Short Stories and Scripts

Commentary: Of Mu's and Banks

noreply@blogger.com (Sean) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:41:00 +0000

So WaMu has purchased by JPMorgan Chase (whoever they are). All things considered a lot more then just Mu's are taking 9999 on Wall Street. Perhaps one of the biggest indicators for me that this is a major problem is that it doesn't feel like a crisis. With Capital Hill scrabbling to pass a legislation that will either sink or save our country's economy and a Presidential election up-and-coming you'd think that I should be feeling something. A tinge of fear, perhaprs? Trepidation? Elation, maybe? I remain apathetic to the situation. Why try and stop a giant boulder from crushing you when you can simply step out of the way? Yes if enough people push against the rock it will slow, stop, and eventually move the opposite direction, but the question I ask is from which direction are people pushing? And who's been blindfolded?

(used MS Paint and google.images)

Autumn

noreply@blogger.com (Sean) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:04:00 +0000

I walked amid autumn trees as the wind whistled through the boughs and rattled the dying leaves of summer.

Four in the Morning

noreply@blogger.com (Sean) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:45:00 +0000

The silence. At four in the morning the world is still. It is cold, almost lifeless. A thin layer of frost covers the ground, soon to turn to mist at sun's first light. Everything is peaceful. So as she walked, aided by the gentle glow of starlight, she found herself dreaming. She was a fox, even at four in the morning, especially at four in the morning, and a fox's dreams are cunning. Yet because the world was at peace so was her mind and her dreams were of calm things. The machinations of the material realm, the ever-present and overbearing worries of day to day life, the tragic necessity of linear thought were merely shadows as she walked.

In the Apartment

noreply@blogger.com (Sean) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:38:00 +0000

Rain streamed down the window in sheets, overflowing the gutter and spilling into the walk below. Even though it was fifty-six degrees outside Ben Derringer had the ceiling fan running at half-speed, the steady whir of the motor mingling with the pattering of rain and intermittent drum rolls of thunder. In the kitchen the radio was talking to itself in tongues, swapping from detergent ads to second-rate soaps in an effort to amuse. Across the hall in the bedroom, the willowy form of Resa lay sprawled on the bed, tossing and turning in attempt to get comfortable, wrapped tightly in the comforter. Finally, giving up sleep as a lost cause, she rose to sit on the edge of the bed, keeping the comforter drawn tight like a shawl against the cold, and stared blankly out into the hall of the tiny one bedroom apartment. Frowning, she let her senses take in the area around her, tuning in for the first time the sound of the whirring fan and connecting it to the sight of her breath.

In the living room Ben sat slumped at the computer desk, chin resting on his folded arms as he gazed out the window at the rain. On his left the digital clock read 3:45 PM, well past his usual lunchtime, yet he wasn't hungry. Maybe it was because Vanessa hadn't returned from grocery shopping to replenish the pantry’s unnaturally low stock, or perhaps it was the weather spoiling his appetite. Whatever the reason he continued to stare, even as padded footsteps approached, accompanied by the swish of something long and soft sweeping the ground.

"What do you think you're doing?" a feminine Slavic accent demanded.
Ben didn't bother to avert his gaze; "What do you mean?" he asked in a monotone voice.
There was a click from the nearby wall switch and the fan began to slow, the sound of its motor fading into the rainfall and radio. "It is freezing in here and you have the fan on?" Resa vented her annoyance at being unable to sleep on her friend, "Are you trying to catch pneumonia?"
Ben said nothing.
"Well?"
"Persnickety. I'm a cat."
Resa blinked, caught off guard. "What?'
"I'm a cat," he repeated dryly. "Persnickety."
She continued to stare at him, not comprehending but suspecting that he had no intention of making sense. The sound of the front lock turning snapped her out of it and she shook her head.
"I'm home," Vanessa called, closing the door behind her.
Resa sighed and turned away, leaving Ben to stare out the window alone, a sly smile beginning to creep unnoticed across his face.

Wysper in the Dark

noreply@blogger.com (Sean) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:27:00 +0000

Scintillating wyspers float throughout the Misty Minds. "Where does the darkness go? How far to its home?" they ask the Devil Fish as they drift through the Miasma of Dreams. "No one knows where the darkness goes, or how far it is to its home; it comes and goes, comes and goes," respond the Devil Fish snapping at the heels of the wyspers. Effervescent bubbles that pop and fizzle tickle the noses of the Devil Fish who sneeze and lose their prey.

Meanwhile on earth the villagers pray, pray for their safe return from the land of Nod. For to dream is to leave the realm of men and enter the lands of Cain--who does not know where the darkness goes--and lay their souls before him. They pray to their gods, "Our father who art in heaven, in earth, in water, in sky, watch over us, your faithful and faithless, so that we may return at dawn from the Land of Nod and escape the clutches of Cain. Amen."

Pandora sits, content in her house, and watches the ballet play out on her music box. The music speaks, the winds carries a song, and the warmth of the fire surrounds her. As she sits she smiles. The tiny dancers amuse her. Her mind drifts back beyond the day of reckoning, back to when she was a girl and the world young. Back when love meant love and secrets didn't create wyspers, but where spoken aloud as truths. Farther still to when men loved women and women men and cat and dog were brothers. Beyond, even, to the golden palaces of sinless youth and bountiful beauty.

"No one knows where the Darkness goes, or why it goes when the Light comes to play. All we knows is that darkness goes and leaves not but shadows in its wake. And the Light does lament that it lost a friend but takes heart in the newness of day. For once its retired and day has expired the Darkness returns to prey."

A Meaningful Suicide

noreply@blogger.com (Sean) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:26:00 +0000

The sand has changed to mud, the mud to flame. There are only whispers of trees, ghosts of the forests that were. Husks of huts jut from blood-soaked hillocks like broken teeth, and the screams of children haunt the countryside. She has moved from the glass deserts to Hell's rice lands. For this she has signed away her rights, her name, her soul. This is what it is to become a soldier, a sister, an artist: for war is as much an art form as it is a way of life, and those who live it live by it and for it and through it. She doesn't remember the times long ago when she did not hate or kill anyone. But it's not that she can't remember, she simply doesn't want to.

With casualties estimated in the tens of thousands, you'd have to be crazy to join. That's what everyone said, at least. But for some, for us, it was a far better alternative to living the way others do. Through no fault of our own we were possessed of too much moral fiber to pull the trigger ourselves, spraying our brains away from our bodies in a cone; we were just incapable of suicide. And then we saw the posters. We watched the news. After that it didn't take a genius to figure out that God and country had handed us a way to escape. Hell, they even paid. So what did we do? We signed on the dotted line. Mephistopheles would have been envious of the throngs of people who lined up to sign away their souls. As the pen scratched out our signatures there was no confusion with what we were doing. We wanted our deaths to mean something other then melodramatic self-pity and antisocial isolation. Our reward for going to war would be a meaningful suicide.

Overhead a pair of jet engines scream as the slender F-15 dives towards Hill-45 at 450 miles-per-hour before, with graceful choreography, it releases its payload and banks sharply to the right, sweeping back into the heavens. A split second later and a tremendous blossom of fire erupts from the hilltop, sending up a geyser of super-heated mud and debris and raining it down on her position. The order goes out to storm the hill, and before the smoke even clears they're charging up the slope. Gunfire rains down around them, spattering her already grimy face with more mud. A tremendous roar erupts from her company as adrenaline kicks in and they forget about the danger to life and limb that's falling down around them like hail in a hurricane. All that matters is the kill. Get to the top, kill. Huzza! they cry as one, though more than a few are just choked screams as comrades are cut down like rice-stalks. She finds herself screaming as she plunges up the hill and over the lip; no words come out, only a shapeless noise of hate and excitement; of fear. She sinks her bayonet into the nearest enemy, showering blood across her body. Her breast heaves with fatigue and exhilaration as she raises her rifle (2.9 kg) and pulls the trigger. It sounds like Fourth of July firecrackers.

There is no more glassblowing, the curtain of that stage in the theatre has fallen. Instead, for recreation, the soldiers play a game they call "Digging for China." They divide a recently shelled enemy position into a five meter grid and select three "miners" via lotto. They then place bets on the "miners" to see who will uncover the first "china-man". With the volume of mud thrown up by bombings, artillery strikes, and grenades it can turn into a challenging game and sometimes takes several hours of digging to uncover one body. Long ago there was solid ground, but war is an art form: it sculpts, it shapes, it molds countries into things they are not. Here you dig for China.

The world has moved on. She has learned to eat fire and sand like milk and honey only to be taught how to drink mud like wine. Gun smoke has become her oxygen as she now lives for war. Her heart flutters as her flag unfurls and she follows it blindly through the field of battle. "For God, for Country, for Glory!" she cries over the rush of blood pounding against her ears and she is surrounded by a cornea of most holy light--

"Here is my heart," she whispers. "Blood for the Blood God."

The Glass Fields

noreply@blogger.com (Sean) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:00:00 +0000

I have been in the sand for months
The sand that holds the poison
The poison that cleanses the soul
I have been in the sand for months

Fields of glass stretch for miles; they reflect the nature of man as she plants a boot on her own sun burnt face. Hydrogen bomb: 400,000,000°C, a so called "clean bomb" as it produces mostly neutrons and uses a smaller atomic trigger therefore decreasing the amount of radioactive fallout. The United States, as of 2010, possessed roughly 12,500 weapons of like or similar nature (that being nuclear/thermonuclear). The Russian Republic had a similar stockpile before their dissolution. As of 2023 that stockpile had shrunk by twenty.

We patrol the endless fields, the wastelands under the sun. 10,465 US casualties (military): the public is deliciously numb. 46,917,836 Iranian casualties (military and civilian): America rejoices. 211 individual atrocities committed by US forces: eleven held accountable. 320 atrocities committed by Iran: seven cities annihilated by tactical thermonuclear strikes. The gloves have come off, warfare has evolved, the soldier must eat fire and sand as she would milk and honey, there is no longer room for humanity in the world. Paper has become exactly that and words are now sound. How do you measure the worth of a human? By her ability to effortlessly lift and shoulder 2.9kg (6.4lbs). The glass breaks under her footsteps and tears at the rubber shielding covering the lead soles of her boots.

You know before it happens. The world holds it's breath and sky begins to weep. Then comes the siren and your mind recoils in horror and your body screams. Oxygen spills from your lungs as it's yanked from you and you desperately try to pull your hood over your head and drop to the ground. Remember remember eleven September. "The lead in your suits will protect you from residual radiation and the electromagnetic straps will keep you on the ground." Again the world falls silent and you feel like you're floating in space. Something seizes your body and tries to violently pull you forward and suddenly it's incredibly hot. Hours later the feeling subsides and as the world falls back into perspective you realize that it's only been seconds. The order is given to move out. The desert has become glass again.

For recreation the platoon will cut glass from the fields and mount them as mirrors, using whatever they can get their ruddy hands on for frames. Some even manage to melt it down and reforge it into minor trinkets. Animals, people, vehicles, the odd building, whatever strikes the soldiers fancy and whatever is in her talent to make she does so. The art of glassblowing is on the rise in the Gulf. There is a large market for the Art of War.

The streets were paved and now are broken. Buildings stand like shucked corn and the smell of despair and fear strike at the ocean wind. Shades resembling people scamper in and out and between buildings, disappearing into the shadows at the first sign of our patrol. Only one has ever remained on the street of this shattered town. On her face she wore a mask, but within her eyes burned passionate flames. I was hated and she let me know. They shot her for sport; there's nothing else to shoot around here.

A President once said, "You can't have this kind of war. There just aren't enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets." In "this kind of war" you don't need bulldozers. The bodies are gone before their dust ever settles.

I have been in the sand for months
The sand that cleansed my soul
The soul that longs for home
I have been in the sand for too long