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Disturbed Personas #5: woe to the angel of hope

Posted: March 14, 2013 in DISTURBED PERSONAS, WRITING
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“Let me dance for you.”

She moves like a snake: smooth, sensual, elegant. She singles me out from the crowd. She always singles me out.

“You should smile more,” she says as she flips upside-down on the pole. To her, I am the lone patron.

She never stops smiling. She is my beacon of hope in a lighthouse of never-ending positivity, guiding wayward vessels astray from the rocks of foul deeds. I don’t know how she manages to stay so bright working for him.

Her glitter-covered body glows with an otherworldly quality, accentuating her already angelic features. She doesn’t even have to try to make me want her. I want to reach out and save her from this life; to take her far away from this city and live in a small cottage near some remote European village. I think she’d like Bulgaria; this country is too vulgar. She deserves better than this.

She slides down the pole until her hands touch the ground. A momentary handstand. She looks lighter than air as her legs slowly draw themselves to the floor, and with every inch of her smooth, naked legs, she casts a spell on her gaping-mouthed fans. She hooks her leg onto the pole and sails around, reaching for the crowd. Reaching for me. I can’t help but to reach out to her. Our fingers almost meet, they want to interlock; to caress; to hold; to save ourselves from relentless agony, but we both pull away. We are bound by rules, and cannot touch.

He abuses her because he believes it gives him power. She allows the abuse because of some debt she owes to him; a chosen ignorance blossoming from a sense of duty. I cannot help her; I am bound by rules.

Her skimpy top falls to the floor. She is straddling the pole, degrading herself with the greatest of confidence. She’s appears to be the happiest woman in the world, but she is miserable, maybe even suicidal. If she killed herself we could touch, just for a moment, but we could never be together.

She flips upside down again and spreads her legs wide. She teases me, and she loves it.

The song changes. She grinds down off the pole as the next girl comes out and starts dancing. She picks up her top and the money that has been thrown at her feet. A glance at me when she sees the twenty dollar bill I’ve set on the stage. Our eyes meet. My mind is flooded with visions of her past and future. I smile.

“Thank you,” she says.

“Sultry Goddess,” I cry out, “I want you forever and always to be mine. I’ll save you from this life; I’ll take you far away and you will never be sad again. I’ll erect monuments in your name and resurrect Michelangelo himself to sculpt the likeness of you a thousand times if only you’ll run away with me.”

She is gone with a smile, and the stage is dominated by a competent girl whose only fault is that she’s not her predecessor. My proclamation of unyielding love stayed on the edge of my tongue, where the rules say they belong. We are bound by rules, her and I, but mine are inescapable by even the greatest of escape artists. I’ll come back tomorrow to see her again, and that will have to be enough.

I’m out of cigarettes. I’ll search out the bum. “Bumming” a cigarette off a bum brings a smile to my face, which makes me think of her. She likes it when I smile.

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Disturbed Personas #4: profane cigarette

Posted: February 9, 2013 in DISTURBED PERSONAS, WRITING
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mud puddle

mud puddle (Photo credit: zen)

“My leg fucking hurts,” said Jerry the bum as he sat on the stoop of an apartment building. He smelled very bad. A woman carrying a baby came out of the building’s door. She smelled Jerry before she saw him, but when she did see him, she turned around and went back inside.

“Oh that’s right, bitch,” cursed Jerry, “you go right back in and hide. Don’t bother to help the poor bastard out here, just wait until he freezes to death, then get someone to throw the body in the dumpster. You’re a real goddamn peach, you are.”

The woman, safely inside, called her husband on her cell phone, but the baby started fussing and crying and she had to hang up. She took the elevator back up to her apartment, where she stayed for the rest of the day.

Jerry sat on the stoop, rubbing his sore leg. A flock of pigeons flew overhead. Jerry expected at least one of them to launch a well-aimed poop at his head, but none of them did. A man turned the corner and was so deeply lost in his own thoughts that he was oblivious to being hit by a wall of Jerry-stenc.

“Hey,” said Jerry. “Fuck you.”

The man neither reacted nor slowed down; he remained completely unaware of Jerry. “One, two, three, four,” said the man, as he ascended the steps of the stoop.

“Cocksucker,” shouted Jerry. “Hey, come back here, cocksucker! What, don’t like fruit, fruitcake? I got some real ripe fruit down here!” Jerry burst into a long fit of laughter, broken only by a hacking cough. Jerry didn’t cover his mouth when he coughed.

Suddenly, Jerry realized there was a man sitting next to him.

“Good morning,” said the man.

Jerry whimpered at the sight of cloaked figure sitting very casually next to him. Behind the figure, a shiny scythe leaned against the brick of the building.

“Have you come for me, Death,” Jerry stammered.

“Your time,” growled Death, “is up.”

Jerry’s bowels released themselves. Death turned his hooded face to look upon Jerry. The fire in Jerry that had burned so bright a moment before, was now little more than a burning ember. Death himself burst into a wild, jolly, though very unsettling and oddly raspy cackle.

“I’m kidding,” Death said, after regaining control over himself. “You’re dirty and gross and I don’t want to touch you. I don’t suppose you have a cigarette on you?”

“You won’t touch me, but you’ll smoke one of my cigarettes?”

“Lighten up, Jerry, and laugh at my damn joke. And give me a cigarette if you have one.”

Jerry reached into his many layers and pulled a crushed pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket. Handing one to Death, he said “you’re not very good at telling jokes.”

“Who the fuck asked you?” Death took a cigarette and Jerry handed him a lighter. It didn’t work. Jerry dug into his layers again and produced a second and third lighter. They didn’t work either. ”Jesus, Jerry. Do you have a lighter that works?”

“What do you want from me,” he snapped.

“I want a goddamn cigarette, Jerry, but apparently that’s too much to ask.” The end of the cigarette spontaneously lit. “Moron,” muttered Death.

“Hey, fuck you! If you’re going to kill me, just do it already. What the fuck is this, stealing a cigarette from a man before you kill him. Who does that?”

“Ballsy, Jerry. I told you I’m not going to kill you. That was a joke. Irony? You know, because the whole Death thing?” Jerry stared blank-faced. “Whatever.”

The man from earlier exited the building with a bazooka in his hands. He passed between Death and Jerry, counting the stairs. He turned the corner and became one of the passersby.

“What, no one notices the guy with a bazooka in his arms?”

“Welcome to the city,” Jerry replied. A pain exploded in his leg. “Fucking leg!”

Death flicked the ash off his cigarette. The pain in Jerry’s leg disappeared. Jerry was so shocked by the relief, he was speechless. After a moment, Death spoke again.

“What happened to your leg, anyway?”

“Broke it pretty bad back in the war. I was running. Stepped in a mud puddle that was deeper than it looked.”

Death chuckled.

“Why are you here, Death?”

Death was momentarily silent, distracted by a passing thought. “Boy, you sure do stink, Jerry.” He tossed the stub of the cigarette on the ground and stood up. “I can’t be around you anymore. Not until you clean yourself up.”

“I don’t fucking understand. Is this some kind of joke? Do you get your jollies by tormenting bums? You like to make people shit their pants? You feel better about yourself by treating others like animals? You’re lucky I don’t throw my shit at you, like some monkey.”

Death adjusted his cloak and grabbed his scythe. “Just take a shower, Jerry. Thanks for the cigarette.”

Jerry reached into his pants and grabbed his fecal matter, throwing it just as Death rounded the corner of the building. It splattered against the brick, steaming in the crisp morning air. A passing mother pulled her daughter out of the way just before she stepped in it. Jerry cackled.

“You’re disgusting,” raved the mother.

“Come closer and say that, whore.” Jerry was feeling himself already. “Hey little girl, I bet you don’t know who your daddy is, seeings how your mom is a whore.” The mom pushed her doe-eyed daughter onward. “You and I have something in common,” Jerry shouted after them.

After a few minutes, Jerry got off the stoop and went to find a place to take a shower.

A tank drove by. No one gave it a second look.

 

Disturbed Personas #3: Quotient’s Guide to Decision-making

Posted: February 6, 2013 in DISTURBED PERSONAS, WRITING
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staircase II

staircase II (Photo credit: josef.stuefer)

The decision he was faced with making was ultimate; there was no turning back from this one. He felt as though choosing one over the other was not only favoritism, but the brutal slaying of an option near and dear to him.

“I just don’t know,” he exclaimed.

Every day, he was bogged down by the decision-making process, and he had developed a reputation for being unreliable because of it. The options were in front of him, staring at him eagerly, the winner waiting to be chosen.

“This is the last time I will make this decision.”

He walked back to his apartment, counting each stair as he ascended. He lost count once and had to return to the ground floor to restart his count. He’d gotten better, over the last few months, at making only one counting error per trip, which had greatly reduced the amount of time he had to allow for himself to get anywhere.

He opened the apartment door and was met with a familiar blast of air; a comforting aroma that instantly informed him that he was home. The outside world faded away and he was at peace. It was a peace, however, that was interrupted by the also familiar screeching of his neighbor’s baby. He wondered when his neighbor’s sister was coming again with more delicious pastries, or even a cake. He thought her baking tasted of sunshine.

He retrieved the ultimate decision-making item from his closet and returned to the parking garage.

“One last time,” he said, dramatically. “One last time,” he said again, equally dramatic.

The two paths were still smiling at him, waiting to be chosen. He was not smiling.

“I’m sorry it had to come this, but my indecision ends today.”

Their smiles didn’t change, though they saw what was coming. They were his children. He had spent hours upon hours with each of them, giving them nothing but love and attention. He had rescued them both from certain doom, and adopted them into his heart, but they felt nothing. They were indifferent to his affections, as vehicles usually are.

“So, do I take the sloppy jalopy to work, or the tank?” The ultimate question, defined. He closed his eyes and raised the bazooka. A tear fell down his cheek. The missile erupted out of the chamber and decimated its target.

He was late. The second trip up the stairs to his apartment had really cut into his day. He set his mind to either conquering his OCD or to start taking the elevator. The decision would be tough, but he had a fool-proof method of decision-making at his disposal. At any rate, he didn’t have time to make the decision now. He climbed into the tank and drove to work, brainstorming new excuses as to why he was late.

Disturbed Personas #2: the Soldier and the Prince of Thieves

Posted: January 29, 2013 in DISTURBED PERSONAS, WRITING
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The soldier lay face down in the mud, next to his fallen comrades. He dreamt of home. Canons fired in the distance; the battle had forged on without him. He could not move himself, even to pick his head up out of the mud. His body made its discontent from the lack of oxygen well known, as his insides convulsed and raged. He was giving up on the world of the living.

Nearby, a wounded man cried for God to show mercy on the man’s soul. His cries were silenced; his prayers apparently answered.

The soldier was losing consciousness.

More desperate men, clinging to their own lives, called out in agony, and all were met with the same quick release.

The soldier could not die fast enough. Images of his life passed through his mind. Sad, depressing images of loss, failure, and ineptitude filled his brain, and he became tortured by it all. His tears would not mix with the mud.

The sounds of battle shifted, as though carried by the changing wind. Scythe-swinging Death was coming back with canons and rifles and bayonets to once more heave his way through the living, but the soldier planned to be dead long before Death’s foot sank in his tear-stained puddle of mud.

When, however, the moment of total asphyxiation came, and the soldier saw the light of the eternal afterlife, his head was untimely ripped out of the mud and his rebellious body took in an enormous gasp of air. When his eyes readjusted, he saw the booted feet of a man dressed in green with a matching green hat that had a long feather sticking out of it.

“I must be crazy,” said the soldier, “but I think I see Robin Hood standing in front of me.”

“That you do,” said the Robin Hood. “Or so I am dressed.”

The soldier rested on one knee, still catching his breath.

“Then you are not Robin Hood?”

“I have a bow, don’t I?” The Robin Hood showed the soldier his bow.

“That makes you a yeoman who is dressed as Robin Hood.”

“Then that is what I am.”

A canon ball flew over their heads and brought the facade of the apartment complex behind them crumbing down.

“Why are you dressed like that?”

“Don’t be rude,” said the Robin Hood. “I didn’t ask you why you were suffocating yourself in the mud, though I assume it is because you have a twisted sexual fantasy involving self-asphyxiation and mud. Do not pry into my business, and I will not pry in to yours.”

“You are a strange fellow,” remarked the solider as he stood on his feet.

“And you are quick to judge,” replied the Robin Hood.

“Am I dead?”

“Do you feel dead?”

“Well, no.”

“There you have it.”

Rifle fire joined the barrage of canon balls hurling towards them. Death was, as they say, knocking at their door.

“But let’s continue this elsewhere,” said the Robin Hood, “for this place is depressing, and I am tired of mercy killing.”

The soldier’s instincts kicked in and he grabbed the Robin Hood and dove sideways to avoid the landslide of falling debris from the apartment building. They landed in the mud, both face down, and again the soldier thought of home. More memories came to the surface of his mind, this time pleasant in nature: early summer at the lake house, the smell of freshly baked cakes, the laughter of children; memories worth living for. They were memories he wanted to repeat.

He picked himself up off the ground and helped the Robin Hood to his feet.

“We have to get out of here,” said the soldier.

“I agree. It’s time for tea,” said the Robin Hood, as he took off running.

The soldier followed. His instincts, against the logicality of his mind, told him to stick with the yeoman dressed as Robin Hood who had performed mercy killings on his wounded comrades and enemies.

Behind them, Death stepped in the soldier’s mud puddle, and, aggravated, scraped the soldier’s tears off of his shoe as though it were chewed gum.

Disturbed Personas #1: Baby cake

Posted: January 28, 2013 in DISTURBED PERSONAS, WRITING
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Pretty maids...

Pretty maids… (Photo credit: dawnzy58)

She sat on the dock, waiting. The water was only just beginning to warm from the harsh winter, but she stuck her toe in anyway.

“I should bake a cake today,” she thought.

Just then, a car pulled up to the nearby house. She shielded her eyes from the sun in an attempt to see who had arrived. Two scenarios ran through her head; two possible persons coming to her for two different reasons.

“A chocolate cake with lemon icing; that would be interesting.”

A tall man wearing a fedora stepped out of the SUV. The woman’s sunhat flapped in the strong breeze and she put a hand up to catch it from flying away. The man looked at the house, wondering if his target was inside.

“And I’ll decorate my cake with blue daisies. For the baby.”

She drew figure eight’s in the water as she stared at the cloudless sky. The man walked down the hill to the dock and pulled a gun out from under his jacket.

“It’s you,” the woman said, without turning to face the man.

“It’s me.”

Neither person moved. A bird flew by and shat on the man’s car.

“I was hoping it would not be you.”

“I’ve come to end this, finally.”

She took a deep breath. The breeze off the water was especially refreshing. “I was going to bake a cake today.”

“Not today, my dear.” He pointed the gun at her head. “No more cakes.”

Behind them, a second bird shat on the man’s car.

“A shame, too,” he continued. “You were a great baker.”

A daring fish swam up and kissed her cold toe. She smiled. She had always felt like a Disney princess, in that nature always had  a way of agreeing with and embracing her.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” she softly sang. “How does you garden grow?” The fish danced around her foot.

“Stand up, please,” said the man. “It is rude to shoot a woman when she’s sitting down.”

The woman didn’t seem to hear him. She looked as peaceful as she had ever looked; a tranquil moment in the eye of the storm.

“I said stand up,” he repeated with gusto.

“-with silver bells-”

“Be quiet.” Her calm was unnatural for the situation and he was growing uncomfortable. A third bird shat on his car.

“-and cockle shells-”

The man thought he saw the sky darken; an impossible event on this day. The growing sense of foreboding was too much for him to handle. He charged at the woman. The fish jumped over the woman’s foot before swimming away.

“-and pretty maids-”

The man’s gun was inches away from the woman’s head when the arrow, shot from behind, pierced his heart. He tumbled over the edge of the dock and into the frigid water, where he remained motionless. A second strong breeze rolled in. The woman held on to her hat as she watched the man’s fedora fly away, then shook the water off of her toe and slipped on her shoes.

“-all in a row.”

She shielded her eyes from the sun again as she stood up and looked for the man who had shot the arrow. She spotted him on the roof of the house.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said.

“Here I am,” the yeoman replied, with a smirk.

“I’m going to bake a cake today. For the baby.”

The yeoman climbed down from the roof and walked towards her, bow in hand.

“Baby’s don’t eat cake, my dear, but your sister and her husband will love it,” he said. “You’re a great baker.”

They both smiled and embraced. A fourth bird shat on the man’s car, and the car exploded.

Nearly-brushing with death…: a thriller

Posted: January 14, 2013 in THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS, WRITING
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Scaredy Cat

Scaredy Cat (Photo credit: .bobby)

The other night I entered my apartment expecting, as always, to see someone standing halfway down my eternity-spanning hallway, staring at me with a menacing glare. Maybe covered in blood. No big deal. I’m pretty convinced my apartment is haunted, but I like to believe the spirits are benevolent, yet tricky asshole-type ghosts who would get a kick out of pulling some kind of stunt like the bloody hallway figure. Lucky for me, there was no such specter, or real person for that matter waiting for me.

All’s well, I thought, and journeyed down the hall to my room. I usually close the door to my room before I leave in the morning, because no one alive or dead needs to be subjected to that disaster, and of course my fears play a similar specter-in-waiting game with me each time I enter my room. (Basically, I’m always convinced someone will be waiting for me, or I’ll return home and find out I’ve been robbed. Weird obsession. As long as I have my Mac, I like to think I’d be a little more accepting of someone stealing my PS3, but let’s be honest, I’ll be crushed no matter what they take (but most especially if they take my Mac).) There was no one waiting for me in my room; no demon casually laying on my bed reading a magazine until I come home, at which point it will kill me, steal my soul, or hit me with the latest Bieber sighting news. Kill me now.

When I went to the living room, though, something was clearly staring at me through the window. I tried to deny it, pass it off as my imagination (overactive as it is), but I couldn’t ignore the cold clasp of fear. Truth fear. I calmly ruled out someone sitting on the fire escape, maybe with a gun in hand, ready to shoot, kill, maim (yes, kill before maim), and then rob me, but ruling out such an insane possibility did not help the fear subside because there was still clearly something watching me through my mother ****ing window. A beehive, maybe? “Who the hell put a beehive outside my window,” I asked. “Holy hell, my apartment has been marked. I’m going to get robbed in the next few days.” Marked with a beehive. Seems natural. Plausible. Okay. Except..

It had feathers? Maybe? A bird the size of a beehive, probably larger because I think it was only wrapped up in a hive-shaped ball. I thought I saw feathers, but honestly, I’ll never be able to say for certain. The possibility of being stared at the rest of the night was too much, so I casually closed the curtains and went on with my night. Before I went to bed, though, I checked behind the curtain and sure enough, that fucker was still there. “Well, that’s enough for one night. Let’s to bed, Kenobi.” Kenobi is my Mac.

In the morning, whatever had been on my fire escape was gone, and I haven’t seen it since. It occurred to me that someone might have been sending me a bird as a message, or an invitation; a higher position was being offered to me. Like becoming Batman…or something. I decided that if that was how they were going to send me a message, well they were going to have to find a better way because sending a bird to stare at me through my window was not an acceptable form of communication.

Read Between the Lines: critically finding the subtext

Posted: May 16, 2012 in RANTING, WRITING
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The human population is suffering from one of the worst epidemics of all time, and it’s highly contagious. We’re getting dumber. Words are taken at face value, as though there is but one meaning to everything. The amount of people looking for deeper meaning is diminishing. Perhaps the problem is our heavy reliance on technology, as we are no longer required to think about anything, we just pop our question into a search engine. Texting and online communication is highly impersonal and emotion, intonation, and nonverbal cues are difficult to grasp through a screen. Yet we’ve had a similar form of entertainment that requires much of the same skills for hundreds of years: books. Admittedly, the comparison is weak in some areas, the crucial missing element in texts being author clarification. I will then point you to some of the older classics in which there is often half a page of dialogue with no reference to who is speaking. “Pride and Prejudice” has a couple examples of this. Whatever the cause of the epidemic is, mankind is clearly in need of some extra grade school education.

Words strung in succession form a sentence, technicalities aside. “The cat is fat and needs a bath” is a prime example to which there is no superior. From this sentence we have learned there is cat, it’s fat, and bathing is . We can also make an informed assumption the cat is rather dirty and/or smelly, a piece of knowledge we weren’t told explicitly in the aforementioned word compilation. This is subtext in it’s most primitive state.

I had a beloved theatre professor in college who taught us the things that were said, the words on the page [of a play script], are not nearly as important as the things left unsaid. She was speaking of subtext and couldn’t overemphasize the statement’s importance. From subtext we come to understand what it is the characters are actually saying, because who honestly says what they mean all the time. “I’m fine.” “Okay.” “I love it.” Sarcasm is subtext slapping you across the face. Through subtext we find hidden meanings in the words of others; only by peering through this subtextual mirror can we find ourselves in a helter-skelter world of playing cards where we can expose the blood-sucking liars without reflection.

The examples I’ve provided thus far are pretty basic, but are used everyday (minus the splash of vampiric Wonderland color), so why is it so difficult to use a bit more brainpower and apply this logic to slightly more advanced topics?

Critical thinking is a skill set taught nonstop in school. I remember the stick labeled “Critical Thinking” with which we were mercilessly beat (pause to remember the good times… … …). According to Wikipedia (aka the lazy researcher’s primely singular websource), critical thinking can be described as the process by which a person makes assumptions on their beliefs and attitude toward a subject. What this entails is looking at a statement, say “the cat is fat and needs a bath,” and coming to the conclusion that because the cat needs a bath, it must be dirty and might smell, perhaps because it got into the trash looking for some extra snackage. This assumption was made based off critical thinking and subtext clues, and, I stress, the conclusion I came to is not definitive.

Just as there are multiple solutions to a problem, so there are multiple meanings to concepts, and multiple perspectives to a situation. It is our job as critical thinkers, when forming our own opinions, to look for the multiplicities. If you read nothing else in this article, read the following:

Certain steps should always be taken when forming an opinion, educated or not. The greater the importance of the issue, double the importance of critical thinking. Hot button topics require massive (yet quick and easy) levels of thinking.

  1. Read the information.
  2. Look at who said it.
  3. Consider what they have to gain by saying it.
  4. Look at who their opponent is and what they’re saying.
  5. Carefully form your opinion.

Using critical thinking and subtext clues is the same thing as saying “read between the lines.” Arguments are biased, some more than others, and the facts within are presented in a manner that supports the argument. It can be said falsehoods and mistruths are not lies, they seek to stretch the truth to gain believers. Politicians use falsehoods and mistruths all the time. Public perception must be manipulated at all times, so what is it you’re not being told? Looking at who is presenting the information and what they stand to gain by saying it is crucial. Let’s look at a couple examples, still keeping in mind my words are not definitive:

Gay Marriage.  The pro side’s main argument is about human rights, not much can be said about that. The opposition frequently uses the Christian bible as their main detractor. However, the Bible is a book whose value is based entirely on personal belief.

Marijuana Legalization.  This is an extremely multi-faceted issue on both sides, yet we can generalize here and say advocates most often use the benefits of medical marijuana, while opponents use the Gateway theory, which is a theory. Both sides require more unbiased scientific evidence.

Read between the lines, form your own opinions while being open to new ideas and suggestions. Closed-mindedness is always bad. Do yourself a favor: don’t be a Lemming.

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