Virtual Illusions

Sometimes I wonder why I write, actually quite a lot, especially recently. I have a need to write but I don’t have anything to say. It’s as if my whole life echoes through my head and I look for something with meaning. The only meaning I have is an acute sense of a painful past. I live a life without meaning and dream of nothing. I hurt so much I don’t hurt anymore. I don’t feel, no love, no hate, no fear, no excitement, no anticipation. Just hollow memories of an intensity and emotion that was not mine alone. Intensity that would grab at the very nature of people lift them up and dance among the clouds.

But that was then and this is now. And old cliche but what are you going to do when it fits. Now my life centers around waking at six going to work were I carefully work to do nothing of importance and make no decisions. I can’t be allowed to make decisions or think. And so I meander through my painful work day. Day after day I meander through. And I come home with the great aspiration of being able to watch My so called life. So my life is caught up in the drama of a made up 15 year old girl. Why because I lack even a life to vicariously live through.

Months without allowing any sort of feeling because right on the top of the stack of feelings lies her. She just sits there waiting for when I think I’m strong enough to feel again and she rears her head and I can feel the pull of her. All this without even seeing her. Just the memories rip my heart apart. Like it all happening again. It’s always happening again… and again. And so what am I to do. Do what I always do pick up a pen, look at an empty piece of paper and just begin to write. Whatever wanders through the imperfect bit of grey matter I like to call a brain for no particularly good reason.

If my mother read that we’d have to have a talk, though she probably wouldn’t call it that any more but it would still be the same thing. Thus is the unchanging nature of my life.

So I write to create something new and different, but usually all I do is re-write what I’ve already said and written. And so now I seek a new phase of the writing. I look for something new, a coherent phoenix form to rise me out of the mire to a new level of expanded thinking and creativity. It’s harder than you might imagine without any emotional stimuli except perhaps the occasional frustration.

Besides, its all been done already. Or at least that’s what I’m told.

I see a story, I don’t know what it is about yet, but it takes place over a dead body. A body lying on scorched Earth. A child, no not a child a woman. Her. She kneels next to the body. Again tears pour down her face. I seem to be fascinated by tears. They seem to be prevalent in my writings that mean anything. So she kneels pounding her fists on his chest. She yells and screams. Tells him he can’t be dead, tells him that she needs him. But he lies there passively dead, all but oblivious to her. He doesn’t feel her fists or hear her sobs. All he knows is that he is feeling very alone. Like a lost child who needs his mother.

He’s convinced that he was someone once but he can’t seem to remember who.

I used to know who I was. Long ago, I had purpose and a sense of direction. I had dreams that used to surround me and keep me safe. Impossible dreams, dreams of wonder and fancy. But one by one they were systematically ripped from me. Until I can no longer dream of dancing in the clouds. I can no longer believe in truth. For what is truth but a point of view? And who can you really trust? A lover? No, they lie out of convenience? An enemy? No, they twist things to their advantage. The common man? There’s no such thing, just dullards and geniuses. Lost souls and Leave It to Beaver clones. So what is the dead man to believe. Does she care or is she just embarrassed over having outlived him by such an apparently long time?

Loss of memory could be taken a sign. Ultimately he has just a few moments to ask himself what he believes. In a few moments he will either find the truth or simply cease to exist. He is not an uncommon man he is likely to try to believe something in these last moments anything is better than thinking it is all for naught. It is hard for us to understand what goes through his head for he is dead and we are alive.

The chasm between life and death adds it’s own special insight to the nature of reality. It is an insight of desperation resounding down the very core of us all. It is so easy to believe in a god, in Heaven, in Hell, Nirvana, Valhalla, Karma, the Tao of Pooh. Anything not to think of the void. The void scares us. We do what ever we can to try and avoid it. That’s why we read USA Today. There’s no death in it just statistics. Real death has a flavor, a smell, a taste. Ultimately a feeling, a lonely painful void ridden feeling.

In his eyes she can see that he’s already gone. All that’s left is for his soul to find a better place. But still she tries to plead with him as if he can still hear. As if he still understands the concepts that bind her to this world. The bonds don’t seem so strong and they don’t seem to mean so much any more.

Her tears still pour and her cries can still be heard. She sits there next to him as light begins to fade. What little energy and sparkle he had fades into a abyss and he is gone.

Can you imagine being next to him? To watch a light fade from a man’s eyes. To see the spirit go. Knowing somehow that it’s your fault. Knowing if you were quicker you might of saved him knowing that you drove him to it.

Again and again she broke my heart now she seeks to make up for it by crying over my body. Tears of embarrassment and convenience. Lies and heartless self interest. For my soul journeys to Deaths own gate leaving not even this story to be remembered by. Soon the body will be little more than fertilizer. Whitman found immortality in that, I only find despair. My memory will crumble soon after my body and I’ll be nothing more than an interesting footnote in a yearbook. A yearbook crammed into a shelf full of other identical books in a room full of identical shelves.

Thus is my legacy to the world.

Life, Philosophy/Religion

I just had one of those terribly obvious realizations that has some far-reaching non obvious ramifications. You want to know what this great realization was? Quite simply the fact that I’m not in school anymore. Seems obvious enough, you’d think I would have thought of it earlier, and I have, but what I failed to realize is that from age 0 to 22ish life is very definably goal oriented. There is always something right around the corner that is going to make things great. An objective that is occupying all of your effort for the moment, but soon you’ll be free. Every thing will change when you can just crawl, walk, use the grown up toilet, stay out after dark, go to school, summer vacation, go to middle school, jr. high, high school, college, graduate from college, and many many other sign post in between. Now we’re here past the last hurdle and got our magic piece of paper. There isn’t anything else on the list to cross off before I’m supposed to be an adult and have a life. The next goal on the list that’s going to change every thing is retirement.

Towards the end of college I grew a fondness for “Carry on my wayward son” by Kansas (of all things) because it bottled that nature. Just a few more hurdles then I could rest. I’ve rested a few years and the song has lost meaning for me but I’m left with a question. What is it that I strive for? Work isn’t for me… any effort there is a required evil to carry on “living” but I have nothing in my life that I strive and has value. It was always artificially grafted to me when I was in school. All effort was directed towards the value adding task of acquiring the magic piece of paper.

But I have the paper now and I’m faced with the realization of having nothing in the “things will be better when…. ” category in my life.

Life, Philosophy/Religion

Jeff Thomson woke with a start. He thought he awoke from a nightmare, but couldn’t manage to remember a disturbing dream, or for that matter any dream at all. All he had was a particular sense of impending doom. An odd way for the day to begin, true, but not odd enough for Jeff to take any real notice of it. At least not yet, but it hung about him with great tenacity.

It was a Saturday and most people had long since abandoned the idea that it was morning, Jeff was not among them. He showered and the feeling only grew he tried every trick he could think of trying to redirect his mind to other things. Jeff tried to think about work. He directed his mind towards building the ultimate network, for that is what he called work. But each new problem, each technical detail he threw at himself always led him back to doom. He just couldn’t make things work the way they should. It all led to the collapse of the network for political, technical, or management problems. With passing time his feeling grew more intense and he began to worry. Jeff soon gave up on his virtual network and looked for some breakfast.

After suitably dressing Jeff began the process of scavenging through his mostly bare kitchen. Minutes passed as he searched and he was momentarily distracted from his dread, but then he found his month old milk and it returned. He continued searching, finally managing to locate Lipton noodles alfredo and a frozen eggroll. Jeff tossed them both in the microwave and zapped them, bringing them to the right temperature if not texture. Then again, what exactly is the right texture for Lipton noodles alfredo?

Jeff dropped down on his beat up couch and began playing with remotes. He flipped the TV on and did a quick channel surf which reinforced his feeling of societal doom. He quickly gave up on bad Chevy Chase flicks and rewound his tape of the few remaining good cartoons from this mornings selections. He ate and watched The Mighty Tick, Anamanics, The X-men, and Gargoyles. Never quite managing to break free of his particular feeling. He realized he was in trouble when he found himself drawing parallels between himself and the guy at the receiving end of the Mighty Tick’s pummelling. Yes he realized he was in a sorry shape so he abandoned the TV as it wasn’t providing it’s promised oblivion and sought out a book, the one he was reading in fact. Jeff continued reading and several hours later finished Robert Hienlien’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. He poignantly felt the death of Mike. He was left heartbroken and deeply grieved. The doom clung to him like a cloud to a rain god, so he was reduced to his most desperate measure. He would have to emerse himself in people.

Jeff called up Abigail, one of the few people who enjoyed people watching in just the same way he did and arranged for a watch. He was supposed to meet her at around eight at Jekyll and Hyde’s a bar that catered to the macabre. After he briefly considered whether he ought to be going to Discovery Zone instead, given his current mood. Then he remembered that killing children was still illegal so Jekyll and Hyde’s was a much better option. Even these light hearted thoughts were tinged with a certain gloom which he still couldn’t place.

After dressing again, this time appropriate to his destination he went over to J&Hs. He travelled by bus, because if the antics of people alone would not exercise his feeling, Jeff was fairly certain that a few shots of tequila would cure most feeling. He got off the bus a block and half from J&H’s. The bus ride was slow and torturous affair, he felt fear and hatred emanating from his travelling companions. He was glad to be off the bus and he quickly began walking towards the bar. He looked for Abigail, any sign of familiar comfort. His gaze did slow sweeps of the scene in front of him looking for the thongs of people and scenes of chaos that he was depending on to distract him from the futility of it all.

As he was walking, his eyes caught upon the eyes of another. They were beautiful brown eyes. There was something about them that called to Jeff. The rest of her was hidden by shadow as she clung to wall of an alley across the street. Without a second thought he crossed the street slowly and steadily approaching her. Some part of his mind was vaguely aware of the form of Abigail in front of the Bar, but he paid no attention to her moving towards the eyes.

The closer he got the more of her he saw. She was young, not a child but young enough that she probably couldn’t get into the bar. A few years younger the Jeff. She had shoulder length brown hair that absolutely shown, her skin was the color of a fine ivory. She didn’t wear a fancy dress designed to allure, all she had was jeans and a simple shirt. None the less, Jeff felt an incredible attraction towards her. They were separated by no more than an arms length now. She smiled shyly, he returned the expression. When she smiled all the fear and dread of the day melted away he exalted in her glow. To Jeff she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid his eyes upon. Her very essence and aura left him speechless.

He reached out and took her hand. He tried to speak, to introduce himself, to speak of her beauty, to say all the things he felt he was required to say. She quieted him with a gesture. She stood on her toes and their lips met, then they kissed, and then they really kissed. The kind kiss that is filled with passion, they kind that occupies TV and fantasies in roughly equal proportions.

She broke off the kiss and whispered in his ear, “I’m sorry, love.” With those words retractable fangs silently dropped into place. She kissed his neck for one last time. Two sharp fangs punctured his jugular and blood was slowly drained from his body. Jeff was in ecstasy. He had never felt such intense pleasure he never knew such sexual release.

She drained him falling to the ground with him slowly sucking all of the life from his veins. He died contented in his method of doom. She could not share his joy. Yet again the guilt passed through her and she shuddered. She cried. The poor man before her had died so she could live and she knew there was no way to avoid it. She would have cried over him until dawn, but someone was approaching. She disappeared into the shadows.

Watching from the roof tops she saw a woman approached. The woman called out a name, Jeff. The Vampire assumed that was his name. She fought with herself to leave but couldn’t. The more she knew about him the more it would hurt, but still she could not leave. She saw the woman cry over the corpse as she had done moments before. She was screaming incoherently for help. A crowd began to gather, the vampire managed to stagger away tears pouring from her eyes.

She was heart broken tonight as she was every night. Doing what she must to confine the berserker hunger just below the surface.

Uncategorized

“Hey, Kath. This is Seth, just calling to say hi. Give me a call some time.” It went that way more often then not these days. She was somewhere, he knew that. But more and more he never got an answer from her. And as for the prospect of getting a return call, it was poor at best. Seth figured his best bet to see her was tomorrow in Creative Writing. Just the thought of the course reminded him of the story he was supposed to be writing instead of feeling sorry for himself, and calling Kathy every ten minutes or so.

Seth was tired of the brush off he was getting, yet in his mind he didn’t know how to set it right. He needed somehow to reach a final state. Without the final state, he couldn’t even try to put his emotions back in order. That was Seth’s problem, when dealing with people, he too often he sought out a final state. Or tried to apply his real relationships to some predetermined set of rules that he thought relationships were supposed to fit into. The problem was that like most people, he had picked up his set of rules from TV, movies, an occasional book, and the rare mathematical theorm. In those, relationships are explained, their parameters explored, and limits tested. All in an hour or less, well mostly.

He stared dully at the phone, it resisted Seth’s attempt to make it ring. He picked up the receiver and considered trying her number again. Maybe she was just changing a load of laundry or something like that. It wasn’t uncommon in th dorms to wander through the halls as study breaks or when bored. Or maybe Seth only did that, he wasn’t sure.

“Give it up, its over. Get on with your life. Write your silly little story, that you’ve been whining about for the last week. Go to Quig’s get stone, stinking drunk, and pick yourself up a new lush. She can treat you like crap just as well as Kath ever did, and I don’t have to watch you wander around in this depraved manner.” Standing in the doorway, feeling very proud of his little summation of Seth’s life, was Jim, Seth’s roommate.

Seth on the other hand had several things going through his head. First, he wondered why a supposedly kind and generous god had invented roommates. This thought was coming more and more frequently these days. But, what upset him more was the validity of the statement. It was over, he just didn’t know how to let go of it. Over wasn’t the right word, not in it’s inability to exemplify the relationship, but more because it tended imply that the relationship existed anywhere but his own mind. And, of course, there was the ever present grand literary masterpiece, just waiting to be written.

“You know, your are such the gentleman. Your sympathy is only surpassed by your tact.” Seth replied sarcastically. He hoped that would shut Jim up. He hoped he would wander into the lounge to watch Jeopardy or something.

Jim walked through the doorway and closed the door. He sat down at his desk and spun the chair around so that he was looking at Seth again. Seth was picking up that Jim had something to say he considered ways of avoiding it, but in the end decieded to just get it over with. Seth hung up the phone, and after a long pause Jim eventually said, “Umm, Seth, you don’t suppose I could use the room for a little while? Abigail said she was coming down and… well, you know….”

Seth was surprised the man could still be embarrassed at making the request given the frequency in which he made it. Seth tried to muster a tone of resentment and disdain. “Yeah, sure. Just don’t do it on my bed or in my chair.” If Jim caught on to the resentment he gave no notice. Seth got up and more or less stalked out of the room.

Seth wandered down the hallway towards ‘The Crossroads.’ The Crossroads were the intersection of two hallways every little clique had there own name for it. Seth like the Crossroads, in general people would gather and discuss anything from the nature of personality and the Big Bang to the weather and the latest meal at the cafateria. As he approached however he saw a couple from down the hall doing things that should probably be best confined to a room.

This brought back the whole Kath problem. Again maybe problem wasn’t the right word. It really wasn’t like a problem intellectually Seth knew what needed to be done. All he had to was to stop acting like a lost puppy. Realize the kernel of truth under Jim’s words and get on with his life. The obstacle was in his heart. Despite it all, he didn’t hate her. He should, she did nothing but use and hurt him. But he hadn’t yet broken the emotional ties.

Eventually Seth heard a voice, “Excuse me, do you mind? This is sort of a private moment.” It seems that Seth, caught in his reverie, had been staring.

“Uh, sorry, just leaving.” Seth mumbled back and quickly head for the door.

Seth headed downstairs and through the lobby. The cold October air hit him and he realized that he had left his jacket and bag in his room. He didn’t dare return though. He walked through the underpass watching all the people around him. It was early evening and the campus’ main throughfair was alive with student heading to thier various destinations. Seth didn’t enjoy all the similing faces and so he quickened his pace. He headed to the computer labs of Anderson Hall.

In the lab over the next six hours he finally managed to write two pages of text, that both qualified as a story and he was willing to let fourteen strangers read. The story wasn’t much of a story, but after six hours Seth just didn’t care anymore. He’d decided that life is just some big incomprehensible equation that he just couldn’t balance. Seth was a math major.

Seth stumbled back to his room and opened the door. The place stank of sex. Briefly he wondered if the participants noticed that smell or not. Seth couldn’t aswer that question from expience. His resentment grew again. Seth carefully slammed the door loud enough to wake the lovers, but quiet enough for it to be construed as an accident.

The two woke with a start and looked around trying to figure out what was going on. Seth whispered, “Sorry.” With a hidden smile Seth went to sleep.

---

Kathy never showed up in Creative Writing. She was normally good about attending classes, but like almost all college students she wasn’t above missing a class if a better offer came along. Seth spent the day suffering through having his story ripped to shreds by unfeeling, unappreciative clods. The story was pretty bad.

When Seth returned to his room Jim was thankfully absent. Seth picked up the phone and dialed Kathy’s number. Ring. Ring. Seth was expecting the machine to pick up as it always did. Instead there was frantic voice, “Kathy? Is that you?”

“No. It’s Seth. I take it she isn’t there? As usual.”

The voice toned down a little and it could be made out to be Karen, Kathy’s roommate. “No, as far as I can tell she hasn’t been in the room in three or four days. Have you seen or heard from her?”

His first thoughts were ones of jealousy. Seth figured she found another man and was spending her nights there. His heart went cold. Seth thought and realized he hadn’t seen her since Monday. It was Thursday now. She was heading towards some strange library over at Georgetown. “No, I haven’t seen her since Monday. What do you mean she hasn’t been in the room. Has she moved out or something?”

“No all of her stuff is still here, but there’s no evidence that she’s changed her clothes, slept in her bed, used the bathroom or anything. In fact her bookbag is just where it was on Monday. It’s like she just up and disapeared. I’m really worried about her.”

Seth’s mind raced through all the cheezy movies he’d seen and he knew just what to do. Seth conjured images of people looking through morgues and hospitals looking for an unidentified friend.

“Oh, my God!” Karen broke down and started balling.

Seth had to admit that perhaps he didn’t know exactly what to do. He tried to calm Karen down. He also figured out there were a few steps before searching the city of dead unidentified bodies. He’d have to call her parents and the police. Then it hit him. She could really be dead, or mutilated. He began to cry himself understanding the enourmity of the situation. Then Seth’s emotions shutdown and his logical mind kicked into high gear. This was how Seth delt with high stress emotions. It’s how he dealt with death, he didn’t, at least not directly.

“I’m going to come over there and see if we can figure what happened to Kath.”

With difficulty Karen got control of her voice, “Yeah, I’ll be waiting.”

Seth left the dorm and went to McDowell Hall. Kathy and Karen lived on the fifth floor. The walk was short but tense. Seth kept running the situation through his head and he couldn’t come up with and good reason why Kathy wouldn’t have returned. Even if she had found a lover, God forbid, she would have attended some classes and returned to her dorm to pick up clothes and a toothbrush. The only acceptible scenario Seth could think of was if a relative become ill, or passed away. Kathy might have been called away and failed to leave a note. Even if she was called away she would have taken her toothbrush, clothes and other things.

Seth finally arrived at Karen’s room. One look around and he could tell that she had not taken any of her things. Everything was as it always was. Karen was sitting on Kathy’s bed, her mascarra traced the tears pouring down her cheeks. Seth sat down next to her and she clamped on to him like a vise. She buried her head in the crook of his neck and she cried on his shoulder.

Seth attemped to comfort her. “I’m sure she’s ok. She’ll be back you’ll see.” Karen didn’t seem to be responding.

---

Kathy never did return to her dorm room. Over the next several hours Seth and Karen called Kathy’s parents, the police, campus police, and every hospital they could find. It was always the same answer. No one knew where she was. Kathy’s parents came down. The police issued an A.P.B. Ultimately Kathy was never found.

At some point over the next several days Seth collapsed. The campus police found him wandering the roof of Hughes Hall. Tears pouring from his eyes and blood trickling from his temple where he ripped through the skin with his fingernail. They managed to get him down from the roof without hurting himself or anybody else. Seth was sent home, and eventully he seemed to get over his melancholy. His sheets were stained with blood less often. He stopped talking to Karen and the memories began to fade. In time Seth’s doctors allowed him to return to school. He transfered to UCLA, changed his major to computer science and started the whole student process over again.

At first it was hard, but eventually Seth managed to adapt and continued on with his education. Seth spent the next four years absorbed in his school work he considered little else and graduated with a 3.9 GPA. He went on to do his graduate work at Stanford. He earned his doctorate eight years after returning to school. By this time Kathy was only a bad memory that only came out to haunt him on cold winter nights. Seth never managed to properly resocialize after leaving school the first time.

---

[I presume this story was to go on and involve what terrible thing has happened to Kathy and how her return further destroys Seth. But it was never written so you see it in it's current form. I felt the beginning was worth publishing even if it is incomplete.]

Uncategorized

And for todays bit oddity:

The word Fairy is derived from the the Latin fata, or fate. This refers to the three fates of mythology who spin and control the threads of life. There are five interesting theories on the origins of fairies. (1) Unbaptized Earthbound souls (me); (2) Guardians of the souls of the dead; (3) Ghosts of venerated ancestors; (4) Lucifer’s fallen angels, condemned to remain on Earth; (5) Nature spirits.

This leads into todays lessons on the dark bit of archaic thinking that we cling to with all our force because it allows us to believe in something greater than ourselves. This is a role that God used to play and still does play for a lot of us. But some of us are unable to believe in a God that is swayed by the political convenience of a 2000 year old church. I wanted to say cult but I don’t want to offend despite the fact that this is exactly how the romans saw it.

But this article is not about the church, it is about the truths that are clung to to make living a worth while experience. Living for life’s sake only works for hedonists, the rest of us are bound by responsibilities that make living a duty not a pleasure. We seek things to believe in, for each this magic Grail is different. For some it is the church and all it represents, others follow the quest of the alien, and still other the vampire and everything gothic. There are hundreds, even thousands of other paths each archaic and laughed upon by the nonbelievers. But each path fills a little bit of the human psyche with doubt. This doubt is very important, for it through the doubt that we contact something higher, brighter, and more. The Ufologist doesn’t have to believe so much as he doubts the dogma that such things can’t be, and where such things do exist there is something greater. He is no longer bound by the rules of conventional wisdom and psychology. He can look out to the stars and see Asgard the Elysian Fields, QI’tu’ (Klingon), and Nirvana all rolled up into one.

Science has eradicated to much of the doubt in the world around us, and so we create more by reaching further out into a world the hasn’t been conquered. Through this lens of doubt the ufologist sees an alien civilization, simply something greater than himself. His thousand year old counterpart would have called the aliens fairies, and he would look underground for Elfland. As late as 1922 Sir Author Conan Doyle, respected writer (and spiritualist) looking underground for the Fairies and believed so hard he was taken in by a faked photograph of “tiny, winged female figures dressed in fashionable gowns, holding tiny pipes and hovering in the air.”

Without the doubt of something greater life lacks meaning, and so we search within our own souls and to the outside in those few places where answers aren’t set.

Philosophy/Religion