Treespeaking

Cthulhu's Chipotle Chili (D1)

2008-10-28T12:05:00.003+09:00

(Trick, or treat?)

August 23rd, 1923

I write this brief manuscript in the hopes that others may not befall a similar fate or misunderstand my experience. I can only persuade your trust in that all these accounts are factual.

Our summertime faculty expedition into the hills surrounding Arkham had decided on a fine site for camping. The surrounding verdant landscape was lush, game trails fresh with tracks, and the nearby icy stream looked inviting after a hot day's hike. We made preparations for our supper; our head cook, illicited from the canteen at Miskatonic University and the most well traveled of us all, assured us a memorable and most exquisite specialty.

Though few of our nine were taken in by an amusing tale of the recipe's origin, Cthulhu's Chipotle Chilli was said to be handed down from the cook of an 18th century sailing vessel of the East India Corporation: the spices of seven continents and a perfect symphony of flavor. True chefs being naturally secretive of their most prised arts, the cook would not rightly say who Cthulhu was, but those gathered assumed it was truly the surname of the originator of the recipe or some distant family member of his. As we glanced at his preparations over the open fire pit and relaxed from our journey, he set up a large cauldron of steel and we took note of the usual ingredients often used in chili: beans, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, and a host of spices—all packed-in through the wild. Though he would not share the recipe card with us either, I could see scrawl on a stained and burnt parchment-like card the cook kept with him at all times. He ruminated over the pot for some time, glancing at the card, mumbling and throwing in an arcane assortment of spices from a personal supply of now-unmarked tins. The chipotle itself was added last, extracted as preserves from three small jars and handled as delicately as radioactive material. However, they bore more resemblance to slime covered cicada maggots than the peppers from whence they originated—or perhaps it truly was a vision of what would disturb our constitutions later that night.

Dusk, then evening set in as the concoction stewed for nigh well five hours—though no amount of cooking could truly prepare it for consumption by us mere mortals.

Each with our bowls, we circled the roiling, vaporous, speaking mass of rendered vegetal matter. Many were repelled by its initial odor. Once past the first wave of vapors though, I confess I thought dearly of my evening meal. The spices were sumptuous and my hunger grew as I waited last in line. As it was ladled into my bowl, the vapors reached my eyes and immediately teared from the cacophony of aromatics. Through distorted vision I thought I saw a gaping maw in the pot itself, as if a giant fish head opened to eat the ladle. But clearing my eyes I was relieved to see only a potato, a chili, and a great bubbling.

Eating the dish was a harrowing experience. Tears were had by all from the extreme heat of spices. Some of our less adventurous members could not stomach more than a mouthful and dined mostly on bread and salads, though most managed at least a small bowl. I confess I went back for three myself—indeed the best chilli I ever had.

The rest of the night's activities were animated, and a series of games and campfire stories were aided by a judicious amount of port, wine, mead, cognac and other fine spirits brought by all. Soon we all tired and made a wobbly way to our tents, hitting what small hay we had collected eariler.

I cannot tell you more than my personal experience. I know that the heavy drinking that ensued after our meal probably compounded our predicament, but truly there was something terrible in that stew.

I awoke in the night from a dreamless sleep, sweat covered, to howling and screaming all around me. I rose to see the matter, but could not control myself, nor tell ground from sky as my head spun with pain and confusion in the darkness of the wilderness and my tent. I lit a pocket torch and saw a twisted mass of demure colors, no doubt from the effects of the alcohol, though I now feared other things as my stomach lurched with my tentative steps.

Finally outside my tent, half the camp had screaming individuals, and others seemed to be moaning in the night below the others' bellowing. I could not continue more than a few steps outside before a massive pain seized my bowels and bent me retching before the embers of the fire and that monstrosity of stew remaining as leftovers. I felt as if my insides were being dissolved, the hot acidic pain illicited me to scream but I could not with such ichor in my mouth. In my convulsions I managed a glance at the pot and saw in the twighlight what appeared to be dark vapors or tendrils extending up from the stew-pot. I crawled away from my excretions and fevered visions towards my tent, not reaching it. Spent and heaving I could hold my consciousness no longer and passed out amidst the horrific scene.

I awoke again perhaps an hour after dawn. My head ached with horrible hangover, and my stomach churned, but kept its peace. Around me, however was an equally pained scene of destruction.

I went first to check the tents, but besides being in complete disarray, none others could be found. Nor any additional signs of sickness similar to my own.

I called out several times for help in my building panic as I realized the possibility of what the evidence was showing.

In the center of camp, the stew-pot was overturned and appeared to have spilled its contents on the ground, of which there was only a great hole near the fireplace, two paces from my own vomitus, which had also seeped into a deep pit. I went over to the larger hole and peered down it, seeing the reddish slimy remains of stew along the walls, as well as a brackish substance far darker, but saw no bottom or end to the depth of it. The smaller hole could be seen to join the larger at a steep angle. I retrieved my pocket torch from the ground, but the batteries had died. I looked for a fallen branch near the campsite as I began to see the strange tracks in the brush around me. They may have been tracks of our own making, but looked more to me like my companions had been dragged in their sleep. To where, besides the hole, I could not fathom, as all the marks led there.

Finding a hiking-stick, the hole enveloped it even to my height. The opening was just wide enough for a human, or possibly larger, to squeeze through, but I dare not try such an awful thought. I called down it as well, resulting in nothing more than a faint echo as if into a deep well—which further disturbed me.

In my building fear of what created and may still lay in that pit, I retrieved the hunting rifle of my friend. The next few hours of searching and tracking my friends admitedly were done hastily, and perhaps I lost the trail—of which I am still sore of. But, shouting until my voice was hoarse and ineffectual, tired of searching all other possible locations, I could do nothing else by my lonesome. I would not risk staying alone in the wilderness after such an experience and so started back to town to retrieve help.

At a jogging pace, it took me until midnight to reach the edge of civilization, exhausted.

Taking a cab back to Arkham I immediately reported my findings to the police. They took me in custody and I slept the night plagued with nightmares. The next day they began a search of the camp and retrieved what was left of our posessions. Over the next few days and weeks and a full investigaton, they turned up nothing more than I had already found. And though I am the chief suspect in the case, without bodily evidence and none being found in the bottomless pit, it is likely I will be parolled by the end of the month.

The chef that made our meal was of course also lost, but I fear he may have had some devious hand in what occurred. But, without further knowledge of his recipe, it is impossible to know.

I am dearly sorry for the loss of my friends, and cherish my escape. My only and final conclusion is that somehow, whatever was birthed in that pot, it chose not me, and fed instead on my dear friends and companions. It too took its leave into the very depths of the earth, where I surely wish it will stay. But indeed, I still fear the hills.

A Song of Sixpence (D1)

2008-02-13T12:15:00.004+09:00

A Song of Sixpence:
A Changeling Story of Japan

By Jason Schindler

Sing a song of sixpence
A pocket full of rye
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked into a pie

The King was in his counting house
Counting out his money
The Queen was in the parlor
Eating bread and honey

When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing
Was that not a tasty dish
To set before a king?

The Maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes
When down came a blackbird
And snapped off her nose!
—traditional

Mari walked up the short path to the house. A rotting persimmon lay smeared over the stone
steps. The other persimmons on the tree that filled the compact front yard looked healthy and
enticing, and a single crow on the higher perches seemed to eye it similarly.

Paint had long gone from the house and its traditional style roof and shuttered windows gave more a feeling of ancient hidden dread than the intended simple utilitarian grace. Perhaps it was just her memory of calling the house haunted when she was playing with her friends when she was little. Not that she was terribly older, but houses weren’t haunted now.

The six-thousand yen a week her mother had arranged with the old lady that now lived here wasn’t exactly enough to convince her to come without her mother’s insistence. But words like responsibility, character, and you’re-not-doing-your-homework-anyway made the several hours of elderly aid a week a tolerable plan. And her mom threatened cram school—something Mari definitely wanted to do last. And it wasn’t like she couldn’t find things to spend money on—some new clothes from Tokyo never hurt.

Her mother told her poor of hearing Ms. Tonbou that lived here had recently relocated from the city, moving back to the country home her family had owned for some long time.

Mari knocked on the door. Mari let herself in after a few moments of silence.

The landing and hallway was dark and musty save for the smell of fresh pie. It seemed none of the shutters were open in the whole house and shadows hung away from the only light at the end of the hallway coming from where the kitchen must be.

“Good afternoon. Ms. Tonbou?” she said to the stillness.

Mari took off her shoes and put them next to a ripped and filth covered tabi sock and mud crusted galoshes. Creaking and walking down the hall she peeked behind the door of the first room and saw an empty and dusty tatami room. She passed the stairway and headed for the light.

A dark form emerged from the corner silhouetted in the doorframe.

“Oh!” Ms. Tonbou said, startled. “You must be Sato-chan. I was beginning to wonder where you might be.” She looked Mari over for a few moments, her small black eyes and queerish knobby nose were twinkling. “Aren’t you just the cutest thing in your little uniform.” Mari hadn’t changed from school yet.

“Sorry. My mother said I could let myself in incase you didn’t hear me.”

“Oh yes, quite fine. Come in,” the old lady said. She gestured to the kitchen and a small kitchenette table cooling a large pie still steaming. “Won’t you come and have some pie with me?” The lady was fat and short, though about the height of Mari. Her black shawl had little white pom-poms on the edges and her thinning hair was a distinctively dark shade of red-black.
“I’ve taken to baking pies in my old age, you see. It’s lovely to finally have someone to share them with.” She explained as she prepared two fair slices of steaming apple pie and sprinkled some extra cinnamon on them. “Please, sit.”

Over pie Ms. Tonbou explained to Mari what she wanted with their visits: cleaning, tidying, basic yard work and cooking preparation. The lady’s old hands, which looked like shriveled and scaly
sausages, were arthritic, and simple things were becoming a lot harder for her to do.

“But, to start you off today, I’d like you to collect the ripest persimmons from the trees out front and back. I have in mind to make a persimmon pie next,” she told Mari. “Won’t that be nice?”
Mari nodded and began to leave.

“Oh, and don’t mind the crows. They’ll only go after the persimmons if they’ve been on the ground long enough.”

After picking the best from the front tree, Mari rounded the back and picked there. The garden there was quite neat for a woman of her complaints, and the autumn vegetables were maturing in neat rows. Another neat row of twenty crows on the back fence was watching her as well. They eyed the persimmons Mari put into her basket. She looked back at them.

—Caaw.

—Caaw. Caaw, they said to her.

Back in the kitchen Mari could still see the row of them watching from outside the window. Several shiny figurines were on a small table next to the window and caught the light.

“Ms. Tonbou, why don’t the crows eat the garden and the fruit?” Mari asked as she washed the
persimmons.

“Oh, dearie, they have to wait for some morsel to drop in front of them. They also know I would
scare them off if they got too close to the fresh ones,” she said and paused. “We have an understanding.”

Mari nodded and began cutting the fruit like the old lady wanted—she was busy making the pie crust at the table. Mari almost wished her mother was there instead; she rarely got to help out with home cooking since she had protested at every turn since she could remember. Her other sisters gladly took up the slack leaving her to herself.

Halfway through the third fruit she had a flash. Mari dropped the knife suddenly as the image of
slicing through her finger and blood spray echoed in her mind’s eye. She looked down at the incorporeal pain and her eyes told her everything was fine. Blood was not happening and her fingers were fine.

“Everything okay dearie?” Ms. Tonbou asked.

Mari uttered an affirmative, picked up the knife and went back to cutting. When she was done, the old lady gave Mari her wage and she was off to home.

A week went by.

The next time Mari came to the house she was sent to cleaning. This was the first time she was sent upstairs, which, though brighter, was just as musty and barely cared for. Snooping in the old lady’s dressing cabinet though, she found a trove of beautiful gold, silver, and precious jewelry laid out and organized. She was no thief, but the temptation to just play and try things on was difficult to overcome. She only tried on a small ring which was actually just too big for her.

Down in the kitchen though, cleaning behind the small set of gas range burners—which obviously hadn’t been done in as many years as her life—she found something dreadful. Shriveled and
desiccated with time, a thin finger had found its way under the back of the burner unit. At first, she wasn’t sure what to make of it. It looked perfectly real down to the fine hairs on the knuckles— possibly a young person’s due to it’s size—which made Mari sick to think of her nose so close to the thing.

She picked it up with a rag and threw it away immediately and tried desperately to forget about it the rest of the day.

Another week went by.

The cold weather was beginning to set in and Mari was slated to harvest the now ripe batch of
veggies. She put the muddy galoshes on and traipsed into the fertile garden. The crows were again lined on the far fence. Mari wondered if the old lady had ever heard of making scarecrows to run them off completely, but her methods seemed to work.

—Caaw.

—Caaw. Caaw, they repeated.

Crows were common enough, though the fact there were that many on the fence, staring at her
through her digging and work didn’t make Mari feel any better.

Her hand shovel hit the root she was digging up and brought it out, only to discover the finer root strings wound around a bloody stump of a human toe. She screamed and the crows cawed and flew up. Looking at the root again, on the ground, she desperately wanted it to be a part of the root, the blood from a sacrificed worm, the hairs bits of root, but she could not be sure through the mud without touching it—which was unthinkable. She dumped the root in the compost bin and tried again to forget about body parts.

Still another week went by.

Before Mari even got in the house she could smell the pie in the oven. She let herself in as usual,
announced herself when she got to the kitchen as Ms. Tonbou was just taking the thing out of the oven.

“Oh, you’re just in time today, hon,” the old lady crooned. “I’ve made a different pie for you today.”

Mary peered over the browed crust and gave a sniff. It smelled wonderful but she coludn’t quite place the flavor. It was too herb laden to be a sweet or fruit pie, but she couldn’t place any other
telltale signs of what might make it another kind, mince, shepherd’s or pot (options she had most recently found existed in the world at all).

“Ready to eat?” Ms. Tonbou said, smiling and squinting extra hard.

“Oh, yes!” Mari replied.

As the old lady cut into the top with the knife, the first crumbs of top-crust fell into the filling below and the pie exploded. Mari could hardly tell what happened as fluttering black wings attacked her head and arms as she cowled to the ground. There seemed so many, Caaws from every direction, a cacophony with the old lady and her screaming mixed in between. Mari at least knew they were attacking her as she felt pecks and beak bites on her face, arms, and back as she fell to the floor and began scrambling away.

A crash from the window and more Caaws meant there were more birds coming through the window. Mari glanced back and saw the old lady wildly slashing the air with the chef’s knife. As a bird plunged its talons into the lady’s forearm, she let go the knife and it sailed and stuck into Mari’s calf—making her scream out again. Her fear and desperation ahold of her, Mari let out a pained screech and burst out of the birds swarming her and ran out the door of the house.

Mari told the strangest stories to her mother, usually to get out of chores, and her story of blackbird pie and bloody knives fell on deaf ears. Houses nor pies were haunted with the kind of things she described, and the scratches on her leg and arms could have been from any tussle in the grass—probably a fight with a girl at school like the last time. Mari was unhappy with this turn, but just the same didn’t go back to the old lady’s house either.

The strangest thing that happened to Mari after the day with the blackbird pie was that she did finally go back to Ms. Tonbou’s house about a month later. Ms. Tonbou had written her mother and apologized for the incident. She of course told a completely different story, how a lone bird had flown in, probably attracted to the glint of the knife and didn’t realize the glass of the window. Mari had been so scared by the event they never got a chance to eat the chicken pot pie she had made.

To convince Mari back, Ms. Tonbou agreed to switch from pies to bread if it helped, and put up
some more scarecrows and window stickers to prevent such a thing from happening again.

It hardly mattered to Mari, but her mother’s insistence was final.
Back at Ms. Tonbou’s house, the short walk, the crow perched in the persimmon tree, the bird gave a final warning:

—Caaw.

—Caaw. Caaw.

The weeks went by and still Mari kept coming back to the house. The smell of pies and the
occasional tastes of good home cooking were quite a reward. When the old lady found out Mari’s
likeness of her jewelry, she began getting paid in shiny silver and gold instead, and it made them both just as happy.

Meri continued to help Ms. Tonbou for several years, desperately forgetting some of the strange
events that eventually became commonplace. Even with the eventual cram school lessons and
increased studies in high school Mari continued to help the her.

When Meri finally disappeared one day after school, the police made a routine search of everyone Mari knew. Her family and friends checked out, as well as Ms. Tonbou, the teachers at school and the cram school. It was finally ruled she was kidnapped by the mafia and sold into slavery—a too commonplace event in Japan nowdays. But few in the suburban town ever knew.

No one else, the police, or the girl Ms. Tonbou eventually found to replace Mari, ever noticed the
twenty-one blackbirds sitting on the back fence either.

-Note-

I wrote this as a late submission to White Wolf's eQuarterly contest. I'm hoping to submit it for the next contest as well, so please feel free to comment and critique.

Of note to readers would be the legendary tengu and the original song's meaning(s).

3100Words of Faery

2007-10-04T13:01:00.000+09:00

So, for the month of October I've taken up 100Words.com's challenge to write [exactly] 100 words a day. Since I also happen to be writing for a new Changeling The Lost RPG story arc and my upcoming novel plan for Nanowrimo 2007 is appropriate, the theme for my October 100 words is faeries. A lot of what I've been writing has turned into faerytales, and I can only hint to tell you why (though, if the genesis of this blog has anything to say, it's not entirely a foreign concept).

Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy. If parts of the novel turn out well next month, I may post that as well.

Praise, commentary, and general critiques are always welcome. Thanks!

01 October 2007

She is a matron of tea, a grandmother of crochet, an antiquarian face, and an apron of lace: a daughter of time smelling of rosemary and chamomile. Few have not met with her, dined with her doilies, left their magic at her table. But she remembers them all—and their magic. Some say too well. Her hearth and home is secure, but asking has its price for it’s unwise to cross a grandmother of so many things. And there is no need, and she’ll tell you all the magic you’ll want to know. But no one listens to grandmothers anymore.

02 October 2007

Regal and chill is the Winter King upon his throne. But there is a warmth, an insulation, about his gaze. Locked—in a cage, in ice, in irons—are his emotions, his love. But his gaze is true, the only tell of a love that he knows must one day melt out, flow forth and rejoice in the world of his fellow man. Seemingly distracted and distant, he has never failed his people. But to kneel before him and catch his gaze for a moment you could never question the kind of sure grip on love that this King has.

03 October 2007

It is my own barren folly I walk in, a desert of decaying nymphs, beached Sirens and obliterated undines. I and she play upon our own waves, in seas parted as if by some spiritual force. But I should worry most though that she would swim in sand and think it water, but it is as much her choice to do so. I can no more speak to her than to the water in this desert.

I instead return to my hermitage of heart to weather the day I may wake to find a dead sea turned back to life.

04 October 2007

A sprite’s a thing,
to play consciousness
on kings
to war with Psyche’s most
Olypian grace.

With waspish tongue
and guiltless guile,
a witful smile and
courageous style,
she takes to Air
and challenges Earth
itself to speak to her—
a speck of mirth.

But with tiny heart,
a leaden Fire,
it weighs her not,
but to fly too light;
unbounded soarer
she leaves her
orbit for another
less colder.

And on a distant
star, a graven home,
a world unmade
by sacrifice too kind,
she sits unseelie,
a braken mound,
waiting for the Water
to remake it all again.

Dragon Genesis (D)

2007-09-20T14:21:00.000+09:00

In the beginning, before the world was made, it is said the Five Dragons came to meet where this world was born. Coming from vastly different directions of the cosmos, they met and found themselves to be in agreement on only one thing: that they would share their powers to create a world of life that they all would share equally, for none could do it alone.

For you see, ancient wyrms that they were, they could not find others of their own kind to create life with any longer. And being too diverse themselves, could not with each other either. They decided instead to make a living world to produce their offspring that one day would bring about new forms and likenesses that even they could not conceive. This they knew was the wisdom of their creation.

And so each imbued the world with their own energy. The Animal Dragon, made of flesh and bone, lent the solid terrestrial body of the world. The Fish Dragon, made of scales and fins, lent its water to cool the heat of the body. The Insect Dragon, made of lightness and energy, lent its air to the world to allow flight and sound. The Plant Dragon, made of wood and leaf, lent its life-force and fire to fuel the world. And the Celestial Dragon, made of starlight itself, most intelligent and wise of all Five, gave the world its greatest gift. Seeing the forces of the other four crafted humans from its very midst and bestowed upon them its light to walk the earth and wonder at Their wisdom and power.

The elemental forces of their creators then played upon the world, and created in their image forms of life to suit the many spaces within the world. Animals and plants and insects and fish were seen in new and various forms, all borrowing some major and minor aspects from their creator.

Humans were, at first, quite simple creatures, possessing no more wisdom than those of the animals and plants around them. But their light worked quickly and they learned more than the others, and soon accelerated their ability to see and understand and conquer those things around them. And so, in this way, they continue.

The world, alas, is still young, and the elements have yet to fully play with each other.

(This is some of the mythology building I'm currently working on for a novel of mine. It's a bit rough and early, but it'll do for now.)

Three (D1F)

2007-09-13T23:59:00.000+09:00

Three floors with alarms, their safety abandoned. Three Sirens rolled to see smoke reached to the zenith. Three-hundred students under a waterfall. Three abandoned were in the undertow caught: the Charybdis of fear, the Scylla of inaction. Three Dreams melted in that Deluge. Three grotesque exploded canisters, crayons amalgamated on the linoleum next-door. Three and three-hundred lost in the halls.

(This was written for a swap one of my friends sponsored. Requirement was 60 words, and it's that exactly.)

And There Was No Delay (D)

2007-07-04T23:17:00.000+09:00

I saved a life today and there was no delay. No delay in my reaction. Thoughts did not touch my resolve. She was in a line like the rest, demure like the rest. Friendless without a group, worthless without a group. Perhaps it was not so, but it seems so.

I could tell she was going to when I looked at her. So few look at you here. Or they look too much. And it's not, as I was told, that they don't want you to look at them--they do. It's that they look for truth more quickly--more desperately--and then look away as quickly and desperately to cover it. They don't want you to know. What truth, I don't know. Who knows. Where I come from, so many don't even want to know, so they just stare, dumb, incessant, sheepish, until they forget what they were doing and look up something else and look away. They do that here too, just faster, or slower.

Her eyes were different though. They looked that way they do, with knowing not knowing but knowing, and with a final desperation I could feel in my heart well before my mind could catch up with it. It was a devastating sadness, which is why I acted as quickly as I did--that kind of feeling does not live long in this world. It cannot. It consumes faster than anything known to man--faster than any Ebola infection--leaving effect not-unlike a terrible brain mashing prion.

I moved in quickly, my arm hairs already feeling the breeze of the intended rush of the oncoming train. She took a step where I took two. A head moved and shifted behind us, too far to help, too slow to recognize. Her eyes looked away then, consumed back into her inner world. Mine did not flinch. She leaned forward in the wind, and her hair and skirt ruffled slightly, a balance of pressures played upon raised toes. Another step and my arm was around her waist. She leaned into it with such strength, such power, she seemed to push off to try and fly--I felt bad to weight her down so. Bad to be the harbinger. Such power though, I thought she must be a soccer player as our directions clashed on the concrete field. She seemed to press with even more determination into my arms as I lost balance, teetering on the precipice--losing myself. I pivoted my hip as only my own training could have provided and crashed at the edge as I felt concrete stubble break my skid off the ledge--earthen pseudopods to save lives as fingerprints grip tools, as cleats grip grass. Her weight crashed fully upon me, cementing me further, but not enough before I rolled away with her in my arms. From the ledge, the rush of metal appeared and we scrambled over each other to get up and appear as nothing had happened. Eyes glared upon us from everywhere and were filled with wind, tearing from the eddies created by the train, it's walls rushing in to reflect their gazes. But hers were more so, filled with rage and sorrowful winds. Heads turned--but not mine--as they walked around us, locked on their destinations as doors opened, mine on hers. In mere seconds we became alone again, and again, and again. Last calls and silence.

And then I found myself crying--a wake of wind from the train's departure, for keeping the gaze open, there on the concrete, guardian of the tracks, unyielding in an eternity of seconds we seemed to share, there, alone. She looked down, fondly, and I admit, I scrounged a blink while she flattened her skirt, shrugging her arms together to re-hold her bag. She looked up once more to me and turned and walked back up the stairs. But I think she knew.

Blink (RD)

2007-07-04T20:52:00.000+09:00

Blink.

The pain is excruciating as the shock shuts off my body. My skin can still feel but all is a rush of adrenaline.

Blink.

I cannot actually see, my eyes do not work through the pain and rushing of chemistry. The pain is actually subsiding as it seems to leak out of my body at the same time. I have a keen sense of no sense except this new warmth of pain and lack of sense; no sight, though I can hear a bit it seems.

Blink.

I can definitely hear. There is a woman screaming which means I was probably fairly successful to a high degree for once. Good to know one of my plans worked finally.

Blink.

Not that I really prepared for things either. Plans are just as easily made than broken. Enough have been broken.

Blink.

The screams have stopped, or my hearing. I sense perhaps others nearby, but they give no sense input. Perhaps I will not know. Like so many in this world really.

Blink.

Of things I hadn't planned on: credit cards are worse. They have planned this. Adrianne thought of it, but, then, I planned it.

Blink.

Not that she is blamed though. My plans show none of her. She just had other plans--for me or her or both.

Blink.

I tried to work. Tried to breath. Yes. That would have been nice more. Now.

Blink.

But, no. No breath will be had. No more of that. No more plans.

Blink.

No more screams. No warmth.

Blink.

No pain.

Blink.

Blink.

Warmth.

Blink.

Prickly warmth.

Blink.

The Fleece

2007-04-09T00:10:00.000+09:00

In the grove of the Silver Tree, the people would come to join together and listen to its song. Or, at least that was the best way the people could describe it. How else can one describe how a tree speaks other than the wind going through the leaves, the intention behind all it's silence and occasional creaks of growth and knowledge.

But, there was only one difference between the ways in which one could separate the kinds of stories that the tree told. This is why the storytimes were always at different times of the year, and not just at the full moons or solstices or equinoxes. Festivals would happen anytime, and for days. This was to maximize the various influences that could be made on the tree's song.

There were two major forces on the visual segment of the song. The day and the night, of course. One would be the sun, the sky, and the clouds. The other, the moon, its phase and the clouds. All of these factors could separate all the stories the tree would tell. But on the brightest, clearest days, the full light of the sun would shine, and turn the silver tree's leaves, and with the right flutter of wind, turn the leaves into a crown of gold, reflecting the true light of the sun.

Towers (D)

2007-02-27T15:22:00.000+09:00

Towers can be very special things. They loom over us, sometimes ominously, sometimes majestically. For some time they have had a great meaning to us. Whether our recent towers of trade being unscrupulously demolished or the mythological history of the tower of Babel. Even our more recent mythology has the two towers of Orthank and Khazad Dum from Tolkien's Middle Earth attest their importance. They are with us inexorably now it would seem. Always they shall be raised, and always, it would seem, they should fall.

Tower shares the same root as toward, meaning to traverse and move to a destination. But almost exclusively towers deal with the reaching further into space. Fingers from our small flat seeming world into the realm of impossible, if but in our minds alone. (Man has dreamed of flight longer than of planes; the quickest way into the sky is to built do it.) Before the flying butress, it was inconceivable to build anything higher than a story or three, and still at great risk or material. When they were invented, the first buildings to employ them were the cathedrals--those sacred places of worship intended to awe and inspire.

But not everyone was held in rapture, nor would I recommend them for everyone's disposition. Just as there are many ways to build a house, so there are too many ways to find a way to the stars. Everyone must find their own tower of revelation, the lightning struck place of pure potential, power, and revelation (illumination). May your be truly tall and travesing.

And, please, enough with the penis jokes. Really. Towers can jst as well be hollow...

A Brief History of My Organs Before the Unfortunate Possibily of My Unforseen Death (D)

2007-02-26T23:02:00.000+09:00

My Liver

On the whole, my liver has been quite under-used if anything. I have not, like my unfortunate grandfather, developed a driving force for the taste of alcohol. Though I have partaken enough for many tastes, as well as a few experiences of the intoxicated world, it exists primarily alcohol free now days. Of the other functions, for which I would also suggest you use it for, would include such things as insulin and other, fairly normal, generations of harmful free-radicals, etc. etc. Usually the only toxins come from forces beyond my control in the outer world. Though natural hallucinogens non-withstanding, though in still small quantities.

My Gallbladder

We don't on the whole have a fantastic relationship. I would be curious to know more about him, but on the whole, have forgotten why he's there. He's nice so far as I can tell, but, still a bit distant. Perhaps we should go out to dinner sometime and recount vastly different lifestyle choices from those taken and reminice how we thought the other really would have come through right at the last moment to tie that bond of eternal loveship. But, I fear I may have to get the bill, as there's not enough space in mine to hold enough coinage.

My Genitals

Though generally I would not expect anyone, not even my dearest, to want to truly preserve these parts, there is one exception. If, for some strange reason, by the time I have need of this document I should have become wildly insane and/or fantastically famed, hopefully the latter, the human race may want to preserve some small part of my genetic makeup in order to eventuate the time when human genetic material may be archived for future, if possibly alien, creatures decided to find out what existed before the human race decided to exterminate itself. But, it's a long shot, so I'm not particularly worried.

They, nonetheless, work just fine for my own needs.

My Buttocks

Though this is a strange alternative to the aforementioned and intended organ donation program, my buttocks are quite firm and well toned from biking on so many occasions cross continents and to work, etc. If we should be stranded in a place without food, and I should perish, they would be quite the best snack to start with, and I do no longer believe that selective cannibalism is wrong in the most extreme circumstances. Not my brains, just my butt... and no butt-head jokes.

My Lungs

I've been doing my best with them, and on the whole they're good. I've tried smoking a bit, but it luckily never stuck, though there was a bit of pot here and there. Otherwise, normal suburban (not inner-city) pollution, or large rural city pollution, which isn't so bad. They could use more cleaning with yoga or something, but still top of the line.

My Heart

They say that your heart is about the size of your hands, and they look like big strong hands. Truly though, along my father's side of the family, we do really tend to have big hearts. The kind that occasionally show up as pre-heart disease but really aren't, they're just big and muscly. Perfect for beating well past normal men's primes. Hundreds of years good, though a few off for pollution effects of course. Though, they must be properly cared for, dusted off regularly and used well. Loving is hard, and any heart, especially mine, can wither if uncared for. That said, it is my responsibility to do so on the whoel, and, though it's been a tough job, I've been managing fairly well. My hands are still strong.

The Watchtower (D)

2007-02-06T22:58:00.000+09:00

The tower was old and wished to crumble back into the rocks from which it came. But time was not yet enough, and care, however infrequent, was still too much to maintain it. Its foundaition of beached rocks let loose its morter more and more each day as best it could, but was just as much replaced the following year. Even occasionally the paint would be reapplied every few years as well, making it that much harder to collapse.

For the many thousands of leagues on the coast, it was the oldest watchtower, though that word had in more recent times been replaced with light house--a fact which had not been true for some many years as well. Though it was maintained, its duty to shed light to ships had become obsolete for both ships and houses. And there was a newer modern light house--more of a tacky flash light if you asked it--that could house more light than it's small perch. Now it just watched the ships pass, cars from the far off road occasionally pass. Even a few people came to see it in any given year, though even that was dwindling.

Today was one of those days.

A small, reasonably rented, car pulled up in the gravel spot that managed as a parking lot. Two adults got out, a smallish child, and eventually another even smaller child was extracted. The group strolled towards the tower, the small free one creating larger and more erratic orbits around the adults.

"Are you sure this is the one the guide book mentioned?" the larger male said.

"Seems like it," the female said.

"Bit more run down than I thought," he said.

The watchtower was taken aback somewhat by this as his yearly maintenance had just spent at least five hours last week on his tri-yearly coat of paint. Perhaps the paint was reflecting the nearly continuous overcast skies poorly.

"Oh well, lets get some pictures and go then," the female said.

"Hey, Mark! Stay next to the Lighthouse!" the male said, shouting to the small one increasing in distance. He was now orbiting the watchtower and crunching on bits of mortar fallen in the ring of gravel at its base.

The male quickly set up a small tripod, obviously an old hand at doing so, and eventually gathered the group in front of the watchtower for a timed shot of its newly painted, if still rotting underneath, door and frame. Their fake smiles were well observed by the watchtower.

The male retrieved and collapsed the tripod and camera with one motion, and the two adults, with their bundled creature in tow went back to the shiny rented car. The small one that had been orbiting earlier lingered behind at the door, inspecting its base for termites most likely.

"Mark, come back to the car. We're going to the beach now, okay!" the male said from the car's open trunk. The female re-secured the small bundle.

The small one known as Mark now stood up from its inquisitive crouch and stared at the old door. The male returned from the car rather swiftly, but not before Mark gave a meaningful, if tender at best, bang on the door front.

To the watchtower's surprise, and not a little elation, the old corroded door latch finally fell apart and crashed to the floor inside the tower, allowing the door to swing open slightly. There had been a more impressive bolt on the door some months earlier, but some teenagers had come by and saw to that. They had at least appreciated the view, though their attention was on their bottles and each other more.

Mark peered inside as a few wisps of air refreshed the small space around the stairwell's base. The male was there at the door now as well and crouched down to eye level with the child.

"What did you find, Mark?" the male said.

"Door," the child said.

"Wanna see what's inside?"

The child nodded.

"Hey hon, we're going to check out the inside. The door came open."

"Okay. I'll wait here with Sophia," the female answered.

The male took his hand and led him into the darkness. Ambivalently stacked empty buckets of paint were near the doorway, as well as other tools used in the occasional maintenance. They took the spiral staircase anchored on its outer wall up to the top. The hatch had been discarded some decades earlier and was the primary reason so much sand and corrosion was also at the bottom of the tower's well. The two climbed out onto the old concrete rotund perch.

The glass and light fixtures had been removed for decades more than the hatch, though the roof of the tower seemed still solid--it was metal after all.

The watchtower wondered if this added weight would finally put an end to its existence.

The male and child looked out from the perch, still having its few iron bars intact to hang upon. The male took a deep sigh, then cleared his throat and launched a spitwad into the air. The breeze was light for this time on the coast and only took it some extra feet towards the car before hitting the ground.

"Give it a try, Mark."

The child mimicked his father's sound and made a spray of spittle, hitting both of them with small droplets. The male chuckled a bit and pointed at his throat while making a grating sound from it.

"Try the back of the throat more," he said.

"Okay," the child said. He mimicked his father again in a similar fashion, but still created another light spray of white bubbles.

"Oh well. You'll get it eventually," the male said, smiling down at the child. "Come on then. Lets get back to the car."

As the car drove off, another small piece of mortar fell from the perch of the tower.

Eventually, the tower collapsed.

Gather in the Grove (D)

2007-01-28T10:17:00.000+09:00

The call was sent for the yearly gathering. The shrines of the holy flame lit bright from mountain peak to mountain peak, all across the lands. It was their remaining contact through the dangerous places. Those places scarred and scorched by war the likes of which had never been seen on the Earth. But there were now better ways of travel, ways that would avoid the scorched lands. But, they could only be opened so often.

With the coming of the signal, which could only be sent at certain times of the year, energies could be culled and directed much easier allowing for them to open the gateways. The elders would gather in the community center and chat for awhile, calming and preparing their minds. The children would bring their their newly made decorations: lanterns and garlands of paper, cones and forest morsels. The students would come from the training grounds and study the elders and learn about the process as they gathered their strength for the gateway forming. The adults would fill in various spots and join their primary community groupings.

Then, at the appropriate time, all of the town would exodus the community center and make way to the gate site nearby. The elders would be first, entering the circle, followed by the adults and families after, forming rings and circles around the henge gate at the center. The elders would summon their energy and the gates would open among the many directions. Though not all gate sendings would lead to the same place on all days, this particular day and ceremony led to the Great Grove, and all were transported there. The distribution of people was managed by the different gateways and their reception points.

Once there, the millions attending would make their way into the great grove, a field several communities wide, but with a single silver tree at its center, enormous in its size. The outer ring of trees could be expanded and contracted depending on the current population in attendance. People of all the communities in the realm were intermixed and communicated with each other (the time of transference was another festival all together). Eventually, when the celebrations had calmed, the time of the listening would take place. Silence descended upon the entire crowd.

And then all could begin to hear the tale of the great tree.

These are some of his stories:

Reincarnation

2007-01-26T10:16:00.000+09:00

This was originally going to be on my other, previous travel blog, but due to some other bits of login complication created by the Google IDs and not being easy to make multiple IDs compatible at once (from not transfering my ownership properly), I've created this one here.

That said, this is going to be my writing projects blog. Though I don't really intend to have many people traffic here, as I would appreciate comments, do feel free to do so as you like. However, please understand that these are rough draft materials for use with my writing groups and for critique. And that they should be considered copyright.

I completed nanowrimo this past year which, if nothing else, gave me a great deal of words to sort through, and a taste of what a writing schedule may or may not entail. It is, however, becoming more and more my favored form of expression, which hopefully time and practice should improve, hence this space. Though I intend on writing daily, not all of it will appear here. Some of it may be related to the frame theme of which you will read next, or not.

Please enjoy my process and feel free to comment on what you see. Be constructive and ruthless. Thanks!