Living a Dream

Posted by in Coffee - Volume Two, Creative Writing, Dreams, Spiritual

Once,

before I learned to doubt

I was free

Beyond the constraints of reality

And living in the substance of imagination

I was

Simply defined

A true spirit who did not know

How far my world would allow me to travel

Before finding myself, simply unique

No one

Understood

The deep passion in my breath

The heartfelt charity I would never regret

Yet I was simply me, an individual living his dream

A message of being perfectly mixed

Posted by in Coffee - Volume Two, Creative Writing, Survival

One year ago, today
No, last night
Was a perfect dream
The only time
When life
And love
When dreams
And reality
Became one
In a world of mirrors
I saw something
In a reflection of myself
The phases of life
The angles of imagination
Deep, yet broken
Crystal clear, but partial
Definite and abstract
My life
Combined with everything
Including itself

A contest of comedial significance

Posted by in Coffee - Volume Two, Creative Writing, Daily thoughts

A contest,
No m’lady, I would not jest
This is a challenge of not arms, but wit
To win the heart of a damsel, while I just sit

I will grab my pen
As I learn to focus, perhaps define my zen
I will dabble with my notepad
And wait until I feel something, either happy or sad

No, I dare not confess
I am not concieted, just simply the best
My ass is not lumpy,
but indeed my X says I’m sometimes grumpy

Oh I should define
Some thoughts, before I lose myself in a bottle of wine
Yet I don’t care,
as we all know I’m not all there

So I think, ‘oh shit’
I could perhaps just quit
But instead I will write
or play with my x-box and win another fight

Into the Looking Glass – Prelude, Part III – A Hero Alone

Posted by in Coffee - Volume Two, Creative Writing, The Looking Glass

I had told her with every word I knew that I loved her. It wasn’t the kind of love I would forget, how could I? It wasn’t even the kind of love I could imagine. My father always laughed at me for having a heart that was courageous enough to brave a minefield of lost trust, shallow promises, and endless nights alone. I didn’t think tonight would have been any different, but it was. The rain was coming down, I was soaked, and the cold steel of the pistol in my pocket was a stark reminder that I probably wouldn’t be seeing the sunrise.

I tried shifting my thoughts over to something more important as I took her faded photograph and slid it back into my wallet. Its moments like this when you fall back a few years into your history and pray that the people you’ve loved have somewhere safe to call home, that they made something else of their life, and that when you fall face first into the gutter of some city alley they don’t even have a memory of who you were. I don’t know how long I’d be waiting for the inevitable outcome of this evening to take place, but I was ready to charge headfirst into chaos to keep people like her safe from knowing the horrors I had found.

I folded my wallet away into my overcoat and found a dry spot underneath an old elm tree. Just then my phone rang and it startled me as it pierced the quiet of the shadows I was standing in.

‘Samuel?’ A soft woman’s voice inquired.

‘Is that you Kate? I didn’t expect to hear your voice at one in the morning.’

She paused, I could hear she knew something was wrong.
‘Yeah Sam, it’s me. The pastor at the church told me what happened to you last night. Are you okay?’

‘Kate, I’m sorry. I don’t know. I am…’ My voice stopped. It felt like I was trying to breathe while someone strangled me. I couldn’t put the events I had seen to words.

‘Sam?’ her voice sounded a little more tense.

‘Devin is dead, Teresa is in the hospital, and Kyle… I don’t know about Kyle. I left him in a tavern this morning and he looked frantic and now I know why.’

‘Oh god. What the hell is happening with you? I didn’t mean to… to fade away.’ I could hear the tone in her voice, she was really worried. I didn’t mean to have her find out about this and I hated that my only choice had already been made.

‘Kate, just listen. A lot of things have happened. There is a lot I want to say. I know you want to hear an explanation, I know you have things you want to say, but I don’t have time. Tonight I’m finishing what Devin had spent the last ten years of his life trying to complete and I’m sorry. There’s only one thing I can tell you that makes any sense of what’s happening… I love you. I always have. You won’t be hearing from me again and I hope that you forgive me for this. Just be happy, and wherever I end up know that I did my best. Take care Kate.’

‘Sam….’, she tried to say something as I tapped the off button on the phone. I couldn’t pull her into this chaos. She deserved more than that, and if what Devin told me was true about the church hiding something from him was true, then my life was already forfeit and no one else needed to go down with me.

Into the Looking Glass – Prelude, Part II – A Model Life

Posted by in Creative Writing, The Looking Glass

I couldn’t believe things had gotten so bad so quickly. Stephen had told me things would get worse, but I simply never imagined it would come to this. I told myself that it was all for the better, that this was the duty I swore to.No one, perhaps save a few, would ever understand how sane my actions were.

‘For better or worse’, those were the words people used these days. I don’t think they could comprehend exactly what they meant. I guess they really didn’t need to. Who would have thought that someone like me would end up with such an enduring relationship? Not me, that’s for sure. Before this roller coaster of events started I couldn’t even keep a relationship going for three months.

I broke away from my thoughts for a moment and I looked into the mirror at a face I barely recognized. The short hair, the petite nose, and my blue eyes surrounded in black eye-liner. Everything seemed like I was wearing a mask and my eyes were the only thing that felt familiar, the only thing in the mirror that I realized were my own. I knew that there was a huge chance I was insane, aren’t we all, but deep down I knew that I was doing everything right. It just felt like the weight of the world was resting on my shoulders.

Stupid girl. It was.

I couldn’t help but cry. I hated crying. Everything I had seen in the last few weeks was insane. It questioned everything I believed in, and it made me realize how frail everything in life was. At twenty-five I couldn’t even fathom that my world was so incomplete.

I sat looking at my image on the cover of American Vogue, thinking how incredibly beautiful ignorance was. Ninety-nine percent of the world thought I had an ideal life… and a month ago I was perfectly happy being ignorant of the puzzle pieces that had slowly crept into my life. Now that I was seeing a bigger picture my heart felt it was ripping itself out of my chest.

In a fit of frustration I threw the magazine across the room, ironically smashing the sleek art deco frame of my first modelling tour in Paris. Even back then, I always knew there was something wrong with me, there was always something in the back of my head scratching away at the perfection I was trying so hard to fake. Every year it seemed like my life became more and more imaginary, until the truth came to me and shattered everything I had hid behind. The rest of the clutter in my apartment was pretty meaningless at this point, a life of false imagery created for a girl who didn’t know who she was.

I didn’t know what to make of my life or the things that I had collected, but part of me wanted to remember everything I had gone through. I never had the perfect life; I had screwed up plenty of it, but there were people I was definitely going to miss. I gathered a few items, some letters from my mom, my dad’s locket that he gave me before he died, a photograph of my sister, and the drawings I had sketched from my dreams. I didn’t know why the drawings were important, but I’m sure they held some clue to what was happening.

As my emotions played with my sanity, I realized that I was risking too much by just reliving my past in my head and wasting valuable time. I finished rustling through drawers of personal items and I slid everything into a little backpack. By the time I was done my apartment looked like the mob had ransacked it, but at least I had one last chance to see my life before I walked away. With little more than a second thought I grabbed the backpack, threw it over my shoulder, and walked to the front door. My body stopped as my hand touched the doorknob, remembering that I forgot something. The gun.

I wasn’t used to carrying a gun. I wasn’t used to being an action star or getting into fights. I didn’t even know that I could shoot a gun. Yet I walked over to the table, picked up the pistol, and calmly slid the action back to check that there was a round in the chamber like I had done it a thousand times before. For a moment I paused, wondering how I even knew how to do it. Stephen said these things would come back to me slowly, that I shouldn’t be scared of things as they naturally fell back in place.

There were thoughts that didn’t seem like my own dancing around in my head. I walked back into the kitchen and pulled out the drawer, grabbing my old check books and all the little notes with the names and numbers of everyone I talked to. I went into my bedroom, dug to the very back of my closet and retrieved a shoebox I had never seen before. I pulled the lid off and was almost shocked to see an ornate knife resting in an ancient leather sheath.

I took it in my hand and slid the blade out, amazed to see how much craftsmanship was in the blade. It had a handle of silver that felt warm to the touch and had a series of gemstones that were clouded in grey and blue. It was Japanese, no, perhaps it was Egyptian. I wasn’t sure. Something in me told me it was both. Something told me it had been around a lot longer than either. I was confused, more that I didn’t know how it got into my closet or that I knew it was there to begin with. I didn’t like being confused.

I slid all of my newly discovered items into my backpack, glanced one more time around the place I had called home for the past two years, then locked the door behind me. As I made my way down the stairs I didn’t even think about looking back again, that life was over.

Angels on the Battlefield

Posted by in Coffee - Volume Two, Creative Writing, Loss, Love, Spiritual

Dear god, I couldn’t believe this was my ending. The pain in my side was sharp, yet I could only feel a bliss tranquility enveloping my mind. I didn’t want to go easily. I tried to speak, attempted to call for help; but my voice was merely a whisper. The sky was frozen above me with perfect clouds touching each other like angels holding hands waiting for me to shed my doubt and join them. I wasn’t ready to go just yet.

My wife, my children… they needed me to hold on. Yet they couldn’t see how peaceful I was, having reached this point in life and found myself helpless. Their names rolled off my tongue as I slowly took my last breath to say ‘I love you”. The sky grew dark, I felt consumed, I was at a loss beyond anything I could have imagined. Everything faded to black.

My eyes opened again. I could hear the voice of an angel, beautiful and inspiring; she said I would be okay. I saw the bright light on the horizon fading away and I knew that I wasn’t going anywhere, that someone had either given me the strength to hold on or that I just had more to do with my life. A medic looked at me with a perplexed expression on her face and I simply said “Thank you. I don’t know who you are, but you are my angel”.

Into the Looking Glass – Prelude, Part I – Breaking the Illusion

Posted by in Creative Writing, The Looking Glass

I know its not poetry. This is the prelude to a story I’m finally sitting down and writing. I spent about an hour on it tonight and wanted to get some feedback. It is the first story I’ve written in a long time. Any thoughts or commentary would be great.

Into the Looking Glass, Prelude****************************

It was four o’clock, five minutes into my commute home. The daily masses were driving through the endless corridors of concrete highway, trying to maintain a slim bit of sanity as they realized how moronic the person driving next to them was. I was fidgeting away, tapping my fingers to the beat of Aerosmith as I lost myself in thought and stared at the dull brake lights of the beamer in front of me.

Traffic was picking up as usual. You couldn’t expect more of an afternoon in Seattle at rush hour and to highlight my day it was the hottest day of the year. The dumb weather man on the television even said we were breaking a ten year heat wave record. That made me feel like an absolute winner. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket too, or maybe a beautiful woman will blindly stumble into me tonight and ask me to have dinner. Yeah Jacob, this is the ‘good life’. Whatever that means.

I tapped the buttons on my radio. As always, my stupid i-pod had ran out of batteries ten seconds before I really needed it, forcing me to wander through the radio stations in hope of finding something that wouldn’t make me nauseous. I swear it seems like anyone with a stupid opinion gets a chance to have a talk show these days, even the poor shock jocks can’t even come up with something to startle me. I don’t know if that makes me an average joe, or if I’m simply that warped with city life to have witness most of what they are talking about.

Five miles in twenty minutes� Here I am in a performance coupe, with 300 plus horsepower under the hood and a whopping twenty-two miles to the gallon and for over half of my drive home I can’t even manage to get the car past ten miles an hour. Just yesterday that cute intern at work was telling me I had the perfect life. If she could only see me sitting here in a sweaty suit, listening to this unbearable banter on my stereo, and pondering if I have enough time to get out of my car and smack the driver tailgating me or not. Yep, perfect life Jacob. Perfect life.

I lost ten minutes more of my life looking at some beat up old truck with a broken set of tail lights and expired tabs as it crawled around in front of me like a dying animal. Another minute would have finally pushed me over the edge of sanity, but to my luck a sleek black convertible slid up beside me, behind the wheel was a fiery redhead who was simply stunning. I looked at her for a second, wondering why I couldn’t ever meet someone like her in my boring office life and as the thought crossed my mind, she smiled at me.

I don’t know what it was, but my gut instantly felt like someone jabbed me with a knife. I locked eyes with her for what seemed like a second as she yanked her wheel and forced her car to slam against the side of my coupe. I brought my eyes back to the road just in time to see my rearview mirror and the image of some monolithic truck slamming on it’s breaks.

All I remember after that was a lot of noise. Violent crashing, metal ripping itself apart, the clanging of bells, a few brief flashes of life, a sudden nightmare of thought, and pain, lots and lots of pain.

*

I don’t remember getting out of the car. I found myself face down against a pool of dirt, blood and oil. My head felt like someone had smacked it with a baseball bat and the screaming around me felt like shrill nails being driven into my spine. I opened my eyes as I pushed myself off the pavement, shocked by the sight of the red head laying face down just feet away from me. I crawled over to her and rolled her over; she wasn’t unconscious, she was dead. I wasn’t ready to see what had happened, her pretty face was covered in blood, and she didn’t die from the car wreck. No, the large bullet hole in her cheek was far more likely to have caused her sudden departure.

My stomach turned. I had seen gun shot wounds plenty of times before, but this time the blood was everywhere. It was on me, it was on her, and the surrounding scene looked like a battlefield littered with smashed cars. A few feet from us was a pistol with a dozen spent shell casings laying on the ground.

What the hell?

For a second my sanity broke just a little bit. My head was swirling and I couldn’t even comprehend what I was looking at. I knew there were other dead bodies laying around me, there were too many cars crumpled into piles of wreckage to have been a car crash. A few were on fire and dark pillars of smoke jetted up into the sky. A piece of metal scratched my face as a car exploded just yards away from me, throwing a wave of terror at my mind as the pulse knock me to the ground again.

“Jacob” I heard a man’s voice in my head. It sounded like someone was standing right behind me.

“I’ve done all I can for you. You need to run. Get out of there. Now!” The voice sounded panicked, like a parent warning a child of an oncoming car. I laughed, probably because I was in shock, or because the warning was just a little late.

“Run. Hide. Now!” The voice shouted in my head.

I don’t know why, but I was compelled to listen.

I picked myself up and managed a desperate run to the side of the freeway just as the sirens of police cars came into ear shot. I pulled over the railing and fell ten feet to the city street below, smashing to the ground in a feat of poor acrobatics as I twisted my ankle. No one was within sight. I hobbled down the street in a dazed panic, not knowing why I suddenly felt like a hunted quarry. Eventually I found a little cubby hole to fall into, which was good because I barely kept hold of consciousness for another thirty seconds before the whole world faded to black.

The Children of a Modern World

Posted by in Coffee - Volume Two, Creative Writing, Friendship

Once, in a world of chaotically bright color.
Was a child and his only friend.
They lived in a city of painted personalities.
A urban sprawl of mysterious demands and narrow escapes.
Neither of them knew why they were there.

They simply existed in a community of only two, forever alone.
The child, always inquisitive- always asked questions.
Inquiries that were often met by faceless solitude.
The friend, always carefree – was always willing to play.
Yet neither of them ever drew the attention of those around them.

The child and his fried seemingly knew only each other.
No one else saw them, even when they stood in the street.
Waiting impatiently for a car to come run them down.
They had grown so independent of the world.
That they knew they had no connection with it.

The child frequently screamed at the sky.
Usually with daring curses and questions about why.
He did not wish to care, but still he would cry.
His life was defined by his friend who was so carefree.
After years of playing, of enjoying his life, he was only left one decision.

The friend however, was living a life with only one purpose.
To laugh, to be carefree, and to have no limits.
The friend simply wanted to find a partner to enjoy his company.
Yet the chosen child was his only friend.
A child that was quickly losing himself in the maze of adulthood.

One day the child looked at the friend,
Put his shirt on, placed a tie around his neck, and buttoned his jacket.
He walked into the kitchen, grabbed a cup of coffee, and left his home.
As he speeded through to his destination, he listened to the words of someone else.
He sat forever looking at a red light, with a blank stare just like those around him.

The friend sat in his home, waiting for his friend to return.
Each day he moved things around, trying to find his friend somewhere beneath the rubble.
The friend spent years trying, again and again, to discover his inquisitive child.
One day, after many days had passed, his child came home.
and to the friend’s horror, he realized that he was invisible as the child looked through him.

Christopher Adams

Posted by in Creative Writing, Loss, Regret

This started as a poetry piece that quickly developed into a larger creative story this afternoon. It is a character development item for a story I am working on, and some readers have said it is somewhat disturbing. In any case, rip it apart.

**************************************************

Christopher Adams

It was a quiet autumn day. Birds were singing in the distance, the trees whistled gently in the breeze, and the sun gently hid behind crimson clouds floating in the sky. The laughter of children could be heard nearby as they played on the shore of the lake skipping rocks off the calm serenity of the water, beckoning the geese to flutter from place to place. It was perfect. A calm peaceful day.

The clap of thunder sounded once without a sign of storm clouds above. Then again and again. The children’s laughter turned into frantic screaming of nightmarish intensity and I swore the balance of nature itself froze for a moment, then came crashing down in the opposite direction. The thunder came closer and closer, then stopped. The sky turned gray, the trees froze in place, and there was nothing but horrifying silence.

I stood at the water’s edge gazing out to lake and saw a lone man standing ankle deep in the water, he was wearing a fine gray business suit and holding a pistol down at his side. His body shifted as he viewed the nearby park, and my inquisitive nature was shocked to view what he was looking at. His work, the chaotic dream of urban security being shattered by a lunatic with a gun. Around him were the bodies of too many to count. They all seemed lifeless from where I was. Yet one small boy struggled with his own mortality and drew the painful attention of the man who would soon be known as Christopher Adams.

I screamed at the man from two hundred yards as he calmly walked towards the boy of only eight or nine years. I could barely hear the boy’s frantic cry for help as Christopher approached. My voice carried clear and far enough to reach the other shore, but the man who held the gun simply looked at me and smiled. I begged him to stop, I begged someone to help, but today my role could only be that of a witness.

Christopher Adams raised his arm, loaded a single round into his gun, aimed the pistol at the boy and gazed over his shoulder into my eyes. He grinned, and at that exact moment in time I looked into the eyes of someone that defied my belief. I saw what true evil was as the cry of the boy’s last moments were engulfed in the sound of deafening reality.

He turned towards me and I swore his laughter carried across the water as if the devil had found a home here on earth. He pulled one last bullet from his pocket, loaded it into his pistol, and ended his own life.

That would be the tale of a story I would never forget. It would lead to a name the news agencies would make me regret I had ever heard. Christopher Adams. That name would be remembered in the history of this city like a child’s nightmare story. It would find a home in the heart, born from a terror and fear that everyone could relate to, but a terror and fear that only I would have looked into.

As an old man I would dare remember the eyes I stared into that day and they would define the opposite in life I would fight against with all my strength. I would learn to question the world, the frailty of childlike hope, and the safety of my own thoughts would become a commodity that was more precious than anything else I would ever know.

Yet Christopher Adams would not be the name that would burn itself into my memory.

Instead of only remembering the name of a human devil I would instead choose to covet the name Brett Donnely, the name of the small boy I was helpless to save that warm autumn day. His name would inspire each day I helped another soul, his name would be the one I held in regard, and his name would give hope to the thousands of souls that I had the opportunity to touch in my life using the wisdom his life gave me.

Subtle Dancing

Posted by in Coffee - Volume One, Creative Writing, Lust

Subtle Dancing

Cool air moving across the room, shadows mixing and touching across the dance floor. Vibrations pulsing through the wind as the beat of the music drives you deaf. You stop hearing the music and start feeling it, nothing feels better than to close your eyes and move.

You toss your head back; running your fingers through your hair and you feel the pressure of someone against you. Those aren’t your fingers anymore, no that scent isn’t yours either. You think “hello dangerous lady”; but don’t say a word. She couldn’t hear you even if you did.

If for no other reason you dance. She’s beautiful and uses her body like a weapon. She is dressed to kill and she smiles knowing it’s a wonderful game of cat and mouse. You both lose track of who plays what role- the music is loud and doesn’t let you stop. You touch and hold, press and release. You find your lips saying hello, laughing as the game plays on.

One song, then two, then three… apparently both of you are enjoying the moment and you don’t realize you’ve been on the dance floor so long. The song comes to and end, the beat drops to a slow passionate mood and you dance slow. Finally having a chance to hear the words you’ve both been saying under the roar of the music.

Her name is still unknown. You simply say hello.

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