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It was upon the eve of the twelfth of January that I first suspected that a vile miasma had settled over my estate. I had just come home from a meeting at the Lodge of Distinguished Scientists, where we had discussed a most fascinating essay on the anatomy of neanderthal man, when I noticed a parcel perched upon the landing. I secreted it inside, fearful that the neighboring lords would see me with a package and accuse me of racketeering or other deeds of ill repute.
The package was plain, wrapped in the paper of a butcher's shop and secured with the style of adhesive bandages which had come into fashion among postal couriers. Immediately I knew the package was tainted with a derelict spirit, and that it contained something unspeakable. I glanced at the return address, clearly scrawled by a madman, and noticed that it had come by way of Cape Town, Constantinople, Hong Kong and Minneapolis. It was scrawled on and stamped in uncountable languages and symbols, but that was not what had caught my eye.
   It was from a Dr. Richard Burg and his wife, a pair of art aficionados who specialized in the dealing and trading of a rare form of middle american folk art which detailed a sort of half-man half-beast in wild and unnatural colors. They marketed these "Anthropomorphine" works to the upper crust youths of Manhattan and Quebec, who could not get enough of these bizarre works.
   Just as I tucked the package away in the cellar, to avoid rousing the suspicions of the madame of the house, I felt what could only be the kick of an infant from a paper board womb. Only, how could the innocence of a child be contained in this hellish vessel? Surely it was more akin the the spawn of rosemary, a cursed being to only roil in torment, trapped eternally in a cage of postal nightmares. I tore into it, savaged the box until it was ragged and torn at every extremity. What I found inside was a cornucopia harvested from the garden of the devil himself.
Dear reader, know that if you are reading this, it is too late for me. I have stared into the void and it has consumed me. I feel a gnawing at the back of my head that compels, nay, demands that I catalogue the contents of this wicked vessel of filth. May future generations recognize it and cast it into the hottest steel foundry they can travel to by steam engine, lest it seize them and unwind their very being, as it has to me.
The following is an account of the items unleashed from the package which has ruined me so:

Here is a view into this crucible of hate and malice, captured through the lens of the special spirit hunting photolithogram machine which I had produced to ascertain who was upsetting my steads in the late night hours. Though that venture was fruitless, it has found new purpose here. Take special notice of the soiled rags and pamphlets for arcane deeds which litter the vessel. No doubt Dr. Burg was agitated by a mood so foul that he could not tell mere filth from items much more sinister. I was tossed back from the chest upon first opening it as a wreath of flames poured forth and broiled me, the flames still flit about it, as you can see from the photolithograph.


It was no surprise to me that my Russian riding cat was drawn to the package, as I have often suspected him to be an agent of lucifer. He seemed to revel in the scent of dehydrated cheese curd that emanated from it like a dense fog. He was soon gnawing at the periphery and I was forced to drive him away with the antique riding crop I received from the great nephew of Theodore Roosevelt.


The first item I pulled from the shadowy depths was this porcelain flying disk. Take note of the ebony engraving that graces its facade, the raven. The symbolism of the bird is not lost on me. The herald of madness who hounds men at every turn, poetic both in concept and literally. I am reminded of a colleague I had lost when I departed from the League of Chemical Sciences, and as I press my ear to this tender dish, I can almost hear the frustrated screaming of that man, aghast as though tortured by the foolish japery only a novice game hunter can produce.


This casket for sanity is packed full of these horrid tangles. Exotic candy wrappers and the skin of young fawns keeps a tight hold on whatever they contain. Small screams ring out as the impression of a desperate claw presses out against the wrapper. What could these mysteries hold, and dare I find out at risk of mortal peril? I shall detail my findings in the next entry of my journal. May god have mercy on me.

Revenge Journal Day 1:

That Jessup Dogsmane III has finally reached the day of his reckoning! His jibes and days of scoffing have sealed his fate! After a year of meticulously gathering the most vile and offending articles of leisure throughout the deepest of jungle expeditions I have completed my masterpiece of vengeance!  Nevermore will he besmirch my abilities at hoop and stick nor will he attempt (feeble as he his argument is) to mock my stature!

No. Today is the end of his sanity!  I have dispatched my parcel of horror to his doorstep and with it my spite!  Now as long as he doesn't notice my swapping out his coatrack for a small listening device...

Within the mummified casings were two entertainment disks of despairingly low quality. See here a motion picture series about a tremendously large youth, preparing to feast on the flesh of her co-stars. The title is a play on words, referring both to the peoples of the Indus valley, and to the particular way life that the dilettantes of the turn of the century tend towards. Their ironic bicycles, with one wheel comically larger than the other, and their waxed mustaches are surely played upon in this devilish disk of motion.


What more, this item seems to have been purloined from a children's infirmary. I can't decide if the burglar had done then a cruelty or a great service.


Curses! Damn that Dr. Burg. He has allowed the Danish Devil, King of the Baskervilles, The Canine from the Ninth Circle of Hell to be secreted into my home! No doubt this visual disk will torment me much as The Marmaduke torments his master and his missus with his misdeeds and cruel pantomimes of the folly of man. Not only this, but the beloved Vaudeville star, Owen Wilsonne, has been dragged into this demented charade, his voice forever bound to the slapdash ramblings of an insane hound.


To my surprise the flames had congealed into an cold blob that shook as though buffeted by a terrible wind. One had settles on a blackened obelisk, and the skull of a diminutive man was trapped in the roiling hellfire. Expecting perhaps the ultimate jape within the confined of the darkened vessel, I carefully pried it apart...


By the gods I shall have my revenge of that infernal Dr. Burg... To insult my beloved torso... A darkened mood has taken me now, and I must retreat to the praying room to stave off the wages of sin and rage that threaten to overtake me at any moment. I shall end my entry here, for the sake of us all.

 
Look here and see but a mere taste of the absolute filth which has been shoveled into my home, much as the damned servants of hades shovel endless shovelfuls of coat into the infernal engine that drives men to commit evils like sending garbage in a box unto my home. What an internet is or how good a 40 MB connection is can only be left to the imagination of the dungeon dwellers and mail correspondence trolls that deal in such uncultured things.


Stuffed beneath the still beating heart of a freshly slaughtered calf, I found uncountable reams of early literary fiction whose contents can only be described as troubling. Here we find a band of socialites from the Daily Phi Omega Sigma fraternity the victims of an apparent home invasion by otherworldly beings. Only by submitting to the paranormal and harnessing the gifts of satan can they overcome their adversaries, as well as by using very awe inspiring lava swords. The grammar is even more terrifying than the contents. Surely these should be catalogued at some future time.


Ah, cruel memory, here is a discarded invitation to the Burg wedding. I can picture it all now, those were less troubled times. The sight of Mikethanial Quinlandry cooking his famed avocado soufflé, the games of mustache trivia, madame Burg becoming dislodged from her steam bubble and becoming trapped within it, even the ramshackle air driven auto-carriages which broke down several times that night. If only that paradise had lasted forever instead of ending in this tragedy I currently face.

 
More documents highlighting the monstrosity that some call humanity, thought I, but I noticed the rumblings of unsettled spirits within, and tore the estate care pamphlet apart...


What luck! They've finally imprisoned the madman! After that affair with the children being turned into totems by the indigenous trolls of Wisconsin I should say it's about time! This can only be a prelude to the further misadventures of that damnable Ernest Hemingway, soon I shall be seeing marquees for Ernest Prays for Death, Ernest Goes To Hell, and Ernest Haunts Us All.


I would expect no better commentary from those bunglers who let this nation's precious Liberty Bell be cracked nearly in two. What with their vile Philadelphia Curd Fillets and their hunger for ocean spiders. I shall see what is so funny about the penal colonies which that scoundrel Ernest is rightfully banished to, and to that end, let this entry end here.