A contrast

A contrast
Between a garbage landscape
cars and shops

garbage on the ground.
And a cerulean sky
littered with nimbus
dark grey-blue and rose
golden-rose highlights across those clouds
and a horizon that told me
"I've always been here"

A raindrop crashed upon my screen.
.
A contrast
Between the still living, soon dead
a short plant I picked from the ground
on a whim I picked it
just to feel
the soft green tendrils across my leathery fingers
and my calloused palms.
And the bright, almost lime-green, supple leaves
on branches high up
so out of reach

I reached, but no finger touched.

A contrast, but you've known how it goes now
Between a slug
crawling so slow across a grey gravel road
towards some signal it senses across a distance
or maybe randomly meandering
I know this from previous instance
it finds dead prey
"rasp! rasp! goes my tongue,"
it says.
And a dead slug
crushed against the sole of my foot
whether it felt anguish
a question that was never asked in the whole universe

Nobody knows it.

A contrast
Between a dark cave
apartment
no sun, just screen
and a husk that flees from thought
no such thing as a soul
yet, hark! the truth
deterministic materialism
self as illusion
will non-existence sweep over,
or am I doomed to eternity in this 'nother lonely night?
And
a bright blue sky
cerulean
clouds
contrasting a near endless expanse
where I wanted to play

But I'm stuck.

Valedictory

The following is a copy of my high school Valedictory speech.  I never actually gave the speech because I was alcohol-poisoningly hung over - you'd have to ask me for that sad story though.

---------------------------------------------------

Good evening everyone.  Well, here we are graduating and, well, here I am.  Valedictorian.  When I'm finished, you just may be left wondering how I got to be valedictorian.  I know for a fact that I wasn't the one who tried the hardest, but I've been lucky, and I guess that's all it really takes to achieve goals.  But that's not explanation enough; when I'm done, you'll still be wondering why me.  So here's the answer up front.  I'm here because I can milk a cow.

There were a thousand places I would have rather been that night, but they needed my help on the farm, so I had to help out.   There I was, putting a milker on a cow, when suddenly time and space ripped asunder, and I was sucked into another dimension.  When I awoke from the darkness which ensued, I found myself on board a ship in outer space.

I later learned that mine wasn't the first case of this happening.  You see, a doughboy of spatial distortion had snuck on board this particular pirate ship (the S.S. Einser Koff) during a raid on the Europium Consulate, and had been causing trouble ever since by swapping members of the crew with beings from other dimensions.  I had been swapped with Jr. Lt. Bilkry, a man in charge of a large device that made the pirate ship move.

Now the space pirates were in trouble.  You see, for pirates, there are riches all around; you just have to get to them.  And without Jr. Lt. Bilkry, they couldn't get to them.  So, since they had no reason to kill me, (and because I wasn't completely opposed to the idea of being a pirate), they decided to implant computer devices in my brain so that I could work the large device and they could make some cash.  It sounded exciting at the time, and I learned quite a lot from the computers in my head.

However, after some time in my new job, I realized that it wasn't what I expected.  I was stuck in a small dark room, regulating temperature and pressure levels, pushing red buttons.  During my stay there, the only entertainment to be had was conversing with other crew members.  Although most of the people I met were quite average, there was one that stands out in my mind.  It was Mr. Fragson Deasmir, who was in a similar situation as me, except that he was a part of the attack squad.  I once asked him who he had been before.  He replied, "It doesn't matter who you were.  It only matters who you are."  Later that day while raiding a transport his computer chips misfired causing him to forget how to use his jet pack, and he flew headfirst into the ship and broke his neck.  He's dead now.  I've wondered what to make of that ever since.

Anyways, after more than two months on board the S.S. Einser Koff, the doughboy was still causing problems; almost half of the original crew had been replaced by others like me.  It was a boring day at work, and I sat only half awake in my chair.  Until, that is, I heard the diabolical laugh.  The laugh of a doughboy.  I cautiously opened my eyes and saw him, standing on the control panel.  His doughy eyes seemed to be staring back at me.  His chef's hat and blue trousers seemed innocent enough, but the pointed teeth lining that evil grin stated otherwise.  Several thoughts passed through my mind at that moment, such as "Should I lunge for him?" and "I wonder what he tastes like?"  After pausing a moment to think things through however, I simply asked if he could send me back.  "Mister," he replied, "they'll never even know you weren't here."  When I awoke, I found myself back at the farm, milker in hand.  Three minutes had passed.  I guess sometimes you just have to ask.  After that, there's not much else to tell, except that I used my digitally enhanced brain to get good grades and become valedictorian.

So there you have it.  The moral of the story, you ask?  There is none.  Bet you weren't expecting that.  But in real life, being successful doesn't always mean living up to other people's expectations.  Sometimes the only thing that matters is being true to yourself.  Au revoir, mes amis.

-Ryan

White Russian

The following is a dream I experienced and wrote about around 2002 when I was ~18 years old.  It has been very mildly edited from its original form.

-------------------------------------

There is a game to be played.  A game with warriors.  Many different warriors can be chosen.  There are fighters, thieves, berzerkers, wizards, samurais, archers, and anything else you can think of.  I am looking down on a grid of streets.  On each street, a different type of warrior marches.  Most players build armies out of just a few kinds of warriors.  This time though, the player wants a variety.  I see a ninja.  Ninjas can walk on walls.  Ninjas wear pointy hats.  I am to be a ninja.  I will take off my pointy hat, because it looks kind of gay.

I start out on the ground.  There is a mission that ninjas have to accomplish.  Three ninjas have been chosen for this mission.  Here is Witt, Lemon, and myself.  Here is a tall skyscraper, with a russian turnip roof.

The sky is a dull purple-black colour, and only a few stars light our way as we ascend the building.  It appears as though Witt and Lemon have also cast off their ninja pointy hats.  It sucks being part of a big game.  Sometimes programmers aren't fair and they make you wear a pointy hat.  Sometimes they are more than fair, but then you forget about being part of the game.

Back to the mission at hand.  We are to abduct a Russian girl from the turnip roofed skyscraper.  You see, the men in the turnip roofed skyscraper abducted her in the first place.  They took her from her parents.  Why did they do that?  I don't know.  Why are we supposed to abduct her?  I don't know that either.  I'm just part of the game, not the player.

We've reached the top.  In through the window we go.  Into the bedroom, where she is asleep.  I'm the highest level ninja here, so I do the honours and grab hold of her, covering her mouth.  She still manages to get out a startled yelp though.  Damn, the guards might be alerted.  With my hand still over her mouth, I motion for her to stay silent by doing the whole finger-over-the-mouth-and-saying-"Shhhh" thing.  It seems to work for the moment at least.  I pick her up in my arms and we flee into the next room, which happens to be the bathroom.  Hiding is an important skill for ninjas, and we all activate it now.

My captive and I lay down in the bathtub.  Only now, by the moonlight shining through the window, do I have a chance to see the girl.  She is quite beautiful, about my age, with honey blonde hair, and dark brown eyes that look quite large and scared right now.  She is wearing soft red and blue plaid pyjamas.

Two guards burst into the room, and look around with their flashlights.  They whisper to each other for a moment, and then leave the room.  I am thankful for two things right now: that my ninja friends and I have high level hiding skillz, and that the artificial intelligence of enemies is never very well programmed.  Oh, and a third thing: that there is a beautiful girl wearing pyjamas laying on top of me.  We share a few breaths of relief once they are gone.  I look my quarry in the eyes, once again motion for her to keep silent, and then take my hand off her mouth.

"What do you want with me?" she whispers.  One of the few answers I can't give her.  But without an answer, she may not come easily.  I look to both of my comrades, and then lie to her.

"We're here to take you back to your parents," I say.  Lemon looks at me and shakes his head helplessly.  I half smile and wink back.  I know what I'm doing.  "We have to get out of here," I say.  "Hold on to me," I tell her.

Back outside to the outer walls of the skyscraper, we descend into the darkness.  I hold her tight in my arms, so she doesn't fear falling.

As usual, descending takes less time than ascending.  Once we are safe on the ground, we head for our final checkpoint to end this mission.  It is in a large, flat building; like a mall, but with apartments and hotels and things too.  Like a city inside a building.  It is dark in here, and the walkways are deserted, so we assume that most everyone is sound asleep.  We get to our room.  There are three beds.  The captive Russian girl is asleep in my arms now, so I take her to my bed.  Being a good ninja, and not wanting to be a creep, I decide that I'll stay awake near the window until morning and watch for potential pursuers. 

I awake in my bed.  I'm not sure when I fell asleep, but I'm sure that I did.  I look up from under my blankets.  The room is bright, and the Russian girl is standing at the foot of the bed.  She is wearing a short red and black dress, and she looks even more beautiful in the morning light.  She smiles at me and then abruptly turns and leaves the room.

I get up, and change my black ninja suit for the clothes that are laid out for me.  The programmers have made the arrangements for us, and we have everything we need.  I leave the room and go to the kitchen, where we all sit down and have breakfast.  Afterwards, the girl asks me if we can take her somewhere.  Not wanting to upset her, and not quite knowing what we're supposed to do with her now, I say yes.  Off we go.

She walks close beside me.  I put my arm around her waist.  She puts her head on my shoulder.  I love feeling close to someone like this.  I temporarily languish in bliss, until suddenly Witt calls for me from behind.  Since it's probably something work-related, I tell Lemon to watch our friend while I find out what's up.

Once we are far enough away to transfer potentially secret information, he tells me what's up, and this is where it all started to go wrong.  It wasn't work related.  Rather, he had a joint to smoke. And I, being a pothead myself, just couldn't refuse.  We smoked it.  Now theres something you should know about intoxicating substances in the game world: they don't actually get you high.  Rather, they just change the game somewhat.  This joint changed the game for the worst.

I looked ahead, only to see Lemon starting to put the moves on my girl.  He had his arm around her. So I headed up to them, and gave Lemon the evil eye.  Thankfully, he backed off and she came over to me.  We continued our walk the same way we had before Witt interrupted, except I was having a hard time focusing because of the weed.

We finally came near her destination.  We went down a very short, unused side corridor, and through a rusted door.  We found stairs leading down to a dank cellar.  We descended the stairs, but the problem was that the stairs were getting increasingly smaller and further down.  Since I was still wearing my ninja sandals, and since I had lost my ninja skills when I got stoned, I couldn't make it any further without falling.  So, in my dazy mind, I decided to have Witt and Lemon escort her to her destination while I went back to get some shoes.

I kissed her on the forehead goodbye, and left for my journey for shoes.  Two things happened to me on the way back: I forgot the way back, and then I forgot what I was doing.  Confused but undaunted, I decided to wander around aimlessly.  I stopped at a street vendor and bought a watch strap.  I'm not sure why.

I continued wandering, and eventually I came upon the Russian girl.  There was something odd going on though, because she looked slightly different, and she wasn't with Witt and Lemon.  She was with another girl.  I felt a glowing swell of love for the Russian girl, so I didn't make a big deal of the situation.

"I'm lost," I admitted to her.

"Well, I think I know the way back," she said. "Just follow me."

I did.  It turned out that she didn't know the way back to our place.  It turned out, however, that she knew the way back to some sort of old run down motel place.  We went inside.

"You want any?" she asked me.

Still dazed from the weed, I nevertheless caught on to what kind of place this was.  "Yeah..." I said, reaching for my wallet.  I'd never done coke before, but I wasn't afraid to try new things.

Just as we were about to make the exchange, an old, fat, ugly, troll woman burst in the room.  To distract her from what was really going on, the girls each lit up a smoke.

"No smoking in here. Take it outside," she said.  We took it outside.

Outside was nice, despite being surrounded by tall brick walls; the sun was bright and the sky was blue.  There was a perfect groves of trees with a small stream running through.  Flowers were scattered throughout the grass, and birds were singing in the trees.  It was as if someone stole a block out of urban Eden.

I noticed that the other girl was nowhere to be seen.  It was only me and my captive.  I put my arm around her waist, and she put her head on my shoulder.  We walked up a small stone path and came to a little picnic table.

She took out the cocaine.  Something amazing occured to me.  I took out the block of hash that I had thought was a watch strap.  She smiled at me, and I smiled back.  Life was good.  We started the session.

We do all of the drugs; time stops; I realize one thing: I love this girl.  I'll never even know her name, and I love her more than anything in the world.

I realize another: she's parts of the game.  She's not real.  Neither am I.  Programmers like things to be stable and predictable.  Love and drugs are chaotic.  Programmers don't like them, or else they simply can't program them.  But they can delete the parts of the game which use them.

I hate this game that I'm a part of.  I hate it to hell!  It's a game that I've never wanted to be a part of.  I can't make my own game.  Neither of us can...  So, in a haze of cocaine and hashish, my love and I sit here, at a picnic table, waiting for the end.  Because we know it will come.  We can only hope that, when it does come, we can be together forever, through the endless oblivion that awaits.  That's all that matters.

I walked this trail

Dew from dark cloud sky

Tickled my wet eyes

I felt safe on my lit trail

But I looked behind anyways

I didn't want to lose it all 

Anyways

Walked this trail alone

Plant, tree,

Snails beneath feet

Peaceful sensations

Cool drips across my temple

Abnormal sounds ring my ears 

From a device

All this was perceived as contentment

Yet I know

You're a peaceless silence

You're a desolate wasteland

All traces of my midnight walk

All memories of the things I've done

All things I love

All traces gone

Once, in an age long past

And, in an age to come

All traces gone

No me, love, eyes, peace

There, only dust blows on the wind swept plains

No eyes to see it, ever again

This isn't real

Just a lapse of judgement by an indifferent non-master

Just a crushing, futile burden to fall flat beneath

I saw the skunk, intent on digging the cool night earth, just off my trail

I announced myself clearly by clicking my name:

Click

Click

Click

I decided on our mutual indifference

I decided to walk on by

But it disagreed; it noticed me

Tail raised as I walked on by

I don't think my pace quickened on by

Came towards me

I quickly shuffled along on by

Looking small and unassuming on by

Was my pace any quicker?

It kept on a comin'

Into the forest trail I went on by

And I couldn't see it anymore

And my thoughts said a skunk ain't gonna pursue you dude

But I kept lookin' behind anyways

And my pace was under strict control

Drunkey monkey, makin' bacon at night

I think I told those other people to follow their dreams
Don't spend another year waiting
Another month or another week
Waiting
But I kept waiting
I didn't feel that vibe from any dreams
Anymore

I drank beer alone
And tried to eat bacon at night
I took a metal shape
It was from the earth
Smelt from ore
I placed it on different hot metal
Hot because I touched a piece of plastic on a piece of metal
And I grabbed a different piece of plastic
From the drawer
From the dollar store
Maybe built through the toiling of a kid like me
Split from me and my lineage generations ago
Maybe mixed with me a bit
Just not enough for me to really care
Or maybe it was built by mindless robots

A plastic piece
Made from the remnants of an ancient swamp
Anoxic
Trees fell over
A dinosaur fell in
Drowning in tar
The first pang of regret ever
And the universe realized its kids wouldn't eat from now on
Would die
But no concept of this fact:
They wouldn't get to become plastic

A cold box of mostly metal
Inside, a plastic film containing
Tightly wrapped hunk of carcass
Very slowly rotting meat
Chopped to slices
Echoes of a last thought
Thoughts of a present moment:
A pig ahead gushing
The smell of fear
Moments before, momentary relief at the end of the terrifying truck ride
But he didn't know what a truck is
Didn't know it's a metal thing
No concept of metal
Smelt from ore
Ore from the earth
Earth dug up by monkeys
He just knew it's another place those wicked monkeys lead him onto
It moves and it shakes

Final thoughts might have been:
Terror, anticipation.

But probably not the time he pranced
A piglet between bars
Too small to feel them
To notice the tightening grip
Or cognize where they would lead him
A stun gun
And a warm, wet knife pressed into his neck, unbeknownst
Just him pressed up against a warm, soft belly
Full of food
Mum laying
Nipples swollen
Didn't understand she was trapped
Or that she forgot about that time she felt that same way
Cause now she's just trapped
A bacon factory
Making little bundles for plastic film
For drunkey monkeys
Makin' bacon at night

I closed my eyes
I closed the door to the refridgerator
I turned off the stove
But the pig was still silent, dead.

Zombies, but maybe things will be alright..

I clamour down the rickety wooden stairs. It was a bad move, a panicked decision, but here I am; a dark basement with cold concrete walls, deep freezers, crates, one way in, and one way out. I hear the creeeeeaky sound of the top stair. Zombies are coming. And suddenly there is no way out.

Frantic, I look around for a weapon, but find none. Only a maze of crates and freezers. Well then, my best option will be to get them to chase me around the room. I know I can outrun their slow but steady pace, but with the room set up like a maze I will have to ensure that I don't get caught with zombies coming at me from both ways. After scanning the room for what seems like a mere moment, I turn back towards the staircase and see that three zombies have already made their way into the basement, and have spread throughout the room in less time than should be possible with their shambling gait. No time left to worry, just time left to play with these knuckleheads.

I swiftly run towards the closest zombie, which is approaching a three way fork in the paths between the basement's obstacles. It lurches forwards, but I slide past untouched and avoid becoming trapped in the place that I was. But looking up, I'm already face to face with another zombie. It's face, once beautiful no doubt, now ravaged by fuzzy green splotches of mold, one juicy pus-filled eyeball dangling from the socket, swaying back and forth, all traces of humanity scoured away. A low and hungry moan whispers as it opens its mouth, which gapes impossibly wide until the jaw literally breaks off and falls to the ground, punctuating the horrible sound with a crumbling pop. Bony hand longingly reaching out towards me, I do the sensible thing and hoist myself up onto the nearby freezer.

Ummmm, why didn't I think of this before? Perched atop the freezer, I'm free to skip around the room, avoiding the rules of the basement maze that confine my pursuers. I hop along the freezers, one, two, three, down to the end of the line, and wait for the shuffling brutes to slowly make their way towards me before hopping back to the other end. I wait again, three sets of hands reaching closer and closer, haunting moans from their tortured stomachs testify that they will not be giving up. A meter away, now just a foot from me. I hop before it becomes an inch.

I get halfway back to the end of the line, when suddenly a robotic forklift bursts through a secret compartment in the wall, pulling the next freezer into a dark delivery chute. And suddenly I'm trapped, hungry hands outstretched and wails of ravenous glee welcoming me to the other side of life. How could I fall to the zombie apocalypse so quickly? I pass through the 7 stages of guilt with appalling speed and find acceptance...

Then suddenly hope. Companions burst down the stairs, wearing puffy green bite-proof armour, armed with machetes. A fancy wave of a sword, and two of the zombies rush off towards this distracting duo, following them back up the stairs. Now I'm just left with one zombie to deal with. Lucky break, but if I get eaten now, I'll never live it down. After all, when it's one on one, the human is supposed to win.

A creepy hand claws at my boot, and I fall on my butt. This zombie has a blubbery face, with glazed over eyes and sparse whisps of hair stuck to the side of its head with yellow slime. I lash out with my left foot. Rationally, I know that a hard blow to the head should cave the rotting skull, but deep inside I know it is futile and, what's more, puts my foot at risk of being gobbled up instantly. The hit barely registers against the zombie, but the force propels me backwards, and I land hard on the concrete floor. Sucking up the pain, I take my second lucky break, get up, and run for the stairs. One of the deep freezers opens and zombies begin pouring out, as if a stairway from hell is contained within it. Up I go.

Fellow humans meet me when I reach the top. I don't know them, but it is as if they were expecting me. We dash down a hallway, through what seems like an office building. I follow a woman wearing glasses and a lab coat as she ducks left into an alcove where regular people once heated lunch and brewed coffee in their attempts to make it through the banality of the workday. Holding our breaths, we silently count our heartbeats as the first wave of zombies emerges from the stairs. From the sounds of the scraping bones and plopping flesh of their feet moving in the opposite direction, it seems they failed to notice us which direction we escaped. With the coast clear for a moment, we dash back down the hallway, turn right, and meet up with three more people in a room full of empty glass cases.

We catch our breath, but nobody says much. It seems clear that we can't stay here, and if the zombies see or hear us, an entire army of them will make of us their snack. I follow the survivors as they try to circle back around, avoiding the hallway where we risk exposing ourself to the eyes of the undead still pouring from the stairwell.

As we pause to listen for movement, I take the opportunity to rifle through a nearby desk. Pencils, staplers, a rifle... I take the rifle. Looking up with a dumbass grin to display my find to the party, I see that I'm alone. Shit! I hear footsteps ahead of me. I rush towards them.

I round the corner and see the woman in the lab coat ahead of me, in the alcove with the coffee makers and microwaves we hid in before. Moving forwards, I fail to notice that I've crossed the hallway until the wide eyes of the woman reveal my mistake. Terrible squeals from the zombie hordes down the hall. She turns and bolts, through the alcove and beyond. I follow.

We cross an indoor bridge that passes over a busy road, huge glass windows revealing the pristine city under a calm blue sky outside. I only catch a few glimpses of the outside as we run for our lives. To the right, business as usual, so many people unaware of the horror that is happening. To the left, the first zombie bursts through a door into the outside world, into a throng of people. I reach the end of the bridge and go through.

I'm in a huge indoor area, a mix between an airport and a subway station. Crowds of nicely dressed business people flock between kiosks, purchasing coffee or magazines, chatting with colleagues like it's any other day. Ahead of me looms a wide escalator, and I push through the milling people. It occurs to me to warn them, but I can't seem to catch my breath enough to call out. I just push through.

As I near the entrance to the escalator, screams erupt behind me, but I don't look. I only look forwads and upwards, seeing the glasses lab coat lady, halfway up the escalator already, making fast progress by elbowing and slipping between the unaware. I try to emulate her, but the crowd starts to press in, packing me tightly against terrified men in light brown trench coats. The stairs carry me up.

I get spat out onto the street, among tall white buildings and more crowds of people cheerfully going about their daily business. They are like milk mixed with flaming oil against the screaming, fleeing people coming up from the subway.

Confusion and panic. Not my allies. I do a quick scan to confirm that I'm not in immediate danger. So many people surrounding me will surely act as a buffer if the zombies get close, their slaughter buying me time to escape. Now that I'm alone, with nobody to lead me, I take a moment to figure out what to do next.

My mind glazes over; nothing comes to me. A hysterically scared looking elderly man, packed tightly amidst rising others, nears the top of the escalator. He will be helpless to flee when the zombies arrive, becoming one more vector for the plague of undeath. With solipsistic apathy, I reach out with my rifle, the barrel resting momentarily against his head before I put a plug into it. He slumps forwards, is expelled from the escalator, and is trampled. The people already above stare at me in shock; the people coming from below seem not to notice. I look at the gun in my hand, it drops to the ground with a clank, unaudible in the rising frenzy of escape. I run.

I run along streets lined with shiny white buildings, filled with people, some recognizing their dire situation, others confusedly unaware. Zombies burst from a building ahead, pulling down everyone nearby into a pile of writhing flesh. I push forwards against others who are now running in the opposite direction. I look up towards the crystal clear sky, the pile of zombies mostly blocked from my sight by half a tear welling up in my left eye.

My legs are burning, but they push me forwards. As I head down a ramp, the buildings fall away and reveal the city stretching out to my right. Between the towering white skyscrapers are thousands of people, jammed up in the fleeing frenzy. In some areas, the zombie hordes are tearing through the streets like an unsatiable meatgrinder, biting and chomping on people and converting them into more zombies. Ahead of me, at the bottom of the ramp, is a shallow decorative pool in the center of a huge open courtyard. On the other side of the pool is a crowd of people, standing silently, some holding tightly to their loved ones, ultimately waiting for what they have decided is an inevitable fate. I splash through the knee-deep water towards them, and hear the horde emerging from the buildings behind me. The crowd seems to flinch as a unit, yet they stand their ground, hypnotized with morose fascination by the impending onslaught. Nearing the other side of the pool, I scan the crowd for an opening to pass through the people, but my eyes stop on a pretty woman with sad eyes and long, straight, brown hair. Emboldened and liberated by impending doom, I delay my escape for a moment to stop in front of her.

"You are too beautiful," I tell her. She breaks her gaze into nothingness and focuses her sad eyes on me as I wrap my arms around and deliver a quick but gentle kiss. I pull away to leave and start pushing my way into the crowd, and she follows me with a hand on my sleeve. A burst of something between hope and happiness fills me, as if human connection could somehow foretell that everything might turn out ok. Well, it's nice to have some company at the end of the world.

I get through the crowd with my companion still attached to me and, finding ourselves up against another building, we creep along the side until we reach a revolving door. We burst inside, and I frantically look around for the nearest staircase. We have to get to the roof; it's the only place left to hide, and maybe there is a chance that helicopters will come to rescue us. Although, that never happens in the movies... but there's no time to think. We run up several flights and arrive on a floor where we are confronted by rows upon rows of cubicles and flimsy dividers. We flee through the aisle, but find that it ends in a wall. I notice that the wall is of the same material as the dividers separating the cubicles, so I kick with all my might, breaking through to the other side. I stick my head through first and, finding no zombies on the other side, we both plunge through into a kitchen area. On the countertop directly ahead there is a wooden block filled with knives. I am eager to arm myself, but I let her choose first. She pulls a large straight blade out of the block. I grab the next biggest looking knife, seeing a serrated edge as I pull it out. I imagine stabbing a zombie in the forehead, but notice in my imagination how tough it is to remove from its skull. Best not to push my luck like that if more than one zombie is attacking or I could find myself unarmed once again.

Studying the wavy edge of the blade, I wonder how sharp it is. I softly, barely even touch it to the palm of my hand, yet it opens a deep gash across my hand. I wince as sharp pain shoots up my arm, and open my eyes to see blood gushing out. Embarrassed of self-inflicting my own wound in this scenario of already overwhelming danger, I look over to see the reaction of my friend, but she doesn't notice; her head is turned towards the huge windows, sad eyes staring into the blankly serene cerulean sky.

Of Lost Mushrooms, 3 Lionesses, and a Monkey (Retrodreamland 2001/2002)

I awaken from a boring dream, finding myself on a forested hill. The trees are evenly spaced, with tall, light brown, bare trunks; the leafy canopy is far out of reach, imposing a sense of smallness upon me. I think to myself how strange it is to see a purely deciduous forest like this. Or maybe these are coniferous trees? Knowledge like that is useless here. I stand, head tilted back, pondering the nature of leaves. These do not seem particularly thick, as I can clearly observe the blue sky above them, yet there is no evidence of sun shining through even though I know it is day. My gaze follows the non-existent rays of the sun to the ground, where bare clumps of pale dirt peek through green grass. I turn and slowly run up the hill, following others towards what looks like a cabin.

Yes, it seems that our destination was a cabin in the woods, situated at the apex of the hill. I arrive to find Foxtrot, Lemon, and some others waiting. I guess there's a party to be had, since we rarely get together for other reasons; that's fine with me, since I haven't had much fun lately. Not to mention my weakness against peer pressure.

We pile into the cabin and start by consuming some mushrooms, which I assume are of the magical variety. This is great fun (I think) and some excitement ensues, although it fails to register in my memory. Something to do with an oven, and the ceiling? The ceiling, which from the inside seems much too large for the cabin, is covered with interesting trinkets: mossy green pots and pans, and a greenish moose head. Strange. Perhaps I shouldn't have eaten these shrooms? Oh well. You can't change the past. Well, not usually, anyways.

When the daze of this chaotic trip begins to fade, I find myself in the family van. My sister Erin is driving, and Christian and Lemon are in the back. I, being my sisters brother, am sitting in the front. We're driving down a curvy dirt road. The foresty hill is on our right, and another sparse forest is on our left. No space separates the road and the trees, as if the forest threatens to smother the road. I suddenly realize (and I acknowledge how stupid this sounds) that I am having an out of body experience, and my perspective is floating beside the vehicle. Looking around, I determine that we are heading west, towards a point where the road ends and an overgrown path leads back to the cabin on the forest hill.

Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure why Christian is in the car. Was he at the party? He doesn't do drugs. I'm also not sure why we are heading back. Maybe I forgot something important?

Before we reach the end of the road, our way is blocked by three lionesses. Aroused from their sleep, they stare hungrily at us, tongues reaching out to lick lips. The van lurches to a halt, and without saying a word, Erin slowly does a U-turn and we drive away.

We zoom over the crest of a hill, but I happen to look behind and glimpse an old man and woman walking the road, their fat bodies awkwardly contained within grey and white shorts and t-shirts. Their grey hair sticks to their sweaty heads, and the taller moustached man rubs perspiration from his spectacles. We crest the hill and they disappear from my view (which has unfortunately returned to my body). I fear that the oblivious oldies will be easy prey for the three carnivorous predators, so I quickly devise a plan. Lemon, Christian, and I will run to their rescue, and Erin will wait in the van, ready for out getaway as soon as we return. Simple enough.

It all goes wrong. My comrades fling open the door and run over the hill, but I am frozen. I don't know whether it is fear or cowardice (there's a difference, you know). Whatever the reason, it is overwhelmed by a foreboding sense of doom deep my guts as I watch my two friends run towards their peril while I wait safely behind. Anxiety clutches my chest. They make it to the old couple just in time to join their demise as the feline trio descends upon them all. Wide-eyed, I tell Erin to leave, and she obeys me, leaving them to fend for themselves. We make our way down the road in silence, van doors wide open, the sounds of the trees whooshing by. Oh well. You can't change the past. If we turn around now, we'll be late for the cat training class at the community center. We wouldn't want to be late.

The road emerges from the choking forest, and we arrive at a cheerful looking building. We park the van, we go inside. We hang our coats on pegs and neatly leave our shoes in the small square entry room, before continuing into a larger main room with a long table in the center. Everything inside is wood except for some paintings and other decorations hanging on pegs along the wall.

We mingle with the many people already here, and I notice Lemon is among them. I desperately want to ask him how he got here before we did, what happened back with the lionesses, and where Christian is, but I feel too ashamed and decide not to bring it up and expose my cowardice. Everyone takes a seat along the long table and pulls out their personal bag of catfood. I have large sized, half-empty bag of rank smelling dry kitty kibbles. The lessons begin, but my mind wanders from boring lectures on cathood, into the realms of my own secret past...

In the vast expanses of my untold and unremembered histories, my thoughts settle upon an old acquaintance of mine. I reminisce about our unhappy final encounter; more unhappy for him than me. My acquaintance was a small monkey, like Curious George with a bad temper. It was so long ago, the details mostly forgotten, yet one I remember clearly: I beat this monkey on the head. With a stick. Repeatedly.

My trip down memory lane is cut short with the realization that the lecture is over and everyone is leaving. When I get to the coat room, I realize that I have forgotten my sack of catfood. I groggily return to the long room, finding the half-empty bag still laying at my spot on the table. As I approach to reclaim it, I am struck by the fact that the room appears to have become much smaller. I shrug and continue forwards, opting to get my item and get the heck out of this boring place...

But things never go as easily as expected. I reach for my bag, and out jumps the monkey! You know, the one who I beat in the head multiple times? The one who has recovered, the one who has a score to settle? And... the one who now has the Ebola virus? Bulging purple fingers tipped with crusty Ebola virus claws lash out at my arm, missing by an inch as I jump back. The monkey starts climbing and jumping along the walls, circling me like Spiderman. He jumps at me suddenly, biting at my leg! Fortunately, his small jaws and pointy teeth are unable to penetrate my thick black pants, although I notice his mouth foam soaks right through. He backs off, once again circling me. Somehow I feel confident; he can't get me through my pants! And I'm right, he doesn't get through my pants. Instead, he goes for my bare arm, biting deeply. I wish I could go back and change our past. Oh well. Now the score is settled, and now I have his Ebola virus. "Damn", I think to myself as my vision closes in, "I'll get that Ebola monkey if it's the last thing I do!" Then, total darkness.

China Life

Upon a dusty, worn out mattress in a dark and run-down apartment in the slums of Hong Kong, I lay awake in a room I share with my Asian companion, silently contemplating my life in the dead of night. Why did I come here? More so an escape than a vacation; the rusty spring bed digging into my shoulder blade clearly attests to this. To live simply, one person among the horde, all struggling for those meager resources that maintain our struggle for meager resources. A life with nothing to lose, a life without an abstract and unattainable happiness, a life without confusion.

I test cough. The Asian I share a room with shifts and sniffs, indicating wakefulness. We quietly creep from creaky beds and sneak through doorless corridors, as we have so many other nights past, to spy on the curious contents of those other rooms. Our intentions are innocent: simply to absorb the sight of those sleeping souls, to become the keepers of memories that would otherwise never find a mind.

The stale, dusty air muffles our steps as we round a corner, first revealing just heads like half-assed spies before fully exposing our bodies to the entrance. Two fat black people sit upon a mattress on the floor; a mother and son, packing worthless looking possessions into well-used cardboard boxes. They are moving to the newly vacated room down the hall. Their morbid obesity suggests a long night long of shambling, dragging  boxes and mattress, and taking ample breaks to catch their shallow wheezing breaths. We offer our aid in their struggle, and receive gruff grunts of acceptance that hide their thankfulness from us, and the sorry status of their existence from themselves. We each grab boxes and are out of the room in the time it takes them to begin the arduous task of standing.

We travel down the dark hallway, decorated with peeling wallpaper and long abandoned webs, and catch a glimpse of a fluffy humanoid peeking around the corner of a side passage before disappearing. As we pass by the corridor, I look down and see the backside of an old bearded lady with long messy blond hair and a faded pink cotton dress quickly shuffling away, holding a little fluffy dog who stares back at me with haunted eyes portraying a clear message: how did I end up in this state of being?

We find the vacant room down the next corridor, set the boxes down, and head back for more. Upon our return, the monsters have managed to stand and pick up some boxes. They eagerly pass them over before shooing me away back down the hall. Going alone, I take a wrong turn and find myself in a room with the old lady. She is holding a pair of electric clippers, and frizzy blond hair is strewn about all over her soiled mattress. Both her dog and herself have received hasty amateur haircuts, strips of long hair punctuating the sheared surfaces of their skin. She looks up with an eager, toothless smile as if begging for acceptance. The now mostly bald dog shows me those same eyes as before. I apologize and explain that I must have taken the wrong turn and, holding back a sneeze, flee the eerie scene to finish my task...

When morning comes, I emerge from the dank building I call home, into a muddy city square lit by lanterns strung about like drying laundry, and the dim light of dawn. My family is on a vacation to visit me today, so I head off towards the train to find them.

I find myself on the train, dismal grey and full of uncolored passengers. Everyone is standing, facing no particular direction. I can hear their murmuring voices but see no moving lips. The outside scene of abandoned wooden structures and a drizzling rainy grey sky moves by slowly, framed by busted up metal train window frames ineffectively patched up with Scotch tape. I move to the back of the car where a metal door leads to the next one, pry it open, cautiously look behind me, and walk through.

I'm in the space between cars. Worn looking wooden planks extend from the doors on either side, meeting together in the middle with a creaky metal hinge. A loose tube of tough looking fabric surrounds the space between, possibly to save someone from being run over should they fall off of the precarious bridge spanning the gap, though I'm unsure its effectiveness would be proven should I fall. I begin crossing the rickety planks, shaking with the clattering movement of the train. Nearing the halfway point, I hear the metal door behind me slide open, and a stream of loud and angry sounding Chinese gibberish. Wide-eyed, I slowly and carefully twist my head around deliver to this man and his conductors uniform a deadpan gaze. He motions me to go one way or the other. Danger of crossing the gap forgotten, I hurry to the next car.

I step through the sliding door onto a semi-open car. Humans mill about the rectangular space like farm animals, loosely crafted wooden fencing preventing them from falling off the sides. The top is open to the sky, which is a cheerful cerulean spotted with clouds, and through the gaps in the fence I glimpse vast green fields and occasional trees passing by. I see my family at the far side of the train and feel an unexpectedly warm joy accompanying this knowledge of their presence. They beckon me to join them with a friendly wave, before pulling back a large plank in the fence and ducking through the opening. As I hastily make my way through the crowd, the plank bangs shut behind them. I pry it open for myself and slide through.

On the other side I find myself in a cavernous underground space, with a stream of sewage water that bisects a polluted earthen floor. The small groups of raggedy people huddling around oil drum fireplaces and inside dilapidated tents seem to pay no attention to me. I see my family has crossed to the other side, where they are already disappearing up a staircase into the unknown. I move to cross, but stumble; the tip of my sneaker soaks with the concentrated piss flowing in the stream, and my bare hands press into the oily earth as I stop my fall. I close my eyes and take a breath to collect myself before standing.

I get to my feet and feel struck, like a glass of moonshine chugged. I'm dazed and wasted, and struggle to get my bearings. I can barely make out the staircase I want to go to, but stumble to the left. I stop and try to turn, but frustratingly move again in the same direction, towards the dark passageway where the sewage runs.

Each step forwards is a failed feat of will as I continue away from my destination. I look up and see clearly; I'm in a cylindrical brick tunnel, the floor packed flat with garbage. At the end of the tunnel is a cubic space where two shady men are making an exchange. In unison, they look my way. One must be a ninja, because his arm flashes out almost instantly, releasing towards me a round metal compact disc-like shuriken. As it speeds towards my throat, I desperately grab the closest thing I see: a discarded pair of metal scissors. I defend against the first projectile in the nick of time, only to be assailed by a seemingly endless barrage of discs. Repeated deflections feed my confidence, and I begin pressing forward towards the attacker. As I span the gap, however, the disorientating daze redescends upon me. I struggle to keep my eyes open and focused, my scissors barely finding their way to clink against each attack. Time practically grinds to a halt, and it seems to take 10 minutes before I finally arrive at the end of the corridor.

A blur of movement; my scissor's edges rest against the ninja's neck, and the other man's gun finds its way to my temple. There is a long moment of uncertainty, but finally a mutual acknowledgement. Our weapon arms drop, the men complete their exchange: a small baggie of white powder for a handful of rusty coins.

I descend to party, only to miss out on cake.

Invited to a birthday party via facebook. Am I a desired guest, a pitied acquaintance, the result of selecting select all? How to tell who on the accepted list will show up? I know no way. It is always a gamble, and I hope the fortune teller in my stomach is not a good one.

What gift to bring? With an ice cream cake in hand, at least I can predict that I will be temporarily popular with those who are easily bought. I take the price tag off; no need to announce that my $5.95 gift is cheaper than it appears.

I don't remember who's day it is, but judging from the facebook lists it is someone from my high school. Strange that I would be invited, I haven't kept in touch with any of them. But maybe it's the same for them as it is for me; thinking about you, just never enough to say hello again. More vulnerability I associate with parties.

I pull my vehicle off the main street of the small town where I bought the cake, slip through a wide and sunny alley way framed by a red brick building and an autumn hill, an fruit orchard in the distant background. I continue around, driving behind a row of three reddish orange brick buildings. Behind the second one sits a farmer dude, wearing a straw hat and jean overalls, nonchalantly sucking on a piece of barley with his back against the wall. I look to the left and nod in acknowledgement; he signals with a near motionless motion of the head.

The quickest way to my destination is down a cliff. Beyond the third brick building, on the same side, the land slopes downwards, dangerously close to a right angle drop into oblivion. A potentially fatal route to take to a birthday party, but I don't let that sway my decision because I know I will be successful as long as I pay perfect attention and keep control over the speed and angle of descent of the vehicle. Without pausing, I sharply cut the wheel towards the cliff, and begin a slow plummet towards the bottom. Once on track, I descend through the gears: down to third gear, and again into second gear. The engine roars loudly as it fights against the acceleration of gravity.

The descent is incredibly long, and feeling the world coming up to meet you in the face is disorienting to say the least. This is no road either; dirt and gravel litter the pathway downwards, and occasionally pieces of lumber, patches of grass and bush, and old fast food containers enter my path, taunting me to turn in avoidance. But I do not, knowing that such a move would likely break my perilous traction, placing me in freefall. Not the way to arrive to a birthday party.

In two spots on the way down, large overpass bridges pass over the descent. I cannot tell if vehicles drive on top of them, as I dare not spare my attention from my road. Five, ten minutes of intensity pass by, more than I can handle. Then the road downwards begins gently declining into a nearly horizontal gravel road, and finally onto a hilly, grassy field. Small yellow buttercups dot the landscape here and there. I release my grip on the wheel, and it feels like I'm taking my first breath in forever.

I mop the sweat from my face, grab my bag and my cake, and go inside. Indeed there are many people from my high school class here: Steve (it's his place we're at, or perhaps his birthday; I'm still not sure), Poops, Adam, Matt, Erin, Leanne, Laurie. Bull and Jeremy arrived just before me, so nobody pays much attention to my arrival. I place the cake on one of the cafeteria-like tables strewn haphazardly around the unlit room, and take a seat in one of the plastic school chairs. I sit and observe. They haven't changed much since back then.

After a while, Maria (not sure when she arrived, or how she knows these people) comes and leads me into a large, dimly lit room with a swimming pool. Strange, it is as if the center of gravity is at the far corner of the room, and the water runs up two of the walls as well as along the main pool in the floor. Some others are already in the water; Steve, Poops, and a few others I don't recognize. I hesitate to take off my shirt. Well, I was never very confident about my physique. But I suppose that I should just ignore those feelings now that I'm older. I strip down to my shorts and hop in.

The strange gravity in the room makes swimming a fun challenge. Swimming up the walls is like swimming up a huge, gentle wave. Some people have floating alligators and pool noodles, but I make do with just my body. The water swooshes every so often, causing the corners of the stationary waves to merge and split off into opposite sides. The others start leaving the water one by one, and I realize how exhausted I am. I reach the water's edge and feel it clinging to my body even as I rise above the surface, as if I had worn a t-shirt into the pool after all. But I look down and see only my body, white, pasty and overweight.

I look for my bag, with my towel and fresh clothes inside. It is sitting next to the wall, at the top of a flight of tall and steep stairs that line half of the room. I begin climbing towards them, but find myself so exhausted that I seriously question whether I will be able to make it to them or not. I devolve into a four legged creature and scramble my way up, quite pathetically. I make it to my bag and collapse against the wall for a minute, eyes closed. After most of the people have left the room, I manage to come back to my senses and dry myself off. I put on some dry shorts and an ugly second hand blue and red sweater. It's not something that I would normally wear, and I wonder what I was thinking when I packed for this.

I rise to my feet and follow some people out of a door; one of only two exits from the pool. Once through the door, I find myself alone in a dim corridor lined with metal pipes and wires, standing on a greasy metallic walkway suspended over darkness. To the right, the walkway splits into two and heads up some stairs; to the left, it eventually turns around a corner and goes out of sight. I try to return through the door I came in, but it is locked. Unsure of which way the others went, or which way I came in originally, I panic and begin jogging to the left. Nearly at the corner, someone calls out for me from behind; Steve and Leanne are standing at the stairs leading upwards. I stop and listen to them. They say that Poops went somewhere and they were looking for him. I stand motionless; I want to just get out of here, but know inside that I have been volunteered to check down this way. I stay standing still, looking incredulous, for an extended period of seconds. Just as they begin coming towards me, someone else calls out from out of my sight. Poops has been found, and I follow them through the now unlocked door, to find myself back in the room with the cafeteria tables.

Everyone is sitting at or on the tables, talking and laughing with each other. The package from the cake I brought is empty, except for some smeared frosting and crumbs, the legacy of a cake I never tasted. I sit down next to my bag and observe. Nobody is paying attention to me. After a minute I am scheming to leave, thinking of ways to escape unnoticed. Well, nobody will care if I go anyways, so no need for a complex plan. I get up with my bag and quietly walk out the door, hands in my pockets and eyes on the floor.

The sky is clear and blue, the sun high in the sky. I get into my car without looking back and step on the gas, leaving curved brown tire tracks in the emerald green grass. I turn on my radio and tune it to listen in on the party I just left, cautiously wondering if anybody will mention my name despite feeling confident that nobody will. I am right for the time being, but their conversation bores me to turn the off switch. I approach the steep climb home.

My mind is wandering, so I fail to pay attention to the degree that I should. Not one hundred meters up I let the steering wheel slip and nearly lose it. Heart racing, I pull the vehicle back into the proper orientation just in time, and continue straight up. I can feel the front tires practically pulling away from the vertical road, maybe less than one inch away from toppling backwards and downwards to my doom.

I come to gaps in the road, as if I were driving along a bridge with parts knocked out. I speed up to jump the car over the gap to the other side; somehow gravity decides to lean in my favour and the jump works just fine. I make a second jump, and have to readjust the steering wheel on the other end. The third jump is final, yet there are still miles to go. I drive underneath a bridge, not confident that I will ever make it to the top again, but somehow knowing that I will in the end.

They call me the ladies man

I found her on the Internet. It is my first time meeting her in real life. The apartment is massive; well, she lives here with eight guys, so it's gotta be huge. She isn't here yet, so I am greeted by one of her friends: a skinny guy, with shoulder length greasy black hair, a short beard, and glasses, wearing baggy old clothes. He takes me to sit down and we talk for a while, but I feel out of place. I only care to meet her.

I persevere; eventually she arrives, along with more of her friends. She is short and pretty skinny. And pretty. She has medium length blonde and pink hair, and she's wearing a black and pink flannel outfit. Everyone sits down with us, and she sits close beside me, invading my personal space bubble. I could kiss her, but that would be awkward with all these guys here. I wonder how many of them have kissed her? They are talk amongst themselves, while I talk with her. I say stupid things in stupid voices, but she doesn't seem to notice.

Some people get up and go to another room to do drugs. Uh oh, I realize I don't have any and get up. She stands beside me, still so close that I can't shake this feeling of intimacy. I think about kissing her, but smile instead. She smiles back. I see us from outside of my own body; not only have I been sounding like a dork, but my hair is completely messed up. I quickly leave by myself to find a washroom to use a mirror. I get there and see that the front of my hair is spread apart to the sides, revealing sparse hair and a nearly-bald scalp. I wet my hands and mess up my hair with water, then smooth it forward to hide the baldness. It works ok for now, I just hope it doesn't go back after it dries out. I notice huge gobs of eye goop in the corners of my eyes; I wipe it off with my hands and put on my bright blue reflective sunglasses. Wet hair and sunglasses, the look of a cool person. Time to go back to everyone, back to her.

I return to the now empty living room, wondering where they have gone. One of her friends approaches from behind; he is a short, fat, middle aged Mongolian, completely bald on the top of his head, and wearing an open shirt that exposes his gut. He is gets drugs from some containers on a small table, and I ask if I should do the same. He says yes, but tells me to weigh them out. They sell the drugs, but I'll just pay for them later. After he is done getting his, I take a look in the containers. One of them has strange blue hockey puck shaped cakes of different sizes, with smiley faces drawn on them. I assume that these are hash cakes. I grab a small one to weigh out, but a huge one falls on the floor and shatters. Embarrassed, I put the small one back in the container and scoop the pieces into my hands. The strange looking scale has a tiny metal cup to place things in for weighing, so I can't weigh everything at once. I put as many of the chunks into the metal cup as I can. The scale says 7.5. I hope I don't lose a lot of money over this...

Suddenly, everyone funnels back into the room, and she is again beside me. She sees what I have done; I feel stupid for breaking the cake, but still just want to kiss her softly. She takes the broken bits from my hands, and I notice that the inside of the cake is actually a compacted white powder. I wonder if it is a hash cake at all, and why I thought so in the first place, but am immediately distracted from my thoughts as she produces a large flask of clear liquid, labelled "methanol". She uses a glass pasteur pipette to suck up some of the methanol, and mixes it with the broken up cake which now looks like a pile of white powder. White feathery swirls appear in the methanol as it absorbs the powder, but they go away when the absorption is finished. She sucks up this methanol with the pipette and puts it into another flask. It is a fascinating process to watch, I hadn't known that you could handle drugs this way.

"There." she says, "Now you can do these drugs. There probably isn't too much methanol left in them."

I dryly reply, "Good. It's not like methanol makes you blind."



I emerge from my mind fog. I'm sitting on a bed in a bedroom of a small apartment. My step-brother Christian is with me, sitting on a rocking chair with a small black dog on his lap. We're chatting about something, when a woman comes in. She isn't particularly good looking, but I get the impression that she is a PhD student. She is tall with black hair, wearing glasses. I say something funny and everyone laughs. She leaves the room, and we follow her shortly after.

If this is Christian's apartment, then he must have gotten a better job to afford it. We walk into an open kitchen area with brand new furniture and several people just chilling out. I take a seat at the table, just as the dog pees on the floor. I get up from my chair and walk across the floor with the intention of reporting the pee to Christian, being as careful as I possibly can to not step in the pee yet somehow still getting perilously close to dipping my socks in it. I go over to tell Christian that he should take the dog outside, but he tells me that the owner is very strict about how often it can go outside. I ask how much he gets paid for taking care of the dog as he dials his big blocky cell phone to call the owner. He says I don't want to know, but after a moment adds that he is getting paid an air force commission for it. Not entirely sure what to make of that, I decide it means that someone in the air force is paying him all their money to take care of this dog.

While he is chatting on the phone, trying to find out if he is allowed to take the dog out to pee, I notice my sister across the room. Suddenly she has a seizure and starts falling over against a table. Her skin turns white and she is dripping sweat. A sick feeling of terror rises in my body and I rush over. I hold her up as she stares straight ahead, and I frantically tell Christian to call 911. He immediately hangs up on his client and calls. Other people are gathering around her too now. It seems she is becoming aware again, and she mumbles something to me, but I get the horrible feeling that she is about to die in my arms. I tell her I love her, and kiss her on her blood-drained cheek, through the wet hair sticking to her face with sweat. I close my eyes.

In a voice that is not hers, she lets me know that she is fine. As I open my eyes and pull back from her face, I am shocked to see that a purple crystalline horn has sprouted from her forehead, curving upwards to the sky. Her face is caved in at the middle and her skin glows gold, giving her the appearance of a demonic alien. A powerful desire for this strange creature washes over me. I kiss her on the lips and my arms snake around her waist and find their way to her ass.



The ambulance arrives; a 747 jet with flashing lights on top. We are outside on the tarmac under a darkened night sky, and I am helping a girl with light brown skin and dark hair up the stairs to the door. She has striking blue eyes and is wearing baggy black gothic pants and a black tank top. She seems perfectly fine, except that one of her hands is a lumpy grey club made of something like ash. The flight attendant stops us at the entrance; the girl cannot ride with the other passengers.

We find ourselves in a chamber deep within the center of the airplane. It is as tall as it is wide, but very long, and the surfaces are flat and sharp, made of shiny white blocks stuck together with black glue. There are no doors, and it is bright despite the absence of any lights. Crawford is here with another patient, who is mostly covered with a dull green sheet and strapped down to a stretcher. The atmosphere is one of nervousness; everyone is fidgeting but nobody says a word. The jet suddenly begins moving, and Crawford loses it. "We're going down!" he exclaims, even though the feeling of acceleration tells me we haven't lifted off yet. There we go, I feel the plane angle upwards as it rises from the ground. "It's going to crash!" he cries, causing the two patients to become noticeably more anxious. "Can you hear people screaming? I can hear them screaming that we're going down!" he wails. Trying my best to ignore it, I feel helpless inside this chamber. It doesn't feel right, as if the back of the plane is falling downwards. The fear starts to get to me. I leave my body and get a glimpse of the plane from the outside.

The sky is blue and we're flying over a city, but the plane is completely upside down and curving its way downwards, towards a busy highway! The pilot keeps pulling the plane around and we find ourselves right side up, flying just a few meters off the ground. What a dangerous way to turn the plane around, I think. Why wouldn't he just take off in the opposite direction in the first place, or at least turn the plane around by going left or right. Planes are incredibly dangerous compared to flying carpets.



I'm on my flying carpet now. It is dark out, and I'm flying precariously along a harbour parking lot, floating up and down as I very slowly make my way along a strip of buildings and parking lots, avoiding power lines and road signs. Flying carpets aren't like you imagine. Mine is a small, flimsy, thin square of navy blue cloth; it doesn't look like anything special. It's just large enough to sit on cross legged, but the damnest thing is that I have to keep my balance or I'll fall over. It's like riding in a canoe in that respect. It's really slow too; I could walk just as fast, but there's something about riding a flying carpet...

Up and down and forward, wobbling to and fro, my scanning eyes inspect the debris laying scattered across this abandoned landscape. A skinny brown cat chases after an empty bag of potato chips. I see an old clunky black telephone laying on the ground, and it rings as I pass by. Hovering over the dirty grass I pick up the phone and press the button. It is a christian on the other end, oh brother. He spews about 15 seconds of his opening spiel before I politely interrupt and tell him I don't believe in any of that. "Why?" he asks, feigning incredulity yet obviously used to the response. "Well there simply isn't any reliable evidence that any of it is true." I hear him start into whatever tired nonsense he has memorized as I hit the button again. Now, sally forth on my carpet!

I go a ways further before seeing a large and interesting looking two piece sign standing in front of and between two of the buildings on the strip. I step off the carpet and stretch my legs, yawn, and rub my eyes. I start going into the building on the left, but then stop abruptly and read the half of the sign that corresponds to it. The words are big and strange looking, but make sense. However, when I look away I cannot remember the words, just like looking at a watch and then realizing you still don't know what time it is. I look again; although I don't remember the first meaning, I swear that the words are different this time. After two more confusing attempts to read the sign, I give up and go into the other building instead. The letters on that half of the sign aren't as colourful or interesting, but they clearly tell me what lies within: a women's health center.

I'm walking up some stairs with metal railing that wind their way around a hollow square room towards a wooden door at the top. The walls are wood too, and dirty; not the kind of place you would expect a health center to be. I'm walking quickly as usual, but find myself stuck behind two women who are slowly trudging their way towards the door. They have what I would call a pentecostal look to them: they're both wearing jean skirts that go down to their ankles, and have long dirty blonde hair. Both are plump and neither is particularly attractive. One turns her head slightly, giving me a suspicious look from behind her glasses, but she doesn't say anything to me. They go through the door and I follow, feeling only slightly creepy.

The health center is much nicer on the other side of the door. A short set of stairs leads down to a wide hallway with lockers and cabinets lining the walls between doors to large rooms filled with desks and chairs. The surfaces are metallic blue and grey, and the lighting is comfortably mild. I sense people in the rooms leading off from the hallway, but see only one new person. She is a tall and pretty lady, with curly shoulder length brown hair and dark eyes. She is wearing a very light summer dress that reveals almost all of her legs, and a significant portion of her large round breasts. She is heading towards the stairs, and looks up towards me. I'm wearing baggy camouflage pants and my black and grey pirate hoodie; perhaps not the best outfit for passing myself off as a professional health care provider.

I squeeze by the two homely ladies on the staircase and approach her, reaching into her dress to cup her right breast with my hand. I look her in the eyes and offer her a free breast exam. She smiles almost knowingly, and follows me as I put my arm around her waist and lead her deeper down the hallway, looking for a private spot to give her an exam while mentally contemplating the possibility of just doing it right here in the hallway. I mean, it is a health clinic, so this kind of thing should be common. I find an open blue door to an empty office. I look both ways down the hallway; the coast is clear. I lead her inside and sit her on the desk.

Babbling some nonsense in an attempt to sound like I work here, I turn around and close the door quietly, silently convincing myself that the owner of this office is unlikely to return. I twist the lock and turn around. To my surprise she has her back towards me and is already pulling her skimpy dress up around her body, revealing pantyhose but no underwear covering her bottom half. She stops with the dress half-way up around herself, turns her head, and mentions something about making it easier for the exam. I agree as I come up behind her, grabbing the lip of her pantyhose and pulling them down too. Strange, I notice a small triangle of coarse hair just above her ass; dismissing the oddity from my mind, I pull down the garment with a little effort. She turns around and sits back on the desk, revealing her sexy body in it's entirety. I smile my best smile and tell her that I am going to start by examining her clitoris. She spreads her legs, and I lick my fingers to begin the exam, while wondering what kind of phony medical test requires the insertion of a penis instead of a medical probe. Well, we've come this far, so I suppose I probably don't need to keep going with my lame facade.

Soldier of legend

I'm a soldier. Well, a crappy soldier. I've been training for a while, but never seem to get it all together. They didn't give me a rifle. Or wait, maybe I forgot to go get mine. Everyone else has one. I'm not wearing a tactical vest either like everyone else. It's not good to be an individual in the army...

We're sitting in the huge, dark canvas tent. Everyone is talking and having a good time. I'm silent, worrying about my predicament. Someone calls everyone outside. Feeling naked without the proper gear, I reluctantly follow the crowd.

Outside is an old hardwood forest. The trees have incredibly thick trunks that run up into the darkness. The ground is a soft bed of moss. Everyone is walking briskly, funneling towards the back of a well used green army truck and climbing inside. The instructors are standing here and there, ushering people along with sweeps of their arms. One yells at me.

"Where's your weapon soldier?"

"I didn't get one sir."

"Go back and get it now!"

Easily defeated, I return to the huge tent, and slump onto a bench. Face in hands, I wonder if there are other heroes somewhere, or if I must I continue my journey alone? I close my eyes...



Practically on the other side of the world, in a dense and snowy evergreen forest in China, stands a legendary man. If the cold eastern winds blowing flakes of ice into his face bothers him at all, he does not show it. Standing completely naked and motionless in a martial arts pose, the thick orange-brown sasquatch hair that covers most of his body flickers wildly. His face and his feet, I notice, are the only parts not covered by long hair; if you saw him with a passing glance, you would swear it was a yeti. Yet he is well known here for his heroic deeds, and nobody considers his appearance strange.

Suddenly he is alive with movement. A snap kick, seemingly lightning fast, knocks snow from the lower boughs of one of the many short pine trees surrounding him. After some jumping and wild punching, he brings himself to a different pose and stands still for a moment. Then flipping and leaping between the trees, his face covered with freezing snow yet somehow warmly glowing, he takes off at a fast sprint towards some distant point, the trees brushing him as he goes. I follow, as an observer with no body.

He passes the forests edge and keeps running, through a snowy field towards an icy river. He jumps gracefully across the river; I follow still, but know the river would normally be too wide for me to jump across. From the ether a body coalesces for me, like an invisible 20 foot tall reptilian kangaroo. As my partially embodied consciousness flies across the river, even in this form I lose faith in myself; there is no way I can make it. Yet my feet reach the other side, only dipping my heels in the cold water of the river for a split second before I am off again, chasing the hairy naked man.

He reaches a new forest, like the first one with slightly less snow on the trees, and enters. As I come to it, I notice to my left a cliffs edge that drops about 6 feet, which surrounds a canyon filled with people who look like soldiers. They are tightly packed together and milling about. Some are wearing helmets, some berets, some bandanas, and some with nothing on at all. They are not wearing the same gear or carrying the same weapons. To me they look more like a slightly organized militia than a real army. Many of them are men, and all of them appear to be white. I jump into the canyon and attempt to run along on tops of their heads to display my disdain for the army. However, they quickly disperse throughout the canyon as I jump, and so I only manage to plant my foot on one mans dark green beret before my next step plants me on the ground. As I rise up from the jump, I notice I am once again a human being, and that everyone is pointing their guns at me.

Without a thought, I kick the pistol from the hand of the man I had jumped on, and roll across the ground to pick it up. With incredible precision, I begin shooting the weapons out of the hands of the other soldiers surrounding me, while rolling and dodging as best as I can. Practically nobody is taking a shot; this makes sense, considering that they are in a canyon filled with their allies, so missing me could mean hitting their friends. They are on edge, to put it lightly. I fire the pistol and an AK-47 flies from the hand of a man wearing a helmet. Another shot disarms a young guy with a shotgun. Certainly they know by now that I'm only trying to protect myself an woudn't hurt them? Many of them aren't even pointing their guns at me. As I run I notice a girl in a bandana with two machine guns aimed at nowhere in particular. Mid-flip I give her a friendly look and raise my hand in a covert wave; she waves back in return.

My head swivels around to see that I have landed right in front of their leader. He looks french and has black hair and a pointy moustache, and his silver magnum is pointed point blank at me. I dodge the bullet in a nearly lightning fast flash. We engage in mortal combat for a split second, blocking each others punches and kicks with perfect precision. It ends in a flash with him on the ground and my hand outstretched to help him up. He grudgingly accepts, and our feud is put to rest forever, it seems.

Suddenly nobody really pays much attention to me. They have turned and started heading down a narrow corridor carved in this rocky canyon. I follow the crowd. The clear blue sky contrasts the earthy trench we walk through, broken wooden objects interspersed among the gravel and boulders seem to point to recent skirmishes that have taken place here. After walking a decent distance, I begin to wonder where we are heading. To the left I notice a small room carved out in the rock; I squeeze my way through the dry shattered boards that fail to protect it's contents. Inside I find a smaller shelf carved out in the rock, with a wooden machine gun resting within. I pick it up and examine it, noticing that it is broken. VanInderstein comes into the room, and I show him the gun. Showing off my amazing prowess, I quickly fix it by adding a metal barre that is laying on the ground. Now I am armed and dangerous. We leave the room via the open wooden door, and keep following the crowd.

Many miles pass by, and I finally arrive at an opening in the chasm-trench. It is a wide semi-circle canyon carved into the rock, with a rickety wooden bridge at the center leading across an endless pit to the other half of the circle on the other side. All the soldiers who have gotten here before me are already in tactical positions, hiding behind huge boulders and against the wall, pointing their weapons towards a small wooden tower at the other side of the bridge. I take the hint and haul ass towards a small boulder sitting just by the bridge. Once in position, I realize that I am not particularly well covered from the fire that will presumably be coming from the other side, and realize that nobody is firing at all.

Taking a closer look across the void, partially motivated by my severe vulnerability in my current position, I see the two snipers in the wooden tower. They are both wearing snow suits and skiing goggles: one dull blue and one dull green. They are too far away to be hit accurately by a normal machine gun, but I know that my modified gun will work just fine. I give a subtle look to the general lying prone beside me; apparently his sniper skills haven't done the trick. I fire two quick bursts, injuring both of our teams enemies. I get a small pat on the back from th general, and without a sound our soldiers begin hustling across the bridge. I take a deep breath and look around again.

This time, I notice a chain link fence behind me to the right, enclosing a yard that is overlooked by a rickety metal tower that is seemingly made up of old rusty scrap. The general points towards it; my next mission is confirmed. I run in a zig zag pattern towards the big metal gates, and find a hefty padlock blocking my entrance. No sweat, I put my small jack knife into my teeth and do a super flip over the top, easily avoiding the barbed wire that was supposed to stop infiltrators. Nobody shoots at me. I skirt the edge of the chain link fence to the left. Two brown skinned militants, wearing dirty scarfs around their necks, pop out of nowhere and challenge me. They don't have guns, and I decide to make it a fair fight; I drop my machine gun and spit out my knife, which sticks into the ground. It's time again for mortal combat.

Especially since you eat your own scoot!

We're living in a soap opera. Myself, a girl in a hospital gown, and a boy are visiting an empty bed inside the hospital. It is dark except for a single lamp on a table between two hospital cots that gives light to that hospital green color cloth that seems to cover almost everything in sight. When we got to the bed, we noticed that the extremely skinny old lady who is curled up in the fetal position, back towards us, looks completely dead. The girl with me looks forlorn and apprehensive as she moves her hand towards the lady for a poke. I put my hands on her shoulders before she makes it the whole way in order to stop her. "You don't need to see that" I say very quietly, as I steer her away, and towards the exit to this room which is more like a dark corridor lined with cots and curtains. She looks really, really dead.

We make it to the main corridor, which is brightly lit with yellow walls. There are a few doctors and nurses making their way through here, as well as some visitors standing abjectly. I approach a a nurse, who I know to be assigned to the dark hallway. "I think that stiff old lady is dead" I say bluntly. "No, she just doesn't like you people" the nurse replied. "Can you check on her anyways?". "I don't have to see her again until the morning" she said, slightly annoyed. Then she turned around and left us standing there.

The camera pans out to a small slab of rock floor, hurtling through space from the moon towards the ocean. On this strange meteor is a treasure chest, with a mans head on top of it. The head looks like Charlie Chaplin, complete with top hat. He hurtles into the ocean with his treasure chest. I jump in after him.

I plunge into the ocean and land on the sea floor. It is a dark and barren landscape made of rolling waves of gravel and sand. I look around for the treasure chest in hope of getting it for myself. I see the man head with it; he is carrying it with arms which have sprouted from his neck. I know he can breath in the water because the treasure chest has some sort of magic. I'm not sure how, but I seem to be able to breath as well. I don't question it, and follow after him as he disappears over a hill of sand.

It is hard to move down here. The water is salty and all my movements are resisted by the high pressure of the water above me. By the time I crest the hill, I have already lost him. I keep moving forward in a straight line; I'm not sure if I sense him in this direction, or if I actually know where he is headed. I pass by a single red coral on my left, like a leafless twiggy tree covered with pores. As I continue on there is a rock face to my right. I feel I am getting closer.

Eventually, there is a sandy alcove to the right, heading into the stone cliff. The mans head is sitting in front of it, and he still has the treasure chest. His familiar, an orange tabby cat, is here as well. I no longer feel the pressure of the water; it feels like I am above the surface, surrounded by an atmosphere of air. His cat communicates with me. I can not have the treasure. I think I am supposed to leave.

I turn around and start walking away from the cliff, and I come upon a steep hill, covered with old seaweed and an ancient crust. I can barely see what appears to be old steel bars underneath the crust; I start tearing at the gunk covering them and confirm my initial impression. I look behind me, towards the man's head with his cat, and yell "Hey, look what I found". I turn back towards the bars and am startled to see the face of an old woman peering at me from the darkness behind the corroded steel gate. Her skin is wrinkled and her grey hair is frizzy and unkempt. She has a crazy smile that shows rotten teeth, and intense eyes which stare intently at me. Her visage is completely motionless, and I feel uneasy being in her sight. I go to leave, and turn around to see a creature with purple and aquamarine skin and eye stalks, like a mix between a cat and a sea slug. It is the crazy lady's familiar. It lets me know that she has been locked up here for a very long time, and I get the impression that these two are not beings that I would like to have as friends.

I walk with the sea slug-cat, back to the alcove in the cliff. The man's head and the treasure chest are nowhere to be seen. I go around the corner of the alcove, out of sight of the crazy lady. The tabby cat is here as well, and it incites me to stomp on the sea slug-cat. I follow its instructions and kill the creature, but when I take a second glance, I see the tabby cat squashed dead on the ground and the sea slug-cat sitting happily. I realize that it must have used some sort of illusion to trick me into killing the man head's familiar. For some reason I don't retaliate, although I am upset about this. I just want to get away from this insanity; I turn away and leave the alcove.

As I emerge, the hidden undersea prison is in front of me, and I veer to the right. Now I notice that just beside it is a giant purple gorilla with rubbery skin, standing there motionless like a statue with two or three smaller but similar looking animals. I approach and stand before them, fixated. I sense the presence of someone else standing to the left of me. I begin chanting: "Oooga bundooba nooboo goombup...". It is like I am speaking in tongues; I know I am chanting the right thing, and can sense the approval of the person standing beside me. The gorillas have come to life, and is raising and lowering its arms along with my chant. Just beside the gorillas to the right, I now notice some anthropomorphic wolves standing as well. I'm not sure, but I think there are more animals standing in the line further to the right, but I do not look. Suddenly I wonder how I know this chant, and I lose confidence. The gorilla jumps up high and lands right in front of me and yells in a loud voice. I can barely make out the words, but there are subtitles which tell me what he is saying.

"WHAT THE FUCK DOO YOO THINK YOOR DOING???" he booms. I have bowed myself before him, almost unknowingly. " I...I don't know" I meekly reply. "I CAN'T HEAR WHAT YOOR SAYING!!! FUCK WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOO DOOING???" he yells at me again. There are tribal drums booming from behind him. I reply again, as loudly as I can muster my voice, "I'm not sure!". "YOO ARE NOT THE DISCIPLE OF ANY OF ME TWELVE ANIMAL SPIRITS!!!". "I'm sorry, please forgive me!". "COME, YOO MUST PLAY SOCCER WITH US!", and suddenly the animal spirits have withdrawn from the vicinity, to prepare for the game I suppose. I am very frightened to play soccer with them.

I turn to the person who was standing next to me; he is a white man, clean shaven with short reddish brown hair, and is wearing some ceremonial robes. I feel as if I know this man very well. "You should prepare yourself." I reach into the side pocket of my cargo pants, and pull out two granola bars. I open one and eat half of it in one bite. "Will this be enough?" I ask him. He shakes his head slightly and sighs. "Just go" he says to me. I am gone. It seems like a commercial break has arrived.

I see a bright scene: an ice cream shop. A skinny middle aged man with a black moustache and a mullet is singing a song about this ice cream store in a sort of high pitched, gay sounding voice. I think I work here, although it's my first day. The song is very funny (sadly I don't remember all the words). There is a green headed duck working behind the glass counter where the ice cream is stored. The last lines of the song that the man sings are "If you keep putting your feathers in the whipped cream you just might lose your job, Especially since you eat your own scoot!" Although I have never heard that term before, I know that scoot is a slang term for feces. The duck looks embarrassed. The commercial ends, and the screen goes black.

The post-apocalyptic conscience

My mind is in a foggy haze; nothing is clear. The world is in ruins. The bleak grey sky is not contrasted by the dried-earth brown buildings with their hollow, empty openings. Debris is scattered across the landscape, but no living things are evident in this city. I have just come from my old high school, although much has changed there. I am driving a car that must be made completely out of rust. The car doors are long gone, and I am completely naked. It doesn't bother me though; there is a certain feeling of freedom in it, for nobody is here to see, and if they were, they would not care.

I drive the car into a wide alley, manoeuvering around a forgotten dumpster, and park at the end perpendicular to the rows of towering abandoned buildings. The full moon peeks out from behind some clouds, white with a hint of fluorescent blue. I remove myself from the vehicle, and an ominous breeze blows paper and leaves towards a tall chain link fence at the end of the alleyway. Looking through the fence, I realize I am on the edge of a cliff, and I can see most of the destituted city sprawled out below me. I walk into the building to my right.

Oddly enough, I am not particularly suprised to see a family as I enter the building. There is a middle aged, blue eyed man with short dark hair and a moustache here, with his wife and older teenage daughter. They do not seem to notice my nakedness, and I feel no shame. The dirty white walls of their house are lit by electric lights, and all kinds of useless junk (mainly plastic childrens toys) occupy most of the anavailable space. He greets me warmly, and beckons me deeper inside the house.

It seems that I have arrived just in time, as they are about to cook a hearty meal. Food must be hard to come by in this post-apocalyptic world. We are going to feast upon their baby. I am in the lead as we walk into the long and narrow kitchen. There are pots and pans, and more toys piled on the counter, with a lone window above the sink that shows only blackness from outside. I feel suddenly vulnerable, and turn around to see that the man is holding a large knife. I stay facing him, for fear that I have been lured to my own slaughter, but he assures me that no such thing shall occur. The child is laying naked in the sink, with soft white cloth resting between him and the cold metal.

I tell the man we should have some fun and poke holes in him with a scalpel before killing him, and the man seems eager and excited. He hands me the tiny blade, and I poke him once in the chest. It isn't as enjoyable at all, and I get that feeling that occurs after you've done something which you cannot undo. A voice beckons me from outside the room; there is a phone call, and it is for me. I thankfully take the excuse to escape, leaving the man in the kitchen to finish what I have started.

His wife leads me to the back room. It is cramped in here, and there is a brown couch along the wall, and a window divided into four panes of glass. A pay phone is nailed to the wall, right beside the doorway. I pick the phone up off of the cluttered desk. The voice on the other end sounds familiar, yet odd, and I am not totally certain who it belongs to. He explains how the government had infected him with vampirism, and now he is hiding out so they can't find him again. His two little sisters ran away from him, but he knows they are still hiding outside in the woods around the house he is in. As we talk more, I become more and more certain that it is Aaron on the other end of the phone (although he does sound different).

I ask how I can get a hold of him again. He tells me that his number is 1111-THROAT. I know that this isn't the actual phone number though, since there are too many numbers; he does not want to say the number outright because the government is listening in on our conversation. So he starts giving me hints to help decode the real phone number. First he says something about a submarine, but I miss the message because at that moment the mans daughter comes in the room and starts talking to me. Trying my hardest to listen to the distant voice on the telephone, I ask him to repeat himself; this time he mentions something about U, but once again I fail to hear everything he is saying because the girl is talking to me, and now the woman is shouting from another room that dinner is ready to eat. I give up; I'm sure I know where he is staying anyways (the house we went to buy drugs at years before, located in the middle of nowhere). The phone call is ended.

I leave the back room, and tell the mans wife that I just need to go to the bathroom first. I find the toilet in the kitchen; the man is slouched beside it, looking dazed and distant. I lift the toilet seat, and see a big metal ladel resting inside. There is diluted blood all over the sides of the toilet bowl, and I can smell blood and guts. The man looks very disappointed and I ask him if it was what he expected it to be. He shakes his head, downtrodden.