Load In – 17042011, day 8

We spawned in a back yard.  I didn’t recognize the area, but it didn’t matter much.  We were in residential, so that gave us some space before the inevitable halls and lines that we’d have to get through.  Zoc had picked our load out and now I checked out what I had as we spun around, cleared our perimeter.

The moon was high, giving good visibility.  We were on a cobblestone terrace coming out of the back of someone’s house.  The backyard was marked off with chest high chain link fence, annoying, but useful at the same time.  There were sporadic gardens of small flowers, mostly well kept grass.  Cookie cutter back yards copy and pasted along my left and right.  Ahead of me there the flip of the street, more backyards.  Above us, hydro lines held up by solid wooded posts every few lots.  I made note that the posts had pegs high enough to be climbed, but would give us pause if needed.  Another version of climbing a tree to escape harm. 

Zoc spoke quietly.  The area was fresh, with no contact or devastation.  He was right.  Not a window broken or blood splatter to be seen.  We hopped a few fences, peering down the alleys to the street as we went.  After a few fences we decided to head down to the street, try to get a view of the landscape.

I tapped Zoc’s shoulder in the alley way as I checked out my build.  He had set us up with new accounts, so we had new weapons.  I pulled my guns out, curious to see what my tools were.  I was greeted by the shine of two silver and black pistols, k9’s with extended barrels.  My secondary weapons were black glazed teardrop throwing knives.  I holstered them after finding a comfortable grip.  I had rope around my waist and simple clothing.  Along my belt were clips and odd shaped objects, which had to be this rounds tool of choice. 

It looked like a bat with a flaming mouth, wings folded over itself.  I was debating pulling the hooked tail when Zoc put his hand on it.  He had a bat of his own and pulled the tail, holding it high.  The wings snapped open and its mouth shot off a wave of heat.  Looking up I saw Zoc holding his own bat, the mouth cheerily burning like a festive candle, giving out light where the wings are angled.  I was expecting a grenade, but this bat looked like something else, if less destructive then I would have thought.

From the bats light I could see Zocs build.  He wore simple clothes like me with a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder.  So much for a different build.  I couldn’t see his secondary weapon, but I trusted he’d put it to good use.

The bat’s light died and started climbing up the alley, feet spread apart against the tight walls.  We made to the room and got a look at the neighbourhood beneath us. 

We were sitting on the edge of suburbia.  Across the street were high sheet metal barriers, forcing us back into the honeycomb of houses beneath us.  The street was empty, which was good for us, but bad for whoever had the misfortune to deal with our quarry.  We decided to travel along the rooftops, hopping from one to another as long as we could.  We kept low, standing only when necessary to scout the area.  When we hit the end of the block we had another choice, drop to street level to go through a hole in the metal barrier, leading us who knows where, or stick with the houses.  The street had come to a corner, making a sharp right turn around the house we were sitting on, turning to avoid a park that bordered the housing development.  Across the park were several low lying builds, the closest to a main street this community probably had. 

Our choice would have been far easier, had we seen anyone.  The only movement was caused by the dead wind that scattered through the air.  We’d seen no creatures, no monsters, no mutations, no abominations of any kind up to this point, an experience fairly unprecedented.  I left it to Zoc to choose our path, who decided we should drop to street level and make our way along the park until we got to a road which led us into the town square.  I agreed and we climbed down a drain pipe and scurried along the parks edge, alone, nerves high from the lack of encounters.

               // Elysium and Zoc.  i should make character sheets for them both...

A session in the City - 14042011, day 4

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Start with whatever you remember. Let it flow back to you.  Grasp whatever you can, in whatever disjointed segments you can grasps.”

The light dimmed in the room.

“I’m inside a little shop. Its gourmet food and antipasto and some things.  It’s on a hill with a steep road outside.  The people behind the counters are old, white and grey hair, save for an unsure and timid little girl.  She looks miserable.  I’ve walked through the door and immediately to my left is the food bar.  There are plates of meat and right at the front; grand place is a white rectangular bowl with what looks like meat balls inside of it.  There’s no sign saying what it is, but it sounds delicious.

The room is buzzing with gossip.  I know of the people they’re discussing but I don’t know them personally.  I float through.  They see me and the girl greets me timidly before turning back to conversation.   It’s as if they can’t see me, like I’m slipping in and out.

The shop’s closing.  The employees are looting the place for food.  I’m going on a trip, across a long distance, I strip out their milk container and grab it for my own.  I head for the antipasto bar and find one of the male workers at the counter.  I ask if he's taking the meatball and he says absolutely, he's got it.  I want it as well, but don’t think he’ll take all of it.  He seems too cautious to really gorge while thieving.  He moves aside and I move in with a metal tine tray.  I drop the bottom half of a heavy burger bun into the tray and spoon in the meat ball mix.  The man tells me its meatballs, mushroom and another ingredient I can’t remember. It slips away every time he says it.  I layer it with strips of what looks like bacon in a cross pattern.  More sauce and meatballs, then there's this large hunk of cheese.  The man berates me for mixing flavours but I know better. I crush the cheese down so that I can put the lid on the tin.  I make sure to put in the top of the bun.  As I scrape the meatball dish clean, I use shards of a hard baguette, maybe some Italian bread, which shatters like ice if I push it too hard along the bottom of the clay pan.  My tin pan looks like a quiche, is what he says.  I agree with him after a few minutes.   I turn my attention elsewhere.

It’s earlier.  I’ve walked out the door of the tiny shop; close after the small timid girl.  There’s a slight breeze.  She’s heading down the hill through there subway tunnels, beneath the mountain, all grey concrete and blue metal rising high.  She turns back to me, her back against the wall after she gets to the first landing.  She stammers out why I’m following her.  I move close, breathing slowly, till our lips are nearly touching, I can feel her shiver, so lose to me. My head lowers, my lips drifting along her neck and down to her exposed chest.  I hear her ask what I want.  The smile lights along my lips before kissing her chest.  What I want, I tell her, is you. Her hand comes to mine as I straighten and begin leading her down the stairs. I tell her that I’m going to take her to lunch. We descend the stair case.

Near the end now.  There’s an old man with wild bushy white hair, bicycling up the steep road.  He has blind eyes and an orange reflector vest.  He looks at me through blind eyes and I see his moustache cascade down, drooping as low as his tangle of hair goes.

The beginning’s slipping away.  There was a hotel that I was staying at, flashes now.  There was talk from my parents of a trip at the end of august, of them booking something and me wondering how that’ll fit with going to the cottage in November.  There’s something else.

Earlier, something that I should remember but can't   I’m trying to go back, but I keep falling into the water, out of the boat and through the mists, never grasping anything tangible.  I dint know what to do.  I need to go on.  I’ve missed the message, the big art, the first three acts of it.  Where’d it go? “

“Breathe deep, calm down, don't panic and keep going.”

“Yes, okay. 

I see a hill.  The same hill rotating along.  I see lines of gossip, as if people were dropping fishing lines, weaved around the hill. I see a room in a hotel/.  I’m sitting on the bed and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do or where to go. 

I can’t remember what she looks like. How could I have been so close, had such influence on her, when I can’t remember her name, what she did beyond the glimpse.    Breath.  Breath.  Okay. 

What time is it?  It’s slipping away.  The mists around my boat are getting darker.  I try to push into them; it’s like sticking my arm through a grey wall.  It swirls around my arms, accepting but unyielding.  I can’t see anything beyond the boat and the mist.  The water is placid and doesn’t move, no matter how I sway in the boat.  I can pull back the images I just went through.

  

Another, I’m going through the gourmet shops kitchen and taking the milk container.  I've no idea why it’s needed now.  The inside of the milk container has a tiny whisk, as well as another metal contraption.  I try to empty them, empty it so I can put another bag of milk in.  I do and cut it, then poor it out into a container.  I don't understand why.  I think I need to cycle through the milk if I’m to take the container, but that doesn’t make sense.  There’s a tiny whisk and metal contraption in each container.  It doesn't make sense.  There’s light coming in through the window as I go through the tile of the floor.  I think the stores closing for good, just as I’m leaving.  Everything’s folding up, as I go. My departure, while welcomed by the townsfolk, signals the end of their world.  They don’t know, or don’t care. 

I try to hang on but it's gone.  Folded up and wire framed, the hill stripped.  I’m back to the memory of the concrete and the young lady.  Pushing against her and sliding down.  The soft kiss and pulling her away.  I can tell she’s overwhelmed through it, that’s why it works.  Someone who had more control over themselves, someone who had been on more dates would have pushed me off, would have had more attention would have known would have reacted differently.  But I was simple.  I said I wanted her.  She fluttered and I took her hand and told her I was taking her to lunch.  She’s followed numbly.  I didn’t look back.  She's blushing now that I see it.  I’m dressed in dark with a mid flair of jacket.  She was still wearing her waitress or attendant uniform.    Then it fades away again, folded into the mist.

It folds out again below me.  The same scene plays out from a different angle, cutting in close as I kiss her chest, seeing her lips quiver above my head; a small gasp slips past her lips, the flush filling her cheeks.  It cuts away to another as I watch us going down the steps.  It plays again and again.  Again.  Again.

 And then it peels away, the wireframe eating the concrete steps, dissolving the sun on the blue metal and glass on the high building above where the steps were, folding it into itself.  It warps and greys and highlights itself, the panels of materials on each surface peeling up and away, unthreading themselves, and then the racks of wires are left until they too peel away, leaving me back in the boat, no place left to reach out to, only the dying, withering memory of that small timid girl and I. 

I’m hunched in the boat.  The hull is empty.  No rushes.  Nothing left.  I want to cry.  I know I lost something lovely, something that if only I could remember it, would make a world of difference would direct me and tell me the answer, where to go. “

“I’m pullin' you out now.  Come back to me slowly; let the boat guide you out of the mist, back into the shop.  The boats docking. You feel a soft bump.  Your wooden bench seat rises up, shifting silently into the counter around you, the boats planks into the walls and shelves of the shop. You’re standing in your body, at my counter, your hands flat on the counter, my hands palm up, while your rest on top.  Breath deep.  Open your eyes and look at me.”

My eyes open slowly, gaze focusing on the wool covered women in front of me.  Her black skin and shinning bright hair made her look like a sheep had always made her look sheep like; beguiling the wolf form she lived.  My feet felt heavy on the floor.  My body sagged back as my muscles relaxed.  I looked around, tilting my head, hearing my neck crack.  My gaze returned to hers, small and black, buried in her face, nearly invisible save for the sharp shine on them.

“I’m back,” I said.

“Yez you ah,” she said, her accent winding around me.  “Did you fine whet you ah lookin' for?”

“I don’t think so.  Thank you anyway, you’ve always been a help,” I said.  She smiles and shakes her head back at me.  I put my hands back into my pockets and turn to the shelves, hoping I’ll see what I need, what I’m missing.  I sigh as I search in vain.  I raise a hand in parting to the old sheep behind the counter and she smiles as I leave a sad look on her face.

It’s raining outside her little shop.  The clouds are low over the dark onyx sky, the ceiling of mist resting on the rooftops of the streets tonight.  The dark hour is nearing its end and I need to get out of the bazaar.  Before it closes.  I dart down a side street and brush shoulders with a face I’ve seen before.  I resist the urge to double take and move through the shady throng filtering out through the exits.  I’ve seen her before at the market, buying food, a rare commodity down here.  She’s one of the Awake, like me, yet we’ve never made introductions.  Not surprising, given the scope of the City. 

She’s tall and gaunt, with a coat wrapped around her.  Beneath the brown folds is a tiny body, wiry and taught, with pale skin.  I’ve made out a few tattoos of her before.  Perhaps we’ll run into each on a more formal occasion soon.  Any Awake who live long enough to get into the flow of the city without becoming a part of it are good to know.  She probably knows Cassandra’s organization.  I’ll have to make inquiries tomorrow.  I pull up my hood and blend into the crowd.  My eyes shine as I spot a curtain lying on a wall nearby, unobtrusive to the crowd that flows by. 

I step close to it and pull it aside long enough to step through the wall into a low ceilinged passage way.  These shortcuts should lead me out of the market and back to the corner of the city near the airplane graveyards, assuming it hasn’t moved again.  I trudge along the passage go through the door at the end.  I’m in a different part of the city, near the tenth district.  It’s not where I wanted to go, but it could’ve been far worse.  I turn down the cobblestone street, lined with dying grass and make my way back to my where I make my home.  It’s been some long nights.

                //Rob never talked much outside of his few confidents, at least here he found a therapist, of sort, even if it is dream siphoning and memory regression.  another tale set in the Mad City of the Undermaze. 

Laura's Morning - 12042011, day 2

I woke up to light blinding me.  I turned my head to the left; hiding under the shade of the steeple that blocked a fraction of the light out my window.  At first I thought it was the sun, but I hadn’t seen the sun in several years. 

I rolled over, away from the light.  I never woke up being blinded.  Usually the cries of the sellers below me pulled me from my light street.  The night previous I had been woken by the screams of some poor thing freshly awake, being pulled apart by Tock’s officer’s in the street outside my window.  Not something I’ve ever wanted to wake up to, but it got me sharp in a hurry.  I was on my feet, locking down my room before the covers had fallen off me.

My clock chimed as the dark hour neared its end.  I pulled my coat across the floor, not bothering to rise from my sprawl.  Fishing out the pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket, I lit up for the first time since I’d been to the market, several weeks past.  I rolled onto my back and exhaled a dark sparking plume of smoke curling in the air above me.  I watched it flicker, opaque and full of slivers of light.  I wondered what was casting such a light from outside my window. 

In the four and a half years I’d been in the city, I’d never seen a sliver of sunlight.  It was against the purpose of this place, I guess.  I breathed in deep and felt my chest heat up with the swirl of memories that came with each drag. 

Pulling myself to a sitting position, I curled around myself as the sheets under which I slept bunched around me, long since abandoning the edges of the bare mattress where I had spent the last week holed up.    Outside my window was an orb of light, high above the rooftops.  Through the maze of pipes and chimneys I could see it hanging above, casting its light down onto the city. 

It wasn’t the sun.  I stared at it without blinking for some time, my eyes never feeling the near-forgotten scorch that the true sun would have brought.  It certainly was a new, entrancing any of the city’s denizens who happened to look up.  It looked like a ball of fire, frozen in place.  There were cresses in the flame, what looked to be hollow spots of dark smoke.  Tilting my head I could make out a demented face, half on its side, made from ash, smoke and flame. 

I heard the clocks chime as the dark hour ended, signalling the beginning of a new day.  I had got maybe an hour of sleep, far too much to be safe.  I flexed my arms and legs as I finished off the cigarette.  My body was thin, skin stretched tight over my slim frame.  What little chest I had was covered by the tattoos which covered my body.  The dragon that rested on my stomach stretched and yawned wordlessly as it flew across my skin, finding its place on my shoulder. 

Pulling myself from my bed, I started cleaning the room.  Striping anything that I may have touched.  I folded the sheet I had slept under and pushed it into my bag.  I pulled on my coat before stripping the bare room.  I dropped the stub of cigarette into a tin that was buried in one of the pockets of my tattered brown coat.  Leaving something like a stub behind was a sure way to lead people after you.  All it would take was a single needle nose bloodhound to catch a scent and then I’d be done for. 

Finishing the room, I closed the door behind me.  The darkness of sleep had done me some good.  My body stretched as it shook off the pains that had plagued me the night before.  I got into the alleys behind the townhouse I was in, slipping past the silent figures that flowed along the street in the early morning. 

The sky was dark as always.  Morning was gauged by the clocks that grew like flowers throughout the city, and the fires in the lamps that shed light on the maze like streets.  Morning meant that the flames were low in their lanterns, barely giving any light as I passed underneath them.  The occasional street lamp gave off its weak cone of light, recovering from the intense light it had spewed forth before the dark hour had hit. 

I turned a corner of the alley and found myself on a street lined with dying grass.  I was nearer to the outskirts of the city than I would have liked. The warrens, the area outside of the city, were a useful place to know, but it was too confusing to me.  The tall, pale grass scared me.  The staircases that wound their way up into the mists that blanketed the ceiling unnerved me.  I looked down the street to my right and saw that a few blocks away, the city died off with stunning abruptness, a Cliffside canyon spilling forth into the fields of the warrens.  I turned my back to the empty sky and walked along the road, back into the heart of the city.

               

 //seems that the Mad City from DRYH seems to be blending into the Nonaverse's Undermaze, tainted by heavy Echo Bazaar use.  it makes for on interesting setting under the misty ceilings of teh Undermaze. - A

Another Set of days and updates

A few days ago, seven or eight ish, i decided to start writing daily again, as much to keep it going as to add yet another thing to my daily to do's.  Any that have been refined enough for common reading i'll throw on here.  why not, better than keeping them on file to be released ten years down the line.

wonderland complex is falling behind, though I've a new build (0.4) with the ground work of the world done.  i'm working on transfers which is taking a remarkable amount of time.  it stuns me how much effort it takes to make sure where a door opens to opens back up to a similar place.  with the focus I've been putting on WC, Under the Desk  has inevitably suffered.  i haven't done any more sketches, nor pieced together any of the frames more than i had a week past.  


i did finish Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, which was a terrific read.  anyone who's ever worked as a line cook, or has ever entertained thoughts of professional cooking, this is a must-read.  Busy days ahead as the end of April rushes towards us ever faster.


I'll polish and post what's presentable from the past few days in the next few minutes (read: short time ish)


bai bai

The first three days

a month of writing is a smaller goal then my last, being a year.  still, i'll go month to month and keep it as i come.  the first three days below.  of onto trip.  should be fun. hobbie-ho.

--

The first february

“You have seven days.  After that you won’t remember anything but those days.  Each day you will be reborn into a new vessel.  Each vessel will have remnants of the days past, and yet be something different.  If you should die during any day, you will begin the next day as if you had finished the previous regularly.  At the end of those seven days, should you fail, you will be reset, as if the loop never occurred. You will remember no details, only that the cycle will have repeated.  If you continue to fail, your will inevitably drive yourself mad.  Succeed, break the cycle, and you will move on.  You won’t remember anything of those days, you will be free.  Do not fail again.  Your strain only increases as the loop repeats.  You are getting closer and closer to madness each time you return here. 

Break the loop.  You have seven days.”

--

The second february.

The caravan pulled to a halt, its pieces bounding along behind it, each piece coming still at last.  The escort for the caravan was a fleet of blimps requisitioned out of Timfix.  The procession was heading through the last mountain range and within a day’s travel, before nightfall if they were fortunate, the escorting blimps would see their home. 

Aboard the second blimp, tending the middle and front of the caravan procession, Seline leaned on a railing, watching the halt below.  The wind of the mountains whipped around her, her muffled hat trailing around her, the fur soft and warm wherever it touched.  Against her leg, at her side, her crossbow rested.  Her eyes had perked up and she scanned the space around her and then the space below, searching for airborne threats to her charges, before moving on to the ground based threats.  There was movement, people wondering after the cause for the sudden halt, but no threat was revealing itself. 

She was tense as her blimp circled about, rising high out between the mountains that shielded the path from the harsher winds.  The trail cut through the mountains and made blimp escort tricky, but not impossible.  Seline held tight to the hand rail and her crossbow as the blimp climbed for the early morning sunlight, to clear the tightest passage of the mountain pass.  If there was to be an attack on the caravan, it would be after the pass, when the trail led through a small valley where the remnants of a town still stood desecrated and abandoned, home only to the thieves and bandits that hose it a poaching hideout.

Seline breathed in the sharp cold air.  Her job became far more serious in a matter of minutes.  This was when she earned her pay, when she protected her charges, still, she thought only of her home in the city, and her small house, stacked among so many others, which await her return home.

--

The third february

She sits above me, her face remembered out of a dream.  Was it a dream where I saw her?  Where I became so enamoured by hr features?  It passed by so quickly and now it’s gone.  Perhaps it was a dream, and she was nothing more than a fleeting rush, grasped for in desperation, held tight in passion and then faded away to nothing but a memory moments later.  I can’t look at her face.  I can’t see the contour or outline of her body as she lay next to me, smiling quietly, her eyes half closed.  I can’t smell the scent that filled the room I was keeping, whenever she came by.  I can only remember her from a half forgotten dream.

I feel where she laid, the indent that should be filled next to me.  The comfort and solace I try to remember escapes me.  I keep asking myself it she was real.  Was the time we had together real?  It came and went so fast, and yet at the time it felt like years.  It was years.  We had so little else save the ritual.  Our ritual.  And then I didn’t do, didn’t play my part and the world folded upon itself.  The walls crumbled and melted to grass and pavement, my bed rising through the ceiling to fall through another floor.  The light blazed around me and then shrunk back into place.

I find myself lying in my bed, alone with a shape of what could have been a memory.  I wish I could hold on to you for longer, but it so rarely happens.  I can’t seem to get a good enough hold.  Too often I hope to see you before I fall asleep.  Were you my dream, or were you real, gone further than any half remembered dream could?

 --

yeah...it'll be a fuuun month...

365 days done, nostalgia and updates

It's been ages since I've been to here. one of my friends asked me a question about a store i had at cafe press (the link should still be some where to the right) and i headed off their to answer his question. while wandering through the crap that was the store (it is...i understand how old i was and how lazy i was and still partly am, but it was still just...yeah...), i found myself thinking of the other places that i frequented and installed back in the day five or so years.

Around then i also signed up for Deviant Art/ and while I've used the site many times over the past half decade, didn't upload much. I've started too now, and after this post I'm going to work on uploading EC to a folder their. // http://echo-mlb.deviantart.com/

I might get around to making some logos and things for the store, if for no other reason then for giggles. my last epic project is finished so...

Wait a second, that's right! 365 days of writing are done! huzzah! for all the many, many projects that get filed under the "not completed and most likely never will" list, that one gets put under the "DONE! AHAHAHHAHA" list. the second last line:

92,929 words, 92 Black Book entries, 176 pages, 365 days.

i am pleased as punch. and while on the subject of writing, last summer i finished a manuscript for my first book, Volumes of Tea, which I'm passing round for editing and will hopefully see in self -print, as the hunting down an agent and shopping to a house is...unlikely. but hey! things have been done.

A few nights ago i was awake too early and decided to pull the web cam towards me. what followed was three ~30 min long tangent heavy reviews for House of Leaves, Let Me In, and In Defense of Food, all good books that i felt like talking about. i proly would have looked into a place to throw them online, if the audio hadn't been horribly corrupted somehow. I'd never heard a 30 min sound clip compressed into a minute.

I have now. it is unfortunate.

If i can find a way to realigned the audio i might post them somewhere. i like the idea of talking about books. they don't get enough press, at least not in the circles i frequent, which may have More to do with my circles then those at large.

I'll try to make use of this more, now that i don't have a doc on my desktop i feel compelled to write in every day. i definitely want to finish the big 4 stories on my desktop, so maybe i can crowbar myself into doing those.

In the mean time, i have to pack and finish my finals. assuming i pass my exams, i get the lovely christmas gift of graduating. then i have to sit down and ask that wonderful and frightening question.

What's next?

Day 318

Still writing essay and procrastinating as all hells. Found myself wandering around the nets and got to deviant art, someplace i haven’t been active on in a long time. Which led me back to this blog, which i used to use until i don’t remember why. I’m still writing. Todays 318 and 337 was my start. A full year, with writing every day. Alot has happened. Maybe i’ll make use of this space yet and post some of the things i’ve been doing. Maybe not.

Yesterday i spent time working on a language and wrapping my head around phonemic structures and characters, annoying though they are, still, useful i think they may be.

Day 18

- Black Book -

Day 17

- Black Book -

Day 16

- Black Book -

Day 15

- Black Book -

Day 14

- Black Book -
Part 4 - Fourside's Game

Day 13

Today slips past and I have little doubt that tomorrow will do the same. What have we done that we can remember the day for? Was the time well spent? Did we deserve the day any more then the last?

Day 12

Part 2 - Fourside’s Game
Jim was tired. He had lived a long life full of hard work and rich lives. His family had been there for him until the end. He knew he was dying but had put it off until he could no longer. He had to provide for his family after all.
Jim took his responsibilities seriously. He always liked to draw, and even thought of a career as an artist, but decided against it. He had given up dreams for his family, but he didn’t care much. What good were his dreams, he had once told himself, if they take away from those I love? He was, by all rights, a good honest man.
He and his wife had moved to Fourside from the nearby city of Threed soon after they had met. They had started a new life together in the Bronze district, where both worked steady jobs. When Jim's wife became pregnant, they took turns raising the child. Jim's son grew to be a strong man, like his father, and moved away, to start his own life. Jim didn’t feel bad about the way things had worked out.
Jim hadn't drawn in years. There were always pictures lurking behind his eyes, waiting in his arm to be released onto paper, but his arms and hands were not those of an artist.
Jim walked alone now. His final wish had been to have a quiet walk through central park alone. His family had been with him constantly for the last few weeks. Now, nearing the end, Jim wanted some privacy.
As he walked through Central Park, he stopped in front of a dirt patch. The grass had been torn up recently and the rain from the last few nights had made the ground a blank canvass. Jim stared down into mud and his life filled it, drawn through the years. He slowly knelt on the ground, his bones and muscles straining.
Behind him, unseen and unheard, a figure stopped it's walking and moved closer to Jim, peering over his shoulder.
Jim shakily reached a hand down to the ground. Slowly, smiling, he drew his index finger through the mud. Lines formed, thick and thin. The sun sunk into the sky as Jim work on his drawing in the mud. All the time, the figure behind him watched silently, smiling to himself.
Jim was getting tired. The sun was setting and he had finished his drawing. For the first time in many long years, he felt the artistic urge to create. Unfortunately for Jim, his life was over. But not before the figure standing over him said softly,
It’s very beautiful. Very creative.
Jim smiled. And then, smiling and looking down at the picture he had drawn in the mud, the sun setting behind him, he died.
The figure gently lay Jim down on the ground. He then took a bracelet out of his pocket and tied it around one of Jim’s wrists.
The bracelet was silvery white, drawing to mind a band of silver, white gold and mercury, all in the same instant. It blinked in the dying sun.
The figure smiled and walked away.
His Game would soon begin.

Day 11

Part 1 – Fourside’s Game
Though it doesn’t happen often, sometimes worlds collide. When people try to imagine this they picture big explosions, natural cataclysms, and the stuff of doomsayers. But that isn’t the way of the universe.
Well that’s not true.
It’s not the way of the universe we know. Nor is it the way of many of them. In all of reality there are few universes that go ab0uot things that way because, well, if they did they wouldn’t be around very long.
What happens is that universes sometimes step on each others toes.
And it’s not at all how people think. That’s because people have a remarkable ability to ignore things even when they are staring them directly in the face. Universes merge. They blend and they split.
The interesting thing about universes is that they work a lot like gods do. Gods are born through belief and die through obscurity. Universes are molded on belief and interaction. Rules are laid down and if they work, they spin worlds.
Once, in another time far away, nine universes all got to the same place at the same time. That doesn’t happen very often. It could only happen once actually, and it did.
What made it such an event, was that each universe had something similar but different. They weren’t copies, but they shared a lot of ideas. They all contained the same planet for example, more or less. The planet was bigger in one of the universes, and in another it didn’t have much in the way of people on it. But that’s how things are.
These nine universes converged and the result was a new universe, a mix of them all. They each gave concessions, but they all wanted to keep the planet in question. It was a very important planet, after all. And universes tend to be very selfish as individuals.
So each universe molded part of itself into the planet. And the outcome was a new universe with a very small planet that held a lot of impact. No one wants to be left out of the party after all. The rest of the universe sorted itself out, but the planet stood as a testament to the merge, and as such was keenly watched by the forces of the newly born universe. The merge had pushed people realities apart into a planet to share. The continents had shifted around and the world had reshaped itself in ways most couldn’t begin to imagine. Here in a new state there was a clean slate on top of existing worlds, which made it the equivalent to an experiment of the mad scientist that was the new universe.
And as a step towards the “oh wow” point, the only residents of the planet that survived the merge redubbed the planet Nonaverse, though few understood why. What’s in a name anyway, they said.
It’s on this planet that we find a figure. In his city he was much like every one around him. He obeyed the rules that built his city, his life, and followed the path that was set for him. Everyone in his city played a Game. They all knew about it, but it wasn’t something to be feared. It was just what came next. His people were old and sparklingly new. Of all those on the planet, there were none who argued that they were the most technically advanced society. They wouldn't hesitate to say that, if only they knew that his civilization existed.
But the world didn’t. His civilization lived on a disc suspended over Deep Darkness, the south western continent of the planet, built out of the eastern mountain range lining the coast. They called their disc Lux, and watched the planet removed, save in certain cases.
That’s another story though.
Lux had Games in all of its cities. They were necessary to keeping the flow of the place in order. It was the only place on the planet where the game was played, because it was the only place that knew how to play, which was one of the reasons why Lux was the way it was.
Lux had many wondrous places and unique features but that was one of them that set them further apart from the rest of the world then most. Their games were one of the most important parts of their lives, and most people living in Lux didn’t know about them, at least not until they played, supposing they got a chance to.
The elders of Lux knew the secret. That had been one of the reasons why they had survived.
The figure also knew the secret, but was not one of the elders.
The figure had dark blue hair and fair skin. He was fairly young but conveyed that sense of aged wisdom that some young people do. He was slender and not especially strong. His job didn’t require him to be fit in body.
He ran some of the Games occasionally. They were enjoyable and he knew that it was his duty to run them to the best of his abilities. Still, he often thought of the world outside of Lux.
On this day, he stood leaning on a balcony, overlooking his city of Arcanum and thought to himself,
Why couldn’t I run a Game in a city outside of Lux?
Then he set out to make it happen. This isn’t the story of how he made it happen though, grand tale though it is. This is the story of some of the Games he ran.
It’s also the story of a different place in the Nonaverse, the place where he settled and started his Game.
It’s also, in a way, a story about a creature called Dom.

// Happy birthday Leela, hope you feel better. -a

Day 10

- Black Book -

Day 9

“Tait –toi, caulis, donne moi la fiche et vatant.”
“c’est ici, c’est ici. “
“merci bien.” My phone rings. I pull it out of my pocket. “Je vais te voir demain, oui?”
“dix heur, dehors avant du batiment.”
“Bon soir, Simon.”
“Bonne matin a ce point ci.”
I answer the phone, not bothering to look at the number.
“Matteo LeBeau.”
“Matt?”
“Oui?”
“It’s Madison. Madison Demi.” my mind reeled, switching languages and jumping back years of my life. Madison. A voice out of the past.
“Hi.”
“Hi jack, how’ve you been?”
“Eu…” my mind ground the clutch as it struggled to recall what I one lived.” “Not unwell. How about you? It’s been a while since I’ve heard from you.”
“Yes, yes it has. Listen, do you have time to catch up? I really could use someone right now, and I was thinking of you.” She was thinking of me. I hadn’t thought of her in years. Back when I knew Madison, back when I a different person.
Madison was one of those people who touch your life, but you never realize how much until long after the fact. We had gone to school together and were intimate friends for some time. They had been good times. Then our paths diverged and we had fallen out of contact. Until she had called. And here we were talking as I stood alone at my window, .looking down on the city below.
“Sure” I said. “Where are you?”
“I’m on a street corner.”
“Okay… what city? Where are you Madison?”
“Ummm, yours.”
“Mine.” I didn’t have a city. Not anymore. I lived across the country, sometimes even across the seas to the other continents of the world. “I’m in Bruss right now.”
“Bruss? What do you mean Bruss? You aren’t even in Winters?”
“Not since ‘63.” // 10,463
“God’s it’s been a while.”
“Yes it has. Why are you calling Madison?”
I told you, I just needed someone to talk to for a bit. You came to mind. We use to talk.”
“I remember. I use to be your sin eater.”
“We use to be close.”
“Time changes things I suppose”
“Any way I’m in Snowhead right now. I’d like to see you if I can. Are you planning on coming back home anytime soon?”
The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. Home. My home hadn’t been there for some time.
“I hadn’t planned on it. Travel out of Tagaryt doesn’t come easy, especially these days.” What was going on?
“Alright, well I’ll see what I can do then. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
That awkward pause. Ii could picture her eyes darting back and forth briefly even across the line. What was she talking about seeing me soon?
“Alright. See you soon Madison, sleep well.””
“Bye matt.”
The line went dead. Was she planning on coming to find me? What did she want from me? It had been so long since we parted ways that I hadn’t expected to see or here from her again. It probably wasn’t that long ago in real time, but it felt like ages, the way all people from our past’ feel like their stepping out of stone. I hung up the phone and looked back at my desk, filled with papers, my life here. I sighed and started packing up for the night.
I didn’t know it yet but Madison would be on my doorstep all too soon.

Day 8

Why shouldn't we take advantage of what's laid before us? if an opportunity arises, with no harm and only shared creation, why deny it? why does so much harm stem from choices that spawn happiness?

By the by, what kind of spawn point would happiness have?

Day 7

So I come back to my keyboard after busy days and writing in books, as opposed to on screen.

I find myself saying the same things over. History repeating to routine. Thankfully its not predictable routine. But I feel like I’m going through the motions none the less.

Life goes on. You can’t save a person from drowning if they drag you down with them. You’re not responsible for other people’s happiness. Tomorrow’s a new day.

Smile here. Small joke here. Comfort in silence. Physical reassurance. Bash the adversary. Generalize and minimize impact of situation. Grand life dilemmas, pivot’s that govern the lives of everyone around, yourself included, structured on a extensive game script. I’m no different. A parable or two, reminders, perspective, reset, rerun the sequence, hard boot and log back on, back at what drove you to wherever you got to. Life shouldn’t be so deconstructable. I guess that’s where the joys of faith come in. if you can hand wave most of life to a simple, “if God wills” then there will always be a mystery to find out, regardless if you ever shall.

I came home to deer in my back yard. My house was mostly dead and four of them were directly out of my back door, grazing in the snowy grass. Three fawns and a doe. I remembered the feeling of being humbled by nature. I don’t feel that as often as I should, as much as I’d like to. I try to appreciate the beauty of nature, but even in the last half week I find myself slipping back into the world of grind. And I’m not sure I want to go back willingly. Not to the monotony. To new things, sure, but boredom and learning should never be hand in hand. Here he two of them are stapled together, duck-taped, chained and forcibly bolted together in most cases.

I resized and built the Nonaverse’s globe recently. It was wonderful, visiting old places. A few days ago I started drawing out the districts and city layout of Fourside, on the north coast of Edge island, Eagleland. I’m finding myself less interested in people around me again. My sleep patterns don’t help with that, but I haven’t missed a class yet.

Today’s tarot of the day is the Hanged Man, which is also my bookmark in World Without Us.

Day 6

- Black Book -