Thursday, March 01, 2018

2018 Status Updates

Jan. 2018

The chief danger of a famous place is not the danger of it, but the degree in which it can only disappoint you.

You told me you were a poet, but you haven’t written any poems?”
I have no desire to sully my poetry by reducing it to mere words.”

“I told you the world could only disappoint you.”
“But you were wrong. The world never disappointed me. Not a single rainbow or storm. Only people. Only you.”

From a WIP:
There is pain like a distant lover. I taste smoke in the back of my mouth. Two people are walking - no. One person, and their shadow wrapping about flesh, armour against the world. The armour cracks, fracturing light like the inside of a rotten tree. I move across the road.
I am damaging people. Not meaning to. We change, but we never do it alone. Dragging others into our wounds before our hearts.
I shake my head. Not sure how many of the thoughts are mine. Are any mine? No one answers. That’s good. Good.
My shadow giggles. I ignore it.

“I told you the world could only disappoint you.”
“But you were wrong. The world never disappointed me. Not a single rainbow or storm. Only people. Only you.”

the bus won’t move and you are the metaphor i can no longer afford digging for spare change even two pennies for your eyes and two bits for everything between us

From WIP:
I breathe out. In. Money never tastes good. No matter who has it there is always nothing sweet to it. All offerings are burnt. What happens when we mistaken the offering for the altar? Economics.

The security guard stood watch over the parking lot to ensure it remained empty. Her friends and family did not understand her job and she prayed to all the gods she no longer believed in that no one would ever have cause to understand it.

From WIP:
How do you say you’re sorry for destroying someone’s life when you also destroyed your own?

From WIP:
The school planted land mines to deal with recalcitrant students. In the long history of warfare between students and administration, this would come to be looked on with horrified admiration by those whose job was to try, by any means necessary, to turn children into functioning human beings.

The law passed turned out to be sadly simple:
people could only go on marches during March.

The monster, lamenting:
I made you a dream of a perfect day. And you swore it was a nightmare despite everything I tried.

“Everything made sense. That was when I realized it all had to be a lie.”

Once upon a time, there was a man who tried to make the dark woods safe for travel by making short cuts through it. The gods of the wood, angered by this temerity, turned him into a wolf that ate everyone who tried to use those paths. And they made sure he remained himself the entire time because the gods are nothing if not cruel.

“You think you can defeat me?” The monster roared.
“Most certainly not,” the child replied. “But my mother taught me how to use the bells of summer and to dance down the moon.”
The monster fell back and away, both power and prisoner to its own story. “You cannot destroy me.”
“There is a river south of here. It is old and mighty. And now flows a path it did not centuries ago. It is possible to destroy in small ways that do not feel like destruction.”
The child smiled, a baring of teeth. “This is your only warning: do not come this way again.”

“But we aren’t trapped in a fairy tale,” I sneered. “I don’t see a single fairy in it.”
Eyes glinted like broken stained glass windows as the creature smiled. “Not even your little bother?”
“What?” Ralphie squeaked, his face red with broken secrets.
And that was when I began to learn what a monster really was.


Feb 2018

“Even for an hour a day, I could pretend I was not me.”
“I am sorry,” the copy-editor said as the author wept, “but that pretense was always a lie.”

Once upon a time there was a grandmother who wasn’t a witch despite having no children at all.

They had no idea what to expect. The war was over, the monster vanquished beneath the seas. The hero had died, the land been wrecked to ruin. But nothing stopped them. Nothing could.
The tourists always arrived, even when they could not leave their hazmat suits.

He shrugged. “Stories have power. The way they’re told has power. Humans manage to still fear each other when there’s a sizable minority of preternaturals to really hate and fear. Vampires remained hidden, so the stories about us making us kin to rock stars, angels, celebrities. Unattainable, powerful alien. Werewolves and the like are little more than beasts, all demons are monsters.
“And, too, a lot of it is played for comedy. If a witch could do all the things stories claimed, no one would have ever tried to burn one at a stake. People have to remind themselves that monsters exist, but as important are the ways they defang us.”

“You don’t understand. Our jury needs more jaysome.”
“… I don’t know what that is.”
“If you did, I am not certain you could remain a judge.”

It shouldn’t have to be like this. But your front door insists I have to log into Facebook before I can enter your house. As if I can recall any password other than your name.

I was never afraid but everyone believed I should be. If that is not weakness, what is?

"I just realized that I can't be the main character of this novel. I don't have a tragic backstory at all."

Home has been billed as an experiment in primitive culture. Probably because that sounds better than Hell.

The most amazing thing about the dance was how they all thought it was about them.
“This I tell you, only for free: there are more in this world who wish you harm than not.”
“But I am the Champion destined to defeat the ancient forces of the Dark -.”
“Quite so. Have you ever met anyone who liked destiny? A lot of people - understand the world as it is. They don’t want change. Not on any term you would offer it.”
“…. but -. I am going to save them?”
“Have you been saved? How did you like it, eh? Stuck in your craw, didn’t it? To need another so badly. To be in debt so deep that you can never pay it back, no matter what you do?”
The Champion wept then, and stumbled away from the ancient Witch. Who smiled and reached with thought and will. To tell the Darkness that was her only child that the Champion was broken.
They broke so easily these days.

The end of the world was a minor thing; the end of our world all that was major.

The best part about playing D&D at level two:
Me: *does ill-advised idea getting into a mess of enemies so other PCs can reach scene, gambling on dodging and decent AC to survive.*
*fails to survive*
*character fails first death saving throw. I roll a 1 for the next one*
…. my character is only alive because I made a halfling :)

“He has scars that tell a story we have never heard.”

“I cannot count on one hand the number of hopes I have lost, nor name how many dreams I have seen wither and rot. I swore Home would not be like them. Home will be free if I must unmake everything to ensure that comes to pass!”
“Everything means more than you think it does. It has always been so.”

Once upon a time there was a story that did not begin with once upon a time, and the people in it never knew they were part of a story. Not until it was far too late to escape.

“You can’t buy me,” I protested, but the painting was considered valueless without the painter and I had rent to pay.

Sometimes the hardest thing is to be a secret that everyone pretends they do not know.

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