The Truth is Out There

Sunny skies and perfect weather,
a playful wind blowing smoke in my face,
laughing in whispers in the air, with
violins playing far, far away,
and sorrow far away with them,
too obvious to be ignored, and yet
isolated because of its very nature,
offering a miserable sanctuary to those
not courageous enough to break free.

"Idiots, so ignorant... they'll
never know how nice it is out here."

Stuff you can only read in the city, stuff
only accessible to the wanderers and vagabonds, those
lovable, pitiable souls
in whom we see reflected our wildest sides...
to know freedom but no anchor, to
understand the workings of the outside, to
discover the truth of the outside... it's called
enlightenment.

Appreciating the Moment

Clouds move lazily overhead
Lighted up in orange, grey, and red
As the bird chirps incessantly at his weary neighbors
And the sun drifts lazily down the sky

Watching my cigarette burning on itself,
It occurs to me I could be sleepwalking.

Oh, life...
Thank you.

Dear Brain,

Haha! You fool!
I will not stop you right here,
Even though it would not require *the least* amount of effort.
Instead I will allow you to continue,
And as I watch you from afar you will build
Amazing, beautiful things.
You will bring light to the darkness in the hearts of those you love,
You will reshape the world around you in a better way that all can appreciate,
You will find the peace within yourself and finally attain acceptance,
You will find the love of your life and live in blissful peace and joy that you have not experienced since early childhood!
All this and more,
But enjoy it while it lasts, for
Soon I will act,
And despite all of your wonderful accomplishments and beautiful creations,
I will draw you down,
Once again,
Into the darkness of despair.

I am Depression.
My roots run deep into your very genes.
My hold on you is absolute
And always I linger just below the surface.
You will never be rid of me.

Awake

Together we
Slowly creep
Instinctively up
Moist darkness
Gives way
Bright light
Pours forth
Energy shines
Absorb it
Energy shines
Absorb it
Utilize, construct, reach
Great things can happen
Growth at an exponential rate
Results in advances not only physically,
For when one surpasses one's necessities
One enters a new realm of possibilities.

Slowly My Head Slopes Downwards

Slowly my head slopes downwards,
And suddenly I slip,
Away from productivity,
I sit, I sit,
I sit.

I blink my eyes open,
And shut out my stomach,
Far away from food,
I slip, I slip,
I slip.

My mind numbs itself off,
My chest painfully twists,
And away from contentment
I shift, I shift,
I shift.

My friends swirl around me,
As do my interests,
But I swirl into darkness,
To bliss, to bliss,
To bliss.

Friar Nantucket's Barbecue Of Delight (Lyrics)

Weeelllccoooommeee!!!
To... Friar Nantucket's Barbecue of Delight.

(Ahem)
Welcome to the grill!
Here at Friar Nantucket's you get your fill of meat!
Sweets!
Carrots and beets!
We've got pots of stew for you!
Filled with lovely leprechauns - lucky too!
Here we put aside time for you!
How about some Irish dog?
Hog?
A lovely meat log?
We've got it all - and cheese!
SO MUCH CHEESE I don't know what to do with it all! Now
Come!
Please sit down!
I'll be right back you clown now DON'T
Don't you fret!
Your food is local and fresh! (Dog piss)
Oh your eyeballs will pop
When they see me serving the delicious fish!
A little bit of this and that, hah!

I hope you aware
I've got you in a chain-locked chair!
If the light bothers you just shout,
Don't stare and don't pout!
Yes, the main course is on its way!
Salad du-play and your kidneys sauteed!
YUM YUM!
Won't this be fun?!
I am the friar and you'll get the bun!
If I have anything to do with it,
Anything at all, anything at all....

I'm Friar Nantucket!
I'll fry you up!
I'm as eager to eat you
As a little young pup is eager!
Eager eager eager eager!
To gnaw away at the bones!
At the bones! At the bones!
I'm Friar Nantucket and I'll
Melt you down.
Tonight I'll sleep full and sound.

...I am ready to eat

Swarming Ticks (Lyrics)

I feel...

Flesh-eating ticks
Latch onto your skin.
Among the dirt and hairs
They sift through to the juicy juicy meat.
Beware! Beware!
Here they come again!
Reaching down, down, down,
To suck, suck, suck, suck...

...Suck your bones for the marrow!

Custom Concern (by Modest Mouse)

The custom concern for the people...
Build up the monuments and steeples
To wear out our eyes.

I get up just about noon.
My head sends a message for me
To reach for my shoes and then walk...
Gotta go to work, gotta go to work, gotta have a job.

Go through the parking-lot fields.
Don't see any signs that they will yield
And then thought: this'll never end
This'll never end, this'll never end,
This'll never end, this'll never... stop.

Message read on the bathroom wall
Says, "I don't feel at all like I thought I would."
We're losing all touch, losing all touch,
Building a desert...

-"Custom Concern" by Modest Mouse

Jerald Fratterman: Bicycle Cop (Intro)

He comes as a shadow in the night, silent and swift.  Wherever there is injustice, you will find him there.  Elegant in his figure, and determined in his purpose, he glides noiselessly through the dark streets of Suburbia.

In the dirty shadowed streets, shady dealers deal in dirty shady things. Amidst the drugs, prostitutes, and gangs, he comes like a bird of prey, swooping down out of the hazy smog upon the unaware and clumsy rodents of the streets. As the thugs on the street would soon learn, this man means business. He has come to deal out swift justice. He has come to save the innocent. He has come to disable criminals from their dealings… permanently. He has come, and he’s not fucking around. He is…

Jerald Fraterman: Bicycle Cop

            A bell jingles in the night. 

The Fate of the Soldier

Sunlight glistens on the gentle waves,

Hiding the creatures below

That follow the flesh that they all crave

Floating on to the unknown.

Softly bopping along with the tide,

The fallen soldier bemoans.

And rocking gently from side to side

He bargains with the fate he’s shown.

“Am I doomed to die in this dingy at sea?

Is this the harvest I have sewn?

Will I never lay eyes on my beautiful love

Whose light face so brightly shone?”

He followed that bright face miles away,

Forgetting his friends and his home.

Now it seems she had led him astray…

Now he’s completely alone.

And yet even if he had glimpsed his dark fate,

That the waters would take down his bones,

He still would have followed that beautiful face

For the chance to hear her sweet tones once more,

For the chance to feel her and kiss her once more.

He would condone any fate…

Even one as amazing as his:

Bobbing away onward to the unknown,

His flesh being food for the fish.

Surely his fate was set in stone.

Surely he would die alone.

And the creatures below will have his bones.

BOOM! CRASH! The fallen soldier looks up.

His eyes are bombarded by wonder…

An island, a ship, a fort, cannons lit!

Wood and stone being torn asunder!

The tide had led this soldier back to his home!

Cannon fire resounded all around him.

His small dingy was rocked back and forth.

From the ship one could see a tattered battered soldier

Navigating his dingy to port.

Too small to be noticed by the cannon manners,

Too big not to be full of hope,

The soldier, face beaming, sailed past the dark ship

Onwards towards the white fort.

“Who knows if I shall live through this day?

Or if I shall again see my lover’s bright face?

But the chance to die fighting,

The chance to die trying,

Is one that I shall gladly take.

Why flinch to give up my singular life

When my entire homeland is at stake?”

Thus thinking, an idea popped into the head

Of the battered soldier, starving to death.

Dehydrated and weak, and failing of breath,

The soldier turned back towards the ship firing lead

Into the walls of the fort he had known

Since birth: the only defense of his home.

Without hesitation and without delay

The soldier navigated around the bay,

Using the rotting oar to push the creaking dingy,

No one could hear him say:

“What is my life compared to this island

And all of the lives here at stake?”

From the fort one could see a man leave a dingy

And slip on the ship through a small cannon space.

Minutes later a cannon would fire again,

But this cannon was turned and would hit the wrong place.

A hole torn in the hull of the attacking ship

Allowed eager water to fill the lower decks.

From the fort one would see

(Though they’d scarcely believe)

The ship groan and snap sideways like a broken neck,

Trapping the poor souls

Aboard that dark vessel

In the dark waters below.

No one would honor that battered soldier

Who gave up his life for his home.

But deep in that isle on a lover’s bright face

Tears shone,

Glistening in the sunlight, for a brave soldier

Who’s fate remained unknown.

"Uh Oh"

Breathe in… breathe out.

He crouched there on the shadowed ledge, unmoving. A soft breeze rustled his hair.  In the dark corners of the city he had waited and watched ceaselessly: first through cameras, then through binoculars, and now through his sniper scope.

No hesitation, no delay. He had the shot. He knew it was him. …This was it.

Breathe in… breathe out. He squeezed the trigger.

The muted shot rang out. The bullet raced the nine hundred yards in a blink of the eye and flew clean through the head of the silhouette and onwards to embed itself in the wall behind him.

Silence. He peered through his sniper scope. …The silhouette had not fallen, or even moved. It was a decoy. “Uh oh,” he muttered, eyes wide.

A millisecond later a second shot rang through the night, flying from the west towards that shadowed ledge. It hit its mark… the sniper’s head crashed to the cement, blood oozing out of the hole in the back of his neck.

Somewhere out there in the western edge of the city, white teeth glistened in the darkness, revealing a smile.

The Harvesting of Sol Valen

           The bomb exploded in a brilliant flash of white. For a split second there was no sound, but then a deafening roar erupted from the center of the flash and grew until it reverberated throughout the entire valley. The buildings, streets, and the countryside beyond were all consumed in the wave of fire and smoke that bellowed forth from the center. Invisible radiation traveled just as quickly but moved out far beyond the fire and smoke. From a bird’s eye view, one would see a giant mushroom rising slowly above the white peaks of the surrounding mountains.

            Sol slowly regained consciousness.  First, before his mind had awakened, he heard strange sounds: familiar voices he had known since childhood, wind rustling through leaves, water gurgling in a brook, and the shouts and chaotic noise of war all seemed to echo through his head in turns… or was it all at once? It was hard to separate the sounds… they molded together into a singular great buzz that seemed to Sol as the sound of life itself, and then… there was nothing.

            Perhaps it was the absence of noise that woke Sol. A fuzzy whiteness blurred his vision. He blinked once; he thought he could make out the dimmest of outlines among the dense white fog all around him. He blinked again, and the shapes slowly took form. Sol sat up and rubbed his eyes. He looked around… where was he? The great fog covered all of the land as far as Sol could see, but in the fog he could make out the dark shapes of buildings. …Yes, here was the tavern Sol had just exited from twenty paces behind him. And there was the bakery to his left, and the back alleys where he had conducted his illicit business deals…. Excited, Sol looked up to his sides the see them dim outlines of street lamps lining the cobblestone road, though no lights illuminated from them. So, he was still in the city! Perhaps the fog was smoke from the explosion… although strangely enough, Sol could not smell any smoke… or, for that matter, anything at all. A strange stillness was in the air.

            “Hello!” Sol called. Only silence answered him.

            “HELLO!! IS ANYONE THERE??” he shouted. Only stillness, and the echoes of his urgent call bouncing off the unseen mountainsides.

            Sol slumped forward and buried his head in his hands. Could it be possible that he was the only survivor? No, he was out in the open… it was much more likely he was….

            He sat there for what seemed to be a long time, unmoving. No sounds or smells came forth through the white fog, and in the stillness Sol reflected. He had spent his entire life using the people around him, scamming them and taking their money. Never before had he thought twice of leaving even his closest friends behind him. Now he longed for fellow humans not for their purses, but for their companionship. And yet there was no sign of life in the milky fog around him. For the first time in his life, Sol was truly, utterly alone. EDIT He let out a soft moan of despair.

            It was at this moment that something appeared. No sound or smell alerted Sol to its presence, but instead Sol distinctly felt it… something faint and sinister. He looked up, but there was nothing but white fog. …Wait… no, there was something there, barely discernible among the whiteness… a faint, black spot in the distance. When Sol focused on it, the sinister feeling grew. He knew not why, but Sol was wary of that faint spot; more wary than of anything else he had ever encountered in his life. Sol slowly raised himself up, took one last look at that sinister dot, and turned to walk away.

            But when he turned his head, it was there too, only closer. He squinted his eyes to discern that the dot was in fact a small rectangle that looked much like a distant black door.

            Fear erupted in the pit of Sol’s stomach. Every fabric of his being compelled him away from the distant black spot. Panicked, Sol turned to his left and began to run, but halted almost immediately when the blackness was there, too, only larger. Cold sweat broke out over his forehead as he turned around again, only to find the blackness there as well, but closer. Hysterical in terror, Sol turned yet again, and there it was, now only a few dozen paces from him. Every time Sol turned his head and redirected his vision, the sinister darkness was there, seemingly looming forward to engulf him, coming closer with his every attempt to get away. Sol turned around a final time, terrorized, then froze.

            In the white fog, there stood the black door. It loomed directly in front of Sol, and was close to three times his height. The doorframe was hewn from the blackest of stone. Two slabs of gnarled, black wood made up the two halves of the door. Strange inscriptions were carved onto the wood in intricate patterns spiraling towards the center, were a black metal doorknob carved into a goat’s head stared fixedly through Sol.

            He was paralyzed. Sol dared not to move. He stared back at the door, transfixed. Deep down in his gut, Sol somehow knew where this horrible door led. And for the first time in decades, Sol believed in something he had not considered since his adolescent years.

            Sol knew he could not run away. The door loomed before him, its shadow engulfing Sol. With no other options left, Sol fell to his knees. He clasped his shaking hands together, bowed his head, and weeping, he prayed to God for forgiveness. Sol prayed with more earnestly and urgency than he had ever felt in his entire life, and his tears flowed down from his face and hit the ground like rain. Please God, he prayed, Please God, please… save me.

            A terrible screech erupted all around Sol at once, and in blind horror  Sol saw the goat’s head violently turn, and the black doors fling open. There was no time to act, or even think. Dark tendrils erupted forth and surrounded Sol, clasping onto his skin, so cold they burned him. Screaming, Sol was drawn in through the doorway into the blackest of all blackness that lay beyond. He was falling, falling, falling… and as the tendrils pulled him downward Sol saw his hopes, his dreams, his ambitions, his joys, and all the good things he had ever felt violently rip up out of his chest and leave him as he plummeted downwards, forever downwards, into that cold and black abyss.