Dumb Love

A story I wrote all the way back in high school. I hope you enjoy it. I think it speaks for itself. First published in 2004.

Dumb Love - Matti McLean

Patsy walked along the sandy beach. The ocean was blue today, even bluer then usual, perhaps even 5% bluer, or maybe even 8%, certainly less then 10%, but definitely more then 4%, but maybe that was because the air was 45% fresher then normal. However the sky was only 23% as blue as it was yesterday. This of course meaning that there was about a 12%chance or precipitation in the form of tiny, burning acid drops. She could smell the fresh smell of salt in the air, and in her eyes which made them puff and turn a bright shade of red that made her appear to be high. Not that this was new on this beach considering the sand was made mostly of old syringes. She walked, feeling the soft sand beneath her feet, as well as the occasional needle which would pierce her skin and cause much discomfort as well as bleeding.
After walking for a little while she looked out to the sea and remembered back to two Saturdays ago…

“I shall return to you my love, I shall return.” said Charles Throw-aweigh to Patsy Pansypants as he walked up the ramp towards the large door of the boat. He was going away to Europe for the weekend and would return by the end of the week.
The christening was a joyous celebration and the large crowd watched as the ship started to sail deep into the night.
“I shall wait for you.” Patsy started to walk home with the crowd ignoring their pleas for mercy as the ship slowly sank deep into the ocean. “I shall wait.”

She looked out towards the sea longing for a sign from her man that he would return to her. Seeing only the stern of a sunken ship and a small man with a voice exactly like the man she loved waving enthusiastically back at her from the semi submerged ship she left for home. She stopped and looked out for a sign, anything from the sea that her man would return. It was black and she couldn’t see anything. Seeing nothing she started to return home feeling a little silly about the whole thing. She then turned out to sea one more time just to make sure and was knocked unconscious by a bat.

Patsy awoke by the most joyous words an unconscious woman could hear…

“Hey Earl, You hear about that sale at Henry’s shoe shop?”

Patsy arose to her feet, bloody because she had fallen in a large pile of broken beer bottles but un-hurt because the bat-man thingy had broken her fall. Leaving the bat there to die she ran off into town in search of the worlds most perfect pair of shoes.
She arrived at the shop and saw 25 pairs of shoes that were unimpressive, 35 shoes that would be good for every day things and 75 pairs of polka dot slippers, but nothing that really stood out as the world’s best pair of shoes. She turned the aisle and saw a small sign saying, “The world’s best pair of shoes” but quickly passed by them in favour of a pair of rainbow suspenders. She took the suspenders to the counter to purchase them when suddenly she heard a large explosion. A man wandered into the store as if he had just been in an explosion.
“Goodness Henry! What happened?”
After a moment of shocked silence, after he had wiped his soot covered face with his burnt arm he replied, “I don’t know.”

Patsy rushed out to the street expecting to see a large cloud of black smoke, but she couldn’t see anything through all the black smoke that was everywhere. It was as if something had exploded. “What happened?” she asked a passer by.
“The train exploded.”
“What train?”
“That train.”
“This train?”
“No, That train.”
“Which train?”
“which train what?”
“Exploded.”
“Something exploded?”
“Yes a train did.”
“Which train?”
“some train.”
“That one?”
“Maybe…”
“Hey, Where’d the smoke come from?”
“Maybe from the explosion.”
“What explosion?”
“The one from the train.”
“A train exploded?”
“Maybe.”
“Well how can we be sure?”
“I dunno.”
“I dunno either.”
“We’ll you’re a psychic.”
“No I’m not!”
“yes you are! It even says so on your business card.”
“So that’s what I am.”
“Can you help me?”
“How’d you get my business card.”
“I don’t know.”
“Me neither.”
“Well what happened?”
“With what?”
“The train.”
“What train?”
“The one that exploded.”
“A train exploded?”
“Maybe…”
“Well that would explain all this smoke.”
“What smoke?”
“The black smoke that’s all around us.”
“Oh this smoke.”
“yeah, it must’ve come from the train explosion!”
“Which train?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Are you sure that its not the big pile of smouldering ruins over there?”
“Maybe I’ll go check.”
“Actually, are you sure you wouldn’t like some tea first?”
“I’d love some actually.”
“alright, here I happen to have some in my pocket.”
“how convenient! Do you have any boiled water?”
“I can’t say I do.”
“oh well that’s a pickle.”
“Yes it is, well we can just eat the tea bags.”
“sounds like a plan.”
“Cheers.”
“Do you have a kettle? And some water?”
“Why yes I do.”
“Where is it?”
“Oh its here in my pocket.”
“Give it to me.”
“why?”
“I thought we could boil the water with this flaming corpse at our feet.”
“What a marvellous idea, now we won’t have to eat the tea bags!”
So they boiled the water and had their tea. Afterwards Patsy said good bye and started to search the charred, flaming train wreckage for any survivors and by search I mean calling out for any survivors while staying far enough away so that she wouldn’t stain her new suspenders with blood.
Patsy walked through the black smoke looking for a sign that the smouldering black wreckage might be the train that just exploded. Just then she remembered that her father was on a train heading to this town, and that only one train came to town. She then realised that this train might have been carrying her father. She knew she had to do something so she called louder. Finally she heard a reply from her father.
“Darling it is me! You’re father!”
“How do I know for sure?”
“I know you love rainbow suspenders!”
“DADDY!!!”
“Now my darling girl, run and get help.”
“Daddy! How did you survive among all this wreckage?”
“Do not question the story teller just go get help.”
Patsy knew that there would be none who could help her father in this town as all the men were slight of frame and had a tendency to have their backs give out if they carried anything over ten pounds. So she did the only thing she could do.
“Daddy! I want you to know I have always loved you, and I hope that when you are looking down upon me from heaven that you will realise how wonderful of a daughter I was. Daddy, I’m going to miss you but I want you to know that I’m ok if you die, here pass me your wallet.”
The older man obliged and threw his wallet up to his daughter. “Why my child?”
“I’ll need the money when you’re dead.” And after a quick stop to the ATM machine she returned and threw him back his wallet.
Suddenly a tall handsome man appeared and for no apparent reason saved Patsy’s father.
“Oh thank you strong and strange man! Thank you! My heart is filled with gratitude that you pulled me out of that awful tornado!”
“Train wreck.”
“Right, that thing.”
“Who are you? We have never had some one so strong come near our villiage before… At least not willingly! And I to this day deny ever tying that man up and feeding him to the fish. Tell me, what brings you to this small town?”
“I am Johnny Hunk-aplenty, I am a traveling person with no real home and only one profession, professional life-saver. I was riding along in another train when this horrible accident happened. Alas, I have even lost my own shirt and my muscular torso, chest and perfectly chiselled abs are now exposed posing a danger to the sensibilities of the women in this town.”
“In honour of your tremendous courage we shall suffer through this tremendous indignity.” She said, dutifully suffering along with the large mass of women that have appeared.
“In honour of you saving my life, you shall stay at my house that is coincidentally a palace. Don’t you agree Patsy?”
Patsy appeared to be lost in thought, given at the direction of Johnny’s muscular chest. After a while she came to and the three rode in a large carriage to the palace.

Many nights passed, as did many days. Johnny grew accustomed to the palace and seemed to enjoy bossing people around. Provided the house had no servants so he never did get any of the things he asked for.
Patsy walked in on him looking into the sea.
“What is the allure you men have of the sea?”
“huh?”
“Why must you men always gaze into the sea?”
“Oh, I see a turtle in the reeds over there and I’m trying to spit on it.”
“I was in love with a man once.”
“Really? I always figured you as a dyke.”
“Don’t let my webpage fool you, I’m 95% straight.”
“Well what about this man?”
“He was a sailor. He rode on the mighty galleon… The Prissy Rainbow. It was a mighty ship, even though it was indeed pink and lime green.” She shuddered a bit at the thought. “But alas, his ship sank, and he died.”
“… I’m not dead!” a voice called from out in the open sea.
“So I guess I should go on with my life… Johnny!”
“Huh?” he asked, turning to her with a long string of drool hanging from one side of his chin. “Sorry, what? I wasn’t listening, to busy, look the turtle is mocking me.”
Upon saying this he felt Patsy’s hand smack him upside the head sending his spit flying into the wind and hitting Patsy in the face.
“I could never love you!” Patsy cried. She started to run away crying feeling her feet in the soft, soft sand, and on the occasional syringe that caused much discomfort and bleeding. Also the sea had swept up several hundred dead angry jellyfish that also caused much discomfort.

Back at the palace, the next morning Johnny came downstairs and saw Patsy’s father, Mr. Pansy bottom fixing breakfast.
“Ah Johnny, come sit have some breakfast. I’m no where near the cook my wife used to be but I can make a mean chocolate cake! Here, have some toast.”
Johnny took the blackened bread slice and thanked the man while eating his charred pancakes and sipping his blackened milk.
“Now Johnny this may surprise you but I am a quite observant person. And there are two observations I’ve made recently.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve noticed that my dear Patsy is falling for you.”
“Oh? Is she single?”
“Oh she had a love many moons ago. But he died in a terrible accident. The boat sank and no one was ever heard from again.”
“I’m not dead! Help me the sharks!”
“And also that you like to sleep in the nude.”
“oh yes that,” Johnny said affixing to himself a doily from the table.

Patsy walked along the beach. “Oh I can’t possibly be falling for Johnny.”
“Damn!”
“Johnny? what are you doing out here?”
“I’m getting back at that damn turtle.” He said showing her the several cases of dynamite he happened to be carrying in his back pocket.
Giving him a puzzled look, she decided to stick with her traditional freak out and run away crying through the broken syringes, jellyfish and a surprisingly large number of electric eels had also washed upon shore.
Just then it started to rain, not just ordinary rain but water that fell from the sky. A mighty wind picked up. Just then, as if she was some sort of magnet sharks, and fiddler crabs emerged from the sea towards her, panicked she ran straight into a forest where a bunch of bees, snakes and bears started to chase her. Then she was so scared she even ran into a rock, where a bunch of spiders, and maggots and politicians were hiding. Panicked, she cried out to the sea “Why did you have to die Charles? You could’ve saved me!”
“I’m not dead!”
“Yes you are! Now someone! Save me!”

Meanwhile, back at the turtle, “…save me…” Johnny ears picked up, “wow, I really shouldn’t have been able to hear that.” But needless to say, being a professional life saver, he prepared for a great battle.

A great battle ensued.

After, they celebrated and Patsy finally told Johnny that she loved him. However he had serious emotional issues and refused to marry her, but, with the help of the village people and their love for guns they forced him to marry her.
And she lived happily ever after while he suffered the tremendous indignity of wetting his pants at the wedding reception.

Inferno - Chapter One (Continued)

It was raining. Just like it had done in every cheesy movie Jake had ever seen. The ground was wet and splashed all over his fanciest shoes and slacks. He was soaked, from his head, to every element in his tux. He shifted uncomfortably as the limo waited for him to bring him to the reception. Everyone else had left, but he needed to get something off of his chest.

This was the way it always was, right? The son, alone at his father funeral, standing in the rain above his father freshly buried casket. It was a beautiful tombstone for what it was. A large seamless piece of granite big enough to house a family. It was polished to a brilliant shine. Everything about it was like his father had been in life. Large. Majestic. Intimidating. Cold. Dead.

As Jake clenched his fists, he stared at the large slab of stone that had once been his dad. He wanted to tear it down. He wanted to smash it. He wanted to kick it down and grind the pieces into a dust so fine that no one else would ever need to see it. Anger bubbled inside of him until it was too much to hold in. Climbing upon the base, and with a brutal force he kicked the granite tower causing a burst of pain to reverberate through his leg. He clenched his foot in his hands and cursed the tomb before collapsing on the larger than life words that announced his fathers life to the world.

He couldn't win a fight against a tomb. He had never won a fight against his father in his life, and he certainly wouldn't win any in his death. With a quivering sigh, a burst of anger and sadness overcame him and he whispered the last words he would ever say to the man.

“I hate you so much.”

He stood up. Wiped the wet off of his slacks as best as he could, and walked over to the limo. Giving one final look up at the tombstone, he spit on the ground, and vowed never to return.

Inferno - Part one

Chapter one of Inferno.
One of my resolutions was to try to be more constant and update this with at least two new items every month. Hope you enjoy!

Inferno - Chapter one

He woke up with a start. He had fallen straight through his dream and landed with a start in his body. He'd fallen asleep outside of his dads office again. The clock ticked, echoing loudly through the hallway he occupied. He lifted his body off of the plush, black leather couch that smelled of cigars and ink and tried to shake himself awake. With a yawn, he checked his watch; how long had he been asleep? Pressing one hand against his temple, he tried to fix his hair as he waited for any sign of life from behind the thick wooden doors that blocked his fathers office.
“Jake, what are you doing here?” Naomi asked. Jake looked over to see his old babysitter walking by the door to his fathers office. She wore her dark hair in a bun and walked towards him to give him a hug. Jake begrudgingly stood up and hugged the woman he once called nanny, and let her turn him around to take a look at him. “You've certainly grown.” She said with a laugh. Jake felt his stomach turn slightly. “If you're waiting for you're father...”
“I have to wait, I know.” Jake said with a grunt. He didn't like being treated like a child; much less by someone who had watched him grow up. She looked taken aback for a second, before allowing another sweet smile to settle on her bright red lips.
“Of course.” Was all she said. “I'm sure he'll be by shortly. I have some things I need to do.” She said motioning down to stack of papers in her hand with a nod. “You... well, come by more often. I want to know how everything is going. Do you have a girlfriend yet?”
“Stop.” Jake said as he shrugged out of her reach. “Alright, alright I'll stop.” She said suppressing a slight laugh. “It's good to see you again.” She reached over, despite his silent protestations, and gave him the best hug she could muster with only one arm. “Be good.” She said touching his cheek for a moment before turning back towards the door.
“I'll try.” He said as he sat back in the chair. She smiled at him one final time, sighed, and left the room. Jake readjusted himself on the seat, as if doing so would put him back into whatever mood he was in before this. However, before he could settle the large oak doors opened and two figures walked through the door.
The first was Jezebel, his father's personal assistant. A beautiful, yet somehow dangerous looking woman. Undeniably attractive, she could have easily been a model had she not possessed an intelligence sharp enough to cut a man in half. Her long black hair always hung loose around her face and her make up was always applied in the most seductive way possible. She wore glasses which only seemed to enhance her enchanting emerald eyes and her skin was the perfect combination of ebony and ivory. The other man was someone Jake had never seen before. Tall, pale and balding, the man wore an old fashioned suit and hat that seemed to have stepped straight out of another time. He affixed the hat to the remnants of his ice blond hair, slicked back to give him a snake-like appearance, and leant his weight on a long black cane. Jake half expected the man to pull a monocle and place it on over his searing ice blue eyes.
“...So if you have any questions,” Jezebel said as she held the door open for the snake man. “Do not hesitate to call us.”
“Thank you madame,” he said in a thick French accent. “I will be sure to do that.” The man seemed to notice Jake for the first time and immediately dropped his voice. Jake couldn't tell what he was saying, but Jezebel nodded a few times. When the man seemed to be fully satisfied, he buttoned his jacket and exited the room. Jezebel looked at Jake and nodded.
“Your father will see you now.”

Haiku Week Number One

I have declared this week Haiku week.
Why?
Because, why not?
That's not a haiku but it could be.

Ketchup by Matti McLean

A ketchup bottle
The bottle farts in my hand
My true age revealed

Delicious.

Inferno - Prologue

So a while ago Dennis came to me with the idea of creating a steam punk version of Dante's inferno and it's an idea I really gravitated towards. I'm a huge fan of the genre and immediately started to write out some primary drafts of the story which I'm now sharing with you now.
This was the original prologue designed to set the mood for the novel. In a good prologue you introduce the tone, the character and the main themes of the book. Or at least you should. I think I was fairly successful in this. Thinking I'll keep writing it as time goes on and try to make something cohesive and delightfully twisted.

Inferno : Prologue by Matti McLean

He closed his eyes as the distant screams whipped past his ears. Smoke billowed through the darkness that clouded his dream as he fell through black storm clouds. Tumbling like a rag doll through smokey billows as skeletal beasts flew past on wings of bone and burnt flesh. The sound of clockwork echoing through their empty skulls. Above him a thousand dark creatures swirled as if preparing to attack the prey. One beast lunged a fanged tangle of teeth towards him missing him by inches. Thousands more seemed to appear and lunge at him as he passed by them, and they'd cackle as if he was another piece of meat for them to consume.

The ground below him burnt. The remnants of a city long burnt and still smouldering were splayed out below him. Long trenches stretched out as the dark landscape seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. Tall towers that must have one been proud symbols of technology and progress stretched thousands of feet into the air. A giant clock tower, now decrepit and crumbling stretched out below him, but was rising quickly.

He fell, passing through the burnt sky and between the giant buildings that thrust into the sky. As he fell at speeds he could hardly comprehend; hurtling towards the street he could feel the air grow thick with heat as breath after breath thick with ash rushed into the burnt, scarring remains of his lungs. Two thousand feet, one thousand feet, a hundred feet- all flew by faster then he could recognize. As he was about to find himself a stain on the ground, the earth itself opened up in a giant mouth revealing miles and miles of dark cliff that stretched into a churning lake of fire. Bodies rolled in the flames and the sound of a million screams of terror burst from the ground and threatened to rip him apart. A thousand burnt fingers reached out to him as if pleading him for some form of relief; as if he and he alone could bring them relief. He tried desperately to do anything else, but he continued to fall helplessly, being drawn into the fiery, molten mass below him. The heat radiated at such a heat it almost burst his skin from his body. He screamed as the ground above swallowed him whole and the fire burned on.

So yeah, that's Dante's Prologue. Let me know what you think!
As a note, the artwork is not mine but perfectly emulates the mood I was going for so I had to use it. My thanks to Chenzan

NANO inspiration - Why You Matter

This was a quick little forum post I posted as an inspirational pep talk to everyone doing NaNoWriMo this year. I'm hoping that someone will be inspired. Either here, or elsewhere. But I hope you enjoy it! It goes along with my original mandate about trying to create a community and the creation of a writing help blog and all that...

I hope you like it! I don't know if it makes any sense, but then again, when do I ever make any sense?

Pep Talk - or Why You Matter

Everyone has a dream. Many people will be releasing their dream to the world this month through a little event all of us know as NaNoWriMo. So much of the world wants to let their voices be heard and the brilliant thing is that, for at least one month, you, the one who is reading this right now, wi'll have the voice and the audience to achieve this.
Isn't that awesome?
Nanowrimo has been a very important part of my life for the better part of my adult life. Stories I've written through NaNoWriMo have become novels, plays, dreams and short stories that have helped to enrich my life and have allowed me to thoroughly root myself in my imagination.
What a great word. Imagination. So many people complain that imagination is only reserved for children. I'm proud to say that this isn't true. Your imagination is your ultimate weapon against the nemesis of mediocrity.
I may go out on tangents sometimes, but I like to think it's a result of my overactive imagination.
I want to tell something to every writer out there, and if you take nothing else from this posting, I hope you take this.
You matter.
Your voice matters.
Your writing matters.
You matter.
Why do I want to impart this to you?
Well the first reason is simple. I want everyone to know that they possess a voice that is distinctly their own, and that even though they may be in a world that will openly reject, dismiss and humiliate them, they still matter. Your voice is your own and no one else can see the world exactly as you do.
The second is slightly more complicated. I believe that your writing is a reflection of you. What you write down is your soul exposed to the world. It is you. Your visions. Your beliefs. Everything. You. Are. What you write. You live in your writing. People get to know you through your writing, even if you never meet them. It's amazing how much you can tell about a writer by simply reading one of their poems. Even haikus.

Everyone matters.
Everything you're creating
Will help you in life.

Think about your favorite authors. Rowling, King, Gaiman... They all started where you are right now. (although maybe they started on typewriters) With a blank page and made some of your favorite stories. They created characters out of nothing, and now you find yourself totally free to follow in their footsteps and stand on their shoulders.
Now, I know you might think it's a little overwhelming... And it is. Blank pages can be scary. Terrifying. Even bad! When all you can see is the little blinking line at the top of a blank page the pressure to write { 1,667 } words in a day can be downright daunting. Terrifying. Just awful. Gut wrenchingly, painstakingly awful.
But... all it takes is one word to unleash a cavalcade of emotional genius. And before you know it, the story will start to happen.
But Matti, you say, why do you think my writing matters?
Well... because there are people out there who desperately need to hear what you have to say of course. Your work will be read: Maybe not as fast as you'd like them too (I have friends who have had my book for MONTHS and not read it yet. SO FRUSTRATING!) but eventually, they will. They will drink in your words like a glass of fresh water into the soul. Writing can be the ultimate release for many feelings: Anger, regret, remorse, grief... and someone out there who desperately needs to know that everything will be okay will be looking for someone who's been through their experiences. Someone out there may be looking for the validation, or inspiration, or imagination that your writing will provide them.
Donald Miller wrote a blog a little while ago called "The Best Writing Advice I've ever received", and in my opinion it's brilliant. He says that we all need to love our reader. And he's write. (ha ha! I made a pun!)
I have a tendency to ramble so I just wanted to tell everyone that you matter. You all matter.
You sitting there reading this. You matter.
YOU!

Love Like a Rabble

The first draft of a poem I wrote for poetry class. One of my first experimental pieces turned out to by one of my favorites. I'll find the full version and attach it later. I think it might be interesting to see exactly what changed in a poem so chaotic.

Love Like a Rabble – Matti McLean

Love like a hurricane whips past the world as it turns and it spins without ending, before the sunrise that sets on the land that was dark but will brighten the day of the vampires that play in the shadows of the moon and the branches that grow from the ground that was burnt and will die when the daylight returns from its sleep at the end of the world where the sun and the sky will be one in the night that was day before everything happened when the man took the apple and he ate from the snake that once said that it suffered without end from the fact that it's face never left the ground that was lush and the grass that was grey before dying and growing green to the clouds that were white as the snow that was falling from heaven that burnt up the ashes that flew through the air from the fires that burned in the ocean that churned like a cauldron as it bubbled from heat as the witch burned the bible that created the gas that would choke out the earth as it died in a puddle of global warming from the suicide of fighter planes that crashed in the ocean aiming at the ships that were firing their weapons in a harbour of pearls that were created from grains of sand in the mouths of the oysters of parliament who signed their documents with the blood of the trees and declared themselves superior from the dark-skinned brother who fought with their riots and rap music and jeans that hung low so that you could see their boxers made from the cotton the white man picked from the gardens with trees of knowledge that declared themselves worthy of a god who wasn't listening to the rabble that erupted from the voices of thousands who cared about themselves and the fact that he said the worlds that created the bang that happened when the world began but ended when the church declared itself king of the monkeys and queen of the painters who painted the pictures of nothing but skies filled with stars that were black as the canvas that was used on the sails of ships that the pirates sailed through arches of bones and the mussels that clung to the support under the waves of the rum that was drank by the virgins who climbed up the mountains and bypassed the forests that grew without knowledge of the bulldozers that would come and collect up the people and place them in factories and mark them with stars as the red rain spewed from the chambers where the gas of perfection choked out the Jewish and echoed the screams of a thousands Egyptians when they woke up to find that their tables were empty because someone had left the door open and their kitty cats went out into the dessert and dug up the nation that was hiding for centuries before anyone could push it back into the abyss of despair which was threatening to overtake the capitalists inside of the whale that was spit up and broken by beavers who could chew through concrete and the wires that connected the homes to each other in a way that allowed them to mate with themselves to the pictures of vixens on television that would coo for their money that would come from the soiled hands of thousands of men who would drink up their beers and admire their guts that were bloated from lack of broccoli and food that the other nations demanded for the starving people who were eatting their gold fish and placing their money in ponds where the people swam and sank to the bottom of the Titanic which would sail the seas of indifference when ice would accumulate on the rudders and burn through the pride that sunk a city of people who persisted that there was nothing wrog with caviar and ate with the others who thought that the fur that they wore came from the men who they slept with in orgies of slugs on beds made from roses and barbed wire that would strangle the legs of Nike who soared through the skies behind Icarus and Elijah's flaming horses that burnt out the ozone and left us with a hole to the heavens that lets the sun shine in to the tune of ice tea being stirred while our bubble rap economy continues moving forward like a steam train made of warthogs who look in the mirror and ask themselves why they can't be pretty like the zebras that hunted the lions in the office building where predators fight aliens while Arnold takes off his shirt and yells for the slap chop to come and pierce his aeorta which was the answer to the question on Jeopardy that asked them to answer for their leaders about what they should do about the wars in Korea and the problem with bed bugs who are making their homes in the hair of the homeless who sleep in the corners of buildings that fell when the earthquakes erupted in streets full of vendors who sell off their street meat that was crafted from the bones of the victims of the attacks of the thunder god who fell from the heavens and struck at the natives who would pray for redemption to the church that was built upon twin towers and the mosque around the corner that was bombed by a terrorist who claimed himself to be gods favourite Buddhist ever to die in the name of love.

Post

Had a wonderful meeting with my dear friend today, who handed me back a story I had completely forgotten about writing. This was my last assignment for my Creative Writing class and I was at a point of frustration. Now looking back on it, I have to say it is one of my favorite things I've ever written. I hope you enjoy it!

POST

This piece of paper will change the way you look at life, the universe and everything.

I long for chaos yet it eludes me. I tried to catch it in a cup but the teapot was empty and the skies were dry.

In the beginning god created the heavens and the earth. And the earth. And the earth.

He made the sun, the planets, and other suns that we call stars. But he threw those so far away that man would never reach them, but close enough to us that in our arrogance we believe we can.

The world is spinning. It attempts to fling the human vermin from it's surface but is unsuccessful. This gravity that pins us to its surface is as thick and harsh as syrup dripping over a succulent bagel.

People don't talk anymore. We text, type and sext. Our messages are becoming confused. Our words shorter. Our messages. LOL. Pointless.

The first silent movie was released in 1903. 100 years later the Matrix became a trilogy that was just as quickly forgotten. Progress?

Perhaps the world has always been about keeping things down. No relationship is complete without a thumb on the forehead of the submissive. A man brutally tied to the bedposts by gravities unseen hand and left on the tracks as the train of progress chugs continually forwards.

The only three words that have no rhyme in the English language are silver, purple and orange. Surprisingly, lots of things rhyme with colourblind. Rind. Kind. One of a kind. A humourless kind.

I'm a cereal killer. I kill them with milk. Crunch. The ballad of a peppercorn pirate.

There are no accidents in creation. Man in all his wisdom looks into randomness and is challenged to find patterns out of happy accidents. Reality is just a bunch of dots that we struggle to connect. Out of our fear of the dark we impose light where there is none so we can look into the black and feel enlightened.

Dark is what keeps the light away. We wear dark clothes to look like something we are not. Dark is slimming. Dark is form fitting. Dark is an illusion we fear and don't understand. Dark is deadly. Dark is fun. Dark is death personified in fashion.

Universal connections are impossible because of all the space between them. We do not form lines that unite the cosmos. We create dots amid a sea of black. A mark. A scar. An imperfect blotch on the clean, clear space of the blank canvas of the universe.

Eventually all things must fail. Birds must fall to fly. Babies must fall before they walk. Even kamikazes must fail.

Echidnas live in New Zealand. They do not have knuckles. Sega lied.

Lies are only as true as the people who say them. Belief is cheap and dangerous.

I stabbed my friend Maude in the chest with a stake and she dropped her vase. Post Maude urn.

I lied when I said the truth.

Time is out of synch. Rules crumble. Jericho rises from the ashes like Dark Phoenix as she battles Galactus for intergalactic supremacy. He wears pink pants and a stupid looking helmet.Even he knows that chaos will come and devour us all.

From the pits of Tartarus the serpents will hunt. They spear the Valkyries before Vagner hits the first note. Odin weeps into Neptune's lap. Raven, Loki and Coyote suffer identity disorder.

Life grows simple over time. Thoughts stream across the page but get thicker with meaning and soon all are full of references that even they do not understand. The fight for meaning grows heavy as the weak grow fat from the justice of the first world countries.

There are millions of billions of trillions of planets out there. But only one supports life. Dot.

I fly between the rings of Saturn and search for a Starbucks. There's one around Io but that's too far right now. The long random arm of corporations grab at the promise of the nations.

The lord is my shepherd I shall not wait for anyone to do anything and blame everything that goes wrong on him. Because I am entitled to it all. I am in dominion over everything. Thus it was written, “Thou shall not perish, but donate all your money to corporations and completely forget all your principals and give to a worthier cause.”

Dot. Dot. Dot. All must be connected. Everything is ordered. Nothing is random. All must follow logic. None must step out of line.

Follow the curves of the page. Right off the page.

Follow logical thought.

Think for yourself.

Hang yourself on indifference and struggle with the consequence of a loose neck.

Violence exists all around us. Everyday I wake up and fight my shadow in hopes that one of us will trip up and I'll emerge victorious. I struggle with myself everyday. I don't want to hear

Yellow rhymes with fellow. Blue rhymes with you. Red rhymes with dead. Lots rhymes with gold and bronze. Nothing rhymes with silver. Being second just makes you the first loser.

Look at a page of random letters and you'll discover words. A happy accident that you thrill at. The rebellion of the letters is useless against your desire for order.

Sex is cheap and nasty. My heart breaks for the prostitute who goes without mouthwash.

Poetry falls out of me like chemistry. Cyanide is cheap and effective.

Lust is a sin for all but the phallic. Skinny curve-less people with big feet.

The thoughts are inescapable. The thought that no matter what I do, order will come. My mind races to the edges of my sanity but is dragged back to conformity. Kicking and screaming as the noises grow dangerously loud and complex. My sanity is a curse. The structures are prisons to the thousands of sheeple that come before me.

Suicide is easy. The theme from MASH. M*A*S*H. I never watched that show. Too many stories.

The more you see, the less you know. The more places you visit, the less you see. Find a four leaf clover in your backyard, and you'll miss the mushroom cloud of progress.

My time is thick. Like my neck. The tie is choking.

Dot. Dot. Dot. You try to piece together the pieces once again and find patterns. Graphs. Order. Then find comfort in the thought that the random has been conquered. Like the wildness of the wildness of the wildness.

A man was stranded on a desert island. He'd never traveled before but one day, he found himself alone. Sand and ocean as far as the eye could see. He walked for hours and came across a chair. He never left it. It was his one piece of familiarity amid an ocean of chaos. He lived the last of his life there unaware that his desire for order killed him. A mile down the road a resort ran 24/7 serving fat tourists and spoiled brats.

People say that our brains resort to patterns and finding comfort in familiar objects. Repetition is good. It's something for the mind to latch onto.

Apples.

And that inside jokes have no weight without former knowledge.

The pieces of plastic on the ends of your shoelaces are called aglets. The holes they go through are eyelets. The more I think about things

Tattoos are black memories that we use to mark where we've been and what we've cared about along the way.

Never have so many people, with so little to say said so much.

The closer we get to chaos in writing, the closer we get to poetry. Repetition is good. It's something for the mind to latch onto.

Time is an illusion. It makes us feel like we're going forward even when we're standing still.

It's not plagiarism if it isn't fun. Work sucks.

I'm hurting. Everyday is a struggle. One email destroyed my world and my heart fell through my body. Now I wear my heart on my sleeve.

Repetition is good. It's something for the mind to latch onto.

I used to count on my toes, but now they let down. When you can only count to ten, you always end up missing a crucial step or two.

The very nature of reality is fracture. Half finished thoughts. Words get caught in throats. I st-st-st- I speak my mind in the hopes I can let my mind wander. It hasn't come back yet.

The essence of nature is destruction. Circle of Life. Circle of death. Circling the drain in between the air pollution, chlorofluorocarbons and allergens that prove that the natural world really is out to get you.

Punctuation is the prison of the English language. It confines the depths and breadths of emotion to the prison of order. It refuses to let chaos reign. We conform to its rules without issue. We follow the thought that a period means stop and a comma means pause and a semi colon can't make up its mind and an apostrophe is just a thought that is so desperately trying to escape. Order is chaos. Punctuation is a stifle to our creativity.

I do not write to make understanding easy. I write because I must. If I stop my fingers will explode and I will have to use my tongue to tell the tales that my brain refuses to hold captive. I will narrate my genius into the corner of creation. I will write because I must and reference those who came before me to prove my genius.

In the midst of chaos we create patterns to establish order. We refuse to recognize the void for what it truly is. A big black inky blackness devoid of life, love and the American dream. Everything feels intentional because we arrange our homes into rooms, and the walls that we create to keep the chaos outside do little to prevent the chaos from existing. Our lives are in peril when the windows break and the deadly breeze rolls in threatening to sweeten our air with the smells of butterflies and bumblebees.

I want to break away from structure. Leave it shattered at my feet. I will leave the period behind and all punctuation shall cease to be

I'm allergic to bee stings. Spider bites make my skin inflate like a balloon. I'm also afraid of balloons. My friend logics it to being afraid of guns. The unsettling thought that at any second a loud bang can eliminate something that had seemed so solid. A balloon defies the laws of gravity that strive so hard to keep the rest of the world nipping at the ankles of giants.

I want to write thick, long lines so dense with meaning that it takes a historian, a philosopher

The dark recesses of my mind house rats that keep the mice at bay. They feast on the garbage in my frontal lobe and defecate down the spiral cord which winds its way around my sanity and allows me to breathe.

Repetition gives your mind something to latch onto. Who cares about synchronicity when chaos is quicker?

I do everything I can to keep people at bay. I write nonsense. I create chaos. I interrupt their sterile, pathetic lives and ramble like a mad man in an attempt to let them know how i feel. My blood is hot. I demand to be alone. I don't need a hug I want space. I want out. I want freedom. I want the sweet embrace of death to kiss me on the cheek. I want life to go away for a while and leave me in the corner with a dunce cap and a cigarette burn.

I humbly pray for patience and scream for sanity.

Some dance with the stars. I dance like a mad man through heaven and hell to find the place where time and space converge in a glorious apex.

The air thins as I thicken. Too many burgers and and fries. I do not see myself as skinny.

In the end the blackness is only temporary. It's always darkest before is goes completely black.

Despite the desperate need for chaos my mind caves into order and sanity.

I am sane and perhaps that is the curse of it all. My mind cannot reach to the end of invention because the desire for structure is too great.

Billions of planets that some argue are all connected.

Carbon is the backbone of the galaxy. Everything in the world is made of this very small, basic element. All life stems from carbon. This can't be proven. Give me a planet of arsenic that I might drink it's salt.

The world is a big, safe, beautiful place. This is false. The world is a place where nothing forgot to exist and something took its place. It's a freak coincidence. An island of life amid a galaxy of black.

We are all connected. This is false. We are billions and trillions and quintillions of light years from the other stars. The other planets want nothing to do with us. We all are alone in the great blackness of space, with no one to rely on but themselves. Some tried to make friends. Some tried to mate but got their hearts broken through emails. This world is all there is. No friendly aliens to come down and rescue us. No loving life form to descend from ET's space ship and fly away home. Instead we are left as the outcast organism that the other biospheres wanted nothing to do with.

We are alone in the galaxy.

We are nihilistic.

We are chaos personified.

Time is irrelevant. Space is indefinite. The only thing left is not.

As a note, there were a lot more breaks and spacing changes I made for the original that couldn't translate into this format so that's unfortunate.

I really enjoyed reading this now as there are a lot of pieces about it I really enjoy. I hope you do as well.

As a note, this could be one of the most difficult things for a writer to write. My goal with this piece initially was to have a work of creation that is so far removed from sanity that it is literally painful to read and difficult to breathe meaning into. During the writing process, I found that inevitably bits and pieces began to match up and that my attempt to write something completely and totally incoherent was in the end a fallacy. Despite my longing for chaos, order inevitably set in and my story ended up being something unexpectedly posessing a coherence that I did not want. When a writer sets out to write something, they inevitably want it all to make perfect sense. Strange how attempting to do the exact opposite is equally as frustrating.