Six black crosses all in a row.
Steal two glances, I can feel my skin glow.
All those promises that we made to the moon,
My heart got caught in my chest.
A kiss is loves most ancient rune.
Those eyes were true... black blue in blue.
All those locks broke inside.
My seconds ticked past. Mute in passing.
I send Hannibal drunken telegraphs.
The walker chooses the path.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Collusion: Part XXXII
She was trying to stay calm I think. To slip past them... That's what she had been trained for... But in the deadness and the silence... in that black tension, now we would see what would come of the training. She was hiding in the thick evergreens. The trees had begun to clear as she had made her way out of the deeper woods... I felt the fear with her. I sensed instinctively she was being followed.
The moonlight was weak. The clouds above, skeletal and fickle. I had no idea how long she had been running, but she wasn't breathing very hard. I caught a little glimpse at her, pale and thin in the blue light from the sky. She had a decidedly angular face. A thin nose that turned up ever so little at the end... and her eyes were a kind of black that ate in all the light around them.
Black hair hung to her shoulders and she was dressed for running and hiding.
Then before I knew what to think about it... they were around her. The smallest of rustlings back towards the woods and my glance darted towards it with her. Then two of them shot across the clearing towards her.
Dogs... no wolves. They bolted forward. Quick and silent like fish. The woman made no sound herself but dashed from her hiding place and began running. I followed them... Trying to hide myself... I was terrified of the wolves. I had to help this girl though. I ran after the group.
We ran for some minutes... the trees got more and more sparse... And then I stopped quickly, noticing that they had as well. Because there was no longer any land to run on. We had come to the edge of a cliff.
The woman was being yanked around by the two hounds. It was no where as clear an image as I would have liked. The shapes became vague in the half light. They were as big as I was and bent with all sorta of blood lust on killing this girl. I looked on horrified... I looked around for some way to help her. A stick. A stone. Something. But I was forced to look back as I heard a scream. From her. This girl. She had pulled out a little short knife from a boot and stuck one of the dogs in the neck. And kicked the other off of her. But there were more of them... I felt the breath of one of them on the back of my neck and yelled out as it brushed past me into the clearing towards the girl. It didn't hear me. It didn't stop. It made no sign it had noticed me at all. Now it was five of them darting her way. Swift and silent as shadows across the white sand of the clearing. This time I ran out with them. There were too many. She couldn't get them all.
As I looked on though she had kicked the first two approaching in the face. Kicked them down flat. They struggled to get up. But then as if frightened... the others began to back away from her.
They whimpered and growled and backed away back towards the woods.
I stopped running towards them... and watched the cowering back, wondering at this odd and fortunate chain of events. The growled low... and sat down on their haunches menacing. The stricken ones staggered to their feet and joined the others in a wide circle around the girl... Who... oddly was smiling.
Ha ha ha! She laughed a laugh that sounded as careless as a teenagers. "I saw you running with them... Always sending out the boys after me... How many of them have I killed?'
Her smile was galvanized by the blue black moonlight.
I couldn't see who she was talking to until a moment later. A small thin man... barely as tall as me and much thinner stepped out of the shadow of the woods. He could have been a child for all that I knew... but he was dressed so perfectly as to be unrealistic of his jaunt through the woods just now. A tiny black suit. White french cuffs and a stiff white collar.
"Well this time you took it... Congratulations..." The man said. His voice was cracked and deep and completely disturbing for such a small child like person. "We'll have it back now though, thankyou."
He said this with absolutely no emotion. No inflection. And his voice sounded so familiar. Like someones that I had always known.
The woman did not respond to this except to spit on the ground in contempt. "Ill do what I came here for she said... and with that she flung her little boot knife at the boy... flink. As it nearly struck him in the face he flicked it to the ground....
The wolves grew vocal and angry at this... As if it were an affront to the entirety of their religion and made for the girl once again... And this time they were not alone. The little man rushed the distance between him and the cliff and quickly caught the girls neck making it there before the dogs. Jumping up on her knees to make the distance and then pulling her down with him to accommodate his shortness at the ground.
"What now girl?" Impish boy called to her sweetly as he was crushing her neck... "Give me back what's mine? Ill let you go?" The intensity with which the boy was crushing her neck was devastating to watch... The once gloating smile and taunting look dropped from her face leaving a blank white knowledge in her eye. She had chanced too much. She hadn't run fast enough.
Then there was something else. Something foreign that I'd never seen a human express.
A fastness. A calmness.
A quick snatch and now she had him by his throat as well... She pounced and pushed him onto his back using her height as an advantage. The wolves stood around taught as a drawn bow, but would not apparently challenge the contestants...
"And what of your family? You sister? What of them?" The little man asked his face rigid with the struggle...
The girl pulled out of his grasp and looked down on his as struggled wildly. "I know where they've gone."
"Then you must arrange to see them again! You must arrange freedom for them!" The little squealed at her.
The girl smiled at this, to my surprise, and said..." I'd much rather you visit them for me."
Little man snapped his finger and the wolves shot forward. Just then, though, my mouth fell open as slick black wings opened from the girls back and beat down once and quickly, just diving over the heads of the charging dogs, and over to her little knife in the sand...
She quickly pulled little man by the hair of his head and beat those wings three or so times more to hover over the dogs who were below her now yapping and whining for the leader to be returned.
"Remember this!" She screamed at the dogs. "Remember how there was nothing you could do!" Remember ... remember when you begin to feel safe again!" She laughed a little... I couldn't tell who was evil any more... I couldn't tell who I should help.
She fingered the tiny knife in her right hand and then quickly pulled it across little mans throat...
He en-hailed with a slight chug as she dropped him to the ground and made the smallest of thuds in the dusty sand.
The wolves looked up angrily and she flew off.
I bolted up sweating as my alarm rolled pleated out its tell tale fog horn sound.
Blink. Blink.
"DAMMIT!" Churned through my head like a track on a CD skipping as I jumped down from my top bunk to look for clothing and shoes. It can not be 7:50... It just can NOT BE! Kakis. Check. Ok. Teeth... NO! no. You have 10 minutes! It takes you 6 to make it across from your room! Shirt. Books. .... Tie.
Grrraaaaah! I was mad as hell. How could I have hit snooze that many times! I was stepping out of the room as I noticed and odd sensation... "The carpet is very short here... i thought." Gah! Shoes... I slipped some on and snatched at a very large, very ugly scarf on my way out the door.
:slam!: I passed boys in various stages of un-dress through the hall as I dashed madly for the side door of the dormatory.
"Hi josh!" My hall leader called out brightly. He'd obviously been slowly sipping Turkish coffee for hours.
"GrumN pEeh. Rah." I said as I zipped past him. Tucking my shirt in in the mean time.
I skipped down the stairs to the first floor exit two at a time glancing at my MOTOrazor the whole While. 7:54.
"OK. Alright Mr. Medlin. You're gonne be just fine.... just fine!" I heard in my head.
I shot out of the building forgetting all social graces and a bumped past two senior 'handsome soccer players.'
"Sorry! Sorry!" I offered as they shot me looks of disgust.
"Late... I'm Sorry!"
And then as the fates must have decided. There was Amanda. Even now as I type the name, it brings an utter revolt. So much so that I was required to look away from my typing and stare at a dark corner of the room.
Amanda Huss. Be mindful reader, it was not so then. 'Then' it hardly made a difference when I saw her. But.... the time would come... let it be known.
She wandered past with a group of acads.
"Josh!" She called out from the fray of them.... "Josh! Hi!"
I turned and greeted her happily.
"Hey Manda! Hey nice to see you." I said... Walking backwards away from her towards my classroom.
"Hey... you commin to church tonight?" She asked smiling at me all red haired and jolly.
"Yeah!... yeah... Ill see ya. I've gotta run. Late for Doctrines..." I turned and jogged towards lecture B.
I made it at the sound of the bell. The kids in the seats next to me all seemed rather perturbed at the size of my book bag; but it couldnt be helped. I didn't have time to stroll back to my room to change and fraternize with my friends on the hall between classes. I would be going till 1PM. And then work. So I squeezed in between peoples twice my size. I must have looked like a pack mule.
"Alright students" said the withered old man at the head of gray room.. "Would you please all take out a pencil and some notebook paper... and write for me todays quiz. Word perfect... John 4:24. You will have ten minutes to complete this....
Ok. Ok. I don't have to worry about this... but I did. Amongst all the things that Id gathered from my room on the way out, none of them were either pencil, nor paper. I whispered and annoyingly borrowed them from other students in my row... and began to write.
"John 4:24"
"God is spirit, and they that worship him should worship him in spirit and in truth."
I signed my name, and passed my paper to the end of the row for grading and then promptly fell asleep. I wandered if I could find out where that girl had flown off to... I wondered if I should follow her.
The moonlight was weak. The clouds above, skeletal and fickle. I had no idea how long she had been running, but she wasn't breathing very hard. I caught a little glimpse at her, pale and thin in the blue light from the sky. She had a decidedly angular face. A thin nose that turned up ever so little at the end... and her eyes were a kind of black that ate in all the light around them.
Black hair hung to her shoulders and she was dressed for running and hiding.
Then before I knew what to think about it... they were around her. The smallest of rustlings back towards the woods and my glance darted towards it with her. Then two of them shot across the clearing towards her.
Dogs... no wolves. They bolted forward. Quick and silent like fish. The woman made no sound herself but dashed from her hiding place and began running. I followed them... Trying to hide myself... I was terrified of the wolves. I had to help this girl though. I ran after the group.
We ran for some minutes... the trees got more and more sparse... And then I stopped quickly, noticing that they had as well. Because there was no longer any land to run on. We had come to the edge of a cliff.
The woman was being yanked around by the two hounds. It was no where as clear an image as I would have liked. The shapes became vague in the half light. They were as big as I was and bent with all sorta of blood lust on killing this girl. I looked on horrified... I looked around for some way to help her. A stick. A stone. Something. But I was forced to look back as I heard a scream. From her. This girl. She had pulled out a little short knife from a boot and stuck one of the dogs in the neck. And kicked the other off of her. But there were more of them... I felt the breath of one of them on the back of my neck and yelled out as it brushed past me into the clearing towards the girl. It didn't hear me. It didn't stop. It made no sign it had noticed me at all. Now it was five of them darting her way. Swift and silent as shadows across the white sand of the clearing. This time I ran out with them. There were too many. She couldn't get them all.
As I looked on though she had kicked the first two approaching in the face. Kicked them down flat. They struggled to get up. But then as if frightened... the others began to back away from her.
They whimpered and growled and backed away back towards the woods.
I stopped running towards them... and watched the cowering back, wondering at this odd and fortunate chain of events. The growled low... and sat down on their haunches menacing. The stricken ones staggered to their feet and joined the others in a wide circle around the girl... Who... oddly was smiling.
Ha ha ha! She laughed a laugh that sounded as careless as a teenagers. "I saw you running with them... Always sending out the boys after me... How many of them have I killed?'
Her smile was galvanized by the blue black moonlight.
I couldn't see who she was talking to until a moment later. A small thin man... barely as tall as me and much thinner stepped out of the shadow of the woods. He could have been a child for all that I knew... but he was dressed so perfectly as to be unrealistic of his jaunt through the woods just now. A tiny black suit. White french cuffs and a stiff white collar.
"Well this time you took it... Congratulations..." The man said. His voice was cracked and deep and completely disturbing for such a small child like person. "We'll have it back now though, thankyou."
He said this with absolutely no emotion. No inflection. And his voice sounded so familiar. Like someones that I had always known.
The woman did not respond to this except to spit on the ground in contempt. "Ill do what I came here for she said... and with that she flung her little boot knife at the boy... flink. As it nearly struck him in the face he flicked it to the ground....
The wolves grew vocal and angry at this... As if it were an affront to the entirety of their religion and made for the girl once again... And this time they were not alone. The little man rushed the distance between him and the cliff and quickly caught the girls neck making it there before the dogs. Jumping up on her knees to make the distance and then pulling her down with him to accommodate his shortness at the ground.
"What now girl?" Impish boy called to her sweetly as he was crushing her neck... "Give me back what's mine? Ill let you go?" The intensity with which the boy was crushing her neck was devastating to watch... The once gloating smile and taunting look dropped from her face leaving a blank white knowledge in her eye. She had chanced too much. She hadn't run fast enough.
Then there was something else. Something foreign that I'd never seen a human express.
A fastness. A calmness.
A quick snatch and now she had him by his throat as well... She pounced and pushed him onto his back using her height as an advantage. The wolves stood around taught as a drawn bow, but would not apparently challenge the contestants...
"And what of your family? You sister? What of them?" The little man asked his face rigid with the struggle...
The girl pulled out of his grasp and looked down on his as struggled wildly. "I know where they've gone."
"Then you must arrange to see them again! You must arrange freedom for them!" The little squealed at her.
The girl smiled at this, to my surprise, and said..." I'd much rather you visit them for me."
Little man snapped his finger and the wolves shot forward. Just then, though, my mouth fell open as slick black wings opened from the girls back and beat down once and quickly, just diving over the heads of the charging dogs, and over to her little knife in the sand...
She quickly pulled little man by the hair of his head and beat those wings three or so times more to hover over the dogs who were below her now yapping and whining for the leader to be returned.
"Remember this!" She screamed at the dogs. "Remember how there was nothing you could do!" Remember ... remember when you begin to feel safe again!" She laughed a little... I couldn't tell who was evil any more... I couldn't tell who I should help.
She fingered the tiny knife in her right hand and then quickly pulled it across little mans throat...
He en-hailed with a slight chug as she dropped him to the ground and made the smallest of thuds in the dusty sand.
The wolves looked up angrily and she flew off.
I bolted up sweating as my alarm rolled pleated out its tell tale fog horn sound.
Blink. Blink.
"DAMMIT!" Churned through my head like a track on a CD skipping as I jumped down from my top bunk to look for clothing and shoes. It can not be 7:50... It just can NOT BE! Kakis. Check. Ok. Teeth... NO! no. You have 10 minutes! It takes you 6 to make it across from your room! Shirt. Books. .... Tie.
Grrraaaaah! I was mad as hell. How could I have hit snooze that many times! I was stepping out of the room as I noticed and odd sensation... "The carpet is very short here... i thought." Gah! Shoes... I slipped some on and snatched at a very large, very ugly scarf on my way out the door.
:slam!: I passed boys in various stages of un-dress through the hall as I dashed madly for the side door of the dormatory.
"Hi josh!" My hall leader called out brightly. He'd obviously been slowly sipping Turkish coffee for hours.
"GrumN pEeh. Rah." I said as I zipped past him. Tucking my shirt in in the mean time.
I skipped down the stairs to the first floor exit two at a time glancing at my MOTOrazor the whole While. 7:54.
"OK. Alright Mr. Medlin. You're gonne be just fine.... just fine!" I heard in my head.
I shot out of the building forgetting all social graces and a bumped past two senior 'handsome soccer players.'
"Sorry! Sorry!" I offered as they shot me looks of disgust.
"Late... I'm Sorry!"
And then as the fates must have decided. There was Amanda. Even now as I type the name, it brings an utter revolt. So much so that I was required to look away from my typing and stare at a dark corner of the room.
Amanda Huss. Be mindful reader, it was not so then. 'Then' it hardly made a difference when I saw her. But.... the time would come... let it be known.
She wandered past with a group of acads.
"Josh!" She called out from the fray of them.... "Josh! Hi!"
I turned and greeted her happily.
"Hey Manda! Hey nice to see you." I said... Walking backwards away from her towards my classroom.
"Hey... you commin to church tonight?" She asked smiling at me all red haired and jolly.
"Yeah!... yeah... Ill see ya. I've gotta run. Late for Doctrines..." I turned and jogged towards lecture B.
I made it at the sound of the bell. The kids in the seats next to me all seemed rather perturbed at the size of my book bag; but it couldnt be helped. I didn't have time to stroll back to my room to change and fraternize with my friends on the hall between classes. I would be going till 1PM. And then work. So I squeezed in between peoples twice my size. I must have looked like a pack mule.
"Alright students" said the withered old man at the head of gray room.. "Would you please all take out a pencil and some notebook paper... and write for me todays quiz. Word perfect... John 4:24. You will have ten minutes to complete this....
Ok. Ok. I don't have to worry about this... but I did. Amongst all the things that Id gathered from my room on the way out, none of them were either pencil, nor paper. I whispered and annoyingly borrowed them from other students in my row... and began to write.
"John 4:24"
"God is spirit, and they that worship him should worship him in spirit and in truth."
I signed my name, and passed my paper to the end of the row for grading and then promptly fell asleep. I wandered if I could find out where that girl had flown off to... I wondered if I should follow her.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Delete
Then as now we are surrounded by waste. How often do people eat off of porcelain anymore. Paper. Plastic. Cheap and irrelevant. And so is our communication. A swipe or a button gets rid of days worth of conversation with your closest friend... Traceless. Painless. There are so very few rituals anymore.
I've kept letters from those first 6 months with X. God but weren't we ridiculous. I remember glass eyed, how little scraps of paper became offerings. Sacrifices... to each other. It was something arcane, and X felt as well as I that whatever we had thought about the world had been wrong. That nothing before that other simpler minds had thought true, necessarily was. That this was true. And that should we forget... should we grow old or be forced back from one another... we would have these artifacts. We would have bits and pieces of the way that were and that those ruins would lead us back to our own Mesopotamia.
I have all of those things. And even in the fall out of it all I couldn't throw them out. Something about the way each piece of paper and little bit of stolen stationary.... notebook pages, there was a translucent smoke that slowly seeped out of them. It was the very smell of justice. Of wholesome and honest affection... I know you're judging me for these remembrances. And you're more than welcome. But mark me this one thing... I still won't throw those letters away.
I can't imagine a time in my life were I will not want to remember the grit and the sweat and the reckless self abandon that came with first love. How the presence of that person. How holding those simplest of gift in my hands even to this day makes me feel like I alone watched creation. Like I, a dark specter... know the secrets of life.
I hate this fickle devotion to speed in our culture. There's nothing wrong with sitting down and having a conversation with someone without checking your phone every eight seconds. We are intended to interface and build memories of real breathing flesh and blood.
I'm not the best at it for sure. Lets be honest, sometimes it's easier to play angry birds or pay attention to who's checking in where on foursquare than it is to deal with that annoyingly nasal consonance of our acquaintances. Brothers I understand apathy. But we are the ones who miss out. We don't get to see life as nature gave it to us... We're watching the special on a flatscreen as Oprah narrates.
This was made all to painfully clear to me on the way home from Alabama. I had been out of contact with nearly every one for a week and sort of missed sharing pictures and video. Why not? I mean I missed the emoticons and the comradeship of sorts. But our electronic personalities are oh so very different than our real ones. Our real breathing persons.
I was Texting:
Gary> So how was the trip? Did you have fun?
ME< It was super fun! I'm so relaxed! If I was any more relaxed I would shit myself!
Gary> Mmmm. Mature.
ME<Shut up. How's your week going?
Gary> It's ok. Hey. So. Have you heard anything from David?
ME<Which one... Skinny tweeker David? Fat Dave Who Smells Like A Bird Cage?
Gary> Skinny tweeker one... He used to work with me...
ME<Oh no... I mean I saw him around before Mexico. He looks aweful.
Gary> Yeah. I was... he's not...
ME< He's dead?
:Minutes Pass:
Gary>Yeah.
Me<OD?
Gary> Suicide. I think. The obituary wasn't all that specific. I didn't want to be the one to tell you... I thought you might have known already.
Me<It's not exactly un-expected.He kept wanting to hang out and stuff... I just didn't have the time. I told him he needed to go to rehab.
Gary>Yeah. Well...
Me<Hey can we talk later?
Gary>Yeah cool.
I fiddled with the phone for a moment thinking it over. David. Wow. I felt guilty. I hadn't done anything. I rationalized.
The I flicked back to the conversation thread... and slid my thumb left to right across the polished glass surface.
I clicked delete.
I've kept letters from those first 6 months with X. God but weren't we ridiculous. I remember glass eyed, how little scraps of paper became offerings. Sacrifices... to each other. It was something arcane, and X felt as well as I that whatever we had thought about the world had been wrong. That nothing before that other simpler minds had thought true, necessarily was. That this was true. And that should we forget... should we grow old or be forced back from one another... we would have these artifacts. We would have bits and pieces of the way that were and that those ruins would lead us back to our own Mesopotamia.
I have all of those things. And even in the fall out of it all I couldn't throw them out. Something about the way each piece of paper and little bit of stolen stationary.... notebook pages, there was a translucent smoke that slowly seeped out of them. It was the very smell of justice. Of wholesome and honest affection... I know you're judging me for these remembrances. And you're more than welcome. But mark me this one thing... I still won't throw those letters away.
I can't imagine a time in my life were I will not want to remember the grit and the sweat and the reckless self abandon that came with first love. How the presence of that person. How holding those simplest of gift in my hands even to this day makes me feel like I alone watched creation. Like I, a dark specter... know the secrets of life.
I hate this fickle devotion to speed in our culture. There's nothing wrong with sitting down and having a conversation with someone without checking your phone every eight seconds. We are intended to interface and build memories of real breathing flesh and blood.
I'm not the best at it for sure. Lets be honest, sometimes it's easier to play angry birds or pay attention to who's checking in where on foursquare than it is to deal with that annoyingly nasal consonance of our acquaintances. Brothers I understand apathy. But we are the ones who miss out. We don't get to see life as nature gave it to us... We're watching the special on a flatscreen as Oprah narrates.
This was made all to painfully clear to me on the way home from Alabama. I had been out of contact with nearly every one for a week and sort of missed sharing pictures and video. Why not? I mean I missed the emoticons and the comradeship of sorts. But our electronic personalities are oh so very different than our real ones. Our real breathing persons.
I was Texting:
Gary> So how was the trip? Did you have fun?
ME< It was super fun! I'm so relaxed! If I was any more relaxed I would shit myself!
Gary> Mmmm. Mature.
ME<Shut up. How's your week going?
Gary> It's ok. Hey. So. Have you heard anything from David?
ME<Which one... Skinny tweeker David? Fat Dave Who Smells Like A Bird Cage?
Gary> Skinny tweeker one... He used to work with me...
ME<Oh no... I mean I saw him around before Mexico. He looks aweful.
Gary> Yeah. I was... he's not...
ME< He's dead?
:Minutes Pass:
Gary>Yeah.
Me<OD?
Gary> Suicide. I think. The obituary wasn't all that specific. I didn't want to be the one to tell you... I thought you might have known already.
Me<It's not exactly un-expected.He kept wanting to hang out and stuff... I just didn't have the time. I told him he needed to go to rehab.
Gary>Yeah. Well...
Me<Hey can we talk later?
Gary>Yeah cool.
I fiddled with the phone for a moment thinking it over. David. Wow. I felt guilty. I hadn't done anything. I rationalized.
The I flicked back to the conversation thread... and slid my thumb left to right across the polished glass surface.
I clicked delete.
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