Finished
Finished
October 11, 2024
I told them the lies they wanted to hear. It mattered not their validity as truth. I was going through the motions. They were going through the motions. My fate was preordained.
I await my punishment.
The state assigned a doctor in name only to my case. He arrived, unrolled the tools of his trade, and avoided the instrument sterilization process because I was not to live long enough to suffer from an infection.
By the looks of the crusted blood and rust, I doubt any of his previous patients suffered from an infection either.
My doctor began with a filet knife to the skin stretched across my scapulas. He did not administer a sedative, only a thick piece of leather. I was to bite down hard and weather the procedure. If I moved, he said he would only have to begin again.
In this, he was most proficient. In only twenty minutes, he had removed my epidermis, leaving the dermis and hypodermis intact. I must have passed out numerous times to notice his skill. He offered a few mirrors so I could look, but I politely declined.
Next, he produced a brace and bit to bore a few pilot holes for the screws he desired to attach to six of my ribs. He asked, once again, for me not to move for this would take a great deal of time. Once again, I was not in a position to decline his request.
When I awoke (how long was I out?), I suffered from dehydration and difficulty breathing. The doctor gave me a sip of water for the former. The latter remained from being suspended from the hooks and cables attached to my ribs. While only a mere eight inches above the lab table, I might have been eight feet, for all I cared. He told me he would return after his dinner. I offered no response.
All I could do was nothing. I could barely breathe. I was dying slowly and that was part of the plan. The doctor did not have the where-with-all to be the last person I would see. Somebody wanted me for something, otherwise, why go through all of the trouble?
I waited until morning to confirm my hypothesis.
In walked the prosecutor, carrying a few documents and a pen. The pages were blank. He asked me for a signature and he would fill out the rest later. I asked him to depart before I had to take action against him. He laughed. I should have laughed, but couldn’t. He tapped one of the steel cables attached to one of my ribs with his pen. The audible emission was lost, covered by my scream, covered by my subsequent agonal gasps. He continued this two more times until I begged for death.
“Too soon for that.” He kept his words brief.
Carefully, he wiped the blank paper on one of the drill bits used last night. “A blood sample will suffice.” One more tap on a steel cable. One more small chuckle. He departed with enough. Perhaps he did not even require that.
I didn’t care.
But, I did.
He left his pen. The one with the top already clicked. The one with the ball point already extended. It was in reach. It could be a weapon. I could kill the doctor. I could kill the prosecutor. I could force them to let me down and let me go.
Or,
I could kill myself.
After looking at me through the window, the doctor reached into his pocket to give the prosecutor a single dollar. In today’s economy, it was worthless. But, as an ante in an honor bet, it was invaluable.
I would soon be dead, but (at least) they had their honor.
The accumulative challenge, thoughts
Where's the "accumulation"?
Lol it's been over a month I've seen no movement.
Also letting users enter in old pieces of work that already have many likes and the challenge's Winner being based on likes seems like a good way to get nobody to enter it
Especially ^ if someone isn't already buying the monthly subscription that's required for entry...
which has maybe already been proven since
1 month or so in and the highest paying challenge has very few interested participants writing their optionally real or fake autobiography's 1st Chapter
Today is my 60th birthday
Today, I am going to revel in the wonderment I made it this far.
Later today, I am going to reread everything I have ever published.
Tomorrow, I am going to begin the second chapter of my unfinished life.
Tentatively entitled, "My New Bucket List."
Then start knocking it off, one by one.
Thanks - Andy Betz.
Her blood, soft. (audio link below the words)
Chapter 38
Out of the quarter. No feeling of change as it had been, the stranger,
when they had passed the café, the lights were off in back.
No feeling of change.
What that did mean, the seams blending for those to enter.
One of the last lines written to make way for the quarter to become
what it would. The work of them.
This, out of his thoughts, for Aria alone.
His mind for her tonight, only for her.
Where she would be the time after the next dusk, he would only
hold on to hope.
Up the street, her hand in his. The beauty of the city.
Love shining down.
Into pubs, into the cafés.
Live music of the free.
A thought from her, while they listened to the saxophone of a man
to play. The quarter, a change. Passing the tattoo shop, the only one
she would go, one artist inside. Boarded up now, dark. When they had
walked past. Her thoughts, further back in the quarter. The floor of the
building, their floor. They were the only two on it. The rest of the
tenants below. The quiet of them.
In the room, the sounds of music. Out the windows, a filter for neon.
His kiss to her neck. The applause between songs.
The people in the room. She had not seen them in the quarter. They
lived in the true city, graced by chance to not know the pull of the
quarter. Her mind, understanding more from the body of the stranger.
Pieces of mystery, they floated upon strings in the night. Her man, a
man she would kill to die for, the crescendo of song on the stage before
them. His hand holding the two of hers.
The love between them, strong
throughout time.
When the stranger thought of this. Something inside to take him
deep down into the past, into the changing of heart at the table.
It creeped upon him there, held his heart.
Encased in her stomach, what he would feel under the night. The
stars above. A celebration of swirls, the love from there.
Come what would, between death and the time before it.
What he had with her, the time from their first night alone to what
was waiting after the dusk of tomorrow.
Aria, her long ghost. From a hole in a door, he had waited for her,
to let her know who she was for the time fixed ahead.
He was successful in the dream of it.
Her hands in his, what he saw.
Something he would know and she would not believe.
What the quarter had done to her. How it had moved in, through
her skin. What he knew from their first drink outside the quarter, in
the place across. The table by the window.
To understand the lengths of what the quarter had done to her,
blocked from him. If she would go west, he knew their time together
had meant as much as the love from soil to the space above, the swirls
of dust and dream.
---From The Velocity of Ink. I read from it this morning for my channel, if you want to listen. This is just a small part of this morning's session.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O5H15bsUGg&t=1354s
Ineffable
Ineffable
September 22, 2024
The colors
More than the spectrum
Colors between colors
Colors without names
Colors seen nowhere else
The tranquility
Silence at negative decibels
Holding still
Almost posing
Perfectly undisturbed
The majesty
Heaven above
Meets Earth below
Synchronicity
Woven at the interface
The longevity
A comb swept stunning beauty
Not long for this world
Out of time with appreciation
My limerence object
Who or What am I?
Who or What am I?
September 09, 2024
People wish for me
They want me to arrive
When I do
I am not there
People seek me
Always wanting my wisdom
When I do
I am not there
More of me is really less of me
Me times infinity is still just me
I am timely to the core
And yet, I disappoint all who seek my counsel
I am eternal
Transcending kingdoms, Empires, and Life itself
Some fear that I may never arrive
Disappointing even them when I do and when I don’t
Who or what am I?