#but we would rain absolute hell down on the entire neighborhood she lived in. together traveling as a pack

[witchnordemon]

// the poor, longsuffering residents of Gravesfield regularly hear their fence swing open and look out the window to see some 2ft kid doing this to their pet dog. on the regular

[roses-ruby]

Cherry Muffins and Lavender Tea

Namjoon x Female Reader

Genre: College AU, Sugary Fluff, Humor if you squint, Smut but it’s ugly, and the teeny tiniest angst

Warnings: curse words, sex, orgasms, oral (female receiving), choking kink, daddy kink, hot biker Namjoon, sex with clothes on, might make you hungry (i’m not sure about everything that’s considered a warning sorry! If there’s something you want me to add, tell me)

Word Count: 8,196

Summary: You’ve got feelings for my man Namjoon, the scary looking dork that drops by where you work. But how will you relay them?

A/N: My first story! Omfgsfkhbifb I’m nervous so please leave a kind word, I’ll love you forever. Might have mistakes cause i’m an idiot. None of this would have been possible without the great @countrysundae she’s my darling and inspiration and I love her sooooo much and you should too!!! Please appreciate her Pisces ass, and send her some love! Oof anyway, please enjoy

10:30

Originally set for 8, 10 fucking 30 is when the bells of your alarm informed you to awake for maybe the 99th time that morning. Groaning in displeasure you move your stiffened muscles to shut the damn thing off. This is a process that’s become a routine; waking up way later than originally planned, no matter how many timers set, or reminders kept. Even though you admit you are sleep deprived constantly, it doesn’t make you a heavy sleeper habitually! You wake up to the tiniest noises at night, from your roommate trying to sneak back into the shared room in ungodly hours of the night to the leaking tap in the bathtub. And yet your phone’s alarm is your placebo-it does absolutely nothing for you.

Though you do try. You keep about 5 alarms on at once, to your roommate’s expense who somehow is both a night owl and early bird all at once. Speaking of which-

“So, the witch finally sees daylight,” snickers Sana

“what the fuc--how long were you there?!” You rasped, grabbing at your erratic heart

“Just got in 5 minutes ago, that was my first alarm and trust me when I say I would’ve strangled you if I heard another.”

It’s true, she’s done it before. Your poor roommate was an occasional victim of your ruthless sleeping habits. You’d sometimes slip into conscious from slumber to hear her whine about your blaring alarms in her own sleeping state. Other times you’d wake up from a pillow landing on your face from a girl who’s had Enough.™ But you didn’t feel too bad for her, since you’ve given her the option of waking you up herself and she’s proven frivolous far too many times for such a simple task. Lowkey? She deserves it.

“Ooh another fun night, huh?” You grin in your sleepy state

Sana giggles “Mhmm, think Mark’s in love with me the poor chap,” she mocks his English accent making you both laugh at yet another fuckboi who’s become a victim to Sana’s lethal looks. Giving her a glance over, from her messy hair and smeared lipstick you conclude she indeed had a very fun night.

Sana came from a well-off background and had it all. Good-looks, smarts, the money, and a very good heart. She didn’t have to go to university, but her mom was not having it. The whole ‘be grateful for the opportunity people suffer to receive’ speech led her here. A parent’s guilt tripping wasn’t something you were unfamiliar with. You considered yourself an average person. Kinda cute, smart, headstrong and half of a pretty good character…Your parents on the other hand, were really wimpy.

“We always thought you’d go to the neighborhood community college”, your dad remarked in horror holding the prestige upper state university’s acceptance letter that arrived recently.

Your dad, who thinks jaded denim vests are cool.

“You’re too young to be living on your own, you’re still a bird who can’t use her wings correctly, not ready to leave the nest!” Said your distressed mom, who’s solution to all bad food was to put more cheese on it.

Don’t like your chicken curry? Pass on the parmesan sprinkler!

You hear the bang of hands on the table and a chair screeches, “let her go, she’ll come back with her tail between her legs”, your little brother who plays fortnite all day and is going through his ‘I hate feelings but secretly cry every night’ faze shouts before storming off towards his room.

All you do is sigh and roll your eyes, picking at your over-parmesaned chicken curry with your naan as your parents continue to nag, cause after this whole fiasco your mind was certainly convinced.

You’re going to the university.

_

Now that you are here, nothing was easy even for someone as headstrong as you. You were smart enough for a scholarship, but living expenses were something else entirely. Which led you to seek employment at a small café, a few miles from your university. It wasn’t the most bustling of places as it drew in a handful of consumers a day, even your fellow students chose the McDonalds right across the street. Everyone enjoyed the quick coffee and frozen fries, rather than your place’s slightly pricier fresh brews and handmade savory biscuits. Alas, you considerably appreciated the quiet composure your café provided. From the dim soft white lighting, to the 60’s slow jazz-which you routinely exchanged with a Studio Ghibli playlist from YouTube discreetly, blended well together. Gave you time to catchup on your schoolwork. Your boss was a chill 42-year-old who won the lottery a few years back, and let you clock in any time before 12, even if your morning shift began from 9. Maybe it had something to do with how the last waitress quit to work at McDonalds.

And he was always there.

Kim Namjoon. The quiet stud that had captivated your heart without even trying. Also, the fucking reason you wanted to get up earlier in the mornings damn it!

Namjoon was a psychology major who was always reading a new book. Mostly from his favorite author Haruki Murakami. And he always stopped by at the place you worked to indulged them. Parking his Harley-Davidson Softail outside and softly walking in with his old school leather jacket and gloves, ripped jeans, a book in his hand, his huge hard…helmet forgotten on the bike’s handle. He’d gently relay his familiar order of cherry muffins and lavender tea, raking his hair back with those beautiful black gloves, and striding to his usual seat in the back of the café.

He’d grace your presence 3 times a week, usually at 9:30 before his 10 am classes; another early bitch bird. All you wanted to do since then was to be able to take his order.

You had met Namjoon at the beginning of your first semester last year. But he hadn’t harbored much of your attention until that fateful day. Chilly winds and frequent rain were what you were adjusting to, as fall was in its peak with every other color on the leaves a vibrant orange, grabbing at your focus. Having arrived on time for once, you were engaged in your workspace. The co-owner and your co-worker of the small café, the boss’s niece, had taken a day’s leave, and you knew she’d beat your ass if you were late. Tray in hand, you served a bacon quiche and caffé americano to the table refuging a girl in an infinity scarf and glasses who didn’t bother to look up from her phone, when the door chimed open

It’s him again, you thought at the tall stranger you’ve seen around your campus in all black stepping towards the counter. He had small droplets of water on his leather jacket and hair from the rain. You didn’t realize you were staring until he awkwardly looked directly at you, standing with an empty round tray at the side of the table of the occupied girl, who you know is also taking a secret glance at him, and shyly smiles.

Cute.

You walk yourself behind the counter and smile, “hey there”

“Hi, um two cherr-“

“-y muffins and lavender tea, right?”

He nods

“Why don’t you just say the usual?” You laugh, wringing up his order in your old school register

“I didn’t think you’d remember me out of all the customers,” he states bashfully, dimples on display

“‘all the customers?’’ you laugh louder, “we get like 15 a day, I’m sure I’ll remember you”

“Oh, I thought I just came too early”

“You definitely do! I don’t have the energy to get up and comb my hair at 9 in the morning, much less bike to a café for cherry muffins”

“You like it?” he grins “it’s a Harley-Davidson, my dad owned one”

“It’s as pretty as you sweetie,” you don’t know where that confidence was coming from, because you’ve definitely haven’t talked to a boy like this before. Blame it on the chilly weather.

“oh, thank you,” he rakes his leather gloved hands through his hair, looking down at his shoes

Stepping towards your tea station, you grab open the bag of loose organic dried lavender buds, on the shelf above. Picking up a measuring spoon, you scoop and slide in some buds in the French press. You grab the boiling water on the electric stove, next to your station and slowly pour it onto the herbs. You close down the French Press and set a timer for 6 minutes.

Taking a breath, you look around the café. Namjoon stands there as towering as a tree, looking at his book, ‘Women who Run with the Wolves.’ Most people would go sit down if it wasn’t pickup, but he always stood right at the registrar. Strange. Unsurprisingly, you remember being intimidated as hell in the beginning. Usually people that come to the café are chill in the ‘harmless millennial hippie’ type of way, dressing themselves in mutable colors. But he looked like he would yell if you even slightly messed up his order or gave a ‘wrong look’ to his bike. You loosened up when his order was always so easy, and his book choices always so cute. You almost bust out laughing when he came in with ‘A fault in our stars;’ especially when he sat at his table with glossy eyes, trying to finish the last pages. His smile also melted all worries away.

Infinity scarf girl gets up to leave (but not before giving Namjoon a longing look), leaving you both alone in the balance of your heartbeats. There was slow piano from Kiki’s delivery service filling up your café’s background. The weather still faintly drizzling, the soft gray clouds seeping through the broad windows, making the café’s wooden brown hues a tad bit dimmer, yet the fairy lights radiant. Pedestrians with transparent umbrellas in beige coats and red hats pass by every so often, not a care in the world. Smells of fresh scones and cinnamon filled your nostrils, making you remember holiday nights at home. Though your thoughts often redirected themselves towards the handsome stranger and the harmony of the quiet fall day.

The timer dings and you get back on track, using the handle to press the floating buds down to the bottom of your French press. You head toward the counter’s display case. Below is a steel countertop with coffee/tea cups, silverware, small plates, trays and a set of tongs. You grab a cup and plate, fixing them properly you pour the tea. The steam drifts towards your face, an amazing aroma that complimented the purple complexion of your brew. Grabbing a set of tongs, you take out two large cherry muffins, placing them on a tray, along with the tea. You decide to grab a chocolate chip cookie as well from one of the clear cookie jars set on the wooden crown of the display case.

“Here ya go,” you place the tray in front of him. He places his book and gloves onto the tray and gets out his wallet from his beautifulbooty back pocket. After paying he picks up the tray and halts

“Cookie?” He holds up the chocolate chip cookie in his hand, a bit confused

“It’s on the house, they’re the best thing in the café, but I end up eating most of them, so might as well give ‘em out”

He smiles, “thank you, it looks delicious”

“No problem, anything for our loyal customers,” you both laugh, “it’s beautiful out today”

“Hm, not as much as you,” he states, walking away from you towards his usual seat. Now, he turned around very quickly after he said that, so you didn’t really get to see his face after such cheesy words, but the tips of his ears were red. Oh.

He’s cute cute.

Stunned, you stand there for a moment or two, just wide-eyed; staring at nothing, until you spin on your spot and head back into the tea vicinity of the café. You feel your heartrate rise and alarms go off in your head. But not the loud intrusive kind. The kind where a baker knows his three-layered chocolate fudge cake is ready. The ones where a mom takes freshly baked cinnamon rolls out in the morning. The ones when the apple pie is prepared to be sliced. Those kinds. Covering your extremely warm face with your hands, you muffle a squeal.

Since then, you’ve started paying close attention to Kim Namjoon.

You didn’t know what it was, his tall broad frame and long thick legs, which you wanted to be choked with. His large hands in those chunky leather gloves or when he took them off, to handle the pages of his book delicately; his long skinny fingers would graze over the soft wood, both things you wanted to be choked with. Or his keen eyes that would get larger or darker depending on what part of the book he was reading, and you imagined in which manner they would present themselves with while he’s choking y-Ok. Ok. Ok. You had a kink. Endeared was how you felt at his intimidating appearance.

You also adored how far away from intimidating he actually was. You were smitten with his gentle demeanor in dealing with people. His pacifist nature, and how much he loved tiny crabs, how he was so respectful towards everyone, younger or older, never judging anyone’s appearance or his love for characters that’re as large, and clumsy as him, like Ryan from that Kakaotalk app. And his laughed that carried large amounts of joy over cheesy, silly things ultimately making you laugh as well.

You were sure you loved Kim Namjoon, yet you barely spoke to him-

I mean who’s gonna disturb a huge scary-looking dork when he’s trying to read? Certainly not you. What you desired is a way to get close to him somehow, and for that you needed to know more about him. It wasn’t hard to pick up gossip though, when you were friends with the loudest chatter mouth on the planet.

You told Sana once about your silly crush and she shrieked so hard it sounded like a howl. The next day she had all the deets on who she referred to as ‘Hunkjoon.’ He had an IQ of 148, he hates seafood, he’s so clumsy that his friends refer to him as ‘the god of destruction,’ favorite color is black (no duh), he’s well-known, terribly smart, and to your dismay, associated with the exceedingly popular frat boys Jung Hoseok and Kim Seokjin.

Ugh

Jung Hoseok and Kim Seokjin, or who you so kindly referred to as the Seokbitches, were the schools James Dean. ‘Icon of teenage disillusionment.’ Hehe, perfect definition by google. They were notorious, for playing ghosts in their classes, throwing a party every.single.damn.day., never keeping their dick™ in their pants, and having the most obnoxious laughs on the earth…

Ok, so maybe only you knew them for that. To others they were the teenage love and rebellion dream, James Dean. They never attended classes, because they were fuckthesystem peeps, threw a party everyday so the poor souls stuck in an endless cycle of capitalist warfare aka their fellow students could enjoy the more fun things life has to offer, indulged in every part of youth-including the 24/7 horny part, and had the most beautiful laughs in the damn planet.

How were they Namjoon’s closest friends…How? Anyone with a functioning brain can tell the vast difference between the trinity. Namjoon attended all his classes (yet fate didn’t give you a class with him, the bitch), he actually read books, and he wasn’t hooking up with 2-3 girls every night, unlike certain people.

You heard from a classmate a while back that ‘bout two years ago Namjoon had a serious girlfriend. Since their breakup, he hasn’t been with anyone else. It’s good that he’s single but you’ve still only talked to him here and there. A few shy glances, a few awkward touches. Nothing more, but lord do you want more, alot more. What if a girl more daring gets him first?  Do you really need angst in your life? NO! but you are still at a loss of what to do. You had one boyfriend so far, and it was one of your worst experiences.

The guy was a total creep. And the worst part? You asked him out. All your friends had relationships and he was someone who rode the bus with you, making you laugh here and there. So, being the usual teenager, you thought it’d be a good idea to date him, like a fool. Who knew he wasn’t just being charming, and making fun of people (trying to be edgy as you now know) was a hobby for him? You did. Right after you overheard him announce the fact that you look like a winged bat when you suck dick just to make his jerk-ass friends laugh. It was so humiliating, as you never did something of the sorts with him, yet his friends would stick out their teeth in a ‘vampire like manner’ whenever they passed you in the hallway, as well as your first heartbreak. You got him back by filling his locker with Limburger cheese, from your mom’s collection of cheeses. His gym clothes smelled for a month, and people called him cheeseboi for the rest of the year.

You shed your blind innocence that day and knew that men are trash. Namjoon isn’t like that though, and you’re surer of that than anything. He’s special for you and you want to be the special one for him. Sadly, you just didn’t know how to start a conversation with Namjoon, without looking like you jumped in boiling water. I mean you had hook-ups in college. Who doesn’t play around here and there? But fuck-this is definitely the first time you actually like someone. Like really like them, so you just clam up and don’t know what to do. That’s where you are today.

You bounce from your bed, heading towards the bathroom. “I’m late again,” you mumble.

Sana hears that (at this point she could have better hearing than dogs)

“Hunkjoon, huh?”

“That’s not his name Sasha”

“Listen, why do you even spend your time trying to get with him in that boring café?” Sana shouts, hopping off her bed she makes her way to the bathroom and throws her hands around you who’s brushing her teeth. “You should ask him out, maybe to a club. A little booty popping, ear sucking, mouth licking, and he’s yours”

“Please don’t ever use any of those words in that way ever again.”

“I’m serious!” Exasperated she throws her hands in the air before resting them on each of your shoulders together and squeezes you. “You just need a change of scenery, that place is no hook-up central for us modern kids. Just one party, and he’ll be all over you.” You tug her off your back and narrow your eyes-looking at her through the mirror; you continue to brush your teeth. She knows you want something far from a hookup with Namjoon, yet she-

“And then,” she smirks, “maybe your mouth would be full of his cum-not toothpaste”

You choke.

“Sana what the fuck,” you rage running after the laughing vixen with your toothbrush as a makeshift knife

“Don’t act like it’s not what you want!” She cackles as you tackle her onto the bed ready to stab her eyes out when your phone rings. Oh shit. You know exactly who that is. Picking it up, you run to the bathroom, spitting out your toothpaste

“H-h-hello?”

“Where. in. Jesus’s. name. are. you?!”

“O-oh, coming Linda, I’m in traffic” Sana proceeds to imitate a car beep sound at that-“and I’ll be there in 5 minutes!”

“If you aren’t, I’ll personally serve your head as our main dish this afternoon!” She screeches before hanging up

“Shit,” you catch your breath, “I gotta go,” scrambling around, you find something appropriate to wear in late April weather. You brush your hair in a hurry and throw on a high ponytail. Sana just watches you the whole time, staring at you up on her elbows from her bed looking deep in thought. Grabbing one of Sana’s car keys and your purse, you rush out the door with a quick bye to Sana. She doesn’t reply back but after you are out the door she flings back onto her bed, arms expanded.

“I’ll ask Hobi,” she says to herself

_

Parking in the small lot behind the café, you run inside the back door. You gather yourself, fixing your hair and your fast heartbeat, you wrap on an apron and head to the front.

Linda spots you right away.

“You’re late,” she grits

“Yeah, traffic sucks,” you grin awkwardly, praying she’ll believe you.

“Just get to work, the pound cakes are almost ready to take out,” she points toward the oven. You nod, heading into the vicinity of the oven in the back next to the stove.

“Hey Linda,” someone shouts making you turn, “the person at table 3 wants some sourdough starter”

Linda acknowledges, moving into the back storage where the starters where kept.

You spot a girl. A new girl. A very very pretty girl, with long light brown hair up to her waist, and a delicate body. She meets your eyes and smiles and you return the gesture before looking away like you didn’t momentarily become gay looking at her soft features.

It’s good to have her around, you conclude. Usually you worked the morning shift with Linda 3 times a week, taking afternoon classes during those days. (coincidently when Namjoon comes by) You know there’s a girl who works the afternoon shift, but you never really ran into her. And since you do come late 1 out of 3 times, Linda ends up doing most of the work herself, including making all the café’s delicacies. You’re so very thankful to Linda and her uncle for not firing you, and very glad that Linda has some actual help now.

You’re pulled from your thoughts when the oven timer dings and the door chimes open.

The new girl greets the customer cheerily while you concentrate on taking an enticing whiff of the vanilla pound cakes, about to pull open the oven’s door when you stop dead in your tracks. You’d recognize that deep voice anywhere.

Turning your head so fast, you feel your neck burn from whiplash you spot your Namjoon finishing his order to your co-worker. He meets your eyes for a moment, and god you’re sure you look like a fish.

“Would you like anything else? We have really good chocolate chip cookies,” pipes the newcomer

“I know, they’re delicious,” he catches your eyes again, “but no thank you, not this time”

“Aww, well I love them a bit too much. Even though I’m new I’ve had quite a few,” she starts ringing up his order

“I thought I haven’t seen you around here”

“Moved in recently and kinda have trouble unpacking…I need a stronger body ya’know”

“Is that so,” Namjoon quirks a brow and you feel like you’ll throw up. Why is Namjoon late? Catch 22 didn’t seem like his style of book? Why the fuck is she giggling so much? Who let her steal all your cookies? And why is his hair so much messier than usual? He looks so cute omg?... What’s that burning smell?

…Shit

You gawk at the oven in horror as Linda shouts your name from a mile away.

_

Sana’s scrolling through her phone on her tummy when you bonk her head with your purse

“Ow, what the fuck-”

“When’s the next frat fiasco? I need to relive some stress”

She smiles, “I knew you’d come around, and that’s why I went ahead and asked Hobi to bring Hunkjoon tonight.”

You beam at the mention, “Sana you angel!” Then immediately scowl, “Wait at a seokbitch party? Just fucking great”

“Don’t be so sour,” Sana sighs, sitting up, “Namjoon doesn’t go to many parties anyway so his best friend was the only solid way to bring him.”

Giving it a thought, you beam again, jumping on Sana

“Sana you angel!”

“Whatever’s up with your hair by the way, looks like you’ve been pulling on it.”

“Don’t ask…long day.”

_

Arriving at the party, you grimace at the smoke of marijuana blanketing you as soon as you enter.

“Alright, Hobi should be around here somewhere,” Sana looks around,” standing on the tippy toes of her heels, trying to look past the frisky bodies, but it’s of no use with the amount of people in the room.

The room was packed with tipsy children. There was barely any elbow space even though the frat house was huge as you and Sana squeezed through hot, sweaty dancing bodies. Some unbalanced drunkards clumsily pushing into you every now and then and you wondered how anyone came to these things. It’s hot, and everyone smelled of axe and sweat. Parties would be much better with just a modest group of people you know, or maybe that’s the small-town girl in you speaking.

No! You cringed internally. You must forget about your outdated methods and passive behavior. Tonight, you will become someone completely new. Someone who takes action.

“Oh there!” Sana shouts over the music, waving furiously to someone by the stairs

Soon after you hear the jubilant voice of Jung Hoseok as he comes into view to greet Sana with a hug, and after being temporarily blinded by his smile you give him a once over or call that twice, because fuck He looked good in a simple white tee, tight blue jeans, dark brown Timberlands and his hair pushed up with what seemed like some gel and messy fingers (think back to Gayo Daejejeon 2018 mic drop)

“This is the girl I was telling you about,” Sana points at you

Hoseok joins in on your shameless gawking and grins

Embodying you was a baby pink thin strapped mini dress, and when you say mini, you mean your black Chantelle Présage lace thong is showing mini, but you’re a woman on a mission, and you didn’t care if you were naked at this point. Your hair was thoroughly straightened, and you went for a glossy cherry makeup look, courtesy of Sana. You weren’t trying to look like a cherry muffin, buuuut you didn’t mind if that’s what people thought, specifically one person.

“It’s nice to meet you,” he extends his hand, eyes duskier than a moment ago

You should wear shades in front of him or you’re sure you’ll go blind.

You shake his hand and give him one of your most forced friendly smiles, trying not to make much conversation as you just wanted one thing. Though that shiver upon your spine at his grip tells you otherwise.

Hoseok motions for you both to follow him and you pick his trail

Sana elbows you

“We talked about this! You’re supposed to be acting like a lamb, ready to be jumped on at any time, not a fox,” she whispers at your obvious display of wanting nothing to do with the Hyena

“I’m being nice! I am! This is how I’m nice!”

Sana rolls her eyes, and you sulk. It’s not your fault she is a master seductress, and you just don’t know how to be kind to the guy who’s trying to undress you with his eyes when he knows you’re here for his friend. She told you two things about seducing men, act completely incompetent and laugh at all their lame jokes. The more you feed a guy’s concocted ego, the more you feed his desire for you. And well, a way to the man’s heart is through feeding him…or something right?

But all your thoughts disappear into nothing once you lay eyes upon the man you’ve been wanting for almost a year.

Kim Namjoon, holy fuck.

Never has a loose black tee and oversized maroon velvet bomber’s jacket looked that good on anyone before. He commands your undivided attention with that low-neck line and gelled up hair. Healthy, glowing skin spread out like a canvas. His jeans ripped in all the beautiful places around the man’s thick, strong thighs, and black derby’s? Classic, yet defiant as always. He was fucking beautiful and you were awestruck. Hoseok says something to the group of 3 guys standing by the back sofa, including Namjoon, most likely about you, but you don’t hear anything once Namjoon locks eyes with you. There’s evident surprise in his eyes, which dims into concentration at the dress you’re wearing.

“So Namjoon,” Hoseok interrupts your thoughts, “I heard you both’ve met before?”

Namjoon doesn’t break away from you for a moment, smiling slightly “we’ve met, it’s nice to see you here”

He was being strangely vague. “You too,” you mutter

You could physically feel Sana scoff at the virginity act.

“Alright, I can use a drink-Ali, Jason, Sana let’s go get them”, Hoseok works fast to evade the intrusive attention on the both of you

“Why do you need 3 people to help you with drinks”, says a confused Jason

Flustered at the man’s impaired ability to read between the lines Hoseok scrambles for another excuse, “um…uh, I don’t know what you want? And uh there’s a lot of people, so uh”

Jason stubborn as ever quirks, “well I can just tell you what I wan-”

“JASON! ALI!” Sana shouts and everyone, aside from Namjoon, who won’t turn away from you, glances at her, “be a darling and pour my drink for me,” she uses her sultry voice, throws a sly smile, and they all get led away by her, even Hoseok, looking hypnotized

Watching them walk away you let out a sigh. This is it. This is your moment. You really should’ve had a shot before this. Drunk you wouldn’t clam up and clench her buttocks that sober you is doing for some reason. Clearing your throat, you start blurting out the first forms of conversation that settles in your mind.

“Nice to see you here, finally away from the café-not that I don’t like seeing you there…I mean I do, but this is nice too hehe”

You mentally slap yourself for the worst beginning. When have you ever been this quiet? Sana couldn’t get you or your alarm to shut up most of the time and this is the moment you choose to get awkward? Maybe this is it. He’ll just walk away now and you can wallow in self-pity.

“It’s great to see you too, out of that café…not that I don’t like it as well” he smiles

Your whole form relaxes, and you feel the knot of pressure in your back coming undone. You know you’re overthinking, know that your mind is self-sabotaging you, so it can get out of this hellhole back into its safe space between your bedsheets. So, you take a breath and focus on his eyes, trying to bring back the confidence of an 80’s café waitress. “You got yelled at pretty hard this morning, were you ok?” He asks

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I kinda deserved it and Linda’s the biggest sweetheart, she would never actually hurt me.” Minus where she almost tore your hair out in the backroom

“…speaking of which, why were you late this morning?” You slapped yourself again

He gave you a look. Shit. “You track me?” he grins

“No-no, nonono…n-yes. I track all my customers”, you smile awkwardly, “they keep me on my toes ya’ know the little bastards” If only you could forever tape your mouth

It was a bad joke but he lets out a chuckle where his eyes turn into little crescents and his dimples poke through his skin

“Well, I missed my alarm this morning, so I was too late to arrive on time…but I still wanted to come…”

“…Why?”

“I just,” he stares at you, “did”

“I see. It’s our tea isn’t it.”

Both of you share a laugh

“You look beautiful by the way”

“This little thing?” you twirl your hips, “just found this in the back of my closet”

The brag was true because you never fucking dressed up for anything, yet always shop like you do.

When you look at him again, you see his eyes dark at the move you just did, which you’re sure exposed your ass

Gathering courage, you start walking toward and up the stairs not giving Namjoon another glance. You could feel his bewilderment through your exposed back, as he follows you like a lost puppy. You hide a smile. Heading into an open room, you find its balcony. Outside, the spring wind picks up your hair and you take in a deep breath, letting go of all your nerves that tense up once you feel the balcony door open and close and the presence of another person in the little island.

“Are you alright?” You feel his breath on you, and you barricade a shudder

“I’m fine…I just couldn’t breathe in there with all the weed,” you turn and smile at him.

“I hate it too,” He smiles back

There’s a moment before you both break eye contact and he’s stepping up beside you

Looking out from the balcony, you pander in the serenity of the dark night and silent winds. The music is still mutely conscious in both your eardrums, as well as the laughter of kids who came here to forget tomorrow. There’s always a calmness you feel with him, no matter the weather or locality. The tips of your arms are touching and the barring heat your entire left side simmers in provides you with the translation of your need to be closer with him.

“I’m sorry I’m not good at small talk”

You turn your face to him as he takes a breath before speaking again

“I’m very awkward, sorry about that”

“You aren’t the one who’s awkward, you raise a brow, I’ve been making bad jokes all night. And well, who’s good at things like small talk?”

He smiles at you, “Your jokes aren’t bad,” he says bringing his face closer to yours, “and I love hearing you talk”

“Thank you” There’s another silence before you ask, “started a new book recently?’

“I did!” He quirks, “‘Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, it’s disturbing yet addictive. Like an Edgar Allen type you know. The increasing dread creates a form of suspense, which feels like a drug. Even though you can tell the ending won’t be good, you carry on led by a strange empathy as if you’ve become the character and it-“

Namjoon stops suddenly and stares at you smiling. “Um…sorry I got carried away, I’m probably boring you”

“Nuh-uh” you stop him immediately, “You aren’t boring at all. I love hearing you talk”

There’s a radiant blush on his cheek as red as your cherry lips, and you just want to devour him. “When I,” he begins looking away, “When I come to the café, you always seem so interested in what I’m reading. Most people don’t really care about that from me. They care that I ride bikes or about my popular friends. Not that I mind. I’m fine keeping them on a surface level. But,” He looks at you, “I want to know you better.”

“Me too” you blurt out very quickly

Your faces are so adjacent you can smell his soft mint toothpaste from his steady breathing. He’s staring at your glossy lips, your whole form is covered with his warmth, fluttering your senses leisurely

“Want a taste,” you whisper just for him to hear

“I bet it’s as delicious as it looks,” he lets out a heavy breath

“Well lucky you cause tonight I’m serving them specially for you”

You close the distance between your mouths and take in his plump lips. It wasn’t rushed, yet it wasn’t slow. It felt like the most perfect kind of kiss in the silent spring, the one that’s described in timeless romance novels. The one that you tell your children to look for, if they’re fortunate enough in their youth. That they’ll know it’s from the one.

He brings his hand upon your cheek and rubs it tenderly with his thumb. You both move back and stare in each other’s eyes.

“Well…was it delicious?”

“Better than cherry muffins,” he licks his lips to taste your cherry gloss on them

You crinkle your eyes to cringe and giggle

“You’re so cute,” he says and he’s kissing you again

This time he slips his tongue in your mouth and you hum in content, grabbing at the back of his blonde hair. Your tongues dance wildly, and Namjoon reaches for every nook and cranny of your wet cavern. Immoral sounds are escaping you both as your closed eyes burn in delight. Putting your legs on each side of his torso, he hurriedly picks you up from under your thighs and easily carries you inside the room, towards the bed.

You both break off as soon as he lands your bodies on the spring. His body still contains the heat from your thighs, and he’s pressed so close to you, you can feel your nipples against his rock-hard chest as well as the tent in his jeans. Breathing heavily, you stare in his starry eyes, filled with so much lust it feels like they’re dripping.

With a shaky breath you try to melt his lips onto yours again, just for him to shift back.

“Do you want this?” He asks, determined to move off if you refuse him

That would be a sin. “Yes.” You speak clearly, “I always wanted you, since I first saw you, Namjoon.”

“Fuck,” he whispers, before he’s on you again like the kindest, warmest deity he is.

He’s back into exploring your mouth as your hands find their home roaming his broad back. As he moves his hips up and down your wet entrance, a heat shoots up through your spine. His hands are kneading your ass, and everything is moving in slow motion for what feels like forever. Breaking off your mouth, he moves his kisses along your neck down to your cleavage, sucking hickeys on sensitive areas you moaned around. Growling at the invasive flimsy fabric surrounding your chest, he begins to tear it apart. His hands pulled down your transparent bra. You gasp at the intrusion of air surrounding your upper body.

“Mmm, fuck yes baby,” you could feel yourself soaking his cloth covered crotch as you fuck yourself upon his restricted dick.

Namjoon smirks reaching towards your back to take off your bra, letting his warm fingers tickle your skin as you lift your back to help him remove it and discard it to the side. Namjoon takes you in, caressing your face and you feel like he’s going to compliment you before he’s spitting words in your ear

“You little slut, you came here just to be fucked didn’t you”

Flustered you splutter, “Yes, ah please”

“That’s yes daddy for you baby,” he uses his large fingers to take hair off your face and removes his jacket and shirt

“Yes daddy, please,” you eye his tan muscles and broad chest. He noses your jaw and takes his mouth around your areola. You immediately run a hand through his golden locks, your mouth hangs open as he flicks your nipple with his tongue. Around his arms was sunken skin, in the form of muscles and you run your hands through every cervix.

Your breathing is labored

He moves back, moving your thong slightly to the right as he dips two fingers into you,

“Drenched and shameless muffin,” he mutters scissoring your entrance slightly, staring at you darkly

You are sprawled out for him like an unwrapped muffin. One leg hangs off the bed, while the other is desperately wrapped around his torso as if you’re scared he’ll leave. Your breasts are exposed and wet with saliva, and you’ve just handed him your cunt for the taking. You’re high off his soft sandalwood scent, as he takes your chest in his large hand, rolling your nipple in his thumb and index finger, pulling it slightly. His fingers are wet from your juices and you’re embarrassed you’re this wet. Vulnerable, you shut your eyes and look away before he grabs your cheeks with his hand and brings your face back towards him, hitting a certain spot that has you arching your back and knitting your brows.

“Don’t close your eyes baby girl, I need your focus completely on me”

“Then no more teasing,” you pout

Namjoon chuckles as he brings his fingers dripping with your silk into his mouth; looking straight into your soul he licks around his fingers in the lewdest way possible. “Sweeter than cherries” he mutters, slowly unraveling your wrapped leg and caresses the inside of your wet thigh, never letting go as if reassuring you that he’s right here. Languidly, he noses down your navel and further below until he’s lined with your aching core

“Daddy” you whimper

Giving you kitten licks around your folds, he licks a long strip before placing his tongue slightly inside your walls and suckles your juices. Your legs were on each side of his head, and you pulled at his hair out of frustration. The higher your voice went, the more he licked, bringing his tongue around your bundle of nerves and gently rolling the nub around. His hands traveled from your thighs to your waist, and slowly towards your breasts and kneaded. He flattened his tongue against your folds again, to take a finer taste of you, as he hummed knowing you were close. He took his right hand off your chest and used it to slide two fingers into your inner depths.

His mouth then went back to your clit, slowly rolling it around his tongue in a circular motion as his fingers drilled into you faster and faster. You let out a string of curses as your thighs began to shake, and the knot in your stomach becoming undone. You came with a yelp as your eyes began to see stars and vision whitened.

All your sudden adrenaline left you and your limbs limped onto the bed, fingers no longer in Namjoon’s hair. Letting out heavy breaths you saw Namjoon slowly coming out of your legs to face you. His thick lips were wet with your juices, and he licked through them and smiled.

“You’re so beautiful baby girl,” he said before kissing you again. Your tongues danced through your exhaustion, and you moved your hand towards his hard on. You felt him hiss into your mouth as you slowly rubbed him through his jeans. Backing off his mouth you smiled, it’s your turn daddy, and undid his zipper. You felt his hard dick in your hand, blessed in length. Spreading precum around his shaft, you watched him twist his expression. He reached into his back pocket and took out a condom, tearing off the wrapper with his teeth and handing it to you.

You gave him a smile as you rolled the condom onto his length and lined it with your entrance-giving him a hand job as he gradually moved into you. Once he was fully sheathed, he took a moment, before pulling out a slamming into you again

You let out a gasp at his pace, still a bit sensitive from your last orgasm. He was relentless and pounded into you over and over again, as the whole bed shook at his force.

“F-fuck dadd-y ooh” you cried as the same knot appeared inside your stomach. You grabbed his hand on the side of your head and brought it up to your face to give it a kiss. Light headed from the force of his thrusts, you could still feel him looking at you as you brought his hand upon your neck and laid it out flat

He cursed at your submission, and lightly put pressure on your neck “You’re such a good girl, daddy’s good girl, good girl fuck,” his paced faltered and you could feel your orgasm approaching with the pressure around your neck. With his other hand he stimulated your clitoris and that’s all it took to have you cuming once again.

Your mind travels back to how much you’ve wanted this-wanted him. His strong arms are no longer hidden under his bulky jacket, his fingers no longer clean with traces of paper fiber, but with your juices. How the hands you’ve wanted for so long around your neck, the eyes you waited to be filled with just you, the moans you suffered to hear from his luscious lips. It’s all happening. It’s all yours and no amount of overthinking will take this away.

With a few more thrusts he reached his own peak with a grunt, flopping down on you shortly afterward. You could feel his heavy, hot breathing on your neck and you wrapped your hands around him. You take a few more huffs before talking to him.

“I really like you” you whisper

“So I’ve heard,” he chuckles moving off you, he picks you up to move you upright in the bed with your head on the pillow and your arms still around him. He lays down next to you. “I’m not going anywhere baby. I really like you too. You didn’t really think I came for the tea did you”

Your heart soars and you meet his dimpled smile, He looks so youthful with his after sex glow, “Hey I make that tea with a lot of love and care!”

“Right, I’m sorry,” he laughs

“I didn’t know you liked me, your head is always in your books”

“Well originally, I came to chill and read. Until I found the cutest waitress that makes amazing tea-“

“-Shut up,” you jab him with a giggle

“-and I didn’t want to seem creepy, so I just payed attention to my books. But I did try to talk to you. I would stand as still as a tree next to the registrar trying to think of something to say. You tended to look intimidated of me, so I always froze up and just sat down. I asked my friends how to talk to you, and they kept giving me strange advice. I don’t think they know how to get a girl without sexual innuendos. They didn’t know how you looked, just knew you as café girl. If Hoseok found out you were café girl tonight, he’d probably try and do something stupid”

You took in the information he gave you and put the puzzle pieces together. You both were huge overthinking dorks. “I was only intimidated in the beginning,” you begin, “even if I was I still found you hot and probably would’ve jumped on your dick had you asked”

He suppresses some coughs while turning red

Smirking you lead him on, “Oh, so you’re shy now but wanted me to call you daddy just a few minutes ago”

“T-that’s” he begins, and you laugh out loud thinking this is definitely your Namjoon

“What about your choking kink? That was cute and unexpected” he gives you a sly grin

“Wait, shut u-that’s not…it’s your fault with those leather gloves, and leather jackets”

You poke his dimple out of mock anger and he tickles you. The rest of the time is spent by talking out your feelings, your dreams, favorite books, and desserts until you both fall asleep in each other’s arms.

_

You wake up by what you believe is your alarm. Opening your groggy eyes, you look up towards the ceiling of a room that wasn’t yours. After a minute more in conscious you realize it’s not your alarm ringing, but a pounding residing from the closed door of the stranger’s room.

“Can you guys please give me my room back now,” shouts a frustrated Hoseok

That’s when you remember the nights events and look at a sleepy Namjoon next to you. After checking the time of 7:41 shining through the digital clock on the nightstand next to what you now know as Hoseok’s bed, you smile and cuddle up to the warm body.

“Go away Hoseok,” Namjoon groans, “My baby’s trying to sleep.”

Both of you ignore Hoseok’s whines of protest as you whisper to Namjoon

“It’s fine, I’m glad he’s here so I can get to work on time for once. My alarm never wakes me up”

“Babe don’t worry, from now on I’ll be your personal alarm. As long as you can be my cherry muffin”

“I’ll do you one better and make one for you at the café”

“Those cherry muffins taste good,” he looks at you, “but you taste better,” and winks

You giggle until you hear the disturbed voice of Jung Hoseok behind the door,

“You guys are disgusting and have no idea how to whisper”

...

“GET OUT OF MY ROOM”

[admiralty-xfd]

the whole truth

Mulder experiences his fever dream. Scully confronts Diana. Diana's final act of rebellion. 

This is chapter 16, to go back to the beginning click here.

Chapter 16: The Fall

The child is father to the man.

This phrase bounced around in his head like a mantra, some kind of code he needed to crack. A piece of Fox Mulder’s ultimate puzzle.

The boy was six, maybe seven. Mulder watched him build a sandcastle on the beach like he had so many times in his dreams; even before his hospitalization. Night after night the boy came to him, as if he wanted to tell Mulder something, and night after night he got no answer.

A dream is an answer to a question we haven’t yet figured out how to ask.

Mulder hadn’t actively sought parenthood in his lifetime. He was never sure why, so he chalked it up to a bad childhood, bad parenting. He didn’t hate his parents but they’d left much to be desired and he worried he’d be the same for his own kids.

Perhaps it was maturity, perhaps it was experience. Perhaps it was coming into contact with the only woman with whom having children felt right. But when Scully had asked him the question he’d never really entertained before, regardless of his apparent reservations, the answer had come to him faster than the speed of light.

The answer is yes.

She’d been so happy, maybe the happiest he’d ever seen her. It wasn’t until that moment that it had truly hit him how much she actually wanted to be a mother; how everything the two of them had been through over the past seven years had robbed her of that opportunity.

He’d thought, even then, maybe now is the time… maybe now could be the right time for me to tell her how I feel, to tell her how much I love her.

But still, he hesitated. Their timing, yet again, was atrocious. How could he have convinced her he wasn’t simply telling her what he thought she wanted to hear?

It hadn’t been the right time, not yet. It never seemed to be the right time.

Besides, none of that changed the fact that, in the end, he really was just a coward.

When the in vitro failed, both of their hearts had been broken. At first he believed it had affected Scully far worse than him, but as the days turned into weeks the dreams began, and the boy arrived. It made him realize he’d wanted that child more than he’d ever allowed himself to hope for. And he’d wanted it with Scully.

He’d been lying in his hospital bed, fading in and out of consciousness, not really certain what was real and what was fake. He thought about Diana and her betrayal. He thought about how he was probably going to die, and how much he wanted Scully to see him, how much he desired her forgiveness. How much he wanted her to see what he’d become, to believe it. He was desperate to show her once and for all that extraterrestrial life was real, and that he was living proof of it.

He remembered asking for Michael Kritschgau, knowing he was the only one who would be capable of exposing the truth, come hell or high water. If Mulder was going to die to prove this, so be it; he wouldn’t put Scully through that. It had to be Kritschgau.

Diana had put a stop to Kritschgau’s interference, however, and quite frankly, he didn’t understand what she was up to anymore. She’d seemed to genuinely want to save his life, to stop the phenytoin injections. But he’d never forget that it was most likely she who’d turned him over to C.G.B. Spender in the first place.

He sensed now that the cigarette smoking bastard was injecting him with something else; something that was not simply phenytoin. The voices disappeared, the pain disappeared, and he was suddenly in a car, sitting shotgun to his worst enemy.

His father: an unwelcome new truth.

I’m dying, you idiot. If I could get up I’d kick your ass.

He was aware that he must be experiencing some kind of hallucination, that none of this could actually be happening, and yet it felt absolutely real. He could hear the rain on the windshield, the sound of the wiper blades; could smell Spender’s cigarette as he lit another for Mulder.

“I don’t smoke,” Mulder objected, and immediately thought of all the times he used to. Times of weakness, insecurity and confusion.

“Maybe now you do,” Spender suggested.

Although such occasions were few and far between, Mulder found himself believing the man.

***

They pull up to the curb, and Spender turns off the car. “This is your new life,” he says.

Mulder watches him go, off to god knows where, and looks out the car window. He thinks of Scully a few months ago, in one of their familiar rental cars, driving, driving.

“Don’t you ever want to stop? Get out of the damn car, live something approaching a normal life?”

He considers that thing he sometimes considers when he has doubts: that just giving up could make everything so easy. It would be the easy choice, the safe choice. The simple choice. Like that night he gave up on Scully and allowed Diana into his bed.

But it had been neither safe nor simple and it feels as wrong now as it did then. Nothing seems to matter when Scully isn’t with him.

“I don’t want to be left behind, Mulder,” she’d told him at the train yard. “I don’t deserve that from you, after all we’ve been through together.”

He wants to listen. But Scully isn’t here.

Does he get out of the car? Here and now, without her?

He wonders what Scully would do, if it she were here instead of him in front of this suburban house, in this unfamiliar neighborhood. He wonders if there’s a dog in the backyard, or maybe kids.

He makes a decision; or, at least, his dream makes it for him. Scully would weigh all the evidence. She would see what there was to see. She would “have a look around.”

The house isn’t his taste; it’s The Falls at Arcadia, it’s his mother’s house; some amalgamation of domesticity he’s probably suppressed. It’s not terrible, however; someone has thoughtfully filled the fridge with enough sunflower seeds to last him a month, if he stays here a month.

He is a man of habit, after all.

When Deep Throat arrives, Mulder is more confused than ever. Some of this is fantasy, some memory. Both intermingle together in a dreamlike world that feels real and yet somehow not quite right. He doesn’t know what to believe; he doesn’t know where any of it is coming from.

And Scully still isn’t here.

Now he’s lying in a bed again, handcuffed. Just as in his real life: locked down, unable to free himself from his nightmare. Diana is here now, wanting him, and he’s reminded of what happened last time; the last time he gave in to this. But he has no control over his subconscious, which seems to be wanting to show him something, to communicate something.

He lets her in, again, if only in his fantasy.

Then something is different. He sees the boy on the beach once more, and something is terribly wrong. Something bad has happened. The sandcastle is damaged and the boy is crying.

“That’s okay, you can build it again,” Mulder says, consoling him. “Just start again.” He reaches out to wipe the tears from the boy’s streaming eyes and feels a tightening in his gut.

Vignettes of an ordinary life shutter along like slides in a projector; another case to solve, another hypothesis. He’s given back Samantha, as if she were never taken from him at all. He’s married to Diana again. They have children together. An entire life, flashing in front of him: a life he’d forsaken, but it’s not his life.

It’s not Fox Mulder’s life.

He looks in the mirror and sees gray hair. He’s aging, time is passing. Diana has passed away.

His lips curve down into a frown and he can tell there is wetness in his eyes. But he feels nothing. Her death is as empty and meaningless as this life.

And then he is an old man, something he’s never really pictured much. Maybe he’s always assumed he’d be dead long before it happened.

The boy is here again, and he’s standing atop an enormous sandcastle in the shape of a UFO. It’s strange: whenever Mulder is standing on this beach he is at peace. Just him, and the child, and his mission.

Suddenly the boy kicks the mound, chunks of sand chipping away from the UFO. Mulder is crushed.

“What are you doing?” Mulder cries. “Why are you destroying your spaceship?”

“It’s your spaceship,” the boy accuses. “You’re destroying it.”

The boy reminds him of himself as a child: determination with a dash of indignation. He throws a handful of sand at Mulder in frustration. “You were supposed to help me.”

He was supposed to help. Instead, he’d abandoned everything he’d known.

He’d abandoned Scully.

“Don’t you ever want to stop? Get out of the damn car, live something approaching a normal life?”

He knows the truth. In a way, he’s always known it. The life of Fox Mulder, no matter how ordinary, would always - and only - be extraordinary with Dana Scully in it.

***

The book had mysteriously appeared, as if from nowhere.

Well, not nowhere, exactly… the interdepartmental correspondence stamp on the envelope indicated that Scully had a friend somewhere in the FBI.

Native American Beliefs and Practices. A foretelling of mass extinction. A myth about a man who can save us from it.

That's why they took Mulder.

Her words to Skinner echoed in her head over and over, and the more they did, the more certain she was that she was right. It didn’t make much sense to her- X-Files rarely did- but she knew in her gut it must be the truth.

She and Mulder had uncovered countless bits of information over the years; an enormous pile of jigsaw puzzle pieces that had amassed and needed only to be assembled. She didn’t know how to assemble this picture, however. She could see the edges, the curves and indentations, and how they were supposed to fit together, but she had no idea what the final picture was.

Maybe only Mulder did.

She suddenly thought of Gibson Praise and of the shame she'd felt for letting him out of her sight for even a moment. It was her responsibility to watch over Mulder. She should have stayed with him every minute, and now, wherever he was, he was in even more danger.

Was it possible he was, in fact, some kind of savior? Was there indeed some world-ending plague headed their way, someday, that he could stop? It seemed fitting, somehow.

As she scoured the pages of the book, she saw handwritten notes in the margins, as if someone, presumably the person who’d sent her this book in the first place, had been wondering the same thing. And from the sheer amount of notes, scribbled and scrawled in the margins at varying angles and in various hues, they’d been wondering it for some time.

Nowhere in the book was Mulder mentioned by name, even in the notes. She deduced that whoever had taken him must have learned of his alleged importance rather recently. This realization had perhaps come on as suddenly as his illness.

Kritschgau? It was her second guess after Skinner, but she figured it couldn’t be him due to the FBI return stamp. The only other person at the Bureau she could imagine being involved was Diana Fowley, and surely it couldn’t be her.

Scully didn’t know what she believed anymore, about coming plagues and alien/human hybrids. She’d seen enough to know any of it was possible, and as much as her brain fought against all of it, the one thing her heart kept telling her was that she needed an open mind to save Mulder.

There was a place inside her, however: the deepest of dark places, that wondered if perhaps Mulder was willing to die for this, for his quest. To prove to the world what he was, and, if necessary, to do whatever he had to do to save it.

It wasn’t the first time she’d wondered this.

How far would Mulder go?

She wondered, and wondered. How far would he go? And then another question presented itself to her.

How far would she go?

***

Scully spotted Agent Fowley in the hallway of the Hoover Building, the foul stench of Morleys as pervasive as the other woman’s treachery. She’d honesty hoped never to cross paths with the woman again, but here they were.

“Bum a cigarette, Agent Fowley?” Scully asked shortly. I’m onto you.

“I don’t smoke,” Fowley replied without facing her.

“Funny. I could have sworn I smelled cigarette smoke on you.”

Fowley whipped around. “Let’s cut the crap, shall we?”

“Yes. Let’s,” Scully agreed. She moved aside a couple of steps, shifting them out of the center of the hallway.

Fowley’s eyes flashed. “What is it you want from me, Agent Scully?”

“I don’t want anything from you. It’s Mulder who needs your help.”

Fowley looked perturbed. “And what makes you think I can help him?”

“That book you sent me,” Scully said. It was a shot in the dark, but Scully had nothing to lose, and indeed she saw it: a moment of recognition in Fowley’s eyes, ever so slight, that made Scully certain she was right. Seven years as an investigator had honed her abilities well.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay,” Scully nodded dubiously, even though it wasn’t okay, it wasn’t at all. “But let’s just say, hypothetically, you did send me a book that explained why Mulder is in danger. Let’s just say, hypothetically,” Fowley’s face was slowly draining of color, “that you knew where he was… wouldn’t you want to do whatever you could to help him?”

From the look on her face, the woman was putting on a front, Scully knew it. She wasn’t sure how much Fowley knew, but she knew something. Her lips formed into a thin line, but she said nothing.

“I just want you to know that this, right now, is the one thing you and I can agree on,” Scully continued. “What’s inside Mulder? What he’s become?” -she could hardly believe she was admitting this- “If any of this is true, I don’t understand why you of all people won’t help me save his life. As a former agent on the X Files, at the very least.”

Fowley crossed her arms. “I don’t know how to save his life, Agent Scully, and I certainly don’t think you and I could ever agree on anything.”

“Is that so?” Scully challenged. “Even on wanting him alive? We can’t agree on that, Agent Fowley?”

The taller woman sighed. “Even if what you’re saying is true, I know you don’t believe in any of that stuff anyway. So I’m not sure what you want me to do about it.”

Scully didn’t know how to respond to that. She didn’t know how much Mulder had told Fowley about her.

“Is... that what Mulder told you? That I don’t believe in any of this stuff?”

Fowley scoffed and shook her head. “No,” she answered, and Scully wasn’t sure if she was lying, but in any event, she respected her discretion. “Just my own opinion. But I don’t think Agent Mulder would disagree, for the record.”

Scully let this in, determining its accuracy. And she couldn’t help but wonder: was her inability to believe in the things he believed in really what was holding her back from him? Was that what was holding them both back from each other; from something more? From the truth?

It seemed whenever she was around this woman her confidence that Mulder indeed needed her eroded like an infection, but today she wasn’t interested in letting that happen.

You made me a whole person.

I need you on this, Scully.

I need you.

Fowley’s words were the only disease; not what she and Mulder had.

Scully shook her head. “Whatever Agent Mulder thinks about my beliefs is none of your business,” Scully said as sternly as she could. “This isn’t about that, anyway,” she lied, “it’s about finding him alive.”

It was a lie because loving Mulder wasn’t something she could separate from needing him alive anymore.

“Of course it is,” Fowley said with disdain, somehow knowing her thoughts.

“Just because I don’t think the same way you do, or the same way he does, it doesn’t mean I don’t care about him," Scully insisted. "And it certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help me.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Fowley sighed. The elevator dinged and she made to step in, but in that moment Scully made a decision: that she was not going to let this woman have the upper hand over her anywhere near an elevator ever again.

Or anywhere else for that matter.

Dana Scully was completely, utterly, one hundred percent done with Diana Fowley.

“Look, I’ve had enough of this posturing, Agent Fowley. I get that you have a job to do for that cigarette smoking son of a bitch, whatever scruples you may have relinquished to do it. I know you don’t like me very much, and maybe we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.” Scully looked at her, hard. “But I’m appealing to the person who must exist underneath all that cleavage and ambition.”

The hall suddenly grew quiet as agents stopped their conversations and turned to this, by far the most interesting one taking place at the moment. Fowley’s eyes flashed, and Scully knew she’d hit a nerve.

Fowley looked around surreptitiously and stepped closer the the wall. “You think you can see right through me, don’t you, Agent Scully?” she hissed. “That I don’t care about him just as much as you do?”

“If you cared, you’d help me,” Scully argued. “I know you know where they took him. Tell me!”

Fowley’s eyes darted around the corridor again, where Scully knew people were staring. The rumors of their feud were certainly already brewing and probably had been ever since Christmas.

Scully collected herself and moved towards a conference room door, gesturing for Fowley to follow her. The room was mercifully empty. The door clicked behind them and Scully whipped around to ask her one last time.

“Where's Mulder?”

Diana pinned her with a stare and it seemed like the other woman was just as done with her as Scully was in turn. “Maybe before you go around blaming everyone you can find for what's happened to Mulder, you could think about what you could have done to prevent it.”

This was so cruel and unnecessary. Scully already felt terrible for leaving Mulder when she had, for not taking care of him when she should have. For not knowing how ill he’d been.

Scully searched the taller woman’s eyes for a sign, an indication that there was some way to get through to her. The book had been an olive branch, but it was useless without Mulder’s location.

Why wouldn’t she help?

Scully decided to do just what she’d said she would do: appeal to the human part of Diana Fowley that she knew had to exist.

“I just want you to think,” she began. “Think of Mulder when you met him.”

She knew nothing of their life together before she’d shaken his hand in the basement office all those years ago, but it had to have been something good, something of substance, at some point. She may never understand Mulder’s insistence upon defending this woman, but she knew him well enough to know he must have had his reasons.

“Think of the promise and the life in front of him,” she continued.

She couldn’t help but think of Mulder herself when she’d met him: extending his hand, all eagerness and brilliance and guilelessness. How she knew even then her world would never, ever be the same again.

“Think of him now," she thought of her partner, her one in five billion practically comatose and at the mercy of the most devious people she'd ever encountered. "...and then try and stand there in front of me, look me in the eye and tell me Mulder wouldn't bust his ass trying to save you,” she finished.

She knew it was the truth, because that was just Mulder. Mulder was traveling halfway around the world, Mulder was trudging through snow and ice. Mulder was wrapping her freezing naked body in his only coat, breathing life back into her with warm lips.

Mulder was giving everything he had because he never, ever gave up.

Fowley looked at her, steel in her eyes. “I'm thinking, Agent Scully. I'm always thinking.”

Fowley set her jaw and Scully could tell she had more to say, but couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Maybe it was pride, or petty jealousy. Maybe it was simply not wanting to give Scully the satisfaction of winning a point, even if it could help Mulder.

But before Fowley turned to leave, Scully saw in her eyes what she could only identify as a glimmer of fear.

Maybe it was none of those things. Maybe, just maybe, Diana Fowley was in danger, too.

***

Diana stared at rows and rows of brain scans: Fox’s brain scans. It felt almost poetic that they’d arrived here in the end.

She remembered one of their first meetings, in her office, when Fox had approached her for help. How she’d stared at the scan of Luther Lee Boggs’s brain, searching for signs of the God Module, and Fox had come up next to her, so close… and even then she’d known she loved him.

The work had gotten in the way, of course. The damned work. She knew now, with a decade of lies and deceit behind her, how she could never have had them both, not completely.

She’d made her choice years ago and that choice was not him.

“I hope you see the poetry in this, Diana,” a snake-like voice came from the operating table as she made her way over. It was eerie, the way he seemed to read her mind. She closed her eyes, feeling utterly trapped.

“You’re removing genetic material that may kill your son,” she said, upset, more to herself than to him.

“We’re forcing the next step in evolution to save man. We’re doing God’s work, Diana. Without this immunity, everyone would die.”

His words were the truth, but there was something about his eyes that told her he believed otherwise.

“This knowledge is God’s blessing,” he continued, and he reached out to take her hand. “I’ll carry on for Mulder from here.”

A smile crept across his features, slowly, a Grinch-like grin. It was the same smile he’d presented to her months ago as he’d effortlessly disavowed his own dead wife, for the good of the project, and it was at this moment that Diana fully understood. Her own ambition had clouded her thinking to the point where she could no longer see Spender’s. He was not only aware that Fox might die- he was fully prepared to sacrifice his son; as easily and willingly and readily as he had Cassandra.

She’d never fooled herself into believing Spender was some kind of philanthropist, or that he actually cared about anyone but himself; but she had always believed that his selfishness stemmed from a true megalomaniacal desire to save the world in his own name. To take credit; to consider his legacy complete.

He wasn’t doing God’s work. He was God, and that was exactly the way he wanted it.

Now, as he stared up at her with those phony eyes, she knew the truth, the whole truth: he had absolutely no interest in saving the world.

He just wanted to watch it burn.

She felt sick, barely registering doctors moving around her, or the hum of equipment. The relentless blip blip of whatever machine was keeping Fox alive. For the moment.

Suddenly, horribly, Fox’s eyes opened and looked directly at her, and although she knew it couldn’t be possible, although there was no way he was conscious enough to recognize her behind her mask, somehow she knew that he did.

His eyes filled with tears, and her own did as well as the reality of the moment hit her. He was going to die, and although she'd had very little choice in the matter, she had helped facilitate it. She felt her heart constrict like a tight fist was around it, squeezing it, tearing it out of her chest.

The only way out is through.

She thought of the years and years of her life given to Spender, to his cause, and what she’d sacrificed to do so. How the only thing that mattered to him were the ways in which she’d been useful.

The only way out is through.

She thought of Fox, of the promise that had lain before him; exactly how Agent Scully had implored her to. She thought of his potential and how she, Diana, never really understood him the way he’d needed her to. Fox’s final rejection settled in fully as she realized the only person on this planet that truly understood him, that truly deserved him, was the very woman she’d tried to tear him apart from all these months.

The only way out is through.

Finally, the incontrovertible answer arrived. There was, in fact, no way out for Diana Fowley. There never would be.

The only way out was out.

Diana tore her eyes away from Fox’s long enough to attempt to stop the tears that threatened to fall, and to catch the breath that left her body as she headed towards the door.

She made a choice, finally. And it was the first right choice she’d made for as long as she could remember.

THE WATERGATE APARTMENTS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Diana waited for what felt like days.

She considered running, but what was the point? Spender would find her. It was too late for her to move forward.

She didn’t bathe, she barely ate. The terror and isolation vibrating through her body were unmatched and felt completely deserved.

Was Fox alive? Had Agent Scully arrived in time? Or had her key led them to their deaths? Had they both been caught and executed? She’d never know. The uncertainty gnawed at her.

A knock came at her door, eventually, as she knew it would.

“Come in,” she called from her perch on a chair by the window.

The door opened easily, as it was unlocked. Alex entered with a look on his face she could only describe as resigned.

“You didn’t run,” he said, as if he’d expected her to.

She shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

He sighed, and his face was tormented. She’d never seen him quite this way.

“He wants to see you. Before-” he stopped his sentence. They both knew what was going to happen.

“I don’t want to see him,” she said, shaking her head. “Not ever again.”

“He’s not going to like that.”

“Since when do you care what he likes?”

She was trying to be strong, but she was completely exhausted. She was weak in mind and body, prepared for the inevitable.

Alex shook his head. “Well, Mulder lived. Agent Scully found him and they escaped. I suppose that’s what you wanted. What I don’t know is why.”

She felt relief coursing through her veins at this, at knowing her final act of rebellion had been successful. How Spender was certainly displeased. And that pleased her.

“Why’d you do it?” Alex asked. He sounded genuinely curious. “Knowing what was at stake? The project? After everything he showed you, made you? Taught you?”

She shook her head. “Pursue my own self interest. That’s what he taught me.”

He looked at her, as if truly seeing her for the first time, and nodded, maybe even in understanding. Pursuing self interest. It was perhaps the one thing she and Alex now had in common.

He closed the door and approached her, and she stood up as they faced each other, his hand wrapped around his gun, finger on the trigger. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small stack of surveillance photographs that showed the escape she had helped facilitate, handing them to her.

She looked down at the photographs of Fox being helped out of the facility by Agent Scully, their arms wrapped around each other. She’d done the right thing, she knew, but even now these images stung.

“I don’t understand, Diana,” Alex said, shaking his head. “You could have used a dozen keycards. You could have gotten away with it. Why did you give yourself up?”

She turned around so her back was to him and closed her eyes, tears forming, the first time she’d cried since she left Fox all those years ago. She’d never planned to die for him, but she was about to.

“I wanted Fox to know it was me,” she said simply.

Alex was closer to her now, just behind her. She could feel his breath on her neck, and his hand moved to her shoulder, gripping tightly. An apology.

She stared out the window and focused on a tree in the distance. A crow sat on one of the branches, still and solitary, and even from her distance she could see its black oil-drop eyes gleaming, staring directly at her as if in judgment. She was reminded of that frigid day in Las Vegas; of the avian witness to their nuptials. That was the moment, it seemed to say to her, the moment things should have changed.  

It was too late for that, now. Far too late.

“You were right, Alex,” she said, as she felt the cold barrel of his gun press against the back of her head. “I never had the stomach for this job. But I suppose it’s a good thing you do, isn’t it?”

He said nothing, but she got her answer when the shot rang out, a deafening crack and shattering of red glass unfurling before her as if in slow motion.

Then everything turned black.

[imagining-sio]

Red Blood & A Heart of Gold

Summary: Detective (Y/N) Jones has been Gordon’s right hand. With her first thrust into the big bad bat’s peripheral; quite a few people have a vested interest. One who persists in haunting her memory.

Jason Todd x Reader

Chapter 1

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Gotham City.

There are ever only three absolutes with Gotham. One; the weather is always shitty, even when it’s sunny; it’s still shitty. Two; there will always be violent crime, doesn’t matter what neighborhood you live in; a siren is the lullaby of Gotham city. And finally, Three; there are always bats, the kind that beat up criminals to a pulp but not enough to kill, because apparently these bats have morals.

If anything there aren’t enough bats to make a difference in the city.

The hum of my motorcycle was the only constant as I weaved between cars as if sewing a needle and thread. I always hated Gotham, still do. The only reason I’m here is because I was recommended. If I had a dollar for the amount of times I’ve heard that I’m a “Gotham native” both in, and out, of this city; I could pay the rent to my studio apartment for a whole year.

Pulling up to the crime scene, my forest green trench coat ceased its flapping. I tore my helmet off and took the keys out of the ignition, not particularly caring if my hair was not a tangled mess from either the helmet itself or the rain. Flashes of cameras and news trucks were scattered across the entire width of the street. Numerous newscasters were repeating the same information for the recent press conference, all piling to be the first to broadcast. The yellow line of police tape was flapping between the ties of police vehicles. I quickly pulled the tape over my head, causing two officers to approach me.

“I’m Detective (Y/N) Jones. I was summoned by Gordon.” I flipped my badge open. The officers didn’t bother trying to stop me and went to the many reporters who began bombarding the police line. I strode into the tower, completely ignoring the large amount of shattered glass that crunched beneath my shoes. I was escorted to the elevator, its music ironically resembled what I can only describe as somber jazz. The officer was silent and nervous.

“Just a warning, it’s pretty bad.” he said.

“Any word from the analysts yet?” I asked, shifting my weight.

“No; coroners are on their way, though.”

I nodded my head, the doors slid open, revealing more officers and crime scene photographers investigating the hallway, which was in itself, a plethora of evidence. I spotted the very man who summoned me, sipping a rather large cup of coffee. His eyes had bags under them, and he was no doubt just as tired as I was.

“Detective Jones.” The commissioner didn’t look up from his cellphone.

“Don’t you have a guy running around in a bat costume you can bother with a booty call, Jim?” I scratched my head, yawning as I did such.

“He’s busy.” He shrugged, “I see you’re quite the morning person.”

“I am, it’s just not morning yet. Why am I really here?”

“He wants a second opinion.”

He doesn’t do second opinions….

“Why.” I narrowed my eyes as we ascended up the winding staircase, which at this point, was a little excessive for the interior designer.

“When I turned around to ask-,”

“He was gone? Heard that one plenty of times, Jim.”

“Yeah, what else do you want me to say?”

“By the looks of the files I requested from Quantico; these guys were pretty friendly with Black Mask. Apart from that, they had dipped their toes is some other shady dealings, but they never got their hands dirty enough to have sufficient evidence for a conviction. All their activity was strictly financial, I honestly don’t think that would-,“ upon entering the room all one could see was blood.

Bodies were strewn upon the boardroom table, shot until they looked like they were Swiss cheese, bloody Swiss cheese. The red walls had a distinctly lighter shade than the blood smatterings everywhere upon them. Pools of the precious liquid lie underneath the corpses, a soft reflection of the light above offering the only telltale sign between the surface of the blood and the table. You could smell the death and the gunpowder, maybe a bit of fear mixed with shit and piss. That and nasty ass cologne.

I swallowed down the remnants of my extremely late lunch.

“This. This isn’t murder; it’s overkill. It’s hyperbolic overkill. Is there a word that’s more hyperbolic than overkill?” I said softly, inspecting the scene cautiously as if defusing a bomb.

“I thought as much, as well.” A gravelly voice emerged from the shadows. Of course he’d be hiding.

“These men were gathered here. Led into a trap. But for what or why is unknown.” His cape enclosed his brooding tall figure, making him seem more mythic than man.

“I though you said he came and went?” I raised a brow to Gordon, he only smirked.

“I thought you once told me you were done with Gotham?”

“You’re hilarious. Remind me of this conversation when you retire?” The commissioner chuckle as he sipped his coffee. I watched as the bat surveyed the area, albeit it seemed like he knew more about the situation than he was letting on.

“I’m guessing you have a suspicion on who did this; and will only give us a vague answer so you can bring him and take all the credit?” I crossed my arms at the still present vigilante. Gordon spurt his coffee, laughing out loud.

The Bat stood straight, his cape acting like a cloak over his body. It made him look inhuaman. The masked man glared in response, before slowly turning to face Jim, who instantly stopped laughing, or at least tried to cover it up with coughing.

“I see why you like her.” He deadpanned. I’m pretty sure that’s his only emotion.

“You have two minutes left; I’ll make sure the press isn’t prattling too much.” Gordon coughed, making himself sparse. As he left the bat turned his attention back to me.

“Well are you going to answer? Or did I strike a nerve?” I smirked.

“Red Hood.”

Ok so we’re taking the ‘Oh shit were fucked’ route.

“Fuck.” my arms fell to my side, all humor jettosing from me.

“He certainly getting a message across, of what and to whom remains to be seen.”

“Well since these guys work for Black Mask, I would assume him, correct?”

“A message can have more than one recipient.”

“Who else? You?”

“Perhaps.”

“You’re getting vague.”

“These men were the finances behind all of the crime syndicates in Gotham. Who’s to say what will happen next.”

“An all-out war over who gets the money and when.” I finished.

“Precisely.” He went to the shattered floor to ceiling window, picking up a shell casing and placing it in his utility belt.

“Do I have to turn around before you go, or do you actually disappear on your own?”

He stared at me straight faced, shooting his grappling gun and yanking himself off into oblivion of the Gotham City skyline.

“I guess not.” I said dryly.

“You get anything from him.” Gordon returned, this time with a team of evidence analysts and coroners.

“Nothing you’re gonna like.” I said to him, “I don’t think he likes me very much.”

“He doesn’t like anyone. And I’ve seen my fair share of shit, Jones, you don’t have to sugarcoat anything.”

I eyed him as he was about to take a sip of his coffee, “Red Hood is back in town and he’s just put a power vacuum in the Gotham syndicates’ financials.”

Gordon stopped mid sip, causing a bit to spill on him.

“Fuck.”

“That’s what I said.”

“I’ll finish up here; you should head home.”

“Ah yes, back to my luxury apartment.”

“Be careful alright, the roads are pretty slick out!” Gordon yelled as I fled down the stairwell.

“No promises!”

“And call your grandmother; she worries!”

I laughed; he never seemed to stop parenting. Checking my phone as I walked out of the building, my smile fell.

2:35 AM; August 16th.

Time to pay a visit.

It’s ironic how cemeteries in Gotham are probably one of the safer parts of the city. It’s morbid; more so than Savannah is about their cemeteries, but those are luxury parks with people buried in them. In Gotham, it’s more so like you can fall into an open grave if you aren’t careful, and you’ll stay in there forever cause no one cares enough to help you out of it.

I hopped off my two wheeled transport for the third time this night. The second being for when I ran into the nearest twenty-four hour grocery store than miraculously had a florals department. I knew exactly where the headstone would be, even if I hadn’t been here for at least ten years. I had a lot to make up for.

And there it was, with the Wayne’s family. Even though he technically wasn’t a Wayne by blood, he was legally with adoption papers. But before that he was only a kid who lived two doors down from me. Then he was my best friend.

I set the small bouquet down to rest upon the headstone.

“Happy birthday, idiot.” I said with a soft smile as the rain continued its deluge, wiping away my tears.

“I miss you.” I rubbed my arms together, before continuing; “I hate that you aren’t around. And even though I hate to admit it, I think about you a lot. I thought about how much you’ve tried to convince me to stay. I still think about it, how it could have been different. Maybe if I hadn’t left you’d still-,” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I never could. My brunette locks were now soaked throughout, the water extending its length down to barely grazing over my shoulders. I hugged myself, knowing that if he were alive he would be hugging me too.

A twig snapping drew me from my train of thought. I grabbed my pistol from my holster, searching wildly for the source of the sound. I spotted a group of people making their way through the cemetery. Though what I knew was suspicious was that they were all wearing suits.

Usually, funerals aren’t going on at three in the morning. One could only wonder what the hell these idiots were doing out so late.

I would also would love an explanation on why they were all wearing what looked to be skull masks. The kind only worn by Black mask’s goons. Ones only worn when a deal was going down.

Just my luck.

I quickly ducked down, crouching to hide behind my beloved friend’s tombstone. I’m sure this is an atrocity against the etiquette of walking in cemeteries, but I didn’t care. They didn’t seem to notice me, instead they were hastily walking toward a mausoleum that stood out through the cemetery. I crept deftly thought the spattering of tombstones, careful not to make too much sound. Though that proved difficult as the ground grew soggy and mud began to seep through as the rain continued.

“You really think these guys will show?” One of the goons asked.

“Hey, these guys said they were gonna pay a lotta dough for the weapons. We do this; we move up the ladder.” Another, who looked to be the leader of the group, silenced the other. There were three more men but they remained silent, not wanting to question the one in charge.

I crept further toward the group, hiding behind statues in order to remain hidden from sight. I spotted another group loitering around by the mausoleum. They were dressed in far less expensive clothing than what the approaching group wore. What threw me off was that there was no conversation with them, they were silent. Eerily silent.

“Oi, we’re here! You better hold up your end of the bargain, friend.” The lead goon of Black Mask walked toward the silent men. The other group of men didn’t even acknowledge the goon’s presence. This did not look like it would end well.

“Hey asshole,” He shook the man, only for him to fall to the ground in a heap. Even in the moonlight, you could clearly see the cause of death. He was riddled with bullet holes.

“SHIT!” the man yelled, causing the other group members to pull out their own weapons. What I grew concerned about was I could only see four of the group. I knew for damn sure there were five.

“Get up.” I felt a pressure against the back of my head, and the sound of a gun cocking only solidified my fear. I raised my hands up parallel with my head. The man behind me took my pistol, placing it somewhere on his person before yanking me up by the collar.

“Hey, lookie what I found.” He ushered me toward the mausoleum. As I was shoved forward, I could have sworn I spotted a shifting mass on the roof of the morbid building.

“And what have we here,” the lead goon fixed his cufflinks as he sauntered toward me. His dark chuckle only sent chills down my spine, not in a comfortable way.

“Found her hiding behind the tombstone, boss.”

“Well, sweet cheeks. Care to tell me what you saw?”

I remained silent. Another one of the goons searched me, pulling out both my phone and my badge, handing it to my interrogator.

“So that’s how you wanna play, then?” his eyes narrowed through his skull mask.

“Well then detective,” he handed the items back to the man calmly. With a nod of his head the man behind me kicked my legs out from under me, forcing me down to my knees. He handed my pistol to the goon in charge, whom cocked the gun and pointed it at my forehead.

“You picked a hell of a place to die, honey.” the lead man scoffed. Cocking the gun behind my head.

————————————————————————

Message me is you want to be tagged!

[theguardicns-blog]

⌈ calum hood / male [he/him] ⌋ ━━ look its CHRISTOPHER HALE.. you know, the ( original ) character from stranger things! in our world they’re KEANU AKINA, a twenty one year old bisexual working as a college student. they have a rep for being welcoming & insecure ; we all agree [ christopher robin by good luck finding iris ] should play when they walk in. they ( have ) regained ( all ) of their real memories.

CHRISTOPHER HALE ;; THE GOLDEN BOY

christopher hale had lived in hawkins, indiana for as long as he could remember. it was him, his mom, dad, and older sister. his parents had been best friends in high school, but alas, his father’s heart had been stolen away by another. it wasn’t until years later, after his first wife had died and left him a single parent, that christopher’s mother and father got together. she was his shoulder to cry on, and after a few months, their friendship turned into something more. they moved into a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, with nice neighbors -- the wheelers. that’s where the story truly begins.

growing up, chris had been that kid. the king of the playground. everyone in elementary school wanted him to be their friend ( if only because he had such cool new toys in his backpack ) and yet, all he wanted was to be friends with michaela wheeler and willamina byers. he’d known mike for quite a while, having been her neighbor, but will was someone he didn’t quite recognize. it was midway through kindergarten when he finally approached them by the swing-set, asking if he could be their friend. they had said yes, and from that point on, a group had formed. 

his title in the group is ‘the guardian’. that’s what he is to them -- a protector, of sorts. he’s never afraid to stand up to the bullies, never afraid to get a little roughed up for his friends. they’re his friends, and he’d do anything for them. he absolutely sucks at d&d but plays anyways because it’s fun. doesn’t understand science for shit, but loves to listen to mike and dustin constantly discussing different scientific methods. he is, however, pretty good with technology. definitely loves being in hawkins middle school av club. he thinks that erica sinclair is the funniest human being on the planet, and always laughs when she sasses lucas and the rest of his party. 

he hadn’t been at mike’s house the night will went missing. he was home sick with a sore throat, but damn the consequences of it all when he found out will hadn’t gotten home safely that night. he’d marched right out of that house with a bag of cough drops and helped his friends search. he probably internally got whiny when it started raining but wouldn’t dare complain out loud because ?? finding will is so much more important than his stupid sore throat. and then they came across the bald girl in the yellow shirt, and christopher hale’s whole life turned...upside down.

almost immediately, chris felt attached to the girl. wanted to make sure she was okay, and that she had a blanket and something to eat. however, she wasn’t will. he missed will, and something about this new girl ( ‘eleven’ as she’d been branded ) screamed ‘strange’. and strange, she was. she was like a real life superhero. 

ok, fast forward through all the events of season one, he was definitely there the entire time, helping with everything. cried like a baby when el disappeared, had nightmares about the demogorgon every single night for nearly a year. he was very, very afraid of the government coming after him and his family, so he kept a lot of it quiet ?? unless he was talking to his friends of course.

CHRISTOPHER SUPPORTED MAX BEING IN THE PARTY !! thanks for coming to my ted talk !! no, but seriously, he thought max was pretty freakin’ awesome. didn’t have a crush on her or anything like that, but definitely wanted to be her friend. he’s just nice to everyone okay :( 

he was always lingering around will. always wanted to make sure she was okay, etc. definitely freaked out when he noticed her not acting like herself anymore, but he just thought it was the side effects of having been in the upside down. never ever would have guessed that she was basically a puppet for the mind flayer.

now we’re gonna fast forward through all of season two. he was hecka involved in all of that as well, and is very glad that it’s seemingly almost over. but then the curse hit, and now he’s...

KEANU AKINA ;; THE QUIET ONE

i’m gonna bullet this

he’s a GOOD BOY. will always be a good boy.

he was placed into the akina family as an eleven year old, where he lived with single mom kelani and a great dane named maggie.

made decent grades throughout middle school and high school

is currently majoring in sports medicine because he wants to be a physical therapist

he’s awake !! remembers every single detail about everything and it really, really freaked him out at first but now he’s gotten used to it.

very much believes that somehow, hawkins lab is behind all of this. doesn’t know how or why, but he just has this gut feeling.

he’s probably wrong.

his favorite color is lavender

likes to wear grey sweatpants and white t-shirts

but also likes to wear ripped jeans and black t-shirts

he spins a wheel every morning to pick his outfit, obviously.

that was a joke

he’s very !! shy !!

likes to keep to himself

very subtly funny

when he’s around all his friends again he’ll be more like himself

though tbh he was a pretty quiet boy back in hawkins too

not as quiet as he is here, but still quiet enough for a middle school aged boy in the 80s

soft as heck.

very lovable

has the laugh of an angel

also very self deprecating

makes jokes at his own expense just for the hell of it

HE’S GONNA BE SAD WHEN HE SITS DOWN TO WATCH STRANGER THINGS AND REALIZES HE’S NOT IN THE TV SHOW

“well fuck me i guess ??”

thats all for now folks hit me up if you want to plot !!

[theabominableblogger]

Rewatching “Transformers”

Yep, the Michael Bay one.  Because I felt like it and it’s the only Transformer movie I enjoy as a guilty pleasure.  Dab.

I like how they put the transformer noise over the shooting stars for the Paramount logo.

BEFORE TIME BEGAN, THERE WAS THE CUBE.

I will give this movie a little bit of credit:  the music over Optimus’ explanation of the AllSpark is not bad.

Actually the music in this entire movie isn’t that bad.

Man, Peter Cullen isn’t getting paid enough in these movies.

Yeah, Tyrese (Gibson), earn that paycheck!

Oh my God, the color filter in this movie.

Traits of a Michael Bay movie:  America, America, helicopters, fighter jets, blue, orange, green, yellow, aqua, the army, sparks, street lamps, America, esplosions, some shady shit in the government, lens flares, product placement, really really quick pan shots, a shady government agent covering up some secret government conspiracy, technicolor smoke, slow-mo shots of something being thrown up in the air behind someone, slow-mo shots of something AMERICA, and a whole bunch of metal

Waaiiiitttt... how come the wife of the Josh Duhamel character looks like Mary Winchester from “Supernatural?”

Compared to the other movies in this series that I’ve seen (Revenge of the Fallen and Age of Extinction), this one actually feels a little more... slow... like they take more time to explain things instead of just throwing explosion porn at you.  I mean, they still do in this movie and I consider this one to be the un-laziest in this series.

Man, I remember when this movie first came out

WAAiiitttt.... why do I recognize the history teacher?  Isn’t he Dr. Taub on House?

“The ice is freezing faster than it’s melting!”  What?

NO SACRIFICE, NOOO VICTORYYY!!

This history is full of the most immature teenagers I’ve ever seen.

ELEVENTH GRADE?!?  THESE ARE THE OLDEST ELEVENTH GRADERS I’VE EVER SEEN

“What would Jesus do?”  I can still quote like 50% of this movie.  That’s sad.

How do they not notice the 1977 Camaro driving into the lot by itself?

RIP Bernie Mac

So much yellow in this scene alone.

Why does a used car lot have a petting zoo?

Another question I have is why Bumblebee decided to have the Autobot symbol on the horn.  Usually Autobots have their Autobot symbols on their chestplate so if you think about that, that’s just weird.

Jon Voight!

RACHAEL TAYLOR!  TRISH WALKER!  I forgot she was in this movie!

Trish, get back to your radio show!

Sam, why is your username LadiesMan217?  If you’re trying to sell stuff on eBay, which probably no one uses anymore (so that dates this movie by a long shot), have a username that doesn’t scream “Hey, I’m a egotistical dick.”

God, I hate the parents in this movie.

My dad used to have a lot of audio files from this movie and one of them was “Wow.  You are so cheap.”

“Why don’t you use those magic voodoo powers and get us the hell out of here?”  Man, I forgot about that line.

I forgot how cringy awkward Sam is in this.  Jesus Christ.

Why is Megan Fox wearing a scarf when it’s shown to be like ninety degrees out?

“OK.  You’ll call me.”  We quote that all the time in my house it’s not even funny.

The little bee air freshener says “Bee-otch”

Megan Fox uses her teeth a lot when she talks.

Oh my God Sam stop talking.

Wow, Michael Bay absolutely could not keep it in his pants when it came to Megan Fox in this movie. 

There’s only three female characters in this movie and Michael Bay gets freaky deaky filming-wise over Megan Fox

“You think I’m shallow?”  Yes.  You’re not sneaking that past me, movie.

*dramatic drum*  THE PENTAGON!

OK, I agree with the Air Force One attendant, Ding Dongs are disgusting.

Couldn’t you use one pan-up to Frenzy after the Ding Dong stops rolling instead of having three cuts to even show it?

AN:  I’m only 30 mins in and this movie is almost 2 and a half hours long

Oh my gosh, the filter again.  They made Trish’s eyes REALLY BLUEEE

*imitates Frenzy as he slams his head on the screen in frustration*

Why is Sam’s profile picture look like his mugshot?

If the dad is the head of the neighborhood watch, his tired ass should be fired by the town council.

Wow, another thing that dates this movie:  a flip phone.

Obligatory mean dogs chained to a wall of some sort.

But seriously though, who leaves their dogs in an empty land fill during the night?

How does Sam not notice that no one is driving his car? 

Wait, at first, they (the Department of Defense) didn’t know what the hacking was caused by and now they think it’s a SpiderBot virus?

Isn’t “living organism” an oxymoron?

That’s a great question to ask a cop:  “Are you on drugs?”

Why is the little Arab boy that travels with the Josh Duhamel character one of the best actors in this movie?

I don’t mean to be racist, but the bit where the Josh Duhamel character calls the India outsource center always cracks me up.  I don’t know why it does.

Oh, the Josh Duhamel character’s name is Lennox.  OK.

“Spooky 3-2, use 1-0-5 shells.  Bring the rain.”  The best line in this movie.  Hands down.

Me and my sister pretty much quote this entire scene where Maggie goes to consult Glenn about the signal, including the “SHUT UP GRANDMAAAA!” and “GET OFF MY GRANDMAMA’S CARPET!”

“We’re not told where they’re going.”  Of course because the Hover-round takes them where they wanna go.

That’s the same hologram dude who was the helicopter Decepticon in the beginning and now he’s in the police car.

Dude, the random rock music?  What?

Barricade just said “AIYAIYAIAYAIYAIIII!” as a battle cry.  I can’t take that seriously.

Obligatory trailer music at a heroic moment.

“What?!?”  BA DA DAAA!!

“This is a hundred more times cooler than Armaggedon!  I swear to God!”  Don’t think you can get by with that self-deprication, Michael Bay.  We know.

“‘Cuse me, are you the tooth fairy?”  I’m sorry, but that bit’s really cute in my opinion.

Man, by the time the other Autobots transform, Optimus just finishes transforming.  And he took like a full minute to transform compared to the ten second panning shot of the others transforming.

I know it probably isn’t him, but it sounds like Steve Blum performing as Ironhide.

“His vocal processor was damaged” Ratchet says as he points a freaking laser at Bumblebee’s “throat”

NO NOT THE DOG!

Dude, it isn’t about measuring whether or not you’re guilty.  I’d eat a whole plate of donuts.

“DON’T TALK TO ME!  DON’T TALK TO ME, CRIMINAL!”

Yep, sure, this asteroid sized projectile falling out of the sky is an airplane.  And this guy is the head of the neighborhood watch?

“BAD MOJO...”

Sam:  Be subtle

Autobots:  OK (proceeds to trash yard and park themselves in the middle of it)

Optimus rubbing his faceplate in frustration is totally me

*DRAGS FACE ACROSS DESK IN FRUSTRATION AT THE BAD AND POORLY TIMED SEX JOKE* 

“The parents are very irritating.  Shall I dispose of them?”  YES.

Hello John Turturro.

Wait, this whole movie takes place within a week?

BUMBLEBEE, STOP LUBRICATING THE MAN!

GET THIS THING TO STOP, HUH?

*Sam and Mikaela fall off of Optimus*  Sorry, but you two would have shattered your ribcages after that.

“I bought a car.  Turned out to be an alien robot.  Who knew?”  They should have made a TV spot centered around that quote.

“NBE?”  “Non-Biological Extraterrestrial.  Keep up with the acronyms here.”  And that is how I remembered what an acronym is.

To be honest, I don’t like Charlie Adler Starscream that much.  Get me Steve Blum or Tom Kenny then I’ll be good.

What kind of Nokia phone is that?

I actually like the effect of the AllSpark collapsing in on itself to make a smaller version of itself

Man, I’m not even a fan of Hugo Weaving as Megatron.

I like that shot of Megatron before he goes “You fail me yet again, Starscream” where he just clicks his fingers together.

*The team still at Hoover Dam barricade the door*  They got a cave troll!

The truck Decepticon takes down Optimus via flying tackle hug

BUDDY!!!!!

Now see, why does Optimus have a sword?

No, not the Orpheum!

Now why is Jazz sitting there still in car mode just watching Bumblebee get his legs cut off?

YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?!?  YOU WANT A PIECE?!?

NO!  I WANT TWO PIECES!

“Megatron.”  “PRIIMMEEE!!!”

They keep reusing sound effects from the beginning in this battle

Oh no, not... Mountain Dew cans... *shrugs*

Did Megatron just yell “SURPRISE!” when he burst into that abandoned building?

He must be great at birthday parties

*Barricade gets shot in the Spark and dies*  Oooh, right in the arc reactor!

AN:  God, there’s only twenty minutes left.  I can do this.

Starscream does virtually nothing in these series.

“Oh, so unwise.”  MR. ANDERSON...

That one human Megatron flicked away is totally dead.

IT’S JUST YOU AND ME, MEGATRON.

NO, IT’S JUST ME, PRIME!!

“Armor’s just weak under the chest.”  So let’s aim the aiming laser at the Decepticon’s hand.  That sounds good.

That bit of Lennox driving the motorcycle and sliding under the Decepticon to kill it is actually pretty awesome

*Megatron dies with choking noises*  And so, Stanley Yelnats killed Elrond with the AllSpark

Now how are Optimus and Megatron brothers?  Unless there’s some cut backstory where they were like best friends until Megatron was like “You know what?  Being a Decepticon sounds cool.  Imma go do that.”  and Optimus was like “YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!”

I’ve heard rumors that there’s like 40 minutes of backstory that they cut from “The Last Knight”

Linkin Park!

*proceeds to sing all of “What I’ve Done”*

[jasonmcgathey]

DiMarco’s

Concerned the draft reserves in our keg might not hold through morning, we start marching, up Bethel and across a deserted bank parking lot to the nearby neighborhood watering hole, DiMarco’s. A divided, four lane concourse of revving engines and weekend mad revelers, strip mall facades on both sides lit up indexing, variously, every known shade of the rainbow, this stretch of Bethel still sizzles with a heat only unexplored turf can sustain. Not only this stretch but the wealth of Upper Arlington beyond where, having conquered campus in our peculiar slipshod way, which is to say incompletely, but the best we’re ever likely to, may very well stand my next great project. Cataloging this terrain, or any fraction of the buffer separating their world and ours, or another series of blocks entirely. We cavort in myriad clusters like zoo animals gone AWOL, and I’m suddenly reminded of those January nights scouting out High Street for the very first time. The feeling that anything can happen and you’re on the edge of some tremendous discovery, a sensation you can never explain, nor one you’re ever capable of replicating on command.

DiMarco’s is a simple dive bar with a pair of real dartboards along the back wall, one pool table near the front picture window and not much else. Booths around the rim, and wobbly mismatched tables in the middle, square and shoved together in blocks of two or three. Jukebox topheavy with 1980s hair metal the clientele has never stopped listening to, one large screen television between the pool table and the entrance. This place might not have much of that elusive element, class, but enough that nobody’s cracking someone else over the head with a pool cue. Everyone here’s a friend, including the squat blonde middle aged barmaid Jan, quick to smile, her slightly pudgy right hand man Zerby, wiry black curls distributed sparsely across his prematurely balding pate, large black eyeglasses lending him the appearance of an owl. They are always here, I’m told. A schedule as religious as the price slashes they apply each trip to the bar, just because we know Doug and the Yanik sisters.

DiMarco’s has at no point ever been my favorite bar in town, but I sure have spent a ton of time here, nonetheless. Enough friends who lived up this way did consider it their top spot, to where the rest of us wound up here constantly by default. There’s so many random memories swirling around my head about this place, as is often the case, that it’s difficult to determine what episodes or details to share.

I know I’ve spent at least two Halloweens here, in part, of which that photo up top documents one. This would be the year that a really sharp looking brunette flashed her tits at the entire room, and Miles – though dressed like a doctor – raised both of his arms like a football referee and announced, “that’s a field goal!” This makes the highlight reel, to be sure, and is also a great example of the classic Miles comment, memorable despite or because of not making 100% perfect sense…even though you basically know what he means anyway. Otherwise, on this particular outing, I’m going with the self-explanatory bathrobe and pipe look, while Lisa, though she’s removed it by this point, had earlier adopted some sort of slutty kitten mask.

As far as other memories are concerned…Roy, Doug Fogle and I once caught a ride here in a pizza delivery girl’s pickup, in an absolute downpour. A bunch of us had been at Polo’s and virtually everyone else in our crew already left on foot for DiMarco’s. By virtue of hanging around just a smidgen two long, the three of us are caught up in this rain, though we don’t know it until stepping out the front door.

“Hey,” Roy says, spotting a pizza joint next door, “let’s wait in there until this lets up.” 

We walk over and begin rattling the locked glass door. The lights are still on, there are two girls working behind the counter, and an Asian couple is milling around in the lobby. So what gives? Finally, the Asian lady strides over and unlocks the door, to the visible consternation of both employees. 

“We’re closed,” one of the girls calls out as our motley trio staggers in. Apparently, the two ladies were making up one last order for this couple, and that was to be the end of their night.  

“Here,” the other, nicer girl offers, a modest looking brown haired chick, “we’ve got two whole pizzas left over – you guys can have them.”  

We thank her in an appropriately profuse fashion, and Roy hands a pie each to Fogle and me. Then he lays three dollar bills on the counter before we leave just as abruptly as we came, and in no better shape. The rain hasn’t abated any yet here the three of us are standing beneath the same awning, except encumbered now with the additional weight of two pizzas.  

The nice girl bursts through the glass door, jogging to a nearby truck, expertly toting a piping hot pizza bag in one hand which bears the well known company logo. One last delivery, it seems, before her night is through, before she can wash her hands of fools like us – that is, until her next shift in hell comes calling. 

“Hey, can you give us a ride up to DiMarco’s?” Roy shouts across the parking lot, long after she’s passed us. She’s standing beside her truck now, fishing for keys, and offers no immediate reaction to the question, or whether she’s even heard it. 

“I’m not supposed to,” she shouts back to us, “but okay. Come on!” 

Sprinting over to join this chick before she changes her mind, Roy jumps into the shotgun seat while Fogle and I are left sitting like a pair of rain drenched idiots in the bed. She tears out of the parking lot and only then do I realize we’re still holding the pizzas, also, too moronic to keep them inside the truck with Roy. Still, weighing the pros and cons of this arrangement stacks up well for us, better than walking, and the cardboard boxes somehow fare better in the rain than we do.  

Two minutes later, we arrive at DiMarco’s. Roy and Fogle sprint inside, while I stop to have a few kind words with our driver. Inviting her to either come in for a drink or else swing by Doug’s apartment later, though she laughs off each suggestion before driving away. I have no choice but to join the others, now, and meet them inside. 

II.

I happen to remember the night Damon first met the Yanik sisters, too, for whatever reason, even though nothing about it is all that remarkable. I think this is because we’d been in town for almost a year, and Alan and I both had already enjoyed some scattered bedroom adventures with Lisa, not to mention partied with these people an unholy amount for months on end. Yet here our third roommate had somehow not even made their acquaintance, not only the sisters but this entire crew.

Then again, our lives are often more compartmentalized than we think. Coworkers we’ve worked beside for years upon years, though they’ve never met our families, to give one example. Or, like how this particular gang never really ventured down to campus or Grandview much, just as my campus and Grandview friends were almost never up here.

Bored on some random winter weeknight, I decide to call them up, having not seen these folks for a number of weeks myself. Since Doug moved away and I left Kroger, that outrageous era had ended and I hadn’t been on this northwest end of town much. Learning now that a bunch of them are heading to DiMarco’s, Damon and I decide to ride up there ourselves.

Their younger brother Tommy now occupies Doug’s old couch, and Dane, who’s gotten into one bad situation after another over the course of a few weeks, has wound up getting fired from his most recent job, at a department store, for not showing up and dicking around when he did make it in. Then he busts out the windshield of Maria’s car during a nasty fight, and Mike Nelson drops him to the ground with a haymaker and he’s kicked out of their pad as well, exiled from the charmed circle of friends.  

I introduce Damon to everyone – seated at one table in the dimly lit other half of DiMarco’s, the half away from the bar, is the cool but somewhat spacey Charlie, a part-time drummer, his stringy black musician’s hair now almost as long as Damon’s; the ever talkative and impossibly busty redhead, Jen McBride; Lisa with her admittedly comparable breasts, dark blonde locks currently worn straight and halfway down her back; and her sister Maria, a brunette, whom we are fortunate to catch in a really vocal mood this time around. The two of us squeeze in beside them and brace ourselves for this conversation. 

Junior, Tommy, and their preppy jock friend Cooper, who I remember from one other party back in the spring, are playing pool nearby, while the girls relate to us the latest adventures and trending gossip concerning everyone else. Meanwhile, Damon sits looking bored and sipping on a beer, or else trying to strike up a conversation with Lisa and Jen, even though they didn’t know what to make of this longhair character in horn rims. 

Although, it is possible he’s having a better time than it appears. “I knew I’d be in trouble meeting these fat girls with pretty faces,” he whispers to me at one point, after downing a couple brews. Even if Lisa’s ruining the good cheer by bitching incessantly about her roommates. Finally, the clock reaches two thirty and house lights are coming on, as we pay the ever present bartending duo and head for the doors.

“Jesus Christ, Dude!” Damon exclaims with a sigh as we steps outside, “they seem like nice girls and all, but man, that one was getting on my nerves.”

“She’s usually not that bad,” I explain, which is true.

“And what about that other one, the redhead, what was her name, Lisa?” 

“No, Lisa was the blonde,” I correct.

“Well, whatever, she was the one sitting on the outside, right? I couldn’t believe she was bitching about everyone not cleaning their rooms! Maaaaaaan, I’d tell that bitch to fuck off!“

“Well, they’re usually not that bad,” I tell him, “especially after you get a couple beers in them. They throw good parties though, and they do have some nice looking friends.” 

III.

They used to keep decks of cards behind the bar here and DiMarco’s, and possibly still do, as we’ve played many a game of euchre here. There was a long running tradition, and may still be, of pool tournaments played blatantly for cash in this bar, and nobody batted an eyelash. Then again, I don’t remember ever seeing law enforcement around these parts, and the help situation was always remarkably consistent, with Jan and Zerby here just about every night. So you weren’t going to catch any heat from them, either.

That TouchTunes jukebox at the very least had an REO Speedwagon album on it. This I know because Lisa, who I constantly berated for her somewhat horrible tastes in music, was particularly fond of that one, would play it here often. At some point along the line, though sleeping together off and on for about a decade, we did try actually dating for approximately an eight month stretch there in the middle. One night she was at this juke and that infernal Speedwagon disc was blasting Time For Me To Fly, while Lisa and Jen F stood there still picking out further tunes, and Jen told her, speaking of me, “Lisa, this song is for you. It’s time for you to fly.”

Despite this period (or maybe because of it, as the more Lisa would yell at me, the more inclined I was to laugh in her face), I always was and continue to be thought of as somewhat of a zany, hopeless goofball with this crew. It’s funny how you get off on a certain foot with various scenes, be it socially, or with work, or with family, and nothing much can ever really change this. You begin to realize it’s a combination of elements contributing to this phenomenon: a little bit of people only seeing what they expect to see, a little bit maybe of you falling into your familiar role with each circle, but then also, I half suspect sometimes, it almost seems like life is throwing events in everyone’s lap to bolster these impressions. Even one night here in DiMarco’s where Lisa’s been screaming again and Tommy’s threatening me with, “don’t do anything stupid!” won’t change the dynamic, is pretty much forgotten about five minutes later.

“She doesn’t listen to anything, dude,” I tell him.

“It’s my fuckin sister – you think I don’t know that?” he retorts.

Perhaps riding around with pizzas in the rain isn’t the best idea, if you’re trying to dispel some image. Even so, in the late 90s I was dating this perfectly fine looking brunette named Stacy, however briefly. I’m pretty sure that the first time I ever came out with her around this group, we were at DiMarco’s. At any rate, it was one of the few occasions I was ever with her, around this bunch. We’ve been here a while and she says something about wanting to dip over to Polo’s. So the two of us say goodbye to everyone, climb in my car and drive over there. Stacy and I sit at the bar and order one beer…and then she completely disappears. She saw somebody she knew across the bar and was going over to say a quick hello, and this was the last I saw of her that night.

I was more than a little embarrassed at the time about my pathetic glasses, thus would never wear them. So my eyesight wasn’t the greatest to begin with. Nonetheless, I did sit there for quite a while, nursing my beer, and even made a cursory lap or two of the place. May have possibly ordered a second brew, even. In this pre-cell-phone era, this basically represented the extent of your options. Therefore, despite not exactly rushing into this decision, I eventually shrugged it off, hopped back in my car…and returned to DiMarco’s alone.

“Where’s Stacy?” everyone asks, baffled by this turn of events.

“I have no idea,” I tell them.

Of course the entire mob – which, now that I think about it, was fanned around one of those larger central tables, itself a rarity, instead of spread like normal all over the bar – is howling, clapping their hands together, pretty much on the verge of spewing beer out through their noses. I was unwittingly playing the same old part as always. I guess it’s somewhat amazing that Stacy and I actually went out some more after this. But I never quite lived this one down. Nor did I ever bring her to DiMarco’s again.

IV.

Though pretty much everyone else has moved on, we do still swing by here from time to time, of course. It was here one night that it became obvious Damon was really hitting it off with this Maryland chick, who worked with Tommy, and the two of them soon turned into a serious couple. At some point, a window was installed connecting DiMarco’s with the Ange’s Pizza next door, and there became even less of a need to leave your barstool than before. Fluke reunions across the years have almost always meant a pit stop in this place is required, if it involves any of this old gang. Like for instance, the last I’ve seen of such disparate characters as Miles or Jen McBride, these occasions have transpired right here. I seem to remember hearing something about Jan and Zerby buying the place, even, though I’ll have to research that – but either way, I like to think that the two of them are still behind the bar, every night, just like always.

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[prqltothesql]

XMas Eve Thoughts

Hi all, it’s been a while...

My sister back in June graduated from high school. She was in Integration B classes and had an IEP. She has a “learning disability” and a “speech disability” but has never been formally diagnosed with autism or ADHD or ADD or anything. I think it’s because my dad doesn’t want to face the reality that after having me and me being so smart and successful and “normal” that he has a special needs child. Because she’s been like this since before my mom died, because my mom was pushing for her to get evaluated back then and he refused. Anyways, she had an IEP and everytime we started to make some headway and get Rachel on the right path, the IEP chair would leave and we’d get some new rando in and we had to start from square one. Her last few years in HS, she didn’t have much of a social life. Her social skills were so bad to the point that it was actively affecting her negatively and almost getting her in trouble. My dad, who was totally done parenting after 27 years of doing it and 22 straight years dealing with the school system, was content to push her to just keep her head down, don’t talk to anyone, don’t interact with anyone, just go in and get out. And the school seemed content to do the same. They would put her in classes just small enough to not warrant a paraprofessional. Her senior year, they put her in the bare minimum classes she needed to graduate and she had an every other day schedule. They wanted to just get her out the door as fast as possible (while still raking in her IEP funding I’m sure). So as such, she graduated with a 2.5 GPA, finishing with a D in culinary arts, which was her main career tract at her high school, and so post-HS she has been set up with absolutely no future. She’s not smart/poised/focused enough to get a job or go to college. The only thing she’d really be qualified at doing is being a Walmart greeter or one of the people at BJ’s that clips your receipts. In a perfect world, she’s very bossy and goal-oriented when she wants to be, and very detail oriented with certain things, so part of me thinks she’d be great at somewhere like McDonalds, knowing where everything is supposed to go and how everything is supposed to be done. However, she has no social skills. She is awful at communicating. She has no reasoning skills. She can’t rationally defend anything she does, and she acts irrationally and stupid a lot of the time, so it’s not even like she does something weird (we all do) and explain it. She does something dumb and then gets accosted about it and has no explanation. In the hustle and bustle of a job, there is no way she’d be able to hang. She’d either figure it out or get fired very quickly. She 100% would need someone there with her holding her hand the whole way and she’d have to be committed to getting better.  So since June when she graduated HS, she has been home all day every day. She has nowhere to go, nothing to do, so her routine has been the same for the last 7 months. She goes to bed whenever she wants, wakes up between 9 and 10, gets on her phone. Lays around until 11am, then goes upstairs. Sits on her phone for another hour. Comes downstairs and showers around 12. Takes 45 minutes to shower because she takes her phone in the bathroom with her. Then comes upstairs and sits in her robe for another 45 minutes on her phone drying off. Then finally comes downstairs at 1:30ish, 4-5 hours after she’s woken up, close to 4 hours spent on her phone, and then plops down on the couch, pops open a soda, grabs a snack and continues to just sit on her phone. She doesn’t do anything without being asked. She has no sense of forethought. Doesn’t think about anything besides what’s on her phone. When she is asked to do something, her mind is not focused on it. Because she’s so scatterbrained, she messes things up and people get upset. And it’s been months of this. I go a few days of sitting around doing nothing and I feel just miserable and awful and start manufacturing grocery shopping trips just to get out of the house. So I can’t imagine months, or in my dad’s case, years.  This ties into my dad. So, he’s been a stay at home dad my entire life. He was a musician so anytime he had to work, it was on the weekends. So he’s never been consistently gainfully employed my entire life. My mom didn’t make a lot of money working as a bank teller, so things were rough but they always made sure I was good and provided for no matter what. My stepmom made a ton of money, and once again, she made sure everything was provided for. Almost to a fault. So he’s had no reason to get a job. He’s been at home raising us, watching the house, recording when he could, playing out when he could, although that dried up, fixing and doing repairs on the house, which he’d been doing since before I was born. So after Nancy left, it was the three of us here. We had 9 dogs, and within 18 months, that number dwindled to 6 and later 4 and now we’re down to 3. My sister received SSI income which was from my mom’s child support. My mom had to pay child support, then got sick and had to stop working so it got taken over by the state as SSI income. When my stepmom left, she continued to support the house for 3 years until finally deciding to file for divorce from my dad and encouraged my dad to file for alimony. She encouraged my dad to take money from her. So anyways, he did that, so for 4 years, he got alimony payments, after 2 years he applied for early retirement and also got Rachel’s SSI. I never pried at how much it was, but I’d like to think it was at least $2000. Since Rachel graduated, her SSI stopped. So now we’re down to about $1300 a month. I agreed when Nancy stopped paying bills that I’d pay all of the bills except my dad would pay the most expensive two. That lasted maybe a month or two before I took over the cable bill, which has shot up $40 since I’ve started paying it. He pays the electric bill, which varies from $200-350 depending on the month/season. So I pay water, cable/internet, in addition to my then car payment, my auto insurance which has shot up since I had to add him as a driver and his truck to my policy, and then also the cellphone bill, which shot up when I got him and Rachel (and later myself) all new phones.  So anyways, he always stays at home. He’s worried about the house basically falling down. It was my grandmother’s house my whole life. We lived here while she lived down the beach or at my aunt’s or uncle’s. She lived with us for about a year in 2008-09 and was nuts and very cantankerous, always fighting with my dad. My dad would wake up in a pissy mood as he is want to do, and my grandmother would wake up in a mood and threaten to kick us all out that day, for absolutely no reason. So she moved out after I graduated HS. Let me backtrack. So, this house was one of the first built in this neighborhood back in, I don’t know, the 40s or 50s? Everything done on this house was done way before county codes or regulations or anything. So it was mostly done amateur, piecemealed, done with no thought process, thrown together. The floors are awful. The drainage sucks to the point where anything nearing an inch of rain floods our basement where my dad sleeps and has all of his stuff (and the only working bathroom in the house). The pool is positioned outside HIGHER THAN THE FOUNDATION OF THE HOUSE. So yes, it slopes down to our back porch and water just pours in under our porch to our basement. The patio out back takes up almost the entire width of the side yard and is poured concrete. It is also higher than the house. Before the current swimming pool, they dug one themselves and installed it themselves and it was awful and they eventually used it as a dumping ground for garbage, old cars, etc. When they had the good pool put in, they eventually had to put it in so high because of so much crap and debris in the backyard. So anyways, long story short, this house has a ton of fucking problems. Nothing is up to code because everything was done unprofessionally in the strictest sense of the word. Everything was just done just to do it. So when we lived here and Nancy was making buku money, they never really did anything. They put new windows in out of necessity. They never did anything with the pool. They had a load of stone brought in for no reason other than to put around the pool, which didn’t help anything and has made things very difficult for the last DECADE out back. Their rationale was that, the house didn’t belong to them. They didn’t want to sink money into it and then they wind up not getting the house or something happen and then it’s wasted. So we all just kind of put up with a crappy quality of life in a lot of aspects simply because the ADULTS in the house didn’t want to deal with it.  Fast forward: my grandmother left in 2009 and shortly after leaving, asked my aunt to take her to a lawyer and revise her will to remove my dad. He was supposed to get the house and both me and my sister were to each get $10000. Or something like that. So when she passed, they executed the will and we learned we weren’t getting the house. My aunt, doing sort of the right thing, made sure we were able to still stay here. But in doing so, she didn’t revise the will to give it to my dad anyways. The house was to be evenly divided between me, my sister and two or three other family members, that’s what the will stated. To make sure we had sole ownership, my aunt took the money me and Rachel were supposed to get and bought out the other members of the family and put me and Rachel’s names on the house as sole owners. This left my dad with absolutely nothing. This was emotionally and mentally crushing. He’d sacrificed so much and put himself through hell for his parents and his mom and this house and then to be left with nothing for it was just unbelievably tragic. So he basically has all of his stuff here, his music equipment, a garage full of stuff, all of his guitars, and that’s all he has. He tries to protect this house the best he can and tries to take care of it so that we have a nice place to live, even after he is gone. So he sacrifices his life so that he can stay here. So he stays here all day long every day.  A thing about my dad that I’ve learned is that he’s a goalpost mover. He’s such a master orator, and I’m so gullible or such a good listener that I believe what he says. On the flipside, he’s a master gaslighter as well. He can make you believe the grass is blue, because he’ll yell, he’ll get emotional and if you disagree, then he guilts you for not agreeing with him. Like when my stepmom up and left after my sophomore year of college, she came around for a few weeks to help and drop off groceries, but a week later when my dad already was sleeping around, she cut off all contact and stopped communicating with us. My dad assumed that she went on a vacation to England. He would spend literally hours upstairs ranting and raving to me about this. She wound up just being pissed at him, and in that time frame, she went to Disney World with her grandkids. But he had me so upset and so convinced. Anyways, he would proclaim incessantly when Nancy lived here that he was “taking his house back.” All the time. Never did anything. All I heard about for years was “When Rachel turns 12″ “When Rachel turns 14″ “When Rachel turns 16″ “When Rachel turns 18″ “When Nancy comes and gets half of these dogs” “When you start paying half the bills in this house.” Things would finally change. He’d repeat these nonstop. Like all of a sudden when Rachel turns a certain age, she transforms into a normal child. Or like, a switch appears on the wall that when you flick it, money will rain from the sky. When Nancy gets half the dogs, we can finally live a normal life. When I start paying half the bills in the house, then I can start having a say at what goes on. Needless to say, none of this has come to pass. Ever. I believed it though. When Nancy left, I thought he’d take over, things would get calmer, we’d get everything back on track. Instead, things got more chaotic. When the first bills started coming in, and I was still in college with no job, he had no job, we had all of these dogs, we had barely any money, instead of going, “Damn, we gotta figure this out,” he opened the bills and broke down literally openly sobbing in front of us on the kitchen floor. Then went downstairs and I could still hear him having a mental breakdown, sobbing. That image and the sound of him sobbing is etched in my memory to this day. When Rachel turned a certain age, he would always say, “Oh when she’s this age, I’ll be able to go out more, I’ll be able to do more stuff on my own.” So I was like, “Cool, I just have to wait things out until then and then everything is gonna be fine and normal.” Never happened. She’d turn that age and the magic switch wouldn’t flip, and he’d get madder and more depressed and things would keep getting worse. When this insane situation happened on my 22nd birthday and Nancy came and took half of the dogs, leaving us with only 4, I thought “Okay good, our lives are gonna be calmer and nicer now.” Nope, on a weekly basis, he’d still lose it and scream about having these dogs. When I got a job and started getting paid and taking care of the bills and buying groceries and helping out, did I suddenly get more of a voice? No, I was still talked down to like I didn’t know anything and my opinion still didn’t matter.  The big one was that when Rachel turned 18/graduated HS, things were gonna change. He was going to go out and explore the world, go do more things on his own. And I was looking forward to it. Sure, I have my life, but if that means I need to burn more vacation days or try to figure out working from home, or if I have to quit band or miss band or whatever, that’s fine. If it means that he’s going to have a life and be happier, then great! I’ll do it. But he refuses. His thing he started back in May of last year was this obsession with going hiking and going camping. He wanted really badly to go to Big Meadows/Shenandoah National Park and go hiking/camping on the Appalachian Trail. So he spent weeks, months, hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours outfitting the back of his truck turning it into a camper. Building custom tables, shelving, drawers, storage, buying batteries and supplies and stuff. He went once. The weather was never right for him to go, and the one weekend it was, he couldn’t go because I paid to get a new pool filter put in, and TWO WEEKS BEFORE IT WAS INSTALLED, he thought he had to spend two weeks prepping for it, which included not going away that weekend. Then when he went, he got it in his head that he had to take Rachel because she hadn’t been anywhere all summer and he had to take her to get her out of the house. This of course has been the main plot point this year. He takes her, and she is of course a gigantic problem because she’s not a functional adult. She attempts to cook and neglects to clean a pot and gets sick and nearly gets him sick. She doesn’t eat the rest of the trip. She doesn’t do anything. He’s stuck watching her and can’t do anything. So he’s miserable, she’s miserable, she’s no help. And that’s it.  So after the whole blowup with the pool pump, I made the decision, at the behest of my friend, to start attending therapy. I’ve gone once a week pretty consistently since July. I’m not suicidal. I’m not a health risk. I’m not overly depressed. I just need help coping with my family. And I think we’ve recently gotten to the point where we’re figuring everything out and it’s been hitting me over the last two weeks when things have been tense around here.  I’m functional and my family is not. My sister is incapable of dealing with anything. She has no concept of turning the focus on or off when she needs to. She has no common sense or critical thinking. She does things and has no ability to justify or explain her actions. When you pin her to the wall, she clams up and doesn’t communicate. She does what she thinks you want her to do, even if that thing is also incorrect, and then she doesn’t explain why she did it. So she’s not a normal functional person. My dad becomes apoplectic at any sign of adversity. Dogs make a mess? Scream and yell. A thing you have to do? Freak out. And granted, he’s been doing it so long, he’s just over it. But yet he refuses to try to improve his station in life. It’s not like these are things he’s doing in addition to his normal life, this is his life. And he’s done it for so long, he’s so engrained and feels like he can’t change it. I’d like to think I’m a normal functional person. At any adversity, I think critically and think of ways I can fix things so that everybody wins and I face the least amount of blowback. I take things in stride and try not to freak out. I work a 9-5 job 5 days a week that involves a lot of interpersonal communication. I teach band 3 days a week which involves managing 12+ HS kids and communicating with other adults. I try to stay active. When things happen around here, sure, I get mad like anyone else, but it’s not these gigantic blowups like my dad has. And trust me, there’s plenty of times where I could just absolutely fucking rage. When I ask my sister not to lock the cat in my room all day, especially with no food or water. And then my sister locks the cat in my room and says “Oh I was gonna put her in there to feed her but then we were out of cat food” and then doesn’t text me saying we were out, doesn’t even give the cat water, and then the cat has nowhere to go to the bathroom so she pees on a pair of my sweatpants, which I wear a lot in my room because it’s 10* colder up here than the rest of my house. And I find all of this at the end of a work day (or god forbid a 13 hour work + band day).  So the last two weeks since we’ve kind of hit this breakthrough has been incredibly eye-opening to me. Most of my home experiences have been me trying to be proactive to avoid my non-functional sister fucking something up and my non-functional dad losing it. Constantly living in a state of anxiety, wondering when you’re gonna hear “GOD DAMMIT” or “FUCK” screamed from downstairs and then banging of doors and more screaming and yelling, and your dad screaming awful things. Or you’re just doing something ordinary, maybe even just having a nice conversation, and then he launches into this emotionally depressing speech about how crazy Rachel is driving him and like, the pit of my stomach just drops. And this happens daily, multiple times a day. Something will happen, we’ll ask Rachel a question, we need an answer, she can’t think of what we want to hear, or she’ll be trying to formulate an answer in her head, and he’ll lose patience and snap. Maybe he’ll call her a retard, or tell her she has no hope and no future, and that he hopes she doesn’t get fat because she’s gonna have to marry a rich lawyer if she ever wants to make it in the world. THESE ARE THINGS THAT HAVE ALL BEEN SAID OUT LOUD TO HER, MALICIOUSLY BY MY DAD, HER OWN FATHER. As ashamed as I am to say it, these things come out too. Because if 1/3 of my life is at work and 1/3 is asleep, the other 1/3, I’m being gaslit by him. I’m being influenced by him.  So like, another thing we’ve talked about at therapy is how things affect me. I’m always thinking about other people and them, and sure, it makes me feel really bad that these people act this way, but I also feel for them. For Rachel who can’t think for herself, for my dad who’s been shit on his whole life. But I never talk about me and how bad I’m feeling, or I talk and run down my dad and how miserable he is and how miserable it’s making me, and then I have to backtrack and defend him and even put some of the blame on myself for feeling this way.  So I guess I’ll be open about me. So, my college career sucked. The first two years of college, I went into Computer Engineering because I wanted to do networking. That wound up not being for me. I did really really bad, because they made you take Physics and Chemistry and I did poorly in both of those classes. All of the math, I aced. The computer science stuff I did well when it wasn’t a class that made me build a video game. I hated that. So after my third semester, two things happened. I took an ELEG205 test that I studied for and got a 0 on. He gave me no credit on the test, and honestly that day I thought about just leaving his office and walking out onto Academy and letting myself get hit by a bus. I did some soul-searching and research and decided to change my major to Computer Science. Easier course-load, more relevant stuff to my interest, more flexibility and diversity in what classes I could take. I was back to taking history, German, stuff I loved and thrived in during HS. Right around that time, my parents also decided that I had to move back home. My grades weren’t the straight A’s they were accustomed to when I was in HS (my final GPA was around a 3.9) because I was irresponsible. When the work got too hard I just gave up. I’d sleep late, I’d spend way too much time goofing off with my friends. I had a tumultuous relationship with a girlfriend who’s parents wouldn’t let her sniff a college campus. Then I had a tumultuous relationship with a girl who I fucked up the whole thing because I was still kind of in an on again off again with the first girl. I did a drumline that rehearsed all day on Sundays, which ate into study time and wound up being cool for networking and getting my name out but nothing for making me better and negatively affected everything to do with me. So my first two years at school sucked and much of it was my fault. My parents thought that me moving home was the best idea because they could get me back on a consistent schedule. I think my stepmom saw it as her way out. Things had been getting worse around the house, I was moving home to help, this was her chance to move out.  So I had to take the bus for the next three years. I say three because I didn’t graduate on time. The bus was so awful that even when I was on time for it, it would be late, and I had to take two connecting buses to get to Newark, so one being late would most likely screw me up. And the commute took three times as long as a car. So the normal 20-30 minute drive would be an hour and a half one way. And sometimes the bus would be on time and get there super quick, sometimes it’d be super late. Sometimes it’d be crowded or bumpy. I couldn’t get any studying or reading done. I couldn’t focus on anything because I had to keep an eye on where I was, what stop was coming up, etc. I’d be stepping off a bus into a sprint to get to a class on time some days. Or stepping off of an hour and a half bus ride into a 75-minute lecture. Not only that, Nancy leaving ruined my dad mentally and emotionally, so most of my home life became him trying to recover from this breakup and when it wasn’t that, it was helping him with stuff. I had little to no time to study or focus on school. My grades suffered. I remember I had a final once that my first bus was late, which made me late for my second bus, so I made it into Newark 45 minutes late, which was a day that I had a final. I walked in and the professor said, “No,” and ushered me out into the hallway to yell at me for being late so much and then late to the final. I had to drop a class twice because I was late and not on campus so much and the entire class hinged upon group work and this one big group project that I could never devote time to. My best classes were ones that required not a lot of at-home studying or reading or planning. Just basic homework and basic studying for exams and easy-to-follow lectures. Anything mid-high college level, I was atrocious at.  When it became clear I wasn’t gonna graduate, I needed something that summer just to carry me. So I applied for a few summer internships and part-time jobs in my field, just to do something. I wound up interviewing at the same place I’m at now. I got there about an hour early because the bus either got me there an hour early or an hour late for my interview. So I got Dunkin and sat in the park down by my job and ate it, hoping that things could turn around for me. I wound up getting the job. I almost got fired 3 months in because I no-call-no-showed one day. I was having a really tough time adjusting to having a job, having some money, but still trying to have a social life. Things were really hard at home that particular week as well. So I skipped work to go into Newark for something and never got back to anyone and they said they were gonna fire me the next day. They actually told me, “You missed work and didn’t tell anyone you weren’t gonna be there. So Brian is gonna let you go tomorrow. I wouldn’t even come in tomorrow if I were you.” I tried asking for my boss’s number to call him and he wouldn’t give it to me. My team leader asked him to reconsider. I came in the next day and got chewed out but told him I was sorry and that I was having trouble with things and I’d be more consistent. From then on, I never did that again. I wound up staying on and they worked with my schedule while I tried taking some classes and finishing up my degree, and even still work with my schedule of coming in a little later, as long as I hit the 8 hour a day mark, they don’t really care. And I am eternally grateful for that.  So with having a part-time job that eventually turned full-time, I was making good money that kept getting better and better. I was hourly at first ($15 an hour) working 25-40 hours a week, and eventually I decided that the money was more important than school. Especially since I didn’t have a car, I was running out of money, and my schedule still didn’t allow me to be on campus much. I had done everything I was supposed to do at that point except graduate college. So I took the job working full-time salaried at ISM. I saw a pay increase and was able to start taking care of things around the house. That’s why when Nancy filed for divorce and slowly cut off my dad and Rachel from insurance, the truck insurance, our cellphone plans, etc., I was able to step in and help. We didn’t have a mortgage cause the house was already well paid for and not sold in the will, just transferred, and no rent. So paying for the bills + my student loans + eventually getting a car, all of that was covered under my salary. While still being a kid in the house next to Rachel, not being on my dad’s level, I was pulling in nearly $50000 basically two years out of college and supporting my family. If I met another person that pulled in a comparable salary, we’d have an incredibly stable household.  Instead what I had was someone that made maybe half of that if we were lucky, eventually only about 1/4 of that. I had a house that required work totalling double what I make in a year. A house with no working bathroom upstairs so the only working shower requires going through my dad’s “room” in the basement which he complains about us violating his privacy. A house with an ancient rusting pool that requires a high level of upkeep. A house that floods if you get so much as a heavy drizzle. A house with no central air, so the upstairs is sweltering in the summer and freezing in the winter. A house that the ADULTS that lived here for 50 years prior didn’t do a goddamn thing to fix up. A dad who in giving up his life to make sure I had a great one, now is in a molasses-like stubborn state of depression. A sister who got little to no parenting from her dad who was over raising kids. A sister who needed more parenting that anyone because she was developmentally stunted. A sister who now that she’s 18 is not even not helping, but actively making things harder and more negative around here. A dad who requires a high level of assistance and help and another “adult” in the house who is wholly incapable of helping you provide that need and who needs help themselves.  Yet me, everything seems to be totally on me. I bought a car, a used 2004 car. Nobody helped me buy it. Nobody guided me to buy the right one. It wound up developing a ton of issues and I tried my best to fix them and fix it up but this year wound up killing me financially because my car had so many issues. So I went basically into debt, taking out loans so I didn’t have to borrow from my dad because he does nothing but complain about money and how tight he is financially. He offers to help with things, but every offer to help is wrapped around a lecture or a giant speech about how he does for others and doesn’t get anything in return.  I don’t know what the point of all of this was. It was gonna be about how much I like the stuff I like because my life sucks and the stuff I enjoy gives me solace, but wound up turning into a Reader’s Digest of my last 7 months of therapy. Whoops. 

[clubofinfo]

Expert: From Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Samarinda and Pontianak ***** Several years ago, a prominent Indonesian businessman who now resides in Canada, insisted on meeting me in a back room of one of Jakarta’s posh restaurants. An avid reader of mine, he ‘had something urgent to tell me’, after finding out that our paths were going to be crossing in this destroyed and hopelessly polluted Indonesian capital. What he had to say was actually straight to the point and definitely worth sitting two hours in an epic traffic jam: No one will be allowed to build comprehensive public transportation in Jakarta or in any other Indonesian city. If a mayor or a governor tries and defies the wishes of the ruthless business community which is in fact controlling most of the Indonesian government, he or she will be dethroned, or even totally destroyed. These ‘prophetic’ words are still ringing in my ears, several months after the complete destruction of the progressive Jakarta governor, known as Ahok (real name: Basuki Tjahaja Purnama), who tried very hard to improve the seemingly ungovernable and thoroughly destroyed city, constructing new mass transit lines (LRT), restoring old train stations, cleaning canals, attempting to build at least some basic net of sidewalks, as well as planting trees and creating parks. After Ahok’s first and extremely successful term in office, the opposition consolidated its forces. It consisted mainly of the Islamists, big business tycoons, and the military as well as other revanchist cadres (almost exclusively pro-business and pro-Western individuals) that are still controlling Indonesia. ‘Ahok’, an outsider and an ethnic Chinese, patently lost. Instead of coming to his rescue, several ‘prominent’ but corrupt city planners and architects, most of them enjoying funding from abroad, shamelessly joined the bandwagon of ‘Ahok bashing’. But even defeating Ahok was not enough. He had to be punished and humiliated, in order to discourage others from trying to replicate his socially-oriented example. Already during the election campaign, charges were brought against him, alleging that he had ‘insulted Islam’ during one of his public appearances.  It was total nonsense, disputed by several leading Indonesian linguists, but in a thoroughly corrupt society (both legally and morally) it simply worked. On May 9, 2017, ‘Ahok’ was sentenced to two years in prison, and unceremoniously thrown into the dungeon. Since then, many of his projects have stopped totally, or at least were significantly slowed down. A disgusting filth has once again began covering Jakarta’s canals and rivers. For those who still believed in miracles, all hopes died. Those ‘city planners’ who still conveniently believe that one can ‘work with’ the present regime (they call it ‘government’) correctly assumed that it was once again ‘business as usual’. As ‘Ahok’ was being thrown behind bars, huge sighs of relief were almost detectable all over this misfortunate archipelago! Everything has returned to ‘normal’, at least for those who have been benefiting from the collapse of Indonesia and its cities. The clock of Indonesian history was turned back. It is now almost certain that at least for several upcoming decades, all Indonesian cities will remain what they are now – a living hell, the worst nightmare, and indisputably some of the most horrid urban areas found anywhere on Earth. But readers abroad are not supposed to know all this. Indonesian people are not supposed to understand the situation. It is now all biasa – ‘just normal, just fine. Everything is fine. Read those ANU (Australian National University) papers and you will learn that ‘Indonesia is now a normal country, like Brazil or Mexico’. Nothing extraordinary is taking place. ***** In reality, everything has collapsed. The cities have. Not metaphorically, not hyperbolically, but concretely, practically. A renowned Australian artist, George Burchett, who now resides in Hanoi, Vietnam, once visited Jakarta. For several weeks we travelled together all around the Indonesian archipelago. He was shocked and depressed. Before departing, he declared: I saw many cities, all over the world. Cities are built for the people. For the first time in my life, in Indonesia, I saw the cities that are actually built not for the people, but against the people. It is because Indonesian cities are fascist. They do not serve the needs of its citizens. On the contrary, they are designed to extract that little which is still left in the possession of the common Indonesian folks; extract and give it to the local rulers, as well as to the multi-national companies. ***** Excerpts of the most common definitions of ‘failed states’ are stated in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and can perfectly apply to both Indonesia in general, and to its cities in particular: The governing capacity of a failed state is attenuated such that it is unable to fulfill the administrative and organizational tasks required to control people and resources and can provide only minimal public services… A failed state suffers from crumbling infrastructures, faltering utility supplies and educational and health facilities, and deteriorating basic human-development indicators… Governor ‘Ahok’ tried to change the situation. Crowds cheered. Millions watched, in all the major cities of Indonesia. Hope was born, at first fragile but soon blossoming. Then suddenly: a tremendous blast, full stop, and collapse! The man who dared to inject several socialist elements into the sclerotic, brutal system, ended up behind bars. And it is now all back to the old ‘failed state’ scenario. Life is once again thoroughly empty and predictable. There is hardly any difference between the Indonesian cities. If you put a person in the center or a suburb of Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Semarang, Medan, Makassar or Pontianak, he or she would have no idea, which one is which. All major streets are choked with traffic jams. There are no sidewalks, and even if there are some pathetic and narrow ones, they are overtaken by aggressive and smoke belching scooters, as well as by unregulated and unhygienic street vendor stalls. Thugs are everywhere, controlling the streets. Almost all side streets have open sewage system. When it rains, entire neighborhoods get submerged under filthy water. Tiny carts, pulled by unclean and underpaid men, collect garbage. All the cities face the same problems, and all the cities look precisely the same. Sanitation, water quality and garbage recycling facilities are at similar levels to those of the poorest sub-Saharan African countries. With food and fuel prices up many Indonesian children are forced to work Slums are omnipresent – huge and brutal. In fact, most of the neighborhoods of the Indonesian cities, called kampungs (‘villages’), could easily fit the international definitions of slums. ***** A few years ago I was invited to speak at the University of Indonesia (UI). Various students asked me: “Why? Why is all this is happening in our country? And is there any solution?” I replied that, of course, there is a solution: “socialism and central planning. But it would also have to be determined and real, and it would have to include a full-hearted anti-corruption battle, as well as a decisive ban on selling all natural resources and utilities to foreigners.” I added: “And tell your professors to stop salivating over-funding from the West, and flying to Europe in order to learn about ‘administration’, ‘good governance’ and city planning from those who have been robbing your country for several centuries.” I believe that students liked the sound of what I was saying (not sure they were still capable of understanding the meaning of my words). However, predictably, I was never invited to the UI again. ***** Indonesian cities are like open sores. Everything has been stolen from them and as a result, what makes life bearable is clearly missing. Only what the ‘elites’ do not want, is what has been left for the people. Hungry and Homeless in Jakarta There are hardly any public parks in Indonesia, at least no parks of any significance. Cities have no river or seafronts, in a striking contrast to South American, Middle Eastern and even African urban areas (not to speak of tremendous and beautiful public spaces, parks, promenades and exercise areas in China). Dirty, clogged and polluted driveways are called ‘streets’ and ‘avenues’. There are no sidewalks, or if there are, they are just one meter wide, with broken tiles or deep potholes. Where sidewalks are not really needed, there may be actually some built – along one or two streets in the very center and in front of some government buildings, connecting basically nothing. This clearly shows that nothing is actually designed for the people. It is important to understand that the government of Indonesia, on all levels, is not actually an institution that consists of men and women who are determined to improve the country and to serve its people. On the contrary! In Indonesia, a great number of politicians belong to or are somehow affiliated to the military, which has ruled the country brutally since the 1965 Western-backed military coup. That coup destroyed everything socialist and Communist, banned Communist ideas, and murdered between 1 and 3 million people, including almost all the progressive intellectuals. On top of it, most of the politicians are businesspeople, tycoons and oligarchs, and the great majority of them of unsavory reputations. They have been robbing the nation and its people for more than half of a century, and there is absolutely no reason why they should stop doing it now, or anytime soon. For these individuals, to grab the top political positions is nothing more than about maximizing the profits. ‘Indonesian democracy’ which the West loves to glorify (no wonder, as Indonesia de-facto functions as an obedient colony, plundering its own citizens and resources on behalf of the West), consists of countless political parties, of which not one of them is from the left, or defends the interests of common people. Moreover, a great majority of the ‘civil society’, of the NGO’s, are subservient to Western economical and political interests. Many, if not all, of these organizations are directly funded from Washington, Berlin, London or Canberra. (I described the situation in my latest novel, Aurora. Indonesian companies and its government are one single entity. And they are decisively and in unison plundering the entire archipelago of its natural resources. The 4th most populous country on Earth produces almost nothing. (Read my book Archipelago of Fear in English and in Bahasa Indonesia). The ‘philosophy’ of this unbridled plunder is then applied to ‘urbanism’; to the way Indonesian cities are governed and basically abandoned to the markets. Not even in Africa where I lived and worked for several years, is there such absolute and shameless theft of urban land by the elites (of which members of government are part). Once all this is determined, to understand the reality of Indonesia and its cities becomes much easier. Once this is defined, Indonesian cities ‘begin to make sense’. ***** In reality, there is not much that could be called ‘urban’ in the Indonesian cities. Be it a city like Pontianak with 600,000 inhabitants, or Jakarta with 12 million (28 million including the surrounding cities and suburbs). Wherever one goes, profit over people is taken to the extreme. Like those logged out, mined out and polluted islands of the archipelago, Indonesian cities are designed in a way that brings maximum income to the extremely small group of individuals and businesses. The price has to be paid by the impoverished, often ill, badly-educated, and literally choking majority. The tremendously low level of media outlets, education, pop entertainment, as well as constant religious encroachment and feudal family structures, are purposefully spread and upheld, so the population does not think, does not doubt and does not rebel. The results are shocking. Indonesian cities are like palm oil plantations or open-pit mines, with some elements of military barrack colonies (of course, there are some special quarters for the overseers, with large and kitschy houses, like those that dot South Jakarta). Here, nothing is constructed to make life great, colorful, ecstatic, meaningful and happy. There are no permanent concert halls, no theatres, and no grand public museums (one that recently opened is private, and serves to further politically indoctrinate people, this time targeting the ‘urban middle class’). There are no pedestrian neighborhoods, and no free and public seafronts. Not one architecturally valuable structure has been constructed in any Indonesian city after the 1965/66 military/religious coup. In Indonesia, a ‘public area’ is synonymous with a mall, in fact, with countless malls of various sizes and qualities. Inside the malls, there are chain eateries and chain shops, as well as cafes. There are also a few cinemas, showing mostly Hollywood junk or local horror films. On the weekends, there are bands playing old Western and Indonesian pop tunes, offering absolutely no variety. Some 50 songs are recycled again and again. The most favorite is, predictably: “I did it my way”. There is nothing ‘extra’ in the Indonesian cities. Here everything is stripped to absolute basics: you somehow survive on your meager salary (with prices, at least for the food and consumer goods being as high or higher than in Tokyo or Paris), you somehow move to your workplace and back, sitting for hours every day in horrific traffic jams as there is no public transportation even in such cities with 2-3 million inhabitants, like Surabaya or Bandung. You cook and wash your dishes and clothes in terribly polluted water, and try to save on outrageously high electricity bills. There is absolutely nothing to do in your neighborhood. There is, of course, always a mosque nearby or sometimes a church, if that’s what you fancy. There are no parks, no playgrounds for children. There is no sidewalk to walk to a cafe, and so, if you want to actually go to a cafe or to a bookstore (all the bookstores in Indonesia are increasingly poorly stocked and heavily censored), you have to jump onto your scooter or into your car again, if you have any strength left. The chances are – you have no time for anything, anyway. A 3-4 hours long daily commute, your exhausting work, and all you have time for is to collapse in front of the television set and get indoctrinated, neutralized and idiotized even further. You learn to smile when you actually want to die, or at least to shout. You sense that nothing could ever change for better, and that your life is finished, perhaps at 25, or even earlier. Eventually, some people do it sooner than others: you become religious, and you become traditional, conservative and ‘family-oriented’. There is nothing else, really. The cities of Indonesia will make sure that there is nothing else. They are the perfect machines, manufacturing obedience, extracting everything from human beings, and giving nothing in return. ***** I often describe the coup of 1965 as a “Cultural Hiroshima”. While in Japan, the US openly experimented on the health of millions of human beings, in Indonesia the experiment was of a totally different nature. The area of interest to the Empire was: What would happen with a progressive anti-imperialist nation that counts on a complex and diverse culture, if it is bathed in blood, if its theatres and film studios are shut down, 40% of teachers get murdered, women from left-wing organizations get their breasts amputated, writers are locked in Buru Island concentration camp, and urban planners are thought to design cities like Houston, Dallas or LA, but in a country with salaries that are 10% or less than those of the U.S.A.? The answer is simple: “It would turn into Indonesia. It would become Jakarta, as it is now”. For the Western demagogues and the imperialist planners, “Indonesia” and “Jakarta” are not only the names of the country and the city: they are names of the concept, of a model. This model, forced on the colonies, is perfect for the West and its interests. Jakarta: One of better public sidewalks It is also perfect for the Indonesian ‘elites’, who are often getting dirty at home, plundering all they can, but do relax and play and often evacuate their entire families to Singapore, California, Australia, Hong Kong and many other ‘safe and clean’ places. It is the cheapest; the most efficient of concepts designed to plunder, and to royally fuck a nation. Not surprisingly, the West has tried to replicate this ‘successful Indonesian model’ in many parts of the world. It even tried to inject it into Russia, after the USSR was first mortally wounded and then destroyed. It tried to force it on Chile… My much older friends in Santiago told me that before the 9-11-1973 coup perpetrated by General Pinochet on behalf of the West and its companies, several people around President Allende were threatened by the right-wingers: “Watch out, Jakarta is coming!” ***** Jakarta came! It is here, all over Indonesia, in all of its cities, and to varying degrees in most of the countries that have fallen under the Western neo-colonialist boot. But what does it really mean, ‘Jakarta’? Is it just a name or is it also a verb, an infinitive? “To Jakarta…” It is ‘to take everything away from the people and to give nothing back’. ‘To Jakarta’ is to lie and to loot and to convince human beings, through long decades of indoctrination, that everything is just fine, and as should be. ‘To Jakartize’ the nation is to make almost the entire population irrelevant, to deliver the loot on the silver trays to both local and foreign rulers, leaving only dirty and polluted rivers and canals behind, as well as tremendous traffic jams, smog, bizarre overpasses with no escalators, and broken tiles along the driveways. Even filthy beach in Jakarta is for a fee The ‘Jakartized population’ is obedient, explosively violent, edgy, but not towards the regime, turbo-capitalism, corrupt elites and their Western masters, but towards each other, as well as towards the minorities. Jakarta gets very little criticism from the official mainstream Western and local media, and almost no genuine analysis from academia. No surprise: to attack the reality of the Indonesian cities is like attacking the entire Western neo-colonialist system imposed on various parts of the world. To tell the truth would destroy any journalistic career, as it would torpedo almost any chance for a well-remunerated university tenure! Very often, all that one could expect in terms of a realistic description of the situation in Indonesia, are random exclamations overheard on board departing airplanes, or some ‘anecdotal evidence’ from the pages of travel magazines and blogs. It appears that what normal people see with their own eyes is in direct contradiction with what the mainstream media and academia presents as ‘facts’. On 17 September 2017, a Malaysian newspaper The Star wrote: Based on a real-time air quality index uploaded to the Airvisual application at midday on Friday, Sept 15, Jakarta ranked third as the most polluted city in the world… In mid-August, the application showed that Jakarta was at the top of the list, followed by Ankara, Turkey and Lahore, Pakistan. “Escape Here” magazine ranked Jakarta as the No1 city in its report “The 10 Worst Traffic Cities in the World”: It happens to be the country’s capital and one of the most poorly designed cities in the World, a combination that makes getting around here a disaster. An ever-increasing number of car owners that come from the expansion of suburbia that surrounds this mega-city are to be blamed for the 400 hours a year that citizens spend in traffic. It is actually hailed as being the worst traffic in the world. It doesn’t seem like there is any solution for this mega-city as the infrastructure here falls into the hands of the local government and contracts are renegotiated annually; which means long-term projects are pretty much impossible. An average trip in this city takes about 2 hours… On 2 September 2015, even the official propaganda English language newspaper of Indonesia, the Jakarta Post, re-published the survey ranking the horrendous Indonesian capital as the 9th ‘un-friendliest city on Earth’: Jakarta, the Indonesian capital notorious for gridlocks and bad air pollution, ranks 9th among the world’s least friendly cities this year, a recent survey by an international travel magazine shows. Readers of the highly regarded luxury travel magazine Conde Nast Traveler included Jakarta for the first time on its ’10 unfriendliest cities in the world’ list this year. In the survey, one of the readers said Jakarta was ‘the scariest place I have ever been to ‘with its congestion and aggressive locals. The ‘scariest place’: but, of course! What could one expect from the capital city of the country that in the last half a century has committed 3 monstrous genocides (against its own population in 1965/66, against the people of East Timor and an on going genocide against the people of Papua)? What could one expect from cities that have been totally robbed of green spaces and, in fact, of everything that could be called ‘public’, where the arts have disappeared and where absolutely everything has become commercialized; where everything and everybody is now expected to be the same – behave the same way, look the same way, sound the same way, taste the same way. Try to look different, and if you are a Papuan, Chinese, African, or white, just try to walk on those broken tiny sidewalks of Surabaya, Jakarta, Pontianak, or Medan. You will be shouted at; you will immediately become the target of naked racism. People will stop and point fingers, or worse. A few days ago I filmed from a boat sailing on a polluted river passing through Pontianak city, on an island in Borneo. Two children on the shore immediately raised their middle fingers and began yelling: “Fuck you!” Just like that: with no warning and for no reason. And this is, of course, not the worst that could happen. If I was Chinese… were I an African… Everybody knows it. Nobody speaks about it, nobody writes… According to Western ‘analysts’ and academics, Indonesia is a ‘democratic’ and ‘tolerant’ nation. The deeper it is sinking, the more oppressive and intolerant it becomes, the more devastated it gets, and the more it is glorified. Lies are piled up on lies. “The Emperor has beautiful clothes’, everybody shouts, as in that old children’s tale. But, in fact, he is naked! It is clearly “political correctness” at work. One is supposed to be ‘sensitive’ to the local ‘culture’, religion, and way of life. The only defect of this approach is that in countries such as Indonesia, the local culture, its way of life and even the extremely aggressive religions, are all the direct result of the fascist regime that was directly imposed onto this nation by the West after the 1965/66 slaughter.  Had the socialist pre-1965 course be allowed to naturally flow, Indonesia would now be a truly normal, socially-balanced, secular and tolerant nation, and its cities would serve the people, instead of the other way around. Just a normal river in Jakarta Here, the ‘political correctness’, is once again, protecting the crimes against humanity that have been committed by the West, by the local elites and the military, as well as by the religious leaders. The local ‘culture’ is not being protected at all, as it is actually dead, murdered. The cities are dead as well. Their carcasses are stinking, horrifying, monstrous, stripped of all hope. People living in them are choking, humiliated, marginalized, unwell, and constantly robbed by the system. Bizarrely, it takes an elitist magazine like Conde Nast to notice… It takes random travellers to speak out… One would never read such comments in the reports coming out of the Australian National University or on the pages of the New York Times. ***** Just outside the city of Surabaya, the second largest city in Indonesia, on the Island of Madura, several enormous ships are being manually cut into pieces and sold for scrap by destitute local people. Periodically things explode, collapse, and people lose their faces or limbs. It is a horrible sight: truly haunted, disturbing. Just like in Bangladesh, although here, it goes almost unnoticed. In many ways, I believe that the Indonesian cities resemble those ships, and those polluted coastal areas where the ships are broken into thousands of parts and then sold. Once proud, they are now humiliated, in pain, being torn to pieces while still alive. Only real fascism can treat its citizens this way; only a regime that has lost its marbles, and gone thoroughly insane. Indonesia cities… What do they really consist of? Well, they are made of those tiny and crammed homes, filthy canals, potholed driveways, of indescribable pollution, of mosques and churches. Then there are a few office towers in their centers, countless shopping malls and several luxury hotels where the elites can escape and take some rest from the daily nightmare, which is ‘normal life’ here. Golf courses everywhere, but no decent public parks, as even those few green areas have been already thoroughly privatized. ***** Now the former governor of Jakarta, ‘Ahok’, is in jail for daring to change things; for building public transportation, cleaning the rivers and building a few tiny parks. He is in jail for relocating squatters to public housing, and for trying to serve the impoverished and humiliated majority. His clearly socialist deeds were immediately smeared and discredited by the elites, by the Western-funded NGO’s and by corrupt city planners. Even when this could not stop his determination and zeal, religion was unleashed. Most of the religions are, after all, regressive, pro-business oriented, and ready to support any fascist regime. ***** How much deeper can Indonesian cities sink? When are they going to become uninhabitable? People are already dying; thousands are, unnecessarily – from cancer, from stress, from respiratory diseases. Millions of human beings are wasting their lives. They are alive, but it is only a bare existence, not really life: they are moving mechanically, cutting through the filthy air on their scooters, eating junk food, constantly surrounded by decay and ugliness. Why? For how much longer? The forests of Borneo, Sumatra and Papua are burning. All over this archipelago, everything is logged out, consumed by mines, ruined by monstrous pollution. The extraction and looting of natural resources is the only real economic ‘engine’ of today’s Indonesia. The cities are not faring much better. They are actually not faring any better at all. It is time to wake up, or it could get too late. But the nation appears to be in a total slumber. It does not notice, anymore, that it is really in freefall. It was conditioned not to notice. It was made to accept, even to celebrate its own collapse. Those who forced Indonesia into all this will not tell. As long as there is at least something left, something that can be extracted, utilized, looted, they will be cheering this great Indonesia’s ‘success’ and ‘progress’. I encourage all those people from all over the world who would want to see the true face of neo-colonialism, of savage capitalism and right wing disaster, to come to the Indonesian cities! Come and see with your own eyes. Come and take a walk; don’t hide in your comfortable cities full of leafy parks, concert halls, art cinemas, public transportation and theatres. This is real. This is a warning to the world! Come and see how cities look like in a country where Communism and socialism are banned, where a colony does not even realize that it being colonized, and where everything is served on huge silver plates straight into the gullet of that monster called fascism. Ketapang, West Borneo, Indonesia • All photos by Andre Vltchek http://clubof.info/

[throwinggrapesoffthebalcony]

LAVENDER SOAP

France: a protracted sexual scene on a beautiful afternoon in a lavender field a woman named Cat on her knees. My hands moving gently through her soft shiny hair. My expression towards the landscape, towards the sky and down to the strangeness of her face at this angle. The sound of wind and her mouth on me. The texture of skin, foliage, hair, and clothing. That part of me, wet with saliva and cum, glinting with sunlight, appearing and disappearing into her mouth. After some time I lower myself into a complete sexual scene on the earth and amongst the lavender. The exultant sound of her voice while fucking and cumming rises then begins to fade. This scene, at least the first third of the film, represents a departure from France, which represents that part of us. Some belief that romance still exists. 

Her voice, begging me not to leave, dissolves drowned out by the jet engines. Then there’s the Atlantic, a great blue shimmering void beneath with patches of darker blue where there’s depth. What a lovely abyss. The event hasn’t been forgotten, but the world has faded into yet another epoch of pacification, has gone on to other things, and has been consumed by new geopolitical and meteorological concerns; everyone has even done their best to put the event out of the collective mind. A new place of celebrity has arose, sprung up and is thriving. A magazine spread is open to a panorama of what’s left of the architecture, of the vast decimation of what’s now a ghostly city. A ‘City of Angles’, now a cruel double entendre; but publicists rarely know where good taste ends and pornography begins, when there are these magazines to sell. They weren’t all bad. And with the way the picture’s taken it nearly reflects a state of absolution of the place itself. Should we feel sorry for it. And just as anyone does when faced with the vast panorama of a place they know well, the eyes move, searching, then resting on a familiar place in the scene, even if that place no longer exists amongst the debris. I should have been there for it. I remember what was there. It’s like a chimera of a lingering love. The page of the magazine slowly becomes more and more lifelike. Then the lens begins to move in, struck with flares of sun and dust as the scene comes to life, now miles and miles walking into the ruins.

There’s a hotel in the distance, as if almost completely spared amongst the vast sun-drenched debris and decimation. Standing now, staring up at the hotel, laughing. An arrival at the foot of steps leading down into a cocktail lounge. I set a beautiful soft leather duffle bag down at the top of the few steps that lead down into the vast sunken area. Peering over this relatively large space once referred to as a living room, so it’s as if arriving home. The look on my face, both of about to rest, to fall back onto one of the dusty sofas, but also of coming here with some purpose, to dig up the dead now. It’s a ruins now. At first there’re mixed feelings concerning the timing of arrival. What at first seems ill-fated, inglorious, becomes even more magnificent and glorious. Like smelling a rose in the desert. Dressed very nicely, in a pastel shirt, the most beautiful subdued peach pastel shirt, pressed with sleeves rolled up and in shiny shoes that appear untouched or marred by the dust and fragments of debris of the ruins that would have had to have been covered, miles and miles on foot in order to arrive here. So this moment in essence is the beginning of the dream, where then after he must capitulate to the physics of the ruins. The act of ejaculating onto Cat’s painted lips, not only being a birth of this second part of the film, but also a severance from it. Then feeling the effects of the heat now, I go wandering about the abandoned hotel and grounds to the sound of nature. Humorously, I go to the front desk to ring the bell, where there’s a bowl of plastic fruit that had replaced the real fruit that they’d kept there. He goes to the hostess stand and laughingly makes a remark. Is there anything available along the arcade in all this new ridiculousness for me to sit and have a drink. There’s an objective, but an objective that’s so vague and equivocal, that he’s not sure how it’s attained or even what it is; it was only to bring myself here, as if to bring myself to ruins in the ruins. Slowly drawn to what’s required to survive here and all the momentary actions are determined by that; with a life of memories through open doors and in alcoves, of conversations and love making.

Weeds are coming up between the cracks. You can smell the musty rooms. Many of the windows are gone now, shattered in the blast; the silhouette of diners left about the place from that moment. One last quaint moment. Wished I was here. It smells of a place that’s long been dormant, like death turned into a kind of perfume. At times it feels like an act of trespassing even while there’s no one around left to care or claim that. The strange enduring little trees are still growing in the courtyard. I’m surprised that they’re still here. They’d put a reflecting pool in at a later date and it’s become a shallow stagnant dark green pond. The blue tiles are covered with moss, the tiles revealing their vivacity where the fingers scratch through. One of the first things that I’ll have to do is go about getting rid of any stagnant water so there won’t be any mosquitos which I’ve already seen and felt, a smear of blood still across my forearm. The weather here’s as beautiful as it ever was, and still isn’t conducive to mosquitoes, so it can only be the result of fountains or pools that have collected rain water and gone stagnant. Most likely in those places that remain in shadow throughout the day. I’ll have to collect rainwater if I stay a while. It’s nice to have to recall the aqueducts again, the Holy Roman Empire again, in this God forsaken place again, starting over again. 

I’d had a dream years and years ago while it was still intact and thriving, where this place was besieged by sea and storm. It had been one night, when I’d been to the hotel and had had sex with a beautiful girl. It was spontaneous and unpredictable, which is what I always preferred. And then when arriving back to my apartment not far around three o’clock in the morning, upon falling to sleep I had this intensely beautiful dream, where the hotel was near a shore and something had happened. And it was such a beautiful place in ruins with the sun shinning down into the courtyard onto nature when it’s shaken everyone off. A revival not of man , but of nature, without permission, as indifferent as we are to so many callings. A whore screaming that she wants to do this for another year means nothing to nature. She only asks for another year. And I laugh knowing that that would never be enough. The days and months go so quickly. And in this dream the warm sun was coming down and with the smell of the ocean close by. And I knew where I was, but it was in a different setting, by a body of water, made more glorious in the dream, Mediterranean in nature. And I remember waking and having a very different feeling towards the place after that dream, with this other place conflicting and superimposed; here I was somewhere more wonderful than here.

The strange xxx trees go unnoticed in the courtyard. I’d never had a clear conscience sitting in the wicker chairs, inside the monastic arches. And still in the ruins, I don’t. A life ill led.

Before dark I take a walk below the courtyard looking over the catacomb of exceptional cars, some restored antiques, some beautiful modern mouthwatering machines. Anyone of them could be mine, and I feel like I’m looking over cars again to take a test drive. The only problem being that there are no streets in drivable condition, filled with debris. I’d have to find some petrol and get one back into running order and clear a path. That would be nice, even with nowhere to drive. I’ll start one up anyway and half asphyxiate myself.

Starting to feel myself again. The memory comes down like a dry rain. Two beautiful cars roaring through quiet streets, when the knowing your way around was crucial, something to pride yourself on. No directions necessary. I know this place like the back of my hand. The love was getting cold and we had to scream to wake ourselves up again. She was this sort of tenacious competitive woman. In conversation she always had to be right. We left together. And I thought it was perhaps another one of her tests. When I said love, did I look her in the eyes? But when we left, we left in separate cars and she told me to follow her. She was waiting down the street. The rear tail lights of her Mercedes glowing, suspended in the darkness. I got into my car and pulled around and when she saw my headlights come up behind her, she began down the hillside. At first she was driving a reasonable speed. And then she began to drive like a bat out of hell. And I sensed that she was playing a little game with me. It wasn’t the greatest of tests, if only because I knew where she lived. Our tires screeched as we went around the turn. And she pulled away a little bit, and I chased, my headlight beams pulling in, then her rear lights pulling away. I’d nearly lost sight of her along what I didn’t understand. We were approaching what felt like a hundred miles an hour at times. And all I could think was, where in the hell did this woman learn to drive? It had to have been some formal training on a serpentining track. And we went through the blue neighborhoods, lit as if entirely by moonlight. My god this place is beautiful at those strange hours. Still, it would divulge nothing of itself. We raced down a service drive, then cut screeching back onto the street. Any man who couldn’t out drive her couldn’t have her. She cut down another service drive, that would have been a nifty shortcut only you can’t open it up down such a narrow street. She’d have to slow down or end up taking out one of the huge blue trashcans.

Later, she wants to know how good it was? She asks, “Is Rome and Paris still calling for you?”

“No, not right now. Not tonight. Tonight you take the place of every destination that I’ve ever had.”

“That’s what I thought.” She said, ”I have plans for us.”

"No, I can't." I pleaded with her, feeling like I would have fallen

dead if I left her house at that hour. What she'd said was crawling up my neck like a line of ants.”

"I'm sure that pretty girlfriend of yours will keep you busy. I wouldn't hold it against her.”

“It's Babylon here.”

“Is Paris still calling?”

“I feel like I’m dying, dying in such nice clothes.”

“At least that.”

And now the memory fades to the present ruins, now that the bathroom’s clean enough. I’ve spent hours washing it down. I set the duffle onto the counter to place everything in its proper place. I organize the shiny world class future-modernistic toiletries, shampoo, conditioner, hair gel, zinc sunblock, razors, etc etc. Nail clippers, tweezers, and a strict shiny silver pair of scissors that will last years and years if it comes to that. The name on the scissors means something. There’s nothing like a well made pair of scissors. I’ll try to stay as well pruned here as I ever did in the modern world, for you never know when she might come walking in. And to imagine that that’s still possible in the ruins makes me laugh. But with my luck she’ll walk in on the day that I let myself go. 

And the rest of the day goes well, without much misery to speak of, possibly because of this new state of mind, that’s euphoric, silver and shimmering, like water in the sun. Now with just a threadbare expression towards the whole place and anyone I might have known here before. The hatred, not for anyone in particular, but towards the entire event, like the vague bitterness in a receding plague. There’s no individual to take vengeance on. There’s only to scream into the ruins. And it would be a waste of time to try and squeeze publishing rights out of someone already dead. (They’d gone about trying to prove that every place that was ever thought to be important, wasn’t. Was just a place to play games on. Just as we’d gone about trying to prove that every surface was a perfect surface for dancing on. But it has nothing to do with the structures themselves, but the energy that lies within the ground. It’s a place that’s connected to an energy spout from where I’m originally from. Connected from below the ground and in the atmosphere. In fact there are a few places that I’ve come across that have had that effect on me. Another being that place in France where I’d eventually decided to live for a while. The feeling of course from a previous life lived and future tense.)

And the time of the day and the light has become so stark that the cypresses have become like black flames, these wound concentrations, what always held the darkness into the day, lent mystery to the sidewalks sunstroked. Fashion, what would it ever be without black and white stripes. It gives humanity something to break through. The cypresses have survived the blast, the sudden pruning, and again express their verdure in sunlight. It must have stripped the leaves but left them living. I become overjoyed, standing amongst the long shadows laid over the courtyard. Dancing in them, between them. I look out over the rail. Sea at death. Departure departure departure! I remember screaming as a young man standing here. I feel an energy coming over me that I haven’t felt in a while. As if, at any moment I could express the touch that I once had, one of these jubilant little flowers from the alluvium, whether in its enlightened or dissolute form. Conjuring with hands and arms and wriggling fingers for the black spires, the twirling flames of the Italian cypress to dance with the wind. The twirling black flames, to dance in the post-apocalyptic setting. But it’s only us in the ruins. And we’re again, such a beautiful picture. The sun disappearing into the top of then reappearing below the billboard sign and its girders along with the haunting sound of angels singing. The entire place turns golden, before it disappears again. It being like revenge for the abandoned drive-in.

It’s taken me more than a couple of days to make this room livable. It’s a small flame, but I feel a bon fire coming on. (there’s some ambiguity as to the actual nutrition being taken in, with the frequency of memories taking place. And they’re such abundant and fruitful memories, down to the seeds, with even a flash of Nicole in there somewhere.

I raise my hands like a rifle. Pow, then laughing as a bright green vibrant parrot flies off. Probably of the same flocks of parrots that would streak by squawking years ago in what I’d begun to refer to as the city of parrots. And I don’t know whether they’d escaped the blast, or have had to find this place again, just as I have. And I’m pretty sure that to all the wild little animals, this state of ruins isn’t a catastrophe. But a celebration for all. More little nooks and crannies to play in. They’ve gone on unfazed in flight, in search of a meal and quiet little sanctuaries in which to land eat sleep and breed in. Still the great example of the simplest of pleasures in life being bliss, as high as we can ever build.

And the most miraculous and inspiring part of the first walk that I take in the ruins is the view. In my opinion many buildings had been mistakingly built along the south side of Sunset that blocked the view, and thankfully most of them haven’t withstood the blast.

I found it and dusted it off. The record player and its continual groove spiraling inward towards provenance. The piezo crystal, Rochelle salt, etc. The contemplation of the record player in terms of tension, centrifugal forces, resistance and friction. The contemplation of isolating the pickup from all other disturbances. Constant velocity/ inertia/ surface noise. The marked edge and the stroboscopic effect as a form of measuring this perfection or imperfection of the rotational speed that’s measured in RPMs. The magnificence of the sound from modern speakers and an ancient record player amongst the acoustics of the ruins, is a sound unrivaled, something that can’t be bought or synthesized. 

Remembering what it was like to bring the fork to my mouth with morsels of food on it and drinking freshly squeezed orange juice from a sparkling diamond etched glass.

(The sex scenes take place both amongst the grounds and rooms in their current dusty and ruinous state and also in their earlier venerable state. And with some closeups you might not even know which is which. But there’s some question as to how opulence changes the act of fucking. Or how despair does. I’d always noticed that girls would perform more on a bed of roses, than they would on a modest apartment bed. So it could be said that opulence always creates more of a dramatic play; a girl making more squeaky squeezed doll like noises. That sometimes would stop me in the midst of the act and I’d say, if you’re an actress you’re a really good one.)

Looking over notes that feel ancient now concerning the place at a very different time of my life and a very different time in the history of the place, BE (before event). At first there’s a frustration that arises at this desk that’s been cleaned and set near the window with a view of the vastness of the ruins. Of course, they’re not thorough renovations that I’m attempting here, but the clearing of paths and pruning and sweeping and cleaning to make it somewhat livable. Maybe send a pigeon off for Cat, although I know she wouldn’t like it here. She needs civilization at least within an hours drive. But this frustration arises, that’s horribly also like a relic of the past. Here I am again having digressed into a self-induced struggle. The notes take me back to those sensations. I can almost remember everything about the day I’d written them. I’m dwelling, wallowing, having come here merely to edit all that was left up in the air. So then it’s a somewhat spiritual and somewhat masochistic sensation to float some pages of old work in the reflecting pool, pressing them with my fingertips below the surface of the water. Watching the rectangles of paper and ink slowly turning to pulp as the days go on against the shimmering blue tile.

I have a nightmare that the pages are no longer there in the reflecting pool, but instead a girl’s singing with a beautiful voice dancing along its edge. I wake in a cold sweat and hurry down in the middle of the night through the darkness and shadows casted over the hallway walls rushing down to the courtyard. I’m overcome by a tremendous relief, to see the decomposing pages still there in the moonlight, as still as death in the reflecting pool. Tomorrow when the sun’s at its height I must remember to throw a penny in.

Today’s excursion is for something that I’m sure will be even better now, if there were no drastic fluctuations in temperature that might have effected the composition of the wine. And sure enough, having to pass again through plenty of dust, this place is a treasure of wine cellars buried in the blast. It’s an etched glass again, that I pour this gloriously translucent red liquid into from a twentieth century decanter. That I’d set to breathe like a sundial in the late afternoon sun in this courtyard. This is decadence! This is refinement in the state of nature. This is the best that we can do! This is our limitation! It’s what we’ll be returned to again and again.

I lay back in the tub in the unblemished porcelain, with a glass of clarified red wine in hand, at its finest hour. This is the recollection of the first sexual act, that gave birth and death to the rest of the film. There is all the language, but to say simply, that I wished she were here. There’s the small ball of soap, so beautifully wrapped, each individually wrapped in a piece of wax paper, the sort that you might find a piece of candy meticulously wrapped in, with this miraculous little ball of handmade lavender soap inside. I dip the little faint purple ball beneath the water, then lather it as I move it about the palms of my hands and fingers. I let just enough water drain to expose myself. I lean my head back and close my eyes. I think about Cat, the sound of her voice, the shape of her eyes. I become an object to the lens, now the observed, no longer omniscient, a stranger to the observer in a protracted masturbatory scene, as if again, an attempt towards the oracular vagueness of absolution. I don’t want to come because it ends the act, the connection between her and I. It’s also the contemplation of man and this burden; that he can never be considered in any context without the consideration of this, cock. And like a girl had told me, when I was naked in her arms and miserable, that I should appreciate being a handsome man with a beautiful cock. So many never get to enjoy so many beautiful women. And it was a problem that I wanted an untainted woman that doesn’t exist. Context, just as a woman can never exist in any context without the considerations of her committing an act of adultery, of infidelity. And in every man’s mind, when separated, runs every plausible scenario of her degrading acts with another man. Is it that man that she looked at in that sexual way one time? Or is it with an ex-lover, so that it will come second nature, like remembering an old combination of the lips together, of the tongues, of the genitalia. Or is something new and spontaneous already going on in my absence? Cat. Someone who she’s purely, without love for, fucking. So it means nothing. It comes, preceding or in tandem with the ghosts of the past to haunt me. There’s no phone here that’s working, there’s no crackling carbon to scream through, to plead and beg like an adolescent for her not to. You feel it happening like a painful ejaculation. And there’s no way that I could ever return in time to keep it from happening. I scratch at the wallpaper around the tub that’s already peeling and in disrepair. If I leave and can’t tell her if and when I’ll be back, she has to go on living, she said.

Where I once was lost, laughing, I’m the one to ask them to put the reflecting pool in because I imagine one there anyway. So you might as well, to feel the distance I’m drifting from anything or anyone that I ever loved. So how far is this? But I’ve learned by this point, that the world isn’t full circle never drifting into that channel again. Laughing over a piece about love. It’s sanctuary to go on seeing everyone and everything in the way that you remember them. The words, the courier type, wavering just below the surface, and my desire is still to retrieve them. To reach in and rewrite it all. But I wanted to drown it here. This would be the only place to bury the memories. I make my way back through the dank hotel and enter my room that I’ve fixed so nicely now that it’d be a joy for anyone to stay in. Well, anyone who would appreciate kind of roughing it, and doing without the usual amenities of room service. We could pretend. But the fabrics are plush, washed and beautiful, smelling of lemon zest. It’s luxury without modernity. I’ve already decided on the areas that I’ll devote time to and those others that I’ll leave to continue degrading back into the soil. A soil that strangely, as if by the compost of the degradation, depravity and the sin cooked by the blast, is extremely rich and fertile. Every flower that sprouts from it, vivid, vivacious, edible and nutritious. I lay back in this courtyard that I’ve made beautiful again, with no antagonism to ruin the basking. People. And as far as missing Cat is concerned, I’ve not begun to, or at least I tell myself that I’m not missing her. The pen will keep all of the love affairs close to heart, until maybe one wandering through the ruins crosses this path. On one of those pages, as I gaze down reading over the text wavering beneath the silver webs, becomes a woman in a beautiful skirt and pewter silk blouse and string of pearls, her beautiful face and limbs sinking gracefully. I lean down as if to look at her face, into her green eyes, then with gentle fingers pressing against the sternum bone between her breasts as if to sink her further down into the reflecting pool.

I’ve never sat back and felt a place more beautiful than this. There’s a place for roots and vines amongst this look that I’m trying to create here now in the courtyard. They asked me in France, after I’d found peace and contentedness there, why I would ever want to make my way back here, to a disaster area. Why, with such a fertile life, a woman that was perfect and loved me, would I ever want to make my way back into a barren ruins, even risking life. And I could only say, that there were excavations to be made. And I wouldn’t be going back to uncover some emeralds and rubies that I’d buried away years before. And I wouldn’t be returning to look upon the skeleton of some miraculous, obliterated ficus. But it was like the bulb to a butterfly that it had been to me as a young man. So in the sinking of the notes, of the pages, of my long held prized possessions, it’s as if sinking myself. And it was not just a trip that I would return from.

I’ve filled the cistern partially with containers of water that I’ve brought from a distance. The rest will be filled with rain water channeled into it. But for now I have enough to fill the tub with fresh crystal clear water. If my stay her is to last, I know that I’ll have to start making everything from what’s readily available. The toiletries in the duffle bag, even while used sparingly will run out, with every drop being agonizingly coaxed and squeezed from the bottles and tubes. It will take time and experimentation, but surely there’s nothing better than all natural ingredients anyway. Nature provides us with everything we need, and what we have, we’ve merely synthesized from nature anyway. And the soaps and lotions and sunblock that I create will be even more exquisite, in some way. Crude really, probably. I’ve never taken any interest in chemistry. I will not be a chemist or a biologist here, but the fashion designer of a revival. I will not try to look past a certain molecular level. Beyond the optics of the human being. At some point I’ll leave the mystery and the depths to God and live on that plane that we were meant to dwell on. It’s never enough for us and we’re never happy. We want to inhabit other planets while we still don’t understand how to inhabit this one. We’ve already learned the hard way, that to know too much is too much and at a certain point begins to degrade our existence. Something critical that we were not aware of, had been progressively lost in the synthesis of what was synthesized. The furniture had been moved about and not in the same arrangement that I’d remembered it being in. I go about in the dust, rearranging the furniture so that it’s arranged in the way that I remember when I’d slept in this room, almost an oval nature to the arrangements of the chairs and coffee tables. I’ve taken one piece of furniture at a time out into the fresh air and beat them of dust and wiped the wood, the balls and claws, meticulously wiped with oils, making every nail nice and shiny. At the same time in fear and they’re mine.

Sitting in one of the chairs still dusty, I lay my head to the side and feel that same posture from so many years before. The torso, the arms, the anatomy of a young man playing an elegantly anguished part. Taking notes on something called ghosts, a story about what followed me from that body of water where I was from. Slumped into one of the wing-backed chairs, with all the time in the world I rang that doorbell. I ring that little doorbell again, waiting for the waiter to appear. Why are you here again?, he asks politely. Because dreams are the last things that we dispense of and I won’t be dispensing of them tonight, if that’s what you’re thinking. That’s why I’m here. What a genuine human being I thought. I remember thinking, how could I get from this point to that point. It's so beautiful. As if I'd never seen the simple beauty in it before, this kind righteousness. He knew and couldn’t believe I was sitting there. At times dawning on me, I couldn’t either. Perhaps it was the blithe of exhaustion that was causing the admiration. To want nothing more than an honest living and a wife and child. I peered at him with eyes full of tears as if admiring a prettiness that this waiter possessed nothing of.

They’re going about like spritely little nymphs again in the rays of sunshine, playing the parts of angels as a cloak of their depravity. In the aftermath, the smelly little crotches of their elastic acrobatic pants, sniffed and savored by a man who isn’t fooled by the illusion of purity. All sexual desires purged in their humanness. Like my dying in their young wombs. Cumming again into her electric little crotch. The pornographic image of a little angel, naked but for her wings, struck by this magnificent sunlight, illuminating the faultless quality of her skin, the silken hair, the iridescence of her wings. Cumming onto the angelic face. Her precious eyes and perfect lashes blinking then peering unwaveringly upward in adoration. Left in my hand, left in my head, in memory, like a little slightly disconcerted statue in the garden. Why do you look so frozen?

We’ll return cinema and the arts to the cycles of nature. I’ll rid this ruins of stagnation. With a paint scraper and with a long handled garden spade and with my own claws, I’ll rid a radius around this ruins of every last remnant of tacky billings that survived the blast, even partially. Blanking them for the sprouts of this revival. There’ll be no greater sight than my little darling performing some scene in the ruins. Like the first ever routine performed on earth.

Wanting to have that Chamomile in that memorable way again, I’ve set up a cup and saucer with a little silver spoon as if treating myself in a five star way. I’ve made a strainer out of a woman’s nylon stocking. Tearing them apart takes a little strain. I set the little bundle of what flowers I think will make a nice tea into the hot water and let it steep. I close my eyes and try to enjoy what tastes more like a dull strain of potpourri, hoping no variety’s poisonous. In flashback, the beautifully painted toe nails of a woman below the nylon now. I feel over her toes admiring them. It’s a long ago foreplay, when I was the type of boy who would get on all fours on the carpet to admire a woman’s feet. But it feels wonderful and lively to remember being like that. Her feet and legs go walking off over a huge area rug that had not yet been faded by the blast, a blast that was like a thousand sunny days in a single moment. Like a comet with coordinates. Her toenails painted with smooth red enamel playing under the nylon in the bright sunlight could go on for hours. The colors and designs on the area rug, vibrant and alive again as I get up to follow her. The only vibrant colors now being the clothes that I’ve brought with me and the fabrics that didn’t fade even in the blast. The bathtub becomes one vivid color after another as I try to dye some things. A montage of the brightly unnatural colors in the foliage and flora that you see sometimes springing from bare soil and the fissures in brickwork, slate, and masonry. A neon little flower nearly aglow against the grey, has me say, you’ll end up in my basket, there’s no question about it. I’ll never make any claims over nature. It was at first chance already propagating itself in the warmth of the aftermath. New life with the pollinations of stigma, like the carpets, sad and faded too. Let me catch you before you all become whores again and become dead to me again. It’s futile, at least for the time being, to scrub the bathtub of the pigment left in the porcelain after dying the pieces of fabric in it, and I’m able to laugh at the stained lower half of the tub when laying in it to take a bath.

I've dragged the mattress out into the sunlight and have scrubbed it and poured hot water through it to rid it of its sinful past, crying for all of humanity. The soft plinth of a past era with its sinful stains here and there of blood and piss and placenta. And one can only guess as to all that has gone on on this particular bed and what’s been left on its fibers because of it. Rented through the years to anyone with money. Sins stripped with ammonia, it takes something as potent as this. The fabric, the threads rinsed, anointed, glistening anew in the afternoon light. The ghosts of all the misery and adultery and ill-repute released, holographically expunged into the afternoon air. The orgies, the crestfallen masturbations, the innocence of the joyous couplings as prescribed by god. Honeymoons tainted by a tainted mattress and a tainted room. When I’m married it’ll start on a mattress that’s just been bought. Her hopeful face, doomed by the depth of the mirror. The cacophony of all the fucking that had taken place there before, all at once, it sounds like hell on low volume. The forced whispering of a girl, a girl compelled to do something that she didn’t want to do amongst the wedding flowers. With the promise of stardom she just lost her mind. Ejaculated on and stardomized. The heavenly demonic sounds of her orgasms as she’s turned, forever cast into a prism of her own regrets, every move or impeachment of anyone else after that becoming like an instantaneous laugh into her own face. A girl with that letter can never hold high ground. The look of that moment on the expression of her first born. Its first cry, the orgasmic cry on the bed of her capitulation. Like pulling a newborn from a garbage heap. She screams she did it at the behest of the reptile. Just embrace the darkness and stardom will be yours. She was promised. But what kind of a promise could she expect to be kept that involves that. The newly christened mattress drying in the sun with the buzzards already circling high above like some horrific foretelling, circling this new place of life and birth in the ruins. I take a nap on the damp mattress drying in the sun. Does nature await, laughing at this humble and hopeful revival? Have they too found beauty in the ruins? Is it to them, what the bright new basking of fruit is to me? For every bite that I take of the nectarine, does nature take its bite of me? Has it the juices of her running down its chin too, and feeling the same pleasure? Do they know what love feels like? Seeking only what gives it pleasure.

I bathe this girl that I love out in the open sunlight. Trying to remove the act from her heart skin and hair. In daylight it feels like it’s worked. For that moment I don’t feel horrified. She’s immaculate again and dancing with the exultant lightness in this redeemed state. The flowers in her hair match the designs painted on her skin. It washes off, we’re laughing again. Our faces touch, I’m caressing silken ribbons of hair behind her ears. No mistakes scared into the heart left. And almost silly, she runs into the hotel. I remain laughing in the sunlight before rushing in after her to play a game of ready or not.

Later, I make the bed with the faded but fresh lemon colored linen. Like a commercial in the ruins, bringing it to my senses. Bringing it to my face. The day and the scents and memories has me softened up. In the ruins, there’s more reason to go on living than I felt in society. A stray cat only wants to bask in the sun and the birds only whistle, as of yet, with no malice in their eyes.

Performing a French polish on the pieces of furniture in the room provides an immediate sense of gratification. It’s not maddening, but with Beethoven playing, it may appear like a maddening task is taking place. So many layers. The surface becoming more and more lustrous and reflective. Again, with traditional methods that have remained unrivaled. With sweat blood the finish made pristine again, so then my reflection has returned to its previous glory. I’m young again, my future self peering into the same surface that I’d admired myself in. She’s speaking to me from the bathroom. The voice of this woman that I might have even fallen in love with. I’ve given her my prized possession to read. She lays in the tub while she reads. At that moment I was feeling like everything had already begun for me. I sat patiently in another room, like a man with everything going for him, dressed nicely, or as nicely as I could on a waiter’s tips. And there’s this verdict that I’m waiting for. She finally came into the room, threw her reading glasses off onto a counter and stretched herself out like a cat in the sun coming down through the window. She said nothing, absolutely nothing about what I’d given her to read. I have a lot to learn, she said. And I just didn’t know what she meant by that at the time. I looked over her skin, still shapely and full of life. Her body next to mine, was like a grand change of subject. I preferred the lovemaking to my expectations of receiving an offer and so lost the need to even mention it again. I had a feeling that she loved it but for some reason did’t want to say.

And was there ever saving this boy, who with the sight of party girls became watery eyed, nearly cries with the sight. It’s an excruciating beauty like seeing one’s own child. The extreme ephemeral potency of it, that effects you. It’s fashion. Let me fall, while I wipe the tears away feeling human, alive, sad that I can’t have each and every one of them. Life is so horrible. Nature’s models are beyond us, what they project beyond themselves at the time. It shines too bright and ruins me. But ruined I can do anything. They’re an ephemeral master race. Facetiously I’m clamoring after the clothes and the skin and the hair and perfume. Beauty diminishes like this. I wasn’t ready. I had no nest with all the niceties in it. And even before getting one of them home, she asked what direction we were going in. I thought you were rich, thought we’d have to walk uphill a little bit. It’s when I gave up blazers. They only confuse the situation. It’s too bad, I looked good in a life like that, she said. And why do I remember so perfectly what saddens me.

The clouds in the sky today remind me of that other place. It’s on the warm side with these gigantic white cumulous clouds boiling high up into the upper atmosphere. I keep my eye on the cloud activity towards the mountains throughout the afternoon, but it’s not moving into this direction. Just there, alive and consumed by the mountain range. The afternoon, like a time lapse that leaves me just as it left me before. High and dry. I’m looking forward to a nice torrential downpour to fill the cistern and settle the dust. I’ve spent hours clearing the rain gutters of dirt and dried leaves and have had to do a little repair work to the roof tiles. Many were broken, but there were plenty of houses around that used terra-cotta and so I’ve been able to salvage plenty of unbroken tiles. They’re heavy, but it seems like the beams are still structurally sound enough to continue supporting a roof made of such heavy material. The creaking that I hear when the wind blows hard through the structure is natural for a building like this, so it doesn’t worry me. 

Along one of my walks in the hot bright sunlight I stop at the stark sight of a lime being devoured by ants. I could watch this all day. It’s another world of decisions and instincts, as important as the decisions made in this one. As I watch I wonder if it’s a mindless task? And if I was to take some time today to follow this orderly but discordant line of them, I might be able to find the mound and the Queen. She sends them off with such dumb and such horrific instructions. I place my hand in the dirt and they crawl over my fingers and hand, continuing towards the lime. The devouring of the lime goes on with the scene of a young girl being gang-raped in an elegant room, superimposed, over the current task of the renovations and the ants and the lime. And the voice of a stupid woman, saying it’s okay, that’s just today. Like a woman whose mind holds no memories. A woman who comforts me when the demons devour me. Who was she? Did she just go on living the next day? She rubs my hair like a child’s, “Just pretend it was like a movie.” She says. 

They’re the more ghostly scenes, even more so than the presence of human beings that once dwelled here bleeding right in front of you. And it should be hilarious, as to what amazes me, and what doesn’t. I have to laugh at the saddest situations just to keep my mind, separate from all the death. Don’t worry she wasn’t as pretty as you thought she was, we’ve got something even prettier for you. And as I toss and turn in an apartment tainted with that period of time, I’m reminded that there are a thousand views as perfect as this one.

I find a silver platter in ruins, glinting amongst the rubble. How convenient! And all I can think, is that this’ll make a perfect platter for my birds. I always kept a plate of black oil sunflower seeds just inside the window for them. They would come and go as they pleased. And in such close proximity you see that they’re really amazing little creatures, most of the time finches and morning dove. And I would really like to do that again, and this silver platter will be just perfect for that. I’ll set it up and look for some suitable seed for them. It’ll be much harder now, than just going and buying a huge bag of it at the animal supply store. I’d run out of it sometimes and the days would pass or even weeks with them looking sadly in at me. They’d know somehow when I finally went for a resupply and they’d follow me back to the apartment with it tossed over my shoulder and they’d all be along the sills before I climbed the stairs and made my way in to tear the bag open and pour them some more. It made me happy to see them happy, but they weren’t of my world. They could keep me company in that other sense, but ultimately couldn’t of course satisfy what would have cured the loneliness. Even though in my mind she had wings too.

The line of them is dwindling. Pulling the thread tonight on another. I must use the little lavender balls of soap sparingly, I tell myself again. It’s tempting to keep using them for masturbation though. If only because it reminds me of the scent of her hair. And not that there aren’t other things that I could lubricate myself with, but those other lubricants wouldn’t allow me to picture her face so clearly, so perfectly. And right now I’m feeling like I’d give up this whole experience to be with her right now. The purposely naive images of lavender fields and sex with her; if only to laugh at and contrast with the realities of life, or this isolation. In the film it’s some attempt to maintain the sense of life during these desolate scenes.

The way to express happiness isn’t to sit down and try to perfect the descriptions of it, or to try to define it. True happiness doesn’t allow one the time or temperament to do that. It can’t be defined anyway. It’s mysterious and illusive. So while I’m trying to describe her and the love of her, even when a thought might bring a smile to my face I know that I’m not happy. I throw the pen in anger and leave the hotel for a walk. After walking amongst the debris for a couple of hours, I arrive back to my room and I’m startled to find a young man standing at my desk perusing through what I’ve written. He looks to have been on a hike through the debris of the city himself, his clothes covered with cement dusk. He’d seen the vibrancy of the curtains that I’d hung from a distance away. That were like some kind of a beacon for him. He describes how they were emerging from the window in the wind and were so beautiful that from a mile or two away he’d made a beeline for this chateau, for this room. I act as if I’m not upset at all by his presence there in my private space. Perhaps he thinks that because I’m the only living human being around for such a distance, that that in itself is an invitation. And I try to calm the trembling in my hand and mouth over the sight of his fingering through my Moleskines. “It looks like you’ve been getting some work done.” “Yeah, I have.” I say, with that kind of smile that’s verging on being wiped off. “I was going to, but now I guess I’ll ask since you’re here, if I could take a bath. I didn’t want to just take a bath. I knew there had to be someone living here.” I look at him, thinking about all the work that went into channeling water to this room, in the form of aqueducts. And it took an entire day of sorting through rubble to find decent quality soap for everyday use. And I’d definitely have to hide the lavender soap that I’d set in a line on the shelf as if the supply of it was counting down the days until I returned to her. Finally, “Okay.” I said. He’s already talking about setting up one of the other rooms just like this one. Perhaps I could help him and then we could work together on whatever needed to be done. I notice, while he’s droning on about a possible prolonged stay here at the Chateau, that one of my moleskines is missing. Then looking around I see his filthy backpack propped against the wall down the hallway. I find it and leave it in the backpack. I don’t want to confront him right now about it. He won’t get far if he wants to make a quick escape with it. I turn on the radio, asking him if he’d like a little music to play while he bathes. “Yeah, absolutely.” He says. “Wonderful. I always enjoy some music at this time of the afternoon.” I say. “I think I’ll definitely stick around here for a while. It’s peaceful.” “Yes, I know.” 

I hear him go on bathing, babbling to himself, even whistling. “I noticed you had coffee there.” I hear him say. “You sure did get a good look around. Yes, coffee. Of course I have coffee.” “That would really be nice.” He says. And the eyes I make is all the future casting you need to know about the fate of this lost man. He must imagine that I’m extremely lonely here like this. “I crush the beans by hand with a pestle. Let me get that going for you. It’s really incredible that I have some company. I was hoping someone would stumble through. Oh, and wait till you see the bar area I set up. It’s amazing how liquor survives a blast like that. One time I remember when I was young and we went on a hunting trip. And we got to this old dilapidated lodge, a little house really. It was musty, mildewy and full of cob webs and I opened one of the cabinets and there was an almost entirely full bottle of Jack Daniels on the shelf. It must of been there for years and years, I don’t know how many years. It was covered in dust but still perfectly drinkable.” I say, sitting for a moment staring out the window thinking about that place in another state, “Another white wing shot down.” I say, thinking. “What was that?” He asks. “Nothing.”

I’m starting to worry that he might have reached for one of my balls of lavender soap already. I hear the water as if a child were playing in the tub. I go to the threshold and see that he’s still immersed in filthy soapy suds. “Hey, what are those for?” He says, gesturing to the line of perfectly wrapped balls of soap, which I knew he’d have his eye on. “Don’t touch those. Those are special to me.” “You can stay in here and talk if you want to. I haven’t talked to anyone for days.” He says. “I’ll start on the coffee. You’ve come like a man carrying a flag. I only wonder which one.” “You’ll have to guess.” He says. “I don’t have to guess anything.” I say to myself, having learned years ago, just to avoid guessing games, they’re never worth the energy that they take.

I go and sit at the pool while he finishes accommodating himself. Beauty’s like a beautiful animal, like a pet at your side dying in the slanting sunlight. The oval pool doesn’t make us perfect. It never did. I hear him calling for me. After some time he comes wondering towards me, looking overindulged fresh and clean. “Didn’t you hear me?” I try to pretend like he’s not intruding on my life. He’s already made himself a drink and I think he notices my staring at it in his hand. “I went ahead and helped myself.” He says. I show him around the abandoned grounds. We laugh that it’s in this condition when he finally gets here. 

“When I came here, it was very much the same way in a way, like a ruins.”

“How was that.”

“There was still a sense of the place and its nature with nothing else on it. They hadn’t turned it into a theme park for an extra dollar yet. It wasn’t completely a pornographic spring yet. But power is a funny thing. A few baited, became a thousand baited, and it all became a game that no one could win. But those needing to save face, drove it forward like naive Generals leading others into war, when they had no idea what the war was even about. It’s even harder for a beast of many to ever let go of what gives it life. Everybody who sees through it is an enemy. All the backwards games gone awry. Oh, humanity, we’re such an amalgamation! Or love to think that we should be.” 

“How long did it take you to fix up that room like that?”

“Weeks, maybe it’s been months now. I don’t know, I’ve lost track of time.”

“Why that room?” He asks, “There are a lot of rooms here. It does seem like it’s in a special place.”

“There are a lot of things that could have gone into me choosing that room. Its direction which is extremely important, its height, the view, how it relates to the rest of the architecture. Is it facing into a courtyard? Is it facing onto an expanse of land that you can live with?”

“So which of those reasons is why you chose that room?”

“It wasn’t for any of those reasons.”

“Then why?”

“Not for any of those reasons. And why is it important for you to know why I personally might have chosen that room.”

“If I end up having to do that much work to a room, I’d like to choose a room that I’m not sorry I chose.”

“Well that’s for sure.”

“Do you have any of that paint left? And I think I might end up wanting that room that you have.” He says, laughing, “It’s so nice.”

“It’s the perfect room for taking a nap in.” I say, making those eyes again. I can feel that look of despise run through myself.

He sits back and takes a drink. “You’ll probably never be leaving that room and choosing another to fix up?” 

“Probably not. It’s not my intention.” I say, trying to keep a sourly disgusted look off my lips and pretend that it’s the sip of whiskey that’s created such a sour look on my face.

“I feel like I could have so many great ideas in that room. I see that you’re a man of words.“ 

“It wouldn’t matter if it’s buried with me.”

“Well I was just saying. I’m a man of words too.”

“Oh really. I’m sure you are.”

“And something I saw there. Orpheus. What’s that about?”

“It’s about a composer and a writer. It’s about a tick and its host.”

“I feel naked without my guitar. I might leave for a few days, or maybe not even that long to go and see if I can find a guitar.”

“I already know where they are.”

“Will you show me?”

“Maybe. I was looking for wine cellars and there’s a house where someone collected them. Real gems if you’re into guitars.”

“This might be a great time to make some music.”

“Oh, what will you sing about? Will you be singing of Orpheus in this garden of eden. Moonlight. The black spires twisting in this new breeze. Where man can begin again. Have you stumbled onto the ruins of another man’s mind. An unbitten apple still hanging there like the great temptation again. But we’ll steady her hand, and have her leave it for the centerpiece this time and take a bite out of her instead.”

“He sets his head back. You know, I think I love you.” He says, laughing.

“Well that’s wonderful to hear. It’s not too far to find that guitar.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to be here with a guitar in my hands. Probably a rare one too.”

“Yes, you may have stumbled onto your most prolific period yet.”

“You might be right. It feels like that already. I’m glad that you love music too. Do you play an instrument?”

“No.”

“That’s okay.”

“The pen is an instrument.”

“Well, not really.”

I go and fix myself another drink. Writing a song as I stand over the array of spirits. Here we go again.

“When we go looking for the guitar we can wrangle up a couple of models and bring them back. Musicians are always a magnet for hot girls. You do love woman don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you love most about women?”

He thinks for a moment. “I don’t know.” He says. He sees the ruins as a chance for revival. I take a long sip of my drink, laughing to myself, that revival’s the title of one of my Moleskines, and he’s already at it, and it’s that quick and effortless. How easy it is to commandeer another’s life, as if those strings give them the right. To drink the blood. So omniscient, not to be judged themselves.

“Maybe you’ll leave the ruins with everything you need to make an album.”

“That’s if I choose the right room, facing the right direction. Because that’s important.” He says, giving me a wink.

“Oh, I’m sure you will. And I’m sure it’ll be a turning point. The album of all albums. The great American album. Should I go and get us another round of drinks, to celebrate this new arrangement. This new convenience.”

“That would be nice. While I’m meditating on my great American album.”

“Ha Ha. I’m sorry that I don’t have any ice for the drinks.”

“Oh, don’t apologize. I couldn’t ask for more.”

“I wish I had that machine that Harrison Ford made.”

“What machine is that?”

“The machine, this giant monstrosity that makes ice, in the mosquito coast. Did you ever see the movie, mosquito coast?”

“No.”

Don’t come my way in the ruins. Don’t come near me in the ruins. You’ve heard at least the echo of what I’ve said. It’s slow motion and elegant as I make my way down the arcade, the long curtains flowing in and out of the windows in the moonlight now. I fix one glass for myself, looking at how much is left in the bottle. I make my way to where I’m keeping my tools. I strike a match. In the ruins we are one are we? It’s always extremely important that the right tool is used for the right job. It feels effortless, like revenge and redemption to lower the ballhead hammer into his skull. The distant sound of opera resonating out the windows and through the hallways makes it even easier to do. The arcade has never felt more peaceful. Blood-spattered. “No I won’t.” I say, and perhaps that will be what I’ll call this new album. Human nature finally rests in the wicker chairs. They took it until I just didn’t understand. Until revenge was the only emotion that I came to care about. Enough of human nature, it’s come full circle now. One man’s claiming human nature, gives another the right to get back what they got.

Later tonight when making my way back up to my room, I do what I never thought I’d have to do here, and that’s to put a fucking ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ sign on the doorknob. I slam the door shut. In the fucking ruins! I’ve left him in that position, having had my drinks sitting next to him for the last couple of hours or so. I’ll give the maggot a burial tomorrow and sponge down the blood of a sponge from the arcade and the wicker chair. I’ve learned that future terror should be nipped in the bud. And perhaps that’s the bore of life after and just takes all the excitement out of it.

It loses its warmth slowly. I laugh thinking how it was a lot harder to remove a hammer from a skull than I imagined it would be. But this is a perfectly good ball-head hammer and I’ve lots of work to do with it. I won’t give it completely away to who in the future might excavate. What was that? Perhaps I’ll commemorate his grave with a beautiful guitar. He appeared much too soft-spoken for me to place a stratocaster on it. I’m sure there’ll be blue grass growing in his place. So well-meaning, and already using that word love, he gave away the gig. Well-meaning always in the name of fame and getting what you can get. 

The hands on a larger piece of fabric, looking it over. The sound of fabric being torn on a peaceful afternoon. (Here’s the ellipsis) Then opens to wavering fabric and the sound of a flag flapping in the wind. The sight of a beautiful rectangle of white cloth alive in the afternoon sun and breeze with the words, Fuck Off!, written succinctly on it. And that’s the crux of it after so much has happened to the heart. The way it moves in this wind, wavering, settling, then wavering again, is such a beautifully lulling sight. And I’m only hoping that the birds can’t read it. I’ve had the silver platter set for a couple of days now with seed on it. In the ruins, it may take a much longer time for them to find it. But once one little finch finds it, it’ll be a ridiculous sight again, with so many flocking to it. It’ll be a chore, but it’ll be nice to have them around. I love the way they look at me so strangely, as if a platter of seed is just too good to be true.

Forget self examination when compared to the excitement of a crucifixion. The intestines stretched from their talons to their mouths is what keeps them taught. They know no other way. I’ve put one of the rabbits on a small cross in the courtyard, its legs intwined, its little arms outstretched to the side with its perfect fuzzy little face fallen, its eyes peering downward into the sparkling reflecting pool. Tools used: ball-head hammer and anchorfast ring-shanked nails onto scraps of wood from the remnants of the Hollywood sign. The display is illuminated by the noonday sun beneath the blue sky and the birds of prey. Sitting back, smearing honey on my lips again in this courtyard, laughing and kissing a beautiful girl with them. And maybe one of these gorgeous vivid honeybees darting in and out of the sunlight will land to give me a big fat kiss. The sight of the glistening honey comb, this symbolizing this new found purity, then a dissolve to an area of honeycomb tiles and a scene that had taken place over those tiles many years before, that is wrought with stress, complexity and jealousy. But again, the head falls back in fond memory. (A conversation, only partly audible concerning the arts, money and politics. One of them apologizing, but not apologizing.)

Quick brisk steps over the ruins and along the paths, the pushing open of a door onto those honeycomb tiles. It is another area that I’ll clean and renovate. In essence, restoring the memories of past happenings. The pieces, like the small tiles that have been displaced, loosened from the grout, put back into place by fingertips like a puzzle of the past being reassembled.

In the long rectangular room, with the gatherings of antique chairs and couches and people again, upholstered with thick enduring fabrics. Tough skin sin and fame really is. Each area with the chairs turned and couches arranged to create its own private space in the open space of the rectangular room. At their centers, small dark marble tables or wooden tables lit by the lamps adorned with these huge lampshades made from our dreams. All perfect again. So placid again. I press the horizontal door bell again. Here, used to call the waiter in his creased pants. There’s no electricity running to the wires now, so when I press it, no one comes. Then again, when it’s pressed there’s finally the faint sound of a buzzer in another room. This little black door bell is shiny again and the finger is of a young man, the young man of my future self. A very polite waiter appears. Another demure nod of recognition. He returns less than promptly with my tea. But if patience is a virtue, I’m the most virtuous boy you’ve ever seen.

He returns with my drink. A single glass on a tray.

“Charles Bedaux would be very disappointed in us.”

“Who is Charles Bedaux sir?”

“Among other things, he wanted to see if he could cross the impossible Canadian terrain with a convoy of Citrons. He took his help and his servants with him. And everywhere they would stop along the way, they would set up tents, and put out the silverware, and perhaps even had figs, and would fuck and drink champagne and eat the best of everything, as if they’d remained in the womb of civilization all along. In these spurious moments, as if they hadn't left the thrill of the Capital at all.”

“Why?”

“Oh my God! Not to promote the Citron! A man can remain gluttonous through everything.”

I sipped on the amber alcohol, my Jim Beam laced water, gurgling it through my teeth. 

“Why do you sip your drink that way, as if it were hot?” He said.

“So I taste it.”

I sip on the amber alcohol.

He smiled largely, looking at me, then disappeared into the entryway.

Yes, it’s true I’m a savoror. This no one’s savior, is a savoror. I gave them the means of their own destruction. Have you ever seen a star lap up poison.

Does a cigarette and a balcony rail love you more than I do? Down and up. The skies swirl. These seas have become rough. I can see. But it's for the all of us. Does it love you more? You want me to jump? Does it love you more than I do? …I didn’t think so. Remembering a cool crisp wind blowing through me. Before the sun. The reflecting pool is clear and reflecting the enduring sky with every possibility. It’s populated again with the highly dressed and acclaimed. They are beautiful and every conversation that was ever had, is perfected tonight. It’s like recollection, but it’s not.

And a table of girls far enough away. She sees me pouring it into the glass. I see her with her body leaned forward and face pushed in my direction. She laughs. Oh, then legs before me. She catches you while you’re scribbling things down onto the back of your mind. Words for her, dialog for the masses. A version to balm my heart. She wants no explanation. And she’s back when she gets a chance to sit next to me. And she’s dressed from the high street. She likes the things I say. I like her ephemeral qualities. Made more beautiful by what will never last. Some bathroom like in a house at three o’clock in the morning, trying to rinse it from your face with cold water. Head tilted back on a checkerboard bathroom floor peeing into the ice, laughing. My memories of green wooden paneled walls, and the face of that girl, so gorgeously repressed. She waits outside, staring at herself in the glass. I stand next to her and we do that together. She takes you by the hand and you’re up the tiny elevator, she hates it, like riding up in a coffin. Are we dead? It has us feeling so dead at this hour. No honey, it’s just begun. You should take the stairs if it bothers you that much. Not in these shoes. Well take them off. And what glorious shoes. I’ll carry them for you. The doors open and we’re like a resurrection. We go, released down the hallway, very much alive again. Then an antique room and she’s this modern figure in it with such a pretty face, and shear fabric over small breasts that are so vital and supple and soft, with like the nipples of all salvation. You don’t know if she came, and don’t really care. It’s amazing how girls can fake it nowadays. The line between living and acting has been crossed. I leave it to mystery. They all want to be pornographic stars now, with these constant incessant noises over and over again. And if there’s the memory of any noise to haunt me, it’s that one. Like a sexual wound up doll that’s gotten caught up in the fad. Then recording herself into some little porthole again. Explaining again to her, that it’s an illusion to have that many friends. But when we looked each other in the eyes, everything was fine. Her little face given up and it was up to me. And you barely know this girl, but oh my god, we’re so close so soon. And that risk feels so good, but at the last minute I pull out. And maybe because she looks nothing like her. And you take a look at her. You take such a hard look at her because you’ve come in her a little bit, and now you’re wondering what it might be like to be with her for the rest of your life. But she likes you, and you’re lucky and you’re used to that. And you appreciate it more than anyone. There is some potent appreciation for it within you. And you adore her. She’s my star. And she’s part of this destiny that you were never supposed to have or ever have shined onto you. And you want to tell her that. Pressing your head hard against her forehead and chin and collar bones. Smiles in the haze of alcohol and fucking. Nothing matters. One thing that you hear clearly, that peaks your attention and you become more lucid to, sober up to, is that she’s had her heart broken too. She claims to be very intuitive. And she must be. And she’s human enough not to want to turn it into a charade or a game. She’s human, with cum on her stomach and outside of her couture lavender dress. How much I’d wanted to have her quivering like this outside her ballgown. Would it have changed me as a man? I might have. We can never really know. Chances are, we would have never met.

There was a horror in the otherwise still time of the late evening, or even early morning. Something subtle in the light; this time between living and the pressures of life. They’re unable to enjoy the beauty that surrounds them any longer. Life struggled in my arms like that rabbit that I was wanting to hold onto, but that wasn’t content there in my arms. Words mean nothing and it’s the futility of persuading an anxious hare to stay forever. I’m back to square one in the ruins, making my way up laurel canyon to go rabbit hunting. Running through woods with a childlike rush of excitement running through me chasing, then with a rabbit hanging from my hand by its hind legs. “Rabbit is on the menu tonight madam.” I say, laughing while skinning the poor thing. And after so many, I’ll have a royal blanket and vest jacket and whatever I might make of it. It isn’t exactly angora but it’ll do. If I’m to stay here for a long period of time. I’m sure that the moths will eat up my sweaters again and I want to give up the way that we’re used to looking and feeling.

Again that face of a man that has died and been taxidermied, whose had his eyes placed back into their sockets with glue. Now dead green eyes, sometimes blue, fixed on nothing. The memory of you. As dead now as shiny glass marbles. I couldn’t make a sound. I couldn't have cried out if I'd wanted to. And why have the emotions, the love, not been severed? Not by time, not by catastrophic event. The memory it’s like dying all over again. It was not wiped by the solar flares. I think I loved her with every part of me that mattered.

I’m sitting at the desk quietly dying over the moleskines when all of a sudden I hear this noise that I felt like I hadn’t heard in so many years. I look over and there’s a single finch, sitting amongst the seed quietly cracking open sunflower seeds with its little beak. What a joyous sight. I don't make a move, so not to scare it away. After a little while it flies off. I stay in the room for a little while, anxiously waiting to see if it returns or maybe another. But there will be no other birds feeding on the silver platter on this afternoon. I go and look over the area that’s been turned to an area of sunflower seed shells. You’ve missed the plate. I pick them up, rubbing them between my fingers, letting them fall onto the floor again, thinking that it will probably end up like that apartment carpet covered with shells that I had.

I became conscious of my laughing, a short burst of what seemed like laughter. As if I were laughing for the first time in years. But it was a laughter, vacuous, with no one around to hear it. A laughter devoid of all happiness. And to have died the way she died, not looking both ways, while pulling down onto the serpentining boulevard. Holy fuck! Everything in this world goes in two directions. What a shiny new machine, to be reduced to a royal junk heap. I fix a drink take a walk one night across the terrain to the place where it happened, as if to pay homage. What a brilliant twist of fate it had been. A spotlight over a dusty place in the road. A narrow street that I remember running upward towards the mansions nearly consumed by the overgrowth of pine and eucalyptus and banana trees. I masturbate, ejaculating onto the spot of her death, wanting to take a left going to a party; perhaps she’ll come again, in some ghostly form, back up to greet me. God knows she went to hell. And would the ghost of such a bitch still be so wet. Perhaps another petty war in the ruins. Blood spilt for a dream fuck.

Everything that I’d grown to love in this world is dead. It’s left these images and ghosts, these memories that begin to populate this dilapidated affair. Now I’m dancing on the ruins again. Catastrophe is built into us, this model of the human race that can only go unfolding forward like a whore from one week to the next, to her every act erased; condemned from the very start by a whorish strand in the genetic code. And she couldn’t help herself. The bright light, was like the opening of a rose is to the seed. Archetypes, this is how we fit together, we are the doomed tessellations. The ancient depictions is us depicted, exactly. And who would have ever thought, while we were dancing over such pretty designs. What we thought was decoration, was all along the clever-but-charming, cruel-joked warnings of the past.

Oh, how it turned me on, those girls with money. My anxious breaths on the edge of the lounge chair next to her tonight, I remember my forearms resting crossed on the tops of my thighs. Will she? I want her more than ever. She leans her head back and takes a drink from her champagne flute, laughing, almost mocking my desires. By this point, I had the idea that she had read a long distinguished book about pavlov’s dogs. Or else, she understood intuitively, inherently that if she does these things, that I would respond positively. She’s in the mood for a little chivalry, for gentlemanliness. I’m not in the mood for another night of shivering alone. I’ve fallen into a period of time when what’s trendy wins the day. The aqueducts are archaic. I assure her that what I’ve said will come to her in time. She leaves her last bite at the end of the fork, for a kiss that can’t wait, it never reaches her mouth and is dropped down onto the plate.

The silver platter full of lively little finches has become a usual sight now. Too many to name. I love the sound of their bird language and the beautiful color of their feathers. At times a cacophony of whistling jubilant little birds. They’re just as mischievous as they’d ever been. And just as it was then, I can see, when I’ve been gone for a while, that they’ve carried seeds deep into the room and even into the bathroom, to perch and crack the seeds in their beaks, dropping the shells beneath wherever they were perched.

The sunshine doesn’t allow that sensation to come across completely. But with the fog creeping in in the evenings, there comes a certain quality that allows me to feel certain things that I cannot feel in the sunshine. The settled dust nearly makes me feel what my life’s become. And I’m not a piece of furniture, but a living thing on the pieces of my past broken apart. Will Cat have me on this shattered mirror. When I go back I’ll tell her everything. About the sun. 

And perhaps these curtains will be a beacon for my little darling, even while she’s been long dead. All that I ever wanted, is still all that I ever wanted. I was no closer to having her then. Too many years of auditioning girls that looked like her in bed has left me disillusioned, even cynical. And that face like hers, came on bodies of all shapes and sizes. Would I rather have that face on a girl fit for the catwalk. I can hear the distant sound of one of them coming in one of the other rooms of this empty palace. It temps me. I go off though the cobwebs looking by mag-light, following the wonderful sound. Please let this phantasm tonight let me have her in any which way I’d like. The desire to fuck is still so sincerely in me. Let me prove my loyalty. The young little cunt before my eyes, I love. I have not my own nation anymore. Young girl, tonight, you are my nation and my god. My goodness, my goddess, can I touch it. It’s not a surprise to this ghostly young girl that I above all things, ask her to piss on me. If it’s to be a revival, it will be the likes of a revival that nobody’s ever seen before. Such a young lubricious little bitch. It sickens me. Cum and feathered. I can almost not even hold the thought of it. I’ll sing and dance if you want me too.

The next day. Another balancing act, as she’s showing me how she can balance books on her head. It is love, or something like it. Can we kiss like that? What if she was able to go about the whole night long like that and not spill a sip. And to arrive back here with the balancing act still intact. We are amazing and funny. And there is no life outside of this. There is no suffering world to ruin what we’ve got going. Love, true love, just you and me. I loose my balance watching her keep hers. And in the ruins, I’m back in the groove. She, slowly making her way towards me. I try to tell myself that the end of the symphony will not represent my death. But it’s a perfect afternoon and there’s no more perfect way to project sound than vinyl.

But history, it holds much too much weight. Everyone owes everyone else for past misdeeds. It’s not in man’s nature to let go. Mans’s ideals are nothing to the nature of bitterness and revenge. I myself will be weak to one of these. It is the only thing that I can be absolutely sure of. And love is no path of convergence. Neither is song or fucking or bon fires. You must go numb to evolve now. I understand that I’m condemned, only to grow uglier and uglier under the stress of this vile revelation.

I go through a narrow driveway that opens up behind some shops, an open rectangle of asphalt, a parking lot under moonlight that’s hidden from the street. The memory of fucking a strange girl there. Not a strange girl but simply a girl who I’d met only hours before. I never even knew her name. And maybe it’s that mystery that leave it in me, a potent perfect little moment in the chain of events of my life. 

Is it too late for the revival of my greatest sins? Who gives a fuck about fading light falling over a fading mind. I’m renovating the ruins while still able to recall the illustrious polished possessions of the past. Forgetting what it was like is surely death. It means nothing without someone to share it with. I look out wondering, not a young man anymore on some rich woman’s terrace, but from this terrace none-the-less.

She was so perfectly cradling the champagne flute on her lap - the tiny bubbles still rising in her glass. Let go of my arm. She stood. Come on. Come sit back down with me. And again, I’m torn between the love sofa and the arm rest. And how could I explain, it being morning and the sun completely risen when I crawled into bed with her. Quiet ambitions that here, take us on our individual unspoken adventures. That regardless of anything, you’re doomed to failure. While here there was an imperative that was more sacred than fidelity or self respect, or even than the sweet love that had been extinguished between us. How could I explain. And because of her own ambitions, she wouldn't even ask, only turn to look at me, wondering where either of our lives were going. That beautiful look in a woman’s eyes while she’s putting questions to the both of us. And even while she contemplates that world, it’s obvious that I will never be in it. A divorce in that world will not necessarily leave a part for me in her life. There are other rich men that she will run to. So I’m waiting for nothing. When considering those amber eyes struck by the early sunlight. A potent normalcy. The eyes of a doll. A beautiful shade of brown blasted with infinitesimal gold flakes, really like the eyes that you'd see on some doll. Not that of a human being. Milk for blood, and a debilitating sense of stasis. Evolution and its carelessness concerning the fate of the individual. We are all like one night stands in its prodigious pursuit. It’s a careless young man in a place exactly like this.

   Modernism and the sight of a girl’s primordial little bush throws me back. My god is that what one looks like not shaven? It’s a rare occasion now and I’m only wondering what’s wrong in her. I’m almost getting her, with the strange experience, with the strangeness. You little weirdo, you’ll have to trust me with a straight razor tonight. You must trust me in this contrasty light.

Diplomacy is archaic. Who in the hell still believes in such a charade. It’s always like the slow dance of one devouring another. And yes, that takes some technique. It also takes language, this thing that we’ve been cursed by.

I wanted to speak to her. She was asleep. And left the hotel in the early morning and didn’t want to be there when she woke. When she was sober and could digest those things that I'd told her the night before even more clearly in the morning, when women can be so reflective and cruel. A son?

Now I am knocking and laughing with a sense of humor at a dusty door. I want nothing of the modern world. Let me in! You were older then, you’re bound to be even older now. But with what’s out there now, I really don’t care.

The Phyletic Rising. To tear it down between the phyletic and the modern contemplations. As intelligence and instinct are separate, at times converging and others, diverging. Let me think about my instinctual self and let me grunt about intelligence. I knew it had been infidelity. Not even a death, could cause someone to scream why! So many times in a row without breath, in such a horrific way. It’s all at once, betrayal, the death of love and the knifing of the ego. Every admission, is the admission to this sad show, of hours and hours of wanting to know how good it felt. “Did you cum! Did you let him stick it in your ass, this is really truly the end!” I scream at her. The convulsions of love when you already know it’s over. But with modernity, we will never have to feel like this again. Our hearts are safe in a technological fucking. It has a wonderful sense of humor. The word love having taken the place of love.

It was the only sanctuary. These moments, while fucking some girl you’ve just met, before you come. When all the hatred, and the confusion, is suspended during the the still hours. The world stops and you hear your hearts beating, and you hear her heart beating. Those few moments while we defy everything, in the apogee. Then cumming again as the metaphor of death and a new beginning, completes the act.

And there are stretches of time, hours, days, when you’ve completely forgotten that you’re living in this ruins. And then remembering, it may happen at any time. While you’re bathing, while you’re walking, while you’re laughing. Keeping in mind, that lightning never strikes in the same place twice. I should have never dwelled back into the ruins. My reserve of balls of lavender soap is disappearing and I want to see Cat more than ever. Her face in lavender fields. There’s this point where one can rub too long and far on the patina, where then the reflection becomes dull, and the pain becomes real again. They’d mistaken my masochism for asceticism. So why not claim asceticism? It’s more respectable.

Have I captured someone’s attention in the courtyard tonight. “And they’ll always betray you with a shadow. Not to be trusted.” I know, “Hey man, let’s keep the whole place naive and not speaking of the truth. So it goes on infinitely. They wouldn’t listen.”

So far past the point of desperation has me call an ex girlfriend again. Hello, you god forsaken whore. Where history and intuition has already told us. We must for the love of god, fuck again. If only to prove that we’re not missing anything. It’s in the way that we can separate ourselves from ourselves. Where there in place of the real thing that’s kept somewhere under lock and key. Like the necklace a woman wears when she's got the actual jewels in a vault somewhere, so she feels safe and invulnerable. It’s a pasty existence. But they don’t know the difference and will rape and kill you for the fake necklace anyway, you clever whore. It’s funny that she fucked civilization over, insisting on the most primal state. She loved the feeling of decadence clashed against the risk. Clasped with the risk. When they told you she wanted it, that she asked for it. I couldn’t argue, because I remember that look on her face in the presence of any of them, that look that said it all, that saddened me, while there was just that word love between us. So I knew I couldn’t trust her with love any longer, with her PROPENSITY TOWARDS DARKNESS, a sad story that I wrote, remembering why I’d walked away. They were telling me the truth, they loved me enough to tell me the truth, while she was lying to me about what she was up to. My god I screamed, this god forsaken age. Try everything to make this love impossible for heaven sakes.

She’s a young girl walking along the sidewalk, I rush to her and say what I might have then, “I want you to come to my apartment and disobey me.” We walk, laughing, and she’s so pretty. “I’ve got a room. Wear something bright and tight. Do you have a pen or a marker? I’ll write the number on the nape of your neck. I’ll seal it with a kiss. What beautiful hair you have.” I’ll never be so spontaneous again. The after burn of the event, of youth. I used to be the emperor of this place. An emperor over it. Now an emperor over it. In the ruins, I think I’ll rattle the chains again. They’re such fucks, I just can’t resist. A calm sip, another broken pick.

I arrive back to the desolate room, as if tossing some girl I’d picked up onto the bed. I had my favorite movies, the flicker of the cathode tube going on infinitely in the ruins that you can see from miles away. And you might ask, is someone there in the distance, watching that television, that flickering light, alone or with a lover. I’ll have to excavate most of what I need from the ruins. And it had been nice that the catastrophe had occurred so suddenly. And thank god it wasn’t during rush hour. But I do love the look of the sudden end to a speed display. I’d always laughed, claiming that a speed display was a work of art, this beautiful expression, a demonstration of our yearnings. An attempt at what we can never attain. A beautiful sports car in the sun, still gleaming. Did this driver, this person, this corpse, on that day, while driving such a beautiful machine around, ever think that they were going to remain at this intersection forever. Probably not.

I make my way to an area that I’d known well and was relieved to enter an area of some shade in the taters of an awning still fluttering in the breeze, where a magazine rack used to be, where I’d waste an hour or so now and then. I stand for a little while feeling the coolness before I start digging around. I find one useless book after another. Then I see something glimmering in the rubble, and at first I think, no, it can’t be. My fingers like claws dig faster and harder through the debris. Yes!, it was cellophane with a glossy picture beneath the filthy plastic of a model. I move into the sun holding it, blowing it off, brushing it off with my fingers. I’m overjoyed, screaming with ecstasy. Then get back onto my hands and knees and continue digging up this stack of fashion magazines. Huge and glorious. Fashion magazines, with models in them, not celebrities! Real models! Real fashion magazines. This was a rare find, as much as a wine cellar. Magazines in bright color, in all their glory, unfaded! I make my way back towards the hotel over the bright rubble, as happy as can be with this stack of magazines cradled in my arms. They would motivate me to fix up yet another area, that will be designated for sitting and having a drink and fingering through this redeemed beauty one glossy page at a time. I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel, nearly salivating over the thought of all the glossy images. Like an archeologist of beautiful pictures.

I tilted my head back and stared up at the black blue sky, with those tiny black specks swarming above, that I’d always imagined were tiny indiscernible birds flying very high up, so tiny as to seem like pinpricks against the sky. It’s an illusion onto the blue sky. Falling into, with these strange trees, into dusk in this courtyard that I’ve always loved.

A woman saying, enjoy it while you can, held for so long in the walls, just waiting for the right thunderous night full of electricity to play again.

And here is this beautiful girl shivering deep inside this fabric that makes her a goddess. And one wonders if she could withstand the desires, the onslaught of desires that the image of her provokes, that the sight of her provokes. My heart racing. It’s as if by some cruel joke a picture placed into the center of this vile nature. In a cruel way, to see if she survives, wrapped in couture and thrown to the wolves. And it being even more cruel, that the gown isn’t a suit of armor, and provides her no protection whatsoever. The grand invitation to the softest parts of her anatomy. A bait and test and taunting of man. On one hand her face reflecting the rapture of being civilizations most precious centerpiece. On the other, the excruciation of that position with patience for the photographer. She goes about the peach trees that are still giving; and in fact, given the time away from the interferences of man and all the second guessing that we do of nature, is producing fruit again, that appeals to all the senses. Like it once had. It’s no longer a synthesized piece of candy that holds the recollection of what peaches used to taste like, or tasteless pulp. So half way into the last, or what could be considered the first photo shoot of the new epoch, she puts one to her mouth and revels in the juice. It’s as if with the backdrop of ruins, civilization's being born anew. And I’m as lucky as Adam to have the first ruinous fuck of the new era. Always intrigued by the pinkish blood of a virgin on my cock. No longer second guessing nature, or even the nature of another human being.

 A butterfly flutters about the pile of fabrics and leather purses. It’s the very same color as the pastel shirt worn when arriving here. It’s landed on the memory of a designer handbag that she had. Just a vivid butterfly on the ruins, taking flight.

A knock at the door, and she’s dressed like I’d asked her to dress. It only took a little reflection on her part to find me. Some strange girl in the ruins again. Then in the morning the strangest thing happens. I awake very early, with the room still only very faintly lit. I looked over and there was this tiny bit of movement that caught my attention in the still near darkness. It was the silhouette of a solitary little finch snuggled onto the seed on the silver platter, as if adjusting itself on its little bed. They usually never feed after nightfall, and I had never seen one sleep there like that. The light continued to grow, that steady luminous blue-purple light, and as it did the little bird slowly woke. I watched, leaned over her warm body. Slowly she woke too and saw me staring towards the window as still as a bird dog. What are you doing? “Shhhh.” I whisper, “One of them slept there all night in the seed there on the silver platter like it was a little nest. Something must have happened for that to have happened. A family fight or something. And it knew this place and it was comfortable here and so it slept here all night.” “Like me.” She says, laughing. “Yes, like you.” The little finch suddenly wakes and darts out the window fluttering into this incredible purple sky with a horizontal reddish-orange slit beyond the expanse of rubble that’s the break of day.

Another little spy to love. I sit at the edge of the garden, gazing over at her, absolutely content, watching her as she drinks freshly squeezed juice from a sparkling etched glass and flicking through the fashion magazines. And love in the ruins all of a sudden makes it not so ruinous anymore.

THE END

-Alan Augustine 

Los Angeles 1997-

[duanecbrooks]

On (Still) Being Torn     It was almost ten years ago that my Mom died and I remain conflicted concerning her death. There is still a titanic struggle between my intellectual self and my emotional/psychological self about her passing.           I'll explain what I mean.             Let me first say, however, that for the overwhelming majority of the time she was alive, Elizabeth Irene Brooks was, quite simply, one of the genuinely great mothers of all time, if not the genuinely greatest. The earliest memory I have of her is this time she, I, and a group of neighborhood kids were playing ball outside and it began sprinkling. Being in that I was at the time not a very social person, I pointed out the sprinkling (my exact words being: "It's starting to rain") in the hope that the game would end and I could go back inside. Mom's affectionate response: "You won't melt or lump."     And there other facets of this woman that deserve mention. The way she consistently cooked and cleaned for me. The fact that, for the rest of her life, even though she and my Dad divorced, she never in any sense tried to poison my mind against him, always, always speaking well of him (Indeed, when one time it was arranged that my Dad would certainly, definitely visit us--when said divorced was final, he took up residence in New Jersey with his new wife Terry, where he lived right up to the day he died--she went into sheer glee, joyously grabbing both of my hands and literally doing a jig with me). The way she was an uber-solid, never-wavering brick while I was going through what was easily the worst period of my Asperger's (Actually, there was one time--one time--that she hit me that I'll go into later. However, as I'll explain, I richly deserved it).               And there are other times that are worthy of remembering. During my adolescence Mom bore a striking resemblance to this dazzlingly beautiful black singer/actor named Barbara McNair, who was quite popular at the time. While I was in the hospital recuperating from an injury that happened to me at school, Mom came to visit me and, while she was there, I told my hospital roommate how much Mom resembled the aforementioned performer. After my hospital roomie and I talked for a while, Mom, sporting a grin, asserted: "I wish I had [McNair's] money." Later, also grinning, she told my roommate, regarding me: "You want to know anything about show business, you ask this boy." Also: I used to regularly write letters-to-the-editor to my hometown newspaper The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and other publications, which, more often than not, would be printed. Eventually Mom, without any urging from me whatsoever, collected literally all of my printed missives and compiled them in a quite attractive and quite sizable binder. And not once, not once, did Mom ever ask me: "Why are you wasting your time on that meaningless stuff?" And as for that one time Mom hit me, it was during the 1980s, when I was deep, deep, deep into my Asperger's--in point of fact, as was mentioned earlier, honestly the deepest I'd ever been. Mom and I were having this very forceful argument--about what, sad to say, has long escaped my memory--and in the midst of it, freely displaying an arrogance and a callousness that to this day shame me, I said to Mom: "The hell with you" and turned away. To this Mom of course spun me back around to her and gave me a good, hard left hook (Even then she showed me unconditional love, saying to me after she'd done it: "'The hell with you.' Now what kind of way is that for a son to talk to his mother?").               Yet when Mom took ill, her usually giving, usually loving demeanor changed and changed majorly. She became snappish, intolerant, and flat-out mean-minded.             Here are examples.                   .One day while we were riding along looking for the office of this doctor with whom she'd made an appointment. There was a very long stretch of time when we couldn't find said office so I, alas, engaged in my lifelong habit of playing with my fingers. "Don't play with your fingers!" Mom screeched. "Watch the numbers [of the houses we were passing], please!" And even though I immediately got on Mom for screaming at me, she didn't apologize until around a week later.          .Mom had developed a deep girl-crush on the professional-men's-tennis sex symbol Roger Federer. One night the two of us were in her room watching him play and the time came when I had to take my meds and go to bed. Yet Mom, completely ignoring the fact that I had to take much-needed, indeed, crucial medication, insisted that I stay and watch Federer make this play. And some time later, I was home alone and I was planning to go someplace and I was speaking to Mom over the phone--where she was at the time, alas, has completely left my memory--and she actually wanted me to stay home and watch this televised match Federer was scheduled to play so I could tell her about it when she got back home.                   .One morning I was in bed and Mom was standing over me and out of the blue she snappishly said: "I wish you'd go out and clean off the snow [from the driveway]." When I protested her language and her demanding tone, she quickly shut me down ("All right, don't get excited. Forget about it").                   .Mom at last finally had to be put in a hospice. During a visit I made to her we got into an argument wherein I expressed firm resentment over Mom's incessant "attacks." At this she snarled: "You deserve to be attacked!"                   .The absolute final remark I heard Mom say before she died was, when she got out of bed despite the fact that she was clearly too weak to do so and I ordered her to lie back down, her angrily complaining that I was "hollering" at her.                     And thus it would go. Allow me to say right here and right now that I am perfectly aware that Mom said the things she did and behaved the way she did because she was facing the one situation in her life about which she could do nothing--namely her upcoming death--and it frustrated, indeed, scared the crap out of her. Therefore, when she lashed out, she was lashing out not at me but at the one condition in her life over which she had absolutely, positively no control. And: I am also fully aware that, in dredging up the times Mom was hurtful and offensive--which, it shames me to say, I repeatedly do--I'm entirely bypassing, in fact, entirely backhanding the vast majority of my time with her during which she was, to come right out with it, simply one of the most outstanding mothers of all time, if not the most outstanding. And I know full well that if Mom had been completely together, if she could have somehow stood outside herself and could have heard and saw what she was saying and how she was behaving toward me, she would have been fiercely remorseful. It brings to mind what the towering Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote:                                                   "O wad some Power the giftie gie us                                        To see outsels as ithers see us!"                   However, all this knowledge is entirely in my head. It after all this time has not fully reached my heart.               Other factors that are impacting my feelings: In point of fact--and let it be noted that I'm profusely wincing as I say this--I have and have long had a Carol Brady/Shirley Partridge/Clair Huxtable-influenced notion of what a mother, and especially a black mother, is supposed to be. Thus, in being hurtful and offensive like she was--and permit me to say that I fully realize how this sounds--Mom to me was failing to live up to Clair Huxtable standards. Then, too, it still hurts me that my own mother was behaving so negatively towards her own son. I have and have long had this vision, it saddens me to say, of mothers as always-patient, always-affectionate, always-loving. Mom's words and behavior during her final days gravely wounded that vision (In truth, I continue to have the attitude that Drew Barrymore compensated for being the monumentally bratty, monumentally immature, monumentally selfish mother she was in Riding In Cars With Boys by being the greatly warm, greatly attentive, greatly loving mother she was in Blended). That these outlooks completely, completely ignore and, in fact, swat away the facts that Mom was 1) dying and 2) human is knowledge that I wholly realize intellectually. However, I regret to say, it has not fully gotten through emotionally/psychologically.     So I continue to go through the tortures of the damned concerning Mom's death. On the one hand, I am mightily bitter and mightily resentful regarding the fiercely angry, fiercely intolerant, very often venomous woman she was during her last period. On the other hand, I know full well in my head, not, alas, in my heart, that such bitterness and such resentment not only display titanic insensitivity concerning the considerable fear--indeed, the considerable anguish--that Mom felt but also wholly obscures the fact that, during the great majority of my time knowing her, she was, to employ a line from the hit 1990s number, "the closest thing to perfect that I've ever seen."