The Pains
Say you're the Savior, Fred Christ. Would you want your frozen head to be reaninmated in 1984?
The world is going all to hell. War looms. Earthquakes happen with increasing regularity; weather patterns are awry; birds are in the water, fish in the air. Old ways wither; old languages are lost as the memories of their last surviving speakers disolve like cobwebs. Something rotten this way comes.
Governments collapse around the globe, leaving only The Party to rule over all.
In a prison cell, a madman spins theories of the mind, conjuring his own freedom. In cars and bars and shopping malls, proles obediently obey the jaded dictates of Big Brother, Ronald Reagan and Oliver North that emanate from the irony machine they call the telescreen. In a subzero laboratory, a scientist stares at an imprisoned god. And in a lonely bare room in a vast and nearly empty monastery, a young novice studies and prays and contemplates the idea of simple goodness, trying to comprehend chaos. For which his only reward will be the pure torment of The Pains.
In a world that's part Orwell, part Cheney, and part who knows what, a holy man tries to find a way to give meaning to his suffering, and perhaps thereby save us all.
With The Pains, John Damien Sundman, an eigenvector of the author of Acts of the Apostles the editor of Cheap Complex Devices, has created his most disturbing, and most hopeful vision yet.
Cheeseburger Brown, the creator of Simon of Space brings this universe to life with twelve vivid illustrations.
In a deranged world, what will save us: science or faith? Open your mind, and Fred willing, you will find release from your own pains within these pages.
Starting with Chapter 3, attentive readers may notice some allusions to, and borrowing from, the work of the late Chis McKinstry, creator of the Mindpixel project. As far as I've been able to determine, there is no copyright holder. I'll have more to say about this when the final book is prepared for publication, but for now I just want to make this acknowledgement.
I have made fair-use use of songs by Kate Bush, Leonard Cohen and Social Distortion, and I have borrowed themes, characters, and even a bit of prose here and there from George Orwell's 1984.
I hope that if you like the book, you'll buy a printed copy or make a donation using Paypal. Cheeseburger and I could really use the money. Really.
You can purchase a Kindle version here.
This little story is dedicated to the memory of my late brother Paul Damien Sundman and of my late sister Maureen Sundman Angevine. I know that Paul liked the early chapters, and I think he would have liked the finished book. Maureen probably would have hated it--she didn't approve of blasphemy. But I like to think she's in heaven now, putting in a good word for me on the grounds that I'm too stupid to know any better.