One Rainy Day

A man sits at his desk, stooped over a leather-bound journal. His posture is stiff, his eyes fixed on his work. What was once a nice suit drapes loose upon his body, shrapnel-stained and coated with ink. The man is a writer. He is, however, a clumsy penmanship, too eager, too jittery. Too on the verge of falling apart. He can barely read his own words. He would prefer to use a computer or tablet or text-to-speech, but he knows better—knows that to change the world, his Bible must be written by hand.

A second man steps out of the shadows. He floats to the first as a phantom of torn coats and wide-brimmed hat, and in one fluid motion, produces a gun. He presses the barrel to the back of the first man’s head.

It is raining outside.

“Mr. Carver,” the second man says. His gun shakes. His hand is covered in fresh wounds. One of his fingernails is missing. “John. It’s time to put the pen down.”

“I’m almost done,” John says. He sounds far away.

“I know.”

And I walked naked through that liminal space, my arms outstretched to part the before from the after, all breath stopped in forever anticipation. No cold, no heat, no birth or decay. I was between Between, a fragment space that not even Death can enter. Only God. Only me. Only the last breath escaping dying lungs. I felt Death watch us, his eyes upon me, black tongue running across black teeth, his face pressed against the glass, waiting for his turn. He—

“John!” The second man says the name like a beg. “John …. John, please. We can still fix this.”

“But—”

The barrel of the gun digs deeper into the back of John’s skull, leaves a red mark 45 millimeters in diameter.

“I don’t want to do this. I want to throw up.” Underneath his coats and pistol, the second man is pale, sickly. His breath smells like copper and stomach acid. He wonders if this is how all the mice felt during his first tests. Ready to fall apart but incapable.

The desk is a disjointed state of terrible mess and brand new. There are no gouges in the wood, no dents or scratches from dropped keys or fumbled steps, yet it carries decades of hand-written words. John sets his quill into an inkpot. He runs his finger across the smooth wood. He purchased the desk from a department store three days ago and assembled it himself, using the little L-key wrench that came with. He remembers—or he thinks he remembers—that the young woman who swiped his credit card asked him if she needed to call an ambulance.

Three days ago, he had been a young man, clean shaven and ready to change the world. A business deal. A partnership. John Carver had money; Jay Irving had Aevum, an experimental drug that could kill aging in a single breath. Now both are old. John’s beard is full, his skin is cracked and bubbling like old asphalt. His hands cramp from writing, but he is almost done.

Outside, it is raining.

“What color is the rain, Jay?” John asks.

“We have to burn it all. All the research, all the evidence. Maybe if we erase it, the monster won’t notice.”

John looks out the window. His desk faces it, is jammed so close to the wall that he can lean forward and press his forehead against the cold glass. He is like Death. He is waiting, but not for a turn.

“There are no monsters anymore, Jay. Only rain. But the rain can’t hurt you. And the—”

“Stop!” Jay barks. He tries to sound threatening but steps back instead. Genie wishes run through his head, every hope a twist into ruin. The mice didn’t start screaming until after they took Aevum. “Stop. Let’s just, let’s just stop. Go to the nearest bar. Have a burger. I’ll buy you a beer. There’s a football game on, The Saints are playing, I think. We can be normal for another hour.”

John shakes his head. “We’re not supposed to be normal. We’re supposed to change the world.”

is not the king we claim him to be, but a cog in an ancient, golden clock that is God’s to unwind at his will. The gears are made of gemstone glass. The hands point to the heavens. It all smells of iron, or maybe, the place between iron. We walked through that infinitesimal space between molecules, so small the electrons were planets in the night sky. They twinkle brighter than Venus on a summer morning.

“What time is it?” John asks. His eyes hurt from squinting. He needs glasses. Three days ago, he had perfect vision, but the need for Walmart cheaters runs in his family. Both his parents need the help to read, as had his grandparents when they were alive.

“Quarter to six.”

John shakes his head. “No. What’s the real time? What year is it? How long has it been raining?”

“I don’t know.” Jay shuffles, twitches. His body cramps from nerves that want to snap in half. He’s had nothing but coffee and Advil since the accident.

“I think it’s been 22 years,” John says. “My watch stopped working when we woke up.”

“It’s been three days. It’s quarter to six.”

“We didn’t age when we were there.”

“Help me, John!” Jay shouts. His voice cracks. He’s so tired he wants to shoot himself. He’s so scared he’ll go back. “Help me stop the monster.”

Raining is outside it.

John looks out the window, watches the rain, hunts for words between the falling drops. The two men are in a cabin, out in the middle of a Wyoming forest so remote John has to write by candlelight. The trees are gnarled, ancient things that fight to paint the sky with dark leaves. The sky is rain clouds. Fog whispers between, skittering and hiding, waiting. John finds his words in the wisps, his next paragraph. He reaches for his quill.

“I can do it,” Jay says. “Shoot you.”

“What color is the rain, Jay?”

“I think I need to. I think it’s why he sent me back.”

John gestures to the space next to him. “Come. Watch. Help. Keep me company. Tell me what color the rain is.”

“I don’t—”

Jay looks out the window. It’s dreary outside. He spent what felt like a day hiking to this cabin, fighting branches that snag and muddy ground eager to make him slip. His clothing is torn, his shoes so dirty their only hope is to be thrown away. Three days ago, he had looked brand new, a biochemist on the verge of saving the world. He wonders why so much can change in 22 years. Water beads against the window, runs down it slowly, like it might be mixed with syrup. The candlelight makes it look yellow. The stains on his face are red. He pretends it’s all mud, but he knows better.

There’s a bar 48-hours away by foot, one with greasy food and cold beer. He believes if they leave now, walk briskly, they can be there in 20 minutes.

“It’s red, John.”

“I thought so.”

I found God sitting in a rocking chair, squeaking with each rock. He was asleep. I didn’t mean to wake him, but he feared the ticking of my watch. Time isn’t supposed to move, not there, not anywhere—not without his permission. He was angry, furious, a thousand images of my father with a closed fist, but then he saw the blood and the pain. My father could be a compassionate man, when he wanted to be. We can all hug just as easily as we can hit. I tried to breathe but had to stop, because lungs don’t work in Between. God smiled, nodded. When he wasn’t looking like my father, he looked like a creature made of light and jelly all stuck together. I think he comes from a prism planet.

“What do you think?” John asks. He knows that Jay is reading over his shoulder. Some day soon, everyone will be reading his book. His Bible will be titled Aevum.

“You need to burn it.”

For the first time in years, John turns away from the window, from his work. Jay holds a gasp. Recognition plays a painful game across his face. He sees his business partner, but he also sees a corpse. John’s skin is brittle, flaking away to show exposed muscle beneath. His eyes glaze with dead-fish scales. He smells like a rotted bone being chewed apart by farm dogs.

“Jay,” John says. He looks disappointed. He sounds old. “A deal is still a deal.”

“We died, John.”

“No. We only almost did.”

Jay wants to scream. Instead he finds himself begging, pleading for reason when facts don’t matter: “We have to burn it all. Throw my research into the sea. We can’t do this to innocent people.”

“God wants us to.”

“I didn’t see God!” Now Jay does scream. His voice rattles with black tissue. “Just that black skull. It was so dark. So cold. We have—”

Because Jay is stuck, an old man with old ways, John initiates the hug, pulls his business partner in close. His body is cold. So is Jay’s. The two men embrace in a single, heavy sob while the gun falls to the floor. It hurts them to cry. Jay knows he needs to grab the .45, kill them both to end the rain, but he is afraid. There’s a piece of bent plastic sticking from his thigh, and if he shoots himself in the head, he will go back. Death is waiting.

Is outside raining it.

“You saw me, Jay,” John whispers. “Only me. I promise. The monster can’t hurt you anymore.”

“John….”

Jay lets the word fall. Something slaps against the roof of the cabin. The room shakes. Jay jumps, but John only shrugs. Sometimes body parts fall from the sky. Sometimes the rain is more than rain. The rain has to be more than the sum of its parts for the world to change, for his Bible to make sense. Between has to become the present. The newly-dead have to walk again. But only the newly-dead—Death has already claimed the long gone.

John is of the newly dead. Jay is of the newly dead. Now they walk. Now they remember. In a few short years, with a little dose of Aevum, all can become newly dead. That last exhale will last forever.

“I’m afraid,” Jay says.

John nods. He turns back to his desk, his window. There’s a severed arm bleeding on the front lawn. “I know. But you don’t have to be.”

“The monster—”

“Death.”

“Yeah.” Jay gulps. At some point, the gun returned to his hand. It is heavy. He wipes at his face, feels scabs against his skin, feels four-days worth of beard get stuck in the scabs. A broken leg thuds to the ground in a swirl of fog. “Yeah. Him.”

John grabs his pen. “You killed him, Jay. Not the other way around. That’s all.”

There is good in this world, with its many ticking clocks converging into broken cogs. Sometimes, we even sparkle. I remember, once upon a time, I wedged a lifetime into a single breath. A hundred years in a single gasp. Nothing moved but everything mattered. The cosmic shook around me, breaking the placid into colors I could paint with. I am not an artist, but even the clumsy hand knows how to put Spackle over a nail hole. A touchup there, a touchup here. I saw it all, and God showed me the way. He paused Between so someone else could understand. I’m still there, I think. On a fundamental level I’m—

The gun presses against John’s skull again. It’s warmer now, more desperate. John rolls his shoulders, tries to find a comfortable spot so he can finish his book.

“Do you remember what our business deal was?” Jay asks. He is back to being a phantom, a cold man in a cold coat with congealing wounds. Rips in his skin turn to scars. Broken bones heal in strange ways because they were never set. Everything about him is stiff. “The pills we took right before the truck hit us?”

“No.”

“I don’t either.” Jay frowns. “I think it was important though. I think we were going to change the world.”

Now John laughs; he laughs so hard a tooth falls from his mouth. A little drop of blood mingles with the ink on his page. All Bibles require blood.

“Jay,” the old man says, a little drool falling from his mouth. Strokes run in his family. Are hereditary. “What do you think I’ve been doing here?”

Outside is raining it.

The lawn is covered in body parts, broken, bleeding things that thump into the dirt with enough force to move the world. Jay tries not to look at them. The arms and legs he can stomach, but not the organs. Not the strange, peeled faces that aren’t attached to skulls. Everything is a mess, and all he has is an old, rusted gun. He isn’t even sure it will fire. It needs to fire twice.

“I’m going to do it, John. I’m going to pull the trigger.”

“Death won’t go easy on you just because you’ve helped him.”

Jay nods, closes his eyes. The gun is heavy, the heaviest thing he’s ever held. He hasn’t eaten in years. Headaches pound behind his eyes, and his tongue swells with rigor mortis. Moths have eaten most of his clothes. He almost laughs, because there isn’t a living thing around for miles. Only the dead. They pound against the roof like hailstones.

“I’m sorry,” Jay says.

“I forgive you,” John agrees. “Just one more year, and it will be finished.”

Jay pulls the trigger.

Is raining it outside.

a God too. Dead but not dead, lonely but not for long. I waved at the sky and it turned to shrapnel plastic, split metal and little puffs of fire. It’s so easy to create when you know how, when you’re given the opportunity. God smiled at me. He offered his hand. I know a business deal when I see one. Beside us, so far out of reach I think we all forgot him, Death pounded on the glass. When I was a kid, I remember being told not to try and go in the attic. It was dangerous up there, not scary but dirty. Boring. Stupid. So of course I spent all my energy trying to get up there. I stole a ladder from the garage one night, and I ascended that little hallway door. Dust fell upon my face. Death is like that. He wants the one thing he cannot have, but that thing isn’t worth the effort. Let him keep his kingdom in the living room. Let me expand the attic for everyone. We can be as we are. Forever.

Bodies begin to fall from the sky. They smash into the little cabin, and the world becomes a raucous thunder of breaking bones. Glass shatters. The bodies stand on tired feet, naked corpses that try to scream but don’t have lungs or teeth or tongues. They shamble. Death reaches his hand through the glass. He reaches for John Carver.

It is strange, but while God and I make our deal, our pact to change the world for the better, I am reminded of my last real memory. I think it is real. I think it is a memory. I am in a car, driving with a person who I hope will one day be my friend. We are talking about something so important I lose track of what I’m doing. We are excited. There are so many ways to change the world. I want to do that, change the world. Make it better, or if not better, at least less scary. I want the chance to forgive everyone that wronged me.

John Carver scribbles his final words. His face breaks into ecstasy. Blood water pours into the cabin through a thousand holes in the roof. The room stinks of gunpowder.

There is a truck. It is in the wrong lane, or maybe I am. We’re heading towards it. I’m about to change the world.

Death grabs John’s soul and pulls. It blunders out of him with all the force of a tired breath. Jay watches the car crash in slow motion. He’s still holding his gun, a relic of a time long gone. He’s old. He’s tired. He lets the gun drop. It’s no good to him anymore, not when he’s been dead for a thousand years.

“Is it always so messy?” he asks.

Death nods.

“And did we matter? Did we change the world?”

“Yes,” the black, dust-made skull says. Jay is surprised at how nice the end looks. It seemed so scary all those years ago, so violent and angry. A monster shrieking against glass. He wonders who has changed, him or it. “Yes, you did. Everyone who lives changes the world.”

“Burn my work. Kill it all, and take it with you.”

“Thy will be done.”

Death reaches out a cold, skeletal hand. Jay grabs it. His watch ticks a single second. John’s body crumples to the floor. Rainwater wilts his book to mush. Blood and pain fade to black.

It outside raining is.

The Quicksand House

It starts with a breeze, a shift, a squeeze, as the walls start churning, turning, and the world starts burning down around me. Falling. It is in the falling I am crawling, scrawling, trying not to falling but falling anyways, down, down, down, down, down.

The walls are quicksand.

My house is no longer a house but a falling, crumbling structure of mixed bones and broken puncture wounds of debris, of dead mice and unsnapped traps. A funny joke once, but now an echo of screams as I am falling, falling down, towards the center of the earth, the ceiling high above, the only thing left unbroken and unseen.

It scorns. Me.

I reach for ropes that do not exist. I gasp and grasp and wonder wish. I cough and sputter, choke and mutter, but my mutters are not cries or screams. The sand drowns them out. It is quick to do so. It is quick to fall, descend, fall, descend, fall.

Darkness.

There is darkness everywhere, a kindly crushing broken despair. My lungs contort and smash and crush, my mind burns and breaks to broken mush. My house has betrayed me, my body has abandoned me, and my mind, well, it’s all in the mind, now isn’t it?

It’s a shame how fast the body can turn upon itself; it’s a shame how fast the brain can burn alone withheld. It’s a shame…It’s a shame how the self can fall and fall, and the mind, well, it’s all in the mind now isn’t it?

.

I’ve been reading House of Leaves and drinking Irish Coffee all day. I’m very tired. This is what happened in the four minutes between finishing chapter 12 and taking a nap. I’m going to nap now. I hope you’ve all had a happy Easter, whether you believe in anything or nothing. I’m quite partial to nothing myself, but sometimes something is…well, something.

Please to enjoy.

Writing Improvisations: Not Found

Hey all, I figure it’s high-time for another writing improv! The TL/DR is that I take a song and write to it until it’s over. I edit for typos/grammar but not content. Sometimes these are coherent, and sometimes they aren’t. I’m writing this first, so I don’t know where this one will fall under.

Song is called “Not Found” by, you guessed it, Thomas Rakowitz. Check his Soundcloud page out here.

Not Found

A walkway blooms inside my mind, and knowing I have nothing better to do, I decide to go and find the thing that’s got me down, the thing that won’t let me rest or love or just let go. It has to be something. It has to be somewhere.

The walkway is dark at first, four walls of black underneath the Earth. I look above, no lights around, and hear the sucking of roots and the hungry movements of worms. I descend. I descend. I descend.

And there in front of me, a pinprick of light, I realize that I have found that … no it’s a flight of stairs, made of stone, cracked with age and misplaced care. No one has ever been here before, or at least not in a long time, but this feeling of exploration only brings anxiety and the want to return to where I once was. Sometimes it’s better to be sad than afraid.

A door closes behind me, out of sight yet loud in the dark, and the lights grow brighter in this cellar marks the way to freedom. I descend. I descend.

The door in front of me is closed not locked, and it’s smaller than a thimble and opens at my thought. I shrink and shrink until I’m too small to climb those old stone steps, so all that’s left is to see what’s next. I can’t go back.

And downwards I go, wondering all the while, until I realize that there’s nothing to be found. Nothing at all.

I descend.

Writing Improvisations: To Get Up Again

It’s been ages since I’ve updated this because busy busy busy! Can’t share anything I’ve been busy with either. So bugger it all, let’s do another writing improv, where I take an instrumental song and just write to it until it’s over. I’m sober, so who knows what’ll happen this time!

Song is called “To Get Up Again” by the lovely Thomas Rakowitz. Find him at those links.

To Get Up Again

It can be so hard, to get out of bed, to face the day, to push through the dread. It can be so hard, to just wake up, to strip the covers, head to work, strip your emotions, not let it hurt. Sometimes I just want to sleep.

It can be so hard, to rise from the grave, to break through the ground, and see what’s left to be made. I don’t want to move, I don’t want to die again, because when I close my eyes, all I see are fireflies.

Yet I’m going to get up again, I’ll rise up again. I’m not a worthless; I’m not a monster, and so I’ll get up again, will fight again. The world broke me once, but I’ll get up again, and I’ll make sure when it all ends again, that the ends are mine, the beginnings mine.

It takes an end to mark a begin to something new.

It can be so hard, to just wake up, to drop your dreams and be forced to shut down your emotions, everything, for one more day at being alive.

Yet I’m going to get up again, I’ll rise up again. I was a monster yesterday, but today is a new day, a new chance to win, begin, again, and again, and again. I’m no longer a monster.

I have risen from the grave like a phoenix made of grass, and as I look towards the sun, I can’t help but laugh at the past. It no longer burns my skin, no longer shuns me away. I was a creature of the night, but that was yesterday. Damn my craving for blood; damn my craving for flesh, I’ll not harm another again, I’ll not harm myself or crash and burn like the end of the world.

When something falls, something has to rise in return. So I’ll get up again, I’ll rise up again. I’ll make this work, cast aside, and when the road forks left and right, I’ll take the path that the sun highlights.

I have gotten up again.

Writing Improvisation: Electro Hobo Robo

Haven’t done one of these in awhile. Shame on me. This is a writing improvisation, where I listen to an instrumental song and write to it until it’s over. I keep editing light as I want to preserve what spontaneity brings. This one…isn’t my best, but I haven’t done one in awhile, and I suppose it’s not too shabby all things considered. The song is quite nice, and it was hard to write and not dance in my chair. This song is by Kurtis, whose music I’ve used before. I kind of continued the story in some strange way.

The song can be found here

Kurtis’ soundcloud page can be found here

 

“Electro Hobo Robo”

The vagabond has bags of none and walks the streets of dust and dirt. He’d smile if he could, God knows he would, but he’s a thing made of metal and worth. So he walks, and so he talks to streets populated by one. He doesn’t know what will happen now, but that doesn’t matter because he’s got the world of home.

They all left you see, the people that built him and his brothers all, but now the Earth is a barren thing, populated by broken calls and wanting wants.

The dragons came and chased them away, and so now he walks forever all day, for programming is what programming does and the vagabond of metallic was, can only walk as he breaks away.

He carries with him dreams of sheep, this robot man who cannot weep, but dreams are worth more than possessions; he tells himself this as he possesses a great-most happiness that life will someday return to a better thing where robots can dream of more than electric sheep.

And so he walks and so he talks to what wildlife still lives him by. The birds they chirp as they feast on trash left behind by those who took towards the skies.

The dragons still fly overhead, they brought a revolution that ended dread, but the robots stayed and now the earth is there’s, and they’ll do what they can to make a new home.

But vagabonds they now all are, wandering wandering beneath the stars where robots can no longer go for dreams they have but somethings can never be so.

So they walk.

Writing Improvisation: The Stars are Smiling

I haven’t done one of these in a bit and I’m jonsen to write something, so here we go. Writing Improvs! I take a song–almost always by my friend Thomas Rakowitz who is a killer musician–and write to it from start to finish, using the title as a jumping off point and then letting words be what they are. Editing is light because I want to preserve what happens. And here’s a little under-the-hood spoiler: I’m usually a bit drunk when I do these. Blame Hemingway.

Thomas’s youtube page can be found here.

The song can be found here.

 

“The Stars are Smiling”

The stars are smiling, looking down on all us milling as the sky decides to turn away from green. Gently freeing, always breathing, they watch us as they twinkle sway. Loving laughter causing wonder, I look up towards a setting sun. The sky it darkens, the wind it harkens, as I lovely looking inwards on.

The stars are smiling, looking down on all us milling as the sky concedes in a gentleman’s bow. Time is turning always learning that smiling stars are coming out to see the now.

Green is the world as the shade sets in, the moon in crescent the saviors din of blissful heat of summer’s night. Crickets chirp and light it flirts with darkness, and the darkness wins. But the stars they smile, and light won’t vanish; peaceful is the victor’s twin.

Windows open and smiles shine up at those that shine far down below. The stars they watch as the beautiful people on Earth forever grow and grow away.

Because devils aren’t the norm, nor is the tired of decay; specialty thrives in the smallest places of our hearts, and that’s where sadness goes to die.

The stars they smile because they know, and while we might bicker, still we grow. So they smile and the nightscape deepens, because the night is the time for reflection sleeping.Twinkle on oh pleasant friends, you see the best while we see the end.

 

Writing Improvisation: Behind the Sun

Welcome to writing improvisations, where I take an instrumental song and write to it. This is from sir Thomas, a musician that churns out music like a robot churns out parts on an assembly line. I’m forever amazed by him and his musical talent. The rules: I wrote while it played. I started at the beginning and stopped at the end, not thinking ahead but just typing. Editing will be light. I want to fix grammar and typos but preserve everything else the way it came out.

The song is called “Behind the Sun” and can be found here.

His Youtube page can be found here.

 

“Behind the Sun”

Black serene wonderful meaning. Dark supreme chasing my dreams, wonderful feeling. Sable leanings consciousness teaming, wonderful screaming.

I chase the sun. I’m behind the sun and I chase the sun.

Behold the sky above and the darkness below; behold the darkness above and the sky below. Behold the sun. I’m chasing the sun, a victory won, a cavalcade of love, a wonderful burning sun.

And there it is. And oh there it is, and I’m behind the sun. It’s glows everywhere but behind itself, the shadow of a moon the paleness of wealth drenched in metaphor for something more that doesn’t matter here. Here is the sun. I’m chasing the sun. I’m behind the sun.

See it glow with Godly power in glory be to an ungodly hour. It sits there revolving in my mind convulsing a fire of life. A fire of life. A life of fire.

I want the sun but it’s ever away, moving through space and bringing day. I’m not fast enough to catch its embrace, but I can fly after it in endless chase. Something is better than nothing, and that something is the sun, oh sweet everything.

A ball of red a joyful power that all things bled in powerful meaning. It brings everything. It swirls and rains fire and heat. I love it, and so I chase it.

The darkness abounds, and I’m so cold; ahead it rounds in brilliant boldest yellowing orange as it changes with the mood of forevermore.

I’m chasing the sun, forever chasing the sun. I’ll never catch it, but I don’t care. Sometimes the chase is all that’s needed, and the catch is there is no catch.

Oh why oh why oh God and why must I be behind. Ever behind the sun which smiles outwards and ignores my wishful thoughts and dreams, and yet I know it can read the stars which wink at me and beg me further on in hasteful space for a grateful place. The sun.

One day I’ll be at the sun.

One day I’ll be in front of the sun.

One day I’ll see everything.

And so I chase.

Writing Improvisations: Inferno

Welcome to writing improvisations, where I take an instrumental song and write to it. This is another from sir Thomas, my musically talented friend. The rules: I wrote while it played. I started at the beginning and stopped at the end, not thinking ahead but just typing. Editing will be light. I want to fix grammar and typos but preserve everything else the way it came out.

The song is called “Inferno” and can be found here.

His Youtube page can be found here.

 

“Inferno”

I light the match. I light the match. It’s a big match.

I am happy.

Make it go up make it burn make it go up and stop the world from turning round and round in its massive ball of destructive ice. Make it burn make it burn make it explode and implode and reload as I grab another match and craft something so nice and wonderful as this conflagration.

I watch it burn and laugh out loud it’s a wonderful sign this smoking cloud of ash and death that spreads across the land turning magic into decay and humanity into nothing more than a bland set of bones and rot. Let it burn let it burn and watch me smile as I get rid of everything I’ve ever got.

I’m more happy than I’ve ever been as I watch it burn watch it burn, I don’t know why but it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s a burning mass of fire and of flames, an inferno of mass and temperate prayers.

Buildings crash and there’s shattered glass; life falls and screams and burns and dreams away into fire so red and hot that it devours everything. I watch it burn.

For good measure I light another match, something small and insignificant that turns everything into what can and can’t; for can’t is the aim of this game, this inferno of fun and pleasure and pain.

I watch it burn. I watch it burn some more and smile and my friends they smile too. I’ll burn them later when they aren’t looking, and they’ll gleefully succumb to that which makes energy.

It takes fire to make and it takes death to create and I’ve done my making and I’m done with creating, so I watch it burn and burn and I laugh and learn that I’m not what I should be or what you thought of me, and that’s okay because now there’s just nothing left.

I’ve burned it all.

I’ve made it gone.

I’m happy.

But why are you frowning at me? Why are you sad? Is it because I’ve broken the only thing worth loving, is it because I’ve gone mad? Friend, family, lover, person of wonder:

I’ve always been mad.

But that’s okay because it’s a happy mad, and look at what I’ve done! I’ve burned it all. I’ve created and defeated but most of all I’ve just enjoyed. See it laugh as it falls away! See how happy everything is when there’s nothing? Because everything is a sad thing, a jealous thing, a worthless thing that doesn’t want to be. We’ve forced it, don’t you see? How can you not?

I see you nod. Yes. You understand. Now take this match and light it. Enjoy. This is all about having fun. This is all about watching things burn. Let’s make an inferno, a volcano, a tornado of fire.

Let’s watch it burn.

~Signed with love,

God.

Writing Improvisations: Ascension

Here’s another writing improvisation, where I take an instrumental song and write to it. This is from an electronic artist working on an EP named Kurtis. I’ve heard a few of his songs and have been meaning to write to one of them for awhile; he posted this one today, and I took the bait. The rules: I wrote while it played. I started at the beginning and stopped at the end, not thinking ahead but just typing. Editing will be light. I want to fix grammar and typos but preserve everything else the way it came out.

The song is called “Ascension” and can be found here.

Kurtis’s Soundcloud page can be found here.

“Ascension”

Ascension

I see them ascend to the faraway land where dreams are alive and everything can. I see them float with wings made of light, on vapors of love and a windless such endless night. It’s beautiful. Everything is beautiful about them. They float and they float away from the terrible monstrosities that happen and I can only feel glad.

Glad.

They are blue in their rising and it turns into silver as they soar away from troubles and monsters and the pilfering of fallen man. Blue. They are blue in their singing which is silent and lovely to my ears. Blue. They ascend to blue.

Ascension.

I watch them rise away.

And then the dragon comes.