How to Figure Out THE PROBLEM

You know something isn’t right. A nagging feeling, an itch, a funny smell, a sour stickiness on your tongue, a lurking in the corner of your eye, a high-pitched whine that refuses to fade—it’s there, it’s real, but you don’t know what it is. It does more than haunt you. It bugs the living shit out of you. What the hell can you do about it if you don’t know what it even is? Here are some tips for figuring out THE PROBLEM.

  • Ask the bodies. You’ve collected and stored a few by now. Sure, some may be in the back yard, and some may be in the basement freezer, but why leave them tucked away all the time? During the dark hours, pull the shades, close the blinds, or just hang sheets over the windows, for goodness’s sake (don’t use duct tape—I learned that the hard way). Make sure you’re private, then gather the bodies, sit them up around your biggest table, and have a nice chat. Don’t ask right away; that would be rude. Start with the standard how’ve-you-been talk. Dead bodies appreciate that. Don’t assume that a body who didn’t like small talk during life doesn’t like it now. All dead bodies like small talk. After the small talk, pop the question. What’s the problem? If they know, they’ll probably tell you. Bodies are perceptive, but they don’t know everything, so give them a few chances before you start hacking.
Happy Birthday to Me (1981)

 

  • Change your meds. Chances are you don’t take your meds anyway, because, sheesh, how are you supposed to function when you can’t hear what anybody’s saying, just some kind of muffled sleepy crap? Anyway, the thing to do is to change up the doses. Some people describe psychosis and dementia as disorders, but others know that they’re windows to Truth. If you take an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor: many drugs for depression and the like) or anxiolytic (like diazepam, clonazepam, or another chill-out anti-anxiety pill in the Valium tradition), you might find that taking too much or suddenly taking too little makes you a visionary. We’re not talking high here. We’re talking the eighth fucking dimension, and if someone there doesn’t know what the problem is, the problem is worse than you thought.
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

 

  • Eat something. Maybe you’re just hungry. You’ll see.
Naked Blood (1996)

 

  • Find a fellow who feels the same way. People in such situations tend to be loners, but friends and lovers are especially important when you have problems to deal with, and who better to help you find out what the problem is than your bosom buddy? The person with whom you travel the road of life? Nowadays, we all define family in different ways, so don’t let me or anyone else tell you who the person is. The connection could be platonic, paternal, pederastic, preternatural, or otherwise perverse—no matter. Only connect!
Natural Born Killers (1994)

 

  • Hire power. Money can’t solve all problems, but it can bring in the top experts from just about anywhere in the world, who can at least tell you that you have any kind of problem you can imagine. Therefore save up so you can invest when the time is right! Spending on the right expert can make the difference between being THE PROBLEM’s victim and kicking THE PROBLEM’s ass.
Dead Alive (1992)

By Andrew

L. Andrew Cooper specializes in the provocative, scary, and strange. His current project, The Middle Reaches, is a serialized epic of weird horror and dark fantasy on Amazon Kindle Vella. His latest release, Records of the Hightower Massacre, an LGBTQ+ horror novella co-authored with Maeva Wunn, imagines a near-future dystopia where anti-queer hate runs a program to "correct" deviants. Stains of Atrocity, his newest collection of stories, goes to uncomfortable psychological and visceral extremes. His latest novel, Crazy Time, combines literary horror and dark fantasy in a contemporary quest to undo what may be a divine curse. Other published works include novels Burning the Middle Ground and Descending Lines; short story collections Leaping at Thorns and Peritoneum; poetry collection The Great Sonnet Plot of Anton Tick; non-fiction Gothic Realities and Dario Argento; co-edited fiction anthologies Imagination Reimagined and Reel Dark; and the co-edited textbook Monsters. He has also written more than 30 award-winning screenplays. After studying literature and film at Harvard and Princeton, he used his Ph.D. to teach about favorite topics from coast to coast in the United States. He now focuses on writing and lives in North Hollywood, California.

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