Fire and Ice

The literary contradictory attempts of a sometime writer.

drivel

December 30, 2008 at 4:43 pm · Filed under Fragment

i need something to take my mind off things off thinking off thinking of things to think of need something to keep me preoccupied with other things instead which are not the things that i am currently thinking i need something that is anything other than the pointless roundabout thoughts that are in my tiresome head occupying headspace

i said that to him once, ‘you are taking up headspace’ and he answered, ‘can i rent indefinitely?’ and there wasn’t anything i can say to that although there should have been an answer to that, any thinking person would say ‘no’ to that, and i am a thinking person

because the thoughts are threatening the thoughts are traitorous the thoughts betray and negate and belittle and scoff at rationality reason and practicality and thoughts like that should never be thought or if they are they should be squashed smashed stamped out of existence and back into the nothingness where they came from not to be remembered forever and ever

he said that to me once, ‘forever and ever’, although i was too polite to point out that we weren’t little children, and that for adults ‘forever’ sometimes meant ‘an indefinite, albeit long, period of time’, and that i knew this was one of those times

but they won’t go away and they won’t let me sleep and they are stubborn and stay stuck and buzz around the endless empty rooms of my head which is preparing to sleep but reluctant to let go of waking hours even though it knows that another night slept means another day over and another day over is another day closer to

…

nothing there are no words after that because there is nothing to look forward to and maybe that is why the thoughts won’t go away because they know what comes after (nothing) and they are there to comfort and not to taunt they are there to remind of other things aside from the nothing that they know lies ahead and so they will not go away and this entry will never end

of course when i say ‘never’ i mean it in the most mature adult sense, which is to say i lied

it ends now

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Listen

July 15, 2008 at 3:29 pm · Filed under Fragment

Quell. That’s a good word. It’s not commonly used and it sounds unusual. It starts with a ‘k’ sound so it’s not that nice sounding, but it does end with an ‘ell’ sound, so that saves it I guess.

Suppress. That sounds even better. It’s a bit more common, although still not widely used. You’d maybe find it in journalistic prose, like newspaper stories or new shows, but not in normal everyday conversation. But the sound of the word is nice, with all those sibilants. The ‘p’ in the middle is the hardest sounding letter in the bunch, but that’s about it.

Pacify. The second word sounds better, but this one isn’t so bad either. The ‘c’ in the middle is soft sounding, and the word is still feminine overall. It’s another uncommon word, not entirely formal, but it’s more of a ‘discussion’ word rather than a ‘conversation’ word.

Check. This is one is short and to the point. Curt. It’s not pleasant sounding either. This word exists just to get the job done. I would even suggest that it’s a bit onometopoeic in that it’s more like a sound for something, the action of ticking something off, than an actual word. Although that’s not true of course.

Subdue. This word is… ordinary. It fades into the background of other words, which makes it completely suitable for what it means I guess. It’s not an ugly sounding word, but it’s not particularly pretty either. It’s neutral in terms of sound.

Stem. This is another feminine sounding word. It suggests something long and elegant, because of the imagery of the word as a noun of course. As a verb, I think it’s a softer way of saying ‘to cut’. More like a gentle action with some sharp clippers rather than with a hacking motion using a dull knife.

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Why I Love/Hate My Moral Compass

July 14, 2008 at 12:38 pm · Filed under Fragment

Hey I…

NOPE

But he…

NOPE

Even if… ?

NO

Or if…

UH-UH

What if… ?

NOT EVEN

But I… !

NO YOU DON’T

I might…

NO YOU WON’T

You’re right.

YES I AM

Ok.

GOOD

Thank you.

YOU’RE WELCOME

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Death Will Come to You in Sleep

July 4, 2008 at 3:10 pm · Filed under Fragment

Death will come to you in sleep

Fall upon you in the dark

Take you while you slumber deep

Gently as it eats your heart

Death will come to you in sleep

Enfold you in its cold embrace

With freezing hands caress your cheek

Tracing tear stains down your face

Death will come to you in sleep

Tear your flesh and soul apart

It’s whisper soft, it’s message sweet

Forever stillness, forever dark

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(Almost) Exactly How it Happened

June 26, 2008 at 2:50 pm · Filed under Story

For R, with embellishments. This is the way I remember it, and this is the way I’m going to tell it, and besides this is a more interesting way to to tell it than what actually happened, which means it mustn’t have been that remarkable a story in the first place.

I was the first one to wake up. The sun had just risen. It was the country alright, there was a quietness in the air that you wouldn’t get in the city around this time. Even the chirping of the birds sounded distant and hushed somehow. Like they’re showing polite respect to the painter in the sky making the pretty colors so early in the morning.

The others were still asleep in various places around the rented summer house. I went to the raised jacuzzi attached to the to the end of the pool. It had a great view of the valley and the mountain beyond. I sat down on one of the wooden lounge chairs. I tried to think of nothing at all, and failed miserably.

Then you came out. I didn’t know where you slept last night, where you found a place to lie down in the house. As far as I could tell, everyone crashed at around three in the morning, when the ice ran out. I myself stopped drinking after my customary two beer limit, just hanging around laughing and singing with the rest of them. I wasn’t the first nor the last one to sleep, but I vaguely remember you still being up and about as I stood up and told them all that I was going to sleep. I crashed on an empty couch.

You nodded at me as you approached the pool, and you sat on the other lounge chair. We looked at the view together. I had no idea what you were thinking. If we were the type of people who smoked we’d both have been lighting up by then.

It should have been weird, but it wasn’t. We just sat and stayed silent. I was wondering by then if maybe you were still half-asleep. But then suddenly, out of the blue, you spoke.

“Are you happy?”

It was a loaded question. I looked over at you, and you were still concentrating on the mountains, and I thought that it was very smart of you not to be looking at me as you asked that because things would have gotten really weird really fast, but you didn’t, so I feigned fascination with the mountains as well while my mind worked out how to answer such a deceivingly simple three word question.

“Are you?” was what I came up with. Really lame in my opinion. But the voices in my head told me that if I was talking to someone I liked I would have said something much worse, so that wasn’t so bad.

“I think I am,” you said.

“Which is actually quite sad, if you think about it,” I couldn’t help saying. “Are you really, truly happy if you’re not even sure that you’re happy? Is contentment the same as happiness? What does it mean to be truly happy anyway?”

You were smiling at me by then. I knew you liked it when we have this kind of conversation, and you were one of the few people I could let myself go with like this in this way.

“So are you happy or not?” I asked you again, and by this time, somehow, it became a very important question. I wanted you to say yes, you were happy, very happy in fact. We were just friends, not even close friends, just classmates for most of our years in university. I wasn’t into you in that way, and you weren’t into me. But I wanted you to say that yes, indeed, you were happy, because if you were happy, then I should also be, because, well, I didn’t have an opinion one way or another at that very moment, so I would just take the cue from you. If you were happy, then I would also be happy. Never mind that we haven’t even defined what level of happiness we were talking about, or that the question was so maddeningly vague and broad, or that we had totally different situations in life. You were around my age, we had the same level of education more or less, and we were both intelligent people, and that means if you were happy, or could be happy, then so could I.

“Yes I’m happy,” you answered, still smiling. But I knew that you really didn’t think about the question very well, but I didn’t mind. The split second of urgency that I felt when I asked the all-important question was gone now. Now it was just a silly question again, just something to pass the time with, to joke around with. Nothing important.

“Really now?” I asked, pretending to believe you but smiling as well. It’s all good, we were just having fun now, anticipating the delicious conversation ahead, knowing we could have fun with this topic because we were both smart and witty and were such a perfect match for smart and witty banter. Or rather, I knew it. I bet you don’t know until now just how much you enjoy talking to me.

“How happy then?” was my follow up question. “Convince me, make it fun,” was what I meant but didn’t say out loud.

“I’m so happy it hurts!” You suddenly said, the words blurting out of you with triple exclamation points spiking the air, and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. The timing was perfect. I told you to prove it further, to shout it out loud, and you did. I joined you then, and we declared to the mountains, to the skies, to the valley below that we were both happy, so very happy, so very happy it hurts!

Other people were also coming out by then, and we must have been a funny sight, sitting beside that pool laughing so hard we were holding on to the chairs, shouting about how happy we were, and not being able to explain why. Even now I can’t even explain it as clearly as I want. It was over ten years ago when that happened.

You probably don’t remember any of this. Or you do, but you don’t remember as much detail about it as I do. It’s not important. It’s just something that happened, among a thousand, no a million, other things that have happened to me before and since then.

And then this could segue into how the speaker wants to kill himself or herself, and that this turned out to be either an email or a suicide letter. But I’m too lazy to turn it into a real story. Besides, this really happened, almost exactly the way I told it right now, and I don’t want R to find out that I wrote about it and have to explain myself. Because it doesn’t really mean anything, it just happened, so I’m writing about it. And that’s that.

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do not want

May 31, 2008 at 3:21 pm · Filed under Fragment

I have decided not to speak to you anymore because I feel ignored when we speak. Even when you are talking to me, it is as if you are not talking to me at all, but at a sounding board. I may as well be an inanimate doll. I may as well not be there. If I can program a mannequin to nod and say yes every so often, then put it in front you, you wouldn’t even know the difference.

I have decided not to speak to you anymore because I need to have my opinions acknowledged every so often. I have thoughts myself, and even though I am open to the idea of listening to yours, I think mine should also be listened to every now and then.

I have decided not to speak to you anymore because I realized my own importance. I matter. Not just you.

I have decided not to speak to you anymore because even though you sometimes do let me get a word in edgewise, you would go off on your own tangent afterwards, as if I never said anything at all.

I have decided not to speak to you anymore because you always start our conversations asking about how I am, and I always take that questions seriously, but you never do, it’s just a conversation opener with you. I know it’s nerdy to think over that question every time, and not consider it as the socially accepted formality that it is, but I can’t help it, I need to be asked, and I need to tell.

I have decided not to speak to you anymore because even though I know all these things, and think all these things, and feel the way that I do about them, I know that I am still going to speak to you when you ask me, and for that reason, I really really really have to not speak to you anymore.

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No Match Against Butterflies

May 30, 2008 at 3:21 pm · Filed under Excerpt

This is the talk. This is an intervention. This is your conscience speaking. The one who lives inside you and watches you all the time. We are all here.

What are you doing? There is this roiling in your stomach again that we do not like. There is a flutter in your heart that only came out when that other disaster is happening. There is a panic in your head again, a smokiness, an unsure quality that we do not like the taste of, or the feel of. There are goosebumps most times as well, what is this? Have we not been through enough?

And you are lying again. You say that this is not what it looks like, but what else can it be than what it looks like it is. There is no metaphor here, this is what it is. Thinly veiled as the thing you are trying for it not be, but it is, and you may lie to them, you may lie to others, but you cannot lie to us, we are the council inside your head, and we are calling bullshit on your lies.

You say you are strong, but child you are not. You are weak like old thread, like a filament of cobweb in a dark corner of a musty room. You are weak and you no match against the butterflies that invade. The ones whose wings can do so much damage just by one single twitch. And it is a veritable army of butterflies that is coming your way it is.

You will either stop this madness immediately or we will not hesitate to shut down and leave you, and you know what happened the last time we did that, the last time you let yourself be consumed by butterflies.

It was like a fire, it was.

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Green Tea, Now With Caffeine!

May 14, 2008 at 4:08 pm · Filed under Fragment

Stone Angel

She had been seeing this small blurred shape out of the corner of her left eye since this morning, and she had been rubbing at it absently to make it go away. She thought it was some leftover “morning glory” since she woke up this morning. She has no idea how some of those can still sometimes stay all day on a person’s eyes even after a hot shower and vigorous scrubbing and furious blinking and other such eye debris extraction techniques, but knew that these things happen sometimes.

Anyway, it was noon already, and it was still there, and by this time she was annoyed to the point of going to the bathroom and trying to wash her face to see if it would go away.

She went in, glad that she had the entire bathroom all to herself and looked at her face in the mirror, concentrating on her left eye. There was nothing there. But she could see something, and by now she was getting a teensy bit scared that it might be something inside her eye, something that would require a lot more than just an afternoon facial wash.

She decided to concentrate her vision inwardly, trying to make the blurry something come into focus. She was surprised when it did. At first it had blurry edges, but as she tried harder, the thing formed a shape, and it was familiar enough to not be very scary. It was a tiny black triangle, pointing downwards.

What the hell is this thing, she thought nervously, not even trying to pick at it with her fingers, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. The shape was too… vectorized. The shape had bezelled edges, one pixel all round, and as she stared at it (well, at least focused on it as much as she can), it glinted in that shiny shiny web 2.0 way that she knew all too well. Her mind translated such a perfectly anti-aliased shape as this as one usually seen on a computer monitor.

She closed her eyes tightly, testing to see if it would go away. When she opened her eyes, the tiny triangle was still there, only now it wasn’t as blurred as before, and it was easier to focus on it, now that she knows it’s there.

By now she was getting really scared, thoughts of Lasik and eye surgery and doctors and masks (and Oh God, I’m going to look like a pirate) going through her mind. She tried to calm down.

After blinking several times and determining for sure that the thing would not go away no matter how much she did this, she tried to

What happens next time is she finds out somehow that if she blinks once and thinks the word ’search’ right after, and then thinks of something she wants to search for, her mind fills up with the best possible website on that subject from Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” button. She learns that she has to be very specific in what she is ’searching’ for, otherwise some of the results can get pretty scary.

Ending is probably her being relegated to a mental institution, amused forever by the built in search engine and browser in her head.

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