Salutations!
The year is coming to a close and I am celebrating my second year at OMSI, it's crazy to me that it's been so long. In some ways it still feels really new.
In other news, I am still single, which seems strange to me, but it's true.
I try to get out to the coast as much as I can.
Here is a story I did for my writing club. It's kinda long but I liked it and found it helpful and therapeutic to write. :)
It's not super edited, and there is a lot of sort of subtle hints of my feelings and thoughts sprinkled throughout.
I just ate a whole chocolate bar.
Woah.
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Chapter One, The Girl and The Sea
She swam across such a wide, turquoise expanse, her little arms growing wearier by the stroke. It was early morning, she could tell from the way the sun peeked through the the curtain of darkness, sparkly streaks of dawn littering the sky like broken shards of mirror scattered across the sidewalk. She imagined the world of old, ritual dances and sacred shamans, there was no place for that now. There was just water now, invading the earth with its ruthless but dispassionate will. There is no separation between the earth and the sky, and at any moment we could fall into one from other. Carelessly flapping our wings or stroking our fins in the gray twilight. What matters now?
In the presence of the great love she was left speechless, too young to tell the difference between leviathans and puffer fish. To sink deeply is to know truth in a way that only fires know. To capture the prize, she must pull herself up to the zenith, ah! But the target keeps on changing my dears! Tis noble to practice sweet surrender because you'll never know when it will come in handy. In the back of her mind she believed true love to be eternal, and equally, though perhaps more unfortunately, also unrecognizable.
She remembered a place she never knew, and her mind travelled to it, she was standing in the kitchen, blue gingham curtains and wooden, uneven floor boards. She reached a glass from the cupboard and set it in the counter. She opened the drawer and grabbed a short stubby spoon and out of another cupboard she pulled down a cylindrical container with the caricature of a young blonde woman on it. Opening it she scooped out two heaping spoonfuls of brown powder into the glass and then grabbed some milk from the fridge and poured it into the cup.
She stirred.
I will move my pawn to block your bishop, she thought, opening her eyes slightly squinting at the increasing sunlight. She bobbed in the water, loosing the stamina she imagined she possessed. The water was salty, she licked her lips and couldn't tell her spit from sea water, she pushed on up and down in constant fluid motions, arching her back and slipping in and out of thought.
She thought of him, bright light in her world. Fourth of July type of bright, singing angels kind of light. The past makes for good recollection, in times of dry good thoughts like mana rain down from a yet to be identified nether region of the brain. The sweetness, she thought she dare not repeat to any one, except for the person that inspired it. Who knows how things are meant to play out? Futures are written in real time.
All of a sudden, she noticed a metallic shimmer some hundred yards away, what could it be she though, all the way out here? And she swam cautiously towards it.
Chapter two, The King and the Coral Castle
King Symon set down his trident for a moment, looked at Calliope straight in the eye and said "you just can't trust everyone you know, sometimes things and most people aren't all that they seem". She nodded as if she understood precisely what he meant but was really actually intently focused on devouring the rest of the salt water whiskey bonbons she had been presented only a few moments ago. She took a big swig of peach lemonade from a cobalt blue glass goblet and thought this was probably the strangest day of her whole life. Never in a million years would she have imagined that the metallic shimmer she had encountered while swimming a mere hours ago would have turned out to be a door to an underwater kingdom. Even less so that its denizens would have been so friendly and that she would be taken to meet the king at once, all the way being fed delicious treats after she had been dried off and fashioned with new clothes just her size. King Symon was an enormous sunfish, so fat he had to be propped up on his side by pillows, atop his dorsal fin was perched a golden crown made of bright red and yellow coral. He looked earnest and kind, if not somewhat deluded,"The true nature of things, the purest and most real form," he went on "is directly in correlation with their ability to be perceived not as they are, but as we imagine them to be". Calliope couldn't really understand what the king was talking about, how could something not be what it was unless it was seen? He kept talking despite her confused looks, or perhaps because of them, "complacency is the mind killer, the soul that bathes in drudgery shall never shine, mental mediocracy is an intolerable crime". As he talked she imagined his flesh turning greener than the inside of a ripe avocado, and she had to look away to keep from giggling at the thought.
She looked around at the Kings court and examined the hodgepodge of characters all performing unique and seemingly meaningless tasks. A sea horse in knight armor stood in the corner twirling a huge staff, a trio of hermit crabs dressed in geisha costumes were fanning themselves feverishly, a pair of lion fish with top hats and monocled peering at her sheepishly, blowing bubbles out of toy pipes fashioned out of shells. It didn't really seem as if anyone had any real thing to do, but they all seemed utterly consumed by the things they were doing. She glanced up to the ceiling of the cavern and there was a giant octopus with angler fish gripped at each of the eight tentacles. This place is pretty odd, Calliope thought, "and as I was saying, the veil to reality will only be lifted by relinquishing our adherence to habit and mediocracy", when she looked back at him she realized that was the concluding sentence and she was being ushered out to great hallway by the seahorse Knights. "Be well my dear!" The king called out at her, "remember to lift the veil!"
The heavy coral doors closed behind her and she found herself alone in a great hallway with many doors.
Chapter Three, The Door behind which Time Stood Still
As Calliope walked down the long hallway she marveled at the different types of doors, wooden ones with paint chipping off, huge slate grey steal ones, smaller ones lined with actual rose petals that seemed to be throbbing as she passed by. She was thinking about which door to try first and if she had to stick with the door she chose or if she would be able to return, she wondered how deep each one of these doors went and if there were interesting creatures to meet on the other side. She came upon a door that seemed to be made entirely out of the wings of blue morpho butterflies, and if her eyes weren't playing tricks on her, which was entirely possible considering the state of things, the wings were moving though the door seemed to be completely stationary. This place defied all the logic she came with and she remembered the Kings advice to not trust anything, and that reality was actually a matter of habit. She kept walking past doors of all sorts and stopped in front of a door that comprised almost entirely of locks, she searched for a knob and finally found one disguised as a lock with a false front. She held on to it, it felt smooth and cold in her hand, she tugged at it and pushed it slightly till she determined that it would turn if she wanted it to. She stood back and looked behind her, the hallway was still completely desolate, she debated internally and decided to go for a door that was to the left of the lock door. This one was made of a glowing screen where an image of a white picket fence was being projected on repeat as if one was running past it in a car, she turned the brass knob and peeked inside.
Inside the room was a single round white table with one small wooden chair next to it. Above the table there was a black lightbulb hanging, the light was not on so Calliope couldn't tell what color it was. The room was purple, there appeared to be velvet wallpaper on the walls and she thought it was empty until she saw a pair of clownfish hiding underneath the table, "hello?" she said as more of a question than a statement. One of the clownfish came out from under the table and said, "oh, hello, pardon me, I didn't see you come in" he helped the other clownfish up from the floor " also, most people knock before coming in to someone's house" said the other clownfish. "My name is Charles, and this is Veronia", Veronia curtsied "how may we be of service?" "Oh, I am sorry about barging in, I don't really know the customs around here. I was just talking to the king, and before that I was swimming for a long time, and I am dreadfully tired. But, won't you please tell me why you were both under the table?"
"Well," Charles said, "you see, there is only one seat at the table, and Veronia and I really want to be together, so we decided it would be best if we both sat underneath the table." Calliope was confused, "Can't you just get another chair?" she asked. "You can't just go out and get another chair deary", Veronia said, "these things take time to make, and there are many other folks who have no chairs at all, we mustn't be greedy, besides, the floor is rather cozy and we prefer to leave the chair open for guests." They stared at each other blankly for a few moments and then started to speak at the same time, "would you like to sit down?" and "I guess I'll be going now" stumbled out at once. "Very well then, have a good day" Charles said quickly and she found her self in the hall way again.
Well, at least now she knew she wasn't stuck in the door she chose, she thought. She went back to the doors with the locks on it, hmm, steam punky a bit, isn't it she thought. She twisted the knob, opened the door, and went inside. Inside the room there was a large wicker basket, big enough to hold five people, attached to it were ropes that hung from the ceiling. Calliope looked around the room and saw no one, she climbed into the basket and all of a sudden the door shut and the ceiling opened up to blue skies and an enormous bright red hot air balloon over head. The hot air balloon took off and Calliope found herself soaring high above the country side. "How is it possible that I am flying over the countryside in a hot air balloon, inside of a castle, under the sea?" She thought. She looked up again and this time the balloon was actually a man o war jellyfish with bright purple tentacles wrapped around what she now realized was a basket made of seaweed, not wicker. The jellyfish whispered to her sweetly, "Time does not cross that threshold," pointing with a shimmering tentacle to the lock door below "where you are now, you are still. Nothing happens or does not happen here. There is pause from the great hurried ness of existence."
Calliope sat for a moment taking it all in, not just the fact that she was in basket made of seaweed being talked to by a giant jelly fish floating over who knows where, but all of it, her day, her week, her whole life. She thought about all the bliss and suffering of the world, the sleepless nights and all the yearning in the thousands of beating hearts that ache for a place to call home. She felt surprisingly peaceful at once and all over her, soothing her insides like honey on a sore throat. She looked up at the jelly fish and said "can you take me home?" The jellyfish made a sound kind of like a xylophone being played and said, "no, but I can tell you who can..." There was a long pause.
"Well, who?"
"Steve" said the jellyfish as it deposited her back into the room and closed the ceiling, "Wait, Steve who?" But before she could finish her sentence the room was back as it was and she was at the front of the lock door.
Chapter Four, Resolution & Red Roses
Calliope was starting to get a little desperate, she couldn't tell where she had come from anymore and all the doors seemed equally as not conducive to finding her way out of this place. While she hadn't really worried about getting home per say, she did want to think it was within her control to decide to do so if she pleased. She started skipping down the hallway, at the end of the way, she saw, in the distance a looming figure. She couldn't really make it out, but she started yelling, "Hey! Hey you!" The figure seemed to rustle a bit with acknowledgement but didn't respond. By the time Calliope finally made it to the figure, she was out of breath. The huge creature turned around and faced her, she bristled at the figure's imposing sleek features and toothy grin, he said "Hello there, so nice to see one of your kind. What brings you to these parts".
She decided now was not the time for truth, "I am on a secret mission" she said "I have come to find myself, but first I must speak to Steve". The creature shook its broad head, "Steve is out to lunch" he said, "but he should be back soon, tell me about finding yourself. Why is it a secret?"
"I was on my way somewhere," Calliope said, "but then I took a wrong turn and I got lost. It's a secret because I pretend all the things I do are purposeful, and then I believe it so I have a happy life, because I agree with all my choices"
"So why bother to look for yourself then?" Said the hammerhead, "won't you just be as happy if you keep pretending?"
"No, the second something is no longer a choice then I can't pretend to exercise agency, and it's ruined. Where did Steve go for lunch?"
"I think he went out for a burrito at the truck just outside, he really likes the spicy carrots there. Hey, that makes sense what you said, about pretending your options are real and making the best out of life by accepting the consequences of your actions. I like that".
"Thanks" said Calliope "I learned it a long time ago."
"Well, you can take a seat here and wait for Steve. My name is Herman, I paint the roses red."
"I am Calliope, nice to meet you".
All this time, she thought it was the orca whales, not sharks who were responsible for the red roses.
I guess you can't believe everything you think.
Expect great things!
