What I’d Like To Do

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The more I think about it the more I would like to try living in another country. Probably Denmark. Such a strange and un-fun sounding place you say–but my ancestors are from there and I think the people would be rewarding to know.

The problem is getting there. Work visas are hard to come by, and it would be difficult to go there and count on getting a job while staying on a three week tourist visa. 

The most exciting prospect of the whole thing is that I could do it. It would be exceptionally difficult, but I could pull it off. 

If I told my Dad about this he would tell me to be more focused on making a career and family here. He’s right. That would be the sensible thing to do. However, I have built up an incredible amount of wanderlust, never really having expended any of it–and I fear that this opportunity will not last.

Here’s to shooting for the stars–because they are way the hell out there.Image

On September Second I fell in Love.

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But it didn’t change a thing. We were in love. But we were just too different–we ascended the staircase of love quickly–two stairs at a time. After we got the the last step we took in the view–but there was nowhere to go. So we untangled our hands and wonderfully, maturely, jumped back to earth in different directions.

All of the hard things about breaking up didn’t happen. No big, mean, weird talks about how we didn’t like each other anymore or conflicted feelings. We both just realized the differences were overwhelming. It was sad–but not hard. We talked, kissed–told each other we loved each other and then I left.

I guess you don’t need to marry everybody you love.

Our problem came down to a series of grey. She and her family see most everything in black and white–right and wrong. Me, I love the grey and the shades therein. I see right and the wrong, and so many other colors: black, blue orange and grey to name a few. I am not worried about wondering if I should be feeling guilty (for any multitude of sins).

Wondering if you should feel guilty–to me, feel like a trap and an easy way to let your conscience become cripplingly oversensitive. Guilt will come. You need not beckon.

Secondly, just because I see all of these colors does not mean I myself live in the grey. I try my best to do whats right. Always. But my ‘right’ will invariably be different than that of somebody else–not too far off though. Distance in this category probably means a re-thinking. Do I then change what I think is right to incorporate this other fool’s version of right? No, I’m doing the best by my lights.

In that case why not try to understand this contrarian’s  point of view? Why not learn the words he says that you don’t know? Knowledge is everything. Understanding people creates a foundational empathy that is much much more correct and acute than any other known convention.

No, I would never go to the “Thunder Down Under” male dancing show. But will I take pleasure in the cheap pun that is their name? Yes, yes I will. Will I ever be pleased to meet one of them….I can’t foresee a situation in which I would; in a well lit room with many clothes on–yes I will relish the opportunity to understand why they do what they do.

I will not shun it, not think about it, or stay naive to a set of words because it’s “bad.” I do think that exploiting both men and women for money is immoral and I also think the whole idea of strippers is a little hedonistic, but I only think that way because I thought about it. I do not feel dirty for trying to understand something.

I have a feeling that she and her family would say that my philosophy is a slippery slope and soon I’ll be more and more willing to compromise my own standards in order to understand others. There is logic there. I do not disagree with that statement. But what that means is that I need to be careful and gravitate towards the good things, experience the best and do the things that make me happy. But I’ll deal with the consequences if I screw up.

I’ll be damned if I die without have understood as much of this life as I can. And if that means a little extra repentance for me–so be it.

Goodbye Youth. That hurt.

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Maggie– Oh, and the beauty she had shone like a light. Her big brown eyes and matching dark hair danced in my dreams by night and in my dreams by day; her visage entreated my piqued adolescent hormones throughout my formative years.

Once, at a youth retreat in Illinois the girl almost kissed me.

We’d flirted around the issue for some time. In my mind we were already there – we just needed a little bit of seclusion. While walking from one event to the next, that seclusion dropped in around us. Our friends had gone ahead, leaving Maggie and me, moving slowly, (a term that described our entire relationship) on a hot Illinois afternoon. We came upon a French drain with an elevated spillway—upon which Maggie stood. With the added height she looked me straight in the eyes and asked me if I’d like a “light and fluffy.” I ran through the lexicon of dirty vocabulary describing ‘acts’ that my teen-aged self hoped to have enacted upon my person, and came up empty. But it didn’t matter, I didn’t care what she called it, I wanted it.

She put her hands on my shoulders and drew me closer. Her smiling lips were tempting and gleaming, as she had just licked them. I leaned forward slightly, but she checked me and said, “ready?” I nodded my agreement. She squared her forehead with mine and her eyes became predatory slits (all the while my brain is saying I don’t think….I’m not sure…? But, never fear, I didn’t start listening to my brain for many years after this event. My libido was entirely in control) and she lunged her head forward with huge force, striking me directly and devastatingly upon my own forehead. The explosion of light blinded me, I doubled over trying to retain consciousness. Maggie doubled over too; in laughter.

Later I discovered that she had entreated me to a “light and fluffy” because she didn’t think I’d say yes if she asked to head-butt me. She had created the euphemism on the spot–clever girl.

In my Junior year of college Maggie gave me the opportunity to make good on some real “light and fluffy” but after 10 minutes of sitting at the foot of her bed failing to make my move and drowning that fact with small talk, something happened–it wasn’t a boner.

I think a seed of thought lodged itself within the fleshy bits of my shell-shocked frontal lobes–way back on that hot afternoon in Illinois. That thought grew to fruition and bloomed as I was sitting in her room contemplating eating her mouth, with my mouth–it told me: “Maggie is not what you think she is, ya buddy, she’s a looker–but she’s craaaaaazy.”  At that moment everything shifted, Maggie was no longer the sought after, babe-raham Lincoln that I had coveted as a teenager. She was a super hot, manic weirdo who head-butted me for fun once, knowing that she could take advantage of my affections. I couldn’t bring myself to kiss the girl only to satisfy a curiosity. I left.

And always (and pleasantly) wondered what I missed out on—Maggie is now married to a wonderful man with a name reminiscent of an apple computer, and has a baby on the way. I never did ask him–if he too, had received a light and fluffy.

Leslie’s Doorstep

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The bird of thought sang a song within me, run away, she sang, this will not end well. I studiously ignored the thought.
I stood, anxiously sweating, at Leslie’s doorstep. The sun was setting at my back, it emblazoned the entire horizon and cast me in silhouette.
In my memory the heat was bearable; currently Oklahoma’s hellfire hot air was ridiculous. It surrounded me like a dream I had not fully awakened from, grasping at my gullible senses, trying to trick my weary mind into believing this was really happening.
It was.
I was petrified with terror.
The day had warmed into a golden dusk and dusk brought the rhythmic hum of unseen cicadas—they began their song all at once. As if, high up in their ancient green homes, they had a conductor or perhaps all wore matching watches. Their song was moderated only by the chirp of the frighteningly black, absurdly large bugs known to southerners as crickets.
The music struck me and opened my mind, a portal to my youth; to home. My memory showed me the house that I left at eighteen; a home built from burnt, reddish brick; furnished with prickly Bermuda grass, cold tile and a room—just for me. The music brought me a feeling I had forgotten during my college years—a feeling I considered irrecoverable. I was home. Even if only for a moment.
Soon a door opened into the vision of my memory. Again, that blasted bird and the thought run away; I closed that bird’s door forcefully and winced slightly at the crash. I surfaced.
I set my feet, bent my knees—just a little, and reached out to ring Leslie’s doorbell. But didn’t get the chance. Just before the point of no return the door opened. And there in the doorway, looking fine in a boldly blue blouse and jeans stood Leslie. She looked surprised. She was smiling. No, she was grinning—a big crooked grin. I must have looked shocked and terrified because she stepped closer, took my arm and looking at my finger poised above her doorbell ringer said, “I was hoping you’d do that.”
I dropped my outstretched arm and turned to her, I too was smiling, Leslie locked her eyes with mine and completing a wry look, she kissed me—lightly, but with purpose. For the second time that day I felt that I was home. As she withdrew I said, “I was hoping you’d do that.”
Slowly her smile screwed up her face—it started with a tremor that caught me in the gut and then reached out into Leslie; simultaneously, we dissolved in to mirth. A red-faced, unquenchable mirth—a laughing fit that robbed it’s victims of balance, sanity and any shred of dignity.
Eventually we wound up sitting on her front step, hand in hand, contemplating our immediate future and wondering just how those cicadas knew their business.

The Draw of the Forbidden

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There it was, in all its mystery. Never before was it available, calling to me. Obviously my father left it for me to find. That’s what my brain was telling me—taxing my trust.
But there it was though, the key, waiting for my touch—it beckoned neither meekly nor coyly—each wave of temptation building, echoing the baritone roar of tuned perfection—reminding me of the stabbing pocket of torque to be found in second gear—it opened like a tax return, consistent but somehow a surprise; it was igniting the possibilities—the possibilities of the future. Oh how I resisted.
The small chunk of metal sat on the dresser, upon a one-hundred dollar bill, it looked industrial—its aluminum polished and it’s black, flat. It sat comfortably, lengthways, alone and perfectly centered on the green rectangle of far lesser value. The two kept good company, of course, but the key was visceral, the angularity of its smallness being the magic to its expansiveness—
I reached out with some hesitation, not sure what I was doing, knowing I shouldn’t. I touched the key—it spun counterclockwise, perfectly weighted. Absently I watched. At the end of it’s rotation, I’d made up my mind—I closed my hand around the spare key to my father’s car—and quickly transferred it to my pocket—just as if I had stolen the golden monkey in the Temple of Doom, I felt the need to replace the key with a decoy—I had none. I knew it did not matter, for he was away—but that did not quell my anxiety. My heart beat faster and I left the room.
Later, I stood nervously in the half light of the garage—my reflection glimmering back at me through the black paint and clearcoat—key in hand.
Some minutes later I sit, comfortably cradled, in the front seat, slightly nauseous—key in the ignition. Here, it occurs to me that as soon as I turn that key, there is no going back.
Currently, I have done nothing but transfer one inanimate object, by way of my pocket, from a building to another inanimate object, the car—by turning that key I meld the two together, thus giving life to a forbidden pleasure, a channel of opportunity that was not open to me previously.
I slowly turn the key, feeling the car prime the fuel pump, prime the ignition and finally give life to the beast by way of an athletic chirp, the starter activity, I am met with a satisfying shudder, as the g35 comes to life around me and sings me a baritone hello. I smile, open the garage and greet the night, awash with possibility.

Super Badass

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The bullets tearing through his body were a mere imposition. Something the surgeons of Taraurs could plug in 5 seconds flat. He did wonder about his blood though, “hmm….that’s three to the midsection and one to the shoulder…” calculating quickly in the field was not Isaac’s forte–his forte was kicking ass. A sharp clicking of his tongue brought his medical statistics to the forefront of his optical grid.
Nothing fancy, or virtual just the basic gear implanted in every marine. Neural processors, positioned strategically in the fibrous tissues at his joints, vital structures and cerebrum fed a continuously updated and exceptionally simple personal health meter that Isaac was looking at currently. His Grid told him that an artery had indeed been nicked and he was losing blood at one leader a minute and had roughly 9 minutes of consciousness at his current rate of aerobic activity.
“that’s time enough,” he said, partially to himself partially to the operator that was monitoring his vitals and positioning. “Roger that Alpha,” the operator replied.
While under cover, Isaac freed his left hand from his shouldered assault rifle and pressed a red button situated on the comms band around his neck.
He gruffly said “Going Turbo, Ops” a fraction of a second before the endorphins, adrenaline and coagulant hit his blood stream.
“Turbo verified, Alpha–you’re a go”
Isaac arched his back, muscles flexing convulsively, pupils dilating and blackness filling white of his eyes, a side effect from the dark soup of turbo juice and gene therapy.
This was his favorite part. His Grid blinking red, frantically telling the marine that his current rate of respiration and blood pressure were reaching the extreme end of maximum.
That’s when he turned off the Grid. The machines couldn’t keep up with his juiced up reflexes anyway.
Here it came, cooling sensation followed by a tremendous rush of confidence and a fierce, overwhelming lust for blood.
He estimated two minutes until flatline.
Isaac erupted in a roar, terrifying, guttural-tearing from his liquid-iron coated bowels, and he charged into the fray with the confident gait of a madman. 1 minute 50 seconds.
Through red-rimmed vision he tore his enemies in two with short bursts of iridium tipped, uranium powered bullets as he ran from cover to cover. Registering the impact of bullets on his own person only when the force conflicted with his aim.
His kill count was at a solid 23 as he entered the enemy compound. 1 minute 5 seconds.
Without losing a step Isaac sent the rifle clattering to the ground, shrugging at the realization that he’d lost his left ring finger to a lucky shot and arranged his CQC armament–notched combat tracer knife (with the red blade), .50 caliber Desert Eagle variant with Nitride- bullets.
He fought his way into the control room of the terrorist compound, using his last two bullets on the last two guards. 30 seconds. “Damn that took a little longer than…”
Having located his target–in two lunging steps he’d dropped the Desert Eagle, buried his knife, to the hilt, in the enemy commander and came up short–looking into his own eyes. His face was reflected in the commander’s terminal and was covered in the commander’s arterial spray–eyes opaque black quartz–a fury and fire frightening to behold. 10 seconds.
Isaac could feel his heart give way. Promptly dropped the ground and ceased to draw breath. Times up.
20 minutes later the clean up crew would come by, killing any of the surviving insurgents and securing the bullet riddled,bloodied and juiced up–lifeless body of Isaac.

Isaac awoke on Taraurs three days later. Breathing on his own.