First off, a little context. It’s nearly 1am as I post this, J-Rab and The Cub went to sleep hours ago, I’m in the spare room of our flat alone and the wind is blowing at gale force outside.
So I’m a long way away from your comfy office swivel-chair where you’re sipping your morning coffee under bright fluorescent light, surrounded by all your office pals.
Second off, a little history. When I was about 12 years old, I spent a holiday with my cousins in Natal. During that particular holiday it snowed for about two days so when we weren’t outside building snowmen, we were inside making puzzles, one of which depicted Hell.
The puzzle must have had easily 500 pieces and I clearly remember scrutinising the pieces in great detail whilst trying to figure out what went where. In this way, I got to know this painting of Hell intimately and to this day am still more than a little disturbed at what it depicted.
Here it is in its entirety:
This painting was done by Hieronymus Bosch sometime around 1500 and is part of a triptych called “The Garden Of Earthly Delightsâ€.
It’s hard to see any of the detail in the image above, but just looking at it gives me the creeps.
I remember one part in particular pretty vividly:
As you can see, some kind of demon thing is transcribing music onto someone’s naked ass.
The internet, being the twisted place it is, has actually figured out what that song would sound like, in case you were curious:
What really gave me chills was that the moment I started playing that, cats started fighting somewhere outside the flat.
And anyone who knows me well will know how much that sound freaks me out.
Spooky stuff I tell ya. If a black metal band got a hold of that melody, I’ll bet they could make it sound a million times creepier…
-ST
