Harlan Ellison once wrote...

About how he gets these great ideas from mishearing things.

Well, I think I hit upon my version of this...typos.

Sometimes I will mean to type something and my fingers or some forgotten corner of my brain will just not listen. Instead they fire off randomly and every once in a while give me something new and interesting.

Example?

I was checking for some information on the new video game Dragon Age: Origins. It's a great game by the way and I highly recommend it.

Here's the thing. When Googling the game I dropped a letter and instead typed:

Dagon Age.

I stopped before I got to "Origins". But now I'm thinking. What is Dagon Age? My gut reaction is that its Lovecraftian horror meets fantasy- like the Conan and Kull stories except where the Cthulhu Mythos features much more prominently. Like where kingdoms of Deep Ones rule from great cities and war with various other fantasy kingdoms.

And why is it Dagon's Age? Why not Cthulhu or Mother Hydra or whatever? What makes him so special?

Lovecraft himself touched on stories kind of like this, but he never did it with elves...so maybe there's more to this idea.

Alternatively, this might be about the head of the Phillistine pantheon. The ancient god of agriculture. But then what's the story behind the "Dagon Age?" A great Phillistine empire which grows to become a major force like Rome or other famous "world spanning" empires.

Or maybe...the two combine. After all, some theorized the Phillistines came from "sea peoples." Which is probably where Lovecraft got the idea for his Dagon and the Deep Ones, at least in part. But what if you fold Lovecraft back into the mix again, adding his myths to the old ones to create something new? And then you have the Phillistines coming from the sea with their god Dagon, who is much more like Lovecraft's sea monster god and...

I just typoed again. Right as I was doing that. I corrected it but before I did "the Phillistines coming from the sea with their dog Dagon." Huh. So let's fold that in and what do we have?

Maybe the sea peoples with their Lovecraftian pet god rise to control the earth. Do other cultures have powerful dogs? Does the great Egyptian dog Ra aid the Egyptians? How about the Greek king of the dogs, Zeus (who incidentally, hangs out with Higgens)? What does an Age ruled by Phillistine mermen and their powerful dog look like?

And now I'm off. Mind is a-racing and all because I can't type straight.

So Half the Flesh on My Left Hand Just Peeled Off...

No. Really. I mean, only the outer layer but still...

So anyway, therein lies a tale.

My recent plans to catch up on some writing were totally thwarted by this mysterious rash/burn thing on my left hand. It was on two of my three fingers (ring and pinkie) and about half my palm. The skin turned red, raised, burned and itched. Then it stiffened and cracked. Then, after days of applying cortizone and other such medicinals it looked better. The skin was thick and looked like a burn after a few weeks of healing, but it was generally better in terms of pain and all.

So last night I went to the gym. Short workout to get back into the swing of things. Then I sat in the steamroom for awhile, figuring the extra moisture might help the very dry flesh on my hand. Seriously, half my left hand looked like it was that of a 70 year old and lotion and the like wasn't doing a ton. So hey, I figured a bit of steam might not hurt.

And it didn't really. It actually made it look healthier and less cracked and wrinkly. Then the back of my hand, which had also been red and irritated earlier, began to peel a bit. Then I noticed the skin around my pinky was loose. So, in what could have been a terrible idea, I picked at it a bit. Suddenly a strip of skin a inch or so wide peeled off my finger and down my palm. Beneath it? Perfectly healthy, smooth skin with no sign of the previous burn or whatever. Some peeling later and my hand it mostly normal again minus a rough patch or two that are still there.

So yeah, what the hell?

But hey, I guess I can get back to writing. Now that I'm done...molting.

And let me just say if this is my mutant power? I'm kinda disappointed.