Hopefully Green

A man with a bullom head shouted, "Hey Merle!"

One of us was Merle, I'm not sure which. That's the problem with so many pseudonyms, aliases, they get to be confusing. Both of us turned. The man was black and white and various shades of gray. That was the first thing I noticed, the second thing was the hamster he had on a lead. Merle or my associate was colour, so was I.

The man was upset. "Those crayons you sold me were bunk! It's been a week and nothing!"

"Some colours take longer to show, we warned you at the demonstration, yes? There's a pigment-acceptance phase that the body goes through, and some colours, like green, are much deeper in overall dynamic density. And such such such. Which have you been using?"

The man with the bullom head had a green crayon in his grubby gray hand. Or at least, the crayon said it was green, I'd written it on the label myself. It was actually more of a light charcoal black, but monochrome men will buy anything. He held it up for us to see.

"Green."

"Oh! Green is such a beautiful colour when it shows, you're going to look beautiful in that colour, friend," Merle or my associate said to the man, smiling his big polished yellow teeth.

I added, "Yes, when it shows, which it will, sir. You just have to be patient and remember to apply and re-apply every six hours, three times a day, and such such. Is that your last crayon?"

"Um, yes, it is."

Merle or my associate pulled out a green crayon from the inside of his jacket. He smiled. "We're out of green at the moment, friend, but I've been going green recently and I'll be happy to offer you this one, absolutely free!"

The man took it, suspicious, pleased with the word free, even if this new green crayon was just as non-functional. Another light charcoal black. These monochrome men love to buy hope, even if that hope is a little fibbish. He asked us, "Where are you going?"

We were skipping town.

"Out for supplies," Merle or my associate said.

"Yes, supplies, a fair, more crayons and more colours and such such."

"And more greens," Merle or my associate said. "Back soon."

We'd already started walking. There's a tendency toward eagerness when avoiding people who might soon or some day believe you've stolen from them. I didn't look back, so I don't know how long his hopefully green eyes watched our colours fade into the distance. There were still other towns, you see, more people, more monochrome men looking for crayons.

Pieces of Here

I did something stupid and it will cost a majority of the money I've been saving for traveling. It feels like a great theft, but more personal. This was a holiday that was taken from me, not some replaceable possession. Although optimism suggests otherwise.

There's something about the view of nature that is so perverted by the sound of traffic in the distance. It's uncomfortable. This week I am going to look at camping equipment. I am going to find some place far away, where the memory of roaring engines is suspended. I hope to find peace there.

And forget the pieces of here.

Conte(n/x)t

Just now, standing in the shower and seeing a greater conclusion, I was angry for not having seen it earlier. It stemmed from conversations much earlier this week; some with friends and some with strangers. None of these conversations were related as they took place, but now it seems they have to be. I now see a greater link between science and religion and the extent of belief. That what we don't understand is of great benefit to imagination.

I'd love to get further into detail about this, but I've also come to another conclusion. Masking one's personal values in art is a tremendously simple way to avoid criticism of content. Judge my context instead!

Ends In Rahs

You hear a lot of things when you're pretending to listen to music.

This man was talking to his friends about a movie where the antagonist showed up at the very end for five minutes. The build-up in the story for the protagonist was great, but then it wasn't defined by the villain at the end. Hence, as the man said, as I overheard, "a hero is only as good as his villain is bad."

It got me to thinking, as I'm sure you can guess.

As an irrelevant aside, I hear vehicles honking nearer me than the distance, and they seem to suggest that the Canucks won tonight. Rah rah rah.

Quantum Life

It was only a matter of months after the Staedtler Nanoscope was developed that Aldous Lexington made the discovery of life at the quantum level. This was the kind of thing that changes entire universal perception, so he was careful not to announce it before he was certain. As Lexington would have explained it, the implications were as macroscopic as they were microscopic: possible ecosystems within certain atoms, with the nucleus acting as a sun and electrons acting as orbiting planets, meant that our own galaxy was merely an atom in a much larger system.

Lexington observed the same electron for the rest of his life but never found any evidence to support his claim. He understood that time at the quantum level is fractional to what we experience, so decades went by – thousands of millennia for the electron – but his theory remained only a possibility. When life did finally emerge, there was nobody there to see it. Lexington told no one about his work and died unexpectedly in his office. Four days passed before his body was found, which was a few centuries for an electron, and barely registered in time for the inconceivable being watching it all unfold under its own Nanoscope somewhere… else.

Just Being

Spent the better part of the evening doing something I can't explain. Well, I can explain it quite easily in the literal sense: I was drinking whiskey and writing. The reason as to why I was drinking is a little convoluted. I thought it might help me finish this outline. It didn't, any more than any of the other methods I've been trying.

I'm not sure if writing is always this hard – (if it is, I am not cut out for it; my brain does not like this) - but I have been getting nowhere with this project for the last month. I'm spending much too much time understanding the logistics behind something fictional/metaphysical and trying to define all of existence before I can define the rationality of a central character. And yet, hardly any of this definition will be explained in the story, so why do I bother? Details, pointless pointless details.

A few weeks ago I was asked by a local hip hop artist if I would re-write his biography. It was difficult since I hardly knew the subject, so I tried to examine why he wanted me to write it and then go from there. This is what I wrote about him:

There is a focus required for social awareness. Some people can’t see it exactly for this reason; they’ve never seen it. Living on his own since he was fifteen years old, Justin Brave has seen injustice. Disparity. Inequality. He has seen these things and questioned them. And in his words is the depth of his focus, written and spoken with skill unique to everyday hip hop. From studio to stage, backed by speakers or violins, Just B challenges the world to see.

With the release of his second studio album – Now and When – Justin Brave continues to push the limits of conscious music. His distinct sound is a fusion of belief and ambition, something he has been perfecting since his first mix tapes. Working alongside artists like Nelly Furtado, Moka Only, and DJ Murge; from London, England to his home in Victoria, BC, Just B proves over and over the danger of mixing talent and intelligence.

He didn't like all of it, just certain bits that he asked to use. Sucks. I thought this might be my first Real Thing. Oh well. Next time?

Honestly in Pieces

Beside my motorcycle this morning was a man sleeping. Between the two cars, under the light. My boots make a distinct clomp when they move, and this woke him as I approached. He had on dirty layers of old clothes, anything he could to stay warm. On his feet were some beaten-up rollerblades and on his neck and arm were long strips of road rash. Probably from the rollerblades. He had in his hands a cigarette that he had been rolling when he fell asleep. As he stirred he said to me, mumbling and ashamed, "Sorry 'bout that."

I didn't know how to reply. I wondered who he was, why he was sleeping here, if he was hungry. I wanted to know so much about him - like if he was okay - but the entire time I was there, all I said to this man was, "I'm not too concerned."

Well that was a big lie, wasn't it? I meant it in a different way, of course, the best possible way for those words to sound. But they were just the wrong words to use.

I drove away empathetic, but it didn't last. On three separate occasions in my life, I extended help to three separate individuals; each time, I immediately regretted it.

But this man today was just truly down on his luck, right?

When I got home from work, I found syringes that he'd left behind. Until that moment, I felt badly for my actions that morning. Like maybe he just needed a few bucks to get himself together. Now I wonder if anyone's honestly in pieces and fighting to fix themselves.

Things To Arrgh Over

Been having considerable trouble with Blogger this past week. Seems it doesn't want to hold a reasonable discussion with my FTP server anymore. Seriously, it's like being in a big electronic playground. For now, I'm going to update this new blog and the old URL will redirect to this one.

A great big cheque came in the mail today. Now it's in its new digital form in my trip fund. This section of my bank account makes me happy. I can see that within it, somewhere, I'm having a great time. Not arrghing.

Also, I went through and labeled things.

An Excerpt From A Page From Tomorrow

October 12, 2103

There's a big storm topside, Kerry says. He couldn't keep the scout up long enough to take all the readings. The water is almost at its peak soon, maybe two years. They keep having to extend the ventilation in some places and fixing it in others. Too much pressure way down here.

We still haven't had contact with Exodus II, not even from Pacific Reach, the highest tower. It's been almost a year now. Kerry wants to look for them, but there's way too much area to cover and who knows where they drifted to. That's if they're still floating. Blood stupid to have gone on that ship in the first place, if you ask me. At least down here we can't sink.

I'll volunteer to go with him, when he goes. I'm sick of these sim lights already, they're nothing like real sunshine. I feel sorry for our children. By the time we're able to return permanently - if that even happens - they'll have evolved to live without it. I think we might already have.

Masked and Anonymous

It's hard to value someone's opinion when they're anonymous. How do you evaluate their credentials, their substance, their authority? Or is that the benefit of using an anonymous source? To hide?

I have received the judge's feedback from the short story contest that I've been ranting about lately, and it's maddening. The judging was done by a single individual, who had the following to say:

- "Starts out very strong but fizzles out at the end."
- "The story needs a bit more depth."

I agree that my story seems unpolished; this is the nature of forced writing in a competition. It was written while I was on vacation, when I had little free time to begin with. However, when compared to the first-place story that began with no strength and fizzled throughout, the first bit of feedback is unsubstantiated. As to my story's depth, I suppose that's a fair point. Its depth was hinted at, something that I could have done better by far, but the other story wasn't much better. It hinted at a possibility of purpose, but the hints were in a dry and uninteresting context. It had zero emotion, zero character, and zero redeeming quality.

I'm not upset that I did not win, nor am I upset at the opposing author; I am insulted by which writing was considered superior. Also keep in mind that there were 20 people in my heat, and my story didn't even rank in the top five. NYC Midnight should be ashamed to consider itself a literary establishment when it consistently puts such anonymous judges of questionable ability on its panel. Absolutely absurd.

First Place: The Protector by Joe Osgood
No Place: A Pale Undress by Michael Lagace