The Arcane: Alistair Mann

CHAPTER 1 ALISTAIR MANN

            Late one dreary evening in a forlorn cemetery several miles off highway 53 stands an older man clad in a variety of lively colors. While the man's top hat is orange, his vest is blue and suitcoat a giddy yellow. His obviously regularly ironed pants are a deep red and shoes a rather spontaneously light shade of green. If a stranger were to see him most would suspect that he had just come from a circus. Though, if you knew the aging man, you would know that this is how he always has dressed, not for attention, simply because of his deep love for the atypical. He has never liked to fit in, never thought it necessary. Societies niches, standards, and expectations have always bored the man. And what others might call tacky this lonely billionaire would call stylish, what others might call ugly he would call beautiful, and what others might call strange he would call normal. For what is "normal"? It is a word backed by years of parochial perspectives fueled by parochial beings.

            The man takes a step back from the grave that had his fixed attention for so long and reaches behind him. As tears slide down his face, he swings a sledgehammer as hard as he can into the tombstone. It makes contact on the upper righthand side and parts and pieces fly away. With another swing landing near the same spot as before several larger chunks break off. The man does not know the person on the tombstone, but he knows that he was loved, the funeral concluded just a few hours before. With each swing of the hammer a smile broadens across the old man's face. Not a smile born from anything kind or sympathetic, but one of anticipated pleasure that one knows will soon be fulfilled. A short bark of laughter escapes his lips as the recently deceased William Cormorant's tombstone crumbles away.