Slipping Dreams

She feels it slipping through her fingers like so much unwanted trivials.

But she wants it. Wants to hold it and keep it forever.  Liquid dreams slip-slide through her flimsy clasp of hands and she loses her thoughts, her muse.

Were she to be able to pen these dreams before they fluttered from her brain like leaves in the winds maybe the world would understand her musings and see the poet’s soul within. Instead she is left with fragments and pieced together bits that do not tell a whole story and no one recognises the way the words fit but her since she is the only one that knows there are pieces missing.

The Funeral

I was never very religious.

I don’t suppose many would care, but many would and anyway it explains my reaction to the events that follow.

I never thought much on my death. Or no, I suppose I did. They say no one ever thinks of dying but that’s a lie. Everyone does. All the time. Usually every day. Because inwardly, innately we are all aware of one fact: From the moment we are born and expelled from our mother’s womb foamy and dripping with blood and glop and excess bits of flesh, from that moment, we begin to die. Each breath we take from that moment is another breath closer to our imminent demise. And we are, as a whole, aware of this. Surely there are exceptions as there always is, but in the vast majority we know this one forever truth, forever fact: We all will die.

So I suppose I did think much on my death. Or at least as much as anyone else does. But I never considered the funeral. At least not much more than in that abstract way of “someday I will die, and there will possibly be a wake (unless my death happens to be terribly gruesome and no one wants to see my face or body smushed or swollen like an allergenic pus-like balloon), some flowers, and a grave”.

So my not being very religious never came to mind when I considered my death. I vaguely thought there would be a wake, some flowers, and a grave. Even though I would prefer a party, with a piñata, and alcohol, and candy, and fireworks.

If you think of the funerals you’ve been too, you might recall there’s someone there, generally a priest, or some member of the clergy, or something, to say words about the dead, soon-to-be rotting, hunk of flesh (and copious amounts of some kind of jelly formaldehydic fluid sloshing around in there that makes that flesh’s flesh look less like flesh and more like a child’s horrible stretched first attempt at play-doh-ing a person).

If you can’t tell already, I don’t think much on funerals. I’m usually the one sitting in the uncomfortable chairs while the clergy person pretends to talk as if they know the person in the casket (which they often don’t), wondering exactly why our society goes around displaying a gross facsimile of the person you used to know, while people that probably don’t mourn them as much as they should, and barely even know said dead-person, cry, and cry some more, and maybe some more, so when people look at them they’ll only see the snot, and tears, and think “oh they must miss that person a lot”, and not think “they’re barely an acquaintance and they’re crying this much, I think they must just like drama and crying and other people hugging them to make them feel better, sick bastards”. These are usually the same practically strangers who look at me and my stoicness and think I’m a freak when usually I’m either suffering silently, or yeah, you know what? I quite honestly don’t give a shit and don’t feel like pretending just so people feel bad for me.

I think in the end, the better thing to do would be to have a good drink (or something suitably nice if you’re not into alcohol), have some cake and shoot off some fireworks (there are even people who will put ashes in fireworks and I think it’s a terribly practical way of disposing of the remains and a helluva lot more memorable than leaving a gravestone that no one will visit after at the most 70 years or so... also, it’s pretty).

So I never thought of these things, really, in terms of my death. To be honest, the most I figured was a wake for the immediate family, turned to ashes, and possibly sprinkled somewhere cool, like Wales, or like I said, fireworks. Pretty similar to how my mum always said she wanted to go.

Unfortunately when you die at my age you don’t think of writing a will.

So when I died, I was young, with no will, with a family that had years of experience pressuring my mum, and a father who was quite religious (for having barely gone to church that I can remember as a kid and sleeping or playing games instead when my mum took us, but I was never one to think faith should be sanctioned off, and tamped down, and hidden, in some stupid, austere building in a religion whose book says worshipping outside is the way to go and no worshipping idols, such as that bright golden cross with the dead guy nailed to it that you have that you could sell and feed thousands with, but y’know, go nuts), and an extended family that couldn’t be bothered to visit me as a child, and I therefore never kept in touch, and they therefore, didn’t know me from a hole in the ground. Plus, y’know, most people don’t like to talk about death and funerals, and the one person I could have talked to it about was my mum, and not-so-surprisingly she wasn’t up for talking about her daughter possibly dying before her. It’s just a thing parents have.

So I’m here in a strange state of awareness, in that weird out-of-body experience people always talk about, and finding it hilarious that my experience with it ends with no body to return to. Could this be classified as irony? Probably not. It’s never irony like it’s never lupus (except when it totally is, but you’ll never know). I’m here and watching this procession of people who I’m pretty sure the vast majority don’t know me for the dust motes they’re breathing in this musty old church, wondering exactly why they’re bothering. It is some defect I have that I don’t understand the mourning process? Is this some inherent inwardly-automatically known human thing that I just didn’t get handed during the creation process? Is there some defunct part of my brain, some cell that didn’t split properly in the sperm/egg, zygote, whatever-I-wasn’t-a-science-major conception of my life that I just legitimately don’t give a flying fuck about funerals?

I’m here, watching these people that mostly don’t know me, crying about how it’s such a tragedy I was taken so young, basically parading my bloated, puffy, dead body (I’m writing my chubby cheeks off as the not-formaldehyde stuff, I’m pretty sure even as my heaviest my cheeks didn’t quite resemble that level of squishy jelly donut) and I just don’t get it.

I think, were I still alive I would be pissed. I have (had?) a pretty wicked temper concerning stupidity. Then again, if I were alive then I would have nothing to be pissed about. As it is, the most I can muster is vague puzzlement and amusement. I was agnostic (and slowly even losing the theistic aspect of that), and a bisexual in a society that still didn’t understand that that didn’t mean I ate babies and wasn’t just confused and was curious about girls, or was too much of a wimp to admit I really liked girls, and the vast majority of this frustration came from the religion they’re now burying me under.

Do they not realise I thought their religion was just one of many? There were thousands of gods before theirs and likely to be many more besides. Really, what we truly know as fact could fill a thimble and even that is consistently being contested. It’s like Men in Black “everybody knew the earth was the center of the universe, everybody knew the earth was flat, you knew humans were alone in the universe". Or however the hell that quote actually goes. The point is, we don’t know shit, and I’ve never understood the logic in a religion that preached “turn the other cheek” and was spread worldwide through religious wars (the Crusades anyone?), promoted beating your wife and racism (in the Old Testament I will admit, but read the New one someday with an open mind and tell me it’s perfect, it’s written by man, it will never be perfect because human’s are inherently flawed), and told me from the second I started questioning my sexuality I was immoral, wrong, and a disgusting disgrace. Never understood it. And really, its extremists are the reason I became agnostic in the first place because there is not a single religion on this earth that is perfect.

So why the hell am I being buried a Christian?

Was it because I used to go to church as a kid? I stopped that years ago. Was it because I was Confirmed? I was questioning Christianity months before I finished my Confirmation.

So does this make my entire funeral a lie? And really, you’re blessing and sending to God a woman who doesn’t have faith in the religion you’re burying her in, and you’re stupid enough to think you know me well enough to think it’s what I would have wanted.

It’s not. It’s what you wanted. To make yourself feel better. And fine, go ahead. But know that my funeral is a fraud. My funeral is not my funeral. It’s your show. Your time to shine. To cry, to mourn, to be comforted, and be in the spotlight. That’s all they ever are. And you’re doing this at a Christian funeral for an agnostic woman who doesn’t believe in the idea of funerals, and spent every funeral she ever went to thinking it was a farce, being completely uncomfortable with public displays of emotion, and generally performed all her mourning hiding in a bathroom or outside in the woods where no one could see her cry.

So make your public display at a funeral for a woman who thought this whole process was bullshit. Go ahead.

I’m dead anyways, so what does it matter?

Lyrical Rememberance

They say there is nothing quite like finally remembering a story. The intricate trappings, the details, every tiny nuance and then, like a soft flutter of butterfly wings returning to grace your body, the letters. The beginnings of the construct, the base you need to find your precious words. Those that resonated so deeply as to be ingrained on your soul.

If this is true, then so too, must the opposite be true. To never remember that story. To have mere gossamer strands of perfect prose smother you, suffocate you as you breathe in the half-remembered bits of lyricism. Cobbled bits and pieces that tease and torment you with their sheer beauty that you cannot seem to recall. It grates at you. It is no longer a precious butterfly, whole and perfect but a tattered and slashed leftover. A disgusting, revolting facsimile of something that once was everything and always would be.

You will never remember that story. It exists only in dreams and grips into your mind with sharp, piercing talons in the daylight. Mocking your memory and lack thereof until you know you will go mad.

You will never remember that story. Know this. Lament.

And die.

Heroes

Her power is luck.

It’s not a terrible power she supposes. It could be something really ridiculous like growing her hair and nails or that guy with the spiked tongue.

Still, no one seems to understand how her power works. Those who just know the word ‘luck’ treat her like she’s invincible and those that know she’s still human treat her with kid gloves.

But she knows her skills and limits even if no one else does. She tries to explain that it’s all about extremes. She doesn’t always come out unharmed. It’s all relative.

It works like this:

Things that would cause small scrapes don’t happen. Things that would cause lacerations cause small scrapes. Bodily harm and breaks are lacerations. Death is bodily harm and breaks.

She still winds up in the hospital a lot.

She doesn’t know what would happen were her death to be horribly gruesome. She’s afraid that to her powers, a regular death would seem the better option.

The others don’t understand. Their powers have gotten stronger through practice and control. Hers must do the same.

She doesn’t know how to explain that hers don’t. They’ve been the same her whole life and, even if they could get stronger, considering that testing her limits could actually kill her she’s not too inclined to try.

So she continues being treated with kid gloves, which is slightly frustrating, or like she’s invincible, which is terrifying.

They’re called heroes.

She doesn’t know how to tell them she doesn’t think she’s a hero. She doesn’t think heroes should be afraid of death. She’s just a girl and some days she wishes no one had ever told her she was special. She thinks she would’ve preferred to just be a normal person with some rather abnormal luck.

She doesn’t want to be a hero. She wishes they had left her alone.

She’s afraid to die. Even more, she’s afraid they think she can’t die.

Even more than that? That they know she can, and they don’t care, because they are all of them special. Which means as a whole they are no longer special. As a whole they are the same. They have a duty to save the world and while they aren’t expendable, they are required to do their duty. Whether they want to or not.

She doesn’t want to.

She wants to be normal.

She doesn’t think anyone cares.

She’s still afraid to die.

She has no choice.

How Things Work (A Short Story)

If I told you it was a dark and stormy night, well, then I’d be lying.

I have a tendency to do that sometimes. I suppose all authors do. They do it to tell a good story. If you’re introducing something as mysterious, mystic, magical and other various words starting with ‘m’ it seems more important. I’m sure these other 'm' words are wonderful and all that but alliteration doesn’t always fit the bill so more words are necessary. Words such as dark, dangerous and deadly.

Alliteration is ever so much fun. Useful as well. It adds a sense of poetry to otherwise dull, dreary and mundane reading. Sometimes after alliteration has been used and people have built up expectations using two similarly starting words and one not-so-similarly-starting word is fun.

Crushing expectations. Also fun. I hope you’re writing this down. Or at the very least saving this copy for future reference. What you read here may very well save your life someday.

Or possibly not. It’s difficult to tell. Foresight is not like hindsight: in it’s very fun and well-known use in what is my modern day colloquialism but may in fact not be yours: “hindsight is 20/20”. 20/20 being a standard of perfect eyesight in this day and age, though with some people having 30/20 vision, this means their vision is better than perfect. This is impossible you would think. Not in this day and age however. In eyesight, 20/20 is majorly the norm, therefore it’s what we consider perfect but you can be better than perfect. You can, if you’re special. Since people seldom are special however, we set our standards for normal and anyone above the majority of the population is special... Well, anyone below it is special too, though for far different reasons and meanings.

This might explain most people near-crippling sense of insignificance and their ensuing near-crippling attempts to fix this through boasting and general all-around ass-ery.

Anyways, I dither. In fact, foresight is not 20/20, if we consider foresight in normal standards, foresight would be less than 1/20. Foresight is difficult, foresight is annoying and 20/20 foresight would require an absolute perfect sense of the future that would alter accordingly to the decisions you make because of such knowledge.

So yes, foresight is a difficult thing.

I appear to have dithered in a dither. How amusing. Anyways, this information may not save your life.

I have dithered in a dither in a dither and so on and so forth. Resuming my original topic:

It was not a dark and stormy night. In fact, it was bright, sun-shiny and generally all-around chipper and cheerful. Happy birds singing and squirrels happily crunch-a-crunch-crunching on nuts and berries and whatever the hell else squirrels eat. Interesting fact, flying squirrels will eat small birds. Not so cute and adorable now are they? Also, squirrels attack chipmunks. So fuck the squirrels, love the chipmunks. They’re nicer. Not that the chipmunks don’t fight back... Whatever, in the end chipmunks are smaller so at least if the chipmunk turns on you it’ll have smaller teeth with which to try and gnaw your fingers off.

Ahem, so ignoring the squirrels vs. chipmunks conundrum, it was an absolutely gorgeous day. Just perfect. You should have been out sunbathing in it instead of doing other silly things (such as reading this blathering on of pointless randomness).

...

That’s all I really had to say. Nice day and all that.

...

There’s nothing more to this story. I wonder why you’re so surprised. After all, it’s labelled as a “short” story not a “this will make sense” story or “this has a point” story...

Were you expecting more?
Well as I mentioned earlier, crushing expectations is fun.
Enjoy.




P.S. Actually, this story does have a point. It shows how a mere mentioning of the weather can spawn a conversation. A relatively pointless and useless conversation, but a conversation all the same. So it’s really not that difficult. Set whatever you’re doing down, get up and strike up a random conversation.

After all, all conversations are generally random until you get to know a person and can have intelligent conversations. So go talk to someone, blather on about something pointless and maybe at the end, you’ll have derived some meaning from it.

Just like I did. This point I mentioned was completely unintentional at the time of writing and was only noticed afterwards.

So I suppose there still really isn’t a moral or point. With this realization however, comes another, that maybe all that analysing and work you put in to making books and poetry have a theme, a meaning, a reason, maybe it’s all nonsense. Maybe it’s just all drivel and drabbling and babbling on (not alliteration but I gave you a rhyme). Maybe it’s just like this. There was no point, until there was one. Until one was made up.

Go make up your own points. Nothing actually has to have a reason. Nothing has to have a meaning. Stop over-thinking. Just write.

Go on.

Do it.

I dare you.






P.P.S. Can also be relabelled as "What the fuck am I on, why can't I write actual stories and not blather on and make no fucking sense, what the fuck is wrong with me, I'm pretty sure this is what happens when you don't sleep enough and decide to try and write something short and pointless at stupid-o-clock in the morning when you have to be up and you're honestly bat-shit crazy, off your fucking rocker, off the deep end and this proves it you very weird, very disturbed woman (A Short Story)".