From his vantage point at the top of the hill, it was impossible for Dr Ed‘wood’ Mortimer to tell what the reality of the situation was.

The rain that had begun hours earlier as a light shower was now torrential. The light patter on the window panes was now a forceful drumming; the drums of war perhaps? A sharp crack of static electricity split the sky asunder at the same time issuing forth a roll of thunder; the anger of the gods?

A tree lined path wound down the hill to join the road leading to the sleepy little hamlet of Cleckmondwyke. Lights seeming to move in the distance may be flaming torches, the villagers are revolting. It was only a matter of time before word got out. Crazy Eddie’s laboratory for weird and unlikely creatures had been the centre of attention for the hushed tones of local gossip for many a year.

Whispers behind hands, nervous glances over shoulders to check who is within earshot, always had the lights at the top of the mansion, burning through the night, been a cause of consternation. People told stories of pets disappearing, strange sounds emanating from somewhere deep within the house, distorting dreams and warping reality. Now, reality itself is left hanging tenuously by a thread, no one remembers anymore what reality looked like.

Curtains twitch and the temperatures raise. In the dusty hallways of the house at the top of the hill an antique grandfather rings out at the stroke of midnight, at exactly that same moment the sky is lit up by another flash of lightning. This time the lightning strikes a conductor at the top of the house. A great charge of electricity runs down the attached metal conduit as if to be earthed . . .

. . . but no

The immense electrical power of the storm is diverted, delivered instead into a giant machine in the basement. The machine explodes with energy and slowly, life is achieved.

The thunder comes after the lightning strike this time, indicating that the storm is moving away, but the lights on the hill appear to be closing in, indicating another storm is perhaps drawing near.

Crazy Eddie knows that time is running out, and that soon a new storm will be upon him. “HURRY HURRY” he shouts . . .

And, as if responding to Crazy Eddie’s demands, muscles twitch and groan, eyes and mouth open simultaneously ushering forth a guttural roar: a roar expressing physical pain, or the existential howl of a recombinant form returning to sentience from that place beyond life that we know as death? The darkness retreats and lets the light back in. There is now no end only new beginnings, but the people of Cleckmondwyke will never accept this. Crazy Eddie knows this and heading down to the basement garage begins to load the hearse, it is time to take his experiments and present them to a more willing audience, an audience which may accept that meeting god in some form of afterlife may never happen, as he extends infinitely the possibility of life in this reality. A new world that never ends . . .

Crazy Eddie's World of Wonder: an introduction !

From his vantage point at the top of the hill, it was impossible for Dr Ed‘wood’ Mortimer to tell what the reality of the situation was.

The rain that had begun hours earlier as a light shower was now torrential. The light patter on the window panes was now a forceful drumming; the drums of war perhaps? A sharp crack of static electricity split the sky asunder at the same time issuing forth a roll of thunder; the anger of the gods?

. . . but no

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BasementArtsProject
28 Back Burton Terrace
Beeston, Leeds, LS11 5JH