A curious collection of memories and opinions from the life and times of your average, everyday, little known 31 year old INFP male. Let the fun begin.
09 November 2006
My Final Post.
it may not always be so; and i say that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch his heart, as mine in time not far away; if on another's face your sweet hair lay in such silence as i know, or such great writhing words as, uttering overmuch, stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;
if this should be, i say if this should be-- you of my heart, send me a little word; that i may go unto him, and take his hands, saying, Accept all happiness from me. Then shall i turn my face and hear one bird sing terribly afar in the lost lands
--ee cummings
I wish I had been the one to write this. Genius.
I think, given all things, that it summarizes this blog in it's entirety, and therefore it shall sit here as the final entry.
I want to thank the regular readers of my ramblings here.
All six of you.
I am going to stop writing here now, it's time to move on to bigger projects. The blog will stay active for those of you who want to read the archives.
I had a good time, and I got to write some neat stuff. I appreciate your taking the time to read them.
Diligently, I build one layer after the next; so meticulous is the presentation that the structure itself is envied by all the architects of the heart.
Of course, the ego says that.
My house of cards... The only thing majestic about it is the manner in which it falls. It falls with such grace that one could wonder if in some sense it was rehearsed. Perhaps it was, or perhaps it was built to fall.
Would someone, please, hand me some fucking bricks?
Jin Settsuoshima crept quietly from tree to tree on a small hill behind the mansion, charged by the crisp night air. It was in the moments of approach that he would put the majority of his thought into the operation and how he would go about its execution. The intelligence work had been solid; more so than he would have expected coming from an unknown 3rd party. His directives were clear: free the captured knight ‘Bell,’ observe the battle in the foyer to ensure the mansion owner was neutralized, and clean the area of everyone if detected or if failure was imminent. Detection wouldn’t be an issue; he was far too well trained to be detected by non-military, or even paramilitary, lackeys.
He pressed on to the back wall of the mansion and quickly surveyed his surroundings. The wall was old and in ill repair, and there were plenty of partially crumbled sections for him to maintain his footing. He attached a small metal spike to his left foot and hand and worked his way slowly up the side of the damaged wall, being careful not to rush or make any sound. As he neared the top, a sound caught his ear. He flattened himself against the wall, almost becoming one with it, as two men with lanterns rounded the southeast corner and closed on his position. From the small slit in his olive green hood, he watched the men pass under him and stop, oblivious to his presence. One pulled out a small pipe and loaded it with a leafy substance, as the other rambled on about his latest encounter at a brothel.
These two men would need to be incapacitated or they would interfere with his escape. He quietly swung his right arm around to his back, pulled a drawstring on one of his flat belt pouches, and brought out a small tube with six flesh-colored darts. He placed the tube in his moth and took a slow, deep draw of breath as he worked a dart into the tubing. The guard lit his pipe with his lantern, and inhaled deeply. A small glint of satisfaction crossed his face momentarily, and then switched to bewilderment as the world spun around him. His friend, too busy rambling on about his latest brothel induced love, didn’t notice his fellow guard was on the ground until something bit his neck.
Jin carefully placed the remaining four darts back in his belt pouch and took one last look at the two unconscious men on the ground. Satisfied, he pressed upward over the edge of the wall and onto a small balcony. The window he needed was two over to the right of his current position. He looked up, then grabbed the edge of the roofing and vaulted himself onto the slate roof. Stepping ever so lightly, he made his way to the second window and stopped. He then rested his body flat on the rooftop, pulled himself forward, and leaned his torso over the roof edge, using the metal spike on his foot to maintain his position. From his inverted position, he took stock of the room. Three guards around a cage with a woman inside. He looked up at the ground to ensure the two men were still unconscious before readying his next move.
Jin hung silently inverted from the roof, watching the guards for just the right time to strike. Inside sounds of scuffling could be heard through the partially open window, and he assumed the diversion had begun. The three guards had positioned themselves in a triangle of sorts around the cage; the lead man, hearing the ruckus, walked over to the door and called out to some unseen party. Now was the time to strike.
He quickly pulled two half-inch corked glass tubes from his belt and shook them before taking them in his left hand. He then readied two 4 point circular darts and placed them in his mouth. From his inverted position, he gently opened the windows slowly outward, listening carefully for any hint of creaking. With the windows open, he committed the guard locations to memory, gave the vials a final shake with his left hand, and tossed them upward into the room. As the vials lobbed through the air, he grabbed the roof edge with his free hands and swung around into the room, landing crouched on his feet with his back to the men just as the vials hit the floor.
The men turned to see only the movement of Jin entering the room. There was a momentary flash of brilliant white light as the vials broke on the floor and began smoking; all three men were taken by surprise, and effectively blinded. Jin snapped up and pivoted on his left foot as he took the darts from his mouth. With a smooth motion, he flung a dart toward the closest guard. Jin released the second dart toward the guard at the door, just as his first one had finished slicing through the ascending smokescreen and found its mark squarely in the first guard’s forehead. Both men hit the floor almost simultaneously as Jin crouched and drew his steel tanto, holding it down handled. The remaining guard lunged blindly in the direction of the window, swinging his short sword with voracity. Jin swiftly executed an upward backhanded strike, cutting the man diagonally from waist to neck in a continuous motion before quietly helping his body to the floor.
He looked briefly at the ceiling; he knew he had only a few seconds before his smokescreen would have made its way out of the partially open door and into the main room where everyone else was. He moved swiftly over to the door and removed the cage key from the lead guard’s body. Crossing quietly over the open portion of the door, he flattened himself against the wall and took out his last small vial. He quickly shook it and peered out the side of the door at the people in the mansion’s foyer, making a mental note of who was standing where. He noticed immediately that his second objective, the death of the mansion owner, had been met. He lobbed the readied vial into the room in-between the two women who had created the diversion, and had now positioned themselves to fight the remaining mob.
Not waiting for the vial to make contact, he leapt over to the cage, grabbing a short sword in the process. He quickly unlocked Bell’s cage and imbedded the blade of the sword at her feet in the wooden cage floor. The expression on her face indicated to him that she was unable to see clearly.
"Your vision will return momentarily. He whispered. " Your path is clear. Find your strength and assist your allies."
With that, he sprung for and through the open window, hit the ground squarely with his feet and broke his momentum with a head-over roll before he disappeared into the darkness.
---I wrote this maybe 3 years ago for a gaming group I was involved with at that time. Yes, I was a dork. Yes, I still can be a dork. Anyhow, I decided to clean this up a little tonight (okay, a LOT, this was a very rough piece back then), and post it here for your amusement. I entertained the idea at one time of continuing this little story, but ..meh™
Should be a nice change from my normal 'oh woe is me, my life sucks, I am forever doomed' style of writing that is all over this blog.
I write a lot of fiction. I have these little stories from time to time on this blog. Some are a collaboration of memorable events, some are just plain fantastical idealism. Sometimes I remember specific events in my life, and I write about them; not necessarily the way they happened, but the way I remember them. I think I've said that before somewhere.
Anyhow, for the few readers I have here, please keep that in mind when you read the works here. Chances are that unless I've told you specifically I am writing about you, or I've had some kind of major life change, it's all just some fantasy or idealistic scenario I've thought up in my head.
You know, because I am delusional and all.
Don't go off on me about it. mmkay? Mmkay, yeah thanks.
A cool breeze blew through his open car windows as he sat motionless in the traffic jam on the freeway. He mused to himself the reasons he would willfully sit in a traffic jam on Friday afternoon when, normally, his afternoon routine would keep him away from such a mess. He sat patiently, though, tapping his foot to the music of the radio and letting his mind wander to nothing in particular.
He was heading to the university campus to see where tomorrow morning’s class would be. A pre-emptive strike at tardiness and misdirection was always a wise endeavor in his estimation. He read over his map instructions again in an attempt to make sense of the ambiguous directions he received from the website. The directions had him making several turns towards the end of his trek, and he read and reread them as the traffic moved forward and then stalled. Eventually he made it to his exit, and left the freeway at a greater speed than he had enjoyed while actually on it.
Right, and follow for 0.5 miles, then left for another 0.5 miles. Then, another right for 1.8 miles, and another right again for a short 0.1 miles. Easy enough, he thought. This whole routine saw him past several gas stations and a grocery store, before it dropped him dead center of the little suburb the university campus was supposed to be in. One problem though… there was no campus.
He took a deep breath and took stock of his surroundings while stopped at a stop sign. He had landed somewhere in the middle of a sub-division, with decent sized two story brick homes on either side. The neighborhood was out collectively watering their lawns while their kids were playing with their toys on the sidewalks. A honk of a horn jerked him out of his observations as a local resident decided he had sat too long at the stop sign and wanted to finish going home. He pulled forward and found a nice spot in front of a house to park his car so he could read his instructions again. He leaned over to the passenger seat to grab his papers, but stopped dead in his motion. Before him, sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck parked in the driveway, was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen; her eyes were so bright blue that he could see them from where he was sitting. Her hair was an unbelievable copper brown that cradled her face and flowed effortlessly over her shoulders. He was in awe, shock even, at the scene before him. Her eyes left his and she took her attention back to her book and the apple slices she had by her side.
He realized he was holding his breath. He exhaled slowly and sat back in his seat, mesmerized by what had just happened. The instructions on this map had led him right to this woman; this couldn’t be just chance. An idea struck him, and he pulled away from her house, performing a U-turn in the middle of the street. He drove as reasonably fast as he could to the nearest of the many convenience stores he had seen on the way in. He ducked inside and found exactly what he was looking for within seconds. He plucked a perfect red rose from the display in front of the cashier and paid for his purchase.
He took a different route back to her house – one that would position the driver door nearest to her when he pulled up. He rounded a turn and saw her still sitting, right where he left her, on the back of the pickup truck reading her book and enjoying the late afternoon. He rolled to a stop in front of her house, slipped the car into neutral, and engaged the parking brake.
She looked up at him with a curious expression, and waves of excitement and fear flowed through him as he exited his car, leaving his door ajar. He walked up to her slowly… calmly, and offered her the rose. She reached out and slowly took it from him.
"What’s this for? Do I know you?" she asked, obviously bewildered.
Her sweet voice melted his heart. He looked into her eyes but spoke no words. He took in her beauty for one final moment, smiled, and went back to his car. He stopped at his door, looked back at her, then entered his car and drove away.
The day ended like any other; an unremarkable finish to an equally unremarkable effort of work. He packed up his belongings and headed out the door, just barely making the elevator bound for the first floor of his steel and concrete prison. The elevator proceeded to take him towards the freedom below, each floor passed but a moment closer to his home, and to his time.
He walked solemnly to the car, unlocking the doors as he always does from 20 paces out. He opened the passenger door and placed his empty lunchbox on the passenger seat, then rounded the back of the car to find the driver door. He slipped into the driver seat, allowing the supple leather to envelop his body as he started the car for the journey home.
His mind wandered for the entire trip home. Thoughts of times passed and people known dominated each moment as the music in the background soothed his restless spirit. The drive home was routine, just like his life; the same turns, the same scenery, the same time, and the same distance. Tonight’s drive home, though, was long and bittersweet as his mind danced over memories almost in time with the music from the radio.
He pulled into his garage and killed the engine. As routine dictated, he exited his car and went upstairs, dropping his lunchbox in the closet before slipping into his house clothes. His daze was apparent as he moved from room to room through this regular operation, without so much as a thought to anything but the memories of the past that dominated his mind. For as much as the routine was the same, tonight was fundamentally different; a marked sense of tragedy and recollection filled him as he completed the last of his customary activities.
He found himself in the kitchen when he snapped back to reality. With the numbness of the passing moments still fresh on his body, he walked over to the cabinet and removed a shot glass and bottle of Crown Royal. Skillfully, he prepared his drink, mixing a shot of the fine Canadian whiskey with a splash of lime soda and six ice cubes into a stemmed cocktail glass. He then cupped the glass between his index and middle fingers and walked like a rich man out to the patio overlooking the concrete driveway.
It was a warm, humid afternoon. The indirect light of the retreating sun left long, cool shadows amongst the warmth of the light bathed concrete driveway. He listened to the constants of the dying afternoon; the pulse-pulse-pulse of the cicadas and the gentle hum of overworked air conditioning fans. He perched himself on the railing of the patio and rested his body on his elbows as he allowed the warm air to engulf him like a moist towel. His eyes lazily closed as he downed a large gulp from his perfected concoction. He felt the contrast of the cold liquid within him and his mind eased, his pain faded. He took a deep breath and smelled the air’s gentle mix of nature and civilization.
A single touch on the back of his neck opened his eyes. He felt a hand run down his back slowly before making its way back up to his shoulder.
"Tough day?" she asked quietly, almost a whisper.
"Yes."
"Want to talk about it?"
"No."
Her hand fell to his waist, and she walked up beside him. She placed her head on his shoulder and looked out into the yard with him. In that moment, they had an entire conversation, and neither of them spoke a word.
For as much as things change, they stay the same. And for as much as things have stayed the same, they've changed.
It's different now, it's all very ...different.
I have been presented with an opportunity. A chance, though still slim, to take all the knowledge and experiences of the things I've done and the relationships I've had over last three years and go back to my element. To go back to the mountains and sands of the desert southwest. Back to old friends, familiar places, dead memories, new work, and new hopes.
Some possibilities would end, some things would become final, and some doors will open. Who knows if it's foolish. It doesn't matter; like all things have been over the last three years, it is what it is.
I was telling this friend of mine last night (whom I rarely ever talk to) that I think I’ve undergone some kind of transition lately. Sometime over this last year or some such. I think it was gradual enough for me not to really notice, except to say ‘what the hell is wrong with me’ from time to time.
I was also saying that I think most, if not all, of my past friendships didn’t survive this transition. Given the events over the last few weeks, I am finding this more and more true. I am beginning to wonder if generalized inconsideration is somehow built into my personality; if it is, I wonder if I am somehow oversensitive to situations that I may deem inconsiderate or desensitized to my own actions. I suppose that sounds confusing.
"Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones." While it is a simplistic view of the above, it doesn’t really explain the feeling in it’s entirety. Here is what I do know… my list of allies grows thin – to quote some elf guy from one of those ring movies. I had someone apologize today for something they did to me over the course of a month and a half. While the details now are unimportant, the fact remains they apologized. I am not sure why this happened, and the whole thing came across as more of a ‘conscience clearing’ on their part than it did a sincere apology. I am not even sure if they understand fully what they did.
But anyway.
I think I harbor this belief that all people are inherently good and true, and when I find out they aren’t, it completely wipes me out; which is really funny because I am not good and true. At least I don’t think so. Trying to figure one’s self out is always fun. Maybe, one day, I will get it all right.
Wow, Look at That Sun. Sure is Bright. Yep. Bright.
The last 5 days here have been nothing short of chaotic. Around 7:30p on Wednesday night, a very large and very unexpected storm rolled in from the north and unleashed its near-apocalyptic wrath down upon St. Louis and the surrounding counties.
It was an odd storm to begin with; a northerly approach is almost unheard of around here. From what I’ve heard, the storm was passing north of the city when it made a sharp right turn and slammed into the northern counties, packing winds in excess of 75mph. The storm hit so hard that even the city’s electrical system gave a collective ‘what the hell?’ before dying in spectacular fashion. Power at my place died a total of 3 times before remaining off and leaving me scrambling for candles.
Those of you who know me know that I love thunderstorms. Needless to say, I was in hog heaven. Even with the rain pelting everything and the high winds blowing me around, my dumb ass was outside watching nature at its finest. The wind was more than unrelenting, tossing around loose tree limbs and bending even the most well grounded trees as if they were saplings. The sky couldn’t decide what color it wanted to be, as it shifted from dark green to orange, and then finally to a deep gray. I couldn’t get over the colors, the altitude of the storm, and the multiple layers of clouds moving in various speeds and directions. It was all very, very impressive.
There were reports of tornados, and the sirens did eventually start wailing, but all of that nastiness avoided my area; what we got was an obscene amount of rain. You know it’s raining hard when you can’t see the houses across the street because of the cats, dogs, pigs, sheep, chickens, and various other small farm animals falling from the sky.
Eventually it all blew over, but not before visiting downtown St. Louis and disrupting the Cards ballgame. It even managed to blow out the press box windows on the brand new stadium. In all, it affected every section of the city and left over 500,000 homes without power. That’s homes, not people, and makes for about 1/3rd the population of St. Louis and surrounding sub divisions. The streets around home were alive with emergency vehicles that didn’t even bother going back to the station after a call.
Pretty big deal all in itself, but that isn’t where the entirety of the problem was. Thursday was forecast to be 100+ degrees including the high levels of humidity. Anyone who knows how humidity affects heat knows that this isn’t a good situation, and when Mr. Mayor cried emergency, the National Guard showed up to evacuate people to ‘cooling centers’ throughout the city. This, of course, landed us national new coverage of sorts, because bad news is always good for ratings. Something of note that I found interesting: In all of the coverage of this widespread blackout and bad weather, you didn’t hear one report of crime, on a large scale or otherwise. I am sure there was plenty of crime, but we didn’t hear about it.
Thursday night was the hardest, with 100 degree weather and 80% humidity that persisted well into the midnight hour. I found out that this made sleep all but impossible as I ferried a small army of pillows around from place to place, looking for a cool spot somewhere in the house. At 3am, I finally decided the car would be the best place to salvage the night, so I started her up, got comfortable, set the climate control on 80, put on some music, and crashed out. Only burned ¼ tank of gas, I don’t think that was too bad at all.
Friday, a more traditional storm blew in from the west at around 11:00am. This storm was along the same caliber of Wednesday’s storm, with winds reaching 65 mph, horizontal rain bands, and a couple of tornados on the outlying edge. In some ways, this storm was exceptionally violent, and even prompted emergency measures to be taken at work. I watched the storm roll in, and I have never, in my life, seen a sky that dark. It may as well have been the dead of night. The street lights would have been on if they’d had power to run. Needless to say, this storm undid a lot of Thursdays’ efforts by the power company to restore power to the city.
I’ve got power back now, but there are still somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 without power last I heard. In all, I was without power for 3 days. Given the severity of the two storms, the fact the power company has reduced the outage by almost half says a lot about the power company in my estimation. They aren’t a government or city service, so they do a thankless job getting customers back online, and personally I think they deserve a cookie.
On a side note, a tree has so many branches. That being said, how is it possible for TONS of branches to be all over the yards of so many houses, and the trees still have branches? The mind boggles.
Today was one of those days at work where it couldn’t be over fast enough; busy from the get-go and full of disillusioned folks who drum about in their day-to-day routine just like me. Everyone had a problem, everyone wanted a solution from me, and everyone wanted that solution on Friday of last week. So, when 5.00p rolled around, the phone turned off, I logged out of everything, and sat there for a few minutes reveling in the day’s massacre of my spirit.
The car ride home was phenomenal. The air was cool and the sky was a beautiful shade of gray, and I took it upon myself to pop the roof and crack the windows, despite the misty rain coming down. The music was perfect. It blended eloquently with the passing trees, the feel of the road, and the thoughts in my mind.
Sometimes it’s like that, you see. Everything comes together like a well-rehearsed symphony. In this case, the air, the road, the music, and the mood all fit together in a way that I can’t really describe. The music itself was repetitive, but the repetition was of something that was so sweet to hear, that for it to end would have been a crime in and of itself.
I should be sleeping, but I can’t bring myself to.
Thoughts and memories of times long gone flood my mind. Recollections of events over the last two months irk me to no end. I should let it go… I need to let it go, but some power keeps me fixated on the details.
Always details.
Always something said, something felt. Always some lie I can’t get over.
And then it happens, the freefall. I have a track I’ve acquired recently under the same name, and it is hauntingly fitting. All that is left now is the freefall. There’s a certain peace with it, and maybe, metaphorically, this is how I release it all. Fall until there is no more room to fall.
In the end, perhaps the details won’t matter. Things will be what they are, people will be who, and what, they are. They won’t see life as I do, and nor will they care. They will fall too, in their own way.
So what happens next? I don’t know. I’ll tell you after I pop the ‘chute.
It's been another one of those exquisitely craptastic days. I mean, I have had some really crappy days before, but this one was truly the pinnacle of crapdom.
Ever had one of those moments in life where everything you thought was real and true, if even to a certain extent, all turned out to be completely the opposite? Apparently, I live in my own little delusional hope-filled happy-go-lucky world, and I just dream things up to care for and have hope about. It seems I have been doing this for some time. It also seems that I just may have actually wised up to it. Yay me.
I hate being blindsided. I hate sudden reversals of opinion, action, or feeling only to find out they weren’t sudden at all; just sudden to me, because you know, I’m delusional. I guess it could also be that someone wasn’t straight with me when they could have been, but… I don’t know. I would really hate to blame them, they couldn’t possibly ever do anything wrong in my book. Right?
So, I will dismiss the conversations and actions as rhetoric and empty gestures. I will take my one lesson from this all and move on. Actually, more like an affirmation, of why I do not open myself up to other people.
Karma paid me a little visit today, and she did a couple of you proud. Consider any lingering sense of injustice served.
