100th Post (AC)

I don’t really want to write this post. I’m tired, and I’m sore everywhere from a long and angry workout, and even though my last post wasn’t very well written, it was long. I had an adventure. I was a hero. Obviously, I’m dealing with the repercussions. I effectively ended a man’s life that night, and I’m not very happy about how I handled it.

It’s too fucking late now.

It’s too late to decide to disarm him. Its too late to put a bit more thought into what would happen to a body with that kind of energy transferring into it.

It’s too late to punch him anywhere else. With a frozen target, I didn’t think twice about shooting for the button. I could have broken any bone in his body, but I chose his spine.

He’d had a rough week at work, his fiancé, the sobbing woman, told me. He was stressed out, but didn’t think he was that upset. He pulled a gun. He was going to run from the police. She wished she’d known. She sobbed it over and over, but what has passed is past, and all we have, to a degree that few people understand, this very instant to make our choices.

I don’t know how to atone for my action. I will not make that mistake again. I will not forget to think. I will act deliberately and wisely, and I won’t kill. I don’t want to take lives.

I’m not going to vow that I will never do it again. That would prove me a fool or liar, because we both, dear reader, know that I will.

Can I make right what I’ve broken?

Like Heroes of Old (AC)

Your body and your mind will be the only things that limit you. The depth of your comprehension will determine the caliber of your ability, and the strength of your body will allow you to survive its use. Be careful. Every action might break you.

I was pouring over the letters my father gave to me, absorbing the straightforward parts, and staring narrow eyed and slightly frustrated at the more cryptic sections. Some of my father’s words make no sense to me, and I fear understanding will continue to come only after I have caused serious harm.

I’d just come home from Neal’s house, after a sunburned day of Sacramento jazz, a small cookout, and a few beers. There was also an impromptu kitchen floor brawl initiated for no reason at all (and with no intent to harm). Neal is an Iraqi Freedom vet, and one of my training partners. I am learning how to fight from a man who knows how to kill.

Anyway, I was unwinding in my room, preparing to write this post. It was Sunday, and I was surprised that I was writing in preparation for Monday. People who know my habits know that I don’t generally do things ahead of time. It is warm in Davis these days, and my window is open almost constantly. Outside, there was shouting: a mail and female voice. It started sounding like a heated discussion—some sort of passionate drunken discourse. I have shouted a few times myself, after drinking.

But the voices became angry. The male began shouting as hard as his throat would allow, and the female was interjecting with sharp jabbing responses between roars.

Everybody is allowed to argue. Shouting might even be justified. Everybody gets on edge, especially near the end of Spring quarter, when students are nearing finals, and apartments have been shared for nine months, at least. Everybody is allowed to argue, and it is nobody’s business.

“Ouch,” came the female voice, “that really hurt.”

Kathy later said she heard something about “my wrist.”

I stood.

“Stop! No, ouch!” Then there was a cry, sharp with pain, wavering with frightened tears. And then, “My back!”

I looked around for my phone.

“Oh God! Somebody help me!”

She sounded panicked. The alarm bells in my head shut off and I went into action. I was already opening the front door when Jin called me, also on his way out the door.

We raced outside. I was ready to jump fences and kick down doors. I spotted the open window on the second floor, spilling sounds of sadness into the night. Kathy came outside. This was the first time I ever had to look at someone with a calm and serious face and tell them to call the police. I did not wait. I sprinted around the apartment building (their door faces away from ours) and ran up the stairs, Jin right behind. I was grateful for his company. Together, I think we could handle just about any shit that doesn’t involve guns.

I pounded on the door. It was a “what the fuck is going on in there?” kind of pound, using the fleshy side of my fist. The voices stopped. I heard the man curse, and the woman sob, “It’s nice to know my neighbors care about me.” I rolled my eyes—she was using guilt trips and self pity tactics that could have very easily turned the man’s ire upon us. I turned the doorknob. I looked back at Jin to see if he was ready, as I crouched and prepared my body weight to contend with possible deadbolt resistance. He shook his head and knocked. His knock was with his knuckles, loud but not demanding, as though to say, “we’re not going to start any shit, but we’re not leaving either.”

I was ready for a brawl. He knocked twice more, and I heard the female voice say, “be a man about it.”

The door opened. It was a very large man with two by four wrists and at least a hundred pound advantage. He looked like a man facing a firing squad, like he knew he’d fucked up.

“Good evening gentlemen.”

“We heard a lot of shouting,” Jin started. “We heard somebody call for help. The police are on their way. We just want to make sure everybody is okay.”

“You’re welcome to come in if you like. You can see that everything is fine.”

The woman was sitting on the floor, back against a sofa, head hanging, bobbing slightly with each

“We’ll wait out here,” I said. “The police will be here shortly. If you’d leave the door open so we can see inside, though, that would be best.”

He nodded and leaned against a wall.

“Are you okay,” Jin called inside. I felt slightly guilty then, because I forgot about the woman, I’d become so fixated upon the possibility of violence.

She sobbed that she was fine.

“How long ago did you call them?” the big man asked.

“They should be here soon. You know how bored Davis cops are. I don’t hear sirens, though, which means they’re probably not moving with urgency. Listen, if this is a misunderstanding, I apologize, but when someone calls for help, you call the cops.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You did the right thing.”

The sad thing, though—the thing that is still upsetting me—is that we were the only ones that responded. A woman could have been hospitalized, for all my neighbors knew, and nobody came out. Who is going to come when it’s me calling for help?

I relaxed a little. The man seemed resigned to dealing with the police. He must have seen this, because he produced a small clip fed handgun, which he pointed at my belly. His mouth opened to speak, but his words caught.

I squeezed between moments. The air became pudding around me. I pushed forward the single step that separated us, and carefully raised a fist. I was still recovering from my first squeeze, the damage to my body a powerful warning against moving rashly. I balled my fist and carefully thrust forward in a controlled jab, my wrist aligned properly with my arm, my muscles carefully controlling the forward power. My hand made contact with his jaw, and I pushed against his chin until it moved back about a half centimeter.

I withdrew my fist and released the instant. There was a small pop and a familiar jolt of pressure shot up my arm, absorbed by muscles well prepared for the force. The man’s head snapped backward and his eyes glossed as he tipped, landing flat backed on the floor. I slid the gun out of his twitching fingers with my foot, and maneuvered it out the door and out of reach.

Two police cruisers rolled onto the sidewalk then, disgorging four brisk stepped officers. I waved to them. I walked down and told them there was a gun by the stairs, and an unconscious man just inside the door.

I told a similar story to the police, but didn’t bother trying to explain how I landed a knockout blow on a gunman. They seemed impressed, and even shook my hand before one of them realized the man was still twitching, and not waking up.

The ambulance was faster than the police.

And I ended up visiting the Davis Police Station. There is a good deal of legal work involved in dislocating a man’s vertebrae, self defense or not.

He may or may not regain consciousness.
He will not regain muscle control.

You greatest power is the power of contemplation. When time vanishes, every decision can be pondered for as long, if that term applies, as necessary, and every thought carried to completion. The gift is that you cannot move too slowly, though it comes at the cost of moving too quickly. Consider every motion. You do not only harm yourself.

All Dressed in White (AC)

I was going to post a copy of a letter I received in the mail yesterday, written on heavy parchment with splattered ink, in my father’s careless hand. It is a fascinating read, and should help me a great deal. There is advice in abundance: something he could always be counted on to give. There are warnings as well—apparently there is a good number of my kind born every generation, but most perish while playing with their skills. The body is such a fragile thing.

I think you would be greatly interested in seeing this letter, but I have not fully digested it myself, and will show it at another time. Right now, I can think of nothing more than my own agony.

I have come to the conclusion that I am incredibly lucky that I had my breakthrough on soft dirt. Every muscle in my body feels torn. It hurts to move. It hurts to breath. I’d rather die than sneeze, and I spent a day and a half in bed, moving twice to roll over and pee in a bucket.

I awoke Wednesday beneath the naked brilliance of a noonday sun. I’d slept on my arm, and my fingers were tingling—a suddenly minor sensation compared to the shrieking protest of every muscle fiber from neck to toe as I tried to adjust myself.

I managed to fish my cell phone from my pocket. I pressed the appropriate button and croaked the name, and the machine beeped quizzically in reply. I had food and water in my duffel bag.

My duffel bag had been hanging on my shoulder when I decided to start running. It had been on my shoulder when I froze. And I could see my duffel bag from where I lay, crumpled like a broken body at the spot where the rent in the soil began. I winced and glanced down at my shoulder, my neck complaining stiffly at the minute change in degree. My shirt was shredded at the shoulder, the skin beneath bruised and bloody, as though I’d been hit by a baseball bat wrapped in carpet. I must have snapped the strap, I remember thinking. Another moment of dazed immobility passed before I started to wonder what kind of jolly havoc that bag’s mass had done to my spine.

Dirt, as I mentioned before, probably saved my life. If I had run on concrete, if I had touched anything more solid than the fertile farmland, I’d probably be suffering from shattered bones, ruined joints, and possibly a mild case of death.

As it was, I managed to call Jin and relay my general whereabouts, which was difficult, because he could barely understand me, and I almost never know where I am anyway.

I lay still, sweating and gasping shallowly until he arrived and recovered me. I blacked out again when he lifted me from the ground. My bones felt searing hot and loose, hanging by abused ropes from each other, lolling and falling like a tangled marionette.

“Holy shit,” he said as he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the piles of earth my feet had displaced.

I’ll have to be extremely careful about my movements. I have not tried to use the ability again. I have not been able to conjure the will to do more than pull my keyboard over to my bed and tap out the post you are reading. I am in jabbering, senseless pain. I’m not even sure if what I’ve written makes sense. One hopes for the best. Jin and his girlfriend Kathy (with whom I live) seem to be hoping for the best. I awoke on my bed in clean clothes, the mud and sweat gone, and a bandage tidily affixed to my shoulder. My mouth tasted of Gatorade, and some of my strength had returned, though little of the pain abated. I recall groaning my way across my bed to write this, a token post that cost more effort that you, my dear reader, probably realized.

“You told me not to take you to the hospital,” he said when I awoke. “What happened?”

It turns out he doesn’t read my blog.

“Did I break anything?” I asked, suddenly imagining my Achilles tendon torn, or my clavicle shattered.

“From the way your clothes were shredded,” he said stone faced, “you probably broke the sound barrier.”

The Transformation (AC)

It was a destructive experience—I was, for a span of time immeasurable, on the brink of total collapse.

I suppose I’ll begin the exciting tale where I left off—with me jumping up from my computer, having just posted the first installment of this rather interesting stage of my life, grabbing my duffel bag full of carefully collected ritual artifacts, and rushing out of my apartment.

I was late. I should have been well out of the city by then. I should have been in place, with all the intricate pieces of ritual spread on the ground around me, waiting calmly for the hour to strike. My father had given me instructions, but no explanations.

Instead, I was speeding up a highway, looking for a dirt road and an expanse of uninhabited land. Even in the sparse outskirts of our little city, I could not find a place out of eyeshot of human signs. I had no idea what kind of destruction my transformation might cause, and I had no desire to cause harm.

With fifteen minutes left, and me between cities (towns, really), I pulled off the highway and onto a tractor-scarred gravel road that lead into the heart of a crop field. I don’t know what was growing—Strawberries, maybe? There was no fruit, but the air was sweet and moist with dirt’s promise, and the gentle reach of soft greenery.

With three minutes left to midnight, I slid my car to a halt, grabbed the keys and bag, and sprinted across the field. What if I exploded? I wouldn’t want to hurt my car. The adrenaline soaked my arteries, and the sprint came naturally.

As I was running, several things occurred to me:
None of my clocks were accurate to the minute.
Cosmic midnight might be different from our measure of time.
I was not born on midnight.
I had no idea how this was going to work.

It also occurs to me that trying to write at work is not a good way to produce cohesive results. It is, however, a fantastic way to incubate inhuman rage.

I ran. I sprinted as hard as I could, my feet sinking in the pregnant soil. It felt right. It was exhilarating. I love running fast, and the night air was cool and sustaining.

And suddenly, everything stopped. I was frozen, mid-stride, mid-breath, with both feet off the ground. Only my thoughts continued.

I have no idea how long I was suspended there. It might have been a month. It could have been a decade. At one point I panicked, believing myself locked, believe that I failed to withstand the transformation. Maybe this was death.

But I relaxed, and took advantage of the opportunity. I am now immensely grateful for the small amount of time I have spent studying meditation methods and philosophy. Without those ideas, I might have lost my grip, frozen in time, only to fall to the ground babbling nonsense, robbed of my mind.

Every moment, everything is absolutely transitory. No single moment can be held. Everything is changing, everything is moving. Everything is temporary, and we only barely exist, so brief and small are our lives, compared to the infinite expanse. Like the mathematical point, we are so small that we have no value—we exist mostly as an idea. But contained within that point, there are an infinite number of points. Within the lifetime, there are an infinite number of instants. And likewise, within each instant, there is an infinite number of moments.

We are nothing, and we are everything.
God is the Universe.
We are made in the image of Him.
We are all a universe.

The purpose of religion is to enumerate morality; morality is an instinct. We are born with the drive to be moral, because this is how to be a healthy part of the perfect infinity.

I was always taught that the true torment of Hell is being apart from the Great One.
Every body is a universe.
Unhealthy systems are ejected from the Host like popped pimples.
All of mankind must be healthy as a unit.

That is the role of the angel.
That is the task set upon me.

My preconceptions crumbled. My sense of time abandoned me, and I reveled in the instant.

And in my understanding, I found that I could move, from moment to moment within that instant. My feet touched dirt, though the ground was as ungiving as stone beneath my feet. A cloud was frozen against the sky, and there was no twinkle to the stars.

I began to run. It didn’t feel quite normal; the air was viscous and uncooperative. My watch was still frozen at what would be midnight, if I’d adjusted the hands correctly. I looked behind me. There was a slight distortion of moonlight where I’d displaced air, but not much.

And then I stepped out of the moment, allowed it and its universe of instants to pass. I jerked myself out of that frame, and into this, and the universe spun around me.

And then the earth exploded. Dust and gravel rocketed into the air. I could hear a shower of rocks, launched at high speeds, pinging against my car, and in front of my, a great rippling wave of soil jolted away from where my feet rested. The force of my stop sent me skidding across the moist ground and blasting dirt in a huge shockwave that drowned countless young plants beneath its tumult.

The ground where I’d stepped was torn. Deep, splattered footprints ripped a yard-wide gash through the neat tilling. I’d sprinted a quarter mile in an instant, and the force of my movement was impelled into the ground. I could only see the effects afterward.

And then my chest exploded. I choked. I gasped so hard for air that my throat closed. My heart was painfully audible, and I could see my chest convulsing with the manic beats. I’d overcome time and space, but laws that govern matter cannot be escaped while wearing a suit of flesh. My body paid the price.

I took a step back toward my car.
My leg gave beneath my, suddenly ripped with fire.
I collapsed, and my body seized like a spider into a single ball of wailing muscle.
I lost consciousness listening to the panic of my heart, and wishing for death.

That is why this post is late.

Apologies (AC)

Okay, so I have no energy left. I have spent the day testing my new powers, and I seem to have exhausted myself. I cannot write about it tonight. I simply cannot. I am lucky that I could reach the keyboard from my bed.
I am sorry. I know you want to hear about the transformation, and are probably curious about what is different...

I have powers, it seems.

I am different.

And that feeling is gone.

I will write the new post tomorrow at work.

**Angel Chronicles**

(written in haste)

I must begin by apologizing for the tardiness of this post. I suppose I did promise to update every Monday Wednesday and Friday, and I suppose it is Monday, but I feel bad for not having the post up before noon.

I will continue by offering an excuse, as the actions of the day are the subject of my post.

Now, normally I don’t like to make a big deal out of my birthday. I didn’t really do anything worthy of merit, and entering this particular plane of existence doesn’t exactly elicit joy. Hurray for having a body? I guess. I also don’t like to advertise because there’s always that person who gets me a gift, even though I overlooked their birthday, or offered them sincere well wishes rather than material goods.

But in a few hours, I will turn 22.

I suppose I have a bit more explaining to do than I previously expected. It’s been a while since I’ve written. Please endure the pain of chewing on these splintery sentences.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you have probably seen a couple posts like this. Well, that feeling has been mounting since that post, though I didn’t think it merited a daily announcement. Shortly put, I have been anxious, on edge, and tense on some sort of ethereal, spiritual way. As a result, I have taken to working out with frequency and intensity unsurpassed in my personal history. I have also taken to reading the bible. It seems strange, but I realized that I’d been disparaging of that particular piece of literature, and all its forms of followers, but I am mostly ignorant of its contents (having been taught what it says, rather than reading it myself).

My father called me earlier, while I was writing the poorly written piece of meta-fiction that would serve as my first regular post. He solved the mystery. He also gave me better subject matter to write on... Which is why I'm writing this, instead of posting previously mentioned heap of shit. I'm afraid the fiction is going to have to wait.

Once, in a slurring stupor, one of my friends turned to me and asked, “Are you a dragon?” Am I a dragon? Like Jake Long? Shut up.

It turns out she wasn’t far off. I don’t have time to tell the entire story—there are many preparations that need to be made. Expect Wednesday’s post to contain more details. Right now, I write frantically, because I promised I would.

My father is an angel. The kind the bible talks about. The kind that crop up in myths and legends spanning history. The kind that Romans and Greeks worshipped as gods and heroes. My brothers and I are his first set of children. He promises more of that story later, but for now, he says, be as far away from inhabited lands as possible by midnight, because the transformation is going to be brutal.

“I raised you into a man,” he told me, “a man strong enough to withstand what you will have to endure. Good luck, my son.”

There are many things to be done. Personal preparations that required most of my day, and will call for the rest of the night--clensing of mind and body (to ease the transition) as well as collecting artifacts and writing words on scraps of paper.

And so I end my post, without writing everything I should have… without editing, without the floral language I so love to employ. I end my post now, because I need to speed as fast as my car will carry me. There is plenty of farmland around here. I hope the middle of one of those fields will do.

A Pledge

I realized that my blog, such as it is, is not readable. I am myself too disinterested to believe that any reader might be compelled to read about my day to day thoughts.

I will pledge, however, to update three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

What you will see will be nonsense most of the time, ridiculous thoughts, tales of pure fiction, and poorly drafted editorials.

I pledge to have fun with this.

I must admit that I am making these changes as a response to the sudden increase in the quality of certain other blogs. You might not be wrong to predict a little customization--I'm using the same template as Lindsay.

So please, if you check this at all, start visitting regularly.

In General

The reason I have such a hard time with blogging, with school, with work, with facing my future, is the lack of passion. I'm not a very enthusiastic person in any setting, and it's hard for me to get excited about anything that does not involve me actively, bodily doing something.

I get excited about a long road trip,
or about going paintballing.

I was excited for those two days I believed I'd be leaving for boot camp in a month.
I'm excited about being done with school, but only because I'm resolute in my decision to go on an adventure.

I'm excited about escaping. I'm sure I've expressed this sentiment before, but I feel like I don't belong here.

Fiction, Henceforth

Actually, I have some ideas I'm bouning around in my head. I might let one or two out soon. But overall, there's nothing I care to share. Thought I'd post an acknowledgement of my slackery on the blog. I'm going to start having more fun with this. Consider this blog fiction henceforth.

The Hands of Invaders

I'm catching up on news, because I'm at work with no work to be done. There's no graceful way out of Iraq. There's no safe way out of Iraq. People are going to continue dying. We have a tiger by the tail. The tiger is pissed. The tiger has killed over 3000 sons of America and broken more hearts and families than I can dismiss from my mind.

And now we're fucking with Iran, who is going to build their nuclear program regardless of what the world does. They're not going to change their mind after such staunch and absolute statements concerning their right to nuclear power. Political and economic pressures, sanctions, embargoes aren't going to do anything except make the entire country hungry, tired, and angry at US. Why don't we make friends with a government that is going to be a nuclear power regardless of our pressures?

Or we could invade, and continue to lose the valiant of our generation in the sand. Iranian officials have vowed to cut off the hands of invaders. Operation Global Harmony veterans who fought in Iran will have hooks to prove it. I don't care to guess what the veterans who come out of North Korea will bear as evidence, when we spread our protective arms into that country as well.

I hope you're all ready to make history, because its coming, and they'll have to rewrite the text books. Join a cause, or flee. Fight or hide, because if you don't stand for something, the draft will teach you how to march.

At the Core

So I posted this on May 1st.

Meg posted this on the same day.

The titles and the times are... well, look.

And then, 12 hours later, I post the new name of my guitar--I've named her, and we're madly in love.

Its from a CSN(Y) song by the same name. And as I write this post, I notice that the original title of megs post is a better known and more complete line from Suite Judy Blue Eyes.

Hey meg, how are the songs coming? Its starting to click for me finally. Log on AIM. I have questions and ideas.

Like yours, m'lady, like yours

I named my guitar Guinnevere. She has green eyes.

Seagulls circle endlessly
I sing in silent harmony
We shall be free

Bone Deep

I feel anxious, like I should be exploding out of my skin, like I could level a city block in a white hot flash of tension, put my fist through a wall or scream a hole through reality.

I am anxious, like something is wrong, like something is about to change, like a sailor feels a storm, like I have come upon a brink, crested some wind swept hill to find a new plain.

I want to thrash about, to swing wildly, shake this feeling from my fur in glistening droplets, to tear the nets that have gathered me.

Something big is coming. Something huge. I wish I knew how to prepare.