Lola Part 3: Underwater

I haven't written anything about Lola lately.  I do apologize to the few people who follow that short story.  My son was born this week, and I've been spending all of my time adoring him and my wife.

I've written some more this evening, letting my mind take me deeper into the life of Lola.  I haven't plotted anything out still, just letting my mind take over and write what it feels.  I find it so much easier to just write and write and write and not bog myself down with outlines.  I find that the outcome is more real and a lot more personal, as things that happen are in some way significant to me.

Enjoy.

~KGB

“Stay away from me!” Lola snapped as she walked away from Gregoire at a furious pace.
    She crossed the forest floor, leaving her cave behind and leading Gregoire away, ready to snatch the life from him if need be.  
    “Please.  I need answers.”  Gregoire pleaded, sounding more like an upset child than a frustrated man.  “I’m lost here.  I‘m... no one.”
    Lola began to run, using her gifts to leave Gregoire miles behind in less than a minute.  She hit several trees as she crossed the forest, not caring about the destruction, listening to the aftermath as the large trunks tipped into other trees and finally onto the ground.
    It was obvious to her that her current “job,” to take Gregoire’s life, was not going to happen.  Not today, tomorrow, or this week, anyway.  Over ten thousand years on earth and she had never once failed to complete a job given to her.  
    Of course, she had often wondered who provided the names and locations of those that she was to take.  Granted, she didn’t receive letters, emails, or text messages as to who was her next target.  All of the information just came to her, mentally, and she followed the unspoken cues and directions until she came across the person, or persons, that she saw in her mind’s eye.  Once she found the person, she took their life in any way that she possibly could.
    She wasn’t a fan of conventional weapons, such as guns and bombs.  Her canvas was the up-close and personal kind, using hand-to-hand combat, knives, or other various blades.  Normally, she used the element of surprise while the person slept, arriving in front of them and bringing them from life in to death in as quick a way as she could.  She was fast, cunning, and lethally accurate.
    Lately, though, as she approached her targets, a feeling of gloom and dread passed over her for long minutes.  She wondered why she did what she did.  Why did she have to kill people?  Why did she, a girl seemingly no older than eighteen years old, have to be the person who took the lives of countless humans over thousands of years?  Why was she the blade of death?  
    Lola ended up on the shore again.  She was standing in a secluded area past all of the hotels and bars that dotted the shoreline here.  The sun warmed her body as it shone down on her, interrupted only shortly by a few small, white clouds.  Her toes were on the edge of the water, where the dry sand and wet sand met, the tiny waves breaking onto her feet and wetting the bottom of her dress, changing it from a light teal to a dark blue.  
    Peering out into the water, she watched as a white sailboat skipped by sluggishly on the horizon.  The whites and grays of the waves broke over the light blue of the water as Lola pondered her existence in this challenging world of death.
    Meeting Gregoire and hearing what he had to say had spun her life upside down, inside out, and every other way possible.  Was she approaching the end of this life?
    She always knew that when her time came, at a point that was best for her to die, she would be allowed to choose how it would happen.  As it was, each night she died the same deaths that she had given to those whom she had killed.  She was well versed in how to die, and what ways would be noble and effortless.  But it would be different, and feel different.  She would be taking her own life, not that of another.  She would be passionate, gentle, and swifter than any other time in her life.
    Lola stepped forward into the water, wading up to her waste and letting her body adjust to the water temperature.  When she was soaked through and through, she went farther out, this time up to her shoulders.  The water washed over her long dark hair, causing it to flat around her like a cloud of silk.
    The water splashed into her mouth, leaving a salty metallic taste in it‘s wake.  She coughed once, clearing the water that she had swallowed, then took a final, long step forward, fully engulfing her head and face.
    She noticed that her vision was foggy as she peered around her, the sandy floor of the sea a grainy yellowish-brown below her.  She braced herself, closed her eyes tight, and took the largest breath that she could muster up.
    Her lungs filled with the salty and stale taste as the water filled her lungs up.  She involuntarily coughed, forcefully expelling most of what she had taken in.  She breathed in again, letting even more water in, her chest and diaphragm burning as the water took over her chest.
    Within thirty seconds, she was feeling dizzy and lightheaded as her head swam with drowning.  Her peripheral vision was pulsating in purple, red, and black colors, mixing and separating as her mind fought to stay alive.  She let all of the remaining oxygen bubble out of her nose.  She was now, as far as she could tell, empty of oxygen and full of seawater.
    One full minute passed and Lola thought that she was ready to pass out.  She let her arms come up to her sides and above her, sending her body floating a few feet below the surface.  She felt death coming, a familiar tap on her shoulder.
    “Hello again, Lola,” a deep voice said to her.
    She snapped her eyes open, looking all around her and  bringing her arms down into a protective pose.  No one was there, as far as she could see.  She spun her body around beneath the water, using her arms as propellers, searching for the source of the voice.  Still, she saw no one.
    She closed her eyes again, chalking the situation up to nothing more than a dying mind that was playing tricks on it‘s owner.  When she finally convinced herself that the voice was nothing more than a figment of her imagination, the voice sounded off once more, this time louder and more forceful.
    “Come ashore, love, and we shall speak.”
    Lola’s eyes snapped open again, and once more, no one was near her.  Despite the impossibility of hearing a voice relatively clearly while floating beneath ten feet of water, she still believed that it was real.  She swam upward, breaking the surface of the water and letting the oxygen flow over her like a welcome friend to her drowned lungs.  She had been beneath the sea for nearly five minutes and deprived of oxygen, but she wasn’t dead, she wasn’t hurt, and she wasn’t scared.  
    When her head was clearly above water, she coughed one time, as hard as she could, and cleared a large amount of water from her chest.  She rubbed at her eyes with her closed and balled up fists, feeling the stale water on her eyeballs.  She bobbed where she was, floating for a few moments before she made her way to shore.  Turning to look at the sand where she was going to end up, she saw the person who was speaking to her, patiently waiting for her while leaning on a palm tree.
    Dressed in white cotton drawer string pants and a white cotton shirt, an outfit common in tropical regions, was a man with the palest of skin.  A simple straw hat topped his head, covering his slicked black hair.  Despite his choice of head covering, Lola could see that his hair ended in a loose knot at the nape of his neck.  Sunglasses of the aviator style wrapped around his eyes, blocking the sun for him.
    With no more than a thought, Lola appeared on the shore in front of the man.  He looked so familiar, but she had never met him in her entire existence.  It felt like déjà vu, or a dream within a dream.  She was seeing someone that she didn’t know, but someone whom she felt a strong connection with.  Throughout her whole life, she had made no significant connection to anyone for fear of having to take their life herself, so she lived as a beautiful hermit crab, apart from society, living on the outskirts of all things normal and human, biding her time.
    Lola stood toe to toe with this man.  He was much taller than her, standing approximately six feet tall, almost a full foot taller than her five feet.  His arms were solid and sleek with rippling muscles beneath.  His skin was so pale and smooth, as though he were brushed with the finest of talcum powder.  
    On his face was a faint scar, barely visible, running down the left side of his face from above his eyebrow and all the way down to his jaw.  His eyes bore into Lola’s in an all-knowing way, like he was peering directly into her soul.
    “Who are you?” she asked the man.
    “My name is Marien,” he responded, though his mouth didn’t move.
    “What do you want from me?”
    “We need to talk.” Marien said, this time aloud, rather than telepathically.
    Her mind was racing, despite her cool demeanor.  Lola was stuck between staying where she was and talking to a strange man whom she had never met, or racing off and leaving him behind and never seeing him again.  She chose the latter.
    Turning on her heel, Lola sped off, running east as fast as she could on the shore.  Sand flew up behind her until she suddenly turned, crossed a small road, and entered a wooded area.  She blazed through that and came out in an open orange grove.  On and on she ran, her mind racing as fast as her legs.
    After fifteen minutes of running, she came to a sudden halt, stopping a hundred miles inland.  The salty smell of the ocean was gone, replaced by the smells of cow manure and earth.  She was standing beside a tree in the country, crops raising upward all around her, masking her from any on-looking eyes from the farmhouse standing strong just a few hundreds yards away on a small sloping hill.
    “You are fast.” Marien’s voice said to her.
    She spun toward the voice, watching in awe as Marien came walking toward her from behind several tall stalks of crops.  His clothing was wind blown, and his hat was gone, but his sunglasses remained.
    Lola ran at him, throwing her hardest punch into his face.  Marien ducked the punch, then spun as another punch hooked at him.  Lola threw punch after punch, putting more and more force behind each punch.
    The two beings moved back and forth with each other, Marien always blocking and ducking but never striking, Lola always throwing more and more punches and kicked.  Any onlookers may have seen two powerful people dancing rather than fighting.
    When Lola decided that she would never manage to hit this man, if he even was a man, she stopped altogether and stared at him.
    “I can help you, if you ever stop playing these childish games.”
    
   
   

Lola continued: When sleeping is dying.

    I received a few comments about the short story that I posted last night.  I must admit that I too was enthralled with the character of Lola.  To be frozen in time at one age for thousands of years, fighting what you are but not being able to resist it is a crazy nightmare.  I related to her in a roundabout kind of way, not with the killing of humans as a messenger of death, but as a person who constantly fights who he is and not able to resist what he does.  (read the entry about OCD)

    I thought about Lola before I slept last night, and also all day today while I worked.  I thought of a million different routes that I could take her, building a back story to her life and how I could form her into a character that people would like, or at least relate to.  I decided to post small portions of this story on a regular basis, adding to the short story for the entertainment or myself and others in an attempt to keep myself and others guessing as we progress along, together, on a confusing and dark ride through life, death, and relationships with those who are like us, and those who are unlike us.

    Please comment if you enjoyed it or if you would like to give constructive feedback.

Lola continued:

Lola felt the sand squishing between her pale toes.  The jetty she stood beside looked treacherous in the blue moonlight coming down from the heavens.  The ocean shushed from twenty feet away but sounded far off as the noise echoed off of the large gray rocks.
    “I don’t know who I am,” Gregoire responded.  “But I know who you are.”
    “And who do you think I am?” she asked.
    “You are the one who takes life swiftly and quietly.  You are Death.”
    Lola pondered that last statement quietly for a moment, then lifted her head upward to peer at the far off stars that she had seen change patterns several times in her life.  The formation of the stars now was almost the best arrangement she had seen yet.  Five thousand years ago there were a set of ten stars that she had fallen in love with.  One by one they faded, the constellation that they made losing parts slowly over centuries of killing.  One remained, and she looked to it for guidance each night.
    Without warning, Lola took off at a sprint, leaving Gregoire, the rocks, and the dead man behind.  She was faster than Gregoire, of that she had no doubt, so she didn’t worry about him catching up to her.
    When she moved at this fast of a speed everything around her changed from a solid object into a blur.  Trees were darkened shapes, street lights were shooting stars, and buildings were shadows.  People were nearly invisible to her, and she was invisible to them.  She felt free when she ran, but that freedom always ended.
    She came to a stop deep in a forested area about forty miles from the shore.  Hidden amongst overgrown ferns, wedged between an old and very tall tree and a mound of dirt was a cave.  She had once taken the life of a woman here, a murderous coward of a woman hiding behind supposed witchcraft that turned out to be nothing more than harsh hallucinogenic herbs and saltwater.
    Her footsteps echoed against the damp walls of the cave as she crossed through the entrance and toward the deepest sections.  Within five minutes, she came to the end of this particular chamber of the cave and saw her belongings waiting for her, still packed neatly in her backpack beside her shoes and a small burlap sack of dried grass a twigs.
    A circle of fist sized rocks formed a fire pit a few feet from the wall.  She closed her eyes, whispered a thank-you to Mother Nature, and a dull fire sparked to life in the center of the rocks.  She grabbed a clump of grass from her sack and sprinkled it onto the flames, causing them to shoot upward in gratitude of the fuel.  She placed a few small sticks on top of the fire, and soon she had a crackling and raging fire made of nothing more than her own will and a few pieces of earth.  The fire would last her until morning.
    Her sleeping bag, a new purchase that she made just a week ago, was dark red and reversible.  Underneath the sleeping bag was a five inch thick mat that she could roll up and tie together with her sleeping bag if she needed.
    Lola climbed into her sleeping bag and zipped the side all the way up to her chin.  She felt woozy, overly exhausted, and ready to drift off.  This was the part that she hated.
    Each night, when she laid down for sleep, she didn’t actually sleep.  First, the cold started in, hence the fire.  Her feet and hands became chilly before any other part of her.  It was more like a dull aching like one would get in the Fall months.  But it quickly turned to chill, and finally, full on frost bite.
    After the cold spread from her hands and feet to her legs, arms, and her body’s core, the shakes began.  She vibrated like a roaring motor, shaking so violently that her teeth chattered together until they felt like they would break.  This part was easy compared to what came next.
    When the cold threatened her heartbeat and her skin was numb, her eyes became heavy.  She always fought it, trying not to let them close, but she always lost that battle.  Well over three million nights, and never once could she fight off what was about to happen.
    When most people would now fall peacefully into sleep, she replayed the horrors of what she had seen.  The deaths of each person that she killed flashed before her eyes, the pain that they felt overtaking her own body.  Choking, stabbing, bodily trauma the likes of which the average person could never imagine.  She died million of times, in a thousand different ways, by her own hands.
    Finally, after the most agonizing of minutes, she passed on into death.  There was no light, there was no heaven of hell, only darkness.  A darkness so all consuming that she feared fear itself that stalked her from any number of invisible areas.
    Hours passed while she slept, but she was dead to the world, just barely conscious of what happened to her.
    Lola woke the next morning in a cold sweat, her hair slicked against her forehead and tangled at the nape of her neck.  Her clothes were soaked in perspiration.  Her sleeping bag reeked of sweat and fear.
    “Thank you for another day.” Lola said to her creator, someone or something that she did not know even existed.
    She rose from her sleeping back, careful not to step into the glowing orange cinders that sat in the circle of rocks. 
    The change of clothing in her bag was a welcome sight.  She walked over and removed her dress and sweater, placing them in the backpack.  She removed a pair of white linen pants and a baby blue top accented by white stitching.  She dressed quickly, packed her bag again, rolled up her sleeping bag and mat, and placed them in a neat pile at the back wall of the cave. 
    Lola walked toward the sunlight that shone through the mist and dust at the mouth of the cave.  She felt the warmth of the suns rays as they first touched her feet, then her legs, and finally her chest and face.  She rose to her full height after ducking low to exit the small opening to the cave, then closed her eyes and basked in the glory of warm sunlight.
    A few minutes passed as she let the previous night’s events pass into the past and open the path for the future.  She took in a deep breath, held it for as long as she could, and then released it.  She did it again, laughing softly at being given another day to live in this world.
    She suddenly became aware of a presence around her, a sensation of intelligence hovering nearby.  Lola had felt this only one other time in her life, and that was the night prior.
    “Do you die each night, as well?” Gregoire asked in his gruff accent.
   

Lola: The creation of an imagination.

  Well, I have finished my very first novel, and I'm waiting for some feedback on the query letter for it.  I've begun working on the sequel already, but I've found myself thirsting for something new lately, something really different from the premise of my completed novel and it's sequel.

    I had an idea while making coffee this evening, and I began writing it almost immediately after thinking up the idea of the main character.  I get these ideas in my head a lot, just small details of an unwritten character or a scene from a yet to be written book.  Then I start writing and following different pathways in my mind.  I don't know where these ideas will go in the beginning stages.  I just write, and I let my imagination take me to places that I never knew existed.  Sometimes, I end up in a really twisted and scary place, and I have to drag myself back to reality and out of that frightening world.  Other times, I end up in the greatest of places that are full of my own hopes and desires, which is also a place that I have to drag myself out of so I can return to reality.

    I can't write a story or novel with an actual outline.  I spend a lot of time in my head, thinking over fight sequences, reunion scenes, intense dialogues, and general plots.  I then write, and I keep writing, and eventually I have something amazing that is pieced together in the deepest parts of my imagination.  It's exciting and really quite scary to go back afterward and reread what I have created simply from a small corner of my own mind.

    So, without furhter ado, here is the short story that I created not two hours ago.  Please remember that this piece of writing belongs to me, as I thought it up and created it.  Now that I am posting it to my blog, there is an offical time stamp attached to it.  It is copyrighted to me and only me, so please be respectful.  I only corrected spelling errors and some of the larger mistakes, so don't be too critical of the errors that you may find.  Enjoy!

Lola

   The bringer of demise.  The dimmer of human life.  The sharpened dark sword.  Death.
    So many names and descriptions have been given to her over the years that she could no longer remember them all.  Depending on the geographical area and the time period, she was known as any number of names.  She preferred Lola, or just Lo.
    Lola didn’t choose this job.  She had no choice in the matter at all.  One couldn’t say that she was born into it.  She was just IT.  As though created from nothing more than the elements themselves, she came into existence one evening approximately ten thousand years ago.  One moment, darkness and the vast nothingness of nonexistence made Lola deaf and blind to the realities of human life.  The next moment, she was laying in a grove of orange trees in what is now Sicily.
    The ocean breeze came sauntering to her off of the Mediterranean.  The salty sweetness of the ocean mist tickled her nose and stung her eyes, but the feeling, her first feeling ever, was unlike anything that she had ever felt and like nothing she would ever feel again.
    Appearing to be no older than eighteen has it’s advantages.  She beautiful, and she voluptuous.  She’s never aged one bit in her entire existence, and she sees no reason why she would now.  Her long black hair gleams in the moonlight, small beacons of pale white in the dark tangles.  Men lust for her in all continents.  Women would kill for her beauty, and a few have tried on several occasions.  She was a girl on the brink of womanhood, despite being older than anyone she has ever known.
    She has always accepted what she is.  She hates what she has to do, and she has yet to find a way out of her duties.  But she is good at what she does, really good.
    Lola shook her head side to side a few times, clearing out the long day dream that she was having.  She had to focus so she could complete her task and be done with it once and for all.  In ten thousand years, she had never had so much trouble taking a man.  He seemed to be untouchable.  More than likely, he was just very, VERY lucky.
    Following the man’s shadow down the darkened beach, she stepped quietly on the sand.  Her bare feet sunk into the cold and damp post-tide sand just beyond the lapping of waves.  The wind took her hair up and around her head, snapping back against her cottony white shirt.
    The man, Gregoire, had no idea that she was there, waiting to strike.  He was so caught up in his own thoughts that she could probably run at him and tear his head off without him noticing.  But she was cunning, her killing style the definition of stealth itself.  She needed to bide her time and wait to take him.
    Gregoire stopped suddenly when the bar came into view just over a hundred yards away.  The music thumped heavily from a distance, pounding inside Lola’s chest as she watched the man staring off at the people within, those lucky individuals enjoying their holiday.
    “Life would be nothing without death.  Life…would be nothing…without death.” Gregoire spoke his words as a poet would read his prose.  He paused at all the correct spots, accentuated the most important words.  He was beautiful to Lola.
    A young woman who looked to be in her late twenties came stumbling out of the small bar and onto the sand.  Her white dress dragged in the sand behind her as she half-walked and half-stumbled toward the water.  Behind her, a man who was no older than twenty-one walked ambitiously in her wake.  She giggled as she made her way to the calm water that seemed, in day time, to be a lighter mirror image of the sky. It’s light blue and green colors drew the attention of all who passed by.
    And now, just before midnight, the water was again a mirror image of the sky.  It was black, impenetrable, and deadly.
    “Mila, come back!” the man laughed.
    The woman called over her shoulder to the man as she let her toes make contact with the water.
    “The water is so warm!”  she yelled.  “Let’s go swimming!”  The woman named Mila lifted her white dress over her head, revealing a baby blue brassiere and matching panties.  She turned in as sexy a fashion as she could in her drunken state and looked seductively at the man who had just reached her.
    “Are you following me Blane?” She teased.
    Mila reached out and placed her hands on his hips, drawing him near.  She kissed him long and deep, pushing her tongue passed his lips and into his mouth.  Blane followed suit, taking care in his kissing technique.  He seemed nervous to be with her.  If Lola didn’t know any better, she would have thought he was a virgin.
    The kiss halted, the couple backing away from each other just a few inches.  Mila said something in a whisper, causing Blane to smile and laugh nervously at her comment.
    She reached down and unbuckled his belt as he unzipped his cargo shorts.  He pulled his t-shirt over his head while his shorts dropped down into the sand, leaving him standing there in nothing more than his boxer shorts.
    “Now what do we do?” Mila asked in a raspy voice, her eyes squinted closed halfway.  A gust of wind rose again, muting Blane’s response.
    Lola watched as Gregoire began walking toward the couple, moving faster and faster until he was almost at a run.  She began running also, trying her hardest to not use her inhuman abilities and seemingly zip from one location to the next in the blink of an eye.  Even after all these years, she had trouble controlling her strength.
    The couple were now laying in the sand, Mila on top of Blane, her legs straddling his pelvic area.  She kept her hands pressed into his chest as she began to rub forward and back on his lower regions, grinding into him forcefully.  Blane reached out, his left hand grabbing into the sand with pleasure while his right hand reached back toward his shorts.  After a bit of fumbling, he grabbed at a blade that was in his front pocket and brought his closed fist over the handle.
    Bringing the blade forward in an attempt to make contact with the center of Mila’s chest, time seemingly froze.  Things happened so fast, yet they also halted for a beat.
    Gregoire, running toward the couple but still fifty feet away, changed into a transparent blur as he sprinted at them and arrived between the couple on the sand.  The blade curved forward hit Gregoire in the lower part of his stomach, just below his navel.  His eyes grew wide as the blade made contact and broke on his skin as though he were made of marble.
    Blane, still in the sand with his eyes closed as he attempted to sink the blade into the woman’s tan flesh, felt the odd sensation of his knife breaking.  He threw his eyes open wide and saw Gregoire looking down at him.  In a rush of panic, he bucked Mila off of his midsection and stood.  Gregoire kept his ground, keeping Mila behind him in a protective position.
    Blane grabbed his clothes and took off, leaving the remnants on the broken knife behind.  Gregoire turned and looked at Mila, her own eyes wide in the confusion and panic of what had happened.  She was in shock, unable to speak.  Most of all, she felt stupid.  Stupid for having almost had sex with a man she had only known for a few hours, a man who would have killed her if not for this stranger.
    “Oh my god. . . Thank you for.. .” she choked on a sob, seemed to recover, then broke out in a hysterical fit of crying.
    “Sshhh. . . You’re fine now.” Gregoire had a thick Italian accent.  His black collar length hair fell over Mila’s face.  “It’s over.”
    He stepped away from Mila and started to walk away.  Mila dropped her face into her hands and Gregoire disappeared in a sprint that was nearly as fast as Lola’s.
    Lola watched as a spectator while Gregoire saved this woman.  Gregoire, the man she was supposed to take, to kill, had just done the ultimate good deed.  He saved someone from certain death.
    But he was stabbed in the stomach.  She saw it with her own fine tuned eyes.  The knife broke against his skin.  He ran like an immortal, just as Lola could.  Her mission was to take him.  She couldn’t take anyone else until she took him. How could she kill someone that couldn’t be killed?  She thought of the old conundrum of an unstoppable force colliding with in immovable object.
    Lola followed easily enough behind Gregoire, her need for answers driving her toward him more than her need to take his life.  She had questions, and he had the answers that she momentarily thirsted for.
    When she came upon Gregoire just a few miles away, he was just laying Blane’s limp body down on the ground, the young man’s neck twisted in the oddest of positions.  Gregoire looked down sullenly at the dead body.  He seemed to hate himself at that moment.
    With her deepened voice, she spoke from the shadows she was hiding in just a handful of feet from Gregoire.
    “Who are you?” Lola asked.

The Art of Stupidity.

    Like a plague riding on the backs of fleas, here it comes.  It’s an acrid cloud that reeks of human waste and sweat, threatening to violate you in the most revolting and inhumane of ways.  It’s unavoidable and prominent in all areas of the world.  It’s not racist, it’s not sexist, and it’s not picky.  Lock your doors, hide your most prized possessions, and keep your children away.  Get ready for a bumpy ride.
    It’s. . . STUPIDITY!
    How can humans, a group of 6.9 billion members that is at the top of the food chain, have so many unintelligent members?  Seriously, what went wrong in the world that made the scales tip in favor of the stupid?
    There are so many examples of stupidity that I can’t spout off about, but that would take a lot of time to write about, and would most likely be the longest blog in the history of mankind.  Maybe I’ll set a world record with that when I have more free time.
    I was driving on the highway today, passing cars and keeping the vehicle at a steady 71MPH or so.  Yes, I was technically speeding, but I was keeping up with the flow of traffic and I am a phenomenal example of manhood.  I passed a car and looked into my rearview mirror so that I could move back into the traveling lane, being a safe a cautious driver with my pregnant wife riding shotgun.  When I peer into my mirror, I see a beat up old pick-up truck weaving back and forth between lanes and flying at me.  When I get ready to move over to the traveling lane to let this tough guy pass, he tries to cross into the traveling lane first so he can pass me. 
    I managed to get into the lane first and he just cut back over and passed me.  Of course, there was no reason for this driver to be speeding like this.  He wasn’t on fire, he wasn’t rushing a pregnant lady to the hospital, and he wasn’t racing to an emergency situation.  He was a teenager wearing a goofy hat sideways, traveling with a young girl on his right, her sunglasses oversized and appearing to be more like bug eyes than sunglasses.
    What did I do,  you may ask?  Did I let them pass without incident?  Did I lose my cool?  I’ll give you a moment to make a guess.
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
    I extended my arm out the window, lifted my middle finger, and reached out as far as I could.  The people in the truck did the same, and then cruised on by.  I watched in awe as this kid buzzed by me, cut into the right lane again to get around a car, and then back to the passing lane, where he drove off the road and had his left tires almost on the grass, nearly killing himself and the bug-eyed girl with him.  After about three minutes of weaving through cars, he cut his wheel and brought his car from the passing lane, through the driving lane, in front of two other cars, and off an exit.  I found myself wondering where he was going, not only at that moment, but in life.  Would he be our next congressman?  The new cashier at a burger joint?  A drain on society? 
    Needless to say, despite what he may become in life, he will always be STUPID.
    Moving along.
    Last week, my wife told me a great story riddled with stupidity and redneck-ery.  She was at a video game store trading in her brother’s old games for him so that he could purchase the new basketball game that he had been wanting.  After trading his games in and buying his new game, she left the store and saw a women with a few young children.  She was not paying attention to the kids and they made their way toward the parking lot.  How does she respond?
    “OH!  You little MOTHERF*CKERS!  Get your asses back over here!” she said with class.
    The clever speech of such a sophisticated young lady.  I’m willing to bet that she won’t be the next speech writer for the president of our country.  More than likely, she will continue her streak as “Trash Bag mother of the Year.”  Despite her awards and credentials, she is STUPID.
    Getting angrier and angrier and moving along at a crawl. . .
    I was once told a story by a man who worked at a retail store.  He received a complaint from a shopper that at baby was alone in a car out in the parking lot.  Upon investigation, there was indeed a baby, no more than a year old, seated in a car seat and buckled in.  The police were called and within a few minutes, officers were on the scene and getting ready to open the car so they could get the child out safely.
    A man came running out at that point, yelling and getting angry that people were touching his car.  The police immediately stopped him and asked him if the car and child were his.  He told the police officers that this was his child, and that he had run inside for a minute to purchase something, and that he had only been gone for a short period of time.  When the employee spoke up and told the officers that it had been over fifteen minutes since he called the police, the man got angry and disputed.  Soon enough, though, he confessed to being in the store for a long period of time, but gave a argument that he thought was smart and would give him the advantage in this dilemma.
    “Well, I left the window open some.”
    He left the window open...some.  Awesome.  That was his reasoning behind why he thought it was safe to leave an infant unattended in a vehicle for nearly a half hour.
    I don’t know if he should even be allowed to keep this child.  What kind of person leaves any aged child in a car alone?  I wonder if his child will grow up thinking that he is a great father.  If I ever meet this child later in life, I will assure him that his father is a few IQ points shy of being a rock, and is more than anything, STUPID.
    I know I’m not the smartest man in the world, even though I AM in the top ten greatest men of all time.  Despite my dashing good looks and genius IQ, I don’t think I’m better than anyone.  But I know for sure that I am smarter than 85% of humans on this planet.
    I’m comfortable saying this, mostly because I have seen a range of stupidity in my life, and I know for a fact that I don’t fit into any of these categories.  I’ve done stupid things, and I’ve been involved in stupid situations, but isolated incidents don’t make the individual.  I guess that I just contradicted myself, as I’m calling the above people stupid based on single instances.  But the situations are pretty big bench marks for stupidity.  Maybe they are half stupid, or even three-quarters stupid, though I doubt they know enough about fractions to be able to make that distinction of asked.
    The old saying “Think Before You Act” would work wonders if it was explained properly to a lot of people.  Maybe if we all find a stupid person every day and explain to them some common sense things then we will greatly deplete the amount of asinine humans on our planet over a few years.  Even if we don’t succeed, we will probably have some funny stories to tell.

I wish that I could fly!

    Despite the fact that I am thirty years old, I enjoy reading novels that are in the Young Adult genre.  Aside from being fun and are easy to read, they center around topics that were once important in our lives.  Love, revenge, and hopes of becoming rich and successful are usually present in some form or another.
    James Patterson is the author of one such series known as the “Maximum Ride” series.  The books center around a group of kids who were created with a small percentage of avian DNA grafted into their human DNA.   The outcome: they have great big wings!  Yes, wings.  It seems silly if you think of it from an adult standpoint, but if you step back and look at it with an imagination that isn’t tainted by society, you’d see that it is something that each of us has most likely wanted to do.  FLY.
    The group is thrown into some very adult situations.  They have to escape from a group of scientists who want them back in the “school,” which is basically a laboratory where the scientists continue to experiment on innocent children.
    Countless thrills ensue throughout the entire series.  The kids get into fights with adults and beat them senseless most of the time.  They are charged with saving the world from the damage that we have all inflicted upon it.  Greatest of all, they are passionate about there own small race of humans, and protect each other as a family should.
    When I was younger, I always wanted to be able to fly.  I used to wish that I could turn into a bird, even if it was only for a day, so that I could fly as high as possible, swoop through trees, and live life with no worries and the ability to look at earth from high up with no interruptions of any kind.  I think that is one reason why I really liked this series.
    Another thing that I really liked about this book was that the chapters are anywhere from one page to seven or so pages.  Each chapter centers around a different topic or conflict.  It makes for a really exciting read and makes you not want to put the book down until you have finished reading it.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I am guilty of not being able to put a novel down on a regular basis.

Book Reviews and OCD: Twitching the Pages Away.

    I have recently, within the last three months, completed reading the first two books of a trilogy by an author who, in my opinion, has put a rather vocal  and realistic voice to a type of person who is normally hidden away in the closets of embarrassed family members.  It’s sad how people view others in this world, as they instantly lock in a particular carbon copy idea of someone based on medical or psychological diagnosis and use this as their mental image of that person.  I myself have been labeled and targeted due to an uncontrollable psychological disorder, and it is frustrating, to say the least.  Author Dan Wells does a phenomenal job describing the thoughts and reasons behind one such disorder, mixing thrilling fiction with a young man suffering internally with being a sociopath.
    In the first of the trilogy, the main character, John Wayne Cleaver, is introduced to the world.  He lives with his mother in the home above their family owned morgue.  John, a boy who struggles with his mental need to hurt people, burn things, kill animals, and obsess about torturing others, thoroughly enjoys working in the morgue.  His mother and her sister, the two family members who work at and run the morgue in a small town in the United States, do their best when John tries to work in the morgue with them.  He usually manages to sneak in a take over one task or the other, knowing full well that his caregivers are far too busy to notice him working on a body, let alone stop him, as they never turn down the chance to finish preparing a body early.  Although his mother has her own reservations about letting John work on bodies with her, she hopes that giving him an avenue to satiate his urges will divert any other trouble.  Being obsessed with serial killers and using references tot hem in every school assignment given to him just won’t cut it any longer, and his teachers and classmates are, for the lack of a better word, frightened of him. 
    At the book progresses after the opening introduction chapters, John struggles with following his “rules,” a regimen he takes very seriously and follows regularly and with as much stringent passion.  His rules don’t allow him to look at people for extended periods of time, as he is fearful that he will stalk them.  His rules prevent him from saying or thinking bad things about another person.  If he does think a bad thought about a person, he is forced, per his own punishment rule, to verbally compliment them.  The list of rules is a failsafe to his natural need to want to hurt others.
    John’s therapist agrees that he is a sociopath, and regularly discusses why it is that John has become a sociopath.  He even allows the boy to read his own notes during their sessions, which provides a two-way road of communication and trust.
    John enjoys helping his elderly neighbors with yard work, though his joy is not in helping others.  He spends hours raking the leaves because he knows that, at the end of the day, the elderly man will allow him to start a raging fire to burn away the gathered leaves.  The fire gives an outlet to the sociopath main character.  But all good things must come to an end.
    Once bodies begin turning up in town, accompanied by an unidentifiable black sludge, John is quick to find the killer, but only to learn about how the murders were committed and why the killer chose to kill.  After some sly stalking and quick thinking, John eventually finds out who the killer is, and does what any good natured sociopath would do: he stalks the murderer and leaves taunting notes for him. 
    I will refrain from writing more about the plot.  If this book sounds interesting, you can pick a copy up at your favorite book store.  It’s well worth the money.
    I liked this book tremendously.  I liked the sequel, Mr. Monster, for many of the same reasons that I liked the first.  It was full of unexpected turns, humorous at certain points (a teenaged boy admitting that he stalked a girl for an extended period of time without realizing it is pretty funny), but most of all, it delves into the realms of troubled minds. 
    The author describes the disease, and the thoughts given to the main character are real and what one would expect from a sociopath.  Normally, most people would be weary of a troubled young man like this.  Having him locked in text is safe enough that people can have access to something uncommon and be able to step away from it if needed. 
    As far as psychological disorders go, there are plenty of them to go around.  I have first hand knowledge of one such disorder that is most commonly known as OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  I perform rituals of everyday actions until they feel “correct” in my head because I think that something bad will happen otherwise.  I constantly have scary and sick thoughts about all sorts of things.  For instance, when I lock a door, I don’t just insert the key and turn it to the locked position.  I have to shut the door in a certain way, insert the key just right, turn it until the lock has been set, turn the key back and not pass a vertical position, and then shake the door handle for a period of time (usually ranging from five seconds to two minutes).  I do this because if I don't do it correctly, I feel like someone might break into my home, or that someone I love will be injured or worse.  If anything in this carefully done set of actions is done wrong, I start over, even if that means someone is watching me and laughing or if it means that I am late for something.
    I’ve spent a full hour setting an alarm clock, turning it on and off over and over, setting and resetting the time, and setting it down and picking it up until it touched the desk top just right.  I’ve spent minutes changing television channels with the remote, despite the fact that it should have taken less than thirty seconds.  I’ve turned sink faucets off and on so many times and so forcefully that I’ve broken the handle.  I’ve broken heavy locking doorknobs because I’ve shaken them so many times.
    How do I cope with my obsessions if I absolutely can't perform the ritual, or if there is no physical ritual to repeat?  Compulsions!  I blink forcefully until it feels “correct.”  A lot.  I sniff loudly and repeatedly until it feels “correct,” even though I look like a complete idiot when I do it (About a week ago I did it in front of the mirror, just to see what it looks like.  All I can say is WOW, what a moron).  I basically blink and sniff nonstop throughout my day, which is, to say the very least, frustrating.  People look at me like I’m a complete freak, or they laugh at me, or they make comments when I walk by.
    So, the morale of this entire blog comes down to a few key points:
    1. Don’t judge people for being weird.  There’s good people behind those odd thoughts and strange facial ticks.
    2. Read the two above mentioned novels, and, if you like them, keep an eye out for the last book in the trilogy.
    3. If you suffer from OCD like me, and cannot set an alarm clock or turn the volume up or down on your television because you feel the need to jump the volume up and down for a full minute before setting it to what feels correct, just do what I do:  HAVE YOUR WIFE DO ALL OF THESE THINGS FOR YOU, AND THANK HER FOR BEING A ROCK IN YOUR OTHERWISE SNIFFING AND BLINKING WORLD OF ODDITIES!

My friends, I have scared off a fellow author with my frist attempt at networking!

    It has been quite a while since I’ve posted my last blog.  I have only posted a handful, and already I am slacking off.  Shame on me.  My bad, devoted readers.  All three of you should be very, very angry, as I am a procrastinating man with narcissistic tendencies.
    I’ve been really busy with work.  It really wears me out, and I usually spend my free time reading, writing my novel (more on that in just a few moments), or watching television with my wife, relaxing my free hours away.  The baby boy will be here in just a few months, so I’m trying to enjoy my last scraps of freedom now, as my life will belong to him for the next eighteen years.  I think that it’s a swell way to spend a long period of time!
    Read, delete, verb replacement, reread, swap sentences, swap paragraph, swap chapter, delete entire chapter, start over…REPEAT!
    So, as some of you may know, I’ve finished my novel, and by finished, I mean that I have written a beginning, middle, and an end.  I am now editing, which is tedious and bland.  The writing process is beyond difficult.  It’s exhausting work, and I find that the more I read through the novel, the more I hate certain parts.  I then change parts of it, only to realize that I liked the first version better.  Such is the life of an unknown aspiring novelist.
    Living in such a small and sparsely populated town does not allow me many opportunities to meet other authors.  I’d really like to bounce some ideas off of other writers, let them read some sample chapters that I have written, or just talk about the whole process of getting published.  I know that I have little chance of meeting a best selling author here in Plainfield.  That’s just a bold truth that I have come to accept.
    I am aware of one author who lives just one town over from me who has successfully written a novel, self-published it, and signed a contract for a series with a publishing company.  I emailed him and asked some basic and cliché questions about the writing process.  This man was kind enough to email me back, citing some examples of what I can read to learn more about publishing, networking, and other related topics.  He ended the email by asking me what I am writing currently.  He seemed genuinely curious about the genre of my book and what it was about.
    Let me state now that this man is a Christian writer, and very true and devoted to his faith.  I give anyone who is devoted to their religion in such a large way a ton of credit for being able to believe in something so much.  It’s rare, and, in a way, kind of nice to know that there are still people out there in the world who can put aside the troubles of the world and lay their own soul on the hands of a deity.
    So, I email him again and give him a very basic outline of my novel.  I explained the beginning of the novel, which is overly graphic, gross, depressing, and sad.  I then explain that a major organization of fanatics plays a main role in the book, and I hint at immortal beings, fear by faithful members of the religious group, and get detailed about a suicide scene.  I finished the email, spell-checked it, and hit send.
    It’s been almost three months, and he has not even responded.  I’d chalk it up to him being busy, but he emailed me back the first time within an hour.  I think I scared him off with my explanation.  It’s a good thing that I didn’t mention that the villain in the book is the leader of the organization, which is actually a religion. 
    So, as much as I respect those who are religious and faithful, I despise those who are hypocrites.  I believe in my book, and I think that, even though the main villain and villains in the book are from a certain religion, I shouldn’t be frowned upon by those from all religions.  The religion I write about is not real at all, and they have never existed.  I was, more or less, describing how mass hysteria of a blind and sheltered people (such as the accusing townsfolk from Salem, MA during the witch trials) can cause death and destruction for those who are innocent and not part of the main circle of citizens.
    This blog might sound like a bunch of complaints, but you must remember, I am NARCISSISTIC, and the world revolves around my happiness. 
    But in all honesty, don’t judge a book by it’s cover, pun INTENDED.  I’m not a bad person because I write about dark and bad things.  I write from experience a lot, but I also write from the view point of those who have experienced things that I have not, and in a way, I am telling their story.  Everyone has a story to tell, so listen to what others have to say.  Then, when they finish and you are no longer in their presence, judge them silently, or with a trusted friend.  Don’t forget to laugh at them when they pass by you in the future, as it only hurts properly when you really twist that knife.  I need a frickin' BANDAID for the wound in my back!
    IF THIS BLOG HAS BORED YOU, I APOLOGIZE.  PLEASE ENJOY THE FOLLOWING PHOTO AS A CONSOLATION PRIZE: