Sapped

Bear with me for a moment here and imagine the following scenario.  Imagine a pesky, loud, smelly animal.  Imagine this is the most annoying animal on Earth and that – for the sake of argument – it is synonymous with the very definition of nuisance.  Let’s call this animal ‘human’ so as to avoid any confusion as we proceed.

                Now, imagine that this pesky human just wouldn’t stop.  Not for a second.  It just kept going: building up towering structures, flattening the ground with concrete, zipping around in metal boxes, and the whole while doing it all as loudly as possible.  There is nothing, nothing I tell you, which makes half as much noise in a life-time as a human can make in a day.

                But we’re not done yet.  No, if that had been it I might have been able to handle it.  See, I consider myself to be more patient than most maple trees.  Admittedly, our particular breed isn’t known for our calm and collected nature.  But I like to distinguish myself from the rest of my kind so that you will know that I didn’t come to this through simple annoyance.  This is full-blown, righteously justified, annoyance.  It’s a difference of adjectives.

                So here’s the kicker, the clincher, the defining problem.  Here I am, kept where I am in the midst of a mess of human concrete, machines, and noise as a kind of aesthetic touch, and what happens?  Some pesky human, no bigger to me than a mouse would be to him, comes along and staples something to my trunk.  First off, he had to get it good and secure and so he made sure to put in six or seven staples.  As if one didn’t sting enough.  What’s up with that!?  If you’re a human hearing this, then imagine this as if it were happening to you.  Imagine a mouse swaggered up to you while you were standing outside, and sucking in some lovely March sun, and he placed an advertisement for such-and-such mouse event at such-and-such mouse establishment on your leg.  Then, before you could do anything about it, he viciously jabbed a half dozen thumb-tacks into your leg to hold the advertisement there.  I don’t think I’m being unreasonable in saying that you, like me, would be thoroughly pissed.

                What kind of behaviour is that?  What kind of utter lack of respect and decency.  It’s bad enough that many of my kind have been appropriated for various human uses (the idea of this thing called ‘paper’ makes me feel like ants are crawling beneath my bark) but stapling an advertisement to my truck?  Come on.  That’s just adding insult to injury.

                What am I driving at here, you might be asking.  Is this just some rant about the audacity of humans?  What should I expect, you may be thinking, they’re human after all!  They are synonymous with annoying.  They can’t change their nature any more than I can change mine.

                Well, I reserve the right to be angry about it.  I reserve the right to get mad about it and shout about it and…oh, dang, hold on.  Speak of the devil.  It looks like a few humans are coming over now.  Probably going to jab some new advertisement into my trunk.  Once one appears a dozen more usually follow.  Lambs following the flock.

                Wait.  Hold on.  What?  Um…okay, so, those of you who have kept with me this whole time.  They’re…these humans, a few of the female kind, just removed the notice that was stapled to my trunk.  They’re also using something to pull the staples out too.  I’m, um, not sure what to…Now they’re sitting beneath me.  Making their noise.  But…my trunk does feel a lot better now.  I guess this kind of noise…isn’t so bad.  Um…

                Okay.  So, maybe some of them aren’t moving so fast after all.  Maybe some of them are learning to slow down.  Slow down, and suck in the March sunlight.  Maybe we have more in common than I thought.  But don’t tell anyone I said that.  I hear they’re prone to pride.

The Salamander

The salamander runs on crooked legs through the city

welcome and applauded thanks to minds eager for fireworks.

It does not need to hide in the shadows, forcing its

opponents to seek shelter there instead.

The dim glow of a reading light beneath the covers

illuminates black text inked into nutmeg scented paper

thin as the breath between my teeth as I absorb

more than the sum of the words but the sum of the ‘I’.

The salamander is our hero, the best friend of bliss.  It alone

can promise not to compromise smiles with unfiltered reality.

Its tongue darts faster than the eye can follow and before long

Huck is off his fence and the white paint has spilled over everything.

Somewhere far off a siren wails but it is as if it is in another

land far beyond my reach.  Blinking becomes an infuriating

necessity that delays my overcharged brain’s feast.  I engorge

myself on literature.  Asimov, Orwell, Tolstoy, and Stein.

The salamander hunts without tire.  It compromises the machine,

the printing and the printers, the publishers and the published.

Talons work from the inside, pushing the former gods out

and replacing them with fifty shades of hollow replicas.

Montag flees the Hound, McMurphy suffocates beneath

the pillow.  And the I beneath the sheets sweats and feels visceral

and finds on every page I and I and me and I.  The pages

are soaked in humanity as I am soaked in humanity evermore.

The salamander is my enemy.  The salamander sniffs the air with

its tongue and looks for me.  It fears me knowing my I.  It fears

others knowing theirs.  It wants us to smile and laugh until we

can’t be anything else.  The salamander burns away the I in us.

The fires are already burning.  I seek to douse them in ink.

Inspiration

I lie on my bed with my fingers poised,

Hovering over a keyboard, waiting for that clicking noise.

But words do not spring to my finger-tips today

And I search all around me for something to say.

Tree leaves flutter against light afternoon wind

And a gray layer of clouds refuses to be thinned.

Engines hum as cars drift on by

And birds chirp faintly as they touch the sky

Bed springs knot and ping as I shift my view

To look at shelves of books whose numbers are not few.

DVDs and movies rest on brown wooden shelves,

Testaments to our attempts to entertain ourselves.

Then, a white doorway leading out to the hall

Followed by a closet, a backpack, and a deflated football.

My desk rests in shambles, debris piled up high.

I can never keep it clean, as much as I might try.

Inspiration is tough to come by, sitting on your bed.

I have a laptop, and keys, but nothing in my head.

The dark enemy is writer’s block, holding me back.

But maybe the answer lies in a folded laundry stack.

We search this wide world, for some new stimulation,

Feeling ourselves lost in some unholy stagnation.

But, inspiration can be found in the glint of window glass

In the heart of a loved one, in the smell of newly cut grass.

We call out for something to unhinge our emotions

But sometimes one only needs the simplest of notions.

I can feel the cool breeze drifting over from the ocean,

A call of inspiration for many a Nova Scotian.

So, good-bye to writer’s block holding me down.

I can find my afternoon muse in what is around.

The rustle of curtains, the dust on the shelf,

These are all I need to inspire myself.

Forgetting

Beneath my fingers and thumbs

the flat keys wait, lifeless and still.

Heaney rode backwards through time, riding

on the memories of father and grand-father,

for the past was his concern, not the future.

But I will look forwards to the times of my children

and my children’s children, to how the world will change

and how the words and the writing will change

as technology advances.

Will my children write essays snug in their beds,

with eye strain caused by hours gazing at their iPads,

breeding a need for prescription eye-glasses?

Will they remember paper and pen

or will those be relics of the ancient world of their father?

You may laugh at the thought, but we have iPhones and Kobo ereaders

and even Bluetooth control for our cars.

Will my grandchildren think their words and watch them

spread across the holographic screen, bringing new meaning

to stream of consciousness writing?  Will they even know

what foolscap is?  Or lead pencils?  Or pink erasers?

Or will writing have passed out of style with a new medium

rising to illustrate the need for story and word

to express the interior thoughts and emotions

of this race of humans, flawed but fixed by tech.

How will my children write?  Will my grand-children write?
By the time my great-grand-children are born will they be a part

of a world that has forgotten the pen and the pencil

that allowed us to express ourselves with this written, divine language?

Beneath my fingers and thumbs

the flat keys wait.

What will I choose to remember with them?

Atlas Tripped

“I think we should stay in Europe but all the politicians who destroyed this country should leave.”

-          Katerine Apostolaki, 20, Student

Fire reflects off of shields held high

as soldiers march like Marathon remembered.

But they grip shields of polycarbonate

instead of ones made of iron and bronze.

They are no Spartans, though valiant they may be,

for there is no glory to be found here.

No Simonides lives now to write an epigram

for the epitaph of a nation.  Besides,

the coffers are too bare to spare

the (useless) coin needed to commission

such a project.  Oh, woe to the west

where anyone can be at the scene

of the dust and the smoke and the rage

simply by turning on their phone

and googling a nightmare half a world

away.  It is possible to look but impossible

to see.  As in an age long past

there are three hundred who stand

against an onslaught numbered

in the billions (of euros).  Three hundred

representatives attempting to preserve

posterity (and posterior) with austerity.



(http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/amid-flames-greek-parliament-approves-crucial-austerity-bill/article2335517/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=World&utm_content=2335517)

Culpa

Hey guys, this is a story I wrote from the perspective of a character mentioned/introduced in another story written by someone else.  It was a writing exercise I did and I decided that I'd share it here!  Enjoy!  Post comments!

Culpa didn’t even remember what Puna’s face looked like.  She couldn’t remember her parents either, or what had happened to them.  They’d been children when the task force attacked the compound where their kidnappers had taken them.  Their kidnappers, but their liberators as well.  The task force ended up becoming the true kidnappers, the separators, the ones that took Puna away from her.  For all that Culpa knew, Puna was dead.  Or worse.  She knew what their rescuers had done, could do, and would do.

                The bomb.  The first one dropped a year after Puna was taken had done untold damage and killed thousands.  It was enough to look on the devastation of that village to turn Culpa’s heart to stone.  She could no longer call herself one of them.  Not after that.

                She stopped being a quasi-prisoner that day and went in for recruitment.  After the bomb, knowing what the enemy could do, she was hardly turned away.  Her liberators became her squad mates.  Veritas, Equitas, and Mendacium became her closest friends as they dove into the trenches together.  They had each other’s back, they had each other’s front, and that bond was closer than anything Culpa had ever known.

                It was a year after the first bomb was dropped that her Commanding Officer told her why the enemy had chosen that particular village for the first bomb drop.  He had told her it was because of its position, not strategically, but geographically.  Situated in a valley surrounded by mountains, it was the perfect location to gather data on the effects of the bomb.  Culpa’s heart had already turned to stone.  It was that day she felt the magma begin to press against it, like the capstone on a volcano.  She didn’t know how long it would hold.

                At present, Culpa found herself looking up from her journal as Veritas entered her tent.  It was the fourth day of the enemiy’s most recent push into the Eastern held territories.  Artillery strikes were hitting almost every hour, but luckily the bulk of her division’s tents were far from the intended targets.  She felt no envy for the soldiers closer to the strategic compounds and command bases.  Though they were heavily bunkered, it would be no picnic, and you could absolutely forget about sleep.

                “Commander says we’re going to try to push on their left flank,” Veritas explained.  “That particular regiment took heavy casualties in an engagement with 9^th platoon a couple hours ago.  Another regiment’s come in to defend them but they’ve been forced back by General Compelo’s tank division up.  If we take this regiment by surprise while they’re weakened we’ll have a significant advantage.  We’ll start pushing them away from the river, their only water source.”

                “Sounds like a plan to me,” Culpa nodded, picking up her rifle.  She was a good shot.  No, screw that, she was a hell of a good shot.  She had outstripped Veritas, Equitas, and Mendacium in every target shooting drill they’d ever been subjected to.  It had earned her the nickname Plink from Mendacium to describe the sound that she made every time she zeroed in on the tin cans that were set up for her.

                Equitas and Mendacium were waiting for her outside the tent.  Their faces were stained with ash that coated their cheeks and made their eyelashes look gray.  She was certain she looked the same, coated in the dust of war.  She tried not to think about how much of it was the remains of people who’d been blasted apart next to her by explosions, or killed by incoming fire.

                Equitas took point as they dipped into the trench and began to work their way towards their target.  Machine gun fire from the 3^rd Platoon was drawing the bulk of the enemy’s fire, distracting them as Culpa’s squad linked up with a  couple of other four man teams.  The machine guns would only work for so long, but it still felt good to be moving through the trenches without the sound of bullets dividing the air over your head.

                Culpa did a quick pop up over the lip of the trench to get an idea of the enemy’s deployment and could already see soldier’s moving into position to intercept them.  The distraction hadn’t lasted long.

                “They’re on to us!” Culpa barked just as the first bullets began to rain dirt and grime down on their heads.

                “Goddamnit I hate this part!” Mendacium barked.  “Plink, give me some covering fire!”

                Culpa nodded and waited until she heard a break before snapping up and putting a bullet into the shoulder of one of the enemy soldiers.  He had been exposing himself too much.  The shot hadn’t been hard.  She tried not to think about his screams as she ducked back down.

                “Again!” Mendacium cried, hefting his light-machine gun.

                Culpa popped up a second time with Veritas at her side.  They both fired a shot.  Culpa’s hit the target, causing a woman to spin out of her machine gun nest.  Culpa never saw if Vertias’ shot hit, she only heard the all-to-familiar sound of a bullet’s buzz before it made contact with skin.  And then Veritas was falling beside her.

                “Mendacium!!” Culpa roared.

                “Equitas!  Cover me!” Mendacium screamed.  He popped up over the side of the trench wall, opening fire so that the sound of his light-machine gun shredded the air in all directions.  Equitas was up beside him, popping off shots like a mad-man.  Culpa knew that only a few would find their targets, but her thoughts were entirely on Veritas.

                She fell to his side, her knee sinking into wet mud, and she quickly located where the bullet had entered.  Right side, between the ribs.  It had passed through as smoothly as a blade, not even breaking any ribs.  But blood was flowing from the wound relentlessly and Veritas was coughing up blood as his lungs began to fill.

                “Veritas!  Veritas, stay with me!  Don’t you die on me you bastard!” Culpa roared at him, putting pressure on the wound.

                “Culpa…Cul…Culpa…” Veritas gasped between coughs.

                “Shut up you idiot!  Hold on, just…MEDIC!”

                “Culpa…your…your parents.”

                “Shut up you stupid fuck!”

                “We…shot them…the day we took you.  Equitas, Mendacium…and me.”

                Culpa sank back against the trench wall and buried her face in her grimy hands.  She had dropped her rifle somewhere.  She couldn’t remember.  When she pulled her hands away, Veritas was dead.

                The magma was coming to a boil.  She could feel the stone quaking, ready to burst, ready to let it all come out.

                And she wanted it to.

                Culpa stood up, unconcerned with her own rifle, and pulled her side-arm from its holster.  She jabbed it point blank against Equitas’ cheek.

                “Culpa, what the fuck are yo-“

                Equitas’ face exploded, the bullet catching Mendacium in the shoulder next to him.  He roared and stumbled to the side, losing his grip on his light-machine gun which sputtered out.  But the buzzing was still in Culpa’s ear and she couldn’t get it to stop.

                “Culpa!! Don’t!!”

                But she didn’t stop.  She emptied her pistol into Mendacium’s stocky frame and grabbed Equitas’ rifle off the ground.  She popped over the trench wall, not caring anymore, not caring about anything.  She saw one of the enemy soldiers racing towards her across the dead zone between them, screaming.  She put him down, his head exploding like a popped grenade.

                She worked the bolt and looked for another target.  She hated the enemy.  She hated them for abandoning her.  For taking her sister from her.  For leaving her alone.  For letting her parent’s die in a splash of blood against the side of the house she dreamed over and over and over.

                Then she saw her.  Puna.  Across the impossible gulf, forever out of reach, with the enemy.  Culpa dropped the rifle.

                “Puna?”

                Then, the buzz of that all-to-familiar bullet before it hits its target.

Committed Epilogue...Sort Of!