W.B. Preston

Time Warner

2017-03-13T19:03:00.002-07:00

Time Warner

“To Keep the Public Informed”

Will Preston

Time Warner

“To Keep the Public Informed”

When Briton Hadden and Henry Robinson Luce began Time Magazine, their company mandate was “To Keep the Public Informed.” It’s nearly a hundred years later, and I’m not sure keeping the public informed is how I would describe what their company does. One thing it does is make money for it’s shareholders and investors, having just this week gained approval on the selling off of its cable division, Time Warner Cable, to Charter Communications for $88 billion. This has largely been the company's sole purpose in the last three and a half decades since the 80’s, acquiring companies or properties and selling them off. In the absence of a buyer, as was the case with AOL, it was broken apart and spun off into a separate entity. News and entertainment, is what Time Warner purports itself to sell. That the border between news and entertainment has vanished coincidentally in the past three and a half decades since the world’s largest media company’s sole purpose became making money, what exactly is it that Time Warner is keeping the public informed of?

The irony of the Charles Foster Kane-like optimism of the youthful Hadden and Luce’s company mandate having suffered such a tragic fall, is not lost on me. Yet the tactics and business model of the company they founded, remain ominously intact, though the motivations and intentions behind said business tactics may be far more shallow, than the company’s founders intended. Nearly a decade after the Time’s first publication, it’s now single creator Luce, Hadden had died in 1929, set out on what would be the company’s lasting legacy, acquiring other companies, he bought another magazine, Architectural Forum. Which would indeed suffer a similar fate to that of AOL, being spun off to a separate company. In another indicator of business practices to come, in 1938, Time acquired Literary Digest in a bid to bring those subscribers over to Time. It is in these tactics we see what the company would become, but at the core of these inauspicious beginnings, it is still the mandate of informing the public that drives the company.

We see this in the sole living creator of the company, Luce’s decision to step down in 1939 as CEO and focus all of his energy on his position as Editor and Chief, proves that at this time he is fully committed to keeping the public informed, as he saw the political climate in Europe becoming hostile, and the potential for a second World War. How he shaped the magazine's coverage of these events and America’s eventual participation in the War, is a topic for another paper, however what is clear is that he is still devoted to keeping the public informed. However to remain relevant, and to support the weight of the company, expansion and innovation were necessary, and with the end of the war, we see the beginning of a new medium of delivering content.

Though Time had already dabbled in radio broadcasts and short news broadcasts, with “Time On the March”, it wasn’t until after the war that Time began to invest heavily in these new broadcasting mediums. So they began buying interests and shares and eventually whole television and radio stations, broadening its scope and reach and capabilities for informing the public. In 1964 Luce, who co-created this company, finally stepped down, and this is the crucial moment when the company became more interested in making money rather than informing the public. To put it simply, there’s more money in entertainment than in the news. When the news stops selling, make it more entertaining. At this time in the mid 60’s more households than ever have TV’s and radios, more people than ever are watching tv and listening to the radio, print media is still profitable, but the men that Luce turned the company over to could see where the tides were turning.

However, prior to Luce’s retirement, Time acquired a textbook publishing company with a $6 million stock swap. Perhaps in a final attempt to make an effort towards informing the public, to try and make good on that original mandate. Towards the end of the decade, in another attempt to grow the company, to diversify the revenue streams, to corner the market on print media, Little Brown and Company is acquired by Time for $17 million worth of Time stock. A company it would own for nearly 40 years. Luce had died the year prior, and with him, perhaps the mandate as well.

In 1970, Time sold the broadcast properties to focus on cable television. One of the more important moves in the history of media. They also merged with a building materials company in a $129 million merger, a tactic that would be utilized several times in later decades to varying degrees of success. It is in 1972 when the then Time CEO introduced the Home Box Office as a paid TV service. Unheard of at the time, it would be a few years before the company took off, and as we all know has become one of the main providers for quality entertainment. As the company drifted further away from the mandate of informing the public, and towards the mandate of entertaining the public, and making money for shareholders, it became more financially successful and less journalistically successful.

Again we see in 1983 Time spin off Temple Inland, the product of another failed corporate merger tactic, and that company was sold to the shareholders. Time continued through the 1980’s buying companies and magazines and shares in communications companies, all leading towards the big merger. The $14 billion dollar acquisition of Warner Communications Inc. With this merger is 1989 Time sold its textbook publisher because it, “no longer fit into it’s core businesses.” This is another major turning point for the company, as it pivots fully towards being an entertainment company rather than a informative culture molding company, and it becomes a mirror, reflecting what once was, instead of asking what could be. Mirroring it’s own business practices by repeating the same moves over and over again ad nauseum, buying companies, selling companies, acquiring debt, relieving debt, but never innovating, which is what the company was known for, which is what made the company in the first place.

In the mid 90’s Time Warner created a television network called The WB and then bought the Turner Broadcasting company in the following year. The CNN network and cnn.com is released at this time turning the “news” network into the company it is today. The once prognosticator of the news by 1996 had been reduced to a purchaser of the news. By the new millennium Time Warner, in what is perhaps its most nefarious move, was bought by AOL, in a merging of two of the largest companies in the world. While AOL would own more shares in the newly formed company, it was Time Warner that had more assets and value. And indeed it would be Time Warner whose top operating officials would essentially control the company, and over the next five years, drive out the AOL leadership and dwindle the once thriving company into little more than a subsidiary company. Selling off pieces of AOL and, as stated before, eventually spinning the company off into a separate entity altogether.

Time had become an amorphous corporate monster, devouring smaller companies to feed its own insatiable appetite, falling further from the original company mandate set forth by its two optimistic creators. But how could they know what their good intentions would lead to? They began the company on good faith and with integrity, but the more powerful it became, the more it needed to stay solvent. Until the point where solvency was its only cause. But if the only reason to exist, is to exist, is that existence? If profit is the only goal, does that truly profit the people? Sure money is nice, but purpose is better. Purpose moves mountains, purpose motivates people to do extraordinary things. Money only seems to motivate greed. People have to eat, people need clothes, people need shelter, but does an unending acquirement of money lead to everyone having these basic needs? I’d argue not.

Since 2005 Time Warner has continued buying up smaller companies, expanding their global media reach internationally, buying companies in every corner of the global market. They’ve been buying interactive gaming companies, in hopes of gaining a foothold in yet another form of media consumption no doubt. The one place that has eluded their grasp is the video game industry. Along with the continued acquisitions of smaller more innovative companies, Time Warner has continued the merger business, and merged their television network The WB with the CBS owned UPN to form The CW. Mergers and acquisitions seem to be the only focus of Time Warner, along with staying afloat financially.

In this regard, it brings us to the next merger between Time Warner and Charter communications. This action creates the second largest cable company, with only Comcast as a rival. The two cable companies together will control some two thirds of internet and cable access in the country. It is precisely this type of control that would give the two giant cable providers enough power to price fix or gouge customers for internet access, or impose limits on streaming services. Along with this there are worries that without multiple options, customer service would decline in quality. We’ve had the same problem in politics, but I digress. This is just the latest example of Time Warner, no longer informing the public, or looking out for the public, but saving its own bacon from spreading itself too thin over the past three decades plus. It is Time who once informed the public of bad business practices, and greedy companies, who must now be informed on.

The only way for this merger to pay for the amount of debt it creates is for the rates to customers to go up. There is no other way around it. It’s literally charging customers more money for the privilege of getting broadband service from a conglomerate. With no other options for customers to turn to, they will have no choice but to pay the higher prices. In fact, this is what the newly formed cable company must be banking on to pay for the merger, this leverage is the only asset in the deal. It will hit poor families the hardest, forcing many people offline without an affordable option of cable providers. All this is to say the ideals of the company have gone so far off the rails, the men that founded the company would be working tirelessly to expose it.

Everything evolves and changes, one corporation or monopoly is toppled, only to be replaced by another. As we see what Time has become as a company, a behemoth, a corporation, the largest media company in the world, worth a hundred billion dollars, monopolizing whatever industry it can get its hands on, we take solace in the knowledge that what Briton Hadden and Henry Robinson Luce began, way back in 1923, continues on. Not in the company that disgracefully bares the name of the magazine they created, but in the integrity of the people who were raised by the people that read their magazine. It is we that embody their spirit, it is we that carry on their legacy, with hopes to inform the public of monopolistic schemes of greedy executives, to fill their coffers off the backs of the poor. It is these hard working poor who are truly successful, for it is better to have something to strive for, something to believe in, some reason to save what little money they have. For what good is all the money in the world, if you have nothing to buy?

Bibliography

Hall, M. (2016). Time Warner Inc. American company. Retrieved May 12, 2016, from http://www.britannica.com/topic/Time-Warner-Inc
Mccabe, D. (2016, May 12). $88 billion deal between Charter, Time Warner clears final hurdle. Retrieved May 12, 2016, from http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279724-charters-88-billion-deal-clears-final-hurdle
MCCULLOUGH, B. (2014, July 8). WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO AOL? Retrieved May 12, 2016, from http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2014/07/what-ever-happened-to-aol/
Time Warner Inc. - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information on Time Warner Inc. (2016). Retrieved May 12, 2016, from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/83/Time-Warner-Inc.html

Of Winds

2015-12-04T19:16:00.000-08:00

It will burst forth spilling
spoils upon the world
and giving that
worlds cry more

silence soothes ragged edge
hate words callous river's bend
sunday God's flower grows
stays hidden from the birds
Whose feathers wrap sanguine
stylish songs flap serenades

of winds whose breath remains
and spins ancient
the sky never misses
where the secret shelter's gift
is always given away

Wind Neverminds

2015-10-13T19:19:00.001-07:00

they crash through the living
and sleep walk our dreams
and call themselves heroes
when they rewrite the rule book
schemes in the nightshade
fruition bulbs in the light
blood cries a shadow
divided under the sun
or from the prison of the moon
loves a whispered wound wistful
a moments dream between
deaths
a delightful deceit of God's
dancing dragon
Flames the heart
burning rain
Flames the heart
kissing pain
flames the heart
new is the same
flames the heart
the missing chain.
wild stone tumbles
down hills of feather
cursed with the mission of flight
rocks keep rolling
till hills are mountains
demons do nothing
but kill the fountains
where wishes swim
waiting to grow wings
and ignite the mind of the wisher
to make true their wishes
but fear not
for a demon is but a wisher
who never made their wish true
and wishes the same for you
make true your wish
nevermind the wind
the wind neverminds demons too

Country's War

2015-09-15T18:55:00.001-07:00

.10

Death's Song

Though they were far from the village, they heard it hover over the splashes of rain. It was a confused mess that bounced off the bark and swirled high into the canopy and hung there, like a black fog in an unceasing melodic rush. Mahya felt his stomach twist with the voices. Oncoa's footsteps gathered speed, rarely had he seen his father nervous, but it was unmistakable now. As evening crept in, a silent hidden thief behind the clouds, the rain slowed to a slither, as if the unisoned noise drove it back, up into the vapor from whence it traveled.
Becoming more clear, voices moaned, and whimpered and cried, and Oncoa stopped walking. Mahya stopped too. He looked up at his father, and at first did not recognize him. His face was pale and his eyes emotion filled and reluctant. It was fear beneath his father's face. Why was he so afraid? Mahya had heard this song before, long ago, but it did not scare him then, nor was he frightened now. It was a song that reminded him of home. He was more afraid of the look on his father's face than the song that drowned the rain.
"What is that song father?" He finally found the nerve to ask. After a long breath, his father pulled his chin up and looked at his son, eyes of tears.
"It is the song of death." And the chorus grew louder. Gasped hush fell over the jungle creatures, and everything was wrapped in a coat of thick humid air. Film grew over his tongue, and he tasted his breath and the must of the jungle. Suddenly, he was in the trees, leaves slapped at his face and his arms and twigs caught his hair. Inside his chest, his lungs jumped and air flew from his throat and an involuntary gulp of a cry escaped with it.
Like a sack, he laid cradled in his father's arms, between his massive forearms and biceps, the air gushed past him, never had he moved so fast, it was difficult to catch his breath. He watched as Oncoa palmed one branch after another, swinging violently from tree to tree, leaping cavernous gaps without thought. Low hums became high pitched cries and audible lyrics. The words were breathless and morose, they didn't so much as float as take flight on an unsuspecting air.
Heaved over shoulder, Mahya wrapped his arms round his father's neck and held on for life, as Oncoa used two hands to swing on thinly hanging vines. One snapped, and he felt as though they would careen to the jungle floor, but Oncoa used the momentum to cling to the side of a tree, and lockstep leaped to a branch and continued his forward motion until they landed like a thud behind a pack of villagers. None of whom turned towards them. The chorus was loud but soothing, and many tears flowed with the words. To Mahya they had no meaning. He tried to cry but could not. To see his father crying uncontrollable he felt embarrassed that he too could not.
Encircled the villagers stood motionless, all singing the same tune. As Mahya and Oncoa made their way to the center, Mahya sat in the cradle of Oncoa's arm like a toddler. He wanted to wipe away his father's tears. Then he saw the old man, lying in the middle of the singing circle. He recognized him slightly, as the man who bestowed Yahna, and told stories around the beach campfires on celebratory nights. He remembered he had come to his bedside one morning when Mahya was very sick, and gave him a bitter drink to heal him.
"I remember him." He whispered to his father as they stood over the dead man.
"Egahna." Oncoa whispered back.

That night in the hut they ate only bread and water around the fire pit at the middle of the trunk. The smoke billowed up and out of the top of the tree. Oncoa stayed with the other men. It was their duty to prepare the body and care for the family Egahna left behind. Anjah allowed her children to stay up late and held them close as they listened to the death song fade into the night. Mahya could smell the wet forest floor far below. He loved the aroma of mud and leaves and wet logs after the rain.
"What do the words of the death song mean?" Mahya asked his mother with his head upon her shoulder.
"They have meaning only to the singer." Mahay sat with that a moment. The fire crackled and his sister nodded off on a cushion fashioned from boarhide and stuffed with feathers.
"You mean the words have no meaning."
"They have the meaning of what the singer feels at the time." She stroked his hair and stared into the flames. The glow of the fire painted shadows on the wall. They looked like black creatures climbing and staring.
"What did your song mean?" Anjah closed her eyes. Mahya waited a long time for her to respond.
"When my father died...i felt alone. I was already married to Oncoa and we had Leyah... but it felt like the person who protected me all my life, was gone. And I knew I would never get that back. That's what my song meant." Mahya thought of a day when his father would be gone. He thought of how he had been protected from the wolves that very day. And he would have to protect himself from the wolves.
A light thud shook the silence and they looked towards the door. Oncoa entered, sullen and dejected. His usual strength and vigor seemed to have been left with the family of the fallen.
"Father. What happened? Where is Egahna? What did you tell his family? Who will lead Yahana? What was your death song about?"
"Bed time Mahya. Go to your cot." Oncoa lifted Leyah and laid her in her bed. Anjah sauntered over to their room and slid roundly behind the long leaved curtain. Oncoa drowned the fire and the hut filled with smoke and darkness. Mahya bounced out of the hut and onto his cot. Tridder chirped sleepily somewhere far above. He heard his father hit his bed hard, and snore immediately. Stars swayed back and forth above the thick leaves of the canopy, winking at him a promise of dreams. He watched them and blinked back slowly. He saw the wolf fangs dripping with rain. Then the old man's body in the mud soaking wet. The songs that haunted the evening played in his head until he finally blinked into sleep. The shadow creatures danced around him while he dreamed. They danced to the death song and welcomed a new member of their hidden tribe of shadows.

Country's War

2015-09-14T17:07:00.002-07:00

Feed the Wolves

Stones balanced in hand, Mahya swung from a branch and landed lithely on the bamboo walkway with a hand on the path. Tridder floated overhead with the wooden cup clasped in his talons and let go. It bounced off the crown of Mahya's head with a plunk and landed in his palm, and he rubbed the sore spot with the other hand. He side eyed Tridder as he chirped a chuckle and flew into the canopy.

The hut was dark and quiet, and the table still messy with breakfast. He lit a candle of brown wax and began clearing the table. He took the dishes over to a bamboo spouted hole and pulled on a hemp rope in the wall. From the spout water flowed and he rinsed the wooden dishes and utensils, saving the larger scraps and gathering them in a bucket.

The island wolves loved the scraps, but he was afraid to feed them. Usually his father took the scraps to their cave. Once in winter he took Mahya with him, trembling, he hid behind Oncoa the entire time and sobbed when the wolves' eyes glowed in the dark enclave. They sprung out to feed from the slop. Oncoa rubbed their heads and they licked his hand. Mahya's hair stood on end, he could feel the wildness in them. A wildness that he knew could vault forth at any moment and devour him. He felt safe with his father, his large hands could crush the wolves heads like a fruit pod.

Mahya sensed a similar wildness in his father. Perhaps the wolves sensed it too. He gathered this to be the reason they respected him. Mahya felt none of the wild within himself, and was ashamed at his fear. Even now, collecting the scraps, he felt his shame collect in the front of his throat. On edge, he jumped to his feet at his father's voice from behind. He worried his father sensed this shame in his son as well.

"Did you gather the rocks?"

"They're stacked out front." Obscured by shadow, he could not see his father, the sun hidden high above the canopy cast no light in the hut. The jungle was quiet at the noon darkness, when people returned to their huts to nap and whisper.

"Good. You've collected many rocks now. Good." His face still hidden, Mahya thought he heard a small smile in Oncoa's voice. "The Yahna will soon be here. Before I grant you your footprints, you must do one last thing to prove yourself to me." Mahya swallowed and hid himself in his chest. He stood very still, and stared where his father's face should have been. His giant hands grasped the top of a chair as he stepped forward into the candlelight, his eyes low and face blank, he barely moved his lips. "You must feed the wolves."

Tropical clouds sprang forward from the sea with swift warm winds. The canopy rustled from far above and bristled and hissed and he saw spots of faces from hut windows and pathways and he trudged through the jungle pulling the scrap bucket behind him. At times he dragged it through the dirt, almost hoping it would tip over so he would have an excuse to stop and turn back. He thought of the Yahna and what it would mean to get his first footstep. He tarried onward.

He smelled the rain while it was still over the sea. He could make it to the cave before it fell, but he'd be caught in it on the way back. He quickened his pace. Now far from the huts, he felt his spine stiffen and his footsteps lighten, the creatures of the jungle strained to hear him. Every bush reached towards him, and more than once he gave out a yelp at the poke from an adjunct twig.

Rounding a fat trunked tree, the jungle darkened around him as the rain clouds blackened and descended on his path with a howling thunder. The cave bobbed towards him now and the rain dropped through the canopy. Sticky and string like, it was warm and sweaty, and as the cave neared him, the rain mixed with his tears.

Only a hundred feet before him, the eyes in the cave began to blink open and he heard their paws shuffle on the stone cave floor. He tossed the scraps towards the cave and turned to run and felt his nose press against the snout of a large, thickly coated brown wolf. Teeth exposed and panting carefully.

"I'm not afraid." He thought. I'm not afraid. But his heart beat otherwise, and the wolf knew it. He backed away and slipped on the scrap heap. The wolf inched forward, licking its chops and lowering its head, Mahya pressed backwards, his palms slimy in the slop and rain and mud, all he could do was slide in the muck. The wolf crouched to pounce and Mahya covered his head with his arm and braced for impact, when he heard a familiar, reverberating thud from behind. The wolf wagged his tail and barked and yelped and jumped with his tongue hanging from his jaw. Oncoa wrestled with him a bit and fed him some of the scraps. Mahya stood teary eyed and ashamed as the rain soaked them all. His father stood with the bucket in hand and they walked home in the rain and silence. The wolves watched them disappear behind the fat tree, and they scooped up the scraps and vanished into the cave.

Country's War

2015-09-12T11:43:00.003-07:00

Yahna

Waves broke upon hills of sand as the sun rose behind a tropical beach forest. Mahya rubbed his eyes stretched out his arms and yawned. From his hemp strewn hammock that twisted forward and back squeaking slightly with his movements, he could see his sister preparing breakfast in the tree hut across from him. He looked down between the hammock net to the jungle floor some 150 feet below him and saw a few fishermen returning home with a giant fish tied to sticks held by four men. He could smell the scales from here, and looked forward to dinner. He bounced from the hammock, swung on a branch, the canopy twirled green wheeled above him, and landed in the hut where his sister poured juice from a round spiky fruit with long thin leaves and yellow skin, into wooden cups. He tugged at her boarskin pants and shirt.

"What's for breakfast?"

"Good morning Mahya. Nice of you to join us." She had been up for a few hours working with her mother, preparing for the day, while Mahya lazed about in his hammock.

"Is it sweetbread?" His voice rose with hope.

"You did not get any syrup yesterday like mother asked." He closed his mouth dejected. She chopped leaves and sprinkled them in the cups.

"Not fruit pudding again." She rolled her eyes to his whining.

"Perhaps you should get the ingredients to the breakfast you want, and then I can sleep while you cook."

"Oh, you're doing a fine job. Besides, I wouldn't want to interfere with your wife training." He ducked as a giant wooden spoon came flying at his head. She went back to stirring, a bird chuckled somewhere behind them.

"Leyah?" His voice softened and he leaned over the table she was working over.

"Yes Mahya?" She answered reluctantly as she stirred. The fruit concoction began to thicken and her stirring slowed. He took the bowl from her and his vigorous stirs caused some of the pudding to spill over the side.

"How long til the Yahna?" He asked as he fingered the lip of the bowl and sucked on it.

"You just asked me that yesterday." Leyah laid out more bowls and chopped stocks of leaves with orange bulbs at the end.

"I know how long from yesterday, but how long from today?" He stirred again more carefully but just as vigorous.

"About 7 moons, Mahya." Sun rays, orange and sleepy meandered through the hut between them as they worked. Noise followed close behind, as more villagers awoke. A dancing branch creaked and a thud onto the bamboo walkway of the hut interrupted them. Thick ankles atop hurried hardened feet entered and tore through the hut, and a round woman, tall and firm, tidied the floor and finalized breakfast as the children took their places around the table. Anjah looked at her children and let the sunlight across her face.

"Thank you for helping, Mahya." She sat across from them and laid out raw chunks of meat that bled on their plates, licking her fingers of the red trickles.

"I did most of it." Leyah winced as she recognized the whining she emitted. Anjah ignored it.

"Your father will be here in a moment. Do not pester him. He's tired" They sat quietly for a moment. The sunlight yellowed slightly now awake and prepped for the day. The chattering bird flew in from a window and sat upon Mahya's head.

"Mother? Can we have sweetbread tomorrow?" Mahya sat his head on his knuckles with his elbow on the table. The bird cocked his head to the left waiting for the answer.

"Did you find the syrup?" She asked as she searched the door for her husband.

"I will today!"

"If you find the syrup then Leyah will make the bread." Mahya smiled and the bird flapped his wings and hopped.

"Why can't Mahya make the bread and I find the syrup?" Anjah whipped her head around at her daughter.

"Syrup finding is for the boys! Girls make the bread! You know that Leyah." Leyah forked the bleeding meat on her plate.

"With thoughts like that I wonder if Canj will marry you."

"Good." Leyah breathed out beneath her tongue.

"What was that?" Before she could inquire further the thick branch heaved and the leaves swooshed and a huge thud shook the hut. A giant man bowled through the door and put a flaming rock at the center of the table, then disappeared into another room. Anjah fanned the flames until the rock just glowed red and smoked. The Burly man bustled to the table, his giant wide shoulders and biceps blocked the sun and he clasped his fingers together and closed his eyes. The rest of the family did the same.

"Gaia prepared us and made us strong to cherish and make use of her gifts in the light, so that we may defend her in the night, and strengthen her with our might. Amen." They touched their fingers to their hearts and to their foreheads then they all slapped the bloody meat on the heated rock.

"How was fishing Oncoa?" Anjah spoke over the sizzling meat.

"Good." Oncoa nodded and bit the orange root bulb that was dwarfed in his giant palm. Mahya guzzled his juice. "We got a great fish for tonight." Finishing the juice Mahya had a large red ring around his lips. "And a surprise for the Yahna." Oncoa smirked mischievously revealing large dimples in his cheeks. His mustache was thick under his nostrils and thinned at the edge of the crease of his lips and his beard was cut close but shabbily.

"What is it father?" Mahya fed his leaves to the bird with the red stripes and black feathers, perched on his head.

"Mahya what did I say about pestering?" Anjah snapped.

"Don't feed that to Tridder. I gathered and prepared those for you!" Leyah snatched the thin leaves from the bird's beak and tossed them back to Mahya's plate. The bird chirped wildly and flapped his wings. Oncoa laughed boisterously and heartily and sipped from his juice. They all flipped their meat over to cook the other side.

"You'll have to wait till Yahna to find out." He beamed on his son, yellow light crested behind him and the jungle came alive with the shuffling of the day. Birds chattered, monkeys howled, and the villagers talked and rustled and took barrels and filled them and carried buckets and chopped vegetables and picked fruit and fed pets and laughed and haggled and argued and babies cried and on the edge of the jungle an old man knelt in the sand and laid his head upon a log and watched the waves pull up on the shore and heard the water call his name, and he closed his eyes and thought of his wife for the last time.

They grabbed their meat from the rock and cut into it with wooden utensils. Mahya grabbed for his pudding.

"Eat your meat first." His father growled a whisper gently without looking up from his cutting. Mahya obeyed and cut into his meat. Tridder hid behind Mahya's black scraggly hair. They ate the thin meat that fell into flakes on their tongues. It was warm and melted like butter.

"Your mother wants to talk to you Oncoa." Anjah spoke only after Oncoa had finished his meat and was spooning his pudding. It was sweet and thick and he felt like a boy again momentarily transported to his father's hut at his mother's table, greedily filling his cheeks with the yellow swirled dessert.

"I need a nap." He responded finally, handing his half eaten pudding to Mahya who lapped it up without tasting it. It pleased him to see his son happy and fat, though Mahya had lost his baby fat over the summer and was tall and lean now, no longer a boy. "Mahya. I want you to go gather the heating rocks. Be back before I awake." Mahya looked up from his pudding, another ring of yellow around his lips. He wanted to protest but his father's stare broke his words and he nodded in compliance.

Leyah had barely finished her meat and root bulb. "Leyah you go to Canj's hut and help his mother with the chores.

"Can't I stay here and clean up breakfast?" Leyah was bolder than Mahya when it came to their father. He wanted to say yes, he never wanted her to leave his hut, but it was out of his control. The village had spoken long ago, and next year it would be her duty to continue the traditions of the village. The Ahcaha were here long before he and his daughter. And if they were to continue to be here, she would have to grow up.

"No. Your duty is there today. Both of you go now." His voiced boomed kindly and they shot up out of their chairs. Mahya followed Leyah. He grabbed her pudding and put it on his head and Tridder fell in the cup. Anjah watched as they disappeared out of the hut and their branches dipped and the leaves shook as they swung away to other trees and past other huts. Oncoa took Leyah's orange bulb root and what was left of her meat and leaves and made makeshift sandwich and gnawed at it as he walked into the bedroom. Anjah followed behind him.

Country's War

2015-09-08T17:48:00.003-07:00

Crystalite Prism

The days passed slower with the lack of conflict. A fight here and there over someones hurt feelings on some percieved slight. The flies finally laid eggs, so there was maggoty bread to be had. They used saliva on hardened bread and wrung out the juices to make a rye ale. It had little effect on the older men, but the younger men got a bit giggly afterwards. Atryn was the undisputed captain, but he spoke little and said much as he stood up on the deck and watched the churn of the sea. A month on the wave and the younger men began to show signs of sea madness. Some began to talk to themselves, sobbing uncontrollably and screaming at nothing and no one for no reason. One stood against the gunwale and slammed his head against it. The older men had to restrain him. The boy who had gone over board was the calmest of them now. For he had dealt with his crisis and had been saved. He watched the others sympathetically and tried to calm who he could.
One particularly rowdy day, when all the mad boys seemed to be in a loony mood all at once, screaming and fighting and crying and yelling, Atryn commanded all of them to lay face down on the iron deck and sleep. Most ignored and the older men forcibly put them to the ground. Some of the noise continued, but it seemed to work for a while. It forced them to focus and take hold of their mind, rather than running about the ship aimless and free.
Hard bread turned soggy in the rain. And they refilled their waterskins and finally bathed. Atryn lay on the deck and caught the water in his mouth. He tried to watch a drop fall from the cloud and catch in his eye. That was the calm storm. When the weather raged they huddled under the overhanging deck and held on to each other for safety, locking arms as the ship tilted on edge. The sea battered them, and the young men cried and wailed, cowering beneath the arms of the older men. "Hold on to me lad. I'll not let you go over." Some storms scream for days. They used the heavy armor to keep themselves weighed to the deck. They chained themselves to cleats for added security. Though Atryn knew the real danger. If the ship was turned they'd all be lost. Some ships would never make landfall. Were never heard of again. This was his fear in the storm. It was rare in deed for someone to go overboard, the gunwale was far too tall. Sea and skies churned together, pounding and slapping at each other, with the Iron Horde caught between, the men held fast, all protecting the next, until the storm past. And they always do.
They began to spot seagulls, and they plotted to capture them. They used everything they had, chains and swords and nets and spears and arrows. When they finally caught one they descended on it like ravenous raccoon, pawing and biting and ripping it feather from beak, until all was left was a puddle of blood and a few tiny feathers. That too was soon mopped up like soup from the bottom of a bowl. They were famished so, they hadn't even the sense to cook the damned bird, and make a real meal of it. They scratched and fought each other, for a handful of flesh. Atryn turned away during the massacre. For he knew that seagulls meant one thing. Land. He stood up on the upper deck and peered into the clouds on the horizon, the sun gray behind him, obscured and cast over by the stormed sky. He squinted and searched, perhaps one of the other ships would be near as well, for he had lost sight of them in the first storm.
About to give up and try his hand at catching his own bird, he began to turn, and something caught his eye. A rainbow. Not in the sky, but straight ahead. And not really a bow, but a diamond. The more he looked the more it revealed itself. Like a prism, and stretched out and took hold of his sight. All light and object fell from his eyes, all he saw was the colorful specter, dancing on the horizon. He raised his hand to touch it, for it appeared as if it had boarded the ship and surrounded him. He wanted to run through the hall of the rainbow, and eat it, and let its illuminated shimmer envelope his body. He saw his eyes bulge and turn rainbow colored wheels of spinning bulbs. His hair painted purple and green, as he chewed on the walls of the crystalite prism. And he let forth a scream of joyous passion as he became one with the rainbow. And at the end of the hall he saw her face, wrapped in the gray shawl. She spoke to him, her face floating in the void. "Step Foot upon the land, and protect it. Shine your lantern in the night fallen jungle. Find your home, and they will find theirs."
He awoke surrounded by the men. Night slid on a starless sky, and their faces were lit by campfire. They gawked like pumpkins against a black Hallow's Eve. He smelled the charred birds and they handed him a leg. He devoured it quickly and stuck out his hand for another. "You alright?" One of the men asked. "We thought we lost you to the madness."
"We make land tomorrow." He spoke into the fire, his face covered in grease and meat and soot. He gnawed on a wing and nibbled the bone.

Country's War

2015-09-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

.6

Army of Soldiers

Waves. The waves never began or ended. Nor did they cease crashing against the hull. The chain rope heaved Atryn up and his armor sunk him back down again. As he was pulled above the waves he took a breath and focused his eyes and saw two thin hands jut between a curve in the sea of two monstrous waves. Atryn gathered his strength and pulled himself towards the hands. He saw the man sinking. The ship careened to its side and dipped, and he found himself near the man. He tried to dive after him but the chain yanked at him. He unhooked the chain from the cleat and held it in his armor gloved hand, and reached out for the drowning man.

The men on the ship pulled themselves up at the gunwale to peer over. "He's drowned for sure!" "No one can survive those waves." "He was the best soldier I ever saw!"

"He was a softheart and a fool. Good riddance. I'll lead the squadron." Tarkys bit from a bread roll. The men fell from the gunwale and gathered round him. Parcleus clung to the side of the ship searching for any movement. Any hint of color or armor. After thirty minutes, all he could see was the thrashing sea. He felt his stomach churn the same. And he fell from the side. He sat beside some of his mates, and felt a hand on his shoulder and they consoled him. He held back his tears, and thought of the day his father did not come home with his crew. His throat chewed itself. The day he was handed his father's sword and armor. The very sword and armor he now wore. Had it been Atryn who handed it to him? That stolid summer night, when the air smelled of campfire and charbroiled husk. Now he'd never know. He laid his head down on the metal bench and a tear rolled down his cheek, that he hid from the others, and he hoped to hide from himself.

The sun oranged and began to fall, and the promise of eve's chill awoke him. Or was it the metal thud, that sounded like a heavy boot on the hull of the ship? Either way his eyes opened with the dusk and he raised his head and rushed to the gunwale where the chain was still hooked on the cleat. A few of his mates followed him. Their youthful eyes wide and twinkled with the amber sky. An uneven glow emerged, broken by the departing clouds, and bathed the deck in purple gold. The north star shone high above Parcleus' hand as he lifted his head above the gunwale to see Atryn just above the waves with the thin boy clasped to the back of his armor.

He let out a boyish cry, tears flowed from him freely now, as with all his mates as they climbed the wall. "Are ya gonna sit there sobbing, or ya gonna help us up!?" Atryn yelled, his voice bellowed as if he were the same warrior that jumped from the ship. As if this tale of heroism would not be told for generations to come. As if he had not taken his rightful place as captain, as general. Perhaps more than that. Not been promoted, but became, the leader of this crew. Nigh, of the entire army of soldiers.

As they pulled the two overboard men onto the ship and they all landed on the bilge like a pile of rocks. They cried and laughed and the entire boat cheered and kissed Atryn, whose beard and hair were soaked crimson. He spit salty water out from inside and tore off his drenched armor and the men carried him over to the campfire and covered him in blankets. The suicidal boy lay vomiting and choking and gagging, some how he was glad to be alive, yet remorseful that the sea was not his grave. The night wrapped them round the campfire, as they yelled and cried for Atryn to tell the tale again, of how he braved the wild ocean waves, and brought back the boy from death. The saved boy who would always be protected. So long as the story was told, and he was in the company of brothers. For this was the beginning of more than just the Legend of Atryn. This was the beginning of Atryn Squad and their many feats. Legend of their trials and victories would live forever. And the boy Atryn saved would serve as a symbol of their union, their bond as not only great warriors, but of witnesses to the great lengths they would go in order to protect one another. From no matter what the threat, no matter what the obstacle or how treacherous the danger. For after that day the love between squad mates would forever outweigh the fear of anything.

They celebrated long into the night, and cursed the stars that hung round their heads like a blanket made of a billion tiny spotlights all fixed on the Iron Horde, that they had no ale. Suddenly, a ship that seemed a giant hulking mass to them just this morning, felt a tiny trifle under the gaze of the galaxy. A small toy in a child's bath, set to spin amongst the thundering splash of the boy God, whose fingers had begun to wrinkle, and whose mother scolded him for spilling soapy water on the floor.
The young men fell asleep on each other's shoulders and backs, while the older men exchanged war stories, inspired by the days heroics to relive past glories and triumphs. Atryn sat exhausted, but warmed by the fire and blankets. His blood coursed, still enlivened by the endorphins from his hand shake with death. For as the men lifted his legend, only he knew how close he was to the end. What had caused him to fight the sea, to fight the blue eternally warring waters, he could not tell. Perhaps it was the life of the boy. Perhaps it was the plot of land he was due upon return. Whatever it was, he fought the urge to quit, beat back the urge to give in to the soothing song of mother's slumber. A song he knew well, the notes of which now sent shivers through his mind, an empty freezing cold that only the heat of the stars could thaw. But to see the men now, smile and laugh and full of spirit, he squelched the fear, and smiled too. Till his eyes met Tarkys, who stared at him with eyes not of hatred, or envy or jealousy, but of a kind of queasiness. He knew Tarkys had once wished to challenge him as leader of the crew, but now that spar would never commence. Atryn bested him not in battle or strength or even in wits. But in character. The test of heart and soul. A fight Tarkys could not win. Atryn offered him a low nod, and Tarkys replied in kind. Not out of respect, but out of duty. Neither of them slept that night.

Last Whispered Howl

2013-11-10T08:59:00.000-08:00

W.B. Preston

The Geese a flock away from heated pits, flap plucked wings sufficed to fail afloat
fast-held homes, imitation castles, photocopied tombs with elaborate floor plans
ghastly fixed yawns on the faces of specters waft through and haunt the cobwebbed hallways
empty but for the musty aged forgotten breath of men.

Yet to forget is to imply memory, can oblivion remember? Can we rewind the void? Can I skip by the commercials of infinity? I DVR'd the Apocalypse, I'll time shift the resurrection, catch it on the way back up the spine of eternity.

Castle foundations swayed atop the shivering crust of earth. Bricks broken apart by wind and rain, but your couch will last forever. Nestled in the cushions of digital dreams of doom downloaded directly into your subconscious. Is it delicious? The dire dance, move and shake, if you stop you die. The taps and the shimmies and jiggles, keep rhythm with the bouncing sun, it twirls round this dark room, the disco ball of night splash shimmers on the sweat drenched face of love, dont stop. Cant stop. Never stop.

Watch as they turn their heads away, "We only wish to know of the light!" they cry, "do not tell us of the dusk, do not tell us of the void."

Inexperience of the dark, ignorance of the night, is to perceive half of the story, to know but half of self is to be blind to the light. Without the dark there is no light. Venture into that great abyss, into the nothing and come back with true sight.

Though journey cautiously, for many have been claimed by the night. To be a shadow in the void is to be lost. Be guided by the eyes light, to find a way home. However brief your stay may be, for eventually we all must be claimed, in the womb of the void.

The ghosts greet you with a grin, exposed beneath torn and ripped flesh you spot the rotted teeth and shallow souls of men who once were. The rush of wind through empty caverns blows out from hideous broken walls, the last howls of a whisper on the ears of a dead society. The wanderers of thought, lost in their heart, and fallen civilizations of dark, march on the graves devoid of spirit.

Forgotten trampled dust, beneath the perfect, freshly shined black leather tightly tied boots of time. It takes courage for flesh to release the grip over bones that plead to fall to the earth and decay. Animated skeletons unmoved.

Taste defeat, take a sip of failure. The day of every defeat belongs to the dreamer outlived by the dreams. Your echo vibrates further than you, so let the cries of pain and joy flow from your own personal void and into the void of the collective.

The destinations of all destinations, through the funnel of space, the Alpha Dawn. Every word every light drains back into the void, to the dark dense orb of matter, where everything is condensed and spun into the ball of fate. The ALL.

It spins, it burns and melts all the dust and light and dreams back to their liquid core. Where everything becomes one, and the spinning slowly stops, and the ball cools and freezes and drops and it hurtles through nothing picking up speed and begins to twirl gathering heat gathering speed gently expanding then gradually exploding sending everything everywhere. And we are here again, crying and laughing, at the majesty, at the beauty, at the splendor, at the precision, of the void, the all the mighty the light, the pain of infinity is felt by all. The collective ALL.

Children love to spin, men love to fall, and the fire engulfs us as we bask under the heart of stars.

Worlds of Wishes Safe from Living the Growth of the Soul

2013-08-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

Worlds of Wishes Safe from Living the Growth of the Soul

W.B. Preston

Where far enough from home mere steps cannot discern true progress til steps begin to number far larger and measure distances between the heart and the soul, between who we are and who we were. Searching for mountains in a world of mounds, dreams cut deeper than any knife, and waking up lost twisting the mind backwards and up is more comforting than waking up found forever amidst familiar surroundings of home. The mind surges forward burning memories and using the ashes to mold more, excited, electric, who is that, where are they, what day is it today, which way does the sun move here? Lights illuminate unfamiliar windows in foreign hills safe from danger, safe from life, the people safe from living, safe from dying, safe from change, safe from the growth of the soul spilling out over the edges of a predetermined prepackaged, hermetically sealed sanitized existence, with out worry or wonder, is without worlds of wishes. Or the things that feed the spirit. Crashing hurts, but it feels good to burn, cause the soul burns with the fires of infinity, the mind recognizes what the heart remembers. Dangling from the point of a star, fingers losing grip, hovering over the great beyond, how long can you hold on to nothing?

Is it insane to try to escape sanity? We are all the same, in every way except the one that counts. The journey of conquering self is far more challenging than the conquering of any perceived exterior threat. The stakes are higher and the obstacles larger. The greater the enemy the greater the hero, and what enemy is greater than the self? For he knows you inside and out, all your weaknesses, all your strengths, all your tricks and secrets and lies. You cannot hide from yourself, better to face him at the summit of truth. The wars of men are fought at the nadir of illusion, the crime of thought dancing on the lips of the false, the horned sculptors of hell man made and sold as sane. Marching into foreign hills and dashing away a world's wish of peace. It must be insane to watch the sane lie, manipulate, steal, kill, mislead, degrade, horde, accuse, sentence, pollute, withhold, execute, and ultimately hide from their victims. Do the sane feed the mouth without feeding the spirit?

These so called captains,depicted as sane, hide from the light, from truth, from their own dreams. They've chosen to live in a cage of nightmares, with a prepackaged hermetically sealed soul, rather than a free prism of light, and for what? Some semblance of comfort, some momentary fleeting resemblance of power? A placebo of control, the only true control is control of self, the only true power is power over self. Power or control over others, is the ego completely out of control, and out of balance with nature and the spirit and soul from which we all come from and share. Castles melt, money burns, and we remain. How long can you hold on to nothing? Aim wildly for the floating drops of rain each one individual falling and blessed with a name, screaming that we their brethren try never to be the same,and to embrace the change in the weather. It's okay to fall cause you'll catch you.

The Darkly Golden Room

2013-07-21T17:54:00.001-07:00

The Darkly Golden Room

W.B. Preston

Stretching to cover the canopy of a dream with a paint filled with the stars of eternity,

the wind spins atop the wheel twirling the clouds across this imagined ceiling.

Wide asleep I lay,

as she whispers tales of the silver skies filled with purple burrowing moles amongst the dirt in the

sky.

And the buckets of rain the hand maidens emptied to try to fill the holes made by the moles.

Recounting the myths now to you, I cry, though at the time I lay still and silent, for her words billow

softly in the golden shimmer of the night.

The ground is so far away from our feet while we paint, no star the same as the last.

We cover the holes the maidens could not, though the moles were nowhere to be seen.

And then she was gone, and I painted alone, but for the light of the stars,

twinkling shimmering pale blue, the clink of celebratory champagne glasses cheered

from across the galaxy awoke me from my bed of light and sand.

The pebbles fell from the side of the bed as I stood

I nearly slipped on the pinpoint grains of light.

Slipping on my cotton candy house shoes I tip toe not to disturb the giant mole sleeping at the foot of

the bed.

His grand snores shake the room, but the stars do not budge, like chandeliers,

whose light is impossible but whose attachment is unmatched.

She returns, the woman whispering dreams, but now she screams and the mole jumps awake

burrowing into the floor and pulling the ground into his hole.

I grasp for the lamp and it explodes into glowing floating sand, as does the rest of the darkly golden

room,

whose pebbles spin down the moles hole,

downward we twirl, spinning in a whirlwind of glimmering dust and darkness.

She whispers to me, as the orange and purple glow inches over the edge of the dark sphere,

and my freshly painted ceiling falls from sight,

in the wake of a roar, and the blinding light.

Monkey Hubris

2013-07-14T10:12:00.002-07:00

Monkey Hubris

W.B. Preston

          Once a monkey sat atop a tree, peeling and eating bananas, in a most unusual fashion, and tossing the peels to the ground beneath. A man walking through the jungle came to the base of the tree, and found a pile of peels laying before his feet. Bending his back and looking high into the banana tree, another peel flew from the top and landed on his face. Pulling the peel from his face and tossing it into the pile, he called up into the leaves, "Hey! You up there! Stop tossing banana peels from up in that tree!"

          The monkey poked his head out from behind the leaves, "Toss off!" Yelling down to the man, who by now was becoming increasingly perturbed, the monkey disappeared behind the leaves again, to send another peel sailing down at the man, who stepped aside as not to be hit with another slimy yellow projectile.

"This is highly irregular." Thought the man to himself as he stood at the base of the tree. "You can't just leave these here, someone could slip on them and hurt themselves!" The man continued, "Why don't you come down and clean this up and we can find a proper place for all these peels!" He reasoned. A half eaten banana sailed through the air and landed directly in the center of the man's forehead. The chattering laughter of the monkey could be heard throughout the jungle.

          Now extremely upset, the man pulled the half eaten banana from his face, sat his backpack down and unzipped it. "You'll be sorry that you didn't listen to reason!" He yelled as he pulled from the pack a small axe.

          "Whatdaya think you'll do with that then?" The monkey's question echoed and went unanswered as the man wedged the axe into the base of the tree. "You'll have a hard time of that, with such a tiny axe!" But the monkey's cries were ignored, as chunk after chunk of the tree was chopped from the trunk. The monkey went on eating bananas and dropping the peels on the crown of the mans head as he chopped at the wood. Each peel seemed to enrage the man further, and he increased the speed of his chops with each insult.

          "You'll tire yourself out before you make a dent!" The monkey yelled down as the man's face turned red, and he began to sweat profusely and his clothes became damp. The afternoon, turned to evening, and the orange light of the dusk awoke the now napping monkey. "Surely he's given up by now," thought the monkey to himself. But as he poked his head out of the leaves and looked down, he saw the man chopping away still, with his tiny axe.

          "At this rate, the tree will be down in time for Christmas!" Provoking the man further, the monkey chuckled to himself, though now it was his own sweat that began to fall. Searching his perch, he looked for something to deter the man's progress, but all he had were the bananas, then his eyes settled upon the pile of peels at the base of the tree, beside the man whom chopped at the tree solidly and steadily. To his right he found a parrot, and the monkey whispered something devilish in her ear. Immediately she flew off with a smirk on her face, her blue and red feathers, gliding away over the orange and purple sky. The man's chops began to slow, he stopped and wiped the sweat from his brow. The monkey watched, hoping the man would give up and leave his tree in peace. Turning from his work, the man looked over his shoulder at the setting sun. He knew he could not work much longer and decided to give it one last go, before he had to retire. Heaving the axe up high he whacked at the trunk with the reserves of his strength and the monkey watched, hoping his plan would develop in time to save his beloved banana tree.

          Then he heard the thundering footsteps of his plan unfurling, and he leaped from his perch and watched the man turn and see the giant hippopotamus rushing towards him. Stepping back his foot landed directly in the pile of banana peels causing him to lose his balance and fall on his back, half submerging him in the mucousy pile of peels. The monkey leapt for joy on his perch, but his celebration was short lived, as the hippo slammed into the now very fragile banana tree, snapping its trunk like a twig and sending the monkey and the tree violently to the jungle floor.

          Pulling himself from the pile, the man stood and looked down upon the fallen tree. Wiping himself clean, he pulled up his axe, tucked it into his pack, flipped it over his shoulder and walked into the night whistling a tune. The monkey was furious at this, and vowed revenge, as the jungle denizens descended on his banana harvest, now easily accessible to the jungle floor creatures. The monkey's eyes burned with tears and went red with vengeance, as he flew into the nearest tree, and silently stalked the whistling man from far above, hidden in the shadows of the moon, waiting for his chance at reprisal over his newly acquired foe.

Cloud Roots

2013-07-13T12:17:00.000-07:00

Beneath sands lay secrets, beneath secrets lay we the keepers of our own hidden lights like rays reflecting off pale pebbled deserts, or the shifting flowing waves curling round the curvature of the earth, wrapping and coiling and twisting in to form you and I dancing to the rhythms from the sky, bouncing with the undulating invisible drum beneath the roots of the clouds, drinking from the lakes of a star, whose river follows everyone where ever they are, painting shadows on the ground soon to be erased, the great artist, creates and destroys at once ad infinitum.

The Missing Pocketbook

2013-07-07T17:58:00.003-07:00

The Missing Pocketbook

W.B. Preston

Today of a dream, I forgot to see you, in your sun tinted dress fit snugly atop your waist, I wondered, did you call? But I was in a mad rush to the hospice, for Bunnie forgot her pocketbook in a drawer on the third floor of room seven. You know me, rushing about downtown, eyes fixed on cement and street signs, the cross street was eighth. I knew the hotel clerk would be trouble, peering at me from behind rimless spectacles, he huffed at my suggestion. I simply needed to get into the room and search the drawer, but he was stubborn this one, insisted on a few coins for his trouble, which I would not have begrudged him had he not been so unseemly about the entire affair. I washed my hand when I got up to the room. The window was open, yet the room lay shadowed for it was a quarter past noon, I must have missed the bells of St. Thomas as I scurried through the alleys to O st. A bark from below the window caught my ear, the dampness of the bathroom someone had recently showered, though Bunnie had told me she was alone here, and she had checked out this morning , by eight. The clerk would have mentioned if someone else had rented the room, I doubt it, the bed sheets were strewn about, no one had even remade the room. Had Bunnie been here with someone else, I wondered and lurched for the drawer, nearly pulling it from its bedside night table. A bible but no pocketbook.

This must be when you rang me, you had been waiting twenty minutes for our lunch date that would never come to pass. You must understand that Bunnie needed that white pocketbook, and she had sent me to gather it,I had no choice. If I had been in a better state of mind, I'd have called you from the room, but the barking dog and the missing pocketbook, the knock at the door snapped my neck around. I cracked it open slowly and peeked through the doors edged. The large nose of the clerk shone red in the dim hallway light and he huffed at me again. It seems five minutes was too long to be searching for a small pocketbook, yet I was desperate to find it. I know what you would say but I only had to please her, I could not stand the judgment of her eyes, pure and gray.

Quickly I rampaged the other drawers while the clerk, arms folded watched, though I knew I would not find the pocketbook, for she had told me which drawer to check. I was about give up, hang my head out the door and be on my way when I spotted the shoe behind the bathroom door, just beside the wastebasket. Dull yellow heel with white lining, I recognized it from the night before, it was Bonnie's friend Grace, she was drunk before I had a chance to take a sip. However, twirling the shoe in my hand as I rode in the back of a cab to Llobo's, I recalled that Grace had been driven home by quite the sober man with the thick mustache poorly trimmed that it gave him half a smirk, though I'd forgotten his name, he seemed unimportant at the time.

Llobo ran the bike kitchen on fifty-first, as you'll recall, his hands always greasy, he rubbed them in a towel and watched me as I made the walk towards the garage. I could tell he'd be no help at all, though he did remind me of my lunch date with you. I rushed into his office and rang your mother, but she said you'd been gone all afternoon, to meet with me. I dream of those thin sandwiches with the avocado, and the crème sodas to go with them, I half missed the lunch more than you. Llabo handed me a beer in the garage, and we leaned back against the workbench and sipped from the bottle under the shade of the garage a little after one. Llabo talked about some latina he picked up across town, a kid fiddled with the spokes on a bike, and from time to time Llabo would jump up, mad as hell and slam his beer on the bench, kicking over to where the boy worked, he berated the poor chap about proper manufacturing technique, something about the price value, though I didn't blame him, this was his livelihood for christssake, though the boy probably was only paid a few coin. I sort of admired old Llabo, the way he brought in the street boys and put them to work, taught them a trade, they could make good money fixing bikes, everybody rides in this part of town.

Llabo went on and on about his Latina from the night prior, though I didn't listen much, I really just needed to know about what happened when he ran into Bunnie. Turns out he didn't so much run into her, as run over her. After listening to his story for thirty minutes in that steamy garage, often interrupted by the poor workmanship of the street boy, he finally gets around to telling me that he nearly ran over Bunnie, Grace and the mustachioed man with the smirk, while riding with the Latina on his bicycle handles. The whole thing sounds like some kind of farce, but it's true, every word, he described the smirk to a tee. He said Bunnie had the white pocketbook then, cause he saw her take it out and give Grace a cigarette. Llabo said she was so drunk she nearly burned herself with the cigarette tilted from her lips. Poor Gracie, she'll never stop, they say it's to do with all that business with her brother, from a few years ago, I don't know why Bunnie doesn't take Grace to see her analyst, I bet it'd do wonders for the confused girl. Llabo said that Bunnie told him they were going to the smirk's hospice, so I was back at square one, although I had a few more pertinent clues.

The first was that Bunnie was a liar, the second was that the room was made out to the smirk, not to Bunnie. So back I went to the hospice looking for the Smirk's real name. The clerk huffed before I could get my second foot in the door. Donald Meede, it turns out, though I still don't know if that's his real name. I remembered he called himself Donnie, he let the name slink from beneath that mustache. Now I hadn't spoken to Bunnie since this morning, and it was nearly three by the time I had gotten all this information and spun around the city twice, I needed to talk to the girl, and get some answers straight. So I rang her studio, and to further my anger I was met by the voice of a man.

“What do ya want?” What do I want? Shut up and put Bunnie on the phone! Is what I wanted to say but I’ve never been one for confrontations, I politely requested Bunnie. “She's dead!” He barked and hung up the phone.

Country's War

2013-06-26T06:51:00.000-07:00

Still Hearts Beat

Erupting into a cacophony of laughter and excitement, the crew just about fell all over each other in amusement, recounting how the boy flew so easily over the gunwale. Atryn in his armor clanged about the boat, crashing into the other armored soldiers knocking them out of the way with a metal bang as he searched the bilge frantically. Parcleus rushed over to him, chattering and hysterical. Atryn grabbed him around the collar and looked him in the eyes for just a moment.

“Still your heart.” Atryn glanced beside Parcleus and spotted what he was looking for in a corner on the other side of Tarkys. Knocking Parcleus aside, Atryn’s steel steps slammed across the boat and through the crowd of soldiers, whom were still reeling with excitement. Bending he retrieved a chain link rope from the bilge and hooked it to a cleat protruding from the gunwale. Taking the other end of the chained rope and clipping it to a cleat protruding from just above the waist of his armored suit, he gathered himself and crouched beside the gunwale. Springing up he grabbed the edge of the gunwale and pulled himself up hooking his leg atop and climbed up until he sat atop the wall. The crew had grown silent as they watched Atryn sit upon the wall looking down at them. His eyes met Tarkys.

“Your crazy.” Tarkys spat to the bilge. Atryn shifted his eyes from Tarkys over to Parcleus and fell from the side of the boat, the chain spun over the edge rapidly one link after the other hit the iron gunwale with a clink and there was a deep thud of a splash.

Country's War

2013-06-22T11:03:00.002-07:00

Enjoy the Fish

Goaded the giant tosses a few loaves, thudding the shoulder and forehead of the suicidal man. Rowdy shouts from the older soldiers grew more intense and bolder. Atryn looked around as the men began standing and moving toward the giant and the boy, some shouting some laughing. The boy shrinking at the gunwale shutting his eyes he placed his palms flat against the cold metal wall. Seeming to Atryn as if he thought somehow the wall could protected him. The crew cheered the giant on, Parcleus stood and surveyed the excitement then looked down to Atryn. Leaning back, he shut his eyes, silently drifting.

“They’ll toss em’ over!” He cried over the rising mayhem athwart ship. Atryn sat as still as the wind had become. Parcleus turned back to the disorder. The giant threw another loaf at the boy, who recoiling began to sob.

“He’s tearin up he is!” A short filthy man pointed at the boy and giggled with his hands on either side of his belly. The giant roared his most boisterous delight. Turning he raised his arms to the crowd of onlookers. In unison they cheer him, fists pumping and backslapping. A loaf of bread pats the giant against the back of his massive cranium, the boy stood, eyes of tears chest higher than his head, and hushed the crowd. Turning slowly with eyes of disbelief and shock, the giant saw through to an end.

“So, death is your wish after all.” Pointing at the boy with eyes of rage, and hair wild, his stomps rang out a clatter of metal as his steel boots pounded the iron deck. Rushing away, the boy tried escape, but the crowd enclosed him, pushing him towards his adversary. Bouncing off the enthralled mob, he ducked under the swing of the giant, momentarily escaping his fate. Parcleus turned back to Atryn.

“Do something!”

“You do something.” Atryn calmly retorted. Again the boy tried to rush into the sea of men, and again they fought him back and thrust him into the center of the ring, with the iron gunwale its unforgiving gate. It was his salvation and his damnation. Free from the agitated fence, he found himself with his back against the cold iron entry to the sea as the giant descended upon him. Into the air he went with one swift motion of the mountainous man, he was lifted high above the deck, an felt himself oddly safe in the monstrous hands of the giant as he lay cradled above all. Looking out he stared at the sky, thin and flat where it met the sea thin and flat, and thought of where they might collide.

“Toss him over!”

“Get on with it!” The men shouted for the giant to throw the boy off the ship.

“Enjoy the fish.” The giant said as he bent slightly to send the boy out and over. From athwart ship a voice boomed in command.

“Let em alone Tarkys!” The deck grew silent, and the crowd turned toward the bow. Startled Parcleus looked back, with the crew, at Atryn now standing with his eyes fixed on Tarkys, holding the thin boy above his head, whom was no longer squirming and fighting having made his peace with the waves and the clouds and fate. Tarkys slowly brought the boy down to the deck.

“Pardon me. I wasn’t told of your promotion.” Tarkys acquiesced.

“There’s been no promotion Tarkys.” Atryn began walking towards the crowd.

“Surely you must be captain now, giving orders out.” Tarkys grinned, his eyes of anger, slightly wrinkled at the corners.

“Tarkys, I’m no captain, leave the boy be.” The boy tried to run but the weight of Tarkys’ hands upon his shoulders kept him anchored to the deck directly in front of Tarkys. Atryn slowly approached the crowd Parcleus in tow, Tarkys towering above.

“Moments ago you tried pushin em over yourself.” Their unwavering eyes were locked. The crew moved to either side allowing for a path between the two men.

“The boy wanted to live, so I let em.” Atryn saw the boy for the first time, a thin lad with a straight nose and shaved head. A look of dissolution in his brown eyes. “Your right to do the same.” Tarkys lowered his giant brow.

“My right.” Nodding his head, he placed his hands upon the boys waist and sent him flying over his head. Barely missing the top of the gunwale he disappeared behind it and Atryn heard a splash.

Country's War

2013-06-19T15:53:00.002-07:00

Cretus

Atryn awoke to yells and the scrap and ruckus of a scuffle. A young man had succumbed to the seasickness and tried to leap over the side of the ship, his high pitched screaming disturbed Atryn's slumber. Grappling with him, the young man’s friends tore at his rags as he clung to the edge babbling incoherently at the top of his lungs while they all barked for him to let go the edge. Fully awake and angry at the disturbance, Atryn leapt from his seat and pulled the suicidal man's saviors from his legs, flinging them to the bilge.

"Let em drown, we've no need of cowards." Atryn stared down at the young men, checking their eyes. The suicidal man clung to the edge sobbing now, lowly. Turning Atryn grabbed him by his collar and the seat of his pants. "Well jump boy if you're gonna, and get on with it." Shoving the man up, he tried to push him over the edge. Kicking and driving off the side, the suicidal man fought back. Atryn let go and the man fell from the side of the boat and landed on the bilge with an empty thud. "You wanna live or not boy? Make your mind. Do it quick and quiet, a conqueror needs sleep." Atryn sauntered over to his bench, and plopped down with a clank folding his arms across his chest.

Chuckles could be heard amongst some of the older men. The young men slowly rocked back and forth with the ship, susceptible to the waves, hovering where Atryn napped. They stared at him wide eyed, while the suicidal man lay on the ground fixed on Atryn as well. Settling back into their general positions, the boat became quiet again. Atryn's fiery beard fluffed over his armor and stopped just above his belly, like some hariy beast in a suit of steel. One of the young men finally spoke.

"Would you've really pushed em?" He sat across from Atryn who's one opened eye appeared like a blue marble caught between wrinkled flaps of freckled pink flesh.

"Sure, he was makin' an awful racket wasn't he?" More chuckles from the older men. He closed his eye again. The young man was unmoved.

"This not your first voyage then?" Quivering vocal cords chimed. Without opening his eyes, Atryn responded.

"Nope."

"Where'd you fight?" More of the first voyagers gathered around them, eager to hear the tales.

"What's your name lad?" Atryn still napping.

"Parcleus." Chin slightly raised. Atryn's eyes opened fully. Searching he saw Parcleus for the first time. The proper response eluded him. He spoke low and true.

"I liked your father." Surprise sprang across Parcleus' face. A few of the other younger lads looked at him.

"So did I." Parcleus looked down at his boots.

"I saw him fall at Cretus." Atryn coughed out.

"You were at Cretus?" Lurching forward the passengers reoriented themselves as the ship hit a wave. Atryn barely moved his neck, which was thick beneath his armor.

"Aye." A mariner's silence echoed over the waves. The older men were quiet now, hunched on their benches, pretended not to listen.

"Why..." Parcleus lost the nerve. The First Voyagers looked at Atryn for the answer. He knew what he wanted to know, what they all wanted to know. Solemnly he recalled with a red pain in his blue eyes.

"They wouldn't stop fighting." The suicidal man began swiping at hovering flies above a bag of bread in the corner of the ship. Parcleus’ eyes never wavered from Atryn. One of the other older men yelled at the suicidal man.

“Hoy! Knock it off. We won’t get no meat til them flies lay their eggs!” Standing he towered six feet six, his armor was twice the size of other men. His brown locks dangled across his shoulder plates, his short beard recently cut. The suicidal man cowered against the iron wall of the ship as the giant grabbed the bag of bread and shoved the edges down towards the bilge, loafs tumbling out all over. “Wanna kill yourself now? Try the maggoty bread in a day or two.” A roaring laugh escaped his chest as the suicidal man gagged at the thought.

Country's War

2013-06-18T19:49:00.001-07:00

War Voyage

At the bow Iron Horde was engraved across a battered and scratched gold plated banner. Atryn eyed an empty bench beneath the banner and limped his way towards it. Clattering down with his armor, he began rattling the pieces together, connecting the giant knee plates to the steel boots, and twisting and screwing the bolts in place. He caught a glimmer of shining metal amongst the grimy lumps of twisted shield. Searching the sky for the sun, there was none, only the ambling billows of layered clouds gathering over the open sea. Searching the beach dunes of the coast, his eyes settled atop a ridge with an edge of foliage and grass that spilled over the cliff like sand. A woman stood from the ledge wrapped in a large grey shawl, she disappeared with the sky. Blinking Atryn found her gaze as she stared directly at him, acknowledging this with a slow deliberate nod of her chin once his eyes met hers. Suddenly shivering he felt for the first time the cold of the morning and he cast his eyes down to the boat again. She had to have been some five hundred yards off, there was no way she could find his gaze, and yet Atryn could not shake the feeling that she spoke to him with her eyes. A deep and dividing fear crept over his spine and through his brain as he looked back towards the ridge and searched across it, not finding the woman in grey. A slamming metal door obscured his view as the ship was clamped shut and he felt the hunk of metal heave away from the shore and slosh into the ebb of the sea. Blood and chaos and crossed steel lay before him, yet the only thing his mind could see was the unwavering stare of the woman in the grey shawl.

A thousand footprints took hours to stamp across the sand, it took merely a moment for the tide to wash them all away. The outline of the sun hung overhead, a circle of light inscribed in the clouds; it just as well have been night, for there was nothing to see but the rusted deck of the Iron Horde. The clanking of metal as men shivered in their armor, the wretched scent of vomit, dry and moist, stung the air. Moldy bread and potatoes was all they had to eat, along with as many waterskins as they could pack and carry along with their armor. No meat.

"You'll have your meat with victory!" -Viceroy Nikan

Soon the weak would jump from the back of the ship. Atryn could never understand it, the drawn out torture of the lungs filling with ocean was a fate far worse than the meandering voyage which would probably end with a short quick death under the blade. He knew which he preferred. The opportunity to reap the rewards of victory was enough to keep him alive and fighting. His second War Voyage, upon the first a soldier returning home victorious was allowed to take a wife and given a bit of coin. Atryn chose not to take the wife; he knew he would be leaving for his second voyage soon. The year and a half it took the Viceroy to choose a target was excruciating. Atryn spent the duration drinking beer and fighting with the other soldiers. He trained and waited patiently for his second chance at glory.

Upon return from a second War Voyage, a soldier was granted a plot of land, a horse, a farmhand, and double the coin. A boyhood dream some twenty-five suns ago. Now was his chance to earn his leisure, with the blood of a foreign threat. The strays were usually boys who had been coddled by their mothers far too long, better for a boy to learn how to survive in the mud of madness, so to defend himself from the torturous silence of the voyage. So Atryn sat, in the back of the Iron Horde, in his suit of steel, huddled with six other men, when finally the rain stopped. He would make these men his squad before landfall. But that would not be for many moons, and with the rain stopped he could finally quiet his mind to sleep.

Country's War

2013-06-17T06:43:00.002-07:00

Country’s War

W.B. Preston

.1
The Clatter of Armor

“Puncture the shores of our enemies with the iron ships of war. Dye the sands on the banks of their land with the blood of its men.” -Viceroy Nikan

The War Command escaped Viceroy Nikan’s thin nasals. The snarling speech would be the last words Atryn heard standing on his home soil. Thousands of men trudged across the beaches of Ganamoth lugging the clanking metal armor through the muggy bay all the while Atryn wishing he were comfortable in his bed. What of the other thousand soldiers? Loading themselves into the Iron War Ships in the early morning. Was it blood or blankets they yearned for?

Dragging his War Armor through the slog of the early morning shore, the sky fell short and leaden. He carried his steel suit hunched over his right shoulder, pulling and heaving with strained biceps and gritted teeth. Atryn, like the rest of the infantrymen of Ganamoth trekked across the seafront towards the iron ships, the giant metal monoliths black and motionless, forged and anchored to the bay floor. Twenty hulking shadows, steely and ferrous, dotted the landscape a half-a-mile down the shoreline. Engulfing one soldier after another, the metal monstrosities bobbed and moaned with the morning tide. The low chromic roars echoed inland as the shadows on the sea devoured one soldier after another, slowly, hour after hour. Entering the mouths of the beasts, the men went in willingly, and quiet.

Lightning purple and pale tore across the smothering gray blanket of sky, afterward a crack and a boom of thunder round and full. Atryn saw the tear and heard the rip, yet looking to those around him, the soldiers were too busy to bear witness, they sunk in against the wall of wind that slapped at their jaws riddled with ocean as water sprayed across the brow and they loaded on to the warships. Clanking metal pounded over and over again for hours a half-mile down the coast as two thousand armored boots met the steel bilge of the lurking colorless, flagless ships. Floating towards a foreign coastline, they appeared enormous black creatures of the sea, carving through ocean waves and smashing all that lay in their wake. To Atryn they seemed the same kind of beast, blights on his home coastline, enveloping and floating away with its men, good men. In victory most would return, in defeat only some. The monsters over the waves were to blame.

The nearer he came to the metal ships, the louder their anchored roar bellowed from deep within their rusted depths. Beside each ramp was a Monitor in hooded robe holding a lantern above his head. The yellow glow a speck beside a black void, once over the ridge. Now they were orange and faded, as the last of the soldiers loaded on to their assigned ship. The Monitor held the lantern until the last man of his ship entered and the ramp was lifted and the entryway closed. Atryn recognized his Monitor by the long white beard and sunken eyes. It was he who had taught Atryn chess in his childhood. Without the slightest gesture or glance the Monitor stood motionless, eyes fixed on the horizon as Atryn’s metal boot came down with a clang on the iron bilge. The ship was half full and Atryn despised the rectangular deck surrounded with hard iron benches. A few of the older men he recognized, but there seemed to be many young faces, First Voyagers whom had never seen the battlefield.

Eclipsing Thunder

2013-01-06T14:53:00.000-08:00

A total shadow falls over a barren field, hovering endlessly snug and silent. I stare up into the sky of the night, in hopeless anticipation, clouds of gaseous coils explode sending streaming pools of light down upon the field. And me, wondering about the dirt, slipping in and out of the dance of shadows and sun. The wind shouts, "dig in the light". I crawl on my hands and knees to the nearest circle of light, a stream of fire burning from sky to field. I claw up clumps of dirt with my palms, tossing them behind me they disintegrate in the night. A deep and deafening hum fills the field a low rumbling vibration. As I dig the spotlight narrows finding the hole I stand in. Knee deep in dirt and silt, the sky grows closer, blue mist and purple fog encroach upon my site. As I dig I am buried in the clouds and shadows of the night, the beam of fire penetrates the fog and illuminates my path into the ground. The barking dogs howl and yelp, the ray of light narrows to keyhole size, I reach into the dirt grabbing hold of two iron handles and pulling out a stone carved chest. I drag my hand across two alien elephants chiseled into the sides of the chest, my eyes fixate on a small hole drilled in the center. The light beam enters the hole, and the chest opens up, the purple fog and blue mist enter the chest, and liquefy into mud mush bubbling and pulsating. The chest closes and all of the lights vanish, and I am alone in a hole in the middle of a barren and deserted field, holding a chest full of blueish purple muck. A chest quite heavy, chiseled out of stone, I struggle to pull it out of the hole. I lay between the chest and the hole, starring into the sky's night, sweating and panting, looking for a sign or a way.

Empty With Me: The Shitman and the Invisible Spotlight

2013-01-02T23:04:00.000-08:00

Fallen from inside myself

I grasp to the edges of me

Only pulling myself further down

Into the belly of I

Pulling out my knife

I hack and I stab at my innards

Scraping and tearing away at my flesh

I cut away all that I hate

Until all that is left is love

I could write forever but something is stopping me. I feel a block, a strange mental block. At one time I could free write forever, the words flowed from me freely and I didn’t give them a second thought. Now It is as if every word is a thought out processed piece of shit that I have to delicately carve and shape into a shitman. Frothy the shitman. Was a very shitty man. He stunk and slid all around the toilet and I flushed him down the hole. Kill the shitman kill the shitman. Fuck the audience. An audience of one. I think this is what I forgot. I was writing for myself before, and then when the pressure of an audience was presented, I froze in the invisible spotlight. Kill the armed guard at the invisible spotlight. I am with my shitcannon (My asshole) and shit bullets fly from it and penetrate the armed guard’s chest. He explodes into a million pieces of shit that rain down on the empty prison yard below. Empty with me. The invisible spotlight falls. And I stand covered in the shit of my own making. I write on the prison walls in shit crayons. I write forever over and over, forever over and over, forever over over forever. The words will not stick in the rain. The rain washes everything away. The shit returns to the earth from whence it came. Back to the rivers of shit, into an ocean of shit over the shitty waterfalls off the edge of the earth into the Universe of shit. That’s all we are, a Universe of shit, all of us, isolated in our own shit world, spinning around and around and around around, until we explode, and shit rains on the newborn babies below us. Shit rains on them and they think its new. But it’s old shit. It’s ancient shit, that was shat eons before any of us rolled in our own shit. There is no new shit. There’s just less shit to go around. I am the shitman. The Shitman forever. The shitman forever standing in the invisible spotlight. Won't the rain wash me away?

Sex or the Pussy?

2012-02-16T22:55:00.000-08:00

By: W.B. Preston

Anjer and Dennis sit on a couch starring at the television. Dennis is flipping channels. Anjer rests her head on the palm of her right hand resting on the arm of the couch.

-Just pick something.
-There's nothing on.
-Then why are you flipping channels?
-Cause there might be something on.
-You just said there's nothing on.
-Something might come on while I'm flipping.

Anjer sighs and jumps out of her seat.
-Hey, wassup?

She turns back to him.
-I'm bored.
-We're just watching tv.
-No we're not.

Dennis motions towards the glowing screen.
-I don't want to sit here while you flip channels.
-Alright.

Dennis turns the tv off and sets the remote down.
-What should we do?

Anjer sits back down.
-Talk
-About what?
-Your cat.

They both look down at the black and white tabby.
-What about em?
-He's weird.
-He's a cat.
-I don't like him on the bed during sex.
-What?

Dennis is genuinely surprised.
-It's weird.
-You never said anything before.
-I'm saying something now.
-Why'd it take you so long?
-I didn't know how to bring it up.
-Well you sure eased into that one.
-Seriously.

The cat looks at Anjer.
-So what, I should just shoo him out of the room before we get naked?
-Preferably.
-He hates to be shooed.
-Dennis.
-What? He's a cat, he's sensitive.
-I'm not doin it with him on the bed.
-What's so bad about it?
-He stares at me!
-You're imagining things.
-It's like he's jealous or something.
-Don't be ridiculous.
-I'm not being ridiculous, you're the one that's ridiculous, having sex with a cat on the bed.

Dennis pulls his hands through his hair.
-I don't want to make this a big thing.
-Well, what's it gonna be? Sex or the pussy?

Dennis looks down at the cat. The cat glares at Anjer.
-See look at em, he's starring at me.
-You're crazy.
-I am not crazy, that cat is evil.
-Now he's evil.
-Look at em!
-He's a cat for christssake. What do you want him to do, change his expression?
-He doesn't stare at you like that.
-He looks at everything the exact same way, cause he's a cat!
-His eyes get squinty when he looks at me, like he's got an attitude.
-Cats can't get attitudes.
-That cat has an attitude.

They sit for a moment looking at the cat. The cat stares at Anjer.
-What's it gonna be?
-Fine, he's out of the room during sex.
-Your gonna keep em?
-What have we been talking about?
-Your gonna let that cat, that obviously hates me, stay here?
-You want me to get rid of my cat?
-Him or me.
-I've known that cat longer than I've known you.
-So.
-My mom gave me that cat.
-Well give it back to her.

Dennis stands up and walks towards the door. He opens it and gestures outside.
-Get out.
-It's not just gonna leave.
-Anjer get out.
-You kickin me out?

He motions towards the hallway.
-I can't believe you pickin a cat over me.

Anjer stands up and walks towards the door.
-I hope you and your cat are happy together.
-We will be.
She walks out. Dennis slams the door. He plops down on the couch and starts flipping channels again. The cat jumps into his lap.

A Downward Spiral Culminating In Hell

2012-02-15T23:19:00.000-08:00

By: W.B. Preston

Dr. Gian Relp was working on a formula that would account for the discrepancies of time and space. What is the opposite of fall? Float? Hover? That would mean whenever we are on the ground we are falling. So the minute we are born we are in a state of constant downward spiraling. A downward spiral culminating in hell. Impossible to know. The only fact is we die. Is this due to the force of gravity? The literal fall of man. After so many years of falling we reach the bottom, life is forced out of us, back to the top, giving the next generation a chance to fall from grace. This is turning theological. It's roots in science. Ho do we not fall? This is one of the questions Dr. Relp wanted to answer.

ANOTHER: When you turn light off, where does it go? When you turn on the light, you have it there, for your own consumption. Every time and anytime you flick the switch, the light comes to you, rather quickly. And just as quickly as that, it leaves when you turn it off. Where does it go? Is there a pool of infinite light and energy, just lying around somewhere waiting for us to summon it for our own amusement. What kind of life is this for something as powerful as light? No there must be something else light wishes to do, rather than provide a visible room for humans to weep in. The good Dr. is developing a light tracker, to track the light. The light from his light bulb will travel down his cord and into his machine on its way to the light source. On its way out of his machine it will acquire a number. This number will be tracked by the machine. The Dr. will be able to see this number anywhere in the universe. Thus finding the source of light.

ANOTHER: The stabilization of sound. This one is a secret, as the government has tried to weaponize his inventions before. Sound, as we know it, starts loud, in a relatively localized space, usually where the sound was created. However the sound does not magnify outward as the waves disperse. Rather the sound tends to weaken the further from the source it gets. The Dr. wanted to reverse this phenomenon. He wanted to create a sound that started out silent, and then grew exponentially as the waves dispersed. As you can imagine the consequences of this could be disastrous, as the sound would grow to literally earth shattering high levels, and quite possibly universe shattering levels. If he could some how control the waves, he could stop the decibels from rising too high. Unfortunately he can not test this machine, for even one miscalculation could destroy the entire universe as we know it. Not to worry, Dr. Relp has many projects that can be tested quite safely.

Flippin The Fuck Out

2012-02-14T22:33:00.000-08:00

By W.B. Preston

FADE IN:

EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT

A parked car in an empty parking lot. BRADLEY in the driver's seat.

His muffled screams slightly audible by two men passing by.

MIKE

(To the other man)

Call 911.

MIKE yanks the car door handle and pulls Bradley out of the car and to the ground.

BRADLEY

The hell you doin!?

Mike's arms wrapped around Bradley's chest.

MIKE

Calm down, an ambulance is on its way.

Bradley looks up at the man on the cell.

BRADLEY

For what?!

MIKE

You're not having a seizure.

BRADLEY

No!

Bradley pushes Mike's arms off of him and stands up.

The other man hangs up the cell phone.

Mike pulls him self off the ground.

MIKE

Well what the hell were you doin?

BRADLEY

I was flippin the fuck out!

MIKE

You flip out often?

BRADLEY

You yank people from cars often?

MIKE

I'm a paramedic.

Bradley looks at Mike then the other guy.

MIKE

That's Toney

Bradley looks at him.

TONEY

Glad your ok.

BRADLEY

Yeah me too.

They stand silent for a moment.

MIKE

We here just goin in, can I buy you a drink or somethin?

Bradley looks at them again.

BRADLEY

You guys gay?

Mike and Toney chuckle.

MIKE

Nah, just feel bad is all.

BRADLEY

I guess I could go for a beer.

They walk towards the liquor store.

END SCENE.

The Silent Song

2012-02-13T22:13:00.000-08:00

The Silent Song

W.B. Preston

Beneath her stride sweeps melody

Her every step a song.

She sings silently still,

Her whispers live forever.

Sunken under ocean sands,

A stolen treasure hidden,

With the thief lost forever.

See it brightly shinning

Wrapped in boney prison bars?

You know me from the night.

There she lay comfortably,

Sheets of time shift their beds.

Bottom feeders rob the dead.

Lifted heads by woven dreams.

A statue sings to those that see

The shadow's son blissfully.

He dances to her song below

Unheard by passersby.

I touch your toes through dreams and time.

She always seems to cry.

The place she lays where no one knows.

No one goes to see her.

No one hears her song,

But thieves.

And yet they can not see her.

They see the prize.

A stolen dream, a treasure.

Unknowing, all along,

She's worth double her weight in gold!