About James Durham

On a night most foul and fetid, in a small town where criminals ran rampant and wolves howled at the moon, deep in the darkened bowels of the condemned ward of an insane asylum, James Durham was born to the blood-curdling screams of an unjustly convicted woman. A woman who had been incarcerated against her will, a woman so saintly and good as to be considered nothing short of… deranged. James was delivered via C-section, without anesthesia, by the hands of the local morgue’s half-blind, but kindly, pathologist, assisted by the local butcher.

He grew up in the asylum, never seeing the light of day until he was six years old, but by then, the damage had been done. His mind had been forever altered; his view of the world, forever disfigured. Even after his mother’s release from the asylum and ultimate exoneration, James Durham still clung to the comfort of long, dark corridors, barred doors, tiled walls and padded rooms.

His mother, once a world-famous classical pianist and avid reader of fine classical literature, imprinted him with a love of music and inspired his imagination with the great tales of the ages. He would never forget the solace of listening to her gently hum Mozart to help mask the screams of the other patients in the asylum, and he would always remember the stories she told him, to distract him from the loneliness that solitary confinement would induce.

He continues to marvel, to this day, at the magnificent world around him. Each time he sees a butterfly, he still weeps. And when he hears the live strains of a real orchestra, playing one of the songs his mother hummed to him in his darkest hours, he enters a trance with a wistful smile on his face, and remains that way for hours. And when he sees the sun set on the water, he still sees Odysseus aboard his ship, sailing home to Ithaca, as Poseidon watches ominously.

From there, James Durham found that his passion and psychosis could be satisfied only if he were writing music, creating new stories and populating his imaginary worlds with the myriad of characters that ran unchecked through his mind. FETIDUS is one of his endeavors to combine his love of composing music and his love of writing stories, that will take listeners deep into a post-apocalyptic world of adventure, mystery, horror and suspense. Perhaps it will be a slight comfort to others, who, like him, find solace in stories and music, to mask the figurative screams in their minds and distract from the loneliness of the metaphorical solitary confinement of their earth-bound lives.

Click here to read an alternate version of James Durham’s bio, devoid of any imaginative embellishment.

Click here to visit James Durham’s personal website, where you can enjoy some of his other creative mayhem, commentary and cognitive diversions.

[ * Fiendishly awesome photo of James Durham on this page by the superlative Charles Butler of Free Flame Photography - Please check him out at www.freeflamephoto.com if you dare... ]