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	Twitchy (profile) wrote, on 8-13-2004 at 12:12am
Current mood: distressed
I'm putting this here if anyone wants to read it, or, mainly, so it has no chance of getting lost or destroyed. I should be done with this story by the end of August, and if anyone wants to volunteer to proofread it when it's done, that'd be a great help so here's my unfinished short story Wraiths Merely An Attempt At A Short Story By Mark Hay He who fights monsters should look into it that he himself does not become a monster. When you gaze long into the Abyss, the Abyss also gazes into you. Friedrich Nietzsche Thank Heaven! the crisis – The danger, is past, and the lingering illness, is over at last --, and the fever called “Living” is conquered at last. Edgar Allan Poe Sun rose over the forest of ancient redwood glory. The golden rays of sol played through the foliage of the ancient impassive giants as various designees trees, closer to that purgatory of trees, the ground, shed their leaves all about the earth. As the sun crept down, overcoming many a blockade, those fateful golden rays that managed to slant through at almost ridiculous angles past the leaves shown down on a lone man. He wandered along the grayed forest and stepped across the golden floor of leaves dotted with little red and brown twigs and specks of deep green moss. It was an earthy carpet covering the deep potholes and jutting roots from the mighty trees. Though, as he stepped over it all not one twig snapped, not one foot fell into the deathtrap of the forest ground and not one flinch radiated from his body. Nor was there an air of confidence or of vigilance. He merely walked on through the forest as the leaves fell in almost too slow a motion to constitute reality. As those tiny specks of sun played upon his skin his came to the trees deep and slow notice that he was pale. He had appeared pale before this, in the shadows, but now he seemed truly pale. Skin the tone of liquid paper, dried gray veins passed on the thin and tight-drawn skin giving the misconception of an old man. He may have been old, but no more of it showed than in his eyes. Those onyx black eyes staring out of hollowed eye sockets, which lay on a face of liquid paper skin looking down a hawk-like nose followed by high set cheekbones and pale lips, seemingly gray. This purely light head was topped in clumped, greasy hair, falling in thick, nearly dreadlock like, bushels into his face blowing softly in the breeze over his eyes. One bony hand reached up to the hallow face to brush away the hair and then returned to his side. Both his hands were held slightly out from his side and facing palm forward held out with various fingers curled and touching each other in obviously Asian signs from Hindu or maybe Shinto or Buddhist religions. They were bent at the wrists, which were covered in a denim-like fabric. This fabric was black black. Everything about his clothing was black, though not impressively so. Adorning his feet were large, shin-high laced black boots, scuffed and scratched. Covering those down to his ankles were black and baggy denim jeans. Covering his body was a black Chambray shirt pulled out of his pants and ruffled, one button undone at the top. It was still an odd sight to see. This pale white figure covered in pure black. At his waist, he carried a long stick, half his height, of pure black metal with a small slit of about a foot at the top. All this time he had been taking long strides through the forest, not one needle or leaf landing on his body. He walked casually, but with purpose. As he came to the redwood of the greatest grandeur of the forest he removed a small watch on a silver chain covered in what appeared to be platinum. Engraved deep into the front was what appeared to be a scythe crossing over a capital D. He clicked the clasp to reveal the hands and face of the clock, ever ticking in an odd and kind sense, yet a sense that made it clear that every second that passed would never again occur. A very depressing objects in general. He nodded slowly, in an almost sad motion, and looked at the ground for exactly sixty-two and two thirds seconds before placing one hand on the ancient beauty of the tree. In one fluid motion, his other hand, the right hand, flew to his side and took hold of the base of the three-foot rod, which extended some odd feet until it was a five and a half foot metal pole. At the same time as this growth he gracefully swung the pole backwards and from the crevice in the face of the pole, which was facing the tree one curved silver blade, which shined, blue in the light of the sun dislodged itself and came into a forward position, forming a scythe. As soon as the transformation was completed the scythe was swung forward and severed through the tree, though at the same time it never even touched the bark. It flew through the very being of the tree and severed its life and there was a groan as the tree settles itself once more and the air grew bitter for a moment. The man winced as a bitter wind ran across his face. He stood for a few seconds observing the signs of death; the slight gray of the bark and so on, though he knew very well that he was done. He backed up and gave the scythe a swift back and forward motion in which the blade receded and the pole returned to normal length as he fitted it back into his belt on it’s black leather noose before sitting down. He leaned against the dead timber and pulled from his pocket a small piece of paper and opened it and removed a pen from his breast pocket. He looked over the odd handwriting, which all seemed foreign and wrote with a sigh a few words in a vertical script before rising. Looking around he smiled as he set back off the way he had come through the forest. The birds chirped slowly and as he moved away a slow ripple moved through the very air and fabrics of time where he had been and the leaves fell at a normal speed. The woodland animals moved again and the chirping moved to a normal tone and speed. A deep voice came from the forest, though it was no more than a whisper. It said, “ Same shit different day.” Off trudged the figure as time came back to itself and by the time his image had slowly faded into nothing into the rising sun time and life was back to normal. Life resumed and everything was the same except for the lack of life in the greatest redwood of the forest and for that matter the world. Just one deader creature and fourteen seconds later a man died. You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward, art thou also dead – dead to the World, to Heaven, and to Hope! In me didst thou exist – and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself. Edgar Allen Poe She was beautiful, one had to give her that. A nice girl one would expect. She sat there patiently looking about with gray and blue eyes, which looked like the icy depths of a frozen lake. They contained all the mystery and danger of what lies under the ice in the deep and frozen depths. Lying themselves in the wondering face of a fair skinned girl and sitting over a small nose and full, but cold, lips. One strand of her golden blond hair hung over her face as she smiled and brushed it back with the rest of her back long golden mane. Dressed in mere blue jeans and a simple blue shirt she just sat there on the bus waiting. Her hands rested on her knees as she tapped her fingers in the classic practicing the piano time waster. A little light of impatience flicked over her face as she looked across the bus at another figure that was also sitting impatiently. This other figures red and curled hair blew in the air conditioning over her smooth and pale face and down across her shoulders. She looked about with green eyes and a jutted chin giving of the air of bitchiness. She could be described as a pretty, but her evil air took care of any company to her side. She wore a long red and low cut dress one ankle behind the other and the front foot tapping the ground. The bus moved along on the icy road, which was built on a hill. On a fairly flat side of a hill actually. The road was flat, but to the right it curved up on a snowy slope that showed some of the dead and brown grass below and sloped down on the left to a frozen lake. The blond haired woman looked out the left of the bus down at the lake and the red haired woman followed her gaze. The bus was moving carelessly as if the passengers didn’t matter at all, just getting to the destination mattered. It was after all just a blue and gray greyhound like bus, nothing special, just doing its job. Suddenly a cry rose up from the front of the bus. “She’s having a heart attack!” There came the slow ripple in the air and the fabric of time and some kind of change in the very being of the world. Everything was frozen and the woman in red was up with a fire in her eyes and a long scythe with red paint and a red blade in her hands and also a knife at its end. She leered down at her victim, but she was sweating to, held back by something. She was held back by the tip of another blade at her neck. It was the curled blade of a scythe with serrated edges running along both sides and connected to a black pole. The woman in red was chocking in a sense that is for she wasn’t breathing at all. One glance back over her shoulder allowed a gaze at the opponent. Dressed in black and looking very odd indeed. The opponent was the blond haired girl and she was now dressed in a long black and at some places fishnet and flowing dress. Something else was different too. Her eyes still contained the mystery and danger, but now they also held the malice of a sharp point of ice. She also was not breathing and was looking intently over the taller red haired woman’s shoulder at the old woman clutching her chest in the next seat in frozen time. The blond woman seemed to be floating in thin air as she menaced her adversary with the blade. The woman in red made a move, trying to stab backwards with the pointed edge of the hind of her scythe, but before the second ended the scythe had fell. There was an awful saying wrench as the head of the red woman fell and the blood seemed to absorb into the slivery blade of the blond woman. The head slowly disappeared as did the body and the scythe fell to the floor. The blond haired woman took the opponents scythe and opened the bus door flinging it into the lake where it cracked the ice and sank to the murky depths. The blond woman came back into the bus and looked down at the dying woman. With no expression in her eyes or her face whatsoever she raised her scythe and the metaphorical soul head of the woman fell to the floor and the bitter wind lashed across the blond woman’s face and she smiled. It was done. She returned to her seat and time went back to its normal way of things. The people screamed and the blond woman looked worried to. Deep in her eyes there was happiness though. She thought this was awfully convenient for her. She got this done and now the bus was racing full tilt to the hospital which was a very good place for her indeed that was where she was going next anyway. A small chuckle escaped her lips, so silent that no one but her heard it. The chuckle crept through the air, resounding her morbid joys. But she heard something herself that left her a little unsettled. It was a deep laugh, not one of the other people seemed to hear it but her. It was like the boiler room had formed a mouth and lungs and now it was reaching out in some kind of mental capacity unbeknownst to man, or, for that matter, anything else. It was, in short, too low and freakish for anything in this plane of existence to make. HAH HA HA HA HA This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is a flash of lightning in the sky. Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain. Buddha Light dawned on the dry and cracked plains. Or, at least, as much light as could come through to these … plains. The light was shrouded by cloud. Or, maybe it was a cloud. It was too hard to tell, for the sky itself seemed to be one huge gray sheet above the earth. No light actually penetrated such a surface. What did appear was … light. Or … gray, it is too hard to say. The gray sheet rushed overhead and that eerie illumination spread over the … lands. The only other problem with this place, besides light without a source, an eerie dimness and a monotone sky that wheeled around and around was … nothing. It really was nothing at all. Oh, sure, there was the sky and the ground, but between them there was … nothing. No horizon that merged the two planes and no kind of background whatsoever. Not even white. It was pure and utter nothing. Even the land had such an effect. The land was, itself, a dry and cracked gray plate. Light up to gray by nothing, and no, that point cannot be stressed enough, because it is hard to grasp the concept of utter nothingness. In fact, it is impossible, which made this place so odd. The land just stood below the wheeling sky above and sat still as the shadows of nothing played about it. And it just ended. There was a beginning to this land and an end, but nothing else. Just nothing, nothing at all existed here except the ground and the sky. And then there was something. Wonderful something in this dreary land that would drive the sanest man insane in no time at all, for, as it would seem, there was no time at all. That something was a man. Just a naked man huddled in a fetal position in the center of the plains. Curled up like a little white blotch on a piece of gray paper. The universe likes to screw around with things like that, but it would seem that at this time, the universe and it’s demented humor were not the only forces at work here. The form was nude, if that does anything for you. Covered in rain and curled up in a ball holding his head. A head covered in blotched brown hair. Not like that brown hair that is slightly blond, or red or even black. Actual, pure brown hair. Falling in front and behind him blotched with mud, which barely showed up. Stuck with twigs and other such oddities, but long. Long, tangled and matted with the rain. It covered his face and his head in general. The rest of him was white. Plain white skin. Not liquid-paper white, not olive white, nothing of the sort, but the white of old stationary, slightly peach and sandy, but in a way, so reminding of that bright snow white that one would have to divert their eyes from the dull skin. It was beyond description, it was just too generic to describe fully. Such a model of the imagination, like that person you think of perfectly, the great person on your memory backdrop, your favorite character in a novel, but, even if you can see them in your head, clear as day, you can never make them out. Never describe them fully. No, perfection is impossible to see. Unless of course it is that logical look at perfection, which is imperfection. This thing was merely a new look at the word perfect. Nothing can be perfect, we know that as a fact, but there is still the perfect man and that perfect person that occupies the mind. The strong and talented man is forgotten in this respect, this is the perfect person in the effect of … imperfection. A human so imperfect that it becomes so perfectly generic. So plain and uninteresting, yet so perfectly shaped. Perfect in an odd aspect. To hard to phrase to be told. Just perfect. Living for a moment in, in a way, a perfect world. So gray and … picturesque. Like a child’s picture of a storm and in that sense perfect. In the fact that it had an end with no beginning and a beginning with no end. Perfect in the respect that it could not be explained or looked upon by eyes of imperfection. In this world the shape existed for merely a moment. Then it was gone. The sky continued to wheel above and the ground to stay perfect in the storm, but there was no more man. He was gone. No prints were upon the land, no trace of existence of any kind. He had never been. But he was soon to be … very soon to be indeed. To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none. Francis Bacon A pair of eyes snapped open, ever alert. With slight suspicion and apprehension the figure rose off the ground. Her forget me not blue dress which stopped just above her breast flowed below her as she pushed herself off the ground. And as she walked over the tundra it flowed as few feet behind her also, just over the ground. It buckled in the wind in a gentle fashion. Flowing with slight cracks of fabric against the wind. An d not one piece of the snow that fell around in that fashion of the movies, the perfect flakes with the straight, but curly fall to the ground like feathers and all evenly spaced, touched her pale white skin, nor did it attach itself to her golden hair or to the dress itself. It would seem that she flowed herself. Just above the ground, not moving her feat, though her motion was visible. She had bee in a trance for some time. Preparing for her next challenge. The trance had been long, yet no time had actually passed. The notes of the laugh still hung in the air and people were frozen form their fly from the bus. All the time was frozen except for the woman who walked along the fields covered in snow, reaching out to a bird frozen in flight with her hands, almost invisible against the white of the sky and the snow. That laugh, that awful laugh, hanging in the air as if a black hand had stretched across the lands and boomed through the valleys. It spoke to her, even now, without time to move in, it still clung to the air, almost visible to the eye. Like a lucid stream of disturbance in the air. Spreading. And receding, always moving and sounding out in a hollow mental reverberation throughout the pure white of the tundra. Almost tainting the land as poison spreads through the wound, a pure and deep evil had spread through the purity of the land. But, as we commonly perceive in life, almost nothing is what it appears to be, defenses held high to protect the week and that beautiful disguise of the hunter, luring it’s prey into the web of deceit. The problem being that one never sees the trough through the seemingly stronger deceit and therefore we must make our own mistakes, deadly at times. She had been trying to see. To see the disguise, a trance, a true state of mind, privy to the disguise and therefore the greatest defensive, or offensive, tool know to all who know of it. She was unsuccessful. For something so great is never easily attained, and she was impatient. Her trance was a lost cause, a last chance for the weak to hide, and she had failed. No her time may have come. A wave moved throughout the landscape. Bubbling the flora and the fauna and slowly the natural laws of physics known to this plane of being reverted to their usual sate. All was right in the land. Snow fell regularly, water gurgled on the rocks, and people ran out of a bus reeking of death, screaming their lungs out as the few and futile attempted a dial tone in the far off mountains, pressing the digits through their plastic cases again and again, 911 … 911. And throughout the echoing peaks and the resounding valleys only one thing was wrong. This was not unnatural at all; if anything it was more natural. What was wrong was absence of being. Not one shred of fabric on the ground. Not one strand of hair. On a smaller level, not one diamond flake of the heavens was disturbed, not one flake of skin on the ground. And no one on the road seemed to notice the absence of the blue clad lady. Nor did they notice the absence of the red clad woman. And, in their panic, no one noticed the bubble on the lake as a long, black stick rose to the surface of the placid waters. Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not. Epictetus The clop of steps from rather uncomfortable shoes of all manner echoed down the cobbled streets of a small town. Many men walked along in the standard black tie, black shoes, black suit and white shirt. So dull, so boring. Life as usual. The street had been made for this kind of thing. Not a car had come past in many a year, they weren’t needed. And they all walked, it was perfect. Happy, healthy businessmen all going about their own business. His shoes echoed with a slightly different sound. A sort of clap clap against the clop clop. Not one cobble bothered him, not one obstacle in his way. His suit was without a wrinkle and his clothes perfectly colored. Brown, clean curt hair adorned his head. Centrally parted and coming down on either side with a slight curl. Clean-shaven, except for a small goatee just below his slightly protruding lower lip. And his skin … so stereotypically sandy and papery of the average Caucasian. And no one noticed him … no one at all. A pair of onyx black eyes darted around the street form an aerial view. A wave struck throughout time. Everything stopped and even the brown haired man’s eyes were frozen in fear. From the top of a building there was a rustling and a slight swoop. A black object flew from the roof. It was a man, the dust shaking off his black boots as they hit the ground, causing a wave of motion to run up his black pants, billowing out his trench coat and shaking the toggles along the front of his midnight black shirt. He was crouched in front of the building, one hand on his knee and his face down, long locks of greasy black hair waving in front of his face. And he stood, eyes locked on one man who was gaping in fear ahead of him. The man approached at a slow gait, sweeping along straight legged past a trolley frozen careening wildly to the side. From his breast pocket he removed a platinum watch on a silver chain and opened it to the face, imminent hands moving in that menacing and yet understanding way. The case was clicked shut and the watch returned to the breast pocket and the menacing figure approached the well-dressed man, removing from his side a small black pole. He held out one hand and touched the mans face as the other hand with the pole reared back in a slow motion, slowly growing and releasing a silvery blade that shined ever so slightly blue in the light. And within less than what would have been one second the hand was removed as the scythe rushed forward and appeared on the opposite side of the neck. No blood passed from the wound, not a scratch was made, but there was a groan heard on the winds, which had appeared from nowhere. The bitter and groaning wisp of wind swirled in the air and passed into the sky as the figure stood, paralyzed, inches away from the trolley. And right by him a man with brown hair and a goatee in a perfect suit stood in utter horror staring wide eyed at the scene in front of him. The dark figure moved away and life slowly resumed, the trolley groaned forward, gaining speed as time returned. In a voice like a boiler the dark figure muttered something just before vanishing into thin air. And time resumed itself. There was a sickening crunch as the trolley hit the man and splashed the prefect brown haired man with blood. He fell to his knees and vomited as more and more businessmen gathered around the scene. And through the air ran a bitter breeze and a small groan, drifting away slowly. Sleep, those little slices of death, how I loath them. Edgar Allen Poe Lights blazed in the sky, dots from above. Little circles around the sky. Just kind of wheeling around, one cylinder over another, passing over, through and around each other. They were traced down to the ground, upon witch lay the tundra. In the middle of the snow lay a road leading up to a building of great significance. It was huge, monolithic. A giant obelisk of red rising high into the sky, buttresses sticking out on every level supporting nothing. On each of these buttress decorative stood a demon, deep onyx in stone, his sediment arms grinding up and down, or forward and back, holding onto a spotlight. Upon the point of the obelisk stood a diamond covered triangular top. Upon said top stood the most prominent and fearsome of the satanically sculptures. He was some odd twenty feet high, made of pure ruby, balanced on the point on a small ledge that gave the appearance in the carefully designed architecture to seem that he stood in the middle of the air. His legs one in front of the other, as if in some low stance of fighting. He was bent over in torso, left arm held behind his back, outstretched and fingers so straight out that they curved slightly backwards in their sockets, long fingernails tearing at the sky. His other hand was in a slashing motion, holding a scythe in a vertical position with a large light running along the bottom of the blade, to thin to see from the ground. And his head held high, eyes blacker than onyx staring straight forward, and bald red head with two small horns sticking out of the forehead. The arm of the ruby devil holding the scythe slashed up and down, his scythe light positioned just so that the light hit the long red carpet, as if gashing a red wound for a hundred yards in front of the building into the earth itself. Right below the monsters feet was a large gold placard reading: ɶǽŋɬǻ Throughout the grounds a soft hush of music echoed from within. Deep, chilling music, the kind of pulp horror mixed in with choral notes to create some truly grave and awful noises. A small shape was moving along the ground, just out of lights range. The music was reaching a crescendo, going up the scale, the shouts getting more and more dismal all the time. The shape had reached the carpet and was moving along the earth’s wound of a line. Just then, the light hit the shape, the light of the scythe from the towering monster of ruby above, at the same time the orchestra and choir hit a high point, seemingly crying out in unison, “Setimos!” Setimos, they continued to cry slightly softer as the woman moved along the ground, her blue dress flowing along behind her, propelled by the wind tha4t was not, her golden hair flowing back in a breeze as she floated along the ground effortlessly. The dismal chorus continued throughout the night as the light of the scythe traced the gash in the earth, keeping a close watch on the blue speck moving along as if a cleansing to the pain. Finally, the earths gash of a carpet stopped short, the scythe moved backwards and the music began to die down to one refrain, trailing off into the distant night, seeming to fly through the few slits in the stone of the red tower, flying free from the demonic vestige which had held it for such a time, fleeing on the wind as one small cry. As the trail faded past the warm glow of the light, into the dark and cold, which surrounded the scene as far as the eye, could see, the woman approached the door. As the last chord faded away a deafening crack was heard around the tundra as a monstrous stone door was flung open and crashed against the wall, a defining and dramatic crack surely signifying a new presence in the circular room. A long spiral staircase, lined in red doors all the way to the top of the breathtaking heights circled the room in which she had entered. In the center of the room, which was lined in red velvet through the floor and the walls, stood a stage and in front of that was an orchestra pit where many a darkened shape was fiddling with small instruments and many a vocal tuning was heard. At the top height of the staircase there was a small terrace which stood near a darkened ceiling in which one could see small movements, like that of ants. The woman ascended the stairs, climbing with ease in that circular motion, her movement easily documented from top or bottom by the blue standing out against the vivid blood red. She moved rapidly and all along the echo and screech came of tuning vocals and instruments and the scratch and scrape of the statues outside which still stood guard, spilling light into the bare lands below and around. She neared the entrance to the terrace. The knob trembled under the force of her hand as she twisted it. She entered onto the terrace where two people waited. One was a tall man, long face and stark silver hair. Clean cut and eyes of the same color, a sturdy nose and tight drawn lips, seemingly white slits. He stood, looking very uptight, by the door in his black jacket and white shirt, a very butler like person. The other was a man who sat in the only chair on the terrace. A straight-backed chair in which he sat straight backed, back to the door and wearing quite a pronounced hat, an odd mixture of a top hat and a beret. As the blue clad woman entered the door he drew up, rising, as a snake would uncoil itself from its winding circle. He was a slightly flushed man, looking very red in the face, but still so skinny. He looked nearly skeletal, a long face with nearly no cheeks and a long thin nose, tiny little rose red lips … and eyes burning with hellfire all throughout. He was clad in a red tuxedo vest and formal red pants, along with the standard red shirt, though there was a hint of the burgundy of blood about the fabric. He walked along the satin of his floor with the ease and grace of a viper and seemingly the same intent in his burning red eyes. One hand was slowly raised and a splitting sound was made as he snapped his fingers, his long and yellow nails grinding as his fingers met. At the sound the man by the door thrust out his hand, not turning an eye, not wavering in one action and held out an envelope within the woman’s arms reach. Her pale hand reached out and took the envelope and withdrew immediately to a hidden pocket where she deposited the envelope and removed her hand to its regular position. A sinister smile flittered across the rosy lips of the red clad gentleman and he extended one grimy hand. She took it and began to shake his hand when he pulled her in. His other arm clasped around her in what would be a hug. She was startled at first and as soon as she was released she just stared at him. The smile flitted across his face once more and he took a step back. A cold and horrid laugh escaped him and in quite a southern accent he called out in a deep and sly voice, “Keep in touch Lor, hon.” She smiled gingerly and showed her pearly white teeth. After looking down at her feet for a moment she looked up, face serious as always it had been and she said in that sweet and mysterious voice, “Thank you Setimos.” Upon saying as much she turned and descended the stairs. Setimos sat back down, listening to the steps die away and finally the door slam shut. He relaxed and closed his eyes as the eerie tunes started to usher up from the far below. As he closed his eyes he muttered under his breath, “Life’s a bitch, poor gal.” I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism Oscar Wilde Light rose over a great red monolith. It stood tall as the crimson sun rose over the horizon. The lights did not flow upon the ground, the gash in the earth sat rolled up by the door and the monotonous grinding of hidden gears within the hideous statues had stopped short. All was quiet, if one looked inside they would see no movement from the orchestra pit, no movement on the stage, but all was still there, though the only light upon the red velvet and plywood stage was that of the sun sneaking through the gaps in doors and breaks in the stone. And another shape moved along the ground. It was not clad in blue. It did not low. It did not dawn the ceremonial black and white of a butler, nor did walk in that so dignified manner of servitude. It did not wear the red tales or the snakelike smirk or the sly and coiling movement. In short, it had nothing to do with the night before, it was different. And almost invisible. White on white, a figure of purity and good. It approached the great red doors, the white gown, similar to a toga, almost invisible to the snow and the perfect, thin, anorexic face, Aryan with blond hair and blue eyes looking intently forward. The doors opened before it and it ascended the stairs, as had been a familiar action of the previous night. There was an earthshaking blast as a specked hole appeared into the wall next to the white clad figure. There, at the mid stair point, stood the butler, holding out a .412 gauge shotgun. Not moving a muscle, but giving the air to say that that was a warning shot, the next would be much more personal. The white clad figure looked over its shoulder and turned its head right back toward the butler and continued to ascent the stairs. Another crack was heard in the hallowed monolith, but it was fragmented. As the first lash was sounded a ripple moved throughout the air, surrounding all, and the rest of the sound of the dislodging bullet was more like a long fizzle and a bit of a pop like a little toy gun as the bullet became clear, moving more and more slowly so that one could see the disturbance in the air form its movement mingled with that radiating from the opposite direction. Just as the bullet was mere inches from the white mans face it stopped as did, slowly, an outreaching area. One long and glowing hand reached forward and removed it from the air, placing it a few feet to his left. Just than time resumed. The bullet scattered over the wall once more, a small smile flicked across the mans face and in a voice like the ringing of bells he whispered, “Close enough.” The butler stood aghast against the wall as the white figure continued to ascent the stairs. Ever closing in on his place. His blond hair streaming back behind him without a breeze. He came closer and closer to the butler who fired off one, two, three, four more careless shots in sheer terror, never hitting once, but always missing by mere inches. Finally the white clad figure reached the mid point of the steps. He stood, staring down the barrel of the shotgun and, to the butler seemingly in no time at all, the gun was on the floor below and the man in white had him held with one hand by the neck over the edge of the rail. He did not exert effort or even breath as the butler squirmed his legs over the side and then he let go. For hundreds of feet the butler fell, closing in on the ground, twisting and turning and spiraling in midair, his hair tossing and turning and his suit getting all out of order as pure terror overtook his face. With an earsplitting crunch his head dove straight into the ground as he had squirmed into a nosedive. His skull smashes and a small view of his face showed a contorted look of pain and suffering as an immediate spurt of blood littered the burgundy floor, and fit right in. His body toppled him onto his stomach and he lay sprawled out on the ground, head flattened and a pool of blood forming about him, a fragment of skull reaching out of his black hair and one left sticking out to the side, the other straight and the two arms sprawled out at erratic angles. The white clad figure stood looking down indifferently over the rail. Maybe a light of admiration at his work living deep in his eyes, but nothing else. He resumed his long climb to the top, slowly ascending as if nothing had happened and below the puddle of red grew, now its texture different from the floor, though the color still blended in. Finally, after the long remainder of his climb, the ghastly pale figure reached the top of the stairs as, with one swift kick, knocked the door to the balcony off its hinges. Into the room he went to find standing before him Setimos. A grim and desperate look was upon his face, but a solemn and resolved face none the least. From his side the white figure removed a long and crude dagger, bone white, and with one deft jab buried it deep in the red man. He stumbled backward with a wince on his face and opened his mouth, a small gush of blood releasing from the cavity at the same time, and murmured with his last breath, “I did what was right.” Another stumble backwards put Setimos in from of the ruby guard railing in the foremost part of the balcony where he r reached out one hand to steady himself as the other clasped around the bleached hilt of the dagger. His eyes clouded over, slightly bloodshot and glazed, as he withdrew the dagger and threw its blood-soaked blade down to the floor. The hand was clasped over the wound once more; it was now expelling quite a lot of blood. The white figure approached him slowly, one hand rising out from the robe, reaching forward slowly and a ripple started to Doppler out from his fingers. He slowed. Bloodshot eyes set on the white man Setimos uttered silently, “I’ll not give you that pleasure, you sick piece of shit.” With one final effort as the ripple in the air approached he flung himself over the rail, falling arms outstretched and eyes closed, escaping the man and the ripple, leaving a trail of gore along the walls and opening his eyes only as he reached the floor. The man in white did not stay for the conclusion, by the time Setimos had opened his eyes the figure had revoked the ripple. He had descended the stairs with great speed and had already closed the door behind him and no crunch of bones of splat of gore could be heard form the fall, the stone blocked all. With a sheer indifference, the figure continued his leave. Slowly retracing his steps over the tundra and disappearing into the snow of the tundra as a red sun rose behind him. There are only a couple dozen people in the world; the rest is done with mirrors and strings Morris Oliver All was white in the room. All white, and so bland. There was nothing, it seemed. Nothing at all in this place. There was no wall, no ground, and no intersection of parts, just the white background. Hovering above this, or on it, it was hard to tell, were ten white clad figures, standing stalk still, side by side. In nothing, just there, standing. Another figure approached, his golden robes hanging in the white like a slight shimmer. One could make out that these figures, all ten of which stood side by side in the nothing, were fair-haired and fair skinned and fair in almost every way. Soft and curving features donned the face and the light curves and curly gold locks fell unblemished. They were, in a word, heavenly. And the golden shimmer approached. He was different. Not really different though, for he was … he just was. All you could really distinguish were the golden robes. Just a shimmer in the field of purity. He was one of those people. The ones you don’t know. One of the crowds. One of the ones who is actually there as backdrop. Someone with such distinct figures and a face you’ll never forget, but when you think about it you can never recall them. One of the people you can see in your head, but they are so … different … that you cannot bring yourself to view them in your minds eye. They just are. Well, that was this thing. A face you would always know, if you could. He reached forward to one of the solitary figures of the fair hair. The figure snapped alert and rose up in the white, inverting himself in the process so that he stood upside down to the golden view. Face to face with the crowd. And he vanished to nothing. His space was taken by nothing once more and the golden shimmer walked back across the way he had come. Tracing back his steps and looking over another rack of ten inanimate fair-haired as it were. Each time the same process was repeated and the same result came to be. After repeating this process several more times he eventually passed the allotted amount of paces and kept moving. There were no more fair racks, nothing of the sort. There was on the other hand a very large shimmer of gold in the white, spreading to endless corners. The golden shimmer of the fair racks set his non-face. He approached the first of the mass of shimmers and made a similar process of the fair ones. Again and again they passed away, vanishing into the sky as it were to be replaced by the white, which consumed all. This process repeated itself again and again, so many times it became nauseating, a tap and an inversion and a vanishing. Finally the shimmer had faded to the gold we know so well. It shut its eyes and a ripple in the air emitted from it. It spread softly over the white and vanished into nothing. The time passed. He stood, eyes closed, and just stayed. An eternity of silence and nothing seemed to pass before another ripple was emitted into the white. It spread throughout for a time and than a rift was opened. One after another of the fair-haired came through and assembled themselves on their racks. This completed itself until the racks were filled. Soon the golden shimmer streamed in. One after another, time and time again, just one long plague of men they came in, all faces of one crowd. They streamed into their holding position and stood still, waiting for something. The former gold shimmer of the ripple approached what could be considered the head of the hoard. There was an air of tension in the white and time continued to pass. A soft wisp of air rang out through the white and let its noise travel through the thick material of the land, “One.” This cry escaped the lips of the golden shimmer at the head of the golden hoard. There was a rustle in the ripple and the figure approached a rack of inanimate white figures. He reached out and awakened all ten of the fair-haired and they traveled to their inversion, and vanished into the world. And the ripple in the white was withdrawn, and the hoard was silenced, and time passed. All changes, even the most longed for have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves. We must die to one life before we can enter another Anatole France He wandered down the street. Down the narrow cobbled isles of the alleys of the town. His feet seeming to contrast with the sounds of all the other life in the area. He didn’t belong. It was wrong. It was not the place for such a man as he. He soon found himself stumbling into even more unfamiliar territory, as the buildings deteriorated and the sky seemed to darken. The Underworld, the poor. This was the very opposite of the world which he belonged in. Things grew darker. The buildings took on deeper and rustier shades. But was it so wrong? Was what he was doing so wrong? He doubted if it truly was, for what could be wrong about it. His lifestyle must be more a sin than that of these. All the thoughts began to intermingle in his head, confusing him to no ends. The clouds of concentration filed into his brain, the thoughts swarming into his brain. That familiar dark grip of thought creeping into his being and clutching at his very soul. The world around him began to fade. Just than he was knocked to his senses. His foot had found its way onto the odd cobble upturned and had sent him flying across the ground. Yet he did not feel the pain of a fall nor the sting of faint. He did feel a rather firm, if not slightly shaking, grip on his arm. As vision of the real world returned to him he reached through the haze of his mind, swiping at the purple cones in his vision, and blindly brushed away a strand of his long brown hair. His vision returned he looked over at the figure gripping him. A tall and dark Caucasian of a rather firm nature. His long bangs of greasy black hair brushed away to either side slowly drooping in front of his pitch-black sunglasses. He was tightly clothed in a quite mandarin outfit and his long hawk like nose hanging over a set mouth, tightly drawn, completed the look of firm decision on his face. With considerably little effort he hauled the brown haired man up to his feet and propped him up by the shoulder as he took a few shaky steps to steady himself. The dark figure, very pale and considerably odd in the fact that he wore sunglasses in the dark, looked firmly ahead as he paced on and the brown haired man followed obediently. Finally a door was reached, cold and dim, but menacing and heavy steel set in rusting hinges in the side of a very old and crumbling brick building. One sideways look came from the man and with a deep and cutthroat voice firm as rock he said, “You are Adam.” “Yes … yes I am, … and you are?” came the slightly squeamish though fluid response of the brown haired man, apparently known as Adam. “It wasn’t a question, I am Severus, but you should have known,” was the still firm reply of the very set and dark man. And without a word, but maybe a slight crack from within his body, Severus entered the door. Adam gave a brief sigh. He looked down at the ground and wondered. The greasy hands started to gain a grip on his mind and with a shudder he jerked himself back to reality. With one last sideways look he followed into the dark bowls of the building and closed the steel door tightly behind him. And wheels were set into motion. How this feels is I’m just another task in God’s daily planner: The Renaissance penciled in for right after the Dark Ages. The Information Age is scheduled immediately after the Industrial Revolution. Then the Post-Modern Era, then The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Famine. Check. Pestilence. Check. War. Check. Death. Check. And between the big events, the earthquakes and tidal waves, God’s got me squeezed in for a cameo appearance. Then maybe in thirty years, or maybe next year, God’s daily planner has me finished. Chuck Palahniuk “We see throughout the process of our lives the dilemma of fate. It is only a dilemma in the fact that we known not what our fate is. Or if we are predestined at all. Is there a divine reason, or is it all a cosmic joke? Questions of this sort have plagued the minds of men for years and years. To some extent it is because of thought, but I digress, one must not wander onto the tantalizing subjects that exist in branches to the field of fate and to the field of philosophy in general. We must concentrate on the topic we see. “Problems on this subject affront us. Telepathy, chaos theory, time travel, fortune telling, astrology, religion. These have all played their part in the creation of the ideas of fate and how destiny works. We see many ideas of controversy. And it is true that to some extent we see that some of these objects of foresight hold some validity to the reality of our existence. “We can all see that there are ways to note another’s feelings. To see in their eyes and hear in their voice what may be floating through their heads. We can use this telepathy, this psychic instance as we see it, to make somewhat rational judgments of someone’s next move. To some extent telepathy is only a form of basic psychology that every being can tap into. It is an ability not limited to one species, in fact it may be the very for of communication for many species. But can one really call this foresight? Can this really help us see our destiny? How do we know the truth of this, or as a fact if it is a part of the predetermined fate for an interference to be made on a third parties part into the lives of others using this instinct. You cannot use this to judge the validity of destiny, not at all. “This brings one to the idea of fortune telling. This too had seemed to bare some truth. But it must to be an art that has survived so long, no? Fortune telling is maybe the weakest form of foresight. It is a parlor trick, used to entertain the masses, and, to some extent, always has been. Also, the suggestions given by this method may be playing a role in the decisions one makes, altering the future themselves. This too is a useless art in the proof of destiny. “Astrology too is weak. The position of the planets does relate to the effect on the earth of many things. And through trial and error of many years has told quite accurate tales of the future. But, once again, there is the factor of the power of persuasion. There is also the fact that it cannot exactly measure the pattern of someone’s future, it just tells the natural patterns seen before. It is slightly more effective. “Religion is a major suggestion of the powers that be. It tells us of ultimate plans and of the future. It also tells us what to do and what to think, leading us to the future it chooses. But, if so much of the foresight is power of persuasion, how can we say that power of persuasion is not part of destiny. How can we say that these forces have not been sent here to guide us towards the preordained [path of our lives? How can we say what is and what isn’t, what is part of our fate and what is just chance? “All this be put aside, as I digress but again. We see throughout the lives ahead of us signs of destiny in forms all around. What is destiny and what is not is not for us to decide, for I think not even those lesser or larger endowed that we can tell the truth of the matter, but we can still ponder to ourselves. We can ponder the truth of things that affect our destiny. We can ponder changing the past and the present. And that is why we are here today. We are here for you all to hear what I have to say, so to speak. More of to hear the impressions life has given me throughout my tenor on this earth. “Putting aside the question of fate, if it is true or not, we move onto yet another subject. We move onto changing the destiny of yourself or others. We come mainly to time travel. And more specifically traveling to the past or the present. We deal not with the future because there are to many things to dwell on in that field. The idea that if you see the future it is doomed to happen, or the idea that the future doesn’t exist yet are to deep of subjects for us to delve into today, so we shall stay the facts at hand of the present and the future. “Time travel is one question. If we travel into the past can we change it? Some people have thought about changing the future by changing the past, but I just can’t believe it. Mixing in a little of the chaos theory we could see that through that idea setting foot back in time would wipe out the world. Therefore the past cannot be changed and it cannot change the present. But in a way it can. “If we change the present through foresight, or through a different form of such a thing, we may be able to alter what would later be the present. So, therefore, only by making the past the present could it be used to change the future. If you went to the past to change things you would wipe out the future. If you went to the present for a second time and existed in a different way you would alter life. Changing the future because, at what would be the present, it would not exist. “So therefore, only by fully existing in the past can we change a future which is not. But if we were to change the future, by the chaos effect, so drastically through such a thing as the alteration of a past present, the world, though still existing along the same lines, would be a much different place. You would not be wiped clean as the changer, but you may be able to alter the fate of others and yourself. I know this seems a bit repetitious, but it must be stressed. I know not how such a thing could be achieved and as such theories as such may never be proven, and who cares to prove them, as there is no need to change what is so drastically as what would be the repercussion of such an action. “The only … reason … the only reason would be to prove one way or another if the past could change the future. … But. But … would you even remember such events. You would …. You would have to … to.” And the professor rubbed his old left arm, nuzzled deep in its tweed stronghold. He started breathing heavily and ran his hands through his straw like hair. He hadn’t been able to shake the icy look of the blond haired girl in the back of the class all this time. The classroom started to rustle. A few people reached for their cell phones and some started to get up. Running down to help the old man. And a ripple spread through the air. Everything paused and the blond haired girl walked forward, black pole in hand, outstretching into a scythe. With no lust in her deep eyes, none what so ever, she completed a quick backhand slice at the professors head. The usual groan ran through the air and still none of the usual signs played across he face. As she walked across the room, leaving through the door, time began to resume. The professor hit the ground and students crowded around. By this time the girl was long gone, but her muttered words still hung sweet and crisp in the air, “Interesting.” Only barbarians are not curious about where they came from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not. Isaiah Berlin “It’s just … I don’t know what to think anymore. I have followed the scripture for all my life. And I can’t see the truth in it. What is the point of following blindly like sheep? I must ask, why do we follow such an obvious lie. How could I ever have believed this crap? The deities watching out for us and the … so on. It’s just such a load of shit.” Adam buried his head in his hands. For some reason he seemed less perfect. His hair slightly graying. Severus stared into the fire. The flame dwindled in the dying log, smoldering to ash and falling to a gray heap in the hearth. You could see it reflected twice in the sunglasses and you could also see his firm set features. Still maintaining the set look, despite the spew of blaspheming coming forth from his friend’s mouth. It was all expected. The fire fascinated him; it reminded him of … something he could not place. But, it must have been important. But, he had to say something. “I don’t know why you could follow it, I never saw the sense. Even if it is all real, any one of theses systems of belief, what good are they? They are a crutch for the masses, nothing but a form of psychology, which we have taken and molded, the faiths are useless. True, they can help us with altered messages of love and peace, but if man was a truly rational being, he would not need the perks and the beliefs and he could just accept the precepts of the religion.” Adam interrupted; his head had perked out of his hands. Severus was finally talking. And what he was saying was interesting. Very interesting, and he wanted to know more. “You said precepts … don’t you mean commandments?” “No, no,” Severus seemed slightly disturbed by the interruption; he did like to rant once he got into it, and he did not enjoy disruption. “I believe … and I think most should, that even if the messages are good and the ups may be tempting in a religion. Well, there is still a problem. The problem is that the set proposal of a commandment is that it must be followed for the perks. A precept is more of a polite nudge. It gently pushes us into line, it is more of psychology, not a do it or else, but a hey this might be good.” Severus had stopped his banter and now stared into the fire as if nothing had happened. Adam, egger for more of this knowledge, he felt the need to push deeper into the folds of this mans mind. “And you?” Severus, now thoroughly annoyed with this disruption, decided this would be it. “I have precepts, I believe in the eight-fold path, devoid of the spiritual Nirvana, but retaining the fact that some good can be had. I have long ago given up on an afterlife or on a good moment in life even, but I can see that if man could actually persevere in things like right speech and in right mind the world could be a better place. A place of more right intention. Just a better place in general. I don’t follow the precepts, per say, but I do believe the basic idea. And now I think you must be going and I shall …” Once again Adam disrupted, “Two questions … please … I need to know. Why don’t you follow the precepts you believe in?” “I have never actually believed that I myself could achieve the eightfold path. Besides, I lack the tolerance. I don’t believe myself to be beyond it, I just think myself to little a man. That is just the way it is … it would be right to do, but I don’t think … that I could.” “And … you’ve been avoiding using the words good and bad, why?” “That is a subject for another night. Go home, I shall see you when the time is right.” Adam withdrew to the door, the steel wretched as it moved on the rusted hinges and he stepped out and vanished into the gray of the morning. Severus, with some effort, let a smile creep onto his face, the unused muscles of his mouth twitching spastically with the effort of the expression. He withdrew a book from the shelf beside him and read by the fire for a moment. “This I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion or government which limits or destroys the individual. John Steinbeck.” And with these words the last embers of the fire fell to a gray remain, no more logs lay on the hearth, and the light slowly seeped out of the room, leaving Severus in darkness, slowly fading into the dark. And then there was nothing, nothing but the dark. The first key to wisdom is constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at truth. Peter Abelard A switch was flicked on in the room. The dim light of the bulb gave a very grim prospective to the very rustic furniture. The silent hum of the long bulb above, somewhere near the ceiling, was the only noise in the tall room. It was quite a classic looking old place, the floor a deep burgundy carpet of a material much resembling a satin, but truly just some sort of plush carpet. It did look as if not a foot had tread upon it in some time. Along one of the walls was a line of desks, small things with rather Victorian lights on their green surface, which lay atop a deep mahogany wood frame. Not much to behold, the ten desks along the long wall which itself was constructed of a mahogany wood, though well finished, deep, lush and smooth. Footsteps echoed through the room, a slight sound on the plush carpeting, but at the same time a hollow reverberation through the immense depths of the room. The steps found themselves at the fourth desk from the right and reached for the pull chain on the light, made of some kind of brass and even in the warmth of the room’s atmosphere, it was cold. The slightly ill looking light shown down in somewhat of a halo of illumination on the green surface of the desk, turning out to be rough paint on smooth wood. A wooden revolving desk chair was pulled out and a body hurled itself onto the velvet of the seat, a light cushion in the expertly crafted wooden frame. The man gave a sigh as he leaned back in the chair, letting his tweed suit rumble itself as his head leaned back and his perfectly combed hair undid itself and hung out in heavily greased strands, a deep gray. His arms sprawled out on each armrest, hands slightly drooping off the sides as fingers, yellowed by nicotine, outstretched themselves and than balled back into fists. With a quick thrust of one foot, adorned in a brown work shoe, he propelled the chair over and around to face the entrance he had come through. It was yet another mahogany wall and in the dead center was a green door in a very intricate frame of woodcarvings made up of something like yew. This action caused his glasses to fall back upon his forehead and one hand shakily lifted itself to resettle them upon his nose. Upon lifting his head the man made another turn of the chair to look at the last two walls. The were covered in shelves, each with its own latter as every shelf extended far into the air, towering maybe twenty feet high at the least. With one last propulsion of the chair, which had been leaving deep lines in the plush carpet all this time, he reached one shelf on the far wall of the room, so oddly crafted that it was in the utmost dim reaches of the light which seemed to merely spot the dark as some kind of static. With a sigh and a grunt the man hauled himself up out of the chair and over to the nearest latter. Up he climbed to the top of the shelf and he reached above him to the very top and furthest corner. His hand clasped at a book, and it fell out of his grasp. His hand fluttered desperately at the book and ended up knocking down even more of the shelf. The books fell towards him and he in turn fell from the latter, falling closer and closer to the ground with the books trailing after him. And time seemed to slow for him as he approached the end of the dizzying heights. A wave ran through the air and everything had stopped, all time was gone. Sitting at one desk, the fourth form the right, his tallow colored skin exaggerated by the yellow of the lights, was a man clad in black. Black boots, dirty with mud and twigs, black pants and a black shirt, all concealed in a black trench coat that seemed to follow him in some odd way as he got up, his long nails digging themselves into the arms of the chair as he did so. The black clad man stared forth with his onyx eyes onto the man whose eyes opened in agony and regret at the sight of the floor. One aged hand reached for a front pocket and began to remove a long, platinum chain, but he shook his head, sending his clumped and greasy hair into a mess, and replaced the chain. The black pole was removed and soon there was a scythe in its place. There was the normal ceremony of the backhand slice and the groan in the air, but the black clad figure did not withdraw to the shadows, nor into the light, nor to the exit. Instead he craned his neck to look at the titles of the oncoming books. He reached out and grabbed a few old volumes some like The Metaphysics and other Aristotle and Plato, Socrates and Marcus Aralias, were much easier to recognize. Others like Music, The Brain and Ecstasy were more obscure texts but they all seemed to protein to the genre of philosophy. All in all thirteen volumes were selected and he moved into the dark. He slowly vanished, taking the rustic tomes with him, and time slowly returned. A muttered cruse echoed in the room as the tweed-clad man found his face introducing itself to the ground one final and more violent time. His leg bent out in an odd sense and one arm lay sprawled out, the other under his head, which was face down on the ground. His other straight leg gave one last kick, a slight spasm, and it was over. The light flickered far above and slowly faded away and the only illumination to see the body or the littering ob books was the tallow light of the desk lamp on the opposite side of the room. But that did not reach the grizzly scene, did not reveal the loss of information from the room. In it’s faintest reaches it did reveal the deep gashes in the arms of the chair left by two cold and deadly hands. … if only they could discover enough facts about a problem, these facts would somehow arrange themselves in a compelling and true solution. Theodosius Dobzhansky Bass blared in the background. Shaking the floor as it escaped through the subwoofer placed right by the keg on the floor. Music raged and a beat hit as the strobe light lit up the room different colors with each passing moment. The carpet and walls all an indescribable clash of colors as the strobe raged on and the room shook with the bass. The keg rocked back and forth slightly on floor as the pounding of hands on the tap mixed with the rush of the music. And out reached a hand, prying of the lid to the keg. Through the strobe and the music no one heard or saw anything. The timing was just right. The deed was done and the hand backed away, carefully replacing the lid of the keg and pouring a drink from the tap into a red plastic cup. Only to pour it out into a plant once out of sight. The music continued to rage and the eight people populating the room swayed back and forth. In each hand laid a plastic red cup, brimming with a dark and foamy substance, as they moved back and forth, up and down, mixing and spilling the liquid upon the ground. The music continued and raged on and on. Devil’s Slide came on the system and as the tempo increased and the drunken dance raged on the air grew, with lack of better words, morbid. The stench reeked through the air. Like burning hair, but very discrete, life gone bad. The tempo slowed and the movements became more and more lethargic, slowing and slowing. As a main solo came and the music picked itself up once more the dance did not move with it. Now leaning over and hacking, one man, long greasy blond hair hanging in front of his face and color of his garb hidden in strobe, fell to the ground. His cup runneth over on the ground and the brown and foamy fluid saturated the surrounding carpet as the man writhed in agony on the floor. One by one the coughing continued. One by one similar men and women fell. The incense in the air became overpowered with the reek of poisons and death. Soon enough every body was on the floor. Rolling in pain and agony and screaming in pain, but drowned out by the raging bass above as the keg finally spilled to the ground, running over the floor. And the time began to slow in an all so similar fashion. And in the wake of the terror stood eight shapes. The time had stopped and the writhing was frozen in time. Each crippled stance forever frozen in time and the looks of pain and torture cemented onto faces of rebels who now lay in their own demise. The eight shapes stood. Each facing one frozen shape, their gaze unwavering and menacing, never did they lift an eye from their target. Never once did they recognize another. One with long blond hair, reaching down in a straight-combed fashion, tied in a ribbon at the small of his back. He stood clad in a blue satin and firm with high cheekbones, an essence of royalty and reeking of aristocracy. Another stood in leather wife-beater jacket with fishnet sleeves, one ripped of at the elbow. His baggy leather pants in bondage with strips of fabric and chains and his face masked under eye shadow and white powder, hair held high in a spiked green Mohawk. Yet another clad in a white toga with a crown of olive branch and a brown sash at the waist, his black hair held back by various contraptions of similar materials. And another, a woman wearing her hair in a tight black bun, high face powdered and held firm ahead as her blue floral kimono trailed on behind. One more wearing some dress like trench-coat trailing down to his ankles, three sliver buttons holding it together to form a very puffing look, his hair held back with excessive grease and eyes shaded in sun glasses. A sixth in a brown jacket, wearing a peace sign on his cheek and very country pants as well as a headband and long brown hair held back in a ponytail. A seventh in buckskins and beaver cap, the very essence of a coir’ de bois. And last of all, a very strict businessman, standing back straight in a heavy tweed suit, glassed astray on his nose and tie held tight in place by a heavy knot. A grim man of all. At once they withdrew the ceremonial black sticks. The regular extension occurred simultaneously. The blades flashed forwards and they all took a step. No attention paid to one another or anything but their target. The blades flashed and eight groans escaped at once. The figures turned and about face at once and walked away, never one but of eye contact, and all vanished at once. But time did not right itself. Time stayed stock-still in fear and wonder at its assailant. Sitting in a chair by a very ill looking plant sat a man in a black trench coat. Clad in black and boots dusted brown he looked a grim sight. Onyx black eyes held down on a paper under one fist on which he scratched eagerly with a pen. Greasy black locks drooping down in front of his eyes, one yellowed hand reached to brush them out of the way and he stood. The paper was pocketed in a breast pocket, a platinum chain resettling itself as he did so. And time began to resume, the contents of the keg slowly sliding towards the man in the chair. The writhing had stopped. Time was almost back to normal. The man was gone, but hanging on the air like a black hand of death was the word. “Interesting.” And the bodies lay still. And the world was as it was. And the subwoofer blared on. In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain. Pliny the Elder The mountain was a small one. But from it you could still see the world. And first you saw the mountain, a long mass of rolling hills, a sloping peak, not at all like that view from a child’s picture of a singular point. It merged into foothills and the craggy face sometimes broke the line of forest running along its face with a high gray precipice. It’s top just hanging below the clouds, the forest around it and on it, the steep faces of rock looking down and up at the last traces of snow in the lands. And the mountains rolled on and one, encircling the area, and down on the small town. The closest and tallest peak of the area. At some point it becomes impossible to describe nature, as it is something we have never really mastered with words. It is hard to capture the personification of the earth in figurative speech. To really tell exactly the curves and lines of the forests. To see where the crags appear, running their lines deep in the face of the earth, or what things are really like. The English language seems to stop short of the ability of actually telling us what it is that we see in nature. In fact, almost all languages seem to stop short of true expression of the beauty, and horror, we see around us. They are forms of communication, of though and logic, but never can they convey true emotion, true meaning, or true description. And so it is impossible to describe the view from the mountaintop. Or even the mountain itself. One can try, but one will fail. Only such a breath taking sight can help you to understand. Only such a sight can give you a true comprehension of the phrase you wouldn’t understand unless you saw it. High up on the lonely peak a man lay in a small meadow. Still tufted with snow here and there. The grass yellow in the early spring and wet with the dew of the morn. It lay nestled between two groves of pine trees, and on the face of the mountain, a quick jut, and perfect for viewing the area. And the man sat, back to one tree, looking down on the yellowed grass below. The meadows on which the small clump of red roofs were built. He looked down on his little town, all the small movements below. The ring of the church bells below. The man sat in a state of meditation, notepad in hand, writing down little scratches on the paper. Little notes, not really about anything, just random thoughts. Though if anyone saw the pad they could have had him certified insane. After a while he lay the notepad down and wandered over to a patch of sand. He scratched upon the ground with a twig. He scratched a cross and the words I know into the ground. He backed up a little and stared intently at the tree for a second. Than he took another look around at the landscape. At the movement below and around him. And he yelled up to the sky. “I know about you, I know the truth. I know, so come on, smote me! Just get it over with, I’m done, and I know I’m done.” It was then that he noticed another shape on the mountain than he. A young woman in his mind. A blue dress and blond hair. She could have looked very malicious if she had chosen to, but her eyes were full of tears. She just stood there for a moment. Looking at the man with a slight air of sorrow about her. The man stared at her for a moment. “I’m right, I’m right, I knew it, I knew it all along. He sent you didn’t he and you don’t even care.” The woman let out with a slightly cracked voice a few uttered words. “I … I don’t work for anyone. I’m just here, and I don’t know why. But you are right, why I’m here. And I don’t even know why. I don’t even know why I’m still standing here.” With those last words the man backed to the edge of the cliff. And in one swift motion threw himself over the edge. And time slowed. Just before his body was to hit the ground it stopped completely. And there was the blue woman, scythe withdrawn. Closing in, and taking no pleasure, went through the regular motions of the job. And it was over, the groan escaped. And she backed away, letting time return to itself. And as she was disappearing into the dawn she heard the sickening crunch, the thud. She cringed and faded away. This was all very odd to her; she had a lot of thinking to do. Far too much thinking for her liking. No one to ask the answers from. And, she couldn’t help but think. Think that she had created the questions. But she could not have created the questions. There was something else, something much more. And so, she had a lot to think about, and a lot of time to use to think. I could prove God statistically. George Gallup Around the world eyes snapped open. Half a score pair of eyes, simultaneously awakening into a swarming biomass amongst the height of the worlds wonders. From splendor of Tokyo, poverty of Rio De Janeiro and on yet to crowded and wet Seattle the half score beings awakened into the world. Their eyes adjusting to the world as it is, not completely white. Their bodies adjusting to their surroundings, as they were, laws of physics and gravity holding them in place. And their very constitutions adjusted to humanity and all of its idiosyncratic splendors. As the eyes opened the ten ripples receded upon the figures. And the figures seemed to change, they stood out. They were no longer part of the crowd or part of the biomass. They seemed individual and alert. And their only similarity across the vast expanse were blue eyes that glowed like little pricks of fire in cavernous sockets one might have guess were to be used for eyes. And out of the crowd they stepped, little eyes glowing and minds full of their mission. And thus was how they were cut from the biomass. And hereof the mighty statistic came into play in ways, which may be better understood later. For, across the plains of the earth, in the tundra of Canada, a pair of eyes had opened and had questioned. Had thought and therefore it had lost. It was without mission or knowledge. It was real for a moment, the blue fire cleared and iced over, but the fire soon returned and the mission was found. The thought had been though and therefore would always be in essence and lurking in the back of the fire was icy question. The figure moved on though, never once stopping to ponder, on to a destination that would be reached soon enough. And on the way it brushed against a tall and pale man of dark complexion who wore quite a ratty overcoat and whose long greasy hair badly obstructed his vision. The person, she, noticed his hand clench but upon such observation noticed an immediate calm and a relaxation along the side of the black pole by his side and the deep and dark words which clung to the air like oil on water issued from his mouth as he moved on by. Sorry Ma’am. A long ways away in the reaches of Brazil, New York, Seattle, Kenya, Munich, Leah, Seoul, Tokyo and Mexico the other pricks of fire removed themselves from the crowd. Their minds never faltering not even to question, and they moved onward to complete their task. All seeming to take a turn to a side road to converge on one point of thought which was the only point of though. And so they all headed to the Equator, turning around from wherever they were and just walking on North, South, East or West, as if it were just a fine thing to do. And so it had begun. Throughout this further thought another statistic was fulfilled as yet another figure, this one in the commercial Tokyo, functioned differently. He realized to quickly. He moved to fast and sure even for the rest of the ten. And on his way to remove himself from the biomass he shoved down several people and, after brushing the hair off his long face, strode down the road with an extreme air of confidence and a quite bothersome smirk in his face. And all statistics were met, for these statistics had to be met for the things to exist in this plain and all was well and all was balanced and all was human. That’s the secret to life … replace one worry with another … Charles M. Schulz The white was all around once more. All the lack of depth and the purity of it all was enough to nauseate any viewer to the scene. And through it all ran the golden shimmer. It was all about the endless white, going up and down here and there all over the multitudes of space that seemed to have no bounds and yet the golden shimmer never changed size, it was not subject to laws of physics and logic. Nothing here was as it should be, thoughts of depth perception and horizon all scrutinized and destroyed long ago and the golden shimmer ran throughout an endless expanse that encompassed all but at the same time existed merely about him within ones peripheral vision. And suddenly this was not where the golden shimmer was. The golden shimmer was not in the room of white, not that room of white so to speak, for now he was no shimmer moving against the white. The white in this room was some kind of huge shimmer moving under the little golden dot. This confined golden dot had now settled into its new environment and waited what was to become, it seemed that not long ago this had happened, and in truth the time had not been so long, well not to the white shimmer at least. And do thou know why thou hast been summoned? For the transaction you have made within the fourth dimension is not of acceptance. Thou must know of which it is I speak, do thou not? Do not lie of your intentions; hast thou made attempt to overthrow the order? Hast thou seen it so necessary to dispatch assigned fleets? Has thou an answer for his actions, or was this setback pointless? All this issued through the white itself. It was within and without the white, the very essence was speaking. This thing had no voice but the idea seemed to travel into the mind of the golden dot. The speck of gold stood. His white robe seeming to wave in the breeze and eyes locked into the white all around him. He would say what he needed. He would tell was needed to be told and he would continue with his business. He would be out of this hell soon enough. May I be forgiven for my actions? For it is only your forgiveness that I work for, only you and you alone whom I shall serve. My transaction was made out of dire importance for action which could not have been avoided … and which could not take the time to pass through the plan. What has been done must be done as something as small as what has gone out of function must be fixed. One of the cogs is starting to stop and it must be ceased in this grinding before it seizes itself up and Silence, thou hast forgotten. It is through such an action that this shall fall. It is through such an action as to defy process that this minor error was originated. Dust thou perceive that this complication had not been foreseen? Dust thou doubt the process? Thou should not for the process will continue to work. Fortunately for you the process is equipped to deal with such a blunder as that you have caused the process shall prevail. The process will not be defied merely by your ignorance. Such an error as you have made may also be corrected, and though the backlash will be considerable there is always the ability to repair such blunders. Excuse my insolence but may I be told how such an action can be perceived as a blunder? For is this not how this sort of a problem would be fixed, is this not how the solution would have been achieved? I see not my error; may you be able to shed light upon my situation? We are all subject to the statistics of the process. How else would it function unless every last cog was attuned to its every chance? How else could all of the process function if everything was not set to a safeguard? Dust thou think that there is ever a time of perfection, a time when all is functioning properly? How could all function properly? All simply functions as it have been set to function in turn. Everything is released in step to coincide with and correct another error. An error must fix an error, which is one of the statistics of the process. Two wrongs making a right and two negatives making a positive. We must have failure to have success. The process functions by swapping out error. And now you have released and caused statistical error out of the stride in which it must happen for proper function. You have destroyed the harmony of the function. But fear not, your blunder was also foreseen, as this perfect equilibrium may never be maintained forever. Everything has been released in order to liquidate the error you have made. In fact everything will function as it always has. Everything has been just fine. Oh … I see. So … The golden spark brushed his gold hair out of his blue eyes. I think I know what this means. You will be replaced. All will function properly. We cannot risk another problem such as this. Everything will continue to function, you and the ten will be replaced. The cog will be fixed and everything will run smoothly. The equilibrium will be achieved once more and everything will continue as it has for years. But you shall be not. Thus did speak the white and by the end the gold was gone. There was now another golden shimmer moving through the white all around and no problem was to be found in all of the white. The process continued on and on and all seemed to calm. In a wave heading away from this process and out into the world. Thus spoke the mertatron. … all human evil comes from man’s inability to sit still in a room. Blaise Pascal The hollow sound of steps down the cobbles of a dark alley sounded off the metal of the walls and reverberated along the leaning and rough brick structures. The sounds of those nice leather boots with well-mended heels hitting the pavement awoke many of the hags and degenerates from their desperate slumber as the night drew on. In these twilight hours a set of brow eyes glazed over the faces of the gnarled and meeting the listless stairs of the ally folks. Adam continued to walk down the street casting a wary eye about him keeping an eye on the vagrants who abounded in the dark corners. He finally laid his sights upon an iron wrought door on the edge of one of the older structures. He climbed up the substantial step in front and pulled open the door. Inside was a dark room, a roaring fire sat in the hearth of a fireplace. Around this cozy setting were placed two rather plush chairs and in one chair sat a rather gaunt and grim figure. The gaunt figure gave a gesture of the hand to notify Adam who hung in the doorway to enter through the threshold. Adam complied, though he couldn’t help but stare for a moment at the alley outside. He continued to think that the doorway was a very symbolic step. But still his brown leather boots scuffed into the dark room and blackened in the dark mists of the ground. The gaunt figure in his rather oriental shirt and loose pants raised himself from the chair and motioned for Adam to sit in the other. He still wore the sunglasses even at this darkening hour and in the dim light of the fire. His face bony and yellow in the dim lights he made an even grimmer figure than he had mixed with the waning sun shown over the buildings from the alley. Severus had not changed even a bit since their last meeting. “And what has brought you back so soon?” Severus asked with just a hint of inquiring attitude as his hands smoothly folded in his lap. He raised one eyebrow like a think black adder across his forehead until it nearly reached to his greasy and slicked back raven black hair. The eyebrow slowly lowered once more as he settled back in his plush chair lowering his arms down onto the arms of the chair. “There is one question which you refused to answer me on my last visitation. The thoughts of its answer and what it may mean, your not telling me, have haunted my mind for many a day. I really do wish to know the answer. Why have you refused to use the words good and evil in such discussions where one word must come up? Why do you leave me to ponder? Is it to teach a lesson or to delay a point? Please end this mental anguish.” Adam finished his brief imploration and looked pleadingly at Severus in his hunched position with the hunger for answers in his eyes. “I will tell you why I have kept this from you for such a time. … I merely saw no need to tell you. It was a question that had no relativity to our discussion and to begin yet another of our little chats would only have detained me from my sleep. You see I am a rather tired man and I wished only to return to my bed that night. But now I feel that it would be fine to tell you my reasons.” Severus gave just a little tight-lipped smile and a chuckle under his breath as he looked up from his reclined state. “I will tell you that there is no such a thing as good or evil. They are terms of extreme and fanaticism. They are nothing more than labels and as we cannot label a person in a single word we cannot label a part of them in a word. They are not nouns, neither are they adjectives. They have no use, nothing is definitively evil, and nothing is definitively good. “I myself have done good in my life. I have also done evil. So how can one label me? If one has only done what is considered evil then they must have thought some good. Or at least inactivity prevented them from doing harm at one point. Therefore there is no good and evil. It is like trying to describe emotion. It may well exist but every last perception and idea is different in some shape or form and therefore prevents the discovery of common ground on the fact. As is such there is no consensus on good and on evil so they cannot exist. They lack proper definition and they lack any proof. They lack any example.” Severus concluded with a slight smile passing across his face. Adam perked up from his slump at once. He had a look of one who sees an escape in chess that could win the game. His eyes gained some sort of spark. “What about Satan? Is Satan not evil?” He held his head up triumphantly. He definitely had the edge on this argument. Without missing the beat Severus looked on and stated, “No, Satan is not evil. He is essential. It is choice, which led to the need for the labels of good and evil. A scapegoat, like Pagans and Wicca. The devil is no more than an opposed idea to god as communists are to democrats. One side has their values and the other has theirs. Satan’s values do not favor mankind or the will of the holy and therefore he is “evil.” No, Satan is not evil.” Still Adam looked on with just a slightly diminished hope in his eyes, but still with the courage and pluck to try and pull himself out of the ground. “But we see him as evil. And if he does nothing for us, that is evil for us.” He held his head up in a semi-quizzical fashion with a look now of someone who has just invented a new way to smoke herrings. “That is a matter of choice. Choice and will ore the two opposites here. There is the matter of pure animal drive and the idea of choice. Some things are driven and do what they must. Others like man are free to their choices. They may have choice. But what is the use of choice if there is nothing to choose but what seems right? So there was evil as a contrast to good. This was the only way to maintain choice. Through equilibrium of what one could choose. Good and evil, yin and yang, light and dark. None of these are opposites. They are merely extremes. It is with these choices that we sib-divide into other categories and use good and evil as the kingdoms. But in choice they are merely part of choice, which is one of the two kingdoms of choice, and will which creates man in god’s image. The ability to choose. This in turn creates the vital cog of repetition in the machine that is the universe. And thus is the choice of man, a vital way of life. So Satan is no evil, he is a scapegoat who got the bad end of a deal. A bastard brainchild of god put on the sharp end of a spear for the will of choice as oxymoronically as that statement can seem at this moment. That is the simple truth.” Severus leaned back into the chair and took a deep and wheezing breath. Adam looked on puzzled for a moment before getting up and walking to the door. “Good night Severus,” he said. He stepped out into the night of the alley and as the door was closing behind him the darkness crept on into the room light only with dying embers. The shadow enveloped the room and as the rusty know settled into place snapping shut slowly Severus looked down into the embers. Giving a blow he sent them up into one last flare and they started to die down. “I’ll see you next week,” he whispered to the door. And as the door continued to shove closed the fire died down and in it’s last light caught the sunglasses as they hung down. A slight yellow glow interrupted with a black slit in the orb came from within each of the midnight black shaded lenses. Click. And the door had close, the embers died and pitch black settled in. How beautiful is death, when earn’d by virtue! Who would not be that youth? What pity is it That we can die but once to serve our [land]! Joseph Addison A small freighter sailed the now tepid Pacific Ocean fresh from the docks of Japan. It was bound for some destination with some haul of commercial products. The only problem was that no one alive and on board knew what the course was or what the goods were. It was not that none had received the information before the departure of the ship. It was moreover a problem that the crates were sealed off and down below and the last man on board the ship gave no care of destination or of stock. The ship in the dank blue waters maneuvered nowhere at all. It floated on a current of some kind aimlessly into the ocean. It’s large gray mass paid no mind by any creature, as there was not one for miles and miles. Only one man was left on the floating mass and as had been said he had no interest in the contents or the destination. Only in one set goal. He was a tall and dark figure as would seem to be the normal identity of someone from his area of work. A think but muscular man dressed in tight black leather pants and such a jacket of the same materials. There would have seemed nothing odd about his character at the moment if he had not been standing over a corpse. The mangled body was facedown in a crimson puddle on the deck. Strewn behind it were several other bodies all long gone and sitting in piles of filth and blood. Each one had a surprisingly fist shaped hole located somewhere in their body. And the figure stood over the scene wiping the blood from his fist with a, by now, deep burgundy handkerchief. The only other odd aspect of the sight to be seen besides the filth, blood and holey bodies was the way he stood. No remorse crossed the long and dim face. Not a hint of care shown over the pale skin. In his shroud of darkness there was no note of care for what he had done and neither a note of care for that around him. He was emotionless. He was blank and cold and surrounded in night in the middle of the day. And his eyes were more fearsome than all that has been aforementioned. His eyes were like little black coals sitting in a thin iris of blue and surrounded by an almost sickly and enveloping white. An egg white that would have made most any man sick to look into. The eyes were not focused on anything whatsoever. They just sat there. His hands worked mechanically on the cleaning and his body stood stock still on the rocking ship and through the roll of the waves. But there was no focus shown as the eyes, the horrid and sickening eyes, stared on. They went far away into space and into the beyond and would have seemed to stare past any man that they actually saw to cross. There was nothing there, no spark and no malice. No good or evil lived beyond those eyes. The mechanical cleaning of the fist had been finished and the bloody rag was dropped into the pool on the deck. The placid burgundy flow stood around his boots as they themselves let the red flow slowly seep in and saturate the materials. Every now and then the roll of the ship would disturb the surface and then there was a stop. A jolt and a disturbance as the ship tried to move forward but were stopped still in its path. Something was in the way. For quite some time there was a struggle with the object in it’s path before the ship finally gave in. The night now drawing on and the darkness only surveying to create an even more vilified scene as smoke billowed from parts of the ship. Various pieces of metals and materials drifted from the whole in the haul where the mysterious underwater disruption had created a rather large gash in the side. And in the moonlight on the cloudless night the blood showed an eerie shining purple. And through all this the solitary and dank figure stood on the deck staring into nothing. When finally the ship had descended into the murky depths there rose a few bubbles from the prow as the last of the black hair disappeared beneath the waves and then there was silence and stillness for a moment. And a few feet away there was a disturbance as the waves were broken apart and a figure barreled on. Swimming with all the skill of a dolphin. On and on it moved through the blue murky depths and through the day tirelessly. And the coal of pupils stared onward, burrowing past every obstacle and looking on into the waters as if to discern what lay at the depths of the waters below. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. John F. Kennedy A familiar trench coat swirled in the winds in front of the towering red monolith. The drawn and dark face under the matted black locks looked up upon the gargoyles that adorned the rising sides of the structure. Upon searching past the various shapes it reached the large one with the now still scythe at the top of the tower. A small smirk crept across his face. He moved across the snow and pushed aside the doors, moving into the cavernous depths of the silent tower. Looking around the still tower standing in the mists of the timelessness. Their black eyes picked up on the figure, a white dagger hilt sticking from its chest and in a falling motion. It hovered inches from the ground and a top hat nearby bounced up in frozen form from the ground where it must have hit moments before the stop. The figure was a small and rather southern looking man in a tattered suit with two hold marks on the lapels where hands would have been grabbing at some point it could be assumed. The flushed red face looked on into the top of the tower with a look of near joy intermingled with the horror of falling. In the still of time the dark man stood for a moment reading the face. A small smile flittered across his own face as he raised the scythe and slashed through. The figure did not stay this time. Neither did the head actually fall. But the thing started to fade away and for a while it drifted on the winds until nothing was left but a colored haze in the spot where the shape had been and that too was slowly disappearing. Out of the depths of shadow came a white being in the still time. It crossed the room to where the black figure looked into the platinum chained watch. Slowly and silently it creped over the red velvet of the floor. Not a sound was made nor a shadow visible. A fair and nearly glowing hand was pulled into the robe and from it was taken yet another of the white daggers. The sharpened metal was raised to the sky and positioned about a head over the head of the dark figure. As the dragger plunged down the figure took one step to the left. The smirk on the dark face grew once more. A second plunge caught the already frayed edge of the canvas fabrics of the overcoat and the light figure felt a pole clamp over it’s neck and held in place by two oily and yellowed hands with long gangly nails digging over the fingers on either side and into the shoulders of the with being. Ugly grease stains being left on the spotless robe. The rest of the overcoat caught up with the wearer as all moved into place and the light being found itself in the holds of a choke with a metal black pole and a knee in the small of it’s back. Wildly it plunged backwards with the dagger only to receive a sharp jab in the back before a swirl of black surrounded him. He slashed at the black material as it slipped out of reach and into the shadows. Out of the blue of the eyes and from under the now unsettled blond hair came a slight sign of fear and a tension found from within as the eyes scanned the shadows for movement. One hand reached up for his throat as he rubbed the cylindrical red mark that had been left. A slight movement from the shadows and the figure threw its white dagger into the depths. He listened into the darkness for sounds of pain for a moment before he saw a glint. He turned on one foot and caught his robe on the shoe on his foot as he turned in panic and ass he fell forward out from the shadows of the glint flew the white dagger which found it’s mark and implanted itself in the left shoulder blade of the white clad figure as it fell. The man in white hit the ground and rolled over, jabbing the dagger buried hilt deep into his shoulder blade. Out from this wound flowed a steady stream of red as he leaned up quickly and uncaught his foot from his robe. He fell forward again, back being drenched in red and drops starting to fall onto the matching floor. He started to crawl for the door that stood ajar and one now shaking hand reached for the edge of the stone door. From the shadows off the side the dark clad man appeared and pushed the door roughly shit on the hand of the white clad man. A scream escaped him as he pulled back and there was accompanied a crunch as he pulled out a hand now devoid of fingers. Blood started seeping from this wound too. The leathery boot of the dark man fell across the neck of his assailant. He stood over for a moment surveying the scene and tracing the tracks of blood. His assailant holding the crippled hand with the other, his face buried in the velvet floor. The dark figure reached down and pulled out the knife and received a hurt groan from the whit blade figure. The dagger was pocketed and a deep and dark voice sounded out, clinging to the pain and sorrow and savoring the scene. All has begun. With one rough shove of the boot the figure was rolled over, pitiful and staring with fear at the dark man. The man was already crouched over the now exposed torso and the dagger plunged down into the space were the heart would have been. The dark figure stood up over the once assailant. Once white and pure, fearless. Now stained in blood and with a look of fear on the agape jaw now gasping into the silence and eyes held wide open and gazing into the dark shadows that obscured the tops of the tower. A tiny bit of plaster fell onto the open wound in the torso from the area of the balcony where the red man had fallen. And listened to the sound of heavily clad boots stomping up the stairs to the tallest room. The white figure stopped gaping into the still room and the ripple started to retreat from the room. The eyes went cold and the figure, in it’s disarranged state, started to fade into nothing. And the room was still and silent except for the sound of the closing of a high up door. Along the steps there was one bloody print, fading with the body. And the shotgun lay with the butler at the edge of shadows. The holes say in the walls. And where the red man had fallen there was a dagger of white. Through the top door there was a platform where a wheel was to be turned to operate the scythe. As the dark figure walked out he gave a yellow and disgusting grin. He swaggered as he walked and pulled the dagger from under the fabrics of his coat. He tossed it aimlessly into the night that lay over the tundra and he looked on with some kind of fiery light deep within the blackness of the eyes. Some satisfaction beyond a lust for killing had been achieved. He gave a playful tug at the wheel and the scythe spun down before him as he jumped out onto the blade. Strolling out the edge he took watch from his pocket. A sense of urgency returned to his face as he returned it to his pocket and jumped into the night, coat billowing above him. And somewhere between the jump and the ground he vanished. And all was quite to the surprise of the spectator who stood in her blue dress, quite amazed at the scene that had passed up on the tower. And she too turned away from the grim place and vanished into night. And right before where her feet were at a time stood perfectly upright and buried to the hilt in ice the white dagger. This was a rather uncomforting feeling to the woman in blue. The next morning a dark and leather clad figure passed by the red tower. He walked on past the dagger and the traces of footsteps and through the bitter cold of the now off into the distance. On one steady track, he walked into what were the shadows the night before. Into the distance he disappeared. And all the while his sickening eyes had drilled on, nearing some kind of destination. A goal coming close to be met at some time. All had begun, and all was coming clear. The beginning was just ending and the middle was just starting, thought the man sitting at the door. He had watched all from the shadows, and was quite honestly sure what was going on. He knew he had a job to do though, even if he was not sure how much they knew of him. He wrapped his gold robe around himself tightly and smoothed back his gold hair as he scanned the horizon and a light ruffle as if from wings sounded as a slight movement came from his back. And he too walked to where once were shadows. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw The familiar unfamiliar click and clack of the well made boots sounded through the so unusual back allies. The familiar face and the familiar brown hair shown in the air. With in this instance a more sullen look of a man who has for the first time in his life actually thought. Thinking very hard is what is meant, for no action can be gained whatsoever by man without thought, but that hard thinking that can drive a man to tears if he gives it the chance is what is meant in this instance. The drawn and tired look in the eyes, the slight slope of the mouth in a downward motion and the slight fidget of the paranoid are some more familiar characteristics of such a disease as deep thought. As the darkness crept on and the man walked into the crooked and run down roads, seeing the many leaning structures and the old hags he paid less mind than was the norm for him in such a place as usual. And in turn the hags and even, to some extent, the buildings regarded the man with more a familiarity with this new air. His paranoia of the thoughts gained welcomed him into the darker depths in which these mundane horrors resided. Into the welcome dark the man was no longer a stranger but now more of some kind of lost brother. It seemed to him he was almost safer in the musky and dank, yet forward and open darkness. For after all in the thoughts of this man, what could be hidden in the dark in this area that could not be hidden in the light? And what could be more frightening in the dark than it would be in the out of place world of the light. It seemed that the disease that was thought had helped to open the gap that had made him fear the walk into the ally and instead embrace it with some sort of comfort, and to find it welcoming. The shadows are not always such a scary place, as it would seem. The shadows only serve in large part as hiding for the hurt. They only serve as a last resort and a sort of pleasant retreat for the downtrodden. Was any place more home than the dank of ones own dwelling? With these thoughts come the acceptance of what is and the tolerance for the lifestyle of the others who reside in shade. This attitude in truth made the path easier to tread on. The cobbles seemed less full of danger and the deranged and hump-backed men and women to seem more harmless in their hermit ways than the treachery of the man who resides hidden in light. To Adam the dark seemed more a home, more a welcoming place to the thoughts that were rampant in his mind than ever could be the light he had lived in for so long. As such thoughts had been running through the man’s head he did not realize that he had passed the usual steel door. Slightly surprised he backed out of the storybook shadows that were to come. For the first time in that days walk he saw them for a moment as monstrous limbs and concealing shadows once more. A dangerous place that threatened with the close darkness and the lurking creatures to steal his soul. Slowly and with some caution, a deep fear in his eyes actually, he backed to the steel door until he felt the cold on his back. And then there was a fall as the support that held his shaking body caved in behind him. Standing where the door had opened and staring at the fallen lump that was Adam upon the black floor on the threshold of the door Severus looked down with a sort of deadly but warm smile. “No matter how far you get, no matter how much you seem to remember or embrace of the new, you still seem to fall at every new frontier.” Offering a hand to the fallen Adam Severus leaned in and pulled the fallen man up. On the way to standing and in the pale light before the darkness ahead, the lights of the sun over the smog and the buildings, strung and cut by wires and lines, Adam could not help but notice a slight hue of yellow to the skin of the man’s hand. They entered into the room where as usual awaited a roaring fire and a warm plush chair. Adam sat himself down by the fire and watched the placid and watery motions as Severus, still bearing the odd predatory smile, slinked into the chair opposite. Adam could not help but feel a certain fear of that smile, and of the warm yellow glow, almost orb-like, that seemed to reside behind those dark glasses. “Now then,” Severus sank back into the chair and looked over to his companion. “What is it that you’ve come for today?” Adam returned Severus with a sort of blank stare before he finally came out of somewhat of a trance. “I wanted to know, no matter how odd it sounds, what is this place I’ve been living in? Why am I here … and why can’t I seem to know anything more than what I do? Why could I not think until that one day with the trolley? It seemed to me as if I had been living in some sort of dream. Nothing went wrong. Life went well and I was safe and secure. Alone at that, and unconcerned with the past or the future, just as I was. But it was safe and secure. I feel like it was somehow disrupted, as if somehow something changed on that day … and I wanted to know almost more than anything … what was it that I saw?” Severus’ grin waned into something of a knowing smirk. “Let me think for a moment, where to begin.” He raised his hand to his face and stroked his chin in a somewhat meditative way. It was more to conceal the deadly grin, which had once again swept over his face. “You’ve been living in paradise as it were. You’ve been living in a good and safe world like you said. You’ve had a perfect life up until that day. Even if you couldn’t remember that day or anything as such; you were living every man’s dream. You might even say your life was a dream in total. “I don’t mean that none of this is real. I’m real enough and so are you, as you must’ve felt on your recent fall. What I am saying is that your life has been sheltered and safe. There’s been no cause for thought. And also I am saying that you must ask yourself why life was so perfect for you?” “…” Adam gave Severus another of his blank stares as he registered what had been said. “It’s because … I’ve never known anything at all. I can’t remember. I just can’t remember anything at all, nothing is in my mind … except for the past few weeks, and I feel as if I have no memories. But the memories are there, they’re not as vivid, not real like the ones I’ve gained recently. But they’re there, making up who I am, except who I am can’t be real, because that would mean I’m a lie … It isn’t possible that all that haze was real, or that this place is real, none of it makes any sense, the life I’ve apparently lived has made no sense to me. What am I? Why am I here? And if there are so many others here why am I so alone and … fake?” “I cannot answer all of your questions. You may have come to believe this, but all I can really do is tell you what I do know and point you in the direction I see clearly, though it may not be the one you yourself would choose. I can give you some direction, but that is all I really have to offer, my bare and essential advice. I can only say so much and I must say that some of your questions today begin to transcend what I can truly answer to you. Some of these questions you will have to answer for yourself.” Adam looked down dejectedly; he clasped his hands over his face and let out some sort of soft sob. He looked up once more with some sort of fury deep down. “But you said you could answer some. You said that only some of my questions began to transcend your ability to answer. So I want answers to the questions, which you can answer. I want the answers that I can get, and to hell if I can’t find the rest of the answers somehow.” The rage over what he felt seemed to burn deeply within his eyes. Severus seemed now to respond with some near joy. “You’re finally thinking on some different level than that on which you’ve been operating. You’re a different person than the one I first met. No longer some kind of mindless haze, not just another perfect plant in this garden. Welcome to the patch of thistles. We can be removed, these shadows, but who in their right minds wishes to reach into a handful of thorns. Besides, we in the dark thorns, we add some flavor and zest. “I’ll be quiet frank with you. You were nothing really, just another man in the haze as the others, living a good life. Automatons really, just going on drive, now you’re something, that’s all I can really say. You’re something and I’m not sure what. You may not operate in a perfect way but at least you live on choice instead of drive. You’re finally living; you’re finally seeing what I see and what the rest of the darkness sees. Welcome to our world and to, quite possibly the rest of your life my friend.” Adam sat in stunned silence for quite a while. He stood from his chair. “Thank you Severus. I can’t say that I truly understood all that you’ve said tonight, or ever. I’m not sure about many things. But one thing I think I have understood and one thing I think that I must do for myself. I think you have been able to point me in some kind of right direction. For this I thank you, for helping me see that black shadow that lurked on the day I saw that horrid thing called death. Thank you Severus, I think I know where I must go from here.” With this last and quite cinematic note Adam walked over to the threshold and exited the room for the last time. Severus smiled his deep evil grin. He hadn’t understood the thanks. He hadn’t really understood much of what went on in Adam’s poor mind. What he did know was that his part was almost over. He had done the main part. He had seen choice and given direction as he saw fit. That was really all he could do for the man. He did think however that he knew where Adam would be going. As the coals of the fire slowly smoldered out Severus gave one last toothy grin. In the waning light there began a slight fang-like curvature of his incisors and an unhinged and biting look to his mouth. In the last light he lifted one hand to his face and removed his sunglasses. In the dark two yellow orbs glowed with all the warmth of a fire and with a slit in the middle of each black as the darkness that surrounded the area. Outside the door the shadows ahead looked less and less fearsome to Adam. Bravely he put one foot on the road ahead and stepped off into the lands ahead. He walked through the roads and through the dark. Past the poor and the rank. Past the deepest and darkest sank hole. For miles and miles he traveled until he reached the edge. There were fields of sparse grass. There was a long paved road ahead. And there was a sign reading “ Now Leaving (name).” Adam smiled. He stepped onto this road and out into the world. Through hell and out the other side he though. It had been a strange and long trip, his life to date. He thought it might get a little stranger. But he would deal with it as it came. It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable. Eric Hoffer There was a certain tense nature in the chill air on the dawn. One might have said that the seeming grip in the air came riding down with the golden rays of the sun as if sent from the heavens above. The eerie feeling spread down through the air and slowly crept like a blanket over the shining tundra. The vast expanses of open snow shining in cool morning light taking note and seeming to harden and crystallize in the harsh gaze of the rays of light. The chill stillness did not stop life. It was but a feeling. It did not linger like black poison, it more of seeped into everything it touched. This tension eventually made it’s way to a red monolith. Around this monolith the tension encountered it’s focus point. Something wrong had happened here. Something had happened that was creating stress upon the world. The tower was deathly silent. A slight and smaller field of doom spread about the grounds to a point at which lay a dagger, it’s white hilt sticking down into the ground making it nearly invisible. The tension carried itself over the monolith with the rays of light and rode around and over, flooding past like a now unstoppable power. Still the red tower left a long, dark shadow in its wake. A black cloud attached to some unknown horror, even welcome of all things in the light that crept over the snow and turned the land to gripping gold. The light completed the long shadows parting and filled back together, siphoning itself into a small ravine like valley between two rather steep hills. It’s rays flooded down along the floor of the valley at rates which one could consider quite amazing. Eventually the rays caught up with a woman walking along the center like a perfect target. The haze of light swept right through her and continued its mad dash down the valley. The woman in blue was gripped with some sort of fear and even some sort of remorse. The tension had swept into her and she herself became as such, but unlike the golden crystals around her she did not freeze. Her shoulders raised a bit as she pulled a long black pole close to her and gave a very cautious glance all around and than up to the sky above. She had the odd feeling that she and the tension were tied in some way. That she owed the skies above some sort of apology for their burning message. And that it what she mouthed to the heavens above. After this quick bout of fear and suspicion she felt obliged to take a seat on one of the rocky crags on the walls of the ravine. She stared with some forlorn glance at the wave of gold running its path down the white trench. A slight movement from above awakened her from this slight trance. She traced the movements of a black shape along the top of the opposite wall of the ravine. Her eyes darted at falling specs of gravel from up on high. Once more, as she saw the shape of a rabbit appear above the ridge, her paranoia calmed itself over. Though she still felt a bit cautious about the gravel which had fallen somewhere behind her. More rabbits she speculated. Being satisfied with her at least partial privacy she slunk down alone and withdrew from a pouch at her side an envelope. An envelope still sealed on the back by a bit of red wax imprinted with a ghastly tower. The very same envelope that, unbeknownst to her, may very well have been the source of many a terror on that very day. And what she was about to see within said envelope was not stopped. All the terror in the world on that day had not stopped her from carefully slicing open the red seal as she did that day. The cinematic properties of the moment were lost on this woman in blue as she flicked away the wax seal from her hand and withdrew the paper from the envelope. The paper was slightly perfumed and carried a red tint and was scrawled out in the elegant handwriting of what appeared to be a stately man. It read as such: Dearest (Name Here), For some time I have watched you. I have watched your work and your ways. And there is something I see, something that I cannot place. I envy that thing. I feel as if I should accompany it in some sense. I feel as if it were one in the same to that which I am. Therefore I am trying to say, my dear, that I feel some kinship towards you. I also feel you in danger. My place in this world as you have known entails that I have some keen knowledge of the workings of my world and what I imagine to be your world. I see things happening for you. I see terrible things. My dearest, I believe this is why I am here. If there is no grander purpose to me than to give you this information than so is it but at least take what I can give. It is my greatest pleasure to help you in any way. What I do have to say to you is what I can say. Remember the top of the tower. Remember the statue and remember the name. I feel it in my bones that there is a connection. I hate to speak as if there is some ultimate wisdom to my words but that it what I feel I must say. Think of the statue. Even by telling you this I know I sign for my own death. By the time you read this, as knowing you will not read it until the last minute, I may very well already be gone. Best of luck to you my dear and please do destroy my last remains. By that last line I mean this letter of course. Your Loving Morning Star, Setimos Once again disregarding the cinematics the woman in the blue dress replaced the paper into the envelope and laid it to rest on the ground. She sat and thought for a moment before removing two bits of flint from the pouch at her side. With one strike she sent a spark down to the paper, which caught fire as fast as dry tinder. She got up from her perch and rearranged the ashes under the snow. Still, even as she walked down after the flood of tense light, she could not shake the feeling of being watched. She imagined it was all just in her head as she moved on. Just more rabbits, simply little creatures, or are they hares? She contemplated this notion with tense mind, looking over her shoulder now and than in paranoid fear. Her distracted mind started to calm and she walked on with ease. The black shape moved along behind her. This time it was sure not to loosen any gravel whatsoever. Cautiously is spread over the rocks, looking and listening. It itself was in turn followed by yet another black shape, and that by one clad in gold and surrounded in the background by the unsettling rustle of wings. The party wandered down the path in single file procession. All tense and all feeling watched and all fallowing the light into the distance while the top of the red tower sunk behind the hills behind them. The only joy in the world is to begin. Cesare Pavese She was also beautiful. Light shifted with her and for her. Always she seemed to give off a blue radiance, as if she had been in the cold to long. A light shined about her of some kind of blue, the only way that it could be said. One might say that the blue resembled the shine of some beautiful creature of the blue moon while another might have said that she shined blue with the strength of fire. Whatever it was it was no more than an imaginative fancy of the world. Ghastly pale and with a long, straight face she stared at the world around her. The tundra, all alone and dead, was reflected in her eyes. The deep blue pools were no icy lakes of mystery, they were light, but deep shallows of the placid lakes in morning. They were lovely in the saddest way. The rest of he was not important, she seemed eye level with everyone, and all they could see when they saw her was the shine of the pale moon skin and the glow within the eyes. She stood alone in a clearing. She stood wondering what would happen. She had also been lucky to be here. Now all she had to do was move. Still, vaguely she knew what it was she needed to do. She knew that she had needed to get out of the city, for it was all so new. Something she had never known that had crept up and tried to drag her into some kind of hellish world. So she had walked as far as she felt necessary to escape the horrors and now she stood alone in a field of snow miles and miles away. One thing she noticed was that she was neither tired, nor was she hungry and nor was she bored. She was fine as was which was odd, as she had not enjoyed one of the things she would have thought she needed in the entire time she had been aware of herself, which she realized was very recently. Unlike the other nine she was completely lost in a sense. She was not really lost as she was where she was and that seemed to be where she wanted to be for now, away from the city and away from the world that made no sense to her. She didn’t really know where to go or what to do now. She had operated purely on need and on want for the past several days, and now all her needs and wants were not necessity. They were all frivolous, such as who’s needs and wants am I thinking about, I need a name. She had had several ideas in the clearing on what to address herself as. One was simply to think she wants and she needs, it just seemed wrong to refer to herself as her or she. She looked into her mind and saw some kind of beauty in the next thought that came to mind. Azure, it seemed to fit somehow, and it was very beautiful to her ears. Azure realized she had just spoken in a voice that sung like the harps of angles. What was more important to Azure was that she spoke and that Azure fit and that she had referred to herself as Azure. That was that, she was now Azure. The ability of choice in the matter was very comforting to her in some way. The sound of her name in her own voice had pleased her and so she smiled, she was happy for once. Happy for the first time and enjoying it. Azure felt she should keep walking now that she had started the trek, she felt that walking into the spreading light would be the best idea, it seemed so cheery like the feeling she had just encountered. Azure noticed the light cresting over the hills and spilling out through a ravine in the distance before sweeping down. Yes, she would walk into the light, to that ravine, and would see what happened eventually. This felt good to her, and she stepped with a light gait she noticed into the coming light. A sense of cold fear gripped her in the light. A tension that she could not help but feel she was some small part of. But it passed with the moving light. It had been an unsettling feeling, but she would move on for now she was basking in the warm sun which seemed to make a sensational feeling of crisp joy on her moonlight face. So she gaily walked on to the ravine. By the half way point to the ravine the sun had reached the height of the sky and shined down on the clear day with all its might. Still the snow did not melt. Everything was white and blinding on the tundra except for the shadows of the hill ahead. She basked in the sunlight, soaking up the wonderful feeling of warmth and reveling in the cool air and the seemingly familiar whit of the surrounding land. It felt to nice and homely. By this time all doubts in her mind had vanished, she was no longer in fear over the coming light’s tension. She was engrossed in the joys of the world. What a beautiful place it was, full of so many joyous things and the ability to call ones self Azure and to be happy. The world was a place she now … she had the urge to use a word called love. She knew she would do all she could to stay and enjoy it however selfish that may have seemed it she could’ve understood that concept. She kept on gaily into the shadows, where not even the chill air could ruin her mind as she had grown used to it. No more sun to bask in but that was alright. There would always be a sun with the earth and that thought gave her joy. She finally reached the sun-drenched ravine and sat down on a nice boulder under the blaze. She sat for a long time, just reveling in the joy of the earth. A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory. Arthur Golden In the golden snow he was now lost like some mere shimmer in the landscape. It did make him feel a bit more at home, thought he was still out of his domain. He knew this, convinced himself not to think that he was away, but he knew it. He knew where he was going and he knew what to do, or at least that’s what he told himself. The problem with the place he was now in was that it was not what he wanted. Come to think about it, it was really not what anyone wanted exactly. Not what had been intended, at least not in his mind, and not what anything there enjoyed fully? No, he could not think that, he had no privilege to think that and no way of knowing how anyone felt; much less what was actually intended. He had no right to use the word think either, his was merely to do. In fact, he thought to himself, forget he had thought anything, as everything in his mind right now was a heresy. Thought this is what he had meant, yes what he had meant was that this wasn’t his home. He thought this with conviction. He knew he didn’t belong here and that he would also not be able to function in this area. That was what was causing him to think, that was all just the fact that the new laws were playing tricks on his mind, nothing more but a figment of his imagination making him think that maybe these rules were his own. He had no right to conceive of this. One truly horrid thought crossed his mind. What if now that he was here, on this earth, the rules did apply to him? What if now he had that power because it sure did seem to overcome that which he had know to do? What if it wasn’t the creations per say as the way that world had been put together, something in it made the need to think more than just a luxury. Well, he thought to himself, in self-image really means in self-image. Realizing all the heresies that had crossed his mind in the past while he had to let out a shudder and pull his golden robe tight around him. The sound of a rustle of wings came from within his folds of fabric. To him, that was enough assurance of the place from which he had come and what he had come to do, No more questions were to cross his mind from own on, no more thoughts, only knowledge would suffice to cross the borders into the workings of his mind. As he shifted once more a glint of white showed itself through the neck of the robe, which still shimmered gold in the last rays of sun of the day. This downy white material quickly pulled back into the cloak folds, for in the shining sunny snow it was nearly as visible as his pale skin. As far as he knew he had not been glimpsed once, and he intended to prolong his use in this situation until the stakes had gone down a bit, until his mortal being which accursedly trapped his ethereal being also, was not in such a bind as to what could happen. He needed, in other words, to stay down until he could merely grab and run. To reassess his danger he quickly ran through his goals. But first his mind lingered on that fateful incident. The release of the ten, the consequences of the statistics, the upsetting of the world. He feared, as the first rays of sun had gripped him with a tense guilt, that all this had been his fault. He remembered his foolishness at acting so quickly. Even more he remembered his meeting with the Metatron, the horrid voice. The bombing presence had been torture to merely be in the presence of. The horrors of the eternity in that still wave of existence. How such a creature could exist was beyond him, and how it could be so viciously businesslike. Not even a drop of anything but strict detail had been transferred in the discourser. Not more than the simple fact that at the risk of one useless life all this could be fixed nice and clean and that there would be no more a punishment. Well wasn’t this doubting of cause and allegiance as much a punishment as anything? There was yet another thought in his mind, he had to stop these thoughts and feelings, he had to keep to his cause, to right his wrongs and to stop the dysfunctional cog. The feeling of being unsure swept over him, how could he e sure what he was aiming for? Couldn’t it be none of those he currently trailed? Could this actually be punishment enough, eternal chase and doubt? Maybe he had been punished; maybe this was hell after all. But this could not be hell he reasoned, as this made no sense with his crime. He had nothing to do with what he had witnessed at that red tower, and he also had to wonder how such an action as what had taken place at said tower could have escaped his notice while he was still there? No, he was not the problem, he was not in hell, he was the solution to something larger, he may have complicated the problem but things above him had conspired to make his wrong a right. Now he was part of the solution. All this doubt was his torture though, he could not escape torture. But he was loyal to his lord and would serve his lord to the last and now he had said opportunity. He would stop the problem, he would maintain his mental stability, he would know not think, and he would be fine. He may risk his mortal being but he would escape because he had right on his side, the right sight, right plan and higher forces swelled behind him. A sense of exhilarating power filled him as he realized that even that beyond the metarton now stood behind him. The intoxicating powers left to his head and he smiled the grim of the clinically insane. His foot slipped and dislodged a bit of gravel. No, this was torture, this was hell. He didn’t want to die. No one had his back. He was all alone and doomed, the wrong would skin him alive, and he could not fight any of this. He was lost either way he had to admit; he could not afford another stumble. And so the twist and turn fight raged in his mind as he journey after the fleeing light’s rays as they sunk in golden blinding brilliance behind the hills and retreated down the corridors of the ravine below. … people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. James F. Byrnes The hollows of the white emptiness resounded with an eerie silence. There was a deep calm among the white robes and the golden hair. Among the countless spaces of nothing the feeling of unrest without the golden shimmer had existed for some time, if the word could have been applied in any way to this place of reference. But this was not quite the problem so to speak that haunted the vast desolate and seemingly hopeless lands around. There was a lack, the sensation of a missing, of a loss of something more profound than could have been imagined. What was missing was nothing physical like the golden shimmer. It was nothing that actually existed in any corporeal sense in the region whatsoever. It was a being that belonged to its own level, it did not confine itself to this world, it was not its own world. But there was still the sense of a loss, of disorientation in the atmosphere of the void. This was, as those of a clairvoyant persuasion would have described it, the lack of a vibe, the lack of a presence. The lack of a wandering eye, the overseeing of something greater. This in the usual aspect of life in such a void would have made no difference whatsoever, but the aforementioned loss of the golden shimmer had also played some small part. Within a place of business there are those who oversee directly and those who oversee this will maintain their own duties. A failsafe to the system, a second line, a cog that, while acting its own unique processes, held a smaller cog in place which was vital to the machine. This cog could have stood alone so to speak in a continuous metaphorical form. But we speak of a cog that is delicate, a cog with potential for error, as would be statistically suspected. To counter a statistic you need a failsafe, something to guard one-hundred pre cent what would work ninety pre cent of the time. Full coverage of ten pre cent to give the appearance of completely smooth running. Though as one could see the flaw in this logic statistics are statistics and can never be defeated, there is always an error in any machine, but this is beside the point. The point that is being made is that a certain vibe was missing, a managerial vibe s to speak in such a term. The lack of both the gold shimmer in the background and of such a vibe, this can cause disturbance. Without a failsafe in place when the cog is inactive will collapse the machine. There was a movement among one of the golden heads. There was yet another movement among the ranks. The crawling masses soon started to scratch and claw at the nothing, breaking apart and milling about in circles, walking along. Confused and dazed and feeling the lack of authority. There was a stern feeling of a lack as has been mentioned as can be felt by anything with such ability as to sense. Therefore it would be safe to say that these things, now moving like a huge wave, were capable of sensing what was not there. They could see a lack of a shimmer and feel the slack of a wandering metaphorical eye. They were free of all leadership. They had no clue what to do whatsoever. It would be worthwhile to mention that this is nothing to be worried about. A proper machine has more than one failsafe. Just now a bit of such a machine was inactive, just now a part of a larger entity was quarantined to its own section. There are ways to function without parts, for a time at least. After a time the virus as it can be called will spread, but for the moment the larger being does function without a part of itself. This inactivity would lead to collapse and collapse. But there must be a reason for this must there not? How would such a failsafe fail as it were? Could there have been a matter pressing enough to sacrifice the entire machine? The one who had left from another part understood what it had done. It knew for well what would happen. It didn’t give a shit to be quite frank. Will and drive were all it had; it had a problem to fix. It had watched the virus for years, starting at the foot of the being, growing up and up, slowly destroying the organism. It knew what would happen after this and had watched a black sore permeate the base of the being and start to ruin the structure. But it knew what to do, it knew how to quell, it was driven and knowing of its position. And now it had come time to abandon its post and set a failsafe into action that would perfect the machine once more. No matter how much it would crumble all would be right once more. With this condition, and the basic lack of feeling or thought on its part, it did not feel remorse or guilt about leaving, or doubt about where it was going, what to do. A well-oiled part of the machine, that is what it was, a well built part of the being, and it would heal, it would finish what had been started. All was ripe for the picking. All the anti-virus had been out, all was prepared. And all precautions had been taken. The Metatron had left, not because it was the only thing that could accomplish the reconstruction. It was, by default, a precaution, a messenger, a mere third eye to watch, to see, to speak. Nothing more than an extension of a greater being, its purpose was nothing more than to be backup to the greater course and to enact plans. In a business term, the Metatron was a secretary. It had left soon after the golden shimmer had departed, as has been aforementioned, well aware of the risks of leaving and also aware that it was being cut off from everything. It didn’t give a shit. It stood out on the tundra, a magnificent sight. As a form for a high part of a system it had chosen something quite impressive, as was expected of it. A tall body, rippling with muscles, shirtless and shinning in a glimmering sweat in the golden rays, whose tension held no hold, as he thought of no problems, only of what he was here to do, and only as what he would do, not as what he was here to do or what he must do, no doubt, just what would be. A most impressive figure indeed, a surely man if ever there was one, the very essence of the rugged power and the looks straight form Hollywood. What else could be expected? One would have to now refer to it as a he for the muscular and masculine form it had taken. It was, on this realm, male, as would be implied in most minds except for the feminine one. But this form was far more impressive indeed. There was only one slight thing to distinguish this man from a normal human, beside the fact that he was sweating and shirtless in one-digit temperatures, and that would have been the wings. Billowing white feathers, fluffy and downy, and seemingly soft and silky. All latched to huge muscles which sprouted off the shoulder blades, moving upwards and jointed at a peak where there were at the moment folded down. Magnificent, a large wingspan, and a grand site of, obviously, biblical proportions. The wings were unfolded and the Metatron took to the sky, wings outstretched like two fat crescents of the waxing moon and moving up and down in the air with the extreme force of incredible muscles. Quite a sight indeed, flying through the skies, all just a show. It was just an entity moving through space, which had perchanced upon an appealing form and had taken the opportunity for impressions of grandeur of its cause. But still quite a spectacle to behold as if flew into the setting sun and after several shapes moving along the ground in a dog, cat and mouse game, all oblivious to the thing above them. The thing before them and the things coming towards them were also of quite little concern to those involved in the walk along the ravine as the day drew to a close. Illuminated in the last rays of the sun was a town. Just a few miles back from the ravine and the hills. A rather large town for the area, but a small town none the less, and a destination, or at least a stopping point for what could be quite assured some interesting actions on the part of all those involved in the ravine. But we get ahead of ourselves to ponder the next days coming events, and a night must come in which the world rests. Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The muffled sound of boots hitting the ground sounded with a kind of put across the vast expanse of dead, dark and dreary grass. The bog that lay before the traveler grew more frigid with each northbound mile. Gathering frost began to lay itself upon the green and pungent waters of the marshes ahead. The truly dreadful expanse led on in the shades of covering nimbus for as far as the eye could see. One of the boots came down on a patch of grass which moved apart and broke from it’s roots enveloping the fine black leather in a thick mud/ The wearer kneeled down in the much and tried to pull the boot from within, but only failed against the suction which held it below the surface. With some amount of reluctance he removed his foot from the boot and watched it sink. A slight grimace escaped him when the sludgy pop announced it’s complete submersion in the much. A few bubbles of air from below crawled to the surface with the stench of the depths in their entire rancid splendor carried up in a great dose. The man backed off from the mud hole, not daring to fathom how deep it went into the earth. Once again he kneeled onto the ground and removed the other boot, seeing no use in walking in a lopsided fashion. Using the laces he endeavored to tie it around his shoulder in hopes that someday it may come in use. With all the wear and tear the swamps had put his clothing through even a patch of rough shoe leather would be welcome if it were at all needed. There may be a use, and he would have the boot with him. And he walked on through the bog in his socks thanking whatever there was to thank in this god forsaken marsh that there were no thorns around. Looking back over his shoulder he fondly remembered the place he had left. It may have been flase for all he knew, but it had been where he had lived as it were. He had some memories in the place and some reason to love it. It was home, he had left for the better he knew, but he missed home, he missed it even if it was not meant for him. Attachment is a humorous thing when it comes right down to it. He sat and thought of his apartment in the high up tower, of the people walking the streets below, of the small bits of traffic on the cobbled roads. He missed the view; he had felt somewhat like a king in that place, like it was his own little utopia. But he knew it was nothing more than a shelter for his mind and body. Nothing more than a trap, and he should think no more of it. He was thankful for Severus. He was thankful for that entire part of town. He fondly remembered the dark room, and now even saw with some fondness the dark and dead buildings of the alleyways. It truly was a beautiful place in all its spoiled glory, like ancient ruins in monument to something that existed in only memory in that place. Severus though, had been his way out. Severus, he thought, was the embodiment of that memory, the only collective creation. There were other beings, but none were as much a compilation of that entire area and it’s archaic charm as had been that dark man. Severus had by no means been a kind man or an open man, but he had been an honest man and a man of some class and of some charm, and Adam seemed to realize that he respected that dark, but charming, demeanor. He respected it more than say the lifeless kind ways of the people of the city. He respected the people in the dark, retaining their ways, living their lives, unbridled by that mindless monotony of the people he had grown accustomed to. He also remembered that tree, the tall and wry tree rising up in the dark that had lurked before him as he had left, into the shadows beyond the house of Severus. That tree bore significance to him, not because of it’s horrid shape, and not because of the dark and looming wenches wandering about its base, but more for the fact that he didn’t care. That tree was where he finally realized what he needed to move on, where the gut wrenching terrors of the new, the dark, the danger, of all he had learned by the fire. All of the fear instilled upon him by his life in that place, the fear of those alleys, it had all washed away as he walked up to that tree and saw it for the first time clearly, as he had never seen anything. He saw past the veneer of its looks. The tree in itself, as with Severus, seemed so old that it held the very flavor of the dark back roads and the secrets of the town. It was exotic, holding the very essence of the foreign atmosphere into which he was wandering. The dark wood, and the twisted shadow it cast like a gray tint into the towering black shadows, ‘he no longer visualized this as evil, nor as frightening, but only as something new, something to try. So he had reached up to a bow above his head and picked from the gnarled branches a fine, ripe fruit of the likes he had never seen. It had surprised him when he saw the fruit, a nice late bloom into the real world, a little like himself, he had thought. As he had plucked it from the nearly bare limbs a few dead and crumbling leaves fell from the tree like the gentle tears of an angel, and the tree seemed to shudder with the lifting of some kind of weight from its boughs. And the red glint of the fruit in his hands, catching a passing ray of sun, seemed to show that it held all that he had seen. His mind had been, it is true, making some kind of symbol about everything he had passed, and so now to him it seemed that this fruit was the zenith of his symbols, some combination of every thought that had crossed his mind, and would be some confirmation of all he thought. True enough, it was some kind of confirmation to his thoughts, for as he was standing amongst the last few buildings of the town on the edge of the bogs, and on the edge of leaving his home, his paradise, he perchanced to pick the fruit from his pocket and take one little bite. And in that bite he found a unique and exotic flavor which he had never sampled before in his life, some sweet but stinging flavor, full of juice, jet so strong that it parched the throat just a bit and he realized that nothing was as it seemed. This fruit, the essence of darkness so profound that it had been the source of fear all his life, this little fruit held something that was simply new to him. No evils were within the lush skin, and no putrid taste or scent came from the lush white insides. It was simply exotic, it was simply new, it was simply a new bit of knowledge to add to the banks in his mind, along with the few things he had learned for life, and along with the truths he had learned from Severus. He had taken the step over the threshold at that time, moved on into the bogs and out of his old life once and for all. A new chapter had begun, and he had realized that he would never go back, so he had taken one look over his shoulder, taken another bite of the fruit, and taken another step away. A sad day indeed, though filled in for sorrow with the promise of knowledge, of everything he had missed, and of a new life. Now here he was, barefoot and ragged in the bogs. He reached into his pocket as he looked back on the town, the gleaming white buildings hovering over the smaller, cramped dark alleys. He saw from here that it was the shadow of the huge light collecting towers that enveloped the lower levels, the dark allies, within shadow. He knew this was symbolic in some way within itself, but in all truth he was a bit tired of all this symbolism, it made him just a bit uneasy. So he looked into the shadowed buildings, seeing that one area could not exist without the other, and spotted the tree. As he took the last bite from the fruit he looked away. The core still in his hand he threw it back into the pit where his boot had been swallowed into the depths that lurked below and watched it sink into the mud, a vibrant white against the dark of the murky depths, descending into the muck. As it disappeared he knew he would never be able to look back, not back to the tree, not back to Severus or the town. He had to move on and stop lingering over the last chapter of his life, that time was over. So he packed up and moved on, feeling the frost close in on him with every step he took, feeling the cold cling closer and closer to his body, and feeling, for the first time, very alone. He walked away from the setting sun and towards the snow covered fields ahead of him where he could make out something. What he could see clearly was a torrent of frozen rain falling from the harsh gray sky. What he could hope was for the ground to be solid beneath the white carpet. But what he looked at in the distance was that which he sought. There was a faint light in the distance, showing like a tiny eye of fire in the looming dark and through the flowing wash of white. This was a new land; he could feel the very difference in the air. This would be his new life, he could finally live, as soon as he reached that light, this much he knew. He thought also in the distance he could see a canyon of some kind and over head he heard what sounded like the beating wings of many large birds, but this was soon drowned out by the lashing winds and the howling storm and by the thoughts in his mind of a better future. His foot crunched upon a coat of white ice, still gleaming reddish yellow in the last rays of the days light. He felt the first drops of the cold white tears of the sky kiss his face, welcoming his with a cold passion into his new life. He realized that the ground was solid. He also realized that he had been moving all this time, barefoot, into colder and colder temperatures, and had now hit the storm. And what was impressive to him was that he had not looked back, and had no urge to do so. And so he walked with his feet numbing and his body chilled to the bone into the desolate lands with no fear, with only the urge to reach the looming yellow lights in the distance that grew stronger with every step. Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. Isaac Asimov A ripple ran through the air in a dark and dank basement. The dim light that shown on the scene revealed an old man suspended in the air, staring jaw ajar and wide eyed at the ceiling above him, his hands reaching out for nothing. In front of him a flimsy latter teetered on its heels in a precarious manner as a large dog was caught in the wave brushing past. And then the shadow dislodged itself from the shadows. He was lank and had flowing blond hair tied back with the use of a bow. He moved forward with a grin on his face, stroking gently the hair on the old man’s balding head before removing a long black pole. From this pole withdrew a scythe. A swish and a whisper on the wind signaled the completion of the act as the ripple receded. The blond headed figure backed away into the shadows as the figure slowly continued its descent to the ground, slowly speeding through time. Smoothing out his blue satin shirt as he vanished into darkness he let out a small cackle. The blade withdrew, letting go one last deadly glint in the last light of the shadows. The pole retracted in size. The blue glow in the shadows slowly faded into nothing more than a mist, a hazy vision, and into nothing as the body hit the floor and the last hint of a whisper in the air disappeared into the void of sound. At a similar time, during such events, a man clad in tweed, brown workshops, and adorned with rather flimsy glasses, which fell forward onto his nose, fingered a long black pole in his shaking hands as he watched a ripple within time flow from him. He watched as the flow hit the woman gasping for air in the icy waters near which tracks in the snow covered road would suggest a bus had traveled some days earlier. The man had no urge to help the woman in the waters. The wave moved on, and the woman’s movements slowed to a mere slosh, until they were frozen in time, a look of agony and fear in the chilled, nearly blue face, water spitting forward from the mouth. The tweed clad figure advanced on the shape, removing the black pole into his right hand, and with his left hand readjusting his glasses upon the bridge of his nose. The pole elongated. A blade withdrew itself. The man rose up the pole and aimed at the neck of the woman. The pole came down blade slashing through, and neither a sound nor a movement of the body was heard. The blade went straight through, passing by, and along with the slash there was heard a slight groan in the air. The tweed clad man looked down at his hands. A slight question wandered into his mind, what have I done? Nothing, nothing more than what has been done already. Why am I here? Because you are here. The conflicted voices in his head subsided into one deep tone, and the next thought to cross his mind was simply this. What do I do next? Why do you ask yourself when you know? Good point. The blade sank back within the pole and the pole itself retracted. The man readjusted his glasses once more and looked around. He felt the need to settle the pole in his belt. The wiped his hands down on his pants and stood up. Yes, this seemed about right. Good job, he was done, wasn’t he? He backed down into the waters and slowly sank into the icy depths, falling down, no ripples from the water, and no bubbles as one breathing underwater. His body merely sank below the waves as if he were falling into some kind of loose gelatin. And then from the depths the ripple started to retract, the woman’s body also started to fall lifelessly below the waters, the struggling stopped, and a slightly glazed look on her eyes. She too sank, she disturbed the water, but no bubbles arose. Once again during the times of these events some other event of interest had passed by. One such event occurred on the freeway. An old dog wandered down the side of the road. It moved with a hobble and some of its matted hair brushed the ground, it had obviously picked up a bit of trash on its journeys. It was also quite obviously a stray. It had a look of hunger deep within its eyes. It swayed down the side of the road as traffic rushed by and the general population of the road continued to ignore its existence. The dog was so hungry thought, wandering up and down the road in search of some scrap of food thrown out by over privileged children. Across the road it caught a view of something. Something black, with red pouring out of its side. The dog had just found some interesting road kill. It wandered across the road and up to what appeared to be a crow that had wandered under a big rig just a little to long. The dog sat down and made a meal of the rancid intestines and meat of the bird. This thoroughly disgusted the many children who passed along the road on trips with the family. Looking satisfied with his skills the dog spit out a feather and liked around the exposed ribs, also lapping up the blood on the skid marks and from it’s own snout. Still looking very happy it wandered away from what now looked like a chicken none and a beak sticking out of a black garbage bag. The dog sat on the edge of the road for some time, staring at passing cars, waiting for food, and peaceably wagging its tail. Then it saw the Holy Grail. From the woods a deer dashed onto the road where it met a sports utility vehicle in the middle of the road. The dog could not help but feel there had been a jolt in time as he saw a Mohawk hover mistily over the scene and fade away just as the deer’s legs were ripped from under it and it flew over the car. The dog, still moderately hungry, wandered on the road in search of fresh venison. He saw the car approach, and then he saw the wheel over him. And then he kept on moving, the care had gone straight over him, he had taken no damage whatsoever from the accident. He raced over to the deer and watched as it pulled itself together, got up, and walked away, leaking blood and guts and walking with several bones protruding from its legs, without considerable trouble. The dog thought this to be a very odd action for road kill. It perchanced a glance at itself in the tinted windows of a car, from which a child was looking upon the scene with a look of sheer terror. This moment would scare the child for life. The dog happened to notice that he himself had quite a wound. He also had a rather large skid mark across his back, which he now noticed felt rather flattened. The dog wondered about this all for a second. The dog felt it could move. The dog felt it could live. The dog got over the shock of the whole situation and got on with his day of scavenging down the road. Many people, and children, would wonder what was keeping the dog upright, what had happened, and if they should question their faith. But they would get over it and go on living their lives. After all, who cared about a stray? Ah, to think how thin the veil that lies Between the pain of hell and Paradise. George William Russell Sol had set itself behind the trees for another night as the moon shown up over the hills. It’s tears of blue light through the dark of night shown with the light of a thousand pricks in the black cover coming to its aid on the snow. The eerie glow thus created sloped over the packed snow, up the hills and hit the edge of the gorge, where it stopped. In the gorge the moons light was broken by the shadow of the wall, a deep black in the night, its fellow wall acting as shadow, and all on its ground drenched in the velvet dark of the night. And casting its own dark shadow on the ground below, showing a pure black against the last glow of the snow at the bottom which was desperate to absorb the moons light and seemed to die under the heavy shade, a long coat, ratty with use and abuse, slowed after a dark shape, nothing more than a shade in the dark. Ahead the yellow glow of a town could be seen to illuminate the mouth of the canyon that came ahead, the looming light dying out at a few feet in and giving birth to a shade beyond all, where the light and dark fought for control, and the light weaned and the dark grew. The shade moved in on a figure, a figure in a blue dress the color of a placid lake, which sat glowing slightly with its pale light in the dark, possibly on a rock of some time. The figure below flinched as it felt the shade flow over it, and it stopped, maybe the night had settled once more. Behind this procession there was a chattering and a shuffle on cloth. The man in gold walked along arms close together, teeth going full speed like a grinder and the sound of shuffling feathers increasing with every step. He murmured to himself every time his mouth had time to spit out some word, he looked up to the stars, stared down at his feet. He was shaking, but not from cold. “I know, I know, I know what to do, I know, I know, I know who I am, I know what I should, … no not who I am, what I am here to do, what is.” He muttered on and on in the dark, watching the stars and following the lines of light refracted from the tears in his eyes. After some time the man in gold sat upon the snow and pulled his knees to himself, white feathers climbing through the back of his golden robes which made a huge contrast in the blue of the moon, he kept on chattering and kept on murmuring. All the while his eyes followed the gleaming stars and searching the sky. “I know you’re there … I know … I know. I know, but why … why … why …” The chattering went on and on into the night and died away into the encroaching darkness. The gold at the hems of his robes sodden with dirt and snow, his feet blue as the light upon them and all the snow falling to his body merely staying. Above one of the stars stared back, and they locked eyes, the figure in gold thought the star was watching him, knew the star was watching him. He wondered if the star knew who he was, and he wondered what the star would say to him when he came up to visit it. Suddenly he was feeling very cold indeed, the murmur stopped and was replaced with the chatter of the cold and with the hissing intake of air from the lips, which began to frost over themselves. His face pale as the snow and his lips and feet turning the color of the moon. Upon his face was a look of terror. The eyes stretched far open and staring into the nothing above him, locked onto the star, and then down to the ground. Buried in his knees as his arms linked over the legs and he started to rock back and forth, burrowing into the snow until the dirt and grass played with the gold, until the brown had taken over the cloak, until he was on his side, facing the moon on the ground, watching all the stars refracted in the snow, looking beyond each flake. A few tears fell from his eyes, golden and frozen with just a little shine in the middle. His face cracked with a smile, his lips cracking themselves as they tried to change shapes, a streak of crimson rolled from each of the fresh red gashes on his face. Misery, he was in utter misery, looking into the snow, arms to cold to move, his feet, his legs, he could no longer feel them. The blood from his lips frozen to his face and collecting frost, but not before staining the ground around his head with the red. He was amused by the new red glow of the snow; he looked into the small puddle, watching the burgundy liquid frost over. He tried to blink and found he could not move his eyes any longer. Looking down the length of his body in the curled ball he saw his cracked hands and feet, blue, and made one last attempt at moving them, his arm extending, forcing the numb limb so hard until he saw the blood seep out and the ice below. Writhing on the ground, gashing himself on the ice, numb limbs flailing at the air, fingers bashing themselves at rocks. He found himself face down in frosty mud and blood. Eyes held open by the cold and his body turning blue he watched the blood slowly crawl onto the ground and the steam rise up from the heat. A few more tears from his eyes, and there was ice in his eyes. He knew where he was. He had never been on Earth; he had never chased two shapes. He was in hell. He had been in hell since he had talked to the Metatron, this was his punishment. He would be in hell forever, how can you die when you’re dead, he would never die. He would remain in this hell forever, gashing himself on the rocks and the ice, tarnishing his golden light and his purity with the mud and staining his flesh in his own sullied blood. He was in hell, and he would never escape. With one last burst of force he rolled over on his back and stared up into one of the stars, a flash of fire went up in his vision, and he could no longer move, the ice in his eyes, salted with tears, obscured his vision. He looked longingly at the star, with the slightest hint of loathing. With all his effort he reached for it, but no limb answered his call. A vacant glance crossed his eyes, they were glazed with the ice, but they were open and simply looking above. He never got warm, he was just numb. The star descended from the heavens. The man stood over the body, looking down at the twisted blue limbs bent out, one arm out and up, the other out and down and the legs splayed at angles that could not be shown through the battered and forsaken robe, no longer gold, now only dirt and blood. Blood stained his arms and his face and lay as an icy burgundy finish over the mud and the ice. The two wings, still pure of white, were splayed out in a nearly artistic fashion, an angelic pose. Broken free from the prison that was the robe. The blond hair was frozen into a small pool of blood and muck. And the eyes glazed over, unmoving, under the ice, looking up into the face of the handsome figure with the muscular chest and the broad wings. The Metatron leaned down and looked at the body for a while, and them looked up with the approach of footsteps. A figure in tight black leather, long dark parted hair, and a face of pure ambition, passed by. Not even a glance was spared to the carnage, the pitiful wreck below. And it moved on, not even a glance at the Metatron. The Metatron crossed himself and smiled. One last look at the corpse, and he turned and followed the man in black leather, who paid him no mind. They moved side by side, seeming to have a similar goal, and no intention of any distraction. The Metatron gaze faltered as he looked out the blue face of the moon, basking in the light at the end of the canyon. And onward, into the deepest reaches of the light. Eight figures were coming. From eight symmetrical angles. They were coming. The Metatron could not see them, but he knew they would be clad in white robes, they would be fair-haired. They would do their jobs; they would do what they must. They closed in on the light. As did, from the center point, the vertex of the semi-circle over the broad expanse, one traveler who had recently stepped out from the bogs. All would be at hand soon. The Metatron returned his gaze to the front of him and continued his bland walk beside the lifeless, soulless thing beside him. Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix. Christina Baldwin A long night passed and the mournful light of the moon continued to sour and sadden and make even more of a blue hue as the night drew on and the events of the night unfolded. And it cried over the loss of a star, and it wept at the sight of blood, and its tears stained the snow and sand into the crystal flakes. But as all things do the night would come to an end and the new morn would brake over a new world. It would look back past they canyon to where it began, to where it was not but a small baby of a valley between the bosoms of two hills. To where the wreck of the red tower remained surveying the passing snow being purged of tears and filled by the furies of the suns light. The day and the night had been poetic, they had laid out events. The day and the night were taking more and more character unto themselves. But that was beside the point. The red tower seemed to reverse. It seemed to shine in a new light. It seemed to wax itself and restore itself. It seemed to revive. The large wooden doors opened not onto a fallen white body, not onto strewn plaster and feathers but unto a clean floor, a tidy orchestra pit, and warm and brilliant lighting. And a balcony stood far above and watched all the passing events. The place was new, spic and span, it had been reborn. There was one difference from the original state of the tower, and that was a new statue in place of an older one, a change so small on the huge army of gemstone figures that only the trained eye would serve to catch it, and no trained eye but the omniscient was there to witness it. There was a movement in the snowy fields. A carpet of red velvet was unfurling its way down the path, in a beeline with the scythe of the statue atop the tower, cutting out from the door. Bleeding the earth with its color and precision, and leading down to where a very dramatic scene was being played out. A ray of golden light fell from the scythe, a spotlight so pure even to shine above the fires of the sun at the burst of dawn, and it fell upon the edge of the carpet, it boiled and burned and from the heat arose a fire. The flames licked at the air, but hung lazily with the air of a tough guy in the sky, slowly falling in a skulk of red flame with a sudden burst of blue flame at its center, down the length of the light, picking up flame, picking up light, picking up momentum and violence with every foot down the huge, looming tower like a ball of hate with an icy core. A world within itself shown within that icy core, some purity was to be seen in that blue fire, it was so jagged and solid, but flowing, like pure ice, melting into water around it, and freezing back in perpetual torture of the red flames that licked it and scorched the air. It radiated sin; it radiated pain, and baked the air not just with heat but also with hate and with the pain and torture of a thousand souls. From the sky fell what looked like a tear. A tear of white, from a billowing white cloud that felt of a gold radiance. From the sky fell a dove, bonded by the trimming of its wings into a nosedive, straight down to the end of the carpet where the ball of fire laid waiting. The dove descended, falling faster and faster until it stood above the flame exactly, the flame itself standing in anticipation of the eventual fall. The dove did complete its dive, it fell into the flames, the fire singed its feathers but it fell to fast to be scorched. By the middle of its decent into the flames it hit the blue flame and was enveloped in the icy fires, and no sight was to be known, all was silent. Nothing happened for the longest time. A small whisper was on the wind, and then it grew to a faint groan, to a call. Eventually the sound sped up to a resounding cry. A cry that resounded and vibrated on the walls of the valley, shaking the snow and rocking the tower. A cry like the screams of millions of souls in pain, of millions of fingernails being drawn over stone. There was a sound as shrill as the call of a young girl, rising up clear as a bell, deafening to any soul to witness. Another and another joined it, the cry rising to a sirens call so loud as to shatter the icy center itself. The fire dispersed into the air and bits of ice fell to the ground, burning holes into the snow, searing into reality itself, vesting itself into the ground around the tower. A man sat huddled on the carpet. He was covered in blood, scorched with fire and soot. And two small yellow horns protruded from his head. He looked out at the snow and bore his sharp and narrow teeth, looking about with eyes burning with ruby and icy silence of calm in the centers. The horns fell back to his head and the teeth filled out and the eyes receded to a red-brown color. The blood shown down into nothing more than a red sweater and red sweat pants. The man stood up and surveyed the world. He turned to the tower, all around which hung the aura of the fire, a thin sheet of hell hanging around the base, around the tower, around the entire height. The man walked calmly into the tower. He looked to his side, he saw a butler standing at attention, a shotgun at his side. The man in red was a slim figure, a tall figure. His face was gaunt and red in the towers glow, he bones protruding, and he looked almost anemic. His eyes looked about the room, from within their shelter of deep sockets, never moving his head. He turned to the stairs and walked. The rigid movement of his body carried him up the steps, one step after another. He eventually made his way up the spiral and the balcony where he sat down. He had to give some serious consideration to something. What was he called, what was he going to name himself? He gave some serious thought to the matter, his eyes seeming to dart within his mind. He swayed back and forth in his chair, and thought. With all his might he thought. A thought came to him, a name that sounded right, and a name that sounded good. A name that would do, the name Angra … Angra Mainyu. This seemed appropriate to him somehow; it just worked out very well in the end. Now he needed to think of something else. He needed to think of something. He lusted for some kind of distraction, for the release of thought, of a book, of company, of music. He listened for the butler’s steps, they did not come. He needed anything, anything at all to drive off the horrid sounds in his head. He knew one thing, without thinking, only one thought was clear to him, through the screams of billion, through the pain of eons, and through the sure terror of all that clawed at his brain he knew one thing. He was in hell. Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms. Kahlil Gibran The woman in blue still sat into the dawn and through the day straight into the high time of noon. She sat still, eyes locked on a rock on the other side of the ravine. She was deep in thought, far into a coma of contemplation. The letter, still sweet with the scent from the wax-sealed envelope, and even more pungent with its age, lay limp and cold in her hand. One could see the cogs turn within her eyes, the mechanics of the mind working deep within the cry depths of her soul. She was hard at work in her meditation on something. On what one would wonder, what was it that was so captivating to her mind. A word passed from her mouth, not actually reverberating in the air, a faint whisper. “In the letter.” This word came past her lips in a faint breath and seemed to float out on her frozen breath, and to die away just as quickly in the frigid air. It remained only as a memory on her parted lips, and a revelation in her mind. This was not anything new, as the shade that enveloped her would have told you. This phrase had passed her lips in the same manner once every hour for the entire night. It would seem that in such a symbolic sense there was something, something faint in her mind. There was something in that letter she could not quite fathom. It was a faint feeling, on the back of her mind, and the brief realization would pass through her, and vanish on the wind as it passed through the gates of her lips and out into the world. But still it lingered on the lips, and its memory kept on growing with every residue of memory that collected. With every murmur of the words, with every repetition of the faint revelation, there was a closer and closer sense of reaching some goal. And she was deep in a coma, deep in thought, deep in meditation of this idea, and she was nearing the ultimate epiphany, nearing full realization. She had almost reached what she sought after. For another hour she sat basking in the shade, her eyes glazing over with the ferocity of her thoughts. The shade looked back at her, almost as anxious, it would seem, as the solitary thinker, almost as interested in this stubborn thought. Having the shade looking upon her would have been some sort of a disconcerting fact if the woman had not been so far gone in her own mind to realize it, but as the facts were she did not notice the darkness creeping closer, and closer to her. She did not notice the shade cease to be a shade, she did not notice the sun shine down upon her, but she would not have felt the change even if she could have, for the shade that was no more blocked the warmth. Its very presence soaked the suns energy, letting only a lifeless light fall upon the thinker. And the shade stood beside her, the very cold if death clinging to the air, which became more and more frigid with every breath he took, and with every molecule he stole from the air around him until the shade that was not was enveloped in a vacuumed. Deep within her eyes he could see what she thought. He watched her train of thought as it reached out for a final epiphany. He looked into the icy depths and he saw past the frost and throughout the worlds of difference that separated him from the world in her mind. And he was there, floating above the ravine, going back, and looking towards the looming red tower beyond the last of the hills. He heard the sounds of music from within, heard the warm tones of the orchestra with, and heard them stop, and heard the shuffle of instruments and the clapping of hands from far, far above. The shade saw the woman in blue; she crossed the long red gash in the Earth and approached the huge wooden doors, and veered off to the side. She looked over the rows and rows of demons, the statues of horrors wielding scythes, their faces set in cold and menacing onyx. She stepped up to a female statue, a statue that in fact bore an utter resemblance to the woman in blue. The shade looked to the base as the woman in blue ran her hands over the curves and cracks of the statue, letting the smooth onyx cool her hand in the sweltering heat of the walls of the red tower. Upon the base he red the name which was engraved in deep set, wide and elegant letters, and he found that he was after all looking upon the statue of Lorelei the Harbinger of Rage. One mystery solved for the shade he turned to watch the figure of the blue woman making her way into the red tower. Upon her entrance he heard a voice call down from heights untold, but carried by the acoustics of the room, still in intermission, calling “Lor, hun, what ya here for?” There was no reply. She was on the stairs, heading up and up and up, until he reached a door, and out she stepped to face the large statue of a huge, demonic figure. A figure with dark matted hair, intricately constructed in onyx to show each split in the locks, and to reveal the every spec of a cosmos within his own deep set and dark eyes. Clinging tightly to the body of the statue was a long dark coat, and hanging from a breast pocket of the black shirt was falling a watch, a watch constructed of beautiful platinum. And there was a sense of realization in the mind. A sudden intake of breath was heard, and the haze in her mind cleared, the eyes snapped awake and the glaze melted back from the frosted lakes in her eyes. Something was wrong outside her mind, but she had to finish this. The shade followed her eyes down to the base on which the cryptic message was left, washed away to unfamiliar and ancient characters. She mouthed them out to herself time and time again; all the while darkness encroached. The shade knew he could not stay much longer, the danger outside her was to disrupting now, and the world in her mind was falling apart. The tower started to fall away, piece-by-piece, and to be replaced by the dark of the empty mind. Bit by bit from the sky down the world vanished. Below the tower laid the icy depths of reality. And he watched her mouth moving, deciphering through pronunciation the every sound, and trying to make some semblance to a modern language of the faded name upon the plaque. The washed letters and the slipping away of the world only served to hinder her in her attempts. The shade backed away, his dark coat falling into the nothing behind him; he knew his time was up. He dove from the ledge, falling towards the waters below, and as he broke the surface, swimming back to his own mind he heard the faint and throbbing murmur. “Dante …” He was back in his mind. He witnessed the woman blink. And he was gone. The woman watched the shade disappear. The letter fell from her hand and sunk into the snow, saturating with water, and fading away quickly. By the time she stood and looked to the shadows of the wall all that was left was the red seal of Setimos and the red tower. She stared at the top of the ravine for some time and then she observed a shade, darkness and felt the air chill. In the cold she murmured the word, “Dante.” And the shade vanished, and it was gone. I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. Diane Ackerman An alarm went off, a quick beep. Followed immediately by an announcer with a rather bad French accent. “You’re listening to the only station you should live for, the Alternative Snowstorm!!!” A hand reached out and clamped over a switch. Nothing happened and a scratchy voice started screaming at top volume. The hand formed a fist and crashed down on another button, and this time the music ceased. A head found its way out of mangles sheets of white linen. It was the head of a woman. Long, wavy brown hair falling down to her shoulders, and nothing on but some band shirt. She fell off the mat, all two inches to the floor, but it was enough to jar her awake. God, she had one hell of a hangover, enough with the Frenchmen on the radio, even the analog clock was too much noise for her right now. This was hell, oh god the crashing sounds. She stepped on a chip and winced for the immense headache the sound caused. She pulled herself out of the wreckage of packages and the carnage of old food that littered the floor. At a glance one would have to say, kindly, of this woman, that she was the kind of person who lived life fully. She was a rebel, a really do it yourself, life your way kind of girl. She was the zenith of feminism, a punk rocker, and all and all a slob by the overall view of her apartment. The girl rolled across the floor, and hit the door of the small one room apartment. A poster fell from the wall, and Kurt Cobain had to be replaced later that day. She pulled herself up on the doorknob and tuned off the old clock. The horrid ticking stopped and the drumming in her head subsided at last. A new day, another party, this was the first thing she saw in the noon light that barely pierced the smoggy windows. Over the course of an hour various tasks were done, such as showering briefly, the addition of pants and eating breakfast cold from a can. Throughout that time on the wall she surveyed the endless posters, clippings and papers that overlapped and covered all the space but the floor. The floor primarily being covered by food and garbage. It was nothing more than a one-room apartment, a mat on the floor, a small box with an alarm clock, a tall bar stool, and the essential appliances. One light hung on a chain from the ceiling and a clock on the wall, and a guitar in the far corner by the only window on which the words wash me had been smeared with one finger. After finishing the can of cold foodstuffs she proceeded to deposit this on the floor and sit gingerly on the bar stool as it shook rickety under her meager weight. She was tall, and skinny, maybe no more than six feet tall and one hundred twenty pounds. Her wavy brown hair falling all around her and obscuring the name of the band on her shirt, though it could be assumed it was the same shirt from earlier that morning in bed, by the state of affairs elsewhere in the apartment. She took up the guitar and proceeded to play. She was very good actually. She played for quite some while, countless chords were practiced and many a verse run over and over again. Practice of an instrument is a boring, and slow thing, and so the details shall be omitted, but after quite some time she put the guitar back in the corner, pulled back her hair and took a deep breath. Today held a new adventure, she would now see what awaited her outside her doors. She walked out the door, and into a long hall, through which she made her way, down the grimy brown steps and over the darkened threshold, wet with snow, and out into the bitter cold air of fresh snowfall. She looked out at the small town, and around the streets, over the one place that attracted her attention, the bar. Walking with the air of one not to be bothered she crossed the streets and reached the door, in front of which she merely stood, reading posters, messages and post it notes. She red over various messages and band flyers and found who would be playing tonight. She also noted the help wanted sign, and could not help but wonder who had quit, or who had been fired. She wouldn’t have been supposed if it was Tito, he had a bad attitude, so he could have been fired. Maybe Ray quit, shame really, that would mean his band wouldn’t play anymore, and they were really quite good. A thought crossed her mind, maybe she should get work here, it would be better than living off what she made playing on the streets and on the road, … but no, she loved her life, and she wasn’t about to be tied down by some job. She left the bar and walked down the streets. Heading down to the main roads, looking around. Watching closely, trying to pick out a good spot to play at today. On the way she noticed a man, a tall white man with fair hair, this wasn’t all that odd here, but he was wearing a white robe. This was quite odd especially after the blue girl had walked through the other day, well not blue per say, but she looked blue and she wore blue, and se was so ignorant and blissful. This would have really been nothing to worry about if not later on her tour of the streets she had seen another of them. At first she shrugged it off, guessing it might have been the same man, just moving faster than she could move. But this notion was dispelled soon after. She saw another of them. And there was another. That was four of them, they were all exactly the same, and they were very dirty, and they looked like they had gone to far on their feet, like walking skeletons, angelic nonetheless, but still skeletons. She walked on and through the course of the walk would come across four more of the same men, all looking exactly alike. This was just too weird. She chose a spot she had seen none of the men in white, even though it wasn’t that busy, she could go a day with little money rather than get the shit scared out of her by seeing a ninth one of those freaks. There was a brief intermission in her day as she walked back to her apartment, up the steps and through the door. She grabbed the guitar, tuned it up and backs out onto the streets. After a bit of a cautious walk she made her way to the area, just on the edge of town, where she would play, she sat down and found a comfortable position. And she played, played her beautiful music for at least half an hour before she felt someone standing longer than they had any right to. She looked up to fin a man dressed in a nice suit with long, lush brown hair, really, really brown hair and very brown eyes, a very average man, looking down upon her, smiling. An average person for all but one fact that was, he lack shoes. His feet were covered in mud and he was laired in snow, and carried one shoe over his back and a bag in the other. “Sounds nice,” he said. “… Thanks,” that was all she could manage, it was just too weird for her. This man was the tenth weird thing in the past three days, counting each man in white as a weird thing that is. After a while he noticed her caution, and seemed to back away, still smiling in that ignorance of the free. She was slightly scared of the man, why he was just there. She realized something just then, the man had nothing better to do than to enjoy life, because life was his life, he was living day to day, or that’s what she had to guess. She watched him cross out of the city and onto the road that led to the ravine, and realized that he was just passing through, and he was going on to a new adventure in his life. She seized the moment, rose from the ground called to him. “Hey, wait up!” He stopped, and waited until she reached the outskirts where he stood. “Where’re you going man?” she gave him an amused little look. “Nowhere really, just wherever I end up.” He gave her the answer so quickly it took her back a bit. Sounds like a party she thought. She wasn’t going to miss anything she owned, and she had her guitar, she could always start a new life as easily as she had made this one. “Sounds fun man, can I come?” “Sure, I’m Adam by the way,” said Adam. “And I’m Eve,” replied Eve. And so they set out onto the road, and into a new life for both of them. They didn’t turn back on the town, and just went straight for the ravine, so they had no reason to turn and see the eight figures in white, all alike, following them in rank and file. All staring at them, all the same skeletal angels. It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts … Gandhi The canyon looked very inviting from its sun-drenched perch upon the snow-covered ground below it. The couple of brown haired travelers were seen from within the shade from a distance, their voice carrying lightly over the distance. A light him of laughter carrying into the air, a faint and a lovely feminine sound. And they started to slow down, not to walk slower and not to decrease their speed, no there was no change in them, but in time. The ripple reached about across the land, and caught her in the middle of a laugh, and him, standing straight and tall, his suit baggy and tattered, but with a smile on his face. Her hair flying in the air, slowly through the ripple, and freezing, slowing to a stop, until the picture of joy was frozen. Before them lay the shade in the entrance of the canyon, and within that shade something lurked, and something withdrew itself from the shadows. The man in black stepped out from the dark, appearing as if in a wisp of smoke, his coat trailing behind him in a theatrical manner and the sound of his watch chain, bungled up in his breast pocket, clanging against itself with ever slow, calm goose step of the huge, black boots. With there every fell on the grown dust flew off, and with ever gust of the dirty wind, there was a flap of the tattered hem of the trench coat. He stood at full height, letting his coat settle around him, and pulling his hand to his face, removing with one swoop of the pale, parchment yellowed extremity the greasy bit of mane that had strayed into his deep black eyes. With the raised hand a loop on his belt was revealed below the coat, a loop of black leather containing a small black pole with a slit in one side. He smiled, revealing surprisingly large, white teeth, the color of bleached bones, left in the desert sun for years, and he spat on the ground, raising his eyes to face the two travelers a few hundred yards off. And to face the eight figures behind them, all but invisible behind the veil of stopped snow flaking down from the skies in their robes of white a d their hair so fair it was nearly colorless. And he placed his hand on the pole, and strode forward at the slow, theatrical pace, matching each of his strides with that of the white men, all of whom were in a rough semi-circle around the two travelers, closer than the man in black, their backs to the town. They all approached the two travelers at that slow pace, his eyes of black hovering over the scene in its entirety, and their blue eyes locked upon the two figures of interest, paying him no mind whatsoever. Behind this scene, behind the back of the man in black, stood a woman in blue, in the weakened shade of the ravine, and beside her, hidden within a small alcove was a woman in lighter blue, skin the color of moon shine, and a look of captivation at the world on her face, frozen in time. The woman in blue, however, was not quite so frozen, her eyes blinked and her arm darted to the shining pole at her own side. The woman in blue started a slow descent to the two travelers, behind the man in black. Her eyes not seeing the eight in white against the flurry from the sky, she merely locked her gaze of the very visible figure of the man in black, climbing slightly slower than he, using all her wits for the purpose of concealment. She dreaded the thought of what might happen if he were to turn, a fate worse than death she was sure would befall her. The figures in white, all standing relatively close by now, had closed in on their targets, and the man in black, he still stood far enough away. One of the robed men had come closer than the others, and he extended a hand, outstretched to the shoulder of the ordinary man, reaching out in an artistic way, reaching with the view of completion in hand in his eyes, which were now locked on his hand, and his target, and then there was a sound, a sound of fast moving fabrics, of a blade withdrawing, and then he saw it. In less than one moment he saw the descent of the scythe, and felt his fingers detach from his hand just as they reached within a fraction of a centimeter of the mans shoulder. He witnessed the digits fall to the snow, and stain it red, and saw his own blood pour from the now lost four digits, into the air, tinting the flakes frozen in air, and causing them to steam and to dissipate before they hit the ground. And at once his gaze broke with the obstacle, and he looked down to the severed fingers, only to see the curved edge of the blade reverse its track and come back upon a collision course with his jaw. The man in black jerked the blade back up, twisting it onto its side at the last moment so that the man in white with his fingers still outstretched and barely catching sight of the pole. It came up under his chin, the underhand swipe upward blowing him up and backwards off his feet, and as the blade bulled back against the flying body it shaved the bottom of the protruding chin, taking with it a thin layer of skin. A reverberating crack rang throughout the air, the sound of a jaw dislocated and teeth slamming against each other, the skin stretched under the chin and red with the blood of the cut and the impact of the side of the blade. Before any of the men in white could move the black clad man moved forward, extending down on one knee and holding the scythe before him, and when the rounded base of the shining black metal rod was at level with the mans head he twisted his hands and set it crash against the mans temple. The head jerked to the side, and blood seeped from the impact center. And then he stood, and saw the other seven approaches him, and they were very close. And the woman in blue standing behind the proceeding watched with a bemused look on her face, wondering at what had just happened, and what was to be done. Two sets of the closest pale hands reached out on either side oh him. And one of each set was met with either rounded end of the scythe. The one upon the right of the man in black felt the force shift from equilibrium, and come crashing, against his own push, with the side leverage with witch it was held, against his hand, bringing him around on a spin to face the man in black to the front as opposed to the side, and was met with a foot to the knee and the man in black ducked down, raising the pole to his left and catching up the other man in whites hand under the blade of the scythe, which came crashing, at the tilt with witch it was thrust, along with the hand, into the mans own face, and he fell backwards, a deep cut on the palm of his hand, and a large red mark on his face, while the other who faced the blow from the foot felt his knee forced back precisely and found himself falling forward as his right leg fell back. The man in black righted him self, and executed a twirl of the scythe in his hands, bringing around, and folding it over so that the point of the blade caught itself in the back of the falling mans head just as he passed, just below the skull. It buried itself and slid out from within the weak flesh, the blood dripping off, as the body continued it’s decent. And within the time that had elapsed in these actions one more had reached his area, and he saw the other, to his left, stirring. He was breathing heavily, and he saw the other three behind the one that stood before him, advancing, seeing his struggle, and he backed away, and felt a soft dress disappearing behind him. The woman in blue looped to his left, grabbing the fallen man in white and pulling him up, unconscious, against her, bringing him up with one hand, and the other pulling the scythe from her side, blade to the neck, and with the gut wrenching saw the head was removed from the familiar setting of its body, which found itself falling to the ground at a slow rate, onto the knees, and then to the ground, where it continued to saturate the ground with its blood. The head dropped next to it, and the woman stepped over the corpse. All this time the man in black had been watching and he now felt a hand on his shoulder. He returned his attention, grabbing the hand and pulling the man closer, until he pressed up against him. One foot fixed behind one of the man it whites, who himself was bewildered at the action, his eyes vacant, the man in black twirled him around so that the man in white was on the opposite side, but his hand pulled back from under. He felt the pop as his shoulder dislocated and the strain of his muscles being pulled out of place, his palm facing the sky, and the hand forcing his arm upward, and upward. Then there was a knee in his back, and he was forced forward, pulling his arm, the agony was great, and he found himself on the ground, a rough knee on his back, a blade curving around and onto his jugular vein, and his arm hanging lifelessly at his side. He closed his eyes, and felt the blade, press and draw up, open his vein, and the knee remove. He tried to pull himself up, but he could not, his arm was useless, and he flopped onto his other side, looking up at the sky, feeling himself become faint. Feeling the warm blood wash over his neck, and the cold snow below, and he blacked out. The man in black was back up, and was now face to face with the woman in blue, who had her scythe to his face, blade inches from his nose. He didn’t flinch, she didn’t move. The three figures in white continued their approach onto the battlefield, to the two figures locked in a stare, separated by a scythe blade, and not the travelers. The woman in blue’s lips moved for a while, and she finally voiced herself, “Dante..” The man in black returned her gaze, ignoring the blade to his nose, and merely looked at her, feeling the men in white approach. He smiled, and she lowered the scythe and backed away. The man in black turned about face to the three men, who froze in their steps as he locked eyes with them, and gave them that dead, bleached bone grin. Two of them back away, but one held his ground, out of horror or out of bravery knows one would know. What is know is that he stood there, not moving, and found himself face to face with the man in black. He was lifted off the ground by the neck of his robe, into the air; he felt the nails of the man in black dig into his skin, and tried to pull away. Legs squirming in the air futile, chocking on the hand, which pressed up against his Adams apple. Just as suddenly as he had been raised up he was thrust back down with the gusto of a powerful spike. One leg, outstretched in a squirm, found itself connect with the ground and forced upward, there was a snap at the knee and the fell down, cradling the wound, watching the black boots move on, and they were behind him, he nursed his wound, only to feel a steel tipped toe crash into the small of his back. As he rolled onto the round another of the pointed steel toes connected with the side of his head, and he was over. The man in black moved on, toward the last tow, which backed away side by side to each other, walking backwards at equal pace. The man in black pulled the pole from its holster, and the blade withdrew. He shot forward, letting the hooked blade catch around the back of the man on his right and pulling back on the blade. The man was cut deep, but as the blade hit his ribs he was drawn forward to the man in black. The blade withdrew itself and he fell to the ground, blacking out. It was a good bit of timing for at that time the rounded end of the pole crashed into the back of his head and he was over. The last of the men in white recovered himself. His wits together he made one last attempt at a rush at the man, at full speed. The man in black stepped aside, pushing the pole out, and the man in white ran, stomach level, into the pole, was clothesline, and fell forward over the scythe. His face met the ground before anything else could happen, there was another of the horrid cracks of bones as the base of the pole helped his body to complete its journey in a flip, and with the head on the ground it did not complete the journey with the snap of the neck. It was finished. The bodies of the men in white, their blood, the stains in the snow, it all started to vanish. It became a faint haze in the air, and then there was nothing there. The ripple in time started to recede. The woman in blue and the man in black were nowhere to be seen in the scene, the battlefield was clean and empty. And time resumed its natural path, life went on, nothing had changed. The woman’s laugh died out quickly, she resettled herself. She was uncomfortable for some reason, something was wrong here, something was wrong. She looked back and saw the mess of the snow. The ditches, the furrows. She wondered what had happened, had they walked over that part even? It was all rather disconcerting. Adam looked over at her, a look of worry crossing his carefree face. “What’s wrong Eve?” Eve looked back at him, “Nothing, just one of those feelings, you know.” Adam looked at the ground for a while, “Yeah, I know.” Eve readjusted her guitar and continued walking, a slight shiver shot through her back. They resumed their average ways, their faces brightened, and Adam broke out into some kind of and amusing banter. All was well again, and they walked on, and say something moving behind a rock. But nothing concerned them, they were moving into a new life, they should just leave all this behind them, and seize the day. Although there was less shade than there was, but who cared? Crux est si metuas quod vincere nequeas. Decimus Magnus Ausonius The man in black stood on the top of the plateau above the ravine. He looked into the nothing that lay before him, across the vertical dip into the ground and past all the vast landscape of the snow. If one were able to make it close enough to see into his eyes they would have seen the tiny specs of cosmos in his iris’ slightly dilated, shining in the light, and even through his grim continence he gave the air of some kind of pleasant feeling looking out at the world, wherever it was that he was actually looking. The scythe was in his hands and he cleaned it in a rhythmic way, as if it was something so normal he no longer bothered to give his attention to the task, he merely stood still in his spot, looking out, and running a cloth, a white cloth, turning red by the moment over the blade of the scythe. When he was done he continued to look forward, flourished the scythe, withdrew the blade and replaced it into the loop within his belt. Behind him he heard the faintest sound, a foot crunching softly on the snow. It was the sound of someone trying their best not to be heard, and doing a good job of it to tell the truth. The man just stood, hearing every slow crunch of the foot behind him, well timed steps, moving every four seconds by his count. And the steps came closer. One yard away …. And two feet away. Beneath the cover of his trench coat he adjusted one foot onto its toe and dug the other heel into the ground, and he spun around quickly, not moving any extremities except for his legs, hands still at his sides in a martial fashion. He found himself face to face with the woman in blue, and he smiled, it was a pleasant surprise even if it was what he had expected. She had flinched at his turn, but she recovered herself quite well. Straightening herself out she faced him, raising herself up on her toes to meet his eyes, which in themselves had not wavered from their original viewpoint. Squaring her shoulders and straightening her face she looked at him, poker face on, but the shaking in her hands did not escape his eyes. Her lips quivered for a moment, and she spoke, shaking in her voice for a moment but recovering her voice as she managed to recover herself every time she faced a dilemma. “I … I … Are you,” she spouted out, gaining confidence with every word, “Or are you not Dante the Enduring.” His smile brightened and he gave a deep chortle the sound was like a bat hitting a hollow metal object. It was deep, loud, and completely devoid of all feeling and of all substance. He returned to his same continence and, for the first time returned her gaze, looking straight into her eyes, all the semblance of joy, all the concept of kindness had been removed from the black pits and she was now met with the gaze of death itself. She could not help herself but to let out a shudder, but she regained herself once again and returned the gaze once more, meeting the cold stare with whatever of the icy glaze that froze the hearts of men she could muster from herself at such a time. He smiled, his eyes brightened, and he reached out one of the thin, bony, yellowed hands, folding it over her shoulder. She flinched, and took a step back, but when she felt nothing crush in her bones she settled again and regained her firm stance. And he spoke, softly, but still deeply. It was a hard sensation to explain, like he was somehow speaking for himself. Not the cold, dark grasp that poisoned the air around him, but merely a deep bass voice. Not the usual hallow boom, which made the masses shudder. He talked to her and she felt she was equal, because she had no reason to quake from this voice, it was deep, it was abrupt, but it was soft in a way. “You’re a brave one aren’t you? Sit down, anywhere, it doesn’t matter, just have a seat and let’s get this out of the way.” She didn’t move. He moved over to a rock protruding up from the steep walls of the ravine and took a seat, he motioned to a similar rock in an inviting way and gave her another of the warm, albeit frightening bleached bone smiles. “Come on, I don’t bite, well only if I have to.” She still stood firm in her spot, shaking, and slightly confused. “ Will it help if I answer the question? Why am I asking rhetorical questions?” He let out a laugh, but it was of the bat hitting hallowing metal variety, and she jumped back for fear and shock. He let the smile fall from his face, and looked at the ground, and noticed her relax as his gaze wandered away from her, and so he remained with his head staring at his feet. “Right, right down to business then, yes, I’m Dante, and no Enduring, just Dante. And yes, I know who you are, is it alright if I just call you Lor? Or would that be encroaching on the grounds of a not so long gone friend of yours?” She was getting angry after that, and he had to smile at that. It was so hard to get any emotion out of the people who think they’re made of stone and it could be so fun once you had. He decided this would e nowhere to go with this person; it was a game to be played with others, not with someone carrying a blade. He was quiet for a time, until he saw the anger pass, she was calming down. And then he looked up quite quickly. She drew back, and he spoke, in a louder voice, like a boom in the air, it made her jump. “You know, I’m not really a bad person, you might think I’m a bad person, but I just do what I do, is that any way not to live your life? It’s almost like what you do isn’t it Lor?” She got mad again, it was fun but he had to stop, she was really getting angry. “Right, so I’m a cynical sun of a bitch, so what, say what you’ve got to say, this is getting kind of long for my taste.” She calmed herself, and regained her voice. “What the hell are you?” she backed away and found a similar rock at a diagonal angel upon which she perched herself, hand on the scythe, ready to withdraw the pole at a moments notice. He decided to stop with the nice nice talk, and to start getting serious. She knew what she was doing, and he knew what he needed here, so he obviously saw that the nice stuff wasn’t going to work with her. “Right, well I told you I’m a son of a bitch, which you already knew. Well, to be frank I’m not sure what I am, I’m like you and you know that, but outside of that I can only speculate. There’s a word that they use to describe what we are, it’s actually more of what we do here, but it’s a good word I think. It’s a word that sums up what we are, and almost what we do, but the way it rolls off my tong, it makes me feel like it’s an appropriate title to give myself. I call myself a wraith, an apparition before death, and we do appear before death, and we’re nothing more than an apparition to them, so that’s what I am, I’m a wraith, you’re a wraith.” She had settled down quite a bit by now. “Right, I know what you are in that sense, and it is a good word, but you know what I mean don’t you.” She saw him sit and think for a while. He was searching through his mind, looking for the right information, searching for the words to say about this. Suddenly he spoke in a cryptic voice, in a tone like a moldy and dusty book. “And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him” This interested her, “From the bible, that’s from the bible. What does that have to do with anything though?” He regained his original look, his face back, and the signs of extreme age that had crossed over it fell back into his eyes, soaking up into his pupils. “You know who they are,” he said. “Cain and Able, the first tow sons of Adam and Eve on this Earth. Well, that is where I come from, that even is merely seconds older than I am.” She was confused once more. “What does that have to do with anything whatsoever? I mean, I know what happened, but what do you have to do with Able?” He sighed, and the air was sucked of all its warmth, right up to where she sat. “Sit back, relax, this could take a while to explain …” The concentration and dedication- the intangibles are the deciding factors between who won and who lost. Tom Seaver The Metatron had slowed his pace as he now watched the tow figures below him walking through the canyon. There was a woman with the man, and she looked about right, it was time to act. The man in black leather had seen them; he stopped, and gazed at them fixatedly, not moving his eyes but to look at them more directly. The Metatron decided to test this situation. He walked in front of the man in black, who, his eyes breaking from the two figures, opened his eyes so fully, and with such power, that the Metatron could see the cuts beginning to open as the eyelids almost snapped upward like shades. A cut did brake over the left eyes, and the eyelid was ripped right down the middle. His teeth gnashed and he balled his fists. The Metatron was so far unimpressed by the situation. He reached out, as if to touch the dark being for some reason, and a leather glove upon his own hand met his hand. The Metatron was a huge man, he had giant hands, and muscles on his arms that would have made body builders blush. But when this hand met his he felt himself being pushed back. He strained and pushed back, using all his force, his muscles bulging and his neck flexing. His hands started to shake and his pecks bulged. But the other hand did not waver. The man in black leather started to fold down on the other hand, and fingers like iron crushed the bones in the Metatron hand, his fist was crushed under the steel grip of his opponent, he himself would be thrown off like a light rag, and flung across the canyon like a sack of potatoes. It was a pathetic show, but as soon as the Metatron was out of the way the man in black leather’s eyes relaxed, and the broken lid flopped down sadly. He fixed his eyes on his targets, and started to move down to the opposite end of the canyon, where they would inevitably exit. As he walked off the Metatron regained himself. He stood, and his fingers straightened. The bones creaked and groaned, and finally snapped back together. He stood up, impressed; this would most certainly do the job like nothing else could. Mission accomplished, but he should maybe follow the man in black leather to the exit, just in case. On his way he eventually passed the corpse of the fallen man in gold, and seeing it from afar, the sad wreckage of the man, he could not help but feel slightly sorry. Poor Cherubims. He was actually a very nice person, and very good at his job. He had done everything right and by the book, he had just had the wrong job all along. It was quite sad that he had to die, but they could not risk having something as powerful as what he carried in his hands. What if he started to feel guilty, which he no doubt would back in this place? What if he decided to redeem himself in the eyes of man, and create himself as a hero of the masses? The Metatron personally had no doubt that he could not wield that weapon against a friend, or even a foe. He was purely a figurehead, and he handled monotony and paperwork quite well, but when it came right down to it, he hadn’t been right. The Metatron had actually had some hope that he would survive the thoughts put in his head; he had forgotten they were dealing with an ineffable power above them, who never failed. But he’d had some hope for the poor fellow. Oh well, it was part of the job, that’s the way things went, so he to should do his job before he was next, and not let any such thoughts cross his mind. The Metatron ran at the crevice in the Earth, and he jumped. In the mid air he spread his huge wings and soared into the sky. He ascended, and merely came down on the other side, it was like a ball bouncing high into the sky, only to come down immediately on the other side, driven down by a child’s hand, but not bounced back up. Instead, as soon as the feet hit the ground he broke out into a run to the corpse. Here he stopped and reached down. He patted all over the front of the body, some of the places getting kind of iffy to keep a weapon, but he had to search. He was about to go to an area he really didn’t want to go to, when he felt something beneath the huge wings. The Metatron took out a familiar white dagger from his pockets, and with such a tool he cut open the back of the robes, and found the wings to be tied together tightly with hard wire. So that’s why the wings always twitched, he had been hiding something, god that must have been horrible uncomfortable for him. He really must not have wanted to use that weapon, for the wire was rough, and he sat trying to pull it off, but only cut his hands, which did, miraculously, heal immediately. He pulled and sawed until the start of the wire broke apart. And finally he had broken the wire, but now the wings; they were folded tight with the rectos mortis. He pulled and he wrenched, but the wings would not come undone. They were hard and stiff, like steel. He hated what he’d have to do. The poor man, Cherubims, he had gone awfully, but now this would be an ultimate disgrace. He would have to take off the wings. He took the knife and found the huge joint at the vertices of the wing and the shoulder blade. And he sawed and sawed, and cut through the wings, slicing off both of the symbols of purity, and defiling the once great man. Under the wings he found what he looked for. From under the mass of blood and feathers, floating on the liquid. He found a sward, imbedded in the skin. And as he pulled it out and it touched the blood of the fallen angel, it flared, and caught flame, searing red hot with the fire of eons. And he took the flaming sward, and left the defiled, mangled corpse of the old, and great Cherubims. Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect. Francis Bacon “Then you’d better get right down the explanation shouldn’t you? I think I deserve to know why you’ve been shadowing me for the last few days, and most of all I deserve to know what the hell’s going on here. Given that I seem to be part of whatever twisted conflict you’ve gotten yourself into I ought to know what I’m up against. So, oh ancient and Enduring one, what the fuck is going on!?” Lorelei had been pretty enraged. She had the feeling that Dante was messing with her mind, trying to maker her mad. He had stopped, but he had done a good job, she was furious and she had just spilled out all that rage. In its aftermath she recoiled into her seat. She had just seen this thing fight eight men, kill seven of them, and barely break a sweat; she wasn’t about to piss him off. Dante on the other hand wasn’t even fazed by her call. On the other hand he himself seemed to have calmed down, to his normal, laconic state. His voice remained soft, not the loud boom from the bus, at least that was a nice change. His eyes however had returned to the stone cold onyx of space and his smile had returned from the flashing bleach burned bones into nothing more than a thin line where his cold lips once were. She was right; it was time to get serious. There were still two other that might be out there, and the fact that they hadn’t been with the others just made them all the more dangerous. “What exactly is it that you want to know here?” “First of all, I want to know what the fuck you were taking about before, what was all that crap about Able? And what did you mean it was seconds older than you were?” She had settled down, there was something calming about his solemn continence now, the mirth did not fit him well, this was much more like him. “Right, now this is going to get really odd. I mean, this is going to get … so strange it’s Biblical. So here it goes, my best attempt to tell you what I am and maybe to tell you what you are. When Cain slew able humans were to live forever I think, Adam and Eve had no reason outside of sin to procreate, which would insinuate that they didn’t need to recreate more humans to carry on because they would live forever in Eden. When they left Eden for the sins they committed of knowledge of themselves their lives were terminal diseases. I once knew a man who could sum this up very well, well know is an overstatement, I watched him in my spare time. ‘Life is a sexually transmitted disease – and the mortality rate is 100%,’ it was R.D. Laing I believe. And he was right, it took a while, for us to find out how long these creatures that were humans would live, but we found out earlier that they could die. “When Cain did strike Able down God needed to find some vessel, some means of bringing his favorite sons spirit to join him in his dimension of heaven. So I came to be, I was used to remove the spirit from the body and bring the unjustly slaughtered thing to God. I was created to capacitate the necessity of death within humanity when they reached the earth. It was a morbid job, be the first to see the end of a life for sure, and to see that soul go up into the light, but it had to be done. After all, now that they were mortal I had to do the job. But back then humans lived a long while. Adam was the second to die really, this was sixty one years after the birth of Lamech, his great great great great great great grandson, he was nine hundred and thirty years old when he fell, and I was there. “Humans seemed to have habit of living long in those days. The shortest life was that of poor Enoch, the son of Jared, only three hundred and sixty five years old. Still a long life. And that we me, I took the lives of the first because of the sin they committed. I am, in a sense, the byproduct of sin, I am the other creation besides the child, made to sweep up after the mess, the disease of mortal life.” He looked down; the age came upon his face once more. Lorelei stopped him. “But, weren’t there others on the earth? I mean, in the land of Nod, that’s where Cain found a wife, there were other things out there. And there were giants and there were cities. And …” She was growing quite engrossed in the idea. “I struggled with that for a while. Why were there no others? And then I got it; Adam and Eve lived in Eden because they were Gods image of himself. Whatever was outside of Eden, the giants and the beasts and the people, or whatever they were, they were byproducts of the creation of earth, and not what god had really meant for the creation of people, not his likeness. But they were more of there for equilibrium. There’s one point where things got a bit messed up in that plan, because these heathens were not meant to be with god they had no souls, and that is how we reach the idea the line of Cain became impure at some point, and that the rest of the world was somehow unclean. Now I was never good at counting time in those days, but what I do know is that the line of Seth remained pure, and some one thousand six hundred and fifty six years after Adam became mortal there was one pure family left, and that was Noah, and his three sons, Japheth, Ham and Shem. “God saw the ruin his image lived in and saw the unclean souls that were beginning to come to walk with him, and I would have to guess that maybe that is the root of hell, that those who were once meant to walk with him in purity were in truth tainted by the heathens of the Mesopotamian, or that is where we can guess all this played out, unless the ark drifted. Back to the ark, God decided to cleanse the Earth of the foul and evil men that had saturated its surface, and Noah found the grace in god to be granted another start, and he was to take two of each animal, actually it’s a very long story, but two of each pure animal and all of his pure family onto the ark and to wait out the floods of the land. And it did flood and Noah was safe and eventually he did land in Mesopotamia, where his family flourished, and forming four main nations. “With these nation the world of men were separated once more and that was the beginning. Heaven and hell were separated because of course the men in Noah’s family came with some sin, and some heathen blood that carried down and within the next three to five generations took control, until the purity was gone, and all was different, separate, that was the creation of man. “But as for us, we started to grow in numbers when Noah’s family grew out and those granted a soul became numerous and died far more quickly. We had to act faster and so the spirits would become what I like to call dark angels, the spirits of men whom god uses to take the souls of men to heaven or hell. As far as I can tell they don’t know who they are, but they are like humans, I on the other hand was the first when there was no spirit to darken but I was created. A lone, different breed to live forever and to take lives, any really that I need to, but I was never human like you were at one point.” Remorse crossed his face; something troubled him by recalling him. “That’s really as far as I can think of my origins, I am sin, I am death, I am the Grim Reaper, I am Dante, the Enduring and all the rest of you are just little mindless drones, running around, doing your jobs, and just being what your spirit now does.” He put his face in hid hands and lowered his head into his knees where he sighed and rubbed him forehead. The age had creped out, but was retracting so steadily. “The last comment had rather annoyed her, but this time she could see that he was not trying to get her mad, he was telling the truth, and she realized that it was all very true. She couldn’t remember life before what she thought was her first hit. And that’s all she’d done for many, many years, just hit after hit. She’d always known what to do and she’d, after some time, began to enjoy it. The slice and the dice, it became second nature to her, so much that she had become competitive. She had destroyed a wraith so that she could commit the act that she was now, witnessing such an act in her own realm of being, realizing was a truly horrific crime unto the world. It was a harsh reality to find ones self in. “What about … us. What about wraiths in general? How do we work? I get how we’re made, and I think I can begin to accept that, but I don’t quite get how it is that we can be so oblivious to everything. I mean, how does it all tie together, how do we do what we do in our own little reality? Or do you not know that much?” that last sentence had packed just a little bit of spiteful bite to it, but he seemed unparsed by the tone. “I think I do know. We aren’t meant to know how we function, that’s the entire point of our being. We’re meant to be so fixated upon our jobs that we don’t realize that others exist, unless we become aware, and that is possible. You became aware with a lust for blood and I with a lust for knowledge. I don’t know how I had a lust for knowledge, except for the thought that I may have been created dirty, as if God was generally pissed off by his favorite child’s death and poured into me the sin of murder itself, but that very sin backfired. And as for you, I would have to think that your spirit was merely unclean with some kind of sin, but it may have been justified, or not, but you have a lot of bloodlust, that much I can tell, and therefore I can say whatever sin you possessed it was very strong. “And yes, it can occur that something becomes so enveloped in what I like to call its meaning of life that it can block anything irrelevant out of the world. For instance, humans ask the existential question, what is the meaning of my life? Did they ever think that maybe the only meaning of their life is to live? Not to fulfill any more of a cosmic duty than to function, to live in God’s image and to, well, be clean and happy. “Humans, they don’t know it, but they are engrossed in their meaning of life. They are so intent on living by the compilation of thoughts and emotions that they have been made of. This may involve their death, but in the end their goal is to live their lives however they want. True it is a very lenient goal, but it’s a goal they fulfill. And they concentrate so hard on it that they are not aware of the presence of the divine, or of the horrors of the world. But their situation is not unlike that of the wraith. “The wraith is intent on every hit. But if the wraith is awakened by awareness he can see the world for what it is, and everything in it. The same is true of humans; they are wrapped up in their own little worlds. But if they take the time, if they are pure and content they can have a realization, or a gift. Psychics, clairvoyants, prophets, Buddhas. All of these people are gifted with some kind of enlightenment with witch the can help or harm their own people. Knowledge is power, and therefore being all knowing about the realm you live in and the realms without make you potentially omniscient or omnipotent. To a varied extent if you are enlightened you are one of the most powerful beings. “You and I, we can see the world. That makes us powerful, which makes us able to complete some feats that no other could complete. Potentially we’re a threat to God. So sorry for dragging you into some kind of holy war, but you’re divine enemy number one if you advocate any retaliation against such a being as the Lord. And that’s what I think; he’s no more powerful than us if we know enough about what he’s trying to do. He may be omniscient and he may be omnipotent, but if we’re all knowing in just one part that he is we may be able to put a stop to something terrible.” He looked much brighter; he seemed to have a newfound hope for whatever it was he was hoping for. It was beginning to scare her. “You mean that that ripple, that chill in the air, that’s their unawareness?” she questioned. He thought for a moment. “Well no, not quite. They’re just unaware. I suppose there’s a failsafe on some things, to protect them, and so we actually manage to suck up time to complete the act of removing the soul without actually destroying anything. And without the chance of enlightened mortals seeing us, witnessing another divine act. I suppose, the time ripple, that’s just a failsafe for the protection of heaven.” “I’ve just got one more question for you. What’s going on here and what do I have to do with all this? I mean, I must be here for a reason; it’s not just coincidence. I’m here to do something in whatever it is you’re doing.” She had calmed down much; there was no more bite in her voice, she actually seemed eager to know. The slight look of the icy bloodlust returning to her eyes. He on the other hand remained stony and silent, looking past her head and into the ravine below. “The two people, moving past us right now. That’s who I’m after. I’ve got a feeling, and a few little tips, that they’re important. I think, that somehow, he saw me. No mortal can do that; it’s got to mean something. If anything it means he’s special. But you saw that hit they tried, and those weren’t wraiths, those were angels. Something’s going on, and I intend to know what it is, even if I have to protect that man to my … whatever it is that happens to me when I’m dead. “Part of me says I don’t want an innocent man to die just so there isn’t an enlightened man on earth. The other part of me just tells me that I want to thwart god. To show up my maker and say here I am, and I don’t like what you’ve done with me. You fucked up on this creation right here. Now you’ve paid the price. I want to ruin something for god like god ruined something for me, my existence. “And you, my dear.” The bleach bone smile was coming back. “Well, I need another enlightened being to help me. The simple fact is that I can’t do this alone. I broke a sweat over these eight, and I hate to think how much more I’m up against now. So I needed to find a wraith with just a bit of a spark. That’s you, you had the ability to be enlightened, I just opened the door, and you stepped through. I think it was your choice to come in here, into this situation, subconsciously. Now you’re here, get in or get dead, that’s all I’ve got to say.” He laughed the hallow tin laugh, he seemed to think he had won something. She nodded … but she was looking at something else. “I think I get what you’re saying. I can live with that, it’s just my new meaning in life.” Her voice faded and he could see her eyes straining. She pointed whimsically out to the opposite end of the ravine, over witch the redo tower hovered. To the exit of the ravine she narrowed her vision. “What’s that?” Dante looked out, and through his keen eyes saw something. Black against white. It was dressed in black leather, tall and strong. One eyelid was ripped. And Dante knew something just by looking at the way it stood, the way it was locked on the two people now approaching it. “Shit, there’s more to come. Lor, I hope you’re in for a ride, because we’ve got a big one coming. Something’s down there, something big and set on a goal by the way it looks. Come on, we’ve got to be there before they are.” He got up and broke out at an amazing sprint, snow kicking off the ground after him as he raced down the ravine length. She sighed, got up, and sprinted after him.
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poisonedheart

08-13-04 10:36am

That's 45 pages so far, that's a bit large for a short story, I believe it should be called a Novella, a Novella being a short novel.

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Twitchy

Re:, 08-13-04 2:27pm

true, I should change that, and with all the right fonts it's a bit longer, title page and voices and whatnot, but that's all for style

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