Fireworks

Fred wiped the sweat from his brow as he stood up and stretched his back, which had for far too long been lurched over his work. Rows of over a hundred fireworks laid before him, carefully arranged and wired together to a system of lighters and fuses - all of which were controlled by a computer program he had personally written three weeks prior - and he still had at least fifty more to set up. He had started work early in the morning, before the sun had even begun to rise, and in the late afternoon he was still working. He had taken breaks only to run to the bathroom, or to grab a quick bite to eat.

It was exhausting work, but he had a limited amount of time to do it in. Setting out the fireworks too early would mean that they would be hampered by dew or rain, which could dampen the fuses, meaning that the launch could be delayed or halted entirely. And he had been paid a large salary to set the display off, and he had every intention of delivering on his promise. That meant long hours the day of the event, but at least he could relax a little in the time prior.

His back was killing him, however, which was slowing him down tremendously, and the longer the day dragged on, the more pain he felt in his back. It wouldn't be long until he could hardly move at all, and if he let himself succumb to that, he wouldn't be able to finish his project. He had to work as quickly as he could while he still could.

Theoretically, he could have hired an assistant. He had more than enough in his budget to allow for something like that, and especially given that the assistant would only be required for a single day of physical labor. However, he was the only one who knew anything about the program he had written, and he didn't trust anyone else to set up the wiring correctly. Especially with the smaller fireworks, which were significantly harder to distinguish.

He had picked out each individual firework with extreme care, searching for very specific colors and explosive designs. He wanted his display to tell a story, and share a message with those who witnessed it, and he wasn't going to be able to do that with variable fireworks.

Not only did they have to go off in order, however, they had to go off from specific areas. He couldn't simply line them up, as the show would therefore simply and slowly move from one side to another, which was not only irritating to watch, but it was boring. He needed something that would be dynamic and capture the attention of not only the audience, but passerbys. The idea that he could capture the hearts and minds of people with spectacular lights raining down like fire from the heavens invigorated him, and gave him a drive that he had never experienced in any other line of work. He took pride in what he could do, and that meant an extreme consideration for the details.

And with fireworks, there was no testing. Once set up, they could only go off once, and so he had to be sure of what he was getting himself into.

It was kind of like checking every bulb on a set of christmas lights to make sure that none of them were out, and thus killing the entire rest of the line.

Only his work was more explosive.

On the beachfront

Michael stood on the beachfront, his feet buried up to his ankles in the sand, sunken down by the gentle push and pull of the crashing waves as they came to a stop a foot behind him. He stood and watched as the waves surged up and down, back and forth, as in the distance children and their families played in the water and ran from it as it threatened to plow into them. He could hear their laughter faintly in the distance, but he paid it no mind. He was not interested in the actions and conversations of people. He was interested in the voice of the ocean.

He listened to it as it came and went around his feet, as it rose and fell. He could hear it trying to speak to him, trying to speak of the lives that it held onto, and the ways that it was threatened. It cried out of the pain it felt as it became polluted, or when fish became over populated and threatened to upturn the ecosystem. It spoke of species the likes of which had never witnessed. Tiny species which wished for nothing more than to be left alone and to mind their own business, and giant species that were dissatisfied with their place in life and wanted more. So like the follies of man, wishing to be more than they were, to reach higher heights than any that they had ever witnessed in their lifetimes or the lifetimes of their parents, or their parents' parents. Generations of creatures, untouched by light, that wished simply to know what was beyond.

And the ocean itself, unsure of what to do for all of the beings that it gave home to. Wanting to help them, but fearing what might happen if it did. Knowing that without them, it would be empty and alone. Knowing what its purpose was, but not where it came from or how it had come to be in the first place. Wanting to know more, but not having anyone to talk to. No one who could hear it. No one who could speak to it. No one who could understand.

But Michael could hear it. He could not speak to it, to advise or help it, but he could listen. And even if the ocean never knew, he would stand in its waters for hours to listen, hoping that the ocean might notice and feel comfort in knowing that there was someone, somewhere, who could hear. Someone to whom the water could vent its frustrations and fears, and share its joys.

But the ocean was massive. He could hear its entirety, and he knew how far the waters spread, how much of the earth it touched. He knew that its knowledge of the shores it swept upon was limited, and muddied by the constant interruption and interference of the acts of man, with intentions well and poor, who did not know that the ocean could think or speak.

For how could they? They could not hear it, nor should they hear it. They had no right to such an ability. Michael was no better, but it had been gifted to him regardless. And if he was to have it, the least he could do was to use it. And pray that one day the ocean would notice him, standing with his toes in the sand, listening, and it would know that it had at least one friend.

The dirt road

Henry could feel his stomach churning, threatening at each curve and twist of the road to leap upwards and empty itself out violently through the same pathway which its contents had entered. His car chugged steadily along the dirt road, which lead ever upwards at varying degrees of steepness - at some instances it was hardly noticeable, while at others he feared that it would be too great for his car to handle, and he would simply begin to slip backwards without any control, slide off a bend, and drop to the abyss below.

He tried not to think too much about that possibility.

His windows were rolled down, and while the hum of his engine and the crackling of dirt and plant-life rolling under his tires gave him a headache, the musky-yet-fresh air was the closest thing to comfort that he could get as he traveled up the mountain. He was beginning to question why he had agreed to such a ridiculous trip plan. Renting a ranch on a mountain top. Bah. What kind of moron wanted to do something like that?

But it was too late to turn back now. Far too late. Ignoring the fact that he was already more than halfway up the road, he had long since paid his deposits and insurances, and the call back date was passed by a mile. He had spent far too much on this venture to even consider calling it quits, which meant that he had to devote a good amount of brain power to ensuring that that thought stayed out of his head. But he didn't have enough brain power to focus on both that and the road. Not with the winds and twists in front of him.

This was all his brother's fault. His brother had been the one to tell Henry that he needed to get out somewhere, get away from the hustle and bustle of his every day life that had been so stressful for him in the past year. His brother had been the one to find this ranch getaway, to suggest it. He had even pitched in a small portion to help fund it. And Henry could hardly say no when there was someone else's money involved.

It was a weakness that he clearly needed to eliminate. And quickly.

But as he rounded the last corner, and the house and its views came into sight, for a moment the pain in Henry's stomach seemed to fade away. What was in front of him was beautiful. More beautiful than anything he had ever seen up to that point in his life. He couldn't quite grasp what it was, from the way that the mountains which had seemed so rough and ragged only moments prior appeared to be soft and gentle in their slopes. The way they hugged the distant horizon, and the ocean that sat square in the middle, with the sun sinking low over and casting a long reflection, as if beckoning to him. As he parked and got out of his car, he felt the gentle breeze dancing around his head, filling his lungs with the scent of fresh pine.

He took a few ginger steps forward towards that majesty. And then the view was gone as he was hunched over and puked all over his new shoes.

Final form

Daxin stood atop his pedestal, looking down over the pathetic heroes who had come before him with the intent of stopping him from achieving his dreams. He couldn't help but smile at the thought. He had always fancied becoming a supervillain - fancied himself as being the one who would actually succeed in conquering the world - and everything was coming together better than he could have ever dreamed. People in the streets cowering in fear of him, or being destroyed in an instant for daring to try and stand against his will. And now a rag-tag band of losers had gathered together, thinking that the power of friendship and determination would be enough to overcome him. How adorably perfect.

They were giving some speech to him about how his plan was insane, and how he would never succeed, and how even if they were to fail this day, others would rise from the ashes and pursue him until the day he faltered and fell from his mighty tower. Or something along those lines. He wasn't really paying attention. He was planning in his head how he was going to celebrate their inevitable demise.

His powers had arrived unexpectedly, but were extremely welcome. The power to control air. How utterly impeccable. The one thing that was always in abundance, that no one could take away from him without having to take it away from themselves in the process. The one thing that no one could go without. As soon as it arrived, he had to make sure that he could use it to rip the wind out of a person's lungs, to suffocate them from the inside out, and let them crumple to the ground and die, surrounded by what they could not have. His parents had been his first victims. He had never looked back.

The 'heroes' were finishing up their speech, thank god. He only noticed because they were finally drawing their weapons. Just before the leader could finish talking, he was dropping to his knees, gasping for air. Daxin knew the others would be on him only a moment later, but the satisfaction of not letting them finish after having gotten so far was just too wonderful. He couldn't help himself.

He took the punch to the gut hard, but the smile never left his face. He flew through the air, appearing to tumble wildly when really he was just putting on a show. It wasn't any fun if he just eliminated them immediately, after all. He had to make an example of them. He had to surreptitiously stomp them into the ground.

They had at least spent some time training and getting themselves practiced at working in sync. He had to give them that. Whenever he stole the wind from one, another was on his back. He let them smash away at him, let the cuts and the bruises and the blood cover him. He even let them corner him against a wall, get surrounded, make it look like he was going to lose.

The leader lifted up his sword and pointed it directly at Daxin's throat. "Any last words?" he asked coldly. Daxin had to stifle a laugh.

The wind surrounding them all was gone. For a moment they stood, swaying on their legs, but it was only a matter of seconds before they were clutching at their own throats. Daxin lifted himself into the air on a powerful gust of wind directly beneath his own feet, a tornado forming in the palm of his hand, and spat blood on the leader's head. "You didn't think this was my final form, did you?" he asked, letting the madness soak into his voice.

The heroes were sent flying, crashing into each other in mid air before piling against a concrete wall as Daxin listened to their bones snap. He burst out laughing, joyful at just how maniacal he sounded. "Oh god," he gasped between breaths. "It's so cliche! But it just feels so right."

The shield

King Albert sat on his throne, one hand resting on the arm of his chair, the other supporting his chin as he stared out of the window at the distant sky. They had already received word of the invasion coming from the east, though the kingdom that was launching the invasion was unknown. Land, sea, or air, they had no information of the invasion other than the fact that it was coming. 

That news had arrived roughly a month and a half prior, and despite the numerous attempts, no more information had been gathered. Albert had sent spies into every kingdom he could reach in a reasonable time to poke around, but nothing had come of it. They were so unproductive, that had the news not come from such a reliable source, he would have begun to doubt that it was true. It nagged at the back of his mind at all hours. He had a committment to ensure the safety and livelihoods of his people, but he could not afford to burn resources on rumors and unsupported reports. But something so drastic... He could not simply let it go. 

His advisor was in agreement. "Your highness," Fredrick called out as he entered the room. "Have you received any word on the invasion?"

Albert turned away from the window to look at the older gentleman as he approached. He had known Fredrick since he was a young boy, when the man had served as a knight in his father's army. In that time, he had witnessed a lot, and had become a skilled and practiced tactician. When he retired from the field, after having suffered a crippling blow to his spine, he offered his knowledge to the king in the position of advisor, and when Albert had taken over, he gladly reinstated the man. "I assure, Fredrick," the king replied, "that if I had received any new word, you would be the first to hear about it. In fact, there is a good chance you would be the one to tell me about it, rather than the other way around."

Fredrick smiled, knowing the truth of the king's words, and rested against the side of the throne. "Watching the skies again, my liege?"

"I fear that possibility more than any other," Albert replied. "Can you imagine if Dragon riders were the ones to strike? How would we retaliate?"

Fredrick hummed in response. "There is the shield, sire."

Albert waved his hand. "Of course, Fredrick, I remember the shield. Not even dragons would be able to pass by it. But that can only stop them. It would do little towards fighting back against them."

"Would fighting back be a necessity?"

"It depends on their intentions and who they are. Which we continue to know nothing about."

"That is the biggest problem, really, isn't it?"

Albert sighed. "Yes. Yes it is."

The band

Arianne tried to swallow, but all of the liquid had left her mouth and throat, and the attempt was more painful than anything else. Yet she could feel sweat pouring out of every orifice of her skin, and no matter how much she tried to wipe it out of her face, it simply refused to go away. Show time was a mere ten minutes away, and she felt as though at any moment she might vomit, or pass out, or both. Probably both. Definitely both.

The rest of the band was relaxed, doing their own things to warm up. Michael was at his drums, practicing twirling his sticks so that he could show off for the crowd. Jake was hugging his guitar, eyes closed, quietly humming a soft song to himself, which Arianne could only assume was another one of his love songs. And Roxanne had yet to pull her bass guitar out of its case, staring intensely at it as if she were daring it to act up during the show.

Arianne felt as if she were the only one sweating bullets. She had always been the happy, carefree, relaxed one of the group. She couldn't count the number of times she had been the one for another member of the band to hold on to when the stress was getting to them, making them feel as if they weren't good enough. She had encouraged them, reminded them of their talent and the time they had put into their practice, and told them that the worse thing they could possibly do after so much hard work was to back down.

But now that she was here, leaving was the only thing she wanted to do. The others looked so certain. They didn't look affected at all. They were as they always were. Why was she so afraid? Why was she suddenly losing herself? Even an hour prior she hadn't felt this way. It had come suddenly, abruptly, out of nowhere. She wanted to cry.

She glared at her microphone, as if it were at fault. She knew that she couldn't abandon her friends now. It was far too late for turning back, and she knew it. But it was all that she could think about doing.

The feeling of a hand on her back made her jump out of her seat. She looked up, eyes wide, to see Jake standing over her. She hadn't seen him move. "J-jake?" she asked shakily.

"It'll be ok," he told her quietly. She didn't know how to respond. Jake was always the blunt and rude one. They knew that that was a facade he put on, but she had never seen him so openly... himself. And more than that, he had been the last one to agree to putting on a concert. He didn't want people to see him playing. He didn't want to be exposed. He had been more afraid than any of them. "We're all here together. We're all scared. But we lean on each other."

She could feel the tears welling in her eyes, and Jake's hand was there almost immediately to wipe them away. "Can't go messing up your makeup now," he said. "We're about to go on."

"I don't know if I can," she whispered.

"Then just pretend like you can, like I am. And worry about it when it's over."

Taking her turn

Jacob pulled the gun for his pocket as he chased after the girl in her torn, golden dress, and the stolen ceremonial sword wrapped in thick leathers clutched tight to her chest. She looked back at him as she ran, a wild and desperate look in her eyes, and nearly tripped by not looking at what was in front of her because of it.

Jacob shouted after he, telling her to stop or he would shoot, but it only made the girl run faster. He really did not want to have to shoot her, but he was quickly running out of options. She had stolen a valuable artifact from the city, worth well over two million credits. He had been fortunate to catch her on her way out of the vault, having arrived early in order to prepare for his shift, and she clearly hadn't been anticipating his presence. The moment she had seen him, she had bolted, making herself only more apparent, and he had followed her quickly.

Taking a deep, regretful breath, he squeezed the trigger and fired a round after her. Running threw off his aim, however, and the bullet whizzed past her head, just catching a bit of her hair. She screamed in surprise and fear, the loud explosion from the muzzle scaring her more than the bullet, and she tripped hard over her feet and fell face first into the cold, hard concrete.

Jacob, was finally able to catch up to her, and stopped just a few paces behind her, gun trained on her back. If he had to take a second shot, he knew without a doubt that he wouldn't miss this time. "It's time to give up," he warned, his voice maintaining a practiced steadiness. "Put the sword down. Give yourself in. I'll be able to make this all a lot easier on you if you do that. Please, just give up."

Slowly, the girl sat up, still clutching the sword like it was her last lifeline. She looked back at Jacob, her eyes a mixture of fear and cool calculation. He wasn't sure what it meant, but there was one thing that he was immediately sure of. She had no intentions of giving up. "I'm sorry," he said, and pulled the trigger.

But as he did, a shiver ran down his spine. The fear in her eyes was gone, replaced entirely with calculation. For a split second, the world seemed to hesitate, as if time itself had hiccuped. His gun began to fire, the bullet exploding from its chamber and launching forth, and suddenly the girl was in motion, faster than he could comprehend. She was on her feet, bolting in a circle around him, before smashing him in the spine with the flat of her stolen blade. He hit the ground and rolled, and when he came to a stop, she was far in the distance, running at the pace she had been maintaining before.

He had no idea what had just happened. But he knew he wasn't going to catch her now.

He only wondered why she hadn't done whatever she had done sooner.

A year ago

I had the realization today that I could go back and read what I had written a year ago today. I've been doing this blog for over a year, and sometimes I still nearly forget to do it. That kind of boggles my mind. They say you do something every day for thirty days and it becomes a habit, and yet here I am a year later and the only habit I've developed is barely remembering to to do it. Kinda pathetic. But barely remembering is still remembering, and that has to count for something, right?

Despite that I can now look back a year in my life and read my writing, I'm kind of afraid to. Do I really want to see how bad my writing was a year ago today? Do I really want to see what little has changed in such a long period of time?

In some instances, even just looking back at the title can be enough at times, though. A year ago today, I wrote Music on a snowy day, which in truth was a piece I had already written numerous times before that. In fact, it's a piece I'll probably rewrite numerous times moving forward in my life. It's part of a story that I desperately want to write, but that I have a hard time cementing. There's not really a bad guy involved, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's making it difficult for me to find a flow of the story. Not to mention that it has half a dozen main characters, and I've talked before about how that doesn't usually work out too well for me.

While that was one of my better pieces at the time (thanks to just how many times I had already written it), some of the others around it are pretty cringeworthy. One in particular was The boxing match. I know what I was trying to do with it, but even at the time I kind of knew that it wasn't going the way that I wanted it to. And now... It's just hard to read. I imagine that's true for anyone who read it at the time. The wording is repetitive, I hardly looked at what I was writing to see if sentences made sense or if words were where they belonged. Granted, I still don't read these over repeatedly before posting them, but I've gotten better at looking at what I'm writing as I go along just to make sure that there aren't extra words where there shouldn't be, or words missing entirely that give a phrase context so that it makes sense.

Other pieces that I distinctively remember being proud of for one reason or another now seem silly to look back on. While it is impressive to know that I can write five hundred words in under ten minutes, that's a lot of crap to be crunching into such a short period of time. When you start to move that quickly, it becomes easy to lose yourself among the mayhem of your own thoughts. I've learned that, rather than writing quickly, it is better to write smoothly. Don't hit a bump too hard and just leap over it in an attempt not to slow down. Instead, steadily push against that bump until you are past it. It doesn't matter how slow or fast you are overall. Just that you keep writing.

It doesn't feel like I've learned a lot over the past year. But maybe the things that I've learned are more subtle, and are setting themselves in place to make a bigger difference down the line. I'd certainly like to think that that's what's happening. I guess the only way to really find out is to keep going. And hopefully in another year's time, I'll look be able to look back on this and make new observations and realizations.

Exhaustion

Jonathan pushed another cart across the aisle, filled to the brim with assorted goods that needed to be pushed on to the floor. As usual, there wasn't any particular methodology or order to how the items had been thrown into the cart, nor had they been accurately put into the carts designated for the different areas, meaning that Jonathan was going to have to be running back and forth for the next hour trying to figure out what went where.

He had been doing this repeatedly the whole day over, the only real breaks coming from when a customer would stop him on the floor to ask him a question about where they could find something, or if they could somehow get a discount on an item that he was quite certain that they weren't supposed to be able to get. But he greeted them each with a smile, and very politely answered their questions or directed them towards someone who was more likely to have a satisfactory answer for them.

He hadn't expected much different, to be fair. This was his life, and it had been for several months now. Pushing one cart full of stuff until it was empty so he could replace it with another, a never ending supply of items that had been misplaced and haphazardly thrown together. The problem was simply that he had been doing it for so long. Day in and day out it was carts after carts after carts, answering questions, and generally trying to work as hard as he could on an endless stream of miscellaneous garbage.

That day in particular had been an especially long shift. He had taken a lunch already, but it hadn't really done much for him. He had had to fight off the exhaustion throughout that was threatening to plunge him into the realm of the unconscious, which had prevented him from really being able to relax. He vaguely recalled people making conversation, and he was fairly certain that he had even replied to them, but the words were completely washed away in his memory. He was more going through motions than anything else.

His solace laid in the knowledge that the following day he didn't have to report in for work. For once, he would be able to sleep in, turn off the alarm clock, and massage out the kinks in his legs and back. He could relax for more than a few seconds at a time. Maybe get some work done on a book that he had been reading for far longer than it should have taken him to get to the ending.

But for the time being, he still had a cart in front of him, stacked so tall he had to carefully look around it as he maneuvered his way around so as not to hit anyone who might be running up to ask for help. He stifled a yawn and rubbed at his eyes as he came to his first stop. He had a feeling it wouldn't be long after he hit the bed that night that he would pass out. He just had to hold out until then.

The rock

Laya and Arnov approached the crater hesitantly, already knowing what they would find inside of it. It was not the first time they had traversed the rock-ladden hillside to peer down into the massive hole that had been left there many years prior, looking to see what the hidden and protected mystery was, but it was the first time they were planning on entering the gaping wound in the ground. They had had enough of idly observing. They wanted to get close. To touch it. To feel it. To not only wonder, but to experience.

But that did not mean that they were about to throw themselves blindly into action. They had talked for sometime about how to go about it - when, how to enter and exit the hole, and what they would do once they had descended. They knew that during the day the area was patrolled, but at night the fences were simply shut down. Granted they were a solid fifteen feet tall, and the tops were barb wired, but with a little practice Laya and Arnov had managed to learn how to scale it without getting hurt.

They peered over the edge at the massive floating boulder in the crater, chained down by four chains, each with links as big as their bodies. The boulder itself was easily as large as their high school, and the chains were connected to a ring encompassing it tightly, as if holding a prisoner in his cell. In a way, that was what the rock looked like. A giant prisoner, caught in a freak accident that had brought it to the wrong place at the wrong time.

Tying the long rope they had brought with them around the base of a tree at the top of the hillside, the two descended into the crater, close enough to one of the chains that they could reach out and touch it. The metal was cold and dirty, but the dirt was only a thin layer on top of the steel. It seemed as though the chains were well cleaned most of the time, but the winds that had been blowing earlier that night had covered them with a thin veil.

They set foot down and made a beeline straight for the rock. Laya reached it first, placing a hand gingerly on the other side of it. The stone was warm, as though it were basking in the summer sun, despite the fact that it was not only night, but they were on the underside of it, where its own shadow would block the sun's rays.

"What do you think it is?" Arnov spoke aloud quietly as he placed his own hand on the rough surface. "What do you think it's here?"

"I think the real question is why is it chained up like this." Laya muttered in response.

Arnov nodded in agreement. "...What do you think would happen if we broke one of the chains?" he asked, almost moe to himself than to his friend.

Laya turned her head in shock to look at him. "Arnov!" she whisper-shouted. "We talked about that! We can't do any damage to anything here! No one can know we came in here! Can you imagine how much shit would go down if we were found in here? We'd get arrested! And you want to just go and break whatever the hell's going on?"

Arnov frowned and shook his head. "I know," he replied. "I know. I just... I can't help but wonder, you know?"

Laya looked back at the chains keeping the rock earthbound. On the other end, they were connected to thick metal poles lodged deep into the ground. She could only imagine how far down they must have gone.

"Yeah," she mumbled. "I know."

Of Adventure

The first Nano novel I wrote was entitled Towards Adventure, and was about a former farmer who taught himself to read, learned the stories of great men going on greater adventures, and wanted to do the same for himself. It started off simply enough, a lone man trying to make his way in the wilds, learning the lays of the land. He was a farmer, he'd know enough about food to get by. But as the story went on, I kept getting more ideas, and I didn't have a great sense of how to hold back at the time.

I added character after character, each with a purpose of teaching my hero something about adventure and life. How not to judge a book by it's cover. How to fight. How to expand his mind and body, and to do great things. These people would travel with him, to help him learn something about himself, and hopefully a little bit about themselves as well. But I added too many, and too quickly. Not to mention the format of the story - written as a journal by the main character - made it difficult to directly explore any of these side characters. Everything was limited by the eyes of the hero, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it wasn't working for what I wanted.

As I wrote, I began to realize how I wanted the story to end. Something that would change in the hero. Make him forget about the adventure that he had long ago set forward on. To separate him from his companions, from his ideals, and make him into a different man. But a man who continued to write about what was happening, because he felt a drive and a need to in himself.

The idea was that, in the beginning, every single day would be chronicled. At times, due to illness or injury, days would be missed, but glossed over with enough to detail to keep the reader up to date. But as time went on, and these changes began to take place, large gaps of the story would go missing. And not even just be skipped. I wanted the very pages of the book to be torn out, so as to show the reader that something was missing. I wanted them to feel as confused about what was happening as the characters were.

It would have made a good set up for the sequel I had in mind. For someone to find his journals much later, and to read them, and become curious. Curious enough to go on their own adventure, to find him. To find out what had happened. To see who he had become and what he had done, and to help him find his way back to adventure. And along the way, learn a little bit about themselves. To take the lessons that the old hero had written about, and apply them to his own life.

I still think it's a good idea. But I don't think I was anywhere close to where I needed to be with it the first time.

Over the top

It can be difficult to explain what being over the top means. Sometimes, we use the phrase to help explain why something is good, yet others it becomes something bad, and there is no difference in the phrase itself between the two uses. Even when we are saying it out loud, while we may mean one definition, what someone is hearing may be the opposite. So what is it that makes being over the top good or bad? What even is over the top to begin with?

It's a matter of opinions, of course. A good example for me is the Transporter series of movies. As far as I'm aware, no one actually likes them. They're stupid. They don't make any sense. They are completely and utterly over the top in the most ridiculous way possible. For me, it is fantastically and beautifully over the top. It's downright silly, and I can't help but laugh while watching them. The fight scenes, the driving, the explosions. None of it makes any sense.

But anyone I have shown the movie to looks at me with a look of disgust and confusion at every scene, and they don't find any humor in it. They find the impossibility painful to watch, and the story not only idiotic, but hard to follow.

In short, they find it to be over the top.

The switch back for me is most animes. I have my share that I like - Fullmetal Alchemist, Sword Art Online (partially), to some extent Dragon Ball Z. But many of the ones out there are just completely over the top. They go so far in that direction that their over the topness is over the top to the point where some people seem to think that it is not only acceptable, but exceptional. They love that the characters are schoolgirls who can destroy entire worlds by upturning their skirts.

I fail to see the appeal. It just doesn't create, in my opinion, interesting dynamics when power and drama is trivialized and handled like an argument between students.

Maybe I'm trivializing the concepts of these shows. Maybe there's something beyond the surface layer that I'm simply missing. But I can't get to it over the levels of ridiculousness that are so often presented to me.

But clearly, it appeals to somebody. And somebody intentionally made these things in this manner. They had a vision in their heads of something crazy, and rather than saying that it was too crazy to do, they went with it. And at some times, you have to admire those kinds of people.

But at others...

Mad as a hatter

Sarah quickly made her way to the front doorstep of the house, a simple white dress hanging from her shoulders, and a pair of contrastingly bright red slippers on her feet. She still wasn't entirely clear on why these were the clothes she had been instructed to wear. She had been hired through less than legal means to work as a maid servant for a man whom she had never met, but had been assured was very interested in her. She wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that.

The door opened nearly the instant that she rang the bell, catching her off guard. The man standing before her was tall and slim, his clothing remarkably old-fashioned and worn down. Atop his head he wore a top hat clearly two sizes too large, and that didn't match the rest of his clothing in the slightest. But more so than any of this, the thing that struck her the most about him was his vibrant blue eyes, shining like pools of water reflecting the summer sun.

"Sarah!" he exclaimed happily, pulling her inside with a tight bear hug and pulling the door shut behind them. "Ah, you're here! Excellent. I've been waiting all morning. Let me take a look at you." She reeled back as he set her down, thrown off by what was happening, unsure of how to react or what to think. She didn't know what she had been expecting. But it wasn't this. His eyes ran up and down her, taking her in, and she just stood there and let him. "Mm, yes, he made a very good decision in that uniform. You know, I wasn't sure at the time, but it is quite the look on you, isn't it?"

Sarah took a solid, dry swallow before she spoke. "He?" she asked quietly. "Who are you talking about, sir?"

"Please, dear, call me Merc."

Sarah looked down at her feet. "Yes, Merc."

"Merc? He would have you call him that. The punk."

Sarah looked up abruptly, surprised by the man's change in tone from friendly to bitter. It had happened in an instant, as though she were suddenly standing in front of a different man. A man who's eyes had become abruptly blood red.

"S-sir?"

"Yes, that would be a much more appropriate way of addressing your master, wouldn't it? Get in the kitchen. It's time for you to get to work."

Without a word, Sarah scurried off to the kitchen as directed. She didn't know what to think of what she was being presented with. She had heard of people being schizophrenic, but... This was different. This was on another level.

She tried not to think of it. The kitchen was a mess, and she got to work cleaning. This was what she had been hired for. What she had expected. She could deal with cleaning.

What she could not deal with was a man appearing in the doorway with purple eyes. "Oh, you're the new one, are you?"

She would have to learn the eyes. Memorize them. And learn how to please them each as if they were different people. This was quickly becoming obvious. She had a lot of work ahead of her.

Decorating

Jack sat on the couch, resting his worn back as the pain threatened to flare up, and watched as his wife Alyssa continued to decorate the house for Christmas. He had managed to get through the tree, at least, which in truth was his favorite part of the decorations anyway, and he was more than content to let his wife do the rest. He didn't want to make her do all the work, of course, but if she didn't need his help he was more than willing to take a break. She had always been the designer between the two of them, able to visualize colors and shapes and put them together to make things beautiful, while he just made them fit together. He was a puzzle solver. She was a creator.

And he was especially grateful to be able to sit when it meant that he could watch her in motion. From the day they had met, there had always been something about the way that she moved and carried herself that had caught his attention. It was hard to call her graceful - she was a bit of a klutz at times, and she certainly didn't have the same flow to her steps as the models did. But there was just something about the way that she was that caught his attention. Perhaps it was that, in his eyes, she felt more real. More attainable. Less like a prize to be placed on a mantle to be observed but not touched.

"You look so beautiful right now."

Alyssa looked down at him from the chair she was standing on to hang the garland. She was a bit of mess, having been digging through boxes and moving all over the house, and she had even managed to work up a bit of a sweat, though it mostly just shone on her face. She was dressed in a silly and adorable ugly christmas sweater, loose sweatpants, and a santa hat that was just a little bit too big for her head.

"That's sweet of you and all," she replied, "but you know you don't have to suck up to me. You already got the ring on my finger."

Jack smiled. "I'm serious," he said. "That look of determined thought on your face. The kind of frazzle you've got going on from trying to figure it all out. I love it. You look so beautiful to me right now."

Alyssa laughed and turned back to her garlands. "You are such a kiss ass," she muttered under her breath, shaking her head.

"You love me."

"I do."

He smiled a cocky grin. "Good. Cause I love you too."

"You're just saying that cause I'm doing the work."

They both laughed at that.

Slides

It was a dark and muddy night, with the moon hanging low over the horizon, a dull haze coming from the weak light of the carnival's overhead system. My mother and I were riding a small, slow moving train system that was designed to take you around the park, let you see what was available and easily get on and off to try the rides. We made our way around the spinning tea cups and found a massive array of slides and, deciding to try them, ascended the tower to the entrances.

There was a man there dressed all in white, his smile perfect except for the missing tooth in the back left. I remember the look in his eyes as he greeted us, though I don't remember the words he spoke. But he was enticing us forward. It was more than just being an attendant. He wanted us to ride down the slide. Was very insistent that we should. So we did.

The slide was longer than I thought it was. Longer than it should have been. Mom had gone first, and I could just barely see over her shoulder as we slid deeper and deeper down. Like a premonition, I saw what we were heading towards.

Saws. Guillotines. Hammers. Designed to crush, flatten, chop and shred us into pieces. I remembered in the vague extents of my memory hearing something about the confetti at this particular carnival practically being alive. It very abruptly made sense why that was.

I desperately tried to claw my way back up, but I was began to ascend, I realized that my mother was not so lucky. I dove back down for her, but I could see that it was too late. The first hammer was falling down...

I woke up in a cold sweat, screaming for my mom. It was a hot night, and a small and worthless fan was blowing from the hallway into the bedroom. My head was where my feet usually were. I looked over and saw my mom, sleeping peacefully, somehow unawoken by my screams.

It took a long time to get back to sleep with my heart pounding as hard as it was.

I dreamed of returning to the carnival, knowing the truth. Of being unable to convince anyone. Of seeing my uncle already cut into fun size bits and pieces, and despite that him speaking to me, telling me how fun it was to become confetti, and how I should join him.

I woke again to find myself curled into a ball.

I dreamed of running through the carnival, trying to stop people from going down the slides, screaming desperately to tell them of the danger. But no one listened. They wanted to be torn apart, mashed down, become little more than bits of paper to be thrown into the wind.

My head was agonizing when I woke. But it was still the dead of the night.

I dreamed of having escaped. Of having arrived in a hotel far, far away, where I could be at peace. But as I was relaxing, I received a call. My father was diagnosed with cancer. There was only one thing that could be done for him. It wasn't a treatment. It was a punishment. The slides.

I dreamed too many times that night. It was very difficult for a very long time after that to even look at a slide, much less slide down it.

The boxer

Matt bobbed and weaved, taking quick jabs and swings at the punching bag as he rose, slipping back down quickly as the bag wobbled back and forth from the weight of his blows. His shoulders and arms were laminated with his sweat, staining dark marks into his wife beater, making his skin sparkle in the intense lights lining the gym, and wet splatters coated the bag, walls, and floor around him. His feet were solidly planted on the ground, and every bit of movement came from the bend of his knees, the torsion of his waist, and the momentum of his blows.

Each blow rang loudly through the empty building. The gym had been closed for hours, but Matt was a trusted member, and was left with they key to close up shop when he finally went home. The front door had already been locked, but could of course be opened from the inside to allow him to leave. Some other trainers stayed after hours, but they had all gone as well. As they left, each had advised Matt not to push himself too hard, and to take some breaks - don't overexert yourself, and keep the muscles limber. Matt had simply nodded in response and kept pushing.

His arms were heavy and cumbersome, but he kept punching. Despite the exhaustion, he kept pounding the sand filled leather in the same spot, over and over, striking at the worn out spot he had forged with repeatedly accurate blows over the last few months. In his mind he could see clearly the bloody pulp of a face that he had been beating for the last few hours of training. The nose that had once existed but was now little more than a lump on a pile of once-face. On occasion, he threw in a gut punch to one side or the other, seeing his opponent spit blood and tooth from the blow.

His own leather boxing gloves were becoming thin as well from the pressure that he put them through. Underneath he had wrapped his fists in three layers of tape, and still he could feel them rubbing thin and raw. But he didn't stop. He ignored the pain. He blew away at his imaginary opponent, a facade atop the punching bag that he had created in his mind, willing them to drop though he knew the steel chains holding the bag in the air were too strong to let that happen. And as long as the bag was up in front of his face, he kept plowing into it.

As he felt that he was ready to fall, he reeled back, converting all the moment in his body into one final blow in his right fist, swinging with all his strength into the leather. But he had worked the bag too hard and too long. As he swung, the thin and weak tension holding it together gave way, and he tore a hole straight into the sand, which began to spill out around his feet as his hand got stuck in the hole.

It took a good two minutes for his weary body to gather the strength necessary to get his arm out of the hole he had punched through the leather. The movement made him land on his ass in the sand, and he sat there for a long time, gathering his breath and his energy. When finally he could stand, he went to the closet and got the cleaning supplies to fix his mess.

It would be another hundred dollars to replace that punching bag. It wasn't the first time he had had to pay that fine. But it was worth it.

Meeting with the devil

The world first froze, simply going from one instance of constant motion, to the next of utter silence and stillness. There was no moment of slowing down. No warning or hint of its on coming occurrence. At one moment the world was moving, and the next it was not.

Rebecca took two steps before she was able to come to a stop, nearly running into the stranger who had been walking in front of her. She should have been terrified and confused. By every right she should have been. But she was not. Deep inside of her, she had a feeling that this moment was coming, that she would be called into service. She hadn't known what that meant. She didn't know where it had come from. But now, as reality simply ceased to function before her, she felt sure that this was the premonition that she had been feeling.

Slowly, the world around her faded away, turning to blackness as though it were coming apart bit by bit around her. The sky was the first to disappear, peeling back to become darkness that came down around her, devouring the landscape and the buildings and the people until there was nothing left but her and a small segment of land beneath her feet, no bigger than a single step in any direction.

It was dark and quiet for a long moment before a figure emerged from the darkness. A massive figure, with muscular red skin, sharp bones like fangs stabbing out in a variety of places. Its face was all that she could see in any reasonable amount. Bigger than anything that she could imagine. Its mouth was a mass of jagged and sharpened teeth, stained red and yellow, and its eyes were an intense and bright red, staring down at her as if they were trying to tear her asunder. When she could pull her eyes away from the face in front of her, she saw that the segment of land she was trapped on was locked in place by a series of elaborate chains, presumably held by the creature's far off hands in the darkness.

"You are not scared," the beast boomed out, its voice ringing through her entire body. Every thing about the beast seemed designed to damage her.

"I am not," she replied, surprised at the own calmness in her voice.

"And yet, you do not know me. You do not know my purpose, nor yours. You do not know where you are, or why, or what you are."

"That is correct."

"You should be afraid."

"And yet I am not."

There was a silence as they stood at a stand off, neither willing to bend to the others will. Rebecca could tell that this beast wanted her to fail, to admit her faults and let herself be destroyed. But she would not do so. Something inside her was burning, keeping her from doing so. And she wanted to know what was going on.

"It should appear we are at a standstill," the beast finally boomed.

"I suppose so."

"Then there is only one thing left to be done."

Finally she caved. "And what is that?" she asked.

The beast retreated, disappearing once more into the darkness. She expected her world to return around her. That this meeting would be over, and that she could return to her life.

But it did not.

Underwater

Jirard's diving suit had been tight and heavy up on the surface, but underwater it was a godsend and virtually unnoticeable. He could vaguely feel the cold chill of the water surrounding him as he sunk deeper and deeper into its depths, but the thick rubber coated fibers of his suit were just enough to keep him comfortably warm. It had taken an agonizingly long time to get his oxygen tank situated on his back, and the breathing apparatus attached so that no water could leak in, the weight of the tank dragging on his back and making him feel as though he would topple over at any moment. But the weightlessness of the water made him almost forget it was there.

Movement was slow, and he had been sinking and swimming steadily downwards for more than twenty minutes, but he was finally getting close to the ocean floor, and could see his goal in sight. A massive sunken ship that had crashed over a decade prior, and needed to be excavated. It had been attacked by pirates who were clamoring for the goods the ship was transporting, but the crew had sabotaged their ship to prevent it from being taken, taking the pirates who had boarded their vessel down with them. And now Jirard was finally sinking down to see what was left of the treasure.

He passed through the large holes that had been blown in the hull of the ship to enter its bowels. Shining his flashlight around the walls of the interior sent the fish who had taken it up as a home scattering, and he could see barrels, boxes, chests and furniture thrown about and broken, but hardly any evidence of anything valuable. No glitterings of gold or silver, no smooth marble, and no rusted gearwork. But he had only just entered.

As he swam deeper into the hull, and the darkness became ever more present, he heard a rush of water coming from outside the wood. It was a larger sound, unlike that that smaller fish fleeing from his flashlight had made, more like a whale sized creature, but moving as quickly as the smaller fish. Something wasn't right. A sound like that shouldn't have been possible this deep underwater. The only logical creature that could make that kind of sound was a larger shark perhaps, and even that was unlikely, even ignoring the fact that there weren't any sharks in these waters.

Feeling a shiver run down his spine, Jirard began to back out of the ship to check his surroundings, deciding that he had more than enough oxygen to return to the interior once he had settles his nerves to continue his search. But as he poked his head out of the hole that he had entered through, he saw something that made his jaw drop.

Above the ship was a massive shadow, noticeably only a few dozen feet away. Even in the darkness he could see its scales, but shining his light on them made them sparkle and dance like dense diamonds. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. It was enormous and expertly crafted, as though it had been designed intelligently. And as he sat in the water, transfixed, the creature turned its head to look down at him.

Massive red eyes pierced through him. And it opened its mouth as if smiling, and between its teeth, Jirard saw his treasures.

It was no longer worth it.

Trouble writing

I know this isn't the first time I've talked about this, and I certainly know it won't be the last, but lately I've been finding myself struggling with even wanting to write, much less coming up with anything to write. Maybe it's because I wrote a novel last month and I'm feeling drained, or maybe it's just because I've been so tired lately due to my inefficiency with adjusting to my work schedule, but I've simply found myself spending much more time than usual without any idea of what to write. And even when I do manage to think of something that I want to write, I have been dissatisfied with what's come out of it.

Personally, I think yesterday was a good example of that. I thoroughly enjoyed the idea of taking grinding in video games (something that I do very heavily) and creating a villain out of it. Twisting a person's mind and making them insane to the point where they believe experience and levels to be real, and that mass murder is the path towards unstoppable power. It might even be a better reason for a villain to want to kill people rather than control them, which is so often a problem glossed over in stories. Even showing what could be seen as a reward for doing so, which could make a hero question whether it is something that they will have to do if they want to stop the villain, and in turn if it would affect their own mental process.

But perhaps that's an idea that is simply too real to make work in a fictional setting. It doesn't make much sense for someone to think about grinding in a world where that concept doesn't even exist. An outsider looking in could get it, but what about the characters in the story? They would have to have some sort of role playing game - one with experience and levels and stat distributions - in which case you have to wonder if the people who play those kinds of games are viewed differently, or have the potential to be powerful in a real fight.

You could try and change the setting of it to be more modern, but leveling up with guns doesn't quite work the same way. After all, it's not really about an individuals power in that case, but the power of the gun. The only thing the user has to be able to do is aim it and resist the kickback, none of which requires a living target.

And perhaps this is all my problem. Perhaps lately I have been trying to tackle stories and problems that are too big to be handled in such small bursts. I've been thinking of these posts as a part of something bigger, and maybe that's why I'm struggling. Not that I hadn't been doing that before, but there were pieces I had written that I didn't plan on taking any farther. But now, even if it is subconscious, perhaps I am simply thinking of these small selections as parts of something bigger - something bigger that never comes.

I don't know quite how to go about resolving this. Mostly because I'm not entirely sure where to begin. But I will say this:

I found while writing this that I rather enjoyed explaining what I was thinking while writing a fictional piece. Maybe I should try that more often.

Grinding

Joseph could feel the dampness of the darkened dirt as he walked across it, hearing the soft squish of it under his feet. Normally, such a feeling would have given him comfort, knowing that the fields were being cared for and that in a few months time, there would be crops to harvest and that could feed the people.

But not in the winter time.

It was too cold to be growing crops. Too cold for the mud under his shoes the radiate with heat. And the fields should never be steaming. Nor should that steam have had such a strong odor of iron.

He had no doubts about what he was standing on. What he did not understand was how or why. How could there have been so much bloodshed to soak the fields? How would anyone go about killing so many people, and in such a short span of time? He had been gone for only a day. And there were no bodies to be seen. How. Why?

As if a curse was lifted from his body, his muscles kicked into action to launch him forward towards the town. From the outside, there hardly seemed to be anything wrong. Some lights in the houses had already been lit as the sun was setting, but as he grew closer, there was no sound. No rustling in the streets as people walked and talked, heading home for dinner. No sound at all. It was as if the village had been deserted. But he feared worse.

There was blood in the streets, on the walls of buildings, splattered and trailing. It led Joseph to the town square, to a massive pile of bodies. Men, women and children, animals, and vague shapes that he couldn't even make out the shape of. Slaughtered, torn apart, thrown against each other and gathered in the center of town like some kind of sick tribute to the work of the man who was standing before it, proudly looking up at what he had done.

"Who the hell are you?" Joseph called out, his voice breaking. "What did you do to my people?"

The man turned slowly, the insane look in his eyes as he grinned sending shivers down Joseph's spine. "I thought I'd wiped this town out already," he said loud and clear, pulling a knife from his trenchcoat. "But it looks like I get to get one more kill."

Joseph could feel his blood freezing and desperately ran for the nearest house, looking for something to defend himself with. But the man was already there in front of him. "Oh, are you a fighter?" the man asked. His eyes were wide and white, his pupils miniscule. "Good. More experience."

"Why?" Joseph asked, barely able to get out his voice. "Why are you doing this?"

The man grinned wildly, and his knife was already plunged into Joseph's stomach. "I have to level up somehow."

Fate

Joleen sat outside the small hut on a bench looking over the hills she had climbed to reach this place, her head in her hands, unsure of what had just happened and uncomfortable at her uncertainty. The sun was shining down on her, its warmth countered by the gentle but frigid wind that blew through her hair. The bench was hard and clearly not built for extended periods of sitting. Perhaps it was meant to usher visitors inside more quickly. But she did not move.

She heard the door to the hut open and close behind her, and a set of footsteps drew close to her. She did not turn to see them. "Were you unsatisfied with your future?" the older voice asked. It belonged to the wizard who lived in his hut atop the hills, who offered readings of futures for any who came to visit him. It was not an easy journey to reach him, and only the most resolute were likely to reach him. Less than an hour prior, Joleen had been that kind of person.

"It is not that I am dissatisfied," she answered flatly, refusing to turn her gaze away from the skyline. "To be honest, it is not even... unexpected."

The wizard hummed and sat beside her. She shifted away from him immediately. "You are to be a heroine," the old man muttered. "To serve and save your people. To be remembered in the analogues of history, and to die a hero's death, fighting against evil. Your death will not even be in vain. Your death will rally the people so that they might finish your fight, and bring a peace that most are unfamiliar with. Your very name shall bring joy to those people's children."

Joleen nodded silently. She had already heard him say all of these things, and in much greater detail. The acts of valor and bravery. The injuries and rewards received for her actions. Everything that she would ever do, and the consequences of her every action. That is what she had come to hear, and it had been delivered to her. But still, she was not happy.

"What is wrong, then?" he asked.

Joleen wasn't entirely sure. That's what she had been trying to decide on. "When I came up here," she voiced quietly, "I wanted to know who I would be. I thought that if I knew, I would feel more confident that I was on the right path. That I was doing the right things, and that my choices weren't a waste of time. But now that I know... I guess I just feel like I cheated."

The old man chuckled, and finally Joleen turned to see the smile emblazoned on his face. "What's so funny?" she asked.

"You feel like you cheated because you know your fate. You should try knowing everyone's."

Spawning

The first thing I remember was a bright light and the sound of a loud buzzing ringing in my ears, rattling my brain inside of my skull and giving me a massive headache. I fell forward, one leg instinctively jerking forward to catch me from falling on my face. My chest began to burn, and I didn't understand why, but my mouth opened and air rushed into my lungs and the pain began to fade. I didn't understand what breathing was at the time. I didn't understand much of anything.

The buzzing began to fade away, and was replaced by a scritching noise from pen on paper in the distance, the faint humming of people as they thought. I didn't know what was happening. One man, dressed in a long white coat, which was remarkably bright thanks to its cleanliness, stepped towards me and put a hand on my shoulder.

Reflexively, I tried to pull away, but his grip was much stronger than any part of me was, and I couldn't move. "Are you a boy or a girl?" His voice was loud and booming in my ears, and I winced away from him. But his words stuck in my brain. Boy? Girl? I didn't know what those things were. I looked down at myself, but despite what I saw, I couldn't make heads or tails of the question. What did anything mean?

"A girl?" I asked. I didn't realize that I knew how to speak. I was just repeating the sounds back at this person. My own voice was weak, with barely any sound to it, and at the time I couldn't take any details from it. It just was what it was. The man nodded his head and took down notes.

"Your name?"

What was a name? Did I have one? Was I supposed to? What could it even be? I racked my brain trying to think and understand, to find anything anywhere that might be a clue as to an answer for what this man was asking. But there was nothing. "Name?" I asked.

"What people call you. How you are to be recognized."

I still didn't understand. The words were utterly lost upon me. I didn't know what calling or recognizing was. Nothing made sense to me. I didn't know who I was, or where I was, or what I was. There was nothing to me.

"Meera?" I asked. The sound was strange. I didn't really know where it came from. I was just trying to make a noise.

"Meera it is."

Dancing

Roger sat at the bar of the club, his drink untouched on the table beside his elbow as he watched the dance floor. He wasn't a big fan of the music - never had been - and he wasn't much of a dancer. If it weren't for how much his friends loved the place, he'd probably never go in there. The drinks were good, but it didn't have much else going for it in his book most of the time.

But one girl had caught his eye. A lot of the women in this place were looking. Dressed somewhat skimpily, almost never paying for their own drinks, moving in and out of their groups on the dance floor as some poor sack tried to get at her, but she only let him know that he wasn't her type after she'd already gotten something out of him.

But this girl was more sensibly dressed. A top that covered more than half of her skin, a long and flowing skirt with a single slit on one side that made the dancing she was so into a lot smoother. She had a grin on her face, and her long hair bounced just as easily to the music as she did. Roger had already watched three different men approach her and try to dance with her, but she had sent them away. She wasn't even drinking. As far as he could tell, she was there just to dance.

Rich jabbed Roger in the gut with his elbow, jolting him loose from the wide-eyed staring he had been doing all night. "Why don't you go talk to her, huh?" Rich asked. "You've practically burned holes straight through her with that stare of yours. I doubt she hasn't noticed, and she hasn't given you a death glare. Just go talk to her."

Roger sputtered and instinctively grabbed his drink to take a swig. "I can't just talk to her, man," he rebutted. "A woman like that... I'm nothing. I can't even dance. Look at her. So graceful. So free. So wild."

"So sexy."

Roger glared at his friend but didn't say anything. He couldn't disagree. "I just can't."

"Go talk to her, and the whole tab's on me tonight."

Roger hesitated and took a long, dry swallow. That was a hard deal to deny. "Fine."

His legs felt shaky as he went out onto the dance floor. He couldn't take his eyes off of her.

"Finally worked up the courage?" Her voice surprised him. He didn't expect her to even notice him, much less talk first. She didn't stop dancing, and for a moment he wasn't sure what to say.

"Listen," he called out meekly. "I just... You're beautiful, and I thought I could... I mean, maybe, if you wanted..."

He had never been good at flirting.

She giggled and turned towards him fully, still bouncing on her heels to the music, weaving her head from side to side as she did so. "Dance with me," she spoke, more of an order than a request.

"Oh, I, uh... I'm really not..."

"Dance with me, boy, and I'll give you the time of day."

Roger could feel his body freezing up. Every muscle was tensing up, and he doubted he would even be able to move. He slightly nodded his head, trying to do it to the music. "A-alright," he stuttered weakly.

A bright grin spread across her face. "Atta boy," she said teasingly.

Free Write 3

It's December, and with that a lot of things can go very wrong or very right. On the one hand, December last year is when I started this blog. I was setting goals and getting started on them early with the hopes that I would be able to make habits before I was committing myself to them. I suppose it worked out, since I'm still here now. On the other hand, this December is a mish mash of things all coming together at once, and while I'm not falling apart, I'm not doing as well with them as I would like to be doing. Of course, that's pretty much my fault, for picking things that I want to be doing that don't really go together all that well.

I haven't done much writing on my novel since the end of November. I'm a little torn on it. On the one hand, it sort of has an ending. It's not the ending I was planning on, but it can be seen as an ending. It could lead into having a sequel the way that it's written now. But I'm not really sure that that's how I want it to be. For one, it's only fifty thousand words, which is less of a novel and more of a novella, but that's just getting into semantics. Suffice to say that, for a book, that's pretty short. But the way I left it off makes it kind of hard to keep going in the context of a single book.

There are a lot of video games that are coming out that I'm really excited for, and some that I want to play other games before they come out for one reason or another. But for someone like me, who loves stories and consequently loves RPGs, that's a lot of time. Even a short RPG is usually around thirty hours long, and I have a habit of picking the longer ones. Plus I like to grind, and make my characters overpowered, and I hardly ever want to finish a game without having completed all of the side objectives and beaten all of the extra bosses. I mean, if you're going to sink that much time into a world, you might as well see everything it has to offer, right?

But I also want to get back to exercising. I keep telling myself that that's something I need to do, and looking in the mirror every day and seeing what my body has become is frustrating. Sure, for most it would be more than acceptable, and physically speaking, I'm a lot more capable than a lot of other people. But it's not enough for me. I want to be everything that I am capable of being, and I'm not, and I know that because I have been more in the past. But it's just so difficult when exercise is less than thrilling, and I'm already exhausted when I get home from work, and I certainly don't want to be getting up any earlier in the morning than I already am.

Add on to all of that an assortment of other things that I've been wanting to get myself to do or get back to doing for ages, and it's just hard to choose what to do and when to do it. Especially when all I ever really want to do is be lazy. And I hate that that's true, but it is. Why choose to do something when you can choose to do nothing and feel just as good in that moment? Sure, you may not feel as good in the long run, but in that moment it hardly makes a difference. In fact, doing nothing usually feels better, because you're not making yourself more tired than you already are.

I suppose it comes down to me being bad at task management, which I'd like to say is something that I'm working on, but if results are to speak by, clearly I'm not. Motivation is something that I am severely lacking in. And sooner or later I'm gonna have to figure that out. Hopefully sooner.

The edge of sleep

Jared sat at his computer, the bright glow of his monitor drying out his eyes, and pushing through his eyelids whenever they closed - which was more often than it should have been. He had been listening to music while he was writing, but he was far too tired to register the fact that it had simply stopped playing some time before. His head lolled back to front, side to side as he tried in vain to keep himself awake. His eyes were unfocused, creating two blurry images of the screen before him, and the words on his document swam around in circles, confusing him if he dared try to read what he had written.

He had been writing for hours, working on the novel that he had promised himself months ago would have been done weeks ago. The plot was slow and grading, trying to go in a multitude of directions and falling short on them all. He was losing track of where it was even going to end up. The longer he had spent writing, the slower the story was coming out of him, and the worse its quality. He was increasingly frustrated, but it only made him want to write more, in an attempt to make it better.

But the question of how long he would be able to stay awake was beginning to come to the front of his mind. He wanted to write something that he felt he could be proud of before he went to bed, but the longer he kept writing, the less likely it seemed that he would be able to accomplish that.

He didn't even realize that he had simply passed out in his seat, the screen eventually going to sleep as well to allow him a more relaxed state. He dreamed of his characters and their adventures. He watched them galavant in lands he would never permit them to reach, watched them come to life in ways he had never before imagined, and witnessed them crawling directly out of his screen.

He was surprised to find himself still at his desk when he woke up. It took him a long moment to understand what had happened and hat the images he had seen were little more than dreams he had intended to put the words of down on paper, but had already been long gone by the time sch thoughts made it into his brain.

He read what was there, expecting to find garbage that had so clearly understood it to be th day before when it came out of his finger tips. And while some of it was utterly terrible, other parts were better than he anticipated. They made him want to read more of what was coming. He hardly even remembered writing them. They must have come nearer to the end of his writing.

He wondered if perhaps he wrote better when he was on the brink of falling asleep. He didn't particularly want to test it to find out.

Reload

Marco slipped the small, tubular device into his pocket, making sure to let the heavier end point down so that he would now which of the buttons placed on each end of it was which. As he kicked open the door, one hand wrapped tight around the button, he hit the closer button and set his foot down on the ground. It wasn't even entirely on purpose, but once he hit the button, he felt a surge go through him, like an understanding of what he had done. He didn't quite get it. But he kept it in mind.

He was having a weird day coming off of a weird week. He had been on the run. Five days prior, the front door to his home had been broken down, and a group of men had invaded his living space, each holding a pistol and a stern look on their face. He had tried to question them. He had tried to be reasonable. And then they had planted a bullet square in the flesh of his thigh.

It had been difficult running away after that, especially since the blood trail showed them exactly where he was going. He had been fortunate that he had been picked up by a concerned innocent, who had driven him away at high speed to a hospital. Or at least, it had seemed fortunate at the time. Marco didn't know what had happened to that person. All he knew was that their car hadn't been there after he had been patched up, and that it didn't take very long for his pursuers to resurface.

He took a right as he exited the abandoned home that he had spent the night in, skirting down a side alleyway that lead to the park. He was hoping to disappear into the crowd so that he could buy some time, but it was still too early in the morning, and the usual families with their children hadn't yet arrived.

Trying to move around the edge, he saw them appear quite abruptly up ahead. He didn't know how they moved around so quietly, or how people weren't perturbed by their armaments until he made a noise. But it never took long once they had arrived for the madness to start. Usually because he screamed.

He tried to make a break for it, but the movement caught their attention. The gunfire shot trough the air, but his movements were erratic, helping to keep them from getting a clean line of fire on him. But the bullets grazed his arms and legs, and he cried out from the burning pain. One bullet clanged off of the metal in his pocket, and he reached in hastily, trying to withdraw it to see if it was ok. Just at that moment, a bullet caught home, and it pierced his spine.

As he fell forward, he managed to pull the metal cone from his pocket. He could see a dent in its side as he fell in slow motion. He had pressed the large button before. With his pinky, he reached underneath, and his crashing into the ground forced it into the other button.

His foot fell onto the ground as the doors swung open in front of him, his hand wrapped tightly around the metal in his pocket. He looked back and forth, gaining his ground. He was back at the house he had stayed the night in.

He decided to try going left instead of right this time.

Snow

The snow fell gently on the school's rooftops, but the small gathering of students was unbothered by the cold. They sat in a circle, eating their lunches with smiles on their faces and listened to their one friend in particular serenade them all. Normally they would happily chat about the going ons of their lives, what was happening in class, and what music they were currently into. But as the winter had come in on them, they had been faced with having to find a new place to congregate, rather than the roof of the music department, which they were able to access thanks to a chain link fence on the western side.

It was only thanks to their discovery of, and eventual convincing of their acceptance of Jake's music that they were able to continue with their usual plans.

Alicia had been the first to see it. Jake had always been a harsh and cold person, curt and blunt, and hardly concerned with the feelings of the people around him. At least on the outside. The group knew better than that, of course - in truth, Jake had a heart that burned brighter than any of theirs. He chose silence intentionally, so that he would not be spread too thin amongst the people around him in his life. He was a harsh person, sure, but he always spoke the truth, and if you ever wanted advice or assistance, he was the man to turn to. But he was more than that as well. In a way, they all were.

Even in the dead of winter, Jake was dressed in torn blue jeans and a tight white t-shirt, occasionally wearing a heavy black leather jacket. His bright blue eyes were sharp and piercing, and they sent chills through a person's spine even in the heat of the summer. Temperatures didn't bother him. Especially with his guitar in hand.

For years, no one had seen him playing it, however. Most had assumed he was a heavy metal guitarist, but you could never get a word out of him one way or the other on the subject. It wasn't until Alicia had come across him a month prior that anyone in the group had the slightest idea that, in truth, he was an acoustic player with an interest in soft love songs. No one would have ever guessed that.

They couldn't help but smile as they listened to him play and sing in the center of them all. The flames licked at his fingertips as he did so, and its warmth spread to them all, the snow melting and fading away before it could ever touch them. They regularly left a large dry circle in the center of the rooftop. Not that anyone but them would ever know.

Hair

James ran his fingers through Rebecca's hair, letting them get stuck as they came to the numerous notes so that he could locate them and slowly undo them. Rebecca leaned back into him, her eyes closed and her shoulders resting against his chest. She didn't make much noise, apart from the occasional yip when his tugging got down to the roots of her hair and pulled on her scalp just a bit too hard, quickly followed by his soft apologies as he continued his work. It wasn't that Rebecca lacked a comb, or that her hair was particularly messy. James just liked the feeling of his fingers running through her hair, and he didn't mind helping with the knots along the way. 

He could smell the pomegrante shampoo she used in the air all around him, and he knew it would persist between his fingers for hours to come. He enjoyed that thought. Being able to carry that smell around with him wherever he went was like being able to take her with him. Or at least, it was the next best thing. 

"You're the best." Rebecca's quiet, relaxed voice drifted up to James as he ran his fingers through her hair a half a dozen times, searching for the next knot and enjoying how smooth and silky her hair felt. He looked down at her, and she tilted her head back to look up at him with a sleepy smile. She always looked so relaxed when he took care of her hair for her. 

"No I'm not," he whispered quietly, but surely. "I just enjoy taking care of you."

Rebecca hummed happily and smiled up at him. "That's close enough for me," she assured him. "I can live happy with just a man who combs my hair with his fingers."

"Is that so?" James asked with a coy grin. "I guess I'm lucky I'm willing to do that then. Otherwise you might go and find another man."

Rebecca hummed and shook her head. "I wouldn't do that."

"Oh? And why not?"

"Because. You're the best."

James chuckled and let her hair hair sprawl out around them both. "I seem to recall this conversation."

Post-release releases

If that title doesn't make any sense to you, don't worry. It will by the end.

Hopefully.

Over the past ten years in video games, a new idea for how games are developed and distributed has not only surfaced, but become highly prevalent. This concept is DLC, or downloadable content. If you don't know what that means, in short, developers of games can release more content for the game after it has already been released to the public. DLC can either be free or released at a price - usually small, though it depends on the content.

Many people, including myself, find much of DLC to not only be frustrating, but reprehensible. The vast majority of DLC is over priced, and is content that in the past would have been packaged in with the original release but hidden behind play walls rather than pay walls. Just by playing the game, additional costumes, modes, and stages would have been unlocked, where as with DLC as it is, even just a simple cosmetic change can cost you up to two dollars. And perhaps that doesn't sound like much, but consider that you've already paid up to sixty dollars for the game itself, and in some games there can be upwards of one hundred pieces of DLC costumes and stages, meaning that if you wanted access to the entire content of the game that has been released, it would cost you upwards of two hundred dollars more.

But DLC isn't always bad. At times, it can add hours of content that expand the world in the game and help explain reasons behind character's actions that previously made little to no sense, for five dollars or less. Sometimes even for free. It's hard to argue against cases like these. Such content isn't easy to get out, and especially not on strict time limits that most games are on, and having the extra time after the main game is out can mean that it will be fine tuned beyond even that of the main game.

Similar concepts have existed in home DVDs for much longer. Special edition releases that add extra content, like behind the scene footage or cut dialogue and scenes. In a way there's not much difference, other than the fact that a base DVD is about fifty dollars less than a base video game.

And recently, I wondered if this could apply to books as well. If an author could release a prologue or side story attachment to a novel they had already released. Not a full sequel or prequel - just a little something extra. Some series have things like this - Harry Potter has a couple of small books that give compact details on the creatures that exist in its magical world. But that's not quite the same as an additional, say, ten pages that give a little more idea about the world and lives of the characters after the story is already over.

Would this only be possible for digital releases? Or could it be something that is available as its own download on an author's website? Should it be free or paid for? Does it depend on how long the extra release is?

I suppose in a way most of these decisions are up to the developers and publishers, as is the case with video game developers and publishers. And I'm not sure that it is a thing that would ever work. But it's interesting to think about.

Character exploration

Sometimes when you're writing, the hardest thing you come across doing is understanding your own characters. Trying to see what their motivations are, the dreams, goals, interests and dislikes. It may sound like obvious things, but they can be quite difficult to get when you're just writing down a plan for a character. Some things you may never think of when you're planning, but eventually it just comes up in the story, and you don't quite know what the proper response is for that character.

One interesting thing that I have seen people do is to write a scene between that character and another character you have that you know much better. Take two instances from completely different worlds and butt them head to head, and just see what happens. Having one character who comes from a post apocalyptic world where cannibalism is a common occurrence speak with a rich merchant from the middle ages who has always dreamed of retiring to a life of fishing makes for an interesting conversation, after all. Give them an explanation for why they are speaking, or ignore it entirely. In a way, it depends on the characters, and whether or not they care enough to ask.

It's the little things that really give a character life, and little things aren't things that you can just decide in advance. Things like how they respond to a sarcastic comment, or how long they laugh at a corny joke. What they're favorite color is and how much of it they wear. You might think you can plan these things in advance, and maybe for some people you can. But for me, even if I tried to decide their favorite color in advance, it would probably eventually turn out that I was wrong about it.

And you would be surprised how much a favorite color helps to define someone. It reflects on what they value and how they think and how they act. Colors have all kinds of meanings attributed to them, whether we realize it or not, and we probably know most of them somewhere in our subconscious. Things like blue being peaceful and red being angry. Yellow being light and excited, and black being dark and harsh. It might not sound like much, but over time it adds up.

But even after you've discovered all of these things about a character, they may not be consistent. They may go back on their word, change their minds, and evolve as a character. Something they did at the beginning of the story might be the complete opposite of what they'll do by the end. And you don't always have to fix that in post. Sometimes that hypocrisy is just another facet of who that character is.

No one's perfect, after all.

The morning after

Jason woke up with a dry throat and a pounding headache. The first sound he heard was his own painful groaning, and when he opened his eyes, the room was spinning around him. He tried to sit up in his bed, but his sense of balance was off, and he could barely lift his arms, they were so heavy. Looking at the clock, he could see that it was twelve past seven in the morning, but he couldn't remember what day it was. He could barely remember what had happened the night before.

When he finally managed to get vertical, he grabbed his phone off of the desk by his bed, intending to check the date. But when he unlocked the screen, what he saw was a series of texts filling up the screen. The letters were swimming too much in front of his eyes, so on weak feet, he wobbled his way into the bathroom and began to splash his face with water. It was a good five minutes before he could make out any of the texts on his phone.

2:39 AM can't sleep. sorry

2:53 AM i just don't know what to make out od this, Jasn

3:12 AM we need to talk in the morning

He vaguely remembered going to the bar the night before with his friend, Jennifer. Her texts scared him. He couldn't remember anything after they had arrived. He must have been drinking heavily. He had been trying to do that less lately, but clearly he hadn't done a very good job of it. If Jennifer had been there with him when he did so, he wasn't sure what he must have said to her. But clearly it wasn't something she had known how to handle.

He had loved her for years, but never knew how to tell her. It was part of the reason that he drank so hard. He felt ashamed of his inability to speak up, to tell her how he really felt, and to make something out of the friendship they had and that had stagnated unsatisfactorily in recent memory.

He rubbed his face as his phone autodialed her number and he held it up to his ear. One ring. Two rings. Three.

"Jason?" her voice on the other end was quiet, and tired. He could tell his call had waken her up.

"What did I say last night?" he asked. "Actually, first, how much did I drink? Then what did I say."

There was a pause as Jennifer tried to remember through her grogginess. "I think you had taken five shots before you started talking," she said. "And... And you started talking about me. And... The things you wanted to do to me."

Jason took a long breath. "It sounds like the whiskey was talking," he muttered apologetically.

"Jason... Do you love me? Or was that the whiskey talking?"

It took him a long moment to answer.

"Jennifer," he said. "I promise you. I am stone cold sober. And I do. I do love you."