Butt Slugs From Outer Space?

From Horrific Dreams to Butt Slug Screams?

This is a butt slug.

But before I go into detail in terms of why I’m sharing this absurd creature with you, allow me to introduce you to my inner thoughts. There are three things in the span of my life that I have heard repeatedly, from different people.

“You are an enigma.”

This one is usually from co-workers. The people you know from the office, you don’t really see outside the office, and who only catch glimpses of what you might really be like from time to time. The number of times I’ve heard this precise phrase from higher-ups would be alarming if I wasn’t a dedicated employee.

I recall a particular time I sat down across from an HR manager in a tech support job, and she stared at me without saying a word for what seemed like an eternity before blurting this phrase and shaking her head. She wasn’t wrong. My work was always solid, but the manner in which I work and carry myself can come off as … disconnected from reality.

I know I’m weird. And I’m cool with it. I spend all of my time in my brain.

“I wish I could spend a few minutes in your head!”

I assure you, you don’t.

It’s a chaotic soup of ideas, conversations, anxiety, images, movie replays, self-doubt, pure panic and/or terror, nihilism, commercial jingles from the mid-80s, and very little peace. I have described my brain as going in 100 different directions, at 100 miles per hour, 100 percent of the time.

It’s exhausting, but it is home.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Honestly, this one is my favorite and I’ve heard it from too many people, too many times to count.

I see this as creativity. My brain fixates on something, that something ends up going in 100 different directions at 100 miles per hour, and new and strange things manifest as a result.

The difference between someone like yours truly and the average person that has a sense of dignity in terms of not sharing every bizarre thought is that when I get an idea, I embrace it, say it out loud, and run with it. To me, manifesting every absurd idea in my brain is a steam-release valve for my insanity. It lets me put it out into the world, observe it, and basically say, “You know what? That is actually pretty fucked up.”

Last Night Dreaming

I was trying SO hard to sleep last night, and it wasn’t happening. And when that happens, the mind takes over and it won’t stay quiet. So I start thinking about … things.

Last night I was thinking about horror. Horror movies, and great horror stories. But serious horror, not stupid horror. Real mind-melting, twisted, violent, gory horror.

Then, I started thinking about horror movies … but that went off the rails fast and I started picturing schlocky 80s creature-feature horror flicks that I grew up on.

Remember this one?

Or this one?

Or even this gem:

But … Why?

I don’t know. But then my brain got going on how I desperately want to write a deeply philosophical and terrifying horror story. And inevitably, what starts out as a desire to start a serious project turns into something like this …

This is what it is like when ideas get filtered through my grey matter. I cannot help it.

Ideas start out as something genuine and serious, but then the absurdity takes over and the next thing you know I’m sitting here plotting out a short story at 5AM, putting it on the “write this eventually” back-burner and creating a COVER FOR THE DADGUM THANG on a Sunday morning when I should be sleeping.

But … the hilarity of writing a pulpy creature-feature tale about Butt Slugs from Uranus (…to YOUR ANUS!), taking over people’s minds and turning them into hungry, zombified vessels with hooked tentacles bursting out from their face as a small town gets terrorized … seems like a blast, honestly.

The next thing you know, I’ve got a young 16 year-old girl as the protagonist, her jock boyfriend trying to get to 2nd base but ending up being … er … “back-door violated” by butt slugs from outer space, and it turns into a gigantic bloody slasher-fest where our poor Donna Webster ends up snagging her dad’s hatchet and hacking all of these butt-slug-zombified friends and family to gory bits in an effort to survive the night and save her bratty 11 year-old brother Thomas in the process.

Radical Acceptance.

“Radical Acceptance” is this concept of allowing whatever it is that is happening, to happen. This is loosely tied to the sunk-cost fallacy. Basically, when you’re lying awake at night, the notion of sitting there fighting against your brain to try and gain sleep is akin to swimming upstream. It might be better to accept that it is not happening, let some creativity flow, and move forward without the frustration or anger that’s just going to have you not sleeping anyway.

After years of being called an enigma, or being asked what the hell is wrong with me, I’ve reached a point in my life where I’ve basically accepted that this is who I am, and this is what I do.

I was once told by someone I very much respect (John Corcoran, editor for Black Belt Magazine and later MASUCCESS Magazine), these exact words, “David, God gave you a gift. You are meant to write.”

He owed me nothing, and he passed away a few weeks after the telephone conversation where he dropped that banger. It has always stuck with me, and it has always given me some confidence and some faith.

The absurdity flowing through my brain every moment? I see that as a gift too. There are plenty of serious horror writers out there, and I don’t need to try to become someone I am not.

So late 2025 or early 2026, keep your eyes peeled for, “BUTT SLUGS FROM OUTER SPACE.”

Who knows, maybe these creatures will end up in The PEWNIVERSE some day …