the.antithesis.txt
   Sam Johnson



Table of Contents
   x. Introduction
   1. Journal
   2. Beggar and the City
   3. Insanity
   4. Circe
   5. One Day
   6. Stuff to do
   5. The Watcher

______________________________________________________________________________
introduction
______________________________________________________________________________
  While it may seem overwhelming at first, keep in mind that many of these 
stories
are written in a langauge of contemporary light, so read these with an open
mind and definitly expect to laugh. For find a chapter, I reccomend pressing 
CTRL+F
to bring up the "find" box, then type in the name of the chapter and voila. 
Also, if read
in a state of inebriation; the author would not discourage this.

  Also, keep in mind many of these stories have not been through the arduous
process of editing, so please don't get hung up any minor gramatical or 
spelling errors.
The intent is all that I wish to get across.

  The title, "the Antithesis .txt" is meant to be a direct opposite of any 
definition
of the word, "bible." While "bible" is means, roughly, "a collection of 
stories," assumably
written by different authors, I wish this to be a direct opposition to all 
bibles of thought.
It discourages me to see how brainwashed people have become, and to prove my 
point,
when I said the word "bible," did you think of the supposed "Holy" bible? 
Welcome
to the world of Western Thought.



______________________________________________________________________________
				Journal
            			 	     or
		  Epiphany: the clothes to put around the Naked Truth.
______________________________________________________________________________


Part 1: December
___________________________________________________________________________


	Chapter 1: Deceit

  What the hell is going on? I turn my back for a minute and
everything just changes. What are these chains doing on my door?

  Normally when someone finds their door chained shut they
would panic. It is not until after that person has called the
police countless times, and the officer on duty thinks it is all a prank,
that they start to feel doubtful. It is not until hours of screams and 
shouts
that, when one finds no one as aide, one becomes quite
unnerved. What is left to decay my sanity?
Time.

  I leave for eight hours and everything changes. Peoples
lives are ruined, or fundamental problems seemed
rectified. Buildings are broken down and new businesses appear.
I leave and nothing is done, and yet, nothing seems left undone.


	Chapter 2: In the Chambers

  A milky red color infuses with some unsuspecting white matter.
I am stuck in the vortex of whist-less chains and floating words,
which are stabbing me relentlessly in the side.

  "Would you like a cigarette?" she asks me, as if her
condescending, "I'm a puppy dog," look axing me in the side
was not enough.
  "yes!" the craving barks.
  The blue sky gets all gooey, and my eyes start to blur; rising light
stirs a pot of milk in the back of my mind.
  "no, no, no!" a child shouts, as I bite at the lightning bugs that
are assaulting my sanity.
  "What is it," she asks nonchalant, with that beautiful smile
covering her lies like lip gloss.
  I awake in a sweat. Apparantly blue skies and ejaculate on a
girls smiling face makes my nerves twitch. Sweat entrenches the
pillow behind me.
  I look over to see if those chains are gone. No luck. What is there
to do with my time? How much time has gone past?
  I can only remember what happened by my justification
for whatever action I did. That justification which is the cause
for the effect we call emotion. Without feelings, our memories
would simply evaporate.

  The chains on the door, as I so appropriately call them, are a
plague. It is as if my room is under quarantine, and yet that
stench of death feels so damn impudent. Insanity waylays my senses
as I notice my hair melting, drops of pasty dew stretching the color
in my hair.
  Why is my hair wet?
Minutes away, a faucet slowly squeaks droplets of water out, as
fresh mist softens the sky.


	Chapter 3: SKIN

  Dead skin on my body? I scratch, as pieces fall to the floor to melt the 
snow.
My door still has those rusty chains and that incessant lock, staring at me 
with
mockery in their lips.

  Why did I do that? Did I do that? How else would chains get on the inside 
of my door?
I haven't had guests over in months. Then it hits me: "The guy in the 
mirror!"

  It takes a lot to appreciate water. I don't know what I did, but it made
Little piglets of water just start rushing out, happy of their destiny, as I 
stood
to intercept them. This is what cleanses us of our sins. That Styrofoam
backdrop of echoing raindrops, just seconds behind me.
I get out of the shower and grab a towel, only to change into the
same dirty clothes that I changed out of in the first place.


	Chapter 3: A moralization

  Insanity is a puppy love: it doesn't hit you like a freight train, rather 
it just
stalks you for a few years, then creeps up and makes you slit your throat.
"Creak, creak," goes the closet of Death, as echoes surround me
and laugh in my face. A demon rips out of me, bloody paste on walls,
and viciously shreds any ghost in front of me.
Leaves in the grass, smiles the lawnmower-man, as I close my eyes
to call forth endless night.

  "Infinite pussy!" the man cried, his teeth hungry for his desire 
full-filled,
whilst blowing a blue whistle and handing out flyers.
  I ride a bouncing river to him and ask, "Who are you?."
  "Who am I?" the man snaps like a turtle.
  "Who am I?" I playfully volley.
  The man shocks me with a tap to my forehead and says "find out for
yourself!"
  I pause to question his response when suddenly sharp teeth and
blunt nails wrap around me and squeeze. I look at the man,
as if to ask why such would happen, and he responds:
  "THIS IS DEATH!"

  A Journal! Of course. Such a place is not where we crazy men keep
thoughts, is it not? "Not it is," I grin sarcastically. I flip through 
mounds of
heaping gold, trash with flies oozing from the sides, and find a
notebook full of scraps; sentences with no meaning, words left
unfulfilled. I open it and find myself pouting, for who could read such a 
mess?

  I know what it is! I am unable to read the clock, read the paper, or even 
read
what I'm writing, but I know now what it is! The light! The light is playing
tricks on me again, is it not? I shall put a curse on that lamp when I
awake in hell, or maybe I should curse the person who sold me
that lamp, or maybe even the man who gave me the light bulb?
  That lamp is making light hit the paper and then bounce in wavy,
dancing curves, towards my honest eyes. Poor soul!
  Though what about the very particles of air that the light
must travel through. Perhaps in their long flight, the light
is degradated and perhaps made sick from bad airline peanuts.

  I know who it is that locked the door! The lamp for a second lost
face, and suddenly, I can see again.
  As I looked drastically through my notebook, on page 203, I find it.
"If you were to sum up your life as actions and experiences
resulting from the human mind existing during the state of
an action, then your life would simply be experiences. Actions
are little boxes, with little tags, describing how it affected
you and how it changed your view or tastes. This is the basic
rationale behind psychology. Once one is able to think every thought
possible (though complete disassociation) then one becomes another.
Once one becomes another, all boundries are broken, and 1 becomes 2
becomes infinity becomes a limitless capacity. "
  What nonsense, I think. Then it all blurs together:
   "sks me if i want to diem locking mysin this
room to fiself."

<asks me if I want to die, so I 'm locking myself in this
room to find myself>

  That fiend! Thinking he can trick me into coming into this room,
just so long enough as to put locks and chains on the door!
He is locking his sin in the room, so it can be changed for the better, 
right?
Like a caged animal, I am expected to obey.
   I am sin to him. But he must be in the room, for he
could not chain the door and then leave. This room is
at least seven floors up. Maybe he called a helicopter?
Those are expensive: perhaps the military has it in for me.
  Government conspiracies! JFK! They knew that I knew
that they knew. They knew my mind radiated sweaty, sweet
knowledge about their damn conspiracy (and JFK).
Those bastards! Then I must have some documents
or records of what it is I know. Perhaps I can live on in my
usefulness and knowledge, I think to myself, as I run over to
cabinet-man to find anything I have.


	Chapter 4: DEAD

  Empty bottles surround me as I slowly awake. Medicine, alcohol, vitamin 
tablets:
all empty faces to me now.
  What was it I did last night? I recall covering my body in Glow in the 
dark face paint.
I did something last night, and I'm certain that it has to do with those 
chains on my
door. I look at my watch to see a blur of salty hands. I can not read
anything!
  Of course! I look down, in aghast horror, to see dead skin
covering my body.

  A shower, a shower, I must take a shower.

  "go to the power plant and find the keys, doo to the
plhere people lay."
  <go to the power plant and find the keys, do not
  go to where the people lay.>
I jump around a bit to warm up my legs. This is going to be a tough mission,
finding that power plant and the keys. A snap behind me, and my brain falls 
like
lemonade berries. Fresh sun, and I awake.

"I am going away for a while, so please leave a message and I'll call you 
back later."
The answering machine pauses for a quick hit off a joint, and then
beeps mechanically.
  "No emotion," I shake my head, "There’s no emotion in that music, man."

  I've had people in here before. So my journal says, Martha and Stewart
came over today. She cooked me a nice, fresh chicken, but Stewart
just had to snort that coke and smear his feces with that damn blood.
That blood has been on my walls now ever since I can remember, or
at least to say, since those chains have been there.
  Why can't I leave?

  "Do as I say to do, not as I speak to speak." I see this on the wall, a 
pale
nothingness encompassed by brown blood and feces.
Someone wrote this here, and it smells like shit.

  I found a phone, but it doesn't help when you have no collection
of jumbled names in a book somewhere. I chatted with the
operator for a few hours, but she hung up when she said some
guy was blabbing nonsense about the end of the world.
  She was sweet though; I was going to ask her for her number,
but she replied, "Just call the operator whenever you need it!"

  So I called the police a while ago, saying I was stuck in my room.
Doesn't anyone care about little old me? They thought it was a prank!

I am so hungry...
  Hunger is a paradigm for the balance we need in life.
>From one end: we need to eat to survive. From another
end: we need to starve to maintain appearance and
self-confidence.


	Chapter 4: Katherine

  While looking through my notebook, I found a piece
of paper scribbled with lectures. "Katherine" it said with a
number attached.
  I reached for the phone, avoiding the empty containers of
yogurt and tuna, and dialed.
  "Hi, you've reached my cell phone! I'm not here to talk to
you right now, but if you just leave a name and number,
I'll get back to ya on that!"
  The machine pauses to burp, and then lets out
a loud beep.
  "Hey, this is Stu! I'M STUCK IN MY ROOM
AND THE DOORS ARE ALL CHAINED AND GLUED
SHUT! I THINK I'M GOING INSANE."
  I go on, not thinking, until the voice in my phone tells me to stop.

  "I love you," she says.
  "I <3 u too." I say
  Her hair falls like candy beer on teddy bear tongues. I smile as I
feel my hand glide across warm flesh and naked smiles.

This is my last and most important journal entry. If I am not
here tomorrow, at least in soul, then I have left my body. I detest
my body. It just follows me like a shadow, with lies of confidence
and pride swallowing my air.
  "I need that air to live!" I cry, as I stab with a piercing spear to
this Great Lions Mouth.
  You see, I did meet God; I met him Once. He loves Me, and I
love Him very much. He is the teacher who taught me all
the capacities and boundries of the vast infinities, and the
very groundwork of perception and rationale.
  "Do you want to die?" I hear this flowery sun request.
  "Why, very much so," I nod and smile contently.


	Chapter 5: The Fiancé

  So it was really me and her in this room. Was she the girl who
locked me in this room? She wrote in my journal, but I suppose
she left. Dissolved through the walls, Sam! That's what happened.
She wrote poison words that left me sick.
  "She gently caressed his long, hard shaft with her tongue,
moist beads of spit and cum showering her supple breasts."
  She thought she could be clever, writing with the same pensmanship
and craft as my very hands do, as if she could make me believe I
wrote it. Though I know she wrote it, that evil woman, and I simply
detest her being. Animosity can be such ambition for lark.

I did get a hold of Katherine, with which she simply
snapped, "Dammit, this is the tenth time this month
you've called about some damn chains or something;
for the last time, I'm not coming over. Don't make
me get a restraining order on you."
  "This time it's not a lie!" I cry.


  "The meaning of life," the fifteen-million-year-old Universe
told me, "is to use rationale to get to the end."
  "So why not tell me what it is I must do?" I asked childishly.
  "Because the final test is to see if you can actually carry it out."
  "Carry what out?" I ask with innocent woos.
  "Because it is a paradox; it is something you can do,
but will not do by nature."
  "That is the meaning of life?" I ask confusedly.
  "No, the action is what must come rationally from the train of
thought. The actual meaning is in the thoughts Themselves
and the decision to make the final action."
  "So the moment is just defined by the justification
that we create for the manifested actions?"
  "That is reality," the Universe smiled at me, "That is all we really are."

  "The problem with being such a moral being," the words gleamed
in confident juice, "is that when we know we did something wrong,
we will feel the stronger urge for redemption and obligation."
  I smiled at the falsity of this statement, for I was such a fool
to ever think this.

  Her glistening, pale body faced me with unspeakable humbleness.
She titled her view slightly to the side, and asked,
  "Are you ready?" with an innocent flair.
  I remove my clothes and approached her, as evil continued dripping out
of my being.

Where could she be? Perhaps I killed her, and the only reason I
locked myself in the room was out of the remorse I felt, and
perhaps I feel I should do something to make myself feel better?
Maybe I came in here to kill myself, because that suicide note looked
awful convincing.

"mmm... OH, GOD! YES! AAAH!" a man screams.
"SLRF! MMPH! AAH!" come out of two girls
heads.
"Yummm..."
"Don't suck them too hard, Mayumi."
"Whoops... sorry about that. I just got
carried away."
"Be nice to them so they makes lots more tasty
cum."
"mmm... that's right."
They girls halt their conversation to start
guiding their toungues from his balls to the
tip of his cock.
"Yeah... we sure don't want to hurt or break
thsi beautiful cock, do we?"
"Yep... it's not like a vibrator, where
you can alway buy a new one."
The girls continue to suck
and stroke his cock, "Slrrp, slrrp"
"OOOOH!!... AAHNGS!" he shouts.
The moment before he is about to
ejaculate, the camera pauses to show
the two girls wrapping their toungues
around the tip of his penis, just begging
for hot, juicy cum.
One of the girls shoves her mouth over the
cock and goes "MMFG!..... " After a few
seconds, "slrp! gulp!"
"Don't we get greedy, Miki... Gimme gimme!"
The girl puts her hands gently around the others
face and lowers her head. She opens her mouth
and lets the fresh, steaming cum drip onto
parched lips.

"Ahhg! AHH! I'm gonna die!" she screams,
as he rams her from behind, "You're so hard!
so big!" she pauses to enjoy a few more
thrusts, "Tell me you love my hot, tight pussy!"
"Oh god!," he shouts, "It's so tight! so hot!
i'm g-gonna..."
"ARE YOU CUMMING!" she shouts back, "ARE YOU
GOING TO SHOOT YOUR WAD INTO ME?"
He can't reply; he's in such esctasy.
"DO IT!" she affirms, "CUM INSIDE ME!
FILL MY PUSSY UP WTTH YOUR HOT, THICK, CUM!"
He follows orders strictly, and begins
ejaculating inside her.
"MORE! MORE!! CUM INSIDE ME! FILL ME
WITH YOUR CUM!" she screams.

But what a second: Did I kill her before or after the chains were on my 
door?


	Chapter 6: Redemption

  I've sinned and I need to find something to make the Maker
forget about it. What is thy bidding, my master? Maybe I
need to kill something? KILL SOMEONE?

So maybe this is all just a crazy tale, simply more rain to get wiped
off the windshield. Walking down a desolate street, the poles with
chains attached in between them mock me when I'm not looking.
  "WE STAND GUARD AROUND HERE," one gruff barks at me,
"YOU CAN'T CROSS ONTO THE STREET HERE, SONNY!"
  So it yelled at me, as I screamed and awoke in my bed.
The pillows are wet, and my hair is a bit damp. I don't feel
nervous, but I must have sweat a lot during my dream.


	Chapter 7: Epiphany

  "Do you want to die?" asked a voice. The voice was that of God, and
God then said to me;
  "You know you want to. You know you want to escape that shell,
that meaningless existence on the edge of reality, of where
perception from three hundred and sixty angles of all-seeing
eyes pierce your very identity. You can feel them, raping and
scavenging you heart for pieces of warm flesh and sexual energy,
all so they can slobber then up and digest the resources so they
can dispense of the eventual waste. They are nothing but
parasites to you, just selfish people who want nothing but what they
perceive as your very being. They are the people around you, they
are ALL that you see; it includes the person in the mirror."
  "He wants to kill me," I reply.
  "So let him." God smiles.
  Suddenly, the fifteen-billion year old Universe creeps up behind
God and slaps him across the faSce.
  "You! You traitor!" The Universe shrieked.
  "I made you," God said in retort.
  "AND I MADE YOU." The Universe replied.
  "All I wanted to do," wept the Universe, "was to create puzzles
and lives for people to live and fabricate purpose from."
  "I AM JUST TELLING THEM THE TRUTH" God snapped, drool dripping
thick from his snarl.
  "So let him be, let him dream, let him live."
  I turn around and walk softly towards the darkness, as the light
from God and the Universe creates more drama, and more motion.

  The secret to time travel, so it is written in this handy journal of mine,
is to simply move fast. What people do not often associate with moving,
however, is thinking. If one thinks fast, then he perceives time faster,
and thus, relative to that person, time is going faster and that
person is going faster as well. But according to another journal
entry, time doesn't exist.
  I wonder which one I wrote first?
  In another journal entry, marked at an earlier date than both
entries, stated this:
"Time travel is unecessary: The only reason we want to go back
in time is because we realize mistakes in history that we
wish could be fixed or changed, or perhaps we wish to gain
some knowledge by having an experience in the past or
future. However, if one knows all, then there is no need for time travel.
if there is no regret..."
The writing went along those lines but also seemed
to justify suicide in some abstract sense that I could not
understand.
  Apparantly I wrote this before my "secret to time travel," though
I thought of it after I wrote the "secret to time travel," so why did I
travel back in time to write how unecessary it was to do so?


  So I sit, reminiscing and getting high off of nostalgia. I never liked
being a kid much. I always wanted to be an adult. Even though
my parents and everyone around me constantly brought me down,
and despite suicidal thoughts that plagued my brain, I often times
wish I could re live those days. Not any different, either. I have
never felt remorse.
  I simply feel a longing for this fake past that I can only scrap
together from my memories and heart. For all we want in
the present is confidence in the future, so to relive the past
exactly as lived is to live in a present where the future is always
known. I look across the room; those chains are still there.
Keeping them out.
  Or perhaps keeping myself away from the world.



  Hyperbolic needles, bottles, and old bags surround me. I awake
to a dark room, with nothing but the subtle sunlight seeping through
the window. Gray bits of dust fluff the wind to a smooth tingle. I
pick up a bag, and it smells like feces.
  That is the moment I remembered the blood and feces on
my walls, and I look around. The walls are clean. What was
that written on the wall?
   "Do as I say do, not as I speak."
  It resonates, and I hear myself echoing it softly to myself. As if
it were a tune, a tune that calls forth deep, pensive, feelings. I weep.
  What has happened to her? What have I become.
I look at the walls; blood stained again.

  This is not my blood. This cannot be my blood. I examine the
wall closely. A red blur, and it feels quite dry. It must be at
least three days old. I strip and look for any cuts or new wounds.
Nothing. I hurry my clothes back on, though it is not like anyone
here cares, and I look around some more. What the hell is going on here?

  I have not eaten in days. What was it I was cooking so long ago?
It was something important. Perhaps if I check the various pots
and dishes around this kitchen area I will find something of
interest.
  Bloodstains splatter various aspects of the kitchen,
and I see a knife stuck in an arm on a cutting board. At
least it is not my arm, and at least we are getting somewhere
here.
  Did I kill someone? I think they were trying to kill me,
but I'm not too sure.
Where is my journal?
  I was looking for that.



Part 2: Exodus

	Chapter I: Hunger and the Meals that Come

  It was not until some time later that I realized hunger is what makes me 
survive.
My body is shaking inside and it is making it hard to see. I cannot to feel 
this alarm
clock I am picking up, laughing in my face, screaming bloody carols
of "WAKE UP WAKE UP!"
  "Food will satiate my grumbling stomach," I snicker to myself as
I pillage pantry after pantry to delicious snacks.
  "This candyland of penny arcades won't stop me!" I scream as I bring
a bloody hatchet to its aim.  Food in my mouth, I chew and
chew, until the little screaming bodies quit their damn protesting.
I feel the last spear hit in my teeth as I grind their beloved
opinions to their grave.
   I celebrate in victory/
   to those damn, ignorant knaves!
   I snicker tooth and butterscotch/
   till the last guard falls to drunk seas
   and with a glint/
   in my dear eye,/
   I hold the flag up hiiigh...
   to a good day
   with the death of
   my dear
   sweet
   enemieeeeaahhs."

  This food tastes pretty good, I say, after my first chew. The
door lets out a cough, a knock of subtle needs.
  "HARK! Who goes there?!" I say in a prideful cry, from
behind my chair, "who dare disturbeth the master in his
chambers!"
   Rage fills my shoes!
  The door remains in silence; but how can it endure?
  "How long can you endure?" I dribble, as I hold the axe
in my clenching fists. This door does not know the extent of
my torture.
  "Take That, and THAT!" as I hear the axe grinding pure
lemon ice out of that damn incessant door!
  "Oh victory; the bitter sweet,
  "lets drink till drinkards done!
  "Oh bon voyage; our peaceful stars,
  "as the day brings sun to front!"
  "for the day to us, is a battlefield/
   with friends to lose as welll"
  "Lets somber sweet, with a kiss of me/
   and let our death becommmme."
The door is in pieces. Then I realize the horror, naked truth: My
door has had chains on it ever since I can remember.
  This door, obviously, must be a trap door; WHAT HORRORS LIE ON
THAT SWEATY, OTHER SIDE?



	Chapter II: Misty, Hollow Dream

But it is too late. Death is in my open mouth.

The crow did hath start his descent towards my open, bloodstained heart,
before wishing that to tell these tales to my lovely lovers mouth,
  But 'tis the sick mans dying tale/ to forever remain grave ...
  and polish thee/ this melody/ and keep thy heart at bay.
  But time had fallen all too ill, and shortness brimmed my bloody knees.



	Chapter III: Fair maden, how save thee?
                     when thou kitchen remains full!
                     (men love food in a fridge)

  There she was! standing at the door!
  "hey!" she chirped, with that dear sun
caressing her hair.
  "hey," I script nonchalant. I got to keep it cool. Yo.
"You said you wanted to get together for dinner," she pressed, and then it 
hit me.



	Chapter IV: The TRAP

  This is all a trap. I was made hungry by those damn, dirty particles.
I ate and ate, like a sailor with no tomorrow, till my stomach was
brimmed with shit.
  When, in actuality, I was making dinner for her, and the chains.
I so affectionately call them: "fluffy-fluffy-poo!"
  But I have no appetite. I cannot cook. For the true nature
behind cooking is the cooks desire to have the dish as much as
the audience. In his mind, his selfishness manifests unto his
very hands. And I have no more ammunition!
  "I'll put my stuff on the bed," she woos.



	Chapter V: The Bed

THE BED! THE BED! What lies hath she dispensed? Oh, I can see you now;
lying there, peaceful and naked next to some man. Some brazen,
gold-clad, young man, a piece of grade A Meat, with a cigarette
parched upon you lush lips.  Spreading lies! SPREADING LIES!
  BEd! THE BED! What lies hath she dispensed?
How long have I known her? Have we had sex?
What kind of foul karma did she bring into my life, once we
commenced the foul act of love-making. A factory of love
we were indeed, had it ever happened. What is her name?
"Honey, I think we should skip the meal and go straight for dessert."
  Dessert? Skip the meal. Then I don't have to cook! She knew all
along! TAKE THAT YOU DAMN, DIRTY PARTICLES! I don't have to cook,
I am saved!

I love dessert though. The funny thing between desert and
dessert is that the "dessert" is easier to remember because the
two "ss" make it easier to spell. "If you ever have problems
with remember what dessert and desert are when you read
or spell them is this: Dessert you want more of right? So
remember, two S's." I announce proudly.
   So therefore, I discover, the very human need to classify
things appears in front of me. We want to remember and write
and buy and sell more desserts than deserts. Therefore, in
naming them, we shall name this tasty-snack-of-a-woman
  "DESSERT!" I SCREAM.

Ok, follow me to the bed then, handsome.

THE BED! THE BED! What lies hath she dispensed?
She is spreading evil lies, lies that only her hips can whisper.
I can see it; a moonlight graze, softly tampering her cheeks.
Another man, some tall dark fellow, with candy lips and
simmered lies pulls out his very piece.
  She obeys and gets on her knees, to begin what
horrors my mind can only pause to bear.
  "OH YEEEAHH, suck that cock," he yelps.
  "mmm, you like that?" she moans as she slides
her toungue up to the tip of his cock.
  "yeah, baby," he snorts as she massages curly Q's around
his cock. And so on and so on. The axe in my hands yelps.
  "THAt damn Door! how dare it not speaketh of such truths!"
Why, yes. Yes, it is true; that door subjected to even my harshest torture,
and yet, it spoke of nothing of this. I shake my head sorrowfully at her.
  I owe him, the Door, redemption, in the very least, for such
honor and courage will never reach the hearts of his wife or children.
  But how to rectify such? To kill myself. But that would not
rectify the current situation. Perhaps.. perhaps If I kill this woman
and kill myself, then the answer shall be golden ripe!
I pick up the axe.
  "Hey baby, so where should I get that lotion?" she asks, with her back 
facing me.
"KIAAA!!" I SCREAM.



	Chapter VI: Death of a Dream

  Oh my god. Oh my god. I just killed a hooker.
  She was not my girlfriend, she was not my wife.
Though she could be a cousin. Or maybe a niece.
  But what ho! She is not! She is but a mild mannered woman
selling her naughty fantasies-manifested in this sick, mans world!
And I lay that brazen axe upon her skull, calling forth juices
of precious life to spray, red ash upon my snarled teeth.
  I turn her face around to see what beauty may have
been, and the face suddenly distorts of one of my own.
I see my scarred tears, running down my face. An utter
look of terror, of looking death straight in the face. This is my
death as well. I pick up the axe and bring it forth unto my
very heart. Bloody tears dance chocolate lullabies.
  I awake. I awake to my room. I awake to those damn chains!



	Chapter VII: Chains

These chains are evil. These chains are man. We all have some chains that
stop us from acting, some inhibitions, whether they be natural or imposed.
These are our demons, this is our pain, and this it at the very center of
the heart of Man.
  But when these very abstractions are taken from the heart of the
metaphor to the very simile, we see that no matter what thoughts
I produce, these chains shall never be more than just ugly, rugged
chains.
  Resting on my door.
  Breathing haplessly
  upon my floor, and pissing and shitting like it was nobodies
business. Those damn chains. So I look around.
  Nothing new.
  No new bed sheets, wallpaper decorations or assortments of
flowers, just begging to be called "Beautiful."
  "But upon no lips," I declare," shall that word fall, until I lose a bit
of my wits."
  That's right. Love is just a delusion. It is a lie that I love someone, 
because that
is what makes me say it. If there was really something I loved,
then I would be afraid to have it hear me say such a statement as
"You're beautiful," for I am afraid it would simply disappear.
  All that was or ever will be good, in my life, has simply
disappeared from me after a while. It is not that bad,
really, for once I grow up a little, I won't even feel it.
  I grab a knife in my own defense, and ask myself, "what honor is in 
killing ones self?"



	Chapter VIII: Coffeshop Detective
  "Intellectually or in reality?" he asked me. A cigarette lay
resting in his fingers, as the smoke rose slowly to watch my very reply.
  "Well... intellectually really, because with the fall of the intellectual
comes the fall for the will to live, which thus causes the body
to fall prone quicker to the axe of death almighty."
  "So, you want me to kill this guy for good?" His thick eyebrows raised to 
mock
my very plea.
  "Yes. I want you to."


	Chapter IX: Love in a Basket.
  Where am I? I awake from a dream to see that ripe apple of beauty resting
across from me.
  "hey..." she sends, sailing across open seas.
  I receive and feel a slight ting in my heart.
What is this feeling?
  She is beautiful. Hair falls fresh upon calm shoulders. Her skin is smooth 
with
milky creame and chocolate bits; she is a supple blueberry, and I am but
a lonely Grape. But we are two berries amongst a few in a basket, and
the sun feels nice on our skin.
  I run and run towards her, but she gets farther and farther. I run
backwards a bit, to see if it is inversely proportional in this world
(write that down!)
  "Sorry," she whispers, "but the time between us is falling all too short.
I would love to stay with you, but I simply can't bear this feeling."
  The feeling! I gasp.
It hits me. That feeling of waiting, of waiting as if at a loss.
Those very minutes we spent, the hours of love making, all to
End too soon. And upon my waves of goodbye to her waiting
face, we turn back to back and lead separate lives.
  And in those mundane moments apart, where we laugh and
nod for others and think secretly to ourselves, we could fall victim
to another’s talons, and fall in love with someone else.
  She fades to a droplet of morning dew, to be pressed by
my ignorant, childish finger.
  She fades to a droplet of light, but a small simmer in my eye. And she is 
gone.
Forever.



	Chapter X: Forever
  Forever, Forever
  We carry such burden and pain
  Forever, Forever
  How can we not stay the same?
  Forever, Forever
  We feel happy followed by sad
  Forever, Forever
  If we can keep getting our fix, and stop feeling sick
  then why would we want any change?  (sing proudly)
  They say that the direction of a mind is in its progress. Progress
is classified on the level of objective thinking.
  The ultimate master of such would simply see an argument,
and all he would see is disassociated words of the sentence,
and thus the connections that come.
  And upon seeing such, he will see letters of each word,
and the connections that made them be.
   And upon seeing each letter, he shall see the very pixel of each letter,
thus making the connection that made them be. And so on,
and so on. Infinity.



	Chapter XI: Schizophrenic
  I must leave now. I am sad to go, for all my thoughts that I will hold, so
far away from you, shall never be yours. I cannot reach you if we
are ever lost, lost in others lives.  I wish that my words could reach you, 
by
writing or yells, but I know without me, the words will be words, to be put 
back in the
recycling bin.

Part 3: On Vacation

	chapter i: Demons Seed

   "Sir," the red rabbit said, "why need us these soldiers whom brought 
forth such taste/
when really our evil shall never fall waste."
  "What is that Pip?" I chorted; that grimy little fuck.
  "We are demons, and our enemy are humans.They suffer from a condition
known as mortality, and there is no cure."
  "So where is your logic going with this?" You Twit.
  "My logic is that since we are immortal, it would not matter what
type of soldier we picked, because it is not like we can ever lose."
  I looked at my servant with utter disgust. Had he no values? Oh, but of
course, he is the younger man. He is part of another generation, one
ever so distant from mine.
  I felt old.
  "Pip, my son," I said in a Baseball-Coach voice, "it is the personality 
that makes
the soldier, and our army must contain charisma unlike any other. For you 
see..."
  I pause to let a tear squint my vision.
"For you see, it is all about MERCHINDIZING,
MERCHINDIZING!"
  "Merchandising?" the bunny asked.

    "Yes, and you know if they ever make a monopoly version of our
army or perhaps a videogame about the war, people are going
to have invincibility cloaks for the humans and whatnot."
  The red rabbit sighed. He thinks I am insane.
  I am not insane though, for this is all just a test. The test is for
him to realize that it is utterly pointless of him to worry, for
he knows that we are immortal, as demons, and those
humans are mortal.
   We shall crush them to dust. So why worry about anything?
I take out an axe.
  "Pip," I say carelessly, "you know I loved ya, but you know why
you have to go?"
  "Why?" his voice squealed, "WHAT DID I DO?"
  I sighed. If Pip were smarter he would know why, but, if he
was smarter, he would also be able to avoid such a situation,
which would make it an assumption of ours that Pip would
know why (if he was smarter)
  I bring the axe down and it slices through pizza guts. I
hear a woman scream in some deep recess of my mind.



	chapter ii: Avalanche

  "Who was that fellow who always babbled about those Hobbits?"
  Old men sit in rocking chairs, scattered throughout a small room.
It is a quaint setting with a temperate atmosphere. Some of the men
smoke, while others drink tea with shrooms. Some are chugging bottles
of cough syrup, whilst others are simply lighting a blunt.
  A songbird whistles in the background an old tune from when
they were all young boys.
  "hmm, I don't remember his name exactly..." said Steve.
  "hmm... a hell of a stoner that man was..." said Eric.
  "I dunno.... yeah! yeah!" said Bob, pointing a finger to the sky.
  "because i remember," Bob elaborated, "how I would always be, like
uh, 'hey there J.R.R. TOKE, stop HOGGING THE WEED."
  Laughter echoes throughout the room and some spectators cry.
  "That fucking Einstein," said Eric.
  "What did he do?" I asked.
  "Einstein, while on mushrooms, told me this: 'Eric, I am about
to create something incredible; not only is it going to end a
war and bring peace, but it will also bring about a new
era and the destruction of the entire human race, by
their very own hands even!. I see the effect for every cause,
beginning with this very moment being a Cause for an Effect.'"
  "Then why did he do it?" I asked.
  "to get to the Thought Kingdom." Steve butted in. "That
fucking Einstein, now that he's in Thought Kingdom he
can strip away his visage of Righteousness. He can
bask in his sickest, most repressed fantasies. I've seen
him, shooting junk while getting his cock sucked by some
horny Japanese teacher named Mayumi, and a fucking nurse!
Curse that decadence that comes from Power!"
  "All those damn idiots; Einstein, Socrates, Aristotle, Newton...
they all did it to go to Thought Kingdom."
  "What is Thought Kingdom?" I inquired.
  "Thought Kingdom is the Kingdom of the Thought World." Eric said.
  Bob butted in, "I'm not sure our guest fully realizes the Thought World."
  "The Thought World," Bob said, "is where we make a mark
depending on what our thoughts were."
  I was confused and gave a puzzled look.
  "Just as you can map your world by the category of the
connections made between human to human, human to location,
location to location..." Steve said, "you can map out a world by the
category of your thoughts and intellectual maturity."
  "But isn't that all relative?" I asked.
  "No! Intelligence behind thoughts can be measured on an
indefinite scale," he declared.
  "But how so?" I asked.
  "Well; for example, someone who thinks that morals are
relative because they themselves don't believe in any
specific morals, as opposed to someone who thinks morals
are relative because they see the contradictions,
paradoxes and absurdity behind meaning, definition and
the very fabric of matter and time... the two are very different
intellectually despite having the same opinion on morals and
their relativity"
  "But this is getting off topic," Bob then declared.




	chapter iv: THOUGHT WORLD

  "Just as you can map your world by the category of the
connections made between human to human, human to
location, location to location..." Steve said, "you can map
out a world by the category of your thoughts and intellectual maturity."
  "Therefore, the mark you leave on the world, in any sense of fame
or glory, is much different then the mark you leave in the Thought World."
  "So it's like?" I asked stupidly.
  "Fine, fine, fine... tell him the useless simile." Bob yelled.
  "It is Heaven, but we are not measured so much by 'what
we were' and 'what we believed,' but rather how 'what we
were' 'got to be,' and how 'what you believe' 'came to be'
as well." Eric stated, "but by calling it 'Heaven,' we have
immediately brought some doubt forth in your mind, so you will
not believe us."
  "You are measured in Heaven based on the justification that
you, yourself, fabricated because of the situations, which also
contributes to your intellectual side."
  "But why not just judge the good and the bad moments?" I asked.
  "Because it is not important about what actually happened.
All that is important is the reasons behind the action, the
intent of the individual parties, because thoughts came
before action." Bob said.
  "Thoughts will forever be the plague that we must stop!" Eric declared.



	chapter v: Basins full of Paradox

  We lie half naked, she and I, and our hearts have never beat
faster.
  "Is this what you really want?" she asked me.
Another Paradox, I mutter.
  "I only want it if I know you want it," I said in a light coo.
  "But I only want it if I know you really want me.." she
whispered, "that you want me and not just my body."
  Then we'll never know. Let us believe our own stories, it
will make us feel better, because knowing makes us feel better.
  There is a paradox within knowledge though; the Greater
the understanding of a truth, which is thus made Absolute, the more
that very truth is immediately negated due to Objective, Rationale,
or Human thinking.
  In other words, no matter how much one learns and how much one
understands, He can never learn more than what others will call
"opinions," even despite the Truth.
  "The truth is that there is no truth." I say to her.
  "Then that truth is not true... therefore there is a truth."
  "The truth," I say noddingly, "is the same as God. We simply
cannot accept it in its most absolute form."
  She looked at me doubtlingly, and with the stare of a shady
cat she said "and how do you know any of this?"
  "There is a way to connect anything and everything, and once
one sees the patterns, it is hard to ever turn back."
  That fine line between sanity and insanity can be so much fun
to cross between, though does that make one insane?


	chapter vi: Interlude

  The movie played despite there being only a handful of people in
the theatre. Just a few older people and individuals, wanting to waste
a Sunday evening, scattered lightly across the seats.

A couple sits in the very front row/
but 'tis not for them to see.
To see the lights and epic flights/
of this action packed movie.
So they sit and touch  and moan and puff/
and shoot crack up their veins
He cums on the seat
while she's beating his meat
to this wavy trip todaaaaay.
Close Curtains.



	chapter vii: Answering Quantum Physics

  "Once you're on a bad trip, it's hard to really just sober yourself up.
You just need to give in to every little accusation and presumption
you make, and you just need to ride the waves and hope
you make it out alive."
  I shook my head.
  "But really what is the Greater Trip? That, my friends, is Life.
The very lives we live are a strange paradox. As we age, the more
we grow intellectually and the more we mature; we feel we
have more freedom and control over our lives. In actuality,
the older we get, the less control we have, because what we
become is based on what we were. Our past becomes
ever more important to us as we accumulate more
moments and memories to add to this indefinite universe,
we call My Existence, or the Past."
  "What we eventually become is victims to our own drug;
whatever it is that we have a passion for. Our greatest
strength becomes the very foil, the seed of anger and
insecurities."
  I pause to breathe.
  "So all we can do, from our mistakes and blunders of the past,
is to just ride the waves... nothing really exists."
  I raise my hand.
"For you see, do You, the Reader, know if it is I that is speaking or I that 
is a listener
in an active discussion? Am I and He the same Character? Is this entire 
chapter a
monologue of one Man in a room, or is it a one on one discussion, whereas I 
am the
speaker and He writes the story? Each are both equally valid and each are 
equally
true, regardless of any intent from the Author. They become your reality, 
and in
essence, did happen in the story that You and Reading."
  "So what question does this ask?" I ask, as the teacher rambles on and on.
  "I just proved," he said, "how we can be in two places at the same time."
  "But I didn't feel any different," I said.
  "Reality Changes never feel much different," He replied, "It's why nobody
seems to notice."
  "Ambiguity really hurts intent, huh," I say.



	Chapter viii: Good bye

  "So this is it?" I say, as the night slowly melted by the coming forth of 
day.
  "What did you expect?" He said to me. His portly body accompanied his
robust laugh.
  "I never expected any of this to happen..." I say.
  "You've seen things and felt things that no Man should ever have to
have done..."
  "But Why, Why God?"
  "Because you are..." He paused.
He pauses for a moment, to let me beg for redemption once more.
  "Because you create realities that are simply unfit to be, because you
created me, because you become what you write, and because you
become what you think and feel."
  Is that such a crime?



	chapter ix: Coffee House Detective
		    Part Two
  A crime... A crime, I remembered. I hired that guy to kill
my Intellectual Side. That guy disguised himself as God. Or
Perhaps God was the Coffee-House-Detective.
  I stopped for a moment. Looked behind me. Nothing. Good.
  But why did I do this? Why did I want to lose the intellectual
side of myself? Why?  I recall saying something along the lines
of, "if the intellectual side goes, then the will to live will go as 
well..."
I can make no sense of it though. Just empty words, spilling
blood upon soil that does not exist.
  It is what we think that makes us live. It is how we justify the
moments that would otherwise be random particles dancing
throughout random matter, because we create them to be
our Reality. Without any ability to think would come the will
to die. But why would I want such? Perhaps my only desire was
to not think anymore; thoughts only bring more sadness and more
confusion into life.
  I walk alongside a dark alley, whereas a small, muddy stream
is flowing through the middle. I see a scrap of paper floating
down, and I pick it up. something about it was alluring.
  On the back, is written, "Look in Kitchen."
  I walk slowly towards the Kitchen and when I see what a bloody
mess is scattered throughout that room. I must close my eyes
briefly to avoid vomiting.
  Did I make this mess?
  What happened during all my trips, all my drug excursions, all
my day dreaming, night dreaming, lucid dreaming, acid dreaming and
sleep walking moments? What did I do while I was gone?
  A torn up scrap of paper from my journal is at my feet. I pick it up 
nervously
  "Damn, Damn, Damn! I should have seen this coming. Whenever I left on an
Acid trip or a Dex Trip, I just assumed this mortal body would become a 
prone,
empty shell for the time being. I should have guessed that my body would 
want
my mind there, for its selfish needs: it made me all the more sick whenever
I returned. Sick in the mind, sick to a psychotic state. Who have I killed? 
Who will I Kill?"
  This was written just two hours ago, but I have no recollection of doing 
so.
All I can remember are dreams.


	Chapter x: Atlantis

  Why did my body do this? Why is my mind doing this? I ravage notebooks
for any sort of hints.
  I find the One.
  "I want to die. I have rationally induced that life is not worth living. I 
have also
rationally concluded that reality is what we think it to be, so that those 
very moments
that our brain is still active after our body dies (in that dream state) I 
shall think up
a new life. Whatever that life is, I'm sure it will be different and weird, 
but its my
Utopia. Perhaps I shall write about it someday and think it through to this 
reality."
  "But I can't get myself to do it, for the very mind that made me realize 
such is
also the cause of all inhibitions against any form of suicide. I know once I 
am dumb, I will
be able to kill myself, however, I know I will not be able to understand it. 
Therefore,
it shall never have been a reality, and I shall cease to exist."
  "Geez" I said, " You're just a fucking character in a story."
  "And none of this makes sense," I say.
  “While you were off hunting your dreams and living your life through your 
thoughts,
the whole world did the same, and now all that’s left are these scattered 
scraps of useless paper.”



	Chapter xi: Nostalgia

  "And god would ask, with his mighty guitar by his brazen side,
if you would want to join him in this world, where realities are more
than just what you make them: it's what you think them to be in their
truest of forms."
  "Are there any drawbacks?" I asked.
  "Well, you would appear to be dead in the reality that you came from."
  "Well, would I feel any pain?"
  "No, you won't."
  "Then how will I know I'm dead?" I ask.
  "You won't care once you infuse in
our world because it doesn't matter."
  So I decided to stay.




	Chapter xii: Trick Question

  I did not decide to stay that time. For I knew I must come back and write 
about such
events. I must let some of this truth leak out, however, God and the 
Universe are not
scared because they know it will sound like utter nonsense. That's how they 
planned
it to be, for the paradox in our language and systemic memory has caused the 
Absolute
Truth to seem a most ridiculous, stupid, lay-mans belief.
  Or perhaps I am just insane. However, I can rationalize why I'm insane. 
Should that
not, in light of fact, make me Sane? It will in your eyes, but I will always 
be haunted
by the Paradox. For I know I am Truly Insane, from my Sane Rationale, 
however
I know I am Sane as well. Which do I hold dear?
  It is not a conspiracy. It is just one man's wish to Die, and His search
for the reasons behind such.


______________________________________________________________________________
Beggar and the City
______________________________________________________________________________
Part 1
   It was not until some weeks after I met our aquaintance
that we were to actually meet. To know someone who
has no say on ones self is a selfish thing to do.

   I found a small bag belonging to him, containing little
more than his wallet and various documents required
for travel and identification , etc. It seems our dear friend
was attempting to leave the country.
  It was more than this, however, that allured me. Something
that spoke of pulchritude or perhaps, simply, emmincence.
  In his very picture, which he had left behind for me so
happendly to find, and on such accord did my find first settle.
  I should have stopped myself, by giving the bag to the
proper authorities, so its so rightful master can reclaim what
was his. Though, I must admit, I found the circumstances quite
odd, for the very chance of such a man, having to leave the country,
to leave a small bag containing personal items, to be found
in the hands a beggar.

  I remained in an abiding state for several weeks, although during
which I so humbly researched our dear friend. I was actually there
by accident, begging for change and any spare hopes, when I saw
him approaching.

  He paid little attention to me at first, aside from a few coughs
from my dear cup, the echoes of cold coins, and I smiled
in thanks towards this stranger.

We began conversation, from which point I felt something
so cheaply charming about this fellow. His expression and
his voice dripped mellancolly: Why had he stopped just
now to talk to a hapless beggar? What benefits had he to
gain?

When he left, I felt in strange awe. His resiliant stride and
train of thought had left me stunned; for I had not expected
such to happen. At no time had he given any suspicion to
the foil of his life; the poor, desolate beggar. Neither, at that
time, had he even offered the slightest conviction of concern
towards his possesion. Apparantly he valued material possessions
very little.

He had a mistress, so I assumed, over early the next day. The
grass was a moist sponge for sunlight, and the chirps of various
city animals mingled pointlessly with their surroundings in
an echo of vast cacophony.

I awoke in a small corner, as people walked silently
by me. To them I am simply part of the scenery, an extention of
flesh to whatever wall or floor I am against.

He stood waiting, flowers in hand, and a shy smile
that was well returned. She was beautiful, nay; beautiful
is too callous a word. Young, robust, and radiating with
unadulterated sexual finesse. Moreso was her demeaner
towards him, and his innocent charm and voice that left
her smiling inside. Together, as a couple, they seemed perfect.

She left, paying little attention to the short, stout man
sitting across the street from her. I ducked hurridly to
avoid any contact, but it was merely out of vanity.

Nights crept into me. I found myself wide awake as
the sun slowly fermented into the sky. The weather was
a bit colder, and I know that he lays in comfort, as I in
shambles.

I could see his lover lying in his arms, as her gentle breathing
kept a metronome of conjured heartbeats in tune. I felt
a suddent warmth in my stomach at the thought of being
mate to such a goddess. Though, not long after this thought
was finished, I felt such shame! How I may have ruined his
life, how I could, and even worse, the thoughts that echoed
throughout my head, as convictions chipped away at my sanity.

At first, I thought stealing his identity would bring me merit,
and thus, success. Upon hours of research, however, I found our
dear friend to be quite prodigious in his studues, and quite
well respected in other areas as well.

A model citizen, if means do tell the ends. Though, such a change
that would be required, in order to play the part, was mostly
superficial, while his bank still remained as empty as it was
when I checked; money seemed quite out of reach.

The thought had passed through my mind, really, the thought that such
a man of his intelligence and reputation must have some money.
Surely he must keep it at home, hidden away; perhaps he fears a
depression. It would also explain his three locks, for when
I counted them, it was brisk monday afternoon.

I found his writings to be quite entertaining, although the task of
reading seemed to be of less worth than its rewards. He had written
a novel, after he gained some recognition off of various publications
he had written for newpapers, and its success was almost non-existant.

Despite this, oh, how I wished to be him! Such thoughts had he
written and managed to capture, and with such intelligence.

It was a Sunday evenining, and I was in my usual place,
across the street from his apartment. I was quite pensive that
night, for reasons unbeknowest, so I did no notice her
drop a quarter into my cup.

I looked up quickly and it was her: the object of His affections. She
smiled at my dumbstruck, idiotic expression, for upon seeing such I felt
I understoood his writings. So much of her had influenced him, subconciously
even; she was his muse, as his writings played a fair lark. I smiled, 
gently,
and ather than feel sha,e at such a toothless beggar, she began to laugh.
  "I am very glad that you are able to enjoy life, even without the
constant bearings of money."
  I looked up, as if I were a violin and she the fingertips.
She paused, to finish a thought, and she then added.
"Money has never really done anyone any good, really."

I recalled this very theme throughout several of his
stories; superificiality and facing the absurd paradox
of reason. I replied, from a conversation from
one of his stories, "People can be so vain. The irony in
this lies in the context of the human scale of reason."
I paused, to see if she recognized any of the words, but
she remained attentive as if I were saying it myself.
I continued: "For to mark vanity as vanity is along
similar lines of having, in ones possession, a vast amount
of wealth, while simultaneously pointing out the absurdities
of money. We often find the most vain to be the most repulsed
by such notions as appreciating the very pinnicle of such vanity."
  She laughed, and I heard a shout from my left. It was him,
asking her what business she had wit hme. Not in the least
bit of offense had he expressed this, rather, he was just curious.

The very generosity! They offered to take me in for a night. I felt
such glee, as if a child was asked to thrust himself into a world
of endless candy.

His home was quite quaint. He had various books on a shelf,
and a bed. I see he had no radio, which I found quite strange, but
in response to my asking he replied that he was not fond of the
it.

His meal was a surprise as well. A very humble, lightly seasoned
meal, with no prayer, however, they asked me if I wished to make
one.

And we talked of lives and dreams, of ephemeral scope, and
when our cigarettes were out and the dishes lay bare, I suddenly
felt an intense fear shiver through my body.

I felt something was astray, as if the moment was not really
happening. My eyes darted, suddenly, searching for places
money could be well kept, and I felt my breathing grow
heavier.

They asked me if I was alright, and I replied with my condolences;
for it had been so terribly long since I have had such a meal,
and my poor stomach could no handle such generosity!

It was about then that the sudden though of stabbing both of them,
as he sat smoking another cigarette in bliss, and she picking up
the various dishes, came into my mind and left with myself out
the door.

Part 2
  I could not sleep. I cannot sleep. Nights became days, as
time molded together into some slick disgusting creature in
my brain. I could no recall yesterday, as I
knew not tomorrow, and I felt as if I were a birds eye-watching.

I felt such hate, such disgust, towards myself, for decisions
and seemingly youthful care-free attitudes left bones so bare.
Remorse! A fellow that one could take out drinking some lonely
Wednesday night.

And yet, a strange animosity filled my heart every night I thought
of either of them, together or seperate. I saw them togehter in
their Utopia away from all Utopias, a place to call their own.

It was also that night, the night of a humble meal
and company, that he had mentioned his desire to leave
M-------, and when I asked why he had not left yet,
he replied that he had lost his belongings.

I did not know how to react, for any such action could
lead to his suspicions astray. I know not how I replied, though
I noticed a more stern look hiding seedily in his
eyes, every time he saw me.

For I know now what allured me to him, his life, and
his lover. I spent nights, throwing my desperation and
loathing into some infamous plot, hoping it would bounce
back as reality.


His dissapearance should come as no surprise. I had
gone into a police station, after leaving the bag carefully
outside, near one of their cars, and claimed it to be
mine.
  Of course, how should they doubt me, for upon showing
my various documents proving His identity, they handed
me the bag and I replied with thanks.

>From doing so, I wrote many letters to various friends
of his, in his very voice, acertaining to his anonymous
departure. I made sure, with an intensity rivaled by that
of God Himself, that my voice and tone in the writings had
been exactly his. Ironically, he had given me an old typewriter
that he used to write his very stories on, and what greater
irony then to be struck down by ones former tool? Many laughed
at the various klinks and klanks of the beggar, typing away madly,
on his own plane of thought, to remain unperturbed and unnoticed
except by those few very tourists, who would stop to stare
at any notice of attraction.

Though more mad had I become from reading them,
countltess times, through my very eyes. I felt his
longing to leave, which he wrote about constantly,
and his desire for the unkonwn. I read each letter
I had written, as if reading to the person it was
specifically adressed to, and gauged each individual
reaction to each and every word. It took about a week,
which when one does not sleep, is approximately 150
hours of solid writing and revising to get it perfect.

  It was absolutely stunning.

That night I slept with the tranquility
of a clear conscience. I had a dream,
and despite having amnesia upon awaking,
I felt as if it were a harbinger of some kind.

Part 3

His footsteps echoed quietly as he walked up the steps. I approached
him and gave greeting. He asked how I had been, since he had not
seen my around, and I told him, as of recent, I had spent
many of my days writing.

He felt an affinity with me; perhaps he saw me as a pupil? He was
the one who supplied the resources. He offered a cigarette
and some coffee, over a nice conversation inside, he stressed
those last three words. I could no help buy comply.

He was fascinated, for what I described in my writings
sounded so much like his writings that he felt we were
mentally connected.
  "And how ironic could this be? You are me, though
you are just a beggar!" He said with absolutely no offense,
moreso, I suspected a desire that he wished to switch places.
He confirmed such suspicious by quickly adding that he
would end up a beggar, whereever he eventually went, had he his
documents.

It struck me as no surprise, and yet, it seemed so unrealistic,
Had this man any money or ambition? His writings seemed
to fulfill his mind, but his heart was empty. I knew now that
he lacked the experience of a life fully experienced of all
possible; who really wishes to take a chance that there
is another life?

The phone rang, and as he picked it up, I felt a sudden nervousness.
I expected it to be her, guilt stricken and in pain, from the letter
I had written her. I could no restrain myself from curling my lips
slightly in a menacing grin at such a malicious thought.
  Rather, it was the Prefect. I could hear his voice, quite
stern, even from across the room.
"Do you remember how you called me a few weeks ago,
asking me to keep an eye out for your bag?"
  "The small, brown, leather bag that contains many important
documents of mine?" he replied, urgently and with a hint of
optimism.
  "Well, we found it last week, on a Tuesday afternoon, though it
was picked up by you, apparantly."
  "What? Impossible! We were just having lunch on
that very day; how could I have done that?"
  "Well," the prefect pondered, "the man who picked
up your bag had all of your documents of identification,
and the man stationed at the time had no idea of
what you looked like. He was just hired the day before."
He asked for a description of the man, and the Prefect
replied a beggar of sorts; short and stout. Shaggy hair,
wrinkled face, old cough.

It was at this time time that I, behind him now,
stuck a butcher knife into his neck, which
came out his front side, bursting his throat
wide open. I quickly caught the phone as
he dropped it, and, holding the phone quite
still, I continued on slashing and stabbing until
his gargling stopped. The scene was quite
morbid, actually. His head had become almost
detached from his neck.

The Prefect, stunned, asked if I was there.
  I replied, in a perfectly crafted voice.
from which hours and hours of patience
was put into.
  "The beggar is at my door. He came just
now."
The police man asked if I was alright, for he had heard
some strange noises.
  "It was nothing, my dear friend is quite sick.
I have known him for quite some time, and we exchange
words often. He is here to return my bag."
  The Prefect paused for a moment, said "all's well
that ends well," and after exchanging various thanks
and goodbyes, finally hung up.

The phone rang some hours later, as I was
carrying his body into the bathtub. I had layed
out various towels and prepared a solution as which
to dissolve the body in and also cover the smell
until the body is dissolved into an ambiguis sludge-like
material. The phone continued to ring.

I picked up the phone with an impulsive caution
that can only bring more excitement. In a very
shaky voice, I heard her cry, "Please, do not leave
me all alone, for what worlds have I to share with
whom now?"
  I could not help but smile, for I shall tell her to
come over for one last time, so as we can talk
in person, and in His voice, I shall.
______________________________________________________________________________
Insanity
______________________________________________________________________________
The essence is of sweet perfume. Was I really going this insane? How many
lives have I broken, getting those damn fine splinters in my feet. They were
already blood-stained as they always are.
  I pause. Blood. Blood, look at that very word. The way the B curves,
and the two O's that attach and l and d, the very S between that LSD.
This word is gothic in appearence, which thus made us associate it
with something we find dark, disturbing, and violent. Blood is the essence
of this darkness, and that crimson hue pulled over any of our eyelids
would never be good. Death is never pretty.
  Or so I thought. A young man, 20 years old, who is dissassociated
from the world. "I have dissillusioned for quite some time," he once stated
to himself. "I create a false reality which I exist in, thus making it 
reality by
my very hands. I am God."
  What redemption of grand scale was he trying to go through?
Hark, the son is calling. The soul of all lost bodies, and grim green
giants as well, crept softly up my spine.
  This demon-god love child is what we call self. We call it Self, though
we feel selfless in doing so. That is why only I exist.
  I traveled, and many places have been in my head, but no place
can ever compare to this. Death is never very much of a nice place
to be. But as all tourists say, "Another day, another place."

  Chapter 1: Self
She was a cold damsel in distress. The type that would
take your cigarette, light it with a zippo, and flick the ash at
you. She was real dirty like that.
  I had some good times with her, nonetheless. Painting
the entire town in a sweaty coat, spreading glossy
dreams into little minds to grow into evil manifest.
Corrupting minds and watching life fade was like
the cigarette smoke blowing through the wind.
  A classic Bonnie and Clyde, though all too similar.
If I die, she will die too. It is not because of the same
reasons that I choose, nor the same means. She will die
because of me, and she is ever so happy at doing so.
It is harder for women to understand objectivity. The
world to them is simply objects that are related to themselves.
People are placed in a social scale by ones own desires. The only
true way to understsand objectivity is to look at everything
as pieces. Each thought simply a piece of a puzzle that
we must define, refine and process. Each shade and hue,
each placement of particles in a room, are simply a 2
dimensional picture in our mind. And yet, once one understands
everything, one also understands everything in relation to
themselves. Thus we gain knowledge of Women as well
as Ourselves.
  "Selfless as always," I mumbled, as a faint crackling of parched, 
desperate
eyes poured buckets of tears on me.  "You always do this," she exclaimed,
"how am I supposed to feel?"
  How are you supposed to feel?
  I don't know.
  I don't.
  So please.
  Leave me alone.
  Just go away.
  I want to find myself.
  I just want to be alone for a
  Little While.
"Please go away," I asked the world, "please let me live."
  "Life cannot exist without reality," The World stated, "and reality
cannot exist without life." The nude resemblence startled me.
  "You need me as much as I need You," I remarked. I hope I win
this game. I snicker, but then The World rebuked with a quick
"But I don't need You. Fine. Go kill youself."
  Why, why, why, must this be such a cruel place?

Chapter II: Peaceful Skies
"Just have faith," said the big sign. A flopping vagina of old means,
whoring itself to the people. "You know you want this."
"This is you," it continued, "and you know you have a problem.
Think about it. Someone hates you or you hate someone. Conflict
and drama run your life, and cause stress and depression. You must
change yourself first, so buy buy buy!"
  Suddenly a giant beehive squishes out of the sign, with fresh nectar
and sweaty dew covering it in fine gloss. Honey oozes out, ripe and fresh,
as I slide my toungue carefully over it, letting each second soak up that 
honey.
Back and forth I counted carefully, as my toungue slid up and down, to grasp
each and every facet of this beauty.
  "buy buy buy!" the infomercial screamed, with veins popping blue and 
black.
"You want this new videogame system, and look at these donuts, don't they 
look
tasty? You want to look better? Wear this cologne, because smell is 
important, It
is indeed, so buy these breathmints, or if you want to look really fab, chew 
gum like
it ain't no thang."
  She was so beautiful. Why, why, why, can't I have you? Why can't we lay 
down together
with nothing but the moon and stars to look back at us? Why must every smile 
send such
shivers down my throat, and whip lions inside my very loins? If only she 
knew of the
worlds and monsters I would save her from, the very sacrifice I would offer
for just a moments happiness.
  She was quite the trick though.

Chapter III: May
  "And what's your name?" she asked me. Birds were off chirping somewhere
in the distance, and the clouds lay peacefully on top of blue blankets.
  "What was that?" I asked.
  "What, do I have something inbetween my teeth?" she asked.
  "I like toothpaste, but I prefer mouthwash," I replied.
  "Wait a second, wait a second!" she exclaimed, "lets go
brush our teeth!"

Chapter IV: Wonder Comets Plato
  "If you can understand it," the teacher said, "then you don't need
to read any furthur, you can now go live and be enlightened."
  "But teach, it makes no sense" said a student.
  "As you can clearly tell, he called the third chapter 'May' because
that is the name of the girl."
  "She asked what his name was, and then the narrator went on to
talk about birds and clouds." the class said.
  "It is to show complete disassociation. There were two people in
a room, a boy and a girl. They are both disassociated with reality.
Therefore, each time someone said something, the other would
reply with something only partially related. However, the relation is
made in the individuals mind. For example, he asked 'what was that'
in reply to a question she was asking, and she thought he was asking
'what was that' in relation to something in her teeth, Perhaps she felt
something inbetween her teeth, and thought he noticed."
  The class began to listen and their ears opened up, sucking
in hot air and butter, "So each person was responding to
what they logically thought the other person meant?"
  "Yes. See when she said, 'What, do I have something inbetween
my teeth?' he then thought of his teeth and how he likes to
brush them, but prefers using mouthwash,
  "But now that we get it, we don't feel any smarter," the students
said, as they looked at their socks in discontent.
  "It is all just a metaphor for the bigger picture; To give order
to chaos we must simply accept all as Right and Possible."
  "Metaphor is bad" said a student.
  "It is classic scientific method. The higher the probability that
a thought exists, the more existant it is. The more existant we all
our,"
  "So you understand everything," said a skeptic.

Chapter V: Ether Night Radio
Where did I go? I was in Greece, or someplace of old time, and
I was being lectured by plato. I told him that metaphor was bad,
and then he beat me with a stick. What an Asshole.
  Note to self: "You might die soon, probably by your own hands,
and I'm here to say, Goodbye!"
  I turn my head slightly, and hear a groaning bear in my stomach.
Where am I and how long have I been doing this? I struggle frantically
to find a mirror, and look in putrid horror at this sculture in front of me.
  "I feel like I did when I was a Jew stuck in a Nazi concentration camp.
There were no mirrors there. Many years later, when the survivors
would look in mirrors, they would feel as if they were looking at a
completely different person. Not only are they detached from their
physical image of themself, which is obvious to happen because
they would have grown and changed appearance while at the camp.
They are also detached from their mental selves, which they tell by
looking deep into their eyes, because they are looking hauntingly back.
Insane stuff, huh?" I hear it announced and knew it was going to
come out even before I heard it, so I'm sorry for spoiling it.
  I paused to yawn and look at the words in front of me. Suddenly
I could make out paddles with Indians rowing. Is it a hallucination if
I know my mind is just thinking it, that my imagination is just making me
picture full images out of mere harbingers? The very faint shadows that
I see renarjubg (resonating?) quaint features makes me appreaciate
the seemless flow of beauty."
  "Just ride that rainbow," I heard myself say. "Ride those rainbows."

Chapter VI: Sunflower Oasis Sparkle
"Help!" he screamed.

Chapter VII:
Clever, but stupid. So you found it out, but what does that mean? It
means that you are really stupid, but also that your thought process
is very compliant with abstract thought, Abstract thought is
simply letting ones imagination take hold of their perception
for a split second, a mere speck of cosmic universe. Abstract
thought gives us an appreciation for the deeper thoughts, though
they also realize the very superificiality of their own need
to classify such things as "superficial" and "Deep."
  "So that chapter six," I moaned, with faces staring blankly at
me, "is really S O S, like Sunflower Oasis Sparkle. And it says
help."
  Imagination! What fun.

Chapter VIII: Spaghetti Western Finale
  "I'm writing, don't disturb me!" I screamed. My friends backed off
as I wrote, and spoke into a megaphone. "This is important."
  "Dude," one of them said, "you're just really fucked up right now,
and stoned, and tripping on that damn cough medicine again."
  "Don't forget the beer," another said.
  "Listen people," I announce, "I have little time to chat. I can feel
myself forgetting, as if shedding time and precious breath, and I
know I cannot forget it."
  "Forget what?" they smiled. They knew it was already over.
  "I don't remember...." I say. I mutter, and watch my words
slowly lose steam and crumble on the ground. I lay in
my own defeat.
  I look at my paper. "I look at my paper," it says. That won't
help me remember! Arg! I look again. "I look again" it says,
and I can't remember why I wrote it. Simply the fact that I
must remember something? Remember what?
  I look again. "I look again" is still written. But why would
I write that twice? Ok, I'll look one last time. I look at my paper.
"OK, I'll look one last time." is written. One Last Time, I think.
I recall as song I heard on the radio once. It was quite sappy,
and written by some 16 year old who was in love with a girl.
  It went something like;
    You're more beautiful then all the stars in the Sky.
    Or so I think as I get lost in your eyes.
    I open my mouth just to watch words slip away.
    It's not you; I just don't know what to say.
That girl is so pretty, like a perfecty sculpted pixel.
  "I can't forget her!" I yell in victory.
  The ghost are laughing at me. They hold faces, masks
of my very friends, and strip away their shadows. "But
how do you know she exists? We don't exist, though we
are just a huge figment of your imagination. We don't exist,
and no one will ever believe you. So how can you believe
yourself, and how can you believe she is real?"
  "Don't forget her," I say to myself, "never forget her."

Chapter IX: Forgive and Forget.
"I know I can't win" I told him. This whole legal system was as
lost as the society we can never seem to escape.
  "You see," I said, "if I am really guilty, then I would want
to say I'm innocent to hide for myself. If I was not guilty,
then I would be saying I'm innocent because I am. The
problem is, there is no way for anyone that is not myself
to know what I am doing."
  "Also," I added, "the punishment is more harsh if you plead
innocent and are proven guility, as if you were hiding something.
What if you are proven guilty but are really innocent? I suppose
it doesn't matter, because it won't bring back old friends..."

Chapter X: Paradox Float
The cold starry night was a haven for lost souls. Ravens
scavenging for bits and pieces of hopes and dreams would
go hustle people for money, and others would simply
ask for change. I was in a bar once, because someone
had been fortunate enough to want to buy me a drink,
rather than toss quarters into my cup.
  'I'll have the paradox float," I say to the bartender.
  "What's that?" asked my company, the very same person
who is buying my drink,
  "It's a drink so potent it will make you shit faced in
seconds, and it is called a paradox float because I drink
to crash and fade away for a mere moment, though I know
the escape is only temporary and I will feel worse when
I awake."
  "So why not stay asleep forever" the man asked me.
  "Wait a second," I say to him, and I begin feelig
a bit suspicious.  This man felt all too familiar,
and I glide my hand slowly across the knife in my
pocket. "Have we met?"
  "In a dream," he said as he stood up, flicking
a cigarette into his fingers as if by some leger=
demain, "Or perhaps in another life," he added as he
tossed a few dollars at me and, with his other hand,
flicked open a zippo. The mettalic klank was music
to my ears, and I recognized the lighter; it was mine.
He left and dissapeared into the night, perhaps a
figment of my imagination. Though, regardless,
I was drunk and passed out from that damn
Paradox.

When I awoke, the stale cigarettes and cheap
cologne almost made me throw up again, My hair
was sticky with some substance, probably vomit,
and I had no clue where I was. A hotel room,
nonetheless, but where? Why? Who was I?

Assuming this was my place, I go to take a
shower, though a part of me is still lying down,
as if to question my very existance. Did I die
the other night, from that overdose of whatever
drug came my way at the time. Perhaps I am
just watching a dream.

  "The problem," my psychologist once said,
"is that you are so disassociated with reality
that you exist in a 'false reality.'" I rolled my eyes
in the mirror at this nut job.
  "You are so convinced that the world is simply
another dream that it has become such for you,
because you cannot tell the difference between
when you're awake and when you're dreaming."
I give myself a puzzled look and ask myself,
"so is that good or bad?"
  "I don't know," my psychologist replied, "but
you seem to suffer from OCD, clinical depression,
ADD, marijuana, mushroom and DXM addiction..."
and the list goes on. Why bother?

Chapter XI: Rascal Finess
"Listen to me," the book shouted in my face. My very words
turning on me as I write, each one a bitter rebel spitting in my
wind. "You must not forget about her. She is the reason you
live, she is your love, and she is everything to you."
  "What about objectivity?" I reply.
  "You are distracting yourself and you will never
find her again. You lost her, remember?"
  Then it hit me. My girlfriend. Her name, which I can
hardly remember. She just got fed up with my
psychopathic, insane bullshit. My constant ramblings,
for often I would treat her as if a bunny in one of my dreams.
She is the one I must find, through my writing, that is the essense
of myself.
  "In order to understand yourself," said The Great Cynic Leo, "you
must first admit you are not complete, and as a Human you have
some innate faults that are not yours to blame. As with any understanding,
you must understand both halves to know the hole. She is that other
part of you that you must catch."
  A sick game of cat and mouse, indeed. The bread here tastes stale,
so why not go and eat a chicken for four bucks?

______________________________________________________________________________
Circe
______________________________________________________________________________

Being pertentious was my only virtue. A man
of means, though even the moon can be so far
away from our mortal minds, and with such
abundance; I kept walking.

To be dead upon a midnights stroke,
with only time to fill the gaps that
leave us bare. This wasteland we
call The City; bodies, silent with
mortality, lay in rooms and indulge
in honey decadance.

but let us go to my one and only
confidant, the foil of all means,
dear Cesar.

Cesar was a strange man, a man
Of secrets and a man of means. He did
what not many could accomplish, which
was to have the complete face of seriousness
in death. All of it was an act, and
all was simply a pretention. To meditate
on ones sins is to let oneself boil alive,
slowly and with much agony in the sparing
parts, but not many could endure and he
was no exception.

I saved him though, saved him that night
I called him. Friends are to there to talk
to you on nights one would not feel like
going out at all. I spent a night talking,
which was the night that was supposed to
be the end of his life, though
conviction convinced him
otherwise.

For I am simply a spool of thread, to be
made into the fabric of imagination. In
the recesses of his mind, he alone sat and
rocked back and forth, mumbling tales of honeydew
and sandalwood. To let oneself wash away with the
smoke, cleansing te air of itself, and causing death
and despair towards the somber world.

"and that is the meaning.." he said to me.
"It means nothing, as do you. As do all of us.
WE are simply here to ask ourselves if life
is worth living based on what we know."
He and I sat, on a tuesday afternoon,
when the streets were empty, yet the
pavement still warm, from the busy
passerbyers that had just driven back to
work from lunch.

We were too broke to eat though, and our wallets
screamed for money as desperate as the starving child
resting inside our hearts.

We say and talked, a machine of vast interworkings
and twine, with which we molded worlds and
stories. I was created in such a brothel; an
orgy of steaming ideas, ripe for the taking and
the moment.

"When one accepts all, he can cast away his innate
doubt," I say to Cesar, as the wind blows soft
melodies into the trees. To ask the colors
why the leaves take such from them, with nothing
to respond but "It was no problem on my part."
"The innate need to know," I listed, "the innate
feeling to believe in something; anything, whether
by name or association, and with that the innate
need to find the higher power. God."
Cesar was a bright kid, but his imagination
was just limited by the countless inhibitors
stocked inside ones mind. To empty himself
of all is to accomplish the fulfillment of the
ultimate desire: JNothing.

I had no plans, and neither did he. Whenever someone
wanted to talk and spend some intimate time talking,
one could always come to me. I was there, and because
my planner was not only nonexistant, but blank, so
I could take time out of the day to make the most of it.
Every person I met was given however much time I felt,
and time is one of the only things that humans can
be truly generous about.


Cesar was almost in tears, for such talks brought
the most feminine aspects out of him: "So no matter
what I know, I lack the confidence to say what I truly know."
I looked at him and offered a cigaretter for consolation,
for it had been too long since we had one.
AFter liting up, I responded: "When one simply knows,
rather than believing, one can simply act. When one knows
nothing, there is nothing one does not know, and it no
longer becomes a matter of 'do' and 'don't.'"
But I did not allow a reprisal, for my mind was still
rolling with fresh type.
"It is because we truly know nothing. We discover
things that we can only conceptualize, and yet we
make a catagory for it anyway. Always smaller; it is
as if we are trying to put together a puzzle, and in order
for us to understand the pieces, we must make them smaller
in order for us to understand it."
Cesar was, at best, befuddled. My words were like jumbled soup,
salty in the can, and he had no interest in jargon.
"For example," I offer as my lungs hold in smoke, "everything is
relkated: psychology, quantum physics, philosophy, economics,
and even sociology." I blow out the smoke slowly, "and when one
realizes that it is simply rationale that attaches the respective
terminologies and 'right' answers, expression becomes a langauge.
We are all striving to see the picture, but it is only possible
to see the picture from a certain angle. Our bias is that angle."
"So what makes you any different?" Cesar asked. The devil in his
eye, with protest and waitings of judgment.
"My only bias is that I am unbias. I see all; when it comes right
down to it, the ultimate expression and langauge is that of
infiniy."
"The capacity?"
I smile as I drop my cigaretter and smush it with my foot. My
student is learning.

Regardless, my existance is that of a dot, with my perception
allolwing me to see the vast infinites within. Even the most
infinitismally small point can be a vast curtain of pitch black,
vast colors in an array combined to that blinding white, and
with which we can be lost forever. The complexities of the mind
are, by nature, quite obscure and dreamy. Around my dot,
when ones perception is of more visceral means, is simply
a sphere; electrons of thoughts surround, and protect, the
nucleus that we call self. Eleectrons are labeled: some are
selfless, others are selfish, while most are others opinions
and thoughts. With which each image is a mirror of self, and
when one sees the nothing within, one shall look into
a mirror and see nothing but the vast infinity of space.

But not to get off topic: Cesar. He was a friend, a clost
friend, and when I heard of his death I felt quite disturbed.
For one to understand is for one to lose interest, for the innate
huuman desire to understand (as if with a purpose) is the very
basis of all human thought. We wish to understand our place
in the universe to help allow perception changes; we wish to
travel back time in order to fix things only retrospect
can offer. We know, and yet, we know nothing as of this moment.
We are unsure of our actions, and so unsure of tomorrow. We
are unaware and scared; the winter can be so cold, and yet,
the cold damp that we call the human heart can bleed such
fresh flowers and rainbows.

At his funeral, many were in shock and wonder. Amongst
the crowd, many whispers; "He was so younge..."
"What a loss..." "he had such a future in front of him.."
and so on. And with that, I lit a cigarette right on the
spot and threw a cigarette in his coffin. He had an open
casket, as he had planned, and he wished he could have
a cigarette for the afterlife. Whatever that shall be.
For it is simply a dream, and that cigarette will last
him forever, for he can no longer use it. With visceral
means comes practicality, and circumstance is everything.
We say that we are innocent or guilty, and most is
based on circumstance rather than character. Circumstance
is that which involves interaction and judgment, and
what else can happen when the mind multiplies into two.

I met a girl there, a friend of his, of whom I had quite
te conversation with.
"So... how did you know Cesar?" she asked me, with bitter
tears staining her eyes.
"I knew him for a while. We talked a bit, and then we
went our ways..."
She paused, as if waiting for me to say more, though instead
I looked away and smoked in silence, just as Cesar had always
enjoyed. The silence was too much for her to take, as most women
seem to feel, and she blurted out, "he talked about you a lot...
you're Deken, right?"
Without any sense of astonishment I asked her who she was,
for Cesar never talked much about me to anyone. I was, after all,
a figment of his imagination.
"cecilia..." at which she paused, "but people call me
Circe."
I smiled a bit at that one, for what woman does
not corrupt the mind of man in such a manner?
The numerous crowd was dead silent, save the cries and
sniffles, as memories of Cesar mixed and matched
to create his very identity. She continued, as
I walked calmly off to finish my cigarette in peace.
"he talked about you a lot, and he told me that
I would never understand why he had to do what he
did. IT was your fault, wasn't it? That's why
you are being so quiet." Tears were rolling
down her eyes. What intimacy they must have
had!
I stood outside by a tree, as the gathering
to my right were saying their last goodbyes
to that which is called Cesar. Sinners
were redeamed instantly at their confession
to the dead, which in all due resepect
is the ultimate testimony. Who would
not take the chance to confess to a deadman?
I looked at the various clouds scattered
throughout that ocean blue, as the sun
worked its eight hour shift, just to go home
to a lousy and kids and wife.
To my surprise she was still there beside me,
though by then she regained some composure.
"Did you love him?" I asked quietly. Without
much interest, either, in which my voice
sounded like that of a calm sailor.
She never did answer me that. She cried
and dispersed herself into the crowd,
though I noticed her walk off; in the glimpse
of my vision I saw her pull out a piece and
a lighter. For the piece was full, I assume,
though it was only full of decay. When she came
back she seemed quite mitigated, and she neither
spent the time to avoid me, nor the time to
even toss me a glance. Not that I noticed
anyway.

Days passed, as I slept in my car.

Being in this town, rather than that vile place
we call the City, was somewhat of a temporary
escape. I had no friends there, so when the family
and friends began to leave and turn the volume
of their weeping down, and the car stereos up,
I saw only she remained. She was in a daze,
and sat beside his tombstone. The actual process
of burying his body was far less strenuating
than the intial reception.

She looked like hell; her eyes a goo and in a
strange, white escape. I noticed her left arm shaking,
in which her body quickly followed. Her eyes rolled
back into her head, and I stood above her, watching
her convulse. Strangely enough, it was as if she
was in estcacy. I wondered what I was supposed
to do at that moment, but I could not help but
notice that smile. Her smile was that of indifference;
that of acceptance. It was that smile that left
us all bare and naked to stand, covering our insecurites,
and shaking in a winters night, as we stand
alone in front of a mirror.

It was about then that I saw the stream of vomit pour from
her mouth. She suddenly clutched her arm, and as if in
pain, her face shrieked and yet all that came out was
a mild woo. A whisper, as if to make one last cry. She
was seeing death; she was dying.

When she awoke, she found herself lying in the backseat
of a car. Her head had been on a pillow, but regardless
she had a killer headache; she was in a post-neurotic daze.

I walked towards my car to see her looking, like a paranoid
caged animal. She could not move, though, for the heroin was still
in her body, and the waves were still rough. She felt her body
rush with tremors of pleasure and pain, of life and death, and
she felt her very soul break and shatter, simply to be put
together again in a moment of pure heaven.

I had brought her a cappuchino drink, which I enjoyed quite a bit
in my younger days, until money demanded I make cheap coffee at home.
I tossed it to her, and upon reaching in my pocket for the gummi bears
I told her "don't move, you're still pretty fucked up. You overdoesed
on something."

Sleeping in ones car is somewhat discouraging, and unfortunately she
could not speak yet. All that came out were mumbles and fits of rage.
She cried and cried, and occassionally vomited. She was lucky, for it
seemed impossible for her to have survived. At that time, I was sure
she was simply acting, for some superior motive, though in my days
I have seen many miracles.

I lit a cigarette as she lay in the back, still visiting God and
seeing death on the other end of the fork. It was starting to smell,
for her vomit and urine left such stains and aroma. I did not mind,
at the time, for smell does not bother me much. I can always move
somewhere else in due time. She spoke, though it came out as
"mmmphhb.... phhhb... "

I had not slept that night, for fear of anything happening with her.
She occasionally gave me looks, and smiled in a sort of delusional way.
Perhaps she was dying, and in me she saw all that could forgive. I was
her father, and she was confessing to me and in myself she saw condolences.

Days passed, and not much happened. I asked Circe if I could stay with her
for a little bit, seeing as the City had made me quite strung out over
the years. Living paycheck to paycheck, and without any real aspiration,
can be quite depressing sometimes. Cesar and I had long talks about how
the City was our deathbed, and how we needed to get out.

I awoke much later than she, and I found her, locked inside the bathroom
with a knife. I had picked the lock, and she was in the bathtub bleeding.
Her cuits were numerous, however, as the cutting went on, she was weakened
and many of the more shallow cuts were made out of pure intent, rather than
phsyical desire.

I picked her up, and thousands of strands of water spilled below. The floor
was slippery as I lett a red trail, and upon laying her carefully on the 
bed,
I rusehd to find any sort of medial kit. After dressing the wounds I 
pondered.
To let this person die is something, but to know why she is doing such
is ultimately my desire.

She awoke, and her screams called me from the kitchen.
"What the fuck?!?" she screamed, "untie me now, you
rapist-faggot!!!"
I walked softly into the room, carrying a plate with eggs,
bread and sausage.
"Eat now," I told her, "your body is weak and you lost
a lot of blood."
"Shut the..." she screamed, though her scream quickly became
a lesser whine, as her eyes grew more tired.

"I want to die. I am going to die." she told me. "and you can't
stop me."
"I do not wish to stop you. I simply wish to understand you,"
I told her.
She looked at me with the eyes of a mother who found a long
lost child, only to realize that she never knew him, and he
is pointing a gun at her face.
"Don't worry. We all die in due time..." and my mind was
elsewhere. Thoughts of Cesar, thoughts of walks. Those nights
and endless trees, nocturnal spirits to kindle our burning thirst
for knowledge.
Though in the next few days, as she regained her full self, I felt
a strange attraction to her. Cirumstance had brought us together.


The clcok behind us, on the desk, was ticking. It was digital,
so silence accentuated our voices.
"Why did you save me?" she asked, with such pertention in her
eyes and comfort in her heart. A certain fear, a certain loathing,
for she detested me, and yet found a strange confidence in
our conversation.
"I want to know you. Who are you? How did you meet Cesar?
How did you know him?"


"I met him at a park. He was reading, as he was wont to do,
on a bench that he always sits on, face the lake and sky, and
I found something interesting in him..."
"He was a good friend," I responded, "he was that of a mirror."

To see in others in oneself is one thing, but to see one self
in others is the true reward. I lit a cigarette, and offered her
one. She took it without hesitation, though when I swung my silver
zippo lighter over to her, her face gave me that expression of
akwardness. Not like she had a light; she had been trying to quit.

"But we never did anything. He never liked talking to me. He just
didn't seem to like women..." She spoke and let the words
wander the room, "he didn't seem to like anyone."
Cynical as always, I thought to myself; that was the one sin
I taught Cesar. One of many, though colletively he was enlightened
and raised to the level of a superhuman.

Living with the true desires unfulfilled is excrutiating at best:
To do and to not repent; to redeem oneself through sacrifice, to
create a low simply to make the high, and then rest oneself
comftorably among the low. For what is more easier than
naming ones universal faults than ones greater aspects? What
is more human then that very degradation, the degenerate act
of lowering oneself to make others happy in the very mind
of the user.

I had told her of such, and told her that her wish to die
was probably related to the death of Cesar. She did not rush
to deny, nor denounce any of it. She said she felt a strange
affinity with him, and that his death was meant to be, just
as hers.

Though she broke, within that week, and I found her crying
in my arms. After minutes passed and her tears stopped, she,
with her arms still wrapped around my neck, paused to look
at me.

I don't know what she saw, for as with any figment of ones
imagination, it must have been pretty. She saw endless
rainbows and stacks of infinity. She saw that which
was forever locked inside her to keep, the obscure,
pale figure she knew as herself.

In her eyes I saw a bleak face, the face of a man
aged by exprience. Blood dripping from a fresh cut,
as if years of knowledge were attained simply to throw
out at sea to create a wish, imagination floundering
and soaked into a dishrag, bloody wet yet soon to be
brown. I could not stand to look, and yet, her eyes
held such beauty. Her iris was that of a faint green,
though speckels of gray wer somewhat filtered in, and her
pupil was accentuated by that very outline which beffited her.

It was at this time that I realized this woman is quite weak
hearted. So quick to jump off one plane and onto another,
just to fear the jump and yet enjoy the flight. She was
a desperate creature, as if a man with nothing left but
his bottle to assuge his physical desires, and I could tell
her mind was about to click into a routine mode of
seduction. She looked at me with a cat-like ferocity,
as if her eyes spoke of sin and nature, vast fields
of untouched abelias and larks. With that of leger-demain
she began carressing my neck, whispering soft coos.
"I can't" I told her, "I'm just a figment of
your imagination. I do not exist, so do not even try."
"I just want to get to know you," she smiled, though
still reserved. Perhaps it was all too pertentious
to assume such passions upon just meeting. Especially
under our circumstances.
"I feel like I know you," she said as her eyes
winced to perhaps distort my picture, as if to
make my random features blend into someone else.
"You knew Cesar..." And with that I got up,
reached in my pocket for a cigarette, and went
to smoke out on the balcony.

I detest human contact, the epitomy of such being
intimate. I detest the solitude that one makes
in such human commitments, and the redemption that
one seeks upon sin. Whatever doubts that one has,
one cannot deny the past.

When I came back she was crying. She begged me to leave,
for she wanted to kill herself soon, and she wanted me
to have no association with it. She wanted to die alone;
"to die in peace," as she so delicately called it.

I asked her what she thought of love.

"Love?" she remained silent, as if seeing my bet with a raise,
just testing to see if I was leaving the question unprovoked.
"What is really that wrong in your life right now? What justifies
your death?"
She laughed, the laugh that spoke words of "you would not understand,"
and I simply replied with a firm stare, whispering "Try me" in response.

What clever game was I playing at this time? It was simple really: I want
to know what is inside her head, I want to pick at her secrets and desires,
I want to know that which is human, for what a ripe infinity her mind seemed
at the time. Looking in retrospect, I feel quite foolish. For she must truly
be insane to be attracted to such a man as myself. Hair unkempt, face 
unshaven,
with a scrawny body that reeked of excursion. Drugs had consumed my
everyday faced and replaced it with that of sedation. I no longer
cared much for anything. Though when the obligation to care,
or the physical desire pinpointed Mans true addiction, the same
reaction was always stirred: "I do not want love."
It is as simply as that, though I know not the answer; why. I
do not want to be seen, heard, or simply imagined. And in
she walks, into my perception, as do I, and from here on I am
figment of her imagination. A toy to play with, to shape,
and to constantly study. Simply a doll, with bloodstains
on the carpet, as we all try to escape our very insanity.

"Can we go out?" she asked me. "Maybe to a nice resturant
or to a movie.."
"I can just leave. You seem better now. I've been here
for the last few weeks... I feel very uncomftorable
staying at your place and not paying any sort of rent
or anything."
"Well.. it's just that with Cesar gone, I have no one
to talk to..."

The streets passed by and the lights illuminated the sound.
Chipper days seemed to pass us by, as we drove into the
ends of the night. We talked, though I paid little
attention to what I said, for I had no real interest
in her. She, on the other hand, seemed quite open
to say what was on her mind.
"My parents were always so mean that I dropped out
of high school, just to spite them." She laughed,
the laugh of the wise man who knew he was, at a time,
wrong. "Looking back, I suppose I should have listened."
The constant white line in front of me, as I drove,
was quite hyptnotizing. I said something along
the lines of the necessity to disregard
retrospect and simply accept; to allow all
things to simply happen and flow, so as
they will have happened and are gone. Away
from our judgment.
"But I don't mean to bore you," I hear
myself say, as I snap back to reality.
"I really don't want to talk much. Sorry.
I did a lot of talking when I was younger,
and many told me to be quiet..."

I drove her home and was about to start my drive
back to my home, when she asked me if I wanted
to come in.
"I enjoy your company," she said to me.
I forgot what I said in response.

It happened. The television was on a
mute buzz, as voices chatted and stories
unfolded across empty air. We lie, naked,
with nothing but the blankets and each others
bodies to keep us warm. In our gradual
decay we found our forlorning afterschock,
in the depths of deep sects, for us to indulge
and drool.

I was laid out, sure to have conquered the world.
As with any man when they are sexually pleased,
they reach a euphoric state for about five minutes
afterwards, while the woman is left thinking about
her desire unfulfilled, for what man can truly satiate
a woman unless he wears her out physically? And I never
was the type to overextend myself in such areas, though
on occasion, even I did. That night I had done so.

"I really like your body," she said to me. I was skinny,
though my muscles were quite defined. Still, I was no
body builder. Simply another scrawny guy that could retain
his zestful youth, at least in spirit, which would
gradual drip out and manifest into this skin and touch
we call body.
"You're quite beautiful," I had spoken, and it was no lie.
She had dark hair, with round cheeks and big lips to
accompany her warm smile, whereas her eyes would squint
as she smiled. She was Vietnamese, so she told me, though
her light, silky tan skin showed that off.
Her eyes were actually a dark brown, much like my own,
though that was because dark eyes were her favorite. She
whispered that my eyes were so beautiful, and how she felt
so comftorable and yet so frail when she looked into
them. "It is as if you are looking for something, and
you can see right through me," she rambled in a daze.

She had reached that point of ecstacy at least five
times, in the hour that we spent. I never much enjoyed it
though, I was simply a machine to do such acts that
are scripted to be perfection. I simply
want my drug, as any druggie does, and to get a shot
of heroin through a wet, steaming oraface was as good
as any other.

Perhaps I have gone too far. For heroin and sex are
so vastly different, for the latter is such a natural
high, whereas the former numbs and makes one forget
all feelings; to become disassociated. However, sex
can feel all the better, and afterwards, leave us
feeling so happy in our numb summers of content.

She brushed her foot quietly up my leg as we lay,
like ice upon my waiting skin, as she wrapped her legs
around mine, toes curled, body rocking to her own beat of sensuality.
I matched with equal animosity, and soon we found ourselves
kissing frantically.
"Oh god... I want you so bad.." she moaned.
It was about then that I felt an urgent need
to leave. For I have only known her for a month
and she was already acting like a whore. I hated
seeing this side of women, and I hated even more
myself for invoking such. Perhaps this inanition
was from a sense of self pity; I do not deserve this,
not even for a second. For she is truly a sexy, beatiful,
energetic person at heart. I have seen, in these few short
weeks, the child that still lives inside her. The spirit which
causes her to be such a catch to my very incorrigble eyes, as if
begging to be an inamorata. The way she curls into the blankets,
her curves outlining the night sky, with such slender, long legs
to map out such desires. How is it that such beauty was to
be mine, when in all actuallity, I deserved nothing. I did
nothing. I am simply a figment of her imagination.

She began weeping after one of our three hour excursions; before
I could ask, she began confessing.
"I have never been intimate with any male, really. I have had
others before you, but they felt so rigid. As if they were machines,
and I was simple another hole for them to stick their dick in."
Used and abused, as we all our, I sang quietly to myself.
"It's just... I was so lonely. I took so many walks, and I tried
dating coworkers or going out to bars and clubs, but all the men
just wanted me for my body. They just wanted to fuck me and leave
me."
The television was but a flicker in the backdrop, a simple candle
solution for us to dip flames of boredom into.
I decided now was as good a time as any to tell her the truth.
"I am no different. All men are like that. Women are objects,
just because men simply see themselves. Men are, by nature,
selfish, as are women selfless."
One would die for another, but what kind of death is that
for ones self? To sacrifice yourself for the simple, selfish
reason that is to save the self?

She did not seem to care, no matter how I tried convincing her.
I was trash, a lowly bum on the streets. I had been homeless
for months, while drifting among confidants and acquaitances.
Drugs had laid a path for me to follow, a yellowbrick road of
pushers and users.

She woke me up the other night, kissing my ear and sliding her
tongue around inside it, slowly yet with ease. She began
stroking my chest softly, whislt whispering lullybies, into
my ear, with promises of pulchritude and ambience for the supple
twilight outside. I looked into her eyes, though I know not
what expression I gave. She responded with a look of
lust, of blushed cheeks and inhibitions lost, though
I fear it is love.
With her lips half parted she lay, on top of me,
carefully stroking her body against mine, so I can
feel ever inch possible.
And in all hypocricies of hypocricies, I followed.
I obeyed. I was the mirror that reflected her innermost
desires, her innermost self, and I simply acted. Perhaps,
though, she was the mirror, for I know now what I did
but she would respond and cause me to do such.

As she wrapped her legs around me, I could feel the
muscles in her thighs begin to contract, though
she squeezed me all the more tighter. Her moans
were loud, for all to hear, though I kept my lips
by her ear so I could whisper to her in my pleasure.
She begged to feel it, the very seed of man, shooting
inside her. She begged to feel it, slick, steaming and hot,
as if this saltly paraffin substance was a drug. She was
selfless, and simply wanted me to reach orgasm so as
she could know, for a fact, that I am happy.

Though it was these nights I could not stand. I could
not bear to be myself, for what else was I except
a lone speck on a piece of paper. A dot, micrcoscopic
to even the highest degree of magnification. that was
to be a bundle in a sphere of thoughts. These thoughts
blossomed from her being, and in their radiance, I became
nothing more than her puppet. I was pleasure, I was
self assurance, and I was everything but myself.

For I had left her some time later, impulsively and
without a note; I left her the same as I had
found her.

I heard some months later that she had died, though
no one would tell me how or why. Some said I could not
bear it, while others thought that perhaps I was the
cause. Regardless, many looked ill upon me after
her passing, and I felt a discomfort in that town.
I never went back.
______________________________________________________________________________
One Day
______________________________________________________________________________


Part 1: Awakening
  He awoke to the same sky and sun. He had passed
out the night before while reading a book, though it
was no surprise that he was wearing the same work
clothes he always wore. Yet things felt a little different.
His teeth ached, and his mind was jumbled.
  Like a machine he rose from his bed, and
even his yawn felt routine. He sat, sleepy in
a mist, as he tried to regain his consciousness.
  "No luck," he mumbled, and got up to grab
his keys and his coat.
  Work was boring as usual. Endless stacks
of paper and more busywork. He would let
his body move while his mind took a nap,
and as the time passed he felt his soul
go more and more dry. For thirty years he
has been doing other peoples work: writing
words for others mouths to speak, all the while
letting his heart drip dry. He
tried hard to remember the last truly
intimate moment he had with his wife
and, despite waking next to her earlier
in the morning, he could not remember
how she lay. She was hardly there.
  He could barely recall the breakfast he ate,
and despite any sort of attention he would
put towards his selection in lunch, he knew he
would hardly remember that either.

  The clock struck 4:30, and he got up like
a young school boy.
  "Got any plans tonight?" asked a coworker,
like words read off a piece of paper.
  "me, the wife and the kids might see a movie," he
replied, "but other than that, nothing special."
  "That's the third movie this week; you guys must see
a lot of movies!"
  What else is there to do, he thought as he
smiled and nodded, affirming his very existance.
  As he was walking to his car, he stopped
to watch the people walking by. The parking lot
was full, with a vast array of green, blue, red
and black cars scattered with ants walking to them.
People would walk towards their cars with expressions
of pure apathy, as if their body was moving but their
mind was stuck in quicksand somewhere begging to
be rescued. The very mecanism of turning off the car
alarm, unlocking the door, getting inside the car,
shutting the door without letting it slam, and then
starting the car was so scripted that he did not feel
himself do it, as he was thinking all this.

When he got home, his wife was wearing a smile.
He replied by hanging up his coat, and he let out
a quick sigh, as to not let down appearances.
  "How was work?" she asked him. Every day she
would ask the same thing, and it mattered little
how he differed the reply.
  "It was fine. Gloria and Rick are having a baby,
so he was off work today. I had to cover for him."
  "Oh." she said, as she put the steaming food
on the table. She then turned around to call
their son and daughter to the table.
  Glasses were filled and chairs were sat in,
as the various klinks and klanks from silverwear
echoed throughout the tiny dining room.

  Minutes passed as people chewed and swallowed
their plates, and it was not until the wife spoke that the
silence was broken.
  "So how was school?" she asked the son.
  "It was alright."
  "Any homework?"
  "Not really." He never even looked up at her as
she spoke, and she took some offense to this, so
she directed her attention towards her daughter.
  "And you, honey, how was your day?"
  "it was ok," the daughter said meaninglessly.

  Some time later the son arose to go back to his
room and listen to whatever music the youth related
to at that time, and the daughter arose to go towards
a phone and exchange words with some fellow peers.
  He was the last to leave, as his wife picked up
the various plates to walk them over to the sink where
they would be washed. He sat in silence, watching
the table gradually go empty. A metaphor for the Soul,
he thought, as more and more plates and scraps of food
disappeared off the table.
  "It was a good meal."
  "Thanks," she replied.

Part 2: Death
  It was the middle of December, and christmas carolls
chimed throughout peoples smiles. Everyone is cheery
around this time of year, though they make their smiles
all the bigger to hide the stress of formalities unfulfilled.
  "life goes on," he said, "no matter who you follow. They
will have enough anecdotes and drama to make anyone
interested content."
  So the story goes on. Words will always be written, regardless
of whatever author decides to stop writing.
  One mans death does little to change anything but the circle
that he existed within; his family and friends may suffer
but he will not be missing out on much.
  She set the plates on the table and whispered a small
prayer and her children pulled chairs out to sit down. A chilly
wind whistles, sending shivers down her spine.
  Some time passed, as the small gulps and chews
filled empty space.
  "So how was your day?" she asked her son.
  "it was alright."

______________________________________________________________________________
Stuff to Do
______________________________________________________________________________
"Stuff to do"

  "Stuff to do," the plug asked, as he tilted his head. His eyes jiggled
in their sockets, as I heard gushy-gooeey blood swirl around in his
head. Electrons with ideas attached to blood cells, lobbing
information: hurling it into the ends of infinity.
"Shut up" I scream.
A voice echoes in the distance. A warm, lucrative bathtub caressing
my body. I feel worms crawling, slimy in their appearance, and
oozing slowly up my legs, over my genitals. A man with a
plug, spit dripping from his chin, about to jam the plug into
an electric socket. The plug is to a radio; a radio in
the bathtub resting gently against my chest. The radio
is set to "on" so I can be electrecuted by the radio,
once it is plugged in. Those electrons in that Radio sure
hate whatever my Electrons are telling them.

	 my body             Radio
	    E-                      E- <hey there, can I have some pie?>


	    E- <no.>            E-


	    E-                      E- <kill them!>


Damn those electrons! That weak bastard over there, with
his electrons telling him what to do, carrying sweet nectar
of information. His electrons believe what the Radio is telling
him, what his electrons are saying to him.

	    E-                      E- <hey do you have any pie>


	    E- <yeah>            E-


	    E-                      E- <i like u>
	    radio               His body

The radio then seduces his ripe, budding daughters; apples
on the tree of information, holding sweet seeds and juices for
the future generations of information. They them encourage
this desire and wants into what we use to fuel temptation.
  Temptation is a feeling of fear. It is what we feel we lack.
What we lack is what we think, what we decide to become
that thing that we lack. And yet, we are everything. We are the
trees, growing fresh nectarines, apples and grapes.
  Once you understand everything, the nectarines, apples and
grapes don't matter. They are all fruit, though, our desire; our
differentiation of the taste of these fruits causes us
to want and hate other fruits. We become picky and arrogant,
calling some fruits "luxurious" and "Bland!" These fruits, these
fruits of knowledge, cannot be truly experienced when the
user lacks any sort of apathy (the cold muzzle to my chest. I
felt the slimy grip of death rising up my chest.)
  With this apathy  comes a lacking of lacking. We all lack
something, because we think we need to lack that something.
It is our electrons that, through sacrifice, gain other electrons.
It is a clever game, indeed.
  One electron decides to like another electron because it flatters her.
Electron A gives his food to a homeless person because he feels he needs to.
Electron B bullies little kids around schoolyards in order to feel tough.
Electron C decides to die in order to save his lover, Juliet.
Electron D decides to die for his country, in a war that, 20 years later 
would
be the biggest mistake in American History.
And so on.
   "THE PLUG" he screams.

Please don't drop that electric radio on my brain.
I don't want to die in my MIZ SER REE
I know that I've sinned and I know that I've lost.
When my human apathy causes brains to fart.
I've lost it all in a stupid game.
A game where everyone stays the same.
And if the people don't change they
all grow the same.
And with the people, all the same
none of them would complain
because differentiation's  in the mind!

A man is sitting outside, smoking a cigarette, as I walk out of the car.
He sees in me a fashion model; a lovely figure of a woman. Walking
out, eyeshadow outlining my corruption with no unjust, a lush figure
seeping up your pants, to slowly grab and twist your very hot desires?
To simmer and cook them, to let them bathe in the tender carress of
their own juices? To let minds think what they want and bask in the
steamy juices of their own making? This is what we all truly want,
though it only comes out as "being understood."
"You want this can of Pop?" he asks. (That's Soda for you weird people.)

	> _ >                   < _ <  --Do you want this can of Pop?--

	>_> --my mommy doesn't let me talk to strangers.--           <_< --(D:)--

	>_>                     < _ <  --But really. The machine gave me two.--

	>_>  -(<3)-                   <_<

	>_>                              < _< -- Thanks. I didn't want it to go 
wasted.--

He knew it. He knew I was going to really want that Soda later
tonight. He knew that exactly 2:11 AM I would want that Soda.
He knew that my experience WITH THE SODA would be much
more enjoyable. I would be better off.
  And yet, he knew that if I did not have a SODA, my experience
you be something like this.
	 ^_^ Gee I'm Thirsty
	 -_- Where is my Soda?
	 >_< oh well, i really wanted that soda. but i'll just drink water.

AND YET HE KNEW!!!
He knew that from a better experience comes more knowledge. So not
drinking the soda would not only be NOT satiating your thirst, but also,
you knowledge. You would be losing a good experience as well as
the action that results from doing it. But is is impossible to know how
good the experience COULD HAVE BEEN if you are just sitting there,
thirsty, and you don't have a soda.

"But I do!" I yelled, splashing water all around.
"I know how it could have been, and I know that I am RIGHT in the
decision of Good and Bad."
"I am right to decide to think like this because I know I would not
be able to think it otherwise."

  <CAUTION> if you are in a state-where-you-cannot-think, then
you can never know what it is like to think when you are in
a state-where-you-can-think. And yet, if you are in a
state-where-you-can-think, you will be able to know what it
is like when you are in a state-where-you-cannot-think.
  To simplify it:
You, when you can think: A
You, when you cannot think: B

If you are in a state of A, you cannot be in state B.
If you are in state B, then you can be in state A.

"Weird, huh?" I say to my students.
"So that makes B better than A, right?" chirp the kids.
"Well, I suppose that is what are Human Rationale tells us."
"our electrons are happy" they smile.

So a state where you can think is better, right? Therefore,
think and think, until your mind grows! Until it becomes
a beanstalk encompassing the earth, your very being.
It will entangle and snarl, and things will drive you Nuts!

"You think and think," she shouts, "and think until it hurts!"


  >_>          <_<
  boy          girl


 >_>  -hey-    <_<


 >_> --do you know what the derivative of 1 over e to the X squared is?--    
    <_< (jumps back)


 >_>     <_< --um.. no--


 >_>  -...-   <_<

 >_> --baka--   D:

"And that situation is not HAX, now is it?" I ask my class.
"IT IS INDEED RATIONALE!" they churn.
"LEET LEET LEET" goes the monkey
"1337 1337 1337" goes the Man!
"But you know what is really interesting?" I say, whilst stuffing potato 
chips in my mouth.
"What is it?" asks a lone student, sitting innocently at his desk.
The classroom is silent as they await my response.
"THE ELECTRONS" I Scream, as I bring out a hatchet to do the Old Man's Duty. 
(note: whipping,
punishment, psychological abuse.)
"It was so simple!" she pleaded.
"Then why didn't you say it?" I asked, "let alone ask the question in the 
first place."
"I wanted to see if you could get it too." she cried.
"You dare think that you are smarter than me?!?" I scream, "THAT YOU THINK 
MORE THAN ME?!?!?"
  She pauses, and the class stares in anticipation. The ticking from the 
clock
grows gradually louder as we await her very answer;
"umm... but really I was unsure of myself. I was unsure that if I said the 
Right Answer, it
could be Wrong. (a droplet of water hits the ground, and the sound echoes in 
the
distance, floating across calm, sunlight zephrys. Cranberries, resting on a 
plump
leaf, absorb morning dew and drink fine wine.
  I say nothing to let her know she could keep going.
"I was just so afraid of being wrong. The entire class would have seen
me goof up. I would be an idiot."
  I look at her, and say:
"In all honesty, did you know it was right? What exactly did you mean by,
'I wanted to see if you could get it too?'"
  "well.. I suppose I knew it was right..."


How dare you think less of me...
How dare my bitter cries go unheard,
to silent walls and chilly trees, whistlting faint reminiscing tunes
In the faint, pale moonlight, dreams flutter up,
Fluttering as Butterflies,
fresh from warm Cocoons of Time,
the very essence of our Life.
Fresh water to parches toes.

How dare you think that you knew more than me,
that you could ever be so capable.
	Act 1, Scene 1: A Conscious Death
A man stands silent in a classroom, dark
shadows for faces. The curtain opens
to a still shot of him; his hand up in the air,
veins outlining his anger and sweat. The
kids are quiet and scared.
  Man: Now you see why you must die.
  Little School Girl: Because I thought I knew more than You.
  Man: And? Or do you dare think I feel unsure about
myself? If I were to feel unsure of myself, I would not
answer your question, but rather, wait for you to tell
it to me. (add in playfully) as if I wanted to see
if you could (makes a quotation hand gesture) "get it."
Little School Girl: umm...
Man: For if I don't answer, then it means that I want
to see if you can get it. I know it's right, but
I know that if I was unsure, I would not know if
it is right or not.
Little School Girl: well...
Man: But if I let you answer to my last two questions,
then I would have proved my unsurity. My insecurities.
And yet why did I ask them? For I am going to tell you
right now!
Little School Girl: (screaming at the top of her lungs)
BECAUSE YOU WANT TO DIE, AND IN ORDER FOR
YOU TO DIE, YOU MUST WAIT FOR DEATH TO COME,
AND CONVINCE DEATH TO TAKE YOU IN. YOU MUST
PLEAD WITH IT AND BEG IT, AND FINALLY, YOU REALIZE
YOU MUST SIMPLY TELL HIM HE IS RIGHT. IN ORDER
TO MAKE HIM TAKE YOU IN, YOU MUST DO THINGS
TO PROVE HE IS RIGHT, YOU MUST SMILE BEHIND
YOUR LIES AND TELL HIM HE IS RIGHT. THIS WILL
MAKE HIM FRIENDLY, AND THUS, HE TAKES YOU IN.
YOU MUST TELL HIM WHAT HE WANTS TO HEAR.
Man: (twitching with anger) You just proved that I was
unsure of myself... that I was wrong. You just proved
me Wrong!
Little School Girl: It's because, even though I knew
it would bring death, it would thus make Now into Right.
I would be Right for once.
  Man: This is not about you, this is about me! (raises hatchet)
Little School Girl: (watching man walk towards her. She
sits patiently.)
  Man: You are just electrons manifested in my head. (screams)
Show me Yourselves!
  Little School Girl: HaHaHa... You Figured Us Out.
    (Little School Girl fades into a small pinprick of nothingness)
    (Man stares in horror as the classroom fades into
nothingess, and there is nothing to see.)
  Electrons: We Are Here. You Know Now Why We Came.
  Man: You're just in my head! You're just in my head!
  Electrons: We Are The Information. We Control Your
Mind; We Are Your Information. We Map Vast Images,
Sunlight, Broad Skies, Rainy Nights, And Canyons Upon
Your Brain, Through A Complex Series Of Connected
Nerotransmitters And Electrons.
  Man: You're Driving me Crazy!
  Electrons: We Are All That You See. (echoes...) We Create All That You Are

Close Curtain


Chapter 2: Step 2

I then realized how I got those Electrons out of my head; the
crazy thoughts that corrupted my stale body. I told them that,
"if you are the Information, then you can you be my information too?
My information is not the absolute information, it is not You."
  And with that, God dissapeared from my life, and wouldn't show
up until some years later.

"And just to let you know," I say to my students, blood dripping
from my hatchet, "that a year to Us is about a nano-second
to God. For every nanosecond he gets, he thinks thousands
of thoughts, and he lives and dies in so many of them.


Electrons are tricky devils, I write, as I scream for bloody soda.
It's all in my head though, for I am just a pigment of your imagination.
A gentle shade, to affect your Criticisms slightly, a gently hue to
softly massage happy moments in your life, to let you get the most
of them.
"So where was I?"


He sat in a bathtub. He was holding a radio when he realized that the plug
was plugged in. It was plugged in, and he was still thinking. He was still
thinking, and was therefore alive. He was therefore still alive when the 
plug
was in, and therefore, he is Dead. Thoughts in the Afterlife? No, not 
really,
just those few seconds we have left before death.





Chapter 3: In The Last Episode Of Heartbreak High!
Jim and his Girlfriend broke up because Jim did not like
his Girlfriend. He thought she was stupid. In actuality,
this is what his Electrons did.

guy                                         girl
  E- <do u have any pie?>         E-


  E-                                           E- <no dude.>


  DX                                           E-

Though really, the girlfriend felt quite sad because of this.
Because she did now know the answer to one of Jims questions,
she felt that, because Jim thought she was stupid, this made
her sad. Why did it make her sad? Because of so.

guy                                         girl
  E-                                          E- <do you have any popcorn?)

  E- <umm.. I think so.)             :D

-_- <umm...)                             E-


  E- <nope, sorry. Just Beef.)    E-


  E-                                            E-  <...)


  E-                                          DX


She thought she knew who he was. She thought she knew
that he would be happy with her. But then, because of one
question (which is really just a metaphor for any question
we have with God) that he just had to ask. He stopped
liking her because he thought she was stupid. And yet,
branches of information fall off as the tree shakes
with drama.

Episode 1: Schoolyard Romance
     "ummm" the little boy said.
     "What is it?" she chirped. A playfully glee in her charm.
     "I think I..." he mumbled. He rubbed his hand on his
forehead, as if to make himself more clear in his expression.
     "hmm?" she cooed softly, tipping her head gently to the side.
     "I think I..." I sniffled a bit there.
     "... like you." There I said it.
And the world Ends!!!
  Or quite not. Here are some commercial breaks.


Chapter 3: Cable TV

"Have you ever felt like a nobody? Have you ever felt you
have lacked something, something that you cannot
describe, and yet know we can never resolve."
The announcer paused to take a breath, hot steamy
lies oozing from his pores.
"A loved ones death! A child lost! Breaking up with
Someone! All these are tragic to our souls, and yet,
wouldn't it be dandy to not feel these anymore?"
"You would no longer feel any lacking, and you
would therefore resolve it."


Story 01: 'Round the World
This is the world! (ba dum dum dum)
This is the World! (dum dum dum) <1 measure pause>
This is a world with no resolve.
We strike inhibition based in Walls,
and run around stroking out balls!
The world is all but small to fit us all!
So gather the kids and light up the cribs,
Cuz death Comes to Us All!
End Story

The plug talked to me. Oh my God, it talked to me.
I look up and feel a sudden rush. What is going on.

"Whauff to d-ing on." (Wha(at)-(stu)ff to d(o)-(go)ing on"
I hear it again. It is memories repeating in my head,
overlapping, driving me insane.

So the secret to Life is Understanding Life. We think
we have an undestanding, even an understanding of the
unknown (the very term, the entity) Why is it that I am sitting here,
bleeding from my arms, as I bask in Knowledge?

What is it, at its core, that makes us want to do it? What is
it that makes us do anything? It is useless just to say
Conscious, or any sort of God. It is beyond that. It is
noticing the patterns, the patterns of the Intellectuals. Not
just in their thought, but also in their everyday lives. How they
lived, their morals; did they think killing was wrong? Did
they ever cut themselves? And if so, what was the cause?
  For all Great People are praised for their intellect, when
really, it was their thoughts that made them smart. What makes
one smart is the very train he takes from the Rationale Station.
  The Rationale Station is a station that we go on to get smart. As
the train goes on, various Thoughts are inserted to make us
logically follow a path. Once we reach the end of the path in
our minds, such as each step is a lilly pad for us to jump to and from,
it makes sense. This is Rationale.

example:

Thought   ---train tracks---   Thought Makes Sense.
We start     We follow our              The thought makes
   here             Rationale                     Sense

  Rationale is just our ability to follow steps. How much can we
break things down so that people can follow them? Being of an
Objective mind, we see things in steps, in pieces, and they could
or could not be related. We see things, we gather all the information,
and we give both an equal chance. Then we put together the pieces,
as if they were puzzle pieces, to make us think something is right.
  For example, look at Abortion. Do you believe it is about letting
a little could-be baby, or is it about letting Women have a Choice in their
lives. Really it is the steps that you take, while on the Rationale Train, 
that
lets us stop at whatever we currently believe.


"What is driving me insane," I murmur, "is the blood coming out of my arms. 
It seers
like a burn that is winters old, though the memory is enough to cause a 
faint chilling."
"It is also the very fabric of time," I say, "For I believe that if everyone 
knew everything,
as if they were in State B, they would all reach towards the Greater Good."
"The way," the old man said to me.
"Yes, the way." I light up a cigarette.
"The way is a mystical thing indeed," the old man smiled.
"Not once you understand it." I say.
"Well, once you understand it, you will also realize that now you understand
why it is so hard to understand. And you will see people that do not 
undestand it,
and you know there is nothing you can do to convince them." The old man 
pounded.
I said to him: "I know how that is."
"Prove it" He sneered.
"I used to cut myself, and at the time, I wouldn't listen to anyone. Well, I 
grew
out of it, and know how stupid it is. A girl that I care about was cutting 
herself.
I was sad because I knew I could not help her, for she was in the same spot 
I was
in. Myself, I wouldn't have listened, and neither would she. But I knew she 
had to make
that next step, and pay the money to take that Rationale Train.
"Ah... you are Smart indeed."
"'Tis the way," I smile, "and the Paradox?"
"You have learned well, young Grasshopper," The big ball of Electrons said.
"Thanks... yeah, the Paradox of how, with eternal knowledge comes a complete
lack of understanding from other people. Of how total knowledge can never be
expressed so that anyone can see it for what it is. Hell, people couldn't 
even
see it, let alone know it."
"So how do you know?" It asked.
"Because I followed absolute truth, and I'm very afraid of its end." I say.

Chapter 3: Sober State
There is a state of being, a state that is defined by our thoughts. Thoughts
can be of different types, and because we differentiate between them,
we make some "good" and some "bad." There is a state above "good"
and "evil," and this is the state of Understanding. Understanding is simply
being in state B where you can know state A, wheras in state A you would
not understand B. How does that work? As a Great Man once said,
"I know not why Heaven hates." It simply does.

This is the philosophy, the philosophy of the enlightened. Once we
reach it, there is no turning back. The irony is that it is the biggest
alienation, despite the depression that should unify intellectuals,
but rather seperates them.

         Intellectuals (Depressed)
          (^_^) (^_^) (^_^) (^_^)

Why is it that The Great Depression always follows these Thoughts?
Thoughts that can be called "cynical," "pessimistic," but regardless,
are usually agreed upon to be called "smart." "Smart," in the objective
sense, is simply being able to be objective. If one can view
each and ever opinion by the very bias and rationale that manifest
them, then one can have a better understanding of why people
believe what they believe. And yet, there is a dead end wall
that all Intellectuals run into. The state of endless contemplation.
There is a state where we can understand all, but we then realize
how pointless it is to be in that state. We can never truly express
it for what it is; it simply comes out as religion or philosophy. Jesus,
Buddha, and Confucius, and all the others. All the same.

  "So I figured out why we need not to kill people," Jesus said to me, as
he passed the bowl.
  "Why is that?" I asked instinctively, whilst adding "That's some good 
weed."
  Jesus paused to cough and then said, "it just makes sense. If everyone
was out killing each other for stupid, superficial reasons, then eventually
Death would become a Luck of the Draw."
  "That's not what I believe," barked Confucius, "if people followed
their Li then we can all just exist peacefully."
  "But what about different cultures and their Li?" asked Jesus.
  I passed the bowl to Confucious, watching the smoke softly
rise from the baking grass.
  "People should simply stay within their own cultures and
subcultures: The very existance of culture is in the formation
of a society and the self-declaration of any sort of differences
between A and B," Confucious stated quite clearly.
  "I believe everyone should exist in harmony, regardless of
culture," said Lao Tzu. He was pretty baked, his eyes a
purple hue, glazed with reminiscence.
  "And how is that so?" asked Jesus. Even he knew that
sacrifices must be made.
  "The Way," Lao Tzu whispered, as smoke stalked
his words coming out of his mouth.
  "Godammit, always that godamn Tao" Jesus said.
  "Well, can't we all just agree that we shouldn't just go
out and kill people?" I asked.
   "You're missing the point," they all said to me in a
chorus.

  Chapter 4: The Bible, in all it's Practicality.
I sit in a chair, staring blankly at the table.
"What is the meaning of life?" I ask.
The book says nothing.
"Why do you hold back on me?" My lips quiver, "Why
do you not answer my pleas?"
The book remains motionless, apathetic to my problems.
"Well then, why should I believe You?"
The book says nothing.
"That's it, I'm burning you."

What are words, what are thoughts, but simply things
that become processed in our Brains? Is there
an absolute, most efficient Process by which
Thoughts can become their most pure, a Most
Absolute? That is the state of Being. We think
and become what naturally ensues.

  Chapter 5: Back to the Story, eh?
So I got up out of the bathtub. Suicide is always a weak
escape. I wonder though, with all these voices in my head,
who needs friends? Friends are simply more drama, because
we can never be sure what is going on in their heads,
though we can never escape the drama that our
Electrons put us through.

  E-  <Godammit, She broke up with me.)   e-

  E-	e- <it's ok. You'll get over her.)

  D: <but I can't! It's so hard!)        e-

  E-           e- <oh.)

Life for me isn't that bad. I may be broke and hungry
most of the time, but I have a significant other. She
is beautiful, and can never me contained in mere
words. Though I wish to immortalize her, because
she means that much to me.


Man creates the universe in order to drive himself
crazy. The universe has a natural pattern that
shows intelligence behind it, and therefore,
as time goes on, intelligence is raised. Eventually
we will be able to rationally prove ourselves
insane, and we will all be insane and happy
together. Either that or we will all kill each
other and ourselves, because a bunch of insane
people in one place are bound to do so.


"What it is, my comrades" he said, with a cigar in his mouth,
"is that intelligence has no pattern and therefore no intelligene."

  The next step of evolution is rationally explaining how we are
insane. An intellectual Renaissance, so to speak.

  "But we've gone through this before," the doctor said.
"No, no, No. You do not understand," I said, "we can explain
what makes us insane, yet we can never ever prove that
we ourselves are insane."

   "Just do something crazy" the doctor said.
   "But with no justification, is it really insane?" I asked.
   "Yes."

Sanity is the justification of morals. Sanity is the very defining
element that makes us feel. Without sanity, we have no feelings.
It is rare in humans, though the few who suffer the lack of
feeling are not having a mere cat-nap. It is an ardous existence indeed.

This existance is that of being sane in an insane world.
We are what everyone wants to be, but will never
admit to being. Once you become a God in someone's
mind, such as a Celebrity, PopStar, RockStar, Actor,
you become an image, and lose youself.




What is it though that makes us so endearing? What is the greater good out 
there?
I write on blank paper, to see if any random combination of lines and colors 
can
make a thought in my head.
  CAT.
  I made a cat appear in my head. Now you try.
  Words are just thoughts, really, that you interpert in your head. Sure, 
that's the
beauty of it, but it's also a double edged sword: With differentiation comes 
hate
and discrimination.

Chapter: Particles Defined
"So the question that this one asshole was asking me was, 'do you exist?'
I told him 'Yeah, I exist' and he said 'well, prove it.'"

Chapter: Evidence
So we live in a world that may or may not exist, it could all just be your 
dream or my
dream. When night casts its dark blanket across your town, you go to sleep,
and perhaps you have as much validity as a dream I had last night.
  Either way, we dream, we exist, and we don't exist. Whatever.

______________________________________________________________________________
  The Watcher
______________________________________________________________________________

  Part 1

Walking in, I notice her resting in the corner of my eye.
Her hair falls softly on her shoulders, like creme swirling
in a fresh cup of coffee. She doesn't notice me until after
I punch in and tuck my shirt in. What a mess; My collar
is scruffled and my hair is unkempt. In a daze I type
my initials into the computer and press enter, and
it is not until some moments later I notice her
smile. Through faint eyes, she whispers "hey" and
I respond.
"How's the day been?"
"slow, as always."
Working at a coffee shop is an alright job. The people
are nice and free coffee is always good. They say
nothing in life is free, but really, it is if you have
the connections. And passive morals.
"three-thirty-seven" I mumble, and take the five.
An old woman, still young behind the eyes, gives
me a glance of thanks and grabs some creme and sugar
from the little tray we have.
"have a nice afternoon" She didn't hear me, and walks
on.
"ha ha... it's eight o clock at night" I hear from
my right.
"Oh. I just woke up." I smile.

It wasn't until some hours later that I finally noticed
I had buttoned my shirt wrong. That's why it was so crooked.
My stomach grumbled.
"mind if I go on my break?"


I pull out a book, some random one I grabbed from the shelf, and
sip slowly on some mixed cappuchino drink.
  <i> Remember when
      you said to me, "I wish that we could live forever?"
      I replied,
      "We can always wish, but they will just remain
      Our dreams." </i>
Entitled "My Dream," it was somewhat clever, but right now,
all I want is a cigarette. I check the time, just to make
sure that I have enough before I have to go back behind
the register.

The clock strikes midnight and I grab my coat to leave.
I wave goodbye to her, and she mouths "see ya."
  "Take it easy," as I feel the words bitter
sweep past my lips.

The air outside is brisk, and I can feel it nipping
at my ears. My ears are always red, because of frostbite
some years ago, when I got locked out of my house.
The anecdote with this? A girl in my drawing class
once thought I liked her because she thought I was
blushing. My cigarette tastes a bit stale, as they all do,
when you get near the filter. I take a deep breath and
close my eyes. Winter is coming soon, I think. Until
then, I watch the leaves fall and lay dead, on the street,
to be brushed about. Each one a different color, each
with their unique beauty. With each leaf on a tree
I see a person, a child, and with age and the pitfall
coming-of-age renaisance that we all seem to go through,
just another leaf to be brushed away. I flick the filter with
absolutely no effort and turn around to walk inside.
The sun should be up in about six hours, I wonder,
should I stay up to see it?



"It's a little cold tonight" I say,
"Yeah..." I feel her teeth tremble behind closed lips.
"Here."
"Thanks."
The funny thing about giving your jacket to a girl
is that people see it as such a nice thing; but really,
it is the easiest thing in the world to do, and I'm
no gentleman. My ears flush bright red and I notice
my breath in front of my face, much like smoke.
"haha, it's really cold tonight." I exclaim.
"Here, I don't need this," as she takes off my jacket, "I'm
fine: really."
"No, I'll be alright." Her eyes bleed compassion and
I assuage them with a smirk.
The sky is a hazy blue, quenching thirst, and it
seems to move towards us. Everything around us dissapears
as salty, cold dew drops fall, and I see something in the
sky. As it comes towards us, the infinite canvas, a
buzzing in my ear gets louder and louder.
I awake to my alarm clock, yelling, "Get up! It's time
to go to work!"

Four o clock and I rush in. I hate being late. As I put
my coat on the hook, I frisk briskly for my name tag,
and put it on. The line is long and the weekend is calling.
  "Hey," she gleams.
I type my intials in, press enter, and a customer walks up to
me.
  "That will be seven twenty two."
  "Thanks, have a nice day."
After some time, the customers scatter, and I sit back to relax.
She says to me:
  "Your name tag is on upside down."

What is it that makes her so beautiful? Is it her mild, carefree
smile? Is it her eyes, which shine so brightly green, as if
they are detesting to the gods that they could not possibly
be made as beautiful again on another woman? Is it her dark,
velvet hair, which can only be mirrored by a night void of light?
She is wearing her hair up today, but her bangs brush a bit
past her eyes, pulling a somewhat alluring shadow across her
face.
I look upon myself and cast aside her being, to find what
it is that is manifested upon her. I like how, despite how fragile
our human hearts can be, she can manage to fake a smile;
thoug,h I have heard she has had it quite rough. Perhaps in
her I see my infant mortality, and that will to live forever,
because perhaps, love can last forever. With the passage of
any indefinite amount of time comes the erosion and decay
of all things, though they are tangible and of this earth.
Perhaps because we cannot explain something, it seems
to last forever.

The door mutters a creak behind me, followed by a loud slam. It always
does that. Same walls, same room, and the same grimy feeling of
discontent. I open a window and point the fan towards it, then move
a chair near it. It's too cold to stand outside, so I smoke
in my room most of the time. With a blanket over me, my feet
resting comftorably on the window sill, and the smoke dancing
in front of me, I suddenly feel great. I smile and close my eyes,
just so I can see her. Like an kid with a paintbrush, in a clumbsy
mist, I jumble together bits and pieces to make a smile. A mirror
simply for me to stand in front of and ask, "How should I look?"
I copy and rest easy.

I notice her walk in a bit faster than usual, and she punches
in efficiently without thought. Her hair is a bit mussy and
her eyes a subtle red.
  "three dollars and thirty seven cents," I hear my self chirp,
as seeing her in person was infinities beyond anything my mind
could even begin to fantasize about,
I glance back towards her and she stares, blankly, unchanged.

Autumn rain is always so refreshing. Steam rises as I raise
my cup, my lips gasping for fresh coffee. The monotonous
pitter-patter of rain hits my hood, and I feel it soak
through to seize my dry hair. I look at my watch; three
minutes left on my break and half a cigarette. Time feels
good.

Thunder cracks, like an old man breaking a bone, and I notice
that she jumped, spilling someones coffee on herself and the floor.
"OUUUCHHHHH!" she screeches, as I turn around, grab a napkin, get some
cold water, and walk towards her.
  "Are you okay?"
  "Yeah, it just spilled on my stomach a bit."
I can't help but grin, how childish it is to
jump at the thunder! She took offense to my grin,
and her eyes spoke: So you think it's funny
that I spilled and made a mess and probably
burned myself pretty bad?
  "That was cute," I say, and then pause as I
clean. For some odd reason, I always felt quite
shy when talking to her about anything, but
the words came out as if I was watching myself speak.
  "Jumping at the lightning, I mean."
She quickly smiles and her eyes soften up a bit,
then she walks past me to go in the back to get
a clean shirt.
  "Thanks." she says, as it dissapates into
the breathless, stale air of the coffee shop.

"Would you like to hang out, get coffee sometime?" I ask quickly
as she gives a customer their change.
"sure. Anywhere but here though, I hate being here
when I don't have to work." she rolls her eyes.
I snap out of a daydream and get back to work, as she
tucks in the clean shirt that she got from the back.
"Thanks for cleaning up out here," she says to me.
I wonder for a brief second if I should rewind and
simply mimic my little fantasy, just to watch
and see where it would have gone. A customer comes
up to me as I decide not to.
"That will be seven fifty two."


  Part 2

"Here's your change. Have a nice night." I say.
A shadow sweeps behind me, and I say "hey" as
he tucks his shirt in. He doesn't seem to notice,
so I wait until after he is done to say it again.
Though it barely comes out, so it must have come out
as a whisper or something. He sure is out of it;
must be the late night shift.
"How's the day been?" he asks casually.
"Slow as always," I respond, in the same effect.
I look at the register in a futile attempt to make
time move faster, and see that it is still only eight
o clock. I hear him say, "have a nice afternoon."
I can't help but laugh a bit at his absent mindness,
and I tell him that it's eight o clock at night.
"Oh I just woke up."
"Up late again?" I smile a little.
"hmmm," he ponders, "same old, same old... I was
up writing a story."
"About what?" I ask. There are no customers around,
so this kind of small talk makes the time more
bearable.
"Just some story." He leaves it at that.


At first, working here, one is baffled by the
seemingly countless faces that rush through the
register. After a while, it becomes routine.

That old lady over there, who paid 3.37 for a
measly cup of coffee? She is always here alone,
though she talks to her self without reserve and
watches people condescendingly. Her name is Mrs. Brooks,
and she reminds me of the old bag ladies you
see feeding pidgeons seeds in the park. I guesse
you could say that the pidgeons are the people
and the seeds are her thoughts. I sometimes
wonder if she ever gets sick of it; the same
people, the same place. Then I realize that
I am asking myself this question as well.

Working alone in a coffee shop gives you time to
think, to ponder. Of course, when your co worker
always seems out of it or pumped up on drugs of
some sort, these times seem to be abundant. I see
him sitting outside, smoking. He looks quite
contemplative, and a little depressed. Not
my business to meddle, though. Just moments before
he was sitting inside, reading a small book. A
collection of poetries of some sort.

It kind of irritates me: these coffee shop
intellectuals. They put on a visade like they
are trying to do something with their life; they
think are smarter than everyone else by reading
what others say is good and restating what they
read as their own "opinions." They feel like the
world is some movie and they are the stars; as if
any bad times that we suffer, whether financially
or emotionally, are simply plot devices to lay
plans for resolution. Peoples lives are stories,
I must say, though they are not comedies or romances
or late night B movies: they are tradgedies. No matter
how much fame we gain, and no matter how much money
we have, we just live to watch it eventually crumble
down. Our only hope lies in believing that the future
holds better times. You know what they say, "The grass
is always greener..."

Most of these people end up being like my co worker,
who does not say anything important or show the least bit
of interest in anything. They are just puppets,
caught on to something they cling so hard to, the life of redundance.
It's sad really; people in their prime who have the world
in front of them, only to zone out while it passes
by them and then to hope to get some of it back.
Take Mrs. Brooks, for example. She must have been
where we all were: a student of sorts with potential
and livelihood. But our interests get screwed up as
we grow up and our priorities are never as good
as they should be. I smile at my own hypocricy.

The clock was at 11:59 and I sat waiting at the
register to punch out, my initials
flashing in front of me.

The door slammed behind me, and I curse myself
for making so much noise. Luckily I did not
wake him up. I giggle to myself, he looks
so cute when he's asleep!
"hey there" I whisper, only to get snores
in reply. I creep up to his unsuspecting
body and glide my hand up his stomach. His
breathing pauses, and his eyes twitch a bit.
I bring my face closer to his, hoping to get
a quick kiss in before he wakes up, though
his eyes were open and a broad smile ran
across his face as our eyes caught.
"Hey honey," I muse.
"good morning." In a foggy daze the words
crumble out.

As he sits in the window, blowing smoke
out into the hapless night sky, a rush
of sadness swells inside me.
"Please stop smoking" I plead.
"I'm cutting back, I told you that."
It's no use. And he smokes so much! He
always has one in the morning, when
he wakes up, and one after most meals,
one before he goes to bed, and one after
we make love. I sigh.
"I just don't want to see you become sick
and have cancer and look forty when you're
thirty and..."
"I'll be fine. Don't worry about it."
I hate it when he says that.

When I awake, it is to his face. It is
somewhat amusing how we have been together
for almost two years now, and it never feels
old. No matter how routine my life can get,
he shall never become a part of it.
"bye bye honey" I whisper with pleasant
delight, as I lay a light kiss on his cheek
and grab my coat.  I make sure to
leave close the door quietly, as not
to wake him.

Some hours later, he finally shows up.
"it's about time you got here," I say
as he rushes past me, ignoring me as usual.
"You were supposed to be here an hour..." I
stopped myself midsentence. What's the point
in talking to someone who doesn't listen?
I sigh again. At least my boyfriend is
never late; I smile as I think of him. He comes
from the back, and I say "Hey!" with a cheery
delight that surprises me. I hope I didn't
startle him, but it seems he was not paying much
attention, as he types in his initials to
punch in.
I see his name tag is on upside down, and I laugh
a little to myself. His abstracted personality
is cute in a way. Just the other day, it took
him an hour or so to realize that he buttoned his
shirt wrong. He looks busy helping customers,
so I'll wait to tell him. I'm surprised
he can get dressed in the morning without having
someone to remind him to do so.

I wonder, can someone who is so bemused ever become
sick of routine?

Later that night, I felt a compelling, growing
sadness in my heart. What is it that makes me
so cold to those arond me? Why is it that
I have become what I hate, and what I fear
most? Working a dead end job at this small
coffee shop, coming home to the same small,
unkempt apartment, and thinking the same dreadful
thoughts? The utter routine; the constant smell
of cigarettes and stale cologne that fills
my room. The snoring, unemployed,
lump of a man that I call my own.
Even the sex can feel routine sometimes,
with the same grunts, sweat and heat.
I tried to muffle my crying in the
pillow, but it's not like I had
anything to worry about; he sleeps
like a rock. When I awoke, my eyes were
red and swollen. Rain pours down across
the streets, and I glance out the window
the see people running across the streets,
trying not to get wet.
"What a great way to start the day,"
I grumble sarcastically, as he sleeps.
Not a care in the world.

When I get to work, I toss my rainjacket across
the floor in the back. I don't care. I suddenly
feel tired, and time itches at my nerves. Slowly
the minutes pass, and the customers come in, running
circles of routine. Same face, same coffee, same
money, same small talk, same smile.
"Have a nice day" I say in a non chalant fashion.
"That will be one sixty two" I hear from my left.
I grin. He sounds more extroverted than usual. I wonder,
what lottery did he win?
Peoples faces seemed to blur and voice become
drowning waves of sound with no direction. How
late did I stay up last night, crying? I feel so
weak. As I pick up someones coffee from the
machine, a bolt of thunder cracks in the distance,
not too far away. I almost never jump at such
a thing, but I did, and I watch in horror
as the coffee cup leaps from the tray to turn
upside down. I let out a shrill, and I see him
rushing towards me with napkins and a cup of cold
water.
"Are you okay?" he asked. I felt a bit surprised
by the emotion he conveyed. He actually cares?
"Yeah," I say smuggly, "it just spilled on
my stomach a bit." I see him grin, and I realize
that he is mocking me. He thinks it's funny that
I spilled coffee everywhere and made this mess!
"That was cute," I heard him say as he cleaned
up the floor, "jumping at the lightning, I mean."
I get it, the epiphany of the laymans joke. I
throw off a fake smile and go to the back to
clean up and get a dry shirt.

"Thanks for cleaning up out here" I say when
I come back. He may be a blockhead sometimes,
but he sure has work ethic. He seems to ignore
me, as usual, and goes to help a customer.
"That will be seven fifty two," I hear
in the faint distance.




























































































