The Rag Man

The Rag Man

The truth is, I hadn't seen Cricket since January. The last I saw of her was a shadowy figure in the snow, illuminated in part by a frosted street lamp, her silhouette altered by that ridiculous, oversized coat.

You ever have the sort of nightmare that you can't seem to shake? You wake up with your stomach on empty protest, and the thin skin of your back is crawling like you've slept on a bed of roaches. The air feels like water. Even though the day might be bright and sunny, or even if you find a lucky penny in the grime, or get the perfect job you've been waiting your life for, or fall for a prostitute with a grasshopper tattooed between her shoulder blades, you still feel as though you're trapped in an endless nightmare. Makes you nervous, jumpy. Itchy, even.

I don't know what I was thinking. My boss handed me an envelope that Friday. "Go have some fun, yeah?" Funny how a thin slip of paper with some figures written on it can be your passport to adventure. Drugs, sex, whatever. Money can buy almost anything.

I read something like that once, back in my high school English class. My teacher was some beak-nosed, balding professor who didn't care about his students, and didn't care if we cared. He would just sit at his desk, watching us with eyes that might have once been as sharp as a hawk's, but at the time, they were dull and glazed, like he was on drugs. Maybe he was. I was. We used to sit at the back of the class and do lines of coke off the desks, the good desks that hadn't been scarred by years of graffiti. Made the class bearable.

The only thing I took out of that class was how to use words. Words have power, words are power. They can be used to manipulate people, to convince them you aren't who you really are, to convince the old lady at the cash register that you already paid for your coffee, or talking your way out of a traffic ticket with some arrogant pig. Words are the ultimate trick, better than the pranks we used to pull when we were kids, like Kevin down the street used to pull, until he grew up but never grew out of it. Last I heard, he was serving ten down at Riker's for conning the wrong people out of the wrong money, like the innocent child who wasn't so innocent after all.

I cashed the cheque and took the money right away. I never saved any of it, just spent within a week, maybe even within the day. Rent was overdue, the fridge was infested with stale food, the water and electricity had been cut for months. Didn't care. Short-term pleasures were all I cared about - liquid happiness coursing through my veins, and a warm, unfamiliar body against mine. I knew the stack of bills in my back pocket would be gone by the end of that night.

The nightmare starts when you turn against yourself. I sure as hell didn't realize it when my words turned on me. Words can be used to convince people of a lot of shit, but no one is immune. It creeps up on you, slowly, before you even realize it's there. Imagine there's something creeping just outside the corner of your eyes. It moves when you turn your head, so it always stays where you can't see it. It's there, staring at the vulnerable area just below your ribcage, or the base of your neck, pawing closer and closer until it's almost on top of you, and you don't even realize it until its hot breath is on the back of your neck, its hands sliding down the front of your chest, it lets out a steamy moan, and maybe it even has a stylized insect sketched in purple ink in the crook of its back.

My point is, it's really easy to trick yourself. Day after day, in the dark basement of an apartment building, between the cold washing machines and dust and grime, your tongue pressed deep into some girl's mouth, hers pressed against the side of your cheek. You tell yourself, "It's okay," and eventually, you come to believe it. Slowly, it creeps up on you. You don't even know it until the one morning when you wake up. Empty stomach, skin crawling. A living nightmare, and you're trapped inside wondering how you managed to get yourself into this mess, how you managed to screw things up so badly. And really, you can only blame yourself.

The club was packed that night. I dodged the bouncers at the door and slipped in through the back. Francis was already waiting for me inside, his eyes unfocused, with some girl hanging onto his arm with a death-grip. She would have fallen down otherwise. The flashing lights and pounding music were hypnotic. Swirls of purple and blue. The girl looked at me like I was some sort of intruder. Her hair was greasy and her face was slick with sweat. Francis' eyes, on the other hand, were sharp as always, dark and hooded like he was tired, but alert and active.

"Ready to have some fun?" he asked, like he didn't know the answer. His eyes darted around the room, before he reached into his jacket and pulled out a tightly-wrapped, ragged bundle of toilet paper. At the same time, I reached into my back pocket, rifling through the thin wad of bills, the unfamiliar texture of money odd against my fingertips. Some people say money is the dirtiest thing we handle on a daily basis. It's covered in viruses and germs, traces of crack, fecal matter, and who knows what else. It's also dirty in the metaphysical sense of the word, covered in temptation and corruption and drugs and sex. I handed the stack to Francis as he handed me the sad, misshapen bundle. I wiped my hands on my pants, as the music thundered around me, a physical bass reverberation in my ribcage.

The real horror comes when you realize what you could have been. Unless you're an astronaut or a doctor or a fireman, you're probably not who you wanted to be when you were a kid. No child grows up with the goal of becoming a corporate investment banker, or a telemarketer packed into a cubicle. No ambitious kid with unlimited potential ever envisions himself being dragged out of a car, fucked out of his mind, and slammed onto the pavement with just enough force to clarify one thought - this isn't who I wanted to be.

I was standing in the middle of the club, trying to start the joint I had rolled up in the bathroom, trying but failing, the dancing bodies jostling me and making me fumble the lighter, until I lost it on the floor under the crowd. The smell of alcohol surrounded me, consumed me, mixed in with the tang of body odour and the subtle hint of cocaine. I patted my pockets with one hand for another light. Funny. With how often lighters get lost, you'd think we'd learn to keep a spare.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. A conscious, deliberate tap, not just a random bump in the crowd. "Need a light?"

I looked up and she was grinning. She was drunk, with a goofy look on her face, golden hair wild and tangled, her eyes unfocused. It took me a few seconds to notice she had a lighter in her hand, a cute one with some sort of flower design, a hippie-era novelty, but it worked and soon the familiar rush of chemicals flooded into my brain.

I remember that from a book I once read. Things have two types of energy, potential and kinetic. Potential is energy that hasn't been spent yet. You use up your potential making choices, like getting a job at a fast-food restaurant, or moving to a different city where the cops can't find you. Kids have unlimited potential, and as they make choices and grow up, depending on the validity of those choices, they either end up as wealthy businessmen with nice cars, or wrist-deep in some poor bitch who can't see straight because of the heroine coursing through her veins. When you use potential, you turn that energy into kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is what you get when you're moving. Eventually, you change all your potential into kinetic, and then you're like Steve, who chose to spend all his potential at once, falling from the roof of a building, speeding up without control of your direction, until you smack into the pavement below.

You don't even realize it until it's too late. Everything is connected. Words, energy, power. You wake up in the morning, and you realize all your potential is wasted, and you're moving uncontrollably towards a future you don't want to see like a runaway train, with your bloodshot eyes swimming from how many shots? and that you can't blame anyone for it - not your parents, they were never there - and you can't blame society, or the apathetic people who look at you like you're a shitstain on the tablecloth, or even the slender girl with the pretty eyes and the tattoo that lingers in your mind like she's been burned in.

She took my hand and led me off the dance floor. We were both sweaty, panting, but ecstatic and turned on. I followed her out, and her slender fingers pressed against my palm like small spots of fire. My vision was blurry, so I couldn't make it out at first, but she had something on her back, in the dip of her low-cut dress, dark and oddly shaped. I brushed it with the back of my free hand, and when it didn't come off, I pressed on it with my fingertips. Somewhere in my mind said, "Tattoo," and I repeated it dumbly out loud.

BRB

I've been writing a long manuscript, perhaps a novel, so this site won't be updated for a bit longer. Sorry folks. I'll be back, I promise.

Living Backwards Doesn't Make For Happy Endings

I slip into her bed. She is gone, and grief and loneliness have taken her place. I clutch hopelessly at the bedsheets, press my face into the pillow, and sob helplessly.

The sun streams in, chasing the shadows from the room, but I close my eyes and plunge into darkness. If I close my eyes, it's easier to pretend she never existed.

I will never see her smile again.

***

She was cold. Grey. Her lips were pale and dry, and her breath escaped her in hollow gasps. The steady beeping of the ECG filled the room with a sense of fear. I wished I could have unplugged it, but I couldn't move.

Shadows had settled under her eyes, and her cheekbones crested sharply on her face. I looked down with sudden clarity. This is one of the last times I will ever see her. With that realization comes nothing: I could not think of anything to say, and no line of poetry would ever be able to describe the feelings that coursed through my body. I had always thought I could protect her. I couldn't, not when it truly mattered.

I leaned in and kissed her on the mouth. Although she was asleep, her lips turned up into a smile.

***

I slipped into bed next to her, slowly and quietly, but she was already awake. I brushed my hand against her face, and her eyes closed like on the night I met her. Like that night, tears flowed freely from the corners of her eyes, tracing the shape of her jaw and spotting the pillow below.

"I'm worried about you," I whispered. Her face turned towards mine and she grabbed my shirt, pulling me close. "I don't know what to do."

"I love you," she said, simply. Her hands reached around the back of my head and she raised her face to mine. "Please don't forget me."

"Are you going somewhere?" I asked, lightly. She didn't reply, but her body tensed. "Where are you going?"

She didn't reply, and for the longest time I thought she was asleep. But then I looked down, and her eyes were open, drawing me in with that same power as all those months ago. They were wet with tears and as I raised my hand to wipe them away, she turned, pressing against the cold bed frame.

The corner of her mouth curves upwards, but her eyes remain closed.

***

We sat in my mother's car, listening to the rain stream down from the gray and thunderous sky. We were huddled together in the back seat, her head and face pressed into the side of my neck. I pulled the blanket over her bare shoulder as the rain pattered loudly on the windshield.

There are no words to describe the past few months. It's impossible to record every moment, and it's impossible to try. But I know I'll never forget. The way her body fits into my arms, the perfect interlocking of our fingers, her heartbeat pressed into my chest, and of course, the careful way she smiles.

Her hand found mine under the blanket. I couldn't see her face but I could feel her smile against my skin.

***

We went for coffee in a small bistro downtown, a quiet place, tucked away where few people would notice. The sun was high in the sky, and the birds called out in twitters and chirps that filled the air with music. Both her hands were wrapped around a cappuccino. The steam from the thin paper cup twisted around her hair as she leaned forward.

"I think," she whispered, "We are becoming more than strangers."

It was such an odd, but true, thing to say that I was silent, aware that somewhere in the conversation we had just slipped into friendship without realization. This time, I reached my hand out and touched her wrist, her hands still wrapped tightly around the cup.

She placed her fingertips on mine and smiled.

***

When I ran into her on the street, I didn't recognize her at first. Her eyes were the most brilliant shade of blue and green. She was dressed for the weather, standing tall in a bus stop by the side of a busy intersection. She spotted me before I even saw her, so when I turned around, her eyes were already piercing mine.

"Hi," she said quietly. She grabbed my wrist like she did that other night, and with her other hand, pressed a small, folded square of paper into my palm. She told me to open it when I got home. She never broke eye contact as she spoke, and I couldn't look away. An invisible thread kept me hypnotized, unable to break the stare, but it wasn't awkward; on the contrary, her eyes were comfortable, and her fingers lingered on the back of my hand for slightly longer than necessary.

A bus passed by, breaking the spell. I looked up. "Wasn't that your bus?"

She smiled again, like she did on that night. "I can always catch the next one."

***

I met her at a friend's party, I can't remember whose. She was sitting at the end of a couch, her knees tucked to her chin, her eyes closed, her hands wrapped tightly around her shins. I didn't know whether she was tired, thoughtful, or drunk. Her shoulder blades poked out the back of her thin shirt like pointed wings.

I leaned over and put my hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?" I asked. She didn't open her eyes, but she tilted her head towards me.

"I'm okay," she said simply. I waited, but she didn't offer any further information. I stood up to go, but as I turned away, her hand suddenly grabbed my wrist. "Can - can you just sit here?" she whispered, tears suddenly leaking from her scrunched-up eyes.

"I don't know who you are," I said honestly. But I sat back down.

She smiled through her tears. "I don't know me either. But maybe you could help."

Things I Never Told You

I never knew what to say. I could never find the right words to describe what I felt.

Now that you're gone, I've had time to expand my vocabulary.

Synesthesia. A condition where an unexpected sensory input occurs.

I never told you that your voice was like a rainbow after a summer rain.
I never told you that the sun in your eyes held the whisper of the ocean depths.
I never told you that the taste of your lips reminded me of the sound of my heartbeat.
I never told you that your body was like a warm bed on a winter's night.

I never told you, that Even when you're gone, my arms remember the smoothness of your back, and my lips the taste of yours.
I never told you, that I wanted to sleep next to you until the sun peeked in through the curtains.
I never told you, that My bedsheets keep the smell of your body like the Earth keeps the smell of a spring day.
I never told you, that When I had nightmares, I would imagine your hand on mine until I fell asleep.
I never told you, that In the right light, the sun would leave rainbows in your eyes.
I never told you, that Your body on mine is like where the sky meets the ocean, and you can't tell where the horizon lies.
I never told you, that Every time you left me, I was scared you would never come back.

Escape

The sons of euphoria are skipping their classes
For weed, crack and smack, the opiate of the masses -
To see the world through those rose colored glasses,
Escaping from this world of bores, world of snores,
Of closed doors, pimps and whores, pointless wars,
And the endless encores, the disease of a generation,
Lacking a foundation, seeking sensation in a drug-induced vacation -
It's an abberation, a dedication to manipulation,
And we don't care, we don't give a shit,
We take the hit, just to make things fit.

The Cynic's Dilemma

You can't backtrack, or catch any slack, it's all out of whack,
Where you catch a ride, blocking out the world outside,
listening to the uhms and aahs, unaware of so many flaws
it's ridiculous, it's meticulous, explicit in so many flavours,
and they all expect favours, a game with too many players,
Who don't know how to act, like a high school TV drama,
With all the breakups and makeups and fuckups and God knows what else,
And you just sigh at it all, just waiting to fall,
face against the wall, just learning to crawl,
before you can walk, before you can run, before you can fly,
But sometimes you ask why, why should I try?,
and I don't mean to pry, but if you don't try, you're just waiting to die,
Saying goodbye, a tear in your eye, while others cry
and weep and wail, and you turn tail, just booking it the fuck out of this jail,
this prison for your soul
How does this stack up? A cynic's dilemma,
Take a look around, not just down at the ground,
but at the people in this town, their smiles and their frowns
and the deafening sounds, the endless crowds,
all pushing in, trying to get a piece,
a slice of the action, a mutual attraction, but they can't get any traction,
irrational, uncontainable, slipping and sliding like Bambi on ice,
not willing to play nice, just taking that slice, while others pay the price,
Like a roll of the dice, not men or mice, because even mice know better,
But we just climb on the bodies, a flood of oddities,
Pushing others down as we climb to the top, not waiting to stop,
Stepping on feet and shoulders and faces, leaving our traces, before the rat races,
Scrambling up on a tower, made of power, hour after hour,
Escaping the world in which we were born, a city of porn,
where souls are worn down before they're torn and shorn,
cast aside and no one bothers to mourn,
because everyone is the same, playing this game,
With too many players, too many layers,
Too many yayers and nayers, too many stares,
Not enough cares, cause everyone just wants wares in pairs,
and it bears repeating that we're all just overheating,
Burning up in the fire, the fire of our desire,
So many liars lighting the pyres, and the only way to escape is higher,
Higher and higher, climbing those bodies,
While those who don't try tend to die,
And we just add them to the pile,
Fending off the flames for a little while,
As we wear a little smile,
A crocodile smile,
Our endless trial,
Going out in style,
That extra mile,
The cynic's dilemma.

My City Screams

I was always interested in mental disorders - how they turn a person into something else, something unexpected. They introduce a new variable into the equation of life, something we cannot predict. Oftentimes, a mental disorder can change someone from completely harmless into something... terrifying.

So what happens when a city full of people gets overcrowded, polluted, and corrupt? Is a city just a collection of buildings, or is a city the collection of people in it - their collective conciousness? And what happens if that conciousness begins to break down?



The city is quiet.

Ryan Colocco sits at the edge of his bed, rubbing the lazy sleep from his eyes with the heels of his hands. The bed springs creak as he stands up, his six-foot frame scraping the low ceiling. He stretches his arms with a wide yawn, making his way to the bathroom as the dull thumps of his footsteps accompany him.

Today is one of 'those days'. The days when you wake up in a mess, and your eyes don't want to open more than a few millimetres. The days when everything feels cold, and grey, and the world is devoid of anything meaningful. Ryan splashes cold water on his face, blinking vigorously. The water twirls down towards the dark drain, and he watches it make its spiralling path, swirling around and around and around, just on the lip of that black hole, poised there for a moment, until it falls into that endless pit with a quiet gurgle.

He places his elbows on the rounded edge of the sink, then presses his face into his cupped palms. The porcelain is icy cold against his wet skin, and he lets loose a low growl, shaking his head back and forth like a dog. Looking up, he meets the glare of those sky-blue eyes, the ones his mother used to call 'lady-killers'. Today they don't seem anything of the sort - instead, his half-closed lids seem full to the brim of grim madness. His tousled bedhead and unshaven chin make him look more like a vagrant than the 26-year-old designer he truly is.

An hour later, Ryan is out of his apartment, a bagel pressed between his teeth as he locks his front door. Although clean after a long shower, the world still seems to press around him, tainting him with tendrils of grey, just out of the corner of his eye. To make matters worse, as he turns to leave, his front door swings open, even though he is sure he had just locked it.

Playing with the lock only irritates him further, as he attempts and reattempts to secure his privacy. He turns the key, pushes on the door to ascertain the deadbolt is in the slot, which it is, but once he turns away, the door swings wildly open again. Fed up, he pulls the door shut, making a mental note to talk to the manager about the defective locks in the building, but as he does so, he hears a sharp snick and the door is suddenly locked. Furthermore, when Ryan looks down, he is surprised to find the key is no longer in his outstretched hand, but in his shirt pocket.

An unsettling claustrophobia closes in around him. The hallways seem darker than usual, and the elevator seems to be a mile away. With a quick pace, Ryan heads for the silver doors, and is relieved to find that the illusion of distance is merely an illusion, as he reaches the doors in just a few seconds.

He presses the button to summon the elevator, and the sharp beep as the carriage rises pierces the silence like a scream. Ryan is perfectly reflected in the polished steel doors, and he attempts to organize his hair while he waits.

After a few seconds, he realizes he is not alone. The reflection shows a middle-aged woman standing next to him. Startled, he turns around and finds her standing next to him, and he laughs inwardly at his irrational fear of ghosts.

As the elevator arrives, the two board, and he notices that the woman is wearing what appears to be an elaborate Victorian-era costume. The ruffles on her dress flare out like curtains, and her face is painted white, as was the style in those times. Curious, he attempts to make conversation, but she deigns to reply. In fact, as Ryan soon finds out, she doesn't even react to him, and even waving his hand vigorously in front of her face neglects to provoke a response.

They reach the bottom floor in a matter of seconds, and Ryan walks out of the elevator with one last look back. He drops his briefcase when he sees that the elevator is in fact empty, with no sign of the lady, and no place she could have hidden, unless she had climbed through the elevator's maintanence hatch - a ludicrous notion in a dress such as hers.

With an odd day getting much odder, Ryan also notices that there are many people in Victorian wear loitering about in the lobby. None of them seem to respond to his presence, and he jumps out of the way numerous times as the strangely dressed people barrel towards him. The lady at the front desk is missing, and his attempts to interact with the crowd in the lobby only serve to aggravate him.

As he steps out of the apartment building into the cloudy sky, he turns around, and isn't too surprised to find the entire crowd of people gone. In a day of weirdness piled on weirdness, Ryan just picks up his briefcase and continues on. Maybe it was the medication he had just started taken the night before. Its bottle said it may cause drowsiness or dizziness, and hallucinations aren't too far off from both.

Fortunately, although cloudy, the sky is still rain-free, and Ryan lives only a short distance from his office. He begins to walk down his usual route, but soon finds himself lost as the road he usually takes no longer seems to be there. Instead, a white house with picket fencing faces him, almost staring in contempt with frosted windows for eyes and a red door for a mouth.

Confused, Ryan turns around to find the road leading in the opposite direction. Not only is the road going the wrong way, but the street sign marks the road as Hammond Avenue, instead of the usual Corolia Boulevard. Even so, he begins to walk down this new street for about ten minutes, until he realizes he must be going in the wrong direction.

With a sigh, he realizes he's going to be late for work, and turns around. To his utter confusion, Corolia Boulevard has just appeared to his right, even though he knows for sure he didn't pass it.

Dropping his briefcase, Ryan stands in the middle of the street, paralyzed by fear and confusion. He remains there for a few minutes, afraid to move, until the sky booms and rain begins to pour down. Reaching into his briefcase quickly, he opens an umbrella over his head, upon which the rain abruptly stops and the sun begins to shine down.

The second he puts his umbrella away, it begins to rain again, big fat drops of water soaking through Ryan's clothing and thoroughly drenching him. Holding his briefcase over his head, Ryan begins to run down Corolia Boulevard, haphazardly turning down random side streets that seemingly appear from nowhere. Soon, the rain turns into snow, in the middle of July, and white flakes settle on his head. Drenched in water and covered in snow, Ryan nevertheless feels warm, as if the sun were out.

Ryan runs. People in Victorian clothing appear and disappear in front of his eyes. As he runs past what appears to be St. Paul's Cathedral, it suddenly bursts into flame and collapses seconds later, only to disappear and be replaced with a modern office building. He notices people screaming, both in modern clothing and medieval wear, as buildings collapse and reassemble themselves.

A low keening cry pierces the air, and at first everyone stops. Ryan spins in place, hands over his ears, eyes wide. The cry grows louder, coming from all directions at once, until Ryan realizes it really is coming from everywhere, the ground and the buildings and the sky all reverberating with sound. The city is screaming, and as the people scream along with it, the buildings begin to shake.

Walls falls, buildings begin to crumble, and the roads shake as if an earthquake has just hit the city. The sky flickers like a failing computer monitor, with rain and snow and shine all jumbling for space in the sky. Ryan drops to his knees, curling up in a fetal position, as the snow settles around him, sizzling into steam as it touches the ground.

Someone shrieks, and a thick groan fills the air. An odd whistling seems to drown out all other noises, as it gets louder and louder. Ryan looks up just as an office building collapses on him, and with a loud crunch of splintering glass everything goes dark.

7 Sins Saga: Greed

The briefcase sat on the desk.

It was a simple, leather-bound rectangle, placed innocently in the middle of the cedar desk. He looked up and across the table at the woman, who was sitting forward, with her elbows on the table. "Interested?" she asked, a slight smirk on her face.

He reached out a hand, used to taking things that were rightfully his, by birthright if not earned by hard work. He slid the case closer to himself, the metal clasps making an awful screech as they slid across the well-polished wood. He waved away his bodyguard, who left the room discreetly, the sharp click of the lock marking his departure.

Two sharp clicks permeated the silence. He hinged the lid up, obscuring the woman's face from view, and looked inside. Bundles of cash were stacked neatly, hundred-dollar bills that he imagined greeting him like an old friend. He was friendly and familiar with money, even intimate, and as he picked up a stack, he let it run across his fingertips in a gentle caress.

He turned his eyes upwards. The hatch to his safe box hovered just above his head - a safebox full of cash, gold bars, heirlooms, all of which he had obtained through various levels of legality. He accepted his kleptomania and need for possession in open arms, and it showed. His neat suit, gold cuff links, and band upon band of impressive jewelery all showcased his craving for more.

The smell of freshly laundered money was intoxicating. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, letting out an audible sniff that echoed around the boardroom. He could hear his guest shuffling around with impatience. Let her wait, he thought to himself. The money is as good as mine.

He opened his eyes, ready to negotiate. He reached out a hand and made to pull the briefcase closed. Something cold - very cold - touched his fingers.

A skeletal hand delicately stroked his arm. Slowly, the briefcase lid dropped, resounding with a sharp clack as the locks engaged, revealing the face of his client. As he watched in mute horror, her skin peeled back like the lips of a flower, shriveling into black crisps that crumbled into scattered ashes.

The skull grinned at him. "I was so hoping you would pass the test."

Its skeletal arms tightened until he cried out in pain. "And you should really give your bodyguard a key to this room. By the way, isn't all that money extremely heavy?"

He let out a shrill yell, but it was drowned out by a loud crunch from overhead. Looking up, he gasped silently as the heavy safe emitted a low groan, and the reinforced ceiling began to sag. The skeletal face whispered in his ear. "Oh well."

With a sharp crack, the hatch split open, pouring gold bars, stacks of money, precious gems and jewels, antique furniture, and all the goods he had ever collected; tons and tons of material wealth falling like rain. He screamed.

Awake

"What's happened?" the doctor on site yelled, as he bustled down the hospital corridors. His white coat flared as he paced alongside the nurse, who was furiously scribbling notes on a large brown clipboard.

"I don't know. It's... it's like nothing we've ever seen before," the nurse replied, pulling his surgical mask to his face. In a nervous shiver, he continued. "Prognosis is pretty much... well, you'll see..."

As the doctor approached the emergency room, he could hear shrill screams emanating from the doorway. The air was filled with the cried of a woman sobbing, and a man's deep coughing, but the shrieks weren't from either of them. The nurse glanced at him, accurately gauging his expression. "It's the... patient. He's, uh, he was affected by the trip."

The bright doorway sat at the end of the hallway, illuminated from within by halogen surgical lights. Turning the corner sharply, the doctor suddenly reeled back, almost knocking the nurse to the ground, as a darkly dressed figure burst from the room screeching unintelligibly. An orderly jumped out of the room, tackling the shadow to the floor.

"Sorry doc," the orderly panted. "Patient is a little unstable." He touched a syringe to the man's arm, depressing the plunger. The sharp tang of Propofol filled the air as the patient sagged, anesthetic coursing through his bloodstream. He rolled his eyes up towards the doctor as if in supplication.

At first, the shock of white hair and thin frame suggested to the doctor that the patient was an elderly man. But as the patient passed out, the doctor realized that he wasn't a man at all. Instead, a young boy, not even in his teenage years, lay on the cold, linoleum floor. His short cropped hair had gone completely white, and even though he was sedated, his blue eyes stared as though he could see into another world.

"What happened?" the doctor asked quietly, as the nurse and orderly hoisted the boy onto the gurney. A man and woman sat in the corner, both weeping loudly - the boy's parents, he presumed. The nurse shook his head subtly, indicating the hallway was a more appropriate place to discuss the situation.

As they stepped out, the nurse took a breath. "You know the standard procedures for Transporter technology, right?"

"Of course. It's medical procedure - subjects are sedated heavily, to the point of an induced coma. Then the quantum junctions are activated... I don't know exactly how it works, but it has something to do with dimensional jumping. The subjects are revived upon arrival."

"Yeah. Initial animal tests showed erratic behavior after 'porting, including massive brain damage, that was only prevented by the injection of pentobarbital." The nurse took another breath. "The kid was faking it. He pretended to be in a coma after a single dose. It wasn't enough to actually knock him out."

The doctor stared blankly. Then: "Are you telling me... he was awake?"

"That's exactly what I mean. Massive brain damage - his cerebellum is literally lined with scar tissue - and his brain stem looks like it's been cauterized with a soldering iron. We have no idea what happened; we reported the incident to the TPS, but they haven't responded yet."

"I'm going to try and talk to him." The doctor reentered the room, the smell of alcohol immediately assaulting his senses. The steady whine of the medical equipment was only outmatched by the choking sobs of the parents, who now sat in a corner, the man holding his wife as she cried. The patient was restrained in a bed, foam dental dam plugged in his mouth to stop him from biting off his tongue, while leather straps pinned him to the metal framework.

"Pull the IV," the doctor ordered. The orderly quickly unclipped the drip from the boy's arm. Within minutes, the child began to stir, and suddenly screamed, the sound muffled by the block of foam in his mouth. Saliva drooled from the corner of his lips as he struggled against the straps, his movements rattling the bed in an eerie clattering. The boy's parents began to cry anew.

"Get them out of here," the doctor yelled, as the nurse escorted the two adults out of the room. "Give him a shot of sedative, twice the standard dose!"

After a minute, the boy's movements became less pronounced, until his head drooped so his chin touched his chest. The doctor waited, then slowly removed the block of foam from his mouth.

"Can you hear me?" the doctor whispered. The boy slowly looked up, a laborious effort. "I'm a doctor, at a hospital. Can you tell me what happened? What happened to you?"

There was no response. Again, the doctor repeated himself. "What happened? Can you tell me what happened?"

The child stared.

The orderly handed the doctor a thin sheaf of notes, with a muttered explanation that the TPS had just faxed it over. He skimmed the pages quickly. Teleportation was a new technology, just invented within the last decade. Like any new technology, it was poorly understood - all scientists had discovered was that a person was literally deconstructed into component particles, which were then whisked away at faster-than-light speeds to the destination, where they were reconstructed. For some reason, patients had to be sedated beforehand - when awake, all animal test subjects had gone insane.

The TPS report, while vague, suggested that travel at such great speed seemed to slow down time, stretching it out almost to an eternity. With dawning comprehension, the doctor nearly buckled as the full, staggering gravity of the situation hit him. This boy - this child - hadn't been sedated through the trip. He had been aware, as his atoms were torn apart, as they were sent screaming across the void at speeds faster than anything ever experienced, as time stretched out to an endless torment.

The doctor turned back to the patient, urgently, as if his understanding had incited in him a sense of panic. He repeated himself, softly at first, but then louder. "What happened? What happened to you?"

The boy's mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged. Then, he spoke, in a low, gutteral voice lined with saliva, harsh and croaking, as if he hadn't spoke for centuries.

"Awake," he said, very slowly.

"You were awake during the procedure? The Transporter procedure?" The boy didn't respond, and the doctor gripped his shoulders. "What did you see? You were awake, what happened?"

Slowly, the boy's head lolled to one side. His eyes focused, then unfocused. The orderly stepped in with the IV, but the doctor waved him off. He needed an answer. "Look here. Follow my finger. What did you see?"

Still no response. Drool dribbled out of the child's mouth as he tried to speak. The doctor leaned closer, until they were nearly touching noses. Then the boy's mouth moved. He looked up.

The boy's wide, blue eyes met the doctor's. "I... saw... ...Everything..."

Then he fell back with an explosive gasp, the ECG emitting a steady whine.

The Seed

I was cleaning my room today

and found a small pouch I didn't remember having

It was brown, made of a thin leather, and it had a black drawstring across its mouth.

I poked a finger inside, widening the opening, then carefully tipped the sachet onto its side, bouncing the edge on my palm to dislodge anything hidden within its depths.

Out rolled a small object that I at first took to be a pebble. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be some sort of grey seed.

I was about to throw it into my nearby trashbin when my curiousity struck.

Turning the seed over in my hands, I pondered what to do with it. Planting it seemed like the best idea, so I walked to the bathroom to get a small cup and some water.

The soil I scavenged from the bottom of my running shoes, which had been confined in my closet for the winter.

I knew the ground outside was too hard to obtain even a mote of soil from, so I had to settle for the secondhand dirt scraped from the treads of my Reeboks.

Tipping the dirt into the cup, I pressed my pinky finger in, making a hole just wide enough to admit the small seed.

As I tipped the seed in, an odd smell wafted into my nose. I sniffed, drawing a deep breath, trying to discern the scent from all the others in my room. It was acrid, like burning newspapers. It smelled like ashes.

The dirt quickly collapsed over the seed, burying it, and the scent of ashes.

I tipped a bit of water onto the surface of the dirt. It hung there, poised on the brown earth, the surface tension maintaining a round, bubble-like droplet.

Then it was sucked into the pores of the soil, as if something below had greedily drank it down.

I left to bring a bag of garbage to the garage

When I returned, rubbing my arms from the cold, the cup was gone.

At first, I thought I had left it somewhere, and that my mind had been distracted by the mess littering my bedroom floor

but then I noticed the thin ring of water on my desk where the cup had sat.

Upon closer inspection, I also noticed small tracks of water leading off the edge of the desk, like tiny footprints.

I tried to follow the thin droplets, but the carpet below had guzzled them up, leaving only a slight moistness in the material.

My door had been closed, so chances were that the cup was still in the room. I tried to pretend a draft had blown the cup off the desk, leaving a stream of water where it had tipped, but my window had been locked and shuttered. Even the blinds were down, and in a sudden grip of fear I tugged them open.

Light streamed into the room, but it only served to lengthen the shadows.

The lamp on my desk suddenly threw a threatening projection onto the wall. The plastic models on my bookshelf no longer looked like robots but demonic figurines.

Even my stuffed animals leered at me from their basket, their faces in eerie half-light.

I heard a quick scuffle from under my bed.

Cautiously, I reached for my Louisville Slugger, the wooden baseball bat I keep by the head of my pillow.

Slowly, I dropped to my knees. The unmade blankets dropped down to touch the floor. I reached a hand out to steady myself as I placed my head close to the ground.

With my other hand, I pinched a section of the blanket, ready to lift the curtain hiding whatever lay in wait under my bed.

With a cry, I pulled the blankets aside. Light streamed in, illuminating every dark corner. A jagged shadow lay huddled in the corner, sharp edges cast against the wall. I poked at it with the end of the baseball bat. It didn`t move, but made an odd clinking noise.

Using the bat, I manouvered the pieces into view. Shards of porcelain met my fingers as I reached out to scoop them up. The cup was shattered into 8 uneven pieces, each stained with dirt and a little water, which mingled into mud under my nails.

There was an odd red fluid that stained a few of the shards. I sniffed it carefully. It smelled like copper and iron.

I listened carefully. The silence enveloped me.

There wasn't a sound, other than the frantic beating of my heart.

I realized I had forgotten to breathe. I gasped once.

Twice.

Then something moved under the bedsheets, right in front of my eyes.

I grabbed the bat and swung. But whatever it was, it was fast, and dodged the crack by inches. It shuffled around under the bedspread, as I smacked the bed again and again, panting heavily.

I stopped to take a breath, and as I did, the lump under the sheets stopped too, as if it had read my mind.

A quiet tearing sound came from the rounded lump. A soft riiiiip that nevertheless penetrated the silence like a gunshot.

A hole appeared in my quilt. I spotted a thin claw, like that of a lizard, and a scaly, yellow eye. It blinked twice, then vanished.

The lump began to move again, this time towards the side of the bed where it met the wall. There was a thin crack there, between the frame and the wall, in which it would be able to slip and escape. I wasn't about to let that happen.

With the bat, I hammered away ferociously, blocking its movements with each swing. It seemed disorientated, moving in circles, trying to dodge my blows.

Eventually, it tried to make a break for it. The lump moved in a straight line for the edge, in a desperate gamble to reach the safety of the wall before I could take another swing.

The bat was too slow. Quickly, I scanned the room, and spotted my guitar binder on the desk next to me, within arm's reach. A binder filled with over 300 pages of tablature, as thick as a phone book.

I picked it up, hefted it onto my shoulder, and threw.

The book landed with pinpoint accuracy. I almost could hear a faint yelp, then the cracking of bones as the binder thudded, with grim finality, on the lump. It stopped moving.

Afraid of what I might find, I gripped the bat tightly in my left hand. With my right, I peeled the blankets back.

There was nothing there. Just a grey and black pile of ashes, and a thin trickle of smoke rising from them.

I picked up the entire bedsheet by the corners, avoiding the small mountain of ashes. Wrapping the cloth together, I bundled it into the garbage bag, then took the bag outside into the garage, pinching it by the corners.

I packed the bag, complete with the bundled bedsheets, into a metal bucket. Then I doused the entire thing with a generous amount of gasoline.

I brought the entire thing into my driveway. Standing a safe distance away, I tossed a match in.

I watched until the entire thing burned away. All that was left were ashes.

Feeling relieved, I returned to my room. The mess seemed less troublesome now, and I quickly disposed of anything unusual right away. My curiosity would not get the better of me again.

I tucked myself in that night, yawning from tension and nervousness. Closing my eyes, I put my hands behind my head, underneath my pillow.

And I felt something.

Hard. Round. Like a seed.

And another one.

And another one.

As I rolled them in my hands, realization dawning on me, I heard a thin crack. And another.

Then something cold touched my hand.

Winter

He lay his head down. The damp cardboard was ice-cold against his skin, although he had a full head of scraggly hair to keep him warm. The extra clothes he had taken from the hotel coatroom were already coated with a thin layer of frost, which seeped with ease through the thick nylon coats and leather jackets.

The skies were clear, and he watched his breath leave him in a plume of fog. As he inhaled, the cold sapped at his lungs like a knife, and he coughed wetly. The pneumonia was worse, but hospital fees were expensive, and medications didn't come easily without a prescription. There were some peddlers on the street, but there was a slim chance of finding any black market pills at this time of the year. Instead, he pulled the wet jackets close, tucking them under his body to keep the cold out.

A police siren blared, frighteningly close, and he pulled himself deeper into the alley's shadows. The wind whistled, drowning out the sounds as it howled through the narrow passage, biting at his face with cruel teeth. He pulled himself along with both hands numb in the snow, using the cardboard underneath him as a slide. The rancid smell of rotten food caught his nose as he passed a dumpster, full of the week's leftovers. There were some things not even the homeless would touch, unless it was a matter of life and death.

A sharp hiss caught his attention. By the restaurant's back door, a small porch light illuminated a wall vent, pouring a hot steam into the air. The dishwashers were probably running for the night. He pulled up close to the pipe, grateful for the warmth. Luckily, the pipe was unoccupied, and free for the night. He wrapped himself up as best he could, but the night air still nipped at his face and ankles. He closed his eyes and nodded off to a restless sleep.

The stars were out.

Writer's Block

His mind was blank, like the sheet on his desk.


The pencil obeyed swiftly in scratches of lead,
And his thoughts ran around like mice in his head.
The paper remained blank; he let out a sigh,
Watching as the page sucked his thoughts dry.

A white square that seemed to open the air,
To empty his head of the ideas he kept there.
The wastebasket filled with ball after ball
Of crumpled up paper, he tossed them all.

He looked at his watch, it was late in the night,
A comfortable bed was just on his right.
But he pushed on with one goal in his mind,
To finish one story, whatever one he could find.

So the hours rolled by, and still he remained,
He tried to invent stories, rhymes he all feigned.
The poem was done, but it was not what he sought,
So it went in the trash without a second of thought.

And finally he finished, with a smile on his face,
One page, with an effort, like running a race.
So where is this story that made him furrow his brow?
It's the poem you're reading on blogspot right now.

Unsaid

There were so many things he never said,
Buried deep inside the recesses of his head,
And now she's gone he wonders what they were,
The words unspoken between him and her.

His mouth was always closed in fear,
Never saying what she wanted to hear,
Until the day that she passed away,
And now he wishes for things to say.

Things like 'I love you' and 'I love you too,'
'I need you here,' 'I only want you,'
The words he never said in all her life,
Stab inside him like a twisting knife.

He was never there, with work and play,
Leaving her to wait at home all day,
At night he'd sleep, too tired to talk,
And day after day it was no longer a shock.

She faded slowly like a whisper of air,
He never noticed until she wasn't there,
And then he was there, and she was gone,
He finally realized what he did wrong.

Now he lives his life all alone,
No children to tell of, none of his own,
No reminders of her and no memories but one,
How he had treated her and what he had done.

He stands by a gravestone with flowers in hand,
Tears gently falling into the darkening land,
His mouth slowly moves, 'I love you,' he states,
But his greatest regret is now it's too late.

The Darkness Wore a Human Skin

The darkness wore a human skin
to take his pretty pictures in
A charming disguise so well-made
to aid the simple part he played
With a hello to the men on the street
and a tip of the hat to all he did meet
He made his way to the studio
where the filmmakers waited row on row
They set their records and greased the lens
and gathered up the odds and ends
The show went well without a hitch
except for one tiny little stitch
The cameras on the stage did snap
and the audience began to clap
And in the sudden flash of light
he hid his face and strove to flight
Dashing from the theatre far
and flagging down a nearby car
He retreated to the shadows there
and ran a cold hand through his hair
Whispering 'take me to the river near'
as the driver sat in frozen fear
The lights of the city fled away
as they drove past hills of dirt and clay
And finally the darkness rose
and peeled his skin from head to toes
He placed his fee in the driver's hand
and put his feet in the riverbank's sand
And stepping in he sank from sight
but they saw him in the sky at night
Rising high to the heavens overhead
and underneath the childrens' beds
In the shadowed places around the world
he slinked his darkest form unfurled
Behind the counters and under the sink
and behind the moon as some might think
And hidden deep in the hearts of man
where few of us can understand
In places bright he cannot go
as those who see already know

But the darkness still lurks
with his slow, soft, grin
Buried deep beneath my skin

To Write

Here are some of the ideas I always wanted to write, but never got the time to. Some of them may seem familiar, so I'm going to throw them up here.

Nightmare Rising: A story I once wrote on The Nook. When people dream, their minds enter a world shared by the Dangoth, protector of the dreamworld, and the Yan, the bringer of nightmares. When one young boy falls asleep, his dreams prove to be the final tip in the balance of power. Will he side with the Dangoth, or the Yan? Will the dreamworld fall into darkness, or will it be saved from it?

Once Upon a Time: Another Nook story, involving the world of fairytales. Things have gone terrible wrong in the land of Once Upon a Time, and the creatures within have become twisted and broken. Happily Ever After no longer applies, and the once-paradise has become a wasteland where villains thrive and heroes weep. Is there any hope left, or are the days of peace numbered?

Save Yourself

I wrote this a while back. Short, depressingly dark, and different than my current state of mind. But it's still relevant and real.


It's a very sad world we live in,
Where people kill themselves,
Mothers smother their babies,
And families are torn apart.

Close to home though...
We're so happy in our world.
There's a lot of peace,
And beauty,
In all that we experience.
Or is there?
I'm not emo,
No doubt you might think so.
I'm merely realistic,
To the point of fatalism.
I like to take the truth,
Not lies.
And what I see...

It's so harsh when your friends
Whisper behind your back.
It's cold when the people you love
Hurt themselves in vain.
It's terrible to feel that deep
Jagged wound,
Straight into your very soul,
Stabbed in the back,
By the people you believed in.
You thought they would understand,
But they understood nothing.
You thought you understood,
But you understood nothing.
Ignorance is not innocence,
But Sin.
Yes, you might have loved me,
If you had known me.
If you'd have taken the time,
To walk through the deep rivers
Of my dreams and memories.
Yes, you might have...
But no, it's alright.
It was a dark river we were both
Swept down...
And it was either you or me,
One or the other would live.
But I'll let you know.
You chose to save yourself...
And I would have chose to save you too.

The Heart Speaks Many Words

What does the heart say to you?

Hands entwined, facing a world unknown,
Terminus at every corner, a boundary at every door.
To step into the light and chase away the shadows.


I'll walk with you the lonely roads, holding together your ragged seams,
Chasing away the nightmares that plague you in your waking dreams.
Wiping the tears from your face and throwing them into the sky,
Swashing the night canvas with the rainbows of your eye.

Holding your heart in my hands, fragile as a melting snowflake,
My breath on your neck, lips near ears, so afraid you'll break,
Kissing your eyelids and hushing the loud noises of the world,
To watch the blooming of a delicate flower, or a bright flag unfurled.

Notes of a swelling chorus, playing a melody on my heartstrings,
A rising flood of emotions, with piercing sharp pangs and stings,
Wounded by your whispering voice and the touch of your hands,
Trapped forever in an endless hourglass, beneath the falling sands.

And now the frozen, lifeless land has begun to bloom once more,
Bringing the pained and broken spirit back to the way it was before,
The ice of solidarity drips from my skin, the frost from yours,
Thin rivulets of flowing water erasing all the earthly sores.

Catching the music spun by the soul in clear jars made of love,
Hands clutched tightly together with the strength of a soaring dove,
Sewn together with the stitches of laughter, and held by a single pin,
Hope and grace so pure, in souls united, untouched by the hand of sin.

And now, rising to the finale, a crashing crescendo of pain forgot,
One soul in two bodies, the greatest miracle that loving God has wrought,
And even as the chorus fades, the music softens and rises above,
And finally, we're flying on the beautiful wings of love.

This is Not a Love Story

May 27, 2008

Have you ever been in love?

The terror of eternity in a single touch,
Changing noble independence into twisted reliance,
Like a subtle kiss from a whispering vampire,
Bit through the heart and wounded beyond repair.

A promise of loving large, but hurting large,
Struggling for words like a drowner for air,
Chained together so that any short absence
Tears mercilessly and painfully at the strings.

The red-tinged stain of broken hearts, rejected,
Crushed underfoot like a small and fragile flower,
Eating into hearts, dissolving inhibitions,
And grinning with smiles of fearful longing.

More afraid of change than destruction,
Hearts held hostage by the cruelest of masters,
Taking off masks with a soft, cold hand,
Stealing away time like a thief in the night.

Burning lips, minds, hearts and thoughts,
Twisted, distracted, paranoid and afraid,
So simple a phrase, "Maybe we could just be friends,"
Brings the world crashing down on the knees of hope.

High Heels

When life gets tough,
There's only so much we can do to survive.

If you stumble, take off your high heels.
Take my hand and follow me into places where your mind says no.
Cast aside the image society has forced you to wear.
Turn off your cell phone, hang up your designer jacket.
Wipe the makeup from your face and see with clear eyes,
Unclouded by media and the masses, and look on life unblinking.
Listen to my voice, not as a person but as an idea,
And leave aside all the things that aren't you.
Shatter the image you present to the world,
Bare the soul within, and show me who you really are.
Tear away the pretty gift wrap and open your heart,
Because it's not what's on the outside that counts to me.
A touch between hands is fragile enough, and ends in time,
But a connection between hearts and minds is forever.
So take away what you're not and leave only what you are,
Mind, Body and Soul united in beauty unsurpassed.

Alone

If I die before I wake,
My soul to lose, or is more at stake?
In my mind the crying masses
Touch my body as it passes.

And as it drops there's not a sound
Just a whisper as it hits the ground.
Words are passed, memories shared,
"He was so young, I wasn't prepared."

All my friends go home in tears,
and leave me be, beyond earthly fears.
But life is much more harsh than this:
Men die alone, no one last kiss.

No hand to hold, no one beside,
Just the emptiness they feel inside.
No one to mourn, no grave to mark,
Their resting place far in the dark.

As time goes on, they fade as well,
No memories on which to dwell.
Unremembered, and unrecalled,
Discarded, trashed and uninstalled.