Good things can also start up again . . .

Naif Peering in Window of Our Back's Ratskeller
- The Unseen Mr. Em Within -

Terrance Lindall

My friend Terrance Lindall may have time, after all, to illustrate my story, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer. He is, in any case, making a heroic effort at making time to make illustrations. We see in this image above his 'coloration' of a sketch that he worked out earlier, the scene in which our naive hero has stumbled upon a shop identified by its sign as Our Back's Ratskeller, and is now peering through the dark window:

Curious, I attempted to peer through the window, but the shop was dark, and I could make out nothing of the vague room's shape, nor of anyone within, nothing distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, just seemingly insubstantial shadow.

Readers of John Milton's magnum opus may recognize the wording, for I've cribbed from Book 2, Lines 666-669 of that tragic epic, Paradise Lost. I have my own vision, however, and it might attract some readers, for as I told Terrance yesterday, concerning the anthology version with four of his illustrations:

[On Friday] I was proctoring a test with a fellow instructor. She's a Korean, but her English is good. I showed her the story with the four images, and she sat down and began reading it, growing so engrossed that she forgot about the exam. I let her read as I proctored on my own.

She really liked what she was able to read, also the illustrations, and she found the story scary -- but she reached only the blood-taking scene.

Terrance, in turn, sent me a link to his composite video advertising our novella, to come out sometime next year. By the way, some readers interested in Terrance's Paradise Lost illustrations might want to compare the darkly flaming Mr. Em in the image above with Terrance's flaming Hell-bound Satan, if only to see the continuities and differences . . .