News

I am not writing now to tell you a story. Not in the traditional sense. I am writing right now, at 1 AM, to talk to you about the News.

What we have now masquerades as the News; it is not, indeed, the News. Newspapers have become that in name only, and have been that for quite some time. They are controlled by advertisements and sponsorships because, in this age of information, they cannot continue in print based on their content alone. Newspapers are now on their last legs. Investigative journalism is dead. In this age of information, you might wonder why something so information-intensive is not only rare, but mostly extinct.

Investigative journalism does not pay, for one. There was a time where you could make money as a real journalist and it would be a Suitable Career. Now, traditionally, journalists go, watch their particular story unfold maybe in person or get responses from 'witnesses', and then feed this to their editor, who eats it wholesale and regurgitates it so that it is neither over-offensive or over-stimulating. The major 'News' outlets employ people to then find these stories written by other people, eat them, regurgitate them into the open mouths of their editors, who then regurgitate it into print after running it by the resident fact checkers. These fact checkers have no real way to verify the Truth other than using regulated Federal resources to verify identity and the relative accuracy of time and date.

Investigative journalism is dismissed as too tedious and inefficient. A good News story gets the same amount of attention and entertainment value, typically, as a well-forged or 'covered' 'News' story. We are fed recycled yammering about hardly even news-worthy 'News', daily. Go do a search for any 'News' story on our good friend Google. Look for a source that is NOT derived. Now look at the next story. Do any of these actually have a reporter describing personally what happened? Is the reporter detailed?

The answers to those questions, most likely, are all 'No'. The reason is simple. The Business Model does not incorporate the News. The Business Model does not incorporate the Truth.

However, there is a dichotomy here. As I am American, I must speak from an American point of view. We Americans believe we know what is what when it comes to the News. But most Americans watch or read 'the News'. The older generation tends towards watching and reading via the idiot box and the newspapers I mentioned earlier. The older generation also tend towards taking things at face-value. The newer generation typically tends towards watching and reading their 'News' via websites; the irony being that, other than time restraints, they are getting the same regurgitation. Both generations watch/read it because it is entertaining. They watch/read it because it tells them what they want to hear, or alternatively, because it thrills them with what they don't want to hear. It tells them about things that are included in the Plan.

The Plan goes like this. Bad shit happens in the world, crazyfucks live next door, people will knife you in your neighborhood, people are poor in certain areas, and in general shit is shit. We learn that thousands are dying in other countries, and it is okay to us because it is part of the Plan. We learn that fifteen Caucasian males die in the county next to ours? Aw shit naw.

But either way, it is still part of the Plan. Shit happens. Death happens. We have become dull to all of this. Investigative journalism from recognized 'News' sources no longer matters because even if it were economically viable, the American public is too goddamned over-saturated with information to take anything from these outlets any more seriously than we take reading about the Inquisition in history. We have to actually actively get worried about these things. We have to be Championing a Cause to have any kind of opinion on a 'News' story.

So we have talked about the Impostors. We have delineated that great mass of corporate sponsorship, regurgitated laziness, and general apathy.

Here's where it gets weird.

The News is still out there. I realize it is silly to say this, but the Internet is Serious Business. I have shown you how it can feed us 'the News'. Now, if you are reading this, you probably have a Twitter account. You can sympathize when I say that Twitter skips the editing, regurgitation process. It also helps to recognize when people are regurgitating. They either link, or the RT. Blogs risk 'the News', but when you give someone a limit of 140 characters to explain what happened, their opinion on it, and why you should care, they get pretty fucking close to the Truth. They have no time for regurgitation or bullshit.

Now, this is not to say it is impossible to still regurgitate, but the incidence of both low-likelihood of regurgitation and no lucrative money-making mechanism (using only Twitter, at least) makes it much less likely than you would find in blogs, or 'the News' outlets themselves. The fact that 'the News' outlets have Twitter accounts should show you just how little they actually report if you read them. They're regurgitating reports from all the little people.

With tools like Twitter, Friendfeed, what have you, we little people are the real News source now. We have always been, but it wasn't possible to actually facilitate it until now. We shouldn't have to listen to 'the News'. We don't have to. If we all become original reporters, we won't deal with 'the News' except for entertainment and maybe summary. Investigative journalism might be dead, but with this it will only be dead in body. Its spirit lives on in every cellphone video of a police line, every uploaded twitpic of a bloodied face, a shocked expression, a roaring crowd. It will live on in us all.

And maybe, just maybe, we'll get to the Truth.

Screaming Dry

There is nothing more enjoyable than feeling my voice fail me. That feeling of grinding, throaty, guttural excellence-- that sound of exhaustion beyond simple over-exercise and bordering on the self-destructive-- that is what I live for. It's why I like going to concerts. I would have a brilliant but short-lived life as a musician. One can only hope that I'd burn brighter than the flame of Prometheus himself. I want to do something worth getting my liver eaten out by a large, ornery bird every day for the rest of eternity.

Ah, Raist. How well I knew ye.

The sound of screaming you hear at concerts is amazing. It's pure adrenaline, and perhaps one of the best highs you can get. It's the mass of people around you, the heartbeat of music and unity and crazed idiotic fury. You feel it in your chest (most likely because, unless you're one of those shoegaze bastards, you're screaming too) and you hear it later and you pay for it. That's what I like most about it. It's not substance abuse, it's not the thrill of danger. It's not dishonest. It's just the pure, primal kind of fun you can find usually only in forgotten jungle dens and rugby matches.

In an abandoned barn out in typical Bumfuck Egypt territory, where the band had just set up after fighting over what to name themselves a few minutes before the gig itself, I found myself amongst a seething crowd of voices. For some reason, I knew we'd all heard the bands songs. Turns out, I was right. We knew 'em by heart, maybe because they had lyrics that existed on some level in us all... or maybe because each one of us had been listening to them on repeat for months ever since the concert had been announced.

I use the term 'We', even though I knew next to no-one at the concert, because that's what it is to be one of the audience.

When the frontman came out (a position which seemed to change in this band dependent on who had the cockiest swagger and most rakish grin at the moment) and announced that they had decided on a name, we all screamed our throats raw just to see him there. It didn't matter that the sounds of instruments at the time were just tuning up-- to us, it was the sound of the most beautiful, amazing chords we had heard until that very moment.

The first real notes of the concert rang in the air like shooting stars in a meteor shower. We all began to sing along, some of us actually following the lyrics and others just screaming out nonsense sounds. It was like we had been given voices just for this moment, to scream out every single syllable of these songs. The thing of this whole experience was that the quality of the actual music... I can't even remember it. It was the kind of music where the actual songs didn't matter. It was screaming music. It was sore-voice, dry-mouth, aching-limbs, writhing-crowd music. It was hardly music at all. It was the very definition of music, to me.

There was this lull in the sound-wall around me; I felt like a wave of pure living force was crashing in on me... and then the current swaggiest band member came forward and took up the main mic. It was the lead singer, or so it seemed (another aspect of this band, which by now seemed to work as a meritocracy: the lead singer was whoever was singing like the loudest motherfucker there) and, probably due to his hazardous occupation, had quite a craggy voice.

"How are you guys doin'?" He asked, to a chorus of cheers, catcalls, and applause.

"Thank you. Well, I should be straight with you about something; I am sick." He said, to a chorus of cooing and 'aww's.

"My doctor would have had me cancel the show!" He said, to a chorus of hisses and boos.

"I know, and you're really supposed to, when you're a singer, not go up to a show and sing sick." He said.

"We love you!" An adventurous young audience member yelled.

"And I love you too, that's why I'm here. Even though, your voice doctors when you're a musician, they will ride you about it. Y'know, about how you'll ruin your voice for the rest of your life..."

"They're lying!" Replied the adventurous young audience member.

"No, they're not lying." He said. "I've talked to the some singers at the doctor's office who... y'know, fucked up? They're not there to fix their voice... they're there to stop the daily pain."

He let this hang in the air for a bit.

"So, I decided, since you can probably hear that there's not a lot of voice left... We could try an experiment... I need an honest show of hands."

Some dick up in front raised up two hands for seemingly no reason. The singer looked at him sidelong.

"No, see, no. That's a dishonest show of hands. But..." He winked at the crowd. "I used to like guys like that in class. Anyway, so. How many of you know our third song on the set list by heart?"

A sonic wall blasted the stage.

"So, I need volunteers then. How many of you know all the lyrics?" He asked.

Once again, sonic blast.

"Alright, how many of you just know the chorus?"

Silence.

"So, it's all or nothing, then?"

Screams.

"Alright, I wanna do it, I don't give a shit. I'll cue you guys with the first line, and you guys jump in..."

And with that, he began to play.

And then he stopped, cocking his head up towards a shaft of moonlight (which was streaming in through the roof of the barn) for a moment in thought.

"Especially you guys who were yelling that you knew the lyrics. If I don't see you guys out there singing like motherfuckers, I will drag my sick ass out there... and beat ass."

And he returned to playing.

And we sang.

It was perfect.

I woke up later sunken into a couch, situated nicely across from the pitchblack of the glass doorway to the livingroom of my friend's rich stepdad's house. Headphones were whispering to me in the dead of that twilight, replaying the concert in studio-quality. I felt myself sink back into that couch, but, as I drifted off, all my mind could concentrate on was the pure numbness of my throat. This revelation was like the elation of realizing you don't have to go to school tomorrow as a kid; I felt the relief of being able to wallow in the perceived sickness caused by strep throat and a momentary fever.

Finally, I re-awoke, sore and exhausted, to the careful creeping of the sun on my face. This time, my throat was not merely numb. I discovered, upon attempting to communicate to my friend the need for immediate caffeine-based substance-abuse, that I could not even whisper. I resigned myself to guttural noises and vulgar gestures, which seemed to be more efficient anyway. In fact, I think I made more friends that way than I have in all my time of verbal communication. It's hard not to become buddy-buddy with someone that you are trying to impromptu-charades into following your requests; it's similarly easy to become enemies through the same venue.

(I think I will shock the whole fucking world with the following statement.)

I digress...

Screaming until your throat is dry and red and raw is something that touches the core human in all of us. It is built into our bodies to release the exact chemicals to make us get excited over pretty much anything we're doing at the time. It has been proven in medical studies to be extremely effective in relieving stress.

It's the spicy food of communication. It's the feeling of pain coming from one testing their own limits in a natural, peaceful, but still thrilling way. It's the natural extension of the whole 'tantrum' thing that children usually do, which puts a whole new perspective on tantrums in general.

Are they mini-raves? That might have a connection to the whole 'pacifier' thing that ravers seem to enjoy having as apparel. Perhaps I shall do research into this.

In the end, pretty much everyone wishes that they could just unleash their own pent-up nervous energy once and while; they wish they could just be idioticly, intensely, and undeniably alive. Letting your voice fail you at the end of one drawn-out death-rattle of a scream essentially speaks honestly and fairly to the primal aspect of life, and that is something rare and magnificent for this day and age.

It's important to realize we're still human, even if we're transhumanist.

It's important to let yourself scream.

It's also fun as hell.

Fireworks

I watched as they bloomed in the distant dark, bright and stark against the felt canvas of the soft underbelly of the heavens, seeming to me like harpoons thrown from a terrestrial Ahab to the celestial White Whale. They pierced the sky, dripping shining jewels of divine blood to the ground, where perhaps the crimson might catch aflame amongst the brush and flora of the countryside and later show up on millions of screens in bars, living rooms, and bedrooms worldwide, scintillating like the stars themselves in the eyes of viewer-legions.

You must understand the almost impossible sound of the word 'Fireworks' first to understand how I felt as I watched this; it sounds like something Nero might have said when he was looking for a really good way to fuck over Rome, had he been English and rather short with his statements. Perhaps it’s the phrase that sighed softly from the lips of some inquisitors trying to discover a way that they might truly deal with witchcraft and the wretched bodies left behind after the dealing-with. Maybe it’s the mantra of mankind—maybe it’s the one phrase that kept our pitiful little ‘civilization’ going in all times of hardship—and maybe, just maybe it’s the phrase that answered that great proclamation of Ozymandias.

“Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”

“…fire works.”

Now, I understand the true etymology of the word and I could definitely give you a rather invigorating lecture on the origin and real meaning of it all, but whenever I hear it I must admit that it seems the fictional origin fits far better than the factual one. Gonzo-etymology, if you will. It’s an emerging field, but as we continue to evolve our vocabulary I’m sure that it’ll grow. Or perhaps it’s just that more and more people will claim to be a part of it—most of us may as well be.

Fire works.

So I watched as these fires worked within the bright blazes in the sky and couldn’t help but feel fascinated, sitting on the roof of the dockside house that serves as my sometime-home. I always like to pretend that this kind of Fourth of July display is really just a belated celebration of my birthday. It makes the darkness seem a little cozier.

Anyway, so, I watched this light, deluding myself happily and rocking softly with the waves and wind and mulling over the sheer bloody-mindedness of mankind, when something pierced my reverie. I felt the first drops of rain. All of a sudden it occurred to me that the first kinds of fireworks (or, really, the vaguer ‘pyrotechnics’) were made by the Chinese for the specific of use of just being fucking loud and annoying, but not for blasting the shit out of anything other than air. It also occurred to me that the raindrops perhaps were portentous of more things than the strange ways of Asians, but I felt compelled to stay on the roof. Something about the convergence of these disparate elements with the history of ‘boomfuckboom’ drew me into a trance.

I ended up soaked atop a rocking, wooden thing which one would suspect is not entirely within safety regulations if it is unable to withstand a little wave and stormy weather without turning into a fucking mechanical bull with a proclivity for making its inhabitants think that the end is very well fucking nigh. I could barely think; I saw the firmament turn into a holocaust above me while the foundation quaked below. My mind was buffeted on the wind, perhaps even made into a buffet for the consumption of the sluagh sídhe that were following the ebbs of life that night. For all the thoughts of death that must have been caught on the wind that night, most likely my little home-away-from-home was a centerpiece.

Drenched as I was, I was laughing loud as a young child wrapped in several layers of water-heavy outerwear that he was given by his grandmother and told rather specifically not to get soaked to the bone in and gripping the bow of a bucking boat as he sails for the first time. The world was dying in pieces around me like an old story I felt like I had read before but could only vaguely remember. All I knew was this: This was a tale that rang true. Yggdrasil was aflame; an ashtree was made ash; my thin voice was washed out to sea by the waves of wind and rain, perhaps to wash ashore a foreign land in a tiny bottle; it was the final exclamation mark to my consciousness.

I awoke to the sound of seagulls reenacting the Civil War over their slave-fish near the dock. Their lieutenants and cavalry marshaled as I came to conscious with an ache in my back but a surprisingly clear mind. Sea air does that for the mind; there’s nothing like high-tide-smell’s ability to make you snap to attention (mainly so that you can find a way to stop smelling it) and sober-up over post-Apocalypse intoxication. I ignored the battling crabfantrymen and found my way off the roof. I picked a careful path down among the myriad storm-debris and went to look over the damage that must have been caused to the mechanical bull I called my abode.

Nothing.

Nothing was disturbed at all.

Not one fucking thing.

I had just spent most of my night expecting the world to be all dust, rust, and apocalyptic, mutant crab-people and all, and I find this rocking deathtrap perfectly pristine.

It was at this time that I discovered that it was indeed entirely possible for inanimate objects to be motherfuckers.

I stomped through the house, making goddamned sure to be loud as fuck in case the other inhabitants had somehow managed to stay just as pristine as the house itself. I decided I would ignore it for the moment. I went to the dock and began the long, arduous process of checking all of the crab traps. I’ll remove the suspense for you: This was a mistake.

You see, when a storm comes by, you’ll find that interesting things usually come up in high tide the next day. High tide is normally interesting, but storms seem to bring in the weirdest abominations of sea life that you can imagine.

Now, to properly prepare you for what I am about to describe, I must first describe crabs themselves. They are evil creatures made of pure malice. They hate fish, they hate birds, they hate other crabs, and, most of all, they hate you. They are not nice. They will kill each other for fun. There’s an old adage among crabtrappers. Never have only one crab in a bucket. If you have one crab in a bucket, it’s possible that it could escape. If, however, you have two crabs in a bucket, you don’t have to worry about them escaping because one will always grab the other fucker and yank him back down if it seems like he has a chance of making a break for it. They hate. That is their purpose. There is a reason for the word “crabby” having the connotations that it does.

You can imagine properly now that I was a bit surprised and concerned to discover the somewhat cumbersome weight holding down the other end of one of my crab traps was a veritable clusterfuck of all the ugliest, meanest, and largest crabs to ever glare menacingly at an unlucky sop like me. You, perhaps, cannot imagine what possessed me to haul this crabby fucking doom onto the dock. I can’t. Neither can I imagine what made me think it was a good idea to place this boiling pot of pinchfuckclawkill directly in-between me and dry land.

What followed is something I will keep between me, whatever deity governs the evil hive consciousness of all clawed, seaborn arachnids, and perhaps whichever seagull was laughing its ass off as my ankles became the target of about fifteen different sets of claws.

So I returned to the house with my haul, or what was left of it after I had beaten most of it into bait or off the dock, and found something peculiar about the shape of the windows on the upperdeck of the house. Some of the debris had fallen in an interesting and particular manner which changed the overall façade of the house itself.

I swear on the graves of several different crabs which I would never want to haunt me after what I did to them if I could help it, this house was fucking grinning at me.

And as I stood there, agog at the simple existential horror of knowing the house that you just rode on through Apocalypse into crabby hell is grinning at you, I seemed to have forgotten that old adage of never having a crab alone in a bucket. A sharp pain stabbed into my right hand and I made rather unmanly noises. The little bugger had crawled up sideways on the side of the bucket, reached up with one big fucking claw, and dug said appendage into the thick part of my hand between my forefinger and my thumb.

Once again, this next section of my memory is between me and one apparently very vengeful god.

So I found myself with a bandaged hand, staring at a dazed crab, several of its evil brethren crawling around in a bucket, and a grinning house. I was wondering what exactly I should do to get proper justice for the wrongs done to my person.

Then, it dawned on me.

Fire works.

Stories Inside

These stories are in my head.

They don’t come out normally. They don’t say hi unless they have to, they don’t have proper manners outside of tribal feasts, and they only present themselves at the most inappropriate times and in the most inappropriate situations.

They dress themselves.

The only time that I can get them to show themselves to someone other than my feeble psyche is that strange, awkward time between 3:15 and 3:32, when you begin to think that once you’re free you really will be able to see your wishes come true at 3:33 on the dot and the fact that it’s half-evil only means it’s double good. The number of the Beast follows strange rules at this time, becoming more a symbol of luck and potential rather than danger, edginess, or even material effectiveness. It’s a symbol, that’s all it is, but it has power all the same when you’re half-drunk on caffeine, sensory overload, and that strange feeling that the words on the screen of your computer monitor, notebook paper, or particular Men’s bathroom stall are moving independently and fleeing from your fingers/pen/pencil/blood-soaked bone-tool decidedly towards either periphery of your bleary vision.

So the stories are pretty picky, to say the least. But I’ve decided to force them. I’m showing you. That’s the writer’s work. Perhaps they’ll lose their magic when they find themselves out in the terrible world, exposed to the critical eye and the existence of both Hershey Bliss Chocolate Bunnies and Sour Starburst Jellybeans being given consecutively as gifts for Easter (formerly a time reserved for feasting, now reserved for slowly dissolving pieces of sugar in hydrochloric acid both in-and-outside of human stomachs) and, failing that, Halloween (my favorite time of year, especially for the months-old candy and hope of potentially causing caffeine-induced heart attacks, which is a story I will tell you when you’re older chillun’) and, having been left-over from that wondrous time, finally for Christmas (from resurrection to birth quite untouched, not unlike Jesus) which is when they will be finally gobbled up by unknowing children and adventurous adults alike and exist forevermore as a possible carcinogen, not unlike the stories themselves.

One can only hope that each of these stories will bloom into beautiful little tumorous bulbs.

Nevertheless, I’m showing you them in this small collection of recollections of collected curios and curiosities. I hope you find them interesting.

Welcome to the show.

Birthright, Part 1

(I wrote this yesterday, just didn't have time to type it up. Sorry guys~)

The scent of summer grass, earthy and humid, hung in the air. Its very presence signified the sheer reality of where Curio was; Outside of the cities, and most importantly, far from any form of complicated technology other than the railroad he was walking upon, the stout mechanic was both exhilarated and frightened. Beneath the rough, permanently soot-stained mask of his face, his mind was abuzz with excitement; his eyes showed it. Sullen from the outset of his journey, his attitude had changed from stoic outcast to gregarious tourist in seconds, much to the chagrin of his tall companion.

“Arh, d’ye smell that? Jest ae wiff o’ de stuff gits yer victuals a-stirred!” Curio said, beaming up at the tow-headed man, and taking in yet another long gulp of air as if he had never breathed in his life. “Hoi kinnae be knaowin’ what keeps ye so glum in such a wonderful place. I’d’ve thought ye yeomanry a damn sight cheerier thin’ those arist’crits! Tis a sad sight, iffen ye ask me.” The grimy old man guffawed at this jest and slapped Zander on the back heartily.

“Then you’ll forgive me, sir…” Zander began, rolling his shoulder to relieve the ache of the pack he wore. “If I inform you that I did not, indeed, ask you.” This served only to make the short begoggled man to laugh louder and clutch his gut as he walked along the path. Glancing back out of the corner of his eye, Zander could not help but smirk slightly at the sight of Curio in such good humor.

In a split second, Curio quit laughing and perked up, tilting his head to the side slightly. One large, gnarled ear poked up from the side of his bald head as he stood and listened, once more becoming a laughable sight to the yeoman. However, instead of expressing his entertainment, Zander watched Curio, one eyebrow raised as if posing a question. Within a few minutes of listening, the short man dropped to the ground and pressed his ear to the railroad. Realizing something, Curio nodded, jumped up from his place on the ground, and began to move a good distance away from the train tracks. Zander followed likewise.

“Hoi be thinkin’ there’ll be a train here in a few minutes… Iffen ye dinnae wan’ ter be oan foot fer the next week or two, Hoi suggest ye be getting’ ready to do as Hoi say.” Curio said, peering down the length of the railroad, judging the distance down it. Zander nodded in agreement, and dropped his pack onto the grass to the side of the railroad. Curio did likewise, his large pack full of trinkets and tools clattering heavily to the ground. Immediately he began sifting through its contents, searching for a certain tool. With a grunt approval, the mechanic pulled out a long length of rope and a grappling hook, set the two items to the side, and continued to rummage through the pack. A loud “Aha!” belt up from him as he reached deep inside and pulled out a large, heavy object. Riveted metal plates and a large rubber muzzle gleamed in the day’s sun.

“This here be me favorite hook launcher. Ye jest place the grappling hook here…” Curio began, shoving the end of the hooked metal piece into the muzzle, and turning the huge instrument over. “An’ then ye wrap de rope around this here spool, sorter like one o’ dem fishin’ rods ye yeoman folks use fer yer eatin’.” Zander nodded, mostly ignoring what the little engineer said, but seeming enthusiastic nonetheless. Curio sighed, looking up at Zander’s blank face, and let out a loud “Bah!” before standing up, now heavily armed with the large grappling hook launcher.

“Works like a gun. Ye jest aim..” Curio shifted the device up, looking through a scope built along the side, and pointed it at one of the thick branches of the overhead trees, on the left side of the train tracks. “An’ fire.” A loud sound, somewhere between a cannon firing and a cat being gutted, broke through the peaceful silence of the forest. Zander dropped to the ground first, thinking the device had malfunctioned. However, looking up to see the stout mechanic grinning down at him, he realized this was not the case. Following the line of the rope from the muzzle of the gun, Zander’s gaze went to where there was a small hole in the tree branch. Moving to the side to get a better view, Zander realized the grappling hook had not only gone into the branch, it had shot straight through the tree and latched onto the other side.

“I haete ter be losin’ sooch a fayne grapplin’ hook, but toime is maoney, as they say.” Curio said, helping the awed man up and pulling out a large strap and buckle from his pack.

“Er… so… how are we supposed to get into the train this way?” Zander asked, almost immediately regretting his question as it left his mouth at the sight of Curio’s ever-widening grin.

Excavation and Memories, Part 1

It shambled. The deteriorated, dry husks that could be called its legs made visceral noises of tendons snapping and bones cracking as the creature made its stumbling way closer. Even the least discerning eye could tell this creature could not still live; its body structure was entirely askew, as if someone had twisted it into its new posture haphazardly. Its entire body was dried out, the skin was paper-like, the eyes lacking the normal luster of life. How long it had inhabited these ruins was anyone’s guess, and if Thoreau’s guess was the correct one, it had ‘lived’ there long enough to die three times over.

The scholar ran over a few thoughts as he watched the creature move closer. The singular most representative aspect of these unnatural creatures, the undead, was their complete lack of body language. The truly animated dead moved without purpose or awareness. They were affected by little concerning mind games or willpower; they knew no fear because they knew nothing. They were like puppets on strings, and yet these string had no master to pull them. The only thing that drove this abomination was its last command: to kill all creatures it could find in these ancient halls and thusly guard the secrets hidden therein. At this point, all that could be done was either destruction of the mindless puppet, or to take control of the strings. And, as the scholar knew, due to his current capabilities, the former would have to do.

As the shambling monstrosity drew closer, it began to kick up the dust and litter strewn across the ancient floor. Swirling into the air, the dust outlined the silhouette of another creature, skeletal in shape. Thoreau, the scholar, took a step back and let his face betray a grin. Brown eyes turned bright white as, shaping the form with his thoughts, Thoreau forced the silhouette to turn around and draw back an arm. With immense force, the dust-limned creature slammed its skeletal limb through the abdomen of the undead monster.

After the commotion, Thoreau picked up the small tome the creature had been guarding, brushed off the years of dust and decay covering the embossed letters of "The Great Inferno", and began to read.

------

"The Great Inferno"

as remembered by Pyr Thalàssion.

The fire swept on. A wonderful kaleidoscope of orange flame and red ember flowed through the land. Grass and tinder, wood and leaf, animal and man all mixed to a great crescendo of warring, rolling, wavering flame. Amazing power in the touch of heat all together, a mestizo life form needing nothing and just creating… removing all the taint of the world and bringing it all together to a glorious existence. The beginning is the end.

With soot stained finger tips was this written, and a beautiful char it remains. A manuscript depicted the most horrible and awesome events in history, and showed it for it was. The inevitable, beautiful coalescence of life and being. A flickering flame, a roaring bonfire, a blazing atmosphere, a world on fire, a fire storm of life. The purity of reason shocks Life itself.

An ash tree was the tree of life and now a tree of ash is all that remains. Yggdrasil burnt to a cinder, a wondrous flame that showed till the end against the night sky, which was all but destroyed by the luminescence. The only thing to mark that there ever was such a scorched sky was the smoke growing in the heavens. Gods are no longer content on their laurels. Life will be but fire and brimstone, but fire and brimstone so pure and bright that none can deny their willingness to take part. Creation was. Birthing, beginning flame made sure of all things, ash would stay. And so the galaxy would burn too, pockets of gas alight for aeons eternal.

The stars would flame with the trees, the final candle light vigil for the past tense. And nothing would be remembered. This was the way it should be.

Paranormal Psychology, Part 1

There are many kinds of stories, and several times more ways to tell them, and still more reasons for telling them in the first place. There are simple ways to describe these reasons, and complex ways to describe them, but for now let's follow Ockham and stick to simple. Some stories are told to feel good, to rejoice and celebrate, to yell and clap and jump as high as you can and feel the air all around. These kinds of stories lift you up and let you look around in starry-eyed wonder at the world and miracles around you. These are the kind that make you look up at the sky and try to fit the shapes of clouds to shapes you've seen before. These stories make things better. This is not one of those stories.

It started with something so innocuous that it's almost laughable to think of it now. An email, the pink coloration of which glowed from the screen urgently in an ill-advised attempt to get my attention, with a tag line denoting it as being from one of the faculty at the college I was attending. It read as follows:

---

To: Henry Ian Tham
From: Professor Isaac Abode

You have been randomly selected from our school's allocation of Psychology students to participate in an alternate course which will serve as credit in any course you wish. You will assist me, Professor Abode, in conducting experiments and research in the field of Paranormal Psychology. My office is in the old library, now known as the Fjord building, and I will be there to answer any pertinent questions. Should this arrangement be contrary to your wishes, please contact the Dean's office to be placed back into the standard Paranormal Psychology classes.

Thank you for reading,

Professor Abode

P.S. Any liability for injuries or accidents incurred during the duration of the course are heretofore automatically waived and forgotten based on a NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) hereby agreed to by the student by accepting and participating in the course.

----

Clicking closed a few windows on my laptop computer, I turned to an approaching customer. Disgusted, I noted his violation of the “no shirt, no shoes, no service” policy.

“What, dear patron, would you like?” I said, hesitating on the word 'patron'. The scruffy, overweight man scratched his balding scalp and then gave me one of the oddest glares I have ever had the fortune of experiencing.

“Hoi tink hoi’ll ‘ave a cuppa joe, iffen ye’ll oblige meh.” The man said in a husky, gritty accent that I once heard in a dying homeless man.

“I see.” I responded, shifting over to pull a pot of deep, black liquid off its place on the counter and pour its contents into a small cup. “Black? Cream? Sugar?”

The man grinned, showing off a startling array of darkened, yellowed teeth, more than seemed possible to fit into a mouth, and laughed sepulchrally.

“Hoi’ll take me cuppa black, lad.”

I turned around, as much to get a lid for the up as to remove the utterly unnerving sight of his face from my view. “You’re not from around here, are you?” I said, picking a lid out from among the jumble of condiments, cups, and bags of creamer.

When I turned back, he was gone. The cup was empty (a piping hot cup of coffee, downed within seconds?) and next to it laid a small, silver coin. I shudder to admit to it, but as my gaze searched the café for that man’s grubby form, I could’ve sworn I got a whiff of brimstone.
“Sir?” My voice echoed hollowly in the suddenly very empty café.

After this experience, I had much difficulty sleeping. As you probably knew I would, I kept both the cup and the coin. The coin itself proved rather peculiar. Emblazoned on its face was a symbol of a man’s profile, with alarming goat horns adorning his head. What I first supposed was silver was much more durable and almost stainless in comparison to any other metal I know of. It looked almost to be made of liquid, as if it were a hollow glass coin filled with quicksilver, the way it glistened.

It occurred to me that perhaps something in the makeup of the coin or some other… less tangible quality of its being is interrupting my sleep. However, I had this creeping feeling that should I have left the coin alone it would have disappeared just as mysteriously as its owner. I supposed that for the moment I’d simply suffer insomnia. It is not so bad a thing, as I still suffer it, and it provides impetus for getting more work done in the day.

Private Thoughts

Waiting for the subway has never been comfortable for me. Just looking around, I see the crumbling city; Here is a shambling husk of what most likely used to be successful young man, tugging the sleeves of his former peers and pleading for a few metallic clumps of sustenance; Here is a cracked wall, once resplendent in the collected art of the city and now marred by peeling paint and the tags of some gang or another; And here is me, thinking myself separate from all this degradation and decay. I would laugh at it all, but then I would probably realize which of these examples is responsible for this deterioration. I would realize what cracked this concrete, what bred the rats crawling in the corners, and what forced the poor and disabled into this second-class citizen existence.

So I'm uncomfortable in that lull, in those subterranean catacombs which only exist to get me somewhere else faster, to keep me moving and my mind in a blur. The city is a drug and I take it so I don't have to notice all of the walking tragedies around me. My day begins and ends without me having to think about anything more complex than maybe a bit of math involving my work and who's the band that will be showing in my favorite nightclub. Maybe I'll have to worry about my job sometime soon, but that's for some future day that doesn't exist to me right now. That's how it works, and that's how I like it. My day would be perfect, except for those little moments in time that seem to infinitely divisible by the time wasted by whatever method of passing the time I can think up.

It's not as bad when I'm actually riding the subway, because then I can simply let my mind drift and think about the people who built the tunnels around me. Then, I can look at my lap and blast whatever noise I want into my ears instead of watching the descendant of those great builders who made this city as he begs for change. I've perfected the technique; It's almost like portable complete sensory deprivation. Funny that the most trance-like part of the day is when I'm least introspective. Or extrospective. I knew it was a good choice to take those meditation lessons. I'll have to thank whoever suggested that to me later. I'm sure I'll figure out who that is later.

There's all this civic guilt around me, but that's not the worst part of waiting for the train. The people are the problem. I hate them. I fear them. I fear that every one of them will turn on me any second and when I stand here with a newspaper folded under my arm my mind flits through every horror story I saw in the newspaper, online, and on the dreaded idiot box about the brutal and terrible capacity for violence that every one of these creatures must be full of. When this happens, my eyes peer at each one in turn, and I'm fairly sure every one of them around me must think that the creepy, tall young man in the black business suit at the front of the line for the subway is about to explode. Which I might be, because one of them might have stolen my suitcase while I wasn't looking and switched it with one of those horrible explosives that have hit every other city but this one, and isn't it about time?

Uncomfortable, to say the least. I'd like to keep this sort of thing private, but some day there'll be a headline about how some young man had a panic attack and leapt off the station platform in an attempt to get away from some unseen attacker or something. Here's hoping I meet that bomb instead, eh?

There's nothing like having your fears validated.

Let Yourself Bloom

"Well, damn."

He couldn't tell the difference anymore. He inspected every inch of his composure with slow, robotic motions, twisting his head from right to left and tilting it up and down. Finally David harrumphed, eyes locked with his reflection. Maybe he was just imagining it, maybe it was just the light, or maybe he was just jaundiced, but he could almost swear he was turning a distinct shade of yellow. He gave one last glare to his mirror doppelganger before he flicked off the harsh yellow light of the bathroom. He sulked in the sudden darkness. Perhaps he'd check in his truck's rear view mirror later.

That thought made him let out a short, bark of a laugh. He could use his truck, if only it wasn't in the shade. David supposed it was in the shade, at least. Something told him it would be pretty dark under a mountain of rubble and years of littering. Then again, that's where most things around his house had gone after the earthquakes. Perhaps a streetlight was still working down there. He caught a glimpse of light streaming in from the window behind him and turned around. He sighed, stirring up motes of dust as he stared at the windowsill’s scene of devastated vegetation.

"Now, you and I have to talk about this 'wilting' thing that you've gotten into..."

The syllables came out rough and hollow. Grimacing, he coughed to clear his throat as he tip-toed about the small bathroom. His hands groped around in the dim light until finally settled upon a small watering pitcher. David turned his eyes to the water faucet and the lines under his eyes softened for a moment. At least the 'quakes hadn't hit the water lines.

"I'm telling you, it's just a trend, and if you really want the other plants to think you're neat, you need to just be yourself."

He chortled, turning to the faucet and twisting the dirty knobs above the sink until a trickle of clean water poured down into the pitcher. His eyes glistened as he watched the sunlight strike the water, making it sparkle as it trickled out of the faucet. The water ceased its flow and David caught the last few droplets in the pitcher with care. He looked back up, pitcher in hand, smiled at his plants, and in his mind they smiled back. The pitcher lifted in his hands, tilting to let the water play across the dirt of each one of the pots. His mind imagined the roots shivering like a couple caught in a downpour.

"I mean, just look at me! I don't change one whit of myself for anyone, and I have friends!"

He splashed the excess water over his rough hands. It seeped into his cracked skin with a refreshing coolness, making David flex the muscles underneath with a slow methodical persistence. His hands flew to his sides as he stretched which caused his back to make a satisfying cracking sound before flipping the lights back on and looking into the mirror again. His reflection glared back. The skin below his eyes drooped, the dark bags adding to the illusion that he was just a large, bruised, and browning banana. The mirror brought his countenance into sharp definition as he leaned forward. A grin inched across his face as he inspected his surprisingly white teeth, fingers pulling the edge of his mouth to one side, and then the other.

His fingers faltered and began to fall to his sides. Only the wide, rigid grin was left upon his face. His hands slapped against the sides of his legs, limp. For a few ponderous heartbeats he stood as if in a daze. In a sudden act of animation, his back shivered sporadically from the growing warmth as the sun crept up his spine; the grin, which at first had seemed to be etched onto his gruff visage, melted easily into a soft, reproachful smile.

"You just gotta let yourself bloom."