I find myself in a very hot, black, pool of liquid. Sweating, slowly melting to the intense heat. Suddenly I see a branch land in the liquid pool next to me and my world begins to spin. Faster and faster I swirl about, desperately trying to grasp the branch to pull myself out of this personal hell. Despite my best efforts though I begin to sweat even more profusely and am getting to the point where anxiety and my decreasing energy are overtaking me and causing me to slowly drown. I swim harder and faster towards the branch and am finally able to get a tiny grasp on it, still succumbing faster and faster to the black pool of darkness that I am trapped within. The spinning becomes even quicker though and I lose my grip and float out to the side of the pool, which seems to be bordered by an impenetrable wall of ceramic. I try to cling to it, but it is too smooth and I flounder about losing the last of my strength and succumb to the whirlpool that has taken me. I start to become one with the liquid and watch as the last of me dissolves into it, fizzing the area around me. As I drown I remain conscious, but take on a new existence. I witness the branch leaving the pool, forced out by the powerful swirling of the whirlpool and hope for stillness soon. All starts to quiet slowly and eventually steadies and I welcome the ending of the storm and take in my new presence. It appears that I am now more than I was before and I seem to encompass all of the darkened, hot, pool of liquid that I once loathed. I bathe within with joy upon me and fret no longer for my future, for this new world seems full of all sorts of new adventures for me to undertake. But just as things go all quiet and I calm down from my fleeting rush from before, the ground begins to shake and things around me are moving again. I seem to be heading towards the sky, and not fearing the embrace of heaven I welcome it. Then my world begins to tilt and I see that I am not heading towards heaven, or at least the heaven that I am aware of, but instead am heading towards a small cavern that enlarges more the closer I approach it. My world tilts at an unnatural angle and I begin to slide towards the cavern opening. I cling for life as best as I can to my prison, but am unable to get a hold and am consumed by the cavernous maw. My existence changes again as I slide down a reddish, humid tunnel, and feel like I am starting to slowly lose consciousness. Through a long trek of what seemed to be endless tunnels, I finally land into a pit of what feels like acid and begin to break up even faster. My life slowly fades and I remember the good times before I encountered this hell of mine. Slower and slower I fade away until finally I give in and embrace my destiny. My life was short but it was a good life and I take the memories with me as the internal, immortal rest that takes all at some point snatches me and I go without a fight, uttering no words of remorse.
Insomnia Insanity
He tossed and turned for several hours in bed staring at the alarm clock each time he shifted to his right side. He sighed, it was only 3:30 a.m. and didn’t feel the least bit tired after only an hour of sleep, and he was even more thankful that he didn’t have to be in at work till 2:30 p.m. that afternoon. After tossing and turning for another half hour though he mentally threw in the towel and got up to check out the internet and listen to some music in hopes of eventual grogginess setting in.
He took his coffee that had been chilling in the fridge out and took a swig, jesus it was horribly mediocre compared to the stuff he usually drank, but he still had to wait a few days for his next shipment of fair trade coffee to come in. He finished the coffee though, complete with an unsatisfied smirk on his face. He slowly left the kitchen and noticed one of his cats, Oreo Gig, looking at him with the usual expression of expecting food and getting ready to protest if he came up short with said expectation, he just merely stuck his tongue out at her, gave her a quick but nice head scratch, which prompted the usual response that sounded like a low purr and meow combined into one, and went on his way to sitting down at the computer and taking a gander and firing up some music.
Sometimes he just hated his computer, it took forever for iTunes to fire up, but once it finally did he felt that The Decemberists were in order, so he queued up their playlist, their complete playlist, Leslie Anne Levine to Bandit Queen goodness. At that moment his other cat, Gus B., decided to jump on the kitchen counter, he was promptly met with several streams of water shooting into his face and general head area, which promptly made him jump down and run away shaking his head free of the moisture.
Not much of anything exciting happened for several minutes, then suddenly there was a lite knock on the door. Curious as to who in the hell would be calling at this time in the morning he got up and answered it, and was taken aback by what he saw, for a raccoon was gracing his presence right outside the threshold. The raccoon promptly bowed and began to ask for forgiveness of calling at such an early hour and wanted to know if he was interested in buying some nuts. He curtly told the raccoon no and then slammed the door in his face half expecting his roommate to wake up and wonder what was going on, there was no sound from the roommate.
Shaking his head he strolled back to his computer and began to read some articles online, one about the problems of criminalizing drugs, any drug, another about Connecticut allowing same sex marriages, yet another about the protests going on across the country over the passing of Prop 8, and he was pleased that this was slowly evolving into a nationwide matter. But just then his internet stupor was interrupted by Oreo Gig opening up the pantry door and Gus B. promptly following her in, so he did his usual ritual of shouting “Hey!”, clapping his hands and heading towards the pantry door, which prompted Oreo Gig’s usual response of running out of the pantry as quickly as possible and him having to retrieve Gus B. from his perch on top of the washer.
After the shenanigans of his two cats was over, he sat back down to fall into the internet again when his phone rang suddenly. “What the fuck!” he exclaimed, and answered it, but all he could hear was the theme from Close Encounters of the third Kind playing very loudly in the background, in which his answer was simple and the call was promptly disconnected. But then his phone rang again, and when he furiously answered he was met with a computer-like voice asking if he knew someone named Dave, and wondering if he had dreamed lately, and this met with an even quicker response of the call being disconnected followed by the phone itself taking flight and shattering against a nearby wall. He sat there for a moment looking at the remains of his cell phone and just responded with an apathetic shrug. Back to the internet he must flee!
Hours passed and he began to get angry over everything, couldn’t focus on reading the articles that had held his interest for so long and was about to have chinese food made out of fresh cat due to the continued shenanigans of his two feline friends which only added to his frustration. Another one of his cell phones started going off, an alarm he had yet to deactivate, that cell phone met a timely death as well. Another knock on the door, he ignored it, his roommate shouting at the top of his lungs, which scared the shit out of him, turned out to only be him talking in his sleep, more phones ringing, this time from his roommate’s cell and another unknown source. His roommate’s cell met with certain death, hammer style, and the one coming from an unknown source just added to his insanity. The cats finally pushed his last button and they found themselves closed off in the bathroom when suddenly the WB frog came crashing through the sliding glass door and began singing and dancing, the door shot open and an army of raccoons and squirrels filled the apartment up, followed by a rabbit proclaiming that he was late for something. The madness swept him up and caused his mind to somersault, and then all he could do was scream, a long, throaty, scream.
He came to a start and noticed he was sweating, but realized that he was still in bed tossing and turning for what seemed to be several hours now. He turned onto his right side and looked at the alarm clock, it was 3:30 a.m., and his eyes never left that alarm clock.
Darksun
Seeing a few hits for searches about Darksun come across. If you are looking for my old Darksun material I regret that I will probably not be posting any of it to this website since I want to start my writing anew, plus I hve lost my taste for writing about it some. You can still find my old works on my blogger site, but whether or not I write any new Darksun material here remains to be seen.
I have toyed with continuing to write Rajaat’s story of his past and linking that up with a story about his future after the Age of Heroes, as well as Athas’s future and then move on into what I had planned for Darksun stories based on Athas’s far future, but I’ve just got too much on my plate right now and too many other ideas distracting me that I just can’t find the focus needed to go back to those stories, but maybe someday soon I will start writing about Athas again.
Until then, please enjoy what I have to offer these days and give me as much feedback as you can muster. I’ve got a school break coming up soon and have some new pieces I would like to share, so bare with me and new material should present itself soon.
For now, please keep reading and I thank you for you continued support.
A new day brings new ideas…
Well it looks like Janus’s Mirror is getting some hits, I just wish the amount of comments would increase in the same vein as the views. Regardless I plan on revising the story and expanding upon it based on the four great reviews I have received so far on it (two here and two off of zoetrope), but expect this to be an oddity. I’d just rather not go back and revise everything I write here, I’d rather make the mistake, learn from it and try not to repeat it in the next piece. I however from time to time will hold on to one I really like and try to make it close to perfect as possible, and I think that is the best way of going about this.
It’s really hard to keep some containment on ideas since I started free writing a page or more a day to loosen up, I’ve got at least three more ideas I would like to start working on as soon as I can, as well as some expansion material to get the prologue of ONUG (One Nation Under God) written out. first things are first though, I’ve got a deadline to make, and it’s approaching fast and I don’t want to hand off the short story I am currently working on to my proofreaders at the last minute. So, don’t expect too much new material for this week or the next, I want to get Tree Boy (tentative name) hammered out and sent off for review before time starts catching up with me, sounds like some all-nighters are going to have to be pulled.
Anyways, I hope you are enjoying what is on here so far, feel free to leave as many constructive comments as you like, and don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of more ideas to post, just bare with me and I’ll get a few more new entries out once I get a thing or two off my plate.
Thanks for the support.
A Dream
I lay in bed, in a half coma and am whisked away to a world I know not is mine, only similar. A person I know from elsewhere is sitting across from me in a comfortable chair. She should not be here for she does not exist in this reality, only the other, nevertheless I ask her what is wrong because she seems frustrated. She immediately sits up and floods me with information, things that make sense, but should not be pertaining to her, and soon what she is saying becomes a jumble of words I no longer understand, so I just nod every once in awhile until she finally stops. I then try my best to offer some suggestions, but she does not seem to understand and looks at me puzzled. I get off the couch, which used to be a bed in my reality and walk closer to her, she continues to look at me questioningly, so I reach out to touch her and she fades as my hand goes through her cheek.
The room starts to shift out of control and I break into a panic and look for an exit, see a door on the other side of the room and run to it, stumbling as I go. I reach the door, turn the knob and open it, and as I do a bright light shines through the cracks of the door as it opens, allowing more bright light to enter until the entire doorway and myself standing in front of it is consumed. I walk into the light hoping it takes me to a better place and instead find myself in yet another room, one that is almost a mirror of the one before. I find the same couch and lay down on it and sigh, attempt to get into a comfortable position and close my eyes, hoping like hell that I will wake up in my bed again.
When I finally do awake, it feels like I have been asleep forever, and I do wake up in my own bed, but the room is totally unrecognizable, so I get up and take a look around, leaving the room, and I don’t recognize a damn thing. I’m somewhere else entirely, lost in a haze of mirror images that aren’t quite in sync. I finally find the door to outside and there is no bright light, just darkness. Taking a breath I walk into the darkness and close the door behind me, hoping beyond hope that one way or another I really wake up and forget this person hell.
One Nation Under God – Introduction
“Eisenhower’s mistake became the beginning of their revolution. Once we became “One Nation Under God” the dawn of non-thinkers arrived and stole upon our brains like zombies from a bad 1980’s horror flick.” — James Hargrove; member and officer of the United Free Thinkers of America Association (UFTAA)
America, the land of the free, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”, but we are not that any more, not since the Fundamentalist Christian Coalition (FCC) and the Freedom Fighters of Christ (FFC) joined forces, gained power in Congress, got a fundie sympathetic elected as president, outlawed the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), passed the Christian Fundamentalist Act of 2015 and turned her into a literal theocracy almost overnight. But, there was a buildup over the decades, slowly and silently, then we finally caught on and by then it was too late. Somehow, when the true history I hope goes down in the books, we will then realize just how a very small, yet vocal, minority group within our nation took over and tossed out the majority like an old pair of comfortable, but well-worn shoes. But that’s us Americans for you, our short-term memory never evolves into our long-term memory and we forget important shit like that till it comes beating down our door.
All was not lost at one point though, for we had a guy in the election of 2008, the “man of change”, and he was the beginning of our turning point. He could talk to anyone and win quite a bit of them over to our side. Unfortunately the Georgia-Russia escalation started re-opening old Cold War wounds and the media frenzy and fear followed, causing our winner-take-all system to fail us again. Because of this failure, our guy, the “man of change” won popular vote, but the “Maverick™” won the electoral vote. Four more years of neo-con kissing the ass of the evangelical-right control followed, “god” help us.
Things just spiraled out of control from there as we became One Nation Under God…
Hello Neighbor
Hello neighbor. How are you? I’m fine thanks. I’m just encircling you as I always do, though during the day you can’t usually see me. During the night however, depending on the time of the month I may be anything from a sliver, to a full and bright ace, beaming at you with delight, and even on some days that face is still there, beaming at you with delight but my shadow covers it up. I must say that I really like you, we’ve been friends for quite awhile and will continue to be so for a long, long time, but one day, when we are both much older, I might just stop encircling you and collide with your most perfect blue and green face, though I imagine it won’t be so perfect then, and all the things that you love won’t be as bountiful on it as they are now. If they are, then I feel sorry for them and apologize in advance, because I wish no harm, these things just happen when things grow old. But you and I are still relatively young and I that’s a blessing, because I wouldn’t know what to do without you, my earth, just as you wouldn’t know what to do without me, your moon.
The Flood Gates are Open
So I’ve been busy working on some other ideas for my writing, which explains the lack of recent updates.
I’m sill working on Mr. Pickles and haven’t given up on it, I just need a short break from it and get some other things written that I can submit immediately out to some writers contests and for some scholarship submissions.
I am currently working on a short story that will be no more than 5k words in length and is tentatively named Tree Boy. I can’t say much more than that as of right now since I am trying to submit it to the All-Story Short Fiction Contest that Zoetrope has every year. I have also submitted Janus’s Mirror to Zoetrope and am also trying to do some reviews for them so I can unlock the reviews I will receive for that short piece.
I also have an idea for an online novel that I have already started pre-writing on and will be posting the prologue in a few weeks once I get Tree Boy completed. I’m also working on a graphic novel idea that I need to get a treatment done for so I can start looking for an artist that fits the vision I have for it and maybe get some collaborative work going.
I’ve got a ten-day break coming up between quarters again and that should give me ample time to get some material up on the site and to clean up any other works I am still on. so be patient and bare with me and you should start to see more material soon.
As far as general details with the site, I just upgraded to Wordpress 2.6.1 and some of the plugins. I’m going to disable the GD-Star Rating System plugin for right now until I can figure out how the one that comes with wordpress works. Until then just keep the comments coming and I will go off of that. I think I would have actual constructive criticism comments about my works than just nameless visitors just rating the material, despite the fact that both give me some sort of feedback, I just really prefer the former.
Alright, back to writing for me, but you can definitely expect some more samples posted to the site within the next week or two.
Thanks for reading!
Janus’s Mirror
(Author’s Note: This is based off of the Japanese folk tale The Mirror of Matsuyama, which I then modified some, modernized, and added my own twist to.)
In the secluded, rural parts of southern Indiana lived a happily married, but poor couple, a provider, and a caretaker, who had only bore one child together, the most precious and beautiful daughter anyone could wish for. One day the provider of the family had to leave for the city of Indianapolis in hopes to sell some of the new craft they had finished, making a promise to the dutiful caretaker that gifts would be brought back to honor them in ways that they had never dreamed of, and that their precious daughter would only receive her gift, that she would immensely enjoy, if she behaved in the way that only a proper daughter could behave during one of her guardian’s leave of absence. Upon acceptance from both, the provider left for the great city and would return days later.
Upon the provider’s return and hearing of the status report from the wife, gifts were presented to both. The daughter received a box of baked goods from some local bakeries in downtown Indianapolis, along with another box of chocolates from the South Bend Chocolate Co., which had the best chocolates in town. The caretaker on the other hand received a brand new mirror of intricate design that the provider had found at one of the local Wicca gift shops. The provider instructed the caretaker of the so-called powers of this mirror and asked to treat it as if taking care of their precious daughter, since it would be the provider’s one and only gift for a long while.
The caretaker loved the darling little mirror that the provider had given as a gift and took care of it as if it were another child of their’s. Looking upon its polished surface, it never dulled, and always reflected back the smiling, beautiful, and caring visage of the caretaker. Each time it was put up it was wrapped in soft velvet in order to protect its surface and to always keep it looking new.
One day however, the caretaker began to have headaches and would frequently look in the mirror to look upon the visage that gave comfort, because it never changed, because no matter how the caretaker looked, the mirror visage was always the same as the first day it was received. The visage of the caretaker was always smiling, beautiful, and caring within the mirror, no matter what it looked like without.
The day finally came where the caretaker passed on, and the provider and daughter fell into a long period of grieving, and the daughter had been given the mirror as a gift to remember the caretaker. Months passed until the grieving left, at least for the provider; for a new caretaker had been stumbled upon, and they had married not long after.
The new caretaker resembled much of the first one, but always looked pristine and never realistic, and because of this the daughter thought of the caretaker as false and never accepted the change while also longing for the old caretaker. Also because of this, the daughter was always treated harshly for her attitudes towards the new caretaker instead of treated with sympathy, which only added on to the conflict between the two.
The daughter would look into the little mirror many times a day, usually to the frustration of the new caretaker, and she would do so because she only saw the reflection of the original caretaker and couldn’t resist the addiction that staring upon it so many times brought on.
Finally, the new caretaker had had enough and cornered the weeping and scared daughter when she refused to hand over the mirror. The new caretaker was able to wrench the mirror out of the child’s hands and finally took a look at the visage within the mirror.
Horror crept upon the caretaker’s face as the visage that stared back was not the visage of the present, but of the past, when the caretaker was more loving, and sacrificed less of the quality time they once shared in order to become lost in the mirror’s reflection.
The caretaker released an unearthly growl from the depths of the soul and launched the mirror into the nearest wall, shattering it. Finally pleased, the caretaker left the room to a very distraught daughter weeping in the corner.
The daughter slowly crawled to the ruins of the mirror and saw nothing being reflected back in the shattered glass. Her loving caretaker, one of her beloved guardians, who she thought she once knew, was gone forever, and nothing was left to remind them of what the caretaker once was.
