I’d bargain with Beelzebub to bring her beauty back

Her heartbeat held me here at home

A metronome

I lack

Literacy is sought

while knowledge

is to abhor

Thoughts flow by

fields of erudition

in a translucent corridor

Obscure incantations

full of bestial

inhabited hollows

Current zeitgeist’s

broken promises

deadly foreshadows

Intellectual assassins

cultural conflagration

reason burning

Repeated mistakes

consistently made

no one is learning

It’s all games

inside the asylum

until students stampede

But there is hope

as the ignorance

begins to recede

Every night down in the street i heard him open bin lids sorting through rubbish for tin cans, i hadn't seen but i just knew it, on dark almost every night.

bang, bang, bang

At the time i didn't have much money as i waited to start university living above a Thai restaurant in the city.

I had saved up a bag of coins, dollars, twenties, fifties for emergencies, and i had resolved to give this to the man who i called tin can man.

One night i heard him at the bins, shuffling, banging and rushed down the wooden steps through the restaurant out to the street below.

What i saw was a little bent over old man, intent on the bin he was looking in not noticing me at all.

I walked up to him with the bag in hand and said, 'Hey mate, i have something for you'. He had turned quickly, flinching at the same time, expecting an attack.

'I have these coins for you please take them', i had said quietly. He looked at me for a moment then took the bag, not saying a thing.

Then i went back to my room, and he to his life on the streets, but at least i helped if only a little bit.

Now it was paddocks with the remaining trees standing like vestiges to a forgotten forest, all else lost in time.

What was left was things that clung on, rabbit, frog, black cockatoo - like we clung on to this land and house.

No different, just we worked by minutes and hours, days, weeks and months.

The animals knew two things, day and night, and I guess we were no different except we lived by the constructs of man in a house with food and drink to pass our lips bought with money.

So all this time we heard the calls of these beasts of the wild, and never gave it a second thought, but in our hearts longed for it, that freedom.

So the earth was laid out before me, and I travelled far, never realizing, never thinking that the answer was inside that whole time, you just had to open your eyes.

He's a leader, a visionary. He's relentless in his pursuit of a better future, a more perfect future. He's responsible for founding Sinclair Enterprises, the corporation that connects humanity with the latest technological advancements. He brought the first men to Mars back in 2063. He's a pioneer, a visionary. He's single-handedly keeping the national space program alive and the military outfitted in the most cutting-edge equipment.

The world seen from inside Sinclair's tower at the manufactured peak of Silicon Valley radiates abundance. His army of drones fly all throughout the sky, casting shimmering lights down on the modern city. He's old enough to remember when it was renamed the capital of New America, after the second revolution. He's young enough to witness with his eyes the havoc that humanity has wreaked on the world.

Pollution. Extreme poverty. Famine—crops withering up in waves throughout the globe. Plummeting fertility rates, which led to his forefathers beginning their research into genetic engineering. The Sinclairs went from owning 99% of the world's diamond mines to leading the world's largest tech empire. They make the smartphones you text on and the cars you drive.

Leaders around the world were failing to provide answers or solutions. That's one thing they all had in common: an inability to act. So he took control of the reins. If you can think of it, Sinclair Enterprises probably makes it or powers it—including the government.

He's the richest man in the world. If you ask anyone in the media, they'll say he's the smartest man in the world. His digital infrastructure happens to power every network. He happens to own the social media companies their messages are distributed to the masses on.

He just does so much good, you see. Seeing the chaos all around him shaped his philosophy: humanity is nothing but buggy hardware in dire need of a software update. People are incapable of self-regulation and true progress without the sacrifices of the many and the governance of the few. Disorder is humanity's greatest weakness. Consolidation of power and control is the solution.

Sinclair Enterprises continues to expand its reach into every corner of every mind and market. The latest venture he announced was a project that evolved his grandfather's clandestine genetic research into Project Genesis, a program intended to preserve the genetic blueprints of mankind to protect biodiversity in the event of inevitable manmade disaster. It was inevitable at this rate. The only question was: how? Mutually assured destruction via nuclear warheads? The complete elimination of our abilities to reproduce until every last one of us dies out?

With Project Genesis, we'll all be able to store our genetic code to rebuild a new wave of humans. A do-over. Thanks to Damian Sinclair, humanity has a second chance to do better. And it goes without saying that Sinclair will only deploy the genetic bank in the event of catastrophe—that must be why he doesn't say it. We didn't really get to read the fine print.

He shares a lot with his foe: their icy blue eyes, the unwavering ambition, the computer engineering skills. Oh, and 100% of their DNA.

Adrian is Sinclair's clone, which he finds out one late night spent investigating at his employer, Sinclair Enterprises. Sinclair's grandfather executed Phase 1, which began to seed Sinclair clones throughout the planet. He himself finished the total replacement of natural humanity, as the last non-clone died quietly in a secret government cell last year. Adrian uncovers the dark truth. And Sinclair hates him for it. Hates him for defying his programming.

All Sinclair wants to do is erase imperfection and unpredictability from the world. He could've followed through with his vision if it weren't for the foolish meddling of one young man grappling with his identity. He could've cemented his legacy, ensuring his influence persisted even after his death. But this junior engineer is hard to evade and even harder to catch.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This is my original character from my unpublished novel, Legacy.exe. Find chapter 1 on my profile.

find a place in your heart for hate find a place in your heart for all that you hate your heart is a big place there aren't just chambers there it's eternity in there ...encase it...enfold it...that's how you overcome..if you accept them into your heart they can never hurt you...that's the secret..that's the trick...don't hate just love..but if they hurt you or your family be terrible like a swift wind...like a storm above the sea..never lay down..never submit..always fight...that is heart..a rapacious thing.Heart.

Standing in the rain

Drizzle to deluge

Panhandling

To deep sea fishing

For souls

Harvesting soggy morsels

Of philosophical discourse

Colored with

Blue light specials

Worn by beings

Dancing on the far shore

Soaked with angst

In the watery garden

Absurdly harvesting outcomes

In this existential café

Today my sister called me a girl

There was a shock

as if the whole world had faded in an instant

then I had to drive

and pretend like nothing had happened

because, in everyone else's eyes, nothing did.

Start, stop, start, stop...

but never on, off, as it were

that is how we are, not object

and God gives permission

for thoughts to wander,

Ribbons grow arms, legs

reconfigure themselves

in parallel... wrapped

Word and its problems,

falling in, over again

A pain no one

Understands

Like an itch

You can’t scratch

A problem no one

Wants to face

Yet I must deal with it

On a day to day

Minute by minute

Unrelenting basis

It’s my own fault

Good decision

Bad decision

That’s inconsequential

As the years pile on

The self inflicted

Soul crushing pain

Only I can feel

I have become

Devoid of hope

One would think

There is no

Foreseeable solution

Other than escape

But I’m no coward

And as Camus said

“…in the end

one needs more courage

to live than to

kill himself.”

Within the lucidity

Of my existence

The only logical choice

In an absurd life

Is to suffer

The consequences

Of my choices