Wednesday, October 9, 2013

The Creators

This is the first short story I ever wrote, the one that kick-started all the others....



There was once a universe unto itself.

There was emptiness, and then there was light. The light spread through the universe like wildfire, a curtain of energy flowing through the void. Seeping into everything, giving it life.
I
Suns were born and planets formed. In this cold, dark space, one small sun gave Light to a small planet. As life became prevalent on the planet, a species of Hominids became rulers. These creatures were thinkers, they had large brains that allowed them to construct complex thoughts and ideas. But for as intellectual as they were, they were unaware of the light.
Even though the light was everywhere and flowing through them, the only time they were aware of the light was when it bounced off something. And even then, they did not see the light, but rather the shades and hues within the light spectrum: Reds, Greens, Blues, and Yellows.
These colors both fascinated and scared the Hominids, they didn't understand what they were seeing. They did not like that they could not explain the world around them. They needed an explanation, they wanted to know the "how" and "why." And so they Created stories to help explain the world that they inhabited.
Blue was the color of the Water Creator, who was wise and deep, just like the ocean. Red was the color of the Passion Creator, who was responsible for Love and the blood that flowed through them. Yellow was the color of the Sun Creator, who provided warmth. Green was the color of the Terra Creator, who made the plants and animals.
After a time, the Creators became central figures in the Hominids lives and even began to take on the traits of the Hominids. The Creators were now capable of love, but also hate. They could be giving, or envious. These Hominids looked up to the Creators and desperately wanted to be more like them, to be Creators themselves.
As the Hominids evolved more, they began to develop unique personalities and found themselves attracted to certain traits of the Creators. Some were drawn to the personality of the Passion Creator, while others found that the messages from the Terra Creator resonated more. As the Hominids became drawn to certain Creators, their focus on life shifted. Those that looked up to the Passion Creator focused on living life to the fullest and connecting to others. Those who looked up to the Terra Creator in turn focused more on connecting to the land they lived on and animals they shared it with.
It was not long before 4 divisions were drawn and 4 separate villages were erected, each designed after one of the main Creators. Those who lived in each village taught their youth the messages they thought were important, messages they learned from their Creators. Despite these Hominids each belonging to a different village, they still understood the need for community, for unity.  They still had questions with no answers: "Who am I? Why am I here? What happens when I die?" The Hominids tried to help each other. They offered different perspectives to each other, pooling their knowledge in hopes of understanding the world and themselves better.
II
The Hominids lived simple lives, they hunted with sharp sticks and gathered fruit in their woven baskets. They walked everywhere and woke up each day to a bright shining Sun. And after a period of time, their sun and planet started to change, just as they were.  Terra's closest light source erupted, shooting energy into the planet. Volcanoes erupted, the seas boiled and the land shook. As the land masses drifted apart, weather patterns changed, storms formed and their planet would never be the same. Each village was built upon a fault, and when the land broke apart, the villages became separated. The world as they knew it had ended. 
Each village became isolated from the rest, drifting out into an endless see alone. Storms above their heads kept the light from reaching them and their anxiety grew. They couldn't explain or understand why their world shook, why the seas boiled, and why they were separated from the rest of their community. And because they didn't know the answers to these questions, they Created answers.
Only, instead of pooling the knowledge of 4 communities with 4 perspectives, they pooled the knowledge of one community with one perspective. Focusing simply on one Creator and one focus in life, the Hominids decided the other perspectives were not worth thinking about. Each village stopped believing in the other Creators and the Hominids only believed in their one Creator that mirrored the values they already held. 
Time went on and although the Hominids were still isolated from each other, they continued to evolve separately.  They began to express themselves through Creation. They Created dances, songs, drawings, architecture. They were able to Create ships and travel over the water. They began to slowly re-populate the planet and intermingle.
Problems soon arose. In the time they spent apart, they each Created their own version of why they had become separate and what the focus on life should be. 
Seeing that each village had it's own set of values, they each Created their own customs and rituals that they viewed as normal. And so when they came upon a Hominid who had a different set of customs and rituals, they viewed the differences as wrong. Not different, but wrong.
For as intellectual as they were, time had moved on so much that they had no memory of when they were one, of when each different perspective only added to the whole, and wasn't the whole itself. They argued over who was right and who was wrong. Who’s Creator was real and who’s Creator was made up.
They Created labels to keep them separate: camel-Jockey, nigger, whitey, fundamentalist, war monger, tree-lover, health nut, hippie, fag, socialist, bible-thumper, asshole, dreamer, hater. It only took a few generations before all the Hominids thought that the labels were real and accurate ways to categorize each other.
The divisions between them grew and they began Creating wars. Creating weapons to destroy each other more effectively. They Created bombs strong enough to Create holes in the planet.
These were turbulent times for the Hominids, they had to address their lives. The elders in each society continued to teach the Hominids what should be important to them. What they should value. What they should believe and what they should judge. They had a set of standards. The Hominids Created paper that meant more to them than the things they could trade it for. They collected it because they were told it would make them happy. They were told to ignore their feelings and emotions, to not think for themselves but to listen to others.
The rules were strict and caused the Hominids much pain. While these rules helped to guide their exterior lives, they soon became miserable on the inside. They were trying to avoid exterior conflict and instead were faced with internal ones. They began to look at their lives, they felt as if they weren’t living up to the Creators and felt guilty for being less than perfect. They felt guilty for being Hominids and not Creators. All of the rules and judgments they had to live and abide by kept them from simply being themselves. Kept them from Creating, kept them from asking questions, and kept them from following their hearts and just being who they were meant to be, themselves
III
And then one day someone asked "Why?" Many would be surprised that this Hominid was not a philosopher. Not a preacher or scientist, but a child. The youth began to question the rules that had stood for so long to separate the Hominids.
Hominids all over the planet began to change, and as they changed, so did the traits of their Creators. Soon those who believed in the Passion Creator were divided over how He would react to those who didn't believe in him. The Hominids who believed in Forgiveness argued that the Passion Creator would want them to love openly and not judge, while the Hominids who still held onto their hate argued that the Passion Creator would want the disbelievers dead. Similar debates began to crop up within each of the major followings. 
The Hominids were going through amazing changes, they were understanding how unique they were, not just as a community, but as individuals. They were starting to see that the their Creators were nothing more than mirror images of who they were.  And as more and more Hominids realized that their Creators were just extensions of who they were, the Creators began to disappear, and in their place, the Hominids took control of their lives and their destiny.
And so they began to listen to each other again. They stopped trying to convert and instead wanted to learn.  Despite the Hominids intelligence, they were finally smart enough to know that they did not know everything, and these unknowns were what united them once again. In a world with different Creators, each rewarding it's followers with paradise, there was no consequence to dieing. But living in a world where no one knew what happened when they died, is what allowed the Hominids to come together and work as one. To stop killing each other and to build a better world.
They were getting back to the basic truths, forgetting the things that the Elders had told them in exchange for a more realistic view of the world they had Created for themselves. They were beginning to understand that the different colors that had once served to separate them were all coming from the same light source. That while they appeared to be different and separate, the space between them was simply an illusion and always had been. That the differences only helped to create a whole.
And this evolution came at an interesting time for the Hominids, because their sun and planet were going through changes again. They had only a short window in which to act, to come together once again to face the unknown. To remember who they were and where they had come from.

To remember that they had always been the Creators

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

In the End

"He's taken everything from me!" My grandpa screamed in the middle of the night.

My ever-growing fear, that we would be robbed, was true on this night. Many nights I wondered when someone would come. Ever since I moved in with my grandpa in an attempt to help move him out, I've just been waiting. So when grandpa woke me up shouting, I knew we'd been robbed.
As I started to awaken, I wondered what would be gone. What did my grandpa have that was worth anything?

I knew he had photographs in some nice frames- he didn't care about the frames but the photographs meant the world to him.

"He took her. The bastard took her from me."

I sat him up in bed, trying to be a rock for him, "What's going on grandpa?"

"The sonofabitch has taken everything from me. He took my parents, my dogs, my Edna..." He trailed off in a fit of tears. I had never seen him like this before.

"He's taken everything from me. All of my loves. Every god-damn one of them. Taken by him. I've got nothing left."

I stared at him, realizing nothing was wrong in the apartment.

"When will he take me?!"

Private Life

It's 1984, it's always the same
They will go everywhere
they'll know everything

You'll be ink on paper
Open to the world
And your friends will wonder
Who you really are

So you run and hide
From the thing inside
No time to be True
And you think and lie

Inside you die
With the rest in the Pew
You look for the shade
But the spotlight finds you,

You point your fingers at me,
Like I'm to blame
I'm just speaking the words
That trigger your pain

It's not my judgement
Thats keeping you here
You've got a secret
You gotta keep it

Don't let no one in
You got a judgement
It's gotten between us
Now I can't get in

Now I can't get in

Another Day of the Apocolypse

It was another gray sky. There was a light mist in the air as the large pine-trees on the side of the highway slowly swayed back and forth. A large milky-white fog slowly started to make it's way across the highway, but almost seemed to sit and wait as well.

John shifted gears so his bike could climb the hill. He hit a bump which caused his son, who had been sleeping in one of those bicycle-high-chairs, stirred awake.

"Where are we, daddy?"
"We're getting closer, maybe by the end of today we'll be there."
"I have to go potty."
"...Okay."

John slowly stopped pedaling the let the bike coast to a stop. He could just barely see the fog, but he wasn't looking so much as listening.

Birds were chirping in the far distance...the wind howled lightly...but that was it.

John quietly dismounted the bike and helped his son, David, get to the ground. This must've been a routine they practiced many times because David was very quiet and patient as John continually kept looking around them.

David walked three steps away from John before pulling his pants down and peeing on the road.

A larger gust of wind came and started to blow some of the fog away. John looked a few feet further away from them and could now see a backpack on the ground, opened with some items spilling out.

John eyed the bag for a moment, licking his lower lip as he did another scan around them. As David finished peeing, John slowly walked over to the fallen bag and picked it up. As he did a few oranges fell out, a little old but still good. They made a soft thud when they hit the pavement, but it was loud enough to make John and David freeze in their spot while they waited...and waited...but nothing came. David walked back to the bike as John took one last look around.

He then hurriedly locked David into the child-seat and set off. He didn't bother looking over his shoulder. As he had moved from the backpack, he could make out the owner's arm, and didn't care to see the rest of the body.

They continued to ride on, hoping to make it to their cabin before nightfall....

For Erica




Sunday, October 6, 2013

Puffers

The light flickers to life
The spark of something new
Nothing beats the first time
or the ones that leave you

The Rings appeared as Halos
And we acted like angels
While we danced like hedonists
           And the flames rised around us

I could feel it on my fingertips
like it wanted to stick 
Like I see it in my head
as I take another sip

You said so much
And only talked in facts
   a wordsmith born
                 while the days floated past

 just for today
 please don't come undone
  just til the sun sets...
but tomorrow never comes
I remember being mad
after you'd be fake with others
and now I'm just sad
          because you were fake here first

      And so it goes slowly
        Close off to stay comfy
          Get lost in the Office stories
                as ten seasons inhibit me
I wanted you more
than what was real
and when I stopped fighting you
that's when you disappeared

         Left only to myself
staying under the sheets
         watching the shadows change
                  As night comes from the east
Resist the urge
to pick you up
to see how you feel
let you fill me up 

A creature of earth
so simple and small
you've touched my life
I saw heaven and hell

I saw myself
I saw so much
   I saw my life
 I watched it's death
                    

Monday, September 30, 2013

A conversation

"Oh God, I feel like this is boring and I'm not saying anything the way I want..."
"What, are you kidding, don't stop, keep going! I'm totally getting off on this conversation!"
"I'm frustrated, I just wish guys would appreciate me for who I am and what I have to say, not what I look like."