Midlife Crisis

I’m sending emails to everyone I know in the business. Anyone who owes me a favor. It’s a message from a once corporate zombie. I gave up myself for the sake of a secure future. And now the illusion has been stripped away. My security was unceremoniously cracked last week when the company dropped a third of its workforce. Ten years bought me one-month severance. And now I have to face the person inside me.

I can’t type these emails anymore; these coward’s requests for a lifeboat that I don’t deserve. It makes me sick to see myself. I can’t imagine what my wife thinks. But I guess she gave up wanting years ago. Sacrificed just like I did.

God, I feel like I’m staring into a black hole. It’s just waiting for me.

I turn at the sound of the door creaking open. My wife is home with the groceries. I pretend I don’t notice and shuffle over to the refrigerator to grab a distraction. I begin to pour a glass of orange juice as she arrives in the room.

She doesn’t know yet. I can’t face her with it.

“Hi honey,” she says.

I respond satisfactorily. She unpacks dry goods. I continue pouring the juice. The skin on my arms changes to a reddish color with the heat of the truth that is weighing on me. The monster is pushing through my façade. The room begins to blur and I can feel the cold orange juice spilling from the glass over my fingers. I can’t hold this up. I brace myself against the counter and breathe to regain composure. But I fall apart instead in a fit of coughs and gasps for air.

I wake up to the sterile white of hospital walls.

Read the rest of this entry »

Analysis Paralysis

“Sort it out,” they said.
“We leave you two to sort it out.”
But it’s not like we were even. He wouldn’t let it be even. Dammit. They are supposed to be my arbitrators, brokering fairness and enforcing equality where it doesn’t yet exist naturally. My chance to get out of the hallway quietly left when they did.

And here he comes. The tears he had faked dried up almost as soon as our new arrangement became clear.

I need to escape. But at this point in the encounter the walls move in and the ground closes up on the ceiling. I can’t squeeze by or wiggle out of the spot. I’m rooted to the ground even as it prepares to fall out below me. I just know what’s going to happen. Except it’s useless. I have a refined sensibility for danger but my reaction matrix is a spore so the Seer in me is useless. They call this analysis paralysis.

The pressure is building even more as he approaches and everything is magnified. The people everywhere are stopping what they’re doing to stare right at me. I can hear it. The sounds of feet stopping to watch enhance the steadily building momentum as it pounds in my ears second by second. I can hear the cracks in my neck turning to follow him approaching my right side. Chubby fingers curl up and launch at my face. I feel the skin of my right cheek scrunching up in my eye socket only for a moment before I’m out cold.

The bell brings me back from the blackout minutes later. I push myself up to stand. An art junkie is painting me. Great. It couldn’t much worse. As though the universe were listening to my every thought though, I fell. Tripped actually, over my own pants which were down around my ankles. The universe was listening alright. And laughing. He had pants’d me while I was down. That is real neat. I’ll be out sick for a few days…

Wild Justice

Aleria: Leadership training in Vorago

Every six years, ten of the most skilled and promising Alerians are chosen by the leaders of Aleria - the Descendants - to learn the secrets of Aleria’s foundation and to become leaders of the next generation. No requirements exist except demonstrated skill and leadership in the face of extreme adversity. By accepting the offer, inductees must leave Aleria for Vorago, the ice-submerged ruined city on the far west side of the Land of Ice and Water. It was once the most developed and expansive city. Now it is the domain of unseen evil and scavengers of the weak and injured. A walled complex was built above the city by the Descendants. It is the only Alerian outpost this far west and it is home to this group of Alerian trainees for the next year. The training’s promise is an unlocking of the secrets of the body, mind, heart and, by extension, society.

EXT. ICE AND ROCK PLATEAU - DUSK - VORAGO
A young girl with skin and hair to match the ice rests her back against a stone in ice. She settles in quietly to listen to the conversation that is taking place less than three-hundred paces out. A group of outsiders - approximately twelve - are seated in a circle listening to a tall creature who stands at least five feet up, on air apparently, and speaks with a deep sound from the center of the circle. She can’t place his accent. Where are these things from? She leans in to listen.

MENTOR
What is there in this world that is worthy of your passion? Is it work? Achievement in commerce? Art? Love? Faith? Should passion be carefully portioned out to a precious few endeavors? Does anything deserve its unbridled fervor?

He turns slowly to face the other half of the circle.

MENTOR (cont.)
Where are the reasons for your passion? Can it be possible that without introspection and analysis of why we do what we do, that we give passion away for free; to anyone or anything that shows even the slightest interest? If you are honest, you will admit that you have run this race before. Now realize the danger you are capable of. Passion without understanding can easily be placed in the service of evil. Your mind will know what is right but your passion will twist it to an unrecognizable abstraction. Therefore, true leaders must consider their purpose in relation to those they mean to lead and the role their passion must play in this. That is why we are here.

The MENTOR bends down to touch the ice and rock beneath them all. He burns a sign on the ground with a finger and rises further. He speaks from the air, several lengths of men up. The girl silently scrambles into her hole in order to avoid being seen.

MENTOR (cont.)
Consider what powers flow in your veins. What abilities for genius lie waiting to be exposed? What is it in you that rises to meet any occasion you choose to care about, regardless of innate ability? What is this thing that propels you to action and guarantees your success despite all odds? Where does it come from? Are you using it properly? Without understanding passion you are certainly ignoring it’s full potential.

He returns to the ground and sits with the group.

WHARF
It’s ambition. Ambition to achieve drives passion. When I want something bad enough you can bet your ass I’m gonna be passionate about it. The real question is what reason exists that creates ambition in the first place? I’ll give you that answer. And I’ll give you the bitter taste that comes with it too. Ambition is driven by boredom. It’s certainly not an inborn characteristic like you say, with all due respect. I’ve seen the way the creatures out here live. They are the rawest, most instinctual things. But once they’ve got a place to live, food and good company what else is left? What else do we have left? Ambition. Then passion, when ambition gets old.

MENTOR
Ambition is not our concern. Rather, it is a measure of passion’s potential. Ambition is a mirror to reflect our self-understanding and desires. But it is not created by boredom. These creatures, as you call them, are just like you and me. They have passion. They just don’t trust themselves or their environment enough to try it out.

RARE
Is there a way to free it and to let it run its course; a track with no end except that which our heart and soul can no longer take? How do you become something more without a place to try?

MENTOR
Okay. Shall we test passion then? Shall we reason it out as WHARF would have it? Who knows what logic governs the stuff of the heart? You can kill passion by searching for its reason. But is it really just here to provide for our satisfaction and enjoyment?

KATERINE
Aye. I have felt the thirst for it; a selfish, wild and unquenchable thirst for more.

Several of the others nod.

MENTOR
Is that the goal of passion’s existence? Does passion exist simply to guide us to that which makes us happy? Is passion a choice then? Simply a tool to use and misuse as we choose? Think on these questions. You don’t need answers; just an acceptance of the ambiguity and knowledge of the power free will holds over your future and the future of our world. We’re starting to understand why the world needs Aleria. Take it and go now.

The pale girl is still while the group leaves the plateau. She cries silently and considers all that has been said. A thick black oily rain falls from the sky, sliding slowly off her skin in streaks. Her whole body seems to cry. Finally, she crawls back down the hole to return to her family. She plans to return.

Yer everyday western

A calm span of sand and dirt in a desert canyon is disturbed by a teenage boy running frantically. He stops at the river and pants as he looks down the path he’d come by. Blood pours from one eye and he pulls a gun out from its holster. He waits. Moments later the sheriff shows up. He ducks behind a tree and pulls out his own gun.

Sheriff
Shoulder that gun fella. You got the draw on me but I’m a quicker shot. Plus, yer missin’ an eye. You ain’t got a chanc’a comin’ near me in yer state. Come on now. Lemme gatcha over to miss lori’s for some help.

Boy
An then what’ll happen sheriff? You gonna let me get on my way? Clean?

The Sheriff nods.

Boy cont…
I bet you will.

Sheriff
Tell you what boy, put that there putter down an I’ll bring you in fer sum help. Keep it up and I’ll shoot’chya. Fair deal?

The boy nods and slowly lowers the gun to the ground. As soon as the gun is pointed down, the sheriff plants a bullet right in the urchin’s temple. He crumples to the road in a cloud of dirt. The echo of the shot rings off the walls of the canyon. The sheriff grabs the boy’s gun from his hand.

Sheriff
Right shame.

He tucks the gun in his pants and searches the boy’s body for the bag of bank money he had stolen. The Sheriff weighs it using his left hand as a scale and tucks it in his pants. Then he unpins his badge, tosses it in the river and leaves.

Provocation: Cannibalism is okay

Introduction to Provocation: A crazy idea is taken seriously and used as the basis for a scene or story.

–Provocation: Cannibalism is a perfectly normal practice, like vegetarianism. What cannibalism needs is a farm bill to subsidize farmers of organically fed people for practicing cannibals.–

The Senate has just began session. Cameras surround the perimeter. Joseph, a reporter for CNN, stands anticipating next to his camera. The excited tension in his breath fogs the lens and he doesn’t notice.

SPEAKER
The Senator from Massachusetts has the floor.

MA SENATOR

Thank you Speaker. Distinguished colleagues of the Senate and friends, today we bring before you a truly historic bill. With your yay vote this day, you become aligned with the right part of history in confirming the strength of our constitution and the effectiveness of our laws. We are a government of the people, by the people and the people have spoken. [Applause] The People-farm Subsidy is not just a support system for an industry that is experiencing enormous pressure from world-wide competition. It is an affirmation that the United States of America will protect the basic human right to choose no matter what our neighbors think. [applause] We are a country governed by one principle before any other - we will do whatever we can as government officials to please the people and make them feel good so that we don’t lose our jobs, even if it goes against our personal beliefs of what right and wrong are. [laughter] Just wanted to see if you were still with me.

The truth is that people-farming had been going on for years on a black market in the United States and abroad. Until the recent Supreme Court ruling in favor of legalizing cannibalism, people-farming on the black market created dangerous conditions for those taking part in it and for consumers, without any scrutiny on the quality of service or product. Those with an eye toward taking advantage of an unwatched system exploited their consumers by delivering badly taken care of, unhealthy product often laced with dangerous drugs. One in ten consumers either died or had life-long complications as a result of this unsafe environment for cannibalism.

Look, I don’t personally agree with it. As a Catholic, its against my belief system. But I could not in good conscience exercise my own personal beliefs on the whole of the United States and watch those who choose to take part suffer as a result.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fearing change

Jon was a poor man in a rich city. But he didn’t blame them. Life holds a different secret for each of us and the actions we take decide whether we ever find out what it is. Jon made the wrong decisions. He screwed himself and now he thinks he missed the only chance he had. He wanders around with no reason to care. Jon stares at the couples in the park and wonders why it can’t be him. Sometimes he walks right through a couple holding hands just to feel what its like. He doesn’t spit on them or curse them out. He just wants to be a part of it.

But he will never be a part of it. He won’t even take the first step to get there. He can’t let himself take that risk. Something in his heart has shut his brain off and he can’t see himself as anything other than what he is. Everyday he does the same thing. Everyday he expects different results. He tells people that he’s trying. He doesn’t really care, though.

Jon should just hide away in some cardboard box, kill himself and be done with it. Who’d miss him after all? He sees the way people look at him. They know he’s a waste of skin. But what he doesn’t see is that he is just the same as a lot of those people he watches sitting in the park in suits with a 12-inch Subway on their lap. They do the same thing everyday, wish they could be a little more free and want anything other than what they are. Jon can’t let himself see it or expect anything more out of life though. If he did, that would change everything and he’d take a risk that he isn’t used to taking.

Jon is a homeless man with the world waiting on him. All he needs to do is choose to take that first step. Anything must be better than what he is. He won’t do it. Yesterday he asked a student sitting outside for fifty cents. The kid gave him a dollar instead and asked him to put it to good use. Jon said thank you and left. He didn’t realize how lucky he just was. He found the one person who might have actually seen him for the person that he is. And he didn’t think anything of it. Jon used the dollar to buy a coffee. He sat at that Starbucks with his coffee for six hours. Finally they kicked him out. He didn’t blame them. He’s just a guy who’s given up on life. He’s wasting his own skin. He should just get it over with.

Aleria: Lost in the night

A Canyon in the Land of Ice and Water - Night

A small group of soldiers are huddled around a meager fire. A constant wind tugs at the flames as the bard holds their attention with a story.

Bard

You see appearances can be deceiving. You wouldn’t think it, but this land, which has caused us to lose our way, is more dangerous than the ice-encased city of Vorago. Here it appears empty of life and, in a way, it is. But half-living things crawl just under the surface, around the corners, inside the holes, in the ground and behind the bushes. Even under the rocks you sit on! Their lives, once normal, were destroyed when the tempest came through over one hundred years ago and forced them into submission as baseless slaves. Now, the scourge has left in search of new conquests, but a new evil has been let loose in these half-living slaves who have no master to control them anymore. They lost hope long ago and there is nothing left for them but the instinct to survive. They are savage by no fault of their own. Yet savage they are, nonetheless.

The wind picks up the fire embers and scatters them away. A dark silence embraces the group and they tense as one who is the prey sensing a stalker close by. Raj alone seems unmoved by the omen as he stands to look around.

Raj
(pacing contemplatively) Everyone of us will die.

Issak, the leader, gets the fire going again.

Issak
I know you’re afraid Raj. But If you show weakness they’ll come and you’ll get your wish. You have to pull it together.

Raj
I don’t mean like that. I know we’ll get out of this. What I mean is we’re all going to die eventually. No matter what we do or how right we are, we’ll die just like those things eventually will. We can hope to leave here unharmed but we can be sure that death will come at some point.

Matt
Eghm. Issak, his attitude is bringing my morale down. I might hesitate in battle. So I think Raj should be hog tied or else we might follow his lead.

The men erupt in laughter.

Issak
You know, I think you’re right though. Tie him up. And Raj, if you fight them I will kill you.

Read the rest of this entry »