The Black Prince: How the Crow Became a Man

Long ago, under the slated roof of a prince’s castle, there lived alone a sly, black crow. The crow was a sort of peculiarity to the folk of palace and town – it had been many a year since anything had stirred the blank emptiness of snow and space, almost since the death of the middling King. Yes, that was right. It had been since the King died and passed the throne to his black-hearted son that any man or animal was forbidden from casting the ink of shadow or thought upon the crystalline snow. Until the crow, that is.
None could truthfully say that they knew from where the bird had come. It had not been seen gliding in on tired wings, nor had any heard the peep of young hatchling from roosted nest. A malicious, fearful rumor ran that the crow was born of the darking shadows of the Prince himself. Some believed it, while others scoffed. Even so, the bird was watched with no small fascination and admiration, while the Prince was hated outright. For the bird was the first one in years to fly with a free heart through the tear-soaked sky, and he brought thoughts of goodness and warmth to the souls of the people, never mind the blackness of his form. The emptiness that the crow filled was caused by the oppressive reign of the Black Prince.
The Prince had not always been so terrible, though. No, once upon a time, in the winter of the world, he was simply a young Prince who had lost his heart in a drift of snow. Many a time he had gone out of door to gaze up into the heavens, looking for the yellow face, that thing which turns all in its sight to gold. The boy Prince loved it dearly, adored the spectrum of golden hues, and the warmth of its gaze, and so he was always going outdoors into its light. Each time he went, his queenly mother stopped and warned him to be careful of the biting, venomous cold with its sharp, nipping teeth. All the while she wound him into furs and woolen blankets.
“Yes, mother,” he would reply and leave her once again for the tender warmth of sunlight.
His mother, lost behind, would watch his small form trundle into the blinding white, the furs of the coats near jet surrounded by the seeming innocence of cold, shining crystals. It was in sadness that she watched him shrink to a particle of dust, and then disappear. So alone he seemed, and so she worried.
One day as he walked, glorying in the yellow face, an old crow came winging beside him, landing in his path, eyes directed upwards to the young boy. This irked the Prince to no end. His mother had not been the only one to see how isolated he was. He too noted how quiet the world seemed – only himself, the sunlight, and his father’s castle shared the snowed waste. This pleased him. None other should lay claim to this beauty. He was Prince and it belonged to him. The boy glared imperiously down.
“What right have you, bird, to cast your shadow on the snow of my land?” he demanded.
Cocking its head, the crow regarded him a moment with a mirrored eye. “Need I any, Lord Prince? I am a bird, as any other. I fly through all lands and you have no power over me.”
“Haven’t I?” cried the boy, lunging forward, swiping a child’s paw through the air. No authority had he in truth but the force of his own small strength. His fingers found no resistance though – the bird had gone. He cast about himself for its shape, but it had disappeared completely. When he leaned in to look, the boy found that no print had been left in the snow by the crow’s small weight.
A swirl of wind by his ear murmured, “It would do you good to treat nicely the small folk of the world, young Prince. Perhaps tomorrow will find you lighter.”
Bewildered and not a little frightened by the mysterious stranger, the Prince stumbled through catching layers of snow all the way home to his mother whose arms still held more comfort than the cold and the sun.
His fear though was nothing that could not be remedied by warmth and the clouded thought of dreams. The next morning, his mother again found herself watching him wade back through the desert of white.
For much of the day, the Prince wandered under the sun, unchallenged by man or beast. Unconsciously wary, he found himself glancing more than once at each secret, dusky shape. This caution was baseless though; when the dark wanted him, it would call to him and in the meantime he needn’t seek for it in dreams. At last his doubts left him, and the Prince applied himself to creating shadows in ice and snow that he could laugh at his lesser self’s distress. When he turned though, the laughter died on his lips like a flower, wilted by the true shadow of blackest night that lay in his path. For there waited the crow, as it had waited for minutes, perhaps, hours. Watching, it had seen.
“What do you think of me today?” it asked. “Have you learned to be kinder to old birds?”
The Prince had not, though, for again he tossed himself forward in anger. And again, the bird had gone. Born from the dwindling goodness in the child’s heart, it was as insubstantial as smoke. Perhaps it sank back into him when his body came sprawling into the snow, or maybe it flew to a place on the eaves to observe what passed. For as the Prince flew forward on wings of hatred, the furs, bunched so carefully into themselves by a loving mother, came undone. He met the snow with a thin linen shirt, closed save for one button, opening a thin sliver of skin to winter. Small it was, but more than enough for the cold to consume.
Even as he fell, it sank hungering teeth into his sweet, milky flesh, biting down into his soul, striking a sliver of ice through his heart. From the stem of the wound ran a black streaming pool of his kindness, formless until a crow passed overhead, inspiring it again with shape. So it was, that as the boy straightened from beneath the pain and looked out at the world with newfound hatred, the crow drew its first true breath as a being separate from the prince, and hopped into the air to glide on currents of sunlight.
A Black Prince was born, and the little boy that he had been lost his heart to the skies.
The king’s people knew nothing of this transformation though and it was no small shock to their unknowing minds when the pacific boy that they thought the Prince to be expressed an earnest interest in hunting and death. In all his boyhood, he never quite grew to match his tastes – the love of hunt and chase expected of a bloodthirsty adolescent was found in him from the first. By the time he aged to adolescence, he had acquired both the skill and brutality of a seasoned general. When at last the kingdom was his, laughter became a rarity – the entertainment that he chose, often in the form of public execution, failed to please his terrorized people. The game of war was a great favorite of his too, but when that was not to be had, a headhunt was fair game.
The Prince also found within himself a fondness for fair women. Pale, he liked them, skin as clear as a clouded day, with hair that was like sunlight running down a length of dried grass. They loved him dearly for reasons unknown, each and every one, but he tired of them soon enough, sometimes within days of first laying hand on them. To some private place aside he would take them, and give them a red-ribboned necklace, a token of his esteem, yet a farewell gift nonetheless. They wept and begged, fighting their dismissal, even as they faded away. None were ever seen again, and it was presumed that, being a Prince, he did good by them and sent them to some distant land to be married as well as any Prince’s mistress could be.
They meant nothing to him, of course. Such things rarely do in a world that belongs to men. None of it was truly significant any longer, none save one. Despite it all, his many savage delights, a small place had been left within the Prince for one kindness, pushed deeper into his soul by the point of the icy nail that stole from him all else. As in his childhood, the Prince loved the sun and all that needed it with equal desperation. Even while he begged to slaughter animals for the evening meal, he harbored a small space in his heart for the peace of the garden, a plot of earth that thrived with eating, breathing creatures just as devoted to the yellow face as he. Flowers especially were his passion, so like the sun themselves, a burning center with glowing bursts of color on all sides. Asters, poppies, lavender, and marigolds all, they were his. And because he loved them, so too did his winged shadow.
It so happened, that there bloomed in the Prince’s garden a daffodil so lovely that it would brighten even the darkest day. So wonderful it was, that from halfway across the palace it drew the crow from where he sheltered under the eaves. The crow came to the garden and looked over the sea of roses and chrysanthemums, to the plain, unpretentious flower, just as lonely and lost as he. He flew to it. “Are you my heart?”
“Yes,” it replied to the silent part of him that wondered. “Need you ask?” They were both content
So happy an end was not for them, the crow and his daffodil. Just as he set to building a nest by the beloved flower, the gardener’s daughter came in, as she often did in the mornings, to care for the blossoms. At the sight of the bird perched so perilously close to the perfect bloom, the girl let out a cry and ran forward with waving hands. Crow hopped into flight and flapped achingly to the high wall of the garden. Often away from the palace and town, running wild in the wastes, she knew nothing of the fondness that the people harbored for the black, old thing. To her, there seemed nothing exceptional about the crow, save the threat that he posed to her fragile wards. She set a vigilant eye on him as she bent down to work, clucking him away whenever he chanced a flight to the daffodil below. Defeated, he watched her busy doings from the stone wall, snapping his tongue quietly to himself in vexation and gloom. Noting the daffodil as the quiet recipient of the crow’s affections, and herself feeling the inspiring affects of its appearance, the gardener’s child was careful to cut it off at the stem when her work was finished. A proper gift to the Prince it would make, and she would be the one to bring it. As the knife flashed out, the crow croaked out a soft scream, and the girl’s stroke did not stay true. She fed the earth a few drops of blood, but cut again. Hastily cleaning the insignificant wound, she wrapped the base of the flower, and went in search of the Prince.
Unbeknownst to the girl, the most silent of shadows followed her into the house of stone, two unhappy eyes shining from the midst of dark. Unwittingly, she led him on into the palace into the very heart of his foe. The gardener’s daughter found the Prince where he often hid from the world, in his hall of fire and glinting, winking iron. Even as she came forward into the chamber, leaving her shadow in the crook of the archway, the heat and dark receded ever so slightly, as touch shying from cold or evil from good. Such was the power of the flower, the crow, and even a little of the girl who held it, not unremarkable in her own right. The ice of the Prince’s heart thawed a little at the sight of them, and it was noted through the rest of the day what a swimmingly good mood he was in.
The Crow held a faint gurgle of pain within as the girl gave the flower to the darking Prince. It was a short while in the receiving, as he did not reach for the proffered gift immediately, stunned as he was by the girl’s audacity. So long it had been since a body had come without a shiver of dread into his hall. He reached for the blossom, only to pull back the same hand. Stiffening slightly, he questioned, in an unnecessarily stern voice, “Who are you and what is this that you bring me, maid?”
“I am the first and only daughter of your castle’s gardener. This flower belongs to your own gardens. I thought to bring it to you this morning first I saw it.” She thought to mention the bird, but reconsidered, remembering the fear that shook her father’s voice at the mention of the Prince.
He pulled the flower from her hands and turned it in his a few moments, the daffodil undergoing a thorough scrutiny. “It is perfect. I thank you.” Then he smiled. A small flash of resentment came from the Crow at his words though; it seemed to him that they were shockingly inadequate.
The maiden curtsied, then turned to leave, sending the Crow hopping deeper into the shadows. She was stopped, however, by the Prince’s voice.
“Have – Would you — please — sit down to a meal with me?” he asked, extending an ungentle hand.
As she turned, eyes sprung open wide, startled at the unexpectedness of it, the Crow silently urged her to decline, hoped for them both to walk away from the flower and the hall. No such thing would happen though. The girl was, to be sure, a little afraid of the offer, for her father had told many a story of the Prince and his ways. She was bold too, and did not shy from a puzzle, such as she thought the Prince to be. In any case, none gave anything but acceptance to such a man, even when the heart urged otherwise. “Yes, Lord Prince. If you wish it,” she replied, at last.
“I do.” She took his hand in spite of her trepidation, and they sat down to a dinner together, the daffodil in its red vase between them. Miserably, a single shadow detached itself from the others and limped down the corridor to the sunlight.
Returned to the gardens, the crow hatched a plot to retrieve the flower from its evil bearer. No good would come of interfering in the ways of women and men, but he would win her back. So the crow went again into the castle, watching attentively as the day passed and the Prince wearied. When at last, the Prince retired to sleep, carrying the daffodil to rest by the bedside, the crow was ready. He leapt into the air and softly, ever so softly, swam to the stand and the red vase. He alighted on the wooden surface with only the slightest trickle of feet, almost like the patter of raindrops on a sill. It was enough though, and the Prince started awake – he had imagined in his dream that he heard the trickle of blood onto chilled stone and had woken in excitement. Seeing the foe so alert, the crow quickly, sweetly clutched at the daffodil, grasping it in his knobby beak, taking to wing but a moment later. Behind him he could hear the rustle of blankets thrown aside and he flew all the harder, speeding ahead.
Yet, he was pursued. Through many stone doors and arches, out windows, and over walls the crow went, but somehow, the enemy was always behind, watching with eyes that did not wink and could always see his hurried path. He was soon out of the palace, fleeing now with all his strength. Still, he was ever mindful of the flower that he clutched which might easily wither in the chill. The stars and moon watched, silent, as he fearfully heard the clumsy approach of horsemen and felt the first arrows begin to touch the sky at his wingtips. Terror began to slither and slide through him, though he valiantly resisted its seductive voice, as one climbing a sheer-faced mass of ice. It was only when he flew over a lake that a stirring plan was inspired in his sable eyes. In the midst of the frozen water he alighted and waited for the hoof-beats, so like the hammering of his small heart, to meet with him in the white, dawning, winter.
When they did come, they were not alone, many others accompanying with fire and iron. The man had passed through the town in his hunt, and had mustered his folk who came at the eager urging of their sovereign. As the lake came into sight, the Prince held up a hand that kept the hounds and arrows at bay. Despite his treachery, the sight of the daffodil reminded him of judiciousness and benevolence. He had no intention of giving up his prize, but still he was kept from disposing of the small, frightened opponent so soon.
He stepped onto the ice cautiously, but some glint or another in his enemy’s eyes fired him with anger and a need to hurt. A glimmer of his former self remembered this crow and blamed it for all the shortcomings of the Black Prince. One last time, the Prince swung forward, a fist rising above his head in preparation to strike a blow. He lunged firmly out on to his front leg only to come crashing down, through layers of snow and ice, down into the deep well that was the frozen lake. The cold tried to consume its black prize again while, to the side, the crow gazed on confusedly. There was a small sense of triumph in his small heart, for he was again with his flower, which he loved dearly, never to be threatened again. Yet he grieved that his happiness should come at the sacrifice of another. Disquieted, he watched.
The people though, could do no such thing. As much as they hated and feared the man, there was no imaginable existence without a Lord to be ruled by, and this one that had fallen to darkness was the last of his line. So out onto the treacherous ice they went, and fished the Prince from the shadowed places of the deep.
Out onto the snow they threw him, where he lay peacefully, as if just fallen asleep. Within him beat a steady pulse. Hopped onto his foot, there perched the crow, head cocked in question. “What must I do?” They were both as still as dead for some moments in the midst of the shifting murmuring crowd. At last, as silence began to settle upon their hearts like a cold hand, the bird opened his mouth to let out a frightful screech, a scream of horror. He knew then what would follow.
The bird set to pecking. Peck, peck. The eyes were gone leaving black holes to stare at the sky. The bird blinked quickly thrice, as if mightily surprised – the world had changed form, and colors splashed through his drab vision. Around him, he could see the people stir, some gasp or cry out, leap forward. He set again to work. The lips left next, down the dainty throat, the tongue soon after, and the bird first opened mouth in speech. It came as nonsense to his captive audience until he cracked open the skull and scooped up the brains with a shovel-like beak. To the listening people, it became suddenly comprehensible.
“Forgive me for this, friends,” he said. “Four and twenty pies he would make, the bones for crust and the meat within, but I think we all rather that it goes like this. I shall finish him soon, bone and all. All save the heart. So, worry not.”
The crow, in a terrific burst of strength, leapt astride the chest and, grasping each half firmly with a claw, cracked it open in a shower of red pearls. Each organ he savored carefully, rolling the taste about his mouth as if in search of some half-forgotten savor. Now, when ribs and other bones obstructed his path, he crunched through these too, sometimes swallowing them whole if they were small enough.
As his meal disappeared, the town folk saw changes manifest themselves. His thin bony legs stretched and grew thicker, rounder as if the meat of the Prince’s thighs flew down to the crow’s own. His arms though seemed to shrink, rolling around from his back to be set more firmly on either shoulder. Three clawed toes turned to five. Extended feathers changed to rounded digits. Still, there was more, the bird feasting on, all the while changing from his flighty self. The crow, it seemed, was transforming to a man. Soon, only a shell was left, bloody fragments staining the snow, small crumbs left after the meal. Still, the black heart beat on in the remnants of the rib cage. Bloated, the crow pecked at these unhurriedly, slowing from his furious pace. He crouched now in the white crystals, the figure of man covered in pitch black, as one by one the remaining pieces of the Prince disappeared into his darkness. There were ten left, then four, then one. The last crushed fragment disappeared, and the heart lay alone in the snow, the only thing remaining of the Prince that had been.
Ta-thump. Ta-thump. Ta-thump. A few beats more and it was still. The Prince was gone at last. As the final flow of blood gushed from the pumping grisliness of muscle, fat, and meat, the crow doubled over, as if in pain. His own heart was shooting with agony – life was breathed into it at last, and it was just learning its movement and shape. About his chest it marched, but soon wound back through the endless maze, to its proper seat in the cage. So too had the shock of memory come over him. Thoughts again filled his mind like a burbling, echoing stream, never silent, and never ending. He knew now who he was.
The crow straightened and feathers fell from him as dust or sand might, in a cascade of rippling movement. Beneath all the black ruff was a face familiar to those who watched, a face that they had ever known, feared, and grudgingly bowed low to. For beneath it all, the Crow was the young boy-Prince in disguise. In horror, hatred, and fascination, the crowd murmured and slipped back. Behind hands passed vast, frantic conversations. Darting eyes flitted from one edge of the circle to the other, but no voice was yet found amongst them. The daughter of the gardener came forth, pushing her way through, threatening with blade and fist when stopped, until she stood face to face with Crow.
“Oh, Prince?” she asked, “Can it be you? Your form is so familiar, but you are much changed. Will not you offer us some knowledge to gladden our hearts and easy our minds?” There was love and fear in her as she asked. In the Crow she looked for that terrible man who had been kind to her that same day.
Yet she was not mollified. “Girl, I know you not,” he declared. Looking around, “All but the oldest of you are unfamiliar to my eyes, except in passing sight. I do not remember your names or places, but I promise you that once, many years ago now, you bowed to me as Prince. I was lost a snowy day, but I am myself again. I have come back.”
Even as he finished, the girl began to tremble and quake. With lips that did not stay still for her words, she whispered into the silence that now reigned, “Then whoever you may be, good stranger, you are not ours and we will not accept you as such. Leave us.”
The Crow gazed on her a moment, eyes lost and bewildered. He looked so like a young boy, in love with the sun, that the gardener’s daughter almost regretted her hasty words. It was done though, and could not be taken back. He smiled sadly, reaching into the snow where he had laid his flower. And the people watched as the Crow who was also Prince took to wing with his daffodil in hand. Neither was ever seen again in the cold, unfeeling land of winter.

The End

The Beautiful World of Shel Silverstein

So what do the writings of the fabulous Shel Silverstein inspire in my friend Alex and myself? Let's take a look! : )

Count
Ten flowers for Mother's Day,
Nine toy trucks for me to play,
Eight mosquito bites,
Seven monsters to haunt me at night,
Six imaginary friends,
Five forts for when the world ends,
Four hops in hopscotch,
Three berries to make a blotch,
Two hugs from people I love,
One me for all of the above.

Blind Date
Dressed up all fine
when I go out to dine
with the blind man next door
who asked me the night before.
I asked him his name.
He told me, "The twenty-fifth of may."
I held his hand
as we listened to the band.
No movie for me
because he couldn't see.
Maybe I should date
guys who are more like me.

False Starts

The following was a potential beginning to my fairy tale. Though I am not entirely sure of this decision yet, I think I will scrap it, because it strays too far from the important plot points of the story. This is mostly back story which is more or less superfluous in a fairy tale. Ah well, maybe it will show up elsewhere.


Once upon a time, in the winter of the world, there lived a young Prince who had lost his heart in a drift of snow. Many a time he had gone out of door to gaze up into the heavens, looking for the yellow face (new name other than sun), that thing which turns all in its sight to gold. The boy prince loved it dearly, adored the spectrum of golden hues, and the warmth of its gaze, and so he was always going. Each time he went, his queenly mother stopped and warned him to be careful of the biting venomous cold with its sharp, nipping teeth, all the while winding him into furs and woolen blankets.
“Yes, mother,” he would return and leave her once again for the tender warmth of sunlight.
His mother, lost behind, would watch his small form trundle into the blinding white, the furs of the coats near black surrounded by the seeming innocence of cold, shining crystals. It was in sadness that she watched him shrink to a particle of dust, and then disappear. So alone he seemed, and so she worried.
One day, as he walked, glorying in the yellow face, an old crow came winging beside him, landing in his path eyes directed upwards to the young boy. This irked the Prince to no end. Not only his mother had noticed his isolation. He too noted how quiet the world seemed – only himself, the sunlight, and his father’s castle shared the snowed waste. This pleased him. None other should have claim to this beauty. He was Prince and it belonged to him. The boy glared imperiously down.
“What right have you, bird, to cast your shadow on the snow of my land?” he demanded.
Cocking its head, the crow regarded him a moment with a mirrored eye. “Need I any, Lord Prince? I am a bird, as any other. I fly through all lands and you have (hold?) no power over me.”
“Haven’t I?” cried the boy, lunging forward, swiping a child’s cat hand through the air. No authority had he in truth but the force of his own small strength. His fingers found no resistance though – the bird had gone.
A swirl of wind by his ear murmured, “It would do you good to treat nicely the small folk of the world, young Prince. Perhaps tomorrow will find you lighter.”
He cast about himself for its shape, but it had disappeared completely. When he leaned in to look, the boy found that no print had been left in the snow by the crow’s small weight. Bewildered and not a little frightened by the mysterious shadow, the Prince stumbled through catching layers of snow all the way home to his mother whose arms still held more comfort than the cold and the sun.
His fear though was nothing that could not be remedied by warmth and the clouded thought of dreams. The next morning, his mother again found herself watching him wade back through the desert of white.
For much of the day, the Prince wandered under the sun, unchallenged by man or beast. Unconsciously wary, he found himself glancing more than once at each shadow or dark form. This caution was baseless though; when the dark wanted him, he would note it and in the meantime he needn’t seek for it in dreams. At last his doubts left him, and the Prince applied himself to creating shadows in ice and snow that he could laugh at his lesser self’s fear. When he turned though, the laughter died on his lips like a flower, wilted by the shadow of blackest night that lay in his path. For there waited the crow, as it had waited for minutes, perhaps, hours. Watching, it had seen.
“What think you of me today?” it asked. “Have you learned to be kinder to old birds?”
The Prince had not, though, for again he tossed himself forward in anger. And again, the bird had gone. Born from the blackness in the child’s heart, it was as insubstantial as smoke, but many times more significant. Perhaps it sank back into him when his body came sprawling into the snow, or maybe it flew to a place on the eaves to observe what passed. For as the Prince flew forward on wings of hatred, the furs bunched so carefully into themselves by a loving mother, came undone – he met the snow with a thin linen shirt, closed save for one button opening to the cold a thin sliver of skin. Small it was, but more than enough for the cold to consume.
Even as he fell, the cold sank hungering teeth into his sweet, milky flesh, biting down into his soul, laying there a shard of ice. The sun was burned from his heart by chill, and along with it every artless virtue that he retained.

This hasn't been edited, so I am sorry if it doesn't read well.

The Darking Prince

I am horrible at dialogue. Anything that someone would realistically say is not eloquent enough for me and everything else is ridiculous if you say it out loud. Which is probably why my characters hardly ever talk. Again, this is another one from the stores of my on-going project. I was thinking to develop it more and connect the dots for the quarter-long English project. Right now I am combing through to try and make it sound better so that when I get down to work it is more actual writing than correcting. I am on the Read-It-Out-Loud stage. The problem with that is that if you read something with a certain voice everything sounds good. I am also biased now that I have had this floating in my head and computer for so long. What can you do? Here it is. This connects directly to the last part that I posted on Pilar. This hasn't been VERY well revised yet, I just wanted to post and see if anyone commented.


"Pilar stayed for a time with the tree-folk of Gilcross Grove, a name given for the stories of merpeople who lived in the lake that comprised the eastern border of the meadow. The trees whispered these stories as well and Pilar was happy to imagine that enchanted world, a portrait that she stored in her mind alongside thoughts of the Darking Prince. The trees brought her this magic and light with no expectation of payment other than her eager and listening ear. With a mind like hunger and an imagination that consumed, Pilar absorbed it all and took her own sort of charms from the tales of sorcery and witchcraft. She began to build her own power, a different sort that came from half-spoken words and the winding wind. And the trees began to whisper of something other than the sovereign led astray and ancient stories of times long gone. They sung now of the witch woman that had found herself in things forgotten and lost. Pilar knew this, and asked of them one thing: that they send a song into the world to bring the Prince to her. For she, recognizing herself in his shadow, could not bear not knowing any longer.
So they sang for her, breathing half-formed thoughts into the hearts of passing souls, so that villages were uneasy with some unknown need. Restlessness passed hands until it found the Prince in his hall of shadow and fire, and gave him a desire to go out into the world to see the white of the hated snow. Her call had gone forth from the wood, and he answered it without thought. Perhaps he knew that his heart had been found at last or maybe she was simply too powerful too ignore. In any case, he came to the Grove on his black mount, a lost and bewildered look twisting his sure and handsome features. In the center, by the lake she waited.
Like a boy, that lost child that he had been, he wished to run to her, to go to her with trust and love in his heart. For he did love her already. He saw her and he loved her because she was sunshine in his world of cold and grey. She was happiness where he had thought there was none left. She was good in his cruel and wicked soul. And he wanted her, needed her warmth in his frozen heart just as his darkness completed her light. He wanted, but the dark Prince that he had become was wary and shrewd. His mount led him to the edge of the clearing and his lost look left him as he observed the scene, as any proper hunter would, beholding his prey. She too watched and listened, and saw from the way the wind bent the trees and the snow glistened ever so slightly more in patches that the Prince had arrived. Both hunter and hunted, the Prince knew when he was seen. His black cloak billowed out behind him like dark wings as he stepped towards his future.
She met him halfway, walking barefoot through the snow as she had for years before and would continue to for years into the future. His own heavy boots stomped and crushed unwittingly, no thought to the destruction below. They stood looking each other over, into each others eyes, his of the deepest black of night, unwinking and without stars, hers the lightest green of ivy leaf on a summer sprig. They stood like that for an hour, perhaps two. Or so it seemed to them.
“So,” he said at last, breaking their long-held silence. “You are the witch woman who disturbs my wood. I had thought you would be older.”
“And you are the Darking Prince in whose heart I have walked. Your blackness is not so great as they have told me, my liege,” she replied, a small smile pulling her lips up at the fold.
Her slight and almost mocking levity shocked and frightened him; accustomed as he was to the fear of those below him, he knew not what to do with her friendship. So he answered with the smallest whiff of menace on a frosty voice, “Who is it that tells you such false tales, witch?”
“None you could punish, my lord,” she returned lightly, “if you do not know their names.” He stared her down for some time, as if she suddenly might quail and give him a name, betray fear, the one thing he could not allow. She simply stood though, and a smile stole across his lips at last. Here is a fearless one, he thought. Here is one to match me."

Nine Little Words

It looked like a poem when you did this. I only wish . . .
: )

9+) You can no longer rationalize eating for the sake of hunger or living because it is so wonderful to breathe.
9) You cannot rationalize eating or living just to breathe.
7) You cannot eat or live to breathe.
5) You cannot live to breathe.
3) You cannot breathe.
1)Breathe.

9+) A tongue split like a forking road flits over the mountain crags of his teeth
9) A tongue like a forking road flits over teeth.
7) His forked tongue flits over mountainous teeth.
5) The tongue flits over teeth.
3) Tongue over teeth.
1) Split.

9+) You gave up bodily needs for a mind like hunger and an imagination that consumed.
9) You sacrificed bodily needs for a hungry, imaginative mind.
7) Body was released in exchange for mind.
5) Body was traded for mind.
3) Body and mind.
1) Mind.

Genesis for the Atheist (kudos to Alex)

I hate essays. I am thankful that what we wrote was NOT (in my mind) the (classical) form of essay. In the traditional essay, I struggle most with using and analyzing evidence and working for a voice that is not pretentious but still formal. For me, this essay was much easier. I was able to employ the style of writing that I liked, not the one that was expected of me. This, of course, meant that I exchanged previous problems for new ones. Flow and transitions in my essay became many times more difficult. Evidence too was difficult, yet somewhat changed. In many ways it was harder even. Instead of looking for evidence from an outside source I was forced to look within myself for what I believed to be the truth. I sat for hours staring at my blank computer and when I found something to write about it was obvious what it should have been the entire time – a discussion on self-knowledge and wisdom.
In finished form, I liked me essay well enough – my editing process was fairly thorough, so there were few sentences or phrases that I disliked. The parts that I was least comfortable with were the section on the great philosophers of history and my end. The first I felt was not well-developed enough. It also felt out of place in my essay, since the rest of my essay dances around direct references to anything (I talk about Genesis and the Garden of Eden but never directly say either of these things), whereas this section quotes Descartes, and calls by name upon Plato and Galileo. The end was similarly undeveloped and abrupt (I thought at least). If I could change something, I would go back to add to these sections and make them more fluid.
My essay addresses knowledge, and its ability to corrupt and confuse. Though I used the traditional stage (the Garden of Eden), I changed the point of view and its purpose. As an atheist, my idea of Genesis is quite different from how a believer might perceive it. Instead of looking to all that we have gained with knowledge I listed what we have lost. I believe that we are more easily moved by grief than we are by happiness.
I loved this essay. This project was more an expression of myself than any other personal essay that I have ever written. Using the same idea and memory to create to entirely different works was incredible as well. I wish this was what I thought of when essays are brought up. I still hate essays. This, I repeat, was not an essay.

The Heart Within

Thoughts pass through your mind as you flutter in bird shape through trees of thought. Snake eyes haunt you and speak tantalizing offers to your heart. You can take it back, says the snake to you. He is different somehow than before: shrunken and smaller, younger, as if these many years have strengthened him not made him lesser as they have you. All you have to do is offer yourself, a wrist, an ankle, a clear patch of skin, and you will lose yourself again to the earth. A tongue split like a forking road flits over the mountain crags of his teeth. He does not lie, yet nor does he speak the truth. Is it better to die with eyes open wide with awe or to live with the ghost of it in your mind? You have no time to decide. The hammer of judgment falls, smearing blood and knowledge across the concrete floor. The choice is gone and made, the snake dead. This time you do not fall because when you have hit bottom there is no further place to go.
I know why you chose the apple. When he looked at you, there was something in his eye that was truth and the illumination of mystery. If he wanted, he could make all that was unknown known and make a riddle of the recognized. In this there was some undiscovered joy and so you traded one form of ignorance for another. Now, you are alone. Of all of Noah’s creatures, not a one can sympathize with you. They are busy in their own lives with the need to exist and continue. You gave up bodily needs for a mind like hunger and an imagination that consumed. The natural was lost to you as you renounced it for reason, the ability to create knowledge. It left you starving some nights – your belly empty, your mind without thought. Sometimes though, you are filled to the brim with hope and sudden understanding. You can see now where you were blind and there is contempt within you for past simplicity. Lost to you however is the elegance in the plain and uncomplicated ways of the common beast.
*****
The silken slip of coiling scales across a cement floor does not make a great deal of sound. If you were truly listening for it, a small whoosh might have met your ear, the same sound that fine sand makes as it trickles from one side of an hourglass to the other. Only, though, if you had truly been listening. Otherwise you might have heard the wind as it ran its fingertips through the hilltop grass, so much more beautiful than a watered lawn in all of its luminescent splendor. The chittering of birds in the trees could also have drawn your attention or even the glint of a smiling, afternoon sun through the thick, furred leaves. Whatever it was that you noticed, it was certainly not the rattlesnake that had come to sit complacently at your foot, as only such dangerous creatures can. No, such a thing would have seemed beneath notice to your flighty, thoughtless mind. He waits there though, until some force draws you down again to the deep, cold earth. Until you are no longer a bird that can fly away, but are forced to sink into the ground with your own heaviness. Through it all, the snake is patient, guile glinting charmingly from cunning eyes. He knew always that you would return, that you could not bear not knowing, that you would eat of his damning fruit before the end; such things are unavoidable.
*****
In the Garden he tricked you long ago, told you that it wouldn’t hurt, that you wouldn’t fall. Those diamond eyes looked into yours and said that He would understand – all things must live and survive. Your resistance was strong; an argument set against his sweet words, but there was never hope. Foolish thing that you are, you trusted him blindly, as one feeling through the wet dark. So you took it from his outstretched, proffering grip because it was beautiful and you wanted it. There was a need within you to consume, to somehow be one with that globe that fit so effortlessly into your cupped hands. And it was red, like blood. Teeth sank into the moist, crunchy flesh and the snake watched, intent as you changed. You grew slower, like hot candle wax that hardens gradually but surely. It left a stain on you, that tense, frozen movement. When again your body was your own, it was half of what it had once been, but even that memory was lost to you. Your actions did not have the grace and purpose that they did when every flexing of muscle was a fight for life – the knowledge in that morsel of forbidden fruit had melted it away. The separation had come at last, a divide between you and the world of things that are both one and beautiful. That glorious understanding of the heartbeat within the earth, the common life that we all share, was gone and you could only watch dumbly as time and grace flew all around, unaffected. So much time has passed since then, when you left the Garden, and there is nothing to be done but count each year as it turns. Time disappears quickly enough in a blur of lives so short that their great joys and tragedies are lost before they are begun. Each second darts away to bring you here to this place under the eaves, to this house of stone and wood, to this snake that challenges you again.
Under the weighted emptiness of that haunting gaze, there is nothing for you but to look within yourself past all the pretension, the half-formed morals that you hold yourself to, but cannot follow. Deeper and deeper you search for that thing that makes the animals fight, kill, eat, live, but you still cannot find the significance. You can no longer rationalize eating for the sake of hunger or living because it is so wonderful to breath. There must be something else, something larger, more important than even you are within your small egocentric world. When there is nothing left for you to analyze, you turn to the only thing you have left, the thing that you traded the world for: reason. Thoughts come whispering through your mind, a suggestion from some unknown source. You are not alone. Here at last is some sense in a world that has become senseless; it is unimportant that it was of your own invention. You cannot make, but can still have been made by one as lonely as you. He created you in His image that you might preside over this land that on its own is so vacant. He made you because you would understand your purpose: to make and to break, to crush and to hold. He gave you reason because it is His will. So the animals learned to run from you above all other predators, you who not so long ago were as sister to them.
Still, this One who came to you in the dark mystified. You and yours bent your minds on this new question, a choice not yet made. You saw the stars in all of their forbidding distance and knew them as they were. Plato turned to Him and asked, “Is this alright?” but his eyes were turned inwards to that distant heavenly throne and no answer came. Galileo never felt this weakness, steady in his goal, yet somehow He demanded his attention and cast him from the world. It had never been quite right, not the banner under which He could allow his folk to parade, and so He subsided into smoldering impatience. Descartes came soon enough though and His strength was kindled. Cogito ergo sum. “I think, therefore I am.” You pronounced the words with pride, for they made you something worthier than the animals that groveled in the earth. No thought to what they were, only to the fact that they were not. You, who could no longer understand, sneered at their obsequious fear, their abject horror of your shadow. Learning to hunt came easily to you, as death for them did not.
*****
Did you know yourself then, when you hid your motives beneath a cloud of meaning? No, you struggle still so uselessly to find what is in your own heart. You can no longer understand your own mind with the ease of the beetle or the fox. Some of your kind now speak of this lost knowledge, put it into the written word. “The Law of Club and Fang” they call it, for it is beautiful in the way of blood and pain. The hateful things of living are necessary evils, endured and suffered through, until the injured rise to smite down the well. For all this, there is no need within animals to search frantically for heart or mind; all has ever been clear to them. Their need is their desire. They are avaricious, cruel, and power-hungry. They hunger, thirst, love, and hate. Never is there a veil between their mind and their purpose. Always within their chests, no matter how small, there is the steady beat of the earth.
You do not now how to find meaning in this world that has become a stranger to you. There are those amongst us that can see what has left our hearts, and only they can begin to understand the sharp arrow, the clutching shock of loss. For there is something within all of us that can sense the ghost of it, can almost feel the swaying of a branch in wind or the death of a snake as part of ourselves. This sense comes and is gone though, and we lost with it to the light.

Stream of Thought

SOMEONE PLEASE SHOOT ME FOR BEING A HOPELESS ROMANTIC. I can't help myself. I hate sappy books that are over-the-top, but I feel like that is how my stories always end up. Do you agree? And did that disparaging comment give everything away about every story that I write for myself? (It seems so obvious to me when I go over my own stories that I honestly cannot tell anymore. In any case, I always hope that the beauty lies not in the end, but the journey there.)
In my mind, writing is like growing up. When I read my old work, I own it with the same contempt that I direct towards my twelve-year-old self. The greater the distance I put between myself and when the piece was written, the more I loathe it. When writing my own plot or description, there is no other tale that I would rather hear. Later though I can hardly set my eyes on that word file without experiencing the scuttling crawl of disgust up my spine. Yet I continue to love the idea of it as I love my own self. For in many ways, my writing is me more than I am. It is the spirit that looks back when I glance within, the reflection in the mirror, the hum of my parallel processors.
When I was young, I used to have a dream, a nightmare, where nothing happened. A boat glided across a surface of water, but no ripples touched the surface and it was so like a mirror, silken and smooth. A deep voice would echo across this space, words unintelligible, the intent of warning or forbidding evident in the tone. A man’s voice. I would wake crying from this dream, upset to the point of calling out to my sleeping parents. They would come to try and reassure me, ask me what the dream contained. I was without explanation though, because this fear was without name or thought. It was not fear of the lake, the boat, the voice. It was fear of the absence of ripples.
In some ways it is at the same time interesting and ironic to me that my mental image for myself is not a face, but this very lake. Deep blue and grey, it is wholly unremarkable, with an appearance not dissimilar to that of a photograph of a puddle taken in black and white, the contrast on high. This lake though is full of ripples, ripples that hardly move, but ripples nonetheless. These disturbances are a reflection of my emotion. If I am at peace, then the lake itself begins to still, grow too more pacific. When I am upset, waves crash on the invisible shore. And when I am beyond either of these emotions, in the land of depression merging on catharsis, I imagine that the lake is draining, losing some of itself. Perhaps I should not say such things, should not tell you that, but there it is.
I have been thinking for a while now that this is less a rant or a discussion, than it is a stream of thought. Think on that.

Forget-me-not

Here is another story that I have been thinking on. As you may have noticed, most of my personal projects are only beginnings. They also share characters or at least names. Truthfully, I can't decide if they are all part of one big tale or if I should cut them apart. I was thinking that the first post I put up under "Nighttime" (The Crowe's Wing, which if no one noticed, I lengthened) would be more of a fairytale/memory within the following story. I am still not sure. It is all quite convoluted, but here goes. BTW, general knowledge of flower meanings makes the first sentence clearer. (I wish flowers still meant something to people.) Also, the words that seem to be out of order are on purpose.

"My mother Pilar found once in her high-walled garden a sweet-faced stranger to sugar her day. He offered her a red, thornless rose at which she smiled, but refused. A peach rose she gave him in stead and did not think once till the morning next. When dawn did come, slipping gentle fingers across her face and beneath her eyelids, she found by her side no man, but a bundle of forget-me-nots in his shape. She placed him about the house in every vessel she owned, but he withered soon enough, and she understood that his thoughts had left her just as all true remembrance of him had disappeared that lost morning. She sought to rid herself of the withered flowers, but in their midst she found a flourishing Daisy, and so it was that she first knew my name. I did not come into her life until many months passed, but I had always been a friend to her.
When I crawled from death into the beginnings of life, Pilar gave up her strangers and her high walls. Though I was just blooming, petals just opened to the sun, her life had moved into summer, a time for picking and plucking and sowing seeds. In the country, away from the bustle and life of tall cities, we grew up together as friends often do, she to be my mother and I to be her child. There was never a father for me, but it mattered not. There was enough love in our lives to bloom a field of wildflowers on a winter’s day. More than just each other, we adored the life of the country and all of the beautiful living things that reciprocated our affection. Vines caught up my glowing sunshine skin, given me by a father I never met, helping me along as I learned to walk, as that mysterious man never would. I would spend mornings watching the flowers open to the day’s sun and ferns uncurl their feathery arms to the world. Evenings, I collected the seeds that the plants dropped and placed them in small jars, each seed to its own, though sometimes I mixed the seed and scattered them, a blend of flowers appearing as if by magic months later. It was magic, in its own way, a form of magic that is no longer acknowledged. I enchanted my own life with these small, wonderful spells, some times with Pilar, others without. We loved without clinging and she came and went from my world as elusively as a summer wind.
There was always something about Pilar that enchanted, and so it came to be that in her wanderings she acquired something of a magical touch, more than was hers already. Our house was a fire-lit world of possibility and illusion, not the chill of truth. The magic of the world wandered in after her like the powder of snow tracked in on a shoe or the seeping of cold through a thin wooden door. In morning, I would walk into our kitchen to find something ever so slightly different. Never anything obvious that our bloodhound neighbors would sniff out in their short, infrequent visits. A light, turquoise teacup would sit to the side, where the day before it had been a squat, red mug. Or the flowers that were withered were again filled with life. I began to see the signs for when something would change. “This pan is not to my liking,” she might say of a tarnished skillet, riddled with burnt crumbs. The next day a new saucepan would hang from its peg, as if the blackened, old thing had never been. Her small magics did not always work. The turquoise teacup, a lovely little thing, perched on its shelf for a full sennight, but when at last I resolved to use it, it forgot that it was small and turquoise, reverting to the speckled, heavy-set mug in my hands. When I told her of it though, she doubled over herself with laughter. “Why, Child, you did not think it was real, surely?” and that was that.
So it was that our lives were filled by a flowering assortment of busy nothings, all of them many times more meaningful than the prosiness that occupied the lives of our unhappy neighbors. I did not socialize often with the local girls – they were not to my taste in all their grandiloquence, empty and superficial as the turquoise teacup. The boys were more interesting, working the magic of land and helping small things grow into living greenery. Those they always killed though, and when harvest time came it was always apparent that their life giving was an action borne of greed and ignorance. I do not mean to say that I had no friends. Mine were with me always in the cool earth that cushioned my step and the wind that picked at my hair, twirling it into braids, murmuring secrets to my heart. I did not need any other kind of friend, never really have. When I have been gifted with them dawn was always the giver.
Just as that rose-fingered man woke my mother to find me in a vase of flowers, he also pushed a tired black crowe over the red-rimmed horizon one fine spring morning, just after I had passed my nineteenth summer. Wings that flapped as weakly as tree leaves in a light fall breeze alerted me to his presence. They haunted the edge of my vision, as I looked down that dawn at a small, red friend of mine who roved busily about my hand. He was unavoidable, as much as I tried to resist the allure of deep black night that thrived under his feathers. So I looked at him and saw, truly saw. His heart of hearts fled to me, though we had never known one another before. I would know him ever day after to forever. Despite his blackness, eyes shone from under midnight brows with the same intensity as the sunlight reflecting off of a snow-capped mountain. They were the same blinding white, and as my own simple green eyes met them my heart let out a startled cry of shocked recognition. Mine, it cried out and moments later the crowe let out an equally exultant cry of triumph. Mine, he seemed to reply, for I knew without doubt that this shadow on the horizon was male, just as I knew that somehow a last part of my life had fallen into place like a piece of puzzle or a line of song.
In that moment, I could do naught but look into the snowy gaze and ask myself what love was? It seemed to me a flighty patch of wind that guided the wings of the heart in unexpected directions full of treacherous, pinwheeling turns. This was not quite it though. It was not the flush of heat and blood that is Desire nor was it the light, warm, skin-deep glow of Friendship. Love seemed the experience of encountering a face in the dark and recognizing the soul that it hid as part of yourself. Love was looking into the mirror and seeing a face that was stranger, yet dearer than your own. As I would know this crowe every day henceforth, I would too never see my face in the mirror again, but this small shadow. My heart, stranger as it was to this silhouette and this feeling, unable to understand either, felt the beat of pure, unconditional love nonetheless. This crowe, I knew, would take my heart and offer it back to me with a smile. In a way, he already had. My heart had found a friend at last. My eyes looked into white a moment more, and then he was gone."

Goodnight, reader.

Conceptual Snakeskin

Conceptual Questions from my False Memory:

• Are all young things necessarily innocent?

• Are all lives equal or are some valued more highly than others? What is the value of a life dependant on?
• Is killing to save a life morally acceptable? Is it better to allow things to take their natural course?
  

My story is obviously mostly fictional. It springs from a memory from my childhood where my father killed a young rattlesnake with our household sledgehammer to save me from potential danger. It was an event very important to myself and my parents, but one that went more or less unnoticed by the world at large. A small ripple in a stagnant lake, the world easily recovers from such things. In fact it moves on without thought. This event however continues to be significant to me. Most of my ideas on the subject spring from the death of that rattlesnake.
Living in places where such beasts are common, we are told that the younger ones are the most dangerous – they know the least control and know not what amount of venom incapacitates versus what kills. I often wondered about the truth of this, though I would not have wished to test the idea that deadly afternoon. Perhaps it would have taken fright, but it is also possible that it was thoughtless in the way that human children are thoughtless, less easy to frighten with true danger, yet skittish of things that hold no harm. Are young animals the darling, personified creatures with large baby eyes that are shown us through popular culture in Disney films? The snake itself is never trusted. A man killer, it is never shown with the innocent eyes. We think it naturally to be the seducer, malignant and nefarious. This led me to my first question: are all young things necessarily innocent? It is possible that this snake was all that my quaint imaginings painted it to be, but it is more than likely not.
I also wondered at the right we have to kill what we deem lesser, but harmful. What is it about an animal that makes it lesser than humans? Self-knowledge one might say, but this is not true. In many ways animals know there own minds better than humans do. They are unhindered by shame, pretentiousness, and morals. To be human is to attempt to rise above the base despite internal desires. Is this simply a form of self-denial and deceit? This led me to the following: are all lives equal or are some valued more highly than others? What is the value of a life dependant on? My answer to the first is certainly, in the idea that some lives are more valued than others. I cannot rightly say whether there is truth in the values that we assign specific lives.
This last made me question what right have we to kill without grief when we have no idea on what the worth of a life is judged. As humans we try to rise above the animal instinct, yet when we kill or hurt, we justify our actions with the rationale of survival. Here follows my last set of questions: is killing to save a life morally acceptable? Is it better to allow things to take their natural course?

Questions for Tobias Wolff

1. What did you imagine the real problem was with the school in "Nightengale"?
2. How do you reconcile the use of realism with the almost fantastical events that your short stories contain?
3. What statement about morality as opposed to personal ties were you trying to make in "The Night in Question"? If so, what does this say about love in general?
4. What was the purpose of the self-indulgence of characters of "Hunters in the Snow"? (Kenny with shooting everything, Frank with the babysitter, Tub with the pancakes).
   

Snakeskin and Screwdrivers

Though there would be snakeskin by the end, in truth it all began with a screwdriver. Telling you that is jumping ahead by rather an essential amount of time. Perhaps it is called for to start at the beginning. What you really must know is that there was, in the not so distant past, a house perched amongst houses on a hill of hills. It was all edged up in the feet of Mount Diablo. So happy were those innocent shelters on the feet of the devil, his fiery wrath bringing them the clear of blue skies and rolling golden grass across the rise of the ridge. There were many families that lived in the midst of that expanse of glistening wealth, but our house in particular was inhabited by a small one, parents and a single child. This family was a young one yet, the child, a girl, only just nosing her ingenuous way into a sixth year. So big though she seemed already to her parents, clinging to the small thing she had been such a short time before. She was so eager to do and be, to wonder and hope. So it was, that on a warm afternoon in October the father and his little girl took it upon themselves to fix the shelf that had long wobbled on its own in the study.
Father and daughter were together in that room of the house when inspiration for this project came upon them. Make believe was then their purpose, and the two of them danced about the room, she in front and he following, when the girl leant her hand against the errant shelf. It gave readily beneath her small weight, causing her pause in her prancing gait. She was enchanted by the mysterious wobble of this thing of wood and metal. It had always seemed to her that things of such materials were invincible in and of themselves, unable to support a moment of weakness such as she had just felt. Magical it seemed to her, and she beheld her hand for a moment with awe. She prodded the desk to her left with the lightest of touches, expecting it too to shimmer and shake. It stood resolute, causing her no small disappointment, and she turned her head back to the offending shelf. She regarded it now with all the petulance of child that age, disquiet etched into her small features, for she felt now that there was something unutterably wrong about the entire episode. Such things should not happen; the earth did not open and close on itself, the sky did not turn from black to blue. Shelves did not shudder in their brackets like things alive. Though she would not have known to express it thus, the child felt that the fabric of space and time had for a moment faltered, allowing this transgression of universal law. The wrongness of the entire quagmire engulfed her, filled up her petite frame, until it came out in words. Into the air it spilled in a somewhat less articulate form, reaching the ears of her father. He took a step closer to examine the shelf that seemed to have displeased his joy so thoroughly. The malady was soon ascertained to be several loose screws along the sides. The remedy too was found; father and daughter would go to the garage to fetch a screwdriver, fixing this err in the proper conduct of shelves.
The screwdriver was something easily enough found, as demand for it was high in that house; there was always something else that needed fixing. Looking at this event alone, simply as one of many, the dissatisfactory shelf was not so extraordinary. This day however was different, and the adventure was all in the finding of a plain screwdriver. Said tool made house of the lustrous, red utility box that rested on a dresser that wanted painting. This dresser, in turn, lay in front of the edifices of cardboard and tape, closer to the heat of devil. All of this was encompassed by the dark, closing walls of the garage itself.
It is in the garage that this story truly begins and ends. The garage too had always been an unsolved mystery in the mind of the little girl. No matter the time passed, that place always lay untouched, stagnant; accumulating tiny particles of nothing, dust. Boxes rose in the back like the deserted skyscrapers of a once-great city. This was a scene worthy for the entry to hell, and this is the place that brought ill will in to that sunlit day. Upon entering the garage, the father lightly tapped the button to raise the garage door. It rose monumentally slowly, prolonging a poorly made decision that would soon be regretted. In came the sun, filtering from under the eaves, illuminating the boxes, the dust, the pure neglect. Something in it drew the young rattlesnake that had that day ventured far too far from its home in the sultry, swaying grass. It oscillated, moving as if the pendulum of the clock that stood in the hall had nudged parts of its squirming body in. Ticking its way to the concrete directly below the eave, it curled about itself to sit quietly, observing the scene. Neither daughter nor father knew this then though, being human and therefore exceptionally unobservant. Together they tripped to the dresser, the red box, the screwdriver. The daughter stepped lightly and quickly, coming out further into the sun, further from her father and safety, and further towards the curious snake.
An exposed ankle was all that it could really see. Skin stretched smooth and taut, the color of dough that has been cooked to golden perfection. Small toes bulged sweetly and roundly from an equally small foot. No calluses yet marred the velvety softness of her sole and the indent seemed somewhat flat, as if still learning to curve away from the fleshy earth. In all, it seemed an innocent foot, one that meant no harm, did not really mean to crush living things into the earth with a step. It did, but there was no intent behind this devastation. The young snake saw all this easily, recognizing something of its own youth and ingénue in this female, human counterpart. The snake respected such things, thought they should last. This girl was of no real concern in his miniature mind, the place itself being the only draw on his attention.
The father however, had no way of knowing the internal structure of this snake’s mind. When at last his own thoughts were drawn by this darting, brown form, he was as if paralyzed. He whispered urgently to his endangered daughter, imparting some of the alarm that troubled him. Don’t move. He cast about; what could defend against such a wily, unpredictable thing as a young rattlesnake? He hit upon it soon enough, or you might say the sledgehammer did, for this was precisely the tool he found with which to implement his only plan.
That sledgehammer was by far the oldest thing in the house, brought from Canada with the father’s parents and given to their son as one of the essential items necessary to a proper home. As it arced up into the air, it seemed surrounded by an air of antediluvian sagacity. To the small child, this seemed the most formidable of weapons, something that might at one point have been wielded by the great god Hephaestus or even Zeus himself. In short, it was perfect, a weapon worthy of defending her. It carved a quarter of a sun from the air before coming down with a low thud on the head of the rattlesnake. It was in no way a clean blow, but it was certainly well aimed enough to leave a pattern of red across the slippery cement floor. The snake’s skin and blood mingled with dust and despair in that house of hell alone. Something innocent had been killed that day in defense of one equally harmless. A life for a life, but it was in no way fair.

Guernica

“She waited for me to do something, and when I didn’t she rocked forward slowly and stood up” (Firelight, Wolff 260). She opened her mouth to say something, licking them to moisten dry lips. It closed abruptly though, no words. I looked away to the wall shamed, down to floor that had no eyes to look back at me with accusation. I stayed there on the floor crouched until the silence pushed me into nonexistence, until there was no peace in hiding, until I too stood and faced them both. I tried to find my mother below the long hair that had fallen over her face, but she turned away as if she could feel me searching. I too shifted away from her. No forgiveness for either of us then. My father met my eyes with ease, and they looked down into my soul with an uncaring cynicism, as if he expected nothing worthy within. He turned away his head and I feared that he had been right.

She turned away and I knew already where this would lead, my eye stretching to a place unknown. There was no longer a space in her eye for me any longer, no trust wasted on one who could give nothing back. I had let her down. My father would be worse than ever, consoling her from my betrayal, while his hate of me would intensify like light through a magnifying glass. He would never let her see though, not let on that no one was paying for my lunches any more or writing notes for being late to school. In a word he would abandon me without for a second having turned me out of his house.
Despite all of this I could remember a different time, a better one. I could see my mother and I in a park, autumn having already burned its fire through the trees, all a uniform auburn shade. I was placed carefully between my mother’s legs and they rose around me like twin peaks, yet so much smoother. I could still feel the warmth and comfort of her scent as she leaned over me, hands cupping my small, child’s hands. Together we patted the mud into small cakes, the wet dirt inching its way up our arms and beneath our fingernails. The products were slimy little things and as any sensible bakers would, we placed them in the sun to dry. There were five of them – five little cakes placed neatly in a row. It was my birthday. I knew though, that had we been able to afford a cake, I would have been no happier blowing out those small flames and consuming the mass of food, so sickly sweet, than I was there, nestled so safe in her arms.

My thoughts flew near and away, and all the while I could again hear the tick of the mantelpiece clock, counting the seconds until my life would begin again to fall apart. In each tick was a ray of light that flew through it all, enlightening. A dust mote hovered in the air before my face, illuminated by the sharp glare of the desk lamp. I wondered if my father who sat benignly beside it had pointed it at my face on purpose, the intent to bathe me in light of retribution. All around me the world was chopped into squares and triangles by the pattern of shadow and light. Those bright rays left this assortment of opaque objects to shine into the rods of my eyes, giving me an impression of their beauty. It shined too onto me for all the world to see. The colors seemed to bleed though. It was all white, too mixed, and too bright. Pale and dark, I was the subject of Picasso’s Guernica, painted in dark grey geometric shapes, weeping the luminescent glare that left behind a swathe of black, dark from lack of warmth. Just as hard, just as sad. To the viewer that is. As the glow seemed to intensify under my scrutiny, I wondered: is white the better for seeming full of color, or black for taking such a rainbow of happiness into itself, absorbing it to keep hidden within?

An Empty Road

“She waited for me to do something, and when I didn’t she rocked forward slowly and stood up” (Firelight, Wolff 260). There was a vacant sort of look in her eyes as she did this, as if somehow she had been let down or shocked into oblivion. Her mouth hung slightly open and I saw her small pink tongue flit out delicately to wet her lips, so like a cat. She pursed them and opened again to say something, break the silence that was stretching between us like a long and empty road. We had walked it together not moments before, mother and daughter, but I hadn’t spoken when she needed a voice, not given a hand to her when it was most necessary. It had only been moments ago, but it was a distance to great to remedy – the time for repair had come and gone, disappearing to that dark realm of regret.
I looked away and found something fascinating on the wall, anything to keep me from looking at my mother’s lost look, my father’s indifference. Look, look, look, I told myself, but each passing second increased the temptation of searching her face for something that was known, remembered. Look. Small, light blue diamonds were filigreed into the wallpaper, a treasure trove that spanned the width and length of that small room. They projected ever so slightly from the flat edge and in the stark light from the overhead their shadows seemed to lengthen and sharpen, pointing into small daggers that threatened to fly at me from the quivering, stationary spot. I stared at this malignant beauty until even the sharpest point blurred, wavered, then disappeared completely, lost from focus along with the rest of the world. For all the riches in the world I wished to be elsewhere. Anywhere but in that space so enclosing and suffocating that I felt I could die with how stifled I felt.
I could not acknowledge these trapping, confining walls any longer, so I turned my head down to the carpet on which I still kneeled. If the circle of my sight remained small enough I might be able to forget that I was not alone, lose myself in silence and nothingness. It lay there, inanimate and uncomplaining beneath me. It did not stretch and grow, did not aspire to any unreachable goal such as sunlight or happiness. It was uncomplaining below our cruel weights. Our. For they were cruel. Nothing should hold such a weight on unprepared shoulders. Perhaps I was being foolish, but the unfairness of it nearly took my breath away. I shifted slightly in my spot as if I might fix this at least, only to find new discomfiture. The rug that had always felt so soft under my hard feet irritated and scraped at my bare knee, making it restless, inspiring it with a need to move to flex. If I did that though I might be seen, noticed, so I remained crouched like a small animal hiding from some unknown danger. I stayed as I was, low to the ground, hidden away in a world where I hoped I could never be found. One that I could never escape.

Criticism of Amuricanism

Critiques:

(The errors that are in the original text are not mine. I directly translated them from the story.)

• There were numerous instances of repetition of words, or cases where a similar word was used. For example, “vision” and “envisioned” within a line of each other, as well as “unoriginal” twice in two lines. This was also an issue with phrases used twice (“I even autograph” on the same line two times).
• “All that I have done has been lies and I feel as though I am not even an arteest any longer.” There really isn’t any huge problem with this sentence, I just think that it would sound better if it were the following: “All that I have been and done has been lies. I feel as though I am no longer an arteest.” I made these changes because I feel that they are two completely different ideas and should not be in the same sentence.
• “ ‘You suck, merdre!’ My eyes turned to look at the accidental missile launch button.” This idea has absolutely no intro. When did this button appear out of nowhere? Perhaps more description or background is necessary in between to explain why Jacques-Luis has this button.
• “Pshhhhhhhhh steam rose out of the missile silo as the nuke head began to erupt out of the silo in the backyard. Pshhhhhhhhhhh, it sounded as the misslle flew yards into the air and as the homing device begun to activate, it flew downwards soaring ever so gracefully to hit it’s mark.” This pair of “sentences” is fraught with errors. I would rewrite it like this: “Pshhhh. Steam rose from the missile as the nuke head began to erupt out of the silo in the backyard. Pshhhh, it continued to sound as the missile flew yards into the air. As the homing device began to activate it flew downwards, soaring ever so gracefully to hit its mark.”
• I have no suggestion for a better ending. The one that is present has nothing at all to do with the story. There is no evidence in this story that such an ending would unfold. I don’t know what to say

I agree with the given moral: that life is too transient a thing to waste upon something that comes to no point. The main character Jacques-Luis (or should I say Owen?) has a revelation to this effect in the second paragraph where he realizes that “everything that [he has] created or that defines [him], is unoriginal.” This continues with the idea that “all that [he has] said and done has been lies” and he begins “wondering how everything that [he has] done could be for nothing.” In this comical and simple story where the character is not very developed, this is of no concern. Sadly this problem can occur in the real world as well. An example of said occurrence might be the midlife crisis, the sudden realization of one’s age and situation. More often than not, this trouble can find you in a very different place than you imagined for yourself when young, throwing you into a fit of worry and a sudden change in lifestyle. The moral: time is short. Don’t waste it.

The Lies I Lie

Everyone lies. Even people of shining honor and purity do, if not to others, then to themselves. This is the worst sort of lie. The funniest thing about these untruths that we scatter about ourselves is that we can never remember what they are. If the subject was important enough to lie about, shouldn’t we be able to remember what it is we said? More often than not though, this is very difficult. I cannot remember having lied to others, although I am very sure that I have because everyone does.
There are many different realms falsehood. To stretch the truth in order to make someone feel better is not a bad form of it - the white lie is sometimes the best. To mislead so as to render oneself in a better light is simply vain and foolish. To lie until the real world begins to fall apart and stitch itself in entirely new patterns is to be a writer. To make believe is to be a child, no matter your age. The greatest defining factor over the type of liar you are is your motive for committing the crime. If there is no rationale, then there really should never have been a deception.
What kind of liar am I? The hurtful kind - the kind that lies to themselves through, around, and over teeth. I tell myself all sorts of things. I say that I am ugly, stupid, weak. I tell my mind that it is worthless, foolish, naïve, and conceited. I tell myself the worst, painting a portrait of an unskilled, thoughtless monster. I don’t mean to, but every doubt or fear that I have speaks to me with my own voice. If I believe it when I tell myself these things, is it still a lie? For I do believe firmly, until the person that I truly am emerges to stop the massacre. I know I am superlative in nothing, but I know these to be untruths as well and in no way can I justify telling myself these things. Few can. I love who I am, but I fall into my own web of lies often and turn to hate.
So I know that it is true when I say that lies can be a form of entrapment or of escape. It just depends on how they are used.

The Bokononist View

Lunch
“Cinco de Mayo!” proclaimed the sign on the far wall. It’s ecstatic message and vibrant, ebullient coloring was not quite enough to make the drab, bleak wall it covered happy. Even the yellow paper drooped a little about the edges, as if shying away from the institutional white sullied by the even, grey smear of dust and grubby, children’s hands. I looked down to my poorly wrapped burrito, engulfed in a sea of snowy white sour cream. The edges I pulled down and set to re-wrapping, my hands bleaching as they became increasingly covered with the cream, the burrito no closer to wrapped than before. I valiantly pursued my goal for another minute, sighing as I finally allowed it to flop down. A wet sort of slap met my ears and I gazed desolately at my shirt, finding myself speckled with a fine shower of the white goo. I looked up to my fellow inmate. “Do they use sour cream in Mexico?”
No reply came as the dreamy sort of boy who sat across from me turned a churro in his hands. He took a bite and, as I reached for a napkin, he told me, “I do so love rice pudding.” I nodded in acknowledgment and proceeded to wipe my front, only aggravating the mess. I dipped the napkin in my lemonade and brought it back to my shirt to scrub harder when a sudden uncontrollable thought stayed my hand. "Rice pudding," I whispered. "Rice pudding," I exclaimed, standing and putting my hands on the table, the idea too great to contain seated, too heavy to bear on one's own.
The pinched, sallow girl to my left turned to me abruptly. “Sour cream,” she stated, “do Mexicans use it?” I shook my head. I don’t know. I looked at my hands on the table. I could no longer remember what I was thinking before. That girl was undeniably my wrang-wrang.

Assembly
“This school,” proclaimed the teacher proudly, “This school is like a family. Yes! A family, where we all respect and cherish each other as we work to the same goal: higher education.” He continued in his speech, but my ears involuntarily rejected the foma that he persisted in sharing with us, attentive and eager students all. Granfalloon. False. I turned to a contemplation of my true karass. Not these students, certainly, I thought. Maybe the churro boy though – he held promise. Across the gym from where I sat, two girls leaned against each other releasing sobbing, hiccuping, titters while braiding each other’s hair, deep in vociferous conference. I watched them a moment, but my attention was drawn by casual clap. In another section this noise was echoed a small responding applause from a boy wearing a look of undisguised vacuity. I stared blankly at his foolish grin. He clapped again, the smile spreading wider as if it was the sound itself that entertained him so. Down in the center, the teacher had reached a point of rapture, his face glowing, eyes shining and lit by some inner vision. He brought his hands together and the noise echoed across the now silent room, hitting the walls. CLAP. The sound jarred the teacher, snapping his reverie like a pencil in its grip.
Now, Bokonon tells us in The Books of Bokonon, "Do not disturb the foolish man, he has found his foma and lives by it foolishly. This man is very wise." What can one do for the wise and foolish man who lives foolishly and disturbs himself?





Schoolish ramblings. Don't mind me.

The Crowe's Wing

If you read this at the beginning of a story, what would you think?

"In the wide winter world beyond the sunshine of the witch’s home, a wizard and a princeling met for the first time amongst the snow. It was a widely acknowledged fact that the Prince was losing himself to the cold. His name and land are unimportant. They disappeared into the snow soon enough in any case. In the end he was called Crowe by those who knew of his disappearance – he had no friends to give him a happier name and it was given in speculation of his black heart, blacker than night-time which is simply a deep blue wave that sweeps over the world. No, he was truly black as the underside of a crowe’s wing, hidden from light. As is true of almost all persons, good or bad, he had his time of innocence, a period that stretched from youngest childhood and well into his years as a young man. It seemed, to those who were not well acquainted with him, that the change in his character happened gradually and could not be marked to any one moment in time, similarly to the way a flower does not wither overnight but loses its bloom over days. Those often in his presence, however, noted the first day, the first sign that he had lost his heart.
Crowe always loved the sun, the summer, and the way light glinted turning everything to gold. As a young boy, he pretended to be the King of a grand story and all that his child’s fingertips could touch turned to liquid gold, a pool of sunlight held in his small hand. So it came as no surprise to his staff that he lost a little of his heart the day the snow first came. It flew in on a morning mist, seeming to creep with the same steady step. In the early, grayish rays of light, the manservant woke himself to prepare the world for his young master, the Prince. He rushed to the sitting room, stirring a cloud of dust that seemed for a last time to reflect the sunlight and happiness. He stopped in the door, shocked, because there he found his Prince, hunched over the window, hands locked behind his back, many movements of sun before he usually rose. Later, in reflection, the manservant observed that it was almost as if the sun had called a goodbye to the Prince, as he was simply called before he earned the title of Crowe. It shined brightly out to him a last time at dawn before it was smothered by the white.
He stood there for much of the morning, though it was difficult to judge time at all as the sun did not mark a passage through the visible heavens. When at last he turned his folk could see what he had hidden. The shame of tears never came over him, but his face was such a mask of tragedy that they all stopped to comfort their beloved Prince until he raged at them to leave him be. So it was that he shut himself in his apartments for a good sennight before venturing into a world without warmth.
His first appearance revealed a Prince in a decidedly foul mood, terribly Crowe-like, though they would not have known to call it that then. To the staff he was unpleasant to say the least; his orders came fast and restless. When the servants complied with his demands at a regular pace they were reprimanded for indolence, but when too fast accused of carelessness. He was not to be satisfied and few went home without some bewilderment, upset, and thought to where the gentle and loving Prince had gotten to. Over the next days and weeks they continued to try and please, but to no avail – their Prince refused to come in from the cold. Still, all his changes came as a surprise: the first time he deliberately struck one of his own, banished some member of the staff, killed, and took up killing permanently. A great hunter he became. His will was indefatigable - no beast or man could escape his ruthless hounding. Despite these terrible changes, these rivulets of blood red through the pure, snow-like heart of the Prince, a glimmer of gold still shone through. Not often was it visible, but some found it, small flowers of people who felt the warmth of sunlight within him still.
One such was then only a young sapling of a girl, running wild in the winter wastes of the southern plateaus. Pilar they called her. The brutal winds that tore that rock-strewn land gifted her with a mother and father of ice, as well as an indifferent freedom stretching to forever, or at least the Prince’s Black Wood. She was no stranger to this freedom, disappearing into rock, air, a swirl of frost in the jewel-crusted dawn. The mother did not even twitch an eyebrow at this, staring endlessly into the swirling white beyond their hut’s thin walls, the father gazing sightlessly at the flickering flames of the hearth. The only emotion to touch their cold faces was in a watered reflection of the wildness of snow and fire. When Pilar returned, shadows flickered across the mother’s face: a smile, an inaudible question. “Where did you go?”
“Not far. Do not worry yourself.”
“I did not.”
“I know. When have you ever?” and the daughter turned and ran to the cold’s loving arms, warmer even than her mother’s, where the shadowed Black Wood of the lost, darkened Prince waited for her, singing her song, a music that played for few. The mother continued her silent vigil. The father did not look up.
In the Wood, Pilar grew to maidenhood. There was little that she could not find, those old trees worse than all the kingdom’s gossips. Histories were spread from one to the other; even the newest tales of their Crowe-prince shook travelers through the greenery. The moths strong enough to escape the wet frigidity kissed the old faces of bark and whispered new knowledge into their gnarled knolls. All they gave willingly to Pilar who listened and understood their ramblings, not in the human acknowledgment of the groans of aching trees, but in the understanding of snow and cold that reaches to center. So it was that Pilar recognized something of herself in the murmurings of the Black Prince."

Yes, I know that is not how you spell "crow" and that "princeling" is not a word. Microsoft Word (and now, Blogger) remind me of these things daily.

Call Me Crazy

Plain Jane Fred

Call me Fred. Everyone else tries not to, but I can tell that you will manage it. It is not the name I would have given myself, but it is mine. If I had a say in the matter, I would have been an Adele or a Jane, something girlish and good. Something that is not masculine and strong. If I had a say. As it is, call me Alfred, the name given me by my father and many fathers before him.

The matter was decided long before I was born or even a distant possibility. It was decided when my father first heard that he was the umpteenth of a long line of Alfreds. He knew then that any child of his would have “Alfred” in its name. Any child. Almost twenty-five years later he was wheeling my mother into the hospital, already imagining the birth certificate laid out perfectly, a beautiful “umpteenth plus one” written out behind the child’s first name. The fine, fat baby boy was second in his thoughts, not yet quite able to win over my father’s love. There was no doubt in either of their minds though, that a small, virile Alfred the umpteenth and counting was to be delivered to their doorstep that night. Not that they had taken the tests. They just knew.

So it was that when the doctor pulled me cawing like a misshapen bird from my mother’s womb, she began to cry. My father, however, was untouchable, beaming happily on the scene, rushing to take me from the nurse when offered. His evening went exactly as planned, a lovely little “-a” tacked on to the name that had ever been his and became mine. As if somehow that made me a girl, that “a” defining me even more than the name “Alfred” defined my father. Because I am. A girl.


Flying High
Call me tomorrow. I am not there yet, but I will be. You’ll see. I’ll meet you there. For now, though, help me because I am trying to remember and it just won’t come. I used to believe in something, but there is nothing inside me anymore. I know that it was something stellar, something to fuel rocket ships off of. It could take me to the moon, but now I am sadly earth bound and all my ideas have fizzled out like helium from a balloon. That is what my head is now I suppose, a balloon that wants to roll right off and away, now that I cannot remember what it was that held me up. Age does that to you.

I am not so old though, only a few years past my first, maybe twenty. I am the sprightly youth and there are many things that I can recollect. If you’re quiet, I’ll tell them to you. At least, I thought I might. Maybe it was a bad idea to begin with.

Now, call me crazy, but I used to believe that it all meant something good and spectacular. I imagined that I meant something significant and appreciable, like an exclamation point attached to an eloquent voice. Now I know I am just the exclamation point. I used to see myself in the kitchen with a spatula and some eggs or at a café drinking iced tea with my crackers. I might have been that person once – you know the type – but not anymore. Now I am just a balloon. About. To. POP!