#macabre

The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving masks. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#horror #imagery #imagination #macabre #supernatural

It sounded like a piece of blackboard being dragged over the nails of a wall of severed fingers. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#paraphrased #simile #simile

Accounts from Europe indicate that the danse macabre took another form, inspired by the Black Death, rather like our children's rhyme 'Ring o' Ring o' Roses', which refers to the Great Plague. In 1374, a fanatical sect of dancers appeared in the Rhine, convinced that they could put an end to the epidemic by dancing for days and allowing other people to trample on their bodies. It is not recorded whether they recovered but, incredibly, they began to raise money from bystanders. By the time they reached Cologne they were 500 strong, dancing like demons, half-naked with flowers in their hair. Regarded as a menace by the authorities, these dancers macabre were threatened with excommunication. ↗

— Catharine Arnold

#danse-macabre #death

I wonder if I could eat a child if I had the chance.' 'I doubt if I could cook one,' said Constance. ↗

— Shirley Jackson

#dark-humor #humor #macabre #humor

You will be wondering about that sugar bowl, I imagine, is it still in use? You are wondering, has it been cleaned? You may very well ask, was it thoroughly washed? ↗

— Shirley Jackson

#macabre #sugar #wash #imagination

Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin. ↗

— Edward Gorey

#inspirational #macabre #inspirational