Thursday, July 26, 2007

Beagle

Plans for the weekend: I'm going golfing tonight at about 5 for the first time this year. I've never been golfing with Donny, but I can assume he's some sort of golfer. Me, I suck but I like to play for fun. I like to just get out there and relax, walk around and hit some balls. Hopefully he's patient. Tomorrow I'm heading to Sylvan Lake to see my sister. We talked the other night, and I think we're going to maybe go camping, but there's nothing concrete. We've both been in contact with my cousin Keith, who I hardly know. He is a couple years older than I am, and we never spent any time together as kids, so I'm working on seeing if him and his fiancee want to come out too.

On the way to Christine's, I'm stopping in Sherwood Park to look at some beagle pups. I've been thinking about it for the last little bit, now that Diane and I aren't living in the same house, and I really think it's time I got a dog. I've been feeling really strong about this, and I'm prepared to do it.

Diane and I have been talking this week, and at one point I thought we'd worked things out enough that I would be able to go home and we could try again. But she's taken a step back again. She says she's not ready. She's hurt, and she's probably scared, but part of me is wondering if she's holding back to push me away. It's the same part of me that feels like she's been pushing me away for a long time. Maybe she just wants me to stand my ground, but I know how she gets when I push her.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Beagle

I haven't had a dog in years. Not since I moved away from Chilliwack, when I was staying at my parent's place, and we had an old cocker spaniel called Yogi. I've missed having a dog since then, and decided yesterday to start looking around for one. I've pretty much decided I want to get a beagle, so I looked up beagle breeders in the province and found one in Sherwood Park and gave them a call. They have 6 eight-week old puppies that are going in for shots and such next week, so I made an appointment to drive out there on days off to take a look. Barb figures I'll be coming home with one, but we'll see. I'm looking, but I don't know if I'm ready to get one yet. Of course, I forget that I'm dealing with me, and I tend to impulsive and persuasive when I get my mind set on something.

But last night I had a dream that I was looking at puppies and two of them died in the dream. It was brutal. I guess it's making me think twice about going ahead and getting a dog, sorta. I'm still going to go and check things out though.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Well now....

I get this hollow feeling once in a while, where my body feels like a shell. It's not the typical feeling people explain this as though. I don't feel empty; in fact I feel quite full and energetic. It's like my incoroporeal self is wind trapped inside that shell, and moves it from the inside. There is no physicallity for me today, at least not this second. I am like an empty space filled with air.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Twins

It's time again to start takling better care of myself. I need to stop being so reckless with everything. I mean it, Trent.



Every morning I wake up deciding that whatever happened the day before has to cut out. It's another example of my two minds on everything. I have to eat better, I have to drink less and I have to give up smoking. But by sometime midafternoon, I'm thirsty for beer and smoke, and I'm eating whatever I can get relatively easy for supper. I wrote a pair of sonnets a little while back in which I tried to capture this.


XXI
By dawn, the senses still murked and slow,
And reason rings anew the slumber'd head,
Resolve is fresh and plans to thus lay low
Those baser shifts when springs one fresh from bed;
But day's weary toil doth batter the will
And so by eve's rise, and the lighted moon
Doth climb, and sweet night's mantle doth fill
Between the shadows which again reune,
That visceral lust doth come creep my thoughts
And the beasts that stalk come to greed and glut
And hunt and tear the resolve, and so rots
The gate that deprivation would keep shut.
The lycanth mind of man by moon doth change,
The drives of man and monster rearrange.


XXII
I am renew'd! Speak not the "lycanth mind",
For beast is only beast if man makes him.
What doth thou in my grey, grinning jaws find
That does not already enter the rim
Of thy uneasy scope? Do my yellow'd
Eyes shake thee so, set thee quaking abed?
No beast stands erect, seeking so hallow'd
Pursuits, as are found in my noble head.
So hide thee then, though find you not devils,
Nor demons come at midnight to eat thy
Weak, slumb'ring flock, nor other dread evils
That come amassing out the darken'd sky.
Seek you not the monster to so impound,
Experience life as the soul has found.


So, I need to slow down, at least until this afternoon.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Poison II

I've got that caged in feeling. I'm hemmed by "not good things" that seem to be just about everywhere. Granted, they're somewhat below the surface, but they're there. I tend to want to withdraw when I experience these moments. I want to remove myself from that negativity. The trick is is that the people who are feeding me these negative waves are the same people who have been listening to my shit for the last little bit. So now I gotta wonder, is it that I'm just so selfish, so self absorbed? I can't help feeling a little guilty about wanting to cut myself from people. Ok, alot guilty. But I know what happens next: the pressure of wanting to help these people will start to poison me against them. In a little while, it'll seem like they've become dependant on my ear, my shoulder, and I'll start to wish they could just be happy again. But it's more than one at a time, and then it starts to infect the other relationships I have. Is it all just me? Must be.

I've been dealing with poison alot lately. It seems to be a reoccuring theme. Xanth has been poisoned, and I have to find a way to fight it, to counter the poison. I know how already, it's just a matter of getting him to take it. But I don't think things should go back to normal. I don't think I really deserve another shot at a regular life because I'll fuck it up again. Just like I always do. Impulses and guilt and that strange morality that I lament for not having. My own functions better in theory and practise, if I could be strong enough to support it.

Christmas is coming....

**Some time later**

Ok, we'll go with stand-offish, and use humour as a weapon to keep distance. That's nothing new, right? And that way, when I offend them and drive them off I can say I was only kidding and lure them back, or not, selectively. Oh, you are a sly one...

***Again, later that morning***

Oh, it's going to be like that today. I can see me coming back a few times. Saying things I instantly regret, at least I have the forethought and training to do it with such vaguery that I can plausibly deny it later. Still, why do I say these things in the first place? I suspect it's some sort of survival instinct. If I set things up properly, if I garner enough to make my side bearable, I'll always have a back up plan, right?

The best part? Even I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I mean, I do, but I don't know for sure whether or not I believe it. Is the dodgy vaguity of my mind a cause or a result of how I interact with people? Do I create the situations or react to them? Carry that further. Have I developed the pattern because I repeat the situations so often?

****And so, shortly passed lunch****

..... ok, I've got nothing. No, that's not true. There's lots to talk about, but true to my record, I'm stalling. Stall, stall, stall. Fer fuck sakes.

*****Mid-afternoon*****

Yeah, and don't think for a second that I don't know you fuckers read my emails. I know, and now we all know. Enjoy the reading.

Monday, July 09, 2007

The Fuse

You say you don't know who I am. You've said it a few times, actually. I've been changing these past few months is not an entirely true statement. I have been changing as long as we've been together. Longer, in fact. You've stood by me through my changes. But I always walk away defensive. I feel some (just fucking write it. It doesn't need to make sense) shame, I guess when I change. I can't accept myself because I haven't found him yet. Or maybe I have. Maybe this is who I am; an ever shifting thing. If I accept that, maybe I'll finally be at peace with myself.

I wrote this last night, half asleep and fueled by beer. Granted, it was only two beer, but the fact remains. It's not shame I feel, but more a childlike need for acceptance. I've developed a few odd personalities over the years, and some of the changes I've been through were just as hard on Diane as they have been on me. I'm always working toward a sense of completion, a feeling of wholeness in myself, but there are times when I wonder if I am really just looking for the turbulence. It seems to me that I spend so much time wrapped up in the process, in the bits and pieces of everything.... Ok, I have to stop that. This isn't about analysis anymore. I've done that to death. The factor I have trouble with is the emotion of it. I'm blind to everything else, it seems, but the experiment that my life has become.

I'm the mad scientist, the Dr. Jekyl who has driven everyone from the lab to focus on his crazy experiment.

No, that's not true either. My friends won't let me push them away. I'm sure it would be different if any of them lived in proximity to me.

So, what is it Trent? What's the point you're trying to get at?

I was thinking about it this morning (through most of last night too), about my changing and Diane saying that I've become someone she doesn't know. I don't think it's true. I HAVE changed, yes, but I'm always changing. I don't believe that suddenly it's too unbearable. However, she was right about something. I think I did leave a long time ago. I could be home everynight instead of being in Cold Lake. It's a long drive, but I could be doing it. So, I hate to fall into that pattern again of taking responsibility for everything, but this is something I could change.

Let's run it by her...

Rain

If I could, I'd run away from here right now. Instead I am playing the lottery that for the next few hours no one is going to come here and ask and reask and reask the same question and I'm going to fly out of this chair and stab them in the eye with my pen. That I'm not going to break my pen off in their skull and then finish them off with my teeth. I know rage. I know what it is to hold back fury. I don't talk about these things, and I hate writing about them because I know someday someone will use it against me. But I don't care right now. I have to break these patterns of holding back.

This is about the third day in a row I woke up angry. I can't shake it right now. This is why I went on the meds to begin with. I remember now. Now that I'm finally back to normal. I started writing again, sort of. I worked for a bit on a story that I started on the plane coming back from Iceland. Without the meds, I feel like I'm thinking clearer, but my emotions are ragged and rampant.

I miss my song though. I miss the music that used to move through me, the rythm that scuplted my poetry. I sat out side last night during the rain and thought about it. I thought about the urgent warning song of the wind as it moved through the aspens, the low baritone of distant thunder and the sweet, tradgic melody the rain makes agains the windows and through the aluminum drains.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Requiem

Strange sensations today; a delicate blend of I want to dance and tear people apart.

I mad, upset, angry, hurt with Diane right now. I'm tired of reaching out to her only to have her pull away. I told her last time I was over there that for us to work things out, I need her to make an effort to put me before other things. On friday I wanted to talk, because I always want to talk, but she shut me down, again. "I have somewhere to be". I really feel like I'm the only one in this thing. Granted, I'm not all that easy to get along with, but I just want a little effort. I want some sign that things can be better. There is no compromise, it seems. I'd rewrite my entire life to sit down with her if she wanted, and she won't talk to me over email. Can you see why I'm frustrated? Can you see why I'm so fucking tired of trying to please people? I'm standing here wide open, and it feels like she's turned her back on me and walked off the stage. I feel awkward, betrayed and alone. Can you make that change, Diane?

And even though I mad, upset angry and hurt, I still want to make her happy. She's gone to Stoney Lake for the rodeo this weekend, and I sincerely hope she's having a good time. I think, for her sake, that us being apart is the best thing. She'll have a chance to live her life now, the way she should/wants it. I was never the guy she thought she'd end up with, she told me a few times over the years. I feel like a fucking fool.

And no one knows. That's the beauty part. I'm sitting here, day in and day out, rocking out to my music, cracking jokes and kicking people out of my office, just like any other day. I've gotten pretty good at hiding myself from the outside.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Another One Never Finished

It can’t be helped, in these cases. He’d tried countless times to sit and organize his thoughts in a way that would somehow resemble his sense of feeling. He was starting to realise, however, that the sense that made sense to him was often twisted outside his head. Or so he thought. To him, his thoughts were like organisms that could not exist outside the hermetical sphere of his brain. As if they withered and rotted, or changed somehow into something entirely unrecognisable once hatched. He’d struggled with it more and more as he grew older, the things that seemed unchanged to him were completely inadaptable to the world his world had become. It wasn’t really that though. It wasn’t him that changed; likewise it wasn’t the world that changed either. But we’re getting too far ahead of ourselves.

Our hero, one Roy Waterson, was born to an average family, in an average town, and lived a more or less average life. On the outside, in any case. Beneath the surface of his quiet facade and shy demeanour, Roy was actually quite out of the ordinary. He imagined things that many people would say were impossible, ridiculous and even entirely outrageous. Roy was a fierce goblin hunter, for example, and would spend many evening hours in the woods tracking and stalking invisible little beasts. “You have to hunt them at night,” he once told me. “They’re easier to see when it’s completely dark.” The idea, he would go on to explain, is that the unseen things are unseen because we don’t know where and how to look for them. I’ll be honest, it never really made sense to me, but I sensed some truth somewhere in his ideas, perhaps only because of his own conviction in them. All the same, I would listen to him, and wander the winding logic with him until I was either convinced of the plausibility of the ideas, or he got tired of explaining and changed the subject.

It wasn’t so strange to me that Roy grew up to be a somewhat creative man, although his outlets for that creativity caused him a fair amount of stress. It was my privilege, on rare occasions, to partake when Roy spoke about the amazing things he envisioned in his head. He’d try, as I said, to write his thoughts, but was always, always thwarted by his own over exuberance, and more often than not lost where he’d started before he could begin. He would tell me, when he was suitably inspired, about some of the things he imagined though, things that never failed to impress me.

I can’t take credit for this small tale, because it came entirely from the mind of my friend, and though he never wrote it himself, I don’t think he would begrudge me sharing a bit of his world with you. But I’m explaining too much and not telling you anything. So let’s just begin, shall we?

“I happen to know that a lot of people aren’t people at all. It’s true. And unless you really know what people look like, underneath their exteriors, you might not be able to tell one being from another. I’ve made it a hobby of mine to watch people, to be able to identify the other things that move among them.” Roy sat across from me, leaning on his elbows while holding a pint in his hands and looking cautiously around the room.

“Like your goblins,” I suggested. His eyes rolled slightly and he shook his head.

“That’s nonsense. I’ve told you, goblins live in the dark. They can’t take the light, except in very low levels.”

“Ah,” I said nodding. “Can you give me an example?” I was truly curious, but I couldn’t suppress the slightest smirk. Roy was looking back over his shoulder, however and didn’t notice the playful smile.

“There,” he nodded at an older man who was wandering on the sidewalk outside the pub. “See that old guy there?” The man he was referring to was an old gentleman, typical in his khaki slacks and striped shirt, balding and white, wispy hair moving around his head in the wind. He was pretty ordinary I thought. Still, we watched him for a short minute, and I finally shook my head puzzled.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Look,” Roy said impatiently. “See him talking on his phone? The way he’s holding his hand over his mouth as he talks.” I looked on, puzzled that someone would hide his mouth while on the phone, but only shrugged and continued to watch. “He’s hiding something, something both very important, and something he’s ashamed of.” Roy turned back and looked at me grinning across the table.

“Come on,” I said, raising an eyebrow and sipping my beer. “You get that from the way he holds his phone?”

“Naw, not just that.” Roy turned around again and watched the old guy. “He’s pacing, walking in slow, long circles. He’s waiting for something, for someone. Whoever it is he’s talking to, he’s expecting to meet them here. Watch him a bit longer. In fact, let’s do one better and go outside for a cigarette. You still smoke, don’t you?” Roy didn’t wait for me to answer, but stood up from his chair, and took his coat that was hanging on the back of it.

“I’ll indulge you, as always, but you’ll have to lend me a cigarette. I don’t have any,” I said, standing up and subconsciously patting my pockets. I’d actually given up smoking a few months before, but was willing to make the sacrifice for the sake of the experiment.

Immediately after walking out the door, the man we’d come to stealthily observe turned and froze. He stared at the two of us for a minute as each of us lit our cigarettes and I blew grey and sweet smoke rings into the air. I missed smoking, I really did, but the morning coughs and the horrible shortness of breath finally convinced me to quit. Roy picked up a casual conversation about music, entreating me to talk about what new albums had come out in the last while. I talked, and he seemed to listen, but I’d played this routine with him before. He had one ear turned away from me, and was straining to both block me out and catch mumbled words from the conversation the man was having into his hand.

“I still say there are many popular artists worth listening to,” I droned, really just speaking random phrases from iTunes reviews that I may have read. It was a string of jargon and bullshit, all the while Roy would occasionally rejoinder words and phrases that he was picking up from the old man.

“’Thought you’d be here by now,’” Roy said, taking a drag from his cigarette.

“The best new album, in my opinion...” I continued, the two of us having different conversations, while quietly taking in the same words. I enjoyed this with him, a subtle mix of espionage and telepathy.

“’I’ll wait,’ I can’t tell, maybe ten minutes.”

“...unlikely success of his solo career...”

“Succubus.” He smiled broadly at me, throwing his cigarette butt into the nearby receptacle. I blundered to a stop.

“What did you just say?” I was not expecting that. Roy had said it loud enough that even the man stopped and looked up at us, his hand falling from his lips, the phone still to his ear.

“I said I need another beer,” Roy said casually, walking back into the pub. I smiled at the man with his phone, who looked at me crossly and put his hand back over his mouth and resumed talking quietly into the mouthpiece. I then discarded my own cigarette and rejoined Roy back inside.

After sitting back at the table, Roy smirked at me triumphantly. “You said, ‘succubus’. How did you come to that conclusion? I thought succubae were women?” I knew a fair bit about the various creatures of folklore, but I was admittedly stunned that he would come to the idea that this shy, lonely, though admittedly somewhat eccentric old man was a succubus.

“Not him, you doofus,” he said putting his palm flat on the table and leaning toward me. “The woman he’s talking to. He want’s to see her, like he feels compelled, but he wants to meet her here, someplace public. From what I picked up, she wants him to come to her place, but he doesn’t want to go. He’s ashamed because he has to see her, but unable to say no to her.” Roy paused long enough to take a mouthful of beer and continued. “Watch the way he walks. He has a slight limp.”

“Not uncommon in older men,” I said, shrugging again and looking at our subject.

“Jesus man, if you ever got laid, you might know the signs.” I took his abuses good-naturedly. “It’s not a ‘I’ve got a bum knee’ limp, or ‘oh my poor aching back limp.’ He’s got the limp of someone who has had too much action.”

I could tell the beer was affecting him. He tended to get more outspoken (and crass) after he drank. “And how, oh master of women, can you tell that?” Roy laughed and threw his hands up.

“Watch his left hand every third step or so.” He motioned out the window. Oddly enough, every few steps, the man reach down and shift the front of his pants. “He seems a might uncomfortable to me, Watson.” He smirked then, maybe not unjustly indulging in his own cleverness.

“What now, Sherlock?” I put on my best accent. “Do we retire to reading the paper, waiting for clues from the distressed old friend, perhaps chief-of-police?”

“No, we follow him.” He was serious, I realized almost instantly. There was a brief period where, just at the beginning, I thought he was mocking me. “You ready?” He threw back his glass and finished his beer in a quick swallow. He turned in his seat to face the old man out the window.

“How do you know he’s even going to go? Maybe he’ll convince her to come down. Maybe he’ll just give up and drown himself in a bottle at the bar.”

Roy continued looking straight ahead, but turned his head just a little and laughed. “Suc-U-bus,” he said slowly, pronouncing each syllable for my benefit, as if pronunciation was the key to the mystery. Realizing how conspicuous he must look, waiting for the old man to make a move, Roy turned back to face me. “Watch him. If he moves back down the street, we follow.” He picked up the empty pint glass on the table and lifted it, turning it upside down to his lips. Realizing no more beer was going to come from it, he waved the empty at the waitress behind the bar. “You want another one?”

“No time,” I said. “He’s moving.” Roy turned and stood up. Our “mark” had closed his cell and put it in his pocket. He looked up the street, turned towards the door to the pub. For a long instant, he paused, his hand on the door handle. I hoped he would come in, both to see the poor wretch save himself, and to give me a smug feeling of triumph over Roy. When the man turned away from the pub and walked down the sidewalk, I almost called out to him.

“Time to go,” Roy stood and walked past the waitress, who was just about to put down his pint. His eyes were focussed only on the old man, and though he instinctively looked around the room and dodged obstacles between the table and the door, I could tell he didn’t really “see” these things. I paid the waitress for our tab, and followed Roy out the door and once again into the sunlight. “Now we follow him to the succubus. This is exciting,” he beamed childishly at me.

We chatted at each other, trying to look casual as we followed “mark” through the busy city streets. It was warm; lazy, stale summer air, mixed with the heat and sweat of crowded sidewalks and noise and exhaust from the cars started to make Roy restless and anxious. He had to check his pace four times as we followed the old man, or run the risk of running the unfortunate man down. Several city blocks later, and a sense of creeping hopelessness started to permeate my brain. “Still excited?”

Roy looked up, “it can’t be much further. She has to be nearby.” He was determined, though his focus was starting to fade. “He’d have taken a cab otherwise. I mean, the bastard’s limping. He should have taken a cab.” Roy’s downfall was always self-doubt. As long as he believed himself, anything was possible. However, once he started to lose faith in himself, it was an inevitable downward plunge that would take him to the depths of depression. I’d been witness to it before, so I tried my best to encourage him.

“Where are we? Do you know anything about this area?”

Roy looked around at the buildings and crowds. “No, not really. There’s a good restaurant around here somewhere, but otherwise I don’t come here.” He scratched his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair frustrated. “Fuck,” he said, coming to a stop. His eye followed the old man further up the street, while his shoulders sagged, defeated. I stood next to him, biting my lip subconsciously. I was about to offer some words of comfort, when Roy’s face finally lit again, a grin spreading across his lips. “There,” he said barely above his breath, nodding his head in the direction of the old man. I looked up again just as Mark crossed the street cautiously and walked up the steps to the porch of the little house just on the edge of the city’s residential area, flanked by Starbucks and a small bakery.

“What an awful looking place,” I said, sneering. The house itself was old, as were most of the homes in these “halfway” areas of the city. The shingles were peeling from the roof, though there was fresh paint on the handrails of the porch. I watched the man move toward the door, ring the bell and shift uncomfortably, his hands fidgeting in front of him, looked as if he were trying to decide whether or not to turn and run back down the stairs and away from the rundown house. Before he made his move, however, the front door opened and Mark went in, his head bowed.

I strained to catch a glimpse of the occupant of the dwelling, but the inside of the house was shadowed. “Well,” Roy said, smirking smugly, “that’s that.” He turned and looked for the first time at the surrounding storefronts.

“That’s what?”

“Well, now we know where he’s at, so let’s get a seat.” The greatest thing about the city was its overabundance of pubs. One would be hard pressed to walk more than a block without stumbling passed at least one. And the great thing about Roy, he enjoyed a good pub as much as I did. True is, he also enjoyed the bad pubs. In any case, we wandered together a few shops down to a little pub with outdoor seating and sat in view of the house, ordered a couple of pints and waited.

“So, what now? We case the joint, wait for nightfall and storm the place?” Roy squinted at me, smiling slightly devilishly and sipped his beer. “Seriously?”

“Why not?” He shrugged slightly, and turned his eyes back to the house across the street. “I just want to get inside and see what’s going on.” Roy pushed back the rest of his beer and leaned forward. “Wait here, would you, and keep an eye on things. I have a couple of errands to run, but shouldn’t be more than an hour.” I nodded slightly as he stood and walked back down the street in the direction we’d come.

I passed the time, watching the house, the traffic, the people making their way back and forth through the city heat. I admit to growing a little impatient, becoming quite bored at waiting for what was apparently nothing to happen. The afternoon wore on, and when Roy finally returned, well over an hour had passed.

“Anything,” he asked, taking the seat across from me again.

“Nothing.” I ran my hand over my forehead, pushing away the sweat that formed there. The temperature had started to climb, inspite of the dark clouds that rolled in overhead. “How long are we going to wait here?”

“Not much longer.” Roy looked at my watch. “It’ll be dark for a few hours, so why don’t we order some food and another drink?”

We talked for a while after that, between pints and our meals. Roy told me about several of the projects he’s been working on in his head, but hadn’t written yet, and I told him about the recent vacation I’d taken to the mountains. When the clouds overhead turned to rain, we moved inside the pub. “Strange,” I commented as we stood up, to move inside, “that we haven’t seen him come out yet.”

“She’s probably hungry,” Roy said in an off-hand way. “You don’t know a lot about them, do you?”

“Not really, no.”

Roy shrugged, “there’s not much to know really. They are demons who seduce men to steal the life energy from them. Most times, the succubus will keep the man alive, returning to feed. It’s easier, I suppose than trying to seduce and new victim everytime.”

“So, they’re sexual vampires.”

“In a way, yes, except you can’t become one by being infected. Unlike vampires, werewolves and the like, the succubae are incapable of propagating themselves. They’re simply demons in human form, who leech the lives of regular schmoes like our unfortunate friend, Mark.”

The next couple of hours passed as we played crib at the bar, waiting for sunset. I wasn’t thinking about it too much at the time, but in retrospect, sitting here copying down the tale, I wonder what had possessed us. Roy would have said we were like any cops, waiting on a stakeout, except that we weren’t sanctioned by anyone, and to the best of my knowledge, cops don’t guzzle down pint after pint before a raid. I remember as the streetlights outside came on, and dusk settled around the city feeling a prickle of dread and anticipation at the base of my skull.

Roy was looking out the plate window at the house across the street when he gave me a poke in the ribs. “Look,” he said, “we’ve got movement.”

I bit back my eagerness and looked slowly over my shoulder. I’d expected to see our friend walking out the door, however this time, it was another man going in. He was tall, balding, and well built. He turned his broad shoulders and ducked as he crossed the threshold. “What do you make of that? Another victim?”

“Possibly,” he considered, his voice seeming to come from far away. “It does complicate things somewhat.” Roy turned back to face the bar and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He seemed lost for a little bit, until he came back to the present. “Ok, plan’s the same.”

“Wait, we have a plan?” I interrupted.

Roy rolled his eyes at me again. “Of course we have a plan. Haven’t you been paying attention?” He leaned forward again, close enough that I could smell the beer on his breath. “Ok, I’m going to get inside, and I want you to wait outside, just in case.” He leaned back again, lost in his own thoughts, I could tell.

“That’s it? You’re going in and you want me to wait outside, ‘just in case’?” I was baffled. “In case of what?”

“Well,” Roy started, but he spoke slower, and I got the impression he really hadn’t thought this part of the plan through. “Fuck it then. We’ll both go in.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but what then?”

“We’ll play it by ear.” He smiled and looked a little demented.

“I know what happens next,” I said, taking a long drink of my beer, steeling myself against the impending storm that was coming after we got out of the rain. “Next we either get killed by that monster that just went in or we get arrested.”

“Have faith, my friend,” he said patting me on the shoulder, “have I ever led you astray?”

“Yes,” I responded simply. A few minutes of silence followed between us, as we prepared ourselves as much as we could. Simultaneously we rose from the bar and walked out onto the rain soaked street.
“Hey, thanks, by the way,” Roy said as we crossed the street a few doors down from the house. “You’re being a great sport about this. Hopefully you aren’t disappointed.”

“You’re welcome, Roy,” I said sincerely. “It’s not often one gets adventure like this anymore, right?” He smiled at me, and didn’t say another word. In a way I understood him like others couldn’t. He may have been absorbed too much in the fictitious world in his head, or he was just the kind of adventurer that people haven’t seen too many of since the advent of microwaves and television. He wasn’t one to live vicariously.

The rain was coming down hard, the dark clouds obscuring the last bits of sunset, making it seem later than it actually was. I followed silently as Roy lead me up the sidewalk passed the house and around the corner at the far end of the block.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Poison

I don't know why I let people in my head sometimes. I've shared the stories, as I see them, about the conflict that I experience in my mind, through the stories of MOTM, and though people tend to think they can relate, they always get concerned, surprised, unhinged when the characters change. Xanth is my mediator, the one who is friendly and approachable, who tries to help people. Trynn is a darker shadow. Soft spoken, direct, reclusive. Yeah, my mood swings. So when people think they understand, they get the concept but can't seem to handle the reality of it, such as it is. The stories don't make my moods, my moods inspire the stories. Sometimes it seems a little diabolical....


Lan wandered around the tree, circling the patches of tall grass, sniffing here and there. Trynn watched the fox as he came down the stairs spiralling the tree. Reaching the bottom, the elf asked, “looking for something?” A small smile touched his lips as the old fox skittered sideways, impressed as always at his ability to walk unnoticed, even by someone who’s senses were as keen as Lan’s.
Lan regained his composure and snuffed through his nose. “There’s been a fox here,” he said, sniffing the ground again.
Trynn laughed softly. “Of course there has. It’s you.” Lan ignored the taunt. The two of them had been friends a long time, and Lan knew, with wits, Trynn was formidable. His sense of humour, on the other hand was often dry and sarcastic. “Actually,” the elf continued when Lan failed to respond to the taunt, “I did see one this morning. She was scrawnier than you.”
“When?” Lan looked up, his eyes lowered as he scanned the tree line surrounding the clearing. He raised his head a little and sniffed the air, trying to locate the visitor.
“It was early. I came out for a pipe and saw her wandering around the tree.” Trynn paused and patted his pockets. “I thought she was you for a second, until I tried talking to her and she bolted.” Finding his pipe, Trynn pulled it from his pocket and clamped the long stem between his teeth. He was still smiling to himself when Lan suddenly ran to the edge of the wood.Xanth had just cleared the trees and stumbled, falling to one knee. Lan was already halfway through the cleaning when Trynn let the unlit pipe fall from his mouth and started to limp to his younger friend. By the time he reached Lan and Xanth, Trynn was winded from the exertion, and dropped shakily to his knees to come face to face with Xanth. The old elf put a hand on Xanth’s shoulder. Xanth looked up at him, through hair that hung in his reddened eyes, pupils wide and sweat beading on his forehead. “Hel,” Trynn swore. “He’s been poisoned.”

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Leaded

The worst part about sitting down to write is not being able to think of anything to write about once I finally do sit down. My mind more or less goes blank, I get tunnel vision and I feel suddenly heavy. Actually, I've been feeling heavy alot, in most senses. What with what's going on with Diane and I, and everything I feel like I have been dipped in lead, metally, physically and spiritually. I have no idea what it is I'm supposed to be doing, and she tells me she doesn't either. I think we're both more or less in the same place. Part of me can't shake the feeling that we belong together, and on the other hand, there's so much that I'm hurt about. All she has to do is tell me to come home, and I would. If she told me she still wanted me, I would go to her. But there's something, and I'm positive she feels it too, that makes the whole thing somewhat easy to accept. Hard to live with, but good in theory. I don't know. I just don't.

Back to writing, I want to write today, and I need more discipline when it comes to writing. So that's the plan today. I'm going to try to work out a piece that has been mulling around in my mind for a week or so.