Buddy

Sitting on the porch, I could see the clouds moving quickly through the sky. They never seemed to find a destination, but they never seemed as if they needed to. I wish I could be like those clouds, just wandering aimlessly through life. No real purpose to serve, and no reason to find one. These were the sort of thoughts that got me into trouble growing up. These were the thoughts that gave my general lack of purpose permission to stay.

I always wanted to take that old corduroy backpack of mine, throw a few outfits in it, and hitchhike across the country. Those clouds did it everyday, minus the backpack, and they turned out alright. My mom didn't accept that reasoning though. She found too many differences between my future and theirs.

I left on a mission; I knew that I needed to find something to love, and that's the only reason I could ever stop searching. My love was found in a small town, maybe somewhere in Connecticut or something. I had been walking through the streets, wandering through the shops, talking to people and making idle chat. But what I ultimately found in those shops was not simply entertainment. It turned out to be my purpose, my love, my reasoning. It turned out to be my dog.

It may sound odd that a dog could be so much to me, but he's turned out to be the one friend I could always count on. He's the only one that seems to truly miss me when I leave.

I've always been convinced that if I can't imagine myself doing something in my mind, it won't happen. I prefer to live a life that involves mostly strangers, mostly because I don't like having people know me.

When I first took him in, he just curled up and laid on my blanket, as if he knew that it was in my home that he belonged. I don't think it's really possible to understand the relationship we had with each other. It hard for some people to see how a relationship without words could really exist, but really, that's the best kind. It's a relationship based on raw emotions, and a relationship that can only build by being around one another enough to know what the other feels without using words. Us humans have a hard time loving without words, but it's the most beautiful kind of love. And this love was the love of a dog. My dog could never do much other than love, and I could never do much other than love him back.

Late at night, when the tv channels all start showing paid infomercials and all of your facebook notifications remain the same for hours, there's no one better to keep you company than a dog. You can lay on the futon trying to play tetris, and you can look through all the articles on wikipedia, but when your dog jumps onto the futon with you and starts to snuggle up, you realize that you won't make a new high score with the level of concentration you have, and when you wake in the morning, you won't remember any of the information you read about those obscure conspiracy theories, but you will wake up with a dog keeping your blankets warm and snoring sweetly. For me, that's not much a choice. It's a given.

Sometimes, when you don't quite understand why you're sitting home alone on a Saturday night, when everyone else your age is out drinking and getting laid, you realize that you're perfectly happy just sitting with your dog. If ever you find yourself thinking about how lonely you are, you must have somehow forgotten than the dog is man's best friend. I'm not too sure of who it was that coined that phrase, but I can guarantee they had a dog like mine.

Haunted by a Dream

I found this in a draft I had written forever ago, but I really liked it. Last night I had a dream, That you had left my side And all I did was sit there I woke up and I cried This morning when I called you I couldn't find the strength To tell you I was really mad For leaving in my sleep Today at lunch I kissed you And secretly I feared That every kiss was meaningless My only response: tears And in my dream, when you left I couldn't say a thing I tried to open up my mouth But out came silly strings Of words I couldn't bear to say Words I didn't want to need The haunting fear of memory From things inside a dream So if my mind just wants to say "i couldn't let you go" Or if it's trying to warn me, I wouldn't ever know I'm scared to tell you of that night For fear it might be true Or fear that it's not nearly right I fear it might change you.

Shake

Gotta shake off the day

gotta shake off the day and run

don't wanna take the time to look,

don't wanna see what I've become

Don't give me no directions,

Don't tell me where to go,

I may not have found it yet,

But when I do I'll know

Gotta get through today

Gotta make the hours last

One day I'll figure out my kind of life

But for now, I'll let things pass

And as I run through the day,

As I let this life go on,

I'll shed the grease from in my hair,

I'll get some more tomorrow

Sometimes we've got to pause to skip,

Sometimes we have to jog

but I know the next day comes and goes,

and I know the next will too

Bird

I stared out the window, watching the sleek, black birds picking hungrily at the dead squirrel on the ground below. My mind, distracted as usual, raced on, curious about why raw meat doesn't bother birds, and where the bones go when they're picked over, and why the squirrel even died in the first place. I look back at my desktop, trying to read the email in front of me, trying to decipher the little bunches of letters that cluttered the page, but I can't seem to stop thinking about dead squirrels long enough to figure it out. I move my mouse to the bottom of the screen, checking the time. 10:45 is too early for lunch. I open my desk drawer, and begin to sort the paper clips, making them all face the same direction, placing the different colors in different piles. I grab the hand sanitizer and squirt a bit into the palm of my hand, poking at the little blue dots, bursting them, and I rub it around my hands, sniffing them until the alcohol smell goes away. My eyes move back towards the window, and I glance towards the traffic signals that patrol the blocks near my building, watching them turn yellow simultaneously. I love watching those synchronized lights switch from red to green to yellow. It sure beats doing the busywork placed on my desk each morning. I can finish those stacks of paper in about half an hour, but I would never let my boss figure that out. As long as he thinks it takes all day for me to get it done, the amount of work will remain steady, and I can daydream morbidly about park animals.

Late Night Love Note

Daylight falls upon my skin,
The cat upon my lap,
Shirking pain the best I can,
I wish only for a nap.

The pillows prop my knees up high,
The ground beneath supports,
I only hope for some relief,
I can't expect much more.

The clock must work against me,
My eyes with red are burnt,
The aging lack of sleep won't go,
It cannot be reversed

The curtains try, but cannot block,
The morning light outside,
The moon has come and gone again,
I can no longer hide.

I try quite hard to close my eyes,
I know they never will
The pain that lies within my spine
Will always keep me ill

I wait and hope so desperately for
What others would conceive
To be a normal day for them
Would be heavenly to me

I try to move just slightly,
To take away the fire
But all I truly know to do
Is lay here and retire

The Battle

The knock on my door marked my appointment as arriving right on time.

“Let's not waste time, most people don't have much to talk to me about, and you sir, you made an appointment. What do you want from me?”

“I must know about the battle, please tell me”
His oddly shaped face was staring at mine, trying to catch my eyes with his, which were leery and seemed disguised by his face.

“I can tell you, but if I do, you have to believe all of it, because nobody believes any of what I say anymore.”

“I imagine I could believe anything you say, just please, tell me.”

“Alright. I have an account written in my journal. Just for freaks like you who want every possible detail. I put some creativity into it, so it may not be perfectly accurate, but it's a little more entertaining.”

I make sure that the camera in the room has sight of him as I turn to my bookshelf, reaching for a mundane looking book that contains my writings on the battle, on that doesn't actually contain my writing, but my father's.

The soldiers lay in wait, in a field just north of Lumberlin, and as the wind stirred the grass into their face, one blade at a time, they all lay perfectly still, ignoring the cravings they all had to bring their hands slowly to their face, scraping the jagged edges of their nails across their skin, relieving that odd, itchy sensation that seems so common when you lay in the grass. There was a lake to the edge of the field, but the men were told not to drink from it under any circumstances, for apparently the factories that cleared out during the war dumped all sorts of disturbing chemicals into it. So the men were stuck in that field for days, no fresh water, as little movement as possible, and none of any of that until the predicted battle took place. Before they spread out, back in Lumberlin, the men had a camp with soldiers from other platoons, and the men were told of a small break in which a plane would be flying over their position, making enough noise and covering them enough for them to grab as much water from the tents as they could before having to drop silently into position again. That day had finally come, and they nervously looked at their timepieces, each waiting for the exact moment to run. They heard a plane coming from the south, and just ass it came overhead, the men scattered and ran. But for some reason, though the plane was overhead, it was getting louder, and they all smelled this stench, this putrid, dense odor that persisted.

Up in the plane, the men tried to prepare themselves for the last thing they expected to happen in the war. Limb by limb, the men were all changing, the hue of their skin intensifying to a thick purple, the flesh of their bodies becoming the consistency of silly putty. In the instant of their worst fear, the plane crashed into the field they had been protecting.

As the passengers crawled out of the debris, they became the target of each rifle held by those who were already in the field. They thought that the aircraft had been overtaken by aliens, and they were the first to witness the next form of take-over in the war. They shot each other, the aliens armed with the passenger's armory, and thy fought each other until they couldn't any longer. Every last shot fired, every person in the battle dead.

What was one of the most unusual aspects of this battle was that the bodies hadn't been found until about 3 days after the battle, found by a family who was fleeing further south into England. The bodies of the field soldiers were somewhat decayed already, but the contaminated bodies of the aircraft passengers were completely intact. The father went to investigate the purple bodies, and realized quickly that they had dog tags on, same as the other dead soldiers in the field. He had not a clue about why or how the bodies had been turned purple, or why the purple bodies were preserved, but he had seen all he had wanted to, and they left. His testimony is the only one given that was not military, and the military wanted to keep it quiet, therefore making him seem insane. Luckily his family had the funds to fly to America after the war ended, meaning he didn't finish his life in an asylum, but his family knew not to speak of it, for fear of the same life Britain would have given them.

Of course, with any “conspiracy” comes a cult following, and just like the youth during any war, they ate up any hint of conspiracy they could find. One group of activists found this family before the war was over, and they formed a punk band. One album per conspiracy spread about the most bizarre conspiracies one could ever think of. I believe that they made some of the more confusing ones up to make the others seem true.”

As soon the man with the odd face thanked me and left, my father walked downstairs and began to make lunch. He wrapped his purple arms around me and gave me a hug, thanking me for keeping him safe.  

Pirates are Necessary

Currently, pirates have much control in seaward fares. Ninety percent of the world's trading is done by sea, and pirates are overtaking at least one of Britain's ships daily. Many people are not aware of this, and it is debilitating. If there's no known need for change, then no change will occur.       Everyone knows of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and most love them. Lose the image of pirates given to you by these films. Now picture a fisherman, with the appearance of any average person. Look at his small boat, and peer underneath the seats. Here you will find machetes, and M14's. This "average" man is one of today's true pirates, a man of selected genius, skilled in sailing and stealing. Unbeknownst to his family and friends, this man (known worldwide as Hobo Wrath) is not really a fisherman. He attacks other fishing boats for their fish. Such a man as this knows how the world works. Hobo Wrath understands that "What is strong wins: that is the universal law."(Neitzsche) Hobo Wrath is not the only man of his kind, either. There is a plethora of pirates in the world today. One must understand though, that there are two types of pirates that exist today. Hobo Wrath is a small-scale buccaneer. The other kind of pirates, the hard-core corsairs, dress in camouflage and arm themselves with machine guns. The simple buccaneer tools are toys to these fellows. These angry sea rovers go for the big booty; only large shipping vessels are worthwhile to these ravagers. They would kill for one piece o' eight!       Now how can the world conquer such dangerous men, men who attack the unarmed for an excess of items that are not needed? The solution is simple. Every seafaring Willy should become a pirate!       Now, I know it may sound extreme, and maybe it is. But sometimes, extreme is necessary. Sometimes, pirates are necessary. You see, if all sailors become pirates, then the problem will become more widespread. Widespread problems get more publicity. It will not be long before the pirates take the attention of every news station worldwide. When the problem becomes known, change will occur, in the following form: air travel. All the world's trade will then be done by plane, and Britain will not have to worry about being attacked by ships! The big-time bandits will no longer have any large ships with worthy goods available, and will cease their reign. Fishermen will be too scared to go fishing without defense, and it will become too risky for small-time buccaneers to loot their tiny vessels. Our dearest Hobo Wrath will mend his ways, and become an honest fisherman.       As you can see, a movement to increase the numbers of pirates will motivate the world to change their shipping methods from ships to planes, which will ease the fears of serious pirate attacks. Small-scale attacks will still occur, as long as there are any ships on the water, but these scalawags are not nearly as dangerous as those going after the larger ships. Even fools without sea-legs can see that pirates are still needed in the world today.