An interview with The Four Horsemen
I really must say that this is one of the most interesting interviews I've ever done. Today I'll have the privilege of directing questions to the characters from the upcoming novel, MYRRH.
These are not ordinary characters, however...
These are not ordinary characters, however...
...these are The Four Horsemen.
Death: Our humble Scribe has duties elsewhere/ or so I assume/ so we shall begin, Mistress Nevins.
D.H.: Oh yes. Thank you. Sorry. This whole thing is a little disconcerting. Thank you for agreeing to take the time to speak to a mere mortal such as myself.
I think my first question must be this: why have you given yourselves human names? Some might consider this to be far beneath you.
Pestilence: Well you may imagine! Like any unruly child of any creation we donned nicknames, at least partially to twit ‘our’/your Heavenly Father. Francis was so named by me because I always found the tale of the Saint from Assisi (1181-1226 C.E.) who preached to birds faintly ridiculous. To say nothing of how he died reciting Psalm 141! Why that one in particular?
Death: There are far better ones/ true enough/ why not 23?/ there’s a crowd pleaser/
Pestilence: Death here had so little in common with the famous King of Israel, I had to name him David.
Famine: We kind of communally gave Pestilence his nickname because we thought it would make him less of a tendency to get verbose. It hasn’t worked.
Pestilence: Language too is a disease, after all. Given how a difference in those some speak can alone be a reason for one to murder another. William named himself, of course.
War: It made sense t’ name me somethin’ that started with th’ same letter. That’s all. But sometimes our original titles wear on us a little. I know there’s times I disagree with myself. An’ my brothers here. Violently. If I don’ have poor impulse control, who does?
Famine: I have hungered, honestly, for all the things we will never have or know. Great thing about having a personality. One time I looked ‘up’ and saw the heavenly Vaults, and there they were, most of who we’d sent on their way over the centuries. Home at last. We’ll never be admitted to any of that. Oh, well. Can’t lose what you never had.
Death: The real St. Peter knows what’d happen if we did/ while I think on my own passing/ not as often as humanity do, but on occasion/ neither do we know the day nor the hour!/ do we?/ do you?/ and sometimes Petey will bring up the affliction of the human qualities we’ve accumulated over time/ but he will expound on that/ guaranteed/
D.H.: It’s been nearly 2000 years since the first five seals were opened. How have you been passing the time while awaiting the opening of the sixth?
Pestilence: So, you haven’t been studying your history? I’ll start. The Black Plague. The flu epidemic of 1918-19. AIDS. The oncoming insanities which Freud and Jung and their illegitimate psychologist progenitees defined over the years. Not very wise of them! All mine now to sow, and for humankind to reap. Parenthetically, I had to come up with something to replace all the dead microbes your scientists have massacred over the last two centuries. While, are we four not to be seen in a fleeting sort of way throughout Western culture?
Death: We work in miniature ‘now’/ in your time/ to an extent/ because there are more people ‘now’ than there used to be/ and you are all so much better at noticing things/ time was, Frank could wipe out whole villages in Thuringia and nobody would notice until the following morning’s bread delivery/ no more/ as for what I have been doing/ check your obituary pages/ as was prophesied in Revelations 6:8/ a fourth of those are ours/ sometimes more/
War: What he said. An’ I’ve conducted ever wary since th’ Romans invaded Dacia in th’ 2nd century. Didn’t start ‘em, though. Didn’t have to.
Famine: Don’t forget, those 2000 years are your experience, not ours. We leap from second to second, century to century and back again. Directly behind you, Mistress Nevins, your ancestors stand. The house you live in is still full of the trees cut down to clear the land it as built on. You just can’t see them because you experience Time as the march of picoseconds, left, right, left, right. As for what I’ve been doing, well, UNICEF can’t be everywhere at once. Oh, yeah; in your particular reality, given how the weather patterns begin to overwhelm, how the waters rise, how the earthquakes rear the earth, I would have to say the sixth seal is being cracked right now. So at least part of the Wait’s over. But you’re all ready for that, aren’t you? Made your peace with one another and with your Maker? Right?
D.H.: Oh yes. Thank you. Sorry. This whole thing is a little disconcerting. Thank you for agreeing to take the time to speak to a mere mortal such as myself.
I think my first question must be this: why have you given yourselves human names? Some might consider this to be far beneath you.
Pestilence: Well you may imagine! Like any unruly child of any creation we donned nicknames, at least partially to twit ‘our’/your Heavenly Father. Francis was so named by me because I always found the tale of the Saint from Assisi (1181-1226 C.E.) who preached to birds faintly ridiculous. To say nothing of how he died reciting Psalm 141! Why that one in particular?
Death: There are far better ones/ true enough/ why not 23?/ there’s a crowd pleaser/
Pestilence: Death here had so little in common with the famous King of Israel, I had to name him David.
Famine: We kind of communally gave Pestilence his nickname because we thought it would make him less of a tendency to get verbose. It hasn’t worked.
Pestilence: Language too is a disease, after all. Given how a difference in those some speak can alone be a reason for one to murder another. William named himself, of course.
War: It made sense t’ name me somethin’ that started with th’ same letter. That’s all. But sometimes our original titles wear on us a little. I know there’s times I disagree with myself. An’ my brothers here. Violently. If I don’ have poor impulse control, who does?
Famine: I have hungered, honestly, for all the things we will never have or know. Great thing about having a personality. One time I looked ‘up’ and saw the heavenly Vaults, and there they were, most of who we’d sent on their way over the centuries. Home at last. We’ll never be admitted to any of that. Oh, well. Can’t lose what you never had.
Death: The real St. Peter knows what’d happen if we did/ while I think on my own passing/ not as often as humanity do, but on occasion/ neither do we know the day nor the hour!/ do we?/ do you?/ and sometimes Petey will bring up the affliction of the human qualities we’ve accumulated over time/ but he will expound on that/ guaranteed/
D.H.: It’s been nearly 2000 years since the first five seals were opened. How have you been passing the time while awaiting the opening of the sixth?
Pestilence: So, you haven’t been studying your history? I’ll start. The Black Plague. The flu epidemic of 1918-19. AIDS. The oncoming insanities which Freud and Jung and their illegitimate psychologist progenitees defined over the years. Not very wise of them! All mine now to sow, and for humankind to reap. Parenthetically, I had to come up with something to replace all the dead microbes your scientists have massacred over the last two centuries. While, are we four not to be seen in a fleeting sort of way throughout Western culture?
Death: We work in miniature ‘now’/ in your time/ to an extent/ because there are more people ‘now’ than there used to be/ and you are all so much better at noticing things/ time was, Frank could wipe out whole villages in Thuringia and nobody would notice until the following morning’s bread delivery/ no more/ as for what I have been doing/ check your obituary pages/ as was prophesied in Revelations 6:8/ a fourth of those are ours/ sometimes more/
War: What he said. An’ I’ve conducted ever wary since th’ Romans invaded Dacia in th’ 2nd century. Didn’t start ‘em, though. Didn’t have to.
Famine: Don’t forget, those 2000 years are your experience, not ours. We leap from second to second, century to century and back again. Directly behind you, Mistress Nevins, your ancestors stand. The house you live in is still full of the trees cut down to clear the land it as built on. You just can’t see them because you experience Time as the march of picoseconds, left, right, left, right. As for what I’ve been doing, well, UNICEF can’t be everywhere at once. Oh, yeah; in your particular reality, given how the weather patterns begin to overwhelm, how the waters rise, how the earthquakes rear the earth, I would have to say the sixth seal is being cracked right now. So at least part of the Wait’s over. But you’re all ready for that, aren’t you? Made your peace with one another and with your Maker? Right?
D.H.: I understand that after being around humans so long, some human qualities have rubbed off on you. Which of these qualities bothers you the most? Which quality (if there is one) have you been able to use to your advantage?
Famine: Now we can pass among men and women and near to make ourselves one of you, as long as they don’t look too closely.
War: Uh, my bro’s put on airs sometimes. Like they think they’re artists or something. No. We just keep th’ gutters dirty. That’s all.
Pestilence: We’re of several minds why these incursions of humanitas – pardon the pun - took place, incidentally. Francis feels that the human race is itself a virus, and we caught it. I prefer to think that this is Divine punishment for having done our work far too well. Over to you…!
D.H.: You speak of time like it is some kind of fog, and not a linear thing at all. If this is the case, wouldn’t 2000 years be irrelevant to you?
Death: Often it is that very thing/ but as I’ve said elsewhere, you too have some experience of this sense of the relative/ time can drag interminable while a highborn lady waits for her nails to dry/ though to a young Mongol slashing his way across the marshes north of the Caucasus with Genghis and Timur, a day leaps past as would a gazelle/ often, the Wait is of little true consequence to us/ it’s a sign of how the human hypersphere has intersected with our own that we address it at all/
D.H.: Why do you think there’s such a delay between the opening of the fifth and sixth seals?
Pestilence: For whatever reason, He is not yet ready. Some call Him Hashem, some call Him Allah, some call him merely the Father. I recall somebody opining that He had nine billion names (most probably a Kabbalist). Could He be waiting for them all to be used? He decides, He shall decide, He has decided. All at once. Quite a trick, overall. Would that we could manage it.
Famine: There’s a ‘hadith’ (a saying of the Prophet Mohammed) saying that the Last Days will occur when ‘sacred knowledge shall be withdrawn, temptations shall emerge, extreme avarice will descend, and massive discord will prevail.’ Trouble with that is, you could say that about any age. As my bro’ said, when He wills, it will happen.
Death: To render this even more absurd/ there is a Hasidic aphorism that states the End Time will come to pass either when no Jews observe the Sabbath or when all Jews observe the Sabbath/ sine comentaris
War: Can’t add much t’ this, so…
D.H.: In MYRRH, Petey mentions that if one were to remove the shepherd as well as the wolf, then the sheep would go mad. Are you insinuating that humans not only need to be lead, they also have a need to be lead astray?
Famine: Not exactly. Humankind has developed all kinds of bad habits since the first hominid stood upright on the plains of Africa, and one of these is to be suggested to, though. Another reason why we often work in miniature. How else would we get our occasional human assistants? Like our humble Scribe, for example.
Pestilence: That said, herding humans is worse than herding cats. Create a plague, and they all run away from it, yes. But that’s as suggestive as humankind is. Just as well that for the most part, all we do is return then to Sender.
D.H.: Pestilence, you explained on The Four Horsemen’s website that more frequently than every microsecond, a person is torn apart: for example, one half of them picks up the phone with their right hand and dials a correct number; the other half picks it up with their left, their finger slips, and they dial a wrong number. Each of those halves then grows its counterpart and continues on its course in its own parallel reality. This would create unfathomable numbers of parallel realities for a single person, and there are billions of people on this planet. Now, I understand that there’s only one of each of you, and even though you can navigate through these multiple realities of this plexiverse with ease, you are not omniscient. So, considering the sheer number of realities, how are you able to even keep up with what is going on in any one of them?
Death: We personally want to thank you for not getting outraged that there may well be quintillions of you out there/ you’d be surprised how many react in that fashion/ odd when all one need do is stand between two mirrors and look both ways/ and there is all the proof one needs!/ albeit in 2-space as opposed to the actual 26-space/
Pestilence: Doesn’t overall matter, you’ll certainly never see more than possibly one or two of them. As Francis has pointed out, men and women operate at a certain speed. They perceive at slightly different rates, but they are as sparrows to our B-52s. Possibly not the best of comparisons, but it’s what I can come up with just now. We pass among the levels and the barriers, among the floods and vapors of Time writ large, at speeds common to stars and neutrina, you see. True, we can’t be in two places at once, but we do get close on occasion. Since you can only perceive one of yourself, the vast majority of the time, you may not see what spoor we have left behind us every moment of your day; but you can be certain one of us has been through.
War: Yeah, we admit there’s some realities we haven’t been to lately. I get th’ feelin’ thos’re the ones most like Paradise. O’ course, humanity’re plenty capable of their own mischief, so maybe not.
Famine: Now we can pass among men and women and near to make ourselves one of you, as long as they don’t look too closely.
War: Uh, my bro’s put on airs sometimes. Like they think they’re artists or something. No. We just keep th’ gutters dirty. That’s all.
Pestilence: We’re of several minds why these incursions of humanitas – pardon the pun - took place, incidentally. Francis feels that the human race is itself a virus, and we caught it. I prefer to think that this is Divine punishment for having done our work far too well. Over to you…!
D.H.: You speak of time like it is some kind of fog, and not a linear thing at all. If this is the case, wouldn’t 2000 years be irrelevant to you?
Death: Often it is that very thing/ but as I’ve said elsewhere, you too have some experience of this sense of the relative/ time can drag interminable while a highborn lady waits for her nails to dry/ though to a young Mongol slashing his way across the marshes north of the Caucasus with Genghis and Timur, a day leaps past as would a gazelle/ often, the Wait is of little true consequence to us/ it’s a sign of how the human hypersphere has intersected with our own that we address it at all/
D.H.: Why do you think there’s such a delay between the opening of the fifth and sixth seals?
Pestilence: For whatever reason, He is not yet ready. Some call Him Hashem, some call Him Allah, some call him merely the Father. I recall somebody opining that He had nine billion names (most probably a Kabbalist). Could He be waiting for them all to be used? He decides, He shall decide, He has decided. All at once. Quite a trick, overall. Would that we could manage it.
Famine: There’s a ‘hadith’ (a saying of the Prophet Mohammed) saying that the Last Days will occur when ‘sacred knowledge shall be withdrawn, temptations shall emerge, extreme avarice will descend, and massive discord will prevail.’ Trouble with that is, you could say that about any age. As my bro’ said, when He wills, it will happen.
Death: To render this even more absurd/ there is a Hasidic aphorism that states the End Time will come to pass either when no Jews observe the Sabbath or when all Jews observe the Sabbath/ sine comentaris
War: Can’t add much t’ this, so…
D.H.: In MYRRH, Petey mentions that if one were to remove the shepherd as well as the wolf, then the sheep would go mad. Are you insinuating that humans not only need to be lead, they also have a need to be lead astray?
Famine: Not exactly. Humankind has developed all kinds of bad habits since the first hominid stood upright on the plains of Africa, and one of these is to be suggested to, though. Another reason why we often work in miniature. How else would we get our occasional human assistants? Like our humble Scribe, for example.
Pestilence: That said, herding humans is worse than herding cats. Create a plague, and they all run away from it, yes. But that’s as suggestive as humankind is. Just as well that for the most part, all we do is return then to Sender.
D.H.: Pestilence, you explained on The Four Horsemen’s website that more frequently than every microsecond, a person is torn apart: for example, one half of them picks up the phone with their right hand and dials a correct number; the other half picks it up with their left, their finger slips, and they dial a wrong number. Each of those halves then grows its counterpart and continues on its course in its own parallel reality. This would create unfathomable numbers of parallel realities for a single person, and there are billions of people on this planet. Now, I understand that there’s only one of each of you, and even though you can navigate through these multiple realities of this plexiverse with ease, you are not omniscient. So, considering the sheer number of realities, how are you able to even keep up with what is going on in any one of them?
Death: We personally want to thank you for not getting outraged that there may well be quintillions of you out there/ you’d be surprised how many react in that fashion/ odd when all one need do is stand between two mirrors and look both ways/ and there is all the proof one needs!/ albeit in 2-space as opposed to the actual 26-space/
Pestilence: Doesn’t overall matter, you’ll certainly never see more than possibly one or two of them. As Francis has pointed out, men and women operate at a certain speed. They perceive at slightly different rates, but they are as sparrows to our B-52s. Possibly not the best of comparisons, but it’s what I can come up with just now. We pass among the levels and the barriers, among the floods and vapors of Time writ large, at speeds common to stars and neutrina, you see. True, we can’t be in two places at once, but we do get close on occasion. Since you can only perceive one of yourself, the vast majority of the time, you may not see what spoor we have left behind us every moment of your day; but you can be certain one of us has been through.
War: Yeah, we admit there’s some realities we haven’t been to lately. I get th’ feelin’ thos’re the ones most like Paradise. O’ course, humanity’re plenty capable of their own mischief, so maybe not.
D.H.: Death, you mentioned on your website that the Apocalypse “has been released into the world(s) about you at a pace slower than glaciers/ to avoid the notice of those who might try to stop it.” So are you saying that humans actually have (had?) the ability to stop the Apocalypse?
Death: You will note I said ‘try’/ there are those of you who think you can/ and yes, that distends the passage of time in some realities/ your race has massive influence, as children of its Creator!/ but He retains the decision of when/ and the date will not change/ the ancient Romans actually may have delayed it when Caesar Titus Flavius Vespasianus put down the revolt of the Pharisees in Jerusalem in C.E. 70/ but that was out of ignorance/ all the Kohain high priests thought they were doing was fulfilling the understanding that mastery over the world was theirs to be had/ well, the Romans did what they always did/ they overreacted/ though of course, maybe the Pharisees were wrong/
D.H.: It seems that people have more sway over the timing of the end of the world than you’re letting on. Based on much that you’ve said, I gather that if humanity as a collective believes something, it practically makes it so. Bearing that in mind, perhaps the final stages of the Apocalypse will never occur. The more people there are on the planet, the less likely it becomes that the majority of humankind will be of the same opinion about anything. Isn’t getting the majority of the population to believe in the end of the world necessary in order to bring it about?
Death: I would like it underlined that as I have said elsewhere, it takes a certain number of men and women who believe something to make it true/ it is doubtful that you or we will ever find out how many that is/ and as I have also said, the Last Day is a fixed time and date/
Famine: Though you’re right. Humanity has such great influence that we’ve decided to give this interview to see what will change.
War: If anythin’.
Pestilence: We ask only that you react where we can see. Make what you will of that.
D.H.: As much as you four claim that you have no use for humans, Pestilence has an obvious ‘thing’ for Mary Magdalene. Why? And on top of that, it sounds like you’ve interacted with Salvador Dali. Are there actually some humans you can stand... humans you’ve even come to like?
Pestilence: I have no idea, really. Further evidence of the human virus? Possibly she will be Judith to my Holofhernes. I might do to be forewarned had I any sense, would I not?
War: There’s a question that answers itself. He saw her in a marketplace in a town on th’ Sea of Galilee ‘bout 1900 years ago. She was what, Petey, 18? Shopping for fruit. That’s all it took.
Pestilence: I don’t think she had met her Intended or been possessed by demons yet. Had that been the case I’d have cast them out myself. As for Him, well…
Famine: Who said we have no use for humans? We disdain you on occasion, yeah, but an artist doesn’t disrespect the medium he works in.
War: Bet you thought I was kiddin’, before, ma’am.
Death: As far as the Catalonian loon is concerned, yes/ he is painting a portrait of us/ occasionally we pose for it/ we have no idea when it will be finished/ and yes, he is dead, but some egos can’t be put down, apparently/ maybe this is his payback for all those religious-themed works he did in the 1950s/ he is not one of my favourite people/ Petey likes to talk to him/ I think they try to out-non-sequitur one another/ usually I can’t follow their banter/ I’ve quit trying/
D.H.: Famine, after a time on this earth, you and your brothers began to change. Death started writing poetry, and you started writing music. Human influence is likely to blame (thank?) for that, so I was wondering who has influenced you over the years. Which composer or band do you most enjoy and why?
Famine: Can’t say much about Dave’s writing since I don’t read a lot of it (he leaves it on the skin of his victims). For myself I have a special affection for the work of Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) because it has almost no human component. He composed utilizing mathematical formulae. If you dig out his ‘A La Memoire a Witold Lutoslawski’ you hear a funeral procession of galaxies, arranged in mourning for the great Polish modernist. No idea how Xenakis managed that. What others? Stockhausen, Penderecki, Schnittke. Some of the Baroque composers, such as the Bach family. The minimalists, like Terry Riley or Edgar Froese. Here’s an example of my work, which I admit hasn’t much to do with my list above…
…NO COMMON CAUSE sun whirls upon the spatter of tents ALIVE WITH BREATH ALONE no more CERTAINLY A HUMANITARIAN DISASTER none know whence they came FOOD AND WATER CRITICAL a corona of garbage and pedicles shrouds the circle NONE SPEAK A LANGUAGE COMMON WITH LOCAL NATIVES who placed them here CONTINUES TO ESCAPE FROM THE DUODENUS colourful shawls bleach in the equatorial IT IS FROM 8 TO 23 FEET IN LENGTH…
This is a fragment. As for a ‘band’… well, there was a small group of peasants in a town in Galicia in about the 7th century C.E. who I recall took up their flutes and drums as they filed into the forest, their instruments holding back the darkness. So they thought. They never got where they were going, but their fearful noise made an impression.
Death: As opposed to a joyful noise?/
D.H.: So, the Horsemen have wings. Are you angels then?
Pestilence: They are detachable, are paper-thin and contain pathways to our most recent and/or forthcoming projects and endeavors. When we want to journey to one of them to make further progress on it, we pull the wings out, bring one ‘picture’ on them into focus and strap them on. There are other ways for us to Travel, but this one’s that which you asked about.
D.H.: And now for the question I’ve been dying to ask (that was an unintentional pun, by the way, so don’t get any ideas). You may not be aware of this, but a pastor got his hands on a copy of MYRRH’s manuscript, and he burned it. I know you can check these facts, so you’ll see that I’m telling you the truth. How do you feel about this?
Pestilence: All things burn, eventually. Twenty thousand years after humanity goes to its final reward or retribution, your cities will all be dust. That astronaut’s footprints on the moon will follow into oblivion some half million years beyond there. The corona of human radio and television broadcasts will pass the Andromeda Galaxy another million and a half years after that. Be resigned, then. All is fleeting. Well, nearly.
War: C’mon, Petey. That’s all you got?
Pestilence: Very well, William. This MYRRH object that you speak of, Goodwife Nevins, is our humble scribe’s endeavor. Should he know what’s good for him, it will be ‘on paper’ –something else that burns -- exactly as we described. Should the telling be eradicated in some way, that doesn’t vitiate the tale. Think of all that has occurred on the myriad Earths that none ever knew of. It still occurred. In other words, if a tree fell and none heard it, it did still make a noise. MYRRH is, was, and shall be one account of countless which I and/or my brothers have, do and will narrate(d) on the ‘Muse’s speaking tube,’ or that human brain frequency which some refer to as ‘inspiration’. Have any of your readers or fellow writers heard in their minds a quiet set of voices whispering of things they never knew, things that they could never countenance? Things they could never possibly know without someone other telling them? Whatever action it made them take, if indeed any. You see, this is one of our few victories, and one reason why I find it diverting that you ask what we’ve been doing all these years. Look hard enough, and you’ll see us everywhere.
D.H.: Thank you, Pestilence, Death, Famine and War, I really must say that I’ve never conducted an interview quite like this before. I would like to wish you luck on your future endeavours, but... well... Thank you for coming by, anyway.
Death: You will note I said ‘try’/ there are those of you who think you can/ and yes, that distends the passage of time in some realities/ your race has massive influence, as children of its Creator!/ but He retains the decision of when/ and the date will not change/ the ancient Romans actually may have delayed it when Caesar Titus Flavius Vespasianus put down the revolt of the Pharisees in Jerusalem in C.E. 70/ but that was out of ignorance/ all the Kohain high priests thought they were doing was fulfilling the understanding that mastery over the world was theirs to be had/ well, the Romans did what they always did/ they overreacted/ though of course, maybe the Pharisees were wrong/
D.H.: It seems that people have more sway over the timing of the end of the world than you’re letting on. Based on much that you’ve said, I gather that if humanity as a collective believes something, it practically makes it so. Bearing that in mind, perhaps the final stages of the Apocalypse will never occur. The more people there are on the planet, the less likely it becomes that the majority of humankind will be of the same opinion about anything. Isn’t getting the majority of the population to believe in the end of the world necessary in order to bring it about?
Death: I would like it underlined that as I have said elsewhere, it takes a certain number of men and women who believe something to make it true/ it is doubtful that you or we will ever find out how many that is/ and as I have also said, the Last Day is a fixed time and date/
Famine: Though you’re right. Humanity has such great influence that we’ve decided to give this interview to see what will change.
War: If anythin’.
Pestilence: We ask only that you react where we can see. Make what you will of that.
D.H.: As much as you four claim that you have no use for humans, Pestilence has an obvious ‘thing’ for Mary Magdalene. Why? And on top of that, it sounds like you’ve interacted with Salvador Dali. Are there actually some humans you can stand... humans you’ve even come to like?
Pestilence: I have no idea, really. Further evidence of the human virus? Possibly she will be Judith to my Holofhernes. I might do to be forewarned had I any sense, would I not?
War: There’s a question that answers itself. He saw her in a marketplace in a town on th’ Sea of Galilee ‘bout 1900 years ago. She was what, Petey, 18? Shopping for fruit. That’s all it took.
Pestilence: I don’t think she had met her Intended or been possessed by demons yet. Had that been the case I’d have cast them out myself. As for Him, well…
Famine: Who said we have no use for humans? We disdain you on occasion, yeah, but an artist doesn’t disrespect the medium he works in.
War: Bet you thought I was kiddin’, before, ma’am.
Death: As far as the Catalonian loon is concerned, yes/ he is painting a portrait of us/ occasionally we pose for it/ we have no idea when it will be finished/ and yes, he is dead, but some egos can’t be put down, apparently/ maybe this is his payback for all those religious-themed works he did in the 1950s/ he is not one of my favourite people/ Petey likes to talk to him/ I think they try to out-non-sequitur one another/ usually I can’t follow their banter/ I’ve quit trying/
D.H.: Famine, after a time on this earth, you and your brothers began to change. Death started writing poetry, and you started writing music. Human influence is likely to blame (thank?) for that, so I was wondering who has influenced you over the years. Which composer or band do you most enjoy and why?
Famine: Can’t say much about Dave’s writing since I don’t read a lot of it (he leaves it on the skin of his victims). For myself I have a special affection for the work of Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) because it has almost no human component. He composed utilizing mathematical formulae. If you dig out his ‘A La Memoire a Witold Lutoslawski’ you hear a funeral procession of galaxies, arranged in mourning for the great Polish modernist. No idea how Xenakis managed that. What others? Stockhausen, Penderecki, Schnittke. Some of the Baroque composers, such as the Bach family. The minimalists, like Terry Riley or Edgar Froese. Here’s an example of my work, which I admit hasn’t much to do with my list above…
…NO COMMON CAUSE sun whirls upon the spatter of tents ALIVE WITH BREATH ALONE no more CERTAINLY A HUMANITARIAN DISASTER none know whence they came FOOD AND WATER CRITICAL a corona of garbage and pedicles shrouds the circle NONE SPEAK A LANGUAGE COMMON WITH LOCAL NATIVES who placed them here CONTINUES TO ESCAPE FROM THE DUODENUS colourful shawls bleach in the equatorial IT IS FROM 8 TO 23 FEET IN LENGTH…
This is a fragment. As for a ‘band’… well, there was a small group of peasants in a town in Galicia in about the 7th century C.E. who I recall took up their flutes and drums as they filed into the forest, their instruments holding back the darkness. So they thought. They never got where they were going, but their fearful noise made an impression.
Death: As opposed to a joyful noise?/
D.H.: So, the Horsemen have wings. Are you angels then?
Pestilence: They are detachable, are paper-thin and contain pathways to our most recent and/or forthcoming projects and endeavors. When we want to journey to one of them to make further progress on it, we pull the wings out, bring one ‘picture’ on them into focus and strap them on. There are other ways for us to Travel, but this one’s that which you asked about.
D.H.: And now for the question I’ve been dying to ask (that was an unintentional pun, by the way, so don’t get any ideas). You may not be aware of this, but a pastor got his hands on a copy of MYRRH’s manuscript, and he burned it. I know you can check these facts, so you’ll see that I’m telling you the truth. How do you feel about this?
Pestilence: All things burn, eventually. Twenty thousand years after humanity goes to its final reward or retribution, your cities will all be dust. That astronaut’s footprints on the moon will follow into oblivion some half million years beyond there. The corona of human radio and television broadcasts will pass the Andromeda Galaxy another million and a half years after that. Be resigned, then. All is fleeting. Well, nearly.
War: C’mon, Petey. That’s all you got?
Pestilence: Very well, William. This MYRRH object that you speak of, Goodwife Nevins, is our humble scribe’s endeavor. Should he know what’s good for him, it will be ‘on paper’ –something else that burns -- exactly as we described. Should the telling be eradicated in some way, that doesn’t vitiate the tale. Think of all that has occurred on the myriad Earths that none ever knew of. It still occurred. In other words, if a tree fell and none heard it, it did still make a noise. MYRRH is, was, and shall be one account of countless which I and/or my brothers have, do and will narrate(d) on the ‘Muse’s speaking tube,’ or that human brain frequency which some refer to as ‘inspiration’. Have any of your readers or fellow writers heard in their minds a quiet set of voices whispering of things they never knew, things that they could never countenance? Things they could never possibly know without someone other telling them? Whatever action it made them take, if indeed any. You see, this is one of our few victories, and one reason why I find it diverting that you ask what we’ve been doing all these years. Look hard enough, and you’ll see us everywhere.
D.H.: Thank you, Pestilence, Death, Famine and War, I really must say that I’ve never conducted an interview quite like this before. I would like to wish you luck on your future endeavours, but... well... Thank you for coming by, anyway.
About MYRRH
MYRRH is a forthcoming novel by K. Griffiths, scribe to the Four Horsemen.
To learn more about MYRRH or The Horsemen, click to visit their website here
Or find them on Twitter: WarFamPestDeath
About the Author
K. GRIFFITHS was born in 1955 in Staten Island, NY. He does not have ‘the accent’ and does not know why. He has two children and is divorced. He writes (1) for fun, which it can be on occasion, and because (2) because it has nothing to do with the engineering and installation company he has been operating since 1983. He enjoys his work and is probably the oldest white male who still listens to ‘black metal.’ MYRRH is being edited and will be self-published in 2012. In 1984 he heard someone talking ‘to’ him, or at any rate ‘past’ him, and eventually worked out who it was. He began to take dictation whenever possible, and the rather extreme content of what the voices were saying kept him interested. There will be three sequels, all currently in progress, and then he’ll go do something else. The author lives in the Riverdale section of the Bronx and plans on continuing to do so. He would like very much to write ‘the last-ever cyberpunk novel’ if only he could get an idea. He took far too many physics courses at Manhattan College, Bronx, NY (class of 1977, electrical engineering), and is currently confounding everyone he knows with his attempts to connect ‘string theory’ and transcendence. He thanks his children for having been his prereaders for many years, and hopes they won’t put him in a nursing home just yet.
www.warfampestdeath.net
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www.warfampestdeath.net
www.twitter.com/#!/WarFamPestDeath
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/kenegbert/
