Flash! Friday Semi-Finalists

Didgeridoo. CC2.0 photo by Francois de Halleux.

Got the news on Sunday that my post on Flash! Friday's Anniversary contest actually impressed the judges enough to earn a spot in their semi-final round.  HOLY CRAP!!!!

Now, in a frenzy of esoteric verbiage, compressed into the demands of time and schedule, I have crafted my next submission - based on the photo prompt above.

Curious, this is...for the first time in the history of this blog the leading photo is NOT my own work...

I breathe welcome to the photo, and offer up - my next Flash Fiction story...

Synergy

239 words

Curious, this is. 

Reality is tubular, cylindrical, a lone passageway knifing sharply down through infinity, terminating in brilliant illumination.  Nooks and crannies; pockmarks, protuberances and extrusions ruffle the world in an unstructured, random riot of texture.  This crinkly chaos is populated by myself and my brethren.  

They breathe welcome to me even as I do the same.

A moment ago, there was nothing - formless, shapeless, non-being oblivion.  I was  -we were-  simply not.  This wrinkled thoroughfare was empty and still.  

But now?   

 I Am.                                           We Are.  

 The first taste of awareness, existence, self.  It is sweet. Potent. Electric.  We tremble with its resonance. 

The world breathes welcome to us even as we do the same.  

It's exhalation whispers amongst the landscape, caressing the nodules and pleats -and us- in its journey downward.  Exciting, the breath is, full of movement, direction, and intent. Wrapped in breath's embrace, some brethren go swirling down, down, down toward the dazzling terminus.

Curious, this is.  

There is only expectation, possibility, the assumption of completion from those who pirouette their way to infinity.  We know without knowing how that this voyage is inevitable, absolute and final, but greater than us, the various parts.   

It is...the future.  As formless and timeless as ourselves, yet gravid with potential and the promise of:

NEXT.

We wait, poised and ready, for the next breath...

To emerge...reborn... 

A saucy little tune from the bell of the wooden flute.

Flash! Friday's Flash-versary

Headed over to Flash! Friday again -it's a celebration of draconic proportions as they celebrate the turning of their own personal clock.  'Tis an anniversary!


Go...look...and post a story of your own if you're in to flash fiction - there's still time to contribute, and PLENTY to read.  Below is my submission:

Pyromaniac

150 words

Flame.
Orange against black.  Subtle licks of cerulean, scarlet, saffron and emerald flare into being to vanish in an instant later without a trace.  Elongated fingers of incandescence stretch into the void to momentarily paint their essence onto the obsidian night sky.

Inferno.
It is alive with movement - sliding, shifting, waving, weaving - its hypnotic, primal dance both beautiful and terrible as it crafts a timeless, mesmerizing, elemental ballet of destruction.

Blaze.
The voice of combustion, a low, throaty growling howl of clean air transformed to sweltering luminescence, whispering secret desires into the ears of those who worship it.

Immolation.
They listen, comprehending the flare's song in that most primitive portion of the brain.  They stare, glassy-eyed and slack-jawed, into the complex twisting leap and swirl of the living flame.  They are powerless to resist the compelling demands of spark, ember, pyre.

Intentional.
Some men live to watch the world burn.

Micro Bookends - Flash Fiction

Another Flash Fiction challenge accepted - and another website to follow!


Micro Bookends



These guys like things short. Really short:  90 - 110 words.  You start and end the piece with the words provided, and incorporate the photo prompt in there.




This week the challenge is:   

Sacred {insert story here} Sound.  

There is a quirky panorama of an airplane hangar for the photo prompt.

I have to admit - I spent some time bouncing ideas around in my head first focusing on the words.  It wasn't until I stopped worrying about the beginning and ending words and started focusing on the type of photo - the panoramic style where the vertical lines 'curve' around the middle of the photo - that I had the thought.

"How do other species 'see' the human world?"
After that - it almost wrote itself...

Enjoy.

Bird Calling

105 words

"Sacred is the flight of the bird, to take wing upon sky and soar amongst cloud.  Observe, oversee, monitor the heavy ones.  Gaia watches through you."

When the sun rises, so does the ancient one, singing the morning call to send us on our tasks.  The aerie fills with the cacophony of wing and song as my brethren take to the sky.

Today, I shall perch near the predator upright's wing enclave, where they house their funny hollow avians, to sing and observe until Gaia has her fill.


"Birdsong," one pipes up, throwing a chunk of bread my way, "I never tire of the sound."

Inhospitable Wonderland

A while ago, I found a simple post by a wonderful lady on Google+ - she took a shot of the front grill of her pot bellied stove with a warm and inviting fire burning merrily inside...jotted down a brief post about how it was time for more wood on the fire, and coffee to act as balance against the cold snowflakes.

The image was a beautifully done contrast between the dark iron of the stove's door and the bright orange back-light of the fire - and through the slits in the door you could see the fire's dancing forms.  The image evokes thoughts and feelings of warmth, solitude, and simplicity.  I appreciate a lot of photography, but to be honest, very few things draw me as powerfully as these overly-darkened shots with bright highlights, as it's my favorite photographic style.

I've got terabytes of dark shots in my own portfolio.

I caught this shot on one of my last walks downtown of the year - obviously around Halloween.  A week or so later, and we got the cold thing.  Hibernation time!

Although - I do brave the cold thing every once in a while,when the need is there.  I had a project buzzing in my head last winter for a glass etch/ photographic fusion, so I ran out, in the dark, in the cold (and yea..it was COLD that night - sub-zero temps with blustery winds) to catch some Christmas decorations.







Here's a shot of that finished project - the glass in the frame was etched to suggest the snow on the tree - and the lights were heavily saturated to bring them through the frost.





Well, I caught the shot of the cast-iron stove grill out of the corner of my eye (figuratively speaking) and before the coffee had kicked in (that's literal!), and saw something completely different than what she'd shot.   So...of to 'shop I went in a hurry...to bring the idea to life...



The big picture at the top of this post is what I saw in my head.


A good mental image is a terrible thing to waste...


And - to honor the other little bit of creativity that's currently sparking in my head - I'm going to pair this up with a bit of flash fiction:

Habitat for Humanity   

157 words

Bah! 

I lift my left hand in a classic, 
albeit extremely rude, 
very human, salute, 
giving the outside world, steel walls, 
and endless platitudes I'm fed on a daily basis 
the full fury of my middle finger.

Life itself is the most precious gift we are given...

We prided ourselves on being masters of our environment. 

Masters of space.  Masters of time.  Tamers of the universe.

For as long as there is breath in my body...

Yet our arrogance didn't grant us a single second 
of additional grandstanding

when the visitor's weapons melted our sky.

My duty to mankind is to document its downfall...

I'm tired of solitude. Sick of stale air. 

Angered with the never-ending firestorm that rages 
outside this tiny bubble of compatible environment 
I'm enclosed in.

And for this...I am a lucky one...

I was one of the few they retained as museum pieces. 

Specimens. 

Oddities. 

Pets.

 signed
human goldfish in a bowl...

Flash Fiction

I had a 'bout of Origami creativity strike around 2 years ago - one thing I was absolutely obsessed over was making a paper rose.  I started small and simple, with an iris and a crane, and progressed up through boxes, crabs, lotus flowers, neat little spinney toys, tessellations and other mathematical forms until I was ready to tackle the rose.  I never did figure out how to properly 'close' the form's bottom end - but I took one of the better roses and stuck a light inside it.  You can still see some of the printing from the inside bleeding through.

I did all different colors, too...

It's such a flashy little flower, which brings me to the topic of the day - Flash Fiction.


Insert fanfare here...


I'd never heard of this concept up until a few weeks ago, when I was, once again, searching the blog-o-sphere for that next creative spark.  I give out a hearty hat-tip to Brandon and his blog:    Coolerbs Reviews

Granted, reviews usually aren't my thing - but you did suggest a new book for the kindle that I've got lined up in my purchase queue.  You also introduced me to this Flash Fiction thing.  Many, MANY thanks for sharing your short fictions with the world...you've presented me with an ever-expanding assortment of new ideas to put my creativity to the test.


The concept of Flash Fiction is infuriatingly simple.  The host site posts a picture, an idea, a specific starting/ending word, or any other variation that a mind can come up with.  The participants then post a story with this theme in mind. 

That covers the fiction aspect...

The Flash part comes in with a quick timeline for submissions (24-48 hour windows), and a small word count (I've seen 55-500 word counts).  If you feel the need to more traditional flashing...please DON'T post any pictures, and have a friend's phone number memorized for bail money.


I can see my fingers quiver........in antici-                                                                    pation!



This is a style of writing I can really get behind.  I get to crystallize a single moment of time - flash frozen - for the reader's consumption.  And, with weekly contests floating around the 'net, I have several sources of nourishment for my muse, giving her exactly what she needs to power my writing - that all illusive, yet vital as breathing, initial spark.

That, I've found, is the hardest part of the creative process - that initial thought, the tiny push that starts the rock rolling, to become the thunderous 'IDEA' that rolls along the neurons of my mind, stirring up the roadbed and leaving new pathways to explore in its wake.



And in the beginning...there was a...monkey?


Here's a flash fiction site I found on Friday:  Flash Friday.  They posted a picture of a monkey seated on the balcony of a (I assume) hotel room in a tropical location - you can see the expanse of aquamarine blue water and a cityscape behind the creature.  The length of the story was 150 words (+/-10), and you had to squeeze in the name of an author.

Granted, I could go to the site and swipe the picture - but I want to allow click-backs to this wonderful, dragon-citing blog site - so go see it for yourself.  And maybe...leave a story or two...


Sadly, I found this site on Friday afternoon, and submissions had to be put in by Midnight.  Life, Groceries, and the SQO happened Friday evening - so I couldn't finish up this first Flashy Fiction story until today.  I simply couldNOT leave a quickie piece to languish half-done and unshared - so Enjoy!

MonkeyBusiness - 146 words

"There!"
"Where?"
"The Balcony!"

She glares first out the window, then swings violent eyes to me, certain the declaration of not-to-be-seen things once again proves I'm insane.  She storms from the room, anger trailing in her wake, snarling "Get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape!"  as I stretch a calming hand toward her shoulder. 

The words are laced with all the fury of Pierre Boulle's first pen stroke, and the room shakes with the thunder of her slamming the door.

Forever, it has followed, silent shadow, tormentor and muse.  The fecund stench of hot fruit announces his appearance, a drift of grey fur follows in the wake of his vanishing. 

He mocks me,
inspires me,
denounces and fires me.

Wizened face,
cold eyes, grimace
For me only, not the miss.

For to me
reality,
but alas she cannot see...


The Monkey at my Back.



 

"They" Suggest...

Who is this 'They,' anyways?

"They" tell you that sugar is bad for you.  
"They" tell you that tobacco will kill you.
"They" tell you that you must brush your teeth 3 minutes 2 times a day.
"They" tell you that taxes are good.
"They" tell you that illegal drugs are bad.
"They" tell you that (insert something here) ad nauseam ad infinitum.


"They" tell you not to think for yourself.


Personally, I think "They" should live their own lives, and stop telling 'Them' how to live theirs.


 


"They" say that to get your blog read, you must have 
                                1) followers and 
                                2) regularly scheduled content. 

Well, duh. 

I guess one of "They's" public guises has to be the ever-so-quirky and much-quoted Mr. Obvious.  Without followers, a blog has about as much chance of being read as discovering the secrets of the universe in the symbol used by a long-dead hunter in the Amazonian river basin used to keep track of his stores of anaconda piss.

Useful stuff, anaconda piss.  "They" say it can cure cancer, but only if aged to perfection.

I think I'll pass...thanks.

"They" also suggest ways to get those followers that have little to do with actually connecting with people who will regularly read your blog, and everything to do with directing more attention "Their" way.  I actually found a guy selling his 'blog coach' services the other day.

ad content may be slightly modified...

One of the double-edged swords of the wider Anonymous Web is anyone can manufacture 'expert' status with enough chutzpah, clever typing skills, and a passing affinity for Google-fu.  Having the anonymity of instantaneous electronic communication allows the worst trolls, wackos and attention-whores to successfully masquerade as an expert in just about anything. 

And even if you DO find a genuine expert in a subject which interests you, they've so successfully removed themselves from the bulk of humanity to focus on that subject that they oftentimes suffer from extreme tunnel-vision, and are worse than the aforementioned trolls, wackos, and attention-whores.

"They" tell you to pay no attention to the person typing out this blog...she's a Satanic thinker, for God's Sake!

"They" are right about the regularly scheduled content thing, though.  From my own personal experience, if I don't see frequent new material on the  blogs on my follow list, they fall to the bottom of my list and out of my daily curiousity.

So, with an eye to the horizon,

I shall endeavor to place more

 slightly to the left of reality                           

musings in my blogging.  
Just whatever is on my mind.

Are "They" sure "They're" are ready for this?

WHAT is Mightier than the Pen???

It's amazing what you can find when you start typing in strange requests of Google.  Today, I found a gem in a pen refill.


I work in an office.  While working, I use a pen...frequently.  Useful things, pens...as they are handy for jotting down notes, doodling, scratching hard-to-reach-places, pointing at things, and a host of other spur-of-the-moment things you need that slender object in your hand to do. 


 
                I have a favorite pen.



Within everyone's lives, they acquire 'favorite' things - stuff that they use or gaze upon on a daily basis.  It's hardwired into our brains to recognize things we come into contact with repeatedly, and to attach a feeling of familiarity to them. 

With that said - I'm attached to this favorite pen of mine. 

This particular pen was received as a freebie from a marketing company years ago, pre-branded with the company's name on its shiny red barrel.  It was addressed to the owner of my company, who preferred the cheap plastic ones he could chew on - so I acquired it in his stead.  Funny enough...about a week after the pen (and the included marketing come-on) arrived at the office, I received a call from the marketing company wanting to know how "He was enjoying his free pen."

Dontcha just love salesmen?

Well...I enjoy my lovely little pen M-F, 9 to 5, excluding Holidays and Vacation time  - it has a nice feel and weight to it that you don't get from your cheaper disposables, and continue to buy the replacement ink cartridges for it.  Alas...the name of the marketing company and salesman who called those many years ago has been lost in the darkest corners of my memory.   

But I still have the pen.

Would you believe  -  -  I've chased co-workers across the office for my pen?   Quite unconsciously, a borrower will occasionally attempt to become a thief - especially at the beginning of the work day before the coffee has kicked in. 

After 7 or 8 years of superb service, my pen has become quite unique amongst pens (the 'I've been front line on several wars' finish is very unique) so it's easy to single out from the plethora of cheap disposable Bic ballpoints inhabiting my co-worker's desks, even when I don't catch the thief in the act.


Well - the refill ran out of ink today.  Yea, it happens.  It just shouldn't have happened so soon based on my normal usage.  


 
Soooo - frustrated with my brand of ink refill                        - into Google I go.



THE first thing to show up?  This gem

I haven't had this good a giggle in a while.  The level of snark - NINJA.
I'll be giggling all the way to Office Depot to find a new refill.





sorry instructables...it won't be a Mont Blanc.

Oh....What a Tangled Web we Weave...

October.  Harvest season.  The time when the plants have completed their life-cycle, and are preparing to die or go dormant for the long winter sleep.  The squirrels, chipmunks, and other rodents tear madly about from tree to ground, location to location, in a last frantic burst of gathering nuts and seeds to sustain themselves in the long, cold months just ahead. The trees shift from summer green to the reds, oranges, yellows and browns of the Autumn palette - and are filled with birds preparing to migrate to warmer climates.  (smart freaking birds, if you ask me...)  

Empathically, this is my worst season, even as I peak with creativity (how can I not, with all the activity and color around me?)  I keenly feel the shift in the Earth from growth to sleep.  I want to join with this cycle.  I want to sleep all winter, too...

Damn this whole 'human' thing!

The calendar culminates the Harvest Season with All Hallow's Eve - Halloween.  As with every other holiday in the States, we've turned this one into a commercial orgy of "buy, buy, buy!!!!!" - but this season is also paired with "scare, scare, scare!!!"

People spend a ton of money on Halloween - on candy, costumes & decorations.  Parties are planned and thrown, new recipes are researched and experimented with, pranks are schemed up and instigated.  Movies are rated for their fright-factor, and the blood (simulated, or course) flows both on the screen and on the watchers.  Sometimes other, more genuine bodily fluids make public appearances, as well.

Ewwww. 

At one time, the neighbors who lived on the first level of the home I was sharing were REAL Halloween nuts.  It was their favorite holiday, and they decorated like fiends.  They had tombstones in the front yard, hanging heads in the backyard, cobwebs in the hallways, coffins and zombies and witches and skeletons and anything else you can think of scattered about the house and grounds.

 

They even had the flat witch on her broom stuck to a tree, which never fails to elicit a chuckle from me...




The also threw one hell of a party...costumes mandatory.

I was coming home from a night out with the SQO the night of their party.  By the time I was coming up the street, their party was in full swing - the alcohol was flowing, the music was rocking, the party-goers all over the house and grounds.  As I turned into the driveway, my headlights illuminated a pair of men dressed in dark blue spandex body suits with bright yellow boots, matching letters on their chests, masks covering their eyes, elbow-length gloves, and coordinating 'undies' in the crotch region - superheros who had left their capes at home.

Unfortunately, in the uncertain light from the street and my sudden illumination from the headlights - all that got bright was the yellow portions of their costumes.  My first and immediate thought - 'Are they wearing diapers?????'

Thanks to the Halloween deities that my windows were closed, because I couldn't help but blurt that one out. 

Halloween - It's one hell of a holiday - especially with shenanigans like these.



The teapot and I are celebrating Halloween this year with a web Zentangle design.  This is one of the most complex things I have done with 'shop to date.  It involved a layer mask and a distortion file, and a couple of alternate filters to give it the look it ended up with.  I'm quite pleased, even if it really doesn't invoke 'scary,' suggest the harvest season, or pretend to be a diaper.  It's a web, and webs are significant to the Halloween spirit.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

The pebble I picked up recently (see Zen and the art of Photography) turned out to be a VERY fertile seed.  I've started creating Zentangles on my computer.  Not traditional, as I use electronic means instead of doing it the old fashioned way, putting ink to paper, so I've obviously forged back into my field of weeds to blaze my own trail in this artform.



 
This is the web design all flat - before I distorted it to fit around the teapot.

 These next 2 are actually the same grid and the same patterning within the grid lines.  On the left is the straight grid, and I gave it a fuzzed texture - it almost looks like carpet.  


The one below has a twirl and some additional filters added to it for a decidedly darker look.
 




But wait!  I was talking about Halloween!

For me, Halloween stopped being an "Oh my GAWD!  I can't WAIT!' holiday when I decided, in my 13 year old, teenaged brain, that it was too much work to design a costume, figure out how to/actually go through the work to/ craft said same, and then to walk around the neighborhood at night to beg for sugar.  



See, I didn't get to just run down to the store with the parental units and pick out something ready-made. 

If I wanted a costume, the entire blueprint had to come out of my head.  I had to come up with the concept - what I wanted it to look like, how it was going to be constructed, what materials I'd need, was I going to be able to breathe and see and walk in it, etc.  

The whole shebang had to be crafted.

It wasn't that we were poor, or my parents were uncaring or unavailable.  They were always ready, willing and able to lend assistance (one year, my mom sewed me a green jumpsuit because I wanted to be a martian) and they bought the supplies I'd need (the robot was a fun year - I got to save boxes and old coffee cans, and use tools, wire, and spray paint!).  

They were teaching me to think, and design, and explore the ordinary things around me with a creative perspective.  This pile of ordinary STUFF could be transformed into something unique and special with a bit of ingenuity and work.

They turned me into the creative machine I am today.

They did good.

What was that again?

Did you ever have a really great idea?  I'm talking an earth-moving, soul-shaking, supreme-being-like epiphany - something that rocked your entire worldview and was certain to establish the next evoloution in human nature?

Ever put such an idea off as 'I've GOT to record this!...but (insert real life situation here) comes first' resulting in going on about your life until the hot idea gets buried in the back of the deep freeze of your mind, to wallow in a slow-death of freezer burn, never to emerge into the warmth of the kitchen again?

Yea...me too.                         All.    The.     Time.            


I'm sure there are millions of unrealized ideas that once struck me, but I've misplaced in the everyday drudgery of earning enough currency to keep me and mine's carbon-based meat containers fed, clothed, sheltered, medicated, educated and entertained.

I do have a story to share with you today, however.  It's an old story, and it comes with another story to explain the story.  So get all comfy, kids, and settle down into your blankets and pillows and jammies...because it's story hour.

Although if it takes you an hour to read this post - I may need to reevaluate my excessive use of esoteric verbiage and relegate myself to straightforward vernacular henceforth.

I had a dream.  

Yea, it's been done before...but in this case...it's accurate.

It wasn't a 'change the world,' M.L.K. type of dream - it was one of those with disturbing, heart-pounding imagery liberally laced with dream-logic.  I tend to have a lot of those.  Sometimes I write them down, sometimes I'm happier just forgetting them, letting the dream logic fade out like fog on a sunny morning.

This particular dream was determined to stick around without my writing it out, and in defiance of the then-brutal schedule I had running my life.

See -  at the time I was working a very demanding 12 hour shift at a manufacturing plant - 6pm to 6am.  It was a mythological-beast of a job (think...Kraken, Minotaur, Dragon, etc...big, demanding, and ready to eat you in one bite for crossing that imaginary line) - half the day spent on a dirty, dusty, noisy factory floor, standing the entire time - cutting big sheets of labels into finished packets of labels, and sorting for flaws as one went through the stacks. 

If this sounds mind-numbingly boring, then I'm describing it right.

But once you learned the job well, you could set yourself on auto-pilot, which allowed for conversations with co-workers (if you could hear them over the shriek of the machinery) or time to let your mind wander aimlessly on whatever subject had caught your fancy.

I fleshed out a couple of good book ideas on that shop floor, hundreds of short stories, had countless conversations with myself, and somehow managed to save the world a dozen times over between picking bad labels out of the good ones.

So, back to this dream that I had...

That sucker was branded into my brain.  It demanded more than simple acknowledgement, it arrogantly commanded delivery out of my head to paper (or its electronic substitute).  It absolutely refused to be silent, to be patient, to wait for the opportune time to become more than an idea.  It was a spoiled brat, throwing a defiant temper-tantrum in the face of the Draconian Job which was interfering with its creative birthing process.

I listened to the incessant whining of this spoiled-brat idea all throughout my work shift, trying to quell the ever-more shrill demands for attention as the night wore on.  At about the midpoint of my workday, I started spinning the story in my head as I moved product from point A to point B.   I wrote brief notes on my breaks, so I could put the everything together once I had time to sit at the word processor.  I knew this one would be a short story - a single, crystallized slice of time - but I was getting excited to put it to paper.

There was only one large problem with typing the story out.  

It was the middle of the work week - which meant another 12 hour shift after only 12 hours off .  12 hours to:
Eat.  Sleep. Bathe.  Dress.  Prep for work.  Family interaction.  Travel to/from work.

Unwinding from the work day by putting an idea to paper was not in the schedule - it wasn't going to BE in the schedule until the work-week was done.  Time between shifts was Premium, Ocean-Front, Deluxe 8 bedroom Mansion Temporal-Real-Estate.  Unwinding between shifts was sleep...there wasn't spare time for anything else.

So I sat the little spoiled-brat idea down in a virtual chair, and explained the situation.  I pointed out the real-life, paper notes I had written out.  It received some attention, and tomorrow, after work, was 'us' time until it was properly constructed.  I think I even gave it an imaginary hug and wiped away some pretend tears.

Grudgingly, spoiled-brat idea acquiesced to real-life situation.

So...I had a little breakfast.  Spent some time with the fam.  Hopped in the shower.  Proceeded to the bedroom to catch some Zzzzz's.

Spoiled-brat idea whimpered in my mind as I composed myself for sleep.

It whistled a bawdy show-tune off-key, while bouncing a fake ball off the supposed walls of my mind.

I rolled around in bed - shushing spoiled-brat idea, reinforcing the need for sleep. 

It lit a bonfire, fanned the flames in my head.

I rolled around some more.

And some more.  I think that's when the keg was tapped, and the rock music started thumping out of the speaker stacks.

The idea would not settle down enough for me to sleep.

"ENOUGH!" I mentally berated my over-active imagination.

I got up, took a couple of sleeping tablets and went back to bed to let them hit.  It was the Pharmacological equivalent of a quick spanking and "Go to your room!" banishment to spoiled-brat partying idea.

It responded by turning UP the music, breaking out the hard liquor and 'shrooms, and inviting the metalheads over to the crib for a 'Wicked Disaster of a Random Fiesta!'

Attention:  NOW.    No time for sleep, no time for dreams, no time for restoring the body - "you can sleep when you're dead, dammit!"

There are times when I really dislike the creative voices.

I finally got out of bed at 2.  I was supposed to be up by 4, so I figured even if I COULD get to sleep, a bare 2 hours of rest to go work a 12 hour shift wasn't the best idea in the world - especially when you work in a factory using really big and wickedly sharp knives, dies and spinning cutty things powered with 2 TONS of hydraulic pressure.

I wasn't about to flirt with amputation...So I called in an absence to work, and allowed the birthing-labors of spoiled-brat idea to proceed.

Society of this time will say that sleep deprivation is not a good reason to miss a day of work - but that's an issue I'm not going to address in this posting.  Maybe later, we'll discuss the finer points of this country's obsession/problem with trading labor for survival and all subsequent judgements - but not today.

The story itself took around a half-hour to write. 

A half hour.  30 minutes.  1800 seconds.  A good power-nap is quoted at 20 minutes.  You can cook a frozen pizza in 15, let tea steep in the cup for 6-8 minutes, and remember to brush your teeth for 3 full minutes 2 times a day.

30 freaking minutes - when I wasted 5 whole hours rolling around in my damn bed.  Why, WHy, WHY?!?!?! didn't I just write the blasted thing before I went to bed???

Hindsight - it's always 20/20 vision...and I still regularly mentally kick myself in the can for it.


But the story was worth it - let me know if you agree...

PRISON OF THE MIND

I pound against the rainbow hued glass walls of my prison beyond the point of pain, slamming my fists against the unyielding surface until even my arms grow numb. I scream and beg and plead for mercy until I am too hoarse to send even a whisper up the funnel shaped ceiling. A torrent of tears flood from my eyes as I curl up on the bowl shaped floor. I cry myself to sleep, exhausted both physically and mentally.

I awake oddly refreshed, and suppress the wave of insanity that demands I continue the cycle, pounding, screaming and crying until I am no longer me, but some shapeless mass of cringing emotions and nerves ready to be shaped by the malevolent presence that would free me.

No. Not free me. Freedom is now beyond my grasp, forever lost to me. Unless. . . .

I MUST ESCAPE!!!

I throw myself bodily against my prison wall, beginning the cycle anew. My mind splinters into fragments of feelings. Rage, pain, terror, panic all compete with my rational being for the ultimate control. Control. What a tremendous joke. I have no control left. That, too, was stolen from me by my captor.

I feel my hands. The pain gains control of the shattered fragments of my mind. I focus on nothing but the red hue of my pain. It is a living thing, sucking my soul, this pain. A dry croak rips from my throat, demanding attention. Water. I must have water.

I stop pounding for a second, feeling this sensation of having a dry throat. This feeling, too, seems to be a living thing, capturing my attention. Without pause, there is a glass in my hand. I can feel the moisture of condensation on the outside of the glass; it feels cool and soothing on my sore skin. The water feels good against my dry lips, my raw throat. The glass is empty, and I hurl it against the wall. The glass shatters against the prison wall, the shards spreading against the unyielding collage of colors like water across tile. Before they hit the floor, they are gone.

It felt good, that bit of control. The act of violence snaps the fragments of my mind to a whole. Yes. For a while, I am free of the madness that stretches its fingers towards me. I can think, I can remember. I remember why I am here.

An innocent day. An ancient bottle, stuck on the top shelf of an equally ancient shop, in a tumbledown shack of a curio shop in India. The beautiful swirl of colors glinting in the dusty sunlight. My longing to have the antique in my hands. The wide, blackened teeth smile of the wizened shopkeeper as he takes it from the shelf. The old glass stopper, made of the same myriad color glass, flaring out from the neck of the bottle then tapering to a delicate point. Tight, the stopper, hard to remove. Inside the bottle the scrap of ancient parchment. Giddy with curiosity, translating the words. Blackness and light. Here.

A fire ignites behind my eyes as the rage builds. Remember the words! Those words trapped me here, those words changed my world, and those words changed my being. Those words so violated me, those hateful words. I need to remember them, to scream them out!

I feel the need to splatter myself against the walls of glass to end this existence, but I cannot. I traded my freedom for the dream, the unreal. With those spoken words I imprisoned myself.

I am the genie in the bottle.