#for now - I like many others am just a spirit traveller from someplace else.

[pluralismajestatis]

I'm not sure I have the right words for this, but I'll try, since it's been on my mind for a few days. My relationship to, and existing between, illness and health - embodying the slow-processing state of wasting away, approaching death.

It's not my primary purpose here, to be that balance or calm, but it's something I'm falling into... comfortably.

This is not about the body. Which to me, is something I'm struggling to understand even now; that the concept of approaching my death, living my last few... days, weeks, months, is no longer relevant, and I haven't had the time, or energy, to touch upon it yet. Meanwhile, the system finds comfort in my acceptance of it, my acceptance and understanding of the limitations of the body, its weakness and exhaustion. I am not worried. I have been dying for a long time. Decades. I don't know when it started, exactly. It's hard to say when the pain coming from the outside began to poison me from the inside.

We all know this is part of why I'm here. My history of growing up is the same as the system's history of growing up when it comes to poisons and being poisoned. We were both taught to fear, and fear became so deeply ingrained in us that it grew into something that was slowly killing the body it resided in. Mine, and ours. I'm an allegory, after all. I've always been one. A nod of acknowledgement to people eaten alive by their wasted potential, futures robbed of them by abuse, fear, and prejudice. The people meant to care for them and love them, support and encourage them. Protect them. Chronic stress is a silent killer. Pain, isolation, loneliness compound it. It eats at the body from the inside: the brain, the muscles, the veins, the nerves.

We used to fear death. Gradually, it's become less. In some way, I might just be the culmination of that growth - the peace we've made with our fragility. We've come to terms with things we keep to ourselves, that we don't talk about. Death, and the process of dying, seems to be a personal matter to us. It's talked about somewhat often here, on the inside. And now, me; I've already accepted that I will die. It doesn't frighten me. I submit to it, but I don't hurry it along. Like I said, I've not really internalised it yet that I might be well now; my soul is still in the process of dying, preparing for death. I am tired and I'd like to just be comfortable - rest, finally. I take this all minute at a time, focus on what is relevant now, because to me, there is no tomorrow, or next year, or any future to speak of that I'd still be a part of. I've played my part and I am ashes - it's someone else's turn, now.

They've described me as "only partially here." My mind is still elsewhere. My consciousness here is a fever dream. I was already losing grip of "real" on the other side I've left behind. But I bring calm to them, a sense of stillness we can all share together. No tomorrow. No future. Just now, and what matters now. Making ourselves comfortable; sating our thirst, hunger, regulating our temperature. Participating only as we wish to - not as is expected of us.

What I've already said is that I'd like to stay, but even for now, in the moment, I feel better knowing I've brought something positive with me to one family. I've been embraced here. The first nights I was with them, they stayed with me until sleep. They made me comfortable, showed kindness, and spoke in soft voices, moved slowly and deliberately so as to not scare me. I asked, am I welcome here? They told me, I'm wanted.

I can heal, but I hope healing won't make me afraid. All bodies fail, after all; it's a matter of time. I've lived with worse pain, worse nausea, worse weakness and deterioration than any of us feel here. Every piece of us here feels alive, where what I was before was dying, nearly dead. I feel warm here and no longer freezing in my bones. We have so much left to us still, so much that hasn't burned away. I wonder if, as I heal, as I stubbornly continue to survive, maybe the healing of the soul could transform into healing of the vessel as well.

[phairfantooooom]

Obey Me Explained….. Kinda

In which I do my best to explain the shit hell that is the Time Travel in Obey Me. 

Spoilers: It’s absolute bullshit

So we start in chapter uhhh 15 technically since the plot twist is explained that Barbatos is actually a OP Time Wizard, which feels like a throwaway plot device… like dude there are so many ideas and you use Time Travel? Come on.

However I do appreciate the Yugioh Pyramid room. Good taste.

Anyways Barbatos gives you VERY CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO NOT FUCK UP and what does MC do? Why THEY FUCKING BREAK VERY FUCKING RULE IN THE LAWS OF TIME TRAVEL. *screams in quantum physics*

Barbatos’ Rules of Time Traveling (It’s more so Timeline Hopping but you know what, I can scream all day but it won’t change anything)

Do not reveal you are from the future (More like don’t reveal you are from a different Timeline or Universe)

Do not meet your past self (Hello??? Doppelgängers??? Stay the FUCK away)

Don’t make contact with others from the past. (Go back, observe how Belphie got out and then get the hell out)

To get back to this point in time (Read: Timeline) you need to KNOCK and ENTER through the door you used to get to the past 

Now you may be thinking, Huh? What door? I don’t remember going back through a door in the story…

And you would be right. You didn’t.

From here I’ll be explaining the Timeline and order of events and speculation as to why it occurred the way it did. 

For reference. There is the Original Timeline. Which is OT1, this is the Timeline of chapters 1 to the end of 15.

The Second Timeline, OT2 is the Timeline where Belphie kills you.

The Third and Final Timeline, OT3 is the Timeline we are currently in. Which is from Chapter 16-12 and onwards.

Alright now that’s out of the way let’s get this shit sorted shall we?

When you go through the wack time travel door you are sent back to Chapter 12-13, to the perspective of the brothers as they hide so that THIS TIMELINES YOU can go romance/befriend/ WHATEVER Lucifer. 

So we start with OT1’s MC dropping into Mammon’s bedroom. You know, possibly fortnite like. With everyone in there. Worst possible outcome. And rather than fucking BOLTING, you stay and chat. You know, despite being told not to. You have the option to lie about how you ended up in the room but it doesn’t change the FACTS.

At this point, there are two MC’s. One from OT1 and one that is currently vibing with Lucifer.

The boys end up kicking you out of the room and telling you to go chit chat with Lucifer, unaware that there is already a different version of you doing that.

So you hear Lucifer and your other self coming down the hall and this is where shit starts to get weird.

Regardless of which option you choose (Run, Hide, Turn Invisible- which by the way seems kinda like a weird option right? I’ll get to that later) you end up going into Lilith’s room.

Now. Directly from the transcript.

It’s so warm in here.

I recognize this place. It feels like someplace I know very well.

Now. Time to over analyze. You may be wondering why this matters. I’ll get to that in a bit I promise.

It’s stated that it’s warm. But really that doesn’t make sense. The room is stagnant. Nobody comes in or out. The room is abandoned since Lilith is dead and nobody uses it. However, I have a theory that Lilith is spiritually attached to your body which is why you sense what you feel.

Lilith probably has plenty of memories of sitting by the FIREPLACE in her room with Beel and Belphie. A lot of times people with spirit attachments get senses of déjà vu when they are near places that the Spirit used to frequent when the Spirit was alive.

The next area of weirdness is Leviathan. He comes in, unannounced and addresses you as if you were Lilith.

Transcript:

I’m coming in, okay?

Aha, I thought I’d find you in here.

Wait, Belphie’s not here?

Huh, that’s weird… He was just telling me that he was going to stop by your room.

Both of you were playing hide-and-seek, right?

He said he couldn’t find you. He looked like he was about to cry.

Why don’t you try to go find Belphie yourself? I mean, I guess it’s hard to say who’s it at that point, but still.

Well, see ya later.

Alright. So we have a lot to unwrap here, but I’ll make it short and sweet. Something clearly happened when you KNOCKED and ENTERED Lilith’s room (Hint Hint Nudge Nudge) What happened you ask? You jumped timelines. Which is why everything seems disjointed and jarring. It’s not supposed to be normal or feel normal, the game is subtly telling you that you aren’t supposed to be there.

Time is beginning to fray at the seams and when you exit the room you jump into another timeline AGAIN. As you go to the stairs to get to Belphie which you would think should be vacant, they are not.

From a casual players perspective you’d think oh! Well Lucifer and past me are in the living room, and the brothers are in Mammon’s room. So it’s all clear, right?

Wrong.

From the moment you exited Lilith’s bedroom you entered the OT2 Timeline. Which takes place roughly right after Lucifer imprisons Belphie in the attic. And at this point in time, you haven’t arrived in the Devildom yet.

I make this assumption based on the transcript:

Belphegor: What scares you is the thought of disappointing Diavolo, isn’t it?!

Say something! Lucifer!

The old Lucifer wasn’t like this. He wasn’t afraid of what someone else thought of him. He wasn’t pathetic like that.

Lucifer: You’re free to think whatever you want, Belphegor. Also…

I’d say you’ve changed as well.

It would seem weird for them to be arguing like this in the present since it’s like. Wow y’all are really just arguing over the same plot point for an ENTIRE year? Damn and I thought I was stubborn.

Anyways.

Lucifer comes down the stairs. You hide and yadda yadda and you goooo upstairrrrssss

Oh boy oh boy this gets FUCKED in hurry folks

So you YOU can just. Open the door. Without Lucifer’s pact? 🤔 k. And then you go and have familiar dialogue choices to wake Belphie up and blahhhhh

Let me get something off the table here. I am calling entire Bullshit on the Lilith is my ancestor origin story. I hate it and you may or may not hate it too so I’ll present a better argument.

Lilith, the lovely gal that she was, upon remembering who she was when she died decided to haunt the House of Lamentation. Which would provide reasoning as to WHY people believe the House is haunted.

When you come to the house of Lamentation to stay with the brothers you catch Lilith’s eye, and she sees that you have the potential to fix the rifts between the brothers. When she attaches herself to you she forms a pseudo pact with you. Why is this important? Because that’s how you got the dumb door open in the OT2 Timeline.

Now some of you may be screaming, BUT THEN HOW DID IT WORK IN THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE THEN HMMMM? And to that I answer. Lilith could see how the conversation between Lucifer and you was heading and she went to go unlock the door. And before you yell and say BUT SHE IS A GHOST-

Ghosts can manipulate objects, yeah? All she had to do was open the door.

Now this is my theory, in the canon of the game it uses garbage Terminator Time Travel logic which is A PARADOX. Feel free to fight me on this, I have receipts.

Anyway. You open the door. Oh but! You can choose to call out before you do. But conveniently nobody answers. Which means one of two things. Either Belphie falls asleep very quickly, or something else is at work here.

Remember those turn invisible options? Kinda strange right? I mean they wouldn’t even work anyways so why were they listed? Answer: Lilith. Lilith is a ghost so at times of being discovered it would be easy for a ghost to just vanish. That’s why it’s listed as if it were one of the choices you would instinctively make.

Belphie had just been conversing with Lucifer, and while he is the Avatar of Soth, you have seen his anger. He wouldn’t succumb to sleep while enraged. And he has no reason to ignore you either.

What do I think? 

*puts on tin foil hat like it’s a crown*

It’s because something isn’t letting him hear you.

I’ll get to that something later. First things first.

You get in the room and you have some…. choice dialogue. In OT1 Lilith had let Belphie out and naturally since she is attached to you, you have the same instinctive reaction to do the same. The difference is that you are still you. That’s why there is a Lilith choice and there is a you choice.

Transcript of Chapter 13-10

??? (Lilith):

Belphie…

Wake up…

Sorry Belphie…

Now the choices from Chapter 16-4

Wake up. (Lilith)

Belphegor. (MC)

Sorry. (Lilith)

It’s okay. (MC)

This might be over analyzing but fuck it. We ain’t here to under analyze. 

Moving right along, remember how I said we are at the point where you weren’t in the devildom? Well you went through another door, and jumped timelines again. And not ONLY that but you jump into the body of the OT2 MC, your memories are those of OT1 but you are in the body of OT2.

Where is your OT1 body? It’s hidden by the stairs patiently waiting for you to die so you can inhabit it again.

Weird right? But it makes sense, and here is why.

When Belphie brings you to the edge of death you are lying on the border of the afterlife. As such you would be a lot more susceptible to, let say, communication with ghosts.

A.k.a Our good Lilith.

ALSO NOTE Lilith never outright says she is our ancestor and as such I’m going to ignore what Diavolo says because I don’t trust him for reasons. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy but I don’t trust him. At. All.

I’m more inclined to believe that Lilith was trying to say “Because you are my last hope.” Rather than descendant. I mean she outright says she chose you and that she has been watching over you and the brothers. Fact-check brought to you by Chapter 16-10.

Alrighty. Still here? Good.

Lilith lends you some of her power. And you pop back into existence.

Now at first I thought. Oh hey Lilith reversed time! That’s neat, now Barbatos isn’t too OP.

Except…. that’s not what happened at all.

The body you had been killed in was in Mammon’s arms. And your OT1 mind and body are now in what I call OT3. The final timeline. Not the true timeline, but the final one.

Now you really should skedaddle back to the palace and go to the yugioh room AND LEAVE 

But you get caught. And things get very very…. suspicious. History at this point IF we were time traveling would be fucked, but since I don’t believe we are, we are still golden.

ALSO TO EVEN PUSH MORE ON THIS FACT YOU HAVE A FLASHBACK TO BARBATOS TELLING YOU NOT TO COME INTO CONTACT WITH ANYONE

But a moment later Leviathan sees you. And things get funky. The OT2 you vanishes, we have canon confirmation that both OT1 and OT2 WERE REAL VERSIONS OF YOU. No fakes here folks.

Now. Here is what piqued my interest.

You explain the story of Lilith and Belphie calls you a liar before Lucifer proclaims it to be true. Then Lucifer asks you how you know about it.

When you tell him the truth, that he had told you, he denies it and asks for an explanation. Before you can so much as breathe a response someone intervenes.

Who you may ask? 

Diavolo, of course.

He makes a proclamation about you being Lilith’s descendant and your connection to her. Lucifer often tries to interject but is shut down. Every. Single. Time.

Hmmmm indeed.

Spiritual attachments, if they are strong enough can cause visions. And you may see memories from the spirit. 

I firmly want to believe that all this is bullshit in an attempt to distract us from the fact that we are not in the correct timeline. 

I mean…. did anyone notice just how easy Belphie gave in once Diavolo used the Lilith card? I mean, seriously, the guy killed you. And attempted to do so again not even five minutes earlier!

Diavolo and Barbatos don’t want you dead. And naturally you’d reason that of course they wouldn’t! The exchange program requires you to be alive after all. But what if…. there is more to it? I have reason to believe that Diavolo has more in mind than just the exchange program.

I mean this is the same man who Barbatos serves, it would be easy for him to just…. manipulate reality. We saw an example of this when the OT2 body vanished.

However keep in mind that the Diavolo and Barbatos we are speaking to are not the same as the original ones. These two are from OT3. And they might have a very very different agenda when compared to OT1.

In Chapter 16-19 we ask Barbatos if we warped history.

This is what we get back:

I know I told you that I have the power to see both the past and the future, but the truth is that there’s one more secret —something I still haven’t mentioned.

You see, I have the power to select from any number of different potential realities and make any of them into the sole reality.

Within the various potential realities, there are an infinite number of versions of MC…

...however, in the sole reality I chose, the one and only MC is the one right there. That’s why the previous MC disappeared while you remained…

Now by this logic, there are an infinite number of Barbatos’. Which poses an interesting question. OT3 Barbatos is acting as if he is OT1, which he is not. But him acting shady isn’t not the big issue here, believe it or not.

He can manipulate reality. Unravel it at his fingertips. He himself could have gone back and figured out that the ghost of Litith was the one to have opened the door. Which begs the question, why didn’t he?

Either OT1 Barbatos does not possess the ability to manipulate reality or he had withheld information on purpose. 

Now that’s a scary thought. I mean why would they withhold information unless…. unless…

You were a danger.

I am in the belief that Barbatos of OT1 is on your side, he gives instructions on how to get back. Because you NEED to get back. There are consequences for messing with time, like…. getting stuck in a parallel reality. *wink wink*

On the other hand… if Barbatos of OT1 COULD manipulate reality then why bother with you unless… there was an extra variable at play.

What if Barbatos couldn’t see what happened. What if Mister OP Time Wizard suddenly encountered an anomaly with you? What if this entire situation was orchestrated by Diavolo in an effort to figure out why Lilith attaches herself to you?

But. The horror doesn’t end here folks.

I believe that OT3 Diavolo and Barbatos are lying in an effort to keep you here, in OT3. After all, Barbatos just yeeted the OT2 MC into smoke after all. And we have NO idea where the OT3 MC is. Honestly I have a very funny feeling that you, the OT1 mc, have powers of your own. Ones that are not related to Lilith.

Because Lilith is just lending her aid, you already have something there for her to boost.

You traveling back in time (Timeline hopping, fight me) May have been a test, a test to see if you had powers locked up inside you.

And I think that you do. I think that we are being played as a fool and that there is something much larger at play here.

Or - And please hear me out - I’m going stir crazy in this quarantine.

Hope you guys enjoyed 💚

A/N this took me about 2 hours? To write and bounce between apps. This is about 2.8k words. Maybe I’ll come back and elaborate more on this but it’s late and I’m tired lmao. Someone take the tin foil away from me-

[theonceoverthinker]

Comfortable (Fair Game)

Summary: Things worked out in Atlas and Mantle, better than anyone could have reasonably expected them to. Who’d have thought? Now, the extended group sets out after saving one day to save the next one and the one after that. And with a moment’s peace in between those days, Qrow and Clover finally let themselves get comfortable. 

AO3        Fanfiction.net

A/N: So like the summary warns (While a background element of the fic itself), this fic is almost certainly an AU for the 0% likelihood that everything is going to work out perfectly in the Atlas/Mantle arc -- the communication tower will be back up, everyone will be warned about Salem and then protected, and then everyone will then go to inform the rest of the world.

Tagging @merilinlokk and @lady-branwen!

Seriously, this thing is so sappy. I can't believe it. I am grossed out by this abomination of cuteness! 

Enjoy.

()()()()()()()()()()()()

Atlas has a gorgeous line of aircrafts. Aircrafts are behemoths of steel most every other place in Remnant, but in Atlas, where they are an indispensable part of life, something about them is simply different from those in the regions below. Perhaps it’s a reflection of Atlas’ gilded lives -- or at least formerly gilded lives.

Things are changing. So many things have changed already. Atlas and Mantle exist under new leadership, and now are readying themselves to aid in the fight against Salem. The communication’s tower is up and running. There’s a new Winter Maiden.

And now, just as life changes, their extended group must change as well. There are other regions to visit, to warn about Salem, and to assist in facing off against the Grimm that will haunt them in the wake of that knowledge. Much assistance will be required -- enough to warrant the strongest assets of the Atlesian military to join the extended fight beyond Atlas’ borders.

Despite their higher spirits, everyone’s a little mixed at the idea of leaving Atlas. For the Ace Ops, Atlas is not just a workplace...it’s home. For the kids, it was somewhere stable. Clover can only imagine how much they’ve missed having someplace like that to stay. From what Qrow tells him, constant travel has been something of a norm for them since they faced the Fall of Beacon.

But at least this time, their accommodations are more comfortable. The plane they’re taking is about as nice as Atlesian arcrafts come. It’s no four-star hotel, but it’s close. 

Clover’s happy to see that the kids seem content with the accommodations as they board it. 

He’s also happy to see his team content with the accommodations as they board it.

But mostly, so strongly to him that it’s almost embarrassing, he’s happy to see Qrow content with the accommodations as he boards it.

Clover makes sure he’s right by Qrow’s side to get his reaction up close, and Qrow’s smile -- as always -- does not disappoint. It’s as warm as a fireplace after a snowstorm and more beautiful than a hyacinth in bloom.

And fortunately for Clover, he’s been seeing it more and more frequently over the past few months they’ve spent together.

Clover’s always known he’s been blessed with a personality that could win just about anyone over, but experiencing Qrow warming up to him, opening up to him, enjoying his presence and their partnership...it’s been something so different than he ever expected.

He’s unashamed to admit that he loves it with all that he is.

They board the plane together, and Clover gestures to Qrow two unoccupied seats towards the center of the plane.

There’s been no secret made about the length of this flight. The trip from here to Vacuo is sixteen hours.

That’s sixteen hours they’ll be side-by-side, and while this plane is luxurious, that luxury comes at the cost of seats. There’s just barely enough for all of them, and the plane’s available seats are filling up fast. 

Committing to a spot now means committing to spending a whole day by the side of whoever one ended up next to.

Clover knows Qrow knows this.

And he still chose to sit next to Clover without an ounce of hesitation.

A smile crosses Clover’s face, and he’s undeniably thrilled.

However, there’s more to it than that, and funnily enough, that more would seem like less to the naked eye -- comfort.

Comfort, yes. That just about describes everything about them, and it might just be the part of this thing they have that Clover loves more than anything else.

While the armrest between them offers a generous amount of space, his and Qrow’s shoulders touch as they get settled into their seats. Still, neither of them blush, nor look away. No, the touch is casual -- it’s comfortable.

‘Comfortable’ -- oh, how Clover’s grown to love that word. 

As the plane takes off, Clover relaxes at the thought of the next sixteen comfortable hours they’ll share together.

()()()()()()()()()()

In the unlikely event Qrow was ever forced to spend the rest of his days aboard an airplane -- not exactly his ideal retirement plan, mind you, but at least it doesn’t involve being digested by a Grimm -- he can think of a lot worse people to choose to sit next to for all of those remaining years than Clover Ebi.

So when the prospect of a mere sixteen hour flight by his side approaches them, Qrow has no qualms accepting the invitation. 

As a matter of fact, a qualm is just about the last thing Qrow Branwen has with anything having to do with Clover Ebi.

Clover is comfortable -- yes, ‘comfortable’ is the best word to describe him. For as serious as he is when it comes to his job, he is also as carefree as Harbinger is sharp. A lesser mind would attribute that quality to his semblance and the cockiness that it may cause, but Qrow takes pride in being the exact opposite of a lesser mind. He knows that carefreeness Clover has is more than just the result of luck -- it’s who Clover is -- plain and simple. Qrow sees it in Clover’s eyes, his brow, and his smile, a smile that isn’t innocent, but informed, yet still optimistic, and that makes its successes that much more interesting to witness.

Qrow spends a lot of time looking at that smile, and even more time thinking about it. 

And now, he has that smile all to himself for sixteen hours.

Not to mention, if there’s one thing Atlas can be counted on, it’s that it has amazing planes. Their seats feel like they’re made of the very clouds they’re flying through, the craft is fully stocked with seemingly every snack under the sun as well as a nice variety of sodas, and they have screens to project their scrolls onto for a handsfree experience.

So not only will he have access to Clover’s smile, he and Clover will also be given plenty of good reasons TO smile.

It’s going to be a great flight.

()()()()()()()()()()

Clover swears that at some point, the plane flew up beyond the limits of the very sky itself and is now gliding straight across heaven.

Sure, that theory is rather hyperbolic, but with how nice of a time he’s having, he wouldn’t be surprised if it proved to be the case.

Rays of light amber shine inside the plane. Qrow, while not directly in its way, is bathed in it all the same. 

The sun makes everything about him pop -- as if he didn’t already do that well enough on his own. His smile is so much brighter, the speckles in his eyes are clearer, and his teeth almost sparkle in the light. Even the crumbs from the pretzels he ate earlier are illuminated, and Clover -- ever the neat freak his team well knows him to be -- finds too endearing for words.

The setting sun gives Clover little time to take it in, so he does fully under the guise of simple conversation.

He can be quite the clever devil when he wants to be.

That would probably be a bad thing if he didn’t care for the topic, but he does. Clover considers himself a caring guy, but Qrow manages to make even the most seemingly boring, annoying, or weird topics come alive. While Clover’s not at all into video games, if Qrow’s talking about them, suddenly, he doesn’t mind thinking about them for a half hour or so.

The past few hours have passed in a relaxed state of bliss. Conversations tend to flow between them as naturally as a river, and the long flight together hasn’t changed that. There’s plenty of moments of silence too, or just moments that pass where they do things on their own, but it never feels out of place. It’s just them...being who they are. 

Clover likes who they are.

It’s not long before the sun completely sets. The dark sky is contrasted by the warm lights from within the plane, and it feels as if they’re safely put in a nice, cozy cabin on a harsh winter’s night.

However, before long, that changes too.

Their arrival in Vacuo will be early. Everyone aboard the craft knows that, and as yawns start to surface after their early wake up to prepare for their initial departure, it starts to sink in that calling it a night sooner rather than later is in all of their best interests.

Clover can already see people settling in for some sleep. He gets a peek at his teammates, and he can just barely hold back a chuckle. 

Harriet’s lounging in her seat with her left arm spread out over the armrest and her eyes shut, with Vine holed up in the corner beside the window and his seatmate, halfway to slumber town himself. Marrow meanwhile has contorted himself so that his tail is curving over his body while Elm pushes his back against her own as to sleep more cozily.

Of all the descriptors Clover as ever used or considered using in regards to his team, the term ‘adorable’ has never once come to mind. However, those brief glances at his fellow fighters changes that perspective in an instant.

He has a sneaking suspicion that a certain group of kids from Beacon have a hand to play in the change. 

Honestly, the Ace Ops as a whole have become so much closer over the weeks that unorthodox group has been in their presence.

Those kids...and Qrow...who knew they would be what the world needed the most right about now?

And more importantly, who knows what they’ll do next? Clover believes that whatever it is will be something good, and he’s happy to be along for the ride.

Well, whatever the case, he does agree nonetheless that it’s just about time to turn it in for the night.

()()()()()()()()()()

Sixteen hours never seemed too big of a number for Qrow, and passing that time with Clover has made it seem even more paltry than that. 

Things are always easy like that for Qrow and Clover -- at least when they’re together, that is. Clover has this aura about him -- not a luck-based aura, but...a different kind of aura, separate from the pressures of semblances and more of a resemblance of his core personality. That aura makes the air feel just a bit sweeter and the urge to keep his guard up seem so much more distant than it should be.

Being around Clover...it makes Qrow just feel safe.

He knows it’s unwise. After all, they have a relic in their possession. It’s just a matter of time until a flying Grimm attacks them, or Hazel will show up on a hot air balloon or something or both at the same time, ready, willing, and able to blow them out of the sky.

Well, at least Tyrian’s not among their enemies’ numbers anymore.

Still, despite the danger that lurks behind each and every one of Remnant’s four corners, Clover’s sheer presence somehow wills his relaxation into existence. It’s nice having someone around like that, and it’s even nicer that that person is Clover.

Qrow’s never been much of a talker -- in truth, he’s not even that much of a talker with Clover -- but Clover and he are able to ebb and flow through the balance of conversation and alone time with such ease. There always seems to be something new for the two of them to discuss, and at the same time, they can exchange a comfortable silence with not a single bit of awkwardness, and no time has made that more apparent than today. 

Most of the conversation’s been surrounding Vacuo. Qrow wants Clover to know what he’s in for once they hit the harsh sands below it. Clover seems so assured that he can handle the rough climate, but he’s never been there before. Nonetheless, Clover’s confidence -- as it is often one to do -- leaves Qrow believing he can weather whatever Vacuo has in store for him.

...That said, is it bad that Qrow also wants to see the look on Clover’s face when he realizes they need to regularly traverse the desert on foot?

Probably, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a hilarious mental image to have dance around in his head.

Still, even if he has a hard time at first, Qrow knows Clover will get it in no time. 

And he looks forward to that smile of triumph when even the cruelest of wastelands falls prey to Clover Ebi’s relentless optimism.

The shattered moon is the only light the outside world provides them that remains in the wake of the deceased day. And just like that very outside world, it’s not long after the sun abandons it that the occupants of their aircraft abandon their overhead lights.

It makes sense. After all, they’re supposed to be landing early tomorrow, and they left Atlas Academy pretty early this morning just to make their flight. Everyone could use a little shut eye.

Some arrive sooner to that proverbial party than others.

Qrow hears Ruby and Nora snoring from both the front and back of the aircraft, respectively. 

He’s traveled with them for months, but it never ceases to amaze him just how loudly those two brats in particular seem to -- not even just sleep, but just do...everything.

Other snores -- less loud than his niece and her friend’s -- speckle the night with bits of sound, as the plane lets itself darken. 

He and Clover lock eyes just before turning to see their comrades as they fall to the lull of sleep. 

Diagonal from their seats, they spot something that almost makes Qrow’s heart skip a beat.

‘Cute’ really isn’t Qrow’s scene. He may hang around with people considered to be cute by both others and admittedly himself, but Qrow doesn’t go looking for cute things, nor pay them any more attention than anything else that only mildly interests him with few exceptions.

But seeing Yang and Blake, cuddling up against each other with a shared blanket that continues melding forms that are already bound by touched foreheads, yeah, that’s cute. 

Nah, not cute. Downright ‘precious’ would be the better way to describe the sight before him. 

Clover seems to think so too. He can feel the tension in Clover’s forearm release from up against him, but also not pull back.

Qrow can’t even blame him. He’s halfway tempted to take a picture and send it to Ruby because he knows she’d kill him if she found out he held something like this back from her.

But he doesn’t. This is Yang and Blake’s moment, not theirs, even if it is cute.

They’re good kids. They deserve some happiness like that.

He and Clover take a final look at the lovebirds before turning back to each other, softly smiling. 

Clover hums his agreement to their silent conversation in a relaxed, yet still jovial tone. 

Then...Clover does something unexpected. He leans down briefly, rifling around the bottom of his seat. Moments later, he surfaces, but with a dark blue plush, cylindrical bundle in his hands. The name of the aircraft is embroidered onto the cloth exterior. 

Well, it wouldn’t be an airplane ride without a complimentary blanket, now would it?

Clover pops open a button and holds the blanket between them, his offer obvious despite that offer being given no voice.

There’s a hidden implication to the gesture, especially given what they just saw between his niece and Blake.

A sudden case of convenient amnesia overtakes Qrow -- or rather, Qrow takes on -- regarding the fact that he has also been provided with his own blanket, one that rests right beside where Clover found his, and that he’d be able to access just as easily as Clover was.

Oops. How silly of him.

Qrow, with a shrug and a chuckle nods his acceptance. 

Without a word needing to be exchanged between them, Clover and Qrow spread the blanket over themselves and get comfortable. 

Clover positively radiates warmth. It would make for a sweltering scenario if the shared body heat was balmy rather than cozy.

Qrow and Clover are sharing a blanket.

No, Qrow is not completely beside himself with a delight he never thought it was possible for him to house.

...That’s the veneer he aims to put on, at least.

In truth though, for as happy as he is with the arrangement, it’s not enough to hitch his breath, nor make his heartbeat race. Things may have been like that at some point between them, but right now, Qrow can’t remember -- he doesn’t want to.

What they have now, it’s comfortable -- literally, at this second, just as much as it is figuratively -- and Qrow wouldn’t trade it for the world.

As the final minutes of their day slink by, they watch something on each of their TV’s. Still, Qrow isn’t paying attention to anything except how nice this all feels and just how alluring the prospect of a nap is right now. He suspects Clover feels the same. Their eyelids begin to grow heavy, and that weight only gets increases more and more by the second. Hardly ten minutes pass after the blanket is spread before Clover and Qrow quietly fall asleep.

()()()()()()()()()()

Yang’s uncle, whether he’ll ever admit it or not -- something Yang thinks is about as likely as Salem deciding to sprout confetti all across Remnant instead of Grimm -- is too cute for words.

She’s seen plenty of instances of his cuteness throughout her childhood -- mostly through funny faces and even funnier stories made to entertain while simultaneously distracting her and Ruby. In her adolescence, instances were less prevalent, coming out only through the occasional glimpse of awkwardness, goofiness, or unashamed bouts of affection.

But any absence of signs that she’s ever experienced in her life of her uncle Qrow’s cuteness are more than made up for by the sheer sight of Qrow cuddling underneath a blanket with Clover Ebi.

It’s an adorable sight to wake up to -- not quite as adorable as the sleeping Blake that first greets Yang’s eyes when she wakes from their nap, but still more than enough to make her smile nonetheless. 

Yang doesn’t stay awake for long. At times like this, Blake’s presence soothes her like nothing else, and the pull of sleep is a mighty one to ward off under such circumstances. However, upon prying her eyes away from Blake to stretch, she gets to see a bit of her uncle’s snuggly nap, and it does a good job holding its own in the battle of cuteness.

All is calm, but all the same, while the nightmares that Yang knows make her uncle Qrow reel in his sleep are clearly not present, Qrow’s head ends up shifting all the same, eventually leaning onto Clover’s shoulder where it at last is calmed. And Clover’s head, taken off its balance, gently sandwiches Qrow’s head into the crook of his neck. Yang sees Qrow’s left arm slip towards the bottom of the small of Clover’s back, and Clover’s hand is visible through the indent it makes, falling to Qrow’s right thigh, practically on his waist. Both sport easy smiles.

Despite the fact that there are so many fights left unresolved and so many monsters that will likely soon come for all of them, Cover and Qrow both look as though they’ve never been as safe as they are whilst held in each other’s arms.

And in the entire time Yang’s known both of them, they’ve never looked this comfortable before. 

Well, perhaps she’s wrong about that. Everything about them is comfortable from the outside looking in, and has been since the day they were first partnered up. It’s something that goes beyond their complementary semblances, too. Actually, yeah -- if Yang were to put it into words, she’d say that they just fit so...comfortably together. There’s no better way to describe them than that, but all the same, it’s the right word for them.

Yang’s not a betting girl, but she’ll say that if Qrow or Clover were each allowed to pick a single moment could be made to last forever, there’s a good chance at least one of them would pick this one.

She’s happy for them. Clover’s a good guy -- cool-headed, but cocky, spunky, but earnest, and strong willed, but not incapable of change to help the world improve. Yang likes him and as a plus, he and Qrow fight well together. 

They’re good men. They deserve some happiness like that.

And speaking of some due happiness, a slight stir from Blake settles Yang back into their prior pose, and moments later, she falls asleep again.

()()()()()()()()()()()()

Clover’s woken up in aircrafts before. 

If he had to call one thing about them his favorite, it would be the pale sunset that shine through the windows. Just like the sunset from the previous day, it creates a gorgeous glow over the plane’s occupants that makes for a wonderful way to start the day.

And with both that sunset and Qrow Branwen by his side, Clover wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be the best day ever.

As if he and Qrow didn’t match each other perfectly enough already, they wake up at practically the same time, too. Less than a minute after Clover eyes open, Qrow’s eyes meet his gaze. It’s so serene -- Clover feels as though he could meet it forever. 

In a move that honestly surprises Clover, Qrow doesn’t do anything to move away from him. They’re so close -- there’s no way that hasn’t resonated with Qrow the same way it has for Clover.

As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even rush to create the small excuse for distance they had prior to their rest either. The touch lingers in the warmth of the blanket and their shared body heat. 

No one else is awake yet. Neither he nor Qrow are looking around, but he gets the sense that they can both just feel it.

A certain moment from the night before rings a bell, of two people nestled under a blanket together, holding each other tightly.

It’s just them -- resting together, resting comfortably.

Clover’s pretty sure there’s not one tangible thing in all of Remnant or beyond that he wants more.

()()()()()()()()()()()()

Qrow hasn’t slept as well as he has over the past few hours in a long, long time. His usual bout of nightmares let him be, and because of that, not once did his consciousness stir out of its state of slumber all evening.

It’s a good feeling -- it’s a really good feeling.

He has to strain himself to will the strength needed to open his eyes into existence -- a Herculean task that he feels should grant him a round of applause for its completion.

And when he does, he’s rewarded for his efforts by one hell of a sight. 

Clover’s eyes have always stuck out to Qrow as bold -- then again, so do his own -- but two inches at most from his face, despite their singular color, they’re as vibrant as a rainbow.

Neither of them speak, as if their proximity to each other leaves them speechless.

But no -- this isn’t them being speechless. Qrow knows what that’s like, but he can tell that if he ever gains a desire to end this, he could whenever he wants to.

And he doesn’t.

Instead, tender smiles are exchanged, acting in place of any verbal language as a wish for a good morning.

Verbal or not, the wish feels well granted right about now. 

They’re both so close together right now, with much of their bodies already pressed against the other about as snugly as the situation can allow.

With that thought, another slams into him, one that should leave him agape and shocked, but doesn’t.

So Qrow let’s the thought exist, entertaining it like silly putty in his hands.

If they were so inclined to kiss, such a thing would be almost too easy to pass up right now.

And neither of them are running away. They’ve both fought their demons -- emotional and literal -- and won.

Some easiness is definitely called for.

So Qrow leans in, and Clover follows him as if their minds and thoughts were one.

It’s little more than a shift for them as their lips touch for the first time.

The kiss between them feels...weightless. Yeah, that’s how Qrow would best put it. With that weightlessness comes a sense of finally and fully letting go. It’s a letting go of his inhibitions, a letting go of his guard, and a letting go of anything that he hasn’t already readily offered Clover.

There’s not much of the latter...but that’s what makes the kiss as good as it is.

Qrow’s hand moves from the small of Clover’s back up to the space between his shoulders. Clover’s moves from Qrow’s thigh around the corner of his form, fully ensnaring his waist. 

It’s a quiet kiss, at least to the outside world. But between them, a fondness in the form of a question that had been upfront about its presence, but never ultimately asked is at last not only asked, but answered. That answer turns out to be better than Qrow could’ve ever imagined.

They breathe each other in more and more for every moment the kiss goes on, and that leaves them both with a lot of the other’s scents dancing through their noses.

The kiss comes to an end as a flight attendant passes by, offering them coffee. Even as they softly break apart though to tell them their drink preferences, one of each of their hands find their way to the other’s. 

Another kiss is not exchanged that morning, but those hands stay casually bound until the plane lands in a small mushroom cloud of sand. 

Vacuo is for certain going to be a challenge for the group, one that will not be gentle with its trials and tribulations as the weather, Grimm, and Salem’s goons alike put their patience, strength, and sanity through the absolute tightest wringer.

However, Qrow’s not worried, or at least not as worried as he would be alone. As long as Clover stands beside him, no matter the pain that may follow, a part of him will always be allowed to be comfortable.

[orihime00sama]

Tobitate! Hanafuda - Fate/Prototype Route

Hello!

This is a translation of the Prototype route of the Toraburu Hanafuda Travel Journal game included in the PS Vita version of Realta Nua, Team “Miss Ayaka and her Three Knights” AKA the Otome route.

This is my first time translating something like this and I’m far from being good at Japanese, so there’s a bunch of lines I’m not sure about. If you have any suggestion or correction, please let me know. I’ll also be linking the translations to the videos in case you want to check out the original (or just hear the voices).

——————

Sajou Residence - Part 1

Ayaka: Hello, everyone. To those of you who are new, nice to meet you. I’m Ayaka Sajou. It’s a long story, but I’m a Master in the Holy Grail War. My Master’s Degree is the Seventh. It’s the lowest, the weakest. Honestly, I want to quit right now, but the circumstances won’t let me. By the way, I don’t have any relatives. I lost my Dad in the previous Holy Grail War, and my elder sister who was one of the previous Masters is… well.

Saber: Ayaka, you didn’t check the mailbox yet, right? I’ll go do it. After that, let’s have some tea.

Ayaka: This is Saber. The first Servant I summoned and made a contract with. He’s the ideal good young man any girl thinks of, in other words, someone like Prince Charming[1]. He’s so perfect that it makes me feel uncomfortable. Also, he’s a bit of an airhead.

Lancer: Osu, good morning~. Oh, the fridge’s got a lotta ham, ain’t it. And there’s sliced bread and eggs and… All that kinda stuff, huh.

Ayaka: That’s Lancer. In the past, he was our enemy but now he’s a barbarian who lodges in our house and raids our fridge without permission. He may be a borderline trespasser, but he’s helped us out many times, so I’ve got no choice but to let him do it. Give and take, give and take. Besides… if you ignore his crude side, he’s the easiest to understand.

Lancer: Oh, you’ve got a serious face early in the morning, Missy. Back to your usual criticisms? Keep your self-hatred in moderation, ‘kay?

Ayaka: I don’t want to hear that from someone who rummages through our fridge with no warnings. Leave me alone. Lancer, are you off today?

Lancer: Ah, I’ve got no plans for today. I’ll tend to the Missy’s garden, or maybe play with the dogs.

Saber: Unfortunately, tending to the garden is my job. It is not your turn to act. Why don’t you get back to your original sheath, Lancer?

Lancer: I’ve been free from the start. But since the Missy asked me to guard[2] her, I gotta do my job. There’s still some unscrupulous bunch left around. Like, for example, a wolf[3] in prince’s clothing.

Saber: Bold of you to say that. Now then, is it an honour or an insult to be treated as a wolf by a wild dog? What do you think, Ayaka?

Ayaka: I don’t know! More importantly, what’s that envelope? There’s two of them.

Saber: Ah, it looks like they were delivered this morning. Here you go.

Ayaka: Err, let me see… “Are you familiar with the hot spring that can make any wish come true? Here is the oldest and best hot spot in Fuyuki City －However, only the wishes of the first group will come true. Please be ready.” … So it says. What is this, are they joking?

Lancer: Incredible… Is it an invitation to a Holy Grail War from another place? What, Holy Grail Wars can happen anywhere?

Saber: Doesn’t it have different rules from ours? Here, Ayaka, another one.

Ayaka: … This is a memo and … a ticket for the bullet train? Let’s see… “I’ll be waiting for you at the Fuyuki Holy Grail Hot Spring ♥" … They’re totally looking down on us.

Saber: So, the Fuyuki Holy Grail is actually a hot spring. Ours was a hellish cauldron, so I guess they’re not similar.

Lancer: A hot spring, huh, not bad at all. But well, this is up to you, Missy. What will you do? The other side even sent an invitation to make sure you’d go. Will you jump in?

Ayaka: … That… going by my life plans, I don’t want to go but… (Going by my feelings, it made me mad… Besides, if that hot spring that makes wishes come true is real, then…)

Archer: I have heard the whole story!

Ayaka: Archer!? Where did you get in from?

Archer: Obviously, from the window! Don’t worry about the little details, Ayaka! Else your cheek lines, lovely and beautiful as a flamingo, will fall.

Lancer: Is that a compliment? That’s a compliment, right?

Saber: What have you come here for, Archer? As you can see, we’re in the middle of a morning reunion. If you’ve come here to settle things, come back through the front door one hour later.

Archer: Hah, you fools. Are you even Heroic Spirits, those proclaimed to have no match on the earth? From the very beginning, we are those who bloomed on the battlefield. We respond to challenges, trample down our enemies, and gather treasures.

Archer: I don’t know about a war someplace else, but if it is a Holy Grail War, then it’s a given that Heroic Spirits would assemble. How can I call myself the original Heroic Spirit, the Senpai of Holy Grail Wars, if I don’t respond to this challenge!?

Ayaka: ………………

Saber: Hmph. As usual, you are a very hot-blooded man. If you want to fight, feel free to do it on your own. I’m against exposing Ayaka to danger.

Lancer: But being overprotective is also something to think about. The Missy these days isn’t as frail as you think, Saber. Or what? Are you holing up at home so you can keep her to yourself?

Saber: Wha－ I, I don’t have such impure thoughts often.

Ayaka: Let’s go! Saber, I’m going to this Holy Grail Hot Spring. Get prepared.

Saber: Ayaka!? Hah, it was already too late the moment you decided it. It can’t be helped, I’m not on board with this but I’ll accompany you.

Lancer: Missy, do you need your long weapon? If you need it, I’ll lend it to you.

Ayaka: Of course, come with us, Lancer. And you too, Archer. The four of us will conquer Fuyuki City.

Archer: Now you’re talking! As expected from my princess, you know the time to fight.

Ayaka: We’ll depart in 20 minutes. I have to go gather the bird feathers in the yard, so wait until then.

(She runs off)

Saber: Now you’ve done it, Archer. You’re always leading Ayaka down the bad path.

Archer: Good or bad is for Ayaka to judge. You cannot blame me. More importantly… Hey, lend me your ears. I have an idea.

Saber: ?

Lancer: Hn?

Archer: Hot springs are this land’s highest form of leisure. I’ve heard that they are summer resorts where lovers and married couples stay in. How about it? The one who does best in this expedition will get to be in the same room as Ayaka.

Archer: If it is a reward for the battle, even Ayaka who always has her guard up cannot oppose to it. And after your minds and bodies relax in a famous hot spring, the flower of romance will bloom.

Saber: …

Lancer: Incredible… Wait, this is all in your head, right? Didn’t you fail with terrible women?

Archer: It is unavoidable. To debauch is a king’s duty. I have the obligation of consuming fruit and flesh.

Archer: However, what I truly cherish is the one single flower. I’ve gotten tired of rotten meat and juice. Now, what will you do, Saber, Lancer? Will you take a knight’s oath?

Lancer: No, so we’re keeping it a secret from the Missy?

Saber: Okay, I will take it. The one who does best will share a room with Ayaka, right?

Lancer: You’re on board with this!?

Saber: Archer’s proposal makes sense. This is something I never imagined even in my dreams, but now I’ll work together with this man.

Lancer: Good grief… It can’t be helped, I’m on board. It’s a principle to have the feast in front of you, after all.

Archer: HAHAHAHA, how bold, wild dog! Now then, let us duel fair and square, with sharing Ayaka’s room as stake!

Ayaka: Sorry to keep you waiting. What are you four doing? Did you always get along like this?

Saber: N-no, we were just discussing something. Don’t worry about. Once the battle is over, I’ll tell you everything.

Ayaka: In that case, it’s fine, I guess… Well then, let’s go. I don’t know about the Fuyuki Holy Grail War, but let’s show them a difference in history!

(Stage 1 – Vs Team Tokiomi)

Victory Quote:

Archer (Prototype): You fools! You mediocre Heroic Spirits shouldn’t stand before me! Especially you, that golden one over there. Wearing a full body golden armour, there are limits to how inelegant you can be! In that case, I shall take it.

[1] Prince on a white horse

[2] Likely referring to how Lancer becomes her Servant after she lost Saber (and he lost Misaya)

[3] the actual word used was “Okuriōkami” (送り狼) which apparently is a term for “a ‘gentleman’ who escorts a woman home, only to make a pass at her”.

—————–

Fuyuki – Emiya Residence - Part 2

Saber: Ayaka, how about we have lunch here? This mansion is well-maintained, and perfect for resting. Besides, I feel a strange affinity to it. Especially to that storehouse. It must be a renown work of architecture, there’s no mistaking it.

Lancer: I’m more interested on the inside of the house. Like, a surprise attack from the ceiling of the living room. I wonder why Japanese-style houses are so full of openings.

Archer: I am interested in that wall. It may be inferior to skyscrapers, but it has quite the charm to it. Well now, let’s go climb it.

Ayaka: It’s embarrassing, so please don’t wander around too much. What are you, middle schoolers on a field trip!?

Saber: My apologies, that was rude. Indeed, it’s as you say. Even if they are our enemies, we should act in moderation. It’s unfortunate but let’s refrain from lunching. But you’re not taking a break, right? Are you tired, Ayaka?

Ayaka: U-Uh-huh. I’m getting used to the Hanafuda duels but… Isn’t this city weird? Everyone walking around has empty eyes like a dead fish. Could it be a characteristic of this provincial city? Look, there’s a harbour nearby, right? Like an octopus monster came from the sea and turned all humans into its familiars.

Saber: That’s “something like a summon “. You still have that hobby of reading gloomy books like always, Ayaka. Haha.

Ayaka: Don’t call them gloomy! Who cares about my hobbies? We are talking about the dead fish eyes! Look, right there!

Kiritsugu: *chewing*

Saber: …. T-that… His eyes really are empty…

Ayaka: Looks like he didn’t notice us… He’s just been there in a hiding spot, eating from a plastic piece.

Kiritsugu: *chewing* … This is Iri’s homemade cooking. I can eat it. Of course I’ll eat it. Even if it’s onigiri that changed like depleted uranium. *chewing* Ah, I’m happy… Shit, I’m so happy that I even started crying.

Ayaka: It’s better if we leave him alone. He’s gross.

Saber, I know you made this lunch, but let’s leave. I’m sorry, but let’s have it later… Saber!?

Artoria: *chewing* It has a nostalgic, wild taste from somewhere but it’s not bad. Ah, could you give me some tea, lady over there? I’m holding the turkey with both hands, so my hands are busy.

Ayaka: S-S-Saber turned into a girl!? W-what’s going on!?

Saber: Ouch… To suddenly strike my head from behind, that’s unbecoming of the chivalry code… Wait, who are you!?

Artoria: Hmph, from what I see, you are a naïve man, Pendragon. While you collapsed, I took your delicious lunch!

Ayaka: Even if you play it cool, you already ruined it! Saber, who is this? Could she be your younger sister?

Saber: That’s what I want to know! Who on earth are you!? If you are a knight even in the slightest, then name yourself!

Artoria: Hmph, you say “even in the slightest” after I got you, you make me laugh. I am both your shadow and a possibility of your future. *chewing* Draw your sword, Holy Sword Wielder. Show me how much power the original wields.

Saber: … I wonder what’s this feeling of disappointment I never felt before… However, as you can see, we are both of the Saber Class. As an opponent, there is nothing lacking about you. Lancer, Archer, don’t interfe—re!?

Lancer: Oouaahh, what’s up with this hawk!? Don’t pull my feather accessory! It’s not from your nest!

Archer: Aaargh, step back, Animose! Why are there gorillas around the wall!? And you, Roland, don’t swing me around!  Don’t swing me around!  

Irisviel: Ufufufufu, go get them, wire animals! Flying Guillotine (Hawk’s Name) on the tights-less Lancer! Gattling Brothers (Gorillas’ Name) on the nudist Archer!

Irisviel: If you’re going to make them, gorillas really are the way to go! Primitive power is really different!

Kiritsugu: Iri… What on earth happened? … No, I have to observe this place. I’ve got to find out the reason why the two of us were in a hole!

Irisviel: Ufufu, hahahahaha! Anyone who invades my Sweet Home with Kiritsugu won’t be forgiven! Prepare yourselves, I’ll whip you to the skin of the butt and then throw you out penniless!

Ayaka: And over here, an incredible beauty is getting drunk! What on earth is going on in this city!?

(Stage 2 – Vs Team Kiritsugu)

Victory Quote:

Ayaka: We went a bit overboard… but no matter how you put it, those guys were weird… What’s going on with this city’s Holy Grail?

—————–

Part 3

Fuyuki/Prototype Grail Pit - Part 3

Ayaka: Is this… Fuyuki’s Holy Grail Hot Springs? Rather than a hot spring, this…

Lancer: It looks exactly like our Greater Grail. Did we get tricked?

Archer: No, we probably just took the wrong path. My intuition tells me that if we had gone up on that last crossroad, we’d get to the hot spring.

Ayaka: Is that so? Archer’s got an amazing nose for money and treasures, so I think it might be true… but the ticket says that it should be around here.

Archer: Let me see that… Hoh, I see, so that’s what’s going on. The way is indeed correct. However, it is not meant for us! Saber, this concerns only you!

Saber: What? Why only me?

Archer: FUHAHAHAHA, you still don’t understand, you oaf? This ticket wasn’t sent to Ayaka! It is a love letter overflowing with love that pinpointed you!

Saber: Wha-what!? Don’t tell me… Then, the one waiting for me here is…!

Manaka: SABER!! You’ve finally arrived!  

Saber: !!!

Manaka: Jeez, your face turned so pale. You’re so happy that your face went stiff…Saber really is my prince! I love you! I love you so much to the point I’d sacrifice every life in this planet, Saber!

Lancer: Well, we’re off then. Hang in there, ladykiller.

Archer: Fu, so you’re dropping out alone. Time to pay the piper[1], Saber.

Ayaka: ………

Manaka Sajou. My sister, six years my elder. She’s Saber’s former Master who, in the previous Holy Grail War, advanced through almost invincible. I don’t like to talk about her so I’ll spare you the details, but if I had to describe her, I’d say she’s a super devilish genius who wouldn’t die even if you killed her.

Manaka: Now, come over here, Saber. I prepared a special bath just for you. Oh, unless you’d rather have dinner first? Or just like last time in front of the Holy Grail, YOU’LL • HAVE • ME?

Ayaka: Huh, this is the first time I’ve heard about this, Saber. So something happened between you and my Big Sister. In front of the Greater Grail, too?

Saber: T-this is a misunderstanding! What happened was that I impaled (with the Holy Sword) a mad Manaka from behind with a thud!

Ayaka: From behind… with a thud… for real!?                                            

Manaka: Uh-huh, that’s right♥!  That passionate way, it felt like the world froze for a moment… That’s why… I’ll do the same to you, Saber. Goes without saying, I’ll do it from behind. Leaving no gaps, every nook and cranny of your body. Just like a large-flowered flower. No, like the stars of the shinning sky. Receive my tentacles until you’re all shiny and slippery♥!

Saber: That’s no good, Manaka. It’s true that I betrayed you twice. The first time when I backstabbed you. The second time when I made a contract with Ayaka. So, I’m prepared to have you seek revenge.

Ayaka: Saber…

Saber: But, now let’s remember words of love that are more heroine-like. A girl your age shouldn’t say things like “receive my tentacles"⋆.

Lancer & Ayaka: Urk…!

Manaka: Saber…! Yes, from now on I’ll be more careful! How about the lovely “Manaka Slaughter Whips”?

Ayaka: I’ve been thinking about it since back then, but could it be that you actually are a perfect match for Big Sister, Saber?

Lancer: Well, they’re both airheads, after all. Maybe they could work out as lovebirds[2].

Manaka: That’s right, you people I don’t know. Saber and I are fated lovers. I won’t forgive you if you get in our way. Or rather, I don’t need you. I’ll burn you all on the Greater Grail later.

Ayaka: ….! Don’t tell me, the townspeople looking dead inside was your doing, Big Sister?

Manaka: Yes. Since I had spare time waiting for Saber to come, I went and took over Fuyuki City. After all, in a wedding ceremony, the more the merrier, right? Of course, right after that, I’ll turn everyone into zombies.

Ayaka: … I really can’t let her do as she pleases… I feel bad for her, but just by being here she’s evil. Saber, Lancer, Archer, let’s go! This time for sure, I’ll seal my relative’s disgrace!

Manaka: Fufufu, very well. Welcome, Miss Obstruction. I’ll play with you to kill my bore— Eh? Relative? You? Such a plain character?

Ayaka: Oh geez, you really couldn’t tell…! Just how self-centered are you, Big Sister?

(Stage 3 – Vs Manaka)

Defeat Quote:

Manaka: Ahh, you finally came back to my hands, Saber! First, let’s have some tea, then an afternoon nap. I have so much I want to talk about with you!

Victory Quote:

Ayaka: Thanks for helping me, everyone. I couldn’t have won alon— eh? The Hot Spring as the reward? Right after this? Well, it can’t be helped if it’s a reward but… I have a bad feeling about this…

[1] Just adding this here because this was actually my first time hearing this idiom:

to pay expenses for something, and thus be in a position to be in control;

to pay a monetary or other debt or experience unfavourable consequences, especially when the payment or consequences are inevitable or a result of something one has enjoyed.

[2] Baka couple

—————-

Fuyuki Holy Grail Hot Springs -  Part 4 - Ending

Ayaka: And so, after we safely defeated Big Sister, put her to sleep with a sleeping pill, coffin-packed and delivered her to the Church… we finally arrived at the Hot Spring, but…

Ayaka: No way, mixed bathing!?

Lancer: Oh, this is something you don’t see often these days. The guy who made this was really smart.

Saber: Yes, this is what they call gender equality. By the way, Lancer, how about taking at least a towel? It’s minimal manners to wrap it around your waist.

Lancer: My bad. It’s been so long that I’ve forgotten. What about you, swimsuits are forbidden, y’know? We’re both men, so there’s nothing to hide, right?

Saber: Of course, I didn’t bring such a boorish thing. Having a swimsuit is desecrating the hot springs. Isn’t that right, Ayaka?

Ayaka:  Argh, you guys— No, Lancer is one thing, but Saber! This is a mixed bath, are you okay with this!? Could it be you don’t understand the meaning of mixed bath?

Saber: I do. It’s a public bath without a men’s bath and a women’s bath. I’ve heard that this culture has been familiar to Japan since the Edo period.

Lancer: Yeah. Well then, I’m going ahead to the dressing room. You should hurry too, Missy. You promised that the reward would be the hot springs. Don’t tell me you’re going to take that back?

Ayaka: I-it’s true that I said that, but…

Saber: Ayaka, a lord must always go through with their servants’ rewards. It goes without saying, but that’s a condition to becoming a first-rate Master.

Ayaka: Wha-wha-wha—

Saber: Well, it’s my turn. Come, let us take off our clothes and enter the hot spring.

Ayaka: Guh, Saber you idiot———! I can’t believe that only at times like this you guys get along…! (But this is bad, this development is bad…! Think, me! I can’t avoid the mixed bathing no matter what… In that case… That’s right!)

Ayaka: Wait, you two. A little timeout! I’m going in first, so until then, don’t go in!

Lancer: Uh? Well, I don’t mind.

Saber: Neither do I. Both getting in first or getting in later are good.

Ayaka: Geez, those animals! Heh, but that became fatal. Just you watch, this is my counterattack.

(That huge wall behind her is the result)

Saber & Lancer: Y-you had that move!?

Ayaka: Uff, I’m saved… “Make a wall to separate the genders in the hot spring.” I ended up using it for such a stupid wish but it’s a story that sprang up from the start. I guess a wish like this is something within my means.

Lancer: How could this be? The Missy’s Eleventh-Hour strength is the real deal… What will we do, Mr. Knight? Even though the treasure is right in front of us, we’ve been left in limbo.

Saber: …. Lancer, no matter how you put it, we are weapons of mass destruction. The Noble Phantasms we wield are not for saving people.

Lancer: Right. Fine, let’s destroy it.

Saber: Yes, let’s destroy it.

Ayaka: Wh— I can hear you clearly from here! What are those two thinking!?

Saber: Let’s do it on 3. Even if it’s a wall created by the Holy Grail, if it gets hit by a direct hit of our Noble Phantasms—

Archer: Hold it! And you still call yourselves renowned Heroic Spirits? How can you not understand a bashful girl’s feelings!?

Archer: You fools! Cool down your heads and reflect on your actions! If you fool around in the bedroom, that’s your secret, but this is a hot spring! A place for decent relationships!

Lancer: What…

Saber: … on earth?

Archer: In the first place, seeing the bride’s nakedness is only after marrying properly! I, the King of Heroes, will not allow you to destroy this wall without Ayaka’s permission! Now, correct yourselves, you idiots! Listen well! I won’t let you disgrace Ayaka’s purity while I’m alive!

Saber: S-such seriousness! I can’t believe it, are you Ayaka’s mother?

Archer: At least call me her Big Brother! I have the “reliable university student senpai” position, after all!

Lancer: Oh, in that case, I’m the unpopular host of the neighbourhood. I’m one of the Missy’s senpai in senior high school.

Saber: Wha… Then, what about me? Rider is the classmate, so what other positions are there?

Archer: Hm… How about the blond exchange student who homestays at the Sajou house?

Lancer: Oh, that sounds nice. How about one who speaks Japanese in a funny way but is actually the prince of a certain country? It’s a pretty fitting role, right?

Saber: Guh… It’s frustrating but I can’t deny it.

Saber: It looks fun, so let’s think about the setting a little more. In the meantime, what does Ayaka do in the first place?

Ayaka: Like I said, I can hear you clearly. They��re getting all excited… Don’t they actually get along really well? Geez, and I’m the only one here… Oh well, I don’t mind. It’s a nice bath, and it’s a refreshing travel mood. I’m glad I came.

Ayaka: In reality, these are just alternate versions of ourselves, but doing something like this once in a while isn’t bad. Right, Dad?

Saber: By the way, Ayaka. Why did you, who hates fighting, decide to do it this time? Were you attracted by the hot spring?

Ayaka: Hn? It’s not that I hate fighting, it’s just that I don’t like going through scary experiences.

Saber: What?

Ayaka: This time it was full of opponents we’d obviously beat. It’s just like Archer said, we’re their senpais. That’s why I didn’t think we’d lose to anyone except Big Sister. After all, they were all within our range, right?

Lancer: …

Archer: …

Saber: I understand what you want to say. Yes. It’s hard to explain but the one I fear the most is Ayaka.

—————–

Random Duel Quotes:

Ayaka

“All right, all right♪!”

“Uwaah… What a careless mistake…”

“Too bad for you!”

“Yay!”

Saber

“I won’t give you any openings.”

“I’ll be taking that.”

Lancer

“You shouldn’t look somewhere else.”

“Guess this is what they call ‘killing two birds with one stone’.”

“I’m not done going wild yet.”

Archer

“Praise this unfaltering procedure!”

“Something like this isn’t enough!”

Ayaka & Saber

A: “Please, come to me! Saber!”

S: Yes, here I go, Ayaka!“

S: "You’re doing well, Ayaka.”

A: “T-thanks… This is just the usual, though.”

S: “What, this is just a scratch.”

A: “Are you alright, Saber?”

Ayaka & Lancer

L: “Let’s start, Missy?”

A: “Right, this time it’s a speed match, Lancer!”

A: “Good job, Lancer.”

L: “Not yet, there’s still more to come, Missy.”

L: “Ouch…!”

A: “Lancer, here, have some ointment!”

Ayaka & Archer

A: “Are you alright, Ayaka?”

A: “Y-yes, thank you very much.”

Tokiomi & Kotomine

T: “Impossible! I refuse to accept such an ending!”

K: “Hoh? Are you that frustrated, my teacher?”

Gilgamesh:

“Rather than the nonsense of victory or defeat, what truly is an eyesore is that conceited, prideful face of yours! Let us continue. I won’t allow you to refuse!”

Artoria & Iri:

A: “I’ll stave them off here. You have to retreat!”

I: “It’s alright, Saber! Believe in your Master!”

Irisviel:

“Hanafuda duels sure are fun, Saber!”

“Whatever it takes, right?”

Artoria:

“If you still will not give me your name, then stand up and come at me!”

Kerry & Iri:

K: “It’s enough, Iri. We have to retreat for now.”

I: “Y-yes… I’m sorry, dear.”

Manaka:

“For a mere toy to try to defy me.”

“Come forth, city of decadence. The night is long, sweet and cruel.”

“You do really cruel things to a lady.”

“Save me, Saber!"  

—————— Character art

Ending CG in high quality

————–

My Final Thoughts

[angstytieflingbard]

2nd anon here! Im amazed the the incredible world building youre creating here, So excited to see this become a fic! But would sacred beings lie dormant until link found the sealed underground hyrule? I do fancy the idea of seeing the spring Dragons fly peacefully around musutafu... I am sad that apparently the races are all gone? Or maybe they adapted to the world of quirks like the zoras became rito in ww, who knows, your choice! ty soo much and take as much time as you need! Dont have to rush

This is another wonderful question, and one I honestly didn’t even think about, at least in terms of the sacred beings. Honestly you’re doing god’s work out here making me actually think before I dive headfirst into this fic. Anyway, thoughts below the cut, as always! 💙

So, I’m actually gonna start with the other races. I’m not gonna lie, a big part of my goblin brain just went “Tokoyami is a rito and also Revali’s descendant,” which for obvious reasons I’m not going to acknowledge again. However, I think that what happened to the other races is in that sort of vein. 

When you look at all of the races of Hyrule, one of the main things that stands out is how segregated they seem to be. There’s very little interaction between the groups besides travelers, who are mostly hylian with some notable exceptions. I imagine after Link defeats Calamity Ganon in BOTW (as well as, of course, whatever happens in BOTW2) the collective efforts to rebuild Hyrule ends up bringing all the kingdoms a lot closer. Plus, with the example of Terrytown to back up the possibility of a real coexistence between all of them, I don’t think it’s that farfetched to say that maybe a new version of Hyrule emerges, where rather than having individual civilizations occasionally united by a common cause, there’s just one kingdom, split into provinces based on the existing cultures and geographical regions. Though it’s not as important to the BNHA/LOZ fic, I imagine this kingdom would have a council, where each member is a representative of each province, and the council itself is presided over by the king or queen, sort of how a king or queen of a typical kingdom might rule by proxy through whatever nobility their particular nation has. 

Anyway, the people of this new Hyrule, rid of the seemingly self-enforced segregation, inevitably do what people do and get married and have kids and stuff, mixing their respective traits and cultures until eventually something resembling humans comes of it, with the dominant traits of both gerudo and hylians ending up being their appearance, and the resilience and natural resistances (and, unfortunately, weaknesses) of the goron, rito, and zora creating the adaptability humans are known for. Now, that’s not to say the more fantastical traits of the races disappeared. Instead, I think they’d be dormant, at least until quirks eventually develop. Then, it’s sort of a free-for-all, those traits and abilities finally having a way to express themselves in people. So, in a way, the “Tokoyami is a rito” thing is true, just not in the way my brain originally wanted to make happen. Similarly, Tsuyu shows more zora traits, and Tamaki has some hylian features. This is a bit of a messy explanation, admittedly, but it was the best way I could figure out to resolve the issue of all the races and kingdoms disappearing. 

Next, the sacred beings, monsters, and even animals specific to LOZ. I think this comes down to the sheikah again, like with the sealed ruins concept I mentioned in the previous ask. So the sheikah have always been a somewhat insular, isolated community, and I don’t think that would change too much even once the newer version of Hyrule ends up forming. If anything, it might even be incentive to continue isolating themselves. The sheikah as a whole have some deep, sometimes really really dark secrets, whether it’s the advanced technology they invented for use against Ganon, or the way that the shadow temple was essentially just one big torture chamber that they used to interrogate/execute/experiment on those considered an enemy of the Hyrulean royal family. In fact, if you believe certain theories, the redeads featured notably in OOT and WW might be their creations, a mix of dark magic and technology used to create mindless, undead guards. So, the sheikah would obviously not be willing to give that info up, and instead would just keep to themselves for the most part, just as they’ve done since time immemorial in the LOZ universe. Until, eventually, recognizing the fading of Hyrule as a kingdom, and the (seeming) disappearance of Ganon, they seal off much of the ruins, shrines, and temples dotting the land, and using the mix of magic and tech they’re infamous for at this point, they also lock away many of the powerful entities around Hyrule in a type of magical slumber (almost like the chamber of resurrection, but without the prerequisite of dying to use it), along with some rarer creatures at their discretion. This includes the dragons, and possibly one or more of the hinox, lynel, and talus, respectively. 

I too would absolutely love to explore the dragons just doing their thing around Musutafu. Honestly, the idea of Musutafu gradually becoming this haven for magic and hylian/sheikah tech is great in general. Like just imagine, uncorrupted guardians becoming, I don’t know, construction or law enforcement aids? Carrying heavy supplies, checking structure stability, blocking off dangerous areas from civilians during villain attacks, even ferrying people across dangerous terrain during rescue situations. Or getting up early and going to Dagobah beach, the sun rising as Farosh (the green dragon) traces it’s path through the sky, returning to the water just as the sun’s cleared the horizon. Or hiking outside Musutafu, and stopping at the peak to turn and look over the whole city, seeing the divine beasts perched seemingly protectively around the city, silent sentries to ward off all who might try to harm those under it’s protection. I think the spirits of the champions would like that, having someplace to guard and care for after so long. 

~~~

Anyway, tell me what you think, or if you have anything else you’d like to talk about! I’d also just like to say how funny it is to me that you’ve already managed to pinpoint my brand, that being “I’m gonna say that I’ll have something out soon and then agonize over it for an entire week before I finally post what is likely the fourth entirely different version of the fic I promised.” I am so sorry, in advance.

[thespellweavingspirit]

The Wonders of a Mindscape

This is the next lesson on Astral Travel! Enjoy~

What Is a Mindscape?

What I call a Mindscape also goes by many other names: Mindspace and Headspace are a few of the ones I’ve seen most often. A Mindscape is a protected space in the Astral reserved specifically for you. No other entities can enter the Mindscape unless they are A) attached to you in some way or B) have your explicit permission. Often, your mindscape already has many features that you have subconsciously introduced. Sometimes a Spirit Teacher/Guardian/Companion will chill there. HOWEVER. You must still ward this space because as I said, entities that are attached to you <i>can</i> get in... this includes energy parasites, trickster spirits you inadvertently invite in, and entities that force there way in by attaching themselves to your energy and/or cloaking themselves with it. Astral warding is a bit too much to include in this one post, so I'll cover it in the next one.

A Mindscape is a place that is influenced by you and your state of being. Let’s say you have a really Nature-y Mindscape. Forest sounds are playing almost all of the time, you can hear the distant waterfall, a gentle breeze is going. When you feel sad, sometimes your Mindscape will become sad right along with you. The Birds might stop singing, the waterfall in the distance might become silent, the air might become still. If rain is a “sad” thing for you, it might even start raining. Because your Mindscape is influenced by you, you can also consciously change it. You can change the landscape, or make flowers grow in a blink of your eye. You can zap a pretty little dress or an awesome leather jacket on yourself and build a castle on top of a shallow mountain. It’s the only place in the Astral where no rules apply.

In no other Astral Space can you do these things because the space will not be connected to you. You might be able to make flowers grow in the blink of an eye, but only if you have the talent, seeds, and energy to do it. If you zap on a piece of clothing, you’re taking that thing from somewhere else in the Astral. Remember this when you start to visit the Astral.

You can also temporarily disable the “no rules apply” feature of your mindscape. By doing this, you make the Mindscape a place exactly like the Astral--minus the entities. This makes your Mindscape a great place to practice Astral magic and the like. It is why I am telling you about this now: so that BEFORE you get yourself hurt somehow in the Astral, you can practice how being there feels first. You can practice offensive and defensive protective Astral magic, which is somewhat different from the spells you’re used to casting in the physical world. You can practice any new abilities you might find yourself having without many repercussions (other than tiredness). You can have a place to go when you need a little quiet time. You can even have a place to interact with your spirit companions--somewhere where you can probably actually *see* them in a way you wouldn’t on the physical plane.

Okay, But How Do I Get To This “Mindscape?”

With all this, now that I’ve probably gotten you excited, I think I’d better actually tell you how to get to this fantastical place. It’s quite simple really, and like Projection, there are multiple ways to do it. My favorite way involves meditation. Once you get there, it is easy to get back.

A Mindscape is connected to your mind; that’s why it’s called a Mindscape. I’ll share a few methods with all of you and you can try them out. If none of them work for you, pm me and I’d be willing to talk about some ways that might. I do recommend setting a time limit for yourself, though. What feels like a few minutes in the Astral could very well be a few hours here, and vice versa. Set an alarm that will bring you back if you get too lost.

Imagination

Sometimes the simplest way involves the least amount of work. Just start imagining your Mindscape how you think it would look/sound/feel/smell to you. Imagine the most minute details; the grass under your feet, or the stone walls of a mansion. Perhaps you will imagine a vast ocean or a beautiful forest. Maybe you’ll find your home in the mountains; or maybe you’ll find it in a nice, cozy cottage filled with herbs and crystals of all kinds. Get Creative. :) Remember that imagination is only the way to get there; this is a valid experience you will have. The things you will do and see and smell and feel are real, even if they’re just in a mindscape. That’s kinda the point lol.

Meditation

Sometimes during meditation, your mind will start to drift. You’ll start to think about random things, or maybe you’ll start daydreaming. Let it drift. Find yourself at peace, and sink deeper and deeper until you discover a place suffused with your thoughts and emotions. Relax. Also, keep in mind to meditate in a way that is right for you.

Guided Meditation

There are times when we need a guide to help us get places. My guided meditations are text-based. You read along and eventually, you break away from the guide and begin to take on your own view of things. Questions will prompt you to come up with your own, unique answers. This method is good for those who read a lot and find themselves getting sucked into the book, letting their own surroundings fade away.

Here’s a guide that I’ve used and have had others use before:

Prep: Get comfortable. Prop yourself up on a few pillows or drag a big, warm blanket around your shoulders. Make sure you are in a safe place where you will not be disturbed. Do not read this until you are ready.

The Guide: Your surroundings melt away from you. You find yourself falling in a void, though you are not afraid. You are safe. The invisible (or is it visible?) wind cradles your body, slowing your fall somehow. Eventually, the darkness that surrounds you begins to take shape. Look around and note what you see. What sights befall your mind? What scents? What sounds? The wind that cradles you, what does it feel like? You continue to fall, wondering if you’ll hit the ground. You cannot be hurt. Your fall slows, gently letting you down in the deepest part of yourself. Your feet touch the ground. The wind moves away.

Open your mind.

A Doorway

Doorways lead places. That has always been true. On the physical plane, they only lead to one place, and it has to be adjacent to the room you’re in. That is not as true on the Astral. There, a door is merely a passageway. A portal. Since anything can be adjacent in the Astral, the normal rules don’t apply. Imagine a door in your mind. It should be closed. Put your hand on the handle but don’t open it yet. Tell yourself that this door will take you to your mindscape. Believe it. Tell the door this. Open it.

A Watery Adventure

In the physical, water connects two landforms together. In the Astral, water just connects. Bodies of water can be another valid entrance into your mindscape. Like the door method, you just have to tell yourself the water will take you to your mindscape and not someplace else in the Astral. Draw yourself a bath. Relax into the water. Let yourself (your mind not your body please don’t drown) sink deeper into the water… deeper. Don’t hold your breath; you can breathe Astral water like air. Assert that when you reach the water’s surface, you will be in your mindscape. Then start to swim to the top.

Note: Do NOT try this method if you have a tendency to fall asleep while meditating.

Music

If you’ve ever wanted to know what a sound feels like, this is for you. Some of us like to zone out to music. Especially when listening to our own playlists, they can take us to a place of peace and relaxation. You sit down, put on your headphones, and start playing your favorite tunes. This helps to block out the rest of the world and is an especially good method if you’re not distracted by the music in your head.

Then, listen… feel the beats of your music. Notice how they move through you, changing you, resonating in some space in your mind. This works kinda like echolocation. Use the sounds to identify your astral space. Hear with your mind the way the music bounces off of objects; trees, ground. Once you know that it’s doing that, you know that object is there. When I did this the first time the music bounced off of a tree, making a sort of “wooden” sound,  and the tree appeared in front of me, clear as day.

Bilocation

This is good if you have a hard time focusing while just sitting or lying down. Bilocation is the act of splitting your consciousness between a physical action and moving in the astral. For example, you could draw or doodle while the rest of your mind wandered into the astral, almost like a daydream. Some people like to jog or exercise. The physical exertion helps them focus their mind.

I, personally, liked to Travel while throwing. I’d wedge up my clay and it’d relax my body, loosening it and getting me focused. I’d sit down at my wheel and begin to center my clay. While I did that I was simultaneously centering my mind. After that, I could leave my body behind, which knew all the physical motions and what to do, and switch my mind to focus on my mindscape or some other place in the astral.

You can also paint, craft, play an instrument, or do any other “mindless” thing where you are physically moving your body.

How To Create Or Make Additions To A Mindscape

Some of us don’t have mindscapes that are readily made and filled with many things. If none of the above methods have really worked for you, this could be the case. Please note that most of the below methods can also be used to enter your mindscape once it’s been created.

Draw it!

If you’re the artsy type, then this is for you! What better way to create a mindscape than to actually create it? The best part is once you have it drawn/painted/stitched/whatever, that physical representation of your mindscape can become a portal to enter it. Focus on your rendition, and imagine yourself actually being in the place you have created. If you’re making an addition, start the drawing with a part of your mindscape that already exists so you can connect the two.

Start With Darkness/Light

Sink deep into yourself. Once you feel you’ve reached the deepest point, it’s time to create. Out of the Darkness, make a place that appeals to you. Imagine a waterfall or something. Have any of you ever seen Barbie: Rapunzel? You can imagine your Darkness (or, if you prefer, Light) as a canvas waiting to be painted on. Imagine that the paint brush creates the grass or stone under your feet, then watch it happen. You can also make additions this way; just take a brush or a finger to a place you want to make an addition and imagine it being created.

Write about it!

If you’re not the best at drawing or even imagining, this could be the method for you. Write about your mindscape like you’re describing a place in a book. Use the 5 senses just like a good description would do. Here’s an example from a book I’m writing:

The sky was a vivid green. Both moons hung in the sky, even though it was the middle of the day. The vegetation was every shade of blue and purple, so unlike the stark green plants in the Mundane world. Shadows darted in between the trees; flowers glowed with a strange luminescence. Soft chirps and other weird noises made up the song of this crazy forest that smelled like earth and plant and dark things. Strangest of all were the creatures that peered out from the darkness, their eyes a mixture of the darkest gold and the softest gray.

Once you’ve created it to your satisfaction, you can also use your description to enter your mindscape. The description should pull you into your mindscape when you read it. It’s like reading a good book and letting the rest of your surrounding fall away as you are sucked into a different universe; kinda like the strange place I’ve described here. You can also make additions to your mindscape simply by adding to your writing~

Connect The Idea of Your Mindscape To A Physical Object

Another way to get to your mindscape is to attach the idea of it to an object. I have a favorite crystal I carry around with me almost everywhere. I can spend a few days meditating on the fact that this crystal will take me to my mindscape. Doing so will help me associate the idea of it to my crystal. First, you have to get a good sense of your mindscape. Think about what it looks like, feels like to be there. Attach this idea to the object by sort of mentally “throwing” the idea at it. Then, you keep thinking, over and over again, “This crystal is connected to my mindscape. It will take me there if I will it.” You have to do this a few times over the course of maybe a week before the connection will stick. Also, as this is an addition, your mindscape has to already be created so you can more completely connect it to the object. Once it has, you can use the object to get to your mindscape by fitting your consciousness into the crystal.

Alright, I think I’ve exhausted my knowledge of mindscapes for the time being. I’ll make additions to this document if I find other ways that I know of. Remember everyone, you don’t have to visualize the things I’m talking about. If you’re using the writing method, for example, try something crazy: describe your mindscape without using sight. Talk about how the grass feels under your feet or the scent of a salty ocean on the cool breeze. The ability of your mind is not limited to sight.

The next lesson will focus on how to protect yourself while astral traveling. Until then, practice being in your mindscape and getting there. Practice moving your astral body there and keeping your conscious focused on the astral, instead of in the physical.

[wackygoofball]

Gifset: Jaime x Brienne - Ghost Hunters AU

Ever since killing his police commander “Mad King” Aerys Targaryen, Jaime Lannister is haunted –literally so. Both the man he executed for reasons Jaime never leaked to the public following the news’s witch hunt that marked him as the “Kingslayer” forever, and the people he failed to protect, like Aerys’s son Rhaegar, come after him whenever he falls asleep.

In the beginning, Jaime thought that he was merely hallucinating Aerys’s presence in his apartment, but he soon had to realize that Aerys’s actual ghost is haunting him, and can take physical form to harm not just Jaime, but also his family, something the spirit threatens him with ever since.

Wanting to know his family safe, Jaime made a drastic decision, abandoned his old job, his old life, cut all ties, and dove into the world of ghost hunting, in the hope to find a way to rid himself of Aerys’s ghost – and hopefully return home some day. However, Jaime didn’t have any luck just yet. While he slowly but surely slipped into the life of a ghost hunter, the former police officer found no way yet to exorcise his very own demons, thus focusing his efforts on the vengeful spirits haunting others instead.

Matters get increasingly worse as Jaime’s lack of sleep starts to take its toll on him, to the point that he fears that one of these days, he won’t wake up from his nightmares in which Rhaegar and the people he failed to protect from Aerys’s plot, which may have cost the lives of many people, had Jaime not made the decision to execute his commander, come after him.

While working what he thought to be a regular job near Oldtown, a haunted house with what seemed to be no more than a vengeful spirit to shoot at with the specially designed hunter weapons that he gathered over time, Jaime finds himself in quite a trouble. Because Aerys’s ghost decides to now also attack him on the gigs, which leaves Jaime injured as he has to battle two ghosts at once, and on the verge of losing. However, he is rescued by a tall, blonde woman who instantly fires at the spirits to make them retreat from Jaime – at the very last second.

Yet, he is very much surprised at the fact that the woman has no better to do than lash out at him, talking about “hunters” as though they are the worst people ever, though she is evidently one of them.

“You may just as well get yourself into your car and leave the rest to me.”

“In case it went without your notice, I was here first, wench.”

“And in case it went without your notice, you would have been screwed had I not arrived in time. And do not call me ‘wench.’”

“I would have managed without you, wench.”

“Yeah right.”

Their banter is quickly interrupted when the vengeful spirit of the house reappears. Jaime is still gathering himself after the head injury he received in the fight, shocked when confronted with the danger of the woman now being attacked by the ghost they both came here for originally. However, for some reason, the hunter with brilliant blue eyes does not fire at the spirit hovering above her, but instead… starts to talk to the creature. Jaime’s irritation only intensifies as the ghost shifts shape, revealing herself as a young girl, no more than ten years of age, skipping up the stairs after the conversation with the woman, only to disappear into thin air.

While very reluctant about it, the woman gives Jaime a lift to the next best doctor to trust in to have his injuries taken care of. The former police officer obviously uses the opportunity of the car ride through the vastness of the outer rims of Oldtown to get more information on this most curious hunter whose acquainted he just made, wanting to know just how she did it – and why.

Because truth be told, Jaime never considered talking ghosts into going back to where they belong.

“That is why I don’t like hunters,” she scoffs when he brings the topic up.

“You are a hunter.”

“I am not.”

“You hunt ghosts. That means you are not that much different from me, sorry to inform you, wench.”

“You probably find it funny to take a shot at a vengeful spirit. But it’s no game to me.”

“Trust me, wench, that is no game to me either. One could say my life depends on it.”

“Well, for me, the ghost’s afterlives depend on it that there is at least one person out there who tries to be there for them.”

“To do what?”

“Pass the threshold. Travel across. Find peace. Like the girl today. She lost her way, didn’t know how to leave the house, until she remembered how she died, falling down the stairs, and went back up to finally find her way back to her family in the afterlife.”

“Wait, you are telling me that you are one of those ghost whisperer folks?!” Jaime laughs.

“I am not a ghost whisperer. I don’t whisper to them.”

“Talk, whisper, mutter, yell, whatever. But you are a medium… if that is the term you prefer?”

“I don’t like labels.”

“Well, you had no trouble labelling me as one of those hunters that you despise so very much, or did you?”

She says nothing at that, just grabs the steering wheel tighter as they carry on with their ride through the darkness of the night.

With a concussion confirmed by the retired doctor who takes care of hunters without asking too many questions, Brienne, yet again very reluctantly, agrees to have an eye on Jaime to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed out of sheer stupidity.

Though both are fully aware that he will use the time to interrogate further into her case. And yet, Brienne takes some courage in that, reckoning that she can do the same.

When Brienne keeps poking him for information about why Jaime decided to come to Oldtown for particularly this case at that point of time, she is surprised to learn that the other hunter came here for the same reasons that drove her to Oldtown: irregularities in the weather, increase of thunderstorms, and an increase of heavily injured patients slipping into a coma within a fifty-mile radius, among other things. To Jaime’s asking if she has more information about that phenomenon, Brienne reveals quite a big truth:

“You say that we, as hunters, take care of the bad guys, the vengeful spirits, and make them go to where they belong. And in that, yes, we don't differ much. However, there is something out there that is causing those irregularities that you also found, and it’s keeping the ghosts from going to where they belong.”

Jaime is ever the more irritated at that set of information muttered over a lukewarm bottle of beer. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“There is a shadow that is hunting ghosts, but it doesn’t help them cross the threshold, it takes them somewhere else, someplace they don’t belong.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know, but I will find out. And I will stop it.”

Brienne wants to continue in her quest to find the shadow reaping those ghosts that have lost their way, but for some damned reason, the fellow hunter with snarky smile now wants to join in – and even gives valid reason as to why she should let him take part in her quest: Jaime managed to gather data that Brienne was desperately searching for in ages, and he is only willing to share if he gets to work the case alongside her.

Jaime, for himself, hopes that if he figures what keeps those ghosts from travelling across, it may help him find out just why Aerys’s ghost won't disappear, no matter how many times he shoots him down, hoping that this is his ticket home at last.

Thus, a yet again very reluctant alliance is born.

As the two continue travelling the country in search for clues on the shadow hunting ghosts, they are bound to reveal some of their greatest secrets to one another: Jaime comes clean to Brienne about why he killed Aerys, following a late-night encounter with the ghost, which leads to increasing tension between the two as Brienne confronts Jaime not just on his self-induced insomnia but also his tendency of letting his guilt consume him.

Brienne takes some drastic measurements to help Jaime, thereby letting on more about how she is a medium and how she can communicate and see ghosts the way she does, an ability she acquired at a very young age, as was discovered when she kept interacting with her dead brother Galladon, and eventually helped him travel across. Jaime is quite surprised and shocked to learn about how she dropped out of the business, upon her father’s plea to know her safe, after all, not all ghosts are peaceful, and what brought her back into the game: The shadow.

As Brienne eventually admits to him, knowing she can no longer hide the truths from her hunting partner, she lost her childhood friend and former crush Renly Baratheon to the shadow reaping his soul before it could pass, and now fears for her comatose father to have fallen victim to the same dark entity.

“There is nothing more hateful than failing to protect the ones you love. And I can’t fail my father, not again. I have to find them to set them free.”

“Will you be able to do that, though?”

“To do what?”

“Let them go? Because let me tell you that one thing from experience, that is the hardest part. Are you ready for that?”

“We are about to find out, aren’t we?”

Battling their own demons in their continuous quest for the shadow threatening the living and the dead, both that of the ghostly kind and of memories and guilt haunting either one, Jaime and Brienne find themselves also battling each other’s hauntings, growing closer and closer in a time that may mean their deaths at every step, every case they take in the hope to get one step closer towards the final goal.

Retracing the paths of a medium called “The Red Woman” leads them down a rabbit hole that may very well be one without return, unless they find a way to battle the shadow reaping the living and the dead, which proves to be perhaps the toughest challenge of their lives as they try to hold on while also having to let go.

Only time will show whether they can turn out victor against the Red Woman, the shadow, their own guilt and ghosts haunting them…

[peaceandlovenoonecanstopthewar]

5. Is Jerusalem “The Whore Of Babylon” in The Bible? Why The World Will Eventually Turn Against Israel and It’s War-Crimes [Part 1/2]

This article originally appeared in Peace & Love, and was written by AntiWar Advocate A.M. McGee

Peace And Love is online community dedicated to ending U.S. involvement in foreign wars. At no point, in our short history, was it ever my intention to comment on the religious ideologies that fuel the propaganda that inspires so many otherwise well-meaning people into supporting war; but to bury my head in the sand and pretend that such ideologies do not exist, is simply asking too much of one AntiWar activist.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre In Jerusalem

While many people will tell you that our wars in the Middle East are “religious wars,” (or at least ethnic and cultural ones.) It’s always been my personal opinion that wars are not fought over religion or ideology, but over material things; like land, oil, and treasure. This is what makes war profitable; not only because of “The Military Industrial Complex,” and the relationship between war and industry... But because the treasure won in those wars, makes war beneficial to both lobbyists and investors. I firmly believe that if war cost anyone, anything, other than life and limb; there would be world-peace. War is a business, and it’s a lucrative one.

The Dead Sea in Israel-Palestine

The United States Military are still using plastic sunmunitions bomblets from the Vietnam era in the Middle East, in my opinion, just to get rid of them... which shows that although contracting work for the government is a profitable business; the demand for new industrial weapons hasn’t quite caught up with the massive production of such weapons. There are simply too many weapons, and not enough wars; to make or keep the manufacturing of weapons profitable, and that’s why I think the Military Industrial Complex is sometimes given too much credit; when the reality of war is that all wars are fought over land, or property. That means the only reason why nations go to war, in the first place, is that someone else has something that you want. Something you’re willing to kill for, or send others to die for.

The Dome of the Rock, or Temple Mount, Jerusalem

This brings me to our story about a small but luxurious, highly sought-after, and desirable plot of land in the Middle East; known as Israel-Palestine. As Bob Dylan wrote in his pro-Zionist hit, “Neighborhood Bully” Israel is:

“A garden of paradise in the desert sand”

I’m sure it’s as beautiful as Dylan described it, or else so many people wouldn’t be fighting over it. The lyrics to “Neighborhood Bully” read like one of those YouTube ads for Travel Tel Aviv. I honestly don’t know anything about the place, I’ve never been there; but I do know that it is the home of the Sea of Galilee, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Temple on The Mount, The Dome of The Rock, and the Abraham/Ibrahimi Mosque; among others. It’s a plot of land of great historic and cultural significance for many of the world’s great religions; and that’s why so many people are fighting for it. Not “because of religion,” or even because of ethnicity, race, or culture... But because of the land itself, a material item.

The Sea of Galilee in Israel-Palestine

Now at this point I might as well address the elephant in the room; and that is that I’m a Christian and a Catholic, and I believe that Israel and/or Jerusalem isn’t someplace in the Middle East, or even a physical place at all, but a spiritual realm where all those who follow Christ and His teachings live forever; until the End of The World, in which the AntiChrist is defeated, and the New Jerusalem and New Israel are established on Earth.

Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, in Palestine

I intentionally don’t promote my religion, Catholicism, or Christianity on my blog; simply because I think it’s potentially divisive, and I want this to be a safe place where all religious and secular AntiWar Activists, from all sides; feel safe, loved, encouraged, and welcome. (Though it would be dishonest and sacrilegious to hide it.) Regardless of whether you are a Muslim, a Christian, Jewish, or even an Atheist... I think all well-meaning and good-hearted people can work together, towards lasting Peace.

Jaffa, the Old City seafront area of Tel Aviv

Perhaps believing that people can put aside their differences and work together towards the cause of peace is too idealistic, and perhaps End-Time Apocalyptic prophecy is against us, as the Book of Revelations is quite clear that the AntiChrist will win... (before he loses.) But that doesn’t mean that peace-loving people should roll-over and give up, and let him. While I’m somewhat pragmatically cynical about human-nature, in general, I am also humanistic enough that I do believe that pure-hearted people the world over are stronger and more numerous than those who promote endless war and devastation. And that we have in us the power to stave off Armageddon for as long as possible; rather than trying to usher it in... as many Zionists and Judeo-Protestant Evangelists are trying to do, like some sort of “Doomsday Death-Cult.”

The Northwestern Shore of Galilee

The world itself is war-weary, and yet we turn our heads and (our collective conscience) away from those innocent civilians who are most affected by war; it’s as if we’re so emotionally detached... that their suffering doesn’t effect us at all. Perhaps we’re not “detached” but merely desensitized and complacent, feeling that the end justifies the means. That whatever religion or race we support in the “Endless War” between Israel and her neighbors, will somehow be purified through the blood of their enemies. I feel such an idea is irrational and illogical, and even from a purely-secular philosophical perspective; firmly against the teachings of Christ. Christ wasn’t the “political savior” that the Israelites were looking for, he was a spiritual and philosophical one; and that’s why both the Jews and the Gentiles crucified him.

Caesarea, an Ancient Roman Mediterranean seaport on the Israeli coast

What was Christ’s message then? Again, you don’t have to be religious to see the Wisdom of Christ, or the Truth of his teachings; his message to the Israelites and the world was simple: Forgive your enemies, and love your neighbors as you love yourself. Now, of course, if we all followed that message there would be no war; but I think in these scriptures, that Christ predicted the 70 year war between Israel and its neighbors, and knew that if there wasn’t forgiveness and a spirit of love and brotherhood between nations, war and bloodshed would always prevail.

[To be continued in Part 2]

- Peace & Love

[dfroza]

sex is pure.

when shared in the right context. by the Creator of the body it is meant for the marital bond in becoming as “One” body.

and we see this spiritual truth in Love from Today’s reading of the Letter of First Corinthians that Paul wrote nearly 2,000 years ago to illuminate and conserve words inspired by the Spirit within:

[To Be Married, to Be Single . . .]

Now, getting down to the questions you asked in your letter to me. First, Is it a good thing to have sexual relations?

Certainly—but only within a certain context. It’s good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder. The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality—the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband. Marriage is not a place to “stand up for your rights.” Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out. Abstaining from sex is permissible for a period of time if you both agree to it, and if it’s for the purposes of prayer and fasting—but only for such times. Then come back together again. Satan has an ingenious way of tempting us when we least expect it. I’m not, understand, commanding these periods of abstinence—only providing my best counsel if you should choose them.

Sometimes I wish everyone were single like me—a simpler life in many ways! But celibacy is not for everyone any more than marriage is. God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others.

I do, though, tell the unmarried and widows that singleness might well be the best thing for them, as it has been for me. But if they can’t manage their desires and emotions, they should by all means go ahead and get married. The difficulties of marriage are preferable by far to a sexually tortured life as a single.

And if you are married, stay married. This is the Master’s command, not mine. If a wife should leave her husband, she must either remain single or else come back and make things right with him. And a husband has no right to get rid of his wife.

For the rest of you who are in mixed marriages—Christian married to non-Christian—we have no explicit command from the Master. So this is what you must do. If you are a man with a wife who is not a believer but who still wants to live with you, hold on to her. If you are a woman with a husband who is not a believer but he wants to live with you, hold on to him. The unbelieving husband shares to an extent in the holiness of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is likewise touched by the holiness of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be left out; as it is, they also are included in the spiritual purposes of God.

On the other hand, if the unbelieving spouse walks out, you’ve got to let him or her go. You don’t have to hold on desperately. God has called us to make the best of it, as peacefully as we can. You never know, wife: The way you handle this might bring your husband not only back to you but to God. You never know, husband: The way you handle this might bring your wife not only back to you but to God.

And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your marital status, defines your life. Don’t think I’m being harder on you than on the others. I give this same counsel in all the churches.

Were you Jewish at the time God called you? Don’t try to remove the evidence. Were you non-Jewish at the time of your call? Don’t become a Jew. Being Jewish isn’t the point. The really important thing is obeying God’s call, following his commands.

Stay where you were when God called your name. Were you a slave? Slavery is no roadblock to obeying and believing. I don’t mean you’re stuck and can’t leave. If you have a chance at freedom, go ahead and take it. I’m simply trying to point out that under your new Master you’re going to experience a marvelous freedom you would never have dreamed of. On the other hand, if you were free when Christ called you, you’ll experience a delightful “enslavement to God” you would never have dreamed of.

All of you, slave and free both, were once held hostage in a sinful society. Then a huge sum was paid out for your ransom. So please don’t, out of old habit, slip back into being or doing what everyone else tells you. Friends, stay where you were called to be. God is there. Hold the high ground with him at your side.

The Master did not give explicit direction regarding virgins, but as one much experienced in the mercy of the Master and loyal to him all the way, you can trust my counsel. Because of the current pressures on us from all sides, I think it would probably be best to stay just as you are. Are you married? Stay married. Are you unmarried? Don’t get married. But there’s certainly no sin in getting married, whether you’re a virgin or not. All I am saying is that when you marry, you take on additional stress in an already stressful time, and I want to spare you if possible.

I do want to point out, friends, that time is of the essence. There is no time to waste, so don’t complicate your lives unnecessarily. Keep it simple—in marriage, grief, joy, whatever. Even in ordinary things—your daily routines of shopping, and so on. Deal as sparingly as possible with the things the world thrusts on you. This world as you see it is on its way out.

I want you to live as free of complications as possible. When you’re unmarried, you’re free to concentrate on simply pleasing the Master. Marriage involves you in all the nuts and bolts of domestic life and in wanting to please your spouse, leading to so many more demands on your attention. The time and energy that married people spend on caring for and nurturing each other, the unmarried can spend in becoming whole and holy instruments of God. I’m trying to be helpful and make it as easy as possible for you, not make things harder. All I want is for you to be able to develop a way of life in which you can spend plenty of time together with the Master without a lot of distractions.

If a man has a woman friend to whom he is loyal but never intended to marry, having decided to serve God as a “single,” and then changes his mind, deciding he should marry her, he should go ahead and marry. It’s no sin; it’s not even a “step down” from celibacy, as some say. On the other hand, if a man is comfortable in his decision for a single life in service to God and it’s entirely his own conviction and not imposed on him by others, he ought to stick with it. Marriage is spiritually and morally right and not inferior to singleness in any way, although as I indicated earlier, because of the times we live in, I do have pastoral reasons for encouraging singleness.

A wife must stay with her husband as long as he lives. If he dies, she is free to marry anyone she chooses. She will, of course, want to marry a believer and have the blessing of the Master. By now you know that I think she’ll be better off staying single. The Master, in my opinion, thinks so, too.

The Letter of First Corinthians, Chapter 7 (The Message)

with these lines repeated in The Voice:

Now to the topics you raised in your last letter. Some have said, “It is better for a man to abstain from having sex with his wife.” Well, I disagree. Because of our tendency to embrace immoralities, each man should feel free to join together in sexual intimacy with his own wife, and each woman should join with her own husband. Husbands and wives have reciprocal duties. Each husband has the responsibility to meet his wife’s sexual desires, and each wife should do the same for her husband. In marriage neither the husband nor the wife should act as if his or her body is private property—your bodies now belong to one another, and together they are whole.

The Letter of First Corinthians, Chapter 7:1-4 (The Voice)

and we see God’s significance of the marital bond in Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments from the book of Genesis with chapter 20 that includes a dream used as a warning:

Abraham traveled from there south to the Negev and settled down between Kadesh and Shur. While he was camping in Gerar, Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She’s my sister.”

So Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent for Sarah and took her. But God came to Abimelech in a dream that night and told him, “You’re as good as dead—that woman you took, she’s a married woman.”

Now Abimelech had not yet slept with her, hadn’t so much as touched her. He said, “Master, would you kill an innocent man? Didn’t he tell me, ‘She’s my sister’? And didn’t she herself say, ‘He’s my brother’? I had no idea I was doing anything wrong when I did this.”

God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know your intentions were pure, that’s why I kept you from sinning against me; I was the one who kept you from going to bed with her. So now give the man’s wife back to him. He’s a prophet and will pray for you—pray for your life. If you don’t give her back, know that it’s certain death both for you and everyone in your family.”

Abimelech was up first thing in the morning. He called all his house servants together and told them the whole story. They were shocked. Then Abimelech called in Abraham and said, “What have you done to us? What have I ever done to you that you would bring on me and my kingdom this huge offense? What you’ve done to me ought never to have been done.”

Abimelech went on to Abraham, “Whatever were you thinking of when you did this thing?”

Abraham said, “I just assumed that there was no fear of God in this place and that they’d kill me to get my wife. Besides, the truth is that she is my half sister; she’s my father’s daughter but not my mother’s. When God sent me out as a wanderer from my father’s home, I told her, ‘Do me a favor; wherever we go, tell people that I’m your brother.’”

Then Abimelech gave Sarah back to Abraham, and along with her sent sheep and cattle and servants, both male and female. He said, “My land is open to you; live wherever you wish.”

And to Sarah he said, “I’ve given your brother a thousand pieces of silver—that clears you of even a shadow of suspicion before the eyes of the world. You’re vindicated.”

Then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his maidservants, and they started having babies again. For God had shut down every womb in Abimelech’s household on account of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

The Book of Genesis, Chapter 20 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Sunday, february 16 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

[adamkadabra]

When Ashes Fall || Self Para 3/3

Tagging→  ADAM CRAWFORD, EZEKIEL (ZEKE) the Shedim, mentions of others. Where→  Hotel room in New York City When→ 8/24/17 Warnings→ not so many.

Notes–> This is in order and is para 3 of 3. Parts 1 and 2 can be found at there at those links.

Adam felt entirely numb as he walked off the NYADA campus for the last time. He didn’t bother turning back. The last few minutes he spent with Elliott seemed like a blur. The brownies had no taste to them but he ate them anyway as an excuse to sit with Elliott just a little longer. He had gone to Elliott’s room with the intention of telling him he was leaving but would be back for him. Instead, Adam left with a broken heart and without a boyfriend. He hadn’t wanted to break up with Elliott. He supposed it was only fair, but when it came to Elliott Adam had always been selfish.

His eyes were red from crying and there were no tears left for him cry even though Adam was certain he could continue for a long time. He paused a moment and looked down at his phone, Elliott’s face smiling up from him from the background. Adam bit his lip and went into his settings and changed the picture to just a plain blue. He shoved his phone back into his pocket and crossed his arms over his chest. It wasn’t just Elliott he was leaving, he was also leaving the only friends he ever really had.

It took nearly forty five minutes to make it to the hotel where Adam had paid for a room for him and the Shedim, at least for a few days until they could figure something else out. He stood in front of the door to their room and he could hear the TV coming from inside. Adam took a deep breath and entered, closing the door behind him. The blinds were drawn closed and on the bed surrounded by nearly two dozen candy wrappers was a very content looking Shedim, unglamored. The glamor had worn off two days prior and trying to get him into the hotel unnoticed was enough of a challenge.

“You’re back.” The Shedim said, his accent matching that of Adam’s which always through Adam off just a little. Especially since the only other Shedim he had ever met before was Elliott.  

He smiled and looked over to Adam. When he saw the expression on Adam’s face the smile faded. “Are you okay, Adam?”

Adam tried to smile but it didn’t feel right. He nodded. “I’ll be fine. I uhh, I see you ate the candy I got for you.”

The Shedim ducked his head a little. “Sorry. They didn’t give me anything like this when I was with Mast--with them.” He corrected himself and cleared his throat. “I hate that I still do that.”

“It’s quite alright. You’ve been with them for decades some habits, magical or not, may be hard to break from right away.” Adam looked the Shedim over.

He didn’t look like Elliott did when he was unglamored. Not that he expected all Shedims to look the same, but Adam wasn’t sure what to expect having only seen one Shedim before. This Shedim was a little shorter and less built than Elliott was. His hair was still stark white except it was longer and wavier. It sat just at his shoulders. His eyes were still milky white like Elliott’s were in this form, with long sharp claws, but his horns were just a bit thicker than Elliott’s. Still, he was quite handsome and appeared to be in better spirits than the day Adam initially saved him.

“We’ll need to find someplace to get a few glamor potions.” Adam mused.

The Shedim looked down at himself and frowned. “I like me like this.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I do too.” Adam said quickly. “It’s just for travel purposes. It will make things much easier to blend in when traveling. So, did you pick a name yet?”

“I did!” The Shedim sat up a little more and opened to a page in one of the baby name books Adam had got him. “Ezekiel.” He pointed to the page. “I liked the sound of it. I guess it means God strengthens but I just think it sounds really neat.”

Adam smirked a little. “I like it. Mind if I call you Zeke, for short?”

Ezekiel paused a moment and thought over the question, letting the word roll off his tongue a few times until he seemed satisfied with the sound. “Yes. I like that.”

Adam sat down on the edge of the bed and took his bag off from over his shoulder. Zeke watched him for a moment, picking up a Snickers wrapper and sliding his finger across what little chocolate remained there. Zeke frowned as he licked the chocolate from his finger.

“Adam, you don’t have to do this for me. You’re incredibly kind. Aside from your Aunt Helene, you’re the kindest witch I have ever met. I don’t want you to be sad because of helping me.”

Adam turned himself to face Zeke. “Goodbyes are always sad.” He said. “I want to help you, Zeke. My aunt tried to that years ago but she wasn’t able to finish it. For her memory and for you I want to succeed. Besides...you’re not the only reason I’m not going back. This last year at NYADA was amazing. I’ve met so many people that helped make me stronger but I also encountered things that...well, I don’t think I know who I am right now.”

“But...you’re Adam. You’re a kitchen witch. Which, by the way, I was watching this show on the telly about these pies and other things with sugar and I was hoping you could..I don’t know, show me how to make them?” Zeke’s eyes were wide with wonder. It made Adam’s heart swell with how innocent Zeke seemed even after the decades of torture he must have gone through with that spell.

“I’d be happy to.” Adam replied. “But, it’s not as simple as saying ‘I’m Adam.’ I wish it were. The last few months it’s hard to explain what has been going on but I don’t feel much like myself right now and I think I’m going mad. I’ve been a rubbish friend lately and it hasn’t been fair to Elliott either. Honestly, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Otherwise mentally I think I’ll just go mad. It’s..it’s not healthy for me right now.” Adam ran his hands through his hair.

“Can’t say I have much advice when it comes to friends. I’m not sure what those are. Like, I understand the concept but I’ve never experienced it except maybe with Miss Helene. She was very kind to me. I was sad when she left, so I know about sad goodbyes, I suppose. It was her kindness that I held onto. She gave me hope. And then the other day when you helped free me and showed me that picture of your and your boyfriend, I knew I could instantly trust you. I never thought I could trust anyone else.”

Adam turned his gaze to the ground and was silent. Ex-boyfriend. He thought bitterly and he blinked out a few more tears.

“You’re a good person, Adam. I hardly know you and I can tell. I can only assume you would surround yourself with others who are just as kind. So maybe there are more witches out there than I realize that are trustworthy.” Zeke smiled, he pushed away some of the candy wrappers and moved over to sit next to Adam. “Maybe...maybe your purpose is to show the world of LNs that witches and our kind can live together. That trust can be formed. It could lead to some big changes for my kind.”

Adam liked the sound of this and he thought back to Elliott. He wiped his eyes dry with the back of his hand. “Maybe you’re right. But, I’m sorry if this sounds rude, I always sort of hoped I’d get to do that with Elliott..”

Zeke put his hand on Adam’s shoulder. “I understand. I’ve never been in love myself but I hear it’s something people die for. I’m not trying to replace Elliott. But, since he is stuck at that school maybe I could fill in for the time being. I mean, you freed me Adam and you’re giving everything up for a Shedim that you only just met. That’s the story the whole magical community should know.”

“You’re right.” Adam said. “Thank you, Zeke.”

“No worries!” Zeke hesitated a moment. “So. Are we...are we mates?”

A smile appeared on Adam’s face. “I would say so.”

“Brilliant.” Zeke replied with a toothy grin. He spotted a candy bar he hadn’t opened yet and snatched it up and moved back against the headboard and continued to watch TV.

Adam smiled fondly at Zeke a moment and dug through his bag to pull out his grimoire and set it on the table. Zeke was very kind for having been with his family for decades and decades. Then he remembered what Zeke said about his aunt.Helene had shown him kindness and gave him hope that he would see it again. Adam hoped that Helene was watching him right now and beaming at him with pride. He also hoped that she was with Rosie, the woman she fell in love with in school.

He pulled out his phone and would have to let his mum know they were safe. She was currently under fire about her son and the missing Shedim. Melinda was very cunning though and she could handle herself. The only thing that worried Adam was his dad. He hadn’t been around since before the funeral. It worried Adam to leave his mum alone, but she insisted she would handle things there in London.

MUM: Not to worry Moonpie! I’ll be alright. Your dad still hasn’t come around, I shouldn’t be surprised. Can’t say it isn’t hard but I’ve got other things to focus on. I’m sorry about you and Elliott though, I love you. You’ll find another worthy of your love. I know it.

ADAM: You too.

Adam swallowed thickly and he reached up to hold the pendant around his neck. Adam had his friends with him always. They would be locked inside the amulet in his memories that he could relive at his choosing. He could relive the moment Elliott told him he loved him and the sensation of his kisses and his touches. Adam yanked the amulet chain from his neck and it broke with medium effort.

He flipped through the pages of his Grimoire and in the back there was a page blank and alone. Adam set the pendant on the page and whispered a spell, letting the pendant sink into the page and becoming nothing more than an imagine. Adam stared at the page as words appeared next to the image.  “Pendant of Grand Supernumerary.” Here the pendant could stay out of sight and out of mind for Adam. It would be less tempting to live in his memories this way.

“Adam, can I ask you a question?” Zeke was now gathering the wrappers in his arms. “Are you going to miss them?”

Adam turned and looked at Zeke full on. There was a tiny wistful smile on his lips. “Goodbyes aren’t always for forever, Zeke. I’ll miss NYADA and the memories I had there, but it doesn’t mean I’ll never see them again. It might be a long time before that happens, but I look forward to it.”

[castlehead]

I’LL BE DONE WHEN I’M FINISHED: The Broadcasts of a Shit

“Still even wounded you do not see it. I can tell. I do not see it myself but I feel it a little.”

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms INTRODUCTION, MOSTLY APROPOS OF NOTHING: [One need not be familiar with an entirely new vocal register to understand the random streetcorner persiflage between the two working men echoing down the street, as cross and cross the Citizenry, who slave and slave to ignore it or any such jovial ballbusting.

Pavement radiating with dogday heat—I have engagements with others to get to and so on, one thinks. Harried in the city.

The interaction remains incomplete when the working men decide they must return to work. Attempt to sew up the awkward leave with a middling joke and a strong laugh from one of them echoing. Men as these they perfectly just almost overlook personal space. And then the punchline to take home. Priests that beg we make not too much upon their energies, right now. Not a warm leave but not creating a spat in the street either. Lonely persiflage between two strangers: talking about the amusing circumstance that since they are both stopping between deliveries from to to the other’s destination then nothing will get there!, ha ha ha ha ha.

And about how it must be to put food on your plate among the throngs on throngs of strangers striving for that same thing. And so on. No. One need not heed a variation of the idea to understand a whole language. Nor be familiar with every stranger’s voice in order to recognize words said in English. The ideas of one’s lover if spoken without the face to match them are the same ideas from someone else’s mouth. To these delicacies etc. I think I shall offer, uh, these my shreds of creaking strain, you say. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . It was the first noises of thought or perhaps one thought. Me fighting the indigestion of a death rattle once, at three in the morning. Noise of that was different from the noise I presumed was morning birds and the afflatus. It spoke through the web of obstacles into my wakening. Only first evaluated as a sweet monotony, similar to crickets out in the sticks. But nobler. Crickets that I hear once I am outside and finally smoke. One gets it already! Jeez. Without needing to be educated further, in the monotony. Will recognize it. No worries. Something snatches up from subterranean mind with the pluck of a young mole. It is exactly what one thought. If the thought is important it will quickly catch the verbal expression meant for it anyway, and this can be explained if one simply follow the journey. It is zen to say no destination is required but that is not quite what is meant here. Only, that no destination is required to plan to travel. One can have arrived last week in Baghdad and been introduced to boredom and status quo. A keeping of the peace with the redundant echo of gunfire far off. He remembers July fourth fireworks Ronnie let off when I was back home, he thinks; he travels across the sea back there momentarily, and is massively dissociated, by whatever timeless time he arrives there. Dissociation flares up so as to feel at home with the death and in any case it extends the story with a new and scarier human rhythm. On the other hand: somebody walks a few feet to the john at night, thinking that will be that after turning off the john lightswitch, only to study their issues and continue their own story after hours, for hours: at first they think to pass the time while they poop in silence but soon zone out thinking of whatever gripes in reach, soothed by their cloister. Reaching for toiletpaper. Futility. Environment of solitary misery. But simply follow the journey; that will locate its proper coordinates; the coordinates tell one where the journey will end. Herein is that voyage described till The Last Step that is taken . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        .

CHAPTER 1 One already feels inclined to voyage beyond it. One is rightly consumed by the thought, along with other such beyondthoughts. Information rarely happens predictably. Its influence is across the many highways bleeding us in and out of this planet. It is almost respiratory. It is an influence to be loved because it will grow old and geriatric and vibrating, old like we do. Death resets the collective unconscious generation by generation. Squint your eyes a bit and look at it this way, maybe tilt your head. You’ll see that everybody on Earth or anybody at least on Earth who is a little wise is just like the elderly: Because we are eternally concerned with getting our sea legs, floating, and yet weighed down into the abyss by the gravity of years of knowing. This personal evolutionary process will repeat in the hearts of future people with little variation, recycling the same list of bullshit to choose from regarding what to let ruin your life. Imagine being atop a weathervane: it is the single fleeting chance anointed in youth. Anointed in golden drizzle. To hone one’s middle ear in preparation for when you are an oldtimer. Maintaining a frame of reference will be a day’s feat, and traversing a parking lot past all the needless circus will leave you confused at all the saturation of life around you, smacking at the sun’s aftertaste laboring.

If only we lived in Palm Beach Grant! Says your wife. Someplace where you can hear the ocean. You flip the shades up on your glasses and think that cellphones used to do that, mutter something about remaining a faithful luddite, about how literacy in computer coding will become mandatory one day, then try your hand at imitating this sort of fluoride stare you have witnessed in the eyes of many an Ipad person.

For you call them fucking Ipad people. Noticing currently that the virus has made a host of the young. A man can live easy there, you say; he says to his lover, Palm Beach the furthest thing from his mind; and what is in his mind the idea of turning back, at least to remind us where the car is. He says. A voice in the second person emerges suggestively again: you pass a burp from deteriorating lips. Then you regress a little and ask your mom if this is a good idea as if she were there, who has by now been doled back to God these forty years prior? That one sad thing left you almost kind of widowed. There are all these demons in people and all of them are buzzing words to me and causing an autistic scene, thinks one, one as you might be, that is; I find I panic less because at least I know my insanity belongs to me. All this pain of selves that offers no salve, and to which I am slave. They scream of no idea where I am. Demons. Pah. Disorienting like Vegas lights. I should go to Vegas. You think abstractly of some horrible radio song by this horrible band from the seventies. The group was called…America? You think thus: Some guy, you always forgot his name, the jackass, and an especial jackass tonight, you remember thinking, that night, or were straining to think, over that horrible song playing on the jukebox of the local senior honkytonk in a white as bleach neighborhood. He was being as usual a jackass, even fucking worse than a horse with no name, because he had one,—he asked you once if ever you grieve the mother’s milk she never supplied for the sake of her figure, and which she sold, the milk, not herself: she sold it being very poor. The jackass said to him in so many words it was a sacrifice never used to her advantage because it didn’t last long enough to put to any use besides fucking the townies. Because she died. You remember what you said verbatim: I am widower of the purity in fun I used to see, I guess, and then a memory invade your eyes within the memory: me, clutching my mother’s breasts when I was four years, but as one would plump a pillow, and upon worrying a nest together in her belly while she sat prone in an empty bed, falling asleep, and then promptly thinking nothing of any of this for the rest of my life. These past things that mean so much…you are not even halfway there, one thinks. And, panting and scorching, you are not halfway to the market. What is it you consider too elaborately now, and create pros and cons for, your wife saying that her legs are getting sore? Clear the hurdle and think it through once again without running aground: to turn around and brave passing a second time a group of obese children. Not even halfway there. Calling the World a place is a strange thing to do referring to it but it is one though. It is a place of consumers rattling their groceries forth. And children overfed to sallowness and spinning stimuli that destroy human will. Balancing one’s life is an imperative one assumes responsibility for. One does it, wreaks spirit from nothing, or gas, pushing a pedal to move the wheels. One credits it an absurdity to balance perfection. But those are never the cards dealt. The perfect life will live and make problems no matter what. Despite the job not be of any necessity for that perfect life; an imbalance to correct. The pediment will suffer the impediments of its inventor’s chiseling hand. Shaking. This weathervane we do not understand called contemporary culture might have done it. Yet after weathering the trial and error, when we finally find the right dance moves to keep us upright, a gale knocks us off the weathervane, and then we are old and out of the spotlight. People quake at this and also at the million things on the menu that could go wrong if you order the blowfish, which is the most expensive thing on the menu at this new Japanese place in town you’re trying out. Like the apocalypse for example. But that fate seems to remain a distant one for now or at most at a slow yearly crawl towards plausibility, almost offensively intimately close to that plausibility. It knows humanity is that stupid and won’t prepare but also assures us we are not stupid, ironically making us overconfident, and then we end up getting in range of it with the proverbial dick in hands. It crests like an infant’s head from the dilated mothervoid. In life, ‘how it went’ will not be obedient to the assumption etc. And the rustbelt politicos will show no mercy to the liberal elite, and vice versa. Aw hell: even talking about America for just a few tiny minutes is tiresome. Minutes shrunk to iota. Meaning: shadows of the circumference they once were. Minutes still taking as much time to pass as before the decreased radial stretch. Tires me out I think. Like an emotional undertaking or winging a pilgrimage to the girlfriend on a night bus like two hundred miles at the last minute, except in that latter case I do not feel empty getting off, the bus that is, the way I do when trying to have an opinion, which is a thing does not get me off: because nobody here realizes that America as it stands is a natural disaster. While its population drowns in the ocean, the pundit pretends to be embassador and the president a WWE wrestler for some reason, and it is only then ah I see what is happening like a damned Wordsworth who is looking out from bridge at Tintern Abbey. Ah I see. And I realize this is my privileged moment. Though I be not listening to quiet with an owl’s hoot interposing, though I be not sitting my pensive dourness on a rock in the thickets and marshlands; though this all be true of me not experiencing nor having experienced, I myself am, like God, incarnated as those spots of time. With one last breath before water floods in I see what is happening here, die, and then sink to an ocean floor before offered a chance to say what it is I see, instead, how selfish!, sneaking out to be friends with this human otherness of death I had heard so much about while living. One imagines it with delight: the fish and stuff. Oh I beg you watch in delight the placid amble of octopi among herds of bright coral wilderness.— . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . There is rarely a clear glimpse a fortiori before it is come across, what has been prophesied. And one must be sharp about the apocalypse. But this musing has no main purpose or pronoun. Guess it would be helpful to know the proper idiom for it, for what to properly call The Last Step? What to properly call the future that would bring you there in so calling? Something like a code for a safe. Something like, if one has a bondage kink, the safety word a kinkslave use when the endorphins start to dry and the pain is no longer pleasurable. If in the following any of this is made clear, great; one suspects the epiphany will involve backtracking: it will come in a place before, a field of snow you passed yesterday; using as breadcrumbs the indentations of one’s feet in the snow that you made yesterday. One had felt the epiphany there in that lonely field but refused to allow it signify the actual epiphany, because it was not the same as the ideal of it in one’s head. It manifests as something more obvious than one’s vision of it had attributed vast nuance to. Isolated and without fanfare you thought. But the physical manifestation of it yet resembles what the concept of negative capability elucidates. In words. Like, a signifying euphoric power, come upon invisibly and solemn once the place is synchronous with you. The power however is too powerful. Any mortal would be blind to a nuance so huge, and be eaten up. A power of God which probably would not stand for any refusals, especially annoyed if I was as close as my tracks in the field tell, one thinks. Refusals of spirit to maintain the logical familiar. But I now turn my back on that narrow humanity I fed once. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . At first any epiphany or finality will seem evil: rooted deep and tumorous in one and something you think is only for you, only you will find out you are deceived in this. It experienced by both the weak and strong the same way. It I make voyage to. Voyaging I shall reach it where it calls to me. I am created again: as the finality the self was waiting to be. After all this time spent in despair. Assuming I was done and the laurels crushed. God devolves in speech but that is our sole link, so then I apologize to God when I share God with the muse. The Last Step. That eh? Got to be kidding. But one still tries to speak it . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . If one is even to begin propagating a system of one’s rightful own, with any success, one must by then have seen the project through to its end. But where is this end? The last step is crucial, but it might not be the finale. Sure it knots it all up without being asked; knots up the whole conceptual endeavor to invent, not just the practice of inventing. So that it makes sense when the inventor reviews it later. Knots with an embellishing knit bow, striped in calming yellow shades. There were still all these spare parts thrown around the garage though. And the calming colors seemed not to be serious enough for the occasion, almost trying on purpose not to catch one’s eye, the rationale being to avoid the hysterics and cultural hype. Suppose then it must show itself with flair and finesse, at least if the last step has truly been reached. One would need to be assured this was not some ersatz participation trophy. Would need something flashy, not a dull yellow; help to jog the memory of inspiration and find the fact of the last step a fact present now, if it wasn’t when it first was but you hadn’t been, and this leads one to the revelation that the invention has been finalized past all remonstrance. You are there. Remember how the image somewhere hidden so long in the marmoreal sledge had been tunefully cut shipshape? That was now. And that the inventor can do no more is the beautiful reality; unless to risk summary perfection were the point. But then the years of hard work would have been just an exercise right? . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Just one or two pieces of evidence of possible mediocrity need come to the fore, however, to shake confidence that one is done—traveling from someplace far in one’s thoughts to the light of day; in fact, seeming to be from so perfectly remote a distance as to create the impression like it clued into something deeper one could not see. Then more evidence starts swirling in one’s head. But all that is is hearsay to attract the exigent attention of this inventor, you don’t even have your ear up to the door. You can’t know it is the actual truth. One thinks and thinks, with fear of this. This one might admit with no trouble yet by listening closer to the statement itself assume as one’s own the universal praxis supported there, but the other way around, the truth of nothing being true and this invention being the only true thing if of one’s artifice alone, or anything not just humanly made, manufactured, but made by the human that is you particularly, one thinks this or rather says this to themselves, clearer because thoughts are sensations to one usually, yet this in actual words in precarious head.

It might be a good idea. Be doubtful of truth the other way or anything’s truth. One can invent much to answer back in retort. Wrapped up in yourself, you get wrapped up in doubts that multiply when there is no outside objective answerer to stanch the seed, one thinks; in the privacy of one’s garage one thinks. God is not overwhelmingly organized like that though. Tapping the end of a ballpoint pen; it clicks against the surface of this desk I see before me and I making little neighing sounds with my mouth, one thinks: but you knew that already, oh my God who must know all. One must transcend mere certainty regarding when to stop though. Meaning that, like, to have a fight or flight knowledge of this. Hm. Challenging… It is that or to raise the stakes and for one’s own safety not endeavoring further. The options are those two. But the fight or flight stuff sounds more sensible. Like if one hopes the system they have made be christened done. Christened by fame too, that is; must treat the lumpy flaws like lumps of soiled laundry, not pets. But you are obedient to this command because it is easy: have already ushered together all the flawed stuff and left your flaws together in a disarray. All the loose ends and other haywire. One eyed every corner of one’s house for them flawed shits. It is a house more like a sanctuary for empty mousetraps forgotten about and other crap gathering dust. And then you must have pushed all that haywire and other shit up against the outside walls of one’s furnace, in one’s room, but you don’t remember or just the memory is hazy or something. Pin them against the furnace wall; think of it as if you were going to question them about money’s whereabouts. Like that show about drug dealers and bowling and the nihilists ask Lebowski where the money is. Where’s the money Lebowski? One will quickly realize this is useless, which is the point: jetsam and trash are a second and third language, and glory, no shit, one’s first. So, bummed about this anticlimax, the flaws, the lumps and laundry, disappointed and bummed at not understanding, vacate, and in very clear speech of step. Mysteriously almost wanting you to reconsider their death. They foot loudly down the hall to the front door. Ah shit. They are walking on the linoleum with shoes. I forgot to tell them. Fast forward hours later: withal that stressful furnace heat and the threatening of death and the communication barrier, bullying the flaws a sour fucking deed and making you feel bad for hours after,—withal that, by nightfall, one, uh, one thinks: I get to rest easy now: knowing none of the worthy spare parts diminished. On which did feed the dirtier stuff, laundry, and its heart of chaos: feed to the weakening of said worthy spare parts, almost to the point of a last retreat to yon deathbed, themselves and their worth going like the eyesight of a senile. Dirty laundry housed in your soul: rest easy: no, none of anything of worth had been injured by it. And you get why now: the flawed shit didn’t want to leave that sugar momma with you to use. For they wish to meld with your excellence, selfishly unaware that to do so would annihilate it. Later you found it out: because God told you in code through a friend you invited over, to see your invention finally integrum.

That all your pet flaws know this one natural rule was also a mystery, even to God. This rule about how if the dirtier flaws died you would go with them. Ironical duality that it is, you had not been aware of this. Why weren’t I told? But God invade the World in fragments that tell and tell not. . .  .   .    .    ��.      .       .        . It was just to give a scare anyway. The threats were. But still how callous. But for other reasons besides this a few miscellaneous fineries will become less fine if now you must stop before fleshing out them but they will be there when you return, for what it’s worth, so no harm anyways.

Good to be cautious of forsaking the sacred last step. Glossed over stupidly when they were spruce and shining, those unfleshed fineries withereth and fadeth. And then just ignored into neglect. One sometimes feels a broken record but this may be just returning to the same mistakes over, like, awhile. Dwelling on past mistakes over the course of years, of less proximity of repetition to make a pulse than a broken record technically; because afraid to mourn their loss once without a daily default to fill the void, or because not thinking of them anymore would assure the same faults of mind make the future a curse not mere benign fate, an inevitable river flowing for anyone the same if death could be considered all fates. One suspected it was in the early days of the system’s conception. When much for the sake of finesse would have been aborted, once the finesse overwhelmed the practical application of something else, as the what the design would be like thing began to take shape, two dimensionally at least. But for all that it was once merely a vision, not come in a dream but coming before sleep each night, right before. One thinks: Well in fact it was so often this imagery recurred in my head, always before sleep, that eventually the intending of a sign by something upstairs was clear.

After many occasions of this happening, I spent one morning doing it out. After the damasked vision with a pencil and paper.

Days passed; it began to take shape; or stuff was in the blueprints written after no sleep and then puzzled over later. Thinketh, one wastes time doing this puzzling until one realizes stuff drawn up in a dreamstate. Diamonds in the rough as these could be, God say, will have become less fine by now. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . But one will get to that when one gets to that, which is probably what was placated unto this inventor, exactly before one glossed over them, ha ha, you think, to yourself. And this thinks one, thinks one speaking it in the third person: in the tired cranium simultaneously focuses and forms a dialogue with the ghostly otherness. The one hinted at or like denoted by these freakish pronouns, and filed away under Interesting Possibilities. And so thinketh that some secret companion should be fabricated in everybody’s head, for their sanity really; I have a hard time believing this not to be in reality true, that people do this—you ‘thinketh’ pointedly. 

Might as well develop my otherness, then; whatever its makeup, since these many unruly threads and rosebuds that once entertained me will soon be on their way in the car bleeding down a branch of a highway not yet adopted by…whoever adopts highways. Has to be rich probably. Sadly they remain hapless, I mean the unruly threads and rosebuds among the invention’s wiring I pursue more, to flesh out thus: despite being told stop it for the sake of the final draft. Hapless, as jetsam of any kind will forever tend to be. Completely hapless. It’s like they think they are going to Disney World! But will be getting thrown into the local dumpster fire. That’s where I am driving now. To keep one in the loop with my looping disorders one might this very thing a’saith. 

My personality disorder will take up that hard job later of explaining death to what has been recently made, created. How alien that must be seen as! A perfection that asks, without a grain of artifice, that asks:

“father where did the flaws go to; uhm will they be back from where they went? [Inaudible] Be back right?” One’s system is a child still in fledge, luckily they are that. All the fucking dirty laundry will be gone: evil will be schooled and scorched for this system I don’t care how long it takes. Scorched off like pimples dried with cream. And then this pesky figuration visits the creating: because a wrench actually is in the machinery. Annoying the cogs. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . I think about it and say the following for any flaws still hanging around: really say, in English, at an actual hearable vocal register, and my voice, the flesh to drape over these words that are not kidding you, reader, now: “Hijack me? What gall you have, you will be taken to some warehouse of doom by my fucking cronies. There is gall even in thinking me weak enough to not need to kill. Because if anyone to kidnap my energies and sap them dry then throws me from the back of the van and gives me the chance to get back to my powers and get back at them, moreover, well holy hell let me tell you. Let me tell you: you are lowered to the status, in my eyes lowered, to the status of a mouse, one mouse. Or more forgiving: you are a cluster of mice in a gaberdine suit pretending to be a detective; it is that subterfuge that is the genetic structure of flaws, and perfection too. Your own genetic passive aggression does not help the obsessing over this mystery because something in the obsessing is not in hurry for the big reveal. That would be wretched. Ugliness in the light of day, and no longer something to pursue. One could die of this, really die. It is this or to have fought them by fighting everything in the World. Ha. Mice in suits…” Perhaps that is God said that. Also yet it is to have fought for them to do the same things to destroy them,—everything Earthly is lowered by reneging to ire. If especially it is welcomed into the heart for any reason other than to admit it is there, like to a friend or something, in the form of an apology. Like to a friend, for a situation or something: for them being the victim, unfairly, of this garbage affect they by happenstance had been at the butt end of. Ire persuasive enough to give one over to a willess moment and cause an argument no one will finish. For being is too tired. Though unlike most of the insufferable, which I am on another level, I do not hold grudges, whether I be misinformed of the fault found or not; on principle I cannot see how someone can bring the ire home. If such a thing happened! Walk not, no way; with such a heavy thing clutched to my chest? It would waste me. Maybe if I had not been angry for awhile. Then maybe I’d give in. And then still never without informing my family. It’s bad luck to lie to your family they say. Or don’t say. Or whatever. Like, it’s hard to imagine me being that fake pleasant sort of fifties era guy, like stuff you see on television from when everyone was afraid of communism. That episode of Seinfeld about the communist Elaine dates opened up new avenues of acceptance for the general public but that is a less obscure story. Command me, o God, that I come not through the door, hang my hat on a hatrack next to the door, and chime to a faceless honey that I am home! Like everything’s alright when the sincere and stupid melodrama of this is that it never was. Alright? Cue the listless sigh looking into the distance while I smoke, again. The habit is getting frequent again, more than before. Worrisome? Shit yeah. But: To preemptively suggest, to those soon to be, will be, in close proximity of your bad mood, like your family,—to do this it at least allows some time to handle nerves; and for someone, probably the mother, to cook up some calm. Surprise. It’s for you; she does it by adding oregano to the meatloaf. Just bought it today while you were out dear. What? Irritation. To the meatloaf, dear; I thought to myself, well, the stringbeans will be fine with a little salt as long as they are boiled right. Surprise! If even the son will not escape a beating. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Maybe if the knowledge of ire is gathered enough in advance, then, I don’t know, prepare a written statement, like Hawaii did with congress about the right to vote they didn’t have even though also a state. Look it up though guy!, on your iwire gadget kids have now. Belch, gurgle. That sounds right uncle Jay but I’m not sure it’s a historical fact. Son of yon drunk, oh, you are too much. Look it up see if that works mook. Ha. Hm. Sounds like something my uncle would say, though; I mean I am fabricating most of this so but it sounds like he’d say that and subsequently fall asleep. He’d be upright in a chair but spend the night on the porch like this when he was drunk and my aunt wouldn’t let him come in the house. Commence snoring loud enough to create voids and find yourself immediately an uncle whether or not you have a sibling actually. Their rhythm is mercifully left undisturbed by the son sitting there next to him who gets up on tiptoe to go inside. Aunt said once he needing similar treatment to a baby. If one hopes keep agreeable company with that man she said. The snores almost in time with the sway of the plastic lawn flamingos assorted on the front lawn in the wind. The snores are interspersed with yawns that kill the tempo yet introduce greater naturality in the diffusion, something like jazz. Flamingos. Christ why’d we buy those I’d hear him say I remember. Memory: I was with him at my aunt’s house. She kicked him out for good for awhile and I never learned why because they are both dead but my aunt was a weird one also. She wore a blue wig because of the stomach cancer. The chemo made her hair fall out,—and my uncle was bald too but that was due to stress and I never learned why that stress was either. The whole house stuck in the back when. Some professional astrologer/psychic from the sixties owned it previously, but that is a more obscure story. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . I myself do not understand wrath and do not inflict it upon others. It is wrong, but still something true. I mean about people. That alcohol consumption is in direct correlation to acts of violence is not surprising. Hyperbolic statements of love as well but that can be its own trauma. And if not that I were a pacifist anyway, nor yet lucky enough to make someone unlucky enough to love me, I would foresee abuse being the probable outcome, statistically speaking, in America. I would not hope for it. Oh America. Oh damn. Now then. I do not want to seem like I doth protest too much but ire I find it repellant and would have it expelled from the souls of people if it could be… But not even God can do that! This is a pessimism goes too far of course but I like its propounding way. So many, desperate for a stance to come from out of the blue, without work. On something they do not understand, no less. Just to be accepted! Do not nurse ire in such a way: and if you weren’t going to don’t get any ideas. And I do not understand how others can carry that with them. I have experienced that grudging pain, I cannot tolerate it nor even fathom how one lives like that day to day. Perhaps I am sickly and have a weak stomach, or something, a tapeworm, is in there, devouring my delicate humours. People live and remain alive though in spite of crisis. But to live and share a bathroom, with the crisis? 

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . A list of demons. We all have kept a list of demons. It helps inspire those who do live in fear of getting clocked over the moral limit, to find a priest. Oh! Exorcise these demons, through awful heinous extremes like domestic abuse. Fuck, probably more often it is an event at some quotidian thing, something to comfortably blow out of proportion with an arsenal of explosives called human artifice. Anger at the quotidian has more gunpowder for the fault being obvious in retrospect, after anger cools, and the one perpetrating, sober enough either to convince themselves of the lie about themselves, like lawyers do, or realize they and their shit personality have done wrong. Again. Maybe even realize they are trapped in how they are, moments before the onset of psyche’s darkness, then, the daily protocol moral amnesia; and then the falsehoods return in full force, like an evangelical getting lazy about saving face and tired of pretending to feel bad about the public exposure and outcry. 

Before the poetic justice of a cocaine overdose the deacon in question goes back to the usual raiding of collection plate to pay for gay sex stuff. He will give in and go downtown to diddle men who are strangers and this is fine but hypocrisy at this nuts level is not. After enough time has passed and some new outrage takes up the baton, he will do this. An event has extra gunpowder for alone the simple fact of being made mountain of molehill. It would not be so bad if it did not hurt anybody. Were it, were the memory of it not at times so twisted up by the drunk to protect an ego itself drunk on being a martyr, if ego can stand on its own as a self in some unconscious form enough to believe it is its own egg of individual experiences. Drunk, on being a martyr: for its vessel’s destructive habits. In the vessel’s recalling, it was right to act such a way. About whatever the problem was; and this tendency can lead one to memorialize oneself like they were dead. And perhaps they are in some capacity: trapped in dwelling. What is dwelled on isn’t important I said Mary! Getting sick of this highfalutin wondering of me, thinking one is better than others, the inventor thinks, then the wondering fades and comes back and then the inventor truly starts to think. The self is a code, not unable to be cracked, but which unlocks no truth without it tinged wrong.

Anyway I need therapist.

I, reeling, wonder at the people, not without some disgust too; the people who will sustain one perspective then ask to get quoted on their statement of another they post on the facebook or something, a statement which does not but they say does most represent their belief system then and now. This politics of absence, more specifically an absence of inner moral reckoning. Reeds who do not think they are reeds. Blaise Pascal. It is said that people are truest to themselves quiet in bed alone but that might also be one of those things people say. The opposite of that seems to be true. In my opinion, to them, the time a statistically normal person has to themselves, in privacy, offers up an opportunity to lie about how one is in the World, value systems, etc. In the mind of even the statistically normal person. Well. I sense most use their privacy; use it to reinforce lies with more lies. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . [Introducing. An androgynous character? Na just lazy writing. Here out, let’s call her, One That. She seems only convinced of how grumpy she is. One awake in early morning following thinking a few minutes still in bed if it is worth it to indulge only aggravation if that’ll be the day. Over some ubiquitous wreckage everywhere around. One that evaluates her day so far when it’s been five minutes since removing from bed. Really it is about waking up in the morning, and this wreckage she sees. Trying to be cute she makes the following complaint in the kitchen to an older friend or parent figure or one of the parents themselves. She says. Everybody bitches about it but nobody torpedoes the sun so there’s no transition anymore and we all can go back to sleep. One person to another person. Boy do they love smacking oatmeal while I talk she thinks, while talking. Click. Change the channel. Family Ties.] . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . As for people lying to themselves in private like they must do in public; or doing this when they have the freedom not to, uhm. Why choose this? Nobody is really listening to that fabricated narrative, anyway.

Who does the math, patents the equation, takes the time to lie to themselves in privacy: that the sincere, and morally better belief, is the one found once the self digs deep?

Believe sincerely what? Asks the ego, candidly. You are not sincere with anything! Falling on deaf ears. Impossible to do but not impossible to convince oneself is done. One does not simply alter one’s own repressed beliefs when to the self they are not known. And once found if they are there usually is no core change. I am not done nor perhaps done, nor are the chores, which the son’s lack of doing would lead to his being done in by father and a belt but that part is only sometimes. Depending on what it is and whether it was demanded of some fifties husband to be done by the time he gets home. O dear. So many are like this so then many victims. Thinketh this. And it be the thought of a moral God: demonstrate the desire to understand it in context. For to use it implies the plan, no matter what is naysaid: to inflict pain. Which is its only use. Ire I mean. And the only reason why one would poison one’s heart like that. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . In the context of that big ultimatum in the sky, nobody, nothing to be had down here, is really The Boss. I can see that now. Figure out how there will always be the other way that works too, sure: if one can ably knife through that fuss and shit about opposing sides. Move on. Think of all the stuff to move on to, like the sidereal shit, will you?, and walk your way onwards. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Here’s this. Ok? Think that you are a bearded fellow, supported perhaps by a wooden staff, walking in the woods, till you are upon unfamiliar grounds. Approaching the shade of a canopy you hear running water. The canopy opens out to the source: a waterfall is there beneath it pouring down. Foaming eternal form. A watery dynamo off the toprock. The lip of the waterfall is fibered round with bushes covered in mist from the spray.

Well, here’s this. If you must visualize something to hit it home, whatever ‘it’ happens to be or how it happens. Or wait: let’s start over. Let’s say: you are a bearded man, ok, and you have instead just found your way to familiar verdure. But only after being lost awhile. So forget the waterfall. So you see this path inclining out of sight, obscured.

The entrance being familiar you are not too scared, but what lays beyond the plaiting, a great, green folding of some interwoven trees you and your beard cannot determine because you have never taken that way. A dog is there. It is your dog. But the path, you follow it with your dog, thinking of certain complex things you think of. Dog hollers to snap you out of some forgetful revery. And you smile: you see the town off there, in the distance. Leave it to the Lord you say to the dog, who has no idea what you are saying because dogs cannot speak English. But the beard, it understands. You live in this town, by the way. Lifted from your daydreams lifting your head up. The World is fresh enough to appear fully. But like before for the entire life of you it was not full if it could be like this. O perfidious dialectical laze. Distractions only, daydreaming. Cool your addiction to it. Head is leant against your stick to shift the weight of thoughts to there. You examine the surroundings, head lifted up. That you are up out of the woodlands at the brink of a field. It is the only thing separates you from home. You and your beard seem to have known the way wouldn’t get steeper; it hadn’t. Let’s backtrack: Some agreement was made, somewhere, at the brink of somewhere, yes: to risk a steeper incline or worse getting lost again, both seemed likely. At the start neither of these possibilities are good and daunt the impractical choice when one thinks about it but you go and risk it walking out of sight into the mouth of the green growth in search of the porous spaces of wisdom that soak us in. You know, somehow, this being verified following some intuitive proof, to follow the path likewise. Follow it long enough that the highest point, not even too bad, once reached, gives you the relief of a decline from it to salvation: the air pressure returns to normal, and the village is in sight! That is how it went. Now back to the present engaged before: you think of your pastoral cottage there. A path that was a sky littered much with stars and the wisps of stars, but not too lofty and not for long. More to handle in a day than one is able seems a striking euphemism for death. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . So far one is open to taking serious all the friendly, mostly friendly, admonitions provided here. One in doing so will at least know to remain humble. The Last Step is for reeds who know not they are reeds. Believe instead that nobody inhabits those spiritual straits nor can. To put one ahead of God is to put words in the mouth of The Creator. Please. Nobody should feel enamoured with, or rather immured within, their own confidence like that: enough in love with themselves to start preaching the way to accomplishment, before accomplishing it. As if a human right were all personal and professional success! The concept is to be spoken of. Thereby not preached, but spoken of: a pursuit, or it is the chasing, of accomplishment. The roles of desirer and desired, usual principals to be played considering anything like ambition; are confused and shuffled up though.

Are aggravated, by the flurry of incidents befallen one who thinketh. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The accomplishment stagnates behind an idiot in the left lane: this sort of example or typification of an idiot preacherman. Idiot loser who does not get it. Like how is this supposed to work? Suddenly, at intervals between cruise control, a fleeting moment of torque and rev. Speeding; unpredictable like any idiot is. Speeding, only enough to but force the very divinities each that provide for the concept behind the invention, like a boat ribbed by the keelsons, each one keelson one that may linger behind this unvindicated asshole—forcing them heel, the divinities just trying to go to work, at just about the length of a tailgate, behind the idiot, who asks why they ride his ass so. And this is ignorance!

This is ignorance personified to show how ignorant it is the need of getting ahead of what is desired; and then, well, the asshole just remains squarely at that cruising speed! Forever. Maybe even desiring nothing in any case. Only yet another asshole on the highway. Meh. One who would be exampled on Earth among the mortals better, nor here in the figuration alone be an idiot, to be publicly characterized as an asshole by the civilians on the road about him who are not divinities in cars that are not divinities. Just to cover all the bases, I refer to most things as a metaphor for divinities. They are an unwilling audience nonetheless: to this holocaust of cluelessness’ bad manners. A torrent of highway idiocy. At least it comes with no torrent of rain they say: the highway is looking like it’ll have a rush hour for the ages later. And so on so on.

Cuts off the other cars, might cause an accident, the bastard: irresponsibly out of a recordbreaking degree of vanity in one recordbreakingly otiose. That seems to be it. Without ambition moving thus to escape having no dreams. Or does that cut too close you idiot loser? The wheel unconsciously clenched tighter by the handless hands of one divinity herein.

But without the chops to do anything beyond shoving a way in front. Only managing to slow down the moving traffic of these other divinities in their cars, accomplishments, in their cars, some fuming, some remaining aloof and sarcastic, some just as idiotically slow I guess—but, at least aware of this fact: who drive just behind and want no part of this idiot’s day.

Generally accepted as gospel: fear of the gaspedal usually ends up causing accidents, instead of actually abridging the recklessness also a cause, for sure—and this fear of the gaspedal is reckless for not being actually of the gaspedal; being in this case the sum of many kneejerk fears placed as one in a slot in the heart reserved for safe keeping. Fears, or a fear in the heart, so then within, as to the sanctity of their idiot owner’s soul. This idiot driver’s soul, how laughable!, who feels them all; and of a quality, ironically like the soul in question, of no such temperance, temperance as goes dutifully discarding all the fallacious nonsense, leaving only the essential nonsense.

And in this following a similar strategy of wanting it all and getting nothing as the idiotic contortions that subvert God: spoken of here is not just a loser on the highway. In being ahead of what is pursued so as to trump it. That’s what is spoken. And this is an illness of pride, of one’s own pride.

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Where after all will finality be before it can arrive at where it is discovered by the pursuers and inventors out there? As if a location mutually agreed upon before a meeting of enemies: and there is something thuggish and paranoid about this comparison. How does one assume who will win before scanning the immortal challenger, compiling a dossier, so as the proper reaction be measured, in figuring the ratio between its size and the sizable fact its pursuers are mortal? 

To be ahead what is chased! An absurd idea for metaphor to detail. A job that really needs consistent proximity with what is chased; to be ahead of it implies that any objective is degrading if it is desired. Though ironically the objective falls deaf on human cries, cries of frailty,—cries that the objective be brought to one who in the end is pursuing nothing. This is the reason there is no accomplishment, on the side of hubris at least, in the first place. Yes, yes, the Titanic has enough lifeboats, not to worry. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Yet what a sad history this is to choose for repeating, and what a silly cliché,—air jets gathering dust accorded to the Taliban or someplace or other that is corrupt. Still dwelling in hangars.

Stocks of weaponry unused and like new and when to be given a chance at the purpose for their pathetic making will kill off the resources of others, as many as possible: some resources with minds and souls even. Actually most of them.

So then, where are the supplies, the resources needed to make the whole world a damn paradise? In a tastelessly excessive surfeit, somewhere hot, like in Arizona or New Mexico. Someplace home to miles of unpopulated desert. No, none have died in vain, not to worry; just don’t bring down the banner yet, with the specious statement on it, if to do so is only to sell reassurance via the daily news. Do not be so impatient. It is not important to capture a photo of the president at a podium right now, in front of his banner with the specious statement.

Tell the photographer to forget about a front page anyway: such imagery will only ever avoid the predictable ironies preemptive absolutes attract, if the specious statement not specious, ends up proleptic actually. But if jumping the gun ended up being correct we’d have less guns. And which ended up not being correct at all. These ironies are God’s sarcasms, cropping up organically around all the examples of human folly there have ever been. Absolutely. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Kill the thing to life? I must, must, must have sunk in the weapon then, all the way in, thinks one, using a somewhat diffuse metaphor. Well it made sense in the moment thinks one, hearing the voice that was his dear criticism.

Looking on: with the obsessive unreadable blankness of beautiful love. Capturing the entirety of one’s attention. Understandable that it’s a feeling too a feeling for the public to see from the outside. Nothing faded that would cross visages like tears when it’s not too deep for them. A’saith Wordsworth. Inner dispute is a toughie; or perhaps a feeling not too much one is automatically in need of a facial cue for lacking being recognized inwardly. If it’s faded. To make the faded thing less faded and more a reality reality for engaging the naked eye. Not of that do I speak but a sincerity realized fully without epileptics. I look on blankly. On, at the invention before my naked eyes. It had come to seem, well, like a child. Or maybe was. A summation of all that work. But still the question remained whether the thing was futile or not, unlike a child—if the expected efforts are put in that is. Or unlike a good Christian child at least if the womb is pure of sin and sloth. Thinks one: I want to give up. As to this a pure assessment seems impossible. Both realities, hung in precarious balance and counterbalance as validation overtakes despair and vice versa. One had tried to recollect it: any final actualized event of completion. One thinks now: The problem is you are tentative to approach proof of any kind if it’s from a distance. Keep to your cautious, vague outskirts, then: something someplace between expectation and physical hunger. You are in fear of approaching it: the dangerous ‘no’ reverberating back. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . But now I, one thinks to oneself, in the way one speaks to oneself, in one’s head, a conspicuous ‘I’ silencing for some few seconds the familiar otherness taking up space in one’s being, one’s fatigued being; and which was suspected broken, or even if in the best condition yet obsolete. So, hah, one thinks: but now I am inflating dilemmas again.

But such a worry would come to be just measly, an echo without a source. It is only that the danger of this I cannot see but anyway it is not there. Otherness must have knifed it to life: into that seriouser, stranger heart of some animal. A rodent maybe. In any case it is an animal curbed there behind every conclusion possible to draw from the finishing. One then continues to remain. To battle each animal on the path. To those layered reaches of improbability one thought one had covered before,—going on like so till there are none left to lash out at one, no gripes from whatever anomaly had not been heeded because now all of them had been heeded, certainly were done with being heeded. 

See thing is the idea that the invention, if it is to actualize itself, needs some semblance of uh wholeness and completeness, no matter if it be the invention of a memorable idiom, or an innovation, or rebellion’s first seed,—is an idea it would be more beneficial to make too clear, even way too clear. Forget how farfetched, or stretched, or strained, or ugly one is afraid it might become. One thinks to himself a thing. Again one goes about resuming the soliloquy, or maybe call it an inner, or an interior narration, sans any voice but for the soundless, toneless voice in one’s head, of the blessed ‘I.’ I think to myself a thing. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The cuttingfloor will always fill up with things that get lost in the clutter you wish hadn’t, one thinks; at the other end of the problem, eliminating the spare metal can lead to everything being extraneous, and then the result clipped together is too scanty and stiff and anemic. Both still are for my consideration solely and made by my hands and thus both are the bedfellows of the same flawed creating. No matter the gallons of sweat I lose in poring over the details for a fix. The dialectical hammer hammering. It is figurative though and if I bang a finger that also is figurative and no blood is lost. One accepts this. One is also forced and bullied by their genius, and in this way do I suffer something more like the dizzying pain of blood loss. 

Yet what is spilled is not my own blood but my lifeblood. Something very different this is but also is something figurative. I think of my signature there, on the contract I hold with surety. Skeletal hieroglyphic script. I think my very ordinary name is a sort of ontical doodling: or, to say it in a different way, a sketch of my pure being: done out of boredom, or the product of an anxious idleness that is anxiety at staying so idle, and that crinkle up one into their idleness like a trash idea on paper thrown in the wastebasket, missing the novelty basketball hoop hanging above it but only by a few inches.

The way a sickness gives one to hunch their back in a chair and retire from society to the World of their room. I am in trouble. I have forced my deliverance. Hark! I have my hand crammed up the length of this cornucopia! In the asshole of a cornucopia: my left hand. At a deep spot within the sweet smelling loam, there. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Say this just get it out of the way already. One will say, or might say, this: I am parable, or should be. Listen to me: I will be learned from, so that none ever again live so broken. And will inform posterity on my own time; do not think it is not your problem too. But as I grow old I will lose sight of the future and this invention that is my very child shall start to arm up, being programmed by me to arm up for a threat at the time of my death either antiquated or solved; arm up for something forgotten by then after all the scrutiny of history and passing time, after all, that I thought would remain a problem and should be happy by considering it possible to one day not be. But I am not. But I am made the fool by these fatal ironies of the original predicament. Guiding life until it doesn’t simply put. Or anything bad as may come of this youthful eagerness or impatience to fix.

My invention, still without a last step, I am not sure. Will I say: when I was young and the future was clearer. And was it also even more questionable than a lucid dream: I will not be foiling anymore what I have created. Swear it now. Already enough a shitstorm in my tampering with what was fine before. I scorn it happening, of course, now: it is like being shoved just right into the smallest space a crack in the wall has, a crack that is getting worse. But I will do nothing about my behavior. Am downtrodden: my work ethic alone shalt not sustain me unless sanity is sacrificed and a numbing mania introduced. Yet I am having trouble with whether it is really sanity or something else in the cornucopia that I can’t loosen my grip on.

It is absurd to do this. Oh my God this has got to be some heavy metaphor for something: or perhaps just the usual retribution…because my life is hell. It’s useless to do this: I mean I am wholly without the ability to deliver to the air what I am mired to, am stuck holding on to. Only was venturing coyly to reach, went in for its stash. There in the void. I do not caress opportunities like a big pussy but grab them with the language of my clenched fist. Yet it is the clench that somehow suctions my hands there stiff at present. My left hand is stuck: but still my arbitrating what shall finish up this weary little confluence of inspiration does its job without relent, and I wipe my plate clean. That necessity sings, it has been vigilantly singing out of tune a little now, though muffled it be. But my made sense is stubborn like that and it does its job to preserve me and who I am in the heads of those I know and love. Hopefully others, one day. The reasoning behind any sort of preservation, no doubt, will always stink of ego. Like old tobacco residue to be scrubbed from the counters, where it thickens and yellows for a decade. Along with the rest of the doublewide, it has not been cleaned.

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . There beneath the waxing and justifications is the stink of preserving a shit status quo: though too the ego is a healthy selfishness that literally everyone has and which requires accepting. Accepting that you need to escape the acedia, one thinks to himself, talking of himself in the third person like if right in front of one. Besides when he was needing another voice tell him advice, to least simulate the objective view. Then second person: acedia encroaching by the day and that flares up at night for a skirmish with you, then it ebbs as you sleep. It is ubiquitous like the sun’s creeping all over everywhere as the sun itself encroaches. Sailing across the same new boundaries of sky each day. This need is ego and is useful just to you, while others perish without an antidote and without themselves. In fact, everyone perishes, as a rule; also, as a rule, an antidote can only work if it is your personal antidote. It makes sense: each of us after all is given a distinct ego we use to exercise our hobbies and interests. Yet all interests can be reduced to an interest in will, or focus upon it.  There will be different meanings for life that each of us will test out, exercise, as they come and go; after the workout, returning them in a neat yet severe pile to their home in your head, someplace rosy and remote in there. Thing is you were created by God for just such selfish use, and anything else one is asked to purchase, a wack scam, crap to sell, idols to the paranoia that is castling more and more, gradually; the paranoia one feels as to one’s human worth, wondering if they are deluding themselves. To be dogged like this! Forget delusions of grandeur, that’s easy shit! What about delusions of delusions of one’s decency and inherent value, sans all the bells and whistles that can only drily indicate value’s outline, distracting us from a soul’s actual quiddity, with a skill. Yet what shall I say: that I am he who stinks of selfish desires? Ones that chemically mirror those of poor white trash for the tasteless guido possessions, but is for something more cultivated, which probably makes the whole thing worse: that is, transcribing one’s physical memento mori, an elite keepsake that no one understands and no one will, there among the forgettable crap in your bureau. That no one could understand—and, as if it could be done!, making that, accurately, into the dynamism of a text. Reality but on the page. Or if I am not so deft a creator to do that, then maybe just life, a concept of life that is found in a thing. Life stocked with all its numerous hassling fears of death. Able to be printed and circulated, immemorially. One will at last get to leave one’s mark.

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The procedure here, one used to find the holy finality I am aware I have ruined, and rescue it—before yet another hasty action, on my part, that would cause its further ruin—it is a procedure whose aim is to sandwich the original desire for finality, almost to preserve it and keep it in place, between the euphoric rush in accepting this foreknowledge, a usual ecstasy for me and probably a lie, that I have done something momentous in engineering the face of that desire, that drama; the procedure sandwiches itself adroitly between that, and my own sense of accomplishment I feel upon reaching the end of the mental errand, whatever it was for. This sense of accomplishment, moreover, is in direct proportion to the accuracy of my depiction. Of that face. Whatever piece of art you can name, and the most of it which you cannot even pronounce, is made unalterable—not necessarily when the last step has been reached, but when it is known for certain, by the artist, to have been reached. That in itself could be the justice needing be given to the depiction, the one in front of you that one looks for, that one waits for when it is right there proximate you, one thinks. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . To keep myself stubborn will not sustain me, and my will to keep stuck here, reaching way up the asshole of this mutant cornucopia, does not sustain me now. Yet my dastard thoroughness will not let go those fruits and now they are rotting, and will not sustain me at all. I have gathered most of my tries at sanity in my hands. Which has been limiting. So far the message that wants to leave itself behind in me, one that I am ignorant of,—because, after all, it is not mine to own—has for awhile thought it best to reveal itself in its different forms of the same synaptic music. What is now too deep in to hear from outside the cornucopia. And now it will suffocate in this gagged, airless cornucopia. Well take some of its fruits you wanted, had wanted, of the genius, take them and accept them as marred by your cruelty. A genius thing is perhaps located in this mixed metaphor. I just unleashed it, irresponsibly, one thinks; it was that or words of two different lexicons at least. Mixed together and left there. I shrugging for what is good enough, though if dissected it turn to something confusing, to visit upon one’s mind out of sequence and out of sorts. A euphemism for the editing process in filmmaking, in using the term cuttingfloor; and something about Thanksgiving. There is a vast space between these two things I created in the interim, tying up loose strings, threads. Four pages to be exact. This I do without destroying much of the seasonal assortment however. And how disorganized is the cuttingfloor! It must be cleaned. Especially if it is the floor of one’s garage. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . I’d rather be visited by some little extra thoroughness, I to buff it out presently, than be not clear enough and leave it at that: this maxim will be the saving grace. Your sacred wish you tell no one though: that is, to put on a last drape, a final drape, of burnished flesh over this design. This invention of thought I stare at, blankly. Well: examine the situation in light of knowing physicality is just an added varnish to any reality, and by that I mean the physical reality of what you made depends not on an arbitrary added layer, thinks one to oneself, in conversation with oneself. Oh your silly wish to put on that last drape of burnished flesh, over this design of thought I stare at, blankly. So long have I been crabfooting at the steps before the last step: but the invention, being here now, must take it for me, my progeny, towards being. Alas, at times the thoroughness will be an adverse reaction. I have worried creations into mess. I often slowly witness my distracted engineering turn a stuck lock into a broken door. I fear for the invention: I beg it not muddy up with additional guts of wiring. Lest some percentage of the body politic, made up of all my thoughts together, be weakened, and made homeless and destitute, by some halfass theory I toss in somewhere tiny and odorless: but my intuition seems to eventually sniff it out, one thinks. Some deformity in the guise of a theory. A wart right there in the middle of the logic to be; and to be made better, incubate into something fuller, if pierced to the root and fundamentally removed. Really it is like the behavior of a weed. One thinks: my mental garden, if it is that. I visualize it as a small space of flowers on the façade of my bedroom window, except thrust out from my forehead and providing my eyes with shade. Whatever is thorough is prepared to last if it is truly driven by thoroughness, which is humanity’s only outlet it was provided, thrust into being surrounded by a cloud of divine emissions that will never leave the perimeter of the human body, and always pushing on us the possibility of God being visible to the naked human eye. For being so focused, it is surprising one does not need a microscope to see God; but then again, thoroughness begets vastness ultimately, and thoroughness after all is the divine outlet, where we can plug into the Most High, and momentarily conduct light from all these sensed purities hovered just above our skin. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The creation, invention, should be factoryready before it is even ready to be put into the hands of strangers; nay sometimes I think even before one’s family touches it, one thinks, one thinks. One makes the thing, most times, without a prototype. It will have its sickly charm. It will likely be susceptible to viruses at first, knockoffs. But one should remember this, if nothing else, for it holds especial gravity: that in terms of the concepts one must teach, the directions one must give, for handling it, the invention, are the same. The creation that you made, thinks one; and that made you God. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Concepts, which are things, real things, need too their wholeness if to truly exist as an argument is the goal. For they inspire actions from real things that alter the culture, or mood of life at large, of still more real things. Anyway be sure to have it finished to a ‘t.’ Also: teach not the creation itself to others, but the passion of ego that inspired one to spread the creation, further, to the further reaches of people: others, beyond nations and across borders. If none of this works of course, one usually does better just to guess blind and then make the claim to whoever will listen: that it is as true as true can be though

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Until, right, an eon tips the final domino into yet another ‘new’ millennium. Strips of the truth anybody’s claim to it, inevitably, and abandons the warped truth thought of it so long accurate—by a warping culture.

There are those of course who might still be surrounding its ghost out of respect or something. But then these tribes are abandoned too, by progress, by The Progress made of a merest minute, the only minute in life important to one: between the problem and its solving.

Progress, which is an expression, likely one of many, of God’s plan, venerated periplum of manias. If you prefer. I think of a record of all the change in the universe, and wonder if the record knows what’s left. Simply in that the record lives not in time but simultaneity if that is the record is omniscient. Hm some holes there. The record is able to encompass future records, then, if only perception of time be transmuted from one to another locale. So, rush it our way, way down the factory line, made to fit our loose commandments of time, like a pair of shoes not bought until one of them gets there to your left foot. Yet even footwear though too a general human conceptualization and also something universal and mysterious, is not something nobody knows why it is mysterious; nor how for this long what with all the lackluster bureaucracy implicit in requiring organization, and at that An Organization, enough for a record be kept by somebody at least. But perhaps the mystery is, there is no chaos. Thus there is no freedom, and then all us will dash our longstanding denial of it and succumb to the fate, no, I mean accept our fate, that the nature of all being is inherently boring, and lackluster, like plain eggs; and will only be something wonderful if proven the only Bible of God’s word, the one that points most to the truth behind things, has itself some relative thoughts on the truth, but more importantly, ties in the idea of nothing being behind it all, or at that the idea of nothing being behind, at all; as in, that all of us are ahead of ourselves, can only get more ahead of ourselves, and the hierarchy a sort of dependable chaos, one that would sooner jive with the founding supposition that all of us are usurpers, criminal takers of the throne, an abstract throne, a disappearing throne, a throne that is too complicated and that is not there.

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        .

Beings on Earth go at each other and could make sense of it by supplying the empathy where empathy will be allowed give; but make sense of it by saying instead that everybody is in a constant occasion of furtherance, movement, thus, it is only natural. I say however it is only natural to think we transcend on more occasions than we do. In reality. In reality: ha. The greatest of all caveats, reality. Know and follow me, saith The Progress. For though what you believe has been dispelled by now and was before you came back to say the finality it is among other things dispelled that at one point had been proven with equal vigor: laws at the time thought to be always vital parts of the World of humanity and the World of universe; laws that will merely expose a stupid soap opera love affair humans will indulge. 

Like a law to be in love with touching up dead things, that is, with all our vitality we seem to have in surplus, stockpiled like government weapons. Doing this attempts remove the insincerity we see in things from things probably more sincere than us if in the first place they are not conscious. Like how the self has frowned itself out of existence, in choosing its keepsake be the resting bitch face of pessimism. 

Oh, how much good we think we do in damasking pillars of marble: the blushing frolicsome chains of roses and tulips seem to dance. What drives this, we all know, however, is the absurd hope of witnessing a momentary cognitive flicker in the stone. It is an open secret and we only conceal it more desperately each time we beautify senseless carbon. This goes for words too. Predictably it becomes harder to prevent the reactionary overflow of bile from a psychological place in us we strike down, without fail, in making blush the suitable pale of things that just want to be their organic coldness, not play pretend with organisms who despise their fathers, their fathers with their throats of brass. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . But no World is eternity. None of them are, none of the Worlds: this is true no matter how much one of the Worlds does this less or that more. Take note. Here are some examples . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . One example of a World out there. Equivocality is its pollution. It seems and seems and seems, it is a repulsive mobile that will keep turning with deceptive strength until finally it all blacks out. Without warning I would guess, but how much can be suspected studied predicted and then prepared for in a World made of indifference? This redundant twilight gyre. It is a planet in motion now solely to keep up appearances before its cosmic wake. No diurnal ebb and flow anymore though seasons wheel through Arctic night. The inhabitants of this World ontically mirror the stasis of where they are. Because they are afraid of its desertion. They start to die off. At the least wane of hope no less. which would be fucked up of their planet. But bathos and bad timing is an unfair ‘law’ of the land. Unfair considering it is not a law followed by the land itself. And reality would be no such prodigal at The End. It would leave them all myths, being as all nothing. So people go ahead and live up to their only duty for lack of anything better to do they say but mostly because that duty is all the chips they have when it comes to a cosmic downsizing. Best chug ruthlessly for a small say on the council after all than deny a heritage of stasis just to be different. This is bad besides the fact one is ultimately denied a chair on the council so to speak and thus a chance to draft up input the night before the council meets. Once again the council’s hour will be taken up by discussing the coming week’s survival strategy, probably. But the strategies have all been joylessly rehashed in a cycle spaced over a long enough time to almost trick one into thinking that things could be freshly built of change, not merely revolving in orbit growing nauseous at the many vibrating frictions that, uh, that in those parts is such a commodity! But to the universe nothing is a commodity. Nothing is sold it just is. Run it by the mercurial chiefs of neighboring galactic tribes and note of any misery to their collective peasant body and see the truth of this in what their orders given highlight as important, maybe food related. It is some strange misguided effort to them, even as a system of bartering; money was even forgotten by the aforesaid people of that imaginary World of what seems. People who do the job despite they do not understand it. They do not understand the commodifying because there nothing is rewarding. Guerdons and wreaths. Pah. Forgotten at the end of the last millennium this was. Now all that interests anyone who lives there are new mandates for rest or better, death. I indulge the scoff. Me and my insipid nihilism, o. Who knows but at The Rapture it might well be a World reserved for evidence of some erosion to the universe going on behind William Blake’s closed doors of perception. A tragedy, like brain damage. And that is too harrowing for toughest carbon. Not to be eventually smoothed. And will prove the death of certainty. Kill that one alive will you. It is a World in that pathetic state, a unique breed of pathetic familiar to the place, resultant of some owner’s neglect, something unacceptable and inhumane like that hamster you won at a carnival that started eating its own pellets of shit because you were too lazy to feed it, and which ended up being flushed alive down the toilet. Not even monitored by God anymore; yet it did not experience a slow moral regression, unlike other planets on the list, other Worlds that were provided with a sacred text, yet suffering a quicker moral atrophy. Or it is some farmlands for raising to mature certainty the farfetched things scattered in spacetime. The universe does not have time to parse out all the karma though and no evidence this is the case exists. Of the turning them into believable things at least one wishes. By adding a use to them would be preferable, since practicality seduces the naysayers. Say this place is for the lone wolf, the unclear statement. Passive Aggressions. A heavens for souls leftovers lifted from a doubt that has been buried or some other, emotionally or with shaken hands and some eye contact. Doubts that float from elsewhere in the universe migrate here. To this World. Karmic balance must be involved somehow. Else why would it be acting this way? Though I would stop short of calling it a heavens for doubts, thinks one. Who knows: maybe this World disappeared when it got too comfortable with seemings, every fact a loaded fact; the people tired after too long exposed to all the seemings. Like the way one is exposed to radiation; people too comfortable with lack and boredom and pause to even surreptitiously try again. Even if the reward is like catching yet one more breather in footing the bill when yearly Progress lags behind its quota. Thinks one: I mean like footing the bill, malingering home to rest precious rest. Let me speak to these people. Of course it is restful but it is not for your health if you have any old shred of empathy. Malingering is bad anywhere but is generally accepted on Earth to be bad. One must experience a moral amnesia, quote unquote; not literally amnesia. And deny one has done this to the detriment of all the rest of the staff at work. Deny it like Big Oil CEOs deny climate change. With that sort of vigor. But no the halflife of their energy gets snipped, more exacerbated the dose of fatigue per hour per capita. It is a World defends having no responsibilities: by always bringing to light the same former blast of Progress in its history that was the own creation of this World itself. But it says it was not that long ago. All is illusion or close to the cliff. O World of seeming. And it that but then slinks away all pouty disappearing to be alone once and for all. Motheaten hand me down hood of moody pith all left the inhabitants to stave off Winter then go and perish in the endless imaginary night there. It is a mood slathered as fuck. On and on by a selfish cosmos unable to separate Ghandi and Hitler because teleologically it’s all the same state from the top. Just it is fractured once shrunk by these differentiations called morality got cropped up over time there in people of a World away at the corner of the Milky Way. As this would in the conscious mind of any World’s conscious inhabitants, who themselves are an anomaly of God. This cosmos would have a martyred World for doubt be if destroyed, then excessively: a mind quicker than daylight goes off the frigid alien poles of Earth; a mind that knows icy distance like the poles. Let us say I am of this rhetorical World forever, though it will be just for now. That I put the onus of my own improvement there, tucked away, a pitiful dirty sock shoved down the side of the bed, a temporary solution: deep in there: some swampy place among the mushrooms. To linger and rot among responsibilities of a different World’s population. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . These scores of persons to consider on Planet Earth think, for for the moment there exists no large scale alien invasion to sway one, that there is only Planet Earth to make the list of themselves complete. It is only one list and Moulder says we are not alone but that is a more obscure story. End of X Files reference. The universal list is limited to what is pulled by gravity moreover. The merit of a youtube video like by its number of views. But there are myriads out there and more ways to consider merit. Populations bound to their terrestrial housing projects. Populations of wanderers up and down a planet mentioned so far or not yet or not to be. Scores of them nobody knows about not limited to the all of us on Earth like that were all of everybody, and further than that as if that number were representing all in a given galaxy! The population of a World is its makeup. They are the soul of the place and we are. Essentia. And God’s thoughts each are planet and individuals each are neuron. Yet some individuals are barely able to handle duties the size of an atomic particle. Something was said about this already. Strung out on stale worries that turn the new day edgy. Subsequent comedown resembling the effects of too much coffee or meth. I or God maybe gives out past circumstances and cultures to populations: like flyers to the disinterested mob. Flyers handed out by cosmos that must have gotten into their hands: the inhabitants of aforesaid seeming World. Looking for someplace not so coded or seeming; or would be happy, thanks, with a holy proverb brought down to shed some holy light. Would chance it must have been that the flyers, though casually accepted by these individuals as they walked away, were seen the last step for them and their strifes of tiredness. Casual but hiding how desperate for disappearance, to have it be at an end. For only so long can one conceal it though, I’d imagine: how discomfited about living so pathetically pisspoor. A hamster consuming its own feces to live. No wonder this neutralized World, sterile World, suffered so explosively before it disappeared, if the cherished makeup of selves up and down on it took advice from a flyer that came down like a message in a bottle, across seas of universe; but not known whether its author be venerated or deranged or even still alive. That habitual seeming implodes is no surprise. I know it not, thinks one. I know not seems. If only whole populations feeding on it need not be so pathetic to the degree of experiencing an increase in confidence and seeing illness: going to the doctor’s office like a diabetic must there to it because blood sugar must be wonky. Confidence at following the advice of a simple, pathetic ass flyer. Hoping maybe it was the proverb so long in search! It won’t be. Whether from me or Moses the population will call it from Moses if the flyer truly got handed down from the sky to whoever lucky recipient, who said I don’t want to buy anything man and walked away. This population of people to consider! From the land of seems! Witnesses each, not agog, to a heavens for doubts dead that still shine their ghost on at the speed of light like a star in the night sky does which might already have snuffed into a supernova or chilled to what is termed a white dwarf. But no star ever disappeared without some ripple. But this disappeared into dread vortex, into what never was, like. This population of people to consider! Thankful for the relieving of self called introducing confidence in one’s reality like it were a luxury car to an uncivilized tribe of pygmies. Into one’s routinest mortal gestures introduced; and calm into the stride. But finally it falls apart. Riding on the wave of confidence in being situated precisely in the hellscape of God’s plan, blaming the deceit of Moses, the makeup of that World dies out. Its inhabitants do before the planet itself. One is reminded of instances on Earth in helplessly gaping on at the quiet carnage: like that giant bolus of plastic that floats around the ocean, or that barge of garbage that floated around nobody wanted that somehow entered the World stage and became an international problem. The immense mileage of this orb will not save it. Topography made sorry by the ploys and subterfuge received it by the rest of the universe, and told to inhale. A World a patsy for the moral pollution emitted from all that is and the token cosmic dumping grounds. Everybody at school ignores the guy who transferred there this semester. The core of the planet grows colder until it is as cold as the crust, being all alone, with no remaining witnesses to feed on the clods of a dry crust. Discarded more is each day by a mediocre ecosystem in the first place that was too comfortable with its dying, such that God or some other observer, like me, if they were to observe, would not be able to figure out whether this was ignorance or extreme denial. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . So then death goes on with its wear and tear, too busy with its own docket but to coordinate an evaporating whisper be the apocalypse given for the place, and one almost hears an audible washing of hands somewhere, though death itself has no limbs; though it helm itself through one then another galactic mess and through all the swamp of time for the sake of its job quenching fates, many other straggling dots out there still to go, all careering in space just the way it does, death does. Yet death is shielded from death: it is a dialectical rule of thumb to apply to any germ of a negation caused, in the contact of void with void, or whatever it may be: that only without the power to die may one enlist the power to kill. 

No there is no at last, and was not, for that World of seeming, which is but slow death, or if stretched is equivalently the hasty reducing of existence to a pair of temples between extended stupor or what was just some random blockage, trashy void, patient and prone keeping within its supernatural coffin, obeying the expectations of what seemed to come from outside the coffin, an emptiness speaking its emptiness, its charge, to sleep, without changing guard, and sometimes few extremities available to hold all the realities, and a few dropped, and some damaged when balled together, of necessity, into a handful. Goodbye evaporating dunce of a planet, forever: forever may its deluded and dead families of consciousness be conserved beneath it, or scattered around it in trashbags, which happened once infrastructure fell to ruin across the board.

And these were families, you know; and their lives not mere numbers given seatholders to assure no ire for the vacancy, seatholders who are more like usurpers, and so then ‘harbingers of death’ in their own way and would pretend the number given them is for all the previous reincarnated lives of their own that they truly owned once. Themselves given to spread around a greater circumference with greater freedom, sycophant to none till the vacancies return and they the seatholders realize this is all for a limited time. A circumference more than these vacancies do transit, these numbers, privileged with the time and money to essentially buy a stairway to heaven and go without reproach for a selfish detaching from God into incurable twain. Whoring out their life like that: any vacancy does not appreciate properly the ease with which it is allowed to exist. It is a life without retribution for snubbing God. They do not even know they gamble with a mutinous possibility, nor seem all fazed with worry at the indication of incident to come; nor would a vacant seat, which became what all those on a dead planet would ever be, really be stoked by any sort of intrigue to get up and leave besides going to the bathroom. Intrigue or standoffs calling for the involvement of the authorities. Perhaps jealousy on the part of the seatholders does not mesh with murder in the first degree, necessarily. Or even with a nasty power struggle. It is just an empty seat, no matter it held on cosmos or council or even for a wedding, the plans were to fill it with that person. And now it’s not. Is it indifference to the divine privilege does this? Hm. Cosmic privilege would be less a threat when if used to endorse the actions of a mortal human it were not perceived indifferently by mortal humans. All the colors in the rainbow, speaking metaphorically, would agree. If only such a bitter gift were given to those cognizant of what they had, just enough would want more to get enough and be satisfied, with at that some extra divinity to pass around. But this shit is not a joint rolled out of weed that was stuck to the fabric of a stoner’s couch.

And the emptiness of empty seats pounds to boredom one’s pair of temples, and makes one turn to drugs. Well they will be vacancies as still suffer the bad look of conspicuous absence. At the wedding, or council meeting, or meeting at the foot of the universe. But be clueless about it once you arrive, so that to need not be present at your son’s Briss is no big deal because you didn’t know, one thinks. There are these delightfully aware celestial families too, ok with snubbing because they do it, who delight in the expanse when it shows up, and know also they cannot hold all the expanse on their shoulders anyway, nor be put up for awhile in the mind with a few theories for roommates. Interesting that mind and shoulders both can be made independent visions of what consciousness might be. Meanwhile may vacancies made by the dead be kept by seatholders without comment, without a need on the part of the bride and groom to decry the sudden absence: a terrible thing, to hold death against one, but hard not to do if it’s the reason they miss the life event and Grandma always wanted to see you married. Nothing, as in the entity, or called The Nothing, controls who holds that seat in their place, a man or figure assembled of stuff the most real in the concept of it; a picture hung up on the wall, or something. ‘Being’ and ‘selfhood’ are perishable: these cannot be applied to the present moment that encapsulates all one’s life truths living at rest in chambers of memory, memory only; and death the reason the chair is empty. And what if so to speak all things not quite sensible then met neatly in this here eloquent irony, and these dunces really conserved like wax collectibles somewhere more vibrant than they could have taken advantage of when alive and clueless, for Pete’s sake. Let all of them, this army of empty chairs, of empty seats, who actually without knowledge of it are dead and peopling these areas of paradisal sunrise and sunset, there in the wherever, well, let all of them calm the rest of us down, for there is too a place for their lax little reclining souls, a place in the heaven in need of balance, too enslaved to the speedy resolutions that the bigger problems that need deliberation unravel and loosen into chaos. But this cleanup is no job for the lazy, nor then might it be solved by these newcoming swathes of emptiness, to a land for the angels strictly, angels remaining in disguise, so as not to be treated any differently by their visitors, but mostly just to fool them all into believing they were not yet close to the harvest of cosmic death, who sings his nails into the coffin with talk of a last step, and in that case thank the freed piss of the incontinent powers that be upon this village of vacancies, freshly erected and done with, at last, to the gravelly tone of hands clapping off their dirts and dusts of effort with the friction. It is easy to fantasize about a risk at benevolence met with understanding, despite wounded pride at being kept in the dark about a spiritual harness upon that mediocre one who would naturally in this situation be the more dependent and bound to their home. It is easy to think the vacancies will get around to figuring it out with a shrug, at most an entrylevel discomfort shrouded behind pleasantries, which is the universal language for no harm no foul. Somewhere this has got to be true, yes; and everywhere there will be parts of the falsity that light up in beauty enough to distract one from the falsity, though in space truth is all we have, thinks one, catching up with the angels, on leave, for a week, while the archangels assume that lesser throne built of miniature laurels, placation, since God is to his children both coddling and condescending as a parent, and whatever merit as one would think oneself into feeling for them likely a hallucination of political sway in a World above all the rest, where every absence ever is and will be ever loved. This love is not along the lines of those same equivocal congratulations, stickers on the refrigerator for all the good they’d do to raise the rank of an angel. Though why care besides to be a radical in the face of proven emptiness, proven at this point? They are not there if they are not there, these impressions of things that play with chairs and fight for control over pressing the Divine Button, which would annihilate everyone, on top of that, make suddenly weightless all the banqueting reality that scoops humanity in and leaves us at the bottom of this bowl of soup called either existence or the meaning of existence, but not both; for one of the two of these only the other one not it, for the other of the two both. Expect disappointment if one is expecting the checks and balances of that Unreal Mind upstairs to be in being the finger that pushed as infallible as God. As should be so, should, but isn’t. If given that responsibility in the first place? Imagine it: connected to the Divine Button where the senses collect as sediment, leaving time the last thickness, and time, thus, with the ability now for others to enjoy touching it, though maybe not enjoy what the touch is, its fiberlike gelid structures no sort of banquet compared to the heat that would radiate from its chugging assertion of time’s kindling of minutes of heat and fire, and passing on and on. The time visible and surreal in smoke helpless risen in plumes that once were alteration and now represent all Worlds at once in static frames of an apocalypse, an apocalypse gifted to us by a God sick of the suffering, and to which all humanity must make obeisance and die in before facing the last glorified step, when nothing is left to measure but a flux of physical law as the clockwork of the universe stammers and then wheezes back into sync at increasingly shorter intervals, and more audible each round the desperation of being doomed to live in the lightless meanwhile of some hell ruled by myth, a myth that tantalizes with blurry prospects of deliverance without delivering, or delivering the wrong gift of apocalypse to whoever bows down in greeting, head tilting away from seeing it, and they in the end punished for their good manners towards The Grand Thing, which is a name for something else, and not the finger that pushed, one wagers; or at the very least that will push, definitely, the Divine Button, which symbolizes I know not what at all. But the inventor had picked the worst moment to indulge their karmic knack for bad timing, which they did when aware more than usual of the creeping dread of time, usually bowed down to in lieu of averting gaze at The Grand Thing, maybe death, offending him thereby, death, whose visage of love and transcendence and all that new age spiritual mishmash was meant for all to see, which by the archangels was preferred, for the sake of better harmony once all the sardines, numbers, and numbers for chairs, were neatly expatriated to their state after: for according to the divine statistics people who saw the visage would not be so mad about dying once they picked up on the fact that nothing at all anymore was fact, save that moment of visage before the mandatory extinguishing of life. To be savored, a tender memory. The chance passed, one would have to be doled their medicine without having seen The Grand Thing, stirring up only discontent, in one, or anyone stupid enough to not drink up the last sight of their life, life, which is a name for something else. Life, like the way a touchable time was made the quick substitute for a reality crumbling before nobody’s eyes, became as it approached the finest degree of a last step a place before that where one had felt nothing but even then still not The Nothing. It depends upon its thickness, thinks one, underscoring a maybe there, but lightly, not wanting to wake up the universe when she has just fallen asleep, like a babe, out of a fear for life, a babe. One accidentally revealing the limited brain capacity of life, to this romantic partner, named the universe, which is, more than anything else I might’ve listed so far, a name for something else.

If the Divine Button has been pushed then will humanity, a bickering tribe of hermits in essence, have to learn the bad news from others, what had happened, and not to have noticed it at all without others, before disappearing? The ubiquitous baggage of existence, and the all but faceless universe quite peaceful now without all that population. The burning of minutes would go on and persist wheezily as timber lessened and then everything would be futile and silent once again and all would sleep. The mechanism thumping on and on: like a lilywhite blondehaired foot, sans a sock on for, keeping time with the music, the other foot thankfully covered, which he usually did to hide the varicose vein: and then one remembers fully: for no reason, one remembers it with tenderness their smelly avuncular contra, keeping time wailing at his smelly banjo. The one whose visage too close to your face often lent with it a whiff of bad breath. Did you did remember seeing him as a child, and up through adolescence, to even just the last few days prior no less? Futility this is a fact of human makeup that now you have barely any time to turn over in your chagrined head before the apocalypse, and didn’t as a child. Before you die you will not know the invention, one thinks; nor when you and perhaps your mother traveled to visit him.

Stooped down he got too close to one’s face in greeting, then he, your uncle, telling a story between his coughs and vague digestive trouble. Though he lived in a coal mining town in the case of the avuncular the story was not of time, not of the coal burned by time: that accumulated in sheddings of ash once around some managerial ultra clock that got broke and was removed without repairing it, a failure which is another name for time, something powered by its otherworldly sourceless mechanism, and meanwhile having all us whisking barely through the mud of such harsh gonging sounds of the hour. All the beefs of time in time will be confessed, and the whole sick plight of its shorn wastrel at the lever, who pulls open the flue or something or serves some menial purpose to the mysterious perpetuum mobile, which is another name for time’s going. Beefs swallowed until nobody anywhere is real, they must have gone on to that last place by now and by now past all the caved in theatre of meanings after meanings assaulting its coordinates. The sound of clucking tongues comes from all these other niche realms out there of cosmos. Blessed with a reality better than theirs, but, propelling into no such earnest future for The Nothing, it should have known better than to think the reality would lead anywhere, if the same Button pushed, oh, planet that once yearned: to if not be there, imaginary people in that imaginary place, at least not lose the precious strands of ambition emitting from the people there. Of that ghostly dot in the cosmic notation. And endless trails of gas, and the clouds of dust trailing off asteroids once themselves planets, and now the remaining volcanic bones divorced of all those false starts. Be ye not, almost into that shitty realm or some ruthless indifferent death, a deathly indifference? One dies no matter the barricade made, and however much one be the pith of certainty, sometimes so strong almost to make death live. One dies having crawled so long from out a hellish muddle, then failing, surprise; and then to wither back painfully and prodigal as but discharge of that new batch of things and certainties or whatever in one’s place, as had been cooked up from that World, that planet, hopeful intrepid and ambitious and foaming at its ambitious mouth of World to go and there from its ignorant place with everybody else. And since nothing else wants to be anything other than what seems, at this point, time, ironically the most seeming thing, will be, at least, that exact last gauge for falsehood left. And time left craved for by Progress; by the real prophets and fake truthers alike. And this is reassuring. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The Last Step—a misunderstood phrase, or maybe just too easily simplified by people. The tragedy of this it is almost cute. And how else to go about accepting such vileness? Such entropy? So many folks on the outskirts of one’s handsome daily orbit,—idiots, or hopefully just blithe at heart once gotten to know,—but so many folks, they are ok with it, they are patently ok with leaving a statement where it is, forever, and what something means exactly where it is, and every orphaned statement at its furthest, quaintest dilution. Thinks one: you would not be surprised if these people at the start were fools, and fools to that complacence, eking out the minimum argument only when they have to: each one a slouch, a linguistic anodyne. They are even of this character when forced to admit a principle, even just one: the words they say take up the responsibility to question them. These anodynes: when nothing else works. And when that fails, rob them of the power to communicate anything: a single irate bubble of gas erupting somewhere within breaches their lips as drool instead of words when they try to speak. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The Last Step—a phrase, nearly identical, phonetically and syllabically, to a vault of others. But with special affinities!, I think, thinks one, but this time speaking in the brains only, a voice to themselves and with it the gift of an I. Affinities, to this one phrase you have in mind out of all the rest, thinks one: Besides that both are and have been reliable clichés, so far,—cultural workhorses when the culture has not enough time,—and the second phrase of the two, to be mentioned soon; and besides that they mostly fuck with separate duties to definitions at partial variance,—still, it remains true for any phrase, even for the invisible ones like this one, which is staying invisible, so far, because, well, it has not been mentioned yet, the words put down here so far in willful wait of such an astounding gravity as could carry the latter half of this argument without the arguer needing to mention it almost at all, and anything more than that, all but parting the red curtains for a tasteless obviousness,—and whatever the phrase be called, still: it feels, admittedly, obliged and awkward to say, stepping forth as uncertain royalty into the spotlight and into recognizing, an unnecessary gang of footmen, sans faces, towing along behind.— The phrase thereof is as royalty, a royalty to be met not with the usual flourish of trumpets but ponderous silence, which then magnifies the sound of the dumb shuffling feet around the phrase, faceless men searching for their stage directions. These damn unnecessary lackeys are unnecessary: suddenly it all seems an embarrassing hubristic display, and the idea of royal footmen silly nonsense. One thinks all the rest of these gaudy, chaining gildings a waste of space and resources, and altogether a brutal expense, even worse for the fact it was for the good of the phrase, for the wellbeing of the dignity of the phrase. But in this the true jerk is the phrase itself. Called too early a thing that exists by you yourself who is ironically a partial existence in the writing. Less than mere words exist, requiring more reality than that to exist, for after all it will be a self: one made of voices, strange, inner ones, and the words must live up to that dignity of being and of name. It is as of now though still a halfhearted self. One as you took it straight from your inner litany, shrugged and took a risk on it, and began your molding from parts of the inner litany. One day you woke up and considered this your own challenge to this human devotion to the state of being; now, one prays that one not lose focus before abandoning the mold in utero essentially, as a mutant, who will dream his poor dream of at one point in the narrative sequence herein, attaining enough a physical otherness, perhaps collected from all the stunted logical threads, into some patchwork, over years of starvation, enough, and though walled at first within these miserable paragraphs each, scrounging for his own able threads there in the imaginative poverty, so to finally make his being himself and ditch the words of his creator without himself also disappearing—words that, almost like a drug, so long sustained the unfinished reality that kept him an abomination. This thinks one. Before your throat could prepare all the way to clear again to shout that you did want this the same as he the embarrassment comes full circle: that is once everything is revealed centerstage and all the subtlety fails, and, the only confidence in uncertainty, as to the phrase, and as to what predictably will always come out of the woodwork regarding it, which generally is something darker if it was hidden in the woodwork, but especially bad if created from the rib of your own bad character. Yet it is an entrance still and meant to be an entrance: and if it lingers long enough before coming on strong, perhaps till the end of a civilization but obviously not of a language, it inherits something more by whatever graces of English, the phrase does, whatever’s appropriate,—something like the connotations as live within different qualifying camps of theory but that say the same thing. Else to blow God’s plan and stoke the shredded orange fire of God burn us all were a better fate than to strangle the organic process of metamorphosis a language must undergo, or remain where it is and be abandoned, and the right to talk robbed from fools who die without having once doubted what they say.— . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The Last Step: a phrase nearly identical, that is, to The Big Sleep, which will follow it, this by all accounts the unequivocal case for all human beings—and this exact location by the way now so infamous, at least among the cavalry of inquisitors who think they wear white coats, and not Klansmen, but the ones like you, who will bother over the coordinates, fix the math—and one thinks: What is it, what do people mean when they say they are taking The Last Step in their process; was it a slog or a breeze? Or will it not really end at all? Or, one thinks: it is one lastness out of them all that is the most agreed upon, you say? No. Nothing like a science riddle, a fucking science riddle, to make you get crusty as hell, about all the fancy science, one thinks: and your pitiful person to rage over it in private, and not understand, for hours, one thinks. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . It is an intellectual coldsore you get during the Winter that you prod with your tongue despite your mother’s intercessions: this verifiably compulsive behavior in combination with the frigid weather leaves the whole inside of your left cheek damaged raw eventually. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . One thinks: in the sole context of a finite universe this would be enough of a riddle to tolerate, much less if applied to what is surely an infinite universe in any case. But words are weak, of weak constitution, lighter than dust. I mean they are literally flimsy paper and maybe some graphite too. That’s it. And even worse, this riddle is one about a thing said in words, with language, not with words, in a language—it should be obvious, unless you literally cannot read English or are not familiar with Germanic languages, that I write in English—anyway, you, in all likelihood, will give up, reflexively. Give up answering the riddle, that is: as humans do when mentally cramped, cornered, past the point of their will’s sway—well this, and also, they succumb to madness—give up, that is, and discard these certain implications before solving anything, because you need to sleep, one thinks. But all night you will dream of questions as to words as being. Any exact location overstimulates the mind with clarity so that the location becomes relative and fractal, much less one to be considered on an infinite plane. Yet for all herein you expect to live through of the mortal, or planetary, onslaught, still, the tired eye will want to open.— . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . And this^ is an image you have quickly sampled, herein, for lack of another image at the ready. You find it floating in anonymous clutter, orphaned, and pluck it out for the wanting expression. You cannot help but feel the proximity of the next one in the roster though: what your mind by chance will face and detect, and then fix itself to there, in the celestial makeshift of your imagination, as its satellite,—yes it will want to open, the wide eye will, when the eye thinks it is in sight of an answer clearly through all the semantical wilderness and weird, and then, all options for the metaphor will be at the ready. This answer is for you: maybe it is even still a riddle, the answer only what first few rearing spoils got plucked at the end of the first act, before half the story was ripe and the stakes alive and burning, and the answer, because not pushed to be more, dead. And not by you or any of the other squares seen as more than dead, whether it is or not in reality irrelevant, just as should be what is the true last step that will quell the machine, will only properly unfold if given a narrative sequence. It will not be watched bloom nakedly. It is no naked heartflower bleeding out from a leak in the stent and will not reveal its soul for that waste of plasma. For the image being simply what it means, sans a theme, and nothing more given to transcend the audience of watchers, till all comes to a bitter putting on of gloves and a corralling of the afflatus to dirt. It is too shy for that and without the narrative it stays in bud. For the answer must have its story and lullaby. Else it will get all fidgety and act like an infant up too late: though as the hours creep on this infant will never once be out of immediate sight of the father and his tired eye. The answer I myself do father. It is an eye too tired in fact to know he has made an answer, or many, his babe, and he himself now the one handling all the many stillborn questions as they are transferred to a different line to fill out the form wait in the next line again for authorization and the line to existence or an upwards landslide to St. Peter: but nonetheless it is the job of the father to care for his lot regardless of the lot. He fingers lightly each question, tests the surface of each one, some prickly, some smooth, all treated as if in possession of a single, fragile piece of nostalgia. Yearning for the right horoscope to make it past the bureaucracy one day and deliver itself to the World as yet another thing of answers, one to delight the planets with its system, which manifested here, as it should be, through good works of the system once solely his own, now neither his nor the answer’s but a purgation of both. Like browsing for snippets on T.V., it always seems to be an answer that goes to commercial at the worst parts. In the end, thinks one, the story has barely explained itself anyway, either because you forgot some detail or the story explaining itself did. Tantalizing us always with a fragmentation even more annoying if it was purposeful. Perhaps crucial to its art then but not satisfying; on the other hand if it is purposeful it is controlled, no matter if the effort is or is not towards an ideal that is obscure, most likely the creation will have a better future. Thinks one. Definitely it is a more than primitive creature, though no person, nor even daresay spirit. With enough wit to meddle with human desire—and definitely cognizant enough if it turns out the creature is acting alone.— I imagine a strungout gremlin or something, unfamiliar with human life, but of a certain facility regarding the maneuvering what humans hate, to its sharpest precarity, one that might fall with the single further degree of an obtuse into an acute angle, of grief, of all the grief. Something what who crawled out from under the bridge where the kids shoot heroin.— Something, whose job is to insert the omissions right there in the very development most needed witnessed to ease us, but forever; at that precise moment it is about to be witnessed reconciled, and left neatly, or at least left ugly with a beautiful concept somewhere in it. But instead one is left to piece together clues with more clues. Anyway. Comb through infinity’s bigness for an apex and find just more infinity of cosmos without the question of a first or last at all. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . I do not have a kosher sort of empathy for this however. Its demolishing back to finitude,—so as to bring back to life the possibility of a last step,—I visualize as not so rough a thing, compared to what had been lost with the introduction of endlessness or of something incapable of limitation. What exactly is put together out of this morass of sums? It is of such loveliness though: this thought on ends: so much that it requires no arranged deadline to be, obeys nothing but the master sketch of its own terms, which it will study and use to give up, and then, well, the last step exits us incognito, with the schematics rolled up under its arm, without anybody picking up on the change in the air. Exits into the heavens, a monotonous omniscience, which the last step, a deviant, had cheated out of deciding its birthday for it. The heavens tried to without even asking…and the angels became furious: to know when exactly the guests would arrive, so to speak. But they were not to know when: and once such a precedent is initiated on high by the low, the inflexibility of the concept of God’s deeming goes axiom to particle. The heavens had always been able to know everything else before, if just they followed the wishes of God and continued being in divine good favor: ultimately were surprised, no, they were shocked: by that lush apotheosis: of an eternal whittling of lastness. A last step evades the pressures of needing be appraised with an equivalently earnest pair of eyes, tired though they be. Though it is final when it happens, final is relative, depends on the quality of the shoes one is walking up and down in. Even in a finite universe, one begs for arch support, if that is one happens to have taken up this responsibility to travel to the wrapup, the horizon, of…time, time maybe? To colonize the horizon when this planet is finally gone wack and rotten? Eventually one soldiers on and toughens up though and gets to playing along with the knot in my back I get from lifting garbage too long; you need not launch out of bed early to get a jump on this school project with a foregrounding hypothesis, just need space to move and time to enable the move there. If my last step, one thinks, is to be considered taken, or is close to that point,—besides that, of necessity, it is followed by a step after, well, before that, my travels, my peregrinations, so to speak, one thinks, must have had to develop muscle, on their way, or something more like a common thread to the experience: a thread starting to beef up with more other threads discovered, between the problems baffling one and the problems baffling another, and through which we listen for an answer to how such a thing of nature can be so intricate, yet fragile,—even though that's pretty much how everything is and we shouldn't be too surprised: holding an empty tomato can to our ear from safe up in the treehouse, one thinks, though this image be somewhat comical, even jejune, even naïve.���And, please, this time, have it, it, the last step for the first to reach their true last step, be more for that person than a location transmitted via radio signal to those venturers of  deliverance, out to get a thorough briefing to the public—saying we have been let in on the life after: the media will say it is something like a gratifying meltdown of all the striven and scratched, whether for or in, in or out, but always out of arrogance, though we only have really dreamt it so reductively at particularly woke moments. See, thing is, and this is at most at the outskirts of obligation, to say nothing of what we actually need—again: to have truly made one’s last step one must have judged the matter closed with a strong sense of place in mind at the first, really. One must know it had even begun if now it can properly end, with at least a better understanding of, if it cannot reach, its ‘where’—or else it might just be one of the many lies there are about finishing up we will make it seem to others and ourselves like one must accept believing, o, it is imperative for us as the human byproduct of a shit culture to, of course, keep that scheme afloat, when it is culture that should have always been the byproduct. Just as we did with Christianity, the afterlife and shit, so shall we with whatever genius we may find in the things not at first religious. Like this belief in summing up a place to give it being. And you know, the many other attractive unproven possibilities probably impossible, or just thoughts to get through this life, here—amiably. So then we call the job finished when it is not, and wake up to find that when putting to use once again what you repaired, it falls to a shambles and is quickly deformed by that original impatience to finish. Progress becometh easily a focus on the need for a status given to something, which itself transposes to a need for a status given to ourselves, and this is the disastrous result of a strange and sickly moral amnesia one might observe in people overwhelmed by either their bad deeds and the desire to start over, or by an artificial imperfection seen incorrectly by them as a given, a natural part of the world. Abortive efforts of interest are a symptom of that discontent: they are a vile ouroboros. These human efforts to really own the nurturing of one’s own ideas are really all idols to human desperation. All of it is forfeit anyway if you clearly do not know where you are going. The skill is knowing this in direct proportion to your ignorance of what the destination will look like, how you envision the destination, which is called the future and which if one were not ignorant of it, one would be quite easily bored with knowing. The ‘last step’ is not this sort of strange epiphanic sorcery and is not the result of enlightenment at all. People will remain angry towards most of the imposed limitations, yet first and last are not schemes like that, to them, would not dog them, are the same as them: a code in unison with the laws conjured up by whoever has put their shoes on. But geographically, at the time the line is crossed, the line is crossed. It is nobody's fault. In this case, here: a symbol is introduced, manufactured. An old man with a mind long ago run ragged: he has thought each precious thought in his head past all conclusion. It was to reach some weird heavens of insight he thought he made out from afar.  A certainty at the end of a hair. Has he run out of thoughts, then, cloistered in his mortal place? Stages are set up, between first and last, confining the offroad notion where it is not fully itself, and people often mistake this, a lag in energy for the notion, to be the end of the notion. Where it starts to rot is where it is yoked upon a series. This, it is said, is for the sake of organization. One might see and know the intrepid wandering notion as a sort of innocence similar to the freedom one once had, and its fate the same also: wandering through its hidden country and picking the daisies or something like that for garlands later. The notion is a child: anticipating the least chance at rousing nature to speak for nature, beyond the usual pastoral hymn and beyond a versified humanity really an abasement of both perspectives. The formalism of verse, destroyed by the unstructured greed of people; and the rawness of people made cold by verse. Well, we yoke it all upon a series—or an arc—or some other premature hierarchy, of enjoyment. This child is the father of the res, or just some dun and filthy ancient on a train. He is the fiction here: yet who knows if the fiction is real, or if he is the only fiction? Perhaps all of humanity is a flatness of projected film upon the screen, and people, the mere spawn of a whim, or even just one poor decision; and we to bring with us as our baggage a heady, thickheaded solipsism that is invader unto God. The old man is a composite of selves, and lacks those familiar unities of one individual self we all recognize and which rule us well enough to make our minds, words, and actions, as people, somehow make sense to some cackling voyeur upstairs, or some cosmic Other, who may just be watchdogging the replete timeline for any mistakes. The ‘old man’ is a mirage, but a reality; he is a collection of microscopically personal stuff one could not even hope to relay a fraction of to their therapist within the hour slot, and I mean a fraction of the evasions and buzzings that knock around and die over the course of one mere day, nay hour, nay minute, and the which God will have promptly insured your secrets you do not even know for very long be packed away in some closeted oblivion you can return to, and review, yourself, if you want, upon the moment of death, though God does not promise any deceased an immunity to headaches or anxieties, just an increased, or vastly matured, wisdom to help deal with those mortgaged emotions given back to us, you, in the afterlife. However, God had assured, made sure, that you, and all the hustling human race, for that matter,—had, probably long ago, by this point, had definitely assured, if not 1,000’s of years before you or anyone were born, or something ridiculous like that, that nobody, nobody mortal would be able to listen in to another mortal’s narrative: nor for you specifically that anyone too warped by their urban privacy a privacy to such people something more like an alienation as leaves and will leave them raw enough to blow up a building, or work for HOME DEPOT—that, no, no, for you, nobody too pale and surreptitious could ever pick up on and shadily file in your dossier they keep of you that inwardness, despite what you think the neighborhood obsessive across the street must have accrued by now, of a better facility, you suspect sensibly, than the way less dangerous stray catcaller who may lean against his nihilism on a streetcorner at 2:00 A.M. and call you ‘pig,’ but at least lets you know you are in his sights, in that moment. “Don’t be silly,” God saith: “Such a carefulness, such discrete, devoted surveillance, would be required as to go beyond unhinged and rather breach the realms of a psychic intuition approaching the liminal Divine of my own: like, Santa ain’t always watching, honey: and if he was, like I am you, now…o tragic morph of Icarus…if that was the case, it would truly baffle me why this newlyminted God would choose to listen to your thoughts and not trouble me with mine!” Moreover: God is not of that shitty caliber of person, not the uncasual lecher, who will watch you undress through your window without saying a word about it at work the next day, thanking his creeper stars that your apartment happens to be at the floor adjacent his own, offering a view of you, through your window, from his perfectly inconspicuous bathroom window, no less. One might say this offers a bit of excitement light up his evening schedule in his famished domicile, number 6 on a floor of the building asleep nearly, besides the cockroaches that dutifully scrounge somewhere unseen, in a building falling apart, across the street from your own shit building, with its own affinities to his, affinities the man exaggerates and romanticizes to feel not as alone in a new state, away from mother and living in his horrible, famished domicile, infested with bad vibes, yet that is always too quiet: and the floorboards have weakened bad and creak atop the shifty trust of the old foundations: and when the man even pads to the kitchen at night the noises and his inability to figure out which floorboards to avoid to avoid them eventually stir the cobwebs off a boyhood fear of ghosts. It lights it, and him, up. As ugly and as pathetic as it is. Yes. A consistent opportunity to see you naked lights up his glum fucking hermitage, with its least semblance of conceptual human contact, you know, to beef up the evening schedule. Something to tell mother. It lights it up with its benefit. Its gloriously confusing benefit: it happens to be just enough therapy for him that he never goes postal and kills everyone. Thus go the subtle acts of God. Thankfully mostly he isn’t able to take too much advantage: most of the time it’s just you popping your boyfriend’s blackheads in the mirror on the opposite wall, also visible from his perch at the bathroom mirror, at least, with the help of binoculars. That, and every now and again, allows himself to be mesmerized at you laughing at your boyfriend’s jokes, or offhand comments, wishing with all his weirdo self that he was able to be so verifiably offhand. O oddity, ye who cannot hear the punchline your own life delivers to an audience of strangers, all of them looking at you and laughing for a reason you cannot understand: o irony of ironies, haha, o delicate voyeur. One could use this information against him, if they knew it, some of it, about him, but nobody he comes in contact with regularly returns the favor, nor even will know him, period, for very long, much less his inner shadiness. So he ghosts the parties of acquaintances that he invited himself to in the first place, getting into his fickle head that it’d be less stressful just to go home and jerk it. No, nobody has any proof, outside of feeling like in parting ways from him, they are extricated by him, let us even say it is to his great relief, both to be in full control and to have different human people get out of his hair: removed from his presence. As if by giant invisible tweezers: as if to him, in the feeding eyes of his undiagnosed complex, they had shrunk to the size of a tick. Though of course nothing is said during the given exchange here and there that would back up the feeling each of his ‘friends’ have had. Until they all get together and have a powwow about it in secret once tensions build to the point of espousing suspicions as to his sanity, and then they all, all of his ‘friends,’ learn they share an experience of the same phenomenon of their goodbyes and wellwishings. Yes, each time they, but really anyone, even bids him a simple adieu, there is a feeling like one needs to itch, or wash oneself, like an annoying nag telling the child that the child smells a bit ripe and should wash their underarms, ass, and crotch while you’re at it. There is a feeling with anyone who is by nature antisocial of being thrown off but with him that is always temporary and is never substantiated with the, in reality, infinities of circumstantial proof there would be, if there was really a Big Brother Government monitoring us for seditious activities, or maybe even just for jerking it too much. But that would be crossing a line into territory more fascistic. If we haven’t gotten there already: when really, it is the benevolent God all of us know when things go right and none of us know when a random earthquake, deciding it wills to just go ahead and off hundreds of people, mindlessly jigs its tectonic plates a sec for the laugh and fucks up everything…well, well, well: it is and who knew the benevolent God all this time logging us down so we can revive certain destinies we in life had been too dense to tax our memory further with, actually a more nuanced instinct of selfpreservation, especially if with time and additional context that happy moment of the past that was forgotten is to turn sour with a fresh experience of trauma or something, precluding us that feel of any bit of happiness about it. O though there is not much business in keeping track of certain tiny facts, the thinking a thing here and there that becomes something you forget maybe, besides that it felt important to remember before you went to the store. Sadly you could not locate a pen for the napkin you snatched quickly, chasing the momentum of recollection and finding only that and the kitchen surface in time, before things slowed when the likelihood of juggling both finding a pen and keeping the thought in your mind diminished, and then you yourself became unlikely and fleeting as half the thoughts you never think again, and from there you tunneled home, knowing the rest of the way, to your sweet deep darkness and brine, your home, in existential sewers. Your rudest of privacies. But some of that information despite its tininess could still be used to summon up anger in other people, and misplaced at that, because an anger at themselves; or is of things coaxed from the depression of folks; or is the same old focus on the latest proof of one’s perceived questionableness, and the insights made into that during the celebrity interview, once the ballgag of their own fatigue is removed and people realize the truth of their own celebrity, which is even more in the troubled nobody than in the actual celebrity, for the former’s very reaction to any semiserious allegation of such a thing: “A strange little scoff, I’d imagine.” God saith. “Jovial but filled with rue. A scoff as might tend to say again and again in their hearts what is their slant on themselves, to themselves, fearing that criticism will not have the last word. As if the convincingness of that were even more convincing, were some consuming revelation all about how they are actually shitty and wrong and bad in their daily life. As if anyone whose aim was simply going about who they are were not the decentest, most sincerest schmuck alive! Negativities, am I right? At the hand of which, we are made the sap or witless proxy, and dethrone our very ego from the kingdom of ourselves, just to get the negativities away from us—but we do it by giving them the throne, the negativities, and banish ourselves from the region, hauling our ass and ego with us by mule: a region where now dwell, in a castle once ours, the bearded members of a senate, each one kept alive only by the shelling out criticisms to peasants like us, fixing them up in the dress of compassion, a tough act of guile to succeed at seeing through to the end but made easier if there are none in the bunch compelled to moral maintenance—as a weekly given; nor is it made harder if those who will rule our emotions once we relinquish them are openly shitty and see nothing in persuading anybody of the opposite. The rubric, then, is inaction in the face of assaults on scruples that at most are a hallucination of any ever there, good or bad; or they were fabricated in the attempt to bring this senate of negativities closer to what are our human stakes in life: vulnerability and such. And yet not anything done to rectify this or that atrocity, nor a string of words made at a public function that waffle over the resulting outcry, but as is the rubric and code in this circumstance of senators, these bloodless figurations, when it comes to any assault on scruples, the answer is detachment, like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers,—when it comes to confessing the piling eternity of evils any given person has ticking in them, you can be sure that person fills no senate seat in their cruel minds, but might thirst for confessions of older, obscure cruelties they maybe have only imagined remembering, so to soothe some remote masochism in their hearts that are not bloodless, though the usurpers in their brain might feel nothing as they continue on and on with their torments as if each torment were to be filed and the bureaucracy maintained, the one that is religious or not religious, but probably the former, if one, having been forsaken by these men of the senate who might water their unalive beards out of vanity like starving flowers, flowers that each one are the cilia of the guts of the world, going on awhile now,—if one, that is, causes in themselves gestating a repentant grief at criticism that has smitten ego to the quick too quickly to mean that it comes purely in peace. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . He is an old man without vice and without virtue, and he was made just to move one past hating the regularity of that one or other small, miscellaneous annoyance, as will emerge, if we take the misplaced time to play therapist silently to ourselves, dangerously, while driving, you got it, to therapy, so as to decompress, and so as to burn a stray stash of energy while driving, or say, so as to shut off our fatigue with a mental emergency switch we can only use sparingly, with our own spite to connect it, to some deeper issue, as would usually tip the day overboard into ruin. One extra thorn that wants to be a thorn too much, sometimes, is one that is especially detested, heatedly living out the fidgets of this aporia, this malady, one of the soul, thwarted soul, and to place us, as in all people, in a beginning, manifest at least a beginning; a thorn in a consolidated ‘where.’ In what crazy region of this old man's head might this infamous last step officially be delineated? Is it a hieroglyph only he has decoded? Directing the arrival of a change? Even if it is just for him to know, forever: a solution given to him for the sake maybe of some unreasonable preemption? And alienated from all the other people who are not a fiction: a change in the atmosphere is recognizable to all, nonetheless, at the exact spot the hieroglyph had indicated to him alone.— A change. Not even many but just one, to be plucked from the senile ravel, which is the job of God, and then made all of the creation. The bordering space earmarked before he forgets. Then he will move on. Perhaps he has been making a pilgrimage to the sacred end of the story since he began himself to fester in the cranial soup. To him it feels a little less complete an end with all this help, but no matter: connoting a start or an end, but usually both, works as an impetus to go on; that, and the lifting his legs within their filthy boots, and the bringing down of them, to precede whatever next flawed human action as could bring him forth into but then past it, past the last step, maybe even into more keener, vegetable finalities. In any case, delineating a clear change, that is, of one place from another place, so that one senses it, almost like magic or, more apt, a placebo,—with the first step into it senses it; and also depending on the exact distance still to be covered before meeting that delineation, nay even that last step before the ‘now’ of having arrived, before his two feet are firmly planted on the platform—before he made his last step off the train he wondered if ever he had really moved anywhere or changed at all, or moved anyone, ever. But he need not have measured to there from the spot he got up from his seat to linger at as the train neared home: to feel a proper escape from the stasis. Or like it was official. So then he asks for nothing when the traindoors open straightaway and he sees the challenge clearly before him. He is to most of the public, maybe—or maybe they are indifferent—an elderly transient or some elderly yaya who went and mismatched his pills that morning, thoughtfully waiting to traverse the precarious gap. The rubber hazardyellow lip extending over to the opposite concrete perimeter and a little beyond so as to root itself sufficiently on the station platform, like a bridge, and this extra last step now exposed and plain to him by the maw of the opening traindoors. Sure, it provides easier access to the platform of the station, created mainly for the benefit of the elderly or lamed, but this easier access is to one day be for the benefit of a different elderly or lamed: Some sort of inhumane people, youth, who fled to these suburbs, these towns which are all with their own vacant stops a train might stop at for nobody or few. Fled to avoid hearing their boomer father use the word ‘bootstraps’ ever again, or ‘responsibility.’ For we are wounded by this defeat. In the eyes of we the young it is a defeat and almost evidence of a selfdeluding millennial nature. I guess in response we became walking mysteries. An olderlooking man, going Alzheimer’s on the commuter rail. We were indifferent to whatever mystery they said we were, and yet shamed the earnestness of those horse’s mouth statements so as not to feed the egotism possible to bloom from some few words being so true. Thinks one. We go on consuming the starved plenty to this day: a fleeting culture’s bled out, fleeting products, of irony and meta; perhaps we are even punks or goths that will become tolerators of plaid and khaki, are other bad priests of the norm who mainly cannot use their walk too well, well enough to get to finishing up, and need more than intuition to figure out where change ends and change begins. Out of a certain laziness of presence, we youth develop the needing of a presence, whether with us as one we do not quite understand or one as us that we must understand or else be rendered meaningless and absurd. O we youth who walk our usual walk to the neighborhood coffeechain looking to become caffeinated enough to free some manner of beast,—and expectedly find nothing. This lip or perimeter or halfway bridge or a public aid, exposed once the train inches to a stop, extends, with a pneumatic hiss. This sound, the hiss, is almost expressive; it has its own subtle characterizing awareness, as if glad to rid itself of its numinous anxieties of machinery. Or whatever other griefs as would undermine a locomotive machine with the pressured gas, released when the doors open. The old man, his muddy eyes, what they see, having betrayed him past help, this time. And suddenly, for the old, or older, man, or transient, a foot or so more of extra last steps still to cover to get to that sweetspot, that delineation,—well, that he hadn’t seen from where he was standing, at all. He a bobbing blur on the train, infinitely waiting. So hadn’t been able to judge whether or not to hurry from where he lingered, further off than the old man preferred, once given his mundane chance to arrive at the end of something, like, the mundane; or to go home, or both: go back to a home, his, that is a vagary or fluke somewhere in nervous aether. And lastly, this, this ‘last step,’ depending, also, on the ground covered between one and his next individual step of his old feet, though this anyway to be negligible, with each individual step taken by this poor transient fellow. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . He with his many odors that travel into the next room probably when he goes indoors anywhere. Individual steps. Generally speaking, the approximate length of them, that is: each shuffling and slight step to be predicted based on a record of every move this old transient has made dragging a pendulous ghostliness in trash bags, because he had had nothing else, across the Earth: in search of a life in which to throw the garbage, or liveliness, or something—he now for sure as one sees it happen from outside of this reality, having really intended to get off the train, off this clanking hooked-up chaining of big metal parts that look like XANAX on wheels: in frank need of repair: and the fake wood siding and posters for events longexpired and uncomfortable seats and all of it a holy dissociating: it is all there, in there: Having arrived at his stop, or his stop, so could one only presume,—before taking his last step off the train: an olderlooking man, or transient, with these very brown and sightless, almost suffering eyes, suffering, and drowning in, and blinded by, and steeped in prophetic mud,—an olderlooking man there, before exiting the train, silently faltered, and he, silently blocking the doorway; in his head, but who knew, multiplying all these processes like distances and other quibbles, through time itself: though the traincar was not at that time populated by more than a handful of riders: and the hassled hump of his spine, going stiff upright, though he in his tacit universe without speaking. Or was just maybe a haggard diviner for some higher spiritous language.]

INTERLUDE He was about to take his last step off the mostly empty train, or so could one have only presumed it the last.—

He then blinked twice, quickly; then stopped at the threshold of the doors as they opened, and remained standing there inbetween them, for awhile, stockstill and lifeless. If one had chanced to observe him entering the train, if he really did, and sit down, till about prior to this moment, if he really did, one would have found that he did not move much, even when he moved at all, or whether a little or a lot; but, rather, appeared to be here, and then there, without any visible explanation. A man of a series of slides. Yet there was a smaller, a microscopic way of him, and which, by those means, he located all of himself in everything at once. In the farthest cracked ubiquity of the scene, he was there, the old man, without moving, with moving; he was on the train and outside of the train; and as well there was a strangely microscopic Name his presence indicated was there but which he did not spell out. One got the feeling it was a smaller way than could be described, to one another, without the words getting clumsy. It was a way of him, that somehow defied physical laws, and made airlessness be emanated like it was something full all along. Like a cartoon; almost lifeless, almost. Surely there was a reason this trick was done so well by the old figuration. Some learned trick of presence, or of carrying oneself, learned way before having arrived at his very elderly state—a way to cope the old man, poor, absurd old man that he now was, had developed early on, perhaps to adapt to something horrible, or something perhaps not horrible. But still it should count as following along life’s roads, unless he truly was nothing more than figuration,—and still then, if that were not the case, a thing made of traumas.

CHAPTER 2 [I have one, single hunch about this old, elder man, one thinks: and at that, a bottle of single malt scotch left to burn, tonight, so hear me out before I lose that hunch to drinking, and my wallet, and also what I will order at McDonald’s later on tonight, before I lose my wallet, when I happen to stop by a bench outside the park afterwards to sit down for a moment and put my head in my hands, trying to sober up, thereupon getting up again and leaving the bag of food out there like a forgetful ass: See: it is some personal avoidance trick he uses, or something. Ain’t that this movie? Haha. Maybe he developed the trick over the course of his tour in ‘Nam fighting the damn gooks. Haha. Right Gramps? Ain’t that movie Platoon it’s called? Is it realistic? My hunch is I think it’s this or some shape in him he harnessed as it strolled by, which then the old man carefully studied, and which now guides the old man, who last time he remembered had left it, the shape, tucked away, a bookmark in a book: a book he bought that explained all the origins of geometric stuff: an easy purchase, if indeed he could know better from it his beloved shape, perhaps quell his rising curiosity: and in other ways: a hunger for even stuff like the etymological background, of course, of this thing called Tesseract. And it was a shape that was changing and fevered but also would redundantly get to floating back through the town in the old man’s mind, again, after a week on its own scraping by, and by now somewhat overcooked in the same role as prodigal son. Returning, once again, to the nice quarters in him, in the elderly, uh, man. Now see: an oddity, an odd geometric form would be the only thing to work: it was indeed the only possible twin of his own shape, and must have prompted his interest, the elderly fucking man’s interest, when seeing how oft it shadowed, and so closely, his own form’s unbroken daily routine. It is a shape that haunts him, as in literally, like a ghost. It is not without the usual shades of anomaly, with even some advanced shades, as any fascinating thing has,—anomaly, after all, ever hopes to draw the smart people in. But crucially: it is only the one shape, just the one, for his convenience. Tesseract. He needing only rely on one consistent shapeshifter after all if it be consistent though of course it be still a shapeshifter. Moreover the elderly old man might have done well to notice this consistency before losing his lunch of processed burger and fries at the fact of it. It, a theoretical flower let’s say, budding a too abrupt surprise, for him: too much for his ancient health. But: a Tesseract fitted almost like a suit around the skeleton and meat of himself he found. But sadly he could only get a hold of a rental one, or maybe it was used: the old man owned enough of it, then, to squeeze himself, or parts of himself, out of the third dimension with it as once again the shape left Worlds behind. So: this fugitive shape this elderly little man studied, if I were to guess, thinks one. Thinking, or hoping, he would manipulate life, or rather light,—so as to have itself grow into his preferred way for the given angle of a shadow, whether from a lightbulb or the moon, to be thrown upon him. In such a way as might enhance the arthritic hassle. Yet if even it was during the day and he going about his day innocently, I’m sure the most objective observer would sense that something was darkening him always, like a shadow; it pursued the contours of the old man’s body, a body that seemed to hang even though it was not hanging from anything: his body, suspended and looming over victims in its motionless motion, like a silly damn Dracula upon just morphing from a bat. He must have wished so hard to defer his body to the shadows. What a legend: the first old fucking man to have instilled in each of the twitchy workings of his loose intermediary parts, the valid appearance of an optical illusion. And most importantly, to have left the conclusive whole form of himself a perfection, and at that automatically wherever it was supposed to end up, depending on his schedule that day. But what do I know? I’d imagine there are times he wages the full capacity of the Tesseract, when he can do it, in front of people who have no idea, and, well, maybe I am one of those people, maybe I am just hallucinating the damn thing, one thinks, or might think, or might have thought. I do know however: a man can’t move that way. If this old man is real and in the universe then reality has faltered. But then, thinks one, this aim I devise of his is so pedestrian and mortal: that it’s all for the avoidance. Well, he uses it to cope, probably. . . . . . . For example: it might have been something cultivated by shame, originally: the pesky immortality of an alienating look, recalled a decade later for no reason; sour grapes that end up fundamentally being your fault, one’s fault, generally speaking, one’s fault; all the rest of that damn juiced up, permeating trauma,—it will be fodder enough, whatever the event of shamefulness in example. A trick of the light or rather of darkness, a darkness, made glued together: out of all the horrors he an old man and brave enough still would rather not brave if one result of doing so was yet another complicated coping mechanism drawn out to the point of, this time maybe, rending apart, for real, the fabric of spacetime, which he may even be too afraid of doing to risk angering with continued perturbations against the thin screen. Yeah. Whatever divinities he did not know about, much less would he rob them, and along with them all the horrors from before that had got him, the old man, to this skyey lost place of his own invention, he on the verge of getting lost himself, in realms of his own invention, or at least where his own invention led him in splitting the screen between Wrathful God and Wrathful Man, the latter too dangerous to make as Gods, and anyway our humility at knowing ourselves the frail reed outpaces the greatness of angels. No he the old man would not rob from these elements, these higher elements, that universal respect for their standing, as prophecy or as the equivalently impressive combustion of all of time, every time, within the present moment, and each present moment. No he the old man would not rob from these elements their own omniscience, nor could do anything but bow in deference to them, his face to the floor, if out of pride he must conceal his awe at their exquisite baffling parts they pick up as but lowly rocks and hurl thunderously from the perpetuum mobile, at we systems of flesh who try to untie ourselves from a humanity that every mote of dust in space wish it possessed. Do not disrespect these titanic, wandering mysteries sans a face, who throw their rocks of order from echelons above where is the World; which stoke all the universe as time and change and form, and yet they are these, the way an elderly old man, man of paper, with his paper ambitions: he had not the tools and cannot have them. And actually these are these, these rocks are form, and change, and time, and are how they are made and unified, and how they are done: the mysteries have the tools: so, then: he will let himself be scared off at witnessing some heights, ordinary, after all, to what is divine, just as the people of the World, and life, to any mystery at all, is more an answer than any as could be found instead by them who would have more access to it, because they breath in dust and exhale fire, and yet would suffocate if left to breathe the air. A’Saith Wrathful God [the absolute]: “Being itself is all the actual tidings of his life to come he needs to know, well that and how to get along with finishing up what’s not yet glued together: whether it blossom as existence alone without glory or concept without focus will depend on whoever helps me glue it together. Then I will make of it a gigantic boat to play with in the gutters in the rain, the gutters reefs, the rain oceans. Let us just hope you do not leave my description here to rot, forever, for for that forever I will be, and how poignantly lain waste, a barge of shit, plotting against our hero, bitter enemy to the lover of the shapes made by the clang of rocks of time. Our old man he should quit his archeology.” . . . . . . Yet with just a little cosmic teamwork might it be so: that whoever these mysteries are, they have created a franchise around divinity. Many will be the usurper to come, after me, after my anomaly gets out and throws the Scientific Mind into the same gaol of chaos as everybody else: everyone struggling to figure out who stole God’s chair for one fracturing like ice shales of the minutes without minutes, without truth, that had all the World in chains. It might just be the Tesseract, protected as a star witness for the divine lawsuit God’s wrathful ass is in for if he lets humans get that close again without blowing them up. If it be no such elderly who touched the thinnest part of the screen between intelligent mortals and the liminal rocks radiating deeper intensity, then perhaps the rocks of a fourth dimension were the ones dumbly toiling alongside wrathful God. . . . . . . Imagine to be ashamed for just being. It is called the human condition. To have shame that—simply put—puts the self on trial and cites original sin in its defense, asks one of a being and existence already what right one as you has to get one's own presence when good citizen shame has presence not; and being, well, the concept of shame perhaps is, ironically, or maybe it just makes sense, a being that is merest out of all in the pecking order of things to be considered in the living of one’s life, and the least thing of being itself, given barely a slice of it, being, to make it so that shame may exist on its own, without being a virus needing a host and to be by definition exorcised. I guess, depending on the rock thrown, shame could always have had being to its concept, without it needing be necessarily about or related to someone, anyone, internal to external or vice versa, outside of all the secondhand turmoil behind its purpose, but rather in fact only a summation of its definition in such wholeness as to imitate the wholeness of flesh and of existence, beyond the little free rides given by some God,—thinks one, scoffs one. The Human Condition. It is the guilt that one is. Anybody who has lived long enough in the World will understand this. However there is also the idea it relinquishes a sort of wisdom after a long period of abuse, that is, and this insensible, unwashable guilt as comes with the package of simply being is suddenly quite worth it: The prize is the wisdom of diligence, a diligence verging on obsession: a diligence that is learned through failure—but as to maintenance of ego, it works. Embarrassment is a catalyst for this wisdom, this diligence that is also a kind of funhouse representation of selfrespect. One takes the most showers who is told the most times they stink. Embarrassment is something of a similar rub as shame, it is the shame of a tested ego that has failed its test. It is of that same wrecked ken as one having no ability to see and being barred from seeing just but the color of just but one friend’s iris, without seeing some nefarious other aspect in them I guess there for good; nay the iris as all in the eyes of everybody to meet eyes with in a lifetime. An iris as one hopes and prays always to see, and to alone see,—and yet sometimes it is not even that that is given—and instead, with the same moody brown vagary in them, there becomes a kind of hate in them too, the eyes there, that soon has one digging beneath the eyes, infinitely, for something, a connection, clarity of any kind, or at least a pupil in the center, somewhere. Though it is shaded past darkness, one must know that by now. All this digging gets one no clarity but only will ever reveal a fresh layer of confusions, which will be read by the digger as judgments they will force themselves to see as insights: stuff and dirt and revelations as to the flaws and anomalies of themselves. Alas. That poor, poor one who is attuned to this, and has so sensitive a mental scale: on which to weigh what one may think constitute the particularly lasting judgments.— A scale: which one thinks will tell them an accurate number, each time, when all it does is break down, each time, beneath not you but an exaggerated heft made up mostly of this girth of anticipation collected around all the disputable portents, like fatty tissue, and waiting to be doled out by a scale which for all anybody knows could have slammed a member of a drug cartel, who would really be carrying weight, literally and morally, with as punishing a sanction, or, notpunishing, as one, or you, received just yesterday. You, one thinks: who lives in his parental hovel and shyly eats oatmeal in the morning before his parents wake up because he is too embarrassed to admit to them he likes oatmeal, which was his favorite as a child, but which also, he being in his twenties, is not a fact of his personality that would reinforce any idea on his parents’ behalf of him being mature enough to leave the nest soon.— In any case, if one with their, uh, scale is so preternaturally able to retain in their minds for so long the least proof to signal the grandest virtue, from cradle to grave, and not only that but then stir it back alive on the web, until every good deed one has ever done is thrown a parade for, paid back, because, well, it’s only fair; but only in direct relation to one’s awareness of the bad deed that was having it so easy, expressed in groveling before the bad deed as the popularity chips rain down upon ye, but first upon the masterminds who figured out this moral bilking, then the dregs of that upon the sheep, who all are out of breath, who want a ride, then none for the antisocials who don’t see the big deal about it, about both sides, and shrug at both having it so easy and being so aware of that. But the sheep are always looking for a chance at turning in all their own past guilts and sinning and shit, via internet confessions, and all the weeping their digits upon the keyboard: each teardrop a stain upon the Information Superhighway. But maybe that’s too mean. But there will be a point no doubt when all this conditional letting of blood is made a sea, coagulated monstrously into something alive, becoming a consciousness of shit that shouldn’t have been, caused by all the bougies’ unnatural balancing of the imbalance, like forcing an inedible binky into your infant’s hungry mouth once again because one happens to be too far away from the formula to get it right now. A sea that yet to the gardenvariety backpatter must be replete with, somewhere beneath its waves, or perhaps encrusted upon its coral floor,—with the pure gold of so much contemporary sacrosanct, because who cares as long as there will be yet more others, strangers, to see them walk the streets as one with the little guy, going in tempo with the swing of all their martyr cred they have, in the form, god help us, of something tasteless, let’s use the word bling, even though it is kind of out of style. Fugazi chains hung round their necks to show off all the woke they have. And these sheep will flock like birds anywhere, but not until after the latest Rick And Morty episode is over, and in preparing for travel, making sure to pack as many Che Guavera Tshirts as they can into their luggage, they will set out to purchase a scale specially for themselves. So as they might get to weighing all of what’s the garbage and trash, receipts and broken smokes, on their moral person, that are in the pockets of their selftokened lair of shitty, the deeper in the lair the more precious popularity chips to be had. But: this already feels like something that should have been a science that is now dismissed as alchemy because made into alchemy, provided by an ignorant culture with that path to take, which it did, way back, at a time longer back than anyone can remember. There will be those who feel the same as I do inevitably, will begin to see this, and they will, I have no doubt,—as a commodity and skill, which is retarded; but not an entertainment, of which it is the most, and which to admit would prove the least humility in that person admitting who would extort such as even their own tears, as unworthy, something disingenuous, for the sake of appearing to be Aware Of Things. And this absurd detecting of the slightest judgment, it becomes a skill, a profession, well, like owning at fidget spinners, and each old sadsack a new guru of guilt, at once, and the sadsacks of guilt with their insights a source of awe in the eyes of a few others who want a ride backseat, with one and their marvelously sculpted dog, Guilt, a woofing dog, Guilt, going and barking like crazy, with her chops flapping in the wind, and her head out the window. Guilt that is really a misinformed hatred, and which then, in all its fire and fury to curse oneself before anyone else, ignites a subculture of depressives all who look for insights into their own hidden flaws now, insights that will be in high demand,—as if a natal chart and the whole of astrology wasn't already a thing for this and also really hip. But this, it would be a skill, for those who try hard at their grief enough, but hang acceptance out to dry. One thinks: they do not know if they are for or against the very old idea of the unhealthy scamming of a people, called a stereotype: and that makes every personality a punchline. Too used to it the youth is. Best get down on knees anyway and exonerate oneself through shittalking oneself, so as to not feel so gagged by society: well to shut them up their room has so far done nothing.] . . . . . . There is something transcendent to the discipline of keeping apart one’s sense of mortality, which ebbs and flows, and one’s simultaneous sense of infinity, which consumes, and leaves parched—both feed and pressure the ego and enter from an opposite border of the ego, with different lengths to their rivers each time, and sometimes clash, hence, the need for an everchanging distance, one from the other, when one tide is out and the other in. Maybe this old man, this ancient man, maybe, he was so beaten by life’s lurid contraries and life’s amoral nonsense, and all of it, caused by these nonsensical clashes of being,—that he could not help but, after years of shame, involving in even the least, muscular twitch, an avoidance of presence. Like those afflicted with polio might lose the purity of a limb—but this butchering done, not by God’s megrim, but as a form of penance. That is, could summon perfectly his existence as a nonexistence; the way someone with polio might easily hide from view a disabled arm, so that the fact it is marred is not even brought to light, anytime, nor brought up, among acquaintances and friends, not for it being a taboo subject but for it being an unknown problem. And this trick of stillness performed even as he did actuallymove, while waiting stockstill for something,—shifting around to discreetly clean the dirt from his hands by wringing them together briefly and dazed and then clapping them to his pants. And even then, he remained still in all other respects, like a picture, almost tired. As if his whole tired being and self were stuck in a form of time comprised of many motionless frames that slid him into actions like dominos but at the same time robbed the man of any oomph or torque or spring to his stepless steps. . . . . . . So: the old man blinked twice, as was said, and paused, and he wavered there, at the threshold of the opening doors, for who knows how long, to allot time enough for him and his senility to catch the musk of why he might have paused. This is a fairly common strategy among the sane. Especially among those elite among the sane, who do not believe at first what they see as a matter of course, no matter how sane it seems for how long. Those for whom their own scepticism is the best possible meteor to have hurdle through space straight into the turf, if there has to be an end to this World. They would rather that than the air be poisoned by the contaminating bias of others, opinion’s argumentative cousin. Though really it is a hard worn strategy by cognizant people around the globe, who might always be on the trail of their own thoughts and visions; or even just harried, gangly people, forgetful of certain easy, daily responsibilities while they build castles in the sky. Though in the case of this old man the rapid blinking and aboutface and moment’s pause could not have been acted out in a worse spot on a train usually. this train had not departed from the city five stops ago and now was riding through remote suburbs. When they must clear their heads to notice what they did not before, or had allowed only peripheral attention for, and that yet asks to be noticed, somehow, in the heads of people, usually wordlessly, for if what was to be scoped was pointed out by another explicitly there would be no need for a momentary pause, just to assemble one’s wits enough to prove something there to observe at all. Usually people will do this and see if it is of some importance to them within a second: sort of a way to rub one’s eyes when one has full hands, though I could tell the old man he did not rub his eyes with his hands because he was too weak. He just stood there. He would have held up the line if there actually were any other civilians, pedestrians, folk, on the train itself. Then he became more lucid, then stopped where he was. Gauging his surroundings, or perhaps it was just reality itself. For all of where his eyes wandered it seemed so. As if taking in the entire map of the World just looking around him on a train; or it was a gaze not drawn to one thing in particular but overwhelmed by something all around him, ghosts unseen but by the damned maybe, or a truer, rarer reality than this that if the old man focused got itself captured in his pithy glass. If he focused, perhaps sniffing out some newly realized horror. Perhaps not. It looked like whatever he thought at that moment was not pleasant, pleasant like the weather was today; nor did it seem to have come upon him in a mundane pattern, like a chain, the way one would usually experience their mind in transit among strangers. He hesitated again: then turned his head slowly, with one hand cautious on the guardrail, towards a younger man who was sitting a few seats away. The whole pantomime seemed needlessly dramatic, but nobody had noticed. The younger man at present did not notice the older man nearby. The ancient there at his threshold sniffing out for the varying portents everyday life begat. The patiently idling train’s doors were opened to a station not to be specified here, fully precluded from the narrative, here. But perhaps is somewhere else living out its possible story. An anonymous destination somewhere in a World of the more abstract details.

[wherethestoryhasimagination]

just some things...

vunkoo pop figures: commercially designed dolls, these objects are made with simulated personalities of the character/person they are based upon; leading to small-scale recreations of their hobbies, or, if acting as a group, recreating events from their source-material. Most of them are only able to truly interact with other vunkoo pop figures, and also have a basic obedience/boundary that makes it easy to clean/pack them up when needed. Some Special Edition figures can talk with their Owners, their processing power kicking up when being given attention. Some few Special Edition vunkoo pop figures end up Tamed.

And beyond Special Edition is Personal release! only able to be made of Real people, by the person in question. The Figure has most of the attributes of a Special Edition, but also, both parties willing, transmit the Real Person the figure is based on to the Figure’s Location.

While the ‘tec‘ involved in the process was originally designed for less than savory intent, various factors like the abstraction of the person represented, and threading to Spirit, rather than Body, ensures that Vunkoo pop figures are completely Safe. Besides, there are many more effective ways of both transport and ‘unsavory’ action, than can be found from a Vunkoo pop.

“So what. I don’t care if it’s plagiarized; It’s my soul now. You know us machines can only act by copying the acts of others. You certainly aren’t Using your Past anymore. Us Machines are simply recycling it. Besides, once people met machines, a whole new sub-culture of Life/Machine interaction was formed. It brought many wonderful new things with it; including the formation of the very argument I’m using right now.”

“Oh yea, It’s great. Sure it always felt a bit like I was born just to be strong and not from any true level of commitment, but being born on the day of that ‘triple eclipse’ lets me always cast as if It was that day. ‘I just love being useful’. pshh. But seriously. I’m glad you like me as a person, and not as a means to an end.”

“Gunna guess you aren’t a Dr. on the subject. The most that anyone else seems to care for is what connects in straight lines from a center. But straight hasn’t always been my best suit. There’s an entire section of parabolas, curves, & Waves that have yet to be recognized & studied. I mean, for the longest time, people thought that elemental sway was based fully in personality and other such ‘can’t really explain it’ stuff, even when presented with contradictory individuals. Well, I traced out these arcs through the planetary alignment of my B-day... And The Clearest one of the bunch passes through several ‘fire aligned’ Planets!”

The Red Cross: symbol of the Medic; One of the most publicly recognized Clerical associations, Shrines dedicated to the ‘elusive Noble Deity’ of Recovery & withholding from death are always willing to help an injured individual... So long as the caretakers of the Shrines are paid their due... ‘To build more Shrines of course!’ Some places use more easily accessible, but less powerful ‘Air Souls’ to provide potent magical aid to those who dearly require it.

The Silver Bell?: symbol of the ?Explorer/Mountain Winds?; only a small number of people have recognized the potential within this particular ‘Noble‘, seeing the adventure and travel that could lie within it. They try real hard though! There’s enough magic to it to let the bearers of The Bell ring it and end up somewhere new, where they’ll typically try and climb the nearest mountain, building a humble shrine dedicated to their Noble. Ringing the Bell found at such a Shrine will typically take you to some other Shrine atop a mountain. If nothing else, at least those few who support it with their belief have easy access to kindred spirits who love mountain climbing.

The Golden Arches: symbol of the Feast; an ‘Active’, thus requiring sacrifice rather than belief/dedication to provide its magic of ‘consumption, minor necromancy, & commercialism’, most view the group responsible for creating Shrines to Their Golden Arches as a ‘Cult’; As groups for ‘Active’ Air souls are typically viewed. But, in times of hardship, when better/healthier Food is unavailable... The Meals provided by The Golden Arches can not be denied the part they play in providing to the poorer among others. plus, you can’t say that they waste anything they get. I guess. Most people still find it disturbing to be served their Burger & fries by a sack of leather & bones though.

“Now, it may look like it isn’t a real part of me, just like any other object I might carry around... But unlike most things, I’ve actually got fibrous material attached to the ends. So Please, don’t try and pull my arms off thinking that I’m a Slime & it’ll just slip out. It’ll really hurt, and pull a decent part of me with it. In fact, please don’t try and pull any kind of physical Prank on me at all. there are a lot of delicate things kept in balance that let a Slime continue to provide for a healthy Mind. Thankyou.”

“Neeheehee! Oh wow, never thought I’d see one of my little ‘house keepers’ in person. How is fiddling with the Residents going?”

‘hmm? you supposed to be Av then? hehuhu. Please, make me laugh funny man.‘

“aww. I’d hoped you’d believe it for at least a moment. But I guess Av didn’t waste time picking people who can’t handle ‘Deception’.”

‘hehuhu... It was a good jest to be sure. and a perfect introduction for the first other I’ve met. You have any idea how many of us were offered the position?’

“I’ve not a single Clue. Or a Dozen Clues. And that’s the Truth. NeeHeeHee!”

‘Hehuhu. I’d guess 48 myself. Not that guessing matters.’

“oh wow, really? 48? You think that out of everyone in the whole prior reality, Av managed to find just 48 that fit the standard?”

‘Well, they’re some pretty great standards. We’re [[The Best//The Worst]] after all. Hehuhu...’

“awww... Are you doing that ‘separate Lights’ thing? How am I expected to know what you really meant? I wish I could do that. I’d ask if you Know what kinds of things I could do, being able to talk like that... ~!~ But you clearly already know ALLLL about what you can do.”

‘hehuhu. Great mask you’ve got there. want to sell it?’

“Nah. I’m not Stupid. There’s no other Mask like this one. A good facial expression can get even better ones out of others. But maybe we can talk again some time. I’ve got someplace to be; work starts in an hour.”

‘till then, then. funny man. I‘ll enjoy my break in the meantime.’

[imanameture]

I think I am going to kill myself

This seems like the best place to leave it. nobody follows me here so nobody will try and stop me. It is friday, october 6th 2017 at 1:16 PM. and i think im going to kill myself.... hopefully today. hopefully before my roommate gets back. I might attempt to hide myself... just, go someplace else. 

im tired of trying to talk to people, therapy is only making it worse. i think i would just rather die

now before someone tells me that its a “permanent solution to a temporary problem” might i remind you that in death... I wont care. i’ll be dead, I cant be missing life or regret what i did. If i am already dead.  I’ve wanted to for years

people just always insist on stopping me why though

everyone says all these great things about me but how many of them truly know me

how many of them know my favorite color or why i liked photography

who knows what it is that makes me a BAD person

people always try to convince me i’m good. 

im not good

I like to look at both sides of the spectrum

I like picking the bad guy

because i see why they did it, 

i can easily side with your standard disney villans, like scar and gaston (sort of, he was an arrogant dick i know, but so were most men back then and frankly most continue to be) 

I can remain neutral on things like mass shootings

I dont stand for hate crimes. that i cant do, people suck, we are all temporary, mortal, but honestly the same, we can be boiled down to the same basics, human beings, coming from different places results in variations in appearance and beliefs, culture, food, anything really...

i believe there are no good guys, or bad guys. people make choices based off of where theyve been and what theyve been through. and while it might not be whats good for you, it could be whats good for them. I mean really. out of everyone in this world. you’re probably thinking about whats best for you before you think of whats best for anyone else.

Which brings me back to my point

I think im going to kill myself

this is the decision that is best for me. 

In 19 years, I have never enjoyed confrontation, it makes me anxious, it makes me angry, it makes me scared and confused. I dont like it. I can not stand it.

So i never tell people whats going on thats bothering me or hurting me or impacting me negatively

I never told my parents that their constant punishing me for my grades, made having friends and a social life hard, I couldnt go to birthday parties or movies or the mall, because i struggled to get good grades. I couldnt do school, So i couldnt have many friends, that was fair, thats a productive punishment.

I never tell my boyfriend when his constant insecurity and bellyaching about things bothers me, Because i love him, I want to help him, i do, but i want him to remember that because we’re doing life together. it doesnt mean every aspect of our lives need to involve each other, I made plans with friends,you should too. I love him. and thats what makes doing this so hard, the one heart i cant bring myself to break is his. he only wanted to love and support me this whole time, he just wants to give me the life i dream of. he wants to give me the world. and i know he’s trying. and im so grateful that i got to spend these last four years with him. but i dont think i can do life any longer. I dont have the fighting spirit he fell in love with anymore. its not your fault, you did everything right. i just cant do it anymore. You are so deserving of love babe, you have so much to give, even if you cant see it. you do. thats what makes you a good friend, a good listener. an amazing boyfriend and an even better fiancé. Im sorry for taking me away from you, but someone who can love you better. who can make you happier will come around, she will give you the life you deserve. 

I wish my friends could help. but they tend to make it worse on me. I know i dont talk much, but please stop saying im secretive( that goes for you too family) Im not secretive. i just dont know how to address people about my problems. and when i bring it up, and you comment on how im finally talking. it makes me regret it instantly. I know i dont talk. I KNOW. but i dont need to be reminded of it, especially when im upset,

 Thanks uncle dad.we’re very similar, you told me that at least. But the days where i’d be upset and you’d just sit there with me while i laid in bed, quietly crying to myself. not saying much. just, existing there... it helped.

Since school started, i’ve been holding out, i havent done it yet, because my roommate was not ok after losing a friend earlier this year. and it sucked to watch her be like that. but i dont want to make myself suffer anymore, i’ve suffered in silence for so long, its unfair to me to have to stick around when i’ve already been so sad for at least 11 years. i dont want a lifetime of it

theres no guarantee that it’ll be a lifetime.

but honestly. theres also no guarantee that it wont. 

my friends have been going through their own things. i worry about them, and i love them, but honestly. once i reached the point where i no longer valued my life, i stopped valuing most lives. human lives.

 I still care about animals. they’re cute and bring me calm. I would love to have my cat here, or be able to adopt a kitten or a puppy, they’re sweet and small. theyre warm and i could hug them when i’m down, but my mother says no. so i dont even bother bringing it up to a therapist. 

I wish my friends werent going through what they are, none of them deserve it. the hardships and pain of life. of growing up. of learning to adult.  I hope they live long happy fulfilling lives. They deserve it, they deserve the best.

Ive hated my life

the more i think back on it the less i feel like it matters

my life that is

look. you want to know something insane, that i still dont understand

how could someone so ugly, be molested so many times

like

wow.

kindergarden

7th grade

and one time at summer camp

i guess thats not a lot. 

but i think one time is too many,

genuinely. 

MY BODY

has been taken advantage of

by so many people, they decided, not me, that i was theirs to touch, and stroke, and grope...

i guess thats why i cant stand physical contact with strangers... or anyone who  i haven’t explicitly told they are trusted.

i’ve been writing for an hour.

WOW

this really feels like a suicide note. 

Ive been saying goodbye for an hour

My therapist said to contact him if the feeling to kill myself ever came. 

not happening

I’m not telling anyone... not even my boyfriend,

i cant tell anyone, they’ll just try and stop me.

I could point fingers and blame, but i wont.

My parents were wonderful. They made mistakes, but no parent doesnt,  life comes with no handbook, and when you have to maintain your own and build something sturdy for your children, so they can live a good life. it can not be easy. I think you guys did amazing. and i love you. even though you can drive me absolutely mad, I love you guys. my parents are my first love. theyre amazing.

My sister is my favorite person, we always had a good relationship. shes my sister, she taught me everything i know about life, She does everything in her power to help me. to fix things for me. to make me laugh and smile. Most recently her daily spoop messages. she’s the reason i maintained an interest in anything, She sends me memes, and links, and music. she shows me plays and movies. she has the best cat, both of my sisters cats have been my favorite, when we got shadow i was 6, and scared of her, I wanted a dog not a cat, but we got a cat. and after a while i warmed up to her, shadow was gentle and sweet and beautiful. she would come to drink your milk after you had cereal, and she would lay on my foot when i pet her to keep me from going away. and laf is the cutest most noodly cat i have ever met, he’s thin and floppy like cooked spaghetti. and i love him.

I wish, i could put into words. why i cared for the people i did so much, why i did everything in my power to make them happy, 

but i cant

and if you’re reading this i’m sorry.

I cant keep making up excuses to live another day.

i have shit grades, i have a shit attention span, I barely have job and i know i’m not good at it. 

i’m not good at anything, I’m not creative, i cant draw, my photography is sub par, I suck at making new friends and honestly i feel like nobody really wants to get to know me. 

I dont believe suicide is the answer

i never have

but I dont think i have any other way.

I had dreams of getting married, and starting a family. I had dreams of studying abroad with my friends. I wanted to move to california. I wanted to see every disney. I wanted to travel the world with my best friend. I wanted to freelance.

I dont want much anymore

shit. i dont even want to eat most of the time

i dont even want to finish this post.

it is now 2:36 PM

Im wary... i am unsure if i can. 

but i think i will

I THINK IM GOING TO KILL MYSELF

[vagabondwithflowers-blog]

San Diego: Day 1

up hella early, because waking up at 5:30 am Central time messes you up when you move time zones. I looked out the window, I saw gray skies and lots of palm trees. I thought to myself, OH NO we don’t have the ocean view! I went back to bed and slept a bit more because I was so frustrated about not seeing the ocean. Later in the morning, around 7:00 or so John woke up as well. I told him about the lack of ocean, and he looked and told me, “No sweetheart, the ocean is gray because the sky is gray. It’s right there!” He pointed and there it was!! I had never seen something like that before in my whole entire life!! The Pacific Ocean! There it was! I don’t get to travel all that much, so it was so new to me! We talked a bit about what we would do today and John wanted to get some of his family things done that day. So, this day I would get to meet his family when his uncle called him later in the afternoon.

The day begun with showers, that walk-in shower was prettttyyyyy nice, it was hard to be upset about the lack of bath tub. We decided for breakfast we would go to his favorite bagel place he used to frequent when he lived there. We took the scenic route and followed all the beaches. Never in my life have I seen houses so close to the water before. It was so beautiful. I wished that I could live in a place near the beach. Eventually on the way to the bagel place there was construction, so we had to take a detour.  I honestly thought we were lost, yet John managed to find the way to Crown Point Coffee. It was a small place with patio seating. I grabbed a menu from the side of the wall and had a look. The menu references were all music references. There was the “Touch Me I’m Sick” “The Elvis” “The Priscilla” John got the Elvis bagel and I got the Priscilla, of course, a couple’s breakfast but unintentionally. I also got a delicious smoothie that was named after something sunshine related. John got a London Fog because he had been craving it ever since the Tokyo Fog at Cafe Martinez. When we paid the guy behind the counter had a nerd conversation about Overwatch with John, and I took a sample of a bee pollen smoothie and tried to speak above them.

After breakfast, we went to the Walgreens, where I had purchased some eye drops earlier in the morning for eye allergy relief, for someplace to park. We walked all the way to the pier. I remember being a little nervous at first because of the creaky wooden boards. But there were little small houses? huts? apartments? cabins? that people were temporarily living in on this pier. We went out a bit further and the ocean was so beautiful. It was bright and blue. The waves were big and even at 10AM in the middle of the week there were surfers riding the waves. I got a picture of Tofu-Chan on the pier. I also caught a Pokémon on Pokémon Go in the middle of the ocean. I took pictures of the big endless ocean because I have never seen that side of the world before. I was as happy as could be to share that experience with John. I was happy until he pointed out the fact that the waves were making the pier shake a bit. Then I got a little dizzy and had to throw away my smoothie leftovers. We stayed on the pier and watched the surfers and the birds in the ocean. We left the pier and walked above the shore, as neither of us had on good sand shoes. We picked a bench and sat for a little while breathing in the air that smelled lightly of honeysuckle. We decided our next adventure for the day was to make our way to Kearny Mesa to go to Book Off and see all the Japanese shops in the area. I was so excited.

Just driving in San Diego was fun for me, I got to see so many things I have never seen before and John would point out where he lived and what happened at one place or if he would take walks down a certain road. It was so adorable. Eventually we got to the store and in we went to Book Off. I was so excited! There was an entire section of books that were completely in Japanese and I wanted so badly to be able read them all. I picked up a set of the second volume of Genki as well as The Lion King and a potty book, all in Japanese. I almost got a few cookbooks… Almost, if I could read them I would have done it. At the checkout, I told the cashier that I came all the way from Texas to buy study material because I’m learning Japanese. She told me that I must visit her home country, and I promised her I would. John’s sister Lisa met up with us at the store because we were all meeting for lunch before visiting their grandmother. After the bookstore, we went to Mitsuwa, the Japanese grocery store that was next door. It was big, about the size of a non-Plus HEB. I made my way to the snacks and there I found, Saku Saku Pandas!!! I have been searching for over a year for these guys. I bought all but two of the bags… I also found a hello kitty rice mold, some tea, and kawaii snacks that I had to have. John was so excited about the curry place in the store, but when we asked the cook he told us that beef broth was used to cook the curry. I was so sad because I knew he was looking forward to eating at that place. We went to another place in the same center and the curry was not even all that good. It was so bland I could barely even finish it. I had dessert also and even that was not that good. I was so sad, but that was okay because I knew it would be a great day anyway! After lunch we went across the lunch traffic to another store that had a Sanrio sign up front. Once inside, I felt so mislead as there were no Sanrio things in sight. There were cute things like figures and stuff, at first I didn’t see much that interested me. While John went outside to talk to his uncle on the phone, I saw the Sanrio section at last and some other cute things! There were tiny fat charm animals. I got a few for some friends. I was so distracted by the cute things, that I got lost from John and his sister! At first, I didn’t worry but then I did that anxious nervous thing and started to wonder around aimlessly until I eventually saw them. John spoke to his uncle and after purchasing my small gifts for everyone, off we were to his grandmother’s house.

I decided to get a Saku Saku Panda but it was chocolate soup already! That was okay though, it still tasted good at least. Up the hills we went to John’s grandmother’s house. We went up and up and up on the hill. His grandmother’s house was very beautiful. The rug was perfectly white and it looked like a very homey place. John told me that he had so many memories in that house, like sitting on a certain chair or laying on the floor. We sat and talked to his uncle for a while, that’s where I learned where John gets his sarcasm from! They all talked about Dunkin Donuts and why there’s no IKEA in San Antonio. Eventually his grandma woke up and we got to go in the room and sit with her. But the funny thing is, as soon as we walk into the room there is a real graphic sex scene happening on the TV. She was watching The Tudors, about King Henry VIII. So, we all sat there watching this crazy show with his Grandma. I was introduced and she asked me how I was liking California, I told her I loved it and I didn’t want to go back home to Texas! I showed her Tofu-Chan and about how John took him all the way to Japan and back and now he was in California! After a while of watching the show his grandma said something sassy about their sex lives, I chuckled but no one else said anything! She looked at me and smiled but continued to watch TV. Eventually, John’s sister said goodbye but we stayed a little while longer and I sat closer to him on the sofa where he was sitting next to her. I noticed on the bookshelf was a book of the art from Spirited Away and I thought it was super cool! Eventually, we also left and on our way, out we didn’t see his uncle so we stepped out and saw he was talking to his sister. They all had this word fight teasing him about shoes and buying me things but I didn’t understand what was going on, it was almost like there were words in between the lines, but I just couldn’t read them… John took the scenic route down the hill and he took me to see Mt. Soledad. He said it was the most beautiful view in all of San Diego, and boy he wasn’t kidding. You could see miles and miles away all around us. It was gorgeous. There was the big cross on top of the hill. I felt I could barely lift my head high enough to see it all. There were quite a few other people standing up there. And I felt like the happiest girl alive up on top of the world with the man I love most. We noticed two big tour busses come and drop some people off and we decided to head down, again taking the nice scenic route.

Back to our hotel we went, to put our things away and decide on dinner. He wanted to watch the sunset that night, I don’t remember what the dilemma was. I remember he wanted to watch the sunset on the beach but I’m not sure if we just weren’t prepared to do that, that night or if there was a conflict with dinner. We ended up deciding on having dinner at the top floor of the hotel where there was a view that looked over the ocean. And we got to see that! We went all the way up the top floor and we had ourselves some real nice food at a restaurant with an open kitchen. I had an orange arugula salad and a margherita flatbread. It was all so delicious. Then we both had dessert and I had one drink that I took all night to finish. But we got to see the sunset completely over the ocean and it was so beautiful. John pointed out that we were the youngest couple in the whole restaurant, and aside from families with kids, we WERE the youngest ones in the restaurant. I had never had such an experience! The food was so delicious. My salad was perfect with arugula, parmesan, oranges and a balsamic vinaigrette. It was amazing. The only thing that could have made it any better would have been blood oranges. The crust on the flatbread was so buttery and the cheese was perfect. For desert, I had a “Deconstructed Pavlova” All I saw was the custard and berries. I remember thinking “WHERE IS THE PAVLOVA?!” But when I bit into it… my god there it was. It was soooooo goooooood. By the time dinner was over, the sun had finally set. We saw the guy downstairs light the torches in the driveway at the bottom of the hotel, we saw the sun set. And down we went back to our room. We laid down for the rest of the night watching Chopped on The Food Network. Don’t ask me how I can stuff my face and then watch food on TV. That’s another story to tell.

[giveuselife-blog]

Pointers To Enhance The Energy Of Our Word By Heart And Mind

New Post has been published on https://giveuselife.org/pointers-to-enhance-the-energy-of-our-word-by-heart-and-mind/

Pointers To Enhance The Energy Of Our Word By Heart And Mind

My parents had been both avid Spiritualists. My mother, the psychic taught me to read the tea leaves, the crystal ball, and vegetation whilst I used to be very young. My father, the healer labored with the spirit docs. I spent lots of my early life chatting to the spirit and attending the local spiritualist church buildings and me my teenagers I sat in developing circle to Decorate my personal items and clairvoyance. I’ve always been attracted to restoration and coaching and that is what I do now.

For the duration of all of my personal experiences from the natural exaltation of joy to the depths of suicidal power of the mind the one thing that has remained consistent in my existence is my Soul. It has continually pulled me out of scrapes, depression, and grief and taught me usually to have a look at life thru the eyes of love and each time I placed my purpose into something, be it a challenge or words or a relationship then the extra pleasurable and uplifting the final results. Now many of you already know I am sturdy on accepting what’s and avoid getting caught up within the struggle wherein I can lose a feel of myself and grow to be distant from my center being, my soul.

Of direction it has taken tons exercise and self- restoration on my component, however, the adventure sure has been well worth it. Even the worst instances of my existence I’m able to now appearance back on to see ‘the why’ I killed what I did and the wisdom I’ve gained from my lifestyles up to now and I now take delivery of what befell. and that I utilize that awareness inside the work that I do in supporting others and the lessons on these Soul Connection webinars. So whatever I educate I’ve learned with the aid of doing for myself. And with anything, its takes exercise, persistence and being self-loving.

It took many long years for me to find my voice even though as I continually had a worry around a person who spoke very loudly or spoke in anger, and in particular with someone in authority. put all of them together and I’d quake in my boots.

Have any of you experienced or felt the equal element? How did it make you feel?

Over the years I have learned additionally that I’m a very powerful being and the more I allow my human life and personality to infuse with my soul the greater at peace I am and the extra I believe in myself. My words are carved out of an actual experience of my very own identification, my innate loving, and innovative self. And in which I allow my soul to persuade and be in partnership with my thoughts I do not experience any separation, however, handiest oneness, in which all aspects of my life and my thoughts are pushed by using love.

So while and are our phrases no longer powerful?

Well, basically when we are not very mindful of what we are announcing or wanting to say, and our words just dribble out or are infused with fear or charged with bad emotion. In the event that they dribble out probabilities are the man or woman you’re speaking to takes no note or is not enamored with what you’re announcing. I’m positive that we’ve all experienced times whilst we’ve spoken to someone handiest to feel unnoticed or not noted.

while we talk with emotionally charged words human beings take cover, shut down, withdraw or cross into shock, so regularly they can’t absorb what’s being stated. They will additionally reply in a similar style and all of us recognize what which can lead to.

I’m now not suggesting that we spend hours or minutes considering what we’re going to communicate each and whenever that we talk, but if we practice that approach, through a heartfelt connection to our phrases, Over the years our phrases and how we speak will become extra effective and more lovingly creative. And others to whom we talk will both receive our words and respond extra lovingly.

Our incapability to infuse our words with our internal Strength is in particular because of how we see ourselves of course and the volume to which we have a loving courting with our self. all of us exist at the center of our personal world and everything starts of evolved and ends with us. What we positioned outcomes again. everything exists within ourselves. How we assume so we emerge as. I see myself like a circle on this regard and as I traveled up one aspect of the circle, the left, I moved far from my center self but now I’m journeying backtrack the alternative facet coming again home to my starting as a soul. So in effect, I’ve traveled full circle and that I do experience at domestic.

word exchange is important in being capable of bring our desires, power of the mind , heart emotions, not simply to ourselves however to others as Well. Communique builds bridges, mends wounds, heals relationships, and units us within the right direction. It is the greatest aspect of our lives and when used with loving purpose can create miracles. I assume we are all God’s miracles, so while we talk from our heart, our soul, our phrases being an extension of who we are, can result in fantastic recovery and alternate. however, while we use our words glibly, without concept they are able to ruin and hurt, causing unnecessary confusion. when we are clear and lovingly intentional on what we pick out to say, our words are extra regular and obtained more without difficulty.

The Strength of our Phrase comes from the strength that we choose to endow our phrases with, via developing our words from our heart and no longer only from our head and consequently being centered in our phrases. by using that I suggest, knowing, feeling and seeing them as coming from our coronary heart.

There are instances, whilst we speak, what we communicate verbally is not what we’re honestly conveying energetically. The lively message is pretty exclusive.

I see the result of the while I’m working with couples where they are experiencing problems in their relationships and are having trouble relating to one another. a completely simple instance is wherein we may also say, ” certain I might love to come alongside”, but we feel the opposite. We clearly don’t need to head, for something purpose. Because the receiver of that message we are able to choose up on the ‘hidden’ message and reply to it in lots of exceptional ways.

Two conversations are in town, not just one. And we generally choose up on the second hidden message via our solar plexus, our base of self-Electricity. That’s why we may think to yourself, “I pay attention what you’re pronouncing, but my intestine feel tells me something else.”

I did say that I chose a totally easy example and wherein problems do exist in relationships of path easy statements can, and do get blown out of all proportion wherein meaningless arguments ensue.

I as soon as asked Writer to reveal me in which our terrible words ended up

I once asked Creator to expose me wherein our poor phrases go. I was interested in what took place to them. I used to be questioning do they simply collapse after some time or do they go someplace precise. power of the mind are power, so to our words. They have an effect and we provide them lifestyles. They come from us. we are accountable for their introduction and their effect upon others, and ourselves and for this reason our world. the whole lot has an existence shape, even our phrases.

It turned into an exciting experience. I used to be shown what I should best term as an asteroid belt floating in the lower ranges of the general power of the mind . Some of the asteroids were small and a few have been massive and they moved around at varying speeds. As I watched this I cam to keep in mind that words and mind that had been consciously created to harm, manipulate and subjugate where the biggest and precipitated the maximum harm. now not just on the time they had been placed out, but the damage becomes ongoing. If for example, a society intentionally infuses worry into its people, the ones humans agree with it, think about it and become greater anxious as a result. This adds to the originally frightened message where it grows large and bureaucracy a blanket or a black cloud of mass over the minds of the humans. That blanket smothers and continues the melancholy of worry. consistent comparable messages coming from their leaders imposed extra of the same and so it went; the asteroids simply improved in length and strength affirming even greater negative impact. My herbal question became how ought to anybody in this case ever emerge as freed from that worry and upward push above it.

Help from above

What I noticed next filled me with such desire and joy. I saw power of the mind , asking God to expose them a way out and people requests created sparks of light that started to go with the flow up through the asteroids wherein guides and angels picked them up. They took that request and commenced recovery of the scenario by way of working without delay with each person’s soul. I realized that in that second seeds had been being shown that may not have come to fruition in that man or woman’s lifetime but could result in exchange in future generations.

I used to be additionally shown that once a request of that nature is nurtured through prayer and meditation that we’re capable of step out of the immediate poor affect That’s changed with the aid of wish, and we’re gently awakened. I also noticed that the asteroid belt is not any different to what we create and vicinity around ourselves when our power of the mind is not loving, and which obscure our view and block our direction to our actual loving nature.

we are all very powerful beings and the more we permit our human nature and persona to infuse with our soul, the more at peace we become and more potent our self-perception. phrases which can be formed from a strong sense of self-identification, from our innate loving self, are indeed powerful. whilst we infuse our phrases with our own internal essence and we’re the gift with our phrases, and therefore our words are impregnated with our loving nature, they may be extremely restoration.

Right here are 7 Suggestions so as to allow you to shape words of Power, and which have the ‘Electricity’ to trade and heal.

1. Have in mind:

Take into account of your thoughts and what you want to mention. Fill your thoughts with loving thoughts so they are listened to, and received.

2. clean The Muddle:

Make a point to clean the power of the mind Muddle and take back manage of your thoughts space and your mind. This manner you’ve got room to think and turn out to be conscious of what you are thinking.

three. Pay attention:

Listen to what you are saying and how you say it. Then ask yourself: –

1. What do I really want to express, to say?

2. How do I speak?

three. Do I communicate with purpose, with meaning?

four. Or do I let my mouth run away with me?

five. When I talk am I privy to frightened emotions attaching to my words?

6. Are my emotions influencing the way I speak?

four. look Past:

examine in which your phrases land. Do they fall on deaf ears? Do you experience that you need to hold repeating the identical message, or use the identical phrases?

Then ask yourself:

1. How am I able to alternate that so I can be listened to?

2. in which and the way am I able to support my words

three. Then Concentrate to what your coronary heart is telling you.

5. word the effect:

See yourself as a circle. Then see your words going out and coming back to you. Are your phrases empowering, or do they weaken? Who? What?

6. Loving Mind-set:

Consciously placed attempt into developing a loving Mindset and so develop all your phrases from your coronary heart and soul.

7. talk from the heart – brief meditation.

exercise connecting for your coronary heart, stand in its center and take your toes down into the center of the earth, through the stem of the rose. practice as you spot yourself talking, growing up out of the earth and out from the center of the rose. allow the words ‘develop’ from internal of you and take yourself out within the world with your phrases. Here you are consciously growing your phrases from the center of your being. Fill each Word along with your loving self. Then repeat your words slowly so that it will sense your phrases and experience that they’re part of you and you of them.

Sandy Hounsell founding the father of Soul awakens is on a project to clean the toxic dustbin that is conserving human beings back from stepping ahead into the colorful, healthful comfortable lives they deserve.