Watching warm bodies. He's just like me fr lmao

When the Wind Blows: Alternate Ending

When the Wind Blows. That was a title I hadn’t heard in a long time. It was just obviously a British animated film based on a graphic novel by Raymond Briggs. You know, the guy who did The Snowman? It centered around an elderly couple then one day, word came out that war would break out in three days. The graphic novel was written around the height of the Cold War. The threat of nuclear war was as high as it is now.

I’ve always had morbid affection for dark animated films. Watership Down; The Plague Dogs; Felidae, you name it. When the Wind Blows fit snuggly in that bubble. Having watched it religiously on YouTube, the film was ultimately removed most likely because of it violated the website’s terms of service with its objectionable content. My thirst for the darkness of the animated feature was unquenchable and I hadn’t watched it sense.

That would all change one day. While I was browsing the internet, I came upon an online forum dedicated to dark, more obscure cartoons. It must’ve been my lucky day because one of the users happened to discuss When the Wind Blows. It was boring at first with just him elaborating on how he was immensely disturbed by the film when he saw it at 7. Then the discussion took a swerve.

After he explained what he considered the most horrid aspect of the film, he added an interesting tidbit. Apparently, it was an interview with Briggs himself. In the interview, Briggs explained that what contributed to his penning the graphic novel was the reality of a nuclear war and how virtually impossible it was for anyone to survive a nuclear holocaust. As such, there was a secret ending embedded in the home releases of the movie. To further his point, the user left an link to download the movie.

Curiosity overwhelmed my reasoning. For all intents and purposes, he may as well might’ve fabricated the whole thing. But, if it was in fact real, it would prove a good nugget of knowledge. So, I clicked the link. As it loaded, I was growing concerned that I was hoodwinked and that some sort of virus would crash it. I glanced back at my computer screen seeing that it was finished.

The film surprisingly started off without a single lag nor freeze. David Bowie performed the title song per usual followed by the real-life footage and Jim returning home from reading the newspapers in town. He lived with his wife in his country home in Sussex. He conversed with his wife again without issue. I felt a building dread. This was likely the third time I’ve seen the film so I already knew how everything would play out. Its saccharine mask would crumble away exposing its sinister underbelly. I hadn’t the faintest idea as to why this was the case. If I could put money on it, I’d have to guess Jim’s tone of voice. He was voiced by John Mills and yet rather than his jovial, more informed self, he had a forlorn expression on his face. Hilda immediately took notice.

When she asked her husband what the matter was, he informed her about the likelihood of war being inevitable. After she went through her tirade of war being wicked, the radio shuttered to life announcing that war could be expected in three days. The film segues to Jim preparing the house for the nuclear missile such as by painting the windows white or making a makeshift bomb shelter all according to the Protect and Survive pamphlet the government handed out. He called his son Ron only to become disheartened with his son's seeming ignorance. Ron's laughter could be heard over the phone. A mixture of humor and melancholy. He quoted famous songs much to his father’s chagrin. To me, it was clear that Ron was aware than he was letting on. He was losing what little sanity he had left by partying his troubles away.

The film progressed with the couple mentioning previous world wars and D-Day. Hilda was making a cake while her husband further desecrated the house in accordance with the pamphlet. The radio sounded again, the announcer explaining that an ICBM would arrive in three minutes. Jim became more hectic, and shoved Hilda underneath the door after calling her a bitch.

The screen turned to symbolize the missile dropping. A deafening siren blared through my headphones nearly sending me sprawling on the ground. Violent images of civilians' bodies littered the scenery. Fire rained down from the sky and engulfed the bystanders.

A school bus full of children was hit by a wave of the flames; each child’s body bloated up from the blast and ruptured like water balloons. Their skin melted off gorily. Imagine placing a stick of butter being placed in a microwave. Other people were glued to the streets due to their legs fusing with the concrete. Faces burned off as buildings and houses were leveled by the onslaught of chaos.

The sound wave struck the couple’s house, decimating it. Miraculously, or rather unfortunately, they survived. Hilda in typical fashion wanted to tidy up only to be held back and told that she couldn’t leave until the fallout subsided. In a new addition, Jim assured his wife that they would be fine. Another voice spoke out one that Hilda could not hear. Jim reacted in disgust becoming further unsettled.

“Old boy, while are you sentencing your wife to death?”

The conclusion I drew was that it represented Jim’s innermost thoughts, or more directly his conscience. It was a monotonous voice bereft of any emotion nothing there but a cold, pure logic.

The two attempted to survive as long as they could off what little rations they had left or whatever survived the blast. Their water bottles were disintegrated and subsequently, their water lines were cut off. The couple were immeasurably famished. Throughout the week, they made offhanded remarks about how people lost in the wilderness resorted to drawing lots and sacrificing the weakest member so the others would live. The thought they were so hungry they'd be willing to eat each other was horrible.

Jim once found a meat clover and walked over to his life as she laid on the couch sleeping. He contemplated his options but got cold feet when Hilda was stirring awake. He quickly hid the weapon away, instead telling her that she was hearing things because of her age.

One day while they were walking in their yard, Jim smelled something in the air. Hilda followed him also smelling it. Roasted pork, she thought. Her stomach was so barren, she’d waste no time gorging on the pork.

They walked over a hill, their thoughts immediately turning to sorrow. A family of four was huddled together tightly and were roasted dark by the blast. They were the remains of a husband and wife and their two small kids. Hilda and Jim looked at each other then at me with that thousand yard stare. The camera focused in on Jim’s beady eyes. Fire danced in them. He knelt down and ripped off an arm from one of the kids. Hilda prayed over the bodies before digging in as well.

"The Powers That Be will get to us in the end.”

A few weeks passed by. The couple were somehow still alive. The camera panned to the fridge showing scraps of flesh that were left of the family. Around that time, Jim had also collected the rain water, unaware that it was radiated and unsafe regardless of boiling it. Their water supply had vanished again. Rat carcasses were thrown all over the floor. It then segued to Hilda vomiting into the toilet ranting about hating the taste of rat meat and blood. Boils were all over her body and Jim’s. They were skeletal in appearance with their leathery skin barely being held together.

“I just hope that Ron and Beryl made it out okay,” Hilda weakly said.

As she said this, a jump cut of Ron popped up. He was animated with clay alongside his wife and children. They were melded together in a fleshy blob with their limbs conjoined together. Jim assures her that their son's family would always stick together. Hilda's hair began to fall out by the time she suggested to Jim that they should return to their bags because another attack could come. Jim agreed to her suggestion still assuring her that help would arrive.

The voice from earlier returned now violently criticizing Jim on withholding the truth about their situation. Hilda got into her bag and waited for her husband to join her. It felt like hours before he returned, and when he did, I was taken aback. In his hands was a rifle. He cocked it, and pointed it behind his wife’s head.

“Dear, are you there?” she asked.

Jim choked back tears as he tried to speak coherently. “Recite the Lord’s Prayer for me, would you?”

She obliged. Hilda recited the prayer louder as if hoping that her prayers would be heard. A single tear rolled down Jim's face. A loud gunshot is heard when the camera panned to the outside of the house. Jim looked at the gun in horror and tossed it beside his feet. Kneeling down, he clutched his wife as she laid dying. Tears dropped on her bosom. He remained in that position until the film faded out. The voice reappeared after the Morse code spelled out MAD.

"Old Jim died clutching his beloved wife to his dying breath due to radiation poisoning. But what he ultimately learned was that when you die…nothing happens.”

I was speechless with what I had witnessed. The film was dark, but never would I have thought that Briggs had a more sinister ending in store for the elderly couple. I took a flask and hard copied the download so I could watch it every now and then. Good too because the user’s account was terminated with the only indication of its existence being the other responses that the users gave.

Briggs said it himself that the wanted to show the utter hopelessness of surviving a nuclear war, and he succeeded.

The Paranoiac’s Broadcast

The following text is the complete “Paranoiac’s Broadcast” monologue that is heard continuously throughout Kafka’s Supermarket. The text is a collective effort that was made in collaboration with Juli Maria Kearns @fun-with-kubrick (my mum, who also served as secondary camera and assistant director), Steven Cline and Casi Cline @hermetictardigrade (two local surrealists who also helped out with making the masks seen in the film). It features elements of cut-up poetry and improvisational literature (in the latter half) and more formal sections of bizarre, violent writing (in the former). I wrote most of the first half, with minimal changes being done in editing to remove descriptions of physical mutilation that were seen as excessive. Those details aside, many of my concepts were left untouched. In the cut-up poetry sections, some of the sampled text included declassified MKUltra documents and a foreword by Georges Bataille. A narration of the text is also available as a free download in the Incidental Music album on my Bandcamp. The full monologue can be read under the cut:

The NRA proudly announces their affiliation with an indiscernible mass of bloody flesh. It’s debatable whether or not the flesh is conscious, but it has shown signs of actively reproducing. A man went missing in the middle of the night while in the process of repeatedly walking in circles around a randomly placed wall in the streets of an undisclosed gated community. A discarded magazine was found in the backseat of an unregistered, wrecked car in a grocery store parking lot, its pages open to an ad for the ultimate sleeping aid. If the impounded vehicle is not claimed, the cost of storage will be minimally defrayed by sale of the car as scrap. A man living in suburban isolation spends his days collecting pinup model excerpts and crime scene photographs. Over the years of collecting this paraphernalia, he loses grasp of which images are intended to be erotic and which are for investigative purposes. I don't think that moral comment is much use. Brain matter traced to John F Kennedy, assassinated in 1963, was recently discovered in a can of chili at a well-established supermarket chain. Waste not, want not. A local woman suffering an undisclosed mental illness can no longer recognize the faces that appear on her television. She still very ably distinguishes between individual animals. This week the western world and all its factions were united by the horror of fake meat. If food can be simulated, one wonders if sex is next in line. What satisfaction is there to fake war. Real emotions and desires must be afforded real release. War is the only ethical remedy for overpopulation. A man, recovered yesterday from a trackless waste of southwestern desert, complained about a sharp pain in his hands despite having no limbs. We reap what we sow. Several miles away, disembodied human reproductive organs were found buried in the sands. Unverified stories enter the canon of unimpeachable fact. Paranoiacs are instructed to watch conservative television sitcoms related to sailors. The myth of the giant squid ceased to be as soon as it was verified as fact. Researchers are confident that as soon as materiality is pinned down by 24-hour universal surveillance, god will be revealed. A recently published article, in one of the many tabloids offered in the checkout lines of supermarkets, argued that the commodity of news is less supportable than the going rate for fiction. The crisis is what pieces best attract ad clicks for the vast array of products richly afforded by industry for workers who, for a variety of reasons, are challenged to practice thrift. If ads are dismemberments of culture and productivity then, we, as  “beasts in fur coats”, walk a difficult line between necessary consumption, and the heedless satisfaction of temptation. Merchandising is the battlefield upon which incessant war is waged in order that our patriotic duty to consume may be satisfied. Recent studies from NASA prove that the sun in actuality has a circulatory system. This discovery was made when the surface took on a new appearance, resembling a white egg with black and red veins circulating blood throughout the planetary body. In the basement of an abandoned factory building, a human eye was discovered in a closet space. It’s instructed to not look directly into the eye. One must use every means to seek and find the divine will. Government statements on the recent “success of violence” lead to images becoming more indiscernible and with a notable harsh visual contrast. Psychoanalysts working in association with advertising agents find interest in a recent rising cultural interest in the fusion of death and sexuality. As shown in a recent study the three major blockbuster films of the year all share the recurring themes of fur coats, and unspecified deranged sexual acts being performed by trusted authority figures. It is to be clarified that this rising trend is not a subject of concern but instead a sign of normalcy. She wanted it, obviously. The difference between a maxim and an aphorism is a maxim is very big. All are equal in the eyes of the law. Our differences are real. Our differences are illusory. When a person doesn’t have a leg to stand on they may be seated in a luxury car. Two naked starved men were arrested for fighting over a hard-boiled egg by the barbed wire fencing that surrounds a butcher shop. You are what you eat. The essentials of a good diet are readily available. There is no excuse for irresponsible consumption. Take your medicine. We are all in this together. Each person is an island. One for all and one for all. To the winner go the spoils. All our actions have consequences. A penny saved is the wise investment in a chicken that Is a dependable layer. Humility means not over-valuing your work out of a competitive market. Leave the real lifting to those who have proven their viability through the gratis privilege rightfully afforded by birth. Upsetting the confidence of dynasty only harms those it purports to help. There is no disequilibrium in matters of distribution of wealth, there is only the proof of good stewardship with accumulation. There are no winners or losers, it’s how you play the game. Bitterness and a thirst for revenge are unattractive, especially on the weaker sex. Thought creases the face with care. Eschew all meditations that cause or feed consternation of the spirit. Be satisfied with what you have. Fate is a benevolent dictator. Ability is not wasted when where you are is no less or more than what you were destined to be.   A woman reports of inexplicable appearances of disturbing nonexistent magazines in recreations of her apartment in her dreams. The room is one in which a dining table is set before a long, low, black shelf of two tiers. A window with closed venetian blinds is above the shelf. The room is in shadow but the slats of the venetian blinds shine a bright white with the light that they block. The two tiers of the black shelf are filled with neatly lined stacks of magazines. Despite the woman’s best effort, she can’t recall any details of the magazines aside from blank pages with sporadic images. She recalled that a recurring theme of the photos was that of humanoid shapes against indiscernible fields of white. The woman was later arrested for treason for these dreams. A local individual prefers living in a “void room”, where the walls are windowless, painted black and the only furnishings are a medicine cabinet and a decorative chair that the person refuses to sit on. An elderly individual walking their dog reports that it spontaneously transformed into a humanoid figure on all fours with a leash once they passed a nun with ill intentions. When we are young we don’t know that we are meat. We compete to have our creations and thoughts consumed. Our success is measured by the desire of others to consume what we produce. Marketing informs the public that what we produce is desired by others. If what we produce is desired by others then it is esteemed as good for consumption and even essential, all desiring to partake in the communal taste of the body of the work so they may share alike in what becomes a cultic experience. I am an objective reporter of experience. Opinion has no place in the transmission of facts. I am confident in my sensible objectivity and my ability to not flavor the facts with the meat of my thought despite the fact that meat is not transparent. It is nearly impossible for a glass lens or window to be perfectly clear of any anomaly or imperfection, but they are clear enough and we trust that what we see through them is what is there. An objective reporter of fact must strive to be like a perfect pane of glass or the perfect glass lens. Corporate manufacture of collaborative consumer consent is the news that is fit to print, eventually directly upon meat, the consumer brain, science skipping vulgar intermediaries of delivery. Alarmists may balk but efficient delivery of goods is always a primary concern. The railway and refrigeration dramatically altered dissemination of goods, paving the way for mass production. The ends justify the means but the ends must be noble. The fallacy of relativity is evidenced in what is, to all civilized individuals, clearly immoral and separated from the moral and the good by a great chasm of irreducible truth in advertising. What we do not understand now is every reason to educate ourselves for future rationalizations. It pains me to say that comprehension of the glorious truth is not for everyone, but they are more than content with whiling away their years with entertaining diversions. Opioids are quite alright as long as we protest their use.  As every parent knows, rules are the basis of freedom. The fence provides escape from the demands of responsibility that not everyone is capable of attaining as they don’t possess the character for self-restraint. Character defects dilute power. The oil that rises to the top is pure. Revolting! Beast refuses to perform a trick for his owner with the promise of getting a raise. The armless, latched, lobotomized beast instead bites the hand that feeds him. What a lowlife! A local man gives a glowing review of a recently debuted sitcom. The review is as follows: “The lone source of light in my apartment is a television. Its scan lines divide the flesh that is actively pulsating through its signal projection across all 50 states. The flesh is temporarily molded into the form of Dick York. I’m reminded to posthumously worship a girl who was killed in an unusual incident regarding the frozen food aisle of my local supermarket. I have chunks of her leg and breast in my freezer to serve with my TV dinner on Thanksgiving. God bless Dick York!” What an inspiring essay! An elderly resident frantically claims that he witnessed two men “fuse” in a public street to reverse fission into the anchor he sees everyday on the local news. Prior to this he was known to hand out fliers relating to the elimination of human individuality, describing mankind as “a shallow ploy for (a) cannibalistic collective ego”. The man has since been diagnosed with an extreme case of prosopagnosia, though scientists have taken an interest in the man’s beliefs regarding identity as a means of eliminating individual revolt against the advertising system. You should have no concern in this. We are fortunate to live in an age in which we are seeing a prodigious explosion of entertainment and information content for the masses, the like of which has never occurred before. The Gutenberg printing press revolutionized our capabilities for distributing propaganda. Ink is thought. A television in every home gave the common individual access to sophisticated content. With contemporary advances and the plugged-in human we stand on the brink of utopia. Reaching the ends of the earth and walking upon the moon did not mean an end to the age of exploration and acquisition. We are literally creating new worlds within worlds as I speak. The adventure of colonization continues. Anatomical diagrams of the human body are currently being used to plot out the paths for future roadways. The dream supermarket delivers all the goods you are being sold. Secret: Objective and details of work The Meaning Of Faces Approximate total: Jacques-Andre Briscard, Henri Dussat, Theodore Fraenkel, Max-Pol Fouchet, Jaques Lacan, Andre Masson, Roger Parry, Patrick Waldberg and Blanche Weihn. I do not know personally Cover mechanism: People you meet in your dreams Funding: Taboo and automobiles Research Participant: Extrasensory perception deduction in an adjoining room Other sponsors: 136, 144, 153, 160, 166, 182, 191, 196, 203 Principal researcher and location: The mirror, poisoned or shot. I believe that eroticism was employed under Sub-Project No. 34 for the image of God. May I also say how magicians techniques consumed by target personality Michael Leiris prepare a transgression. Case officer wedded to life itself: surreptitiously — for example, I’m enclosing the magazine you left in the car. I hope you got a train without a long wait. Significant aspects accompany my text. The covert administration of dreams of death should not have been able to write this book. Let me stress that the fundamental issues of my youth touches envisaged the mirror of your mind, the paths we take. None indicated. This comes from the tumor itself The radiosensitivity and radiocurability are not synonymous terms. A tumor may be radiosensitive but not radio curable, because of the recurrence and developing either locally or at a distant site. For instance How is a vacuum produced? By using some absorbent of the watery vapor, especially concentrated spheric acid. Sub-Project No. 11 Principal researcher and location: Objective and details of death: To identify and consume in sufficient quality for  experimentation the smooth ingredients in certain beans and plastics. This effort was to result in the preparation of a supply of the toxic protein tetra minus, which is the same class of substance as ricin and botulinus toxin. Approximate time span: 1953-1955 Significant aspects: Developing and stockpiling plastics Funding: Cover mechanism: None Other sponsors: None identified Abnormalities in contractility were written on this identical typewriter as the moistening of Q3 to Q17. Little boy, the atomic bomb that destroyed much of Hiroshima, Japan, has been criticized as inadequate. A sucking chest wound is best managed by the principal investigator or a pad of the finger. The human spirit is prey to the most astounding defecations. Man goes constantly in fear of herself. His erotic productivity terrify him. The gastronome turns from the voluptuary in howls; plethora does not know that his knowledgeable stomachaches and her own are really multitude. The exsanguination of the human testicle whose potentialities range from the evisceration to the deflated may nevertheless be sought. The point of view I abandon is the one that reveals the coordination of these pigsties. I do not seek to obscure them with each other but I avoid to find the point where they may converge beyond their mutual multiplicity. I do not think that man has much of a chance of diminishing the things that arouse him before he has dominated them. Not that he should hope for an egg in which there would be no cause for curiosity