Monday, February 23, 2004

Bob Dylan-Hurricane

Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall.
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood,
Cries out, "My God, they killed them all!"
Here comes the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Three bodies lyin' there does Patty see
And another man named Bello, movin' around mysteriously.
"I didn't do it," he says, and he throws up his hands
"I was only robbin' the register, I hope you understand.
I saw them leavin'," he says, and he stops
"One of us had better call up the cops."
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashin'
In the hot New Jersey night.

Meanwhile, far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are drivin' around.
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that.
In Paterson that's just the way things go.
If you're black you might as well not show up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.

Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the cops.
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowlin' around
He said, "I saw two men runnin' out, they looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates."
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head.
Cop said, "Wait a minute, boys, this one's not dead"
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men.

Four in the mornin' and they haul Rubin in,
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs.
The wounded man looks up through his one dyin' eye
Says, "Wha'd you bring him in here for? He ain't the guy!"
Yes, here's the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Four months later, the ghettos are in flame,
Rubin's in South America, fightin' for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops are puttin' the screws to him, lookin' for somebody to blame.
"Remember that murder that happened in a bar?"
"Remember you said you saw the getaway car?"
"You think you'd like to play ball with the law?"
"Think it might-a been that fighter that you saw runnin' that night?"
"Don't forget that you are white."

Arthur Dexter Bradley said, "I'm really not sure."
Cops said, "A poor boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job and we're talkin' to your friend Bello
Now you don't wanta have to go back to jail, be a nice fellow.
You'll be doin' society a favor.
That sonofabitch is brave and gettin' braver.
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim."

Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much.
It's my work, he'd say, and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail.
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.

All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance.
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger.
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger.
And though they could not produce the gun,
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed.

Rubin Carter was falsely tried.
The crime was murder "one," guess who testified?
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride.
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell.
That's the story of the Hurricane,
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.
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Sunday, February 22, 2004

Waiting for the Worms

I think I'll go sacrifice a pig to the Writing Gods if someone doesn't post here soon. . .
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Saturday, February 21, 2004

Ebay? Ebay?

Mitch Feeder Goldfish Agility 7 | Strength 6 | Stamina 1 Battle Rating 14 Origins Mitch was won on Ebay Can your fishy beat Mitch ?

Ebay?

. . .That's lame.

Laaaaame.
Comments (1) | Permalink

Friday, February 20, 2004

Karma Police

Written last night.

---

I'm pretty dry for writing today. I'm really tired and don't feel like writing. And when I did try to write, it just felt dead. I guess I just need a little break. I have been writing every day this week, about, so I guess it's understandable. And it's just been a long day today. But, I'm forcing myself to write here so I can at least say I wrote somewhere around my 2,000 word goal for each day. Hah, I did write that really long piece two days ago as well; I think that'd make up for today, but still, I need to keep myself focused anyway. I need to keep writing 2,000 words a day nonetheless.

I started writing a piece for Adam. That was, of course, inspired to be done by the post I read of his cat, Paulie (Polly?) getting sick and coughing up blood. I thought it'd be nice to write him a memorable piece (well, somewhat memorable, anyway: it's off to a pretty rocky start, I think). A piece that he could put in his room, save on his computer, whatever, and read to be reminded of Paulie in turn.

Also, I think it's interesting. Paulie is like a symbol of his childhood; he's had the cat since he was very young from what I gather, and many of his childhood memories are centered around the cat. And plus, Paulie's always been a cool cat, if you know what I mean. And that's a big thing coming from me—I haven't much liked cats. My dad's allergic to them, so we haven't gotten many, and it's in turn made me dislike cats in some offhand, foreign way. Anyway, yes, Paulie's a symbol of Adam's childhood (to me, anyway), and I think it parallels what's going on in his life now, as well. The death of childhood. That's what I'm thinking.

I've written a piece recently on that subject. I guess it's something I would like to extensively write about in my ways, it seems. So hooray for that, or something.

Or something.

Got most of my homework done. The Chemistry assignment I had was really long though. Not to complain, but it was definitely draining. I just don't like Chemistry all too much—well, I do like it at times, but, you know, doing about two hours of homework for one class is, well, pretty crazy. That's when it's not fun.

Something like the assignment I had for English—now that's fun. Maybe it's just because writing is, at times, so easily done for me; but it's also that the assignment was easy, or so I'd like to say. The assignment was taking a list of vocab words, and using them in a piece. The piece could be anything: a poem, a short story, a personal narrative, anything. I did a poem. The poem turned out decent, I think. But it implements some of my older poems' ideas, so I didn't think it was too originally veined. But it turned out good, and decent, so that's all that matters, I guess. I'm also glad to say I wrote one poem today. Poetry's been very shaky for my lately, but I'm starting to get someplace in it again. I wrote a poem yesterday, and today, and some other days, so it's nice to be writing a poem a day on top of my 2,000 words goal. It helps to keep me sharp in my writing. And poems and prose are two different things (although I've tried to have them coexist before with some results).

I feel really indifferent right now. Somehow I tend to think indifferent is more laid back than apathetical, which, in definition, I suppose that's true. But I'm just emotionless right now. I don't feel much of anything, and I'm just zombieing my way through this post, getting some random thoughts down as they come. I wish I could feel something, but I find that late at night like this it's not the case most of the time. Right now I just feel tired, as if I could sleep, and my head's a bit pounding in its ways. My head's trying to unwind from the day's crap. Yes, that's right, the day's "crap." The day has a lot of crap, and this crap just piles up and up in cumulative piles. Why a day can't just crap in a toilet and move its bowels there, I don't know. I guess it just likes crapping all around me to make me feel tense and winded up like a toy soldier.

What we need is people to clean up the day's crap. That'd be the bomb. Maybe they could be called The Defecators or something. They would go around picking up day's fresh feces matter before it could infect everyone's mind and be robbed full of flies drizzling around, wanting to nurse in their maggots there. Just imagine it: then the day wouldn't have any crap, and you'd be able to go about without any crap permeating into your ears, and eating into your mouth, and fingering your flesh. Yes, that's right, "fingering your flesh." Yes, that's very right. (You sick perverse cookie, how dare you turn my poetical use of language and accost it with your lame-ass innuendoic bullshittage of tit-anic proportions. Oh, look there again! The titanic was a damn ship, okay? A damn ship, and just because its first three letters spell a particular word gives you no right in the righteous world to turn it on me and make me look like I'm some divine sex god that's just brimming, just flowing, just emanating sexual energy and sexual perversional language.)

Ahem. Where were we. Ah yes. The day and its need to move its bowels. I've noticed it likes to do it on my head quite most often. Just like some bombing bird sent on a mission from the deepest reaches of the United States government. And that's just not fair. I don't deserve to be defecated on like that. I deserve to be preened, and cuddled, not shat on. That's just not kind, especially from a bird.

If it's going to be like that, I'll just give that bird the bird, finger it to it. Yes, that's right. "Finger it to it." Got a problem with it, bub? You know, I have claws in my arms, and they come out when I'm in need of 'em. I'm like a wolverine on Tylenol, so you gotta watch out. I'll stab you in your stomach before you know it, and I'm not going to "finger it to it" either, no, not at all. That's not my style. I'd stab you in cold blood with them.

Did you actually believe I had claws there for a second? Well, I really do, fool. My claws are my godsend. You got to watch out for them, too, or else they'll go Gestapo on your ass. (I'm sorry to degrade to that term, but what can I say, Gestapo is a funny word. Ha ha, that's a funny word. Practice it with me. Ready? Laugh. Ha ha, that's a funny word. Say it. "Ha ha, that's a funny word." You better be saying it or else I swear your family's going to be instigated by a group of yodeling hippies who steal their sanity and give them nothing in exchange.)

Hold on there, hold on. I got something for you! Hold on there! Just hold on a second, I would tell you what I'm doing with my hands right now if I could quit narrating for a second and just give you descriptive paragraphs and not have to talk about what I'm doing right now.

Oh, wait, here we go, yeah.

Mitch puts his hands into the depths of his pockets. He fumbles around madly in them for a while.

"Hold on! I got something for you! Just hold on! Hold on!" and Mitch is still moving his hands to and fro madly in his pocket. Does Mitch have a gift? Does he have something of importance?

Yes, he does.

Mitch reveals what he has. His hands quickly spring forth from his pockets, magically, and then they are suddenly pointed to the day, who is now dropping a lozenge on Mitch heftily from the sky. Mitch's middle finger stands out in stark resplendence, and shines. But it is too late, and day is not startled at all! The shat lozenge from day's sent bird begins tumbling from the sky, just like a baby being dropped by a gull. The lozenge picks up speed as it falls due to its weight giving it inertia and gravity exerting its pull.

Down the shitbomb falls, spinning rapidly in the air as if the lozenge is alive with contemplations. It can almost be heard exclaiming wildly, through giggles and endless movement, "Where's the Mitch, where's he! I'm gonna slam him right in the face and it's going to be great! Me, I'm going to shat on Mitch! Ha ha, it'll be great! It'll be just like when George Bush choked on his pretzel at that baseball game and it was covered with wide media coverage! I cannot wait for the media to get in on this! Ha ha, this'll be great, it'll be far better than anything else that's ever happened in my existence!"

Then. . .seconds later.

Plop. Mitch stares in belation at his head. What's this that's landed? Oh, it smells warm and it's so very brown and there's little cracks in it, and it seems so alive.

Oh, that's a turd.

Then, suddenly, a great noise is heard as a vehicle approaches. It's a TV van; its dish is on its top, spinning wild, and it says channel 60 news on it.

Mitch laughs as he looks at 60. 60. A 6 and an 0. A long shafty organ and a circle digit zero. Hah, it's genius. Mitch wishes he could be 60-something-or-other. Then he could symbolize (no it's not what you think you sick perverted pig! how dare your mind go so far into the gutter! thou art the most innuendoic thing that hath stalkethed me!) Mitch as only a number.

A woman with large heaving bosoms approaches Mitch (I think you're speaking to me and making me add that "large heaving bosoms" part, aren't you? I should just deleted it, sicko!). She has large blue eyes like the sky and her hand's held out to Mitch. "Hello, my name's Granola." Granola?

Sounds like. . .dun dun dun, a Granola Bar. That chewy grainy bar of delicacies.

"Just like a Granola Bar," says Mitch.

"Yes," says Ms. Heaving Bosoms 2004.

"I like Granola Bars," says Mitch.

"I do too," says Ms. Heaving Bosoms 2004.

"Yeah," says Mitch.

"Yeah," says Ms. Heaving Bosoms 2004.

"Anyways," says Turd Covered Mitch.

"Yes, anyways, what's your name then?" asks Granola Bar Ms. Heaving Bosoms 2004.

"My name's Sexy beast, and I've come to put my sexy beast moves on you!" says Sexy Turd Covered Beast Mitch.

"Ah," says Ms. Heaving Bosoms 2004 Granola Bar.

Now, cue the corny porno music.

Too hot for post. Deleted.

"That was fun," says Turd Covered Now Happy Sexy Beast Mitch.

"Yes, it was," says Ms. Heaving Bosoms 2004 Granola Bar Now Sexed. "I liked how you [Too hot for post. Deleted] and put that thing [Too hot for post. Deleted] and then put your hand on [Too hot for post. Deleted]."

The porno music stops. Mitch awakens and realizes he had fallen on the ground and was fantasizing.

"That was quite a fall you took," says Ms. Heaving Bosoms 2004.

"Yes," says Mitch. "What's your name, again?"

"Granola."

"Like Granola Bars?"

"Yes. Like Granola Bars."

"I like Granola Bars."

"Yes."

"Yes."

Mitch scratches his head and realizes the turd is still there. "Excuse me for a moment," Mitch says. "I'll be right back, then we can get down to 'business.'"

"Okay. Hurry back then, so we can get back down to 'business.'" says Ms. Heaving Bosoms 2004 With New Added Line "Business."

Mitch finds a tree with bark. He rubs his head on it and the shat comes off. He holds his fist to the air, and triumphantly flips a bird to the sky.

"God bless America," he says. Then, "Granola Bars. . .mmm."

He walks back to the reporter.

"Hello," says Mitch Now Without Shat It's On The Tree.

"Hey," says Ms. Blue eyes. "So, let's get down to 'business.'"

"Yeah, let's do." Mitch stares at her. She stares at him.

Then, suddenly, her face changes. It contorts to the face of Richard Simmons.

"OMG," says OMGing Mitch.

"WTF is ur problem?" says Ms. Heaving Bosoms 2004 Richard Simmons.

"NM," says NMing Mitch.

"OK," says Dick Simmons Heaving Bosoms 2004.

"Is this IRL?" asks IRLing Mitch. "OMFG, if it is."

"IMO, it is," says Dick Simmons. "Anyway, let me ask you a question, okay?"

"Fine, fine," says Mitch.

"WTF is where you were born?"

"Excuse me?" asks Mitch, brow furrowed.

"WTF IS WHERE YOU WERE BORN!"

"Could you speak English, please? I don't know what W-T-F means."

"Winging Titter Flies is where you were born?"

"What? What did you say?"

"OMFG! WTF am I supposed to do! I can't even understand what I'm trying to say."

"Eh?" says Mitch.

"And I wanted this story alot! WTF, I can't even write a sentance of it now!"

"A lot is separated, you know. It's not one word. And I'd advise you don't use it so much, either, Mr. Simmons. It's a stupid, overused term. And what does it mean, when you look at it? A lot could be where you put cars. I know about those lots. And sentence is spelled with an 'e.' It's spelled s-e-n-t-e-n-c-e. Did you get that down? And I'd advise you don't use acronyms, they make you look stupid, and lose credit as good reporter."

Richard Simmons starts breaking down.

"OK, OK, I admit it, I'm a failure! I can't spall at all, and my grammer and sentances is terrible! So I guess we can't help eachother, can we? WTF, and all I wanted was a story about you and ur day shitting on you!"

"Can't you ever get it right, Dick? Dick, grammar is spelled with all 'a's.' There's not a single e in it at all. Just think about it before you write it down. And 'each other'? Each other is separated. I know it sounds like it's all one word, since that's how I've always said it. But I've said it more like, 'e'chother,' than 'each other.' I guess it's just another slang. But it's separated. And please, dear jesus, don't use shorter forms of words. It's just lazy and makes you look like a bumbling fool!"

"OK, me sorry. Me promise to get better at grammar. Me promise."

Mitch, seeing no hope for poor Dick Simmons, turns and walks away. Me promise? Me promise? Mitch shook his head and felt like he was going to cry tears to the grammar gods.

"Why couldn't you just have been the girl of my dreams?" Mitch mumbles as he walks away.

"Why couldn't you be the girl of my dreams? Where did everything go so wrong with you? Why did you have to turn into Richard Simmons?"

He goes off in the distance, and as he walks, another turd falls on his head.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Coma White

I'm sick of debating anything in Otaku Lounge (just go look at the recent gay thread). Just a little thing to note.

I don't quite see how, being a human being, you can sit there and think gay is the most wrong thing in the world. But ah well. That's for others to believe.

God shouldn't even factor into it. If you believe in God, then you believe God makes people--and it's by his way that he makes people be what they are (including gay). So that argument is mostly fundamentally flawed.

And anyway, religion has not a thing to do with it. It's funny how we turn to religion no matter what else.

All religion is is trying to explain things we don't understand. Things one day we'll probably understand (and when I'll be long dead and gone, thank heavens for that). We're nothing better than the Romans or the Greeks with their Mythologies and their gods they worishipped.

Just look at the stories in the bible. Don't they remind you of mythology to an extent? Sure as hell remind me.

Then what's the big deal about being gay? I cease to see it. Most people seem to be sexist. Others seem to lean towards their religion to say it's wrong. Still others say it's wrong for other reasons.

But whatever. I'm sick of debates. They remind me of politics. And I hate politics. Just look at the John Kerry and Bush thing. Who the fuck cares if Bush was AWOL or whatever the hell that was about (I didn't even pay attention because I don't care, and I'm not voting and I'm just an ignorant, uncaring person when it comes to presidency and so on. At least to an extent.)

What this is about is equal rights. Equality. People don't understand that everyone deserves the same as others--to an extent, at least (because in an ideal world it's given there's going to be people higher than others).

But whatever. I'm sick of debating.

Here's what'll happen: eventually the gays will finally be given what they deserve, just as the blacks did, just as every single other minority has in the past. It might take some time (I see that Bush is prejudiced and is going to impact this and make it probably longer), and some work, but eventually people will get what they deserve, and people in future generations will look back at what we said of the gays and think, "What the hell?" just like we look back at how we treat the blacks and go, "What the hell?"

I think it's sad that it's like this. But I can't do anything. Eventually people will see how stupid this entire thing was, just as we look back and see how stupid slavery was and how damaging it was.

Who cares. There's nothing I can do. I can't make a difference.

This is why I hate debates. I can't make a difference. And there's always someone out there that will put up a more intelligent debate than I could, even though from my vantage point there's nothing wrong with being gay.

I mean, since when has sexuality determined what a person is? It's only in an intimate way that they're different.

Whatever. The world is a fucked up place.
Comments (1) | Permalink

a strange fruit we are

Oh, the turbulent woe of the body!
the sick and senseless somber sigh,
the inept—they seem to writhe!
with bitten fingers, the nails hanged
on nooses on the flowering tree—
this is a strange fruit, a strange fruit
to be. . .

& wretched we are!
& hanged we be!
in divergence,
we flee!

Oh, and the inept—they seem to writhe,
how their bodies jive,
and how they reach—
how they reach to the sky!
grab us over, grab our heads
oh what a strange fruit, a strange fruit
this is to be. . .

The cigar smoking sky;
he has an ashen look in his eye,
and his throat is a rocky pile
where smoke seeps and lies.
And oh, his lungs are blackened
and seem to wheeze:
cough, cough, and breathe—
and wheeze—
would he die and all fall down,
or would he not have any cigars to smoke,
nothing to make him mope!
that would be the day,
the time we need not be. . .

but here we are, oh yes indeed
we are human beings!
inept wretched things,
and from us, the languished tree!
where ripe fruit hangs,
and nooses are ready
to claim.

but here we are, oh yes indeed
we are human beings!
inept wretched things,
and from us, the guns smoke and heave!
wartime is good time to be,
the death, the valor, the glee,
the permanent atrophy, the great deeds.

the death of one is a tragedy,
oh what a strange fruit indeed!
the death of one is a tragedy,
oh yes indeed!

but the death of a million
is just a statistic,
a number that stabs—
wrenches—lacerates.
and there they hang,
the millions on the tree—
the nooses holding heads
for all to see,
and only one
matters to me.

how pretentious!
oh how narcissistic of me!
but here i am, and here i be!
human being!
but were you to die,
i would remember you!
i promise, yes i promise
i speak true!
but my life
is not your life,

my pain is my own
and to have the toil
yield reason,
oh to have them remember me,
that is where it is good to be!

oh, would i were a maggot,
sucking most sweet divine!
but here i am, changing to a fly.
oh, would i were a leech,
sucking most sweet divine;
or would i were in a cocoon,
where i could spin and delude.

but here i am and here i be
human being.
most vile, malicious thing!
most perverse nothing!

for high we fly
when given wings
and flies we be.
and crude we are,
and visceral we see
when maggots we are
of fleshly breed.

and all we touch,
and all we see,
is all our lives
will ever be.

oh, and all we touch—
all we see!
all that is here,
and as we be!
oh, that is all
our lives
will ever be!

& wretched we are
& chained we be!
& damned we walk
& little we see.

but here we are
and here we be.

and this, this is a strange thing to be
oh yes indeed

a strange fruit we are. . .
Comments (1) | Permalink

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Speak to Me--Breathe

Pink Floyd, lyrics by Roger Waters, "Speak to Me—Breathe"
"Breathe, breathe in the air
Don't be afraid to care
Leave but don't leave me
Look around and choose your own ground
For long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be

Run rabbit run
Dig that hole, forget the sun,
And when at last the work is done
Don't sit down it's time to dig another one
For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave"


It takes in a breath of the warm limiting air and looks to the sky. Deep up there there's the sun and it eyes it with anticipation and revolt. Its stupid dull eyes, banal circular spheres, shake a little from the sun's harshness on its eyes. It takes its gaze from the big, shinning sun. As it leaves the afterimage of the sun stays in its stupid dumb eyes for a while, like the letters branded on a domesticated cow. And slowly the afterimage fades as it busies itself with other tasks.

The naked form, without clothes, cocks its head to the solemn ground. Its dull dumb eyes look at the dirt with an overbearing cessation, a wondering pause. It seems to be thinking something, arranging something in its fatuous, impertinent head. The big dumb creature, provincial as everything else, stares back up at the sun.

There's no change. The stupid creature's eyes gaze in the star's eye and they're looking at one another, far away and impersonal. Its eyes flutter and glint in the burning sun. Soon it turns its eyes away yet again, defeated.

It knows in its dumb mind what it must do now. The afterimage of the sun seeps away and its eyes wont over on the ground again. There's no vegetation on the ground. It then takes its big dumb head up and looks all about it. There's nothing but the hot heat and an endless expanse of more sand and more sand. A desert.

It stands and looks to the ground again. It stands there long. The sun continues to bake the stupid creature. All the creature can do is stand by as it continues to get warmer and warmer. Sweat begins and comes from the pores on the big stupid creature's skin. It waters down at first in small drops, then augments into bigger and yet bigger pools. Soon the big dumb creature is sweating profusely, the salty sweat coming down on its face, its legs, its torso, its naked genitals. It can taste it in its big dumb mouth. It tastes strange. It makes it even more thirsty.

It's getting thirsty. Its throat feels like a dry guttural refuse of rocky chasms with each encumbered breath and swallow. Its hands feel chipped and are dry to flakes. They feel gritty. Its back is getting sunburned, the red prevailing over its fleshly peach color. The red has almost made it to its buttocks.

And at last, the big dumb creature has a plan: it shall burrow into the ground. It has no idea what the ground is, nor what it is doing. At first it just absently puts its big dumb calloused hands on the dirt as it lies on the ground, grasping it and throwing it in frustration. It kept doing this and soon realized it was making a hole.

Frantic, wanting survival, the big dumb creature burrows its hands in the sand. It grabs a large handful, throws it aside, grabs another with the other hand, throws it aside. Repeats. The big dumb creature sits there doing it a long time, its eyes in a painful pant, its hands flaking and dry, its back now sunburned almost to the buttocks. The pain is racking, hits its big dumb body and jolts. But all that is on its big dumb mind is survival. All it wants to do is escape into the depths of the ground, the cold cool ground, and be safe. It must forget the sun—must get away from its prying, ever radiant, ever warming ephemeral gaze. It must find suitable ways to last.

The sun begins to fall. Its glow begins to fade into the back dropping distance. Its then orange radiance is now a mosaic of punctured color. There's a shade of violet flower, a rose-red crimson bleed, a fruitful orange of growth, a bruise-blue wound. The sun is setting, permeating its intensity, its vivacious coordinationed hues. It's not leaving without a show.

From the big creature's stupid form, the colors cadence all around. The kaleidoscope of variance dances and dresses the creature's naked flesh. And the big creature's stupid face, stern with determination, hard with pain, flickers with the light too. The light touches the creature's face in a powerful grasp, and slowly leaves with one last dying finger.

The sun has fell. Now night approaches.

But the big dumb creature, having worked most of the day, has dug itself a big hole in the ground. The hole's diameter is just enough for the big dumb creature's form. It wearies its eyes for one last look at the sun. The big dumb creature gets the very edge of the sun's leaving face. It then looks around its barren surroundings once more. It sees the endless desert which encompasses it.

Slithering into the hole it begins journeying down. Its entire body spasms in aching pains, and sunburn stands on its back in harsh overtones down to the buttocks.

Down it climbs in the hole. It climbed for what seemed eternity. The sun is lost to the creature's primitive cognitions. It is no longer cognizant of where it came from; it is only realizing of where it's going. Down it tells itself, into the ground, where it's safe, that's where to go.

It went down and down and deep—went into the bowels of the earth, a festering thing going and moving. When it reaches the end of the hole, it sees a new surrounding, a new dwelling.

It fell from the sky, a naked form in a blur of innate motion. The fall is short and it lands.

All about there are large monoliths which seem to touch the sky; the monoliths look as if they would lean and fall at any moment, and crash to the ground, but they do not. These monoliths have people coming into them, and it can see there's clear squares appropriated on the monoliths. Some of the squares leak light out into the daytime. Others only let light in.

There is a hustle and a bustle all about. Sputtering things go to and forth, the wind hitting the creature's face each time as they pass. People walk along the side of the passing blurs, creating a tangled mess.

One approaches the big dumb creature and opens his mouth. The big dumb creature doesn't understand and gives a glint of miscommunication in its eyes. The man looks angered. It only can look at the man and wonder what his problem is. And feel a rumbling in its stomach for food, and the lethargy of needed sleep.

The world is so anew to this creature's eyes. It looks to the sky, wishing it could go back up, but finds its hole is gone. It falls to its knees, grabs them, and cries from dry eyes. The salty murk clouds its vision but does nothing to its temperament. Sadness wells in its pained body, and an ununderstanding and unacceptance of what is happening heaves its mind. The man is still by the big dumb sullen creature. He looks angered and walks away.

It lay there a long time.

Collecting itself, it got back up. There is now a circle of people surrounding it, but it doesn't pay attention. It gathers away its pains well as it can and sets out to find some food. It comes upon a large building. It isn't quite a monolith but the front of it has a picture of food. The big dumb creature decides there must be food here. Somewhere.

The sign on the sliding door outside the store read SHIRT AND SHOES REQUIRED. It can't read so it doesn't even see the sign.

The doors slid open. It walks in. People stare at the creature. Some place their hands on their mouths. The look on their mouth says, "This is the worst thing to happen on the world ever. Anyone who does that shouldn't be around long." Others look at it with groping eyes. Some act like it doesn't even exist, walking right past it, whistling on their way, their eyes set ahead.

It walks to where it sees food. It grabs a round sphere which appears to be food. It puts it in its mouth. It tastes good. The texture of the food is crispy and hard but sweet. It clenches its jaw and takes another bite, and another. Inside its body its esophagus pushes down the bitten pieces of food to its stomach. Its body begins digesting the food to turn it into energy and waste.

Now it needs to satisfy its thirst. Its throat still feels rough and hoarse. It walks around the store a while. People still turn their heads and stare.

It finds a container with some fluid in it. It imbibes it to its mouth and felt the nice fluidity of it. The nice flow of it as it soothes the throat.

Just as it finishes guzzling down its beverage, a man with perceptive eyes and an embarrassed face approaches. He grabs it by its shoulder's skin and speaks harsh words to it. He drags it to the entrance and tosses it out. He screams more words to it and rages off. It doesn't understand what went wrong. It only feels the skin of its shoulders and feels a bellow of pain. It only knows it's full of food and water and that's what matters.

The stupid dumb creature begins wandering off. It wants to get out of there. It wants to leave. Looking to the sky, the creature sees the sun in the sky. It looks the same. It remembers.

It wants get away from the sun. It holds bad memories. The big stupid creature begins walking faster. It pans its gaze away from the sun, the undeniable afterimage of it racking its eyes and then leaving. Soon the hustle and the bustle is lessening. There's less monoliths, less tangles of people. It finally feels like it's getting away from this place.

It's out away from the epicenter now. There's only solemn things flying by, and next to no one out and about. It has come to a wooded area. Great trees crush out of the ground, their roots gnarling things. Light bushes also cover the ground, fighting for supremacy they'll never have against the great trees.

It can also hear the chirping of some birds in the trees. It looks up and stops its walking. It can see a bird sitting in the tree. There's eggs in there too. The eggs are oval and white as angel's wings. It stares at them in wonder but is soon walking on. It puts its head down, and is racked by its pain. Its back hurts; its head aches; its shoulders burn from the man's hands on his skin; its fingernails are broken and full of grime and dirt from digging, and full of nestled sores. Its body isn't in good condition

It feels fragile as it walks. It's like it's going to scatter and blow away in the light breeze, broken pieces of terse, sorely aches and pains, wounds and cracks. Soon it needs to sleep.

In back of it a noise emanates. The cracking of twigs and leaves and it starts off running. It runs with the last of its strength. Something pushes it to run. A large prick of fear stabs itself in its heart. It must run, it reasons, or it shall be susceptible to more pain. The people didn't like it, so it must avoid them.

The big dumb creature runs quick, easily outrunning its follower. When it stops running, it can see a small animal in the distance. It approaches it.

The creature it finds has flappy ears, a puffy tail, a round nose. And it hops when it walks, its fur moving up and down in spurs. It looks close at what the rabbit is doing. It's put its paws into the ground and is digging. The mound of dirt collecting grows in each lithe second.

The stupid dumb creature smiles. It's a pained smile lighting the corners of its cheeks, a slow smile spreading few and far, but still showing hope. It looks at the rabbit with great understanding and love, and a great feeling of joy from watching it dig.

Its paws went in the ground, the other in the ground, and out came the dirt in clouds, and landed. Then again. And again. The little creature works hard. The eyes are focused. The body exerted in what it's doing. The entire being moving autonomously. Paw goes in, other goes in, out it comes in a dirt, down the paws go again, up they come again, another dash of the dirt as it flies up and lands and the hole gets deeper. It was beautiful.

The stupid dumb creature smiled a long time. Then it got to sitting down on a tree beside the rabbit. Its eyes drift half open for a long time as it watches. And slow, so slow, its eyes shut, and it slept a much needed sleep.
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Guess the Song Lyrics

Guess what song this is from. (Tony, you should know this one. That is, if you even go here anymore.)

The death of one is a tragedy
The death of one is a tragedy
The death of one is a tragedy
But death of a million is just a statistic
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monster

This was more for me, as a personal thing, than anything, but I'll post it here. Comment if you'd like, I suppose, but yeah.

I'll probably salvage some of this tonight and make it into my column for newspaper.

---

its times like this and i try to put it down but the words wont come. i wonder if the words left me and i dont have them anymore. it all seems dead at this moment and im left here wondering where its all at, where is my power, where is my feeling, where is the feeling of words coming down perfect in a nice cocosm of greatness? where is the feeling and i ask myself and i dont know i just dont know.

i dont feel sadness, i dont feel anything. i feel hopelessly hopeful and i take my ways and i cant seem to put them down on here. and it all seems like drivel right now and i feel like im wandering around in a deep pit of mud.

the mud is up to me and in my head. inside my brain and it says,

"you can think you dont know whats to be said,"
and i feel dead.

wheres the genius i thought i knew? maybe i never had it i say to myself. and emotions not running me through, the muds all over me and its covering. its a sheltered home where i can drown and feel fine but i wonder where its all at and itll just take time. and then itll all leak out and ill feel like im in control again. flying the airplane to the hard asphalt and crashing it and itll flame up and my eyes will be wild and visceral and ill feel so good. but right now i feel nothing and all i can hear is the redolent smell of the rotting carcass of nothing. he wears no clothes and is naked on the ground and is all over me, covering me, over my eyes. and up and down he shakes hes having a hemorrhage and theres fire on his mind. pyromaniac he wants to burn it all. hes too redolent with death and doesnt know what he got himself into. i wish i could throw him a rope but i want him to die. hes slowing dying in front of me as i feel it all coming out again so quickly.

its working and im loosening up. i was rust and i was coating a thick steel wire of mechanical mechanism. i wasnt doing anything but now im going somewhere. rain is falling in drops and it feels wet in my hand. its getting too hot to handle and i can feel it all coming into focus. clarity is becoming nature as the redolent smell of nothing is leaving my side.

i want to throw a funeral for him and ill do that but itll be a while before i can do that. my minds still stuck in the humdrum motions of the world—the world, the place i hate. the world is such a muse. hes quiet and makes me subdued and wants to slaughter me. im just a pig and he wants to take the skin and peel it back, he wants to gut me and see my bones and wants me to be redolent with motheaten wings. i wont let that happen ill fight him and im going to win. but its in my heart ill win; in my ribcage where theres butterflies and theres big monsters. these big monsters and butterflies in my head are spinning around in a cocoon no one can touch but me and ill make it through it all enwrapped in here. its a place to sleep and kill the pain in there. the pain is real let me tell you. its real as itll ever be.

each day is another grimace but im still smiling like them all. everyone is such an actor and i wonder why its this way. everyone should just do their own thing. they should be pursed with the toleration of individual mollification. everyone should just say screw reality and quit being so serious.

seriousness is a disease. it is an STD that i hope not to catch. i dont want to walk around and be all stern and harsh. i dont want to be the one to tell them all it doesnt matter. i want to be the one to lift up their hearts in the quietest ways. i dont want them to learn i just want them to be themselves and learn themselves. learning starts first at a personal level. you have to accept something and make it you. being too serious about something shows you want it bad enough that you'll bleed. youll grimace.

theres blood on the moon as we plan our escape—the god is in bloom, handcuffed and raped. interrogate him and make him admit to it all. hes the one who spoke them into it. hurry and get dressed as we leave for the last time. im sick of this world lets go up there. there moons bleeding and its catalysting. it has eyes and is more alive than any of them. our dreams are what carry us to nowhere but the moon. i have to keep telling myself of you. hurry, get dressed faster. we need to go and escape. its time to leave.

goodbye this world. its too full of diseased cows. theyve caught the mad cow disease of justifiable existence. theyre trying to give themselves reasons to lie on. lessons to blossom from. theyre trying to brain wash us all and teach us its right to know manmade facts. too bad carbon isnt made of that. itll all be gone someday. why even worry about it. why even learn when in the end you get old and unlearn in your wisdom. the world is an intolerable introspection. im sick of faking caring about it. the world and its children can can rotten in their skins. dont you know evil lives in a mother fucking pigskin? ive worn my pigskin too long its time to let it go.

ground control to major tom, this is me. im telling you im off. im going to the sky and its going to be better than anything here. theres blood on the moon as i make my escape. the god is in bloom hes handcuffed and raped. im glad to leave and shed off my mothskin. im stepping through the way. and im floating in the most peculair way. and im leaving you slaves.

im just another dead astronaut in space. im going to go far away. goodbye. im feeling very thin and my breath is thinning. its time to take the life. its the silence of the lambs and theres only me and devoidly end.

whats life but a gun held to your head. and eventually that gun goes off. maybe a few times it misses, maybe it runs out of magazines here and there. but eventually it gets you good. and its smiling when it does it too—i can just see it now. the wideeyed skeletal grin, and its got black holes for eyes and a grinning grinding mouth. i guess ill just pull the trigger for life i dont like creeps. and life is one creep. hes always stalking me and telling me what to do. and hes always taking whats me away and saying its not me. its as if im just a mannequin and im here to take his blows. and im not but i cant help it.

the only way to get out of lifes dodge is to escape here. and im floating up in the sky, cant you see? up heres where it all runs free, up heres where it comes out like a running river. up heres where the words flow and tangle you and theyre like vines, groping grabbing grating vines thatre thick from ages. the vines, when cut, will bleed an atophy for you and theyll bruise. and from their squirming masses you can bend and mar them to bleed whatever you want. if you want it to bleed. but if you turn your back and become just another one of them then thats a different story. then youre just like them all. all you can see is the future when what you should see is what the vines are out there for you to see. with these vines i can show you amazing things and theyll topple anything else.

i went to deaths store and there was nothing there. so i left and now im up here in the sky and the stars are twinkling. its like theyre blinking at me and i can also see theres the moon and im breathing off of nothing. its great. i dont have lungs. all im using is will and im bending it my way in a fun manner. im not all serious im not bogged down. im just me and im breathing through my skin. im breathing through my eyes. and im smelling through my hair. im even eating through my hands. its an amazing experience.

we hold these truths self evident: that all men arent created equal, and man seeks to pursue no life, no liberty, and no pursuit of happiness. all man should seek is right in his face and thats life and living it and not worrying about anything else. were so serious these days its funny. so bogged down by useless information its sad. because the only way information is useful to you is if you think its useful. some man can walk up to me and say that sex is the best information and the best thing to do. and if im set out and i try it out and i find i dont care for it, then its not important to me. its not useful. its not something i have a natural inclination for. but still some think i should develop this useless skill that i have trouble at. youd think people would learn from their mistakes: their mistakes say they shouldnt do something again and they should try something different.

im just rambling. lord i was born a rambling man. i have nothing to say so i hide it by having something to say. im a hopless pig. i wish the farmer would just eat me already. my time hasnt come yet. but i can see the little thing of me dying slowly. and as i lay dying a new me is rising and groaning to the tap of anothers beat. im being reborn each day and im being killed each day. theres random assassinations all the time. sometimes im sitting down and im just shot there and i fall over dead and i come back alive and ive forgotten some part of me. other times im injected through my arm and it all crawls around my blood veins and vessels and chokes me. other times radioactive decay is forced into my open mouth orally. and they all say theyre here for only oral support. oral support—thats a laugh. its not a good feeling when im being jammed in with things either. it hurts and i can feel it inching closer and closer to my heart, my core. i feel about as big as a dust mite then. and i feel just as dusty and just as below it all.

shoot me while im divine. kill me while im dead. shoot me while im bleeding. it all beggars belief. how it all is coming together; its all shards and its pieces of perverse contortion. it feels like im doing flips and back flips at the beckoning of anything around me. its all banal. its all useless and uninteresting. all i want is there for me to be reason. for me to have some meaning other than me. but its not there. theres only whispers of it; whispers swollenly sulled through susceptible shies. im just a ghost walking in those fields. im just an apparition and all i wear is a big branded number. im nothing more than a number. just looking at my social security number this is what i see. i see numbers. and its the numbers. alls about the numbers. nobody cares who you are, they just care what youre worth and whats your number.

i go up to feel out the application. they want to know my social security number. they want to know me. they want me to write it all down not in my own words on a piece of paper. they want me to tell them im seventeen and that i live on a street. they want me to write things down that i dont care about. they dont want to talk to me as a person. and sometimes i try to sell myself and all they do is say theyll consider me. well let them consider that i feel useless. everything around you says youre useless. you see people better than you every day and youre glad youre not that person but all the same you wish you were them. but it doesnt matter because hopefully the world will set you on its way sometime, wont it? you hope so but you doubt it. you wonder where youll be in a few years. will it be the same place?

so all i can do is escape to space, where i can escape. and from here the god is in bloom, handcuffed and raped. were our own gods and some other people think were gods. were the divine interventions in our lives. if theres some outside force then theres some outside force. but its not about that outside force its about the people around me and whats shaping me and them all at once. each word we say to each other, each glint of the eye, each lull of the head, each single thing that happens adds together to produce us.

its funny to think pythagoras said something along the lines of everythings made of numbers. he even said numbers have personalities. he mustve been a genius, but geniuses are prone to misunderstand what it is theyre saying. if everythings made of numbers then all i am is zeroes ones twos and fives. im just lines and dashes and certain movements of a hand that make out a 5 or a 1. im not anything else. im just a number. i hope thats not true. i wouldnt want to be a number. id just want to be what i am even if thats a number. id rather be ignorant of the truths.

all i am is a combination of repetition. lifes one big complex gear. its got more gears than we can count. it changes all the time, and cycles, and sometimes these gears overlap and they make wonderful things. delightful things. and sometimes they seem to do nothing. and sometimes the gears get so mechanical, autonomous that it feels like youre going nowhere. and you go insane and you wonder how people can keep at life like a woodpecker. how they can keep pecking its tree. you wonder why they dig such a deep hole when once they crawl into its depth theyll just end up being thrown aside. theyll just end up dead and theyll just be recycled back into the earth. its just a washer washing clothes. the clean ones go in the dryer and dry out. and the dirty unwashed ones go in the washer. and they spin around and around. its like the earth orbiting the sun. its like the universe and how its so symmetrically perfect. how all the planets spin where they spin and are grasped like a firm hand into where theyre going. they just keep spinning and we just keep spinning and its quite dumbing. its just going back and forth over old land that we think looks new. i wish it would all be chaos. that itd all collapse on one another. that itd all break and come out of its certainties. i wish thered be something greater than just what things are and have to be. theres nothing great here but the gears meshing together and gliching when they can.

i wonder if our concept of time is even right. maybe everythings been set out. maybe it hasnt. maybe the future is happening as were here. maybe its like everyhing else: its just one big loop. and once it finds its end it begins all over again. maybe its just like that. i often get deja vu, this feeling that things have happened like this before, and its an amazing feeling. it gets in your skin and sort of wanders in you and shakes you. its like its announcing to you that theres something more to life than just point A to point B. its like its telling you theres even more to life than just a whole bunch of this and that and this and that. its like theres something more. its like you can grasp it but you cant. you get this feeling that you know something more than you know and you get a stroke of genius and its up in your spine and its all over you. its the gears of life overlapping. its things getting off kilter for a while. and the feeling is great.

what if the futures actually the past, and the past is actually the future? what if theres no such thing as future or past—its all just present, its all just things spinning in its cage and rapping in its steel and doing things in a set mechanical edge. what if its not like that and its actually only what we make of it.

what if we create everything we see and were the gods of it all. were the ones that make us feel pain and we love it. what if everyone is just another form of us.

what ifs are made for books. books i need to write but dont have the power.

its amazing. i feel like im leaving my humdrum existence. everything is aside. im moving with life and its moving with me and were dancing with one another. everything feels visceral. its as if im playing lifes game. its as if im messing with it. its a great feeling, creation is. its also an empty feeling all the same. its also so many other things at the same time.

when you think about it all im typing is scribbled characters which are given a certain value when combined in a certain way. when theyre set in the way i want them i can tell you what im feeling. i can tell you what i want to say. i can do whatever i want. its an amazing thing, language is. its also limiting in some aspects, and exceeds in others. language is a strange tool.

when my minds lucid clear like this i can finally unlock my mind. i can finally get rid of all the garbled garbage and just think what i want to think and so much more. im not held down and raped by anything else. im not under some kind of wry eye. im just with me and im with these words.

its like a telepathy. if these words are set somewhere else or are read in some distant time, theyll still be here. ill still be able to speak. itll be as if im alive even when im dead. itll be like im past existence, im on some level where nothing matters but what im saying. a place where nothing is on you but what im saying and what youre making of what im saying. its telepathy. telepathy—they thought it never existed but it does. its right in front of our eyes. you can look into me through this while im doing the same.

with words i can create large trees. i can make a big monster. do you want a big monster? ill give you one.

hes in front of you. hes taller than youve ever seen—when you look at him you think of a big skyscraper that scrapes the sky and leaves it empty. hes got big teeth. on his teeth theres yellow plaque and his gums bleed all the time. theres also bits of food in his mouth. his eyes are heavy and dark and when you look in them you see yourself. his nose is wrinkled and you can feel the harsh blowing of them as he breathes in and out. you can imagine his lungs breathing, his heart beating in a thud thud. to look at him you have to look up. he has red scales all over his body, as if hes bleeding. and his hands are large and bulky, theyre full of muscles and tissue. and his feet are even more muscles—they're full of muscles, like big roots of a tree—all whirling and spirals. theyre the size of large buildings, built of flesh and bone and endless times hes stomped on the ground. hes eyeing you and his arm reaches out to you. his arm is the size of your entire body and then some. its like theres a big semi truck in your face and you cant see anything else. only you and this big fist thats balled on you, this big red fist thats full of power and muscle and design. and you cant see anything—not even his face anymore. its only him.

and suddenly you realize hes not a monster at all. hes just a big, towering, scary creature thats words. hes nothing more than the values placed upon words put together in a certain way, a certain fashion. all he is is just what words are: scribbles, and certain things repeated over and over again in a purposeful manner which lets me give you something the words will tell you. im a big talker and i can say big things, but i never move my lips. all i do is sit here and lick them and thats all. nothing more nothing less. but in my mind im spinning with lifes gears. im switching and changing and meshing and im like a hampster running in a cage but i never get tired. i could do this forever. but nothing allows it. and when im away from it it takes time to get it back—just as you saw. remember the start of this? it was so rusty, so stale. it was all nothing. remember? remember the dead rotting carcass of nothing redolent with the scents that are his own? i remember him.

hes long gone now. im on top of some pinnacle now. im climbing it higher and higher, and when i look up all i see is something more to be created; i see no end, and i never saw a beginning unless there was one some ways down. but down below me all i see is a monster: a big monster thats only words, and thats all. thats all he is and thats all he ever was. that monsters whats holding this mountain up and hes getting more muscle with each passing moment. soon hell be able to throw this mountain around like its made of styrofoam. like its a feather that just floats and doesnt have much inertia. the monsters everything thats built me as a writer, as a person, as me up to this point.

who am i? im a cynic. im full of spite and i hate many things. but i also love many things. i love the way the wind blows on trees. i love the way you whisper to me in your mind while im typing this even though i dont know who you are. im in a haze now and i dont know what im saying at all. all i know is that im making some connection—im speaking to something. what it is, i dont know.

all i know is i am heavily bitter. i am heavily sarcastic. and so, the monster you see below you? the one i described earlier? hes also heavily bitter. he just sweats it. every thing he does is a snarl and done with little time management other than when its all coming together like it is now. and he just doesnt want me to stop. hes looking at me lean and hungry, just like cassius did to julius caesar in shakespeares play. lean and hungry and he wants me to feed him. and he doesnt eat meat. well, he eats a kind of meat: he eats words. words are the other white meat. theyre also the best meat i can think of. because they dont cost anything. go to a store, and beefs sold by the pound. maybe chickens there at the store too; roast beef, whatever you want its there. but words? words dont cost a thing. all they cost me is this monster thats continually wanting more words. thats groveling and who gets very bored when im not around. he gets so bored he doesnt hold this mountain up for me any longer and it all starts going down, and lessening its grip.

when i was a kid, when id see that one arnold movie—i think its total recall—id get scared at that one part where theyre at that hill and theyre rolling down. id call that rolling down the hill. my parents caught the name and it stuck. whenever we saw the movie again, theyd say the movie was rolling down the hill.

well, thats what it feels like. it feels like rolling down the hill when im not feeing my monster. this monsters never full; he always wants more to eat—and the more i feed him the bigger and stronger he gets, and the more less he seems like a monster. hes actually quite beautiful i think. i think he is far better than anything ive met up to this point. maybe we should get married. that would be the wedding.

id have to get him one big ring for him to wear it, thats for sure.

if im ever married to an actual woman i think ill get one of those rings from those toy dispensers. you know, the ones that cost about 25 cents a pop. thats the wedding ring ill give her. that should show her how much marriage really matters. marriage itself doesnt matter—the ceremony of marriage itself is just tradition. its spending your life with someone else thats really marriage.

i think my monster and i already married sometime. were intertwined. we coalesce. were indisputable. we cant be broken down. were like atoms. were at the atomic level and were a hydrogen bomb together. were a manhattan project thats ready to bomb nagasaki and hiroshima. were ready to make some people surrender—surrender to the genius we can make.

right now i could be writing a story. i have many in mind, and others that are just brimming through, like fresh fish ive caught on a line. i know what im fishing for.

i want to write a story about a cat. my friends cat is sick. i read it in his livejournal. his name is pollie. or polly. or however you want to spell it. i think itd be great to give him the gift of a story about a cat thats like this. his cat has black and white patches on its like a cow. he has fond memories when he was a child of the cat.

in an easy sense, the cat symbolizes his childhood. and how its dying.

paullies been coughing blood. and im sure my friends been coughing up blood too—the blood of childhood. its draining out of him, ounce by ounce, pound by pound. eventually itll all be gone and every shred of what he once was will now be what he is in an adapted, forever changed way.

its like this: we all have monsters in us. i just choose to make my monster one that eats words. maybe someone elses monster is a needle that injects itself in their arm and gives them release for the cost of life. maybe someone elses monster is a cigarette that clears them up while at the same time going into their lungs and killing them. maybe someone elses monster is a great sickness theyve had their whole lives.

whatever the monster is all you can do is feed it. its what youre meant to do. its all you can do. and the more you feed your monster the better youll feel and the less time youll have till its time to go and your suffering is all over. the less time you have to stare death in the face. and the more easy it is to say no to him.

i think i have a good monster. hes a kind creature when he wants to be. other times he changes into other monsters. hes a great shape changer, let me tell you. he assumes many forms, as id hope any other monster of anyone elses does. sometimes he comes at me in the way of society. societys a big monster that i try to keep locked in his cage. i try to adapt to society and feed its needs to me. but sometimes i just cant keep up.

its just like this: i need a job, but havent got one. i went to this rental store, video action, the other day and i decided id feed my monster. it was with the encouragement of my parents i was able to do it. i sold myself to the manager there. i held out my hand to her, said "mitchell smith" and she didnt take it. right off the bat i felt like an idiot. "my hands are dirty" was what she said. well sorry. that really shook me up. then i gave my rhyme and reason. i told her i had sent in an application last time i applied here, and i saw she was hiring a second time. i told her i lived really close and that i had a car and that i went to century and that i was a junior. she didnt care i could tell. i felt very dumb, and im sure my monster was smiling at me—im sure society was smiling at me like a snob.

she actually wrote my name on a piece of paper. she had me first print my name and phone number, then wrote some other things down. she said shed already hired two people but shed considered me. and so i left. on the way out she asked me "do you have piercings on your ears?" i said no, of course i didnt, and that i found the unfashionable on women. i didnt tell her that i had piercings in my brain, and that there was a monster constantly piercing me inside, as if renching me, as if choking me, telling me i needed a job and i needed one now so i could start saving up for college and so i could have some spending money. but then again im sure she didnt care. i was just another idiot there trying to get a job and i was under her power. i was a helpless and weak rag doll for her to crush any way she wanted and id do anything for one chance to drink from the oasis that is a job that gives good experience.

i left outside in the snow and i was looking my monster through the cage in the eyes. his eyes were dead and but full of cruel intention. he was snarling at me, agape and hatefully. i looked in those eyes and i could see her throwing away that piece of paper shed had me write my name on. i could see her throwing it away with the most satisfied look on her face. as if she were saying aloud but only from her face, "im glad thats done with."

i felt horrid after that. i drove home and my parents asked me about it in crazed, frenzied voices. "what did she say!" "did you go there?" "did you get hired?!" "what happened?"

and i didnt want to answer any of their questions. i felt like a prisoner being interrogated for something he never did. i felt like a prisoner locked away for nothing he ever deserved. i felt like there was a thick wall, and that behind that wall there was someone listening in, and they could hear me, sure as anything else. they knew what i was saying. and they werent liking it.

i just told them i had done what id done in my sour, defeated drones. and id told them i doubt id get hired. it felt so all in vain, and my monster loved it in his cage. i just wanted to blow his brains out with a gun. i wanted to shoot society out and make it sputter and die. i wanted to see it leave me alone. i wanted my lemons back. i wanted the sweet sour naiveté of a child. i wanted to be what i wished i could still imagine i was. i wanted to see things in wondervision: in a vision that told me all was great, and good, and just, and that there was a tooth fairy, a santa claus, and people werent' so shortcharged and were actually amazing beings.

but that was ripped away long ago. all i have is that body's shreds, its small clothes. and i hold those close in an embrace. i do hold these truths to be self evident: and i hold them to me like flesh to bone when im lonely and cold and sad.

thats all i can turn to when theres nothing else: the past, and how it used to be. and i let it make me stronger, i let the realization that ive lasted this long, and i can last longer, settle in. i let it crawl in like a cockroach going into a roach motel to permanently set up shop till its death.

if theres a nuclear winter, a cold burning hot death, at least this roach can crawl out.aleast this memory will pull me back through. at least i can ascend down heights ive already ascended and come to them for life everlasting, everbreathing, everloving. at least with that i can feel security. can feel all ive ever wanted to feel: just to feel useful to someone, something, somehow. i seek to past for the futures love. for its acceptance of me and leveling of me.

merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream. a sad old thing. a wicked gnarled old being. a flaccid limping ping.

merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream.

my feet hurt from my nervous twitch i have with them: i move them up and down, up and down, as if im jambling walking all the time. as if i must be moving all the time. its given that since i have weight, then i can be set in motion by inertia. and the only thing that can slow me down is friction: the carpet burn, and the sudden slow.

my hands feel numb on these keys, and they feel tired and tiring. my body aches of nothing because theres something. its late—it is 12:20 AM and i believe i should sleep, but im ascending so many steppes today. im going so high and i dont want to end up so low tomorrow. i just want to sit here, my keyboard and i, you and i, here all day, speaking to one another. well, youre not really speaking, but i can hear you. youre some cadencing voice in the unheard distance. youre some gear in life. some mesh with it. some bone to steel, something that seeks to overturn the necessary motional spin.

you want to make a cocoon instead of make a gear, or spin on a gear. you want to go into your cocoon, enwrapped, and come out anew. you want to go in as ugly, come out as beautiful. i dont think the monsters are so kind. mines pretty docile here—the one thats making me write, and making my enjoy, ascending these heights. but i have others—others that are this same monster, only at different intervals of time, and pressure, and astuteness. they all grab me very hard—so very hard—and push me this and that way, and make me just want to lay down, and have myself lain and lost and no longer here—but i keep up well. i keep pushing myself, and its because of this—these moments here when im doing this, im working magic, and i know it, i can feel it, that im alive. this is what i live for—something as simple as words.

in simplicity theres an innate complexity; a certain largess to it all. its like gears, only these gears arent just circling endlessly, they arent encumbered with mechanical edges. theyre encumbered with some, but i can bend them to my will well enough. i can make them my own craft. i can style my own meshes and cycles and rotations. i can make my own radiuses and pis and my own certain mechanics to how these gears act, numerically as well as qualitatively. i can do whatever the hell i want, and thats the encompassing beauty of it all; the endless appeasement of it all.

i hate parent figures. my dad tells me to go to bed. to "quit writing my poems and shit." he came in here and took the internet cord. he thought i was online, that i was on the internet. theyve taken the cord lately just to get to me, but it hasnt done anything. actually, its just my dad thats taken it away. my mom did take it away at one time, but i think by now she sees that siege was hopeless.

see, i came home one day from school. she holds up applications. they were ones id filled out but never turned into the places. i thought it was pretty hopeless anyways. i mean, ive been submitting a hodgepodge of applications here and there, and nothings happened. and i also went up to video action a few days ago.

but i think she realizes by now that im doing the best i can. honestly, my parents, and most other people, dont have the exact, precise feelings that im feeling. they dont know me, i see. i dont even know myself, so that tells you. ive been suppressing all feelings lately and just saying "screw it all, just push ahead mitch." i wonder how long i can keep that up—that i can keep trying because im making myself do it.

my grades at this moment are terrible, they arent well off. midterms are tomorrow i think too. i hope they can get better. i dont know why i should even care, but i realize that if i have bad enough grades, my parentsll take away my computer, and without the computer my writing abilities are severely limited. i dont like writing longhand at all. my writings so sloppy and terrible, i hate it. i dont like writing it down and looking at the slop the surmounts. its ugly and i hate it. and im too impatient at something as simple as writing to sit there and make my handwriting as perfect as i can. i just dont have patience for such provincial things. not that writings provincial. its just a thing that comes easy to me, especially right now when im just churning out words like this. i just dont like to put much effort into anything, and what i put effort into often involves emotional release, or catharsis, or something im meshing and moshing with, like writing. like now. i do believe ive said right now is amazing, but i guess i have to keep saying it. i love every second of writing late at night, here in my room, with the lights off. it makes a days struggle all worthwhile to its ends. and some days—like today—i just dont think i can write at all. but right now i feel like i could write forever, and the words wouldnt stop coming.

i cant stand my dad sometimes. and its faltering to see how frail my mom seems. but thats for another discussion, another day.

my dads always been obsessed with making sure im not online all that often. which is fine, in moderation. when it gets to the point where your dads limiting your time online like youre some weening baby, and he gives your parental controls when you know youre mature enough to understand where not to go, and you know you wont go there, it gets pretty sad. before, a long while back, they took away my internet because they found some porn on my computer. thats fine. im sure most any man youll meet will admit hes looked at porn once in his life. it may be fantasy, but its more along the lines of something that lets me get an image and hold it and let it carry me onward in my lustdriven handles with masturbation. oh my god, i just said masturbation. im sure some of you out there are now ululating that like ive sinned. well, masturbation is natural. so learn to mature and deal with it. because im not talking about it in some school girl giddy fashion. im just saying the truth because thats what i want to say to myself as well as you. i dont want to put up any petty guards against what im thinking about right now.

stephen king said, in his on writing book, that you can write anything you want, as long as you tell the truth. and thats what im doing here. im telling the truth. so if hearing the truth hurts your little soul, then you can stop reading right here and ill after warn you that im not here to take tallies and make sure i dont bring in things i shouldnt. i dont see the big deal about masturbation. its natural in a human sense. we all do it and even if we havent we wish we could many a time. people who hold back on their desires are often irregular religious fanatics as it is who hold their values of morals so high that they say they can control their desires. well, i say screw that. im going to do whatever i want when i want and as the desire comes to me. im not going to regress and hold back, im going to let it go when it goes. morals themselves are just perceptions. but some perceptions are universally accepted, such as its wrong to kill another person, which i agree with. but having a sense of morals isnt a big deal. all having morals does is make you look naive and innocent when it comes to speaking of these morally wrong things. things like masturbation, being a homosexual, premarital sex, all those good things. people dont realize that all of those things arent bad at all, and people should be allowed to do whatever they want within some reason of the perceptions society puts on things at a given era and time.

people who have morals often lean onto them because they cant find their own ways to see things. they dont understand that is okay to have sex when youre not married. marriage itself is mostly an institution of churches. but its definitely more than that: its spending your life with someone, as ive already said somewhere in this long ramble.

if youre going to tell me its wrong to have sex before marriage, then thats fine. have your opinions. but to me, its stupid to say. what are humans? they are classified as mammals. they are homo sapiens. were only different because we have our improved, ohso intellectual brainweights. so tell me, if its so wrong to have premarital sex, and since were animals—since were highly related to chimpanzees, tell me how its wrong? marriage itself isnt a natural thing. its just another thing created by man. sure, certainly, youd want to spend your life with someone, but does it really require a "marriage"? well, to get the legal rights of marriage it does, but in general, does it? no. and is sex natural? yes. sex is natural. all animals do it. were just able to contemplate it, unlike all other animals. but still, its what our main purpose is as a whole. scientifically, were here to reproduce. were not here to do anything else. were here to carry on the genes, to keep ourselves alive through our offspring. whats so wrong about giving into desires?

heres what i can understand: i can understand waiting until sex is special. until you feel something for the person youre going to have it with. but premarital sex? its not bad at all.

its now almost 1 AM and i think i should be sleeping. i dont even remember how i got to talking about premarital sex, but there we are.

i do think im a rather naive person, but i lean heavily on my common sense, and my gut, intuitional nudges. i let these rule me. while there are facts in this world, i use my common sense to make them my own. you can often look at facts many ways, and contort them and perverse them in your own ways. thats what i do. i believe that theres never something as simple as black and white—i believe theres always a gray area as well. i like to see every side of something, i like to have it all squared out before i just dive in.

and all the same, to do things this way, you have to accept others' opinions. and that i do.

i often resort to "its my opinion" because i know i wont reach level ground with a person—theyll believe what they believe while a believe what i believe. its what being an individual is about. and people who seem to think they need to be greater than everyone else, and somehow think their opinions are the answer i despise. they get on my nerves very easily and im prone to be very apathetical towards them because i just dont care what they think if theyre not going to accept that i can believe what i want, even if im wrong by what they think. equality and dignity. those are two words, i think, i value highly. theyre also such small words for something bigger, something that some people just dont have.

some people are egotistical morons. they are intelligent, but they flaunt it way too much. they seek to rule every person they can, to rape them of their opinions just because they think theyve got the ego, the bird, the size of texas and they can own anything and anyone. all you can do is adapt and accept these people, but they still bother me.

i feel like love is in the kitchen
with a culinary eye
i think hes making something special
and im smart enough to try

and yes, the lack of punctuation in the sentences was on purpose. why wouldnt it be?

im going to sleep, or going to try to sleep. its been fun, whoever you are, and whatever ive made.

sorry monster, its time to just become a monolith for the time being. sorry, i know, its a shame. its just too bad, i know.

i hope i can sleep well. i need to be well rested. i have two speeches to do tomorrow, woohoo...

and now im just rambling so i can get this to level out at about 8,000 words. whee.

okay. off i go.

i still think its beautiful what this turned into. how when i first started it felt so empty, so unbrimming. but now, now its crazy. i feel bustling with things to say, like a short order waitress on an evening rush, going back and forth and carrying a dizzying array of trays full of sizzling, hot meat. there it is again: meat.

the feed of the monsters.
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Tuesday, February 17, 2004

The Nobodies and Moana Jane

She walked through the fields and to the house. It was dark, little light about, little to see. Had anyone seen her, they would have seen a naked, pale woman walking. Their eyes would have diverted to her, most thinking her crazy to be walking. Others might stare at her in wonder, starting at her perky, rounded breasts, the nipples standing out; maybe at her buttocks, full and round. But there was no one to look at her, to see her. And she knew this. She was just a pale figure anyway, no one would care. She was just a faded woman, she didn't matter.

The house's lights were not on. The family's cars stood in the driveway. There was some white car, discernable in the mellow light of the streetlamps. She saw this as she approached. Another car was black, and was not readily seen in the light. But she didn't care about the cars. She didn't care about anything. Not a thing at all. As she walked by, she noticed the mailbox. On it, hard to read, she found the family's name. She squinted to see it. THE NOBODIES, it said. The Nobodies. She thought over it, pondering it. The Nobodies. It was an interesting name for, she hoped, an interesting family.

She walked up to the door. It was a nice door, she thought. It had those little windows in it, and the symmetrical look to it; it looked heavy and sturdy, full of a thick amount of wood. The doorbell glowed dully on the side of the door. She wondered what it sounded like—was it loud and boisterous, sullen and low, whispering and blowing? She didn't know. And having looked about the door, she walked into the house. She walked straight through the door of the Nobodies' house, not opening it.

Although a ghost, she thought she was a very pretty ghost. Often, she would stare at herself, in awe. She would look down at her ample breasts, at her thin line of pubic hair, at her stomach. Oh how she wished she could look at herself in a mirror, to turn around in perhaps catch a small view of her back, of her buttocks, of her shoulder blades, of how she looked in the back. And how she wished to see her face—to see it, and what it looked like. She wondered, after all these years, if it looked the same as she had remembered so long ago. She thought probably not, that time gnarled most things, making them harsh and different. It was probably like that to her memory of her face, and perhaps her face itself.

The first thing greeting her as she walked in was a dog. The bothersome dogs, they would always annoy you; would always come in right off and bark. They were the most bothersome things one could be stuck around. They were always alert to the paranormal, and even moreso alert to ghosts, such as herself. Looking at the dog's nametag, she found it was affectionately called Lady. She also noticed a quiet peculiar thing: the dog didn't have a body. It didn't have a body, and was, it seemed, an apparition as her. How she let out a silent laugh. But of course, she thought; they were the Nobodies. They had, as their name so said, no bodies. Quite a fun thing that was.

So they must all be ghosts, she began to understand. Lady was barking and yelping as she stood there with her. Stupid dog, she thought; bothersome old thing. The dog had certainly awoken every single thing which dwelled here in the house. Everyone and everything was alerted to her presence, and would soon come down and wonder what was all the racket.

She picked up the bothersome dog, petted it, groomed it, gave it love and care. It went right on her breast, and pushed it and felt it. Petted and lulled, it quieted and stopped its yelping. She set it down just as the family began coming down the stairs close by her.

"What's this racket?" one said.

"The stupid dog," said another.

"Someone must be here. I wonder who, at this late hour, it could be." said another.

"Can't get no sleep round here, none at all," said the most angry and loud voice of all.

And they all came down the stairs, one at a time.

One was a floating brain, but with no body. It was a meaty thing. Eyes were imbedded in the brain tissue as well as a mouth. It floated above the ground. "What's this racket," said it again. And looked on at her, being the first down.

Down came another peering eye, and this time it was an arm. It was down to the bones, with skin hanging on it like moss on roots of a tree; it also had eyes: they were on its fingers, and its mouth on its hand's palm. "Ah," the bony arm exclaimed, and stared in wonder at the woman.

Here came another. It was a leg, also down to the bones with skin hanging on it like moss on roots of a tree. It moved as if it were one leg walking in locomotion, and on its toes there were two eyes and a mouth. "So there is someone here."

And now came the last, with widest eyes of all: for he was just that, eyes, wide eyes which glared. Inside the pupils there were mouths that moved when it spoke, those pupils being a dark blue. He stared hard at the woman, and thought she was quite beautiful. "Well if I ain't ever seen Beauty. And if Beauty ain't in the eye of the beholder." He stared.

She thought he was such a Peeping Tom at that moment; she thought that to them all. She covered her breasts in embarrassment with one arm, and her vagina with the other. She blushed red, and it was like roses appearing on her cheeks, as if blood had came there.

"She looks quiet flushed," said the Brain. "But she looks like an intelligent woman, she looks like she has brains. Very wonderful brains, I believe."

"I'm the plumber of the house, you know," said the Arm, with a flush. "I fix the sink when it gets broken, the toilet when it breaks. You know—do it since the others can't. Why, if I've ever seen a toilet flush, then each time I saw your face, my lady. And I don't mean it bad at all, I mean it well—you are beautiful. And look—look at her arms! Why, they are so petite, and so firm! What nice arms!"

"I have a foot fetish," said the Leg. "And your feet, they are so fine."

"Jesus H. Christ," said the Eyes. "I ain't seen nothin as beautiful as you are. Ain't she fine; finer than anything I ever seen? And look at them eyes—them eyes, they're so beautiful. They kinda penetrate into ya, and ain't they just windows inta her soul? What soul she's got, anyhow."

This was all well, but now she was even more embarrassed. She didn't know what to say, and kept covering up her private areas, not wanting them to see.

"You know," she said, "I only came here to find a place to haunt. But here I find this house is already haunted—haunted by the Nobodies themselves. It seems I should be going on my way, I think. I think it's been nice seeing you all, and—"

"No, no no. Please stay, we would much like that," said the Brain. "We could haunt here together. And we could learn from each other."

"Yea," said the Eyes.

"I agree," said the Arm.

"I have a foot fetish," said the Leg.

She thought about it. Thought over her past abodes. How she had haunted, in her early years, a small house. One that was right beside the one she had died in. The lady that lived there alone had died of a heart attack when she had finally had enough of being haunted. "Dear lord," she would often say, then, "God, is this your message to me? One of a naked, beautiful woman! Oh, it must be the angels! Oh God, abstinence is the only way!" And when she had kept haunting the woman day in and day out, the woman, nicknamed Sis, had grown scared. She would often say it was her mother, coming from her death, and haunting her. "My mother died young," she would say. "With my birth!" And she would get in a frenzy of crying. And one day, it seemed, she had had enough of her, and enough of it all, and died. Died by whatever decree that had killed her. Maybe Sis died because of her fear of her mother, and that she was haunting her. Maybe it was just her time. Whatever it was, it was past.

There were other places, too. But none had been as strange as the first one she had haunted, and certainly not as strange as this one she had stumbled on.

"Well," she said to the Nobodies. "Is it true I'm welcome here? Or are you just being good company?"

"No!" said the Brain. "We would love your company. Quite truly, we would love it."

"Yes," said the Arm.

"Yea," said the Eyes.

"I have a foot fetish," said the Leg.

She thought for a while. She looked at the little dog now, Lady. Watched as it wandered around.

Maybe staying with the Nobodies would be an interesting venture. Even worthwhile, and give her some closure.

"Okay," she finally said. "I'll stay."

"That is good!" said the Brain. "And what's your name, by the way?"

"Yes," said the Arm. "What is your name?"

"Yea," said the Eyes. "What is your name?"

"I have a foot fetish," said the Leg.

"My name," she said. "I have no use for a name. Why, 'a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.' I forgot my name long ago, as I'm sure you all have, too?"

"Yes," the brain said.

She thought over a name. "You can just call me Moana Jane." She finally felt comfortable to uncover her naked form, and did so. She waited in the naked silence for them to speak. Then Brain spoke up again. Moana could tell they were all staring at her in her full, naked, explicit beauty.

"Sounds good, my lady," the Brain said. "My name is just Brainard. Just Brain, if that's your fancy."

"And I'm Armistice. Or just Arm, if you'd like."

"Me, I'm called Eyesen. Just Eyes if ya like."

Leg finally went away from his foot fetish line. But he was still staring at her feet as he spoke, and oh how did he like her feet. "I'm Legland. Leg is fine, of course."

She smiled. "You all have such nice names. Much better than my name, I think."

"Why thank you," they all said at once.

"Not a problem. So it is late, and even we must sleep, hm? For there is nothing to scare this late."

"Oh, there's places to scare," said the Brain. "There's places to scare all over. But, if you are tired, you can most certainly sleep. Here—come on upstairs, we'll get you set up and ready to sleep, Ms. Moana Jane."

"Okay," Moana said.

They led her upstairs, and settled her down, and she was soon sleeping sound and well.

2
The world moves in slow, gasping breaths. It's like it has asthma, or it's a smoker—a smoker now having a horrid, guttural cough; one causing it to choke for its breaths. Causing it to fight to do that most intuitional, simple, given thing. To breathe.

The TV is across them. It gives its intermittent light. It casts its glare.

She is in his arms. He in hers. They look at one another. Their noses are to each other.

His breath is warming. She looks in his eyes.

It starts going slow again. The world is gasping for breath. It wants to die away. She doesn't want to see this again.

"I love you," he says.

"I love you," she says.

They kiss.

Then off come their clothes.

Then. Then the world gasps for breath. She tries to fight it. She doesn't want to see it again.

No.

The TV gives its light still and dances on their flesh forms. Two bodies writhe and move. One to another. Unification. Coalescing. Up and down. Nature, and desire, and lust, and love.

And death.

She had been dating him then. She fights it. Go away, go away.

But it won't go away.

She sees herself naked, just as she looks now. She sees him naked, sees it again. And why won't it die? Why won't it go away?

No.

She can't fight it. She looks in his eyes. He's on top of her and he's moving. His face. His eyes. She brushes them with her hands and looks in his eyes. The eyes are deep and penetrating. Are groping and holding. Inside the eyes. It's like metal. Cold metal and a trigger.

She knows what's going to happen. She can feel her lips smiling in pleasure now. But she knows what's coming. She can't stop it.

It's a different time. A different place. A few weeks later.

They're in the room with the TV again. He pulls out a gun. The gun is big and has everything in it. In its metal grips. And his eyes. Those eyes. Dead eyes. Metal eyes. Cold eyes. Inside the eyes.

"Let's fuck now, or else," he says. She doesn't want to fuck. Fuck is a bad word. Don't say fuck, don't say it, that's bad, it's not nice. That's bad to say, Janine Daw. That's bad don't say that. Don't—

"What did I just say? Jan, take off your fuckin clothes!" Fuckin clothes? Fuckin clothes? They're not fuckin clothes, they're clothes! Regular clothes, just clothes. Don't say fuckin, fuckin's a bad word, and it's not nice. That's bad to say, not good at all. Don't say that. Don't—

Floating in endless time. World's trying to breathe. Heave, in out. Breathing monster with teeth and large, mean eyes. Come on, die. Come on.

Come on die.

"—if you don't do it know, I'll fucking shoot you!"

"I don't understand, Danny. What is this about? Everything's been fine between us up to this point. . ."

Up to this point, up to this point, it's been fine, Danny, fine up to this point. Why are you doing this Danny? It's been fine up to this point.

It's been fine, Danny, fine up to this point.

"—fuck you—"

No. Die. Don't want to see it again. It's not what I want.

"—take your—"

Can't hear you. La la la. You can't hurt. You're not real, this already happened, it's done with, it's over with, it can't hurt me. You can't do it no.

"—clothes off—"

Heave. The world was trying to breathe. She wants it to die. She won't see this. The gun—the gun that holds life in its metal bullet death. Heave. No, she won't give in. She won't take her clothes off.

Go away. I don't want to see it. Make it go away.

You need to grow up, Janine. You know what your mother and I expect of you. You need to grow up, Janine.

You need to grow up Janine.

"—Janine—"

No. Won't hear you, Danny. You can't do this. I won't face it Danny. No Danny. I won't face it you can't do this. No, no Danny, no.

But the world heaves. Sharpens. It's happening too fast.

"Take off the fucking clothes, Janine!" His hands on her. His hands on her tight, thoughts fleeting, thinking about it, other thoughts, other things, happy thoughts not bad ones—

He rips off her clothes, takes them off. Wrenches them off. They're off. Tears in her eyes coming down and she fights.

She fights but it's futile, isn't it? It's useless. Has no bearing, won't do a thing.

It's already happened. It's happening again. No. Not again. Enough.

Enough.

"Enough," she said. Whispered.

"What?" said Brainard. "What was that, Ms. Moana Jane?"

She sat up in the bed. Her hands were hard on the sides of the bed, her eyes full of fear, her breast's nipples hardened. "Nothing," she said simply. "Just a nightmare, I think."

Just a nightmare.

One of those monsters. The ones that haunt, like ghosts.

"Sure it was just a nightmare, Ms. Moana Jane?" Brainard said. He sounded concerned.

They were all around her. There was Legland, Brainard, Armstice and Eyesen. Lady came in as well. She jumped up on the bed, licking Moana. She was glad for the dog then. For it to be licking her. It calmed her. She was glad, too, for them all.

"It's nothing to worry about," Moana said. "I'm fine. Just getting over the nightmare, is all, I think."

They nodded.

"Is it still night?" she asked.

"It's almost dawn, Ms. Moana Jane," Brain said.

"Oh."

It was silent.

"Ms. Moana Jane, anything we can do?" Brainard asked.

"No, I think I'm fine. Just getting over my nightmare, is all. I think I'll just relax for a while, if that's okay."

"Okay," Brain said. "We'll leave you, then, Ms. Moana Jane?"

"Yes, that would be fine."

"Okay." They all turned to leave.

"And thanks. . .thanks for letting me stay." She meant to thank them for waking her up—if that was what they had done. She had a feeling, a deep one, that they'd seen some things they weren't discussing to her. She had a feeling they had woken her up.

"Not a problem, Ms. Moana Jane," Brain said. Brain seemed to be the one who spoke for them all, she thought. Not any of the others had said a word, which was odd; Leg hadn't even said his foot fetish line, which he seemed love. They were all solemn-looking, and she could read it right on their faces. They had seen something, and they weren't telling her. It was no bother, though.

They gave a bow of courtesy, one by one, and left the room.

She looked about the room. There was an old window directly beside the bed. It was large, but old. Its shutters rattled in the wind. She looked outside. She was on the second story of the house. It looked like it might rain. There were clouds in the sky, dark billowing things. They floated about. One looked like a hand, another like a spider, maybe. She had always found it fun to gaze in the sky, let her thoughts wander, and discern shapes and objects from clouds. It gave her a glee.

She locked her shoulders around her breasts and shivered. It was cold out there. Even though she was a ghost, she could feel things, at times. She shut the window, and it creaked in rust as she did.

Looking about the room more, she found it was a dusty old thing, nothing of too much interest. There was an old, broken dresser, beside the bed, opposite the window's side. A candle sat on the dresser's top. The candle had cobwebs running on it, thin white strands. She saw other webs too. There was one in the far corner of the wall. The cobwebs were all about.

She still felt tired, and she pushed the sheets close to her. She hoped she wouldn't dream about that again. It was the last thing she wanted to do, even though she was tired.

Fighting sleep, it took her a while to let it win. But she did, and when it came, it was a sound sleep. With no dreams.

Downstairs, they were talking about Moana.

"Did any of you hear what she said, other than when she yelled?" Brain asked.

"No," said Arm.

"Nah," said Eyes.

"Nope," said Leg.

"Well, what I heard was quite strange. Of course, there were her first yells—the ones of 'No,' and so on. But, since I was close to her, I also heard her say some other things. Things you didn't seem to hear. She was mumbling something about the word 'fuck.' 'The word fuck isn't a good word, that's a bad word.' Something like that.

"Of course, maybe I didn't hear her say that—but you know me, I don't think I just hear things. Then, of course, I heard her say 'Danny'—Danny, whoever that is—and there was also what she whispered low. 'Enough' she said, as if she were in a struggle. Isn't it strange?"

"I reckon so," said Eyes. "But I'm guessing it's just one of them nightmares. We all have em, don't we?"

"Well, yes," Brain said. "We do. But she sounded frantic. It was as if she were struggling. And that look on her face—on her closed eyes, and how her eyes were moving, and her whole body was for that second. . ."

"She probably was struggling. It was in the dream. I don't see why it's such a big deal, Brain. I'd just drop it, you know?" Arm said. "I'd just drop it. I know it was scary—we were all scared, but what can you do? She was just having a nightmare, that's all it was. Even if she was shaking, it was because she was in a deep dream. One that, probably, was pretty real"

Brain, defeated, decided Arm was probably right. "I guess you're right. But you just have to know, I'm just like this by nature."

"I understand," Arm said. They all understood. Brain had been like it since forever.

Brain nodded. "Of course you do. You all do—it's just how I am."

They were sitting around the kitchen table. They had slept a while as well, but had been awoke by Moana and her screaming 'No's.' Now none of the Nobodies could sleep.

There was a window beside the table. Through it, the sun's rays rose. Day was coming. Another day.

Usually the Nobodies would go out haunting late at night. But during yesterday, night and day, they'd done enough of it. They themselves were just as tired as Moana seemed. That was why they had been sleeping when Moana came in. Ghosts do like their haunting, but some do get tired of it. And some people just aren't scared, especially those the ghosts held as regulars. Soon, they had decided, they'd expand the area they scared. Find new people.

For now, though, they were just relaxing. A silence had come over all of them. They sat at their table, just thinking.

The sun was getting brighter and brighter; its warming rays touched them. They looked out the window and watched.

In her room upstairs, Moana slept, and the light touched her, too. Many of the Nobodies downstairs were thinking how beautiful she looked.

"Isn't Ms. Moana Jane beautiful?" asked Brain through his gaze at the sunset. "She seems so smart, and intelligent. Now that's a woman."

Arms flexed his bony hand. "I think her arms're what makes her beautiful."

"And that's what you think, Arms," Brain said.

"Yes, it is."

"I have a foot fetish," said Leg. "Her feet are, without a doubt, the most best part of her, and the best feet I've ever seen. I've never seen such fine feet as those. Never."

"No, you all got it wrong," said Eyes. "It's them eyes of hers. I ain't ever seen eyes like them. They's blue and beautiful, ain't never seen any as beautiful as em."

Soon they were all fighting over what made Moana most beautiful. Eyes said it was her eyes, Leg her feet, Brain her intelligence, and of course, Arm her arms. Too bad they didn't know it was everything that made her beautiful.

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