Thursday, July 8, 2010

Rune: Hearts Don't Break Even.

Annie - Vanessa Carlton
Breakeven - The Script

We were supposed to have gone out tonight. I was going to take her on a walk through the city as the sun set. I was going to take her to that little café that she loved so much. I was going to ask her about Rose and their latest adventures. There were so many things that I had planned without much thought on what would be happening instead. From the very beginning, I should have been able to see that these things never work out, when two people are so very different in essence, when two people are supposed to go on so completely different paths.
Neither of us were the average young women walking about the streets of England. And I
knew that.
I had seen him once or twice before I had even met Annette, but never taken much notice of him, never noted him as an important factor in what I was seeing altogether. And now, every time that I saw him, it was as though he were a bleeding stain on the final page of a thick and final chapter. I would never be able to read the end, never skip ahead, but I knew how it would end nonetheless, intuitively. Annette would meet him in some years and they would fall in love. And I would travel the airways of time, forever traversing reality from a bystanders point of view, as I has known from the beginning.
I’ll never know why I allowed myself to be foolish enough to think otherwise.
A smile smoothed over my features as I approached the bench beside the now empty street.
It was already dark and I was late but Annette had waited there. She had waited a good hour for what? For a woman that had already told her many times that she might not be returning one day, that had tried to warn her of what would come… The smile was tinged with the faintest hints of a hidden sorrow. Tonight would be the first night in years that I would weep wholly for sadness and fear. It had taken Annette to realize that I was going nowhere, to remind me that I had no place either here nor there. I was a ghost without a house to haunt, only hearts.
The lone figure flinched as the streetlight over her switched on. As she did so, her hair swept from her eyes and she saw me standing there in front of her. Something in those impossibly blue eyes caught flame and a smile ten times more a smile than my own bloomed on her face. My chest fluttered weakly as if some bird with broken wings were trying to break free of it. I apologized in a soft voice but no matter how softly I spoke, I could feel the tenderness of the air, could feel myself pulling away already.
“I wasn’t sure what to think,” Annette admitted weakly.
I sat beside her, looking ahead of us at the shadows licking along the edges of buildings.
She watched me, checking my expression, then scooted closer in one small movement, slipping her arm beneath mine and folding her fingers over my chilled hand. I wasn’t wearing weather-practical clothing and my joints were stinging for it but with that touch, I warmed--and I felt the sand of a white beach beneath my feet, hours behind this place we were in now, the sun still high in the sky, warming my pale skin.
I shook away that place, willing myself to remain on that bench. My throat suddenly seemed swollen to me. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move. I could only listen to a barely audible sigh tumble from my beloved’s rosy lips. Dearest, don’t be upset, I begged her in silence.
“Is everything alright, Rune?” I knew that she knew what was coming. I wished she didn’t; I wished she was wrong.
“Do you remember when I told you about that woman? The witch that died in the trials?”
“Yes,” she nodded. Her lips were chapped, I noticed, as I looked her over, trying to soak up every detail that I could.
“She had no family, she was alone in the world, right?”
Annette looked as though she wanted to say something to me but something also sealed her lips, bade her to listen.
“I can’t remember the story anymore. I used to be able to remember it word for word, but that’s all I know now.”
She waited for me to continue. When I didn’t, she posed, “Do you want me to tell you?”
I began to say yes, but then my voice betrayed me, “No, I don’t want to know.”
We sat in silence for a long moment. Annette looked away this time.
“I love you, Annette,” I spoke and as if on cue, snow began to float down from the skies, cast orange by the light behind us. It had already been snowing in short burst and flurries but this would signal the beginning of a heavy storm that would trap children in their houses and adults from their cars for a good couple of days. A homeless man would be found just east of the main bridge over the river, riddled with severe cases of frost bite.
No one knew that but myself yet, of course.
She looked as if she had been struck at first, then her eyes cast upward, watching a single flake land on my knee. Something within her found peace as she responded to me, “Do you remember telling me the weight of those words?”
“No,” I choked. I couldn’t remember much of anything that I had done in this life anymore. I was already a step gone.
“You told me that ‘I love you’ is only another way of saying goodbye,” she screwed her eyes shut. Was she going to cry? “But it’s a stronger kind of goodbye, more final, because when you truly love someone, there’s a promise in everything that you say.” I still couldn’t remember telling her that. But a cord of my heart sang with it and I knew that I believed that statement more than I did that snow was falling.
But snow wasn’t falling; I was on a sandy beach and my cheeks were burning from the exposure.
I shook away the image of that place, urging myself to feel the cold of the bench, to feel her hand over mine. I laced my bare fingers with her gloved ones, shivering. My breathe hung in front of me in a small cloud then dissipated. I focused on it, staring down the frozen trees and other unremarkable vegetation, trying to ground myself to the spot where I sat.
“I love you too, Rune.” That was it. That was the last thing that I heard before I began to fade.
I turned to her, tears in my eyes, the colors of the world awash with white now. I could feel my core slipping and pulling away from here and I could no longer feel the cold of the winter. I tried to respond to her, tried to hold on, tried to stay there so I could take her on that walk, so I could buy her a cup of tea. I took her by the shoulders and hugged her to my chest, desperate to feel her but it was impossible. My words were drowned in silence like a whisper amongst music in an opera house. My ears rang with my cries, hummed with quiet. I pressed my lips to hers but it was like I was grasping air.
No, no, no, please, just let me… Please, see me.
When I opened my eyes, the sun was setting. I stood, brushing the sand off of my coat and pants, withdrawing from the water’s edge. I hooked my bag onto my shoulder and slipped on my sandals. My gaze drifted toward the distant parking lot and the Italian ice kiosk. That reminded me, there was a new café that opened yesterday in town.


Question of the Day:
Who do you think you were in a past life / you‘ll be in a future life?

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Good Morning, Beautiful.

I woke up next to the most beautiful woman that I have ever happened upon this morning. Looking over that face and recognizing it as something familiar and close to me sent a swell of emotions into my heart that wished me well, a good morning, and bid me a kiss on the cheek with dearest affections stitched into it. Without a word, through that single image of her, I could hear so many of her thoughts and feel her stirring--though the visage I looked on was merely a photo taped to notebook paper that had been taken near two years ago. God, has it been so long?

“Anime?” I could have gagged.
Back in those days, I had a different hair color and my mind was mayhap still the same tinge of warped eccentricity but with a lot less control than I have over it now. I was shorter by barely an inch and I was riding off of the high of a long-winded, depression-laced eighth grade year. I had done a lot of losing, scraping and crying. And now, to top it off, I was accepted into the very school that I had been trying not to get into. At that time, I had wanted to be as far from my house as possible for as long as possible. Now that I would be going to NCT, I would be a ten minute walk from that trailer at best the only time that I would ever be out of it.
(I suppose once we hit high school, we either begin a steady plummet into our “Golden Years” or we live the next four years on a very rocky incline. Every once in a while, some resilient soul drops but they’ve planned ahead well enough to have brought some climbing gear. I’m still not sure whether I’m going up or down. It seems like a lot of walking in place, really. And I still can‘t figure out who of us are better off in this world at the rate of things.)
So, come the first week of school, I walk along that scrumptiously dangerous four-way and get a good grip on a campus map and a list of destinations. By about lunch, I had decided that I had some work to do. No, not the typical movie-rendered stereotypes of, Yeah, I’m gonna kick ass this year and this is how! No. I began to plan my… domination of the student populace. Sound evil to any extent? I think, with no over-dramatization on that part, evil may have been a very good borderline description of my thought processes at that age.
I found a particularly deluded whelp and sank in my fangs, so to say. I approached him with friendliness, tagged a line that was ambiguous enough to not seem too inviting but enough to spark a conversation. It worked and the boy ended up sitting with me at lunch, pouring on some drivel about his Summer. And as I weathered the storm of pointless words being thrown at my face with no specific purpose behind them besides an excuse to expel oxygen, I was rewarded. It turned out that he wasn’t a complete and utter loser--he was a loser with friends! Joy.
When he was done eating and I was done tossing some poor Ethiopian’s last meal into the trash, we parted ways. I went to “search for someone.” He went to meet with his cluster of friends, offering to save me a place amongst the group if I sought such a position before lunch ended. In truth, I had been considering hiding away in some dark avenue but found this desire to be fruitless as I soon realized that in high school, there is no shaded corner without a couple within. Ah, the boundless things to revel in this new land, indeed.
Cody, that was his name I recall now, had found his “group” of friends and I soon trickled over with all the speed of a drop of molasses. My venturing gained me the acquaintances of a junior named Dan and a senior named Lisa, though I still hung around the edges, weighing my options. Did I want to get involved with the upperclassmen marching band kids? Hm. Not…really. No. But it would do for the moment. And again, I was rewarded, for a minute or two later, Cody was ushered over to a group that was fairly more appropriately titled on which the two upperclassmen had sidled themselves. I hung back, feeling awkward, but keeping a pleasant smile for good measure. When I found the opportunity to insert myself with a “genuine” interest in the topic, I did exactly that.
“Anime?” I had pressed my hands gingerly against Cody’s shoulders and leaned ever so to the right of him, giving the appearance of this small thing popping out of seemingly nowhere. I willed my eyes to glitter and my voice to reach distances it did not oft reach. Honestly, however, anime was something I knew not much of beyond commonly used internet terms, nor did I care much of it. But again, this was all in the name of domination, so to speak, and a good warrior is also a good actress. The pen, as a wise man has said, is mightier than the sword, after all.

With this gesture of ulterior motives, I introduced myself into the life of Miss Lanna, mine most precious gem.

From then on, my intentions began to shift, all thanks to that wonderful young woman. I don’t remember quite what shifted my focus but it shifted it slowly, precisely. Almost as precisely as the games that I had begun to subject the anime children to. Yes, I admit, I was a cruel little demon of a child and I wholly intended upon using them. And I did. Many times. Although, some of the friendships that were formed were true and honest enough in time. I’m not one for games anymore, you see, again, something that Alanna has shifted in me. I do occasionally partake in them but only when I must. And I feel horrible afterwards. Disgusting. All because I once tried to play them on her.
A million little things led up to our friendship and a million things more led up to what it is now. The only name that we’ve found that may even remotely scratch the surface is Romantic Friendship. No, seriously, wiki it. We laughed. So much. And I simply revel in the irony of a mini-historian like myself having an ancient relationship such as that. Now, mayhap in your mind that would translate as “lesbians” or mayhap even something so trashy as “friends with benefits.” Well, I say, give it what credit you will and we shall forever continue to confuse the masses<3. style="font-weight: bold;">


Question of the Day
: What would it be like to swallow a razor?
Think on that bit and imagine it in all its glory. (:

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

This, Thy Mental Soliloquy, Begins.

So very much to write, so very little words to expend~.
I will tell you right off that this blog could very take a very odd turn.
But I’ll allow you no detail further on that subject, for now.

For this introduction, I’ll rein in my typical writing style and lay out mayhap some simple facts.
To know me. Or rather, to better give you an idea of what you may be reading about, I suppose.

The people that I love, I truly do love, and am quite vocal of the love thereof.
I admire men like Hitler for their tactical genius and men like Hamlet for their runabout madness.
Steak just isn’t steak to me without blood pouring out when I stab it--but I prefer vegetarianism.
On the same topic of blood and such, zombies and the end of the world honestly get my clock ticking.
Shakespeare is the man that I have devoted my wedding ring finger to since sixth grade.
My family is a four man team; Alanna, Roddy, Brittany, and Amanda. They live behind my ribs<3.
I’m probably the most controversial person that you could meet and it only makes me more so to admit it.
I have been bisexual for as long as I can remember and I laugh when people tell me to make up my mind.
I have about a thousand nicknames and aliases but there are only really three voices in my head.
Reed is the bird latched onto my shoulder, my voice of selfish, ruthless reason.
Carlisle is the man atop my head, currently pulling the strings on my fingers and my decisions.
Blithe is the blind child in my core, though she has been with me before time.
Rune is the combination of these three and all their demons; she is the woman I’ll one day become.
I have been writing since I was in elementary school and I place many of my fundamentals on this activity.
If I were to ever be deemed unable to write, I would simply go mad then destroy myself--the world along with me.
I’m explicitly proud of every little thing about me that might confuse, bewilder, estrange, scare, or enchant another.
Faerie Wicca is the only religion that I have ever strongly related to, though I do meld it to my own quite often.
I have no especially opinions strong to note, for I am an almost clinically unstable case of indifference.
However, I am very good at pretending that I do. (:


And now, the Q.O.D. This shall act as a way to include you, my lovely reader(s).
On that note, most probably, the subject of the question itself will be entirely random and have nothing to do with the blog above it.

Question of the Day:
If cloning were to work, would that counter that we have a soul?
And if, say, that we do have souls, would that somehow jeopardize the well-being of its state?