Saturday, August 25, 2007

Neither Fiction Nor Non-fiction Be, Strictly Speaking.

Um hi. Haven't posted for a while but here's another bit of writing that is too long to be a proper post. Read at your own leisure.

The Man


I'll try to post shorter stuff next time.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

An Essay...

A little something for those who wish to read. Written last year, some people have read it before:

My Interior Monologue.

Enjoy. Maybe? Just a bit? Please?

It's a bit too long to post as a post.

A Girl's Point On View...

In the cold wind-blustered streets of the metropolis, a matchbox girl approaches you slowly, shyly with small steps shuffling in your direction. Being kind hearted (as you are, aren't you?) you slow to stop, comfort the matchbox girl with a smile and reach for your moneybag. As the girl reaches you, you see her little face, world-weary yet with the still blossoming softness of youth. You begin to ask, "How much for a box, my dear?" getting only as far as "How..." before she snaps a match along her matchbox, lighting it, its small warm glow reflecting the heart of its bearer, both puny against the winter chill.

It strikes you as odd that the girl, whose comfort depends on wasting not that precious commodity, might strike up a match for a complete stranger but her next question draws your thoughts away.

"Sir, what colour do you see?"

You see the orange of flame and the blue of complete combustion. You see the blackness of the soot rising against the paleness of the white buildings that surround you. You see the oily brown of the matchstick. You tell her so, quite bemused by the raggedly adorable child staring at you with questioning eyes. And the child speaks again.

"Sir, are the colours you see the same as those that I see?"

That is the girl's point on view. Is the blue you see the same colour as she sees? Perhaps she sees what you would call red but by convention calls it "blue". Perhaps her orange is your purple and your brown her green. In that case only by convention are they the same colour.
Perplexed and embarassed to be so troubled by that innocent question, you forcefully reach for you coins and drag out twice the cost of 5 boxes of matches. Staring her in the eye, you open your hands into hers and close her tiny fingers over the coins. A mass larger than her cupped palms can comfortably hold.

"Get yourself something warm, girl," you say, "I have no answer for you this day."

She looks on at you in wonder and gratitude. Perhaps fearful you might change your mind, she laughs happily and runs as only a child can run. For now, in her mind the world is all right.

And yet yours is all topsy-turvy.

You stroke the new bristle at your chin and wonder. Do we all see the same colours? When I look in the mirror, do I see what others see when they look upon me? Might I maybe look like a rock and yet be recognisably me to the other people around me?

Is the world I see the same world that you see? Perception and interpretation tie together in a dead knot of reason. What we see is what we interpret. What we interpret is what we see. Would that you could all see the world as I do that we might understand each other better.

Is the world I see the same world that you see?

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Giving Her His Head...

'Twas a love,
Destined to be.
'Twas her love,
That was the difficulty.

He sought her so,
His heartache physical pain.
Where she was he didn't know,
Only his purpose kept him sane.

Tragic love stories abound,
Nature is a cruel mistress.
Never was there a love so profound.
Never was there a lover so against digress.

No, he searched for her.
High and low he searched for her.
And then by chance contact was made.
A silhouette beautiful,
Against the sunlight beginning to fade.

But she did not love him yet.
Try as he might, his heart so set,
She wholly refused any such union,
For without a dowry
How could there be a junction.

But then the male lover,
Spied a dragon fly by a flower.
And so crept the young brave,
And so struck he, hard and true
And in the name of his love, the dragon he slew.

With stubborn purpose he carried the carcass,
Presenting it before his maiden.
With such a suitable dowry for a lass,
How could any refuse their union.

And so they were joined,
The boy now a man.
And by now raging was the fire in his loins,
And he fell upon his bride as only a hero can.
At least, that was the plan.

But alas this tale is another tragedy,
An almost Romeo and Juliet story,
For Romeo the praying mantis,
Fell afoul of his maiden Juliet's kiss.

And so he passed on his gene,
But as they kissed she bit him clean,
And left him bereft, left him dead,
Left him his body,
Without his head.

Friday, August 3, 2007

What I've Done...

So yes. It happened. In the blink of an I. Eye should have known better. No wait that was wrong. 'Twas my eye that blinked and I who should have known better. No matter, minor things like these cease to have significance in the face of tragedy.

And so the bitter wind blows the clichés into my head. Filling the sails of my mind's ship as it plows through the waves of shame, despair and regret. So follow the clichés like dolphins to a fisherman's boat and so they are trapped in the net of my creative stagnation and absence of proper substance so as to be less blasé to you. The unlucky one. The reader of this journal of emotional void. And yet it is not a void, rather a deep dark pit with spikes and razor lined walls. A pit in which lie a multitude of flesh eating cockroaches and their voracious larvae intent on feeding upon the bowels of man. The hunks of manflesh. Bipedal meat.

But I digress. In my hour of darkness the distractive intrigue of a 'pit of death', by no means bottomless, serves to bring my mind away from the very topic that drives me to convert this post to emotive rambling. However I must emphasise that this post is not merely a personal one. Nor is it by any means an "emo" post however much it might seem so at the moment. Bear with me or bare with me. Actually, give me warning before you do so that I can close my eyes. Much appreciated.

It started off with a footstep. One footstep that would forever stifle the life of that poor innocent organism. The little thing merely trying to live in this harsh world of UV radiation, free Al cations and the occasional lack of sunlight. But it had persevered. Nobody knew how long it strove to live, to pass on the information so terribly important, the burden it carried. What was that information? Now nobody will know. All because of a footstep. One single footstep.

The crunch was the punchline. The culmination of all the endured hardship. Poor little thing it stood no chance. With that crunch came the end of the toil of generations, the failure of the masses of individuals that lived and died such that this creature, this thing, could pass a message to the future. A message of hope to the masses, to the collected collection of its kind. A message never to be sent. Gone in the blink of an eye. With the lowering of a foot and a slight crunchiness.

And so befell a great tragedy. However that's not the worst of it. Worse is the fact that it could have been avoided. What I wouldn't give that I might take back my actions, neither purposeful nor in hot blood, and let the messenger through to do its work. I doomed a species. I doomed a race. I doomed a provider for perhaps the simplest of food chains that grows into the most significant of food webs. I doomed it and by doing so, I have doomed us all. Such is the Butterfly Effect. Such is the fate of the world. Repent not for you will pass anyway. Cry not for it will be to no avail. Noone can save you now.

"Except perhaps Christine," you say. Nay, even Miss Daaé can do nothing.

But now as eukaryotic macrolife draws to its end, the world deserves to know the truth. You, dear reader and the rest of the visibly living world deserve to understand that it was by no group effort that your existence draws to a close. No. It was solely an individual action. An accident as it were. I can only say that I hope, for your sake, that death is all that you expect it to be. Now, mass extinction faces us all and thus marks the renaissance of the evolution of bacteria to more large organisms such as you and me are now but not much longer. Perhaps they will be more perfect. It matters not anymore to us who are about to die.

Yes, it all happened because of me. Because I acted without thought. Because I stepped off the pavement in carelessness. Because I killed that important little thing before it could be pollinated. Because I stepped on a flowering daisy.