Tale of a Silk Hat

 

If you were to go to a certain high-end haberdashery in London in the rough middle of the 20^th Century, you might, if it has not yet sold, find a particularly elegant specimen of top hat. There are many artifacts of temporal significance within that hat-shop, but anyone with even a bit of chronal sensitivity can tell that an unusually great number of timelines converge on that piece of headgear in particular.

If you were to then take that hat to the proprietor of the shop, a warm-faced and roundly-shaped fellow, he would gently explain its history to you. He would tell you that it was once worn by a traveler of tremendous provenance, a genius and a gentleman, and after telling you something of that man he would go on to say that the man received the hat as a gift from an old friend. And then he would tell something of that old friend, and accordingly go into the tale of how she got the hat.

And this could on forever. But we have to stop somewhere, and so it is the tale of the woman who gave the hat to its last owner that concerns us today. Cast your mind back years ago, to the days before chaos ruled infinity, to the days before time and space as we know it were even born…

PhantomEye Press Stands in Support of All Transgender, Non-Binary, & Gender Non-Conforming Individuals

PhantomEye Press stands in support of all transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals. Their lives are sacred and they deserve love, validation, and belonging. PhantomEye Press is trans femme owned and operated, and we are rigidly and actively opposed to any and all measures to marginalize, humiliate, dehumanize, harm, or otherwise interrupt or destroy trans people's right to happy and well-supported lives. There is no law or government on Earth that can take away our dignity, our community, and our right to thrive. We will persist, we will rebel, and we will keep fighting. And please know that PhantomEye is always a safe space for you all throughout that fight. You are seen, and I know someday there will be justice for us all.

Billy's Birthday!

Persephone (still shrunken from her adventure in the Dwindle Dimension): Whoa! Reuben, come look at this guy!

Red Rube (OC): Hey, Rube!

*Whoosh*

Persephone: If I'm not wrong, it's his birthday! (If only Grant was here!*)

Red Rube (also shrunken): His birthday? Holy fumetti!

* Grant Richmond, aka the Mad Hatter 

Both: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BILLY!

*         *         *

One year ago today, Roswell William "Billy" Jacobsen-Bezecny was born!!

The Red Rube, aka Reuben Reuben, appeared in MLJ's Zip Comics from 1943-1944. The Mad Hatter, aka Grant Richmond, appeared in O.W. Comics' Mad Hatter for two issues in 1946. Both characters are in the public domain. Persephone's travels with these two superheroes will be further documented in future stories.

Storm of the Myloki

Alex Storm, the Myloki, and other characters and concepts from The Indestructible Man are the creations and creative property of Simon Messingham, and appear here with his permission.

Alex Storm awoke slowly from his long slumber, with the drag of dreams still tugging at him. He struggled to recall what his last memory was before he had gone to sleep.

He started screaming when it came to him: it was a sound in his ears, the hard crunch of his spine breaking.

He tried to scream. His thoughts screamed out, helplessly, but there was no flesh to carry the sound of his voice.

The dead man—the dead man had crushed him like an ant—

The pain had been unbearable. And then it had consumed him.

Consumed—then he was dead too.

That was why he had no body. No feeling. He was blind, deaf, mute, and all else. There was nothing left of him but thought. He was too bitter to call it spirit.