... and skeptical of love,

Running late on the topic post

lacombe — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 15:19:56 GMT

I was out of state until 10pm last night -- because of a flight mishap, that's 8 hours later than planned. I'm going to do my best to get this up ASAP.

For Jewels

lacombe — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 16:10:52 GMT

Good day to all of you, my friends,

* Editors! Your edits are up! Thanks, as always, for keeping the flame alive!
* Readers! Read and vote here! There's some great stuff this week!
* Writers! The Week 3 topic is up! Check the thesaurus on that topic -- it's much more diverse than I thought.
* Supporters! Bardi needs your help with ROAR! Please stop by and see if you can lend a hand!

THIS IS IMPORTANT PLEASE HELP

lacombe — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 20:10:20 GMT

So my coworker and I are having a debate -- a philosophical discussion if you will. Is you were forced to choose, would you prefer to be a "Poopy Head" or a "Poopy Pants"?

My argument is that the Poopy Head is the higher functioning individual. He is not immediately repellent to others, and so long as he keeps his mouth shut. And yet, a Poopy HEAD is incapable of anything more than he is, whereas the Poopy Pants might find acceptance and love from an open-minded group of people.

So I leave this up to the swarming masses:

View Poll: Poopy Head Vs. Poopy Pants

Discussion is invited.

YES.

lacombe — Thu, 31 May 2012 20:45:24 GMT

I'm sorry, everyone, but I've decided that viewing this image is mandatory.

::: waves :::

lacombe — Tue, 29 May 2012 18:30:14 GMT

Hey everyone. Looks like I'm back again.

::: looks around :::

Does anyone still use this thing?

Brigit's Flame "All Stars", Week 2

lacombe — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 23:13:15 GMT

Last Wednesday, it snowed buckets. There was well over two feet on the ground.

I called in a personal day at work, then went back to bed. I slept late, saw that it was still snowing hard, and made myself breakfast. I poked around on YouTube for an hour or so.

At noon, the snow stopped, with reports that icy rain would start in at 2pm. I grabbed a snow shovel and -- in my pajama pants, coat, and t-shirt -- shoved my snow-covered door open to reveal the frigid white wilderness beyond. It wasn't until the door shut that I realized I'd locked myself out. "Well, I'm definitely committed to this now," I thought to myself. I assumed that sooner or later Roommate would see me shoveling and come to help, and I put it out of my mind.

Trudging out to the road, I figured that I might as well start where the ground was clear. The wind blew through my flannel pants -- that had been a stupid idea.

So there I was: Shovel all the snow, shovel it now. With the door locked, giving up meant admitting defeat to my roommate. Carpe' Rubbermaid, I suppose. :-)

It's been a long time since I've been in good physical shape, and I began to feel tired very quickly. The muscles in my hips, especially, began to complain. Rest, shovel, rest, shovel, rest. Only I didn't really let myself rest -- every time I stopped, there was this urgent need to go on -- to finish what I'd begun.

Why am I sharing this? Because while I was out shoveling snow, I recovered a small part of myself that I haven't seen in a long time -- the Me of Trials. The more I shoveled, the more determined I got to follow through, to power through this. Soon, I wasn't tired at all: I was clearing areas I hadn't planned on, inventing reasons to work on areas that could have gone without.

Eventually, my roommate joined me; together we piled the snow higher than our heads, cleared out around the mailbox, dug a path to our unused door, swept the porch, and shoveled a section of the driveway that we don't even use anymore. After that, I chiseled out sections of hardened, icy snow that had survived two previous snowfalls, just to be thorough.

When I was younger, this was me: I thrived on adversity, seeking out the things that no one else had the energy or willpower to do. People would tell me that I was nuts! I'd tackle meticulous tasks with glee, as if to prove to myself again and again how strong I was, how able I was to beat all hardships that the world could hurl at me. How I could overcome whatever I needed to in life.

But over the past decade, that spark has faded. My attitude towards the world has changed from "Bring it on, you bastards!" to "Thank you God for giving me challenges today that I can overcome." Either philosophy is perfectly defensible as a way of life. I'll take the former, please.

Ernest Hemingway once said, "If a man had something once, always something remains." So what's it going to take to bring that back into my life? What place must I bring myself to to transform myself from "one who survives" to "one who strives for what they believe in"? Having that within myself was once the single most important part of my identity -- and it kept me alive and thriving through many hard times.

I remember enviously the church that I attended when I was young. It had an old pastor, only a couple years from retirement, with a booming voice that could stir you to the very core. He would clench his fists and proclaim his defiance of the dark lord Satan, while shouting praises to the Lord as the congregation came to their feet, singing and moaning their worship of God.

Man, what I could do with my life if I still had their capacity to believe in something! I envy their ability to come in from the streets, blood alive with purpose, to be shaken by the low sounds of murmured prayers and tears of gratitude: gratitude that something -- anything -- was right, and invincible, and good, and true in this world.

It is because I feel no purpose, and no passion, that I cannot be moved. I have nothing to shout about, nothing to cry about, no one to murmur reverent thanks to. There is no clenched fist, no powerful, low sound, and no tears of gratitude within my potential. My heroes are dead, or their illusions have been shattered. I have no dreams. I believe in nothing. It's like I'm stuck in this video game -- only there's no purpose and no end. No direction.

And that, I believe, is the modern tragedy. The world turning gray, the food is becoming tasteless, and we are growing weaker every day. No one is held accountable. Those who sin are protected by armies of downtrodden wage slaves, walls of obscurity, and form-letter responses. The world is now built in systems: there is no room for heroes; the magnifying glass of the camera sees only scars and blemishes. The waters move slowly, and they crawl over our heads and pull us down. I live in a world full of things that I cannot make, cannot understand, and because of debt and lease, do not actually own.

How, then, can we make this giant stir? And why? And what is the giant? I have no answers.

Brigit's Flame "All Stars", Week 1

lacombe — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:41:37 GMT

Checking my closet right now, I can see that despite my deliberate and pointed neglect, I still have two of the facecloths left that my mother and her husband gave to me on my 18th Christmas. I keep them because I hate the thought of wasting something useful -- so I wait until I can find a good excuse to throw them out.

They were originally very nice towels -- dozens of them, with dragonfly patterns, moose silhouettes, colorful butterflies, and a hodgepodge others. Some of them were even meant for use in the White House before I received them. They had the official insignia sewn in on the top.

My mother thought I'd love them(I was moving into my new apartment) and at the time, I was still willing to put on appearances. I smiled and thanked her, then put them aside. I supposed I could find a use for them, at least.

The problem is this: They were stolen. Her husband -- who had failed me as a father figure my entire childhood -- had taken them from work, slipped them into his car, and brought them home to give me for Christmas. "Happy holidays, honey! Hope you're not still angry about our kicking you out of the house last February, when my husband told me that either you or he had to go."

The gifts my mother has given me each Christmas since then have been a testament to how small an effort she has made to know who I am or what I stand for. For example:

When I was in my early twenties and was exercising very hard to try to lose weight, I asked everyone in my family not to give me any candy or junk food. Everyone honored the request except for my mom, who gave me cookies, homemade chocolate pretzels, and a one-pound box of chocolates.

When I was living in my very small three-room apartment with my girlfriend, I let everyone know that I had very little storage space and no room for any large kitchen items. For the three consecutive years that I lived there, I got a giant blender, a huge mixer with a big bowl, and a wok.

Mom knew I liked aquariums, so she had a vague idea that I must like fish in general. one year, I got a whole medley of "trout" items, including a trout stapler, trout notepad, and a trout bottle opener (I don't drink. Or fish.).

Anyone who knows me well knows I despite cell phones and will never own one unless my job requires me to carry one. She bought me a cell phone for Christmas. She refused to take it back, and she refused to return it to the store. I refused to touch it, and it sat where I put it for months. The following year, I had a friend that was very hard off for money, and I asked if she still had it in the house. She did, but she wouldn't let me have it back anymore.

This year, I received my third food processor for Christmas. It's in the basement. I'm considering giving it to my coworker who said she'd like it.

Just so I'm clear: The point isn't that I want great gifts for Christmas. The point is that I don't get a father, and I wish I could have a mother. My mother is more like... an aunt I see on holidays.

When I was very depressed and feeling constantly suicidal in 2007-2008, my grandparents would call me often to check up on me. My friends would also call on a regular basis, as would my fiancee' Jessi. One day, I went shopping after work and came home two hours later than usual. There were seven messages waiting for me, as Jessi and my friends Marion and Charlie became increasingly worried that something was wrong. I'd call in to work because I couldn't face the world, laying in bed all day. I'm come in to work and people would see the look on my face, come up and say "My God, Jacques! Is everything OK?" Mom would never call to see if I was OK.

I've always been very loyal to my Mom, but over the years, I've felt more and more deeply resentful to her. But a year ago, around the time when I proposed to Jessi, I felt that my feelings have been pushed to a new plateau.

It began when I was going to go ring shopping for her -- my mom was too busy to join me. She couldn't make it. Then, on the day when I was going to propose, I wanted to have a little family party to celebrate. Again, she told me she couldn't make it: her second husband's cousin was having a birthday party, and she couldn't miss it. On the phone with her, I said, "Mom, his cousin's going to have many birthday parties. I'm only getting engaged once." Finally, and after enormous effort and uncertainty, they found a way to attend both my engagement part and his cousin's birthday part at the last minute.

Two weeks later was Christmas morning, when my mother, whatever husband she has that year, my brother, and I celebrate a traditional Christmas morning -- just the four of us. This year, my mother decided to invite my brother's girlfriend, who he had been dating for several months. She threw her a full Christmas, giving her more gifts then either I or my brother received. She said she was like her daughter. Jessi, my fiancee', was not invited. Jessi received one small gift later on at my grandmother's house.

The last straw was this: After Jessi accepted the engagement, her mother sent wonderful cards to both my mom and my grandparents. Jessi's mom told them how happy she was that we were engaged, and how much she was looking forward to having them as part of the family. My grandparents were very happy to receive the letter, and they wrote back right away. My mom did not.

After a month without any response, I called and asked her to please write them back. She said she would soon, but she was very busy. I asked her every few weeks for the next couple months, and she always said the same thing.

Meanwhile, her Farmville plot flourished.

Finally, one day, my mom called me in tears. She was writing a paper for college, and she couldn't get Microsoft Word to open it. Over the phone, I calmed her down, then I patiently walked her through installing OpenOffice, converting the document, and accessing it. She was enormously grateful, thanking me many times for the help and saying she didn't know how she could ever repay me.

"Actually, I can think of one good way for you to repay me. You can write back to Jessi's parents."

One month later, and several increasingly angry calls later, she finally wrote them back.

Since then, I've just lost all faith in my mother for anything at all. When we did talk on the phone afterwards, I found that I was always angry -- so much so that I couldn't hold it back. Eventually, she told me that she was sick of talking to me when I was always angry, and she ended the phone call. When I changed my phone number a couple months later, I didn't give her the new number, and I ignored her e-mails asking for it.

Last November, I wrote to her and said I wouldn't be coming to her house on Christmas morning anymore -- that we could meet at my grandparent's and exchange a small gift with each other, but I didn't want anything more.

When I plan my wedding, she'll be invited, but I'm not going to have her involved in any of the preparations, planning, or arrangements. I know I can't count on her, and this is too important to let pass.

A line has been crossed, ultimately, that I don't think can be uncrossed. My mother can tell. She's redoubled her efforts in the last few months, and while I know it should make a difference, I feel no emotional stirrings from her efforts whatsoever. I'm pretty sure that I've permanently, and fundamentally, detached myself from her. It bothers me very much that I feel this way.

It's ironic that while pelethetart thinks of a loving story of her grandmother when she hears the phrase "Take the Cloth", the same words bring into my mind the stolen facecloths my mother gave me for Christmas more than 12 years ago -- and all the anger, frustration, and resentment that they stand for.

This Journal is Closed Indefinitely

lacombe — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:19:22 GMT

I'll probably still stop in to read your LJ posts from time to time.

Brigits Flame All Stars Entry - "Countdown"

lacombe — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:36:25 GMT

The Countdown

Shale Kistal had never tasted anything so revolting in her life. Oily, stale, and with a flavor that reminded her of stagnant bathwater, she found it oddly appropriate. This ale, like the bartender, the inn, and the entire damn town all had something in common: they disgusted her immensely.

Pushing the ale aside, she called out for hot water and pulled a satchel of herbs from her traveling pack, cursing to herself and the lean days that had brought her here. She tossed a black handful of her hair out of her face irritably. She'd never worked for so little-- especially with a wretched job like this.

The water came finally. Without bothering to taste it, Shale waved her hand over the cup, sprinkling a pinch of powder and whispering an arcane word. The water shimmered as the magic purified it. Adding herbs, she wiped the edge of the cup with a cloth and drank slowly. Not so good as ale, she thought, but it would do.

Despite her misgivings, Shale had known that she would have taken this job even when times were not so lean. She remembered the burning young eyes of that haggard widow, and before she'd spoken, Shale had already accepted the mission in her heart.

"You're not from around here." Shale looked up, startled. Next to her sat a tall, thin man with dark hair and startling green eyes. A wry grin flashed across his face as she looked over, as if he already knew that she wasn't used to being taken off guard.

"What makes you say that?" Shale hit him with her fiercest, most piercing look, but it just made his grin widen and his eyes twinkle.

"Because," he said, glancing around the room significantly, "you struck me as pleasantly out of place here."

Shale's eyes wandered down to his open white tunic, billowy black trousers, and merlot traveler's cloak with an acquiescent grin. "I'd hardly say that you blend in yourself, sir."

"Not when I don't want to," he said with a laugh, and leaned back in his chair. He suddenly grew serious, and looked hard at her. "What's brought you here?"

Suddenly suspicious, Shale fixed him with a long, studying gaze. "Work. The caves."

His smile returned again instantly, and he waved for new drinks. "Ah,then you're here to kill the Kumo. You're going to need some help. Lucky for you I just happen to be here looking for work myself."

Her head tilted with ire. Suddenly, the point of this little chat was becoming clear. "And what makes you think you'd be of any help?"

The bartender arrived almost immediately, carrying two cups of a wine that was well beyond anything she'd received earlier. Surprised, Shale picked up the cup, but he took it from her hand. "Because," he said, as a white cloth materialized in his hand, "I too am much more than I seem." He wiped the rim of the glass and set it down. As he did, he took her hand, kissing it and looking into her eyes. "Lukado Luminesti."

She let her hand linger. "Shale Kistal."

* * *

Clean, sweet-smelling sheets. After all these weeks, Shale couldn't believe it. She rolled on her back, looked up at the ceiling, and sighed. This was the first peace she'd felt since she'd left on this job. After a moment, she felt Lukado's wandering hands dancing on her skin, sending electric jolts of arousal and pleasure through her. She laughed spontaneously.

"You're full of surprises, you know that?" Lukado chuckled and rolled over to her, but she held him back, reluctantly, with one arm. "No, really, it wasn't natural. I could feel everything you felt. What did you do?"

Lukado nestled forward again, kissing her neck and sidling up to her. His hand wandered once more, and she nestled back to enjoy the sensations with a pleasurable groan. Lukado chuckled into her hair at this and lifted his head to look into her face. His eyes were bright with mischief as he shifted once more, causing her to gasp with pleasure. "You like it?"

Her eyes mirrored his good mood as she understood. "It's magic."

Lukado smiled. "In the flesh."

* * *

Long, lazy beams of morning sunlight stretched forth to touch their faces, waking them slowly with their caress. Shale woke and crawled forth, resting her head on Lukado's chest. Lukado slid his hand down her side, resting it on her hip. Shale closed her eyes and hummed happily to herself.

"Are you happy, lovely one?"

"I'm listening to your heart."

"You mean my countdown."

Shale turned her face to his and gave a questioning look.

"You see it as a heartbeat. Like I'm still going forward so long as my heart beats. But I see it as a countdown. I start with so many heartbeats, and I'm counting down to the end."

"Well, sure, that's true, but what a horrible way to see it!"

Lukado gave her that smile once again. "Not at all. It just helps me remember that each heartbeat is too valuable to waste."

"Lukado…"

"Yes?"

"I can't pay you well for your help. I'm hardly being paid for this myself."

A pause. "Hmm… business. Well, It's feeling pretty warm in here."

"Warm?"

"Yes… I'm thinking… seventy?"

Understanding suddenly, Shale laughed again. "Oh, no, definitely not. I'm feeling much colder. Maybe… twenty?"

"Now that's just silly. It's at least sixty."

"Lukado, it 's my job! I worked to get this! And I've been stalking this thing for weeks. You can have thirty."

"Fifty."

"Forty"

"Forty five."

Shale's heart sank. She'd be losing money on this one, but she knew she needed help. "Fine."

"Plus a little something on the side," Lukado said, rolling over to her once again with a grin. She smacked him in the face with a pillow.

* * *

The light of day could do nothing to cheer the cave's entrance that stood before them. The mouth of the cave was enshrouded in a malodorous fog , which seeped outwards to the battered foliage surrounding the cave's mouth. Drops of poison had burned the ground around the entrance, and poisoned remains of victims lay about the area. The entrance itself was tremendously large- bigger than a house. Much of it was covered in tattered webbing, which had helped to conceal the cave's size by collecting leaves and other debris. Standing before this, Shale couldn't help but shudder.

"Lukado, you do know what we're getting in to here, right?"

Lukado looked away, distracted. "Yeah, something about a big spider we're squashing."

Shale narrowed her eyes. "Lukado, this is more than just a big spider. I was tracking a Kumo to its lair. We need to be extremely careful if we're going to come out alive."

Lukado was unimpressed. "Why worry? Worrying brings you nothing."

Shale gritted her teeth. "Because," she said slowly, "If we're not careful, we'll die."

"Then we die. Getting upset just makes your heart beat faster, and you know what that does…"

Shale blinked. "What?"

"Wastes your countdown."

Shale opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. Clenching her jaw, she strode forth and into the cave.

What Shale saw wasn't nearly what she had expected. Other from being littered with webbing, the inside of the cave was quite beautiful. The walls were created with smooth, carefully chiseled stone and decorated with paint and inscriptions in an ancient, forgotten language. Tiny spiders lived throughout the cave, with strange webs that held a glowing orb of magic at their center. Collectively, these webs kept the cave bright enough to see. No dirt or debris littered the floor, and statues of ancient men with swan's wings stood fifteen feet tall in rows down the length of the cave. This was a place of old and enormous power.

Shale and Lukado had walked down the long, curving passage for perhaps ten minutes, when suddenly the cave opened up dramatically, creating a large bowl-shaped cavern. At the far end, two enormous iron doors hung battered and broken on their hinges- each one at least three hundred feet tall. Shale sucked in her breath when she saw it.

"Lukado, it's incredible. You could sail a ship through those doors! I can't believe that no one's found this place before!"

When there was no answer, she looked back. Lukado was gone. Shale spat on the floor.

"So much for taking it easy…"

Shale turned to go back, and stopped in surprise. The passage leading in was gone! She searched the wall for magical runes or traps and found none. She pawed frantically for hidden levers, trap doors, anything at all…

Finally, without any other options, she faced the giant iron doors.

Beyond the doors, she saw a sight so powerful that she had to steady herself against the wall. An enormous cavern lay before her, lit brightly by the same spider webs she'd seen on the way in. It spanned for miles around, housing the ruins of an ancient crumbling city. Stone archways and pillars stood in decay among crippled stone houses and mansions.

Spanning the width of the city, anchored on walls, stalagmites and buildings, was a tremendous web. It was as beautiful as it was terrible, with powerful, corded threads creating an elaborate tapestry that took her breath away. Instead of the spiral or haphazardness of most webs, it was formed into an enormous latticework art form. Each piece of the web told a tale of history, mythical creatures, and wonder. Shale thought that, were she to look long enough, she might find the history of the world told in the pictures before her.

Then, something in the center of the web struck her heart: there, struggling helplessly, was a brilliant white winged horse. She strained her ears and heard its desperate, wild cries as it thrashed about in the web, three of its legs and both wings caught already. Its mouth foamed with its panic. Shale's eyes narrowed.

"It's not coming to take its prey. It knows I'm here."

Shale stepped back then, and looked around. With so many houses and crevices, even an enormous Kumo could easily hide, especially one as smart as this. Looking down, Shale saw that the floor was covered with a blanket of thin webs, probably laid to sense the vibration of feet as they traveled. No matter where she went, Shale knew, it would know.

With no other option, she stepped forward, walking down a stone staircase into the dead city. She decided to head to what looked like the city's center. She didn't know what she expected to find, but a sixth sense she'd come to depend on told her that she would find something there.

Every step she took pushed her nerves closer to the edge. Smaller spiders of all shapes and colors swarmed webs around her, bustling with activity. Grisly, withered prizes hung from nets all around her: fairies, enormous centipedes, gremlins, and the hulking, putrid body of an enormous python, which dangled like a pendulum, swaying back and forth. Shale's heart raced, and she remembered Lukado's words grimly.

"Tick tock," she muttered grimly to herself.

In time, her march of death ended, and she reached the center of the city. There, hanging in the center of the city, she saw a long, black, body swaying back and forth. It had the body of a spider, with an enormous black stinger and eight limp arms dangling down. In the center of its body sprouted the body of a man, shrunken and withered as everything else in this place. Its skin was sallow and leathery; one of its arms had been bent back and broken nearly entirely off. It was entirely naked, and its long, flaccid penis dangled dead and obscene from its body. Black blood covered the floor, dried in deep pools and soaked into the concrete. Its face was skeletal, with red eyes fixed in terror and peering at nothing.

It's dead! What had killed her target? Shale's stomach twisted, and she turned away.

As she turned, she came face to face with something that would become the apparition of her nightmares for the rest of her life. Towering over her was an enormous spider, at least twice the size of the one she'd just witnessed. This one gleamed like the body of a black widow, and out of it sprouted the lithe, beautiful body of a black haired woman. She had penetrating black eyes and long hair that gleamed in the light of the spider orbs around her. Her body was long and muscular, and her hands were cruelly shaped, with each finger ending in a black, vicious nail. Shale shook with fear and took a step back.

Looking down at her curiously, the woman's mouth spoke in her language. "What have you brought me today, child?" The creature's eyes held Shale, and she stood spellbound.

"I… I came to kill you."

Anger flashed across its face, but it was soon replaced by amusement. "Really… alone?"

"N… no, highness." Shale fought for control, but she couldn't stop talking. "Another came with me, but he abandoned me at the entrance."

The thing laughed then, a strident, powerful laugh that rang off the edges of the cave. "You believe that, do you? No, he did not leave you, Little One." Suddenly, one of her legs shot out, viper quick, and caught at nothing. There was a surprised cry, and Lukado appeared, desperately trying to pry loose the pincer that was clenched around his neck. The creature laughed again and raised another leg to club him.

Shale found that she could move, so she reached quickly for her pouch. She grabbed a small potion and threw it desperately at the creature's torso. It exploded on contact, tearing a large, bleeding hole in the creature's fleshy human chest. The creature let out a piercing wail and threw Lukado to the ground, stinging him once before turning to Shale. Lukado howled with pain and slumped to the earth. As the creature turned, Shale was ready. She threw another potion from her vial at one of its legs. The potion broke open, changing part of the creature's leg to stone. The creature wailed once more, attempting to charge at her and breaking its leg away in the process. Shielding her eyes, Shale threw a third potion into the ground. It burst in a brilliant light-- one that blinded the Kumo's dark eyes.

Shale used the moment to run to Lukado, who lay, pale and vomiting, on the ground.

"Drink this-- it will heal you." Shale said, thrusting a potion into his hand. Lukado took the potion and thrust his other hand past her head, shouting arcane words. A bolt of fire sprung from his hands into the Kumo, who had come up behind her. It cried out furiously and batted at Shale with one leg, delivering a glancing blow to her head.

Shale shook her head, thinking. It found me from my vibrations! Stupid!

Shale stood slowly, head spinning. The spider was upon her again, clubbing her in the stomach. Shale staggered backwards, collapsing into a section of web. Frantically, she reached into her pouch, grasping three potions and blindly throwing them in the spider's direction. One potion shattered harmlessly against its black body. The second exploded, releasing a detonating noise that shook the cavern. The third released a potent acid on its body, melting away its outer carapace. Ignoring the pain, the creature charged on, beating Shale with its front legs again. The woman's face on its body was twisted with fury and rage, screaming at her in a horrid human voice. Shale's body was flung back and forth with each blow, and she hung limply on the web.

Then Lukado was on his feet, shouting words in the language of magic. Bolts of magic flew from his fingers, lancing through the air to pummel the creature from behind. It turned to look at him, and Shale hefted her entire potion satchel, throwing it towards the Kumo with the last of her strength. Shale's vision went dark before the satchel landed. She heard an eruption from somewhere far away, and then everything left her.

* * *

When Shale awoke, she'd forgotten where she was for a moment. Then she saw the remains of the Kumo, and her memories raced back to her. She moved to stand, but she found herself still attached to the web, with cords that were far too strong to break on her own. Taking her knife, she sawed her clothing off and cut her long hair away from the web. Free of the web, she hobbled to Lukado and checked for a pulse. He was still alive. Pulling his cape away, she covered her body as best she could, hoisted him over her shoulders, and walked, painfully, out of the cavern.

On the way out, she stopped to cut free the stingers of the two Kumo-- proof that her job was completed.

* * *

"Share that wine with a battered old man, woman!" Lukado, with laughing eyes once more, was draped, naked, in her bed.

"Get it yourself, old man. You're no cripple." Shale sipped the wine and turned to the washbasin, washing her face.

Lukado laughed, standing up. "I think I liked you better when I was cripped."

"Well, things were different back then."

"And how is that, my lovely lady?"

"That was before I found out you were cheating me."

"Cheating? No, no, lovely lady. Being paid twice for the same job is merely good business. I never asked for money from you, I simply didn't refuse it when you offered." Lukado tried to kiss her hand, but she pulled it away.

"You were paid three times! Once by me, once by the man who hired you to kill the Kumo yourself, and then again for the eggs!"

"Ah, good business as well. Who would have known I could make so much selling the Kumo's eggs?"

Shale laughed. "Well, then, at the very least, I can be angry for you disappearing on me." Shale glare towards the bed at him, but was surprised to find he wasn't there.

Lukado came up behind her, folding his arms around her and pressing up against her. He chuckled at her startled gasp. "Well, one of us had to be the bait, no?"

"Lukado, I could have died!"

"Worry not, my lovely. We're not creatures that were born to worry. It's all just part of the countdown."

Shale gave in then, and turned to embrace him. Taking their glasses of wine, the slipped into bed. "You're impossible," Shale said, wrapping the sheet around her seductively and blowing out her candle. "Well, then grant me this. No more illusions for tonight."

Lukado grinned widely and downed his wine in one gulp. "Fair enough, my lovely. No more illusions."

He blew out the candle.

Found Poetry: Protection and Preservation

lacombe — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:04:03 GMT

Protection and Preservation

A would-be terrorist
tries
to board a plane.

As he walks through a security checkpoint,
a network
of high-tech machines read his mind.

Screeners pull him aside.

In the never-ending race to protect our country:
highly sophisticated sensors,
more intensive interrogations,
lie detectors,
strip searches,
unfolding socks,
squeezing toothpaste,
scans of facial movements and pupil dilation,
screeners trained in human behavior,
Painstaking searches and interrogations,
a lifting of the U.S. prohibitions against profiling.

-We See You-

Troubling questions about civil liberties.
All are costly.
Orwellian.

"All must look to Israel and learn from them."

Tragedy is averted.

Mind-reading systems could change air security
By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Writer Michael Tarm, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 8, 6:22 am ET

CHICAGO – A would-be terrorist tries to board a plane, bent on mass murder. As he walks through a security checkpoint, fidgeting and glancing around, a network of high-tech machines analyzes his body language and reads his mind.

Screeners pull him aside.

Tragedy is averted.

As far-fetched as that sounds, systems that aim to get inside an evildoer's head are among the proposals floated by security experts thinking beyond the X-ray machines and metal detectors used on millions of passengers and bags each year.

On Thursday, in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt over Detroit, President Barack Obama called on Homeland Security and the Energy Department to develop better screening technology, warning: "In the never-ending race to protect our country, we have to stay one step ahead of a nimble adversary."

The ideas that have been offered by security experts for staying one step ahead include highly sophisticated sensors, more intensive interrogations of travelers by screeners trained in human behavior, and a lifting of the U.S. prohibitions against profiling.

Some of the more unusual ideas are already being tested. Some aren't being given any serious consideration. Many raise troubling questions about civil liberties. All are costly.

"Regulators need to accept that the current approach is outdated," said Philip Baum, editor of the London-based magazine Aviation Security International. "It may have responded to the threats of the 1960s, but it doesn't respond to the threats of the 21st century."

Here's a look at some of the ideas that could shape the future of airline security:

___

MIND READERS

The aim of one company that blends high technology and behavioral psychology is hinted at in its name, WeCU — as in "We See You."

The system that Israeli-based WeCU Technologies has devised and is testing in Israel projects images onto airport screens, such as symbols associated with a certain terrorist group or some other image only a would-be terrorist would recognize, said company CEO Ehud Givon.

The logic is that people can't help reacting, even if only subtly, to familiar images that suddenly appear in unfamiliar places. If you strolled through an airport and saw a picture of your mother, Givon explained, you couldn't help but respond.

The reaction could be a darting of the eyes, an increased heartbeat, a nervous twitch or faster breathing, he said.

The WeCU system would use humans to do some of the observing but would rely mostly on hidden cameras or sensors that can detect a slight rise in body temperature and heart rate. Far more sensitive devices under development that can take such measurements from a distance would be incorporated later.

If the sensors picked up a suspicious reaction, the traveler could be pulled out of line for further screening.

"One by one, you can screen out from the flow of people those with specific malicious intent," Givon said.

Some critics have expressed horror at the approach, calling it Orwellian and akin to "brain fingerprinting."

For civil libertarians, attempting to read a person's thoughts comes uncomfortably close to the future world depicted in the movie "Minority Report," where a policeman played by Tom Cruise targets people for "pre-crimes," or merely thinking about breaking the law.

___

LIE DETECTORS

One system being studied by Homeland Security is called the Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST, and works like a souped-up polygraph.

It would subject people pulled aside for additional screening to a battery of tests, including scans of facial movements and pupil dilation, for signs of deception. Small platforms similar to the balancing boards used in the Nintendo Wii would help detect fidgeting.

At a public demonstration of the system in Boston last year, project manager Robert Burns explained that people who harbor ill will display involuntary physiological reactions that others — such as those who are stressed out for ordinary reasons, such as being late for a plane — don't.

The system could be made to work passively, scanning people as they walk through a security line, according to Burns.

Field testing of the system, which will cost around $20 million to develop, could begin in 2011, The Boston Globe said in a story about the demonstration. Addressing one concern of civil libertarians, Burns said the technology would delete data after each screening.

___

THE ISRAELI MODEL

Some say the U.S. should take a page from Israel's book on security.

At Israeli airports, widely considered the most secure in the world, travelers are subjected to probing personal questions as screeners look them straight in the eye for signs of deception. Searches are meticulous, with screeners often scrutinizing every item in a bag, unfolding socks, squeezing toothpaste and flipping through books.

"All must look to Israel and learn from them. This is not a post-911 thing for them. They've been doing this since 1956," said Michael Goldberg, president of New York-based IDO Security Inc., which developed a device that can scan shoes while they are still on people's feet.

Israel also employs profiling: At Ben-Gurion Airport, Jewish Israelis typically pass through smoothly, while others may be taken aside for closer interrogation or even strip searches. Another distinquishing feature of Israeli airports is that they rely on concentric security rings that start miles from terminal buildings.

Rafi Ron, the former security director at Israel's famously tight Ben Gurion International Airport who now is a consultant for Boston's Logan International Airport, says U.S. airports also need to be careful not to overcommit to securing passenger entry points at airports, forgetting about the rest of the field.

"Don't invest all your efforts on the front door and leave the back door open," said Ron.

While many experts agree the United States could adopt some Israeli methods, few believe the overall model would work here, in part because of the sheer number of U.S. airports — more than 400, versus half a dozen in Israel.

Also, the painstaking searches and interrogations would create delays that could bring U.S. air traffic to a standstill. And many Americans would find the often intrusive and intimidating Israeli approach repugnant.

___

PROFILING

Some argue that policies against profiling undermine security.

Baum, who is also managing director of Green Light Limited, a London-based aviation security company, agrees profiling based on race and religion is counterproductive and should be avoided. But he argues that a reluctance to distinguish travelers on other grounds — such as their general appearance or their mannerisms — is not only foolhardy but dangerous.

"When you see a typical family — dressed like a family, acts like a family, interacts with each other like a family ... when their passport details match — then let's get them through," he said. "Stop wasting time that would be much better spent screening the people that we've get more concerns about."

U.S. authorities prohibit profiling of passengers based on ethnicity, religion or national origin. Current procedures call for travelers to be randomly pulled out of line for further screening.

Scrutinizing 80-year-old grandmothers or students because they might be carrying school scissors can defy common sense, Baum said.

"We need to use the human brain — which is the best technology of them all," he said.

But any move to relax prohibitions against profiling in the U.S. would surely trigger fierce resistance, including legal challenges by privacy advocates.

___

PRIVATIZATION

What if security were left to somebody other than the federal government?

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Washington-based Cato Institute, a free-market-oriented think tank, says airlines should be allowed take charge of security at airports.

Especially since 9/11, the trend has been toward standardizing security procedures to ensure all airports follow the best practices. But Harper argues that decentralizing the responsibility would result in a mix of approaches — thereby making it harder for terrorists to use a single template in planning attacks.

"Passengers, too, prefer a uniform experience," he said. "But that's not necessarily the best security. It's better if sometimes we take your laptop out, sometimes we'll pat you down. Those are things that will really drive a terrorist batty — as if they're not batty already."

Harper concedes that privatizing airport security is probably wishful thinking, and the idea has not gotten any traction. He acknowledges it would be difficult to allay fears of gaping security holes if it were left to each airline or airport owner to decide its own approach.

___

AP writers Glen Johnson in Boston and Josef Federman in Jerusalem also contributed to this report.

Brigits Flame: Week 1 Entry: Topic-- Instep

lacombe — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:30:30 GMT

Entry for Brigits Flame this week.

The Song of Clacking Beetle

In the village where I come from, what’s worn on the feet foretells your status. The poorest in my village, who have no shoes, will often bind their feet with woven grasses or pieces of tied-together bamboo. Other of my people have chosen to go barefoot, racing through the streets in a blur of nut-brown legs. Before his assassination, our emperor was known to wear extravagant gold bracers and long, elegant suede boots lined with hammered silver. But those were stories I never believed.

As Clacking Beetle, the daughter of the village’s medicine man and firstborn of Bilhah, the eldest woman in our village, I belonged to a family that was wealthy enough that I could afford to buy a pair of wooden sandals. Father had told me I must first wait until I showed womanly blood before such a purchase was possible. Otherwise, my small feet would grow far too quickly for such an extravagance.

I took pride that I earned the money for those sandals myself. Since I could walk, I worked as my father’s apprentice, saving everything I earned while Father taught me mysteries of magic and strange medicines in his bamboo tent. I was his ablest student, learning faster than all my sisters and brothers. Even before I’d come of age, Father would send me off to heal others on my own during the night.

One especially long night of gasps, smoke, and afterbirth ended with my saving the lives of a cobbler’s wife and child from the castle nearby. His gratitude, plus my life’s savings, were just enough for a secondhand pair of carved wooden sandals that were three sizes too large. The sight of them in my hands took my breath away- this was the first tree wood I’d ever seen.

When I returned home with the sandals, Father was furious with me. I hung my head as he lectured, but it was only to hang my hair over my smile. I knew that my father loved me best of all, and that he would forgive me in time. As soon as he left me alone, I ran outside and put my sandals on, stuffing the extra space around the leather straps with sowthisle grass. I embarrassed my father by proudly tromping through the village for many days, carefully avoiding the big mud puddles in the center of the village. Each night, I polished the dark, carved wood with mint oil. I loved them so much that I’d almost named them.

It wasn’t until I was much older and taller, having already grown into my sandals properly, that I learned to regret my foolish spending. The times after my purchase had been lean ones, and I never knew the wealth of my childhood again. Mother, who’d grown weak with old age, was stung at the well one morning by a jeweled mantis, and she’d laid there the entire morning before we found her. The toxins had spread quickly from the instep of her foot upwards through her leg, leaving swollen, purple veins. There was but two cures: to remove the leg, or to create a medicine to save her. One ingredient for the medicine-- the skin of a phoenix toad-- was exceptionally rare and expensive. Father and I knew well that my old mother could never survive the loss of her leg.

The next morning, the village mourned her death even as she lived. Men and women came to pay their condolences to her face, and my poor mother grew fearful and angry with them. I soon lost my temper, and, grabbing a length of bamboo, I chased them, screaming, from our tent. I cursed the ground around our home, and the villagers knew to stay away.

Without the villagers to rouse mother, she grew very pale, and neither Father’s magic nor his medicine would help. Father's spirit seemed to pass with her, and he curled into a ball beside her bed, tucking his head into his long hands. All of our family’s wealth together was not enough to make the medicine we needed, and while no one spoke of it, I burned with shame for the sandals on my feet. For their comfort, I knew my mother would die.

I was still young enough that I believed there was nothing in the world so powerful as Father’s quiet magic, except perhaps my own. It was with this belief in mind that that evening, when our tent was quiet, save for the grunts and wheezing breaths of Mother, that I decided I must act. I knew it was my time.

I brought forth a long stick of cinnamon, and I wrapped one hair around it from my mother, father, and younger brother, who still lived with us. Humming magic words softly to myself, I built a small fire out of mango leaves, and placed the end of the cinnamon into the blaze. For as long as it burned, I knew, even Father would be bound to his sleep. Father had taught me well.

Taking Father’s special satchel and bamboo cane, I stole away from our village, making my way for the castle. One way or the other, I’d decided, I would return with a cure for my mother. Father had always taught me you couldn’t kill a thief with goodness, and I believed it.

The road was long that night, and the way was dark, but I had Father’s satchel by my side and his wisdom in my heart. Humming again, I placed a piece of nutmeg in my mouth and raised up Father’s cane. One by one, small lights- fireflies- appeared in the darkness, flitting around me and covering the surface of the cane. The fireflies protected me by sharing their light and flying in the eyes of predators who grinned at me from the shadows In return, I cursed the bats who swooped to eat them, and I released them from my charm before the journey made them too tired to go on. I traveled this way by night for two days, sleeping as the nighttime predators did and staying safely away from other travelers.

On the third night, the fires of the castle loomed ahead. The walls of the castle were taller, harder, and mightier than anything I’d ever seen; the sight of them made me shake. I released my lantern guides and spat out my nutmeg, knowing that no beast would ever dare come near such a terrible thing. My legs shook, and for the only time, I thought of returning home.

But then, my eyes fell on the surface of the stone, and I saw a way: a glint of light glowing through a crack in the wall. Whispering words only my father and I knew, I wrapped the darkness around me like blanket, and rushed forward to the wall. Peeking through the crack, I saw the light of a lantern burning within, and I quickly produced a small box from Father’s satchel. Whispering a new chant, I opened the box, and a long, blue millipede crawled out. I touched its end, and a line of silk ran from my fingers. Singing softly, I watched the milipede's journey through the crevice to the other side through with its own eyes. Once it had crawled through, I whispered a sharp word, and then I was on the other side of the wall, placing the millipede back in its small container.

A shout from one side caused me to crouch suddenly in fear. A large, booted man was rushing towards me, carrying a large, pointed metal stick. I’d never seen such wealth in my life! Certain that this man was either a king or a god, I panicked. I shrieked a word of magic and threw the millipede, silk and all, into the air. It swelled in the air and burst, its silk forming into long webs throughout the room. I frantically brushed the webs off myself. As I ran,they hardened into strong vines and roots behind me. I bent my head forward and ran harder, my sandaled feet beating down on the stone floors. Several times I crashed into strange things and beasts I'd never seen before. When I could run no more, I collapsed behind a stone and caught my breath.

As my breathing slowed, I closed my eyes and hummed, heightening my awareness of my surroundings. The gods around me were frenzied, hunting relentlessly throughout the castle. My mind raced around the area within the castle, and I discovered several smaller castles within, with sleeping men and women inside. More gods strode in boots and leather atop the castle walls. My heart raced so I thought it would leap out of my chest. I reached into Father’s satchel and placed a piece of Makombo bark in my mouth, chewing slowly to calm myself.

On the other end of the castle, my mind felt the glow of magic and flew to it. An open stand in a marketplace, filled with bottles and boxes. My mind brushed against each one carefully, until finally I found the medicine I needed. It was very close!

Pulling the night around myself once more, I rushed forward. Despite my protection, I was careful, for I walked among gods, and their magic may yet prove stronger than my own. A clamor of bells and shouts began to echo around the castle walls, and the gods multiplied from nothing at all.

I flitted from one small castle to another, keeping to the shadows, where there was plenty of darkness to cover myself, until something in one of the castles caught my eye. Inside, I saw one of the sleeping men rise, stretch, and scratch his stomach. He peered out a window, then reached over and began to adorn the armor, clothing, and weaponry of the other gods.

It was then that I learned, and this knowing filled me with furious, shuddering anger. These were men, not gods! Rage filled me as I peered into his room. Several pairs of shoes, foods, metals, and furniture of wood filled his castle. With this brimming inside of me, I slipped through the window as he walked out.

Inside, my fury made me greedy. I found things inside that would be of untold wealth in my home- bottles, cheese, knives. Gold. I filled Father’s satchel and turned to leave. Then, my eyes fell on the shoes. They were large, sturdy boots made of suede and iron- shoes that could make me wealthy in my village for the rest of my life. Throwing off my wooden sandals, I slid these boots on-- three sizes too large at least. I stuffed the extra space with cloth napkins and shirts. Pausing one last moment, I took one more shirt and pulled it over my bare chest. I felt fierce and vengeful, an angry queen. When I went back to my village, they would know what was being kept from us, and we would return.

Rushes of men past the window brought me back to reality- the danger was still strong outside. I pulled the night back around me and stole through the window. My boots were heavy, and my satchel swayed back and forth like a full belly, but I was careful, and the night was still dark.

Finally, the marketplace stood ahead of me, across a firelit pathway. There could be no night to protect me there. Taking a deep breath, I leaned forward and ran hard, my booted feet clattering along the cobblestones. The market grew in my vision, and I guided myself to where I’d sensed my mother’s medicine.

But then, something stung through me. I looked down to see a long, feathered, wooden bird resting in my stomach. Everything went away from me for a moment, and when it returned, I was on my knees. My wound was great, but Father’s magic was greater still. I reached into my satchel for the powerful magic I knew would bring me to my feet. My hands found cheese. Glass bottles, knives. Gold. My spirit, disgusted with me, left for better places, and I fell to the ground.

It was thus that my father lost Bilhah, his wife, and me, his most beloved daughter, on the same day. And yet, the world went whirling along, and the birds sang their song.

LJ Idol Topic Week 15

lacombe — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 04:34:26 GMT

Something exploded inside, an eruption of intense sensation that brought Kraven back with a jolt from where he’d been. Arching his back up, he groaned involuntarily from a deep, powerful place inside of himself that he’d never known existed. He lay upon the bed, shuddering, and moved his wide, powerful carpenter’s hand to his head. It throbbed and ached as he rubbed it gently and tried to orient himself. He was aware of a long, steady, and low stream of sound coming from nearby, which slowly formed itself into an electric whine. He thought back, trying to sort his muddled recollections, but found that his mind simply was not working the way he needed it to. A pulse seemed to be dominating him, something churning inside his stomach that called for his attention.

He opened up his eyes to deep shadows all around him and peered forward. At the end of the bed, he saw the slim, shapely silhouette of a woman gently tying bonds to his feet, her head bent over in the labor. Long, delicate strands of hair fell around her face. She moved very slowly and carefully, and he almost smiled a little as he watched her. He tried to speak, but his words came out as a hoarse, breathy whisper. She looked up and watched him as he licked his lips, running his tongue over their rough surface, and swallowed. He chuckled softly, embarrassed at himself, and tried to speak again. She watched him without moving, her cool hand resting softly on his calf as she studied him with interest.

“Why the bonds? Are you the nurse?” His voice was soft, still heavy.

She smiled slightly and moved towards him, swaying her hips as she stepped away from his bound feet. She laid a hand on Kraven's chest, surprisingly strong, and leaned forward towards him. Her blue eyes looked steadily into his with a hint of mischief and held him there for a long, suspenseful moment. She bent forward, moving so close to his body that her hair brushed his bare chest.

“It’s for protection,” she whispered. Her voice was a soft hiss that sent chills down his spine. He felt almost dizzy as they stared a moment longer. Then she drew slowly back, her hand trailing his body as she passed. She moved to his side and grasped his hand in hers, drawing it slowly back to the restraints. He gazed up at her, staring at the rubies of her lips and the pale skin that traveled down her low-cut blouse. He knew an opportunity when he saw one, and he fought against his own sluggish mind.

“My protection or yours?” he said with a grin. She smiled again, a long, closed mouth smile, her lips pressed against each other as she secured the bond. He shifted in the bed, trying to make himself comfortable, but a sharp pain in his chest shook his body, and he gasped.

“Mine.” Her voice was barely a breath, as she reached over for his other hand. He took it, and pulled her towards him. Taken off guard, she stumbled slightly, but she allowed him to guide her to his side.

He pulled his hand back. “Let me keep this one,” he implored, fixing his dark eyes on hers and moving his hand down her arm and on to her hip.

“I can’t. For this,” she said, a shadow falling over her gaze, “I must tie you down.” She leaned forward again, kissing him gently on the inside of his neck, then took his hand back in hers. “Any other way, and I'm afraid.”

His throat rumbled in soft laughter again, and he relaxed and allowed her to bind his wrist. “What are you afraid of?”

“Your death.”

The words startled him. He froze in place, his mind battling through the thick fog that surrounded it for an answer. He remembered driving down the road, tired and relaxed from a hard day’s work, when suddenly a car had swerved in front of him. His vehicle had plunged into the other lane. He’d seen a flash of a car coming his way, the blur of a woman's face, then a burst of light. Then nothing. He lifted his head up and looked at his bare chest, where blood seeped through bandages. His head fell backwards and he groaned with anguish. Still, he felt like it was a dream; he was not ready to believe this was happening.

She came back to him, placing her hand on his cheek and looking at him again sadly. Her words were quiet and low, almost like a soft lullaby. “Sometimes it comes, they say, when the victim dies very tragically. There's a hunger you feel, even at first. It’s more than you can bear. It’s terrifying.” Her hand slid down his chest and she looked at him again.

Kraven pulled at his restraints with all his strength, his biceps straining until his lightheadedness almost caused him to give way to the darkness. “They’re secure. You have nothing to fear from me.” Then a pause. “If I’m dead, why don’t I feel any different?”

She smiled once more, grabbed the edges of the bed, and began to pull up. “You’re still fresh,” she said, desire in her eyes as she climbed on top of him.

His breathing grew faster and his body heaved with arousal. Still, his better nature caught hold of him. “No, this isn’t right. I want it, darling, but it’s not right.” Then he saw the blood on her back and the tremendous gashes that went through her jeans, bones, and tendons, mauling her legs. He looked to his right and saw her empty bed, with the long, flat line of the heart meter wailing beside it. A sudden, almost hopeful revelation struck him.

“You were the girl in the accident!” A flood of emotions filled him. “We both came back from the dead!”

The look in her eyes was a strange mix of guilt, hunger, passion and regret. She took a long, cruel scalpel from a pocket in her shirt. “No,” she said. “Just me.”

LJ Idol Topic 6: Urban Legends

lacombe — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:43:44 GMT

“It’s like traveling with the vanishing hitchhiker,” Miran said, as his hand clenched the steering wheel. He watched the traffic with a steely gaze that told Soliva he was holding something back. Wind buffeted the car out of the lane as they drove; she listened for a while in silence, absorbing the peaceful feeling of someone else being in charge. The fog began to creep up her window, and her mind wandered as she watched it. She loved the poignant sense of solitude the winter's coming brought. There was something virginal about the world just before the first snow; the sky and earth stretched out long and grey, and the trees stood bare and brave all about. Her mind stretched and felt the air beyond: still, cold and strong. Cars drove by, and she marveled at the fact that no one looked out the windows. Somehow, everyone had become disenchanted-- fixed on the road-- and no longer fascinated by the crystal spires that rose and fell formless on the glass before them.

“Do you have any idea who that is?” Miran pulled Soliva back to his world. She looked at him blankly for a moment, considering.

“No.” She turned away.

“People pick him up, and they drive with him for hours. They look away for a minute, and he just disappears. They always find something left behind- a business card or a piece of paper with a phone number. When they call, the people they reach say the man who was hitchhiking has been dead for years. The hitchhiker was on the news this morning while we were eating breakfast. You were staring at the TV when they were talking! You don’t remember?” His eyes moved between her and the road ahead. Soliva was still looking out the window.

“I’m here, Miran. Just thinking.” Her body showed no signs of tension- she spoke without turning.

Something left Miran then, and he gave up. A mute, heavy feeling filled him as he looked ahead, seeing the future he was beginning to know he could never have. To him, she truly was his vanishing hitchhiker- quietly journeying with him in life for a short time. No pretense or possibility of staying.

He remembered the lonely call he’d once received from her aunt. She asked if he was in touch with Soliva, if he would ask her to call. He’d mentioned it many times, but his words seemed to travel though her. Someday, he knew it would be him calling one of her friends, a number from some scrap she'd left behind. He saw himself reaching out to those that trailed about her, those threads that seemed to fall harmlessly away as she passed on. Being her seemed so light.... so effortless. So fragile. He was terrified for her.

“I think it’d be nice to live like that.” Soliva said suddenly. “I think I’d enjoy his life.”

“You’d like to ride in stranger’s cars all day long?”

Soliva looked at him, disappointed. “He moves. He exists to touch lives, to see their places. They give him kindness and he gives companionship. Nothing more. He’s surrounded by the world and is allowed to just be. It’s a beautiful way to live.“

Miran stiffened, and a new sadness washed over him. He fixed his eyes on the road ahead and shivered involuntarily. Reaching forwards, he turned on the warm air, and the fog and ice cleared from the windows. Soliva sighed, and let herself slip away.

lacombe — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 22:04:14 GMT

This will be mailed to the following address tomorrow:

One Kellogg Square
P.O. Box 3599
Battle Creek, MI 49016-3599

It's something I've been meaning to do for a long time now. I've carried a tupperware container of carefully categorized Apple Jacks in about 30 plastic baggies around with me for two years. It's lived with me in Iowa, Connecticut and Rhode Island, and now it's going to Michigan. Then, when I was thinking about all the adventures I haven't been on too long, I knew I really had to take care of this as soon as I could. It's elaborate, thought-out and really going to confuse everyone at Apple Jacks, because the entire project took me about 4-5 hours and my ex-girlfriend driver8wk (Kristin) about 3 hours. But what's done is done. 'cuz I'm dumb.

Honestly, stuff like this is hilarious to me.

---

Dearest and Most Esteemed Colleagues:

It is with both trepidation and violent personal agitation that I feel compelled to alert you on subject of a most disturbing nature. To those preparing to read the following missive who are of a lesser constitution, I would advise you promptly to seek out a stouter heart to bear this burden and relieve your mind to lesser tasks.

Allow me to impart with you this preliminary: I am a man of impeccable sensitivities and I am not ashamed to inform you in a forthright fashion that my standards are of an ilk that recommends excellence, if not perfection in all that I do. It was with a spirit upholding of this standard that I began my morning on May 27, 2005, as I was completing a rapid sojourn of the neighborhood, as is my custom on temperate mornings. Upon returning home, I discovered myself to be pleasantly covetous of nourishment, and facing the crisis of a marked scarcity of food within my abode. Thus, it was with eager anticipation that my hands alighted upon a box of “Apple Jacks” that I had acquired during the last day’s cycle at my nearest superette. I celebrated my luck as I dispatched the outer packaging, believing that my craving’s satisfaction was imminent.

It is here that I must bring to light the source of such favorable impressions. It had so happened that prior to purchasing said “Apple Jacks”, I had, upon chance encounter, come across a promotional pamphlet that, among other points of reference, boasted your product’s delectability and nutritional prowess as being nothing other than part of a dietary ideal. “Aha!” I had exclaimed to myself, “This is the ambrosiac delight I have been seeking!” I must admit that I had indeed been swayed by the naiveté’ and disarming credibility of the throng of deliriously enraptured adolescents, who I believe function as spokesmen to your operation. Furthermore, I was enchanted by the sensational visual bombardment of torus-shaped treats that were touted by your tantalizing testimony. In short, I was hypnotized by the fearful symmetry of your cereal.

Upon discharging the Apple Jacks from their receptacle, however, I literally wheeled about with shock and astonishment. Denial set in, then rage. “What is this?” I bellowed within my mind (I am far too civil to rouse Mrs. Winkerthrup in the adjoining domicile to join me in my agitation), and I stepped back, blinking as if to clear away the foul vision before me. Laying there before me, in its mundane indolence, was the consumables that I had been bamboozled into exchanging currency for: a warped, twisted and broken facsimile of what I had expected.

Gentlemen, something was indeed rotten in the state of Denmark. My cereal was deformed! My stomach twisted; I could not eat. What lay before me was simply not what I’d perceived to be the expected standard— disks with triangular holes, two, three, even four delectables fused together by some insanity of science, sugary glazes inconsistent, and even missing! Scores of “jacks” lay shattered and even disintegrated, strewn about the bottom of the containment unit, and nuggets of misformed breakfast confectionary were misshapen into formless nuggets. Some were freakishly large, dwarfing a regular “jack”, yet others were malaligned in proportion to their compatriots and of diminutive stature. Pellets of pure sugar that had no inkling of “apple” within their being lay scattered about, and even their depth was off, with many flattened down, and others stacked upon one another in stacks of two or even three. Holes were of wildly erratic sizes and some had fragments of other “jacks”, or even pure frosting, corking their insides with a gouged piece that reminded me of something out of a horror film. To compound this, there were several that were lopsided, had hideous pimple-like crimson growths or were simply mutilated beyond all hope of recognition. As I have already put off all readers but the most stout, I am not afraid to inform you that I was forced to disgorge myself immediately.
In the name of justice and good will, I have spent the last two years cataloging these specimens into categories that will allow you to present these issues to the president of Kellogg, who I am sure will desire immediately to initiate a full investigation and mass termination of the offending parties. A control group has been added for comparison to the other lesser creations I found within my morning’s cereal. To this end, I can only say “Good luck!”, as I would be at a loss with such a travesty on my hands. I only hope that this was an isolated incident, and that no children fell victim to this chaos.

In regards to your most profound thanks and apologies, I accept them in advance. Please, let us work together in goodwill and sincerity to rebuild the homes of those affected and purge your corporation of this plague upon the market.

Yours in science and philanthropy,

~Jacques L. Bouchard

---

This is what I sent them along with the letter:

Examples of the bags I had: "Too fat", "Double Deckers", "Frosting in Center", "Too big", Sugar Pellet" and "Inconsistent Glaze"

"Frosting in center"

"Broken." I love the little broken heart Kristin drew.

"Yikes!" - the most deformed ones. They're on the top-right.

"Too big" - I love that we were that discerning!

"Sugar pellet"

"Yikes nuggets" and "Quad"- the fused-together pile of 4 we found.

All the bags laid out.

Everyone packed into the tupperware container.

For some reason, all this talk about cereal gave me a huge craving for Spaghetti-Os. Mmmmm......

A story in pictures- MANY pictures

lacombe — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 23:08:50 GMT

I am SO totally open to suggestions on new captions for these images.

"La de da de da..."

"DE DAAA LAA DAA DE DAA DAA DAAA"

"-GASP!- OMFG!!!!"

"Heavens to mercy!"

"Oh, the bottleanity of it all!!!!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!"

"There might still be a chance for it!"

"Run for help!"

"Hello, 911? We have a bottle down! Send help right away! It's been hit by a car! Hello? Hello? Damn!"

"-Grunt!-"

"HAAALLLP!!!!!!!!!"

"BOTTLE EMERGENCY! HAAAAALLPP!"

"!"

"TO THE RESCUE! :::POOF!:::"

"Never fear! I'm almost there!"

"I can't feel a pulse!"

"Hurry! There's not much time!"

"Sweet lady of Nazereth!"

"Thank heavens you're here!"

I just checked for the pulse! 911 keeps hanging up on me! Please-"

"--????"

"Where are you going? Nooooo!"

"All up to me now. Must... focus! Ok, ok. Mouth to mouth... I CAN do it!"

"YOU SAVED IT!"

"My hero!"

"-KRUNCH!-"

"-GASP!!!!-"

"OMG! GET IT OFF GET IT OFFF!!!!!"

"We were... to late for this young one. Too late....."

END

Miran

lacombe — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 06:46:53 GMT

Miran opened his eyes sleepily. It was still dark, but the prelude to the sun was beginning to show through the window, the dusky silhouettes of morning already suggesting the new day. In his mind, the cobwebs of a pleasant, impossible dream still hung: a faded testament to a beautiful, intricate and mysterious creation whose details were now lost and tattered to him- an epehemeral beauty whose absence somehow made him feel lonley. He looked for the clock, but his back was facing it, and he too comfortable enjoying the richness of his experience, with his bed, his loneliness and the tattered dream that would blow away if he stirred- something that could only become more lost though his efforts.
He closed his eyes for a while and enjoyed his drowsiness. He let his mind wander over his last few days, thinking about the nice times he'd had, remembering them in an abstract way: times without events or pictures, but simply feelings of happiness and well-being. He opened his eyes softly, and in the growing light he watched Soliva's still form laying next to him.
Her back was to him, and the covers were draped loosely over her. He watched the movement of her breathing- subtle, yet touching in its intimacy. She looked like she felt comfortable, happy. Safe. His eyes watched the line of her shoulder, the curves of her upper back, and the delicate beauty of the hairs on the back of her next. The flow of her skin, and the raw beauty of her unkempt hair. Their essencce- their warmth, breath and smells- mingled in the bed, embracing one another in intimate, loving unity. Watching her sleep, he felt flattered. It was not a flattery he had felt before, when he had been selected to make love with a beautiful woman whom he knew had other options. Soliva was beautiful, certainly, but she did not see men as "options". She had come to Miran as a cat would- out of an intimate and sacred feeling of friendship and love that drove her to feel that being next to him was the place she most wished to be. Soliva came to him when she could also be happy alone, had come with sincere and pure affection and whole, unselfish intentions. She considered the choice mindfully and had wholly given herself to this moment. For now, she was fully with him.
Watching her sleep filled him with conflicting feelings of loneliness, love and intimacy. He wanted to touch her, to hold her close, but he knew that doing so would wake her and break the magic of the moment. He drew the blanket closer in to himself and watched her a moment longer, listening to her breathing. Miran wanted to love her, protect her and take care of her. He flattered himself by believing that he saw things in her that no one else had, would or could see in her. He wanted to shield her from the ignorance of a world that embraced stimulation, instant gratification and irreverence too deeply to take the time needed to learn who Soliva really was. Miran was angry that the world existed in a way that the beautiful things within it were crushed by easy mediocrity. He thought about the boyfriend that Soliva said she one had who would watch television in bed with her- how the hypothetical adventures of a shalllow, materialistic middle-income family who interacted with one-liners on a two-dimensional screen was more desireable to this man than the beautiful, rare and intimate creature that lay before him now. Without meaning to, Miran compared Soliva to his past girlfriends. Soliva was dignified, intimate, deep, spiritually beautiful, comitted and quietly intense than anyone else he had ever been with. She was not made for this world and did not fit in.
Being with her was like the magical experience of having a jeweled bird land on his hand. He admired her, appeciated the rarity of the experience and cherished the moments, but he had always had this feeling of insecurity, as if he was sharing time with a wild thing, and that when this beautiful creature returned to its flight, it would be impossible for him to follow. This feeling made their relationship only stronger for Miran; he found himself hanging on to the richness of each moment as if it might be the last. It also made Miran feel unable to feel completely at ease with her. Miran found himself only happy when he could get so lost in the moment that he did not think of anything else. He was not willing to try to keep her against her will, regardless of the pain that her leaving would cause. He knew that he could manipulate her, convince her to stay with him longer if he said and did the right things, but he also knew that this would poison the beauty of what they shared. No wild thing, no matter how mild, is truly beautiful in a cage. Rather, they are only a memory of beauty that, in its own way, has a sad, lesser beauty of its own. He wondered if Soliva would stay another day and hoped.
Miran rolled on to his back and lectured himself for a while. He resolved not to try so hard to hold on to her. He scolded himself for insisting that she share her feelings so constantly, that he never gave her a chance to bring them forth on her own. He examined their days together, and he found many ways that he was a hypocrite, ways that he had maniuplated her, thrown forth threads of guilt, need and expressed longing on her in an attempt to tether her to him. He had made rituals, such as a hug and kiss each time he'd left, because he wanted to be closer. It was like trying to hammer the wind into a square hole that he had created, and his efforts to do so were wearing him out and blowing the wind away. She transcended his boundaries. Miran worried about this terribly.
His ways were also part of the problem. He had freed himself from his love of the world in many ways since he'd met her, having quit smoking, discarding his pornagraphy and learning to let go of the silly things he saved around the house that reminded him of his past. He was a domestic creature, though, and in the same way that it takes a special, terrible effort to break the spirit of a wild thing, it takes an exceptional experience to set a domestic creature free. He felt very unsure of how far and how long he'd be able to fly with her. He smiled as he reflected on his hypocritical decision to save anything she'd given him so that he could remember her when she left. He wondered how easily he would fall into his old ways if she were to leave.
He was aware of how fully he could be removed from her life. He had seen her do it many times in the years they had known one another- first her sister, who could not keep up with her as she moved and did not make any effort to give out her new address and phone number. One by one, the friends and family she was connected with when he'd met her had fallen away, had given up trying to hold on. Her friends were rare and did not last, and no one from her past was present in her life; or, if they were, it was because of a chance meetings in a grocery store or other public encounter, where someone would come flying up to her as if she were a unicorn. Miran was always disconcerted and hurt, somehow, when he saw how people who she did not speak with her anymore still cared for her so. He saw prophecy in their eyes.
Miran's feelings of loneliness grew too strong now- being close to her like this was too much. He eased himself up so that he was leaning his weight on his hips and paused a moment, considering. He leaned forward gently, and reverently stroked her hair, concentrating on its soft, fine texture and being careful not to pull it and break the moment by awakening her. She made a happy noice in her sleep, and Miran was touched. He leaned forward and kissed her shoulder once, feeling the strange, radiating heat of her skin and the warm, soft-smelling scent of her skin. He drew back slightly, hesitated and kissed again, more firmly this time, understanding the health of her body, the suppleness of her muscles and the gentle delicacy of her body. He brought his arm around her and squeezed her, holding the frame of her bones to his chest. Then, as if denying himself with an excuse, drew the cover back over her shoulder, putting her body away from him, eased out of bed, and forced himself to read a book on the couch until the house was empty with the dispelling light of day.
Seeing Soliva awaken without him and come into the living room where he was made him feel inexplicably hurt and touched all at once.

A poem I editied and used for my lesson today

lacombe — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 09:38:52 GMT

The Fall of the Muse
~Lisel Mueller

Her wings are sold for scrap,
her tiara goes to the museum.
She takes off her long purple gown,
her long gloves.
In her underwear she is anyone.

Even when she is naked, they laugh.
It’s not enough, the shout.
Take out your pubic hair,
mutilate your breasts,
cut off a finger,
put a patch on your left eye.

Now she is one of us.
She laughs the small laugh of the ordinary.
She gives us all equal kisses.
She counts her money at inaugural balls.
She is searched at airports.
She depends on sleeping pills.
She betrays art with life.
She lectures on the catharsis of drivel.
She learns about Mount Olympus from quiz shows.

She moves in a circle of victims;
they make her eat her heart in public.
She has been bled so many times
her blood has lost its color.
She comes on the stage on all fours
but insists that her teeth be straightened.

Democratic, she sits with us.
We share the flat bread of affluence,
the suicidal water;
we kill each other with jokes.
She wears false eyelashes
when she throws herself off the bridge.

A Historic Creation

lacombe — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 19:24:46 GMT

"Welcome to life."
"What do you mean?"
"Welcome to living and breathing, loving, hating, pain, ectasy, boredom and ambition. Stuff like that."
"Where am I?"
"Alive. In my lab. Montana. Don't worry about it right now."
"Earth, then. Montana is on earth."
"Montana is made of earth."
"Well, yes. Sorry. I'm a little disoriented right now."
"Unoriented, actally. We'll work on that."
"Unoriented? That's not a word."
"There was never need for it until now. It'll be an official word soon enough- once my report is filed."
"What does it mean?"
"Can you disembowl someone that has never had a body?"
"I suppose not."
"Well, you can't disorient someone that's never been oriented."
"I haven't been oriented?"
"Well, you're in the process."
"Ok. Uh... Who am I?"
"Good start! You're a clone. I made you. You're the first cloned human. A well done one, as well. Sit down, you look pale."
"I... I don't know what to say..."
"Then why speak? Sit, and I'll talk to you for a while. Ah, that's good. I've been employing a new type of cloning that hasn't been tried yet. Instead of growing you from an egg, I've cloned you all at once, you could say. You must be wondering how. Let's just say that you've been grown off of me- a siamese twin, almost. Needless to say, you grew all at once, from flesh to flesh. Your body should feel about 40 years old."
"It's feels a lot older right now"
"Understandable. You're completely organic, except for the brain."
"Huh?"
"That's electric. That's why you know so much. I loaded all the information I could think of and find on to you."
"I know that."
"Of course you do. I told you that as part of the information. If you knew it, why did you ask?"
"What's a penult?"
"Excuse me?"
"It's the second-to-last syllable of a word."
"I knew that!"
"If you knew it, why did you ask?"
"Hm.... Point taken. To know something is not necessarily to have that information readily available. Ok! We have a lot to discuss. Although I've made your brain exactly like an organic one in design and given you information, I have not programmed you with humanity, though I can already tell that you are most certainly fully human."
"Why do you say that?"
"You have an attitude. Ok, let's see.. where to start... Ah! Walking down a sidewalk!"
"What do you mean? I can walk. See?"
"Ahh... but it's not that easy. What if there's people on that sidewalk?"
"I'd walk around them?"
"What about before you get to them?"
"I'd walk until I reached them."
"That's not enough! People are very afraid of one another. You have to make sure that you don't scare them."
"What do you mean?"
"You have to act very normally. You have to walk along like they're not even there until you're almost to them, all the while veering in the direction that they're not going. If you look them in the eyes too early, then you're going to make them unconfortable because that will make you two acquainted early with no social rules about what to do. If you look the person right in the eyes, they will wonder why and become nervous."
"That's ridiculous!"
"You just test it out sometime. Try this: Say hi to ten people. Five of them won't answer you- they'll just walk off and pretend they didn't hear."
"I don't believe you."
"You don't have to. Prove me wrong. Humans are always suspicious of one another."
"I still don't believe you."
"See what I mean? Another thing- If you're good at something- don't tell a lot of people. It's much better to laugh at yourself than to tell people how smart you are- unless they think they're very smart too, then they won't talk to you unless you're as smart, or comparable."
"What?"
"It's true. I'm telling you this because I made you to be more intelligent than most people. You must keep this a secret- use smaller words, don't tell people you're smart and let dumb people try to do things even when you're better than them at it. Otherwise, you're arrogant. When you let dumb people try to do things that you're better at, pretend that they're really smart. Otherwise, you're condescending."
"Wow. A lot of that almost makes sense. It's because the dumb people need to learn from their mistakes and grow like all of us, and because they have a right to try things too, right?"
"Yes and no. They do need to learn from their mistakes and they have a right to try, but the reason you need to let them try is because you need to let them think they really are smart."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because it's rude to point out the weaknesses in others."
"What if that weakness is hurting them and they don't know it?"
"It's none of your business."
"Why can't I talk about how smart I am?"
"Same reason. If you tell someone that you're smart, they may think that you mean that you're smarter than them. They'll feel angry."
"This is complicated. Anything else I should know?"
"We haven't even scratched the surface! When you want to make friends, you have to do it without looking like you're trying too hard."
"Why? Wouldn't someone want to make a friend that was really working hard to be there for him?"
"No. If you work too hard, they will become suspicious, and that will make them nervous. They won't want to talk to you. Also, most people dislike dumb people, but it's wrong to dislike mentally impaired people. You must be accepting of this, but you must like both dumb people and impaired people. In this way, you'll be better than normal."
"How do I act normal?"
"You shouldn't. If you act too normal, then you're boring. People will love you for that ways that you differ from the norm, not the ways in which you act normal."
"So I should act the opposite of normal?"
"No. If you act too abnormal, then you're deranged, or antisocial, or weird, or some other such term. It's bad to be normal and also to be not normal. You must act somewhere in between, even if that's not what you feel."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, for example, If you wake up every morning and bake youself an eggplant casserole and eat it, people will think you're weird, even if that's what you like to eat in the morning. However, if you bake an eggplant casserole the night before and eat some of it, then it's ok to eat some in the morning too. The most important thing is that you don't bake it in the morning."
"Why?"
"Because everyone has agreed that eggplant parmesan is not breakfast food."
"Really?"
"Well, not officially. They've agreed that foods like pastries, muffins, eggs, sausage, pancakes, waffles, cereal, oatmeal and similar foods are acceptable for breakfast."
"What constitutes a similar food?"
"Well, most of those foods have a lot of carbohydrates and sugars in them. Maybe that has something to do with it."
"Would strawberry shortcake be acceptable for breakfast?"
"Well, not really, but it's a lot better than eggplant parmesan."
"Why?"
"Because it's an indulgence."
"But if I wanted eggplant parmesan and I made it, wouldn't that be an indulgence?"
"Yes, but not an acceptable one."
"I'm confused now."
"So am I. Let's move to something else. Ah! Manhood. You're a male. You have to act like one."
"How do I do that?"
"Well, lots of ways. For instance, if you're in pain, it's not acceptable for you to show it."
"Why? Wouldn't it be beneficial to my survival to tell someone when I am hurt?"
"Well, when you're seriously hurt you can."
"Like, if I had a heart attack?"
"Well, you can. Some men tell someone if they have a heart attack, and some don't. Mostly, you don't tell someone if you feel pain, especially emotional pain, if you can possibly bear it on your own."
"Why?"
"Because it proves that you're strong."
"How does that prove that I'm strong?"
"Good question. It doesn't. But if you appear unhurt, then you must be very capable, and therefore you'll be a desireable sex partner."
"Oh! Because I'll pass on desireable genes, right?"
"Well, no one thinks of it that way, but probably. I guess they think a strong person will support them better."
"That makes some sense. Who is they?"
"We'll talk about that part later. For now, we'll say women. We'll talk about women another day. For now, let's just talk about what it is to be a man."
"What else is there?"
"Well, you always have to be wary of being dominated by other men. For example, if you shake a man's hand, they may try to crush your hand with theirs. This is a test of strength."
"How barbaric!"
"It's considered gentlemanly, actually. You can only do this to other men. Women must be treated very delicately."
"Why? Are they delicate?
"Not necessarily. Not unless they allow themselves to become delicate. We'll talk about women later. Now, about men. It's ok to show women affection, but you must show affection to men very rarely, or they will become nervous that you want to have sex with them. Men are always afraid that other men will want to have sex with them. Many, anyways. If you show affection to a man, make sure that you you do it roughly, such as a slap on the back, or by arm wrestling or playing football. Never kiss men. It's ok for women to kiss women, but not so for men."
"Why is arm wrestling a way for men to show affection?"
"Friendly competition brings many males to feel closer. Some men can't do this, though."
"I'm getting confused."
"We'll touch on one more subject, then we'll do more pleasant things."
"How about eating? Can you teach me how to eat some more? I'll be doing that soon."
"Good! Ok, eating. If you're eating at someone's house, you must not eat until they do. Eat your food and say it's good even if you don't like it. Everyone must eat at the same time and leave the table at the same time. If you visit someone's house and they want to pray, you must pray even if you do not believe in God or they will be offended and you will seem unappreciative of the meal they are offering. Do not eat more than anyone else at the table, or less than the person who ate least. If you are not hungry, eat anyways. Do not talk about anything anyone at the table is likely to disagree with. You cannot have a serious conversation while eating. Most people will feel uncomfortable if you ask to help them with the dishes. It's ok to correct children but not adults when they do something wrong, but only if you are closely related to the children and not too often. Do not go home immediately after eating, even if you are tired, or people will suspect that you only came to eat their food, but also be very careful not to stay too late. If you-"
"I don't want to learn all this."
"You have to! You won't be accepted with other people otherwise!"
"Why won't they accept me?"
"People don't trust something if it's different. You must be normal, but not too normal for them to trust you."
"I don't like the sound of people. Can I live here?"
"But I want the world to see you! I created you, and I'm very proud."
"I don't care if you're proud of me. Turn me off."
"I can't! What if you have a soul? Your soul may go to hell if you kill yourself, or ask me to kill you."
"So I have to live, even if I'm miserable, or my soul will be tormented forever?"
"That's what is believed, yes."
"Why did you do this to me? I hate the idea of living! I wish you hadn't created me!"
"I... I didn't imagine you'd feel like this.... I..."
"Well, I do. Do you like your life?"
"I.. guess I do, yes."
"Is that why you created me? Because you like life?"
"No. I created you for selfish reasons."
"What selfish reasons? Am I to be your slave?"
"No! Goodness, no! I created you so that people would remember my accomplishment. I wanted to make my mark on the world."
"You mean, by creating me everyone will know that you've made the world a better place?"
"I never looked at it that way. I guess many people will be furious with me for cloning a human. I may be arrested."
"You must have known that you might be arrested beforehand."
"Yes, but knowledge of something does not necessarily mean that knowledge is readily available. I pushed that risk to the back of my mind. I wanted to make my mark in history."
"What will that do for you?"
"Make me proud, and make my idea immortal."
"But cloning could be used for evil, right?"
"I hadn't thought of that."
"Why do I feel short of breath right now? Am I having a heart attack?"
"No. You feel angry. Come. Let's have some food."
"Yes. Lets. I don't like this feeling. Will eating make it go away?"
"No, but it passes the time, and time will heal your mind."
"Very well, then."

[End]