mindsetoff247

[mindsetoff247]

The Threshold Man

I was an American living in Japan. Not really super knowledgeable about local customs. I had already lived there for about two years when I ran into trouble. I had gone through a nasty breakup and trying to stay away from the bars, I started to visit shrines around Japan. I had a really nice time appreciating the gorgeous woodwork that had lasted hundreds of years. It was always peaceful and a lot of the small town shrines had small hiking trails attached. I’d visit the shrine then I’d find a trail to meander around. It was always nice and peaceful and I never had a bad experience, until I broke rules I never knew.

I’d been drinking that night. Drinking a lot. Drinking by myself in silence in a big empty apartment that had once been full of life. I don’t know what possessed me to leave the apartment, but I did. I walked down the street mumbling and stumbling looking for something to keep my interest. I have an old habit of whistling to myself, and that's what I started to do on that cold dark night. 

A few locals gave me dirty looks, but that's not strange for an American walking down a street in Japan. I brushed it off and kept walking. For some reason I was walking to a shrine I’d never been to before. I’d always just assumed it was closed, and left it alone. But that night I was set on poking around. 

I stood in front of the shrine, wide imposing stairs leading up to the shrine’s slat donation box. It was dark out and the street lights did little to reveal the ancient structure. Lending the carved birds and lions an eerie cast. At the base of the stairs was a dark red Torii Gate. Its dark red pillars rose up high above my head, the squared header taller than I could reach. 

It seemed creepy but I just decided to keep whistling and walked up the stairs. As I passed under the gate I shiver ran up my spine and all the hairs on my arms stood up. I stopped on the stairs and looked behind me, and for a second I saw a black figure. A second is too generous, a frame, an instant of a black man like figure right behind me. 

I froze in my tracks. I knew I’d made a mistake. 

I didn’t go back down the stairs, and the warm softness of my liquored up mind turned to sharp palm sweating fear. I’d have to walk right through where that black figure had been. No way I was going to do that. I walked to the side of the gate and walked away. This was my third mistake. I didn’t look back, but every part of me was telling me that if I did, I’d see that black figure watching me with empty dark eyes.

I went back to my apartment, drank more and passed out on the couch. It wasn’t till a few days later I saw it again. Or I should say I just saw the edge of something through the back room doorway at a store I was shopping in. I thought nothing of it, it was just a small black semi-circle no wider than your thumb. I brushed it off as someone's elbow or a piece of fabric rustling in the wind. 

The next time I saw it I was sitting down to dinner at my friend's house. Out of the corner of my eye I saw it in the doorway of their bedroom. This time more of it showed. The roundness of a head, peeking around to look at me. I brushed it off again. It was nothing, just a black spot in my eye. 

Over the next few months I would see it every now and again. Slowly more and more of the entity revealed itself. It’s head. Then its neck. Then the top of its torso. Alway peeking out from behind a doorway, always there for just a second. But here’s the weird thing. I traveled a lot to other countries for work. I never saw it in any of those other countries, not in Australia, Taiwan, or Vietnam. Nothing when I was traveling in other countries, but within a day of returning to Japan. I’d see him again peering out at me.

It scared me, but not too bad. I felt like I was on a timer. That slowly the Threshold Man would show more and more of himself, and when he finally stepped out fully it would be the end of this. I never felt an “evil” presence or threatened, besides the unnerving feeling of something following you. I’d see him standing in the doorway to my living room most often, and I’d just stand up and close the door. That worked for a while.

It was getting close. I’d been sitting on the couch playing video games when I saw him. Now I could see its black chest and dark arms. So I got up and closed the door and sat back down. The instant I turned my game back on, the door’s latch opened softly. It slowly swung open, and I was frozen scared to look. When I did look he was there, still peeping from the corner of the doorway, but for the first time I could see an expression. A wide black toothed smile in a long crescent across its jaw. Now I was scared. Now I felt like I was in danger.

I broke down and asked to talk to a local friend I had made at the bars. He was a dentist by trade, but loved Japanese history and folklore. We’ll just refer to him as Yoshi. I asked to talk with him. As I told him the story he got paler and paler. 

He sat in silence after I finished. “You are sure you did not go back through the Torii Gate when you left?” He asked me intensely.

“No, I didn't want to walk into where he was standing.” 

Yoshi sucked his teeth for a long moment.

“I do not know.” He said, shaking his head. “You did everything wrong. As wrong as you can.” I looked at him in bewilderment. “What did I do wrong?”

Yoshi held up his hand and counted on his fingers. “First you were whistling at night. This is a bad thing in Japan. It brings bad things to you at night. Second, you walked through the gate whistling, yes?”

“Yea” Yoshi knew this, he’d made me clarify this point when I first told him the story.

“That is very bad. Torii Gates are doorways to the other side. You walking through while whistling is a very bad thing. You pass through to the other side announcing your arrival. Ringing dinner bell, yes.” Yoshi said sternly. 

“Yea I guess.”

“Then third,” Yoshi held up another finger. “You did not go back through the Torii Gate, yes?”

“Yes”

“This is worst thing. You entered the other side, and did not leave it. Once you pass through a Torii gate you must pass back through to our side. Otherwise you are still on the other side.”

“Oh I really screwed up, didn’t I.”

“Well I don’t think it is too bad. You said you have still not seen all of him, yes.” I nodded. “It does not sound like an Onryou, a mean spirit. If you do see all of him then you should go and get a cleansing ritual. And tonight you should go back to the shrine and walk back through the side you missed before.”

I felt relieved. Yoshi had given me tools and a little more understanding. That night I did as he told me and walked through the other side of the gate. A few months later I left Japan, and haven’t returned since. I still saw the threshold man every now and then, but I packed up and left with no problems.   

I haven’t been back to Japan for years now, but every now and then I have a dream. A dream where I’m exiting the plane walking down the arrivals corridor, and a massive black hand reaches around the threshold, and a massive black toothed smiling face peeks under. In my dream it crams its gigantic shadow through the door, a Tsunamii of darkness and dread rushing at me as I plead with the flight attendants to let me leave on the next plane. Then I’m swallowed by darkness and black sharp teeth.

[mindsetoff247]

She screamed hit me.

It was a last attempt at keeping me from walking out the door.

She'd thrown things, screamed at me, slapped me and tried to block the door.

Then she pleaded "Hit me if it will make you stay."

She should have known me at that point. Two years living with each other, and she should have known nothing would make me a woman beater. Maybe she did. Maybe some part of her knew if she said that I would never look back.

I haven't either.

No texts.

No calls.

No contact to the woman I thought would be my wife. Who I thought I'd have kids with. Who I thought I'd start a family with.

Maybe that was the last thing she could think of. The last big gambit.

That's my saving grace. I've never needed to question walking away after that.

She screamed "Hit me of that will make you stay"

And I walked away.

[mindsetoff247]

Zeb Starburn

Born Zebina Del Desmona the third, the galaxy's greatest smuggler was born into royalty with a capital T. At a young age Zeb was constantly chafing with the norms of Royal life, make even worse by the fact that as the firstborn Zeb was destined to inherit the throne from her mother. More than one exasperated servant was reminded by Zeina that, " In a few short years, I will remember this moment, and your name, and your face, and I will act accordingly." 

But Zeb lived a precious childhood, playing with her maid servant, June, and leading her noble cousins on childhood adventures that made the FEED (sci-fi news) such as the Arbalest Pirate Incident, the Clamidis Clam War, and the downfall of Vicious Ned. The pack of child nobles would regularly commandeer spaceships after sneaking out of the palace. 

After Zeb turned 13 her force powers began to present themselves, in not entirely good ways. After the breakdown of her and June's friendship, Zebina started to use her new power to take over control of the Palace. It took her only two weeks of preparation and then launching a zombie coup from within to take her mother. The Jedi council were tipped off after Queen Desmona started making strange edicts. Some edicts were childish like a lower of drinking ages, cutting public schools to three days a week, but others were different, debtor relief work programs on the empire's borders, 180's on medical funding, guild regulation, and an ending of a 12 year war on a distant to annex a distant planet.

Though Zeb tried to make the empire better, it was a nightmare for everyone in the Palace. Turned into unwilling, force controlled slaves, they were under her constant control. Unable to say certain words, harshly punished for "impure thoughts" and unable to escape. Zebina controlled the palace with an iron fist for 2 years until the Jedi came. 

The Jedi sent _ and they _ 

With her force senses now clear and present. Zebina had no hope of inheriting the throne, forced to move away, and drop her last name. She has decided to rule her own kingdom, the Errant Empress, and rule as a captain and a queen. 

[mindsetoff247]

The Dark

The thoughts don't stop.

Further and further

Like a need pushing me along

An itch that you have to hold back

An involuntary squirm

That tells you to do it

That whispers of the sweet release of death

No more shame

No more anger

No more fear

No future

No past

Just freedom in the abyss

Some days are easy

But some days are so hard

Every waking moment is a fight

And I'm getting so tired of this fight

"Things get better"

"Just go to a Doctor"

"Well Doctors can't fix everything"

"Here 8000$ in medical bills"

"Oh the next treatment will work"

Its just a cycle

I call out for help, and get locked away

Inside padded walls I take their pills

The promise of outside thrills

But then I'm out again and lost

With no future

No job

No money

And no hope

[mindsetoff247]

The Exception

Today I'd like talk about racism and the exception. Being raised white and taking part in majority white controlled organizations; Boyscouts, the US Military, and blue collar jobs. You'll find these little groups of guys that have meetings behind closed doors. Where they like to gossip and bitch about anyone who isn't white, strait, or a man.

The thing is though, there's always the exception. When I was a child around my grandfather, he'd watch the news and shout about how the n****** were ruining the country. The thing was his best friend and neighbor was a black man. It baffled me as a child, I new the N-word was wrong and that black people were the same as me so why would my grandpa think "they're all ruining the country", but be best friends with a black man.

I asked him "Grandpa if they're all so bad, what about Artie?" (his neighbor) My grandfather paused a moment, and I could see the gears clacking as he had to confront his cognitive disodence. My Grandfather then told me "Arties the exception." And that was it. Thats all he needed to keep writing off a whole race but allows him to respect and enjoy time with his friend.

In the military I encountered it again. In bootcamp a couple of guys/girls get "promoted" to lead the rest. Our unit leader and me didn't really get along (mainly because I was a fuckup) but one night he invited me into the laundry room. So I walk in and there are maybe six guys sitting around just talking. So I sat down and started listening to them.

They went on to bitch and moan about almost every black guy in the unit "they're all lazy" "they're all idiots" "they make the unit worse" and it just went on and on. Until I spoke up. I asked "What about Jimmy, he's lazy stupid, and definitely slowes the unit down." of course Jimmy was white and I got to hear about how great a guy he really was and I just need to get and know him.

So after all of this defense for a guy who was all those bad things combined. I asked about our units second in command a black guy named Frank. And I got to hear it once again. "Franks the exception, he's not like the rest of them" After that they didn't say much and left.

I'd like to think this rule applies to all but the most dedicated of racist. There's always the exception. A guy thats lived in your neighborhood for 20 years isn't a n****** but his grandson on the sidewalk is. They’re all bad, but I like that one singer.

To people that think like this, that the good people in a group are the EXCEPTION can be found every neighborhood in the world (I think). So if you have to confront a racially insensitive idiot who make these wide blanket statements about another race, ask them for the exception.

[mindsetoff247]

lost in the moss

[mindsetoff247]

Faith Lost

The trust is gone.

That seems to be my personal issue and the issue that all of America is having.

In a world of fakable digital media, petty eye grabbing headlines, and lies told by the highest elected officials, who can you trust?

I’ve lost faith in every system I’ve ever belonged to. The church, the schools, and the US military.

How are we supposed to know the truth when both sides' News outlets lie on the regular?

When any questioning of a news article takes hours of research to verify fact, who the hell has time to filter out the bullshit from the truth?

We have fractured over slogans, and vain childish elected officials.

One person saying “Black Lives Matter” doesn’t mean they hate all police, and someone saying they “Back the Blue” doesn’t mean they’re racist or deaf to the Racial issues in America.

We’ve become too galvanized to hate instead of understand. To deaf to facts that don’t fit our views.

Understanding and trust is what we need but no one seems willing to compromise.

I had lost trust in everyone. I went to a dark place where no one, not even my family, could be given my address.  I met them at a different location, because I was afraid that I would be boxed up and sent to the looney bin. That's exactly what happened too.

I was pulled off the street by three officers, who lied to me (another big issue in America, that police are encouraged to lie, and completely legally protected for lying) and sent off to an ER to be mentally evaluated. Where I didn’t trust any of the nurses or staff. I fought against any of the medication, and anyone trying to talk to me.

I’ve just been lied to for too long to trust anyone, and I feel like it's the same for everyone.

When we live our lives on rectangular screens, that feeds us what's stolen and tabulated, just to sell us the Truths that we want to hear. 

Where a ping on your spouse's phone can be anything and the Truth is just a few flicks away when your spouse isn’t looking. Where every news story is either your side under attack or a terrible injustice. Where we try so hard to be heard in a million voices, just for a few likes. 

[mindsetoff247]

Let him host

[mindsetoff247]

The idea of "suffering is existence" in Buddhism always bothered me as a child. I saw the world as a wonderous place full of life and kindness. Now as an adult I see that life is suffering.

It's not being to help friends in need, for fear of following them down a path of no return 

It's a world where honesty and kind-heartedness is met with derision and cruelty

It's a world where you can trust no one, and nothing for fear of the blade in the back

It's this world humanity has carved for itself. Plundering stone, slashing timber, and damming brooks, and forgetting that everything we touch and create should be good, not profitable

[mindsetoff247]

I'm here to scream into the existential loud chatter of the internet, and suck tittties

And I don’t see any titties around here

[mindsetoff247]

The Bear & The Sunflower

The bear awoke.

In his cave he had slumbered but now the songs of sparrows called to him. 

In soft chirps they sang 

 Mr. Bear oh mister bear

 We bring on wing

 Words not fair

 Come out to the spring air

   Oh Mr. Bear 

Mr. Bear the Bear, thank you very much, awoke with a long groan and growl. 

 Oh tiresome birds so fair

 Can you not sing your tidings from there

 As you know I am a hibanare 

...

And to be honest want to sleep more

....

There!

He shouts the last part, proud of his rhyming correction until the short sniggers of the sparrows were heard. Mr. Bear knew the sparrows to be alarmists, running from branch to branch singing of anything to happen in the forest. Every time a man appeared “We see a man, he has come to kill us all, and feast on our trees” or “We have seen a big cat, large and vicious it stalks our woods” or “A tree has fallen, oh wind so cruel, has taken a mighty tree” All news sang by the sparrows were small things, Mr. Bear feared nothing that stalked these woods. Men were just animals with no hair. Big cats were easy to scare off. And the tree well they come and go as things must. The Sparrows chirped again.

Come Mr. Bear It is the Hare’s

Mr. Rabbit was an adulterare 

Ms. Rabbit lost an eare

Mr. Bear arose with a roar, and then was silent in thought. He’d known Mr. Rabbit for years, and while being on the “odd side of the forest” as Father bear would have put it, he’d always been a decent friend. Mr. Bear had come to the Hare’s hut many a times for tea and honey. Talking amicable with them both into late nights. To think that Mr. Rabbit would hurt Ms. Rabbit in such a way. It made Mr. Bear feel hot and cold, ice and lava churning in his massive gut swirling and wrestling for anger or sorrow, and as always the anger won. Where is Mr. Rabbit Mr. Bear roared, shaking the branches the sparrows sat on. Making the whole forest explode and scramble away from the awakened predator.

He is far away    

He ran and ran 

Far far away

He ran till break of day

Nor bird no beast know what way

Mr. Bear came out from his cave. The spring air didn’t even moisten his nose before he was leaning on the tree where the sparrows sheltered. His snout right next to them, big bellows of bear breath bathing the birds.

So tell me little snacks 

Where

Is Ms. Rabbit

He snapped his massive mouth at them on the last word. Making sure to show his big teeth and cavernous throat to the small sparrows.

She ran too

Mr. Bear 

Into the apple tree clearing 

She built a burrow there

The bear slid his huge paws down the tree leaving long gashes in the bark. Then without another word to the sparrows lumbered off towards the apple tree clearing.

[mindsetoff247]

Empty house:

Me: You gotta put on your socks before you can write.

No one at all:

Me: socky socks

[mindsetoff247]

Work

It wasn’t a good day, till a beer with a friend. The whole thing was work, a back screaming out in pain. A constant annoyance, hot pokers stabbing into my every moment. Bad mood is my norm.

-

Things seems so bad, all the time. I constantly see the things that make up the world and worry. I worry about this whole world we’ve built around us, the roads carved into stone mountains to allow cars an easier ride. Fences splitting everything into segments and corners. 

-

There’s a wistfulness in the missed landscapes never to be seen by any human before or ever again. Maybe it’s something in me that compels me to explore(thats a little to optimistic for me to believe)

-

Imagine America before anyone was here. Before man crossed from to Siberia to Alaska. The mountains, piercing into the heavens like jagged fingers poking in the face of God. The soaring raptors free and unfettered. The Trees, I mean imagine the Trees, brown patterned straws festooned with green in myriad shades.

-

I grew up in a place where it always felt like the trees where allowed to grow near us. That nature was something to be shown off, and cherished in plots. It’s seems like all of nature around us has been split by roads, bridges and stiff boring grey one tone buildings.

-

I want nature untamed, vines clinging to cement and crushing our monuments to small pebbles as time marches on. Billboards and bars turned into bedraggled Cheshire hieroglyphics  Towers and towns, now grey and skeletal blocks and borders webbed by mangroves meandering moments

-

I hope we all dream of different worlds, untamed and untouched.

[mindsetoff247]

The Beast

A slithering snake

Stalking and staggering

Jealous and gathering

-

A forefathers curse

Esteemed and ordinary 

Powerful and extraordinary

-

An enemy and ally

Hearts curse

A splinter

Revealing frailty

-

Undeniable Fuel

Unquenchable Fight

Untamable Fire

A warmth,

On a cold night

-

Named Anger

Preached Wrath

Awarded Metals 

Coloring,

My whole path

[mindsetoff247]

Rhythm in life

Today I lost. I gave into the beast. I just listened to spotify adds instead of listening to the same old playlist, and it rocked. My body couldn’t hold back and you were on the roads you would’ve got to see the worst air drums/trumpet/guitar you could imagine. It would have seemed like an amphetamine fueled astronaut on  having a stroke, as the cold vacuum of space pulled him away.

But it felt so good to just jam. In my car by myself. Let the beat take me to a place that wasn’t so God dam boring. It takes a little pain of reality away with it. Everything does suck at least a little bit but music. It’s pure and fleeting like nothing else. Music is the universal language too, I mean math is really the universal language music is defiantly math  1,2,1,2 patterns. Even animals respond to music and make their own.

Sadly if you think about how many songs we’ve lost through-out history its like a the loss of the Library of Alexandria x 10. How many songs family sung and lost to war? How many great tavern songs meant to be belted out with a drink in hand? How many soft quiet songs you sing to the one you love in bed, stroking their hair? But music to must pass. Just like the War’s we take pride from. Just like the nights with friends drinking enough to be lost in it. Just like the feeling you had serenading the girl you loved, trying to be more honest than words, just a lonely voice in the still night

Opps turned off the music.

Never got live music though, I can’t ever hear the singer or its painfully loud.

If you drop a beat anything will get it. Give Cthulhu a beatboxer and he’d drop some bars that’d have the imaginary Gods flipping out.

Zeus I ain't no goose I'll put you in a Noose Just like Odin's weak ass You both take it in the caboose

[mindsetoff247]

New Starts

So I guess today is a day of new starts. This is the first one I’ve gone into without any excitement or fear. I don’t think it’s a good sign. I’ve had so many new starts in my life at this point it doesn’t feel that threatening or exciting anymore.    

When I got to travel the world on the military’s dime I got to see so many new things. It’s the only part I miss. I miss the feeling when you get to take that big breath of a whole different country. Guam was like sand, soft sunlight, and a little bubble gum. Japan was like rice dust, soy sauce, and something ethereal and hidden. I could go on, but there was always something that had a little adventure in it. Chances to do things that I’d thought I’d never do

I got to ride ATV on dirt paths next to screaming elephants. I kissed a king Cobra (it proaly had the fangs out I know but that place was sketchy AF) Had some of the best drinking I’ve ever had with a bunch of lady boys. That was just Thailand.

I miss running through airports. I miss when everyone was way to curious about my family in China. Slipping way too close to a cliff.  A little bit of variety makes life worth living, but driving half an hour to an office isn’t what I expected. We think we’ve seen the world on TV but you haven’t. You thought you knew all the people in that country were nice, but that just like America. Everyone’s got  assholes. But the sounds, sights and sounds can’t be digitized. Getting lost on a map isn’t like a video game. Sometimes taxi’s will drop you off at the wrong place, paying the cabbie with literally every last cent from your wallet.

I’m gonna wrap this up, thanks for reading.