(Hello, everyone. This is the first section, chapter 0. If you are going to read it, I would appreciate if you noted specific parts that could be fixed. On a more important note, I would like you to bear through this and the first chapter if you like me, because I swear it gets more interesting. Overall, help me edit it, don't be mean, and know that I'm not a big fan of this novel either.)
The hallway was full of students. I could hear the whispers that they spat out of their mouths, as if they were inaudible. They were loud and clear to me. They all were talking about something or someone, most likely someone. What else is there to talk about? Oh, not in a good way though. People weren’t nice, I had decided.
I passed by an old friend. I raised my hand to say hello, a rarity of social interaction, but she pretended not to see me. She most likely knew that I was there but chose to ignore me. I did admit to myself that I was paranoid, but I just wanted to get to my next class.
My teacher for the class was simple, boring, and horrifyingly droning. Her voice never seemed to take a break as its monotonous tone carried on and on. But I sat there, taking notes, not even knowing why. I listened to what she was saying. I thought the teacher was a good person, so I outwardly paid attention. No matter how exciting a teacher was, I had to decide if I liked him or her first, and only then did I know how to behave in the class. The most redeeming moment of being a student for me was pretending to ignore a teacher I disliked for months but never letting my grades falter. Oh, the bitter smile that came with every test. It was a way to entertain myself in a world where very little else did, but I could only blame myself.
I was pretty sure that there was something wrong with me. It was winter, so naturally I was depressed. During the Summer it felt as if day was always waiting behind the dark, ready to pounce on the world. In the Winter, I felt the opposite. The darkness always lingered, always threatening. I could feel it then as I sat in the class. It wasn't evil or anything, just depressing.
I knew that it was some sort of condition, but I thought it gave me character. I vaguely enjoyed when I discovered small allergies or quirks with my body. It made me feel unique, because nothing seemed to satisfy me about being just another student.
But hey, I didn’t care.
The bell rang loudly, liberating the students for four short minutes, for me only really telling me that I had to stand up and walk. The hallways were a limbo; never really a place to be, just a place to use in order to arrive somewhere else. Before I passed into my next classroom, I suddenly felt a blast of urgency in my head. It forced me to rush into the classroom where I was headed and pull out a pen and paper. I pushed my backpack on the floor and began drawing. When my pencil hit the paper, I knew that I was going to draw one of the wings from the school. It just felt like I should, so I did. I often got inspirations for what to draw, but they would normally fizzle out. I was surprised while continued drawing, wondering why I felt like I had to do it. It felt good, though, as if I was relieving some sort of unknown stress.
Obviously I did not approve of Mr. Hoover, considering my decision to spend the class drawing. He didn’t approve of me first, so I had my reasons. I liked it best when teachers simply stared disapprovingly when you doodled rather than saying something. As if I cared, as if their glances punished me. Ha.
The map that my doodle had become was quite good for my standards. I was a horrible drawer, and this consisted of straight, neat lines. I was proud of my box. But now I had to make rooms for the wing that I had drawn. This drawing was going to be detailed, I determined; nothing I ever made was detailed or even nice. The coolest thing that I’d made in my life was a science project on the discovery of DNA in the shape of a double helix.
I added doors, windows, and lockers. I couldn’t believe how neat everything was, even after I stopped using the ruler that I realized I had needed at first. Mr. Hoover was looking over my shoulder as he lectured us about the Middle Ages.
“Enjoying yourself, Jared?” He thought he was so clever, catching me in the act.
“Yes, very much so,” I answered, not looking up as I made a small dial on a locker.
“Please pay attention.” Well, of course I was paying attention. These teachers were awfully dumb for their ever-increasing degrees. I continued to draw, and he did not interrupt me again. The kids around me giggled, but, unlike me, they were intimidated by Mr. Hoover. I wish they’d come up and rebel with me. I was pretty sure a class filled with people like me could make a teacher explode.
I had to stop myself from drawing that. I was pretty sure that Mr. Hoover could get me in trouble for portraying him as steaming bobble head. But then again maybe not…
“Dude, you better stop being a wise ass. Mr. Hoover looks pissed.” I could see that. He threw glances over at me as frequently as he blinked. The kid who had spoken to me obviously didn’t care much about school, but even he paid attention.
“I think I know what I’m doing.” My eyes didn’t leave my work, now elaborate. When the bell rang, I awoke from the trance that I was in. As I shoved my map of the smallest wing into my binder, I caught a glance of how amazing it was. It was completely accurate, down to the ugly blotch-pattern on the hard metal floors. How did I do this in one period? And I still remembered everything Mr. Hoover said, even more clearly than usual, actually.
I knew that day wasn’t right.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
One Real Smile
(Making this clear: this isn't about me. No, it's not some complex denying the truth thing. I really like this story soooo.... please read.)
He sits in the library and monotonously writes the answers on a sheet of paper. The atmosphere is quiet, shut off from the shouting hallways and rambunctious students. The librarians watch like hawks over their small but strict domain. He stops writing the answers and looks straight at one of the librarians. It takes her a moment, but she sees him and his glare.
He hides a smirk. She pretends not to notice, but he knows that she is startled. He looks at different corner of the library, next to where the 300s are, and begins his stare at a much more hostile-seeming woman. She immediately takes notice of him but does not falter. Instead, she makes her face even more intimidating as the staring intensifies. He’s happy she notices him.
But what is she thinking? She’s thinking I’m another student messing around. She’s thinking about what a great life it is, to be a child. Isn’t it true that youth is wasted on the young? It must be true if it’s practically a cliché. The anger in her assumed thoughts grows until he bursts.
He almost shouted .
But instead, he goes back to the work he is expected to do. The hallway is clearing and Jared picks up his books and bag. Before leaving the serenity of the library, he stops. The books in the room whisper to him…
We know, Jared. We know. He knows he can’t hear it, but he knows what they say. It doesn’t end until he runs out of the library. He looks through the window that separates the hall from the quiet room.
We know… We know…
No, they can’t know. He walks hurriedly away from the window as if trying to escape while not being noticed. The books in his bag shift uncomfortably, but he keeps heading toward English. The bell rings as he enters the room, everyone noticing his tardiness. That’s what they call it here, “tardy.” Jared found it funny that words like “absent” and “tardy” were only used in school, and they seemed to not have any further use. The teacher looks at him disapprovingly as he reaches his desk.
The lesson is uninteresting to Jared. Something about review, something he already knows. He walks in the hallway to his next class with a friend. He’s not too close with her, but they seem to keep the tradition of silently walking to their adjacent 5th periods together. The only words were usually a polite “Goodbye.” Perhaps, Jared thought, he would say something different today, like “Have a nice afternoon” or “See you later.” His plan to surprise her is interrupted.
She turns around and stops Jared. She looks at him with timid eyes, as if she was embarrassed. But Jared senses something else... anger, but not quite.
“You’re so lucky, Jared,” she says. Jared stops for a second in the hallway as he contemplates the question. At first he is confused, but he understands after seeing her face again. She's even more angry now with every second that he doesn't answer.
“Why do you say that?” asks Jared, his face slowly hardening.
“You just… You just are. I mean, you're always so happy. I think you should appreciate it more.” She looks down at her feet as she puts some loose hairs over her ear. She's shy again with her second statement.
“And what makes you think I don’t appreciate this hypothetical luck? And why am I so very lucky?” Jared looks at her inquiringly, but he accidentally shows a bit of his anger. Some students look at them, confused but not concerned, as they walk around the small bubble that’s been created.
“I’m sorry, just forget I said anything.” She turns around and quickly walks away.
They don’t say goodbye. Jared begins walking home and sees his friend, well, perhaps not anymore, boarding the bus. He jogs over lazily to talk to her.
“I’m sorry,” says Jared. She looks at him, seemingly expectant.
“I forgive you. So don't forget then.” she answers. She walks, smug, onto the bus. She tries to hide her smile, her enjoyment of success. Jared bites his tongue and stares at the bus, terrified. The engine roars apathetically as the bus rolls away. Jared spots her in the window for an instance, and looks straight at her. He can’t tell if she sees him, but he hopes she does.
Jared walks away from where the buses follow each off the campus and truly begins home. His homework is easy and short. He’s haunted in his room by the books at his bedside. He tries not to hear them, not to listen, and eventually he convinces himself he doesn’t hear the taunting…
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When he walks out of English class, he doesn’t expect to walk with his friend, but she assumes her position at his right side. She doesn’t say anything until they are right outside their respective classrooms. She turns similarly to how she did last time but this time more confidently, with purpose.
“What’s wrong, Jared?” Jared stops and looks at her face. Is it sincere? Or is it simply polite, expecting an equally polite response. Instead it’s Jared’s turn. He walks more closely to her and grabs her hands. He decides that it is sincere. Some of the students who spotted them yesterday now assume that they’re just two love-birds. He doesn’t care.
She’s much shorter than him, so she looks up at his face, incredulously, and smiles. It’s a sincere smile. It’s real. It knows. So Jared responds the only way he can.
“Thank you.” He drops her hands and quickly moves to his classroom with the promise that they will talk again. He can’t surprise her anymore; she merely stands there for a second and then also turns to her classroom. For the first time, they see each other after 5th period. Now she’s frowning. Jared realizes he doesn’t know why.
“I’m moving, Jared.”
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She moves the next day.
Jared is on his bed, looking at the ceiling. It’s white and plain and wide. He likes it. It doesn’t have any flaws, but it does not have any good qualities other than the former. When Jared was young, he used to imagine the ceiling to be a huge screen, and his eyes were the projector. He’d spent hours watching scenes in his favorite books and making up stories and plots of his own. He swears that without the ceiling he wouldn’t have liked books so much, because half of the motivation to finish a book was being able to watch it.
There’s nothing playing on the ceiling except for one scene over and over… It isn’t from a book. It’s real, well, it was at one point.
“Is something wrong, Jared?”
“Yes.”
It’s so brief ; he must watch it a thousand times before he falls asleep.
The books get louder each day, more annoying, but he still goes to the library persistently. The library isn’t quiet anymore.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone comes up to sit next to Jared. He doesn’t look up. It’s Jared’s close friend, Michael. Michael doesn’t expect Jared to look up; he’s been in a slump for days.
“Man, is something up with you lately?” asks Michael.
“I don’t know,” responds Jared, his eyes still not leaving the paper.
“Well, everyone is wondering if something’s wrong.”
“Why do they care?” At this Jared looks up and crosses his arms. Michael was always popular with girls… Jared never knew why Michael wanted to be friends with him. Jared likes him for the simple reason that he was kind down to his heart. A little slow, but he can’t blame him for that.
But Michael doesn’t answer. He’s not fumbling for words, he’s just not answering. After an awkward minute, Jared is about to start his work again when Angela sits next to Michael. Jared knows that they were in the library this period, but he told them at the beginning of the year that he needed to be alone if he wanted to get any work done. They agreed and also separated from each other.
“Michael, don’t get worked up.” Jared didn’t even notice that he’d hurt Michael’s feelings. He found himself feeling bad. Michael stood and walked away.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Angela.
“I don’t know. Maybe I was just born this way.”
“No, you weren’t always like this. You used to be happy and care-free until... until… what, a week ago? What the hell happened?” 8 days ago.
“Well, I’ve never changed.” Angela opens her mouth to speak again but stops herself. She doesn’t know the right thing to say. She smiles. It’s not a sincere smile. It’s not real. It doesn’t know. She pushes herself up from the wooden table and walks to talk to Michael.
Later, Jared approaches Michael.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright… It’s just, I’ve been going through a lot lately, and I don’t need to lose my best friend too.” This time I smile; it’s sincere to him.
“You won’t.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jared watches his ceiling and this time listens to the books at the same time. They know. He pauses the scene at her smile. He wonders if he could zoom in, but the second he thinks it, it’s there. Her lips shine from her pink lip gloss. Her whole mouth seems happy, not as if just the corners are raised. It’s perfect, for just a moment.
He smells smoke.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The fire burns the hallway and his room. He doesn’t take anything with him as he ran through the flames. And as he stands outside with his parents, he hears the books shouting.
Jared, we know! We know!
When he goes to school the next day there is the familiar, but not consoling, image of fire trucks surrounding the school. But somehow Jared knows that only the library had burned down. All he remembers of last night is watching her lips and something else… Flames. When he was running out of his house? Yes, it must be, he thinks.
He walks into the school. There are teachers who are directing students to the auditorium. Jared listens. When he arrives there aren’t any seats left because the entire student body has to fit. Surely this is fire hazard, thinks Jared humorously. The flustered principal makes his way up to the stage.
“Last night there was an act of arson. The fire department has told us that somebody, presumably a student-” He glared at a group of giggling kids,”-started the fire with the books in the library. It did not spread, because the library is the only room with that amount of flammable material. Although there should have been more damage, it seems we lucked out on that nothing else was burned. Still this is a serious…”
Jared stops listening. He knows, but his face shows the common feeling of boredom in the room. He plays it well.
When the “meeting” ends each student was asked where he/she was at the estimated beginning of the fire. Jared says he was in his room all night doing homework. The interviewer tries to catch him off-guard with details, but Jared speaks his truth.
Instead of going to 1st period Jared goes to where he knows he can’t be. He somehow manages to slip past the teachers and into the blackened library. Oddly, there aren’t any fire men there at the moment, so Jared has his peace.
Jared notices that it is a quiet place again. Then he hears the whispers of the book. Very faint. Very distant. Except this time they say something else…
Jared, we don’t know. We don’t know. Not anymore. No, you’re right. We never knew. Nobody ever did.
The sound of it increases, so he tells them. I have stress problems. I’m dyslexic and afraid to tell anyone. I’ve contemplated suicide. I don’t love my parents. I don’t believe in a god, but I pretend I do. I just can’t stand some people. I can get depressed. Sometimes I imagine punishing people for their wrongdoings. I judge people. I like to learn. I’m afraid of the dark. I’ve thought about murder…
With every knowing comes a flicker of a flame until finally he is consumed.
((Please comment with suggestions, because I want to make this as good as it can be.))
He sits in the library and monotonously writes the answers on a sheet of paper. The atmosphere is quiet, shut off from the shouting hallways and rambunctious students. The librarians watch like hawks over their small but strict domain. He stops writing the answers and looks straight at one of the librarians. It takes her a moment, but she sees him and his glare.
He hides a smirk. She pretends not to notice, but he knows that she is startled. He looks at different corner of the library, next to where the 300s are, and begins his stare at a much more hostile-seeming woman. She immediately takes notice of him but does not falter. Instead, she makes her face even more intimidating as the staring intensifies. He’s happy she notices him.
But what is she thinking? She’s thinking I’m another student messing around. She’s thinking about what a great life it is, to be a child. Isn’t it true that youth is wasted on the young? It must be true if it’s practically a cliché. The anger in her assumed thoughts grows until he bursts.
He almost shouted .
But instead, he goes back to the work he is expected to do. The hallway is clearing and Jared picks up his books and bag. Before leaving the serenity of the library, he stops. The books in the room whisper to him…
We know, Jared. We know. He knows he can’t hear it, but he knows what they say. It doesn’t end until he runs out of the library. He looks through the window that separates the hall from the quiet room.
We know… We know…
No, they can’t know. He walks hurriedly away from the window as if trying to escape while not being noticed. The books in his bag shift uncomfortably, but he keeps heading toward English. The bell rings as he enters the room, everyone noticing his tardiness. That’s what they call it here, “tardy.” Jared found it funny that words like “absent” and “tardy” were only used in school, and they seemed to not have any further use. The teacher looks at him disapprovingly as he reaches his desk.
The lesson is uninteresting to Jared. Something about review, something he already knows. He walks in the hallway to his next class with a friend. He’s not too close with her, but they seem to keep the tradition of silently walking to their adjacent 5th periods together. The only words were usually a polite “Goodbye.” Perhaps, Jared thought, he would say something different today, like “Have a nice afternoon” or “See you later.” His plan to surprise her is interrupted.
She turns around and stops Jared. She looks at him with timid eyes, as if she was embarrassed. But Jared senses something else... anger, but not quite.
“You’re so lucky, Jared,” she says. Jared stops for a second in the hallway as he contemplates the question. At first he is confused, but he understands after seeing her face again. She's even more angry now with every second that he doesn't answer.
“Why do you say that?” asks Jared, his face slowly hardening.
“You just… You just are. I mean, you're always so happy. I think you should appreciate it more.” She looks down at her feet as she puts some loose hairs over her ear. She's shy again with her second statement.
“And what makes you think I don’t appreciate this hypothetical luck? And why am I so very lucky?” Jared looks at her inquiringly, but he accidentally shows a bit of his anger. Some students look at them, confused but not concerned, as they walk around the small bubble that’s been created.
“I’m sorry, just forget I said anything.” She turns around and quickly walks away.
They don’t say goodbye. Jared begins walking home and sees his friend, well, perhaps not anymore, boarding the bus. He jogs over lazily to talk to her.
“I’m sorry,” says Jared. She looks at him, seemingly expectant.
“I forgive you. So don't forget then.” she answers. She walks, smug, onto the bus. She tries to hide her smile, her enjoyment of success. Jared bites his tongue and stares at the bus, terrified. The engine roars apathetically as the bus rolls away. Jared spots her in the window for an instance, and looks straight at her. He can’t tell if she sees him, but he hopes she does.
Jared walks away from where the buses follow each off the campus and truly begins home. His homework is easy and short. He’s haunted in his room by the books at his bedside. He tries not to hear them, not to listen, and eventually he convinces himself he doesn’t hear the taunting…
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When he walks out of English class, he doesn’t expect to walk with his friend, but she assumes her position at his right side. She doesn’t say anything until they are right outside their respective classrooms. She turns similarly to how she did last time but this time more confidently, with purpose.
“What’s wrong, Jared?” Jared stops and looks at her face. Is it sincere? Or is it simply polite, expecting an equally polite response. Instead it’s Jared’s turn. He walks more closely to her and grabs her hands. He decides that it is sincere. Some of the students who spotted them yesterday now assume that they’re just two love-birds. He doesn’t care.
She’s much shorter than him, so she looks up at his face, incredulously, and smiles. It’s a sincere smile. It’s real. It knows. So Jared responds the only way he can.
“Thank you.” He drops her hands and quickly moves to his classroom with the promise that they will talk again. He can’t surprise her anymore; she merely stands there for a second and then also turns to her classroom. For the first time, they see each other after 5th period. Now she’s frowning. Jared realizes he doesn’t know why.
“I’m moving, Jared.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
She moves the next day.
Jared is on his bed, looking at the ceiling. It’s white and plain and wide. He likes it. It doesn’t have any flaws, but it does not have any good qualities other than the former. When Jared was young, he used to imagine the ceiling to be a huge screen, and his eyes were the projector. He’d spent hours watching scenes in his favorite books and making up stories and plots of his own. He swears that without the ceiling he wouldn’t have liked books so much, because half of the motivation to finish a book was being able to watch it.
There’s nothing playing on the ceiling except for one scene over and over… It isn’t from a book. It’s real, well, it was at one point.
“Is something wrong, Jared?”
“Yes.”
It’s so brief ; he must watch it a thousand times before he falls asleep.
The books get louder each day, more annoying, but he still goes to the library persistently. The library isn’t quiet anymore.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone comes up to sit next to Jared. He doesn’t look up. It’s Jared’s close friend, Michael. Michael doesn’t expect Jared to look up; he’s been in a slump for days.
“Man, is something up with you lately?” asks Michael.
“I don’t know,” responds Jared, his eyes still not leaving the paper.
“Well, everyone is wondering if something’s wrong.”
“Why do they care?” At this Jared looks up and crosses his arms. Michael was always popular with girls… Jared never knew why Michael wanted to be friends with him. Jared likes him for the simple reason that he was kind down to his heart. A little slow, but he can’t blame him for that.
But Michael doesn’t answer. He’s not fumbling for words, he’s just not answering. After an awkward minute, Jared is about to start his work again when Angela sits next to Michael. Jared knows that they were in the library this period, but he told them at the beginning of the year that he needed to be alone if he wanted to get any work done. They agreed and also separated from each other.
“Michael, don’t get worked up.” Jared didn’t even notice that he’d hurt Michael’s feelings. He found himself feeling bad. Michael stood and walked away.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Angela.
“I don’t know. Maybe I was just born this way.”
“No, you weren’t always like this. You used to be happy and care-free until... until… what, a week ago? What the hell happened?” 8 days ago.
“Well, I’ve never changed.” Angela opens her mouth to speak again but stops herself. She doesn’t know the right thing to say. She smiles. It’s not a sincere smile. It’s not real. It doesn’t know. She pushes herself up from the wooden table and walks to talk to Michael.
Later, Jared approaches Michael.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright… It’s just, I’ve been going through a lot lately, and I don’t need to lose my best friend too.” This time I smile; it’s sincere to him.
“You won’t.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jared watches his ceiling and this time listens to the books at the same time. They know. He pauses the scene at her smile. He wonders if he could zoom in, but the second he thinks it, it’s there. Her lips shine from her pink lip gloss. Her whole mouth seems happy, not as if just the corners are raised. It’s perfect, for just a moment.
He smells smoke.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The fire burns the hallway and his room. He doesn’t take anything with him as he ran through the flames. And as he stands outside with his parents, he hears the books shouting.
Jared, we know! We know!
When he goes to school the next day there is the familiar, but not consoling, image of fire trucks surrounding the school. But somehow Jared knows that only the library had burned down. All he remembers of last night is watching her lips and something else… Flames. When he was running out of his house? Yes, it must be, he thinks.
He walks into the school. There are teachers who are directing students to the auditorium. Jared listens. When he arrives there aren’t any seats left because the entire student body has to fit. Surely this is fire hazard, thinks Jared humorously. The flustered principal makes his way up to the stage.
“Last night there was an act of arson. The fire department has told us that somebody, presumably a student-” He glared at a group of giggling kids,”-started the fire with the books in the library. It did not spread, because the library is the only room with that amount of flammable material. Although there should have been more damage, it seems we lucked out on that nothing else was burned. Still this is a serious…”
Jared stops listening. He knows, but his face shows the common feeling of boredom in the room. He plays it well.
When the “meeting” ends each student was asked where he/she was at the estimated beginning of the fire. Jared says he was in his room all night doing homework. The interviewer tries to catch him off-guard with details, but Jared speaks his truth.
Instead of going to 1st period Jared goes to where he knows he can’t be. He somehow manages to slip past the teachers and into the blackened library. Oddly, there aren’t any fire men there at the moment, so Jared has his peace.
Jared notices that it is a quiet place again. Then he hears the whispers of the book. Very faint. Very distant. Except this time they say something else…
Jared, we don’t know. We don’t know. Not anymore. No, you’re right. We never knew. Nobody ever did.
The sound of it increases, so he tells them. I have stress problems. I’m dyslexic and afraid to tell anyone. I’ve contemplated suicide. I don’t love my parents. I don’t believe in a god, but I pretend I do. I just can’t stand some people. I can get depressed. Sometimes I imagine punishing people for their wrongdoings. I judge people. I like to learn. I’m afraid of the dark. I’ve thought about murder…
With every knowing comes a flicker of a flame until finally he is consumed.
((Please comment with suggestions, because I want to make this as good as it can be.))
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Read This Please
This won't be long.
There are obviously a lot of things going on with people... But I would like to tell people that I have my own problems. I think a lot of people don't recognize that. I would like to surround myself with people who understand me and also know that I can be understanding to them too. I don't really want responses to this (unless it's private, then it can be through e-mail), but I would appreciate if you told people to look at this.
Ultimately, I'm going through a very rough time right now, and I just need to be a little separated for a little while. I just can't take any more drama. Sorry if I seem insensitive. Honestly, I really just want to immerse myself in whatever boring life of doing homework and reading I can find. I need it right now. I might end up not acting any different these coming days and weeks, but I would like everyone to know this.
Thank you for reading and remember, I'm not in the mood to talk about anything or whatever, so just read this and respect it. I just need time to mentally relax.
-Jake
There are obviously a lot of things going on with people... But I would like to tell people that I have my own problems. I think a lot of people don't recognize that. I would like to surround myself with people who understand me and also know that I can be understanding to them too. I don't really want responses to this (unless it's private, then it can be through e-mail), but I would appreciate if you told people to look at this.
Ultimately, I'm going through a very rough time right now, and I just need to be a little separated for a little while. I just can't take any more drama. Sorry if I seem insensitive. Honestly, I really just want to immerse myself in whatever boring life of doing homework and reading I can find. I need it right now. I might end up not acting any different these coming days and weeks, but I would like everyone to know this.
Thank you for reading and remember, I'm not in the mood to talk about anything or whatever, so just read this and respect it. I just need time to mentally relax.
-Jake
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Hunger, part the Ninth
(who knows why Tele and Madi read this)
CHAPTER 11
It was 14 days in, that day. They were all amazed by how long I was stretching it out. It was not easy; the Hunger had made attacks almost every day since the eighth. I was measuring time in days since the initiation, because that was really my birth. Unlike most new-borns, I could count.
“I bet if he smells one, he’ll snap.”
“What are we gonna’ bet?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the next body?”
“Not much, but I’ll take it. I don’t think this guy will snap. He’s different.”
I didn’t know if they knew that I was listening, but I enjoyed that even they thought that I was different. I was special.
The lust wasn’t hard to deal with. It hadn’t really strengthened, but the Hunger had. It was getting harder and harder to resist every time. At least it wasn’t my conscious that was going to kill. That was the one thing that I could count on, that I would never kill of my own free will. The event of my first feeding would be one when the Hunger completely overtook me.
Would I remember it? Would I like it? Would I even feel bad about it?
According to the others, I would be able to accept it, but I doubted that. As they said, I was different.
It was that day when I was truly tested. The smell hit us hard; it hit me hard. They simply turned their heads, and looked at me as I ran. The Hunger had my body. My conscious was trapped in the corner of my mind. I struggled to even see what my eyes were looking at. Did the Hunger have a personality, or was it just a simple instinct that would vanish after its use was up? This was the worst of times for those questions.
Something that remained to me was the scent. I guessed that the Hunger was trying to reason with me, let me feel what it was doing. If I could have, I would’ve scowled at it. What an ignorant instinct.
The smell was getting closer. I supposed that the Hunger was running faster than I ever had. It was stronger than me, faster than me. It was better than me, except of course for basic morals. That’s where I prevailed, and that was what would pull me out of this situation. It wasn’t hard to meditate without the burden of a body.
My head was an easy victory; that wasn’t what it wanted. The rest of my upper body was a challenge. I pushed down my control, and it felt like I was literally pushing down some force. My legs would be impossible. They were being controlled, and in my waist, the Hunger was well guarding its territory. I had the rest of my body to fight it with, and that is why I managed to get down to my knee. I fell, and held onto a root, losing my concentration.
The control of my legs was quickly regained by the Hunger, and it began to try and stand up, but I held steady. It was an extremely odd sight, watching a body convulse and turn as it fought itself. It wasn’t the sort of thing to happen to a human.
I held on like that for another 3 hours, until the Hunger gave up. It didn’t really give up, though. I knew that it would come back the next day, stronger than ever.
“You owe me a body.”
-----------------------------------------------
It was the sixteenth day, and I was convinced that I was dying. It felt like it. The others were in awe of me.
“I can’t even go so long.”
“I thought you hadn’t eaten since I changed.”
“Well, we feasted that day, and we had a snack when Augustus fed.”
I spat on the floor, and when no spit came out, I realized how dry my mouth was. It was like my tongue wasn’t in control. That was something that the Hunger seemed to be able to keep indefinitely. I did not know how I could talk, but whenever I thought of the words to say, it spoke for me. The whole thing was strange and creepy.
Then, the smell came. Immediately as it came, the Hunger took control, and my conscious was thrust into a dark place of my mind. I wandered in strange memories, and all of my concerns escaped me. What was there to worry about in this easy world, where even the burden of thinking was erased? I was in a natural high. Then, when I thought, well “thought” isn’t exactly the correct word, life couldn’t get any better, I fell asleep. It was like resting after staying up for an eternity.
--------------------------------------------------------
They told me that I was vicious. I tore a woman from her husband, and ripped open her neck. I drained her within seconds, and then went on to the man, and did the same to him.
When I finally regained feeling, I felt something in my hands. A head? A heart? Something worse?
When I looked, it was worse than I could have thought.
In my hands, wrapped in a dirty rag, was a sleeping baby. Everyone was staring at me. It wasn’t the normal, emotionless look either. Then they looked at the baby.
“Don’t you dare.” I said. The shock of my voice finally changing was ignored due to the living being in my arms.
“You expect is to walk by that? To live by that?
“You don’t have to! I’ll just leave. I don’t need you anymore.”
“You never did, but you will be trapped in ignorance if you leave us. You have to kill it.”
“I WILL NOT KILL IT.”
“Then leave us. When we get hungry, that will be the first one to go. You will kill it, you will get hungry again.”
“I will not kill this baby. I refuse to become one of you.”
I continued to believe that, even as I was becoming more and more like them every day.
------------------------------------------------------
On the twentieth day, I became hungry again. I looked down at the baby, and realized that the Hunger would immediately kill it, and obviously couldn’t let that happen. Like, before, I could survive for longer than this, so I would plan on how to restrict myself from it.
I then realized I didn’t know whether the baby was a boy or a girl, and it turned out to be a girl. I also realized that I would have to find regular food for her to eat. This wouldn’t be too hard. Back when I was human, I could find food for three, and a half, if you count my little brother’s massive appetite.
A shock went through me. I hadn’t thought about my little brother since I… since I… It was a very long time. When I was lying beside my sister, he didn’t even cross my mind. I was ashamed with myself. That should have been the first thing I had done after my initiation, find him. But he would be scared of me, and we wouldn’t be able to live together, would we? The Hunger would surely kill him… But I was taking that same challenge with this baby. It was better than letting her die.
-----------------------------------------------------
I decided that she needed a name. What did she mean to me? Well, nothing really.
I was walking at a comfortable pace, so that I could keep my arms completely steady. I probably could have held her pretty well if I was running, but it wasn’t like I was in a rush.
Was she providing me with hope? It was more worry than that.
Courage?
Light?
My difference from their kind? The last one certainly defined what she was the most. What was a name for such I feeling? I thought that entire day. In the end, I called her Mine, because that was what she really was. I was all she had, and she was all I had. Perhaps if she ever lived to talk, she would call me that too. Mine. I liked the sound of that.
----------------------------------------------------
Mine and I were looking for food one day when they came. It was the pack that had done it to me. I didn’t know what kind of crazy-ass path they were walking on, but they always seemed to cross mine.
“Are you saving that?”
“Yes.” Well, technically I was.
“Hey, he’s that…” The two had me surrounded in seconds. The child had turned around, and I thought that I could hear whistling.
“You are not going to drink that, are you?” I grimaced.
“No.”
“Well then you should hand it over to us! We will take care of what you can not.”
“I don’t want her ‘taken care of.’” They both laughed
“Did you hear that? Her! You actually care about that little thing!”
“Oh, this is truly interesting… I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Well, burn it into your head, ‘cause I should be off.” I stared them down. It wasn’t a matter of blinking, but something else… something more sinister.
“I do not want to hurt your feelings, but I can not let you go past us.”
“No worries, I will just go this way.” I smiled sarcastically, and turned around. He was already there.
“Give me that, and you may pass.”
“Are you a troll? I don’t see a bridge.” At least, that’s how I remember the story, but perhaps my sister got it mixed up. I didn’t know where this sarcasm in the face of danger-not really for me, but for Mine- was coming from.
“Ha ha. Now stop with your adolescent humor and be serious. That will not survive with you. Don’t you know that? It will be better if we do it, so not to stain your… your… your conscience!”
“As long as she survives longer, then that is the route I am taking. Good day.”
“Oh, give up. He’s set on this thing.”
“Alright, alright, but when you kill it, don’t come crying to me.”
“I didn’t know we could cry.” He looked at me angrily for second, and then began to walk in the opposite direction.
“We can’t.”
I was satisfied with my small victory, but I was still getting hungrier.
((This one was hard to do sooooo enjoy.)
CHAPTER 11
It was 14 days in, that day. They were all amazed by how long I was stretching it out. It was not easy; the Hunger had made attacks almost every day since the eighth. I was measuring time in days since the initiation, because that was really my birth. Unlike most new-borns, I could count.
“I bet if he smells one, he’ll snap.”
“What are we gonna’ bet?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the next body?”
“Not much, but I’ll take it. I don’t think this guy will snap. He’s different.”
I didn’t know if they knew that I was listening, but I enjoyed that even they thought that I was different. I was special.
The lust wasn’t hard to deal with. It hadn’t really strengthened, but the Hunger had. It was getting harder and harder to resist every time. At least it wasn’t my conscious that was going to kill. That was the one thing that I could count on, that I would never kill of my own free will. The event of my first feeding would be one when the Hunger completely overtook me.
Would I remember it? Would I like it? Would I even feel bad about it?
According to the others, I would be able to accept it, but I doubted that. As they said, I was different.
It was that day when I was truly tested. The smell hit us hard; it hit me hard. They simply turned their heads, and looked at me as I ran. The Hunger had my body. My conscious was trapped in the corner of my mind. I struggled to even see what my eyes were looking at. Did the Hunger have a personality, or was it just a simple instinct that would vanish after its use was up? This was the worst of times for those questions.
Something that remained to me was the scent. I guessed that the Hunger was trying to reason with me, let me feel what it was doing. If I could have, I would’ve scowled at it. What an ignorant instinct.
The smell was getting closer. I supposed that the Hunger was running faster than I ever had. It was stronger than me, faster than me. It was better than me, except of course for basic morals. That’s where I prevailed, and that was what would pull me out of this situation. It wasn’t hard to meditate without the burden of a body.
My head was an easy victory; that wasn’t what it wanted. The rest of my upper body was a challenge. I pushed down my control, and it felt like I was literally pushing down some force. My legs would be impossible. They were being controlled, and in my waist, the Hunger was well guarding its territory. I had the rest of my body to fight it with, and that is why I managed to get down to my knee. I fell, and held onto a root, losing my concentration.
The control of my legs was quickly regained by the Hunger, and it began to try and stand up, but I held steady. It was an extremely odd sight, watching a body convulse and turn as it fought itself. It wasn’t the sort of thing to happen to a human.
I held on like that for another 3 hours, until the Hunger gave up. It didn’t really give up, though. I knew that it would come back the next day, stronger than ever.
“You owe me a body.”
-----------------------------------------------
It was the sixteenth day, and I was convinced that I was dying. It felt like it. The others were in awe of me.
“I can’t even go so long.”
“I thought you hadn’t eaten since I changed.”
“Well, we feasted that day, and we had a snack when Augustus fed.”
I spat on the floor, and when no spit came out, I realized how dry my mouth was. It was like my tongue wasn’t in control. That was something that the Hunger seemed to be able to keep indefinitely. I did not know how I could talk, but whenever I thought of the words to say, it spoke for me. The whole thing was strange and creepy.
Then, the smell came. Immediately as it came, the Hunger took control, and my conscious was thrust into a dark place of my mind. I wandered in strange memories, and all of my concerns escaped me. What was there to worry about in this easy world, where even the burden of thinking was erased? I was in a natural high. Then, when I thought, well “thought” isn’t exactly the correct word, life couldn’t get any better, I fell asleep. It was like resting after staying up for an eternity.
--------------------------------------------------------
They told me that I was vicious. I tore a woman from her husband, and ripped open her neck. I drained her within seconds, and then went on to the man, and did the same to him.
When I finally regained feeling, I felt something in my hands. A head? A heart? Something worse?
When I looked, it was worse than I could have thought.
In my hands, wrapped in a dirty rag, was a sleeping baby. Everyone was staring at me. It wasn’t the normal, emotionless look either. Then they looked at the baby.
“Don’t you dare.” I said. The shock of my voice finally changing was ignored due to the living being in my arms.
“You expect is to walk by that? To live by that?
“You don’t have to! I’ll just leave. I don’t need you anymore.”
“You never did, but you will be trapped in ignorance if you leave us. You have to kill it.”
“I WILL NOT KILL IT.”
“Then leave us. When we get hungry, that will be the first one to go. You will kill it, you will get hungry again.”
“I will not kill this baby. I refuse to become one of you.”
I continued to believe that, even as I was becoming more and more like them every day.
------------------------------------------------------
On the twentieth day, I became hungry again. I looked down at the baby, and realized that the Hunger would immediately kill it, and obviously couldn’t let that happen. Like, before, I could survive for longer than this, so I would plan on how to restrict myself from it.
I then realized I didn’t know whether the baby was a boy or a girl, and it turned out to be a girl. I also realized that I would have to find regular food for her to eat. This wouldn’t be too hard. Back when I was human, I could find food for three, and a half, if you count my little brother’s massive appetite.
A shock went through me. I hadn’t thought about my little brother since I… since I… It was a very long time. When I was lying beside my sister, he didn’t even cross my mind. I was ashamed with myself. That should have been the first thing I had done after my initiation, find him. But he would be scared of me, and we wouldn’t be able to live together, would we? The Hunger would surely kill him… But I was taking that same challenge with this baby. It was better than letting her die.
-----------------------------------------------------
I decided that she needed a name. What did she mean to me? Well, nothing really.
I was walking at a comfortable pace, so that I could keep my arms completely steady. I probably could have held her pretty well if I was running, but it wasn’t like I was in a rush.
Was she providing me with hope? It was more worry than that.
Courage?
Light?
My difference from their kind? The last one certainly defined what she was the most. What was a name for such I feeling? I thought that entire day. In the end, I called her Mine, because that was what she really was. I was all she had, and she was all I had. Perhaps if she ever lived to talk, she would call me that too. Mine. I liked the sound of that.
----------------------------------------------------
Mine and I were looking for food one day when they came. It was the pack that had done it to me. I didn’t know what kind of crazy-ass path they were walking on, but they always seemed to cross mine.
“Are you saving that?”
“Yes.” Well, technically I was.
“Hey, he’s that…” The two had me surrounded in seconds. The child had turned around, and I thought that I could hear whistling.
“You are not going to drink that, are you?” I grimaced.
“No.”
“Well then you should hand it over to us! We will take care of what you can not.”
“I don’t want her ‘taken care of.’” They both laughed
“Did you hear that? Her! You actually care about that little thing!”
“Oh, this is truly interesting… I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Well, burn it into your head, ‘cause I should be off.” I stared them down. It wasn’t a matter of blinking, but something else… something more sinister.
“I do not want to hurt your feelings, but I can not let you go past us.”
“No worries, I will just go this way.” I smiled sarcastically, and turned around. He was already there.
“Give me that, and you may pass.”
“Are you a troll? I don’t see a bridge.” At least, that’s how I remember the story, but perhaps my sister got it mixed up. I didn’t know where this sarcasm in the face of danger-not really for me, but for Mine- was coming from.
“Ha ha. Now stop with your adolescent humor and be serious. That will not survive with you. Don’t you know that? It will be better if we do it, so not to stain your… your… your conscience!”
“As long as she survives longer, then that is the route I am taking. Good day.”
“Oh, give up. He’s set on this thing.”
“Alright, alright, but when you kill it, don’t come crying to me.”
“I didn’t know we could cry.” He looked at me angrily for second, and then began to walk in the opposite direction.
“We can’t.”
I was satisfied with my small victory, but I was still getting hungrier.
((This one was hard to do sooooo enjoy.)
Friday, September 10, 2010
Hunger, part the eighth?
CHAPTER 10
It was the day of his feeding. I didn’t know about the others. I assumed that they would also join in on the “fun.” I would definitely not.
I smelled something. It was blood. It was not how I would expect it to smell. I imagined something disgusting that was weirdly attractive, but it felt amazing. There was a strange high created by the scent. Tempting, and lulling… and most certainly not disgusting. I was formidably hungry that day. It was certainly an option to follow Augustus, bit I still had will power. Enough will power to resist killing.
Augustus
“I thought you said-“
“Instinct finds energy form the strangest of places.” Maybe there was an equivalent to adrenaline for them.
“The venom is extremely energetic. One drop could easily power an elephant for a year. We produce very little each year. You will start to feel the gland growing above your mouth.”
I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. Well, I guessed that I would have to take all of the problems that come with being what I was, but would it drive me mad? Apparently being this way could do that to you. There was so much change happening to me. I’d no snippet of memory suggesting that change was ever good.
He was moving quite quickly, and I had to pay attention to keep up. Not effort, just attention, which to me was harder than it was with the simple application of energy. Anyway, we ran for a very long time. How far away was this smell? It baffled me that it didn’t seem like we were any closer after at least 10 minutes of a brisk run, which was pretty damn fast for them and me. I made a mental wager that we would reach the person in another 5 minutes.
Quickly after I made the bet, I disregarded the thought. Since when did I take a person’s life so lightly? I always have, I told myself. If it is inevitable, then I did not stress over it. That was my compromise. It didn’t mean that I could make bets that relied on how much time a person had left on this world.
“We’re close now.” I could tell. The smell was extremely strong and appealing now. I had a hard time not speeding up and taking it for myself.
It was an adult, thank god. It was convenient how normal he was. A simple, white man, with normal clothing. He didn’t scream; he didn’t protest. He stood there and waited for his death. It was pathetic, if you ask me. He didn’t try and hide or run, or anything! Maybe he just knew that nothing could help him once they were on pursuit.
Once we were on pursuit.
He wiped his mouth.
“He’s already dead, why don’t you have some, I left a pint or two.” I had no idea what a “pint” was, but I didn’t see what was wrong with warding off my killing another person. I bent down, and the smell drew me to his neck. It was beautiful, so perfectly sensational. When I began to watch myself drinking the blood, and the others watching blankly, I stopped. It was the most difficult things that I have ever done, but I stood up, only drinking for a couple of seconds, and I said, “I refuse to be one of you.”
I wondered how long the other two could survive on the amount of blood that they had drunk from the corpse. It couldn’t be too long, but they didn’t seem to be that hungry before the feeding, so I supposed that they could last for as long as I could. Unless I dug out some inner will power to resist for longer. It was four days since my turning.
“How long did it take you to feed after your initiation?”
“I fed that very day. I am surprised that you haven’t been tempted already.”
“I have,” I mumbled, “But I refuse to go through with it.”
He smiled, and we continued to walk aimlessly.
It was the seventh day, and I was starving. It was trying to take control, but I resisted, refused. I couldn’t and I wouldn’t let it win. The whole experience was repulsive.
One night we were walking (I didn’t know why we continued to do that), and my hunger was aiming for my legs. That was all it wanted for some reason. I started speeding up, and I couldn’t even feel my feet hitting the ground. The others followed at the same pace without saying anything. They knew what was going on.
My feeling seemed to let off right at my waist. It was awfully uncomfortable and strange. I had a plan.
I limped the entire top of my body. This immediately caused my legs to fumble and lose balance. It was too strong. The Hunger carefully navigated each step to account for my swaying upper body. I was pissed.
Well, if that didn’t work, then what could? They were running faster than ever, and it may have just been the Hunger trying to trick me, but I smelled something. That wasn’t what I needed right then, so I tried to focus on other things. Because of the fact that I didn’t have to control my legs, I could relax and mediate. It was the first time since that day. I concentrated on finding my purpose, and honestly, it felt great. It was still there, right next to me, waiting to be found. But this wasn’t the time. I concentrated on taking control of my legs. Slowly, I felt the nerves reawakening downward, further and further, one by one.
My feet still belonged to the Hunger, but it couldn’t run without obedience of legs. I tripped, and when I stood up, it was just me. I was the only one there. The Hunger had retreated to get reinforcements.
It was the day of his feeding. I didn’t know about the others. I assumed that they would also join in on the “fun.” I would definitely not.
I smelled something. It was blood. It was not how I would expect it to smell. I imagined something disgusting that was weirdly attractive, but it felt amazing. There was a strange high created by the scent. Tempting, and lulling… and most certainly not disgusting. I was formidably hungry that day. It was certainly an option to follow Augustus, bit I still had will power. Enough will power to resist killing.
Augustus
“I thought you said-“
“Instinct finds energy form the strangest of places.” Maybe there was an equivalent to adrenaline for them.
“The venom is extremely energetic. One drop could easily power an elephant for a year. We produce very little each year. You will start to feel the gland growing above your mouth.”
I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. Well, I guessed that I would have to take all of the problems that come with being what I was, but would it drive me mad? Apparently being this way could do that to you. There was so much change happening to me. I’d no snippet of memory suggesting that change was ever good.
He was moving quite quickly, and I had to pay attention to keep up. Not effort, just attention, which to me was harder than it was with the simple application of energy. Anyway, we ran for a very long time. How far away was this smell? It baffled me that it didn’t seem like we were any closer after at least 10 minutes of a brisk run, which was pretty damn fast for them and me. I made a mental wager that we would reach the person in another 5 minutes.
Quickly after I made the bet, I disregarded the thought. Since when did I take a person’s life so lightly? I always have, I told myself. If it is inevitable, then I did not stress over it. That was my compromise. It didn’t mean that I could make bets that relied on how much time a person had left on this world.
“We’re close now.” I could tell. The smell was extremely strong and appealing now. I had a hard time not speeding up and taking it for myself.
It was an adult, thank god. It was convenient how normal he was. A simple, white man, with normal clothing. He didn’t scream; he didn’t protest. He stood there and waited for his death. It was pathetic, if you ask me. He didn’t try and hide or run, or anything! Maybe he just knew that nothing could help him once they were on pursuit.
Once we were on pursuit.
He wiped his mouth.
“He’s already dead, why don’t you have some, I left a pint or two.” I had no idea what a “pint” was, but I didn’t see what was wrong with warding off my killing another person. I bent down, and the smell drew me to his neck. It was beautiful, so perfectly sensational. When I began to watch myself drinking the blood, and the others watching blankly, I stopped. It was the most difficult things that I have ever done, but I stood up, only drinking for a couple of seconds, and I said, “I refuse to be one of you.”
I wondered how long the other two could survive on the amount of blood that they had drunk from the corpse. It couldn’t be too long, but they didn’t seem to be that hungry before the feeding, so I supposed that they could last for as long as I could. Unless I dug out some inner will power to resist for longer. It was four days since my turning.
“How long did it take you to feed after your initiation?”
“I fed that very day. I am surprised that you haven’t been tempted already.”
“I have,” I mumbled, “But I refuse to go through with it.”
He smiled, and we continued to walk aimlessly.
It was the seventh day, and I was starving. It was trying to take control, but I resisted, refused. I couldn’t and I wouldn’t let it win. The whole experience was repulsive.
One night we were walking (I didn’t know why we continued to do that), and my hunger was aiming for my legs. That was all it wanted for some reason. I started speeding up, and I couldn’t even feel my feet hitting the ground. The others followed at the same pace without saying anything. They knew what was going on.
My feeling seemed to let off right at my waist. It was awfully uncomfortable and strange. I had a plan.
I limped the entire top of my body. This immediately caused my legs to fumble and lose balance. It was too strong. The Hunger carefully navigated each step to account for my swaying upper body. I was pissed.
Well, if that didn’t work, then what could? They were running faster than ever, and it may have just been the Hunger trying to trick me, but I smelled something. That wasn’t what I needed right then, so I tried to focus on other things. Because of the fact that I didn’t have to control my legs, I could relax and mediate. It was the first time since that day. I concentrated on finding my purpose, and honestly, it felt great. It was still there, right next to me, waiting to be found. But this wasn’t the time. I concentrated on taking control of my legs. Slowly, I felt the nerves reawakening downward, further and further, one by one.
My feet still belonged to the Hunger, but it couldn’t run without obedience of legs. I tripped, and when I stood up, it was just me. I was the only one there. The Hunger had retreated to get reinforcements.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
A Really Disturbing Short Story
Michael sat at his desk. It was almost embarrassing how seemingly mundane his life was. He was a living cliché of one of those inspirational films where the main character lives a boring life, but then he dramatically quits and finds a girl and invests in a small company that hits big and blah blah blah. For Michael, it ended at “a boring life.” He wasn’t young like one of those characters. This was his life for… He didn’t even allow himself to do the math.
But he knew. 37 years.
His desk was stark naked besides the keyboard, monitor, stack of post-it notes, and an overly expensive pen. The pen seemed to taunt him every time he put it down. You don’t deserve me. I’m better than this. I’m supposed to be for an important person, not you. You’re not important.
He only kept the pen to go against what it seemingly wanted. Perhaps he thought one day the pen would be content, and he would make it big. Michael wrote. He wrote stories, countless stories. If someone other than him would walk into his apartment, he/she would be shocked of the neatly stacked piles of paper all over the floors and shelves and tables. They all had one character in common. Him. But that was the only constant. While in each story he was a pretty popular guy, none of the secondary characters every returned.
He wondered why he refused to repeat even a name (he even kept a checklist of them, and had started to become desperate. Most of the names used even he didn’t know how to pronounce.). He figured it was because it was always a different story, one about love, one about happiness, one about believing in yourself. Only one story had a sad ending. He wrote it the day his wife died. In it, everyone Michael knew was slowly tortured for the whereabouts of Michael, and after all of his friends had been pushed to death, it was realized he merely took an unscheduled stroll in Central Park. Needless to say, he wasn’t feeling very rational that day.
“How’s it coming with that-” His coworker stopped mid-sentence, peering over the thin wall of their cubicles, when he saw his face. Michael was looking at him with the amount of anger that the coworker hadn’t been exposed to before. He sat down again. If looks could kill, this look would kill not only the coworker, but every one of his relatives.
Michael stood up. What now? He knew. Both the passport and the gun sat uncomfortably in his otherwise empty desk drawer. He opened the drawer, the rolling sound usual to his ears, as it was a common sound here, in this building. This prison of a building.
What should he say? Nothing, the voice told him. The voice was… his friend? Maybe it was, after all. Why was it always a problem before? The doctor said it was problem, his wife said it was a problem, and he thought that it was a problem, up until now. Now it was a friend, now it was a partner. First, he took the passport and put it in his empty pocket. He stared at the gun for a moment, just as people began to stare at him.
How was he going to let them know? He took the gun and walked up to his boss’s office. He liked his boss; he was always fair and understanding. But almost everyone he knew was this way, so why should his boss get special treatment? Hell, being the first was special treatment.
The door opened easily. The trigger went easily. The boss dropped to the floor without a sound, but the blast from the gun still rang in Michael’s ears. Michael saw the boss’s face as he fell from his expensive little chair. He didn’t understand it. It did not seem surprised.
It did not matter. He had to quiet the office, full of screaming and running. He walked out the door and shot the two people closest to the door. They thudded against the floor in the exact way he expected, the way the movies and the books would depict it. How satisfactory, to know that Hollywood got something right after all. Now he said his first word of the day:
“Silence!”
And, almost miraculously, there was silence, but in his head the voice was shouting. Yes! Yes! More must die! If you’re alone, let them be alone in hell! And let their loved ones be alone here, only to find them again in damnation! Hah! It’s funny, can’t you see? A sense of humor is vital, my friend.
“Vital for what?” Michael said out loud. The people stared at him with even more confusion. Some looked at each other understandingly. He’s gone insane.
Do you see what they’re thinking? Can’t you see? They think you’ve lost your marbles. They’re thinking that you are below them. Kill them.
Was he still a cliché? Did this sort of thing happen in stories often? He didn’t even know anymore, but he did know that this would be on the news, and people would know his name.
Don’t let them forget your name, Michael. Make them remember.
One person in the room didn’t look the same as the rest. Michael couldn’t see many, no doubt many were hiding in their cubicles. The one person was the coworker that had tried to talk with him earlier. His face had the common anxiety and nervousness, but there was something else… effort. He was standing up entirely strange, and Michael couldn’t see his hands. He pointed the gun at him, and shot. It hit him between the eyes.
Michael walked around the room now, occasionally shooting, occasionally reloading. His other pocket was filled with ammo. Everyone in the room had begun to accept their fate. Everyone was going to die, Michael was going to make sure of it. Well, maybe he would spare one. Just to tell the story, to be lonely and without a job. Once about half of the office had been shot, he stopped himself.
Was this what he wanted to do? What was this going to accomplish? The voice somehow made it seem like something was going to come out of it, and for some reason he had believed it. He never was told what exactly. He knew that he was leaving after he was done. That would surely benefit, a new life somewhere exotic. But this? People dead? What was good about that?
But as he was thinking this he noticed that he simply didn’t care if they lived, and there was a bit of a rush coming from it all. He wasn’t bored, and he didn’t feel lonely. Maybe it was good.
He killed three more people and stopped again. How much time would it be until someone came to stop him? He didn’t know. Maybe he would have to leave soon. He sped up his process. How many left?
Fifteen people were left, either praying or staring at him.
“Would any of you like to live?” Oddly, they all turned to him and nodded at the same time. “Only five of you can live, so… five of you can volunteer to kill two people.”
One person stood quickly, and the others looked at him in disbelief. He grabbed the gun and shot two of the people he sat next to.
“Can I leave now?” He sounded as if he had some place to go, and this was only an annoyance. Michael smiled.
“Yup!” He heard someone mutter something, it was a female.
“What did you say?”
“I called that man an idiot.”
“And why is that? He’s alive, and you’re not going to live.” This time she smiled. The sarcasm in her lips was staggering to Michael. He shot her. “Next person only has to kill one!” How generous.
This time an old man stood up and took the gun. He raised it to his head and shot himself. Michael picked up the gun nonchalantly.
“You people are all very interesting,” he said. “Well, three more!”
Two others shot themselves. Michael was flabbergasted. They were all so stupid. They deserved to die. Michael was basically begging for it, and yet they seemed to go against his expectations just for the heck of it. Maybe this was how his pen felt.
The next man stood up and took the gun. The two people sat on the floor were praying. Neither of them had prayed before this. The man with the gun took it and pointed it at Michael.
“Finally someone gets it.” But Michael was not looking for death; he was looking for a challenge, or perhaps a surprise. He had practiced getting a gun out of someone’s hands, and so now he did it how he had learned. Except the man seemed to know what he was doing. He took the gun away from Michael and shot him in the thigh.
Michael fell over.
“You son of a bitch, look what you did to my pants.”
“Don’t you dare act as if your fucking pants are more important than the lives you took today. God will be glad to put you in hell.” And then Michael was shot in the heart. The man went around the office and called 911, although they were already informed of the situation. He and the other survivor in the office went around to the wounded people. They found a few survivors… and then more… and then more. Only three seemed to be dead. The boss, the man who had tried to reach for his gun, and the woman who spoke up. Everyone else was shot in the same place, right next to the heart, but they all seemed to come back to consciousness after a while. There was much rejoicing.
Michael’s body was dead. The passport was on the floor, splotched with blood. His blood allowed him to go someplace special, not where he was planning. He was going to Hell, and he was going to be reunited with the three who had successfully killed. Did he try to kill the others? Who knows? When he reached hell, he was given the sentence of many years, and once that was over he was going to have to go through the act of dying, being killed by those whom he had killed.
What did it mean? It meant that the voice was wrong. And now that he finally had company, he did not enjoy it.
(Note- I wrote this from 11:30 until 1:30, so it isn't exactly my best short story. But anyway, it's all good practice.)
But he knew. 37 years.
His desk was stark naked besides the keyboard, monitor, stack of post-it notes, and an overly expensive pen. The pen seemed to taunt him every time he put it down. You don’t deserve me. I’m better than this. I’m supposed to be for an important person, not you. You’re not important.
He only kept the pen to go against what it seemingly wanted. Perhaps he thought one day the pen would be content, and he would make it big. Michael wrote. He wrote stories, countless stories. If someone other than him would walk into his apartment, he/she would be shocked of the neatly stacked piles of paper all over the floors and shelves and tables. They all had one character in common. Him. But that was the only constant. While in each story he was a pretty popular guy, none of the secondary characters every returned.
He wondered why he refused to repeat even a name (he even kept a checklist of them, and had started to become desperate. Most of the names used even he didn’t know how to pronounce.). He figured it was because it was always a different story, one about love, one about happiness, one about believing in yourself. Only one story had a sad ending. He wrote it the day his wife died. In it, everyone Michael knew was slowly tortured for the whereabouts of Michael, and after all of his friends had been pushed to death, it was realized he merely took an unscheduled stroll in Central Park. Needless to say, he wasn’t feeling very rational that day.
“How’s it coming with that-” His coworker stopped mid-sentence, peering over the thin wall of their cubicles, when he saw his face. Michael was looking at him with the amount of anger that the coworker hadn’t been exposed to before. He sat down again. If looks could kill, this look would kill not only the coworker, but every one of his relatives.
Michael stood up. What now? He knew. Both the passport and the gun sat uncomfortably in his otherwise empty desk drawer. He opened the drawer, the rolling sound usual to his ears, as it was a common sound here, in this building. This prison of a building.
What should he say? Nothing, the voice told him. The voice was… his friend? Maybe it was, after all. Why was it always a problem before? The doctor said it was problem, his wife said it was a problem, and he thought that it was a problem, up until now. Now it was a friend, now it was a partner. First, he took the passport and put it in his empty pocket. He stared at the gun for a moment, just as people began to stare at him.
How was he going to let them know? He took the gun and walked up to his boss’s office. He liked his boss; he was always fair and understanding. But almost everyone he knew was this way, so why should his boss get special treatment? Hell, being the first was special treatment.
The door opened easily. The trigger went easily. The boss dropped to the floor without a sound, but the blast from the gun still rang in Michael’s ears. Michael saw the boss’s face as he fell from his expensive little chair. He didn’t understand it. It did not seem surprised.
It did not matter. He had to quiet the office, full of screaming and running. He walked out the door and shot the two people closest to the door. They thudded against the floor in the exact way he expected, the way the movies and the books would depict it. How satisfactory, to know that Hollywood got something right after all. Now he said his first word of the day:
“Silence!”
And, almost miraculously, there was silence, but in his head the voice was shouting. Yes! Yes! More must die! If you’re alone, let them be alone in hell! And let their loved ones be alone here, only to find them again in damnation! Hah! It’s funny, can’t you see? A sense of humor is vital, my friend.
“Vital for what?” Michael said out loud. The people stared at him with even more confusion. Some looked at each other understandingly. He’s gone insane.
Do you see what they’re thinking? Can’t you see? They think you’ve lost your marbles. They’re thinking that you are below them. Kill them.
Was he still a cliché? Did this sort of thing happen in stories often? He didn’t even know anymore, but he did know that this would be on the news, and people would know his name.
Don’t let them forget your name, Michael. Make them remember.
One person in the room didn’t look the same as the rest. Michael couldn’t see many, no doubt many were hiding in their cubicles. The one person was the coworker that had tried to talk with him earlier. His face had the common anxiety and nervousness, but there was something else… effort. He was standing up entirely strange, and Michael couldn’t see his hands. He pointed the gun at him, and shot. It hit him between the eyes.
Michael walked around the room now, occasionally shooting, occasionally reloading. His other pocket was filled with ammo. Everyone in the room had begun to accept their fate. Everyone was going to die, Michael was going to make sure of it. Well, maybe he would spare one. Just to tell the story, to be lonely and without a job. Once about half of the office had been shot, he stopped himself.
Was this what he wanted to do? What was this going to accomplish? The voice somehow made it seem like something was going to come out of it, and for some reason he had believed it. He never was told what exactly. He knew that he was leaving after he was done. That would surely benefit, a new life somewhere exotic. But this? People dead? What was good about that?
But as he was thinking this he noticed that he simply didn’t care if they lived, and there was a bit of a rush coming from it all. He wasn’t bored, and he didn’t feel lonely. Maybe it was good.
He killed three more people and stopped again. How much time would it be until someone came to stop him? He didn’t know. Maybe he would have to leave soon. He sped up his process. How many left?
Fifteen people were left, either praying or staring at him.
“Would any of you like to live?” Oddly, they all turned to him and nodded at the same time. “Only five of you can live, so… five of you can volunteer to kill two people.”
One person stood quickly, and the others looked at him in disbelief. He grabbed the gun and shot two of the people he sat next to.
“Can I leave now?” He sounded as if he had some place to go, and this was only an annoyance. Michael smiled.
“Yup!” He heard someone mutter something, it was a female.
“What did you say?”
“I called that man an idiot.”
“And why is that? He’s alive, and you’re not going to live.” This time she smiled. The sarcasm in her lips was staggering to Michael. He shot her. “Next person only has to kill one!” How generous.
This time an old man stood up and took the gun. He raised it to his head and shot himself. Michael picked up the gun nonchalantly.
“You people are all very interesting,” he said. “Well, three more!”
Two others shot themselves. Michael was flabbergasted. They were all so stupid. They deserved to die. Michael was basically begging for it, and yet they seemed to go against his expectations just for the heck of it. Maybe this was how his pen felt.
The next man stood up and took the gun. The two people sat on the floor were praying. Neither of them had prayed before this. The man with the gun took it and pointed it at Michael.
“Finally someone gets it.” But Michael was not looking for death; he was looking for a challenge, or perhaps a surprise. He had practiced getting a gun out of someone’s hands, and so now he did it how he had learned. Except the man seemed to know what he was doing. He took the gun away from Michael and shot him in the thigh.
Michael fell over.
“You son of a bitch, look what you did to my pants.”
“Don’t you dare act as if your fucking pants are more important than the lives you took today. God will be glad to put you in hell.” And then Michael was shot in the heart. The man went around the office and called 911, although they were already informed of the situation. He and the other survivor in the office went around to the wounded people. They found a few survivors… and then more… and then more. Only three seemed to be dead. The boss, the man who had tried to reach for his gun, and the woman who spoke up. Everyone else was shot in the same place, right next to the heart, but they all seemed to come back to consciousness after a while. There was much rejoicing.
Michael’s body was dead. The passport was on the floor, splotched with blood. His blood allowed him to go someplace special, not where he was planning. He was going to Hell, and he was going to be reunited with the three who had successfully killed. Did he try to kill the others? Who knows? When he reached hell, he was given the sentence of many years, and once that was over he was going to have to go through the act of dying, being killed by those whom he had killed.
What did it mean? It meant that the voice was wrong. And now that he finally had company, he did not enjoy it.
(Note- I wrote this from 11:30 until 1:30, so it isn't exactly my best short story. But anyway, it's all good practice.)
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Why am I even posting this? Whatever, one of my short stories. It's called "Suicide"
She needed to know. It wasn’t hatred, and it wasn’t fear. It was curiosity. She’d always wondered, but now she could know the truth. She just had to pull the trigger.
She had thought it through; if there wasn’t anything after the bullet, then she wouldn’t be able to care. But if there was a heaven; if there was a hell, everything would have meaning. The meaning of life was what she sought out of this. Her curiosity had eaten her soul, her mind, and her life, and she just couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t fair to her, or humanity. Why would God let humans wander through their lives, clueless? There was no obvious answer; perhaps there was no answer. It could only be known to the dead.
Death was a key, a key to the answers that she was so desperate for, and there was no more reason for her life. She wanted to believe in a purpose, but she just couldn’t. There was no reason to believe that, and that was why she had to do this.
She got a better hold on the gun; it felt uncomfortable in her grasp. She had to grab it again every few seconds because of the sweat that was letting the gun slip through her hands. As she moved the gun around, it rubbed on her temples, taunting her to get it through with. The gap in the middle of the gun would probably leave a mark on her head. Then she remembered what she was doing, and thought, That won’t be what’s leaving the mark. She imagined the feeling of immense pressure as she felt her skull crack when the bullet entered. No, the key. This wasn’t the end, it was the solution. Her happy ending. But the human in her still begged for life, and for a second, it overcame her. She started to lower the gun from her head.
“No,” she said out loud. The gun was back at her right temple. She couldn’t listen to the mundane part of her mind. That only wanted her to survive. She had to fight it; the thought side of her mind had to overpower her instinct, and let her finish what she had started.
Her finger longed to pull the trigger. It would soon get its wish. She just had to think things through one last time.
Would the blood from her head stain the floor? She looked down. No, hardwood. She was in the kitchen.
Did she leave the note on the table? Yes, it was there. She didn’t want her mom to live with any more mystery than life came with. Everything was in there: why, how, when, why again, reassurance, love. Her mother needed to know these things.
She heard the car in the driveway.
No.
Her mom could not see this. She realized that death was about to be achieved. All of her questions, answered in a matter of seconds. What could be more joyous? What could be more satisfying?
The car door opened.
Just a little longer, she needed a second. Take it all in. This would be the end of living in the dark, or for that matter, living at all.
There were steps on the deck.
She smiled. This was her decision, and she was happy with it. She was happier than she thought possible; her smile grew wider.
Keys rattled.
She embraced life one last time. It was glorious, wonderful, but the ignorance took over. How did people do it? Live on, clueless. She looked through her eyes and took in the world, and how complex and beautiful it is. She would know the purpose behind it in a simple move of the finger.
But this was it.
It was true; her life flashed before her eyes. The Christmas when she finally got the doll that she wanted; her piano recital when she ran out, weeping, because she missed a note. She stopped; this was pointless. This was time to get over these memories, because they didn't matter. This was the end. She was done with this pointless life, and ready to find out what it meant.
The doorknob turned.
One last look.
She pulled the trigger.
.
..
…
Nothing.
Why had death not come? She should feel enlightened right about now; she should know why she was ever born. This was horrible, everything was ruined. What had she done wrong? She loaded the gun, and made sure that it had worked. Then she realized the flaw. In her constant thought of killing herself to find the meaning of life, and finally achieving death, she had never once thought to take off the safety.
The door opened.
She had thought it through; if there wasn’t anything after the bullet, then she wouldn’t be able to care. But if there was a heaven; if there was a hell, everything would have meaning. The meaning of life was what she sought out of this. Her curiosity had eaten her soul, her mind, and her life, and she just couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t fair to her, or humanity. Why would God let humans wander through their lives, clueless? There was no obvious answer; perhaps there was no answer. It could only be known to the dead.
Death was a key, a key to the answers that she was so desperate for, and there was no more reason for her life. She wanted to believe in a purpose, but she just couldn’t. There was no reason to believe that, and that was why she had to do this.
She got a better hold on the gun; it felt uncomfortable in her grasp. She had to grab it again every few seconds because of the sweat that was letting the gun slip through her hands. As she moved the gun around, it rubbed on her temples, taunting her to get it through with. The gap in the middle of the gun would probably leave a mark on her head. Then she remembered what she was doing, and thought, That won’t be what’s leaving the mark. She imagined the feeling of immense pressure as she felt her skull crack when the bullet entered. No, the key. This wasn’t the end, it was the solution. Her happy ending. But the human in her still begged for life, and for a second, it overcame her. She started to lower the gun from her head.
“No,” she said out loud. The gun was back at her right temple. She couldn’t listen to the mundane part of her mind. That only wanted her to survive. She had to fight it; the thought side of her mind had to overpower her instinct, and let her finish what she had started.
Her finger longed to pull the trigger. It would soon get its wish. She just had to think things through one last time.
Would the blood from her head stain the floor? She looked down. No, hardwood. She was in the kitchen.
Did she leave the note on the table? Yes, it was there. She didn’t want her mom to live with any more mystery than life came with. Everything was in there: why, how, when, why again, reassurance, love. Her mother needed to know these things.
She heard the car in the driveway.
No.
Her mom could not see this. She realized that death was about to be achieved. All of her questions, answered in a matter of seconds. What could be more joyous? What could be more satisfying?
The car door opened.
Just a little longer, she needed a second. Take it all in. This would be the end of living in the dark, or for that matter, living at all.
There were steps on the deck.
She smiled. This was her decision, and she was happy with it. She was happier than she thought possible; her smile grew wider.
Keys rattled.
She embraced life one last time. It was glorious, wonderful, but the ignorance took over. How did people do it? Live on, clueless. She looked through her eyes and took in the world, and how complex and beautiful it is. She would know the purpose behind it in a simple move of the finger.
But this was it.
It was true; her life flashed before her eyes. The Christmas when she finally got the doll that she wanted; her piano recital when she ran out, weeping, because she missed a note. She stopped; this was pointless. This was time to get over these memories, because they didn't matter. This was the end. She was done with this pointless life, and ready to find out what it meant.
The doorknob turned.
One last look.
She pulled the trigger.
.
..
…
Nothing.
Why had death not come? She should feel enlightened right about now; she should know why she was ever born. This was horrible, everything was ruined. What had she done wrong? She loaded the gun, and made sure that it had worked. Then she realized the flaw. In her constant thought of killing herself to find the meaning of life, and finally achieving death, she had never once thought to take off the safety.
The door opened.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Book review #3 The Passage, by Justin Cronin
Alright, I read this book awhile ago, so I won't be writing much.
This book really took hold of my imagination for the two weeks that it took me to finish it. It is not a small book, so I'd say it's a book for people who: love a brilliant storyline with twists and omg moments, have lots of time, or are readers at heart. It's hard to pass this book up.
The premise... Well, the book's premise changes about three (major times) in the book. If you read the first hundred pages you might not even know the book had vampires in it.
First premise) There is a little girl named Amy, and she has a mother who became a prostitute. Her mother gets into some trouble and eventually leaves Amy in a nunnery. Amy is taken in there, but not after long is she snatched up by the FBI for experimental testing. There are several side stories, the main are about the nun who takes Amy in, the FBI agent in charge of collecting the people who are to be tested, and the people involved with the actual testing (specifically a janitor who ends up triggering the end of the world).
Second Premise) This is after the apocalypse. There is a mini-plot line about Amy surviving the apocalypse (she is "different") with the FBI agent who now loves her, but this ends quickly. It moves to about 150 pages setting up the scene of a refuge about 100 years after the apocalypse. I won't say spoilers, but I'll just say that Justin Cronin creates his own society with amazing genuineness. The whole knowledge of the world is packed into a small colony of less than 200 people. They live under the "lights" that word away the virals(vampires) at night. This may sound like a cheesy plot line, but it's not. He writes beautifully, and with such detail and characterization that you find it hard to believe he hasn't met the people he writes about. Here's what inspires the next step in the story: There is an imminent danger coming to the colony, and there is a job called the watchers. These watchers mostly guard the colony at night, but the occasionally have to leave it to... it doesn't really matter. But the fact that some people can leave inspires a journey.
Third premise) During the third premise, the main character in the colony meets Amy during a "ride." They discover that she is over one hundred years old, and also that somewhere there is a signal transmitting a taunting message. After the colony is ravaged by chaos this group who wish to find answers are basically considered fugitives. So they leave and that's where I will leave off... From there the premise for the next two books is set, and let's say it is a clever one. The virals, throughout the book seen as savages, get a different look at themselves, and the group discovers that there are other people out there living... and some are just as evil and deadly as the virals.
I'm sorry if that spoiled too much, but if you read it simply for his style then it is worth it. Usually his kind of excessive use of descriptions annoy me, but with the new world that he makes, you want him to tell you what it looks and feels like.
This book isn't short, but it's worth every page. Please read.
Enjoy!
This book really took hold of my imagination for the two weeks that it took me to finish it. It is not a small book, so I'd say it's a book for people who: love a brilliant storyline with twists and omg moments, have lots of time, or are readers at heart. It's hard to pass this book up.
The premise... Well, the book's premise changes about three (major times) in the book. If you read the first hundred pages you might not even know the book had vampires in it.
First premise) There is a little girl named Amy, and she has a mother who became a prostitute. Her mother gets into some trouble and eventually leaves Amy in a nunnery. Amy is taken in there, but not after long is she snatched up by the FBI for experimental testing. There are several side stories, the main are about the nun who takes Amy in, the FBI agent in charge of collecting the people who are to be tested, and the people involved with the actual testing (specifically a janitor who ends up triggering the end of the world).
Second Premise) This is after the apocalypse. There is a mini-plot line about Amy surviving the apocalypse (she is "different") with the FBI agent who now loves her, but this ends quickly. It moves to about 150 pages setting up the scene of a refuge about 100 years after the apocalypse. I won't say spoilers, but I'll just say that Justin Cronin creates his own society with amazing genuineness. The whole knowledge of the world is packed into a small colony of less than 200 people. They live under the "lights" that word away the virals(vampires) at night. This may sound like a cheesy plot line, but it's not. He writes beautifully, and with such detail and characterization that you find it hard to believe he hasn't met the people he writes about. Here's what inspires the next step in the story: There is an imminent danger coming to the colony, and there is a job called the watchers. These watchers mostly guard the colony at night, but the occasionally have to leave it to... it doesn't really matter. But the fact that some people can leave inspires a journey.
Third premise) During the third premise, the main character in the colony meets Amy during a "ride." They discover that she is over one hundred years old, and also that somewhere there is a signal transmitting a taunting message. After the colony is ravaged by chaos this group who wish to find answers are basically considered fugitives. So they leave and that's where I will leave off... From there the premise for the next two books is set, and let's say it is a clever one. The virals, throughout the book seen as savages, get a different look at themselves, and the group discovers that there are other people out there living... and some are just as evil and deadly as the virals.
I'm sorry if that spoiled too much, but if you read it simply for his style then it is worth it. Usually his kind of excessive use of descriptions annoy me, but with the new world that he makes, you want him to tell you what it looks and feels like.
This book isn't short, but it's worth every page. Please read.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Hunger, Part the Seventh (Sorry for the delay.)
(Still Chapter 8)
------------------------------------
“Wonderful. Just wonderful.”
“They couldn’t have at least finished their snack.”
“It’s not like we need more competition.”
“Hey, I guess we scared them off!” Laughs.
“I guess we did!”
I heard foot-steps and they were one. I was still in pain.
---------------------------
The pain continued for a week. I couldn’t feel any hunger, or discomfort. I couldn’t even feel the cold. My nervous system was obviously in shock; I couldn’t move any part of my body. I didn’t even feel like I was breathing.
That was because I wasn’t. When I woke up, I found myself feeling strong and confident, and not stiff at all. I ran instead walking that day. The weird thing was that I didn’t get tired, in fact, I ran all night, and all of the next day. It wasn’t a slow jog wither; I was sprinting at a pace had never ran before. I felt great.
There was also the fact that I wasn’t hungry. At all. I thought maybe it was just that my system was malfunctioning, and something was telling me that I was perfectly content. So, I looked for a few hours in a town. I found peaches, and I was delighted.
I sat down next to a garage with a metal door. I could feel each ridge, and every scratch and detail, even though the fabric of my shirt. My nervous system was most certainly not in shock anymore.
Aha! The can even had a tab. Things were getting better already. It was a rare occurrence, and it was much easier to open, and therefore enjoy. The lid slid off as if it wasn’t attached to the aluminum can. I pushed my dirty fingers inside and easily caught hold of the slippery peaches. The peach was thrown straight into my mouth.
The millisecond that the first atom of peach-juice touched my tongue, I threw up. It must have been some kind of shock for my tongue to have taste after so long. Then I looked at what had come out of my throat.
It wasn’t full chunks or bile; it was blood, and a whole lot of it. I had thrown up blood before, but it had never been so much and with nothing else.
What was happening to me?
“Oh, shit.” This is the best response I could think of in the event of the most important thing that would ever happened to me.
I was one of them now. I wondered what was going to happen now that I was... was... The word kept rolling in my mind, no matter how disgusting. I couldn't take it anymore; it was exploding in my brain. What I had become... was a vampire.
-------
All I could think about was my sister. What they had done to her. How they had murdered her. Now, that would be me. I had to kill myself. When I got hungry, I would kill, and I couldn’t live with that. I already can’t live with the fact that I will. I would have to kill myself. Once and for all.
And then I realized that I didn’t know how to kill myself. I couldn’t imagine that it would be easy as being human. There was no hesitation this time, because I could get hungry any time. I quickly took my knife and sliced my neck open.
I saw blood spurting out as I fell unconscious.
----
When I woke up, blood covered the floor, my clothes, and my neck, but there was no pain. There was no wound.
Great. Suicide was difficult when you were one of them. And then I thought of something that I had to do, something that would be disgusting and go against everything that I have thought before.
I was going to have to ask one of them how to commit suicide. Of course, looking at this as a human, it would be suicide to ask one of them such a question, but now it was different. I had to do it.
Just like they were on cue, I heard footsteps.
CHAPTER 9
It wasn’t the group that had done it to me. For some reason, I was thankful for this. There were just two of them. The taller one was wearing a pair of raggedy pants with nothing over his torso. His hair was long and black; it was as stiff as my heart was. The shorter one also had long hair, except wavier. Something was wrong with wavy hair that barely moved. He was fully clothed with what seemed to be an unfitting t-shirt, and jeans. Neither of them wore shoes.
“Hello,” the shorter one said to me.
“Hello.” I wondered why my voice wasn’t quite like theirs. Even after my death, I was asking meaningless questions.
“Hah, a new one! How delightful." They laughed at me as if I wasn’t there.
“What, does that make me inferior to you?” It sounded childish, but then again, just because I was different didn't make me any older.
They didn't answer, but instead laughed at me once again. The laugh was not they way my little brother laughed; it was disconcerting.
I shook my head at myself, "It doesn't matter. I'm not here to be insulted, I want answers."
“You should respect your elders, boy." I paused and stepped toward him, looking straight at his face. I'd had enough of laughter.
“And what could you do about it? Come on, kill me. I dare you." The tall one stared at me angrily, and the other one smiled.
“Yes, you are most certainly a new-born.”
---
We sat in the dark to talk. I could see the smallest detail on either of their faces. There was no fire, no dinner.
“So, when exactly were you initiated?”
“Initiated?”
“When one of us turned you into…one of us.”
“I don’t know… two days ago? I wouldn’t call it being ‘initiated.’” They both glanced at each other, understandingly.
“So, they didn’t choose you?” He was in awe.
“I was going to be a snack.” They both stared at me, wide-eyed. Something was wrong.
They both disappeared. I didn’t see them leave, even with my improved vision; they had experience.
I wasn't stupid enough to not realize that I had not entered their "world correctly. All I could think was, I'm supposed to be dead... So why am I alive?
----------
I was alone once more.
A bastard, searching for something to believe in. I had no one to talk to. I felt like shit; even they rejected me. The worst part was that I couldn’t escape it. I wasn’t even sure if time would erase my existence. I didn’t even feel like meditating anymore.
In short, I was bored.
----------------
The next morning it began. The part that I had been dreading from the moment of my “initiation.” I was hungry. I couldn’t explain it. I had a lust for something. I knew what it was, but I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for what I’d seen. It wasn’t very strong, though, more of a want than a need.
All I could do was ignore it and run.
That night, they came back. This time I heard another set of feet. I couldn’t believe that I was delighted by their presence. The third one looked identical to the tall one, right down to the clothing.
“Hello again," the short one greeted.
“What the hell was that yesterday?”
“I’m sorry… Most of us look down on those not chosen. Some take offense if others even talk to someone like you. We were just afraid of that,” the taller one said. I could somehow tell it was the one that I had seen the night before.
“I don’t get it. What are you afraid of?”
This time the third one spoke, “He still thinks we are immortal.” There was mutual understanding, “I’m sorry new-born, for we are not.”
My face lit up, so to speak.
“That doesn’t mean that any one of us could kill you.”
“I… I don’t understand.”
“We can be killed. I have heard about it numerous times before... In some places it is even common knowledge from what I hear.”
“But then why didn’t they kill me?”
“They probably didn’t care enough. I hear that is a lengthy, difficult process. Perhaps they didn't know how."
“So, you don’t know how? You don’t know how I can kill myself?”
“He hasn’t fed yet, either.”
“Yes, brother, he’s only one or two days old.”
“I can tell. So, boy, you wish to know the secret of death?”
“Yes.” The new one seemed to have some authority.
“Well, that’s too bad. You must wait. And it doesn't matter whether you can kill on a whim, it would be nearly impossible to kill yourself.”
“Well I can get someone to kill me.”
“What an ignorant little-“
“Eric! Do you not remember your youth?” That shut him up. “But don’t worry. You will eventually accept yourself as what you are. Everyone does.”
Accept myself? No, I could never accept one of them, so how could I accept myself?
“Not me! No, I could never- I will never be like you. You kill people, and I refuse to. I’ll find a way. I will! I will... You can’t stop me.
“I don’t need to.”
“Oh will you shut up. You think that you are so much wiser than me, just because you’ve been one of them for so long. Well, I’m not one of you. I am not.”
The face of the new one turned melancholy. As he turned away, he said,“Oh, but you are.”
-----------
I walked with them the following morning. I wondered why they didn’t run. When I asked them, they simply said, “We don’t like running.” I decided to just let it go.
We also went through a town. I was immediately thinking whether or not they were hungry.
“We will not feed today.” I was thankful for that.
“How long can you survive without ‘food’?”
“Forever.”
“I prefer answers that don’t contradict what I know.”
“I’ve seen our kind survive years without blood. You can tell how long someone has not fed for.”
“So, does that mean that I don’t need to feed?”
“Oh, you will sooner or later. It would take years of training to even be able to not feed, let alone be sane for any amount of time.”
“Way to crush my hopes," I said. Somehow, I was becoming comfortable around them... I was acting as if I was with my siblings.
“You asked me a question, and I answered it.”
“I believe that you started the conversation.” He looked at me blankly.
“Perhaps you have already gone insane.” His complete seriousness planted a seed of worry in my mind. I just have to suppress the growth of it.
----------------
The next day I felt a little bit hungrier, but it was still easily manageable. I put off the thoughts of what I was bound to do. I believed that I would have to feed eventually, unless I found a way to kill myself.
“I believe that I can last one more day without feeding, but tomorrow, I hold no promises. I have not drank in two weeks; that is much more than usual.”
“Can’t we at least find people that aren’t… I don’t know, children? Innocent?”
“The guilt will be the same. Especially for us, but for now we can spare children. They are rare anyway.”
Why was the newer one the only one who talked to me now? Perhaps it was because of this “initiation” thing, but I though that was a damn stupid reason.
“We don’t like to associate ourselves with your kind. It is not safe.” I delighted in the fact that they didn’t consider me one of them. Though, it’s not like I would call myself “lucky.”
“That’s fine with me.”
I still didn’t understand how I was surviving only on the blood that was in me. I wasn’t breathing; that was something that I had recently noticed. My sister once taught me a vague lesson on the circulatory system. I never found out how she knew so much about the world. I never would.
“That is why we feed. To get more oxygenated blood. We must discard of the set that we have every once in awhile. I am pulling all that I can out of this set. That is why I feel weak and insist on walking”
“Excuse me?” No answer, but he was answering my thoughts. He didn't They seemed to only like answering the questions in my head.
I had a new thought, “Wait, so if I rest, I won’t need to feed for a longer time?”
“Do not think that you can understand everything about your bodily functions so easily! You have new instincts, new reflexes. You won’t notice them until you are truly hungry, as I am. We must keep walking. I am barely in control of my legs. They are on pursuit.”
“But you promised-“
“Instincts do not listen to promises! You need to stop pretending that life like this is simple! You are one of us. YOU ARE A VAMPIRE.” The others looked around nervously.
“You know to never say that, Augustus!”
“Do not say that word. Please, do not use that word.”
That word was a disgrace to mankind, and everything else. My sister told me of a time when it was used leisurely. No one took it seriously, then they did something. No one knew what it was, but they did something, and all of the humans went away, except a few. “They went away,” she told me. “They just… went away.”
((I read through this one closely, and I edited quite a bit of it. I must apologize, because I'm finding many flaws in grammar and writing style, so bare with me. This isn't the final copy... Not even close. There is much more typed out, but with minor editing and having to put the italics in, it takes a long time to post.))
------------------------------------
“Wonderful. Just wonderful.”
“They couldn’t have at least finished their snack.”
“It’s not like we need more competition.”
“Hey, I guess we scared them off!” Laughs.
“I guess we did!”
I heard foot-steps and they were one. I was still in pain.
---------------------------
The pain continued for a week. I couldn’t feel any hunger, or discomfort. I couldn’t even feel the cold. My nervous system was obviously in shock; I couldn’t move any part of my body. I didn’t even feel like I was breathing.
That was because I wasn’t. When I woke up, I found myself feeling strong and confident, and not stiff at all. I ran instead walking that day. The weird thing was that I didn’t get tired, in fact, I ran all night, and all of the next day. It wasn’t a slow jog wither; I was sprinting at a pace had never ran before. I felt great.
There was also the fact that I wasn’t hungry. At all. I thought maybe it was just that my system was malfunctioning, and something was telling me that I was perfectly content. So, I looked for a few hours in a town. I found peaches, and I was delighted.
I sat down next to a garage with a metal door. I could feel each ridge, and every scratch and detail, even though the fabric of my shirt. My nervous system was most certainly not in shock anymore.
Aha! The can even had a tab. Things were getting better already. It was a rare occurrence, and it was much easier to open, and therefore enjoy. The lid slid off as if it wasn’t attached to the aluminum can. I pushed my dirty fingers inside and easily caught hold of the slippery peaches. The peach was thrown straight into my mouth.
The millisecond that the first atom of peach-juice touched my tongue, I threw up. It must have been some kind of shock for my tongue to have taste after so long. Then I looked at what had come out of my throat.
It wasn’t full chunks or bile; it was blood, and a whole lot of it. I had thrown up blood before, but it had never been so much and with nothing else.
What was happening to me?
“Oh, shit.” This is the best response I could think of in the event of the most important thing that would ever happened to me.
I was one of them now. I wondered what was going to happen now that I was... was... The word kept rolling in my mind, no matter how disgusting. I couldn't take it anymore; it was exploding in my brain. What I had become... was a vampire.
-------
All I could think about was my sister. What they had done to her. How they had murdered her. Now, that would be me. I had to kill myself. When I got hungry, I would kill, and I couldn’t live with that. I already can’t live with the fact that I will. I would have to kill myself. Once and for all.
And then I realized that I didn’t know how to kill myself. I couldn’t imagine that it would be easy as being human. There was no hesitation this time, because I could get hungry any time. I quickly took my knife and sliced my neck open.
I saw blood spurting out as I fell unconscious.
----
When I woke up, blood covered the floor, my clothes, and my neck, but there was no pain. There was no wound.
Great. Suicide was difficult when you were one of them. And then I thought of something that I had to do, something that would be disgusting and go against everything that I have thought before.
I was going to have to ask one of them how to commit suicide. Of course, looking at this as a human, it would be suicide to ask one of them such a question, but now it was different. I had to do it.
Just like they were on cue, I heard footsteps.
CHAPTER 9
It wasn’t the group that had done it to me. For some reason, I was thankful for this. There were just two of them. The taller one was wearing a pair of raggedy pants with nothing over his torso. His hair was long and black; it was as stiff as my heart was. The shorter one also had long hair, except wavier. Something was wrong with wavy hair that barely moved. He was fully clothed with what seemed to be an unfitting t-shirt, and jeans. Neither of them wore shoes.
“Hello,” the shorter one said to me.
“Hello.” I wondered why my voice wasn’t quite like theirs. Even after my death, I was asking meaningless questions.
“Hah, a new one! How delightful." They laughed at me as if I wasn’t there.
“What, does that make me inferior to you?” It sounded childish, but then again, just because I was different didn't make me any older.
They didn't answer, but instead laughed at me once again. The laugh was not they way my little brother laughed; it was disconcerting.
I shook my head at myself, "It doesn't matter. I'm not here to be insulted, I want answers."
“You should respect your elders, boy." I paused and stepped toward him, looking straight at his face. I'd had enough of laughter.
“And what could you do about it? Come on, kill me. I dare you." The tall one stared at me angrily, and the other one smiled.
“Yes, you are most certainly a new-born.”
---
We sat in the dark to talk. I could see the smallest detail on either of their faces. There was no fire, no dinner.
“So, when exactly were you initiated?”
“Initiated?”
“When one of us turned you into…one of us.”
“I don’t know… two days ago? I wouldn’t call it being ‘initiated.’” They both glanced at each other, understandingly.
“So, they didn’t choose you?” He was in awe.
“I was going to be a snack.” They both stared at me, wide-eyed. Something was wrong.
They both disappeared. I didn’t see them leave, even with my improved vision; they had experience.
I wasn't stupid enough to not realize that I had not entered their "world correctly. All I could think was, I'm supposed to be dead... So why am I alive?
----------
I was alone once more.
A bastard, searching for something to believe in. I had no one to talk to. I felt like shit; even they rejected me. The worst part was that I couldn’t escape it. I wasn’t even sure if time would erase my existence. I didn’t even feel like meditating anymore.
In short, I was bored.
----------------
The next morning it began. The part that I had been dreading from the moment of my “initiation.” I was hungry. I couldn’t explain it. I had a lust for something. I knew what it was, but I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for what I’d seen. It wasn’t very strong, though, more of a want than a need.
All I could do was ignore it and run.
That night, they came back. This time I heard another set of feet. I couldn’t believe that I was delighted by their presence. The third one looked identical to the tall one, right down to the clothing.
“Hello again," the short one greeted.
“What the hell was that yesterday?”
“I’m sorry… Most of us look down on those not chosen. Some take offense if others even talk to someone like you. We were just afraid of that,” the taller one said. I could somehow tell it was the one that I had seen the night before.
“I don’t get it. What are you afraid of?”
This time the third one spoke, “He still thinks we are immortal.” There was mutual understanding, “I’m sorry new-born, for we are not.”
My face lit up, so to speak.
“That doesn’t mean that any one of us could kill you.”
“I… I don’t understand.”
“We can be killed. I have heard about it numerous times before... In some places it is even common knowledge from what I hear.”
“But then why didn’t they kill me?”
“They probably didn’t care enough. I hear that is a lengthy, difficult process. Perhaps they didn't know how."
“So, you don’t know how? You don’t know how I can kill myself?”
“He hasn’t fed yet, either.”
“Yes, brother, he’s only one or two days old.”
“I can tell. So, boy, you wish to know the secret of death?”
“Yes.” The new one seemed to have some authority.
“Well, that’s too bad. You must wait. And it doesn't matter whether you can kill on a whim, it would be nearly impossible to kill yourself.”
“Well I can get someone to kill me.”
“What an ignorant little-“
“Eric! Do you not remember your youth?” That shut him up. “But don’t worry. You will eventually accept yourself as what you are. Everyone does.”
Accept myself? No, I could never accept one of them, so how could I accept myself?
“Not me! No, I could never- I will never be like you. You kill people, and I refuse to. I’ll find a way. I will! I will... You can’t stop me.
“I don’t need to.”
“Oh will you shut up. You think that you are so much wiser than me, just because you’ve been one of them for so long. Well, I’m not one of you. I am not.”
The face of the new one turned melancholy. As he turned away, he said,“Oh, but you are.”
-----------
I walked with them the following morning. I wondered why they didn’t run. When I asked them, they simply said, “We don’t like running.” I decided to just let it go.
We also went through a town. I was immediately thinking whether or not they were hungry.
“We will not feed today.” I was thankful for that.
“How long can you survive without ‘food’?”
“Forever.”
“I prefer answers that don’t contradict what I know.”
“I’ve seen our kind survive years without blood. You can tell how long someone has not fed for.”
“So, does that mean that I don’t need to feed?”
“Oh, you will sooner or later. It would take years of training to even be able to not feed, let alone be sane for any amount of time.”
“Way to crush my hopes," I said. Somehow, I was becoming comfortable around them... I was acting as if I was with my siblings.
“You asked me a question, and I answered it.”
“I believe that you started the conversation.” He looked at me blankly.
“Perhaps you have already gone insane.” His complete seriousness planted a seed of worry in my mind. I just have to suppress the growth of it.
----------------
The next day I felt a little bit hungrier, but it was still easily manageable. I put off the thoughts of what I was bound to do. I believed that I would have to feed eventually, unless I found a way to kill myself.
“I believe that I can last one more day without feeding, but tomorrow, I hold no promises. I have not drank in two weeks; that is much more than usual.”
“Can’t we at least find people that aren’t… I don’t know, children? Innocent?”
“The guilt will be the same. Especially for us, but for now we can spare children. They are rare anyway.”
Why was the newer one the only one who talked to me now? Perhaps it was because of this “initiation” thing, but I though that was a damn stupid reason.
“We don’t like to associate ourselves with your kind. It is not safe.” I delighted in the fact that they didn’t consider me one of them. Though, it’s not like I would call myself “lucky.”
“That’s fine with me.”
I still didn’t understand how I was surviving only on the blood that was in me. I wasn’t breathing; that was something that I had recently noticed. My sister once taught me a vague lesson on the circulatory system. I never found out how she knew so much about the world. I never would.
“That is why we feed. To get more oxygenated blood. We must discard of the set that we have every once in awhile. I am pulling all that I can out of this set. That is why I feel weak and insist on walking”
“Excuse me?” No answer, but he was answering my thoughts. He didn't They seemed to only like answering the questions in my head.
I had a new thought, “Wait, so if I rest, I won’t need to feed for a longer time?”
“Do not think that you can understand everything about your bodily functions so easily! You have new instincts, new reflexes. You won’t notice them until you are truly hungry, as I am. We must keep walking. I am barely in control of my legs. They are on pursuit.”
“But you promised-“
“Instincts do not listen to promises! You need to stop pretending that life like this is simple! You are one of us. YOU ARE A VAMPIRE.” The others looked around nervously.
“You know to never say that, Augustus!”
“Do not say that word. Please, do not use that word.”
That word was a disgrace to mankind, and everything else. My sister told me of a time when it was used leisurely. No one took it seriously, then they did something. No one knew what it was, but they did something, and all of the humans went away, except a few. “They went away,” she told me. “They just… went away.”
((I read through this one closely, and I edited quite a bit of it. I must apologize, because I'm finding many flaws in grammar and writing style, so bare with me. This isn't the final copy... Not even close. There is much more typed out, but with minor editing and having to put the italics in, it takes a long time to post.))
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Book Review #2 Little Brother
Little Brother
This book is not for everyone. It has aspects of every genre (except fantasy), and it hits home to modern controversy, security vs. privacy.
It tells the story of a 17-year-old techno-rebel who lives in a world where schools give out free laptops, but monitor your every action. Marcus, the protagonist, is a hacker. He finds his way around surveillance systems in his school, simply for the reason of having privacy. Cameras can recognize how you walk, so he puts gravel in his shoes so that every step will change with the way the gravel moves. Many of the things he does he explains thoroughly. Some of these things are fictional, but take root in modern technology. Some things are entirely true, making this novel not only enjoyable, but informative.
There is a game in this book called Harajuki Fun Madness, in which you must find clues in cyberspace and in real life. He cuts class one day in order to get a head start on this game with his "team." While he is out of class, a terrorist attack occurs on the Bay Bridge and what is called the "BART." During the frenzy, one of his friends is stabbed. They try to wave down an ambulance or a police car, but once something finally stops, it turns out to be a military truck. He and his team are taken away for harsh interrogation. When he finally gets home, he is afraid to tell his story, worried that the Department of Homeland Security might take him and his friends back into illegal custody.
As it dawns on him that security has been amped up in San Francisco, where he lives. It was already intrusive, now it's downright Orwellian. The gov't has camera on every street, and the passcards used to get on things like Subways have sensors that allow the DHS to track any "suspicious movements." Marcus begins trouble by switching around these sensors/codes so it seems that several people are moving suspiciously. This causes a jam in the city, but it only causes for more enforcement in San Francisco.
As the story moves on, the real point of the novel becomes clear. Would you rather be extremely safe but monitored, controlled, and suspected as terrorists constantly, or have less security but more privacy? This is the theme. The protagonist is for the latter, while it seems that everyone around him thinks otherwise.
As m1k3y, Marcus's username, becomes more and more well-known, he wages war on the DHS, to find his friend, Darryl, still in illegal prison, and to fix the mess that the US is in.
The book doesn't have to have any political meaning for you, it's a thriller. It thrills. There are steamy love scenes, and there are pages devoted to talking about cryptology... DNS servers... hacking, and friendship.
Read this book if you're a geek, and read this book if you're thinking of being one. Also, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading, but likes to have a book that makes you think.
Enjoy!
This book is not for everyone. It has aspects of every genre (except fantasy), and it hits home to modern controversy, security vs. privacy.
It tells the story of a 17-year-old techno-rebel who lives in a world where schools give out free laptops, but monitor your every action. Marcus, the protagonist, is a hacker. He finds his way around surveillance systems in his school, simply for the reason of having privacy. Cameras can recognize how you walk, so he puts gravel in his shoes so that every step will change with the way the gravel moves. Many of the things he does he explains thoroughly. Some of these things are fictional, but take root in modern technology. Some things are entirely true, making this novel not only enjoyable, but informative.
There is a game in this book called Harajuki Fun Madness, in which you must find clues in cyberspace and in real life. He cuts class one day in order to get a head start on this game with his "team." While he is out of class, a terrorist attack occurs on the Bay Bridge and what is called the "BART." During the frenzy, one of his friends is stabbed. They try to wave down an ambulance or a police car, but once something finally stops, it turns out to be a military truck. He and his team are taken away for harsh interrogation. When he finally gets home, he is afraid to tell his story, worried that the Department of Homeland Security might take him and his friends back into illegal custody.
As it dawns on him that security has been amped up in San Francisco, where he lives. It was already intrusive, now it's downright Orwellian. The gov't has camera on every street, and the passcards used to get on things like Subways have sensors that allow the DHS to track any "suspicious movements." Marcus begins trouble by switching around these sensors/codes so it seems that several people are moving suspiciously. This causes a jam in the city, but it only causes for more enforcement in San Francisco.
As the story moves on, the real point of the novel becomes clear. Would you rather be extremely safe but monitored, controlled, and suspected as terrorists constantly, or have less security but more privacy? This is the theme. The protagonist is for the latter, while it seems that everyone around him thinks otherwise.
As m1k3y, Marcus's username, becomes more and more well-known, he wages war on the DHS, to find his friend, Darryl, still in illegal prison, and to fix the mess that the US is in.
The book doesn't have to have any political meaning for you, it's a thriller. It thrills. There are steamy love scenes, and there are pages devoted to talking about cryptology... DNS servers... hacking, and friendship.
Read this book if you're a geek, and read this book if you're thinking of being one. Also, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading, but likes to have a book that makes you think.
Enjoy!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Book Review #1 The Book Thief
The Book Thief
I've decided to blog about each book I read. Obviously, this is the review of The Book Thief.
The setting is Nazi Germany, starting in the late 1930s. The main character is Liesel Meminger. In the first scene, well, one of the first scenes, she witnesses her brother die on a crowded train. At his funeral, she steals The Gravedigger's Handbook. At the time she cannot read.
She is put into a foster home, in which she falls in love with her new Mama and Papa, especially her Papa. She slowly starts to fit in, playing soccer, joining Hitler Youth (for girls), learning how to read. She has recurring nightmares, so every night she'll wake up and learn how to read with her Papa and read out of her first stolen book. She gets in fights and becomes great friends with a boy named Rudy Steiner. There are several other minor characters and setting aspects, but that's as specific as you should know before reading.
She then steals a book from a book burning, making that book forbidden. Nevertheless, she and her father read it. Several other developments occur. Then, Papa, Hans Hubermann, accepts the son of a fallen comrade from the Great War to hid in his basement, a Jew. At first Liesel is puzzled, at this point only eleven years old. Max Vandenburg, a Jew, is very gracious of the family. Over time he and Liesel develop a solid friendship and he paints over pages of Mein Kampf so that he can write a book for her.
That's about as far as I will go. Needless to say, it's Nazi Germany, on a poor street named after Heaven. War seeps its way into her life and things go awry. Liesel develops extremely throughout the novel, and ends up writing her own book (The Book Thief).
This is not a book about the Holocaust. This is a book about poor Nazi Germany, and yes, the racism against Jews does have an impact on their life. It is a heartbreaking story of love, friendship, and hardship. Even the mean words that the main characters say to each other are out of love. There isn't much disappointment that can come from the book. It's a beautiful piece of literature, that really is an instant classic. I can imagine talking about it in a classroom.
It's told through the point of view of Death, something else that makes this book one of a kind. It provides unique descriptions of scenes and the fascination of the job of Death. He constantly talks about the colors of days, which provide beautiful scenery.
Liesel and her friends from Himmel(Heaven) Street play soccer when they get the chance. This symbolizes simply enjoying life, and it really is a lesson that you can find joy in the sorriest of situations.
All in all, it's a story of perseverance of a girl up to her teenage years. She provides an example (fictional or not!) of how to live life, to keep on moving no matter how hard things get. She endures so many hardships and the way she keeps on living.
It's great. Read it, I beg of you. Surely your children will be reading it in their classrooms, so you might as well read it now. Be prepared with some tissues for the last fifty pages though.
Enjoy!
I've decided to blog about each book I read. Obviously, this is the review of The Book Thief.
The setting is Nazi Germany, starting in the late 1930s. The main character is Liesel Meminger. In the first scene, well, one of the first scenes, she witnesses her brother die on a crowded train. At his funeral, she steals The Gravedigger's Handbook. At the time she cannot read.
She is put into a foster home, in which she falls in love with her new Mama and Papa, especially her Papa. She slowly starts to fit in, playing soccer, joining Hitler Youth (for girls), learning how to read. She has recurring nightmares, so every night she'll wake up and learn how to read with her Papa and read out of her first stolen book. She gets in fights and becomes great friends with a boy named Rudy Steiner. There are several other minor characters and setting aspects, but that's as specific as you should know before reading.
She then steals a book from a book burning, making that book forbidden. Nevertheless, she and her father read it. Several other developments occur. Then, Papa, Hans Hubermann, accepts the son of a fallen comrade from the Great War to hid in his basement, a Jew. At first Liesel is puzzled, at this point only eleven years old. Max Vandenburg, a Jew, is very gracious of the family. Over time he and Liesel develop a solid friendship and he paints over pages of Mein Kampf so that he can write a book for her.
That's about as far as I will go. Needless to say, it's Nazi Germany, on a poor street named after Heaven. War seeps its way into her life and things go awry. Liesel develops extremely throughout the novel, and ends up writing her own book (The Book Thief).
This is not a book about the Holocaust. This is a book about poor Nazi Germany, and yes, the racism against Jews does have an impact on their life. It is a heartbreaking story of love, friendship, and hardship. Even the mean words that the main characters say to each other are out of love. There isn't much disappointment that can come from the book. It's a beautiful piece of literature, that really is an instant classic. I can imagine talking about it in a classroom.
It's told through the point of view of Death, something else that makes this book one of a kind. It provides unique descriptions of scenes and the fascination of the job of Death. He constantly talks about the colors of days, which provide beautiful scenery.
Liesel and her friends from Himmel(Heaven) Street play soccer when they get the chance. This symbolizes simply enjoying life, and it really is a lesson that you can find joy in the sorriest of situations.
All in all, it's a story of perseverance of a girl up to her teenage years. She provides an example (fictional or not!) of how to live life, to keep on moving no matter how hard things get. She endures so many hardships and the way she keeps on living.
It's great. Read it, I beg of you. Surely your children will be reading it in their classrooms, so you might as well read it now. Be prepared with some tissues for the last fifty pages though.
Enjoy!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Hunger, Part the Sixth
CHAPTER 8
Where was her body?
I searched everywhere. Why would anyone or anything want a lifeless hollow sack? I didn’t know, but this benefitted me. I would have to discard her body, because I would have not been able to let it rot away and be eaten by animals.
She was gone, and I was left alone to ponder. I walked for that day. I did not eat. I did not rest. I finally sat down when the moon was highest and slept.
I woke up to hunger, so I ate. Then I bean to walk again, and this time I passed a town.
“DON’T YOU DIE.” “SUICIDE IS FOR QUITTERS” “THE DEAD ARE BLESSED.”
I had to hide from them that day. I found that it was easier o hide in a town, alone. I didn’t have to worry about someone else blowing my cover.
“I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
That was all they had to say today. I found myself actually disappointed by the insignificant conversation.
I had to find a meaning, a purpose. What was it anymore? I didn’t know. To live? To eat? To die?
I was ashamed of what I was. Who knew that I would become dull, and meaningless? Perhaps I was before, but at least I was distracted. My goal then was to find a purpose, and if I should fail, then I would kill myself. It was as simple as that.
It was probably four months into my meditation. I felt like I could almost taste my purpose. I knew it was there, hiding. One day, I was sitting by a stream, and I was sitting in lotus position. I had learned this from my sister.
It was obvious that I wouldn’t reach it that day, but every second of thinking made my purpose closer to me, so I caught a small fish and ate. That would be good enough for a while. While my mind wandered and wrapped itself around concepts that I tried to understand. I heard something. Something so quiet, that I would have never been able to hear it normally. Then I heard it again, and again, and again, more constantly and more loudly.
So I opened my eyes, and instantly the sound was gone. I dismissed it as an imagination of my sub-conscious. It had happened before, hearing things. While I was meditating I thought of a lot of things, and sometimes those things made sounds.
But this was different. It only took me three seconds to get back into my state of purpose-searching, and once that time was up, it came back. I opened my eyes once again, and it was gone. Something was still there. Voices.
I instantly hid. I had a purpose. I just didn’t know what it was.
“I smell someone.”
“You’re imagining things…”
“No, you’re just not paying attention.”
“Or maybe he’s trying to save a life.”
“Now now, I didn’t say that.”
“But I really do smell something.”
“Oh, now I do!” The hungry one laughed, “Don’t tell me that you can’t smell it.”
“I don’t smell a thing.” I rather liked this third one, at least compared to the others.
“You can starve, I’m going to eat” And then I remembered something that I forgot. I supposed that I hadn’t dirtied up for about twenty-seven days.
I felt a hand. They were obviously much closer than I thought they were, or faster.
They pulled me into an opening. That was that. I accepted that I didn’t have a purpose, and that god was showing me that the right thing to do was die. At least I understood.
“I’ve smelt this one before!”
“Yes… yes!” You’re the human who we smelled even before Hollywood! Now that I think about it, you were there too! You’ve been begging for death a long time, my boy.”
“And now you get it, you lucky, lucky boy!” I could see the one in the back. What I saw surprised me more than I’ve ever been. He was a child. His skin was as pale as the moon, and his hair was tied back in a pony-tail. His clothes were similar to what I was wearing, and he was looking away.
“Jon, you want some?” I wondered why they had to ask while I was still alive. For fun, or because the blood would “go bad.”
“Just do it.”
And so they began. There was actually no pain, until the venom crawled in. I started having convulsions, and then I decided to go into a trance. I tried to block it all out, and I succeeded. I felt no pain, but I heard something. Foot-steps.
“I SMELL BLOO-OOD!” Hissing and cackling could be heard even with my eyes open. Instantly I felt some kind of burden lift off me, and I was alone. Then the real pain came.
((May be awhile for more... Gotta type this shiz up. Well, krista does, and I have to finish. Sooooooooon the whole thing will be done! *squee* Please, someone but Madi post -_- Not that I don't want her too. I'll post it just for you Madi, but I might as well send you an e-mail!))
Where was her body?
I searched everywhere. Why would anyone or anything want a lifeless hollow sack? I didn’t know, but this benefitted me. I would have to discard her body, because I would have not been able to let it rot away and be eaten by animals.
She was gone, and I was left alone to ponder. I walked for that day. I did not eat. I did not rest. I finally sat down when the moon was highest and slept.
I woke up to hunger, so I ate. Then I bean to walk again, and this time I passed a town.
“DON’T YOU DIE.” “SUICIDE IS FOR QUITTERS” “THE DEAD ARE BLESSED.”
I had to hide from them that day. I found that it was easier o hide in a town, alone. I didn’t have to worry about someone else blowing my cover.
“I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
That was all they had to say today. I found myself actually disappointed by the insignificant conversation.
I had to find a meaning, a purpose. What was it anymore? I didn’t know. To live? To eat? To die?
I was ashamed of what I was. Who knew that I would become dull, and meaningless? Perhaps I was before, but at least I was distracted. My goal then was to find a purpose, and if I should fail, then I would kill myself. It was as simple as that.
It was probably four months into my meditation. I felt like I could almost taste my purpose. I knew it was there, hiding. One day, I was sitting by a stream, and I was sitting in lotus position. I had learned this from my sister.
It was obvious that I wouldn’t reach it that day, but every second of thinking made my purpose closer to me, so I caught a small fish and ate. That would be good enough for a while. While my mind wandered and wrapped itself around concepts that I tried to understand. I heard something. Something so quiet, that I would have never been able to hear it normally. Then I heard it again, and again, and again, more constantly and more loudly.
So I opened my eyes, and instantly the sound was gone. I dismissed it as an imagination of my sub-conscious. It had happened before, hearing things. While I was meditating I thought of a lot of things, and sometimes those things made sounds.
But this was different. It only took me three seconds to get back into my state of purpose-searching, and once that time was up, it came back. I opened my eyes once again, and it was gone. Something was still there. Voices.
I instantly hid. I had a purpose. I just didn’t know what it was.
“I smell someone.”
“You’re imagining things…”
“No, you’re just not paying attention.”
“Or maybe he’s trying to save a life.”
“Now now, I didn’t say that.”
“But I really do smell something.”
“Oh, now I do!” The hungry one laughed, “Don’t tell me that you can’t smell it.”
“I don’t smell a thing.” I rather liked this third one, at least compared to the others.
“You can starve, I’m going to eat” And then I remembered something that I forgot. I supposed that I hadn’t dirtied up for about twenty-seven days.
I felt a hand. They were obviously much closer than I thought they were, or faster.
They pulled me into an opening. That was that. I accepted that I didn’t have a purpose, and that god was showing me that the right thing to do was die. At least I understood.
“I’ve smelt this one before!”
“Yes… yes!” You’re the human who we smelled even before Hollywood! Now that I think about it, you were there too! You’ve been begging for death a long time, my boy.”
“And now you get it, you lucky, lucky boy!” I could see the one in the back. What I saw surprised me more than I’ve ever been. He was a child. His skin was as pale as the moon, and his hair was tied back in a pony-tail. His clothes were similar to what I was wearing, and he was looking away.
“Jon, you want some?” I wondered why they had to ask while I was still alive. For fun, or because the blood would “go bad.”
“Just do it.”
And so they began. There was actually no pain, until the venom crawled in. I started having convulsions, and then I decided to go into a trance. I tried to block it all out, and I succeeded. I felt no pain, but I heard something. Foot-steps.
“I SMELL BLOO-OOD!” Hissing and cackling could be heard even with my eyes open. Instantly I felt some kind of burden lift off me, and I was alone. Then the real pain came.
((May be awhile for more... Gotta type this shiz up. Well, krista does, and I have to finish. Sooooooooon the whole thing will be done! *squee* Please, someone but Madi post -_- Not that I don't want her too. I'll post it just for you Madi, but I might as well send you an e-mail!))
Hunger, Part the Fifth
CHAPTER 6
They were drinking from a pond when I did find them. They seemed healthy, well fed. At least, for what we usually are.
My brother was cupping his hands messily, and dropping the water before it reached his mouth. He had resorted to plunging his head in the water. My sister was looking around. She was being protective, as she always was. God bless her for it.
“Hey, someone’s here. Let’s go.”
“But I’m thirsty.”
“Yeah, well, you’re gonna’ be dead if you don’t stop drinking right now.”
“Stop. It’s just me.” What a beautiful family reunion!
“Oh.” That was all she could say? At least that was better than my brother. He just wiped the smile off his face, and put his head back under the water.
“Come on. Don’t act like you didn’t- “
“You know that you can’t stay with us.” What?
“But-“
“He won’t be OK the next time you blow up. And don’t say you won’t, because we both know what eventually he is going to do something so idiotic that you just can’t resist-“
“It is my turn to speak,” she needed to listen to me. “We can’t separate. We will die.”
“How can I let you just destroy his feelings and expectations like you did!?”
My brother took a few seconds to breathe.
“I will not do that again.”
“Did you not just hear-“
“It is my turn to speak, dammit! Keeping us separated will destroy his feelings worse than me saying a couple of wrongful sentences! He needs to suck it up! This is not a game!”
“What, you don’t think I know that?”
“He needs to know that”
I shook my head and waited for my brother to come up for a breath. When he finally cam up, I tapped his shoulder. He looked back, and then began to get ready to go back under.
“Stay,” I demanded.
“Why?”
“Do you always have to ask that-,” I had to revise my words, “I don’t always have an answer to that question. But I can answer it with another question.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“How are you?” He stared back at me for what seemed like an hour.
That question was almost banned from our code of language.
“I-I’m fine, you?”
“I am also fine. So, I have something that I need to talk to you about.” He was completely baffled.
“Sure. What is it?”
“You know that we might die, right? Any day, any time?”
“Yes.”
“And you know that this isn’t a game, right?”
“Yes, I know.”
“And most importantly, do you love us?”
“More or less.”
-----------------------------------------
Everything was normal again. We still wandered, ate in portions, and talked. Something was different, though. It was nothing noticeable by the outside, we were still just as alert as before, in fact more than ever. Something about the pond made us closer, stronger. We trusted each other, and I was no longer the leader. I had as much power as my brother did, and so did my sister.
We were one, one family, one group, one person. That was something that was non-existent before; I never thought we would be so close.
“Well, what are we doing today?” My brother was becoming bored with this lifestyle.
“I suppose we could do what you want to do.” My sister and I exchanged quick glances.
“Or maybe we could do what you want to do.” Nobody ever asked me what I wanted to do. It was quite the shock; it took me a second to answer.
“Um, we could… get some fish and have a feast tonight!” I answered an unusual question with an unusual answer. As I’ve said before, we never had feasts. I didn’t even know where I had leaned that learned that word, as it was so distant, unreal.
They stared, and then my brother said, “Well, let’s go find a pond!”
-------------------------------
I had always wondered why animals seemed to be thriving so well. The human race had been almost completely wiped out, and the animals had been perfectly fine. At least as far as I could tell, when humans were still dominant, animals were kept in pens and cages, and their birth patterns were probably monitored. A guess was all this was, but a very good guess, I thought.
We had found a pond with beautiful water, and you could see the fish swimming on the bottom.
“Look!”
“Yes, I see them.” Now we just needed a way to get them. I thought that the easiest way would be to sharpen some sticks with my knife and stab them. Of course, this wasn’t as easy as I thought it was.
“We could… make them come over here.”
“How?”
“I don’t know… with food or something.”
It turns out that my little brother had some good ideas. We caught three fish, and we were wondering how we would cook them. We decided that we would just stick it over the fire like we usually did with meat.
My sister was the only one who could actually start a fire. We didn’t know when or where she learned how, but it had saved us before. Of course, it could also give away our location if we were not careful. I had to make sure that we would snuff it out before night. My siblings enjoyed the warmth and light, but the dark and cold kept us hidden from them.
----------------------------------
They had to come on that night, didn’t they? The one night where we could indulge ourselves in food and together-ness.
“Get behind the trees. I’ll put out the fire.” They were obviously being careless. I could hear them coming, and they still didn’t know where we were. Thank god.
“I smell some smoke.”
“And fish.”
“We just ate.” The third one was being just as defiant as always.
“I’m still hungry.”
“I doubt that.” I sensed and eye-roll moment.
I hated that I couldn’t hear them coming near our hiding places. They most have gotten more careful. I wasn’t even sure where my brother and sister were. I didn’t hear another sound for that entire night. I couldn’t sleep; I couldn’t think. The night passed by quickly, and by morning I was hungry and tired.
When I finally thought it to be safe, I stood up to find my muscles to be cramped, and my joints might as well have been squeaking. It still felt good to stand up.
My first goal was to find my brother and sister.
“Rice-cake!” This was our code word for meeting up/coming out. I didn't eveb think my sister knew what it meant.
There was no answer of movement or words. I did not panic; things like had happened before. I searched the surrounding area.
Nothing. No one. And then I saw it.
They had been dragged. Beaten. Drops of blood left a trail towards them, and I was going to follow. What choice did I have? Without them I was nothing.
CHAPTER 7
The trail of blood stopped once I found the road. I had to decide which way I would go next. I decided left. The blood seemed to lean that way before it disappeared. There wasn’t any confidence in my decision. They could have turned around just as easily as staying on the path that I took. But it was all I had, so I went with it. I spent four days like this.
On the fifth day I gave up. They were gone, dead probably. Why should I exert myself to find corpses? Why should I risk my life in order to discover that I’m all alone, rather than accept with the slight possibility of hope? This was my train of thought, and I went with it.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. Dirty up. Eat. Find food. Sleep. What else was there? Nothing. I was alone.
---------------------------------------------
I was thinking of killing myself. What else was there to do? My life was meaningless, and I would rather not let my blood become a snack for them. That kind of purpose is worse than having one in the first place.
There had to be a place where blood would pour out of my body, into the soil. I wanted my body to become the earth, not food. I had been testing spots on my body. My wrists bled largely, and I could only guess that my face had many vessels, especially my neck. When I sat down and thought about it (which I did a lot), all of the blood had to get through my neck, up to my head. There simply had to be a mass of tubes doing that job. Also, they always seemed to drink from there. So my disturbing decision became that I would use my knife, and cut open my neck as largely as possible.
Fun thoughts to have, no?
I only had to decide when and where. There was also the matter of leaving some kind of note behind, most likely in graffiti. Where would I get something to write with? I supposed that I had to carve it into the wall, which would mean that it would have to be short and sweet.
-----------------------------
I spent hours and days and possibly months deciding what I should write. I had found that my knife would make a nice enough mark to outlast simple rain-wash. But what to write?
I spent another month thinking about it.
And another.
So after my three month meditation, I could only think of one thing to say, and it took me a few days to finally write it out on the wall. It dwarfed all the other writings. It truly was a statement.
“LIFE SUCKS”
-------------------------------------------------
It was the day of my suicide attempt, hopefully a success. I thought that really nothing could go wrong. Even if they came to me, I would die and join my family. The aspect of not-being-food would simply be ignored, which wasn’t the worst thing to be lost in this. If my words disappeared, or my family watched me as I cut my neck open, then this would be failure.
But I wouldn’t care, ‘cause I’d be dead.
It was actually quite the beautiful day, and I even thought of enjoying it before my final hours, but too much preparation! I mean, I had to think about it, and think about it, and even think about it! It was quite tiring.
I had the knife in hand all day. Waiting for it to come up to my neck and-
There were screams, and I ran off to find the source.
--------------------------------------------------
It was my sister. She was on the ground. Why wasn’t she bleeding? There was a gash in her neck.
“Luke…”
“What happened?”
“Th-they were keeping us…. Too full… they were ready… and then… and then…”
“Did they drink it all?”
“I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T KNOW. LUCIUS. HELP ME.” I took off my shirt and put it to the gash, and then I remembered that there wouldn’t be a blood flow.
“Help… Help…” What could I do? There was no blood.
“Help, Lucius, Help.”
“JUST GIVE ME A DAMN SECOND TO THINK.”
“Help me.”
I thought about anything and everything. Nothing I knew could help her. You’d think that after all of the experiences I’ve been through, I would know how to help.
She would have to die. I put on a reluctant smile on my face as tears poured out of my eye sockets. She did not deserve this.
“You’re going to be fine Mary. You’re going to be fine.” She then also smiled.
“No I’m not.”
And she closed her eyes, and died.
They were drinking from a pond when I did find them. They seemed healthy, well fed. At least, for what we usually are.
My brother was cupping his hands messily, and dropping the water before it reached his mouth. He had resorted to plunging his head in the water. My sister was looking around. She was being protective, as she always was. God bless her for it.
“Hey, someone’s here. Let’s go.”
“But I’m thirsty.”
“Yeah, well, you’re gonna’ be dead if you don’t stop drinking right now.”
“Stop. It’s just me.” What a beautiful family reunion!
“Oh.” That was all she could say? At least that was better than my brother. He just wiped the smile off his face, and put his head back under the water.
“Come on. Don’t act like you didn’t- “
“You know that you can’t stay with us.” What?
“But-“
“He won’t be OK the next time you blow up. And don’t say you won’t, because we both know what eventually he is going to do something so idiotic that you just can’t resist-“
“It is my turn to speak,” she needed to listen to me. “We can’t separate. We will die.”
“How can I let you just destroy his feelings and expectations like you did!?”
My brother took a few seconds to breathe.
“I will not do that again.”
“Did you not just hear-“
“It is my turn to speak, dammit! Keeping us separated will destroy his feelings worse than me saying a couple of wrongful sentences! He needs to suck it up! This is not a game!”
“What, you don’t think I know that?”
“He needs to know that”
I shook my head and waited for my brother to come up for a breath. When he finally cam up, I tapped his shoulder. He looked back, and then began to get ready to go back under.
“Stay,” I demanded.
“Why?”
“Do you always have to ask that-,” I had to revise my words, “I don’t always have an answer to that question. But I can answer it with another question.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“How are you?” He stared back at me for what seemed like an hour.
That question was almost banned from our code of language.
“I-I’m fine, you?”
“I am also fine. So, I have something that I need to talk to you about.” He was completely baffled.
“Sure. What is it?”
“You know that we might die, right? Any day, any time?”
“Yes.”
“And you know that this isn’t a game, right?”
“Yes, I know.”
“And most importantly, do you love us?”
“More or less.”
-----------------------------------------
Everything was normal again. We still wandered, ate in portions, and talked. Something was different, though. It was nothing noticeable by the outside, we were still just as alert as before, in fact more than ever. Something about the pond made us closer, stronger. We trusted each other, and I was no longer the leader. I had as much power as my brother did, and so did my sister.
We were one, one family, one group, one person. That was something that was non-existent before; I never thought we would be so close.
“Well, what are we doing today?” My brother was becoming bored with this lifestyle.
“I suppose we could do what you want to do.” My sister and I exchanged quick glances.
“Or maybe we could do what you want to do.” Nobody ever asked me what I wanted to do. It was quite the shock; it took me a second to answer.
“Um, we could… get some fish and have a feast tonight!” I answered an unusual question with an unusual answer. As I’ve said before, we never had feasts. I didn’t even know where I had leaned that learned that word, as it was so distant, unreal.
They stared, and then my brother said, “Well, let’s go find a pond!”
-------------------------------
I had always wondered why animals seemed to be thriving so well. The human race had been almost completely wiped out, and the animals had been perfectly fine. At least as far as I could tell, when humans were still dominant, animals were kept in pens and cages, and their birth patterns were probably monitored. A guess was all this was, but a very good guess, I thought.
We had found a pond with beautiful water, and you could see the fish swimming on the bottom.
“Look!”
“Yes, I see them.” Now we just needed a way to get them. I thought that the easiest way would be to sharpen some sticks with my knife and stab them. Of course, this wasn’t as easy as I thought it was.
“We could… make them come over here.”
“How?”
“I don’t know… with food or something.”
It turns out that my little brother had some good ideas. We caught three fish, and we were wondering how we would cook them. We decided that we would just stick it over the fire like we usually did with meat.
My sister was the only one who could actually start a fire. We didn’t know when or where she learned how, but it had saved us before. Of course, it could also give away our location if we were not careful. I had to make sure that we would snuff it out before night. My siblings enjoyed the warmth and light, but the dark and cold kept us hidden from them.
----------------------------------
They had to come on that night, didn’t they? The one night where we could indulge ourselves in food and together-ness.
“Get behind the trees. I’ll put out the fire.” They were obviously being careless. I could hear them coming, and they still didn’t know where we were. Thank god.
“I smell some smoke.”
“And fish.”
“We just ate.” The third one was being just as defiant as always.
“I’m still hungry.”
“I doubt that.” I sensed and eye-roll moment.
I hated that I couldn’t hear them coming near our hiding places. They most have gotten more careful. I wasn’t even sure where my brother and sister were. I didn’t hear another sound for that entire night. I couldn’t sleep; I couldn’t think. The night passed by quickly, and by morning I was hungry and tired.
When I finally thought it to be safe, I stood up to find my muscles to be cramped, and my joints might as well have been squeaking. It still felt good to stand up.
My first goal was to find my brother and sister.
“Rice-cake!” This was our code word for meeting up/coming out. I didn't eveb think my sister knew what it meant.
There was no answer of movement or words. I did not panic; things like had happened before. I searched the surrounding area.
Nothing. No one. And then I saw it.
They had been dragged. Beaten. Drops of blood left a trail towards them, and I was going to follow. What choice did I have? Without them I was nothing.
CHAPTER 7
The trail of blood stopped once I found the road. I had to decide which way I would go next. I decided left. The blood seemed to lean that way before it disappeared. There wasn’t any confidence in my decision. They could have turned around just as easily as staying on the path that I took. But it was all I had, so I went with it. I spent four days like this.
On the fifth day I gave up. They were gone, dead probably. Why should I exert myself to find corpses? Why should I risk my life in order to discover that I’m all alone, rather than accept with the slight possibility of hope? This was my train of thought, and I went with it.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. Dirty up. Eat. Find food. Sleep. What else was there? Nothing. I was alone.
---------------------------------------------
I was thinking of killing myself. What else was there to do? My life was meaningless, and I would rather not let my blood become a snack for them. That kind of purpose is worse than having one in the first place.
There had to be a place where blood would pour out of my body, into the soil. I wanted my body to become the earth, not food. I had been testing spots on my body. My wrists bled largely, and I could only guess that my face had many vessels, especially my neck. When I sat down and thought about it (which I did a lot), all of the blood had to get through my neck, up to my head. There simply had to be a mass of tubes doing that job. Also, they always seemed to drink from there. So my disturbing decision became that I would use my knife, and cut open my neck as largely as possible.
Fun thoughts to have, no?
I only had to decide when and where. There was also the matter of leaving some kind of note behind, most likely in graffiti. Where would I get something to write with? I supposed that I had to carve it into the wall, which would mean that it would have to be short and sweet.
-----------------------------
I spent hours and days and possibly months deciding what I should write. I had found that my knife would make a nice enough mark to outlast simple rain-wash. But what to write?
I spent another month thinking about it.
And another.
So after my three month meditation, I could only think of one thing to say, and it took me a few days to finally write it out on the wall. It dwarfed all the other writings. It truly was a statement.
“LIFE SUCKS”
-------------------------------------------------
It was the day of my suicide attempt, hopefully a success. I thought that really nothing could go wrong. Even if they came to me, I would die and join my family. The aspect of not-being-food would simply be ignored, which wasn’t the worst thing to be lost in this. If my words disappeared, or my family watched me as I cut my neck open, then this would be failure.
But I wouldn’t care, ‘cause I’d be dead.
It was actually quite the beautiful day, and I even thought of enjoying it before my final hours, but too much preparation! I mean, I had to think about it, and think about it, and even think about it! It was quite tiring.
I had the knife in hand all day. Waiting for it to come up to my neck and-
There were screams, and I ran off to find the source.
--------------------------------------------------
It was my sister. She was on the ground. Why wasn’t she bleeding? There was a gash in her neck.
“Luke…”
“What happened?”
“Th-they were keeping us…. Too full… they were ready… and then… and then…”
“Did they drink it all?”
“I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T KNOW. LUCIUS. HELP ME.” I took off my shirt and put it to the gash, and then I remembered that there wouldn’t be a blood flow.
“Help… Help…” What could I do? There was no blood.
“Help, Lucius, Help.”
“JUST GIVE ME A DAMN SECOND TO THINK.”
“Help me.”
I thought about anything and everything. Nothing I knew could help her. You’d think that after all of the experiences I’ve been through, I would know how to help.
She would have to die. I put on a reluctant smile on my face as tears poured out of my eye sockets. She did not deserve this.
“You’re going to be fine Mary. You’re going to be fine.” She then also smiled.
“No I’m not.”
And she closed her eyes, and died.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Hunger, Part the Fourth
CHAPTER 5
It was our third day in Hollywood, and we hadn’t had any more “visits.” This was all fine and dandy, except for the longer some of them didn’t come, the more the apprehension built up. Things couldn’t be laid back for long periods of time, unless a storm was coming.
“What are we going to do today?” My brother still thought that the good life was here to stay.
“We’re leaving.” There I was again with the logic.
“What? Why?”
“We can’t stay in one place for too long.”
“Why not?”
“Because!”
“You’re being dumb!”
“No, you are! You think that everything is always an abundance of food and happiness, but we could be starving by tomorrow! One day, we’re going to run out of food, and what are you going to think then!?”
“LUCIUS!” My sister never used my name. Names were obsolete.
She looked at me as if I was one of them. What could I have done to make her look at me that way? I couldn’t respond to that look. Nothing could make it go away.
My brother ran into his closet. He stayed there a lot. I think he enjoyed the privacy. It certainly had its advantages now.
---
We finally left on the fifth day. Surprisingly, nothing happened on those two extra days that I disagreed with. How could I keep my leadership, when my decisions-turned-suggestions didn’t benefit my family? I couldn’t.
Nobody talked.
We walked. And walked. And walked.
We had no purpose. No goals. All we did was wander.
We did not see them again, and we did not see any others. Wandering alone in various terrains, and never looking back.
Our lives were dull, and empty.
And it was because of what I said in Hollywood.
---
I hadn’t seen my sister or my brother in three days. We simply started walking different ways, in every sense of the phrase. I thought that the best way to go was right, and I supposed my brother and sister thought otherwise. There was no discussion, no debate. There was a simple and final decision.
Perhaps this is what they wanted from the beginning. I thought that I would never know.
I saw them again on the sixth day away from Hollywood.
”That city treated us well." Somehow he infused his words with sarcasm.
“We had enough.”
“Yes, enough. We should be able to last for another week.”
“A week!? We might as well starve ourselves!”
“Well, we don’t need to be killing every person we see. We can last.
Silence.
“I think he’s gone mad.”
“I most certainly have not! What is “mad” about not wanting to kill anybody!?”
“It’s our nature. Since when do you deny this?”
“Since the boy.”
“Would it be better if we allowed him to live in this world full of fear only to be killed by another group? Would that have been better? Huh?”
---
I was worried every day for my family. Have they survived? Have they eaten enough? Have they been caught? But there was no way of knowing.
I had to find them.
It was our third day in Hollywood, and we hadn’t had any more “visits.” This was all fine and dandy, except for the longer some of them didn’t come, the more the apprehension built up. Things couldn’t be laid back for long periods of time, unless a storm was coming.
“What are we going to do today?” My brother still thought that the good life was here to stay.
“We’re leaving.” There I was again with the logic.
“What? Why?”
“We can’t stay in one place for too long.”
“Why not?”
“Because!”
“You’re being dumb!”
“No, you are! You think that everything is always an abundance of food and happiness, but we could be starving by tomorrow! One day, we’re going to run out of food, and what are you going to think then!?”
“LUCIUS!” My sister never used my name. Names were obsolete.
She looked at me as if I was one of them. What could I have done to make her look at me that way? I couldn’t respond to that look. Nothing could make it go away.
My brother ran into his closet. He stayed there a lot. I think he enjoyed the privacy. It certainly had its advantages now.
---
We finally left on the fifth day. Surprisingly, nothing happened on those two extra days that I disagreed with. How could I keep my leadership, when my decisions-turned-suggestions didn’t benefit my family? I couldn’t.
Nobody talked.
We walked. And walked. And walked.
We had no purpose. No goals. All we did was wander.
We did not see them again, and we did not see any others. Wandering alone in various terrains, and never looking back.
Our lives were dull, and empty.
And it was because of what I said in Hollywood.
---
I hadn’t seen my sister or my brother in three days. We simply started walking different ways, in every sense of the phrase. I thought that the best way to go was right, and I supposed my brother and sister thought otherwise. There was no discussion, no debate. There was a simple and final decision.
Perhaps this is what they wanted from the beginning. I thought that I would never know.
I saw them again on the sixth day away from Hollywood.
”That city treated us well." Somehow he infused his words with sarcasm.
“We had enough.”
“Yes, enough. We should be able to last for another week.”
“A week!? We might as well starve ourselves!”
“Well, we don’t need to be killing every person we see. We can last.
Silence.
“I think he’s gone mad.”
“I most certainly have not! What is “mad” about not wanting to kill anybody!?”
“It’s our nature. Since when do you deny this?”
“Since the boy.”
“Would it be better if we allowed him to live in this world full of fear only to be killed by another group? Would that have been better? Huh?”
---
I was worried every day for my family. Have they survived? Have they eaten enough? Have they been caught? But there was no way of knowing.
I had to find them.
CHAPTER 4 of Hunger
CHAPTER 4
“We’re here!” my brother said. He only knew because of the large sign. It was quite convenient. I was wondering why every town didn’t have this type of sign. Navigating would be much easier, especially for people who actually cared where they were going.
All of us knew that Hollywood was a special palace, but we never knew why. We had remembered the word “movie,” but of course, this meant nothing to us. We finally got to observe this place of fame, but we never quite got the perspective.
Buildings were boarded up, and crumbling. It had been a long time since each of the buildings had been filled up at the same time. People who would have normally taken care of these buildings were gone. They seemed as if they had been magnificent, at least by my standards, which weren’t very high.
“Well, what now?” My sister was the downer for once.
“We have to find food,” and logic from me.
“Let’s explore!” I didn’t see that coming, I thought sarcastically. I smirked and looked at my sister. We rarely ever had these types of mutual understandings, so we went with it.
“Alright! What will we find in our wondrous adventures of post apocalyptic Hollywood? Who’s to say?” My unusually happy tone made my brother rather excited for the rest of the day.
We walked on sidewalks with names and stars on the blocks, and ran around enormous rooms with several seats inside. It baffled me that people built this for things like this? I thought that there must have been at least a thousand people working on the structure of each building.
My brother always enjoyed talking bulbs of glass and wondering what they were used for before everyone left. He would just stare and stare and stare. I had made a theory that the small metal piece in the bulb had some special properties. I just couldn’t understand why they needed the bulb. My brother had his own assumptions.
I was tired. We were tired.
We enjoyed the day, but it had wiped us out. We couldn’t even talk by nightfall. This was dangerous. I had to find a place to hide for the night. Something told me that they would be here tonight, perhaps with others.
There was an abandoned building, possibly the most normal looking building there. It didn’t have a name, or any special decorations. The fact that it was so normal made it stick out quite a bit, but I believed that they wouldn’t look in there. We found hiding places.
We heard something outside. I was pretty sure that these were not the same ones we’ve been hearing a lot lately.
“What a shame.”
"What, Edgar? Hollywood not good enough for ya’?” Disgusting snickering ensued.
“Yes! This place used to be crawling with humans. I could buy a snack here. Now it’s a dump.”
“Oh, don’t you fret, I think I smell a few.”
“As do I.” Did their kind always travel in threes?
“Yeah, maybe we could get a snack-pack for free!” I was wrong, there was a fourth one.
Silence. That was never good.
“I don’t know where they are,” said the fourth one, “This bunch is clever.”
“All the more reason to find them.”
Worrying conversation like this continued for 15 minutes, when one of them stopped talking altogether. One by one they all stopped.
A trap.
My brother started creeping out from his hiding spot in a walk-closet. I had to get out of my hiding place in order to stop him. It didn’t matter, as they were still outside.
He was smiling. He thought we had won. I quickly waved my hands around, but he continued walking towards the couch. The rusty springs would surely give us away.
I had to take a chance. My brother was roughly five meters away from me, looking the opposite way. I had to run up to him, tap his shoulder, signal him to go back, and be quiet during this. Really quiet. They had amazing hearing.
I stepped down on the first board. I will never forget how long that shift on weight seemed to take. The front of my shoe hit down first, while I slowly brought down the rest of my sole on the plank. It was a leap of faith, not just a leap of my body. When my body totally depended on that foot, and silence still surrounded us, I knew I had successfully brought myself closer to my goal. The problem was that my brother was also moving, and more confidently. I had to somehow increase my speed, and stay just as quiet.
My second step was fine.
So was my third. I was a meter away from him now. You would not believe how stress devours your soul when you are a meter away from someone who could save your life, or destroy it, without the ability to sway the odds. I had to get him to turn around. My hands were outstretched, so that he would get the message as soon as I reached him.
My fourth step meant everything. And I had to decide how to make it in a split second.
He was one step away from the couch when I leaped on him. From my previous steps I found that the boards in the house weren’t always creaky. The only way we were going to survive was if I jumped, so I honestly had no choice.
I let go of my love for life for just a second, in order to save it.
He fell on the floor without the slightest of sound. I thought maybe fate was keeping us alive by this point, but I would later see that it was just dumb luck.
(Please comment if you have finished. I don't want to post more if nobody is reading.)
“We’re here!” my brother said. He only knew because of the large sign. It was quite convenient. I was wondering why every town didn’t have this type of sign. Navigating would be much easier, especially for people who actually cared where they were going.
All of us knew that Hollywood was a special palace, but we never knew why. We had remembered the word “movie,” but of course, this meant nothing to us. We finally got to observe this place of fame, but we never quite got the perspective.
Buildings were boarded up, and crumbling. It had been a long time since each of the buildings had been filled up at the same time. People who would have normally taken care of these buildings were gone. They seemed as if they had been magnificent, at least by my standards, which weren’t very high.
“Well, what now?” My sister was the downer for once.
“We have to find food,” and logic from me.
“Let’s explore!” I didn’t see that coming, I thought sarcastically. I smirked and looked at my sister. We rarely ever had these types of mutual understandings, so we went with it.
“Alright! What will we find in our wondrous adventures of post apocalyptic Hollywood? Who’s to say?” My unusually happy tone made my brother rather excited for the rest of the day.
We walked on sidewalks with names and stars on the blocks, and ran around enormous rooms with several seats inside. It baffled me that people built this for things like this? I thought that there must have been at least a thousand people working on the structure of each building.
My brother always enjoyed talking bulbs of glass and wondering what they were used for before everyone left. He would just stare and stare and stare. I had made a theory that the small metal piece in the bulb had some special properties. I just couldn’t understand why they needed the bulb. My brother had his own assumptions.
I was tired. We were tired.
We enjoyed the day, but it had wiped us out. We couldn’t even talk by nightfall. This was dangerous. I had to find a place to hide for the night. Something told me that they would be here tonight, perhaps with others.
There was an abandoned building, possibly the most normal looking building there. It didn’t have a name, or any special decorations. The fact that it was so normal made it stick out quite a bit, but I believed that they wouldn’t look in there. We found hiding places.
We heard something outside. I was pretty sure that these were not the same ones we’ve been hearing a lot lately.
“What a shame.”
"What, Edgar? Hollywood not good enough for ya’?” Disgusting snickering ensued.
“Yes! This place used to be crawling with humans. I could buy a snack here. Now it’s a dump.”
“Oh, don’t you fret, I think I smell a few.”
“As do I.” Did their kind always travel in threes?
“Yeah, maybe we could get a snack-pack for free!” I was wrong, there was a fourth one.
Silence. That was never good.
“I don’t know where they are,” said the fourth one, “This bunch is clever.”
“All the more reason to find them.”
Worrying conversation like this continued for 15 minutes, when one of them stopped talking altogether. One by one they all stopped.
A trap.
My brother started creeping out from his hiding spot in a walk-closet. I had to get out of my hiding place in order to stop him. It didn’t matter, as they were still outside.
He was smiling. He thought we had won. I quickly waved my hands around, but he continued walking towards the couch. The rusty springs would surely give us away.
I had to take a chance. My brother was roughly five meters away from me, looking the opposite way. I had to run up to him, tap his shoulder, signal him to go back, and be quiet during this. Really quiet. They had amazing hearing.
I stepped down on the first board. I will never forget how long that shift on weight seemed to take. The front of my shoe hit down first, while I slowly brought down the rest of my sole on the plank. It was a leap of faith, not just a leap of my body. When my body totally depended on that foot, and silence still surrounded us, I knew I had successfully brought myself closer to my goal. The problem was that my brother was also moving, and more confidently. I had to somehow increase my speed, and stay just as quiet.
My second step was fine.
So was my third. I was a meter away from him now. You would not believe how stress devours your soul when you are a meter away from someone who could save your life, or destroy it, without the ability to sway the odds. I had to get him to turn around. My hands were outstretched, so that he would get the message as soon as I reached him.
My fourth step meant everything. And I had to decide how to make it in a split second.
He was one step away from the couch when I leaped on him. From my previous steps I found that the boards in the house weren’t always creaky. The only way we were going to survive was if I jumped, so I honestly had no choice.
I let go of my love for life for just a second, in order to save it.
He fell on the floor without the slightest of sound. I thought maybe fate was keeping us alive by this point, but I would later see that it was just dumb luck.
(Please comment if you have finished. I don't want to post more if nobody is reading.)
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