Ken Socrates

I was rather intrigued and quite happy to find a comment in my last post from none other than the esteemed Dr. Horatio Von Darfaulker. Many of you know that he is a great friend and colleague of mine from way back in the days when the KSWNO was just a handful of confused but dedicated young journalists self-publishing a fledgling newsrag that we hawked on street corners and in coffee houses, even gave away free on the subway sometimes.

Let’s be honest, that paper ended up starting more fires in the bottoms of trash cans near the Bus Station than it did give anyone cause to sit down and read it. It was back then that I first met Darkfaulker. He had been around ages, it seemed, so much more informed on the shadowy goings on in the world that we were so intent upon delving into. How many nights we tried to ply him with Absinthe and hand-rolled cigarrettes so he would tell us a few tales. When he did, we sat with mouths agape, drinking it in like hairy little sponges.

These days, Dr. Darkfaulker is a busy man. Take, for example, his recent escapades with the dangerously alluring Sophia The Utterly Wicked. If that doesn’t send shivers up your spine, then chances are you’re an invertebrate. And that’s only a small slice of what life on a daily basis is like for a man who walks in between shadows, slips in and out nightmares, drifts through our reality and countless others, one minute a wraith, next the black hand of an otherworldly justice that would drive most men goose-honking insane just to consider it.

So when I do hear from him it’s always a pleasant, if somewhat unsettling surprise. I know the good Doctor is out there and retains a certain fondness for our little gang, no matter how the organization has grown over the years. Deep down I think he knows we both fight the good fight in our own certain ways. That he found the time during his neverending battle against the creeping evils of the world to drop in is a considerable honor and I do appreciate it.

And, yes, even though the demands on his time are literally monsterous, he nonetheless makes himself available to the general public on an intermittent basis to respond to queries from concerned people worldwide. If you should have the sort of question that, when you ask it, causes ordinary folks to shake uncontrollably while their eyes bug out and spittle flies their mouths, then maybe it is best posed to The Man Who Knows in his regular column, Answers in the Dark. If you’re prepared to hear the answer, that is.

On top of that, the man is a genuine poet and musician, and a damned talented one at that, as is plainly evident right here.

Sort of makes the rest of us look like slackers, eh?

Just be glad he’s out there, folks. Because, if it ever happens that he’s in there with you…well, then… you’re Faulked.