Socks

Here's a fun experiment - free-flow of thoughts with disregard to grammar from a perspective that isn't your own. I'm picturing, personally, a really tall, quiet, perhaps not too attractive and very rural looking guy with big, rough hands and a penchant for violence - what do you think?

___She's lying down next to me on the bed with her soft white skin all bare and glistening with sweat. I can hear her breathing and it's that deep, rumbling, contented purr that women get sometimes when the sex is good. It's a dangerous kind of breathing because women think an orgasm means eternal love half the time, and I reckon that's about what's going through her head the way her fingertips are slowly tracing up and down my forearm. It kindof tickles, kindof snags those coarse dark hairs that look primal next to her smooth porcelain flesh.
___I don't like this petting business, makes me feel a bit like a dog, which ain't right because she's the one with the dog look in her big brown eyes. It's a pleading hungry look, a sad desperate animal look, a sniveling seeking affection look. I really don't like that; it means she expects me to say something sappy-sweet now, like I love her, and give her one of those tacky little kisses on the forehead that women get all stupid about.
___Me, I'm just wondering how long I can keep this up before she goes from puppy love to snarling bitch and kicks me out of her apartment, me hallway-standing like a damn fool in my boxers with a ball of clothing in my arms, her howling like a banshee while the neighbors make no effort to politely look away.
___Probably won't get both of my socks back, never do. Lonely single gals like her, they probably have a whole heap of lonely single socks in their apartment, all different kinds of socks from all different kinds of men. Because they're just hoping to find a pair of socks that'll stay for more than just the night.

Songspired! "You Look Like I Need A Drink"

Songspiration – writing inspired by music, incorporating lyrics! This is based on "You Look Like I Need A Drink" by Against Me! Lyrics are italicised. It starts with lyrics, ends with lyrics, and has some thrown in the middle.

In the closest alley,
in the first doorway,
he pushed up against her
and closed his eyes.

___The street lights cast everything in a sickly yellow glow, throwing shadows of trashcans and cardboard boxes long across the filthy concrete. It was late enough that even the hustle and bustle of the city had died down sufficiently for long stretches of near-silence, in which the only sounds were the rustle of crumpled newspaper on pavement whenever the wind blew, or the wail of a distant siren. With her body pressed tightly to his, he could hear her soft exhalations and feel the strumming of her heartbeat against his chest. His fingers traced her spine through the thin fabric of a well worn blouse as he touched his forehead to hers. Her breath was tainted by the reek of alcohol as she craned her neck to kiss him, groping at the front of his jeans. He shuddered, pulling back enough to gingerly stroke her jaw line with his fingertips. He said,
___“This is probably the worst decision that I’ve ever made,” brushing her lips with one thumb as she pushed her back against the door until it yeilded, pulling him into a dimly lit hallway with a sly grin. Behind her tired, bloodshot eyes and teeth discolored by negligence, he fancied he saw something beautiful as she laughed and smiled, and said,
___“I’m sure you do this all the time, right?”
___Through the thin walls, the sound of a baby's crying was audible; it did not cry out for long as though already resigned to being ignored, and they disregarded it in turn. In the stairwell, walls pocked with damage and scrawled with graffiti, he ground his hips to hers. Bathed in wan and flickering light, she wrapped her legs around his waist so that her ratty little black skirt rode up to leave her pale ass bare. Their mouths were sloppily fixed together, too rushed and unfamiliar. An erection only marginally firm from drunkenness prodded blindly against her groin, a friction of jeans against scant lace. She pulled her mouth from his, lipstick smeared half across her cheek to match the runny mascara that darkened the corners of her eyes.
___"Wait, wait - let's do some shit first," she rasped into his ear, kissing his earlobe as she spoke. Her nuzzled her neck, thrusting against her once more, and she slapped his chest in protest.
___"Seriously, you said you had some."
___He huffed frustration and pushed back using both hands against the grimy wall, letting her untwine her legs as he felt around in the back pockets of his jeans. The baggie, half-empty, contained a light brown powder that bore the acidic scent of vinegar when he carefully pulled it open. Her eyes were more desirous at the sight of the dope than they had been as they kissed. She reached for the tightly rolled dollar bill clutched between his two fingers like a cigarette, and he pulled away, a face that had been flirtatious now hardened against her.
___"It's my stuff, I hit it first."
___He inserted the rolled bill into his left nostril, lowering his head and raising the baggie until the two met then taking in a quick snort. He withdrew, rubbing his nostril and sniffling, eyes already working towards that distant, glazed look as he extended both in her direction. She went through the motions with rehearsed precision, clearly a regular user, but took a much deeper hit than he had. Her dark brown eyes rolled back in her head and her breath shuddered out in one great rush before she pitched forward. Reflexes slowed by the dope, he reached to catch her arm and missed.
___Down, down, down, so soft of a sound - her head hit the edge of the stairs, bounced once, struck again. There was no bleeding, just a wet pop, and then she sprawled motionless on the floor. Eyes wild with whites showing all around, he knelt beside her in a panic, shaking her thin shoulders in desperation.
___"Get up!" Her head lolled limply, face an expressionless mask. "Get up - please start breathing!"

And the moment will come
when you finally realize
the results of decisions
and choices in your life.
Can you hear it all coming back after you?

The (Unwritten) Death of Sreya Bahari

This is half of a larger piece posted at Tower that permitted me to write a very personal 3rd person perspective of the death of a crucial character in my book, Sreya Bahari. Only the aftermath of her death is observed in the book since it is written from the first person perspective of another character, but the moments here from Sreya's perspective are in keeping with what Trent experiences upon entering the territory and finding her.
I considered posting the whole piece, but it is very graphically violent and posting it so publically was against my better judgement. So, this occurs after Sreya has awoken post-skinning on the verge of death. It's still pretty disturbing so if things of this sort do not appeal to you, please reconsider reading. Most of the terminology also probably makes no sense without the background of the rest of the novel. And oh - the full texted started with "Sreya Bahari was not dying... yet." if you are pondering the wording of the last few sentences.
Ok, side notes are over. I'd say enjoy but that's hardly the right word.

___Sreya didn't recall any sensation of opening her eyes, but she found herself staring out at rocks spattered in dried blood through vision narrowed to tunnels by hypoxia nonetheless. The early morning sun filtered down brighter than it ought to on the territory, and it took a moment for her to realize that this was due to an absence of shade; the trees had been burned to blackened spires pointing like accusatory skeletal fingers at the heavens: why us!? There was a haze in the air, a few smoldering embers on the fringes of the rendezvous still leaking feeble clouds of dark smoke - this she heard and smelled more than saw, unable to turn her head to observe the carnage. Perhaps in this aspect, shock was mercy, for the sights all around would have been enough to crush the very soul of a matriarch.
___Her body felt cold and numb, and even to her own senses her heartbeat was weak and erratic, breaths too shallow and gurgling; Sreya mused that, were she brought to Wild Woods, she would be very much concerned about the survival of herself. The flies were aware of it; as the day warmed with the rising sun, they started to gather in swarming hordes, hovering over her body hesitantly as if wondering if they could land without risk. I heard a fly buzz... and she may have laughed ironically had she the strength for it. Any delirious humor was promptly erased as she watched one circle lower, so close to her eye that she could keenly see its iridescent sides shining blue and green in the sunlight. It moved to land, and she reflexively blinked - or should have, but nothing happened. Its feet touched the surface of her eye, tongue probing, antennae twitching. Regurgitated saliva pooled against her cornea, her eye watered with discomfort, but no lid fell in protection. Only then did she remember the sensation of the flint's blade sliding beneath her skin...
___Oh god. Oh GOD! Her frightened eyes rolled artificially wide from the absence of surrounding skin as the fly alighted. They fell over a forearm stripped nearly to muscle, smooth handiwork, the kind you saw of professional furriers. At her naked elbow, bands of striated bright white clung over corded red - was it the ulnar collateral ligament? The realization was so horrific that it stunned her; she did not cry out in pain, didn't tremble or struggle. Who knows if shock would have allowed it, anyways. Instead she floated in precious numbness, immersed in the surreal feeling of her fleshless body slowly dying.
___How many minutes, hours, eternities passed? There was a sudden disturbance in the clan's espiritus that roused her from the nebulous gray of semi-consciousness. The many new energies, filled with fresh confusion, pain, fury,and sorrow, stirred abruptly, filling the air with an uncomfortable sensation akin to invisible hands charged with electricity groping frantically at one's body - like ghosts seeking a host. This milling, tumultuous presence crescendoed as the sound of footsteps became audible on the charred soil. The bloodied, battered holes in her snout where there once had been nostrils sucked in shallow breaths, attempting to smell whomever was approaching. Therian - she could detect wolf, and terror anew sharpened her senses, for this was now a scent she associated with the most profound of traumas in her life. Her muscles trembled, energy fought to rally, but she could not flee, could not fight.
___The increasing cadence of Sreya's frightened heart beats only spirited her more quickly towards death. One lung was collapsed and the other fast approaching the same fate as blood pooled in the recumbent chest cavity. The rising pulse demanded more oxygen, oxygen the body could not provide, and rushed blood to the giant singular wound that her body had become. She could barely register her surroundings as a shadow fell over her, but she growled low in her throat, ready to use the last tattered remnants of her strength to fight back if need be. The muscles of her mouth attempted to pull themselves into a defiant snarl as the werewolf crouched at her side, hands poised over her body to inflict more harm.
___The werewolf... he smelled of hyena, as well. The espiritus calmed in his presence, humming curiously, milling and coiling between them as though confused in their loyalties. He extended one trembling hand, a human hand with elegant dark-skinned fingers, and brushed a tiny scrap of black fur left behind on the back of her hand. Immediate electricity - her senses were flooded with the smell of damp moss, rotting deciduous leaves, the crisp chill of mountain air. This melted to something sweltering and foreign, a feline musk, and now the familiar wan of sun-dried savanna grasses and dung from large herbivores. That was signature to only one therian that she knew; Trent had come to the clan's territory, after all.
___Someone was shouting, a wild, frantic flurry of words, profanity and sobs intermingled. It sounded distant, like someone screaming from the bowels of a cave. Energy heated the air until it felt as though the forest were aflame once more. Her breaths were growing more difficult, her pulse more sluggish. With the narrow field of her vision fading by the moment, she couldn't make sense of what was going on. Sensation was all but gone, but she thought she felt firm hands upon her raw cheeks. Intense dark eyes glossed over with tears and raw with agony slowly dissolved from her sight, and like a spectral whisper despite it being shouted in her face, she heard the words "I love you." She wished she could respond, tried to force the words.
___And then - Sreya Bahari was dying. Her other lung caved. No smell. No sight. No sound. Her pulse stuttered. Her heart stopped. Something battered and worn slumped lifeless to the rocks, but what joined the espiritus in that moment was fierce and vivacious, like the wilds of Nigeria where it had been Born.

Almost Like Wilderness / All He Asked For

Two short, boring, pretentious little things.

Almost Like Wilderness
___It was unseasonably warm that day; the ice had begun to melt where it lay exposed to the sun's abuse on the sandy shoreline. The melt-off created intricate branching streams in the fine earth, a microcosm for the larger ecosystem around him. His feet left their mark on the damp ground as he paced the water's edge, listening to the creak of the ice as it struggled to hold together in a solid mass amid the strain of its liquid progenitor shifting below. The wind howled over the peaks of the trees on the opposite shore, carrying the heavy scent of pine in the cool, crisp air. This was the kind of day that made him feel alive.
___A raven croaked from its perch at the apex of a dead tree, a gnarled spire of a thing, long struck dead by lightening but still very much a host to life. The clever bird regarded him with a wary eye, cautious enough to watch but not such a slave to instinct as to flee with no tangible threat like the ducks flushed from the reeds earlier by his presence. He raised his binoculars to his eyes to catch a better glimpse of the magnificent bird, black as the river styx yet untouched, in his mind, by any of the dark symbolism attributed to the species. He'd loved ravens since he was a young boy growing up in rural Canada, and seeing one here in New York was a rare treat.
___It was almost possible to believe, surrounded by forest and lake, nestled in winter's frigid embrace, that he was back home in those miles of untouched wilderness. Though he had a fine sense of hearing, he could not detect the busy rumble of cars on the freeway beyond. It was a time of year and state of economy where plane flights were rare, so the roar of jet engines did not damn the solitude. The only hint of humanity was the quiet crinkle of a discarded candy wrapper, half mired in mud, the rest flapping in the breeze. He plucked the trash from the earth, fancying himself an anthropologist studying the relics of a foreign culture in a moment of mirth before crumpling it into its pocket for later disposal.

All He Asked For
___ When he watched her, it was through the convex glass of an old computer monitor's screen, the glow emanating from the machine bright like her smile but colder, more distant. She had a Facebook page that unlike his had new comments from friends almost daily - real friends, not the near-strangers from high school added only for fear of looking rude declining. Those friends elicited a feeling in him somewhat akin to jealousy, though not the possessive sort of a boyfriend, nor the fear that someone else may snatch her up. His was the wistful type spawned from wishing he'd been cast as a more prominent character in the fantastic movie of her life, privy to each inside joke and shared memory.
___ South America, Japan, Oregon, Alaska - she flew free-spirited and uninhibited like a bird from continent to continent, chasing her dreams unbridled as a wild mustang. (She also made him think of stupid, flowery animal analogies). Unbound by the shackles of conformity and throwing all anxious, well-planned cautions to the wind, she did not work towards her goals, but lived towards them. He almost felt embarrassed when she asked how he enjoyed his regimental yearly trips to Florida; it was like God asking a scientist about his clumsy stabs at creation.
___ She asked these question on the same screen through which he observed her, for she rarely lingered for long in the state where they had met, his home and her launchpad. This year, she was attending college in Berlin, and as always he felt that same dull ache in his chest that accompanied the knowledge that he would spend time with her, at best, once annually. This suffering was endured in silence, of course; while other men might proclaim their love and insist she stay in their selfish company, his love was embodied through the simple joy he took in knowing that she was doing what made her happiest. Even if, by some disaster, she should elect to break ties, he knew he could be content with the mere thought that she was alive and in the world. This knowledge, and the rare glimpse of her smiling face through his computer screen, was all he asked for.

Sreya's Living Room

A fun little snippet from Raze. Enjoy.

___The walls were adventurous, a blue that suggested the sort of free-spirited joy symbolized by the sky it shared its color with. While my walls were naked and exposed, hers were dressed in ornate wooden wall hangings that smacked of tribalism, photos of smiling family members, even an artistic print by Sue Coe. On the mantle, arranged neatly but in no particular order, were little multi-colored clay statues from South America, exaggerated black and tank wood carvings from Africa, and stone fetishes reflecting the Native Americans. Centered on the coffee table, a very south-western terra cotta vase held unique bird feathers in place of flowers. Where one might expect a coaster on the end table, there was only the fossilized molar of some prehistoric behemoth, utterly unhelpful for the task of protecting finish and not particularly caring.
___Only the furniture was remotely tame, quality oak woodwork and plush tan couches that went nicely with the blue paint. She'd made these her own with quirky, flamboyant throw pillows from India, their festive colors and beadwork forcing the shy khaki hues behind them into submission. The centerpiece of most American living rooms was, however, absent: she had no television, only a well stocked book case cluttered with more volumes than the shelves were designed to support such that the overflow was heaped atop and alongside their more fortunate brethren. A spill of pothos grew wildly all over the shelf, like a fierce jungle vine cloaking ruins of a literary jungle. The room was schematically incoherent, aesthetically discordant, and utterly fantastic.

A Few Short, Atypical Pieces

Letter Unsent
I am "teh sucks" at writing anything romantic, but part of my novel demands it. This was tremendously uncomfortable to write, and a bit of a departure from my typical style, so I'm hoping that by pushing my limits as a writer, I captured a sense of love effectively.

___Heaven could be, for me, just another evening online, chatting about science or ethics or politics, feeling like you’re close even when you’re hundreds of miles away. Memories like swimming in the creek on hot summer days, building fires with sticks and tinder on cold winter nights, or flint napping in a gorge we're not even allowed in give me little glimpses of what happy might be. I fondly recall protest signs and leaflets, two twin thorns in the side of the circus, rodeo, war. Bushwhacking through brambles with a smile on your face, offering me first scavenge on a deer skeleton, or playing your didgeridoo - how could I not be dazzled? My undignified enthusiasm in a darkened bedroom while David Attenborough spoke of pelicans was shameless, I admit, but was elated to have your attention.
___I vividly recall the first weeks after I met you, fawning like a school girl for the first time in my life at your passion, your knowledge, and the free-spirited joy you exuded. That intensity of attraction hasn’t waned at all some eight years later, only growing despite all logic. I’ve never been one to indulge in those foolish feminine fantasies of things that will never be, yet I can imagine leaning close by your side, binoculars in hand, bird watching on the coast of Oregon. I fancy congratulating you about new grants and publications for years to come. I dare to think, despite myself, of licking vegan cake batter from your fingertips in the kind of home that has scores of books and not one television.
___But that is all I dare to pursue - the rare privilege of your company when circumstance permits and these silly fantasies that are, like so much else, unrealized and unrequited. For the one thing more terrifying than the realization that I can’t forever be the eager supporting cast in the play of your life is the thought of cutting short our precious friendship by pushing the issue. And so you remain my dear beloved friend.


Now - crappy AR poetry! (By poetry I mean lazy, pretentious crap that could be better conveyed in prose!)

The Greatest Show on Earth
How is it "family fun"
if our families were destroyed?
Can this be "conservation"
when they tore us from the wild?
How are we "educational"
in any lesson but callousness?
What is "humane training"
with whips and bullhooks in plain sight?
How can you marvel at our intelligence
but still treat us like "dumb animals?"
How are we not enslaved
when you call yourselves "masters?"
So
How is this justifiable?

Death of a Goldfish, Birth Of A Liberationist
Our neighbors had a tiny golden captive
in round glass confines on their patio.
The bright glow cooked him daily,
the dark chill froze him nightly.
Marinated in waste
he circled endlessly.

I watched his gasping, gulping breaths
with little else but empathy.
The glass reflected my inaction:
something hideous, something monstrous.

Pleather shoes and hemp purses,
tofu dinners and protest signs.
I talked a lot of "rights."
I made no "rights."

Every day the little fish suffered
until his belly greeted the sky.
"Free at last, free at last!"
And something deep inside me snapped.

In youth's protean morality
I rejected "theft" and "property;"
Inapplicable to sentient life
for they only lead to sentient death
My outrage spilled fourth like water
blooming 'round shards of broken glass
scattered across the patio floor.

A fledgling abolitionist
took wing liberationist.
I was my brother's keeper;
now I am his warrior.
I don't talk "rights."
I make rights.

Until every cage bowl is empty.

Heartache in the Heartland

This is actually an RP post that I wrote a while back, but enjoyed enough that I felt it belonged here. It demands explanation before reading, however. The RPG this post is taken from is called Contretemps, part of Stan's wonderful site All The Little Branches. In Contretemps, all creatures of the earth have had their physical and behavioral aspects mixed due to a scientific experiment gone tremendously wrong. Brock Hanover, our protagonist, found himself hybridized with a sheep - which is not nearly as bad as what happened to his wife, who blended very unsuccessfully with a deep-sea dwelling fish. The result, well... you'll see.

The rolling fields that stretched vast around Brock Hanover were painted in graceful strokes of golden brilliance in the light of the setting sun. A gentle breeze rustled through the tall grass, a million tiny voices whispering the intimacy of their gingerly touching stalks. Wild flowers of blue, red, and gold nervously raised their colorful faces to the sky, just barely peering out from between the protective embrace of the wheat like wayward children. Brock stooped over, the chitinous black tips of his fingers tenderly grasping the stem of a cornflower before plucking it free and moving it carefully to his other hand, where a soft, bright bundle of black-eyed susans, daisies, baby's breath, and cosmos stood in contrast to his rough, dark skin. Picking another cornflower, he held this specimen to his flattened ovine nose as he began to walk, inhaling deeply with his eyelids fluttering slightly shut in the rapture of a memory. Cornflowers were always her favorite, simple and beautiful just like she had been.

In his mind's eye, he pictured the first day they had met. He was driving down rural route 40, the day of a sunset much like this one but over the halcyon bluegrass fields of Kentucky instead. It was so hot out that even at that late hour, shimmering waves crept from the asphalt, creating optical illusions that were the only interesting thing around on the flat, featureless stretch of highway. Her car, a little red pick-up, had taken a nose dive into an irrigation ditch, its back wheels raised off the ground still spinning as he pulled the truck over to assist the woman hunkered in the grass nearby. He'd been terrified that she may have been thrown from the vehicle, the way her body convulsed from its seated position on the ground, but when he asked "M'am, are you alright?" she only let out a sob and presented the body of the bird she'd been swerving to miss when she lost control of the vehicle. It was a little eastern meadowlark, common around those parts, but you'd think she'd just run over a child the way she grasped it tenderly, stroking the soft feathers on its head as he dug a little grave alongside the road at her insistence.

Then like a powder keg ignited, the happy memory was blown apart by more recent recollections of digging graves. Every grim shovelful was engraved in his memory, the sound of the metal biting into the dry summer soil, its occasional scrape against root or rock. The depth, though he made no measurement, was as precise in his mind as if he'd carefully blue-printed it before hand; he remembered that no matter how deeply he dug, it just didn't seem deep enough. He'd pulled his shoulder badly that day, frantically pitching shovel fulls of earth, not wanting to wake in the morning with a reminder more horrible than that solemn mound of dirt left behind by prowling scavengers. Oh, the awful noise of the cloth-wrapped body touching the soil, sounding heavy no matter how gently he lowered it. God! Could anyone ever really be the same again?

He mediated on the thought of her smiling face, her curly blond hair falling in front of her eyes over and over as she tried to tuck it back without using her hands clad in dirty gardening gloves. Brock could remember kneeling down and tucking those rich golden locks behind her ears, kissing her gently on the forehead while she smiled... and he remembered the sound of the shotgun blast before that same forehead, now transformed into wet and leathery gray flesh, exploded all over their kitchen floor. Bits of skull, some human, some animal, scattered across the linoleum, sharp and delicate and all too white in the red lake that bloomed around his feet. It reminded him of shattered porcelain, like the plate he'd broken the one time they really fought. Together, they'd pieced it back together and hung it over their bed that night, a reminder that no matter how hard it got, their bond would never be broken like that. Wives, you couldn't put back together so easily - he found this out in the desperate moments after he relieved her suffering in which he tried anything, everything to undo what he'd just done, crying on the floor hugging her body as he tried to hold bloody gobs of pinkish-gray brain tissue back in place with slippery fingertips too small for the size of the hole in her skull. ((run on sentence ftw!))

Tears stung Hanover's eyes, streaking down the patches of odd black flesh in the curve of his newly prominent snout as he came to stop over the obscene mound of dirt below a willow tree adjacent to the small goldfish pond in their back yard. The fish moved silently beneath the surface, scales glimmering in the fading sunlight. The bouquet of flowers in his hand was wilting by then, stems crushed by the clenching of his fists in the throes of the awful memory. He stood over his wife's makeshift grave with its haphazard oak branch cross for a long moment as the shadows began to engulf their little yard, his little yard now. Gently placing the bouquet to the dirt, he twirled the solitary cornflower in his fingertips for a moment before letting it join its companions. The wind swayed the long, drooping branches of the weeping willow so that they brushed gently against the weeping man as a meadowlark cried out from the field beyond.

Carpe Eventus

Carpe Eventus
By Lauren Weeks

Today, he’d fight to protect his country
Today, he’d fight to defend his country
He bowed his head and prayed to God
He bowed to the earth and prayed to Allah
He called his wife and told her to be brave
He kissed his wife and told her to be brave
He got in the Humvee with his men
He strapped the bomb to his chest alone
He entered Fallujah with his rifle
He entered Fallujah with his detonator
In his pocket was a photo of his daughter
In his pocket was a photo of his son
He saw an insurgent standing by the building
He saw a soldier approaching gun in hand

In the thunder of adrenaline
With sweat drenched brows
Their eyes met
And each thought
“Seize this moment, before it seizes you!”

He reached for his trigger
He reached for his switch
A bullet cut through the air
An explosion ignited the air
Imperialist or liberator
Terrorist or martyr

In the end it’s just humanity
Screaming bleeding on the ground

He feebly clutched his daughter’s photo
He feebly clutched his son’s photo
He prayed to God
He prayed to Allah

And for once, between enemies
A perfect understanding.


I wrote this poem for my Forms of Literature class. We had to write a poem that embodied the spirit of seizing the moment, and I asked my teacher if it would be acceptable to depart from the typical themes of spontaneous cheer in this genre for something a little more contemporary, serious, and meaningful. She approved, and the result was this poem. My goal, in addition to a new take on the "carpe diem" theme as something more in the vein of a single moment having life altering consequences, was to write a poem about war that was not biased and that was deeply human. If I may speak in the collective we and us representing the entire global community, not any one particular side: I think war today has a distance and anonymity that makes it easier for us to enthusiastically embrace an "us vs. them" mentality, reducing real human struggle down to something as casual and pedestrian as cheering for one's sport's team. We make war into a means to an end or a cause to rally behind or against but rarely do we really sit down and think about the individual cost to human life. When we do, it is tainted with bias in favor of our outlook on the war itself and our feelings about the soldiers on both sides. This poem sought to whittle war down to what it really is: human beings fighting and killing one another for the similar motive of what they believe to be the right thing to do. Maybe it's a bit cliche, but I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Variations on a Happy Ending - Full Text

To make up for the literary abortion I posted last time... Here is the full text of Variations on a Happy Ending (only E was posted here before), a series of short stories in the scheme of "Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood. The assignment was to create a unifying happy ending theme and create interesting short stories based around it. Check the "comments" section over the next few days if you would like my explanation of this piece & its mechanics. Also, this is obviously (c) to 'Ren' Weeks, so no copying, k?

Variations on a Happy Ending
A.
___Sarah is born to a well-to-do couple. Her father is a neurosurgeon and her mother is a school teacher. Sarah’s parents have high hopes that she will become a neurosurgeon like her father and enroll her in the best private schools possible. Sarah, however, is not proficient in life sciences but is a talented flautist. She feels like a failure for her poor performance in school and plays her flute to release stress. Her father overhears her playing one night and, realizing his daughter’s talent, stops pressuring her to be something that she is not. She becomes an accomplished flautist that her parents are very proud of. More importantly, she accepts who she is and is content.

(Wham, bam, bland -- this is the end. Now let's make things more interesting.)

B.
___Jenna, from the time she was a young child, had a love affair with food. Her doctor’s initial enthusiasm about her growth rate turned to disapproval as she stopped growing upwards and started growing outwards. She fancied all types of edibles, from near-expired dime store candies to expensive culinary delicacies. Throughout high school, she tried her talents at cooking, creating decadent chocolate cupcakes that always sold out at the marching band bake sales (she’d wanted to try out for cheerleading but was gently redirected). While her sister Alexandria, a tall and buxom blonde who idealized society’s standard for anorexic beauty, had constant gentleman callers, Jenna poured herself into the gustable arts, eventually applying with success to a prestigious culinary school. Her mother did not approve of this, noting that she would only get fatter if she was constantly surrounded by food.
___As she neared her twenties (and two hundreds), Jenna began to become self conscious about her weight. She did not care so much about her physical appearance, but rather, the way it made people behave towards her. She loved touring restaurants and exploring the tastes of exciting new dishes prepared by the city’s top chefs, but began to notice other patrons staring and quietly whispering about her as she ate. Humiliated, she started eating in secret, sneaking snacks into her purse when she went out and binging during bathroom visits. This behavior made her ashamed, which in turn made her more depressed, which inevitably made her eat more. By the time of her sister’s wedding, she weighed nearly three hundred pounds, was constantly depressed, and ate with feverish compulsion.
___Alexandria’s wedding reception was a veritable orgy of fine foods; there was roasted duck with a honey-mustard glaze, steamed green beans with neatly sliced almonds, an organic arugula salad topped with the finest Alaskan salmon, and a positively decadent chocolate cheesecake for dessert. Jenna indulged, knowing the cost of this extravagant feast and eating every morsel with renewed enthusiasm. When it was time to cut the wedding cake, she marveled at the baker’s skilled craftsmanship of the elaborate pastry and experienced nearly orgasmic euphoria at the rich, moist texture.
___As she finished a second piece of the cake, she came to notice her sister and several of the bridesmaids snickering at her from the next table over. Alexandria raised her bony finger to her pointed nose, pushing it upwards to mimic a pig’s snout, and snorted in a very cruel and immature fashion. Her friends erupted into laughter, and one asked if Jenna would ever get married, or if she just planned on making love to the cake. Jenna ran from the reception hall, tears burning in the corners of her eyes.
___She hated the way that crying made her eyes puffy, as if she weren’t “puffy” enough already. She sat on the steps outside, blotting her runny mascara with her doughy hands and quaking with sobs. The valet, a tall, slender black man who looked both very fine and very uncomfortable in his stiffly corn-starched suit, stood alongside her and lit his cigarette, taking a long, slow drag.
___“Why you cryin’?” he asked, his words exiting in a cloud of smoke.
___“Because,” Jenna sniffled, “my sister and her friends made fun of me.”
___The valet gave her a sideways glance.
___“Because you fat?” he asked, and Jenna’s mouth flapped like a fish’s with indignity.
___The valet paid no mind and continued.
___“You care if you fat?” Jenna had never thought of this.
___“No. I don’t. I love food, and cooking, and baking. It’s who I am.” She lowered her gaze to the sidewalk. “I just don’t like how other people treat me because I’m fat.”
___“Fuck ‘em,” said the valet, and Jenna blushed at his crassness. “You know why they make fun of you? Cause they ain’t got nothin’ in the world that they love as much as you love food, so they gotta be nasty all the time to make everyone else just as miserable as they be.” He flicked his cigarette to the ground, stomping it out with his shiny black shoe. “Way I see it, if you passionate about anything, you be proud of that, cause there ain’t too many people can say the same.”
___Jenna smiled as the valet ambled away. She withdrew a bag of bland crackers she’d been keeping in her purse lest anything happen that should demand a bathroom excursion and the assistance of food. She chucked them into the nearby garbage can. Why should she eat those when there was such fine cuisine just waiting to be explored at the reception, after all? Yes, Jenna loved food, and yes, she was fat. This, she accepted -- and was content.

C.
___“The Bible says Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” This is what Mark’s father would say, followed by a great whooping laugh that should shake his ponderous gut, every time the matter of gay marriage was brought to the table. Mark had a feeling that if his father was so opposed to the union of Adam and Steve, he would have real issues with John and Richard and Mark. This was why he attempted to overdose on prescription sleep aids the night John and Richard suggested that he inform his family about the trio’s upcoming marriage.
___From a young age, Mark had known that he was different. It wasn’t even the archetypical desire to play house instead of cowboys and Indians, nor did he ever feel tempted to prance in front of a mirror in his mother’s high heels and underwear. Simply enough, he was a sensitive, compassionate young lad disinterested the chest-beating masculine pursuits of his peers. He formed close friendships, was open with his emotions, dressed tidily but not superfluously, and was very understanding even of those students deemed social pariahs within his class.
___As puberty began in all of its acne-addled, hair-sprouting glory, however, Mark began to realize that his predicament may have been more complicated than a slight variability in personality. For one, his sexual interests, so new and awkward that he was not even sure what to make of them, seemed to be directed towards males. He showered alone in the handicapped stall at school after baseball practice, a strategy for hiding unwanted erections inspired by his muscular nude classmates, with much chagrin. But more so than being interested in other men, he found that he often developed deep romantic interests in more than one man at a time.
___His father had always told him that faggots were promiscuous, jumping from dick to dick as though playing musical chairs (the man’s own words, which Mark hated). As this unconventional interest in other men grew, he began to think his father’s bigoted assumptions were true. Terrified that he would become the stereotype of anonymous rest station sex, contracting STDs and attending pride parades, Mark went to his minister seeking guidance. The clergyman advised that he pray the devil out of him, resting all homosexual urges and developing relationships with women.
___This experiment was short lived. He met a nice girl named Anna who was delighted to be dating a refined and attractive young man, admitting that when she first met him, she thought he might be gay. The relationship ended abruptly in a fit of cruel laughter when he failed to achieve an erection as they made out in a drive-in theater. She’d called him a queer and told most of his classmates about the embarrassing ordeal.
___While attending a Walk for AIDs as a freshmen in college, Mark met John and Richard. They were a happily established gay couple who had been dating since high school. Mark envied their relationship, and moreover marveled at how loving and committed they were; didn’t his father say that gays just slept around, never forming legitimate bonds - all the more evidence that they were sinners? Mark began spending more time with the couple, learning that homosexuals often enjoyed the same monogamous or polyfidelitous relationships as heterosexuals. In fact, John and Richard noted that although they were currently a pair, they were actually polyamorous themselves and hoping to find a third.
___Mark had never heard this terminology before, and looked it up online when he got home to avoid appearing ignorant. He discovered that, much as he had felt as a teenager, many people are capable of forming true romantic bonds with more than one other person. Such individuals were known as polyamorous, and when they entered a committed relationship, it had the same rules for fidelity as a monogamous one -- simply with more partners.
___Eventually and perhaps inevitably, Mark, John, and Richard’s friendship became something more, and he entered their relationship as part of a polyfidelitous triad. For two years, he kept this a secret from his family, not only worried about their reaction, but plagued by shame as he struggled to accept his sexuality. One evening, after a long discussion, the trio decided upon being married in Sweden. Mark had never been so overjoyed nor so terrified in his life. The thought of sharing his life with John and Richard brought him to the verge of giddy tears, yet it also cemented in place his identity as a polyamorous homosexual. Thus, when his partners reminded him that he would have to tell his family lest they wish to attend the wedding, he was gripped by horror.
___He barely remembered the events leading up to the overdose, only that he was very intoxicated and that they bitter pills made him gag as they rained down his throat. He awoke in a hospital bed with a dry mouth, pounding headache, and both hands being grasped tightly by John at one side, Richard at the other. They hugged him close, wept, and reassured him that everything would be ok. Sandwiched between their sobbing bodies with their tears raining down and dampening his hair, Mark became aware of the fact that they really, truly loved him. More importantly, they loved him because of who he was, not despite who he was; they accepted him wholeheartedly. The message was contagious, and for once, he was able to accept who he was -- and feel content with it.

D.
___For as long as he could recall, Andrew had felt as though there was a cavernous void in his life, just waiting to be filled by the right moment. As a young child, he found himself bored by the trite games his classmates played, stacking blocks, pretending to be police officers, or creating hideous finger paintings of amorphous plants and animals - you know, the kind parents pretend to cherish, where too many colors are used so everything blends together into the same uniform shit brown. He was dysphoric, never laughing and smiling like the other children, and indeed seemed to derive pleasure only from the sadness or anger of his classmates. He discovered this when a little girl proudly waved her drawing of a dog in his face and he, his personal space violated, shredded the hackneyed art in a fit of rage.
___Throughout elementary school, Andrew frequently found himself in the principal’s office for defying teachers, refusing to participate in group activities, bullying other kids, and stealing from the school’s store. His parents, though dismayed by his behavior, were certain that with enough guidance and affection, he would grow out of it. Their son, they reasoned, must have been going through a rebellious phase due to his father taking up longer hours at the office, and made a concerted effort to spend more time with him. Yet the more they showered him with affection and tried to become more active components in his life, the more he acted up, bad behaviors spilling over into the home.
___His mother, thinking herself clever, purchased her son a fish, hoping it would teach him responsibility. This was in spite of the fact that she herself had not been responsible enough to learn proper care, so the goldfish inevitably died from stewing in the ammonia of its own building waste in an undersized bowl. Andrew did not cry or demand another fish like most children, but was fascinated by its death. He did not let his mother remove the body for two full days. She took this as mourning, but in fact he was thrilled by the sight of its eyes dissolving out of its skull and flesh sloughing off to reveal bones as it rapidly decomposed in the water.
___To replace the fish, she bought the boy a hamster. Things went well until she came home to the gruesome sight of her son dissecting (actually, vivisecting was more accurate) the tiny rodent the night before his eleventh birthday. Horrified and deeply concerned by the brutality, she put her son through a battery of psychiatric evaluations, during which his therapists noted a callous disregard for others paired with an utter absence of guilt, lacking ability to form normal social bonds, and an alarming penchant for manipulating and taking advantage of others. Twice-weekly psychotherapy was recommended.
___Andrew hated therapy, and eventually learned how to respond in a way that the doctors approved of. What’s more, he learned how to suppress his troublesome behavior at school, where news of his misconduct inevitably found its way back to his mother. Over time, the therapists proclaimed that his brief stint with mental illness had been a fluke likely caused by stress, and his mother became proud of her seemingly reformed son. Andrew was merely pleased to finally be left alone, and also felt some amusement that he could so easily fool those around him. Thus, he maintained the façade into early adulthood.
___But Andrew was discontent. His mind was constantly restless, plagued by dark thoughts that surfaced at random and refused to be suppressed. He became obsessed with the idea of violence and found it progressively more difficult to fake the smiling, charismatic charm he had built his life upon. He hungered to fill that strange void that he could not understand, watching passers-by with predatory intent from his office window. The mundane job could not fulfill him, and this restless gnawed at him like feasting jackals.
___One night, he awoke to find a woman in a short black skirt and ratty fishnet thigh-highs lingering beneath the street light outside of his apartment complex, fingers quivering as she tried to her cigarette - likely the effects of too much methamphetamine. Andrew was simultaneously repulsed and captivated by the whore’s revealing attire, body thin and bruised, hair mounded in a greasy pile over her gaunt, pocked face.
___He crept from his apartment, skin forming into gooseflesh with the sheer thrill of silently stalking up behind her. His world felt sharp and focused as he grabbed a brick that had broken free of the small terraced garden outside of his complex, wielding it tightly clenched in one fist and preparing to strike. His shadow fell into the glow of the street light, and he could hear the hooker’s phlegmy breathing just before she became aware of his presence behind her. She started to turn, startled but not crying out yet - perhaps hoping it was a John.
___Before she could face him, Andrew struck out with the brick. It connected with her skull, making a loud, wet, crunch that sprayed crimson across the pavement. The hooker totted for a moment before pitching forward, starting to convulse before she even hit the ground, a high pitched and inhuman noise issuing from her throat. She flopped like his dying goldfish, mouth opening and closing in a similar fashion as he brought the brick down once more, this time striking her face. Now her mouth gaped messy red.
___From there he was the conductor of a symphony of suffering, striking again and again until the brick’s hard, cold surface was slippery with things softer and warmer. He panted, leaning over the now still form of the prostitute, watching blood bloom like a halo around the remains of her skull. As she died, he felt more alive, and only then did Andrew embrace who he was. He was a sociopath -- and for the first time in his life, he was content.

E.
___Rhett never meant to harm his Alphess. He had no reason to; she was always good to him. She’d found him when he was just a small, lost puppy, wandering alone in the streets after his mother had been hit by a car. She could not replace his canine mother, but the Alphess nurtured him, keeping him warm, offering him food, and even allowing him to stay in her home. She was also the one who walked him, every day, in all weather, and that more than anything else was Rhett’s favorite thing to do. For all of these reasons, he loved her the way dogs love humans.
___Rhett’s father was a greyhound and his mother a husky; fast and strong were in his blood. As a puppy he would smell the air, feel the wind in his short black fur, and want nothing more than to run at his top speed down the sidewalk, enjoying the thunder of the pavement beneath his paws. But the Alphess was not young, fast, or strong; she was old, slow, and weak. She could not run with him, and grew angry with his tugging and lunging. She taught him not to run, but never was able to take the urge away.
___Two years later, Rhett was a larger, stronger dog, and his Alphess only slower and weaker. She barely had the energy to chase the squirrels away from the bird feeder, a task Rhett took up by barking through the open window so that they scattered in all directions. One morning, while returning home from a walk, Rhett saw two squirrels fighting atop the bird feeder, chattering with their great plumes of tails flicking and jerking angrily. They were distracted, and he could catch them; he wanted to catch them for his Alphess and knew she would be very proud.
___But he was only a dog, his thoughts likely limited to impulse. When he lunged forward suddenly in pursuit of his quarry, the Alphess pitched forwards, hitting the ground with a funny little shriek like a wounded animal. She couldn’t get back up. He doubled back, whining and licking at the air in submissive concern, and she struck him hard in the face with her little frail hands. She called him a Bad Dog.
___Rhett spent the next two weeks at a dog shelter. The first few days, he waited for his Alphess, but she did not come back for the Bad Dog. The next few days, he wallowed in sorrow, pining for his master. After that, he looked to each person that came through the doors with guarded optimism, tail wagging slung between his legs and head lowered. They never stopped to look at him; he was too old, too big, or too plain. At the end of two weeks, they’d moved him to a cage in the back, beyond where people never even bothered to look, alongside snarling ferals and sickly old animals. There was a door in the back of this room, and whenever it opened, he smelled harsh chemical odors, emptied bladders, and the pervasive odor of death. It frightened him.
___One afternoon, a Man and his Boy stopped in to the shelter. The Boy had something wrong with his legs; they were stick-thin and pale, and his father pushed him along in a strange chair with wheels. The shelter staff showed the Boy little lap dogs, and old dogs who didn’t have the energy to run and play, but the Boy pointed to Rhett enthusiastically. His father pushed the wheelchair closer, and Rhett sniffed and licked his outstretched hands.
___“You don’t want him; he’s a Bad Dog. Broke his last owner’s hip pulling,” warned one staffer.
___“Horrible leash manners, and he’s so fast when he gets running.” confirmed another.
___“He’s perfect!” the Boy proclaimed, smiling widely.
___Rhett did not understand their words, but his tail wagged at the sound of the Boy’s voice.
___Initially, Rhett had been afraid he’d hurt the Boy like he'd hurt the Alphess. He walked slowly, refused to play tug of war, and was very careful not to jump up no matter how excited he was when the Boy came home from school. The Boy seemed disappointed, and Rhett was confused. Then, one crisp winter day, when the snow was freshly fallen in a shimmering white blanket over the hills, the Boy’s father carried his son outside, whistling for Rhett to follow. The dog watched as the Man lowered the Boy’s body into a small wooden sled, head tilted and tail wagging. The Man tied a rope hanging from the front of the sled to the back of Rhett’s collar, then threw a tennis ball. Rhett watched the ball longingly as it sailed through the air, tumbling down the snowy hill, but he didn’t want to run with his leash on.
___“Go get it,” the man sternly ordered. Rhett whined and slowly approached the ball. As the sled moved behind him, the Boy giggled excitedly.
___“Faster, Rhett!” he yelled. The dog picked up the ball, doubling back on his rope and dropping it in the Boy’s gloved hands. This time, the ball was thrown even further, and the Boy yelled “Go get it!” with an urgency that made Rhett trot after it this time. The child’s laughter grew more excited, and the happier he was, the happier Rhett was.
___“Run, Rhett!” cried the Boy, a smile lighting up his entire face and voice rolling with laughter. Rhett understood, finally. He smelled the cold winter air, felt the wind in his short black fur, and for once, he ran, enjoying the thunder of his paws through the crisp new snow. He ran for the Boy, for he had legs for both of them. He was a large, strong dog, made for running, and in his own canine way, he finally accepted that. And Rhett was content, because the Boy was happy. When their games came to an end come lunch time, the Boy hugged his dog close and said,
___“You’re a Good Dog.”

Anniversary

___ I flipped idly through the channels, paying little attention to the seamless shift from noisy cartoons, to gory murder scenes, to wildlife documentaries as each station flickered by. I wasn't particularly interested in watching anything, but having spent much of my week analyzing data, I was up for something mindless. It was Friday night and I probably should have been out on the town socializing, but my social skills had been a bit stunted when my last attempt at blending in resulted in vengeance-fueled serial murders after my girlfriend was skinned for being the wrong sub-species. The fact that I was evolving into a bit of a homebody was understandable.
___ As if refusing to let me languish alone in a darkened living room, the phone suddenly rang shrilly from the kitchen. I groaned, rolling off of the couch and padding barefoot across the springy carpeting as it gave way to cold, hard linoleum. The caller ID indicated Gabe's cell phone, and I couldn't help but heave a sigh; he tended to be in trouble when he called. The fact that he hadn't been around in almost two weeks suggested that he was using again, which was ample cause for trouble. I lacked the motivation and the funding to post bail if he was being arrested again, and answered the phone with a scowl prepped to indicate as much.
___ "Trent!" the familiar voice shouted before I could greet. He seemed to be speaking over the volume of his car's stereo based on the loud crackling of destroyed bass. "Do you have any Vics handy?"
___ "Do you have a cold...?" I asked, perplexed by the peculiar nature of this phone call.
___ "No, it's for you," he said impatiently, coughing between words. It was phlegmy; he smoked way too much to sound that way so young. "Smear some under your nose so you can't smell anything, ok? I have a surprise for you."
___ Now I was curious, and slightly mortified. I couldn't imagine what Gabe was planning that would demand I deaden my senses; if we were going for Vics, he apparently thought the smell was both strong and distinct enough to give away the surprise before he could go through the motions. It was a valid concern when attempting to catch a therianthrope off guard, of course, but it still left me uneasy.
___ "Gabe..." I started, but he cut me off.
___ "Come on Trent," his voice was whiny, and reminded me of how young he was. "Please?"
___ Resorting to being polite? I supposed I'd have to oblige him.
___ "Fine, fine. When are you coming?" I wandered down the hall towards the bathroom, resigned to my fate of huffing camphor fumes to placate a teen aged werebear.
___ "I'm pulling into your street right now -" a horn blared to confirm as much as Gabe managed to cut off one of the few cars traveling Route 93, "- so hurry, ok?" The line went dead.
___ I stared at the receiver and shook my head, withdrawing the small blue container from the medicine cabinet, nose already wrinkling at its caustic reek even through the closed lid. Moments later I was sitting on the couch with a tingling upper lip and thoroughly thwarted sense of smell. As Gabe's car pulled in to the driveway and I found myself unable to detect not only its filthy, sputtering engine but his nicotine-and-heroin redolence, I tried to remember if this had been what humanity was like.
___ The screen door creaked open, and Gabe's angular face, cloaked in a scraggly adolescent beard from a recent inattention to personal grooming, poked around the frame. He still had a cigarette in his mouth and moved to put it out in the palm of his hand when I glared daggers at the bits of ash floating to my floor.
___ "Did you do it?" he asked, his own sense of smell so diminished from smoke that he couldn't be certain.
___ "Vics heil," I saluted him with one raised hand then pointed beneath my noise.
___ He smiled and slipped through the door, one hand behind his back and the width of his torso obscuring whatever he was attempting to hide. I frowned despite myself as he entered, noting that he looked even thinner than he had two weeks ago, his clothing wrinkled around an increasingly lean frame. If he noticed my shift in mood he paid it no mind, striding over the couch and fighting a grin the whole while. He stopped roughly two feet away, eyes jumping to the book case across the room periodically as though he had something in mind. Gradually, however, he fixed on my face, and then his features slowly became more composed.
___ "So," he paused awkwardly, running one hand through the red ridge of his mohawk, which was frayed and dilapidated today as though he hadn't had time to gel it, "do you remember what happened today, like a year ago?"
___ I didn't like thinking of a year ago; I'd just barely clawed my way back to semi-sanity and did not wish to be reminded of the chain of events that had nearly destroyed me as they had so many others. A frown tugged at the corners of my mouth, and Gabe looked alarmed.
___ "No, no no. Nothing like that. It's just..." he laughed nervously. "A year ago today, I tried to kill you, remember?"
___ How could I forget waking up to the sight of bear claws rushing towards my face, or the sound of them impaling my mattress as I just barely evaded the attack?
___ "Yes, I remember," I said, forehead furrowed with confusion. Gabe held a hand up before I could say anything else.
___ "Well, I got you an anniversary present," he said, voice dropping with embarrassment at the word anniversary and a sheepish grin that made him years younger playing across his face. As though he could contain the excitement no further, he whipped his arm from behind his back, presenting a small plastic cage with a blue lid. Inside, huddled in the folds of a washcloth, was a tiny black mouse, beady eyes wide with terror.
___ "You're always hanging around the house alone, and I know your last mouse died a few months back, so I thought you could use a new pet." He extended the mouse towards me.
___ I reached out and gently lifted the container from his outstretched hand. It was familiar; this was the cage I once used to bring my previous mouse, Animus, to the vet's. Gabe must have rooted around in the basement to find it when I was at work. The mouse reared up to examine its surroundings, eerily hand-like paws pressed to the acrylic and head bobbing as it sniffed the air. I smiled despite myself.
___ "This is... unexpected," I pressed one finger to the plastic, opposite the mouse's tiny paws.
___ "Do you like it?" he asked eagerly, bending close to look inside the cage. The mouse's comically large ears snapped upright with alarm and it buried itself abruptly beneath the washcloth.
___ "I do," I said, unable to resist a full-blown grin at this point. "Where did you get him?" Gabe's smile faltered a bit and a flush crept into his cheeks. Oh boy. This had to be good.
___ "Well, I know you don't like the whole 'animals as products' thing, so I didn't buy it..." Gabe apparently found his own feet very fascinating at that moment. I waited patiently for further explanation. "You're against experimenting on animals too, right?"
___ I looked at the mouse, which had cautiously re-emerged from its bedding. It was small, sleek, and solidly black with a short coat. I bet it weighed almost exactly 27 grams, and would probably bite me the second I opened the cage lid. It was a C57BL/6 - a popular research strain due to its unique immunophenotype.
___ "Did you steal this from the University?" I asked, my voice too amused to be scolding - which it probably should have been even if a younger, more idealistic part of me found the idea fantastic. Gabe seemed to sense as much and smiled knowingly.
___ "I'd like to think I... liberated it?" He tried to look very serious and noble, and we both broke out laughing at the same moment. It made me realize that I missed having him around the house -- even if he was immature, lazy, messy, and temperamental.

And this is where I'll stop for now, because I'm enjoying this exchange enough that I am seriously considering refining it and adding it to Vol. 2, haha.

Werewolves on a motherfuckin' Plane!

This is just a fun little tidbit that would possibly occur in a more polished form in Vol. 2 of Raze, and involves our protagonist Trent, his "seeing eye dog" Lucas, and a very, very long flight from Montana and New York to rescue Gabe from some very novel-worthy doom. All characters, concepts, and plotstuffs are, obviously, (c) to me.

___ I hate flying. As a biologist, animals, plants, and ecosystems made sense to me. Giant hunks of metal packed with explosives & propelled by what amounted to over-glorified propellers, flying through the air at hundreds of miles per hour, did not. Cars were terrifying enough for transportation, and they were on the ground. And cars didn't involve squalling babies, bad airline food, persistently unavailable bathrooms, and dreadful on-flight movies. I began to wonder how long it would have taken to drive to New York, and if I'd be outed as a therianthrope if I ripped the emergency door off its hinges and made a run for it.
___ Fidgeting in my narrow leather chair, which reeked like tanning chemicals and dozens of passengers worth of sweat, I shrewdly looked to make sure no one was watching before obsessive-compulsively adjusting the small plastic knob holding the tray table in place until it was in a perfectly centered position. I didn't understand the mentality of people who left these things off center, the very corner just barely holding the table in place. I was certain it would have sprung open during take-off, definitely a safety hazard... or at least this was my justification for fretting over such a minor detail so I would appear slightly less anal retentive.
___ Because I was sitting in the back of the plane, the only area with seeing eye werewo... dog accommodations, I could hear little but the roar of the engine. It drowned out muddled instructions from the flight attendants regarding the various ways we should calmly conduct ourselves when facing our inevitable fiery death. Sighing and popping a stick of gum in my mouth in anticipation of the elevation change, I deftly avoided this presentation. Seat belts? For a plane crash? Really?
___Ahead of me, cast in browns through the tint of my sunglasses, the other passengers were staring obediently at a series of instructions reduced to simple pictures for our increasingly multi-lingual society. They all looked placid and trusting, devotedly shifting their attention between the flight attendants and the card to follow along. Social conditioning at its finest.
___The grinning stewardesses began cheerfully talking about how to react in the event of an "emergency water landing," which is a euphemism for "crashing into the ocean and drowning instead of crashing into the ground and burning." There was no ocean in the middle of America, and I thought it would be more pertinent to find out how I should react if the plane crashed into the Rockies, or a corn field, or - and I shuddered - Wisconsin.
___I was flying across my country on mission to rescue a heroin-addicted teen aged werebear from a situation that would likely endanger my life in the process, so why was it that the plane ride was more daunting? My attention shifted to Lucas, who was laying on the floor with his head on his paws, eyes half shut and looking decidedly bored. I thought I could see a tiny smile curling his dark pink lips slightly upwards when my heart skipped a beat with the sudden motion of the wheels on the tarmac. As we lurched free of the ground, my hand involuntarily spasmed around the arm rest. Lucas raised his head and grinned up at me, managing a mocking look even on a canine snout. I resisted the urge to give him a kick and blow my cover as blind.

Kumba

This paragraph is part of a possible novel I may write somewhere down the road, so needless to say, concepts, characters, content, etc. are all (c) Lauren Weeks. This bit is brief enough that I doubt anyone could do much with it if they wanted, but still.

Prolouge
The crowd was cheering on the day that I died.

Chapter 1: Birth
__ My first memory was the sound of the wind rushing through the dry savanna grasses. It was so vast a noise that I thought a thousand hungry predators were rushing towards me with sharpened claws and eager fangs. I remember running behind my mother’s great gray legs and burying my head in the coarse dryness of her flesh, squealing at the top of my lungs all the while. I made such a ruckus that even the herd matriarch was alarmed; her massive feet made the ground quake as she approached to investigate. Caressing my body with her rubbery trunk, she made soft, comforting sounds until I relaxed against my mother’s body, puling her teat closer with my trunk to suckle. I fell to sleep beneath the comforting fortress of her body, so powerful but so loving all at once, the way Gods are said to be. This memory of closeness of my herd, the sounds and smells of the other elephants, has brought me comfort that endured through many of my darkest hours.

Haha, yeah, that's all I'm sharing for now.

Broken Things

___When he left, he took a lot of things with him: their dog, her GPS system, half of their DVDs, and most of the money out of her bank accounts. He didn’t break her, steal away pieces of her pride like most men did during a break up; that always happened each time she gave in and got back together with him. How many times had it been now? Three, four? Five? It was a wonder there was anything left, really.
___She was too afraid to enter her apartment when she got home from work. The logical part of her brain told her that this was for any number of very good reasons. He might be there, waiting to hurt her. He might come back while she was home for the same reason. He may have come while she was away and destroyed her dearest belongings, leaving her to pick up the pieces. But deep down, she knew the worst thing for her would be going up to that apartment and finding nothing out of place other than the lack of his presence. It would be quiet, like the aftermath of a hurricane, and she would be alone. This, more than anything rational, was terrifying, and this was why she kept taking him back.
___Sitting in the parking lot with her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, she dipped her bruised face into the bend of her forearm. She had cried so much today that there were no tears left to fall, but her back quaked with each sob nonetheless. A whirlwind of emotion tormented her despite the quiet, soothing sound of rain gently falling over the roof of the car. Part of her desperately longed to jettison the heavy shackles of their relationship for good, knowing how it would always end no matter how sweet he acted in the first weeks after she accepted him back. Part of her also longed for him the way an junkie craved his addiction, and by now her self esteem was so thoroughly destroyed that she could convince herself that anything he said or did was justified.
___After all, it was only one black eye.
___Her cell phone buzzed to life on the seat beside her, screen glowing blue in the dimness of the car. She startled at the sound and stared for a long moment before tentatively picking it up to read the name on the caller ID. She felt a twinge of shame for hoping, somewhere in the back of her mind, that it would be him. The number on the screen was her mother’s, and she felt both relief and trepidation. There was no hope that her voice would not betray her condition; she would have to tell her everything, hear the anger and hurt and worry in her mother’s responses like she had so many times before.
___Their conversation, like the day’s earlier events, flew by in a blinding flurry of emotion. Her mother asked all of the concerned maternal questions like, “did he hurt you?” and “do you need me to come over?” before launching into her furious tirade reprimanding her daughter for being so foolish. This wasn’t quite blaming the victim, more a product of concerned sorrow, and a desperate plea to comprehend how she chose him time and time again over her family, over herself. By the end of the discussion they were both crying, and she heard the half-hearted and unconvinced hope in her mother’s cracking voice as she quietly said,
___“I’m glad you’ve gotten rid of him, honey.”
___She said goodnight and hung up the phone, but did not leave the car. Forehead cradled in her hands, she quietly whispered to herself in hollow despair,
___“He'll never go away that easily.”

Three Brief Conversations.

1. Dial Tone
___The phone sprung to life on the coffee table, buzzing across its surface angrily like a mortally wounded bee. He startled at the sound, then glanced at the caller ID. It was Laura. Wondering why she was calling this late, he flipped the phone open.
___"Laura?" His voice was urgent, concerned. That didn't make it easier for her.
___"You were right," she said, tones hushed and sorrowful.
___"What's going on?" There was now a cold pit of ice in his stomach, because he could only think of one thing she could have been referring to.
___"I'm calling to say goodbye," she continued, ignoring his question as though it was never spoken.
___"You're scaring me," he said, and the high edge to his voice confirmed it.
___"Come tomorrow, I'll either be dead, or a murderer." She paused, then laughed sardonically. "Though some part of me thinks you'll get over the former more quickly."
___"Laura, calm down - tell me what happened. Is it Julie?"
___"I know you hate it when I remind you but, I love you, Alan." Her voice should have been more emotional to accompany those words, but they were flat and hollow. This more than anything frightened him.
___"Laura, I..."
___"Don't," she said sharply, cutting him off. "Your arguments won't dissuade me, and if you even dare try at reciprocity, I'll see right through it. Good bye, Alan."
___The receiver went dead, and it felt like an omen.

2. Vegans
___She worried the lid of the bottle, wincing as a sharp burning shot up her hand to her shoulder and then back down again, like the nerves were playing catch with her pain. It wasn't even one of those confounding child-proof lids, just a normal twist-off; how humiliating. As she tried to force her injured arm to perform, she became aware that a shadow had fallen over her. Looking up with apparent agitation, she pursed her lips in the beginning of an irate what, then stopped.
___Standing over her was one of the most offensively attractive women she'd ever seen. Her luxurious black hair fell forward as she looked down, an amused smile dancing more in her almond-shaped sepia eyes than on her dark, thin lips. She held out one mocha-brown hand, long elegant fingers splayed. Her palms looked curiously rough considering the manicured perfection of her nails, which were long but only tastefully so.
___"May I?" the woman asked, her voice warm and lyrical.
___Amanda nodded distantly, too stricken to argue. The woman twisted the lid off with ease, giving a funny little smile when she saw the label and small, pink pills that had been obscured by the dark glass. Amanda managed a meek "thank you."
___"B12?" the beautiful stranger asked, a hint of amusement creeping into her voice. "Are you a vegan?"
___Amanda snorted, gesturing to her muscular, blocky body - the kind of body that played sports that lead to shoulder injuries. She gave the stranger a very arrogant look.
___"Do I look like one?"
___Her smile spread wider, like she was enjoying some secret joke at the other woman's expense.
___"I don't know... do I?" She reached into the bottle, withdrawing one tablet and trapping it between the perfect white teeth of her grin with a wink before closing her lips and sauntering away.

3. Chivalry's Not Dead
___Margaret saw the door before he did, his attention focused too intensely on his watch as they exited the restaurant. He'd barely been able to tolerate sitting through an hour's dinner, too concerned with getting back home before the game started. A devious grin sprung across her face, forcing the frown lines hewn in the corners of her aging visage to reconfigure. Striding ahead, she pulled the door open, bowing at the waist and gesturing her husband through with a great sweep of her knobby, arthritic hand.
___"After you, Darling!" she trilled.
___He looked up from his watch with a scowl, ears burning red as he crossed the threshold peevishly following a moment's hesitation.
___"See that?" She proclaimed teasingly. "Chivalry's not dead yet."
___Once outside the door, he grabbed her elbow firmly, pulling her close with his lip curling in an angry little growl.
___"Would you stop castrating me in public?" he hissed, annoyed, then stormed ahead.
___There was the hint of laughter in her old eyes.

Wild Horses (AKA Ren Practices Dialog)

___The sky above was overcast, and there was nothing ominous about this fact; it was merely November. A flock of geese broke the soft, motionless gray in fast lines of animated black, calling out nosily to their comrades as they moved in perfect formation towards their winter grounds. There was something peculiarly effortless about their frantic wing beats, perhaps the instinct that drove them over frigid miles through the same migratory routes their ancestors had observed for generations. She envied the orderly, predictable world of the geese as she walked carefully across the slick frozen ground in the direction of the stable. She could already hear him inside, talking in quiet, comforting tones to the horse he was working on in a fashion that seemed out of place coming from someone of such rough-edged character.
___If he heard her enter, he gave no indication. His side was braced against the foreleg of an old thoroughbred gelding, arm extended to pinch the animal's fetlock as he clucked gently, trying to encourage the animal to raise its foot for a cleaning. The horse looked up at her, ears perked and hopeful for treats, but became disinterested when none were presented. It lifted its foot obligingly, and he held it firmly, the long sinewy muscles of his forearm straining slightly from the weight as he worked the pick first along the outer curve of the hoof, dislodging caked mud or feces - both looked about the same. She moved to the other side of the horse, placing one hand on its warm, muscular neck. The thoroughbred was too tall for her to observe him looking over its withers, so she dropped her head and peered around the long line of its throat.
___"You're here early," she observed. "And you weren't in class yesterday."
___"Yeah, I know," he replied to both statements of the obvious.
___"Were you feeling alright?" She watched as he worked the pick carefully but firmly around the raised ridge of the horse's frog.
___"Feeling fine, just not feeling like going to school," he replied, flipping the pick over and using the brush to remove finer debris.
___"Oh," she replied dumbly, running one arm along the horse's back and awkwardly floundering for anything to say.
___"You come down here for a reason?" He asked, his posture suddenly very stiff. She couldn't tell if it was in anticipation of her answer, or because he was working a stubborn piece of gravel free from the hoof.
___"Just to visit, I guess," she leaned her cheek against the horse's shoulder, its chestnut bulk blocking her view of him for a moment.
___"Me, or the horses?" he asked, an edge of spite creeping into his voice mingled with the teasing the words intended. She winced a little.
___"I'm sorry I haven't been in touch. It's just..." she couldn't finish the sentence without being more hurtful.
___He let the horse drop its foot and moved to its hindquarter without so much as glancing her direction, keeping close & running his hand down the animal's spine to avoid spooking it. It was less cooperative in raising its hind hoof.
___"It's just that you're uncomfortable around me now, right? Because it isn't mutual?" The horse pulled free of his grip the moment after he raised its foot a few inches from the ground. He tried again without so much as a sigh, maintaining better patience with it than with her.
___"If I knew, I would have never..." she peered over the slope of the horse's back, again unable to finish a sentence.
___"I'm glad you did. It was nice," he said flatly, trapping the horse's hock between his his knees this time to keep it from pulling away.
___"It was," she agreed, flush creeping into her cheeks. "But I never meant to lead you on," she added hurriedly.
___"You didn't," he said, and it sounded sincere. Flakes of dried shit fell to the concrete.
___"Then why did you tell me, afterwards I mean?"
___"Because, you didn't give me the chance to tell you before," he said with a sardonic laugh.
___"So it wasn't because of the sex?" Her voice grew hushed at the last word.
___"Just because there's something about sex in love doesn't mean there's anything about love in sex," he answered cryptically, the brush scraping against the horse's hoof. "Anyways, I felt this way long before that, so don't insult me by suggesting that my dick fell in love with you."
___Her ears burned with embarrassment and a hint of anger, but part of what he'd said made her curious.
___"How long?" she asked, leaning over the horse's flank with blue eyes focused intensely on his back. He paused in his work for a moment before answering.
___"Well, how long have I known you?"
___This caught her off guard.
___"You've dated since we'd met," she observed skeptically.
___"Yup," he replied, frowning and fingering a soft, off-color spot along the collateral sulcus. "Did you expect me to wait around for something that wasn't going to happen?"
___She frowned.
___"You didn't even try, though."
___"Didn't have to." He put the horse's foot down. "The outcome wouldn't have been different if I tried." She didn't argue. He continued. "The funny thing about loving someone who doesn't love you is," he said as he placed the hoof pick back in the supply case and now withdrew a rubbery round curry comb, "it's a lot like a wild horse." He began to move his hand in firm, rhythmic circles, starting just behind the horse's cheek and working down it's neck, still not looking at her. "You might feel the purest joy in your life watching it run wild, might want that horse to be yours like nothing else in the world. But no amount of love or desire is about to change the fact that it's not yours - it's free. And the only way to have it, unless it comes to you, is to force it, to break it." He worked the brush over the horse's shoulder, fingers of the opposite hand laced through the thoroughbred's mane. "And no one who really loves someone wants that." He stopped, finally looking up with the first hint of a smile dancing behind his dark brown eyes. "Besides, once you've got it, you have to spend your weekend picking shit out of its hooves, anyways."
___And she laughed, realizing with much relief that they were going to be okay.

Variations on a Happy Ending - D

Author's Note: This is one of four short stories from a writing assignment called "Variations on a Happy Ending." I may eventually post the others once I finish writing the "rationale" portion - but I digress. The purpose of the writing was to create four dramatically different short stories that all had a similar ending theme. The theme was coming to terms with - and more importantly, being content with - who you are. The other three characters were a woman with a compulsive overeating disorder, a gay many in a polyamorous triad, and a sociopath. I thought this particular one, however, one forced me to work very much outside my normal writing style, length, and theme.

___Rhett never meant to harm his Alphess. He had no reason to; she was always good to him. She’d found him when he was just a small, lost puppy, wandering alone in the streets after his mother had been hit by a car. She could not replace his canine mother, but the Alphess nurtured him, keeping him warm, offering him food, and even allowing him to stay in her home. She was also the one who walked him, every day, in all weather, and that more than anything else was Rhett’s favorite thing to do. For all of these reasons, he loved her the way dogs love humans.
___Rhett’s father was a greyhound and his mother a husky; fast and strong were in his blood. As a puppy he would smell the air, feel the wind in his short black fur, and want nothing more than to run at his top speed down the sidewalk, enjoying the thunder of the pavement beneath his paws. But the Alphess was not young, fast, or strong; she was old, slow, and weak. She could not run with him, and grew angry with his tugging and lunging. She taught him not to run, but never was able to take the urge away.
___Two years later, Rhett was a larger, stronger dog, and his Alphess only slower and weaker. She barely had the energy to chase the squirrels away from the bird feeder, a task Rhett took up by barking through the open window so that they scattered in all directions. One morning, while returning home from a walk, Rhett saw two squirrels fighting atop the bird feeder, chattering with their great plumes of tails flicking and jerking angrily. They were distracted, and he could catch them; he wanted to catch them for his Alphess and knew she would be very proud.
___But he was only a dog, his thoughts likely limited to impulse. When he lunged forward suddenly in pursuit of his quarry, the Alphess pitched forwards, hitting the ground with a funny little shriek like a wounded animal. She couldn’t get back up. He doubled back, whining and licking at the air in submissive concern, and she struck him hard in the face with her little frail hands. She called him a Bad Dog.
___Rhett spent the next two weeks at a dog shelter. The first few days, he waited for his Alphess, but she did not come back for the Bad Dog. The next few days, he wallowed in sorrow, pining for his master. After that, he looked to each person that came through the doors with guarded optimism, tail wagging slung between his legs and head lowered. They never stopped to look at him; he was too old, too big, or too plain. At the end of two weeks, they’d moved him to a cage in the back, beyond where people never even bothered to look, alongside snarling ferals and sickly old animals. There was a door in the back of this room, and whenever it opened, he smelled harsh chemical odors, emptied bladders, and the pervasive odor of death. It frightened him.
___One afternoon, a Man and his Boy stopped in to the shelter. The Boy had something wrong with his legs; they were stick-thin and pale, and his father pushed him along in a strange chair with wheels. The shelter staff showed the Boy little lap dogs, and old dogs who didn’t have the energy to run and play, but the Boy pointed to Rhett enthusiastically. His father pushed the wheelchair closer, and Rhett sniffed and licked his outstretched hands.
___“You don’t want him; he’s a Bad Dog. Broke his last owner’s hip pulling,” warned one staffer.
___“Horrible leash manners, and he’s so fast when he gets running.” confirmed another.
___“He’s perfect!” the Boy proclaimed, smiling widely.
___Rhett did not understand their words, but his tail wagged at the sound of the Boy’s voice.
___Initially, Rhett had been afraid he’d hurt the Boy like he'd hurt the Alphess. He walked slowly, refused to play tug of war, and was very careful not to jump up no matter how excited he was when the Boy came home from school. The Boy seemed disappointed, and Rhett was confused. Then, one crisp winter day, when the snow was freshly fallen in a shimmering white blanket over the hills, the Boy’s father carried his son outside, whistling for Rhett to follow. The dog watched as the Man lowered the Boy’s body into a small wooden sled, head tilted and tail wagging. The Man tied a rope hanging from the front of the sled to the back of Rhett’s collar, then threw a tennis ball. Rhett watched the ball longingly as it sailed through the air, tumbling down the snowy hill, but he didn’t want to run with his leash on.
___“Go get it,” the man sternly ordered. Rhett whined and slowly approached the ball. As the sled moved behind him, the Boy giggled excitedly.
___“Faster, Rhett!” he yelled. The dog picked up the ball, doubling back on his rope and dropping it in the Boy’s gloved hands. This time, the ball was thrown even further, and the Boy yelled “Go get it!” with an urgency that made Rhett trot after it this time. The child’s laughter grew more excited, and the happier he was, the happier Rhett was.
___“Run, Rhett!” cried the Boy, a smile lighting up his entire face and voice rolling with laughter. Rhett understood, finally. He smelled the cold winter air, felt the wind in his short black fur, and for once, he ran, enjoying the thunder of his paws through the crisp new snow. He ran for the Boy, for he had legs for both of them. He was a large, strong dog, made for running, and in his own canine way, he finally accepted that. And Rhett was content, because the Boy was happy. When their games came to an end come lunch time, the Boy hugged his dog close and said,
___“You’re a Good Dog.”