Sunday, September 26, 2010

Grammar

When it comes to grammar, I'm a conservative revolutionary. That is to say, I prefer to keep rules as they are unless they don't make logical sense, in which cases the rules need be reformed.

I'm wondering if I'm egotistical enough to write a guide for my version of English grammar.

I just may be.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

[Working Title] - Chapter 1, Part 2 of 3


(I'm not in love with this section; I want to do some rehashing--which is one of the reasons why I've decided to share. By starting to actually share my writings, I hope to feel a stronger sense of responsibility to finish and polish my works.)

Chapter 1
part 2 of 3


Maurette gasped as Chaz crumpled to the ground. She looked to the Reissod with fear and uncertainty.

“He was Illing,” the King’s servant explained nonchalantly as he wiped his blade on his bright cape, “and you... well, you will come with me. We will find your sons – twins?”

Maurette was too stunned to answer. She had never heard of any illness, and she feared she, too, was infected. Worse, though, she feared her sons were also sick, alone, and abandoned by their crazed father.

“They were twin boys, where they not?” the old man repeated almost impatiently.

“Yes,” Maurette stammered, “... they must be Illing, too... deformed... I, am I sick?”

“The disease only infects grown men, an unfortunate side effect of Chiding,” the Reissod spoke uncaring-ly as he helped Maurrette to her feet and guided her outside. “Did you see where your husband disposed of your boys?”

***

Sunlight caressed Jaiden’s anaemic face as he lifelessly stared out of the large window in front of him. His heavy breaths fogged the glass. He rocked gently, tapping his forehead against the thick pane; his reflection thereon only slightly blurred the coldness in his dark eyes.

Nyxia, fighting back concerned tears, sat next to her husband and lovingly stroked his thin, pale neck. Their son, Tristan, was not phased. During the short three years of his life, this was the only way he knew his father: a skeleton of a man, alive physically but seemingly dead inside.

“Then we went to the park, and I played on the swings!” Tristan excitedly told Jaiden of his day.

Seeing the two together was especially difficult for Nyxia. Jaiden’s collapse into his conscious coma happened the same day they welcomed Tristan into their family.

“I had cotton candy ice cream,” Tristan’s golden-flecked eyes shimmered with excitement, “and mommy pretended to eat hers like a monster. It got all over her face!” He giggled.

Nyxia smiled. Although she cherished Tristan’s coy giggle, she sometimes wished he would have inherited Jaiden’s boisterous laugh. She missed that laugh dearly.

A stocky orderly knocked on the door, “It’s time.”

Tristan hopped down from his mother’s lap, kissed his desolate father on the cheek and glowingly whispered, “Bye, papa. I love you.”

Nyxia softly kissed Jaiden’s neck, took Tristan’s hand, and solemnly left Jaiden’s room in the asylum.

***

Maurette didn’t speak as she and the Reissod walked toward the Souteastern Mines where Chaz would spend his days. She had known the dimness of the corridors all of her life, but everything seemed especially dark as they searched for any signs of her children.

The Reissod’s long, slender strides made it difficult for Maurette to keep up. She was as tall and lanky as he; however, she was extremely malnourished and hadn’t much energy. Maurette’s stomach groaned and knotted. She keeled over, reaching for the rough wall of the corridor to break her fall.

The Ressoid pulled a piece of dried meat from a ruby-adorned pouch hanging from his hip and offered the food to Maurette. She shook her head defiantly, stood, and began walking as quickly as she could.

“Suit yourself,” the King’s Reissod said emotionlessly as he returned the meat to his pouch, “But don’t expect me to carry you if you are too weak to walk.”

Maurette was growing more and more feeble, but she refused to eat. Years ago she had vowed to eat only when absolutely necessary. She knew she could make it at least one more hour.

She tried to keep her mind off of her starvation by fantasizing about her son’s importance to the King. Perhaps, she hoped, her son would end the necessity of Tshawings.

Her stomach lurched even more nauseously. Tshawings. Children ordained to be eaten. Maurette knew one must eat to survive, and she knew the only known food was the Tshawings. She had never thought twice about it until after her womb was set apart for the production of nourishment.

***

“This is daddy building me a tree fort when he gets better,” Tristan nibbled on a cookie as he colored.

Nyxia had tried explaining to Tristan that his father’s situation probably wouldn’t improve. Tristan, however, insisted that his dad would soon “be all better so that we can all play together.” Instead of trying to remind him once again, she smiled at Tristan and then went back to arranging the flowers they had picked during their walk home from the asylum.

***

At first, Maurette felt honored as she was blessed by His Holiness, the King, to be a Tshawer, a bearer of sustenance. It was the night she and Chaz were married. She stood with the other Tshawers, all dressed in their pale grey leather gowns, as the King presented each with her unique emblem. The Tschawers would need to burn their emblems into the swaddling leathers of their Tschawings. To prepare, each woman would practice burning her emblem into scraps of leather during the three-day Chiding, the process to prepare the spouses’ loins for Tschawing.

Maurette found her markings particularly odd. Most emblems were straight lines, a triangle with diamonds touching tangent to each side, for example. Her emblem, on the other hand, held no straight lines. In the center was a circle. From the circle’s circumference grew many long half ovals.

***

Tristan hopped up on Jaiden’s bed and gave his father a big kiss on the cheek. “I drew this picture for you. And mommy and I picked these flowers for your room.”

Nyxia placed a glass vase filled with daisies on Jaiden’s night stand. The clear water sparkled in the sunlight coming in from the room’s large window. Everything shone and warmed in the day’s brightness, contrasting Jaiden’s cold and darkly fogged glaze.

***

A few days after Chaz returned from his Chiding, Maurette was pregnant with her first Tschawing. She swelled with honor. When the infant was born, however, that honor melted to uncertainty. Soon, uncertainty wilted to guilt and guilt to shame. She realized that she loved the being that had grown inside of her.

She thought she was going crazy. Tschawings were meant to be eaten, not loved. Nevertheless, her heart broke as the collector took her first born away. Ever since she only ate the minimum to survive.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Good News & Bad News

Good News

A Greek Tragedy was prevented.

Bad News

He's stuck with me for longer than he thought.


GMB and I sat down to talk last night.

It turns out we were sharing the same misconception.

I was hurting because I was considering leaving Utah were things to keep going well between us, but I didn't see him even considering staying. It seemed to me that I was more invested in the relationship than he.

He was hurting because he was considering staying in Utah were things to keep going well between us, but he didn't see me even considering leaving. It seemed to him that he was more invested in the relationship than I.

It wasn't until just last night that we both realized/revealed that we were/are both willing to discuss any option if and when the time presents itself.

To avoid sounding all sappy and corny, suffice it to say that I am very pleased that the misconception was cleared up before it was too late to do anything about it.

That would have been a tragedy, indeed.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

[Working Title] - Chapter 1, Part 1 of 3

(This is part of a short novel I sometimes work on when I can't sleep. I have no intentions of trying to get published nor do I have delusions of being a great writer. I just write to entertain myself. Hopefully at least one of you will be entertained as well.)

Chapter 1
part 1 of 3

“That can’t be human,” Jaiden whispered.

“I ate one just like it yesterday,” Nyxia whispered back.

Jaiden’s eyes grew in disgust.

“It didn’t taste human. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Jaiden’s eyes widened further. “You ate the whole thing?”

Nyxia burped nauseously, “I shouldn’t have...”

***

“Where are they?!” Chaz’s thick hands wound around his wife’s neck.

“I gave them to you...” his wife stammered, “... you said they couldn’t have been yours... you threw them out...”

Chaz’s violet eyes stuttered and searched the empty room. He hissed, “I would have remembered.”

“I didn’t... you...”

“I would have remembered!” Rusty bile pooled in the corners of Chaz’s mouth. He tightened his grip and lifted the woman off of the floor. “Where have you hidden them?”

Hanging in Chaz’s anger, the woman’s gaunt body shuttered limply in supplication to be released.

“Don’t be a martyr, Maurette. I know you’ve always been against Tshawings.” Chaz’s eyes narrowed into angry slits. “I want my sons.”

***

Nyxia looked ill. She groaned, “I don’t think these were bred to be eaten, whatever they are.”

Worriedly, Jaiden raised the small mass closer to the pale-amber lights of the cavern. Cysts covered the creature’s mildly grotesque figure. Most of the sores spluttered dark-greening blue pulses; two sparkled dully with a golden sheen... and blinked.

Nyxia pressed her fevered body to the cavern’s cool rock wall. Sweat bubbled from her quivering pores.

“I think it’s cooing.” Jaiden seemed oblivious to Nyxia’s plight. He stroked what he assumed to be the creature’s cheek. One of the cysts erupted, spewing its dim bluish pus into Jaiden’s haggard face.

In reflex Jaiden dropped the now writhing blob. It started to hum as it splattered on the ground; the rest of its cysts bursted in unison as the hum grew louder. Tiny pebbles avalanched from the ceiling as the buzz shook the cavern. The amber lights quivered to the increasing beat.

***

Three dull thuds sounded from the metallic door. Distracted, Chaz let go of his wife’s neck. Maurette fell to the ground and gasped in relief. Maroon blood dripped from her swollen lip. Chaz glared at her as if to say, This isn’t over. He opened the door.

A tall, meagerly old man stood at the threshold. “I’ve come to collect the Tshawings,” he announced.

Maurette stopped breathing completely; her eyes darted from the visitor to her husband and back again. Chaz’s glare remained focused on the old man.

“You aren’t the usual collector,” Chaz said dryly.

“No, no,” the old man replied, “I am the King’s Reissod. His Majesty has sent me specifically to collect this batch.”

Chaz’s stare only grew more frigid.

The Reissod continued, “You see, His Holy Eye has foreseen a particular importance in one of your sons. So, if you’ll please...”

Chaz turned menacingly toward his wife. His jaw clenched, “Where are they?”

“Please,” Maurette pled to the old man at the door, “I... Chaz, he took them away... said they were monsters.” If it were possible, she looked paler. Tears fell freely.

Chaz grabbed hold of Maurette’s thinning, silver hair and threw her at the servant’s feet. “She,” Chaz spat, “is hiding them. She doesn’t want them to be ordained Tshawings.”

“He’s mad!” Maurette pleadingly grasped onto the Reissod’s topaz leather garments. “I didn’t... he took them away...”

The old man looked harshly at Maurrette. His sunken cheeks and darkly circled eyes sharpened his glare. Slowly he drew his sword. Mercury-red light seemed to melt from the blade’s slick metal surface. With a deft swipe, the Reissod dampened the sword’s glow as lipid indigo blood slushed onto his regal garb.

***

“Kill it,” Nyxia moaned, her unbearable pain throbbing with the noise. Mossy vomit oozed from her nose. “... or me,” she added, “... that would be okay, too.”

Before he could do anything, Jaiden was blinded by a sharp flood of light, then nothing save silence and darkness remained.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Good News & Bad News

Good News

I'm back on the market (well, given some more time).

Bad News

... the bad news is kind of implicit.


The breakup was, I think, as ideal as a breakup could be. We're heading in different directions. Literally. I'm becoming more and more bound to Utah while he's off to grad school outside thereof.

While we still had about a year of both being in Utah, I thought it was best to end things now--for a few reasons, one of which being something coming up (or should I say back?) in his life that I knew he needed to pursue.

I teased him that it was for the sake of his memoirs (making for a story one often only finds in fiction), but really it was for the best chance for happiness (for both of us).

Naruto & Sakura sitting in...


... WTHack?

Speaking of hacking, there's something rather cathartic about hacking computer games and controlling the timers.

I've always hated being timed. Games. Tests. Life. Anything. Time limits plus my anxiety equal havoc on my health, physical and mental.

It doesn't help that everything in this world is timed. It sometimes drives me a little crazy (unfortunately in a little bit of a literal sense).

So, instead of going absolutely insane and ridding the world of clocks (or worse... damn sun), I control time in my computer games.

It's only fair.


(P.S. You're welcome, boskers; I know how much you love the gay undertones of Naruto.)