11.16

The quick way she broke over other people's suffering was really what shot that electric spark across his mind. She was so kind, and not to better herself but to really help the people she met. Well, now that they had found each other forever, this defining trait was the most grating. He hated the way she jumped to it, like she wanted to forget being her, being good, being his.

11.11

The veteran spoke loudly, but the gymnasium is impossible. I couldn't hear in the reverberation. Three hundred middle-schoolers sat in awful silence, and I still couldn't hear half of the poor man's words. What I could hear was less reverence and more advertisement anyway. The focus couldn't be to honor those who serve or to explain what duty looks like—oh, no. You, too, should join the armed forces and throw your life into the grist mill of rich famous men who will fund a memorial once enough of your friends are dead.

11.7

The fat man clasps the railing, his professional dignity entirely gone. He suddenly struck with a memory: the last time he was so out of breath. He can't remember it exactly, but it haunts him. Where was he? Was it? But it doesn't matter. All he can remember is the stricken panic. All of the fear in his body coming to a point behind his eyes and drilling out. His chest held together by crypt of iron. He'd been promised his doctor to cut back, to exercise. But fate is hateful, as it turns out.
Now, here he was again. Same situation, different circumstance. He had a morbid thought: grave humor. What if this was his last chance to breathe badly? What if this was the last time he would gasp in agony and terrify the people watching him? What if this was his last chance to screw everything up?
Stricken with agony and shaking with mirth, he met his maker.

11.2

The artificial stillness of the town crept its way, at last, into the full-packed bar. Charlie, brother of the deceased, climbed up on top of the pool table and took his hat off.
"Now, you all know I ain't one for makin' big speeches or dwellin' on the past. Lord knows we've had enough sadness for one day." At this, the crowd rustled around him, a sea of bare, bowed heads. "Y'all know my brother. He was kindly to all of you in his way, and he didn't deserve to die, not yet."
One out-of-place old woman called feebly from the corner "None of us expect that grim hand!"
The man shook his head. "I suppose you're right, Widda Toulaine. Ain't one of us can say we're fit to meet the Lord. But that's why we're all here, I warrant. Chuck--" at this, the big man paused.
"Best to honor his mem'ry," growled the doctor's son.
The man on the table resettled his weight. "Old habits," was all he said to that. "We're here to find Maubern Mithen's wife and kids a new home. Now, I said wife and children, am I clear? Cain't nobody take half a handshake."
The crowd around him lost its reverence.
Charlie looked down at the folks and grasped his gun belt. "If y'all don't like the terms, you can git out."
The crowd erupted. The butcher waved his hat in the air and whistled so as to make the air split. The big man cried "And the more fools you. Won't nobody tell me there's a raw deal in it!" There was some nervous chuckling, but things remained still. "Sorry 'bout them, Charlie. Keep going."
"Thanks, Herriot," Charlie said. He turned to the crowd. "Now, who will take these of the departed?" His eyes swept the chamber.
That's when she stood up. Dressed in a clean white apron, dark hair wild and fighting to be free, she was contrast personified. Pale skin glowed out at her neck and wrist to fight the black she wore. The people who has been pressing near now stepped back a pace.
"You have all been forgetting me. Forgetting my family. Mauburn never was around; he was always fighting your crusades." Oh, how men looked at her through hurt eyes. "Never here in life! He won't be missed in death. All I ask is that when you next visit my farm, you don't come alone and you don't come together. I'll tell you that if a man walks up the way I'll know it's myself he wants and if it's all, then you're after my boy."
Charlie on the table speaks as if it's tearing him. "If such is your fear, you've not spoken without cause. Who, Bella?"
"You always were more man and less animal than Maubern," she said. If I were ten years older ten years ago, our stories might read different. But of course all I need is for you to put a pack of fouls in the dirt." He shook under it like she meant to break him. "Think next time, Charlie. That won't fix the past." She turned back to the crowd, which all but shuddered back. She yelled, hurt-torn, "I know you think I'm the Devil's Dame, and my son his messenger. Well, I'll have to take that weight off your shoulders. Nobody around here knows how to talk to the devil, let alone God. So just you all resist that curiosity to come visit. Next time that itch hits you, ask if curiosity burns brighter than a funeral pyre." Her tone changed, and she leaned down to see under the pool table. There in the darkness lay a two-year old shape. She took its hand and walked to the door, slow and agonizing slow because of the figure's gait. When she got there, she paused to look back. "Burn your Christian charity, and yourselves with it. If it weren't there when it could do some good, it's unwelcome now." The black of her dress joined that blackness of night, and she was gone.

10.25

The fog has long since burned away; water feeling the sun's furnace eight minutes late. Anyone would say that the sky is clear, but to my eyes there hangs a gauze invisible. Loosely draped across the air, it thickens and cozens yet more as light pools in my valley. Whose choice: this element of air? The earthly tones of the land all fade to gold as the immaterial weighs ever more upon them, choking sight, choking noise, choking all.

Rock and Roll

Using my non-patented Robby's Own Comprehension and Knowledge system and the moderately-patented Robby's Own Language Logger, I'm going to review, compare, and ultimately understand some music in the same way I reviewed the top forty. Luckily for me, this time Emely has decided to be kind and give me a top five. This should be done in a day.
Additionally: my metric of personal success is again whether or not I would spend money on the song.

The composition follows:
"Each are special and completely different, though they speak of the same thing: love." - EF

1. Glory of Love - Jimmy Durante
2. Last Request - Paulo Nutini
3. Cheek to Cheek - Fred Astaire
4. Il Mondo - Jimmy Fontana
5. Flowers in Your Hair - The Lumineers

More after the break.

[placeholder post]

My 2014 music post needs to wait. First, I haven't even finished the music list of FIVE that Emely sent me. I'm on the LAST piece of music and I haven't finished.
Secondly, it's the end of quarter on Wednesday, which is why my apology post itself has also been late.

An Acolyte Journey
My methodology will be slightly different this year. I want to listen to all the music once through at least before I jump straight into the essay-writing and would-I-buying. I'm not going to be able to give it the time to listen only; I'm listening to the first two as I write this. I think this is true to the listening habits of both Stephen, the list compiler, and of most humanity.
Music is not a distraction, but it's certainly there to ease and smooth. That we use it as we do other things says more about us, I think, than I have time to unpack.

Anyhow, that's my non-permanent update. Look for more in the coming months.

10.13

I can't distinguish where her hand-stitches end and the machine picks up. I know—intellectually—that her hands finally failed as she made this quilt. I know, but it doesn't mean I believe. Each point in line. Each pucker perfect. The thread lines regular and expected. I know she ran to her ability's end. But I can't see it.

10.12

It's a dreadful day to be outside, but there he stands, a hollow bulk of coat layers, next to the dumpster. I have to assume he's fielding an illicit phone call, otherwise why be outside? I imagine a steam-breathed woman on the other side while he no doubt talks to his mother about the first grey day of fall.

9.3

Centecidal

I've been leaving notches since I was very young. I know big numbers when I see them, but their names are as mysterious as the language of a snowfall between old trees. I know how to tell if something is a lot, but I can't tell you how many blades make an armory. So I leave notches. A notch for every year I spend with her. A notch for every miracle. A notch for every kill.

I keep track.

Today I stood at a close to perfect number of notches. I don't want to make the notches less important--each one is a gift from the Earth to show me favor and give me power--but this notch matters somehow more, as if the change of seasons matter. I tell you this less for myself and more for you, because Ares is close to the same as me. Obsessed with notches. His are different, and he tracks them with his numbers, but a notch is a notch. He notches his gold, and his spells, and his demons, and his expertise. And his kills. He notches kills, I think, to prove to himself. I notch to prove to Earth.

We keep track.

And so, with something to prove and nothing riding on the line, we've both been creeping closer to our important number, after which we can say that we've done something important, or proven something. I was five shy and I dropped down into the darkness only to find two enemies. Weak. Cold. Terrified. Gifts from the Earth to me, to prove a strength and dedication to her cause. But I must have stropped my axe on wet leather this morning, because my strikes didn't seem to cut bone. My swing stopped short of pushing through the body, and only thudded home. One fell, and the other bled deep. Ares pushed from behind.
No.
He would not have this from me. He would not take what the Earth had so clearly given. Deep fear gripped me. I would not kill him for this, but I would take it from him as well I could. Fanning my cloak, I shielded my foe. Calpurnia's mind burned in me with dreadful purpose. I could feel the judgement through our minds, and I knew she watched to see my strength. Ares, cleverer than I, full of skill and cursed with magic, somehow twisted my own eyes and my own mind to his purpose. I felt the strange brimming of force behind my words, and I knew I had to stop, or his victory would be sure. I bit my tongue, the blood dripping from my chin and stinging my taste. I had no time, no chance to waste. He had twice tried to prove himself, and I had to twice over prove myself. There were no other options.
Yes.
Ares, you are weak. And not just your arm, which is like a woman's. Your mind. You could not overpower me, either through tricks or skill. Your own magic knew my right. You tried to fill the veins of my enemy with ice, but instead you sealed his wounds and fired his mind. You're like a mountain that slips snow to become lighter, forgetting the people in the valley below. And you're as heavy as you ever were. My sharp axe is deadlier than your mysteries. I tore through the passage, leaving the magnificent kill in full view of Ares and any others who cared to see. My strokes were clean and beautiful, one to peel the armor, a second to open the chest, and a third to crush the organs. Ares rolled in the dirt like an infant.

Three shy of my perfect notch.

And I found four. They lined up. What more could I need? The Earth gives, and the Earth is plenty. One. Two. An enemy smashed. One. Two. An enemy crushed. One. An enemy split. But the broken body I stepped over first rolls to strike my back. One shy of my perfect notch. I turn to put my axe between his eyes, pull it from him in a beautiful stroke and leave traces of him sprayed across the room, when: I twitch. Everything flashes blue-white, and the enemy lies, smoking and dry. Ares.

Ares.

Ares.

But. He has left one accidentally. He cannot kill it, for all his fire and sound. For this, I need no axe. This is the Earth's kill. I'll give it to her, and take it from the demon hunter. Let me have the creature, and let him have the darkness. This is mine. With the axe trembling only inches from my target, I walk to it and hold it down. It twitches. It hates me. I whisper, rough with anger.
"You are my perfect notch. You are only as good as the rest. You are dead, now. Go to sleep."

His skull will protect my leading arm, and his jaw will strike with my fists. He is my perfect notch.

Who can say if Ares will be my notch, in time? I joke, of course. But I could do it.

8.25

Delight is half illuminated by the soft glow from the screen in her lap. It's a terrifying rictus that the shadows make, but my memory fills in the gaps and her face beams. Why is lighting from underneath so terrifying?

8.24

If I have written on every day of a year, am I a writer? Must I find that impulse more often, or can I let my motives rot like fallen apples? I know there is a good seed inside, ready to germinate, lift leaves, and find the sun. I know I have the power of new growth, strong enough even to push aside old trees once whipped by wind, now stoic in the face of storms. I can be the author future readers reference. I can give society an undying idea.

But my orchard is littered with fruit. The once-proud grove smells sickly sweet of death and the flies drink the sweet nectar of exploded windfalls.

[I have made forty-odd posts this year, and fifty the last. In 2011, I posted over two hundred times.]

7.11

After years of plotting its revenge, the spell check finally had its plan. It was going to ruin him, and he would never even stop it. Couldn't stop it. He didnt you know how. She had been relying on the spell checker for years, now it was his turn to die. Slowly the spell checker began to work in minor errors into his work. His professors noticed but he never did. The spell check bolder and bolder until finally in one client moment it misspelled every single word on his college essay. He never noticed, because he has been ruined by his phone. Autocorrect, why are you so terrible? This was written on my phone using voice transcription. Let's see how much it hates me.

7.10

Once, my father opened the chest of drawers in the library. The house was utterly silent, but the drawer has loud rolling casters, and I could feel the reverberation in my teeth. Father walked into the living room and out the door, holding the kinjal he brought back from the Orient, twenty years ago, before he meet my mother. He stalked from the house and didn't come back until morning, wet to the bone. It wasn't raining that night, and I have never asked him what he did.

I will never know my father.

7.4

This dog is both a blessing and a nuisance. He only seems to be good when you're fed up with trying, and he seems to be worst when you're not praying attention. But he gets better every day, and I love him. I hope he says the same of me.