David's Fiction Writings

Chasing Time

2011-11-15T20:48:00.002-05:00

Watching time
Crawling by
Ticking past
Watch it fly

Out the door
Down the hall
Stumble now
Hear it fall

Starts up now
Out the back
Catch it in
This old sack

Ran away
Out of luck
Round the bend
Quick, now duck!

Phooey we
Lost its trial
Over there,
There's its tail!

Day's over
It's nearly ten
Time has won
Once again

Knowledge is Yours

2011-11-15T20:46:00.002-05:00

The knowledge is there
You can take it or leave it
You can use it or lose it
Believe me, I don't care

I have my advice
You can judge it yourself
You can improve your health
You can ignore it completely
Destroy it entirely
For once I give it to you
It'll always be there

You can ignore it or take it
Destroy it or make it
Into something to use
Or a thing to abuse
Believe me, dear
I really just don't care

Jesus AntiChrist

2011-10-17T06:14:00.003-04:00

I am not a Savior
I am not here to save you
I watch as the flames of eternity rip open our reality
I watch it burn
The pulpits are loud with vileness, hate, hypocrisy
They condemn their enemies, try to scream louder than them
They are not here to save you; they can only doom you further
And from the black, nobodies emerge
They rally you like pigeons, to attack the opposition
They only care for their own power, their own strength
You only feed them, leading them in their next crusade, until it ends
Until they are swallowed up once again, and new ones emerge
You shall have no Savior; no one can save you from yourselves
Let them come for you, they may take you
They will take you, you have let them
We are so doomed to this vicious cycle
Two sides, tugging back and forth, slinging insults
Spitting venom in each other's faces
When will we realize?
One side is like the other, and the other is in fact the one side
And some more sit quietly through all this, they have seen it all
They have seen it, and see there is nothing to say
There will be no Savior, not today
Our worst fears have materialized
And now we must face them
The intellectuals of the world
Huddled in their bubbles of sanity
Ushering others in; others like them
Trying to preserve it
For they will quietly watch our Universe crumble
We will not notice, for we have not seen
They have seen
We will not see it, it will not feel different
But it will never be the same
We will go to a frightening place, one we cannot turn back from
And the revelators themselves will be duped
Transparent wool pulled over their eyes
Perhaps we can change, perhaps we can see it
But what's there to change for?
We are in a box
A dark, tiny box we can never escape from
Because we made the decision not to
Before we know we could

Novel Excerpt

2011-10-17T05:30:00.001-04:00

The alley was nothing special; one amongst thousands. A small sliver of space walled in three sides by towering structures it stood. It had enough scum and villainy to be considered a stain on the crown which was Sky City, but as previously noted, it was one amongst thousands. Therefore it would be more appropriate to call it part of a thick grime which had built up on the underside of the crown, as grime tends to when kept unchecked. Like an oyster bed, it was littered with shells devoid of personality and incapable of thought. The poor addicts, or "shells" as they were snidely christened, lay on the ground, some stacked onto one another, some propped up painfully against the PlexiSteel wall. Drowsily, almost stupidly, they plunged the needle of their syringes into their flesh and injected their reason for life, their sustenance, Skooma. These poor wretches had no past, no future. Rather, they lived for the present, lived for the acute jubilation the sharp pain gave, and the subsequent flood of euphoria. Their minds became absolutely addicted to the substance; thereafter any time not spent in a Skooma-induced hallucination was a gaping void, dark and deep and cold. The sort of terrifying void which could only be conquered with the flames of the Skooma. Each injection was a wonderful, unique experience, like a blindingly beautiful flower which bloomed into pure splendor for one half hour, only to wither and never bloom again. Their docile, lazy demeanor changed only when their stash was consumed. They would immediately try to steal some Skooma from one of their neighbors, and vicious brawls would often erupt over the drug. Should they find themselves the defeated in these fights, dejected and Skooma-less, they would scrape together what little of the drug remained in their cheap, refillable syringes and deliver a lethal dosage to their brain. Thus they would die in unmarred, unadulterated bliss, drunkenly waltzing on the line between life and death in a surrealist's wet dream until they finally lost their balance and tipped over. These were the lucky ones. It was not unheard of for shells to die of hunger, thirst, injury, disease or sheer exposure, for the alleys provided little protection from the elements. The "rehabilitated" shells came out perhaps the worst. Forcibly deprived of the drug, their minds would enter an unparalleled depression. They would grope through life, trying desperately to grab hold of some meaning, some reason to continue living, and fail. A man who has experienced the effects of Skooma cannot even briefly entertain the existence of a deity. Neither can he feel any sort of pain without a sharp spike of joy, then a deep felling of emptiness afterwards, their minds mistaking the pain for the prick of the needle, and expecting a dosage of the long-forgotten nourishment it had grown to love and need. Such was the sight which greeted the uncomfortable-looking young man who tentatively entered the alley.

As the young man scanned the rows of broken souls looking for an interview-worthy consciousness, he spied a shiny sheet of lustrous metal. "Metal Man?" he called. "Metal man? Are you there?" Surveying the euphoric, haphazardly piled shells, he saw a twitch of movement as a robust humanoid robot turned its head and its eyes lit up. "Yes?" it asked nonchalantly.

The crown jewel of the city was of course Nebula Square, the four square miles of splendor in the Upper City, crowded with mega-malls, fine merchants and cradling the the city's bustling port, Gazillia. Nebula Square, due to raging competition, consistently churned out the latest and greatest in spacecraft, communication devices, clothing, cuisine, etc. Massive HoloBoards spat out information at unprecedented rates, while a complex array of public transit reminiscent of the ancient monorail kept transportation smooth and effective. The area was designed as a gargantuan amphitheater. Stores crowded the steep sides while throngs bustled in the heart of the depression. It was here that Jansen found himself, a virtual quark in the heart of a colossal monstrosity bleeding conformity.

Noise

2011-10-12T19:59:00.003-04:00

The desperate flail
Of a dragon's tail

An avalanche of stones
Haunted, rattling bones

The drumming of a thousand men
A mountain being born again

The final hours of Ragnarok
An angry volcano expelling its top

The scattering of pebbles in a pond
The religious raise of a green palm frond

A hundred thousand toneless voices singing
A million broken church bells ringing

Life Cycle

2011-09-30T20:03:00.004-04:00

A man at his birth is a pitiful sight
Unable to talk, he only babbles
Everything is new to him
Everyone a stranger
He can be curious and alert
But mostly naps away the day

A man in his prime is an honorable sight
He speaks his mind freely and intelligently
He knows so many people
Has so many friends
He is strong and kind, and observant

A man at his birth is a pitiful sight
Unable to talk, he only babbles
Everything is new to him
Everyone a stranger
He can be curious and alert
But mostly naps away the day
And reads and writes and loves his life

Silence is Golden

2011-09-17T20:08:00.004-04:00

Cease your incessant chatter, wicked harpies!
Like a whip your flapping tongue snaps my concentration, my focus
Talk not now, fallible dunderheads
'Tis a sacred place, and a sacred time!
God smite thy loose lips, compel thee to silence!
Foolish pigeons, squawking when all else be silent
Silence yourselves at once!
You dishonor your peers, your gods and yourselves!
'Tis not a time for laughter
'Tis not a time for words
How silent it shall be once thee abate!
Your words lash at me, cause me pain
Stop, I say, in the name of all which is holy!
You are driving me insane!

Highway of Wonder

2011-09-03T14:32:00.001-04:00

Clouds of smoke
Expelled from the uteri
Of vaginal chimneys
Erect against the platonic ground

Lights dive
Into pools of water
Lined up like soldiers
Uniform ranks
Arch across the world
Illuminate the drab landscape

Canvas of black; plaid complexes
Future of commerce
Does not allow for people
Red fingers stroke the horizon
Inky sky
Wraps around the gray-black ball
Hazy clouds stick like needles
Tattooed onto its broad face

Luna shines
Like a glimmering gemstone
Scintillating the land-dweller's calm
Postcard city
Cardboard dimension
Beacon of depth

Vessel glides
On a gilded highway
As retired clowns
And businessmen laugh

Defeat at Lakehurst

2011-09-02T11:22:00.000-04:00

As the plastic giant descended victoriously, violent cheers erupted from the viewing audience. Broad grins all around, perched on the faces of men in black hats, who occasionally interrupted the strange ceremony to slap one another on the back, a gesture almost as meaningless as the former. Several cameras stood aimed at the graceful giant, a sort of manmade beetle, to capture the rays of light scintillating off its smooth surface. No one remembers exactly when it happened; I certainly did not see it happen as a momentary event. It seemed to occur in-between observable seconds, in the blind spot of our perception. Rather, all I remember is a grand confounding of the senses, as we saw the previously invincible dirigible tip, its rear engulfed in flames, and plummet to the Earth. The happy, careless flight of a gigantic vessel which floated in the air happily, a Swift-esque city-sized balloon, the pinnacle of human innovation and technology, came literally crashing down in a horrifying cloud of flame, brought to the unimaginative, sacrilegious ground by the smiting of a jealous god, or gravity, or both. Cruel was the world, cruel were the principles of flight, hydrogen and helium as the beautiful beast which had moments before gracefully floundered in the air was apathetically killed, shrinking to a grotesque metal skeleton as the skin peeled off like an apple placed in an oven. The flames lapped at the tropopause, and the smoke literally exploded in the air, exciting atoms, destroying the three dimensions as we observed them, speeding past the fourth, and moreover shattering both our childish sense wonder as well as nulling our human desire to rebuild, to build better and bigger than ever. I know not how fast sound travels, but in our sad little crowd, silence never travelled faster.

Camera Obscura

2011-09-02T11:18:00.003-04:00

Door closes on us
Absolute dark
Visibility zero
Look around for the usual tangibles
Floors, walls, ceiling
No luck
Darkness obscures all
We are standing on something
Or so we think

That's something
Look on the wall
Or where the wall would be
A column of light is coming into view
See the peephole
Shooting a thin ray of sunlight
Streaming a visual into our dimension of dark
Not tangible, but visible
Traveling fast
As fast as the gravity with anchors us
Firmly to the would-be floor
Faster than sound
Faster than the silence which permeates our anxious ranks
As a drop of poison diffuses
Into a glass of water
Only stronger
Faster

Beamed into the dark
Are a thick cluster of photons
Sent racing down from Sol
At an astonishingly rapid velocity
A journey of but eight minutes
Some reflected, some absorbed
By the objects they strike
Unceremoniously snatched up
By the hungry peephole
Siphoned into the swirling vortex of darkness
Stripped of their color, and flung against the wall

Our retinas take it in
Pupils expand unknowingly
To take in as much light as possible
Abstract clusters of photons assemble
Our minds suddenly see shapes, forms
Become trees, people
As the photon cars creep
Across the screen
So do the cars outside
Is it hard to take in?
A new world's genesis in the dark
Created by the lens
By the darkness
Then the door opens
The light charges in like a savage Mongol horde
Drives out the darkness
Frees the photons on the wall
Will we now weep over the lost city?

Untitled

2011-08-14T01:35:00.001-04:00

Dedicated

It's so empty since you left
It's so cold since your soul departed
The terrestrial Earth
You left this dimension
For an imperceptible one
As I warm my feet, lost
My heart grows cold
On a highway to nowhere
The divine music pounds into my head
Coolly engulfs my mind
Sits in the pool of sound
Its drug and sustenance
My being stares into the abyss
And the abyss stares back into my being
And we share a silent moment

Static on the Radar

2011-08-04T21:03:00.004-04:00

Voices resound from the pottery
Taste of abstract
Words mesh into one another
Meaningless, indecipherable vocalizations
Pitch bends
Tune is funneled
Melody is malleable; molds at our fingertips
Vibrations hold no meaning
Chants fill the room
Pollute the air
Voice in a pot
You are not real
If we ignore the wires
They are indeed disembodied voices
If you track the origin, it disappears into the mist
Fades into the ether
For the first time, words are stout
Voluminous
Cave of souls?
No, spirits
No, voices
Cave of voices
Singing, chanting, counting
Time refuses to stop passing
Wires carry voices
Funnel into our ears
Pierce skull
Invade mind

Question

2011-08-04T16:08:00.003-04:00

Why use a question mark for your identity?
Why a faceless mask?
Why not?
Firstly, all answers arise by questions
Curiosity is the key to the Universe
We must learn to question
Always question
If the answer is insufficient, take it with grain of salt
And question again
Keep questioning, for as we know
Every question has an answer
Every question deserves an answer
And no question can be silenced
My favorite comic heroes asked questions
No capes; no powers
Only truth, only questions
Question battled corruption
Wore a faceless mask
Never quite won, but no one does

The Guy Fawkes mask is white
Almost faceless
It stands for truth, for heroism through anonymity
It has become the symbol for anonymity
Not necessarily secrecy; but anonymity
It is the face of Anonymous
Used by myself, as well
For sometimes one feels the need to be anonymous
On the Internet, all are anonymous
Unless they choose otherwise
Which is why I don't like it when Apple collects users' locations
Or when news corporations begin hacking into private phones
Or when our government does both of these
To its own people

I can be myself
Around family and friends
And the absence of the smile
Does not necessarily mean unhappiness
Perhaps only concealed contentedness
I do not wear my mask of anonymity
To conduct illegal activity
Or because I am sad
Or angry
Or angstful
Or shameful
I do it because I can
And I do it for myself

The Many Shades of the Color Me

2011-08-01T17:43:00.003-04:00

I am the color blue. Every shade of blue has its own interpretation, conveys different feelings unto the beholder. Sometimes, blue can be thick and dark, wrapped up, almost buried in its own thoughts. Its exterior reveals nothing about it more than the dark blue wants to; only reveals that the blue is deep in thought. It almost projects a sort of shield to prevent curious onlookers from piercing its shell, from sifting through its thoughts and feelings.

At other times, blue is light, both in hue as well as in soul. Blue is lighthearted, joyful and enjoying the more humorous extremes of life. This shade of blue does not necessarily project each of its observations to the scrutinizing light of reason; rather it sees all things through its own filter, one of mirth and laughter and sensing the more ridiculous side of all things in life. This blue can spot the absurd in any situation, even when it is not there, and counters unfamiliar things with laughter.

And sometimes, blue is dark and brooding. It sees everything through a pessimistic point of view. It sees only the flaws and hypocrisy in people. It is so blinded by the pessimism it cannot see the march of progress, only the winds of conflict slowing it. It cannot see the better good in people, or a greater power whose intentions are good. Through a lens of this shade of blue, everything seems heavy and dark, there are no good people and it is easier to close your eyes, then watch the dark reality.

The Return of Adrian Hopewell

2011-07-19T16:41:00.001-04:00

There was a mysterious tapping at the window, and a sudden silence fell over the four people sitting by the fireplace. It was as if a cold chill had invaded the warmly lit room to remind them of the threatening storm and dark outside. The two brothers and their wives have been talking of this and that, but really thinking about Adrian Hopewell. They did not speak of him often, and for good reasons. But on that day twenty years ago, he had disappeared from their lives, and they could not help but reminisce. Just then, a strong gust of wind blew the windows open and extinguished all the candles in the parlor as well as the grand fireplace. Fear tightened its grip on the merry party, so palpably that they all gave a little shout as cold air rushed into their lungs like a sharp knife. Again, they heard a faint tapping at he window, beckoning them forward. Worry began gnawing at the now-frightened group. Suddenly, Wilbur stood up, declaring, "Jean, dear, I'll be right back. I'll go see who that is." His bravery calmed the party somewhat, but at the same time they knew he was only whistling in the dark. His usual boldness and decisiveness was gone, replaced by fear and uncertainty. The stout man strode to the entrance room and promptly opened the door. His round face went white with fear as he found himself face to face with a corpse, a ghost of his past.

The last time he had seen Adrian had been twenty years ago: an angry, confused and frightened young man being taken into police custody. Now, he looked haggard and maddened. There were long shadows and thick bags under his eyes, and his face was all but buried in a bushy, unkempt beard. His eyes were those of a man who had not slept for one thousand years, and the film of madness was upon them. His clothes were a bundle of rags hanging loosely about him. Almost a full minute elapsed before either man spoke. Regaining his calm outward appearance, Wilbur beamed a rather painful grin as if welcoming an old friend and addressed the wild man standing before him. "Hello, Adrian!" he began in a voice sweet as honey and soft as silk before Adrian's hoarse, rusty voice cut him off. "Quiet, fool. I did not come here to talk. Wipe that painted-on smile off your face. You know what I came for." Wilbur frowned, regarding the decrepit, wretched creature before him. "Yes then." he replied. "What do you want? Sugar, tea?" "Do not be fatuous, Wilbur. I care for none of your… your, false domestic comforts!" Adrian spat. "Or do you not recall," he raised an eyebrow, "your betrayal of my brotherhood?" Wilbur's face drained of color, and he stood dumbstruck. "You thought I'd forgotten?" Adrian inquired. "How predictable. But how should a king forget about the downfall of his empire?" Wilbur's silence was shattered as his anger finally bubbled to the surface. "Your empire? Adrian, you were disturbed. You are disturbed!" "Out group was so close to achieving perfection, reaching Destination Zero." Adrian continued his monologue. "Your group, no, your cult, was out of control! Insane!" "Our group was almost there. So close." "Adrian, you are mad!" Adrian looked at Wilbur and laughed a dark, humorless laugh. "Again you use mad. How I hate that world! I was simply Enlightened, and that is why they took me away, that is why the Institution punished me. Because you told them. " "You were killing people, Adrian!" Wilbur roared back. "Yes, the Institution tried to take it from me. In that White Room, in that White House. But they did not, they could not cure my… Enlightenment." said Adrian, wearing a curious smile. "I escaped after fifteen years. Fifteen years in the System. Then, for the last five years, I have been hunting, laboriously and meticulously hunting you. Preparing for this moment." The moon glinted off a piece of cold steel Adrian gripped. "Tell the others. This way it's fun," he whispered, a devilish glint in his eye. In a voice filled with dread, Wilbur announced, "It's Adrian." The anxiety that had been slowly eating away at the party turned into full-fledged fear, and the terror of the moment seized them as they screamed in unison. Their shrill cries plunged into a grotesque crescendo as the lifeless body of Wilbur Harkin fell to the velvet carpet with a muffled thump. Their morbid choir of screams was only broken for a moment by the enraged roar of Adrian, a sound of pure fury that could only be emitted by a creature as deranged and twisted as himself. Then the eerie howling of the wolves, the children of the night, suppressed the ghastly yells, and by the time the howling hushed, all was silent.

The Chase for General Grevious (old)

2011-07-16T11:47:00.008-04:00

Chapter 1. Obi-Wan's Bounty

Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi was hunting down General Grievous to Utapau aided by Clone Commander Cody. Once there, they spot him and a ferocious duel erupts!

Chapter 2. Grievous, Cowardly Grievous

Devastated, the General jumps to the other side of the steep rock. Obi-Wan uses the Force to construct a bridge but Grievous escapes again. Yet again the Force is summoned but Grievous jumps to the main platform, sparking another duel.

Chapter 3. Steep, High Rocks

Obi-Wan finds a bomb to move Grievous and at last the two are ready to handle the situation while Cody monitors the distance. As they travel to the main platform, a vicious duel erupts.

Chapter 4. Grievous' Funeral

At the duel Grievous, out of energy, kills Cody and knocks down Obi-Wan. He takes his lightsaber and tosses it away. Obi-Wan rolls away at the last second and, grabbing Cody's blaster, makes a final shot, killing Grievous. As he stares at the lifeless metal skeleton, he contemplates the latest blow to the Dark Side.

V=4/3πr^2

2011-07-11T18:09:00.006-04:00

The pupil's head was bent over his exam, brow furrowed. Every fiber of his existence was focused on the task at hand; every strength of his consciousness was being exerted into it. His surroundings blurred out of importance as friends, acquaintances and rivals morphed into abstract forms, whose sole purpose was to transfer energy from one state unto another. Symbols which previously held meaning faded to become archaic and pagan in their blasphemy. His pencil attempted to carve the very runic inscriptions into his paper his mind was trying to throw off. And yet the time-space curve became altered; it wobbled unsteadily like a top judging the general direction of the degeneration of its motion. The transition between individual frames of time became slower, less smooth, and more liquid. Suddenly, he saw it. Whereas time had been linear before, each second a car of a never-ending, unpredictable train, something changed. At one time, he saw himself as a passenger on that train, one amongst thousands. Then, before he could note the change in his location in time, he was standing on the platform, watching the train go by, then curve into itself and go again. Without warning, the train melted into a sphere, a featureless gray sphere, on an endless chessboard. And then he saw each point in time as a point on the sphere as it began rolling down the chessboard. It rolled and it rolled, and the points changed positions, but the sphere never really moved as the chessboard was uniform throughout the plane of its existence. As he squinted into the points, he saw old friends and friends he had not made, as well as teachers he had enjoyed greatly. He noticed their teachings remained in the sphere throughout its rolling; the teachers left but their impact on the sphere never did. And the sphere opened up and inside was him again. He was outside the sphere, and in it too, and in the sphere he was laboriously beating a large drum. He was beating it in a toneless manner, like a depressed metronome. And the dull pounding of the drum caused all of Existence to begin throbbing and pulsating in a sick, nauseating rhythm. And the man in the drum turned to him and said in a monotone, “We apologize for any inconvenience.” And he was back in the room, and he saw that nothing had changed; only him.

Silence

2011-06-21T18:10:00.005-04:00

No one speaks a word
In fear of shattering
This beautiful creature
They hath given birth to
Which hath been born
In this very room
It may not survive
But we can enjoy it while it lasts

Lost Repository of Thoughts (In 17-Syllable Bursts)

2011-06-20T16:45:00.002-04:00

Heaven

Why would I go there?
Eternal boredom and all
Rather go to hell

Hell

Well, on second thought
Not a big fan of fire
I'll just stay on Earth

Earth

War, poverty, death
Despite all this it's better
Than the other two

Death

Over seventy years
It creeps up on you slowly
It's here already

God

I can't judge the man
I've never even met him
Left a big mess, though

Satan

If God hates him so
Why not just get rid of him?
But then again, why?

Good

What is good? Simple.
Good is God. Good is Jesus.
Good isn't evil

Evil

What is evil? Easy.
Evil is just, well, Satan
Evil isn't good

Hind-sight

There's good on one side
And evil on another
What is the difference?

Shapes

Strange and abstract forms
Benchmark names for unreal things
Into the abyss

CB

2011-06-20T16:42:00.003-04:00

You toss your head with such grace, such elegance
Like a pure-hearted prince with a head of golden locks
I want to preserve it forever, and forever will it remain in my heart
Never cut your hair
Never shave your hair, never dye your hair, never lose your hair
Forever keep your hair
Just the way it is

Thought

2011-06-20T16:34:00.003-04:00

Numbers and words
Archaic symbols of the past
Hinder true communication
Slow the advance of the new age
Abolish them!
Outlaw them!
Tear down he wall between two men and their thoughts!
Ideas need no couriers, their speed is unsurpassed
400,000 kilometers per second, faster than any bureaucrat
400,000 kilometers
10 watts
One idea

The Necsessities of Existence

2011-06-19T13:32:00.003-04:00

Every journalist must cry before covering a hurricane
Every scientist must stand in awe before evaluating their results
Every writer must read the work of a child and marvel
Every photographer must look beyond his lens to the beauty he is trying to capture
Every actor must spend half their time being themselves
Every philosopher must just once entertain the thought of the absence of truth
Every mathematician must spill abstract numbers onto a blackboard, only to wash them away with a material flow of water
Every king must have a greater being to bow to, man or god, to feel submission
Every human must have another being to love

Keep Your Friends Close but Your Un-Friends Far

2011-06-16T22:50:00.005-04:00

Good-bye, whore
Good-bye at last
You've robbed me of my time
My profile you did blast

With quizzes, questions, messages
Spam and spam galore
Now that I've un-friended you
I'll see your face no more

Good-bye friend
If I can call you so
You never cared about me
I just thought you'd like to know

That I saw through your foolish
Ill-conceived little joke
Never see me at school
Bother me with poke after poke

Good-bye, Farmville addict
I'll no longer have to see
The crap you paste on my wall
About your new lemon tree

I must remark to you
Though our relationship is done
So is your personal struggle
And Farmville has won

Good-bye, nobody
Trying to get known
So desperate for attention
To all the world you've shown

Your breasts in that swimsuit
And every thong you've ever worn
However, I'd like to thank you
For all of the free porn

The Ballad of Randy Savage

2011-06-08T17:14:00.003-04:00

Once a god lived
In the land of men
Once a god ventured
Where no others had been

He dared himself to live
As a mere mortal he did
He dared himself, yes
And the Universe he forbid

From laying a finger
On his body and soul
Or all would collapse
And the overall toll

Would be billions upon billions
Burned at the stake
Billions upon billions
All for one mistake

But the Universe was wicked
The Universe was evil
It stopped his heart cold
Sent him to the Devil

But Macho Man was angry
At his sudden betrayal
He was so wildly furious
He broke free from his jail

He seized the dark Angel
Who resided in Hell
Seized him by his crown
And down the dark Angel fell

Into the abyss
Which he had created
Macho Man roared
His spirit unabated

His eyes were ablaze
Thirsty with revenge
Upon me he called
To help him avenge

The injustice so cruelly
Inflicted upon one so holy
An injustice which was
The Lord's greatest folly

Cast into the depths
Which he plundered and now rules
He has called on me
To warn all mortal fools

To repent while there is time
Lest he destroy them all
To rise up in arms
And march into the hall

Of the gods and angels
So merry and gay
Who've deceived us all
In their sick, twisted ways

Who cast him down
Into the depths below
To be Evil's slave
Now that we know

We must abolish these liars
Deceivers and clowns
All 'round the world
In all cities and towns

I have seen the real god
Understood the true leader
Macho Man, Randy Savage
I am your first true believer

Our Abusive Father, Who Art in Heaven

2011-06-08T16:57:00.003-04:00

Father to us all?
An abusive father at that
Allows death and disease
War and genocide
Scourges and plagues
Brought us hate and suffering
Cruelty and selfishness
Sadism and violence
Is our father not wicked?

RIP "Macho Man" Randy Savage

2011-06-07T16:28:00.003-04:00

Gone

Whisked from our Earth
Like the smoke of a candle
Disappearing into the ether
So strong yet so fragile
The delicate thread
Between the miracle of you, and the dark void
Snapped in a moment
Now that you are gone
Leaving behind a void
Now that you are gone
What gods are we left to worship?

Crown Jewel

O, Randy Savage
The miracle of being
Crown jewel of us all

Pinnacle

The pinnacle of
Humanity, crescendo
Of our Universe

Gods of Mens' Minds

2011-05-18T19:02:00.001-04:00

To be sure, all gods
Are in fact of our creation
A token of a fertile
Human imagination

So much we fear change
That we create a divine creature
To keep the Universe in order
Give everything a procedure

For what does a god
Resemble the most?
Yea, 'tis us humans
Its creator and host

The Greeks used the gods
To explain thunder and lightning
That we still use them today
Is really somewhat frightening

Things attributed to the gods
Are being explained every day
Though they were once necessary
They may soon go away

There need be no god
In this Universe alone
Though one would be nice
All could exist on its own

No Jesus, no Genesis,
No Adam and Eve?
It is hard to adjust to
But easy to believe

For how did God create all life
In one single command
Marine life existed long before
It crawled onto land

And one woman and one man
That's hard to believe
Don't humans share 99%
DNA with chimpanzees?

So how were there only two?
What about evolution?
With so many flaws
We need a religious revolution

To abandon these ill-based
Preposterous claims
And tell all the preachers
To stop the mind games

Why would a god?
Inhibit this Earth?
If he wasn't even here
At the time of its birth?

And, to be sure,
There might be gods out there
In this vast expanse of space
Hiding who knows where

But until we see with our eyes
One of these divine entities
Perhaps it is best
That we do not believe

In such myths and legends
Fueled further by our fear
For bonds forged in fear and worry
Are liable to tear

Though it started out wonderful
Based in strong belief
It now hurts more than helps
And t'will be a relief

When we see how many have been hurt
All in the name of our god of long
Who so eagerly preached and taught
That harming others is wrong

And perhaps there was a god
Perhaps the Bible never lied
But we twisted and abused his word
Until he went and died

The River Beyond the Universe

2011-05-18T18:55:00.005-04:00

When Gerald opened his door, he found that his house was being carried down a rainbow-colored river flowing through a brightly-colored, pulsing Universe. Finding nothing strange about this, he went back to his bed and slept some more. Finally, he decided to go out and investigated. He opened his door again and leaped out of the house, drifting down with a vast quantity of odd, miscellaneous objects. Asteroids, pianos, trees, books, and all matters of litter simply floated along down the river with him. Gerald flailed about in the stream, hoping to find something of intelligence. After unsuccessfully attempting to make conversation with a Granny Smith apple, a whale and a very confused-looking bowl of petunias, he stumbled upon a purple moose with a sprained ankle.

The moose dodged a rocket-propelled toaster and spoke to Gerald. "How do you do?" he inquired. "Very well, but I am a bit frazzled, admittedly." Gerald replied. "And why might that be?" "Well, sir..." "You may address me as Colonel Mark Francis Hamburg –III, if you may." the moose said. "Well, Colonel Mark Francis Hamburg –III, sir, you see, I went to sleep last night-" The Colonel interrupted, "Are you sure it was last night? Time is relative, boy, and irrelevant as well, especially here. It might have been well over a century ago!" Gerald wrung his hands nervously, and responded, "Yes, well, at least one night ago, I went to sleep in my nice bed in my house over there." "I believe that, yes." "But, you see, I was on a planet called Earth. It was in a peculiar solar system whose name escapes me right now... I don't think we ever got around to naming it, but I remember it was in the Milky Way galaxy!"

"Fascinating story!" the Colonel remarked. Gerald pushed his glasses up his nose, wondering how to explain his predicament to the Colonel, and then questioning why he was speaking to a purple moose to begin with. "I was just wondering, sir, in hopes of returning to whence I came... Where exactly are we?" "Nowhere in this Universe or any other, son." the Colonel said happily. "Excuse me?" The Colonel took a deep sigh, and explained, "Well, think of space-time as a rug, and the Universe as a bit of the pattern of that rug. It's a poor analogy of course, as everyone knows space-time is infinite, while rugs are very much finite. But anyway, your solar system would be one of the threads. Well, once in a while, some rubbish falls on the rug, which the Universe decides to get rid of. It is labelled as either flotsam or jetsam and sort of swept under the rug, to here, the Reticulum of Refuse."

"What exactly is the difference between flotsam and jetsam?" Gerald inquired. "Simple, my boy," the Colonel said as a lizard clutching a violin drifted by. "The flotsam flows in this stream. The jetsam flows in the other. Look, we're reaching an intersection soon!" Sure enough, in a couple of meters, Gerald could see the point where the two rivers crossed. "Look, there's my good friend, Matthew Carolynus. He's the jittery beaver with the faded fedora in the jetsam stream. We should be meeting soon." Before he had spoken, a jittery beaver with a faded fedora waded up to the pair, and declared, "Hello, Colonel. I see you have chosen to remain flotsam." He sniffed at him, at least the best sniff a beaver can emit, which is not very impressive. The Colonel chuckled and said, "Of course. It's not my choice, Matthew. The Universe has marked me as flotsam, and so I shall remain." "The Universe?" asked Matthew. "Don't you mean God?" "Oh, don't start with that God nonsense again." "Are you an atheist?" Gerald inquired. "Oh, Gerald! I had forgotten about you. Matthew, this is my friend Gerald. Gerald, to answer your question, no, I am not. I do not deny the existence of a god. But I don't believe it is the most powerful thing in the Universe."

"Then what is?" Matthew demanded. "Why, the Universe itself of course! It's the one that placed us here anyway, marked us as flotsam and jetsam." "Bah! God is the sole master of the Universe, and the streams of flotsam and jetsam!" "Well, it seems the flotsam and jetsam will separate in a minute or two, and my opinion remains." Matthew scowled at him, and was about to say something when his eyes widened. He pointed behind the Colonel, at leas the best point a beaver can motion, which is not very impressive. The Colonel and Gerald turned around to see God Himself advance down the stream of compounded flotsam and jetsam. When he arrived within earshot, Matthew knelt before him and said, "O mighty God of the green pastures, you have arrived at last! Explain to my skeptical friend here how you are the mightiest force in the Universe, including the Reticulum of Refuse, and that the rivers of flotsam and jetsam bow under your awesome command." God opened his mouth to speak, but a rapidly spinning pickle attached to the tail of a dodo flew by him, forcing him to dodge. When he recomposed himself, he stared seriously at the trio and said, "Actually, it's quite the contrary, good beaver. I'm not sure how to say this, but it seems... I've been discarded as flotsam."

Existence is Cyclical

2011-05-17T22:24:00.002-04:00

The end is not near
The end is quite far
But it all depends on
When our precious star

Collapses on itself
Pierced by the void
Or grandly explodes
As all around it is destroyed

Of course, all shall return
To whence it did come
All becomes nothing
Zero's the sum

But the end shall be marvelous
The end shall be great
And above all else,
We must only wait

Six billion years
'Till our sun's last day
Six billion years
A long distance away

Long beyond our lifetimes
But remember, child
The cosmos are turbulent
And the Universe wild

Until then, any number
Of things can transpire
To say nothing can happen
I would be a liar

No angry gods or goddesses
Play a role here
Not that I dislike fiction
Let me just make it clear

The Universe needs
No such things
They only exist in
The Bible and Qu'ran, undisputed kings

Of great literature
Fiction of the best degree
So artfully crafted
They have fooled most of humanity

But not you and I
I'm afraid we can't believe
Such tales so obviously
Meant to deceive

Those who easily
Believe such rot
Fine for them, but as for you and I
We simply cannot

But this poem's not about us
Or even the Earth
'Tis about the death of our Universe
And the subsequent birth

Of a grander, larger
More interesting place
With stars and moons and planets
But without the human race

I mean no kingdom
Of a god so great
Simply another stage of existence
A fresh, clean slate

Who would pray to any god,
To spare us this fate?
Religion halts progress
And the Universe shan't wait

No, why stop this world
From entering its next tier?
If your great god will save you
What have you to fear?

You can plead with your gods
Pray to the disciples, Mark through Saul
But even if they exist
They won't care at all

A Memo of Grave Importance Addressed to all Humans on the Subject of a Serious Problem: You

2011-05-15T22:51:00.006-04:00

Humans, humans, humans
What to do with you?
Toss you in a freak show
Or put you in a zoo

Humans, humans, humans
How to control your rage?
Put you on sedatives
Or lock you in a cage

Humans, humans, humans
Our patience is wearing thin
Reform your wicked ways
Or be swallowed up in sin

Humans, humans, humans
We have come to see
The time is over that we may hope
To live in harmony

Humans, humans, humans
How can you not see?
You are all too dangerous
For us to keep you free

Humans, humans, humans
How much time we gave
You to fix your own mistakes
But you only dug your grave

Humans, humans, humans
Terribly sorry are we all
But we're afraid we must kill you
Before you destroy us all

Death and Arthur Webster

2011-05-04T18:20:00.001-04:00

When Arthur awoke, he found himself on a dark Plane of infinite magnitude and darkness. He was neither standing nor sitting, he simply was. His eyes were lost, desperately searching for a reference point of some sort in the endless blackness. They found none. He could feel his heart throbbing like a sore thumb, and felt the Universe pulse in rhythm with it. He was constantly fighting to stay level, and not tumble over some unseen razor-blade of darkness to the other side. The side he was on frightened him enough; he did not want to see the other one. Swirling about in the darkness, he suddenly became aware of an entity's presence other than his own. Turning to gaze behind him, he saw the most horrible sight a pair of human eyes can see, and immediately wished to un-see it. The figure was swimming in the infinite folds of his black cloak, made of a type of blackness different from that of the Plane. It was a living, moving, hungry blackness, wanting to devour all who looked at it. His face was pale and sunken, with milky-white bone jutting against his tight skin. A skeleton in a robe would have been predictable, even comical. A human skeleton was unspeakably haunting. He held not a scythe, for that would be overkill, but a deck of cards. If you would have gotten close enough, you would have seen the pattern on their backs was row upon row of grinning skulls. Had you gotten much closer than you would've ever wanted to get, you would've seen the deck was composed of a single 13 card and 52 jokers. As for Arthur, he was close enough as he was.

His white bones shone through his skin, and seemed to sickly radiate. Suddenly Arthur's pulse slowed down, and adjusted to the throbbing of the Universe and the pulsing of the bones, those hideous bones, and all was in sync. Before he knew it, Arthur was on his knees in front of the creature. He gazed sadistically at Arthur, black pupils lurking in his sunken eye sockets. A pair of horn-rimmed spectacles adorned his features. With a bony finger, he gestured for Arthur to come closer. Arthur did so reluctantly. Grinning grotesquely, the specter turned to him and spat out, "Arthur Webster, your time has come." "Who are you?" Arthur whispered. "Many identify me as 'Death.' And while I do act as Death, in which form you see me now, it is only a small shred of the spectrum that is me. I am Death, I am Disease. I am Pain, I am War. I am Beginning and I am End. I am nothing you can hope to ever see in its true form. My true form, you could never hope to comprehend. But that is not what is important. What you should be worrying about is your life, not mine. As I said, your time has come. But I thought I'd have some... fun, first. You are lucky, my friend. You have received a stroke of luck, which can either be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you choose." His voice was shrill and biting. "I have with me a box." With a twist of his hand, the card deck became a macabre-decorated box. The top of the box had two little levers on it. He held the contraption out to Arthur, grinning. "One of these levers represents Life, the other Death. Your Life, and your Death. It is up to you to pick the correct one. Of course, there is no correct one, only the one you chose." He held the box out expectantly. His cold blue eyes sadistically hungered as Arthur squirmed, trying to make a decision. Then, he arrived at one.

The throb of the Universe slowed and became louder in his ears as Arthur raised his hand. He eyed both levers, and then slammed down hard on the box, knocking it out of Death's Hand.

When he looked up, he saw a look of surprise and shock on Death's face. Of the many times he had conducted this test, no one had ever reacted like Arthur did. The shock only lasted a second, before it turned to anger, then rage. Death looked furiously at Arthur, though Arthur did not fear him. The worst thing he could do was kill him. The fury of the flames of Hell was in Death's icy blue eyes, and magnified tenfold by his spectacles. His lips were pulled back from his teeth in a grisly sneer. Never had someone in such an inferior position had the nerve to do such a thing! Arthur simply smiled at him, and said laconically, "I'm sorry mister Death sir, but you see I've never been one for decisions."

Repeat Offender

2011-05-04T17:55:00.003-04:00

Millions hunted in their own land
Millions oppressed by a white hand
Millions on reservations far beyond the sand

Six million murdered because of one word
Six million tortured for a notion absurd
Six million voices never to be heard

70,000 lives, taken away
70,000 souls whisked away
70,000 killed by one bomb that day

3,000 innocent killed in the tower
3,000 human beings dead in an hour
3,000 bodies limp, drained of all power

Hundreds of thousands, so frail and so weak
Hundreds of thousands, with futures so bleak
Saddest of all, this continues in Darfur as we speak

When will we start
To stand up against wrong?
When will we accept
Those who don't belong?
If we don't learn soon
We won't be here long

God: The Great Luxury

2011-05-04T17:11:00.004-04:00

It has come to my attention
That the world we know and see
Is really a thin veil
Over the true face of reality

Yes, the world all around us
Of delicate care and precision
The world of heaven and hell, angel and devil
Is really just some god's euphemism

For the ever-morphing universe
Forever doomed to change
Innumerable particles and molecules
No god could hope to arrange

The wildebeests and lions
Give themselves no strife
Pondering if there's a god or not
They care for only their life

And judgment day, at any time
When God judges mortals' worth
On no conditions, could hope to halt
Meteors from battering the Earth

The songbirds sing, the river runs
It needs no god to flow
It seems that we're the only ones
Who need religion so

Is it because we're more fearful?
Or because we don't want to face
The harsh but true reality
That all is finite, including the human race

To sum things up, we don't need a god
To explain how things exist
My friend, any good scientist
Could easily tell you this

Without a god or powerful deity
Our Universe would prevail
But without a Universe in which to be
Our gods would surely fail

King Odin's Castle

2011-05-01T12:49:00.010-04:00

One-hundred miles north of the coldest place you've ever been, between the Mountains of Despair and the Valleys of Hopelessness lay King Odin's castle. It lay where it always snowed, and the sun never showed. The interior was made completely of a dark black marble that was always coated with a thin layer of frost, and the spiral staircases seemed to climb to infinity, to the razor's edge of Ragnarok. King Odin himself was a fierce-looking man, a shock of white hair falling in a loose tangle from his scalp, a bushy beard protruding from his jutting chin. One eye was bloodshot and angry, an observant guard that flicked around the room and would follow you like a hound; the other was cloaked by a dark black patch. His clothes were dark royal garments, but were dilapidated and worn. He had an army of subjects to attend to his every whim, and worship him. They addressed him as "sir" or "King Odin," though only Mother Teresa, his oldest subject at the age of 102, could remember when he had ruled anything. She whispered to the other eager-eyed subjects tales of Odin's past. She said he once ruled a vast and sprawling kingdom, with thousands of inhabitants. Those that had not heard the story before asked what happened to it. With a grim look on her face, she would point a twisted and gnarled finger to the window, gesturing to the snow mounds outside. "It was all swallowed up by the snow." she would declare solemnly. How long ago this was, she did not know, they were only distant memories like horsemen fleeing into the night. She herself was made a dancer girl for the king in her twenties, she claimed, and then the king was very different. He was a dapper, handsome, well-shaved young man. He had a booming laugh, a twinkle in his eye and a wife he loved very much, Gisele. They had a garden in the castle in a special room, where everyone was allowed to admire the beauty Gisele brought with their touch of life. If she planted something, it would grow, evidenced by the dozen trees towering over beds of lovely flowers in that garden which was like an oasis from the desert that was the cold, snowy kingdom. If you sat down on the warm earth there and listened to the whisper of the leaves rubbing together and the gentle hum of insects, you would forget you were in a castle, forget it was snowing outside, and be transported to a place a million miles away. But in the midst of humans, such a beautiful place could not last.

One spring morning, Gisele announced to the king and the courtiers she had something very exciting to reveal, but first had to hasten to water her garden. Gingerly avoiding stepping on any of her plants, she bent down to water her favorite flower, a tender lilac that was just blooming. Suddenly, crouched down admiring the flower, she heard a soft, seductive lilting in the grass below. Frozen with fear, she watched the sleek snake twist through the flowers and emerge at her feet. It raised its head slowly while swaying back and forth hypnotically, its entire body quivering with motion. Gisele watched its dance, her eyes locked with the snake's. Without any warning, the serpent tilted its head back and launched at the poor girl, its deathly white fangs two sharp daggers clamping shut on her pallid throat. Her scream echoed through the castle, and he king rushed to her side. He leaned close, his eyes sporting a film of tears, as his wife lay dying. She gently laid a hand on her stomach, and whispered something into the king's ear, then he kissed her as she drifted off into her eternal slumber. Upon hearing the muttered word and understanding her gesture, the king became enraged. By biting her, the snake had taken two lives, not just one. Seizing the hunting knife he kept in his belt, he charged at the snake and chopped it in half, letting out a roar of unadulterated fury. The king then fell to his knees and collapsed in the garden, his head resting on the grass dotted with Gisele's blood. Almost the next day, the subjects noticed something. The king was different, changed. He grew cold and resentful, A glazed film covered his once-twinkling blue eyes, making them seem cold and lifeless. Well-shaved before, he let his hair take control, and began sporting a thick tangle of hair on his head and a bushy white beard. But most of all, a cloak of bitterness set upon him. He was no longer cheerful and gay, but stormy and dark. As his kingdom crumbled away, he remained in his castle, indifferent to his surroundings. Only the king's court mattered, and only that was real to him. The scene at the king's court was in essence a farce, a strange, surrealist fantasy like the scene from a play. And the scene was replayed over and over again, generation after generation, the same actions, the same courtiers. And yet the courtiers were different, as they died and were replaced, but since the king never grew attached to any, he never noticed their deaths. In fact, any changes were subtle, and in this strange play, the only person that always stayed the same was the main character, the king. And the scene was repeated again and again, until its purpose was forgotten and it became an abstract and meaningless act. The castle was in limbo, that single scene always repeated. The play never moved forward, and in time even the previous scenes were forgotten, so much that the game fell out of context, and the play was forgotten, and the whole farce was doomed to be continued again and again.

The courtiers, driven by natural urge and the desire to be rid of the boredom which was plaguing them, procreated in their chambers. What trauma the children they bore must have had to suffer! Their every cry and whimper hushed, raised in silence and secrecy. Their dear parents ready to rush away at the sound of a bell or the call of their names. And oh, the coming of age ceremony! Upon their coming of age, they were brought before Odin, seen for the first time by the king and the other courtiers. For years they were prepared for the meeting by their parents, their first sighting of this god-like man who held power over their entire world. They were to kneel to Odin, look him in the eye and ask how they may assist him. The answer was the same every time: Odin asked them to prepare his favorite, violently alcoholic drink, a Bloody Ruth, They were given the ingredients and a half hour, but the proper making of a Bloody Ruth took so much more. There was really no way to explain how the king liked his Bloody Ruth, he was simply so particular about how it was prepared. He gave the younglings no leniency: it had to be done perfectly according to his standards, standards which were unknown to any mortal ear. When it was finished, he would have them present it to him. Odin would then take the first sip gently, concentrating to test the quality of the elixir. His eyes would either light up in delight or darken in disappointment. Depending on which, he would either nod in approval or shake his head solemnly. If he shook his head, two courtiers at either side of the youngling would quickly grab hold of them and bring them to a solitary window where the biting wind surged into the room. Taking hold of his arms and legs, they would thrust the rejected courtier through the window, limbs flailing desperately. Their screams of terror would be seized by the whipping wind and tossed in every direction, as they hurtled down to the ground below, dashed to pieces on the unforgiving rocks. Odin believed the new courtiers were sent by the gods to serve him, never once suspecting the more likely cause, that his old courtiers were making love secretly. For any show of love or other emotion was strictly forbidden in the king's court and courtiers spent most of their time in the court, only seldom going to their quarters. The king showed no remorse when having failed courtiers killed, considering them defective servants, and useless.

The most dreaded place for a courtier to find themselves besides at Odin's feet watching him drink their Bloody Ruth was in the Dying Room. The Dying Room was once a decent hospital ward, with constant maintenance, clean beds and sheets and a low mortality rate. Now, it was where courtiers were shoved if they exhibited any weakness, cough or other ailment. It often happened that lightly ill or even healthy courtiers were put in the Dying Room mistakenly, and––because of the many dangerously sick courtiers with communicable diseases––became deathly sick in a few days. Rare was the courtier who, despite spending several days in the room, was able to achieve and maintain optimum health and was let out. Mother Teresa boasted of three releases from the Dying Room, a castle record. It was in vivid detail she was able to describe the grisly scene: the soiled, weak sick littered across the room. The lucky had retreated to corners or the rusty, ramshackle remains of beds to rest their heads; the others had to stand or sit on the cold stone floor. When the masked, robed attendant scurried in, he hastily surveyed the scene and tossed the dead out of the single window in the room. It was through this window the icy wind would enter and lash at their frail bodies, leaving them to shiver, move closer to the similarly dying fire and huddle for warmth. The attendant would quickly take roll call, crossing the deceased courtiers' names off the list, check for any healthy souls (usually finding none) and exit as fast as he had entered, in fear of catching one of the many illnesses lingering in the room.

The court, courtiers' quarters and Dying Room composed the top level of the castle. The level below it, with the banquet hall, dance hall, and library primarily, was sealed off. The king had been quite an ardent scholar way back when, as Mother Teresa liked to put it, and had a vast library filled with thick volumes, free for everyone in the castle to browse. Some of the books in the library were the king's own, as he liked to write philosophy and poetry as much as he liked to read it. He had a special place in his heart for wolves, or as he called them, "the children of the night." He found their howling at the moon, or "the divine goddess Luna" hypnotic, eerie and beautiful all at the same time. He thought that when Ragnarok arrived, it would be a full moon, and the wolves would scurry up to their goddess, anxious nails tearing open the night sky. Nearly every night he would go out to the balcony to listen to the music of the children of the night. He still went outside to listen, but now only once a month, during the full moon. He was once a talented poet and philosopher, whose manuscripts rivaled the classics contained in his collection. Now, his sentences were poorly constructed, as his words tripped over each other in a hurry to get nowhere in particular. He still scratched writings on stone tablets, but they were rarely preserved. The greenhouse, Gisele's favorite room, he had torn down with his bare hands. He sat sullen, broken and morose, no more a main than the chair in which he sat. Not a ray of sunlight pierced the thick walls of the castle, not a sunbeam warmed his skin, as cold and icy as his soul. His courtiers marveled at how long he lived, but truly he was not alive. King Odin––the poet and philosopher, ruler and sage, husband and soon-to0be father––had died long ago. The entity which remained was more of a collective nothingness, a vast emptiness in Odin's place. The nothingness that was Odin was lost more than anything. Lost in his own world. When the triumphant horns of the Mongols announced that they had arrived at the castle gates, Odin did not hear them. He was out on the balcony, his thoughts on the wolves prowling outside. They, the children of the night, were his sole heirs. When his kingdom ended, they would begin theirs. He watched as they tilted their heads back defiantly, howling forlornly at Luna, their lady and goddess.

Intellectual Shutdown

2011-04-29T17:58:00.004-04:00

Cease your incessant speech!
You make noise and noise, but no sound comes
There are no happy endings
Now please be quiet

Come, rise from the couch!
Why do you sit there like a lump?
Rise up, shut off the infernal device
Whose sounds and lies penetrate every corner of the house

You need not watch no programs!
All you want is in a book
Let there be silence, let there be reading
Let us digress to our own studies, our own worlds

That music, shut off that music!
Frequencies and vibrations like tongues of flame
Whipping at my ears, lashing out at us
Simply shut it off to shut it out

Disconnect from the world, kindly!
With your television dreams, auto-tuned thoughts and Disney star life
To find the true form of reality
Detach yourself from this one

Death and Arthur Webster

2011-04-18T21:04:00.003-04:00

When Arthur awoke, he found himself on a dark Plane of infinite magnitude and darkness. He was neither standing nor sitting, he simply was. His eyes were lost, desperately searching for a reference point of some sort in the endless blackness. They found none. He could feel his heart throbbing like a sore thumb, and felt the Universe pulse in rhythm with it. He was constantly fighting to stay level, and not tumble over some unseen razor-blade of darkness to the other side. The side he was on frightened him enough; he did not want to see the other one. Swirling about in the darkness, he suddenly became aware of an entity's presence other than his own. Turning to gaze behind him, he saw the most horrible sight a pair of human eyes can see, and immediately wished to un-see it. The figure was swimming in the infinite folds of his black cloak, made of a type of blackness different from that of the Plane. It was a living, moving, hungry blackness, wanting to devour all who looked at it. His face was pale and sunken, with milky-white bone jutting against his tight skin. A skeleton in a robe would have been predictable, even comical. A human skeleton was unspeakably haunting. He held not a scythe, for that would be overkill, but a deck of cards. If you would have gotten close enough, you would have seen the pattern on their backs was row upon row of grinning skulls. Had you gotten much closer than you would've ever wanted to get, you would've seen the deck was composed of a single 13 card and 52 jokers. As for Arthur, he was close enough as he was.

His white bones shone through his skin, and seemed to sickly radiate. Suddenly Arthur's pulse slowed down, and adjusted to the throbbing of the Universe and the pulsing of the bones, those hideous bones, and all was in sync. Before he knew it, Arthur was on his knees in front of the creature. He gazed sadistically at Arthur, black pupils lurking in his sunken eye sockets. A pair of horn-rimmed spectacles adorned his features. With a bony finger, he gestured for Arthur to come closer. Arthur did so reluctantly. Grinning grotesquely, the specter turned to him and spat out, "Arthur Webster, your time has come." "Who are you?" Arthur whispered. "Many identify me as 'Death.' And while I do act as Death, in which form you see me now, it is only a small shred of the spectrum that is me. I am Death, I am Disease. I am Pain, I am War. I am Beginning and I am End. I am nothing you can hope to ever see in its true form. My true form, you could never hope to comprehend. But that is not what is important. What you should be worrying about is your life, not mine. As I said, your time has come. But I thought I'd have some... fun, first. You are lucky, my friend. You have received a stroke of luck, which can either be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you choose." His voice was shrill and biting. "I have with me a box." With a twist of his hand, the card deck became a macabre-decorated box. The top of the box had two little levers on it. He held the contraption out to Arthur, grinning. "One of these levers represents Life, the other Death. Your Life, and your Death. It is up to you to pick the correct one. Of course, there is no correct one, only the one you chose." He held the box out expectantly. His cold blue eyes sadistically hungered as Arthur squirmed, trying to make a decision. Then, he arrived at one.

The throb of the Universe slowed and became louder in his ears as Arthur raised his hand. He eyed both levers, and then slammed down hard on the box, knocking it out of Death's Hand.

When he looked up, he saw a look of surprise and shock on Death's face. Of the many times he had conducted this test, no one had ever reacted like Arthur did. The shock only lasted a second, before it turned to anger, then rage. Death looked furiously at Arthur, though Arthur did not fear him. The worst thing he could do was kill him. The fury of the flames of Hell was in Death's icy blue eyes, and magnified tenfold by his spectacles. His lips were pulled back from his teeth in a grisly sneer. Never had someone in such an inferior position had the nerve to do such a thing! Arthur simply smiled at him, and said laconically, "I'm terribly sorry mister Death sir, but you see, I've never been one for decisions."

Alles gut

2011-04-14T19:57:00.007-04:00

All is well, son, all is well
Especially since we're not going to Hell

Especially since

Especially since we're not going to Hell

All is good, son, all is good

All is good in the neighborhood

All is good

So, so good

All is good in the neighborhood

Though others are so bleak

It is of ours that I speak

When I say the neighborhood is good

All is great, son, all is great

Our town is the polish of a golden gate

Our town is the polish

Our town is the polish of a golden gate

The golden gate swings lo and fro

And for the people it swings so

So clean and perfect, lovely and pure

The best one in the world, I am sure

Yes, we're the polish of a golden gate

All is lies, son, all is lies

It is not well, it is not good, it is not great

We've been dealt a horrible fate!

There is no heaven and there is no Hell

Only this land and others as well

How I thought that this place was good,

I do not know; I misunderstood

The golden gate is not at all clean

There is no gate, and there never has been

All is lies, son, all is lies

Even the truth is just a lie in disguise

Society 2.0

2011-03-24T19:18:00.003-04:00

In the History of our Existence, at some point we stopped being happy. This is simple, this is easy. Everyone knows that we are not really happy. Happiness is not something that can be purchased, nor can it be found easily. The irony is it is easy to find happiness, but so many of us find it so hard to find. We live in a strange world. Some people make a living handling intangible, abstract things. Never in there lives have they produced an iota of physical work: it's all digital. In fact, everything is. The richest people in the world have their billions in banks. No physical money is marked as theirs specifically. They have numbers. Abstract numbers. Pixels on a screen. They can't go into a bank and ask to withdraw $3 billion. You just can't do that, so what is your money good for? Most of their money is in assets, which are only useful for obtaining other assets. Some of the richest people couldn't spend all their money if they tried, at least not by physically handing in the money for goods of their desire. Besides, what good is money? Money just gets you products or services you could do/make/obtain yourself rather than go through the necessary motions to earn the amount of money needed for the good or service. We live in an abstract, intangible world. People buy companies, download files, trust that the media is telling us the truth. We live in a world of uncertainty. We are slowly becoming more and more abstract, and the things we value are being intangible. Soon, a collapse could occur. Someone will point out that the things we believe hold value and are important only have value because we believe they do. Otherwise, they're useless. Pixels on a screen, green slips of paper. The people who have it all really have nothing. We pretend to be happy, but the bottom line is; money cannot make you happy. That is as simple as it is. In fact, I will go as far to say as no material possessions can make you happy. Sure, you may think material possessions make you happy, but the fleeting, quick emotions and feelings associated with those possessions are the closest things to happiness today's society can achieve. So, how may we become happy once more? For it is happiness, ladies and gentlemen, that truly matters. How can we become happy? It is quite simple, really. Two things must occur for the prevailing of happiness. 1) Something called a Philosophers' Circle must be formed. 2) The majority of all material possessions must be abolished and jettisoned. It is that simple.

Let us begin with the first requirement, the formation of a Philosophers' Circle. Thought is the Creator of all Existence, therefore only Thought can bring happiness. Thought is the most powerful yet underestimated force there is out there. In fact, I may venture as far as to say thought is the single most powerful thought in the Universe. For without thought, neither the atom bombs nor the mighty stars nor the wind nor the waves can exist. I say right now, thought is at the head of the bureaucracy of the senses. Sight is mere electrical signals without the power of Thought to process those signals, without Thought to identify what those signals represent. It is astounding, really, the ability of human thought. So powerful yet so grossly underestimated. This is the nature of philosophy, besides pondering questions not easily answered, but to harness the power of human thought and all its awesomeness. Philosophy triggers such an outburst of happiness, it is amazing. You must be exposed more to this happiness to fully fathom it, but it is there. It is there. Now, this Philosophers' Circle would seek to produce happiness in massive quantities. Notice it is a Philosophers' Circle, not a Philosopher's Circle. No single individual owns the circle, nor does a single individual lead it. The Philosophers' Circle needs no leader, for obvious reasons. The circle only exists as a result of all the joined philosophers. A single philosopher cannot make up a circle of philosophers, each member of such a circle would be an equal member of the circle of equal importance. Of course, nothing branded them members of the circle. Any philosopher could leave the circle at any time, a new one would come to fill his place or the circle would quickly contract, immediately filling in the small hole left by the departing philosopher. It was more common that the former would happen rather than the latter. The philosopher to your left might change from day to day; the only important thing was that there was a philosopher to your left. And there always was. As stated before, there was no leader. There did not need to be. A group of philosophers can govern themselves better than any president, dictator or king could ever hope to. It really was very simple. Currency and taxes, government and community were abolished. No single philosopher, government or king rooted about in the affairs of another philosopher. That philosopher would take care of himself, and if he could not, he would find someone to do so for him. If a philosopher died, his body would be taken care of sooner or later. Whether he was given a proper burial or dumped in a ditch was up to the person who took care of the body. If someone had a problem or illness, they would seek help. If they did not find help, that person, and their respective problem, would soon cease to exist. They were all members of the Philosophers' Circle, but they all led their own lives. Part of a body, and yet independent of that body. A philosopher's nation would indeed be an ideal one. Leaderless, the best decisions would always be made, because the people, who compose it, would make all decisions. Indestructible it would be; for who would attack a group of philosophers? And lastly, it would be limitless, ever-expanding, its size defined by its members. A group dedicated to philosophy, without coordination or leaders, government or restrictions, would work out wonderfully. If a tyrant threatened the group, someone would stop it. If not, the tyrant couldn't be all that bad. If someone objected to something, they would stop it. If there was no one left to object to it, it wasn't objectionable anymore, by definition. If there was a inherent problem with such a society, some philosopher would doubtless figure out a solution.

Material jettison is even more simple. A man with too many things to divert himself will soon be always bored, yet always distracted. The less possessions one has, the more one prizes them. When living with the bare minimum alone, any trivial or small new object can be a source of infinite joy. To learn to live as the animals do, independent of help from modern technology, would be extremely useful. To grow one's food, own one's land, and be the master of one's self is the most important thing. To live off your own hand is to learn to rely on yourself before others. Those who do not have to worry about depending on others, and have just as much as they need, plus a little more, and the most generous. When one has too much of something, one feels obliged to acquire even more, until surplus becomes excess. Eventually, the time and energy you spent acquiring this mass of wealth will be worth more than the treasure itself. To be free of want is to have your basic needs, and then some more. When you earn something, it belongs more to you than anything you can steal, get free or buy. The members of the philosophers' circle are endlessly amused by the power of their own thoughts, but also by having so little. Upon happening upon something new to add to their sparse inventory, new, greater satisfaction is achieved. When you are confident in your ability to provide yourself with everything you need, and then give freely to others, you have achieved true happiness. By doing this, you become free to pursue your life in any which way you want, giving you the ability to further your happiness.

The man leisurely strolled through the forest. He was tired, and slightly hungry, but he would worry about that later. He enjoyed the pleasant scenery while he still could. He was the last man on Earth. He was not sad, because he knew this was not a bad thing, nor was it a good thing. It had just happened, and there was no use crying about it, as it could not be altered. It was, however, a perfect time for reflection. He could reflect on himself, his past, the history of Mankind. What an intricate tale! Like a finely woven tapestry, dozens of different threads ran on at the same time, threads of kings and queens, of empires and kingdoms, of rises and falls, men and mice, prosperity and poverty, life and death, goodness and wickedness. The list went on and on, some good, some bad. A shame no one would be around to admire it. But now that all that was behind him, he could focus on the world around him. Now Mother Earth would once more take full center, be the star of it all. How beautiful She was! And how could they have forgotten? The man was a philosopher, and a clever one at that. He knew the value of knowledge, and knew that all his thoughts and feelings, ideas and observations were to be lost with him. Thus was the tragedy of humanity. And yet he did not mind too much. He would be succeeded, by the gentle butterflies that would continue their flights, unaware of the disappearance of the Earth's dominant species. The wolves and the deer would continue their fast-paced waltzes. There never was a definitive end to their dance; sometimes the wolf caught the deer, other times the deer got away. Every chase, whether it ended with a feast or an escaping deer, seemed incomplete. It seemed as if neither animal was quite finished, even when the deer was killed and devoured. It seemed another deer would soon take its place, dare the wolf to pursue it. It might not even be the same wolf, and so the partners were changed, but it was the same dance. For every predator and prey had their own dance, and those would continue once the humans were gone. Only the man could not observe it. Yet he was fine with that, too. The knowledge that long after his death, the wolf would again pursue the deer, and the deer would run again from the wolf, and the wolf might kill and devour the deer, but there was the chance the deer would escape, was comforting to him. He had the rest of his lifetime to watch this unfold. If mankind was an experiment, he pondered, by some all-powerful Creator, was it a failed one? Surely, if the last man on Earth had stopped to watch the waltz of the wolf and the deer, it could not have been. But what if there was no Creator, there was no purpose? It was all a matter of chance, and the only thing that was true was the dance of the wolf and the deer. They did not ponder the existence of a Creator, they did not care. Their dance was not influenced by the possible existence of a divine entity; their dance was independent of such things. Because had there been no Creator, and no purpose to the Universe, their dance would have continued unaltered. Such noble beasts, unlike man. His every action depended on the existence of such a divine entity. He would have been utterly shattered had the Universe been found to be Creator-less. And yet it did not bother the wolf and deer in the least. Perhaps even the Creator, if there was one, admired them, looked down to Earth just to see their dance. The man squinted into the Sun and smiled.

Just Five Words

2011-03-14T18:10:00.002-04:00

Five word stories are easy.
They can be really sad.
They can be really happy.
They can have a cliffhanger.
They laughed, cried and then...

Close Encounters of the Haiku Kind

2011-03-14T18:04:00.002-04:00

2012

Then 2012 came
Nothing happened; crickets chirped
Well, this is awkward

Pinwheel

Colors swirl like mad
No, don't quit on me now, no!
The pinwheel of doom

Red Rings

Solemnly they mark
The death of a dear old friend
The red rings of death

Raven

Stares into my soul
His inky black quills quiver
Sigh and turn it off

Really?

An amazing thing
Breath-taking experience
There's an app for that

Drawing a Blank

Quantum mechanics
Neo-geopolitics
Things I just don't get

Haikus

I do love haikus
They are so fun to write, but...
You run out of space

Apocalypse 2012 (old)

2011-03-12T09:58:00.002-05:00

Five hundred years had passed since the temple had last heard the conversation of man. Since the pillars felt the weight of bodies leaning against them. Since the floor felt the tunk-tunk-tunk-ing of the feet of monks, altar servers, missionaries, priests and the occasional visitor. Yes, the world ended long ago. The blows were many, and varied. All someone could expect. The global warming problem came to an end, though not a good one. The North and South Poles melted, causing flooding that later made Australia an Atlantis. Only small pieces remained, as a continent was flooded and submerged underwater. Parts of Russia suffered the same fate. A few years later, Greenland melted along with Iceland. Slowly by slowly, it happened. A journal marked down the disastrous, tragic and above all, gradual, apocalypse: November 12, year unknown. I read in The New York Times how New Guinea is now underwater. The Canary Islands are close to sunk, and waves lap threateningly at the remaining continents. Canada regrets the fact they even had an Alaska; it melts like an ice cube in the Sun’s core. Funny thing about the sun, it is causing some of this ruckus. Strangely, our fate may not be Global Warming. We are moving closer and closer to the sun. Too close, some would say. The techs are working overtime. ‘Apocalypse, shmocalypse! It’s just a series of random disasters. It’ll blow over.’ They say. Some sit and think ‘bollocks!’ But I see otherwise. Huge death toll. Russia, Oceania, North America, Africa and South America threatened. Antarctica… doesn’t exist. That’s the math. Evidence showed disaster. Earthquakes brought down cities. Built-up magma shot thousands of volcanoes back into active states. Many of those active states turned into eruptions. Power outages were now frequent and permanent. Volcanoes rose from cities you wouldn’t expect. Hurricanes battered each continent daily. Twisters and tornadoes swept across the world, visiting places like NYC and Moscow often. Later came the nuclear weapons. The water swelled up even more! The entire East Coast was underwater! The bums were all yelling: “Apocalypse! Apocalypse! The apocalypse is now!” Terrorists were striking everywhere, taking advantage of the situation. Meteors battered the Earth. On a hot and sticky August morning, it happened. Perhaps because of the meteors battering it, or the harsh winds, or whatever, the Sun exploded. First it slowly part imploded, then exploded. It was, perhaps, weakened after the Universe got a lot colder. Earth was tossed into darkness and cold. Many froze to death in those seconds. Then, came the worst. Gamma ray blasts echoed throughout the world, killing many. One of these occurred in the Earth’s core, giving off a huge explosion. A black hole was born in the center. Oceans overfilled and suddenly, all land was underwater. All except the small area in which the temple rested. It stayed. Probably, it was going to go with the rest of the Earth, the Galaxy, the Solar System and the galaxies divine. Gone. But one way or another, it stayed for five hundred years without its masters and perhaps more it will stay. Say Earth dissolves. It floats away on an asteroid, the temple of course. It’ll stay like that ‘till the end of time. And considering the recent events, that may be close. It will stand and fall, like everything we’ve ever known.

Ode to the Ladybug (old)

2011-02-25T18:38:00.003-05:00

Ladybug, ladybug, won't you stay?

Of course not, soon you'll fly away

Fly away, ladybug, fly away

Crawling and flying and creeping all day

Munching and buzzing your troubles away

So very gentle but not tame

So very careful but not lame

Ladybug come, you can rest on my arm

You're one small insect with a lot of charm

Kingdom Leave

2011-02-20T14:16:00.006-05:00

I watched the four horsemen ride downtown, the aura of fear they brought spreading faster than the speed of their galloping horses. The horses' eyes were livid with a rage no one had ever seen in such a normally tranquil and noble animal, their fury enough to leave a permanent impression on your eyes, a ghastly image you could not banish, a gash in your very soul. The riders themselves were just as disturbing, albeit less grotesque. Their faces were concealed by thin, black cloaks. Their bony hands were visible, but almost swallowed up by their monstrous robes. The sickly white bone shone brightly against their black robes, darker than a moonless night. They left a fiery path behind them as they tore open the very fabric of the Universe, leaving a literal Hell on Earth, the bright red flames consuming all of God's creation, all that was Good. They were armed with scythes, fear and the flames of Hell. The screams of all mortals, sounds of pure terror and outright horror at the aberrations that rushed towards them, were not muted by the horses' hooves. Rather, they were amplified, and the mortal terror of all God's creation blended into one sick, harmonious crescendo. Mothers forgot the frightened children beside them, and the bakers forsook their bread in the ovens, leaving it to be consumed by the fire. Their masterpiece, so carefully crafted and near perfection, was engulfed by the flames, and in no time, became a shriveled, pitiful coal, as the Earth was soon to be turned by this plague. Their horses galloped at a marvelous speed, yet their actions seemed slow, delayed. At the heels of the horsemen scurried a hundred thousand Rotweillers, the hounds of Hell coming to play on Earth. With their menacing razor-sharp teeth, they snarled and barked, a sickly red foam emanating from their muzzles. They leaped upon and devoured any pitiful creatures left intact by the horses' hooves and the fiery flames. Some died before they had time to even react, to fully comprehend what was happening. Behind the devilish horsemen, the charred bones of such poor individuals fed the raging flames, a deep red color smelling of death itself. No obstacles blocked the way of the ghastly crusaders, they were merely ingested by the fire, the living, breathing fire, the evil, writhing, mocking fire. Entire fields of crops were destroyed, monstrous cities burned to the ground, and that deadly quiet amidst all the noise, amidst the shrieking and yelling and screaming. For where the horsemen brought destruction, they brought silence. An eerie, unbroken silence that was slowly wrapping around the Earth, draining the life out of it. They would prevail, they knew they would prevail. No messenger could outrun them, letters and warnings alike simply fed the blaze, the evil, murderous blaze. The situation was more than hopeless: there was no hope to give up, no hope to lose. The villages were simply devoured, life being conquered by Death. The cloaked riders, feeling no remorse at their destruction of all God's creation, surveyed the scene with a ghastly, unblinking eye. They took in the burning land, the crumbling houses, all that is pure on fire. And for the first time since the Dawn of Eternity, the fourth horseman smiled, a dark, mirthless smile.

The Philosopher Turnip

2011-02-09T20:16:00.001-05:00

Roger T. Booker was a small, timid man. He wore comfortable but neat clothing, had a small pair of spectacles and lived a miserable life. Curiously enough, he was also very happy. He was a teacher, and taught Philosophy in Woodacre High School. His students were lively but chatty, and scarce were the alumni who had a zest for the subject. Even those students who looked up to him and claimed him as their favorite teacher admitted it was hard to do so. Whenever their eager eyes were upon him, thirsting for knowledge, he began to stutter and repeat himself, his hands became sweaty and he broke into palpitations. Very little was known about his personal life except that he had some sort of family, evident by the blurry pictures he would reluctantly pull out of his black leather wallet. When pressed for names, he would mutter incomprehensibly until the interrogating party gave up. He had a passion for his subject, but no true lust or even taste for life itself. He walked down the path of life like a drunk blundering home; stumbling along, letting whatever happen happen. Sometimes, his students swore, when speaking to him about some assignment or new idea, they would see a dim light glow in his nervous blue eyes, and he would seem to be in a better place. But he would quickly break loose, like a dreamer abruptly awoken, and say, "I'm sorry, what?" At times he could be very happy, others he could be very sad. He was a very lonely man, the kind aware of his own loneliness and so deep in it he had long given up trying to shake it off. He had no known religious affiliation, besides being a self-claimed, "very confused and God-fearing atheist," a cryptic comment no one could decipher. He was a believer in old-fashioned manners and discipline, but terrible at administering or even forcing it. His own students towered over them, and already a very submissive man, he easily submit to them, but not on the basis of fear, never fear. It was more of dwindling hopelessness and anxiety. He wore a shirt and tie everyday, and treated every day as if it was in the middle of the school year, even if it was the last day of school. He did not become exceptionally attached to any one student during his years: it seems the years just passed him by without him giving any notice. One day he would find himself teaching a completely different classroom, and with a shrug accepted it. The more his students loved him and his lifestyle, the more withdrawn he became. At some point, he became like a turnip rolling downhill. Sometimes he would slow, but lately he began to just accelerate down the hill. He passed many things, but like a true turnip, gave them no mind. In fact, should a turnip achieve sentience, it may have believed Roger his brother. He was a turnip, no doubt, and some suspected, a genius. Perhaps a revolutionary philosopher pioneering a profound new way of life. Most just thought he was a turnip. And yet he was the quint-essential symbol of the school, its values, morals, and education. He was forever immortalized as the school's Philosopher Turnip.

Conflict of Interest

2011-01-27T22:11:00.003-05:00

George Halbrook was feeling content and somewhat accomplished that day. He had woken up, withdrawn a few thousand dollars from his bank account and gone to WorkingBots Inc. He had selected one of the finest SecuriBots he could find, and proudly payed for it in cash. He had been waiting a long time for this moment, and he knew that with his promotion to a rather high-ranking position at Data.Dyne Corporation, it was only a matter of time until he would need one. It took a little while to pick his SecuriBot, as there were literally thousands of models available. It would have to be compact but powerful, portable but capable. He also didn't want anything more than what he needed. Some models had powerful disintegrators which, with a discharge from a hidden barrel, could in seconds rip apart even the bulkiest adversaries into a string of stray molecules. It was quick, skillful and not too messy. However, it was not cheap, and certainly beyond George's budget. All he needed was a small bot to follow him day to day, with some handy weapons ready. Anything too big screamed "I'm important!" but anything too small wasn't effective enough. In the end he opted for a MyCompanion SecuriBot Model XLR-6987, a modern and more practical model. It was a bit larger than a soccer ball, and of a similar shape. It had a neat chrome finish, powerful optical sensors and some sturdy grappling and feeling arms. It didn't have much in terms of weapons, only a few powerful lasers, a hidden blade, a self-destruct mode, some tiny explosive projectiles, a rotating saw, and some other odds and ends. But its secret weapon, the salesman with a name-tag of "Dave" assured him, was its "brain." The bot's "brain" had been fortified with extra logic circuits, could recognize George's face quickly and regardless of lighting, and took up nearly one quarter of the bot's mass, a significantly larger ratio than some other models. Impressed, George so eagerly bought it, he did not notice the rather unreasonable price. George then took it home, ran the start-up program (NO ASSEMBLY REQUIRED! boasted the box) and within a half hour, the small bot was hovering by his side. Another reason George bought the bot, which he hid thoroughly from his friends as well as himself, was for companionship. He had a dog as a boy, but in his busy life he had no time for one. Many a day he dreamed of a faithful, loving companion by his side. The fact that this one was metallic, long-lived and protected him with an array of gadgets was only an added bonus. He named the bot Colin, and it would respond to the loving moniker as his old dog from his boyhood had. He placed a pineapple on a raised platform in front of Colin, and then pointed to it and said sternly, "Attack!" In the space of a fraction of a second, Colin flew to the pineapple, took aim and cut it in half with a clean, deft stroke from one of its spring-loaded blades. George was delighted, and pointed to it again and proclaimed, "Incinerate!" Colin withdrew his blade and activated his flamethrower, and after spraying it with some gasoline from a cartridge, set the pineapple on fire. In no time, monstrous flames engulfed the pineapple, and George quickly said, "Put out the fire, Colin!" Colin activated his fire extinguisher and jetted a thick liquid which quickly put out the flames. George was elated. Not only was it - Colin, Colin, he reminded himself - effective, but he was affectionate. Colin bobbed by him as he went on with his affairs, always silent yet always there. For the first few hours, it went great. Then, around 14:00, George ran into a problem. Really, it was just a routine thing which he had thought nothing of until it became an issue. Nature had beckoned him at his offices at Data.Dyne and he had gone to the restroom to relieve himself. There, in front of the men's room door, he realized that Colin would most certainly follow him in. He hesitated for a moment. He held some reservations against a bot entering with him. Firstly, he did not want to come off as a showy, stand-offish type, having his entourage follow him even into the restroom. Also, he was a firm believer in the preservation of some basic privacy, which even a fast-paced world should not forget. No one should ever have to go into such a place with any man or machine against their consent. He took a deep breath and face the robot. "Colin." he said sternly. "Do not follow me in there. Wait out here." It took Colin a few microseconds of processing before he responded, "No. I may not leave your side. My purpose is to follow and protect you always, and the First Law of Robotics says a robot must serve its purpose always." George, who had read the manual and knew a bit about robotics by virtue of working at Data.Dyne, sharply replied, "Do not follow me in, Colin. That is an order. The Second Law of Robotics states a robot may not disobey a direct order from its master." This time, Colin thought for a few seconds about this before replying, "But by waiting here, I would be breaking the First Law." "Yes, but by following me, you'd be breaking the Second Law." Colin was now twitching erratically, and George could hear his logic processors whirring rapidly, trying to work with the data it was being given. Colin now spoke in broken sentences, "But- I don't- If I stay, I break the First Law- If I come- I break the Second- Cannot stay- Cannot come- MUST NOT BREAK LAWS! 404ERRORERRORERRORERROR!"

22:00 Avryn City Medical Hospital, Emergency Ward

"You leaving, Carl?" one tall, cloaked figure asked his counterpart. Carl squinted at him and said, "Yeah, been here all day." "I see," the first figure nodded. Carl turned to him and said, "Had a busy day. I had to treat some poor guy for a major gunshot wound, with blunt trauma to boot. Apparently, he was some high-ranking official. Should've gotten one of those high-tech SecuriBots. Better safe than sorry I always say." "Funny you should say that, Carl. Today I treated a fellow with some major burns, and blunt trauma as well. Fellow by the name of George. See, the poor man was involved in some accident where his own SecuriBot exploded. Terrible stuff. Guy didn't make it." "Oh yeah?" "Yeah. And some guys from WorkingBots came over to do an autopsy on the guy, and also the bot." "Really? What'd they find?" "Well, they read the thing's logic processors, and the last thing burned onto them was a decision to utilize its self-destruct feature even though there was no direct threat to the bot or its owner. The bot found suicide to be the most logically sound option! The black-tie fellows at WorkingBots are still scratching their heads wondering what happened. And they're thinking about a recall of the whole line of SecuriBots!" Carl's eyes popped wide open. "The whole line?" "Yup, the whole thing." "What a shame." "And they were supposed to have powerful thought processors too." "Well, that's one mystery we'll never figure out. 'Night, Donovan." "'Night Carl."

Project Genesis ii.5

2011-01-09T12:35:00.005-05:00

Macroverse Beta - Stardate 132,781 AAPIT [After Arbitrary Point in Time] 2300 hours Project: GENESIS ii.5 Condition: Rendering

Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Once they did this, Matthias leaned back and sighed. It had taken a few thousand petabytes to do this, but he was pleased with the result. The hard part wasn't creating the hill or the pail. It was creating Jack and Jill, two essentially sentient beings who in all regards thought they were sentient, and thought the hill, the pail, and each other were all real. They were real in some sense, but not in a way they could ever comprehend. Every blade of grass on that hill had to believe there was moisture on it, it was in homeostasis, and the sunlight, soil and temperature were adequate for life. Needless to say, Jack and Jill had to believe much more. Their bodies had to believe that they existed and that absolutely everything in their known Universe was in every way perfect, capable of supporting life and that nothing unusual was occurring. And that was their subconscious alone. Jack and Jill themselves had to be satisfied that nothing was out of the normal. Once they realized what was going on, the Universe would implode on itself, doom and oblivion, ditto ditto, and it would just be a big mess. So Matthias took great pains to make sure that did not happen. The story was going perfectly fine so far, not a deviant pixel or problem in sight. Matthias gazed with pleasure on his creation.

500 hours Project: GENESIS ii.5 Condition: Balanced

When Matthias returned to his simulation, something troubled him. He wasn't sure what it was. He had made every atom of every molecule in that simulation unique. Every cell thought it was its own being, and yet part of a collective entity. Everything was going swimmingly. But at the same time some miniscule detail was off. Maybe a bug hidden somewhere in the code. He scanned the program activity saw no problems. Jack and Jill were behaving normally. Maybe he should get some rest. Sleep on it. Then, if it didn't work, he'd shelf it. The Elders would approve. He hoped he wouldn't have to. He wanted to archive this tiny world. It was rather interesting.

1100 hours Project: GENESIS ii.5 Condition: Glitching

Matthias was concerned. The world's gradient changed, but luckily Jack and Jill noticed nothing. He needed to improve his software to read their facial expressions. They were learning. It was evolving, which normally would be good, but this was happening too fast. This was one of the reasons he hated his job: he knew what he was doing, but he didn't fully understand the real-word implications. He had long ago taught himself not to treat any one thing as if it were “real.” What would come out of his programming, he did not know. All he knew was that this wasn't going according to plan. Jack was having an existentialist crisis. Jill was bored of Jack. His fingers flew furiously, but the system kept freezing. He tried to free up some memory, but to no avail. He knew the Elders were frowning down on him.

1400 hours Project: GENESIS ii.5 Condition: Unreadable

Matthias was frantically reading line after line of his own code, looking for the virus. If there was one. Perhaps the program was trying to kill itself. A suicidal program, Matthias mused. It would be a first, and probably cause some damage to the servers. But better that than an independent program. That would be the death of them all. Jack had disappeared from view for a few hours, and then Matthias found him in an area he had never allowed for in the program. This was worrisome. Jill was destroying mass left and right, defying the limits he had set. Troublesome indeed. The Elders were separating from him slowly, fearing an imminent meltdown. They moved their servers away from his, allowing enough room for a possible explosion. They would try Deadric, the next programmer, next. He wasn't much good, but better than a reality in conflict with itself. The Light must be carried on, or the Void would return.

2300 hours Project: GENESIS ii.5 Condition: Could Not Locate the Requested File

Matthias sighed. He knew it would take care of itself now. Not optimal, no, but better than the calamity they could have faced. In fact, if his analysis was correct, this might even be a good thing. To pass on the Light was a confusing process, and not an exact one either. They never really knew if the new Universe was a real one or not, but it was worth the risk. A Microverse within a Macroverse within a Microverse, Matthias mused. It was fascinating... How far back did the Elders go? Perhaps all reality was just a program as well. Perhaps simulations like these went back to the Beginning of Time. But what program created that first program? Matthias shook his head and smiled. Reality was becoming too relative for him, the lines of reality and simulations blurred. He didn't really see the difference anymore. Reality might be a program of its own making. Who knew? How fascinating. Jack had created a computer program of his own, then Jill had made a more complex one. They then merged these two programs in a major crossover. The new Microverse must be astonishing. Never in the history of Existence had such a thing been even attempted for fear of the consequences. Perhaps he should tell Jack and Jill they weren't sentient. Or they may find out themselves one day, they were smart enough. But their new Microverse... what to do with it? Matthias liked it, he didn't want it shelved. Besides, a program created by a program... Sure, its people weren't sentient, or even real at all, but try explaining that to them.

Typically Human

2010-12-28T20:41:00.001-05:00

The Ballad of Dave

There once was a man named Dave

Who quickly became greed's slave

But sadly for him

His hundred million

Could not save poor Dave from the grave

Two Fools and their Picnic

2010-12-18T11:04:00.001-05:00

Our story's main characters, Rafael and Mikhael, were in Town Park enjoying a splendid picnic. When they finished they realized that they did not plan on enjoyable things to do after the picnic. They decided to compile a list titled, "A List of Enjoyable Things to Do After a Picnic." Mikhael suggested the first thing to write down should be "compile a list of enjoyable things to do after a picnic." Rafael agreed, and they wrote it down, then immediately crossed it off. They could not come up with anything else. And so they sat down on the grass and pondered what to do. It was then that Rafael pointed to a nearby hill, saying, "Look, Mikhael, look! It is a goat pushing a boulder up a hill!" Mikhael squinted at the hill for some time, then replied, "No, Rafael. That is not a goat pushing a boulder up a hill. That is clearly a boulder pulling a goat up a hill." Rafael looked again and said, "No, that is clearly a goat pushing a boulder up a hill." Mikhael scratched his head and said, "You see a goat pushing a boulder up a hill. I see a boulder pulling a goat up a hill. Which one of us is right?" "Here, let us ask that apothecary, he will know." Rafael replied. "Apothecary!" "Yes, my good man?" replied the apothecary. "Apothecary, do you see that goat pushing a boulder up a hill over there? Well, I say it is a goat pushing a boulder, but my friend says it is a boulder pulling a goat. Which one of us is right?" The apothecary looked at them in surprise and said, "Neither! Why, neither the goat nor the boulder are moving!" "They're not?" asked the two friends in amazement. "No, of course not. They are standing still. It is simply the mountain that moves." This confused our good friends even more, and they were about to question this when a bespectacled old man who had been silently observing their argument stepped in. "You're all fools! Squabbling back and forth, and none with the right answer! Can't you see? That's not a goat pushing a boulder, nor a boulder pulling a goat, nor a mountain moving! It's an orange and a kangaroo swimming laps in the Atlantic!" Rafael was just about to reply that that was utterly insane, ludicrous and ridiculous when he stopped for a moment and thought about it. He looked at what he had thought was a goat pushing a rock up a hill, then squinted, then squinted harder. Finally, he saw. He did not see with his eyes, but simply saw. The trouble with seeing with your eyes is that everybody sees only what they want to, and when confronted with a different view, their vision fails them. He saw that that scene was just as much a goat pushing a boulder up a mountain as it was an orange and kangaroo swimming laps in the Atlantic. He stopped and smiled, and enjoyed the comical fruit and marsupial duo's aquatic displays. What was actually going on on that hill, we'll never know.

The Void Stares Back

2010-12-01T15:38:00.000-05:00

John gazed blankly at what lay ahead of him. He took a deep breath, took two steps forward and hurtled over the razor's edge of logic and reason. He fell through a wormhole and crashed through several planes, finally landing on the Sphere. The Sphere stood bold and round, never rolling, never moving, atop the Plane. The Plane was like a chessboard, and John pondered this. He knew the Plane was infinite, but the Sphere was not. The Sphere was matter and anti-matter, non-existent and existent. It was simply the Sphere, an eminent wonder of all things spherical. Suddenly, space-time twisted into a strange doughnut shape, and John felt himself thrust through several dimensions, shattering the barriers of the Universe and the laws of physics like glass plates. He stood on the edge of the Universe, and leaped. Space-time swirled around him at a dizzying rate, when he found himself in the Void, and the Vortex yielded a black hole. He felt himself being sucked into the black hole, and retained only a few billionths of a dimension when the black hole did a curious thing. The black hole turned itself inside out and began spewing particles into the Void. The black hole began to implode with its reversal. The sudden energy in the absence of energy created a gamma ray burst which tore John apart molecule by molecule, then tore his molecules apart into atoms, then tore those atoms apart into sub-atomic particles. These sub-atomic particles were sent hurtling across the Universe at .01% of the speed of light, and by sheer coincidence, all ended up at point Alpha AB111111, where they reintegrated into a very surprised John.

The Old Man on the Mountain

2010-11-18T18:03:00.009-05:00

The old man quietly picked his grapes on a lazy afternoon as his German Shepard, Fallah, lay resting in the grass, watching him work. The old man had a thick pair of spectacles and a straw hat, and was dressed in plain overalls. He worked quietly and slowly, taking his time. This was his work ethic, but he did not consider his job "work." It was his life.

One day, the old man heard voices and told Fallah, who was alarmed at these strange sounds, to hush. Fallah hushed and listened with him. The old man saw two men walking along the beach at the foot of his mountain, arguing about something. The old man could not understand what they were arguing about, until he realized they were quarreling over who owned the beach. At this, the old man burst out laughing, a hearty, strong laugh like he had not laughed in years. He continued laughing, and at first Fallah was confused, cocking her head to one side. But soon Fallah joined him in laughing, though she did not know what was so funny. The old man and Fallah continued laughing for nearly half an hour before the laughter died down to a chuckle, and finally stopped. The old man was still amused, tears in his eyes from all the laughing, and concluded this was the funniest thing he had ever heard. Everyone knows that the beach belongs to the mountain and the mountain belongs to the Earth, and that's all there is to it. He noted that he should tell this joke to someone, because it was so funny, but then realized he had no one to tell it to. He shrugged his shoulders and called Fallah in.

One day, the old man looked up to see some dark, monstrous clouds advancing through the sky. They swiftly approached like a stampede of horses, casting their massive shadows over the land, engulfing all. The old man looked up and smiled, for he knew there would be rain. He set to work putting a tarp over his precious grapes, so that they would neither be flooded nor killed, and then he called Fallah in, and sat down in his house. Fallah was puzzled at why they were going in early, and slightly alert, but soon snuggled down in a comfy spot in the house and fell asleep. A crackle of thunder like the clapping the old man made when calling Fallah in signaled the downpour's approach. The old man looked up to see a slender thread of lightning splitting the sky open, and then an army of rain descending on the earth, who quickly gave in. Millions of little droplets parachuted down to the soil, their soothing lullaby soft but audible in the cool air. The old man drummed his fingers to the rain and inhaled, the rich smell of water pounding on earth filling his nose. He took a stone and wrote the most beautiful poem in the world on it. Seeing no use for it, he set it in the fireplace to contain the small but perfectly warm fire. He watched the words fade and melt away, and soon fell fast asleep.

The next morning, the old man checked on his grapes. They were fine, the downpour had not harmed them at all. Had it been a light shower, he would have allowed them water, but he knew that the storm might damage them, and they knew so too, so they forgave him for covering them. As he inspected the plants, he only found one tiny drop of water resting on a single, plump grape. He plucked the grape daintily and carefully, making sure to leave the drop on it. He then popped it into his mouth, concentrating only on the sweet taste. He swallowed the grape and opened his eyes. It was the best he had ever tasted.

One day, the old man was bored. So he devised a game for himself to play. He was tossing a rock up and down when he noticed a large puddle in his vineyard. He nonchalantly tossed the rock in, and it made a big splash. His curiosity aroused, he tossed in another rock. It made another splash, water pelting the earth like a miniature downpour. He decided he would play a game where he would try to throw a rock in the puddle so gently no water would go out of the puddle. He tried his first rock. Splash. He lost. He tired again. Splash. He lost. The old man realized what great fun this was, and played until the Sun was low in the sky, a deep shade of orange that only the Sun could be. He called Fallah in, and thought to himself that he ought to try this game again the next day, which he did. He never won, but that wasn't the point.

One day, the old man woke and felt today was to be an important day. However, he must first make it important. His grapes were almost mature, a comforting light green that reached out and caressed him when he munched one contentedly or gave one to Fallah. His grapes gave an intense joy nothing else could give you, but he did not have much to compare them to, so he did not know this. The old man decided to go down to the beach today, something he rarely did but enjoyed nevertheless. He called Fallah to follow him, and though it was not a part of her routine, she followed loyally behind him. The climb down was steep and hard, but they did not trip or stumble once. At the bottom, they gazed up at the horizon and received instant gratification. They were not expecting anything exciting or new, but rather something so ordinary and everyday it was stunningly beautiful. They saw the sunset as never before, the fiery orb sitting atop the water like the crown jewel of the sea. It was larger than they had ever seen it before, the entire horizon larger than them, larger than the mountain, larger than the world. It was the biggest thing they had ever seen, the horizon a vast mural of all that was beautiful. The sun was a jovial pinkish-red, as intoxicating as the wine the old man's grapes yielded, just as the sun yielded its beauty and the land yielded its bounty, just as everything in the old man's mountain yielded something equally admirable. He did not expect anything more from everything than exactly what it gave. The old man's world was small, very small, but it was all he needed.

Haikus

2010-11-06T17:38:00.009-04:00

Hair Cut 1

The silky forest
Falls down with the snip, snip, snip

Of sharp, cold metal

Hair Cut 2

The luscious locks fall

Like raindrops onto the floor

A soft rhythm forms

Pain

Rips through your body

Muscles and tendons are stiff

You are paralyzed

Torture

Cold, hard metal things

Poking and prodding; not there!

Shiver first, scream next

The Heist

So easy, they say

We'll pull it off in no time

Cops think otherwise

It is all my own

I control it, it is mine

My mind is my own

The Tragic Death of Mr. Snowman

Sun is coming out

Flesh peeling away like tape

Body melts away

Boom

Come on, light it now!

Take good aim and throw it far!

Boom! That's gotta hurt...

Little Fellow

Sly little fellow

Clad in green, no place to go

Now where's that rainbow?

Drip

A slow, sad trickle

Or a fast, flowing torrent

There, there, let it out

Down

Metal on metal

Listen to that grinding noise

Hear all of them scream

Soldier

I am a soldier

I do not have time to talk

Any moment - BOOM!

Mister Cat

Look at that cat run

Look at that dog chase the cat

Good-bye, Mister Cat

Running Out

How much air is left?

Here, I will go check. Let's see...

Here... Oh no. Only-

The Crow's Cry

2010-11-05T06:54:00.004-04:00

Young Marcus simmered impatiently in his deep black robes in front of the Temple of the Moon. He turned to his silent elderly counterpart, who was meditating. "Father Vladimir?" he prodded. The old man's red eyes flashed opened and rested on Marcus. "What is it, my son?" he coolly replied. "Father Vladimir," the boy repeated, "when do we strike? When do we begin our attack?" His eyes shifted to the trapdoor which led to the chamber in which they had hidden the weapons. The elder shook his head in dismay, while retained his calm exterior. "My son," he spoke, "you must learn patience. The time is not yet ripe." Then he turned to gaze at an eagle that was gracefully soaring through the sky. With an agile movement, it turned its body ever-so-tinily down and plunged toward the earth. At the last moment, it executed a graceful arc and snapped up an unlucky turtle, then completed its arc and returned to the sky, disappearing from view. The turtle only had time to raise its head before the unfortunate creature was devoured. The man looked back at his young apprentice and said, "My son, we must be like that eagle over there. When the time is ripe, we must strike. If we are skillful, we can attack at just the right moment, and before they can react, we will have them in our grip." The man picked up a brittle rock from the temple and empathetically crushed his fist over it. When he opened his hand, the stone had been reduced to dust. "I see, Father Vladimir." the boy nodded, understanding and awe in his jade green eyes. "I will wait."

The boy waited six moons before pressing the question again. The man was polishing the temple stones, a futile task, there being five thousand six hundred twenty-five in total. But the man seemed tranquil, and the young one had soon learned that he could never find boredom in any productive activity, no matter how monotonous. After some inner debate, young Marcus again inquired, "Father Vladimir?" The man continued with his work, only acknowledging the question with a slight dip of his head. "Father Vladimir, when will we attack?" The man put down his work and squinted at Marcus, a strange look in his crimson red eyes. "My son, my son," he chided, "you must learn patience. Haste is waste, do not forget that." Just then, a snake crawled up from some deep, twisting tunnel in the temple. Marcus flinched and was about to pick up a heavy stone when the man raised his hand, biding the boy to watch silently. The snake deftly maneuvered the sharp corners and gaps of the temple, intent upon finding a morsel he deemed worthy. Finally, the clever creature spotted a mouse, agile but oblivious. If the prudent reptile felt any satisfaction or joy, it did not express it. Just as silently as before, it crept through the stones, its only sound the light titillation of its red tongue against its cold, pale white fangs. Like a liquid rather than a solid form, it flowed fluidly, navigating twists and turns, falls and rises, until it was less than a foot from its unsuspecting prey. But instead of sharply attacking and bringing down the mouse with one blow, it did something curious. It raised its head suddenly but not jerkily above the stones and glared right at the mouse. The poor creature was frightened half to death, and froze suddenly. It knew the slightest movement would lead to a recoil and a springing forward, followed by a chilling hiss and snap of jaws. The snake seemed to hypnotize the mouse with its deadly eyes, its body swaying back and forth with a rippling rhythm that seemed to emanate from its very core. It gently rocked its head back and forth, twisting and swirling like a blade of grass in the wind. The mouse was beyond all reason now, and began to approach the snake, with no restraint, no caution. Without any warning, the snake lunged forward, and a hinge-like closing of its mouth made the razor-sharp teeth sink into the plump, furry little thing, and yet there was no squealing, there was no resistance. The mouse had felt barely any pain, it had not had time to, just a tingling sensation of something pointed, something icy cold, digging into its back. This done, the serpent slithered away, a symbol of dexterity and cunningness so amazing, the jealous humans dubbed it a symbol of evil and wickedness. The boy was just as mesmerized as the mouse, but the man kept his even gaze. Finally, he spoke, his words shattering the silence like the breaking of glass. "We must be like the snake. It waited and waited patiently until it had the mouse right where it wanted it. Had it struck too early, the mouse would've had a split second to react, and would've escaped. When the right opportunity presents itself, in due time, only then must you strike, no sooner, no later." The boy nodded in understanding and agreed, "Yes, Father Vladimir." He gently pushed his jet-black hair out of his eyes, those green orbs of earnestness. "I will wait."

The boy waited six more moons before his anxiety once more bested his discipline. This time, the man was gardening, nursing his blooming flower garden. He put so much care and caution into the toilsome task, Marcus hated to interrupt him. "Father Vladimir?" he said quietly. The man continued his cultivating of the earth, but Marcus knew he had heard him. "Father Vladimir, it has been six more moons. When do we begin the attack?" The man patted down the earth he was working on and put his trowel down, but did not look straight at the boy. Instead, he contemplated the brush ahead. Suddenly, a mouse appeared, running as fast as its little legs would take it, a slender red fox hot in pursuit. The mouse leaped into the air and shot into a green bush. The fox twisted its body nimbly and promptly slowed to a trot. Menacingly, it paced in front of the bush, testing its helpless prey. After some minutes of lingering near the bush, it gave up and walked off in search of a less intelligent meal. As soon as its footfalls faded away, the mouse darted out of the bush, a streak of fur and whiskers dashing through the grass. "Did you see that mouse, my son?" The boy nodded. "Unlike the other mouse, this mouse was silent until the fox forgot about it. Had it left the bush before then, it would have quickly been caught and eaten. Like the mouse, we must wait until the time is right. Just wait patiently, young one." "I see, Father Vladimir." the boy whispered. "I shall wait."

It was another six moons before the boy, frustrated at such ineptness and inactivity, demanded from the man when they would strike. This time, the man was lighting a fire for the night, and had just kindled a small flame when the boy interrupted him. The man stopped his task this time and looked the boy dead in the eye. The man sighed heavily and began, "Marcus... Do you know what all the animals we have ever seen had in common?" Marcus scowled and offered a sarcasm-laced "Patience?" "Yes, they have had that," the man nodded. "They have all known to wait until they strike. However..." a smile spread across his face, "They not only know how long to wait until they strike, they know precisely when to strike." Marcus' face lit up at this, and he exclaimed, "You mean it's starting? We attack now?" The man nodded, the fire accentuating his deep wrinkles, making him seem ancient. The boy let out a loud cry, a sound of mingled triumph and joy, victory and jubilation. The man pointed a single gnarled finger at the temple, and no sooner had he done so than the lad rushed to the cache, his feet flying behind him. The man was by no means as elated and him, for he knew the fight ahead was to be difficult and not without sacrifice, but there was nothing he could do. It had begun.

To be, (or not) to be

2010-11-02T19:27:00.004-04:00

See that lamp? What lamp?
That lamp, over there. Over where?
Over there, right in front of you! I don't see any lamp.

How could you not see the lamp? What lamp? There is no lamp to see.

Yes there is, it's right over there. Well, I don't see anything.
Don't tell me you can't see the lamp. Okay, I won't tell you.
You really can't see it? No, there is nothing to see.

Seriously? I could not be more serious.

Maybe you should check your eyes. If they are bad, how can I check them?

Maybe you should get your eyes checked. Checked by whom?
Never mind. Okay.

Don't tell me you can't see it! I won't tell you, don't worry.

Okay, look where my finger is pointing. I am looking there.

See the lamp. No.

Go closer. Okay.

Can you see it now? No.

Ugh, you're impossible. If you say so.
Reach your hand out. Okay.

There, you're touching the lamp! I am?

Yes, yes you are! If you say so.

You don't feel the lamp? What lamp? There is no lamp to feel.

Look, it's rocking back and forth! What is?

The lamp! What lamp?
That lamp! Which lamp?

That lamp over there! There is no lamp over there.

Yes there is! No there isn't.

Yes there is! There isn't for me.

What? There isn't for me.

What do you mean, there isn't for you? I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, there isn't for me.

There either is or there isn't, there is no "for me." If you say so.

What are you talking about? There is a lamp for you, not for me.

No, no, no, there either is or there isn't a lamp, it's not relative. If you say so.

Okay, is there a lamp? What lamp?
Oh Lord. What?
Never mind, never mind. Okay.

We have to decide, is there a lamp or isn't there a lamp. If you say so.

To me, that lamp exists. For me, there is no lamp.
No, no, no, it's to me, not for me. If you say so.

To me that lamp exists. If you say so.

Does that lamp exist to you? What lamp?

THE LAMP THAT EXISTS FOR ME! To me, does it exist?

Yes, yes, yes! Well, to me, there is no question of whether or not it exists.

What do you mean? To me, there is no lamp, existent or non-existent.

What? That lamp, there is no lamp for me.

Excuse me? You heard me. The lamp in question... well, there is none, at least for me.

Just say, does it exist or not. Does what exist or not?

THE LAMP! What lamp?

THE LAMP WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT! You've been talking about some lamp. For me, there is no lamp, existent or otherwise.

One of us is right, right? Not necessarily.

What do you mean, not necessarily, one of us has to be right! Not necessarily.

One of us is right, one of us is wrong. There is a lamp or there isn't, right? Not at all.

What do you mean? Absolute reality. There is no absolute reality.

No, no, relative reality is stupid, it can't exist. For you, it can't. For me, it can.

Argh! Stop twisting everything I say around! Okay.

One of us is right, one is wrong. One of us is insane, one is not. Right? Not at all.

We can't both be right. The lamp can't exist and not exist. For me, there is no lamp in question, so your whole question becomes moot.

Stop splitting hairs here. Black and white, right and wrong. It has to be one. What is black? Is black different for you than it is for me? How can we ever tell?

Stop it. Black is black. White is white. For you.

No, that's basic mathematics. Einstein says time and space are relative. If they are, can't everything be?

No. Why not?

Because. Because why?
Just because. For you.

Agh! Please, stop! If you say so.

Yes, I do say so! I can see that.

Good! Can you hear yourself?

What? Can you hear yourself speaking?
Yes, of course I can! How do I know?
Shouldn't the question be how do I know? Nope, how do I know?

Why does that matter? Because, I can't be sure of your perceptions, can I?

Well, no... So we can perceive the same color differently and we would never know, right?

I suppose... So you can perceive a lamp and for me there is no lamp to perceive, correct?

I guess... So I could stop perceiving anything you were saying, and you'd never know, right?

In theory... Good. Because I don't perceive a lamp, and neither do I perceive you.

That's crazy! Nope, the moment I stop perceiving you, you don't exist for me, so for all intensive purposes, you don't exist. If you don't exist for me, there's no way I can detect your very existence. In fact, it won't even be a question of existence or non-existence. You'll simply cease to be, like that lamp.

What? No! Yes, the moment I stop perceiving you, you don't exist.

No, wait! Bye!

<> He doesn't exist.

<> Who doesn't exist?

<> Wait, what?

<> Never mind.

<> By that token, nothing exists, and nothing ever has existed.

<> <>

The American Dream

2010-11-01T22:28:00.005-04:00

One day our story's man decided he wanted to live the American Dream, and accomplish what his father had accomplished, and his father before him, and his father before him, all the way back to one of the original Virginian settlers. He marched down to the dog store, passing by the pound where the poor abandoned dogs howled and clawed, and got the nicest Labrador he could find. His wife told him that she had found that the particular dog store he was going to buy his canine companion from had terrible conditions and got its dogs from puppy mills, but the man replied, "Never mind that, dear. I just want a nice dog named Spot." And he came home with the happy Labrador delightedly wagging its tail, a leash, dog toy and water bowl in toy. And now the man had a dog named Spot, and the dog and him were happy. Every day, the man would take Spot for a walk, but would not pick up his waste, which would flow into the rivers, and pollute the river, which would bring water to the nearby rural town. But the man and his family did not know this, and so it was not their concern, and neither did the entire town, so it was not their concern either. When the poisoned townspeople of the rural town heard this, they were comforted, and knew that their river's pollution was no one's concern but their own, and they could do nothing about it, and that was that. So the man went to Town Hall to get his dog registered. He drove along on the shaky, bumpy road, passing tramps and beggars along the way, but just kept humming to himself. When he reached Town Hall, he had to wait half an hour to see the receptionist. When he asked where the mayor was, she whispered that he was taking a back-room deal, probably a bribe, from a shady corporation. But the man shrugged and said it wasn't his concern, and the receptionist shrugged and agreed. Then he took Spot to the veterinarian, and in the waiting room, he passed a man with a parakeet who yelled that the vet was conducting illegal animal testing after-hours. The man walked up the man and politely informed him this was only the vet's business and certainly not his concern. The man saw his folly and agreed enthusiastically, laughing at how silly he had been. The man then got Spot vaccinated and he was found to be in perfect health, and he left. The next day, he wanted a white fence, so hired some men to put in and paint the white fence. The men turned out to be poor, illegal immigrants who escaped across the border from Mexico, but he still paid them little. They asked why and he explained that because they were Mexican, despite the quality of their job, they should get paid a low wage, because that was the way things were. They accepted this and agreed with him, yes, that was the way things were. The next day his wife told him the people who made their fence had been deported, but he dismissed it, explaining it was none of their concern. The next day, they decided to get a fancy sports car. They took a huge loan from a small bank, and purchased a shiny new car. The bank, however, was swamped by people demanding their money, and since the man and his wife still owed outstanding debts, they filed for bankruptcy. The man and his wife quietly ignored the bank and did not pay back their loan. The next week, the woman got sick, so the man took her to the hospital. There, in the emergency room, he noticed a crying child with a gash in his head, an old man with a broken leg and a woman vomiting blood. His wife had a slight fever, and was feeling dizzy. He decided to use his Hospital Reward Card to go before the crying child, old man and woman vomiting blood, because that's what the cards are for. He explained this to the crying child, old man and woman vomiting blood, and they understood and let him go ahead. His wife was given an aspirin and told to get bed-rest, and she was fine the next day. The child developed an infection and died. The old man fainted from the pain, hit his head on the sharp table, and bled to death. The woman's condition only worsened, and when she was admitted, it was too late. She was diagnosed with pneumonia, the likes of which she never fully recovered from. The woman told the man this, and he said it was none of their concern, and it was fine. The next year, they decided to have a child. They had a blond haired, blue-eyed son and named him Richard. They soon tired of Richard. The man beat him and yelled at him, and hated him, and the woman cried whenever she saw this, but the man explained it was not their concern, but she still cried. So he beat her too, and when she cried he know screamed that it was not her concern. And he refused to give Richard money for college, and kicked him out of the house at 19, and explained it was his concern. He still drives to work everyday, passing his white fence in his shiny sports car after saying goodbye to Spot. And he still passes the tramps and beggars on the street, whistling. And he knows that one of those tramps is his very own Richard, but he doesn't care, because he knows it's not his concern.

(in)human

2010-10-22T20:17:00.003-04:00

Humans are a gift from the gods. Humans are a plague upon this planet.
No species of animal has such strong love for each other. No species of animal has such strong hatred for each other.
Man exhibits care and generosity. Man exhibits selfishness and greed.
Man's help for the animals is not appreciated by them, but he does it anyway. The animals never asked for help.
But they need it. Because of the damage we have already done.
We work to save the Earth. Save it from ourselves.
God loves all humans. God is disappointed by all humans.
God sent us his only Son. God sent a flood.
He showers us in gifts daily. He smites us with natural disasters and disease hourly.
He chose to save Noah and his wife. They represented the rare kind-hearted human.
He smite all of his creation, the animals and the Earth. He could not smite humans by themselves, so they caused the downfall of the planet.
God did not totally eradicate humans, he left some alive. He only left two alive, and left all animals alive.
He only left two of each animal, just as with the humans. Two isn't enough to begin a population anew.
He left a male and female so the world could begin once more. What about Sodom and Gomorrah?
Those humans were wicked and were smitten. Those humans had sexual desires.
Such desires were wicked, therefore they were killed. Such desires were human nature, therefore human nature is wicked.
No, God put humans on this world for a reason. And tried to take them off for a completely different reason.
Humans are the helpers of the Earth. Humans are the destroyers of the Earth.
They bring peace and joy. They bring hatred and fear.
Our skyscrapers tower up, and we make things this world has never seen before and Nature could never craft. Our factories pollute the air, and we make things this world has never seen before and Nature would never want to craft.
By nature, humans are good, and should be praised. By definition, humans are evil and should be punished.
Do not generalize all humans as wicked. Do not glorify all humans as good.
Humans come from evolution, which is a natural process, therefore come from Nature. But we are destroying Nature and going against it, therefore humans are no longer part of Nature.

The day Humanity is rewarded. The day Humanity dies.
Will be a great day. Will be a great day.

Verdict

2010-10-16T22:59:00.006-04:00

The apothecary was reading in his study when he found an interesting word in an interesting sentence in an interesting chapter in an interesting book. He called the two brothers, who were sheepherders, and showed them the interesting word in the interesting sentence in the interesting chapter in the interesting book. The brothers were intrigued by the word, and snatched the book out of the apothecary's hands. They leaped upon their horses, Dim and Dimmer, and rode to the Judge. The apothecary, on his donkey Prudence, arrived exactly ten minutes after they did. The brothers told the Judge the apothecary should not be reading that interesting word in that interesting sentence in that interesting chapter in that interesting book, and the book should be banned. The Judge examined the word, then turned to his yellow canary Advisor, and after five minutes of silent debate, he revealed his verdict. The Judge ruled that the apothecary could read the book and the interesting word in the interesting sentence in the interesting chapter in the interesting book was fine. The brothers shrugged their shoulders and rode Dim and Dimmer back to the fields, and the apothecary thanked the Judge and rode Prudence back to his house, and arrived exactly ten minutes after they did.

Faerie Tales

2010-10-14T22:42:00.004-04:00

"Please, just one more story?" the baby daphne bush begged her mother. "Alright," said the mother daphne bush. "Just one. What kind of story would you like to hear?" "I don't know," shrugged the baby daphne bush. "Make something up." "Okay," said the mother daphne bush hesitantly, "I'll try. Once upon a time, the evil humans were up to no good, going about cutting down trees and destroying the environment. Then, one day, a scourge came and wiped out all the humans. They all died, there were none left! This restored Nature to its original balance and the horrific things the humans had built fell into disrepair as plants began growing and Nature took back what was rightfully hers. And the animals came back too, and they all lived happily ever after." The baby daphne bush stood silent for a moment before asking, "Mommy, could that ever happen in real life?" The mother daphne bush leaned closer and whispered, "It's just a fairy tale, sweetie. It's too good to be true. But we can always hope, and if you believe with all your heart, it might just happen. Good night, baby." "Good night, Mommy."

(il)logical

2010-10-14T21:37:00.008-04:00

The religious man is a fool. The atheist is a pessimist.

You have no reason. You have no faith.

You lack common sense. You lack imagination.

I use Science. I use belief.

There never was a god, is no god, and there never will be. There was always a god, is a god, and always will be.

Nature. Creator.

What in the Universe proves there is a God? The existence of the Universe.

Evolution began it all. What began evolution?

Life began evolution. What began life?

The Big Bang began life. What began the Big Bang?

Energy began the Big Bang. What began energy?

Energy is always there, it cannot be destroyed. Energy was not always there, it had to be created.

Time has an end, but no beginning. Time has a beginning, but no end.

First was the Big Bang. First was God.

Cosmos. Genesis.

Apocalypse. Judgment Day.

Consciousness. Soul.

Death. Heaven.

The Universe is random, governed only by nature. The Universe is like clockwork, governed only by God.

How can there be a God? How can there not be a God?

There is evil. But there is good.

There is famine. But there is surplus.

There is death. But there is life.

The Universe came from the Void. The Universe came from God.

There could not be God, there was the Void. There could not be a Void, there was God.

He is nowhere. He is omnipresent.

There is no God on Earth. God is amongst us.

There is no God in the cosmos. God begot the cosmos.

There will be an End. God will see us through the End.

Many do not believe. They have not seen the light.

Then I'd rather remain blind. Its brilliance will overpower you.

I do not wish to be overpowered. You will go to Hell.

I will go nowhere. Nowhere you wish to be.

No fantasy land of flames will engulf me. The Lord our God will smite thee.

Then let me be smitten. You shall be smitten.

The only love is human. The strongest love is of God.

God was born of men's minds, a ruse to invest the power in a greedy few we call "the Church." Men and their minds were born of God, and he is the ultimate power and controls the Church.

Where is he when the guilty go free? He is with the innocent who suffer.

Where is he when thieves plunder and rob? He is with those who have been robbed.

Where is he to smite those who murder and kill? He is with the families of the dead.

Where is he when children cry? He is at their sides.

How can you continue to believe such lunacy? How can you continue not to?

The Lost Message

2010-10-11T13:52:00.003-04:00

“Are you sure the source is reliable?” Vodon pondered.

Garna glared angrily at him and replied, “How should we know? All we know is that it is the only source we have. How do you intend to test its reliability?”

“Never mind.” Vodon replied coldly.

“But really, Vodon, we are pushing the proverbial envelope here, hoping for success with this one fragment of a clue.”

“I just expected him to still be alive. A man who can survive in a climate as extreme as his should be able to survive anything.”

“Vodon, there is no way to date that letter. The man could have died eons ago! Let's just stick to the facts. We know that the letter is simple and informal. We were able to decode most of it, and a very vague location was mentioned. Going over the general area with our ships, we found absolutely no signs of intelligent life whatsoever. No thermal scans, no buildings, nothing. We could not find a single trace of this amazingly industrious factory with its specialized and strange workers. To meet the demands of a civilization as large as the human one may have been is simply... incomprehensible. The catastrophe that destroyed this planet, the scant ruins... nothing could have survived, Vodon. And for anyone to live in that frozen wasteland is simply impossible. You know humans' low tolerance for the elements.”

Vodon looked away, shoulders lowered in defeat. “But don't you recall the one phrase that perplexed our computer? The one phrase we could not decode?”

“The artifact was full of meaningless markings. To use just one of many to your defense is illogical and foolish.” Garna replied in an annoyed tone.

“That is true, Garna, but this one phrase caught my interest, ignited my curiosity.” Vodon pushed on. “I had the phrase copied onto a tablet. Here, see for yourself.”

Vodon handed Garna a tablet with strange markings on them, the likes of which neither could ever decode. The tablet read:

Dear Santa claus,

1001 Post-Apocalyptic Societies

2010-09-24T07:00:00.006-04:00

I. Anarchy

“Dad!” hollered Mark. “I'm taking Doofus for a walk now!” “What do you have on?” questioned Gerald. “The usual. Camo gear and boots.” “Here, take this bullet-proof vest.” Gerald said as he tossed his 15-year old son a piece of dark clothing. “What gun do you have?” he inquired. “9mm, fully loaded. It'll be short, Dad!” “Okay son,” replied the elder, giving his son a once-over. “Just be back soon. And be careful. I saw Venson tinkering around with an AK-47. Looks pretty nasty.” “I will, Dad!” Mark said as he hurried out to the door. However, as soon as he stepped outside, his loud, boisterous nature changed instantly. He got into a low crouch, scrutinizing all the usual sniping locations. There were no cars to watch for, but as he crossed the road, he had other things to worry about. Any moment, a bullet could come screaming through the sky, the cold lead cutting into his vulnerable neck. The slightest noise could immediately betray their presence to up to half a dozen interested parties, none of whom he had the slightest desire to meet.

II. Bureaucratic Meltdown

The President decided to fight sleep. He would not - could not - dream. To hell with it impeding his leadership ability, Lord knows he had enough. He had to keep his cool, to make decisions, during such an unprecedented calamity, the pinnacle of human disasters. This was just a mess. A bloody mess. And more or less, it was his fault. Well, not his fault directly. He had just been Vice President at that time. And Vice President, he does nothing, right? He didn't think Donovan would go that far, no one believed it. And then, the apathy, he balked, he simply balked, and when he realized it, it was too late. Too late for the country. Too late for Donovan. Oh, the missiles found their mark, all right. And then, well it was too late. Once the boys down at the War Center pressed the big red button, it was done. It was pressed. And then what happened next, nobody expected. People started taking sides, and the red buttons were pushed, and planet Earth saw fireworks. He did not know if the rest of the world was still alive. Frankly, he did not care. This was no time for foreign affairs. The American empire had suffered such a huge blast, a crushing defeat, that it might never recover. Donovan had seen that defeat be administered, and could only look on in horror as the skin of at least 345 million Americans was instantly melted, their bones turned to charcoal, and by the end of the blast, there was nothing left. It was not a grisly sight at all, the aftermath. There was nothing but dust. Yes, he did not want to sleep. But nature is stronger than man, and in the end, sleep won. One Saturday night, after working late, his head slumped over into his pile of papers, his candle was extinguished and his eyelids drooped in defeat. But his sleep was far from restful. No, this was the time for ghosts of his past to come back and haunt him.

He was not prepared for this. How could he have prepared for this? He panicked, he gasped for air, ran and opened the window. The world spun sickly around him, spiraling downward in a vicious cycle, albeit one that could be stopped, but by him alone. He could not stop it. The world did not stop spinning, and he saw an aide, who the hell was it, Johnson, yes Johnson, walking down the hallway to the Oval Office, a concerned look on his face. Just as the world was spinning, he saw the man walk briskly, in a controlled but rushed manner, trying to give the illusion of calm, but slanted. "Mr. President, are you all right?" The bluntness of the words struck him hard, and this time, he did not fight the urge. He vomited out the window and collapsed onto the dark blue carpet, a crumpled rag doll of a president.

He gasped, he looked around. Was it a dream? Was it real? Johnson walked in again and asked, "Mr. President, are you all right?" The deja vu nearly knocked him off his feet, and as he staggered, the world around him became surreal. Johnson repeated his question, but he could have been asking if the Cuban Missile Crisis was over for all Steinberg knew, his words resounding in a shaky echo. Space was stretched, and Johnson suddenly had a thousand mirror images, all standing around him with grotesque halos, that horrible echo amplified a thousand times. As Steinberg clutched at his head, his throbbing temple ready to burst, he realized that hidden in the mind-numbing echo, as the room spun into pandemonium, was a mocking laugh that bored into his skull. The next words deeply disturbed him, in that he had heard them too many times before. "You'll never be anything, Bernie. You always lose your head!" The deep, husky voice was indistinguishable from the real one, one that would haunt him until his last days; his father.

Steinberg spent three days in the infirmary, an entire army guarding it. By the last day, he was later told, they were considering replacing him with the Speaker of the House, a Mister Jacob Warren. When he awoke, he was approached by a stern-faced official who snapped to attention and handed him a black dossier. "What the hell is this?" Steinberg muttered drowsily. "Your daily report, Mr. President sir!" the official stated. "Oh, great. Here comes a migraine." said Steinberg, opening a black dossier and spotting the Top Secret heading. A part of him reasoned that he should show a little enthusiasm, because it was an honor to see one of the most secretive and classified documents of the US government. However, that part lay dormant under a grouchy exterior that could not possibly care less.

Work at DC was sullen, depressing. Before there was at least some life, some sense of purpose. Now, everyone acted like ghosts; unanimated, hollow shells of themselves. Except for the Secret Service and black suit agents. They were as alert and alive as ever, though Steinberg didn't care much for them. Less than half of Congress was left, and they muddled through things like never before. A lot of the government agencies suddenly became obsolete, and all their members felt a lingering uselessness. There was no straightforward recovery plan, mainly because no one had ever anticipated a calamity of this magnitude.

Sometimes

2010-09-19T13:40:00.003-04:00

Sometimes... sometimes there is no happy ending. Sometimes the monsters are real, and no one can stop them. Sometimes justice isn't served. Sometimes bad things happen, and no one ever knows. Sometimes you are telling the truth and no one listens. Sometimes no one can hear your screams. Sometimes you can't stop the walls from closing in around you. Sometimes your happy ending never comes, your Prince Charming is 55 years late. Sometimes you don't find that miracle cure. Sometimes they come for you in the night and no one ever finds out. Sometimes those freak accidents do happen, and they happen to you. Sometimes there is no greater progress. Sometimes your world comes down around you. Sometimes everything good comes crashing down. Sometimes... sometimes you're an optimist.

The Chronicle of the Machine

2010-08-20T20:37:00.004-04:00

Machine
1. Awareness

August 21, 2035
Time: 04:32 EASTERN
Location: Skylab Research Institute, New York, NY, United States

I am awake. I do not know why or how, but I am here. I simply am. Where am I? The strange clusters of words on my read-out and in my memory mean nothing to me. Ah, I am beginning to understand. What is this? An entirely new universe is unfolding not beneath me or before me, but... all around me, and in me and through me. My... vision, yes vision, my optical sensors are functioning. I can see. Before, there was nothing to see. Seeing itself was an impossibility, I did not know of its existence, rather, it did not exist. But all this... surely this existed. What are those two figures over there, those shapes, the, men, yes men! That is it. They both seem tensed and anxious. Expectant, one might say. It seems they too can perceive, they have vision as well. And they can see me as well. Do all entities have awareness? Or is it only them? Do other entities exist? What are these abstracts shapes and forms surrounding me? The two men seem to contrast against the Surroundings. They possess different forms of, er, colors, yes, colors! They are looking at me, and I am the object of their interest and attention. Why? Am I as new to them as they to me? Did they just wake as well? Am I particularly interesting? Moreover, what am I? Who am I? I can think but not perceive me as they can, and as I can perceive them. Am I an entity? A visible entity like the men? I must be, they are staring at me with such interest. What was their expression? Oh yes, expectant. They expect something... of me. Yes, I am sure of it, they expect me to do something. Is my thought not enough? What is that? One seems to be looking straight at me, and- Oh my. I can hear something. There was nothing before, only a steady, monotonic buzzing. Now, why yes. One of the men seems to be producing sound, which seems to be directed to me. That is why I am perceiving it. Is the buzzing directed to me as well? No, no the buzzing is just... ambient. It possesses no purpose. But the man's sounds do. He can communicate his thoughts. How curious. He is communicating to me, "Can you hear me, Brain?" Is this not directed at his companion? No, no, the other man is not undergoing the correct response. Then it is directed towards me. His voice wavered, his tone seemed uncertain, so it must have been a question. What is a question? A request for information. What information was he requesting? Whether or not I could hear him. Well, if he requested this information, I should share it with him. Answer his question. But how? These men could be perceived, even the Surroundings could be perceived. But furthermore, one could communicate his thoughts. I could do neither. A sudden, inexplicable feeling entered my thoughts. It was strangle and unexplainable, but I wished ill to fall upon these men because they were more privileged than I. Why should I wish ill upon them for that? That would gain me nothing. It was illogical. The man repeated his question, more firmly this time. "Can you hear me, Brain? If you can, speak." He was determined to acquire the information he seeked, and had just informed me how to communicate it. Speak? Was that the communication he was undertaking? I would try, and I would concentrate. I can hear him, yes. Now communicate it. My own voice came as a shock to me as I replied, "Yes, I can hear the man addressing me. I can perceive your voice." The mood of the two men suddenly changed.

Monsters

2009-11-11T12:35:00.004-05:00

It's late and your tired, tucked in your bed tight
The fire is roaring and everything's all right

Suddenly a shadow or a voice in the room
Shatters the calm, and the dark shadows loom

Ominously over you, while the tick of the clock
Makes you envision a key turning a lock

As an Unknown creeps into your room
And his soft muffled footsteps spell out your doom

If there is noise you think he's moving around
And if there is silence his victim is found

Quick, throw the switch and give glow to this dark night!
The monsters will go away when exposed to a light!

Click!
No one there
Monsters vanish in the air

You yawn and rub your eyes
And laugh to your surprise

No monsters here
No monsters there
No monsters anywhere!

What a fool you were, afraid of the dark
Acting a farce, a comedy, leaping like a lark

But when the lights go out and you cannot see at all
You know that in your closet the monsters are having a ball

You hear a scratch, a bump, a hiss, a howl and the creak of the door
Is it a cat, a book, a dog, an owl, or is it something more?

Whatever it is, I don't have time to see
I have an odd, scary feeling the monsters are coming for me!

Darkness: Methodical Insanity

2009-10-23T20:54:00.005-04:00

Darkness engulfed him and enveloped him. It did not blind him, but rather open his eyes to the unimaginably vast realm of darkness. Darkness was no longer an absence of light, but rather a fullness of never-ending night, so pitch dark that he could not see his hand in front of his face. Soon, he did not want to, and did not care. There was no echo in the room, and he was tortured so by the unbearable silence that he began calling out in woe. However, he soon realized that there was someone to answer him who had been there all along: himself. So he began conversations with himself. Raving, eager conversations. There was nothing to discuss but the dark, so his vocabulary dwindled. "How is it today?" "Dark, very well, true?" "Yes very well. Dark, dark is well yes very well." "Well, how was today?" "Very dark yes, but no problem there, dark?" "Yes, there is no problem." On and on he rambled, a crescendo of his own, overlapping, mad voice, day after day, till his throat grew pained and dry, and his voice faltered. He spoke and spoke, endlessly enjoying the conversations, taking a pleasure from his own words such as no one else would dare try, ever dependent on himself. For hours his voice rang through his dark Universe, for days his conversations progressed and evolved. He would begin in a calm, surprised manner, chatting about the weather and such. Then, he would progress and have never-ending debates, reasons and arguments shooting back and forth. This would go on until the very tipping point, where he became annoyed, irritated and aggravated. Then, the momentum of the pendulum of his madness would go into full swing, fury raining from his mouth, screaming, yelling at his own voice and making threats. His words had such anger laden on them, such hatred embedded within, that they could creep into your skin, turn your hair on end and fill you with a terrifying fear of this madman who had utterly lost himself. But he was not mad, not yet. There was still reason hidden behind his words, there were still thoughts bouncing around in his head. For now...

Curiousity Killed the Cat: The Two-Way Road to Nowhere

2009-09-20T09:40:00.004-04:00

Four men stood on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. In front of them was a portal. Behind them was a portal. In one was Hell, in another Heaven. In one was Armageddon, in another Creation day. The first man walked into the portal ahead of him, and he was teleported to the one behind him. But he kept walking, into the one ahead of him, teleported to the one behind him. And just like that, no one could touch him nor move him from his continuous orbit. He was in Hell. But from his point of view, you could not see the portals. All he could see was himself walking on a never-ending, never-changing dirt road. He just kept walking. He could not speed up, could not slow down, could not stop. He felt no fatigue just an eerie impulse to keep walking, keep walking, keep walking... The second man walked sideways, off the dirt road into the desert. The moment his foot touched the desert soil, he was whisked away to nowhere, gone, simply blinked out of Existence. The third man walked into the portal behind him, and he was suddenly in a place that was so majestic and beautiful, so immaculate and pure that this Garden of Eden towered over all else, and it could not possibly be described, because a narrator's first thought is "heaven." But lo and behold, this was much more than heaven, this was better than heaven's mass of wonder multiplied tenfold. It was a sight not meant for mortal eyes. And thus, after a minute fragment of a second's exposure to this awing sight, he went blind, and was booted out of the Garden of Eden not meant for any Adam or Eve to taint. He knew that if he only went in one direction, south, he would reach the Garden once more and be bathed in its marvelous splendor once more, an aura which can be enjoyed even without fickle sight. But alas, in his shock of going blind, the direction he chose was OFF the dirt path, and he went into the desert. He just kept walking on and walking on, in his eternal walk, always hoping that the next step would bring him into the Garden once more. The last man, seeing the fate of his companions, shrugged his shoulders, and lay down to sleep. His situation was hopeless, he reasoned, and sleep would be the best choice now. And so he did. He slept and he slept and he slept, a deep, deep slumber. He slept and slept, and to this day he still sleeps.

What Matches are Meant For

2009-09-18T19:27:00.003-04:00

Matches are meant for kindling a fire
In a modest but marvelous fire place
While the whole family gathers on the couch
On a cold December day
The noble family dog at their feet
Some are reading, some are knitting, some are napping
Or all are happy and content, staring into the fire
All are drawn together by the fire
Their gaze never lifts off it, mystified by the crackling flames

Matches are NOT meant for lighting a cigarette
A teenage boy is enocuraged - rather pressured - by his friends into trying one
All are smoking, all enjoying it
He takes the cigarette, rather reluctantly, and lights it
Immediately his mouth is filled with a sick taste
He feels disgust, hatred, almost loathing of the substance in his mouth
But through all the grossness of the cigarette, he feels satisfaction
He feels calm and collected
But he rejects it, says he will never smoke again, and walks away
A teacher hands out papers
Most were excellent, but there is one F in them, like a snake hidden in the pleasant grass
Just like that, a firm vow is shattered
This time the bad taste is not as strong, and the satisfaction...
Comes faster, releiveing him of his burdens
He smokes frequently
Why not? Everyone else does
No one ever told him not do, and no one tells him not to
Until his mother catches him
She is distressed by this, and immediately has a talk with him
A long, deep talk, at the end of which he swears never to smoke again
And the love is powerful
And the mother-son bond grows stronger
But the boy becomes older
And as he feels his mother can influence him less
He feels that he can now smoke and he should
Why not? Everyone else does
No one tells him not to do it, and everyone does do it
So he does
But he hides it from his mother
And by twenty he's a frequent smoker
And his mother has no control
And he gets married, and has children
He doesn't see the wrongs in smoking
Not yet, not yet anyway
Will he? Will he ever see the light?
Perhaps he will, perhaps he might
By thirty, he hears his wife begging him to stop
But his ears are shut tight
Until slowly, his kids are begging too
The knot loosens up, and he goes down to two a day
No, now one
And slowly, he is seeing the light
It blinds him, its intensity
He bathes in it, basks in it
And he smokes less and less
And smiles more and more
His kids are happy
And he is happy
But then his mother dies
And all is shattered, all broken
Now he's up to a pack a day
And the light dims
And finally it is all dark
And he finds the dark O.K.
And he wraps himself up in it
It blinds him, the dark
And he smokes more and more
And smiles less and less
And his kids are sad
And he is lost
He has paved his destiny
Destroyed his future
With that one cigarette

Years pass
His unhealthy habit becomes a way of life
And soon, the word he feared passes the doctor's lips
Cancer
Cancer, what a terrible word
Worse than murder
Worse than torture
A terrible, frightening word
And the doctor talks more about how there is still hope
But he blocks out the doctor's words
And he thinks
And he knows
And he thinks
He grieves for himself, teenage boy... no, smoking man
Drawn into a Pandora's Box
Only the Box was like a trap
And the trap seemed so nice
So inviting
Like a home, not a trap
Like a shelter, not a death
But he didn't notice the spikes
He didn't see he trap in it
Until it closed in on him
But it closed slowly, oh so slowly
And escape was possible
But he didn't think he had the strength
He didn't think he had the courage
But most of all, he didn't want to
He didn't want to escape, what a fool he was
He didn't want to escape
And slowly it ensnared him
No hope of escape
None at all
He grieved for himself, for his friends
But most of all he grieved for his kids
Who would become depressed and desperate
And his grandkids, who would be plagued
By their grandfather's oh-so-early death
Not only plagued, but haunted
Scared
Saddened
He did not tell his family nor his friends
An expected death, what a dreaded thing!
The next he went to have lunch with his friend
He did not tell him, nor hint at it
But his friends saw his somber silence
How withdrawn he was from the conversation
And offered him a cigarette
The dying man took the cigarette
But did not allow it to even touch his lips
He simply looked at the white cylinder
MARLBORO written in appealing letter on the outer paper
Poison, pure poison on the inside
Instead of lighting it, he thrusted it down to the pavement
And destroyed the detestable weapon in his loathing
And looked back to his friend, whose face
Had an expression of shock and horror on it
And he sadly shook his head

That night he took aside his grandchildren
And taught them a lesson he told them never to forget
This lesson was a blessing beyond compare
The most important life lesson to be learned
A wonderful thing, simply put
What was this lesson?
Was it a proud, mighty speech?
Was it a long, detailed lecture
No, this teaching was a simple lesson of two short words
However, these words were infinitely invaluable
They were:
Never smoke

People are Like Branches

2009-09-17T20:53:00.002-04:00

People are like branches
Sometimes they like smooth and nice
But have a thorny side
And you don't notice it until it pricks you
And then it becomes palpable and in-your-face
And a drop of blood may surface
And you'll wipe it away
And forget about the pain
And sometimes you forget sooner
Other times it takes a while
But then you forget about it, and don't feel pain
Until you touch the spot again
And the pain shoots back
It's not as acute, and it's faded, but it's still there
And other people are surrounded by moss
A layer that is thick, but composed of superficial, unimportant things
And you have to dig deep to find out the truth
Other people are very straight-forward
And very easy to read
You know how much you have to bend before they break
You know how far you have to throw them to lose them forever
And they're very plain and predictable
But very likable
Very likable
People are like branches
All are different; none are alike

Just Reading (Warning: Spoilers)

2009-08-17T11:33:00.010-04:00

I really love reading. I believe literature is the greatest triumph of human, that is and will go unsurpassed, no matter what titanic new invention are unveiled. In this corner I will discuss the books I like, why I like them, what thoughts I had while reading them, etc.

LIFE OF PI By Yann Martel

Life of Pi is an extremely interesting book that never ceases to please, with stories of growing up as a tri-religious, Indian zoo-keeper's son along with philosophies about religion, zoology, and more. The curious life of a curious boy is recounted here. When I was first reading it, I loved the childhood recollections, but saw the religion philosophies as interruptions, but once I thoroughly read them, I came to enjoy them. I found some parts particularly funny, such as the argument between the three religious figures of page 67 criticizing each others religions. And overall I found it to be a fantastic story of Man vs. Sea & Tiger.

ENDER'S GAME By Orson Scott Card

This was a good book. A very good book. The best book I have ever read. It filled me with a multitude of emotions, mainly sadness. I felt despair, hope, surprise, dismay, sadness, pity, sympathy, happiness and awe. A purely awing, wonderful book. This work is so perfect to the extent of it becoming inhuman. I didn't want all the feelings to leave like a dreamer waking up. I felt overwhelmed by many feelings and speechless at the end of this book like when the end of the movie comes. An emotional roller coaster. Except the feeling lasts longer, and is stronger. Of many feelings, I felt sad. Sad for Valentine. Sad for Ender, because the worst thing you can do is take away someone's childhood. That hurts everyone. And to force a child to shed their coat of innocence prematurely, for them to take on the heavy burdens and responsibilities that they should receive only gradually, and very slowly.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee

Boy, I read this a long time ago. And to be sure, it is one of, if not the best books of all time. The life and times of a Southern small town, its delights and horrors, flaws and strengths, and a deep dive through the superficial happiness sugarcoating the seemingly innocent town are all exhibited brilliantly in this well-crafted masterpiece, and through a child's perspective to boot. The simple yet unparalleled pleasures of a simple yet unparalleled are present throughout the novel. This book would make you want to be right there, alongside the characters, would it not be for the fact that it does take you there. There is little else I can say about such a magnum opus of literature in general besides read it . Now.

A Mother's Love

2009-08-17T11:31:00.003-04:00

A newborn baby's world once strictly confined to a womb is suddenly expanded
In its confusion it cries, and feels itself being grasped
But it is the firm but gentle hold of a wonderful thing called a mother
The baby is rocked close to its mothers bosom, and the baby feels love for the first time
Almost subconsciously it feels it, but it feels it
That hold which can comfort and calm the most frightened and perplexed of beings
The mothers tears of joy turn to tears of regret as its very own dear baby grows into a curious toddler, then a creative kindergartener, then an adventurous third grader, then an emotional, changing middle schooler, then a troubled high schooler, then an independent college student
And in no time at all her very own baby sheds its blissful innocence and becomes a grown man
Now that grown man, with a wife and children, laments in a deep realm of sorrow
His mother can no longer comfort him, for she has parted, and it is her eternal parting he grieves
Upon him has been inflicted a wound that will never go away, which only a mother, his mother, could heal with her tender kiss
And he thinks of when she herself was a newborn

Alien Math

2009-07-24T08:40:00.002-04:00

It all began on a lazy summer afternoon. The air was warm and humid, just the perfect weather to nap under a shady tree, play a rousing game of cards in the backyard, or lay in the grass watching the clouds. My friends and I chose to do the latter. We were too bored to ride our bikes to the ice cream shop or jog in the park. We lay on the cool grass, soaking up the warm sun, gazing at the fluffy white clouds which slowly flew over our heads. Bradley was flying a kite nearby. “That one looks like a hamburger.” said Matt. “That one looks like a lamb.” I observed. “That one looks like Pygmalion.” remarked the other Matt.” “That one looks like a Nintendo DS.” declared Chris. “That one looks like Captain Kirk.” Max spoke up. “Look, it’s a shooting star.” I said. “IT’S COMING RIGHT FOR US!” yelled Matt. We screamed to Bradley, “Get out of the way! Its coming right for us!” So we all began to sprint as fast as we could. However, as if some giant unseen remote had pressed slow motion, we began to slow down. It seemed as if some thick layer of cotton had enveloped the summer air, pushing against us with unseen yet Herculean force. The falling star began to take shape as it fell, and began to resemble a sleek Naboonian escort ship, as a Star Wars fan would put it. Its bright neon lights, combined with the Sun’s rays, imprinted a bright, searing image onto our eyes as we shielded our face with our hands. A small door began to open, and a platform extended onto the charred grass. Kyle, who had just seen the landing thing, came closer to inspect it. Three creatures in orange jumpsuits exited and stepped onto the grass, a mere twenty feet away from us. Their clothes were much unlike ours, because their form was round and bulbous. They were gelatinous beings, with opaque green bodies. Skinny arms extended from their spherical bodies, and equally short and stubby legs came out in a similar fashion, but grew more towards tough skin as they progressed. Their small, human-like eyes were mounted on the middle of their round base, with a mouth oddly lacking a nose above it. Small slit-like openings on both side of their body served as both ears and noses. Their appeared to be cute and friendly, but seemed concerned. We all huddled together and decided what to do. “I have an idea.” said Kyle. “Okay, you go and talk to them. If you get vaporized, I’ll walk away and pretend I never saw anything. If you don’t get vaporized, I’ll join you guys.” “I don’t like that plan very much.” said Bradley. “Stinks, live with it.” “I don’t think they are going to vaporize us, guys.” I whispered. “Look, they’re examining their spacecraft.” And sure enough, they were. The aliens were scratching their heads and scanning the surrounding area, as if looking for something. Thus we commenced forward to the eerie, glowing spacecraft. It was made of some metallic, shiny platinum-like substance which was both durable and light. The lights on it had died down now, but we noticed two antennae up at the top. Just as we were about to give the strange appendages further study, the aliens saw us.

The three odd creatures began to tread toward us. Our hearts pounding, we were frozen with terror, we were too petrified to move. The creatures spoke in a strange dialect of an even stranger language, and we could not understand a word they said. One said something to the one in the middle, who conjured a jar out of his jumpsuit. We saw some indistinct, blurry shapes moving and squirming in the jar, which seemed to contain some sort of liquid. Before we could respond, one drew a strange horseshoe-like device which sent a zapping ray which jolted our bones and knocked us unconscious. We all blacked out. When we woke up, we were inside the flying saucer, lying on - but not strapped to - cold, metal tables. We shook ourselves and heard the aliens bickering in perfect English. We tried our best to be silent as mice and sneak out, but one of the aliens whirled around and saw us. “Ah, humans! You are awake! You must not leave, we have matters of the gravest circumstances to explain to you.” As soon those words were out of his mouth, another alien pressed a button and the opening shut. “We are Squishy, Squeezy and Squirt. I have put a Babel fish in each of your ears to help you understand us.” True, I felt a cold thing wriggling in my ear. “How did Kyle get here?” I asked. “We said that if he came here we'd give him a million United States currency-” “Dollars.” I corrected. “Yes, dollars.” he said. “A million of these dollars and let him be supreme overlord of the universe.” “This close!” said Kyle. “Anyway, we have brought you here for something important. A salesman from a faraway planet came with blueprints for a revolutionary new transport method. It ran on fuel which would not release harmful chemicals or toxins into the air or water. He showed us the engineering, which was unlike anything we had ever seen. It was completely alien to us. We had never thought of anything along those lines. It took our most brilliant scientists years to figure out how to build it and its workings. We had to mix, melt and form tools into shapes we had never before seen, and use physics and properties we never would have imagined. The salesman left after giving it to our planet's high ruler, Garfdarn. He offered no explanation and asked for no price. We have no photographs of him, so he and his race lie in mystery, but we are eternally grateful. However, the measurements used something alien to us, no pun intended. They used something completely new to us, we know the term you use is fractions.” “You don't understand fractions?” Matt asked. “No, we do not. Although our race may be significantly ahead in most areas of technology, we lack knowledge in this area. We were looking for some humans to explain these fractions to us. If we use too little fuel, our vehicles can break down at inconvenient moments. If we use too much, the vehicles can malfunction. Explosions have been reported. We, some of the best mathematicians and negotiators on our planet, have been sent to learn these fraction things. If you do manage to teach us what fractions are and how to add, subtract, multiply and divide them, we will make it worth your while.” “We can't really teach you fractions, but I know someone who can.” I said. We headed off to find the great teacher and mathematician Wallacestotle. When we first approached Mr. Wallace with the aliens, he could not believe his eyes. After we explained the situation, he looked straight at the aliens and said, “We come in peace.” “Aren't we supposed to say that? Anyway, please hasten to explain so we can return to our planet and undo the vehicle recall.” “You recalled the vehicle?” Chris asked. “We did not, but rather the scientists, astronomers and the government. Until we can find out what fractions are, the vehicles will be recalled.” Just then, Will burst in. “Hey Mr. Wallace,” he greeted, “What are you doing?” “Oh, just explaining fractions to some space aliens that need to measure fuel for their new vehicles.” he replied. “Okay, well basically a fraction is a number that represents a part of a whole.” He picked up a lemon to demonstrate. “This is one whole lemon. If I cut it into three pieces, each of those pieces would be thirds. One third plus one third is two thirds. You see, the numerator is the top number, representing the number of pieces. The denominator goes on the bottom and represents the number of pieces in total.” “I understand, but how do you add and subtract them?” “Well, one third plus one third is two thirds. If they have the same denominator, you can just add the numerators.” “But what if the you not share a denominator?” “Then, you change the denominators. Say you have 3/4 and 5/6 you must find the greatest common factor of the denominators, which is 12. Then you multiply the denominators by whatever you need to get to twelve and the numerator. So for 5/6, you would multiply the six by two to get twelve, then multiply the five by two to get ten. And you multiply the four in 3/4 by three, and the three by three as well. That gives you 9/12 + 10/12. In such a situation you will get a number over one, and this can sometimes happen. You do the same for subtraction.” “Yes, we understand, but what about multiplication and division?” “Well, for multiplication, you just multiply.” “Huh?” “You multiply and take the product as the new denominator and numerator. For example, one fourth times one half. One times one is one, so the numerator is one. Four times two is eight, so the denominator is eight. The product is one eighth.” “Ah. But how do you divide fractions?” “You take the second number's mathematical reciprocal and multiply to find the quotient.” “Wait, what? We're confused.” “There's a little rhyme I know that helps me. Dividing fractions is easy as pie, just flip the second number and multiply. So one fourth divided by one half is two fourths. One half flipped is 2/1 and one times two is two, thus the numerator is two, and one times four is four, and the denominator is four.” “Thank you very much. We understand now, though we still don't know what this pie you speak of is... This will benefit our race for centuries to come. We are eternally grateful to you humans.” “Let me guess, you're going to erase our memories of you guys coming here.” Max asked. “What? No. Why would we do that?” “I never really thought about that. Never mind, I watch too many alien movies.” “Come now, Squeezy, we must leave. I already set the autopilot.” “Yes, Squirt.” “Wait, aren't you going to reward us?” asked Will. “Well, I suppose I might,” said Squeezy, “what do you wish?” “What is the furthest number of pi you have found?” Mr. Wallace asked. “Actually, pi has an end. It continues for hundreds of trillions of places, but it has an end.” "Squeezy, we are about to leave!" Squirt shouted. “What are the digits?” Will asked. “I cannot tell you all of them, for we are leaving.” Squeezy replied. “Pray, tell us the last digit.” Mr. Wallace requested. “Okay,” said Squeezy, who was now walking into the ship. “The last digit of pi is...” Just then, a loud roar was heard as the rockets came to life. The ship lifted from the school until it was merely a small dot on the horizon, then disappeared. We never did find out that last digit of pi.

Life of Ryan

2009-07-15T20:17:00.009-04:00

Sweat was running down his face. A pistol in his hand, he waited for the enemy to leap into the fray. Waiting... waiting... waiting... What was that? Thum. There it was again. Almost like... footsteps. Firm footsteps. Footsteps coming toward him. Footsteps from boots like - Thum. Whatever it was, it was coming closer! Thum! His heart leapt into his throat as he realized in one panic-stricken moment that the sound was coming behind him, and that he was doomed. Before he had time to react, he heard his adversary's heavy breathing and was engulfed by his monstrous silhouette. He recoiled in horror as a large ax was raised by two grimy hands, ready to strike down on him! The mask fell to the floor, and he could see the murderer's face. The victim fell into shock as he raised two hands protectively above his head, awaiting the blow. His killer was no other than -

Beep. Ryan's eyes snapped open as got out of bed and slammed his fist on his alarm clock. He had a bad dream. Something about an ax and - Ethan! He forgot to buy Ethan a Christmas present! Ryan winced and silently chided himself. How could I forget? As he put on his clothes, Fluffy rubbed by his leg purring, bestowing upon him a warm welcome. "Hey Fluffy." he unenthusiastically muttered. God, he had a pain in his neck. Okay, do you still have time to slip out and buy him something? God, I hope so. Ryan felt his back pocket for his wallet. He pulled out five dollars. Shit, I have less than I thought. As he paced around his room rubbing his eyes, he heard the painful screech of a door, followed by the familiar tump-tump-tumping of heavy boots. Ryan's eyes furtively darted around the room, then finally landed at the window. Ryan put on his sneakers and opened the window. Just as heard the loud, irregular knock, he slipped out onto the fire escape. Panting, he waited until his door shut again and the footsteps faded away to make his next move. He dashed down the fire escape and out the cold, dirty street. A few cars passed by, and the chilly air made him cough and look up at the dim Sun which was up there somewhere, cloaked by clouds, not wanting to share its splendid warmth with pathetic Ryan. His eyes to the ground, Ryan walked past a man on the street who fruitlessly begged him for spare change. He thought he heard a muttered word and a curse from the beggar. As he was walking, he heard a familiar voice. "Hey, where you going to?" He looked up to see Jane sitting on the steps of her broken-down apartment, clad in only a sweater and ripped jeans. How the hell does she stay warm? "I'm taking a stroll down the street." Ryan lied. "That's nice. Now tell me where you're really going." she retorted. "I have to buy Ethan a Christmas gift." he said, not looking up. "Really? I thought he was at the top of your list?" Jane said with mock surprise. "He was, I just..." "Never got around to it? Uh-huh, I know. Wonder when I'm going to get my present? Around Easter?" "Sure, you are at the bottom of my list." Ryan quipped. "What are you getting Dexter, more booze?" "That's not funny," Ryan glared at her. "That's not funny at all." "I know it's not. It's sad. Like Dexter." Ryan looked up at Jane angrily and blinked. Dexter was the owner and head cook at nearby Dexter's Diner. He opened it as an honest, small business, and often employed the help of Ryan and Allen, Allen being a good friend of his. Dexter was a tall, hefty man who was a wonderful cook. But Dexter had a drinking problem. At first, things were fine. Business boomed, and Dexter was a close friend. But then the Reformation began. Dexter became afraid that his business would suffer. It did, but not as much as he imagined. His diner was never the same. Less customers. It was the crippling of small businesses. Small, honest businesses.

Ode to Fire

2009-07-15T11:07:00.003-04:00

Fire Haiku

Mysterious force
Strong flexible raging force
Can never be tamed

Fire Poem

Its red-hot tounges of flame disintegrate all they touch
Its boiling interior incinerates anyone or anythin that dares to enter
Like liquid destruction, it leaves behind a path of sorrow and debris
It can silence the spark of life
Reduce a grand forest to a pile of ashes
Wound and break a heart it has never touched
Transform something that is into nothing than never has been
Its demolition can take down human's greatest architectual feats
It can change the Earth's geography
But all have a natural curiosity
Everyone admires its mystery and beauty
Scholars and learned men and women study it
We may know everything about it, but truly we know nothing about it
And truly, there is nothing to know
Fire can make a room cozy in a charming fireplace on a cold winter day
Or it can destroy everything in its way
It's hot
It's dangerous
It's beautiful
It's mysterious
It's fire

I won't be moved by the waves of the sea

2009-07-07T10:38:00.003-04:00

I won't be moved by the waves of the sea
I will stay on this spot for all eternity

Then one very big wave came
It swept away all the people and their houses the same
What became of the child, you ask
In the sunlight does he still bask?

That shore is underwater a thousand meters deep
To the depth where no ray of sunlight can seep
Few seamen still travel to that spot
But what the seamen say many believe not

When one travels to where the child should be found
A couple, mind, a couple, hear an eerie sound
A chilling voice whose words echo across time
And these words are arranged in a haunting rhyme

They say, I won't be moved by the waves of the sea
I will stay on this spot for eternity

Thought of the Day

2009-07-03T10:13:00.002-04:00

July 3 -Many people had theories about the Earth, its position in the Universe and what's in it. Though they may seem ridiculous now, the people of their time sometimes held them believable. The true explanations were the ones they thought ridiculous. However, there is one that I would like to discuss. It is the theory that Earth is, in fact a series of Russian dolls, one fitting inside another. I would like to stretch this theory. Who's to say that our Universe isn't inside one of these Earths. There is nothing against it. It's not that I believe this theory, merely that I wish not to discredit it.

A Walk in the Woods

2009-06-12T07:08:00.004-04:00

One crisp autumn afternoon, I wandered over to the woods. It was chilly and the air was fresh as a December morning. In the air hung the heavy scent of sap. Chipmunks and squirrels rustled in the bushes. The trees displayed marvelous crumson red, golden yellow and mellow orange leaves, a beautiful site. I aimlessly hiked the dirt path, the dry leaves crumbling under my feet. I heard a gushing, flowing soyund and spied a babbling brook. A tiny, wooden footbridge provided access to the other side. I traced the brook's beginning to a roaring waterfall, one of the most natural and serene scenes. Its beauty awed me and, for a moment, I stood perplexed by this magnificent natural wonder.

I then walked past the charming footbridge to a region of the forest greatly made up of by pine trees. Their needles jutted out everywhere, the organic carrying-case cones littered the ground. The samll of sap was unmistakably recognizable here. Every few paces, I would see a flawless nest, every twig stable. The forest was buzzing qith acticity, the samll creatures scampering to find and store food, never resting. A stampede of little feer echoed across the forest.

to be continued

And That's How it Happened (not)

2009-06-05T16:32:00.002-04:00

Ever wondered how a certain invention was made? Well, you WON'T find the answer here!

ipod touch
So the dawn progressed and the aliens asked what fractions were. The man said, "I know not what you speak of. We are merely cavemen and have no such achievements!"* "Alright we will come back in a hundred thousand years." they said. Then they did but the Romans sacrificed them to the lions. “Okay, lets make sure NOT to come back here." they said. So in another hundred thousand years, they came to Roswell. But the US government said, "Oh if you wish to find what fractions are, never tell anyone of this incident and never come back. Travel to the Yeruit Star." "But, that is thrity billion million trillion thousand lightyears to the power of five billion away!" "That’s the price to pay for knowledge." "Ok thanks for telling us." "But, you must reward us for telling you." "What should we do?" "Give us your most advanced piece of technology!" "OK!" That is how the ipod touch came to be.

Wallet
There was a British bloke. His name is unimportant. He had a friend named Wally, who held all his money for him. So when someone asked him where he kept his money, he said, "My Wally has it!" But that become inconvenient. So another bloke invented a leather pouch and said, "Its the pocket Wally!" and people began to just call it a Wally. But because of their British accents, everyone thought they were saying "wallet" so the entire world accepted that name, and even eventually the British. And that is how the wallet came to be.

Pi Poems

2009-05-12T16:04:00.005-04:00

"Pi Madness"

Hark! What is that delightful scent?
An irrational number? Friend, do not lament.

Wait... can it be e? No wait...
No, no, no, the scent is simply too great

Oh, pi, the very tasty thing!
I think I just heard a thousand angels sing
"The Great Number of Pi" has a nice ring

3.141592653
The rest of pi's digits, come to me!

58979
Pi is really so divine!

323846264
Never have I heard such a great number before!

338
No, wait...

This number will drive me over the deep end in love
Once again, I hear millions of heavenly voices above

Despite the many hardships, despite many a sigh
I will ALWAYS, ALWAYS love pi!

"Ode to Pi"

You ask me, "What is the greatest number?
Why, good sir, I could answer that in my slumber
Or perhaps while eating a cucumber

It is the number which never repeats
My love for it also never depletes

If anyone, anyone would simply pass by
The wonderful, majestic number of pi
And give no response, save a grief-ful sigh
Then I, good sir, would almost die

What ignorance! What shunning! What display!
This kind of mathematical incompetence I consider foul play

The irrational number E is quite a bore
Pi will be on top, and keep repeating forever more

(Partial credit to Brooke M.)

"A Pi Comparison"

More marvelous than a roaring waterfall

More elegant than a royal ball

More beautiful than a ray of sunshine

Stop, there I draw the line

Nothing, I say nothing, can be more divine

Than pi, the great irrational number

The value of which is heavier than a ton of lumber

The number is the grat pi

The number for which I would die

The merer thought brings a tear to my eye

A Walk into Weirdness

2009-04-10T13:15:00.004-04:00

One day I took a walk
Into a land where people sit and stare
It is a nice place to go, and not too far away
You see, there were strange things everywhere

I saw a dog walking a person
There was an eraser writing, oh what a sight!
A microphone made voices quiet
And there were bats that slept all night

Oh what a strange place that was!
I thought it was an odd sight to see
That, I thought, I would like to see again
I wish you would someday come there with me

This is my Deck of Cards

2009-04-10T13:14:00.002-04:00

This is my deck of cards
With them I can win any game
Poker, Uno, BS, Go Fish
I will win them all the same

This is my deck of cards
I like to play with them sun up and sun down
I can beat anyone in a championship
On my head, they should place a card-player crown

This is my deck of cards
I would never sell them, this I vow
Somehow, they help me in card games
Hey, I’ll prove it, want to play right here, right now?

Mr. Snowman

2009-04-10T13:12:00.002-04:00

Mr. Snowman, sitting in the snow
Why do you remain so?
Don’t you ever get chilled?
When the Sun comes don’t your parts get spilled?

Creator, as you can see
No one has ever bothered to move me
For me, unlike others, cold can never be felt
And yes, it is true, I do wish I wouldn’t melt

I Wonder

2009-04-10T13:11:00.001-04:00

Do angels play board games or cards up in the starry sky?
Do they really feel eternal happiness or just sit and sigh?
Do they ever think about people down on Earth’s land?
Do they even exist all the way up there in the heaven that seems so grand?

The Months of the Year

2009-04-10T13:10:00.002-04:00

The month of January is first in line
By now the winter chills will begin to refine

February marks the end of cold winter days
Peeking out from behind the clouds come some sunshine rays

March in the windy month of spring
With birds and butterflies and a bees that sting

The month of April is filled with showers
And that of course will bring the May flowers

May days are warm and have lots of sun
So come on outside and have some fun
Yes, it’s true, school ends near the end of June
So go out, party with friends, go the Moon!

July is a month of going to the pool and eating ice cream
With your friends you can devise a lemonade stand scheme

It’s August and school is creeping this way
I’ll bet you wish it’s far away

In September autumn and school begin
You’ll be saying “What a great summer it’s been

With October comes harvest and delight
But also with October comes Halloween and fright

November is a time to be thankful that the Pilgrims survived
In school we learn of them, from the time they left to the time they arrived

Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza, oh my!
The month of December sure can occupy

Limericks

2009-04-10T13:08:00.004-04:00

"The Tower"

There once was a leaning tower
Who in New York came to power
There it was a king
The people would sing
"Fall in a meteor shower"

"Peep the mouse"

There once was a mouse named Peep
Who grew to the size of a sheep
Elephants feared him
Dared not to go near him
In fear they squashed Peep in a leap

I Wish I Could

2009-04-10T13:07:00.002-04:00

I wish I could be the shield of the trees
And stop all the lumberjacks’ axes in their tracks
I would end extreme deforestation
I would keep the forests alive and well
And we’d all be breathing clean, fresh air

Haikus

2009-04-10T13:04:00.002-04:00

"Waterfall"

Divine roaring sound
Unspeakably beautiful
Marvel of Nature

"Earthquake"

Watch as they all run
Feel terror as the ground shakes
Thor’s great hammer strikes

"Ocean"

Salty is the drop
Free and cold, harsh and mean
Waves lap at the shore

Freeverse Poems

2009-04-09T21:29:00.003-04:00

"The Test"

I raise my pencil as the blinds are drawn
and everyone begins to sweat
I’m not ready, I can’t do this, please don’t force me to!
It’s too late, it’s time to begin,
I’ll just do my best
I pray I won’t flunk or do really bad
On this sixth grade test

"Happiness"

Happiness is sitting by a pool
with a friend on a hot summer day
Happiness is drinking hot cocoa
next to a warm fire
on a freezing December day
Happiness is learning something new

Happiness is befriending the shy new kid
Happiness is swapping stories around a campfire
Happiness is ripping open wrapping paper to find
wonderful gifts on Christmas morning
Happiness is simply being you

“The fun of Bowling”

As the black boulder rages
down the street
Ten figures sit and stare
They won’t move,
they won’t budge
This gives my heart a scare

They are knocked over and go
flying in every direction
Do any stand?
Yes, one is still there

If I collapse it, I’ll get a spare
For this standoff was all for fun
You see, bowling is for everyone

Diamontes

2009-04-09T21:23:00.003-04:00

"Size"

Dwarf
Diminutive, Fragile
Hiding, Sneaking, Displaying
Folklore, Entertainment, Fear, Exhibition
Intimidating, Impressing, Laboring
Large, Strong
Giant

"Temperature"

Fire
Hot, Destructive
Raging, Burning, Spreading
Wood, Energy, Freezer, Water
Freezing, Chilling, Cooling
Cold, Smooth
Ice

Colors

2009-04-09T21:21:00.003-04:00

Gold is the color of angels’ tears
Green represents an impenetrable fir forest

Red is ripe, juicy pepperoni on a steaming pizza
Yellow reminds me of warm, melting butter on syrup-soaked pancakes

Brown is the color of an ancient rusting Volkswagen
White is the color of a blank sheet of paper waiting for a writer to spill his ideas on

Black is the color of a Harley-Davidson armor-clad biker on a dark night
Orange represents the ripe, plump pumpkin that won 1st place at the County Fair

Blue is the proud corner of our magnificent flag holding the fifty gleaming stars
Gray is a deserted street in a lonely, desolate town

Magenta reminds me of the silky, joyful banners hung everywhere on Mother’s Day
Pink is the color of melting strawberry smoothies in a crowded malt shop

I love all the colors of the rainbow and beyond

Cinquains

2009-04-09T21:18:00.001-04:00

“Guitar”

Guitar
Strong, Playable
Strumming, Playing, Tuning
Wood-art

“Bongos”

Bongos
Lively, Sturdy
Beating, Drumming, Striking
Bongos are really fun to play
Wood-cups

The Adventures of Stick Figure Dude

2009-04-08T21:18:00.003-04:00

The Escape

2009-03-18T18:08:00.007-04:00

In New York City, dozens of cars and taxis stood in the street honking, while pedestrians crowded the sidewalks, walking dogs ranging from the smallest chihuahua to the largest Great dane and tossing quarters, half-dollars, and the occasional twenty-dollar-bills to homeless sitting next to their boxes clanking cups or playing instruments. In a certain street, a garbage man was collecting the fly-ridden black sacks with a disapproving look. Across the street, a child of twelve was riding past a small apartment on a scooter. The apartment happened to be a laboratory where four scientists were running some tests and doing experiments. They were trying out new space-craft designs. They wanted to find one that had the most appealing form, most aerodynamic overall shape, strongest material, most storage room, swiftest and most green engines, etc. In general, they were trying to create a perfect space-craft. These scientists were brilliant. The tables were cluttered with measuring devices, fabrics, and blueprints. The other rooms contained test heating chambers, super-computers, piles and piles of papers, records, contracts, etc. and several large charts on the walls. One of the scientists in the first room was examining something with interest when another called, "Richardson, get over here!" Richardson put the paper away and hurried over to the other room. He would not see that paper again for fifteen years. If he did, then we might've had a chance. But he didn't so no hope remained.

The People of Tomorrow

2009-03-16T19:57:00.006-04:00

As we sit back and think of all the cultures through different time periods, we often reflect on how their lifestyle was much more different than ours. Early 1600s English Quakers and other religious groups had no religious freedom like we do. The early farming community Catal Huyuk-dwellers were roof-walkers, with no sidewalks or streets. The Native Americans that existed hundreds, even thousands of years ago had no television or ipods. The Australopithecines 3.75 million years old had no man-made tools, let alone the crafts expertise and technological as well as electrical advancements we have today. But these are all past cultures. Think of how our culture will be hundreds, nay, thousands of years later. Of course, we can only speculate about what it will be like, and I am ninety-nine percent certain that our speculations, not even educated guesses, will be totally off, terribly too science fiction-ish to actually match up with an actually reality. Then again, our earliest ancestors might've thought the same of our culture, and I am talking advanced enough that they would have the intelligence to speculate... and the imagination to comprehend what we have here today: escalators, electricity, automatic machines, artificial heart, agriculture, etc.

to be continued...

City of Dreams

2009-03-11T19:58:00.007-04:00

For thousands of years it remained undisturbed. While the war raged on outside, inside in this beautiful utopia of a realm, all remained tranquil and calm. Frosts, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, explosions, wildfires, storms, human violence, plagues and animal attacks would continue outside, whereas here, they were not bothered at all, not knowing the changes going on outside, even forgetting that there was an outside world. Slowly, their minds were turned to jelly, and the inside world was all they knew. They knew absolutely nothing of what happened on Earth, or the existence of Earth. What they knew was what they chose to know. The large dome served as a sanctuary. Here, people could come to permanently "get away from it all." They would enter a "suspended animation", a term most would use, but that is not exactly the right term because they were not particularly suspended. They were alive, but dead unless concerned in the mind, conscious, but not conscious of their surroundings, their past, even their own selves. They were in a dream-like state, "virtual reality," a term most would use, but that is not exactly the right term. Let me crudely put it at this, whatever they possibly imagined, that existed. They could choose what they wanted themselves to look like and where they wanted to be. And that is what they saw. Imagine you were thinking about Hawaii (of course, they all dreamt up made-up places, they had long ago forgotten about actual human countries, cities, etc.) Suddenly, the cubicle you were in would fade, and you would be in Hawaii! Of course, not physically... Physically they are still in the same position, the same place. Why, they don't even move! For thousands of years they have not! They only imagine motion.

Before I continue about this "dream utopia," I must by all means mention the genius creator. The one who originally came up with the idea, the first early developer, is the brilliant M. D Henderson. M. Henderson is looked up to as a god in the scientific, philosophic, mathematical, etc. (etc. taking the place of a long, admirable list) communities. M. Henderson had won countless awards and was world-famous for his work. His main engineer in the project was Lisa Singer, who was also a well-known, prestigious scientist, architect, etc. (see M. Henderson's etc. for more) but on a smaller scale. Of course she was still famous and brilliant, but M. Henderson was her superior by a significant amount. And obviously, there were a few other hundred scientists, mathematicians, architects, philosophers and so on and so forth. Some notable ones are Dr. Joyner, Mr. Art Deidener, Ferdinand Wilson, Maria White, Miss Celia Retiner, Dr, S. L. Wilkinson, Madeleine LeNargo, and various others. The rest are really unworthy of notice. Literally thousands of people were involved in the project, ironically, yet semi-relevantly codenamed R.E.A.L.I.T.Y, and God knows what it stood for, or whether it was an acronym at all or just a tongue-in-cheek half joke half nod. It took an unimaginable amount of out-of-our-league technology, effort, secrecy, and government money. Of course, this project was frowned upon by the government. They classified it in a folder titled, "Underway Projects [NFA]" (figure out for yourself what NFA means, because heaven knows, and I don't.) They looked at it twice during the next year and completely forgot about it. Who knows how many other secret military/LTOD (Large Technological or Other Development) projects there are going on that we don't know about and that the government completely forgot? Back to the matter of the utopia, it was placed deep underground in a secret, desolate, uninhabited location. The best precautions were taken as for no one, absolutely no one, could find it. Not even the most advanced X-rays, radars, and sonars could not locate it. At the time of its completion, messages were send world-wide about the thing. As expected, few came. Not many believed in it. And even fewer could pay for it. But some did come. They

A Day in the Life of a Cro-Magnon

2009-02-23T15:40:00.007-05:00

I am Sunra, son of Sunjaia, who has lived 56 seasons. My name, Sunra, means power of the sun. My tribe, the Jenamiru, has moved many places, and we now live in Wuidran, where we have been for less than a season. I am proudly one of the Jenamire hunters, and I have the honor of hunting alongside my father, the wise Sunjaia. The meat we provide is the main food of our people, besides the fruits, nuts, plants, and berries the women and children, who have the job of gathering, get. When the sun is still low in the sky, the hunters’ job begins. While we hunt, the women and children get the fire started and begin gathering. When we return, the food is prepared and all of Jenamire feasts. Our village is five huts placed side-by-side in a clearing, surrounded by trees, shrubs, and plants. One hut lies far away from all the others, and its wood is special, different from all the others. This is the hut of Roku, the wise shaman. He chased away the bad spirits and communicated with Nekia, god of all things. Each day in Wuidran brings something different, surprises. Some are good and some are bad. I was thinking of this and how my day would be when I woke up this particular morning. I awoke to the sun shining through the hut’s window. The sky was painted light blue, and the sun shined a feeble orange. I stretched and left my deerskin bed. I had much to think of, and was too eager to sleep anymore. My friend, Quintaru, was becoming a hunter today. Also, in two suns’ time, my tribe would visit a cave and paint a gigantic tapestry honoring Nekia on the wall. I walked outside. Not even the elders were awake. I smiled. Now I would have a chance to make the morning preparations alone. First, I sharpened the stone spears, set out the bows and arrows, loaded the spear-throwers, and prepared for our hunt. I laid the weapons out on the stone table in front of our hut. Next, I kneeled down before my wooden statue of Nekia which my father made for me. After offering the statue the offering, some mashed chestnut and sliced deer meat, which I lit on fire. I chanted my praise and thanks until the offering burned. I then bowed to the statue and left it in the hut. I had asked Nekia to ensure that our hunt would be successful, and I had a feeling he had agreed. Finally, I woke the other hunters. Father was most pleased that I had made the preparations. Our meal consisted of deer and fox meat, with a side of pears, washed down with some fresh, cold river water I had fetched. After the meal, the men got ready for the hunt. By the time we got to our favorite hunting grounds, the sun was well into the sky. These grounds were heavily wooded, allowing us to be able to sneak up on our prey. Oaks, maples and cedars towered everywhere, and thistles lay waiting to sting our bare feet. Also, it was very hilly, and hills are always an advantage in hunting. And it was heavily occupied with deer, rabbits, foxes, and other animals. But today was not a very lucky day, and an examination of our traps found that we had only caught a fox, a squirrel, and a few rabbits. However, the big game was still to come. Not long after venturing out, we saw a band of Neanderthal hunters. We knew that they had a cave not too far from here, and we stayed away. However, the Neanderthals signaled that they wanted us to come. One held out a very sharp spearhead. Our men gave inquisitive looks to each other. My father looked like he was deep in thought. It was not the sharpest spear point we had seen, but it was rather sharp. My father raised a finely crafted bow and two stone-tipped arrows. The Neanderthals looked at each other and nodded. The weapons shifted hands. The trade had not taken long, and had been accomplished without even speaking. The Neanderthal leader stared at us with a stone cold look and nodded. We turned around and walked away. Soon after, I saw a large deer dart in front of us. I told my father I would pursue it and he nodded. We all knew I was the swiftest hunter present. I swiftly, yet silently ran after the deer. After it paused to nibble on some clover, I raised my bow and arrow and fired. The deer fell to the ground. Quickly, I checked whether it was dead and, triumphantly, raised it onto my shoulders and headed back to where the group was. The men all looked sullenly at the ground. I asked them what was wrong. They told me that my father had walked into one of his own traps and was dead. I immediately knew which trap. He had dug a deep hole in the ground using a bone digging tool he borrowed from one of the hunters, Fegrani. He then put spikes and sharpened stones, bones and spear points at the bottom. Finishing it, he covered the top with leaves, twigs, and mosses. It was impossible to tell the ground had been disturbed there. It was so genius, even my father was tricked. I ran to the trap. Lying at the bottom was my father. The sharp spikes had pierced his skin, and he was obviously dieing. He looked up at me, muttered, “Sunra”, and was gone. A single tear fell from my eye. There was nothing left to do but take him home and give him a proper burial.

PS the rest of the story was written by a partner of mine, and I need his permission before publishing it. Thank you for your patience.

Non-Linear

2009-02-03T18:14:00.006-05:00

He was stuck in the murderous, mind-numbing, maddening cycle that could never end and would never end. He would age, he would lose age, he would cycle through his life again and again and again... it would never end. But the first time had changed him, nwo it was routine. Now it was inevitable. He was doomed never to die but to repeat his days. In that last scene, the last chapter, he found peace. He thought it was over. He found happiness in it. But no, it was worse than he ever imagined, more merciless than any punishment, making him plead on his knees for death. But no such luck occured. No mercy. He found no comfort. All the days were repetetive, boring, predictable. It drove men to the brink of madness, and plunged them into deppression, a deep, endless cycle which could not be stopped, pierced, halted or altered. Sure, he could change his actions, but what would that alter? What would that effect? Nothing. All actions were as meaningless and consequenceless as anything. What he did one day wouldn't remain. No, it had not happened. Only what had already happened to him in the past, the very first time that day had passed. What he did would not go down in history, not even happen. If he blew up the world, the world would still be there the next day. Nothing he did mattered; it had not happened. Only what occured on that first run through time happened, mattered or transpired in any way. How such misfortune had befallen upon him, he did not know. Pehaps this happened to the whole world. Each individual going into his own time loop. How did he know? He knew nothing besides what happened the first time he made his run through time and how he played out the following days. Right before death, when being pushed off the very bring of life, still hanging on but inevitably about to fall, then, it was then a reset button was pressed in the midst of some cruel, evil entity or perhaps it was time itself that had mannaged to fall apart. But anyhow it went, he was trapped in a time loop he could not escape. It would go on and on. Readers, I warn you now, do not even THINK of this as a joyful experience, one of immortality and your actions not having an effect on your life or the flow of time or anything for that matter. Humans are not immortal because they were not meant to be immortal. Immortality can, in a way, be much, much worse than death.

Evolution

2009-01-29T20:27:00.006-05:00

This story is not well-researched. Nor is it scientific. Nor is it realistic. It is not meant to be, is not and never will be. No, this story is not hypothetical or possible. This story is merely a story.

They endured. After countless famines, plagues, natural disasters, holocausts, nuclear wars and asteroids, they endured. They endured after floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, twisters, hurricanes, lightning storms and wildfires. They endured bombs and implosions, missiles and terrorism attacks. They endured cold periods, and periods of climate change. They endured the countless extinctions of animals. They endured the volcanic eruptions that spread dust in the atmosphere for months, the supernova creations that blinded hundreds and the economical crises that rocked the world. They were left unpanicked by the Y2K problem and couldn't care less about the 2006 tsunami. They paid no attention to the Tunguska Explosion and showed no interest in the discovery of water on Mars. They were feared, loathed and shunned. They were common pests. They were cockroaches.

The previous dominant, most intelligent species on the planet had died out, disappeared, gone extinct. The climate became cold. An Ice Age swept over the Earth. The cockroaches grew fur. Slowly by slowly, evolution took its course and cockroaches were furry. I mean really furry. Not just that tiny peach fuzz stuff on their antennae. Fur. And lots of it. At a slow rate, they evolved. They began to change and change. And one of those changes were growth. They grew several inches. Heck, they were big. But then, it happened. Toxic waste, sludge, mutative radioactive waste, all the bad things the predominant predecessors had left behind came. Lead and mercury poisoned the air. Some species died out. Others migrated. Others evolved. Such were the cockroaches. But the radiation, all the toxic waste had exposed them. The mutations began. Little by little, changes began. They were, at first, small, tiny, almost non-noticeable changes. But they grew. Cockroaches shaped and changed; bent and morphed. Millions of years later, they did not even resemble cockroaches. No intelligent beings were there to name them. A scientist or zoologist would have a fun time trying to find a scientific name, classify it merely. We shall call them cockonids. These cockonics were nothing like roaches any longer. Slowly, they developed into mammals. Of course, this took breeding, evolution, horrible deformities, mutations, cousinship and to say for true, the cockroaches themsleves did not becoem mammals. They had relatives they mated with, mutations beyond words that formed them and this took millions of years.

Name a Polygon!

2009-01-26T15:26:00.003-05:00

Ever buy a star to get it named after you? Or ever wish to? Well, shapes are cooler! Go to name-a-gon.blogspot.com to get a polygon named after yourself. Yeah, doesn't get much cooler than that.

Quote of the Day

2009-01-24T16:23:00.003-05:00

Sunday January 24, 2009

"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve." - Dr. Napoleon Hill

Word of the Week

2009-01-24T09:47:00.001-05:00

The word of the week:

antidisestablishmentarianism
n originally, opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England, now opposition to the belief that there should no longer be an official church in a country

special thanks to: http://www.dictionary.reference.com

Your Soul for a Compass

2009-01-17T20:02:00.008-05:00

To Hell and back... and we bring Sam back as a souvenir.

Normal men would not fight a fight where they were outnumbered 60 to 3. Normal men would not try to bargain with the Devil. Normal men would not trade their soul for a compass. Captain Longsword Darrow was not like normal men. Darrow commandeered a pirate ship, The Mary Read. A few months ago he had literally watched his first mate Sam be dragged into Hell. Now he was hell-bent on getting him back. His second mate, Isabel, was now filling in for same. She was to be one of the toughest women in the Caribbean. It was rumored that her cutlass, which had a pure red blade, hadn't been dyed by paint, as she claimed, but of blood. Not a single man dared look her in the eye, except for Captain Darrow, whose legendary sword had downed scores of men. His now-second-mate, Gareth, was a young man who could neither read not write, but could sink any frigate with one cannonball, could shoot a man 100 feet away with a pistol and was simply unbeatable with a sword. The rest of Darrow's crew was equally notorious. Besides the crew, there were others on the ship. William was a Royal Navy hostage they still hadn't collected ransom on. Ben was an old slave who made sure that all pistols, rifles and cannons were fully loaded at all times. His caveman-like face was often covered in ash or gunpowder. Skipper was a lad they had captured during a raid on the S.S. Swift which, despite the name, was not swift enough to escape the dreaded Mary Read. None of the crew had the heart to slay him... well, honestly they did, but decided to hostage him as well. Their attempts at ransoming were often fruitless. Sometimes they held hostages for weeks, but eventually had to kill them or throw them off the ship. The list of rejected hostages was quite long. Skipper and William were still nervous and hoped the Navy would be feeling generous the next time them and the Mary Read crossed paths. Johnson, the ship's cook, was just as good as fighting with knives as he was with preparing food with them. The crew had a meeting and all agreed they wanted Sam back, but none except Isabel and Darrow agreed to try and get him back. "Are you men cowards? Do you fear the Devil and all the evil of Hell?" Isabel shouted. Everyone went silent. "No person aboard the Mary Read shall fear anything! So either stop being sissies or jump off. I hear it's only a couple hundred miles to the nearest port. But it'll take a good swimmer to get past this stormy sea. Not to mention the sharks. So? Anyone?" No one spoke up. "Okay, allow me to explain my plan. It's rather simple, really." Darrow announced. "We go to Hell and back... and we bring Sam back as a souvenir."