality and graciousness have value.  And there are, believe it or not, a few select humans that I truly like or love deeply.  The bottom line is this: I have little faith in humankind en masse or as a concept, but I have great faith in individuals who exercise common courtesy and possess common sense.  That’s the Golden Rule and the simple key to opening the lock of progress.

But let’s return to the spark in the dark I previously mentioned.

I am also fighting to keep that spark alive in myself.  Therefore, I create for a selfish reason: the self-preservation of my own imagination and individuality.  After all my introspection, my great goal is not to make others think, or to educate them; my sincerest desire is only to give the outside-people––as serial killer Seimen Kleinend calls them in Note-To-Self––something to think about.  Because thinking is a phenomenon that seems to be less and less sought after these days.  Maybe a spark is truly needed, whether it’s mine or someone else’s.  Maybe it’s a million or a billion or a trillion sparks in the dark that are needed––because imagination is so obviously in shorter and shorter supply, wherever I turn.  It’s claimed that Einstein said, ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge.’  I’d like to believe that.  I’d also like to believe that the imagination is a gift that keeps on giving.  And if that isn’t the purest form of endowment, I don’t know what is.  The preservative and curative entertainment and expansion of our own minds.  So, for better or worse––

On with show!

And on with this book.

Maybe you’ll discover something to think about.

Short Stories

(And A Short Script)

Note-To-Self

"You know, hope is a mistake.

If you can’t fix what’s broken, you’ll…

You'll go insane."

–– Max Rockatansky,

Mad Max: Fury Road

It’s time to ask yourself what you believe.

–– Walter Donovan,

Indian Jones And The Last Crusade

ONE

Lost in utter darkness I felt the slightest sensation of floating, rising––then a gentle nudge at my lower back, as if a ghostly hand had slithered inside of me, the fingers coiling around the base of my spine and pushing me upward from the depths of oblivion into the light.  But, as yet, I could see no light and my eyelids were too heavy to open, forcing me back onto myself in introspection.  As my spine arched in ascension, my head lolled backward, reaching a plane with my feet, which were dangling at the extremity of my legs, like two anchors begging to stall my buoyancy.  It was then that I remembered myself; the why of me.  I am what the police call a serial killer.  In all truth, a global killer.  Thinking that now, it seemed so absurd.  A global killer was supposed to be an asteroid the size of Texas.  But I’m much more like a microorganism, a virus or flesh-eating bacteria, although one that is randomly––almost abstractly––subjective in its choice of human, rather than pandemic.  Even so, I have become pandemic in name.  The moniker started with local police detectives in Argentina after what they described as my third mutilation murder, and as time crept by it spread to Interpol and its 190 member countries.  They all now call me Splitfoot, or the Splitfoot Killer.  Sensationalism, however, was never my goal.  Splitfoot was simply born out of my endless grief and was always an in-joke sprung from my futile effort to revive myself.  But it became my calling card.

Suddenly but gently twitching, the ghostly hand gripping the root of my spine continued to push me toward the surface of consciousness. Languidly rising, I became aware of my arms outstretched in a Christ-pose at my sides.

I clenched my fists and felt only the flesh of my palms, no nails, no stigmata, no restraint. The latter thought reverberated sonorously in my mind––no restraint––and my leaden eyelids fluttered for the first time.  I attempted to move my arms and they swayed in the vast nothingness.  With some effort I pulled them to my sides and corkscrewed my wrists.  No restraint, I thought again.  No chains, no chains, no chains...

And it was at that moment the dead air that had been trapped in my lungs expanded my larynx and puffed up beneath my lips, parting them.  I breathed in a sterile coolness.  My eyelids fluttered once more and they also parted, revealing a blur of white that quickly whirled into a vertiginous rectangle that could only be the ceiling of a room.  A jail, I feared, as I again corkscrewed my wrists and my eyes closed one more time.  But no chains.

Abruptly, I heard the sound of a door opening and footsteps coming closer.  A man’s whispery voice fell over me, Mr. Kleinend...

I was reluctant to move, but then fingers lifted my right and left eyelids in succession, allowing a bright light to burst over my retinas, jarring me into a more resolved state of consciousness.

Mr. Kleinend, the voice said again, no longer a whisper.  My eyes now opened of their own accord and I stared up at the jail cell ceiling as it slowly spun to a