The ShambElla Saga

Introduction

I've long had a fascination with the transformative power of decay. I recall as a child walking the streets of my neighborhood here on the East Side of Indianapolis, as I still do to this day. Indianapolis is what I've heard some describe as a "Swiss Cheese Ghetto". The East Side, especially, has some swanky gentrified communities nestled in between trash-ridden and crime-riddled neighborhoods. One can hear gunshots a few blocks away while they pay for their venti pumpkin spice latte!

On my walks, I often stop to marvel at decrepit, condemned houses, how time weighed down their bones and wore their color away. Even as a young child, something in this degenerative process called to me, but it was only recently that full awareness dawned on me as to why.

You see, it's somewhat a curse, this fascination. When I first read of the Buddhist monks who meditate on decaying corpses to understand the transitory nature of nature, I found, at that point, the closest thing to what I seem to do naturally, for as long as I can remember; and for as long as I can remember, it puts people off after awhile, this obsession of mine with picking holes in things, looking beyond the life that rots away and into that which remains.

So... why, Rommi, why?!?

The way I am about to frame the answer to this question, you can take however you prefer: as a metaphor or a literal truth. It doesn't matter, it amounts to the same.

Life cannot transform without Death, and The Divine urges me to expose the beauty of transformation so that those who must die will not lose heart.

I have done a poor job of reflecting this in my art up until recently, preferring rather to wallow in grotesquery for its own sake. Splatterpunk and gore definitely has its place, and as an 80s kid in the slums, I grew up loving it; so I am not here to tell others what to create. I describe in this Vocal Top Story to some extent what that experience was like; but, for me, this is a dead end.

For me, I explore the horrors of the world to show a way out, not to encourage wallowing.

Enter The ShambElla Saga. As I wrote the first story, Shamblin' Sam, I was only thinking of it as a one-off, but by the time I finished it I had a strong feeling that Sam and Ella had more to tell me, a lot more, and then, upon publishing, impeccable literary artist Rachel Deeming suggested I should, and this nudge pushed me into Sam and Ella's postapocalyptic world full-tilt, which, dear reader, due to my life as a factory hand and my peaceable Mr. Miyagi style of curating my prose, might not be too fast; but I hope the stories will be interesting enough to keep you checking in on me from time to time!

As Nietzsche remarked: "Interruptions are the ravens which bring food to the recluse."

The portmanteau of Shamblin' and Ella is, I am not really at all ashamed to say, a mystical dad joke, referencing the sanskrit term shambhala.

As for choosing my song Nocturne as a frontispiece for this introduction, this sad song indicates where we start, not where we end. This is the part of the transformation that hurts the most, and it won't even save us from more pain to come, but it will also free us, like an empty chalice, to receive more joy.

So, without further ado, I give you the stories, in order, for The Shambella Saga, which I will update as time goes on, either until the tale, or myself, is finished.

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Nocturne

Broken spirit,

Bleeding light

Would not give in

Without a fight.

Torn asunder,

Free at last

From the demons

Of the past.

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It seems that everything dies.

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Is it true love

If not the truth?

Wishful thinking

Damned our youth.