Glance

Carrie poses awkwardly in front of her standing mirror, questioning her satisfaction of the slightly thick woman peering back at her. She rotates her broad hips and runs a hand down her shapely silhouette, frowning. "Maybe if I cut my hair..." her thought trails to nowhere as she scoops a handful of blond curls and presses them to her scalp. The bangs still frame her dollish face, allowing her pink, pouty lips to give attitude. Her focus is stolen from her flaws as a large void of light momentarily slips across the background.
Instantly, Carrie tastes her heart as the roots of her cherry wood hair lights aflame. Her hazel eyes scour the mirror, trying to glimpse the shade but has no such luck. Fear and desperation wheel her at the speed of panic away from the reflective surface and toward reality in hopes of locating the distraction. Her gaze races from nook to corner, running under the pillowy couch, behind the matching recliner and screaches to a halt at the partially open closet door across the room.
Between her audible breaths, a whisper escapes, "Has that been open all night?" Her finger absently jabs an accusing point at the door that holds back the darkness. No one answers her. Trying to dismiss the blackness of her shut away, Carrie visually investigates the room again without moving, for fear of giving away her location. Nothing.
In an attempt to remain calm, Carrie hopes to convince herself that she is still alone by voicing confidence building remarks such as, "It was nothing..." and, "You're just imagining things." This helps, if only a little, and, sheepishly, she turns back to the mirror, trying to regain focus on the frustration of her appearance. The criticism comes half heartedly as her eyes scout the room on the other side of the glass. Eventually, Carrie's terror subsides and her self esteem takes control again as it decides the black slacks she is wearing should not be where they are. Resigning to the will of her abused ego, Carrie watches her alternate self deprive her sandy hued legs of covering, exposing both her blue pearl panties and her non-matching peach colored stocking socks. She throws her rejected pants to the bed and scoops up a long black skirt, all in one motion.
When she turns back to her mirror, the negative presence is caught for the briefest of seconds in Carrie's view. Again, she tastes her heart. Rust coats her tongue and electric shocks bolt to the center of her body, just below her belly button. Her wide eyes try homing in but the presence is no longer present. Again, she spins about, hoping to catch her watcher but finds herself just as deprived as her legs. "Hello?" She sounds out to try greeting her peeper. Her voice is full of quiver, betraying her projected courage and showing her truth. Fortunately, she thinks, nobody responds. Perhaps that isn't fortune.
No longer thinking of what outfit to wear to work in the morning and the feeling of Carrie feels compulsed to try locating her stalker. Before she moves her feet, her hand snakes down to the vanity next to her and feels for a weapon as her eyes continue to act as lookout. Her shaking fingers weave around the nail polish bottles and lipstick cases and other such feminine products before finding the solidity of her hairbrush. Her digits cling to this as a drowning swimmer would cling to a lifeguard and her feet begin the longest journey to the front door so Carrie can determine whether it is still locked or not, being very wary with each step to avoid furniture and doorways.
Millions of footsteps later and Carrie finds herself at her front door, one hand pressed against the painted wood and her porcelain cheek resting at the frame. Her eyes scrutinize the brass knobs and levers, tracing each mechanical device to its proper locked position. "Still locked." She sighs. A thud sounds from behind her, on the far side of her two bedroom living area, near the restroom and she breaks out in a sweat. "The windows..."
Chaos erupts. She hurdles end tables and damages blinds in an attempt to secure the perimeter at each glassy entry way and at each look out point, she peers out, searching for more optical intruders. The next painful minutes are filled with swinging latches and scraped knees. She races from window to window, causing her partially buttoned peach blouse to flap in the wind her speed creates, forgetting that her legs are bare and she could be exposing the neighbors to her flashy underwear. Midway through her kitchen, Carrie slides to a stop in front a counter and whips open the knife drawer. Care escapes her mind as she rifles through the drawer, creating thin red lines across her hand and knuckles until she finds the most monstrous blade in the small wooden compartment. Leaving the hair brush behind, she continues her pursuit for security. 
After all entry ways have been barred, Carrie begins the hunt for the invader inside her home. Like a tiger in the brush, she stalks slowly and deliberately, plotting each step before taking it. Her golden mane sways as her keen eyes survey the prairie for the hidden gazelle. A bump to her right. She jumps. An open door to her left. She swings her knife wildly as she crosses the threshold. Her void watcher is nowhere to be seen in this room and standing motionless in the room, too afraid to move are a pale washer and an equally white dryer, both waiting for the partially clad woman to strike. In rage, she grabs the front of the dryer and throws open the door, unknowingly knocking her mop into an off kilter balance as she stabs inside the dryer barrel. Carrie then moves over to the washer and begins gutting the sunshine scented metal beast until she is satisfied that there is nothing worth stabbing inside.
Carrie stands, her round hip nudging the dryer and the dryer, in turn, taps the ill stabilized mop, which finally takes a spill and skitters across the ground, bringing along with it a couple brooms, a precariously perched dustpan and two mostly empty bottles of cleaning fluid from the neighboring shelf. The smashing clatter causes quite the start in Carrie and she spins about, knife jutting out and foot sliding through an oily scented substance freshly covered the floor. No longer able to contain her balance, Carrie begins the panic dance as her arms begin flailing in all directions, looking in futility for an anchor. Her hand refuses to release the knife, following strictly to its first orders of survival. She lurches forward, trying to grab the side of the washer but connecting to the corner of the dryer instead and with her jaw rather than her fingers. The blow knocks her equillibrium off. She instinctively attempts to correct but finds herself in a timeless descent to the ground, stopping just inches past the blade of her north pointing kitchen blade. The void comes into the room and covers her vision but her fear is replaced with comfort as the body numbs. Carrie's blood mingles with the bleach and she welcomes the embrace of the shroud as he carries her softly into oblivion.

God's Tears

"Why God?!" My hands thrust toward the sky and dropping on my knees to the muddied earth below me, I cried out louder, "Why have you done this? What have I done to deserve this hell?"
But no answer came. No remarkable sign or wash of feelings, just me, firmly in my place within the same soil from which I was supposedly created. Why then does the ground not bleed as I pour red from my engraved wrists which joins the rain and runs toward the grass like lightning looking for ground.
"I'm done with you! I'm not calling out to you for forgiveness, I've done that too often. I don't want your damn help anymore, I defy you! I deny you! Come on you wicked bastard, strike me down! I'm a sinner! Stop making me suffer and just punish me!"
I thrust my chest out, arms back; offering a target to the clouds and with clenched fists, I scream, "Strike me down! Punish me for my sins! My suicide is my last act of treachery and still you do nothing! I dare you, cast me down to Lucifer's infernal pit for my actions! You are nothing!"
Yet, there was no lightning. No earthquake. He didn't even send a runaway semi truck to plow me down. Nothing struck me but the weeping of God's tears streaking through the skies, striking my face and intermingling with my own pain, though, by this time I could no longer feel their thousands of little assaults.
I stewed in my own emotional Armageddon with silence and stillness as I bled out from the ends of my arms for an eternity. Suddenly, I noticed a sensation that had been with me for a while as my face gained a utopic warmth and a chaotic pulse of pin prickling brought my awareness to my gashed and gaping wrists, though my sight was dimming and I couldn't witness the crimson waterfalls. My ears caught the movement of dozens of invisible bees. It was no sooner than this point that God had finally decided to answer my challenge as his voice cut through the swarm, "I'm here to help you poor child."
By this time, my eyes have gone and my mind was following, so I couldn't glare into God's face. To double my rage, the dirt below me pulled all of my strength from my body so I was too weak to throw my fist but I intentionally radiated my immeasurable hate. Not even this deterred the almighty one from attempting to saving me by offering.....to call for paramedics?
My ears were the last to fail me and I was finally fully cloaked in the warm void.

Stranded

I am desolately stranded in this discordant fog of blabbery and nonsensical ego puffery. I am ethereally tethered to my designated prison as the lashings of intellectual vapidity strike across my brain's back, ripping me open, forcing the plasma of knowledge to bubble and seep, pouring down my spine cooling and then freezing as it spreads from vertebrae to contorted vertebrae. By the time it passes through my now frostbitten toes, any resemblance of worthwhile thought has since been transfigured into ghostly nothingness and fled, no longer bound to this concentration camp as my less fortunate husk which, even now rots and decays into the dreary realm of the world of the conforming herd. Here I am, alone in the woolen crowd, causing wonder, am I left to bleat my way through the remainder of my existence?

Disconnected

My shirt pulls to the right. My pants want to wear to the left. One sock is on right but the other seems to have an invisible wad of discomfort invading on my little toe. I am watching my life from a third person view, not really inside my head but maybe just behind and all the sounds are muted, not silenced but suppressed. I have combed my hair a few times but can't stop the lanate rebellion no matter how hard I assault the counter with my brush. My shoelace is a python, constricting against the top of my foot and I can't sit comfortably in my clothes. All fabrics want to be anywhere but with me and I can't blame them, I am feeling the same way. The wad in my sock is backing my toe into a corner I didn't know my shoe even had. I'm not ready to start the day, I want to return to my awkward but reliable slumber. My keys seem to be hiding, my coat conflicts with my shirt, everything is just out of reach.
Now I have to go out, immerse myself in the swamp of humanity. Walking in crowds, suffocating, and the tar of interaction nearly brings me to a stop. Why am I being overwhelmed by this negativity? I analyze my life, my relationships, my self, my work, my habits, my dog, my analyzations. In each environment, I know there is good but I can't see past the small things. People are talking at me but I don't hear what they say. Focus is a lie. I'm sure these people tire of repeating themselves but I can't quite hold my thoughts on their blabbering. Nothing they say is important. I think my heart is beating a skip too late, maybe too early. Nothing really fits.
I think there is cotton under my upper eyelids and I feel as though I am deep under water. I move as though hindered and the constant pressure from all directions makes me want to implode. What does an imploder look like? I swim through my day, my feet constantly entangling in the gritty, oily seaweed. How long have I been under and why can't I keep my head above water? This lethargy is trying to kill me and that pisses me off. Everything pisses me off and THAT pisses me off. If I was actually in my own life, I might do something about it but I'm just watching me on TV and so I wait and hope that all these problems resolve themselves by the end of the hour.
I keep everyone at arm's distance. I am afraid to infect you, to poison you with my irrational negativity. Colors are askewed and distance is debatable. I know you, maybe care for you...if you are close in my life, then I love you but no matter who you are, I can't stand you. Your annoying little habits, your patterns that don't sit within my logic. You aren't funny. You aren't clever. You aren't witty. You aren't cute. I know that's a lie and when I can finally stay afloat, I will see your energy in a different light but right now, while I'm so detached; you bother me. You piss me off. Am I just projecting? Do I see my own flaws in your actions? These feelings are all subjective and when my mind becomes mine again, the subject won't change but the view will.
The buzzing doesn't end and I ask if it ever will? I look at life again and analyze it. I see great things here that should cause my joy. I see my success and the rewards of my efforts. Today, they don't feel much like my rewards or my efforts. I am out of place. I am one step behind my body, following the automaton that pretends to live through my life. I can't catch up but I can't stop following. Where is he going? Where am I going? I guess I will find out when I get there. Perhaps, when I am there, I might fit again. I might be alive again and not just watching. I might be me.

About Me

Welcome to my blog. This is where I plan on releasing my creative insanity from time to time. I love to write and can't always control what comes out of my pen so the shorts and random ones will come here for your reading enjoyment or displeasure.

I don't plan to bore you with a lot of self elevating BS that I think makes me some superb writer, instead; I will share with you one of the most vital turning points in my life.Read on------

I am very introverted and blunt. I learned most of my moral lessons in one big flash.

It was the summertime of my thirteenth year. I was a metal head troublemaker heading down the rocky path of hostile stupidity and self destruction. I lived to hate and could not care less as to why.

The evening was creeping across the horizon as my friend and I finally reached his house from a long day of trampling the town. I took control of the phone immediately, calling other friends to fill their ears with inane banality.

Without getting too involved, he ended up pointing a 44 magnum revolver at me (not maliciously - if you can understand that). The trigger was pulled and I was eating lead and gunpowder in my sleep. I awoke from my bullet induced nap being dragged backward, down a flight of stairs. My vision was red and obscured as in a dream. I was lucid at best and knew that I was falling down the stairs to Hell. My friend (and would-be assassin) found that I was very much alive and called 911 for help. The next couple hours flew by as I discovered many truths about life.

Paramedics are pushy, ambulance rides are exciting, don't flip off a friend to reassure him you are fine, you WILL get naked in front of women in the emergency room, and going into shock is better than any drug around!

I woke up a week later in a Seattle hospital bed, still not sure whether I dreamt the situation or lived it. I saw a lot of family and got to share my hospital room (after the Intensive Care Unit stay) with the most fowl mouthed torture victim I have ever met (he fell asleep in a fire and had to have his foot pinned to his knee for three months). I finally understood what happened! I got shot in the head! The only thing I could think of was the image of the teen that shot himself in the head with a shotgun (the parents blamed his failed suicide on the metal band Judas Priest)...shit I was ugly! My face was swollen three or four times its original size. I had new frankensteinesque slices on my face and neck, I was a freak...a monster!

I couldn't stop the wash of self loathing and pity that suddenly was drowning me! Worse, I didn't want to stop it. I was the most hideous thing alive! My only future was a sideshow freak in a carnival. Why didn't I just die? The pity that filled my hospital room suddenly became my sustenance and I was gluttonous! I gorged myself on the sympathy and negativity, not leaving a scrap in my wake. The tubes. Blood tests. Monitors and wires. I was a prisoner, bound to my bed and enduring the most humiliating thing a teenager could endure...bedpans. I was crushed. I had a beautiful nurse tending to me and all I could do to satisfy her was urinate to a specified line within a bottle.

My strength was gone, physically and emotionally. The staff was realizing that I was slipping into the void and devotedly tried to pull me out (except the fat nurse cow, Diane...you know who you are bitch) of my hole. To no avail. I would not leave my room and hid my face from even my mother. In their last ditch effort to pull me from my blackness, I was forced physically to get out of bed and into the recreational room for an evening with pottery.

This was the catalyst, more unsettling than the actual near death incident.

I hesitantly entered this room, apprehensive and full of hate. I sat at the table nearest the door in case the other patients began their barrage of laughter and finger pointing. What I was unaware of immediately was that I was sitting next to a living, breathing, mummified midget. My mother asked this child's mom (who was sporting an arm cast) what happened.

This woman was on vacation with her husband and two children. They rented a boat and were going to set out to see the coasts. Before they shoved off, the boat literally exploded...with her husband and two children still aboard. She was not nearly on board and was (as she put it) 'thankfully' slammed free. Her husband and daughter were taken from her. Her two year old son was now this walking band-aid.

I took the time to watch this boy draw pictures and try pounding clay with blistered stubs. He was happy. In fact, he was having the time of his life!

What fucking right did I have? I was not nearly as damaged or cosmetically challenged as boy Tut. I had a very good chance at living an almost normal life.

I gained new resolve right there. I again had an ego, even if it was little. My six month recovery time turned into twelve days. I fought. I had developed a strong will! This was tested almost immediately. Feeling good about your disfigurement is an easy accomplishment in a hospital full of freaks, but is an entirely different measure of failure in the Seattle airport FULL of eyes! I could have been a witch in Salem and felt less burning! Not one head was unturned as the amazing balloon head boy was wheeled along in my cripple chariot (my muscles had long since fell into entropy and I couldn't walk great distances). Every man, woman, and child reminded me why freaks shouldn't be let out in public and that society automatically condemns that which they do not understand. The thing that kept me going was boy Tut and his mother. She made the best of possibly the worst situation a person can encounter and she propelled her son into recovery with a positive, no-pity attitude.

I came out on top with many new outlooks and beliefs, some of which follow. I know now that with enough willpower and personal energy, ANYTHING can be accomplished. Desires drive you to unseen places. Nurses are VERY tolerant. Life is too important to screw off with non-directional hate (if you are going to hate, know what it is and direct your emotions). You are what makes you strong. Stupid people are best found in large groups as herd mentality possesses the mind of the individual.

Most importantly, pity has no place in man's world. Without pity, you have a strength to rival any one's. I will not ask for, or give pity. It is only a setback to the evolution of you. To live a vital existence, discard this parasitic feeling when it attacks you. The only way to truly find sympathy is to look in the dictionary between SHIT and SYPHILIS!

Be strong, survive, evolve!