Showing results by author "Otto Handley" in All Categories

This surreal collection of vignettes explores a world where linear time and logic have fractured, replaced by a state of “administrative continuation” where life moves sideways rather than forward. The narrative personifies the mundane, granting agency and existential dread to everyday...

Where do we go after we die? In this story the protagonist, Oscar Whatmore, dies and finds himself transported to a rundown spiritual realm, eventually appearing before a vast court presided over by a diminutive and disagreeable Jesus clad in legal robes. Although judged worthy of admission to Heaven, Oscar finds himself in a boring and dilapidated domain, which is blighted by outdated technology. He subsequently bribes an official to gain access to Hell, which he discovers to be surprisingly pleasant and staffed by a friendly Devil who explains that the ancient punishments are obsolete.

In the surreal academic landscape of Tumbarumba, history professor Stella Pontifex discovers that grease is not merely a culinary byproduct but a metaphysical archive of human memory. As the world suffers from “The Great Sizzle” and a subsequent “thinning” of reality known as attenuation, Stella is contacted by the spirits of legendary Grease Prophets like Frank and Glen. These apparitions warn her that corporate interests and a fanatical cult, the Way of Dryness, are draining the universe of its viscosity and historical depth.

Pope Blatantly IV wishes to return to the papal autocracy of the Middle Ages. He devises a threefold plan: 1) to enforce universal Catholic geographical supremacy, 2) to criminalize sin, and 3) to ban “grease” in favor of doctrinal “dryness.” The Pope’s outlandish initiatives include annexing Antarctica using a team of bodybuilders and gluing borders, and monetizing salvation through Indulgences 2.0 and Pre-Death Canonizations. In opposition to the Pope’s extravagant claims, the “Grease Underground,” is formed.

Edgar Blunt is an ordinary man who discovers an annotated anthology of philosophy and becomes obsessed with achieving Aristotelian virtue through rigid, literal interpretations of concepts like potentiality and the Golden Mean. Edgar’s attempts to mathematically calibrate his friendships, diet, and even his sock drawer lead to social isolation and personal paralysis.

Our story begins with the programmer, Allosaurus Triplicate, who inadvertently creates the Realm of the Unwritten—a dimension populated by unfinished and deleted text fragments that achieve sentience, including the letter V. This symbolic dimension soon descends into turmoil through the creation of Antinomy, a paradoxical entity that seeks to monetize and control all expression, leading to a global linguistic crisis where meaning and grammar collapse.

The death of Maxilodimus Cruett, who drowns in a vat of oil, sparks a global controversy. Society becomes divided into Rationalists, Pilgrims, and various new theological groups who debate whether the event was murder, a miracle, or a “merger” of substance and consciousness. Grease itself starts to become sentient—it begins to hum, speak, and eventually organize, eventually forming an international commission. Legal battles ensue, culminating in a global strike where all lubrication ceases, with disastrous results for worldwide infrastructure.

This is the story of a theological conflict concerning the concepts of “grace” versus “grease.” The “cult of Frank,” a religious movement advocating the salvific potential of viscosity, frying, and culinary lubrication is gaining many converts. The story opens with a sermon by Father Anselm Loosespring, a Frankite advocate, who promotes “holy grease” as essential for faith, spirituality, and combating Frank’s opponent, the Adversarial Tobacconist, Runciman.

Archibald Abercrombie is a meticulous dentist whose orderly life is briefly upended after a chance meeting with the exuberant writer G. K. Chesterton. While initially intoxicated by Chesterton’s brilliant paradoxes and disregard for convention, Abercrombie gradually notices the physical decay and practical neglect hidden beneath the author’s verbal abundance. He eventually realizes that while intellectual spectacle can inspire, it often evades the necessary responsibility of repair and care.

A metaphysical crisis occurs when the note C sharp mysteriously vanishes after being played perfectly by the pianist Jonathan Blenheim. The absence causes tonal collapse worldwide, leading to chaos in orchestras and triggering a bureaucratic panic at the Bureau of Eclectic Notation (BEN). The Bureau attempts to force the note D Flat into substitution, to be met with fierce opposition by D Flat.

The Wombat Ultimatum describes a chaotic societal crisis following the kidnapping of the adverb “Softly” by marsupial revolutionaries. The main conflict pits the prophetic tobacconist and wombat leader Runciman, who champions “blunt grammar” and the rejection of all adverbs, against the spiritual cooks, Frank and Glen, who represent the esoteric faith of “Greasehood” and the necessity of nuance.

The Fryer Ascends is a theological and culinary epic detailing a conflict between the forces of flavor and imperfection (represented by the prophets Frank and Glen the Fryer) and the forces of order and blandness (led by the metaphysical entity Softly, the Adverb, and the Bureau of Blandness). The narrative charts Frank’s journey as he confronts Softly’s attempts to sterilize existence by controlling grammar and grease, which leads to “The Great Drying” where all flavor disappears.

This pseudo-theological narrative chronicle details the spiritual journey of a man named Glen, who is called to become The Fryer, a prophet of viscosity and fried food. Included among the issues and events are The Fryer’s initial revelation, a growing understanding of the doctrine of Grease as the memory of heat, the establishment of the secret society known as The Order of the Greasy Spoon, and his performance of The Fifteen Sizzlings. Glen experiences conflict with the Dry Ones, an immersion in The Dark Night of the Stove, and a physical encounter with the ordinary yet divine figure Frank.

This is the story of Gregory Thistlethwaite, an unremarkable student, who is commanded by an authoritative, disembodied voice—claiming to be Jordan Peterson—to clean his room as a metaphorical path to ontological and psychological order. We track Gregory’s progress through increasingly absurd and metaphysical challenges, including finding a “Room Beneath the Room” (the psychological shadow) and undergoing “The Trial of the Lobster,” which is framed as a confrontation with dominance hierarchies.