I'm telling you stories. Trust me.

Eulogy

2010-12-13T00:48:00.003-05:00

This blog prospered and faltered, found its second and third winds, had an existential crisis, and now, is dead.

But it was a devout buddhist, and since it was a good blog, it has now become a new blog.

zacharyaaronk.tumblr for stories, poems, and works in progress

When Love Is New

2010-10-01T00:27:00.001-04:00

All day long, Mike and me, sitting and waiting for it, here, in the playground behind the senior center. The same dome shaped jungle-gym we had run to the first time he had hid from the sirens, and the same rusty yellow swings we had chilled at the first time we had tripped. Our spot, and all those first times, and tonight maybe the first time, the one every teenager spends his school times dreaming about.

Ali was my best friend and I’d been in love with her for months but I felt like I was in sixth grade again, getting ready for my first dance and maybe oh boy my first kiss. The girls at one house, the guys at another. Everybody getting excited and ready until finally you come and grow up together.

They were both at Ashley’s house now, doing their hair, and probably their nails, and whatever else it was they did while we were here waiting for them. Waiting for it. We weren’t meeting them until eight but what else did you expect us to do besides sit there and wait for the sun to set. When it was dark we could have a fire and we had the rack from Mike’s brother and a tent for him and Ashley and one for Ali and me…

The first time for both Mike and Ashley, and for me, but it wasn’t new for Ali. I didn’t mind though. I thought it would probably be better that way, if at least one of us knew how this thing was supposed to go. I think I even loved her more because of it, because she had loved and had been where I wanted so badly to go. Tonight.

We had found this sweet little clearing about a quarter mile from the back of the playground, all hidden by trees and shit, and once you got down the path you could yell and holler and scream all the shit you wanted without anyone hearing. Plenty of room for a fire and tents and beer, and there wasn’t anything else in the world we needed.

Just like an American pie fucking movie. But I didn’t think about any of that shit then. Did we have condoms were the cops going to come what if it rained how would it feel and how would she look is what I was thinking man and you can bet that was enough for a sixteen year old boy to think about.

Mike and I had been sitting in those playground swings for nearly a year before they finally showed up. We’d been there for so long my ass was starting to hurt and I’d almost broken my neck half a dozen times swinging my head around trying to see if it was them who were pulling into our lot. Finally we saw that cherry-red sedan of our dreams and Mike looked at me and said, “They’re here.” We both knew it was time and I thought about the sandy ground beneath my shoes and the cold rust of the swing set and the girl coming towards me and I tried to remember how it felt to be a child for the last time in my life.

And I don’t think I’d ever been more excited than when I saw that they were there but goddammit if we weren’t going to play it suave for them. We stayed on the swings and waited until they had parked and took the sleeping bags from their trunk and started walking towards us. I could almost feel the sun sinking lower behind them as they came closer, its final youthful rays descending brilliantly behind them, all smiles and radiance.

Finally we stood to meet them and I did my best to act like I hardly cared when she smiled at me and I knew for sure right then how I felt about her and what tonight was about. I don’t think I’ve ever tried so hard to keep it down I was so ready for it.

“Hey guys,” Ali said, smiling, and with her soft russet hair cascading over her shoulder I almost lost it again. “We didn’t make you wait too long, did we?”

“Are you kidding? We were about to leave.”

“You lie!” Her voice was a choir, her laugh a hymn.

“It’s true,” Mike said. “Jonah was all set to go without you. I had to hold him back.”

Ali laughed again (sweet melody) and pouted, her hands on her hips like the cutest thing you’d ever seen and looked me deep into the eyes.

“But you wouldn’t have left me, would you Mike,” Ashley said. “All alone in the woods with no one to protect me,” she finished, laughing through her last words.

“Darling, not a chance,” he answered; winking at me so that Ashley started and slapped his arm.

It was almost dark now and I took my tent and bag in one arm and Ali in the other and the four of us headed down the path. Ali and me took the lead with Mike and Ashley following, the smell of evening pines thickly shrouding our secret walk. When we finally reached the clearing I felt like I could have been skipping I was so light headed.

“We should get the tents up before it’s too dark,” I said to Ali.

“Yeah. Get the fire going, too,” Mike said.

“We should have brought a refrigerator,” Ashley said brightly. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of that.”

“A refrigerator in the woods, darling?”

Everyone laughed appreciatively and Ashley protested. “A cooler! I meant a cooler!”

“Well, warm beer works just as well, I guess.”

Ali fixed her eyes on mine again and my chest was going badoomp badoomp badoomp.

“I heard it’s supposed to be a full moon tonight,” I said.

“How romantic.”

I may have finally passed out then but I can’t really be sure. The last thing I remember seeing is the first star in the sky and her smiling beneath it looking at me beautiful beautiful.

.................................................................................................

“We’re going to grab some blankets from the tent.”

My heart is beating so fast it’s like a woodpecker in heat. I stand with difficulty but its dark and I’m so excited I don’t care about anything else. Mike and Ashley still sitting there, dancing in and out of the light and smiles from all around the fire. It doesn’t matter what anyone says and nobody speaks because everyone’s thinking the same thing. About fucking time.

Growing up I had always thought that sixteen was the year to do it. The prime of my life, the coming of age, the license to drive, the not too soon and the still early enough to be cool. A man, without all the failings and handicaps of adulthood. And who doesn’t wish they were sixteen again? For the promise of ripeness and beauty and young love?

“Don’t stay up for us if you guys want to go to bed, or whatever...”

Best friends for years and I’m in love. She too, I think when she grabs my hand and squeezes tightly, her fingers sliding smoothly between my own like buttered apple pie and our palms clinging together and breathing deeply.

We walk hand in hand away from the light of the fire and unzip the canvas door and collapse inside. Laying beside her there I can feel her skin and her hair against my own, and in that moment they smell the way you wished everything was all of the time, from that instant until eternity a fading memory, the way you wished everything could be.

“Yes”.

Afterwards, sitting beside her in the cold with blankets and friends around us and my fire celebrating, and I’ve never been so happy. This is the happy that you see in the end of teen romance movies. The happy that doesn’t really exist until all of a sudden it does and then all of a sudden it doesn’t again. Just a taste that first time, but the taste is more than enough to keep you searching for the rest of your life at least.

.................................................................................................

It’s been almost four years since our first time. Almost four years since my first time, the little slut. Four years since we’ve been friends and about two days since the last time we fucked.

We don’t talk much anymore. We go to different colleges for most of the year and its only now in the summer that I ever see her. Now that I’m home it’s not as easy as saying, “Sorry Ali, but I have class right now. Why don’t you try fucking skyping yourself?” She only lives two streets away.

So it’s summer now and we’re together again. Every time I drive past the senior center and the crabgrass lot where the swings used to be, and every time I smell her Paul Malls on my pillowcase it gets me. And every time it does it’s like I’m waiting for something big to happen, something real fucking big to just fucking go off with sparks and bangs and cheers but every time it’s just that knocking, just that knocking, just that mother fucking knocking like she’s here right now and I wish she wasn’t.

“Hi. Are you ready?”

Give me a minute, for chrissake.

“Mike and Ashley said they would wait to order until we got there, but I didn’t want to make them wait for us again.”

Now wouldn’t that be a tragedy if we were late for fucking Casa Labullshit.

“We could probably still make dessert if you wanted… And I think we should, Ashley was really looking forward to this.”

Fuck off.

“Our first night all back home from school and you want to sit here and watch TV. You haven’t seen either of them since Christmas.”

Fuck off again.

“If you really don’t want to go out tonight that’s fine but I don’t understand why you can’t suck it up for one night. It’s Mike and Ashley. It’s not like they’re some random friends from high school.”

What do you know about friends from high school.

“Well. I guess I’ll see you later then. You’re sure you’re all right? Fine. Call me later.”

I wasn’t going to call her later. Of course I wouldn’t fucking call her. Because I know now that that taste- that fleeting fucking taste- isn’t real. That bullshit manifestation of juvenile lust being precisely and only fucking that. And the problem is that once you’ve tasted it there’s no way you can just stop looking for it. And so you go back, again and again, and you say, Man, I know I dropped it here, it was right fucking here, but of course you know it’s already gone. And of course you know you’ll never be done with it.

January 13th Holden Massachusetts

2010-09-27T22:18:00.001-04:00

Soundlessly, with all the roar of a dog whistle, settling on the thin green pines, threading needle through snowflake like ornaments eleven months too soon. Steadily, purposely, falling falling, drifting from snowman cookie frosting clouds, sprinkling frosted blades and frozen needles. Gathering and waiting on swollen pines and sleeping windowsills, where creeping eyelids rest to widen and then smile and cheer at the brown ice slush filled roads and pristine playgrounds twinkling in morning joy. Playtime rapiers hanging from rooftops, snow filled arena, and racetrack ample canvas for morning imaginations, while snowplows struggle and snowballs battle and every father lover child thinks snow day.

.................................................................................................................................................

It’s still dark and the vaguely morning sky flashbulbs with swirling storms of snowflakes swept up in the steady beam of dual halogen bulbs. Heaving fiercely beneath their glow, the curved yellow plow growling in search of asphalt and the icy slush and browning snow that resists its passage.

The front windshield wipers squeak and fidget beneath the whitewashing weight of the sky and Sean McLaughlin slows with every turn and squints through the glass, trying to separate the pavement from the sidewalk. He’s been out since ten the night before, and his cab is littered with empty styrofoam dunkin donuts cups and some hand warmers, plus a large metal thermos from Christine on Christmas two weeks before. The heater works only sometimes and so he keeps a seasoned wool blanket stretched tight over his lap that fills the cab with the smell of dog hair and salt from the winters before when Sammy would ride with him. Back before the arthritis and dysplasia had resigned her to the rug by the stove, back when it was for both of them younger days.

Yesterday was Christine’s birthday and they had spent the night at home in front of the TV watching the snow. When his phone had rung just before the late night news she had turned to him and said, “Go. You need the overtime.”

Storms had always been too early or too late for Sean. Either they did not know how to keep time or they plain did not care.

Now he is alone in the dark of his cab with the thermos from her and a broken heater, an old smelly blanket, and a wish for spring and the overtime check. And all the while the flakes all surrounding and falling dispassionately around him.

.................................................................................................................................................

Laying in bed still, the comforter down around my knees, a glass of water on the bedside table, and the clock blinking noontime.

“You car is completely snowed in. I don’t think you’re going to make that meeting.”

Water running in the kitchen down the stairs, cupboards swinging and clacking shut, and porcelain on the countertop.

“How do you like your coffee?” she calls again.

Lifting the shade the window is half covered in frost and peering over the top I can see only snow and snow everywhere. It covers my car up past the license plate and hides the mailbox post in what seems to me as marshmallow fluff. The road is indistinguishable from the lawn and I know that I’m going anywhere.

First snow day of the New Year, I think, and I call back, “A little bit of sugar, thanks.”

I don’t actually have a meeting but I hadn’t been planning on dinner and breakfast. The room smells like last night, like alcohol and flesh and frosty mornings. But at least the sheets are soft and warm, as white as the fluff outside the window and I think now about the coffee brewing in the kitchen and the woman I barely know behind it.

Now she comes back to the bedroom and places two snow-white mugs on the bedside table. She squints at the brightness beyond the window and climbs in beside me, smiling more brilliantly than anything I’ve seen in a long time. Snow day, I think again.

.................................................................................................................................................

I’m awake now but I don’t move in my blanket like a caterpillar in a cocoon is what they’re called like I’m hibernating and I keep my eyes pressed tight together. I feel the cold shape of the spoon under my pillow and squeeze it tightly its supposed to bring the snow day I can’t hear the news downstairs maybe they already know its cancelled they said they would call us to say for sure I hope they did I hope they did. I open one eye and my room is too bright for the morning maybe its lunch time already maybe mom let me sleep because no school today! I can’t wait any more I jump out of bed run to the window tear the blinds and my heart explodes. Winter wonderland its like that Rudolph movie we watched on Christmas at Auntie Chris’s and there’s even more coming down right now and they look like the flakes we make in art class with white tissue paper and scissors and no ones are the same because they’re all unique like us Mrs. Stangle says. After I have breakfast I can go sledding once I have my snow pants and boots on Mom said I could yesterday and a snow fort to keep the girls out and hot cocoa for lunch and I’m smiling with ears it’s a snow day!

Yesterday

2010-09-08T22:58:00.003-04:00

First story for comp class. Expect weekly additions...

When you are lonely everything makes sense. There is no confusion, and you can look at the winter’s sky and find the little dipper as if it were the only grouping between the earth and the moon. There are of course other ways to be sure, but none of them are as easy as being lonely.

So when I woke early and found that I was alone in my roommate’s bed and that my own bed across the room was empty also, I knew immediately that I was in love with her. There were scattered papers and empty PBR cans on the desks by the radiator and cool white sunlight sliding in through the open window and I was in love again. Only that, and the hole in my head.

I was still naked except for my boxers so I kept my roommate’s comforter wrapped around my shoulders as I searched for more clothes. It was very cold with the window open and the splintered floorboards felt like icy sandpaper on my bare feet and I didn’t want to stay in the room just then. I wanted to catch her before she left so I grabbed my jacket and headed for the stairs. My head was still splitting besides and I felt like some fresh air.

It was just after eight then and her train was leaving at eleven I thought so I could probably see her still. She had to go to the city this morning and that was why she was gone when I woke up. And I didn’t know what I was going to do or where I was walking to really but it didn’t bother me then. When you love someone sometimes you just need to do things and that’s all.

Her dorm was across the campus from mine and I was glad I had my jacket. It was even colder outside than it had been in my beer-stained room. Apparently it had snowed last night. The criss-crossing walkways were all sloppy with ice and slush so I made my way diagonally through the quad and snowy grass. The snow was fresh and forgiving and it was fun to walk without thinking and to know there were tracks to follow. I continued along, watching my feet sink into the snow so that I didn’t hear her at first when I came to one of the plowed paths again and she called out my name.

She was walking along the walkway opposite to the one I had just come to. I waited for her as she finished walking its length, then down another connecting our two paths and then finally over to where I was standing. Her ivory-gold skin looked strangely pale against the snowy backdrop and her long brown hair was completely hidden beneath a ribbed grey hat. A long woolen scarf that she had knitted herself covered her neck and chin and she smiled at me from beneath her layers. She looked older than I remembered but that may have been the cold.

“What time do you leave?” I asked her.

“I’m on my way to the station now,” she said. “Last night was fun.”

“I enjoyed myself.”

“Me too.”

“And Dan gets in today,” I said. “I’ll wash his sheets for him. You get back on Monday?”

“Yes. In the afternoon sometime.” There was a pause, and then she added “I’ll give you a call when I’m back.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

“Good.”

After a moment I looked at my phone and she said she had better be going. We hugged goodbye then and I watched her follow the walkways back to where she had been going before and off towards the temporary parking lot, where I knew her cab would be waiting. Another person leaving another building as she passed by called and caught up with her, and I could hear their laughter echoing as I turned to walk back home.

The way back to my dorm was easier the second time through, and I didn’t feel the headache so much or even the cold of the empty quad anymore. The world outside seemed stunning with freshly fallen flakes and it reminded me now of a snow globe breaking open in the street where you can’t tell the unique from the plastic. It was still close to freezing but yesterday’s grey had been blown away during the night, and the spidery cloud of my breath and the sharp blue air were refreshing and clear.

The weather seemed to me then like winter’s answer to those warm sun showers on sticky summer days. Where no one really minds that it’s raining, even if they pretend to.

When I got back to my room I shut the door and took off my clothes again. I moved over to the bed and lay back down and closed my eyes. I wasn’t finished with last night yet.

Stand By Me

2010-04-12T13:27:00.011-04:00

Your face is a salty teardrop. Not the graceful slow rolling down the side of your cheek kind but the blotchy and swollen hiccuping on your breath that is only sometimes fun to see on grade-schoolers. And I don't think that you are the prettiest thing I have ever seen when you say oh hey with your sunglasses pushed up to keep your hair from getting wet when you walk back from the showers and you smile at me just a little.

So when you see me singing when I see you it's only because lately I've grown tired of always whistling, just so we're clear.

Thoughts from Indoors

2010-03-07T22:42:00.008-05:00

My spine itches.

The top

................ver

.......................te

............................brae.

I try to scratch it but all I can reach

is my skin.

It's like I am wearing a plaster cast

and it protects me so I can heal, I guess.

But beneath the organ and tissue and blood,

I itch.

Scraps

2009-11-30T21:45:00.003-05:00

I've developed an unfortunate habit of starting stories and never finishing them. That's why I never have anything to post anymore. I still read everyone else's blogs though and I'm afraid the relationship is becoming a bit one sided. I feel like the blog world equivalent of a voyeur. But not as unwanted, I hope. So these are a few things I've written since at school, maybe some day they'll go somewhere.

DeLong sat by the window and counted the number of times the miniature raisin buzzed into the glass square. It was now half past seven and was, admittedly, becoming rather difficult to follow its movements between the shadows of the windowpane and the queasy pale of the light from the storefront below. It was an hour earlier when the last of the toyhouse people had replaced their teacups and with much politeness and fussing, had taken their overdue leaves. When the evening wind had swept the last of the offending diminutives out of sight, DeLong retired to the pale green folding chair. The padded foam beneath his posterior and buttocks had long since failed to lend any support to his knobby frame; its function now limited to as much an ornamental purpose as a mulish one.

DeLong sat by the window and tried not to think about the last time he had swept the floor. It was not a particularly difficult task for DeLong; he was always forgetting to sweep the floor.

"I miss having the woods to walk into and just get lost in."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Nothing.

My roommate moved out yesterday. No kidding. I came back to the room and his clothes and books were all thrown out in the hallway and he was gone. I didn’t think anything of it then because it was pretty late and I had had a thing or two to drink, but when I woke up the next morning and saw his stained, empty bed I knew he wasn’t coming back. I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do with all his things lying in the hall though so I called his phone. I must’ve still been drunk then because I could hear it ringing like it was in the room somewhere even though I knew he wasn’t. Anyways, it was starting to give me a headache so I hung up and moved my chair so I couldn’t see the mess outside the door. I didn’t sit down though, but closed the door and lay back down on my bed. I wasn’t finished with last night.

You could tell she was into it though. I mean, when you’ve been with enough girls you sort of get to knowing when a girl’s feeling it or not, and when she’s just a good dancer or something. And believe me, this girl was feeling it. I mean obviously not the whole time. It’s damn hard to hold a girl’s attention the whole time the two of you are dancing, especially if she’s a real looker. I used to play baseball with a kid who could do it, but he never gave up the trick. You’d just ask him about it and he’d throw you some line about listening and really caring. Believe me, I care a helluva lot. But most nights that isn’t enough to get you back with the girl you really want. And it definitely never helped me get girls back the way he did. Not that he did it as much as other guys. I never understood that. When you got a trick as clean as that and you’re not getting it every night, well that just seems like a shame and a waste to me. This girl was definitely into it though. Trust me, you can count on that. Sometimes you can just tell.

Untitled

2009-11-04T13:18:00.004-05:00

Hello blog world. It's been a while. As others have said, "college is not conducive to blogging". Or writing. But here's a poem. Does someone want to name it for me?

Conceited, I

Float through the stares

And the inquiring nods;

Refreshingly aloof and inviting.

Some of them who know me do not see what it is I present

And I am comforted and thankful.

Perception is not my only motivator

But it is the most alluring fish.

She flicks her hair and there under the sky roof

The luminescent arc caresses caresses

And as I watch the moon pouring gently

Gently over her shoulder and onto my lap

I no longer care what she thinks.

Sometimes there exists a plane between

Knowing what I know to be and what I know is being.

I am as real as what I think they think I think,

But someone knows that is not the moral.

You Don't Understand

2009-07-31T13:08:00.002-04:00

Have you ever had a dream about someone you didn’t know anything about, only when you woke up you felt like they were your best friend or something? That happened to me last spring. She was a year or two behind me and I didn’t know anything about her but I had always wondered. She had long black hair and I remember she walked like she knew exactly where she was going. She wrote me a poem. In the dream, I mean. It said, “I want to feel the warmth of your hand against my own I can tell that you’re that type of guy even though we’ve never talked before your eyes catch my smiles.” I don’t know if anyone’s ever written you a poem before but I thought it was the sweetest thing I had ever read and in the morning I felt like giving her a call and I would have but I didn’t know her number. And I didn’t ever get around to calling but I never forgot about her. I mean I did, of course, but not forever, so I think that’s close to the same thing. The reason I remembered now is because today was her funeral.

Sometimes when I am driving I begin to feel sad for no reason at all. All of a sudden this horrible longing will crash into me and I feel like whatever was good in my life had just slipped through my fingers and shattered all over the floor and was gone. My whole body aches and suddenly I don’t know what to do. I could be driving to my own goddamn wedding and I have to pull over lost. I get out in a convenience store parking lot and walk until the policeman grabs me and shoves me out of the road and says he has better things to do than deal with drunks who won’t take care of themselves. He’s there directing traffic because she died and that’s when I heard that she died and that’s when I remembered that I think I loved her that morning.

I was still wearing my tuxedo so I went inside and sat down in the back of the hall. The entire room was staring at me. She was lying dead in the front and suddenly I was the goddamn center of attention. I felt like throwing up. You could feel it in your skin the moment you walked in there that none of these people even cared about her. Not like I did. She never wrote a poem for any of them. The blotchy eyed man at the front of the room smiled at the room and then at me and started to speak again, his voice cracking tragically. He rambled for a few sentences - real sincere and sentimental like. “You could search all your life and never find a soul kinder than hers… making everyone feel special and… only eyes I ever… loved you all.” His eyes started to well up and he waved his hand humbly and so damn graciously and sat down again, the rubber necked bobble heads all nodding furiously.

I felt like going up to him right there and – well, I don’t know what I wanted to do. He was just one of those guys who - one of those guys who if they made a fantastic catch in football or something would say something stupid like “Well, I dropped enough of them today”, just to show how goddamn humble they were, right when everyone was congratulating them and all. I felt sick again and watching him parade around when she was lying dead not two feet! away and I felt like hurting him cutting him. Never mind that she was lying there dead in a room full of vultures and I didn’t think I could take them all on there were too many some of them would get by I couldn’t protect her from all of them needed me how did they all get in here they shouldn’t have let them in why wasn’t I called the only one why wasn’t I who cared who loved she needed me now but I better wait she knew that there were too many I had to think couldn’t possibly catch her now but she knew of course without words she knew but she wasn’t warm now

There was nothing else to say and they all started to stand and file out of the pews and I stayed in mine watching carefully ready to spring forward. They were still watching me through their beady eyes their talons sheathed in black gloves and I waited. When they were mostly gone the blotchy eyed man stood and started walking towards the back. I saw him glancing my way and smiling through his blotchy eyes. He stopped to embrace a teary elderly man in a white suit and I turned and left the hall before he caught up with me.

I walked outside into the stuffy air and the close phantasmal mist and couldn’t see anything past my own hands, practically. The others were all leaving and I remembered I had my own church to go to. The ceremony hadn’t started yet but it was on the other side of town and I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it there without driving like a goddamn maniac so I decided to just not go. They wouldn’t understand why I was late anyways. I knew then it wasn’t the place for me; it was really only a fling.

Alaska - Day 3

2009-07-13T20:54:00.002-04:00

This may be the most beautiful place I have ever seen. We are on the road again driving East towards Wrangle St. Elias. The entire road winds through the mountains, which are becoming progressively rockier and snow-capped. The trees are changing too. The hills are dotted everywhere with needle-like spruce trees. It all seems so surreal. Yesterday we hiked on our first glacier and I felt like I was in Antarctica. There are crevasses and stress lines and melt pools and waterfalls and rivers that snake and shoot across the surface like water slides, and the water is the best I have ever had. You could kneel down and lap it up like a glorious wild animal.

It is still surprisingly warm out. Nothing but sun and sandals. Seriously. The sun is out all the time. It does not get any darker until around 3 in the morning, when it starts to look like dusk. And by 5 it is back to high noon. I have lost all sense of time. I never realized how much of a drain it is always having to check a watch or know what time it is, being free of it is beautiful. We have been having dinner around 9 or 10 each night, and it is difficult to get a full nights sleep. I've taken to napping when I can at random intervals and it is fantastic. I feel like I could go forever. The mountains look like the alps now. This is a remarkable place.

Alaska - Day 2

2009-07-13T02:38:00.003-04:00

Alaska is wonderful. It doesn't look too different from anywhere else yet, but there is a different feel about it. The campsites are quieter, the roads are slower, and it is bright all the time. My favorite part is the woods. The campsite where we stayed last night is only about an hour away from Anchorage but the mountains are everywhere so it feels like the middle of nowhere. It is the middle of nowhere.

I have never seen mountains like these before - sharp, protruding mounds the color of emeralds and granite and dirt that grow on top of each other like gnashing molars, but the most beautiful molars you have ever seen, and their bottom halves are covered with the type of evergreen forest that you wish every forest was. I think that to hike to the top of one would. I have no reason to believe in God, but being here makes me wish he exists. I'd like to think that a place this beautiful was made deliberately. I'd like to have someone to thank for it.

Today we are driving into Anchorage to pick up some last minute supplies, and then further east on our way to Wrangle St. Elias. I cannot wait to walk unobstructed into the Alaskan wilderness. The woods are really something else, I'm sorry I can't explain it better. The ranger told us there was a bear that came through our campsite the morning before we arrived, but he didn't make another appearance. I'd still like to meet one before the trip is through.

Into the Great White Northern

2009-07-01T00:43:00.004-04:00

I'm leaving for Alaska in just about an hour now, so there won't be any new stories for a while. I'm going to try and write on the plane, and possibly in my tent at night but I don't have very high hopes for it; its very difficult for me to write well now without a computer to instantly revise. Anyways...

Here is the beginning of a story. I'm not going to finish it, but I think it would be really cool if everyone added to it and we could all see where it went. Write however much you feel and just leave it in the comments...

The sun was still just visible over the expanse of evergreens shimmering lightly in the distance, the afternoon rain casting a glistening sheet over the grassy waves of the Hillsboro Country Club. Silhouetted against the dying light and slouched beside an overturned golf cart sat three figures, their shadows a sparkling haze across the 18th green. The middle figure bobbed unsteadily and slumped across the shoulder of his leftmost companion as a small glass object slipped noiselessly from inside his palm. The rightmost figure raised his hand to his face, and nodded, as a bright flash rent the air beyond the clubhouse...

Also -

If I get eaten by a bear and don't make it back, thanks everyone for being in my life

She Loves Me

2009-06-28T13:17:00.000-04:00

“Is that about me?” she says, grinning madly through teeth like little white pills. She’s bending over my shoulder and her breath is warm and toxic, her hair like some ancient Greek myth slithering over my scalp and neck. I say no and close my notebook and swivel around to face her standing with her hands on her hips. She’s still smiling but its left her eyes and they stare at me and I sit very still.

“It didn’t look very flattering.” I hold her gaze as her mouth reforms into a reproachful pout full of candor and gasoline. She’s very cute when she wants to be. I tell her it isn’t about her; it’s a story about a girl who (I don’t even believe myself) goes to a party and seduces her ex for the fun of it, even though she knows he’s in love with her. She calls it tragic and laughs, relieved, I think, as she flicks her tongue at one of the little pills in my direction. I try hard not to swallow and she sits on my lap, locking her arms around my neck.

She says she wants to know why I don’t write more stories about her. Hasn’t she inspired, aroused me? Her head dips forward and the phone rings. I say I have to take this and her eyes stare into mine and I don’t show anything. She looks away and stands, her head down and searching and I almost believe she’s actually hurt. My chair swivels back around and I pick up the phone. I hear the click of a lighter and something like sobbing and I press the phone closer and block my other ear with the tip of my finger.

When I hang up she’s silent again but I can hear her watching me, like the sound of the lull in the battle right before you get shot. The smell of Crystal Noir and cigarettes drifts over but it reminds me of gunpowder and I keep my head down.

“Come over here,” she begs quietly from across the room. Her nails are tapping and the magazine clicks softly into place.

“I told you I didn’t want you smoking in here anymore,” I say.

She breathes in sharply and I hear her voice crack. “You’re an asshole, Zach.”

She’s waiting for me but I know it’s a trap and I don’t turn around. I open my notebook to write and she wants me to hear her crying again. It almost gets me this time and I have to stop myself. But she doesn’t stop and I have to turn around.

Watching her cry softly to herself she doesn’t look like the girl I know and I don’t know what to say. I know its all an act but she plays it so convincingly and suddenly I don’t smell gunpowder anymore. She sees something in my stare and tries to look away but I beat her to it. I think about the first time we met and how consuming she was before I learned to distrust the spark in her eye, the empty cajolery of her laugh, and why can’t it still be that way? I could be wrong about, I must be wrong about her; she’s so hurt, now, there’s no, maybe never was, no, seducing, meducing, it was just her and what have I been doing? and I think she loves me.

2009-06-25T23:19:00.002-04:00

There is nothing in the world like sitting outside on a cool summer night to watch the lightning and stars and the fireflies, where you can hear the Something Bigger between the wind and the thunder.

The Worst Thing

2009-06-24T01:32:00.003-04:00

I decided that I really didn't want to spend any more time on this, so forgive me if the ending is a bit deux es machina. I still like it. Thank you for reading

The day began almost as bad as it ended. We were out of corn flakes. And it was raining. I stared through the oversized kitchen windows at the soggy drive before me and poked noncommittally at the Cheerios floating hopefully in my bowl. Arrogant pricks. I left them half finished by the sink and considered the shirt and tie hanging smugly beside the door. Not today. I reached for the phone and began to dial. 7…1…0… My name is Joshua, by the way. And then I remembered. Shit. No more sick days. Even taking my cereal misfortune into account, I knew this wouldn’t fly as an emergency. My boss really is an uncompromising bastard.

Twenty-five minutes, two pointless phone calls, and one crappy cup of coffee later, and I pulled into work. By the time I made it inside my good umbrella was completely soaked through – parking in a reserved spot and it’s still a mad dash to avoid being flooded – and my boss, Mr. Shaleen, was waiting for me. Great.

“Don’t get started just yet there Joshua, my boy. Got a special job for you this morning,” he beamed stupidly.

“Honest Mr. Shaleen, thanks for thinking of me but I’m really not feeling well, I think I got food poisoning and my head is all over – “

“Nonsense my boy, you’re going to love this. My stepson is coming in from New York today and I’ve got a meeting with the guys over at Ballantine until six, so I need you Joshua-my-boy to take him to the ballpark until I’m through. My private box, you two’ll have the time of your life.”

“But sir I don’t even like baseball.” He laughed sadistically.

“His plane gets here in fifteen minutes. You’ll take the company chopper,” he said, laying his hand menacingly on my shoulder and still laughing cruelly to himself.

I let him lead me to the elevator like a prisoner lets his cell door shut. Reaching the brass doors he pushed the button labeled “Up”, my image staring curiously back at me as we waited for the numbers to flash slowly down to “1”. A dull “dong” noise chimed wearily, and the doors eased open.

What happened next is still unclear to me. What I do remember is scrambled and incomplete, and possibly made up – a flash of teeth, a box of Kleenex, pitching wedge, and cheese wedge. I don’t even like cheese. But somehow I woke up four hours later to a splitting headache and 80s hair metal. I’d tell you what happened next, but you wouldn’t believe it. It’s so cliché and utterly terrible I actually don’t think its true. And you don’t even want to ask about my corn flakes.

The Mushroom Man: Based On True Events

2009-06-22T01:33:00.003-04:00

Sophomore year... don't judge too harshly

Charlie watched the rain slide lazily off the overhang and into the ever growing puddles below, the previous thunder of the storm now just a light pitter-patter above. His feet dangled carelessly over the edge of the shelter, now hopelessly drenched from the day’s trek. It had been pouring since morning, the rock strewn paths of the Appalachian Trail turned into cascading waterfalls, making the hike a real challenge. It was now a little past 4, the sun beginning its evening descent early in the dwindling days of autumn, and Charlie and his two friends had decided unanimously to stop for the night at the Adirondack shelter only a few miles off the trail. Not unexpectedly, it was packed to capacity, few backpackers wanting to spend the night in the rain soaked open. And as one would expect, backpacking tends to attract a rather interesting crowd, and with a large concentration as was now the case, it was only a matter of time before Charlie found himself face to face with one of the more peculiar members of the bunch.

“Hey man,” came a slow, drawling voice from over Charlie’s left shoulder. “You wanna try it for me?” Charlie slowly swiveled his head around to face the newcomer. Standing before him was a raggedy looking man of about 25, with long black dreads so dirty they may have one time been blonde. He was wearing a blue t-shirt and torn khaki shorts, which hung loosely over his mud stained legs. Upon his feet were equally filthy boots, their color undeterminable under months of grime. Around his neck was a beaded hemp necklace, his long shaggy hair covering most of his face. And in his outstretched hand was a small, orange, mushroom.

“I don’t know Charlie man,” came another voice, and one Charlie immediately recognized.

“Oh come on,” echoed a third, drawing the last word out with a sneer. “He seems like a nice guy.” So caught up in the strange man with the mushroom, Charlie had completely overlooked his two best friends and trail buddies, Mike and Todd. Todd had spoken first, his words of caution reflecting his wary nature. He wasn’t a small kid, but was naturally shy around others, never fitting in as easily as his friends. Instead he kept to himself, most of the time preferring to see life through his books instead of actually living it. It was only with much poking and prodding that Mike and Charlie had finally coaxed him into this adventure, and from the looks of things, he was not enjoying himself.

Mike was the polar opposite. He loved being the center of attention, and there was no story too wild, no dare too dangerous for him. A boy of medium build, he was often picking fights with kids in the grade below him, with mixed results. It never dampened his spirit however, and he had of course jumped at the chance to spend a weekend in the woods with no parents, and therefore no rules.

“What?” Charlie asked incredulously, completely confused as to what his friends were talking about. “Try what for you, what are you talking about?”

“The mushroom of course!” the man exclaimed, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I need you to eat it for me.”

All eyes were on Charlie as he sat there, too stunned to speak. “Look dude, its like this.” It was Mike who had spoken, a strange glimmer in his eye, as he attempted to make Charlie understand the situation at hand. “This here, is the mushroom man. Mushroom Man, meet Charlie, Charlie, meet Mushroom Man. OK, everyone acquainted?” he finished, with a silly smile on his face that clearly showed he was rather enjoying himself.

“Heya dude,” remarked the Mushroom Man. He spoke with a sort of half smile, which along with his half closed eyes, formed an expression one would expect to find on a sick hippie (his occupation at the time.)

Charlie, who was still too mystified to speak, let Mike continue with his introduction. “You see Charlie, Mushroom Man is bit of a guide here, and he’s writing a book about the Appalachian Trail; more specifically, about its numerous mushrooms, or “shrooms.” Am I saying that right Mushroom Man? OK cool. Yeah anyway, he’s writing a guide book all about the shrooms on the trail, which ones are good to eat, which ones to avoid, stuff like that. And so he’s just been walking up and down eating all of the mushrooms he sees, and writing down what happens in his notebook. Isn’t it great?!” Charlie stopped talking to catch his breath, his face now beaming with excitement, having clearly overlooked the negative side of eating wild mushrooms.

“People do that?” Charlie managed to spit out, as Mushroom Man nodded vigorously, eyes wide open now, just as thrilled as Mike was at his lifestyle choice.

“I’m afraid it’s true,” Todd added, now flipping through a worn blue notebook, its pages littered with notes, which included everything from Polaroids of the various mushrooms, to hand drawn pictures of what Mushroom Man had seen while on the shrooms.

“Don’t do it Charlie,” Todd warned, a slightly panicked look in his eye. “Do you know why the “Mushroom Man,” (as he rolled his eyes in disdain,) “can’t eat the mushroom himself?” The Mushroom Man shuddered, and started to rock slowly in place. “I’ll tell you why!” Todd continued, his voice starting to rise in pitch and volume. “It’s because the last mushroom he ate had him puking his brains out for two weeks! He couldn’t even stand up! Not to use the bathroom, not to eat, not for anything!” Todd finished almost at a yell, jumping to his feet, and gesturing towards the Mushroom Man, who was looking slightly embarrassed. For a moment afterwards Todd seemed unable to remember where he was. A second later however his face flushed a deep shade of crimson, and he sat down, looking embarrassed. “All I’m saying Charlie…” his voice lower now, barely audible, as he stared intently at his shoelaces, “Just don’t do it man,” he said quietly, as he slowly shook his head.

“You’re a real pussy sometimes you know that Todd!” Charlie, Todd, and the mushroom man all looked up in surprise. It was Mike who had spoken, and he was now on his feet. “Don’t listen to him Charlie, you’re a big boy, you can think for yourself. Its just one little mushroom, how bad can it really be? Todd’s always been afraid of his life, don’t let him ruin yours!”

Todd simply sat there, his face now bright red, his lip starting to twitch. Mike was still standing, a mix of anger and disgust now resting on his face. Charlie was the only one who didn’t appear moved by Mike’s speech, and instead was concentrating on the mushroom still resting in the Mushroom Man’s open palm.

“Fine!” Mike shouted, his eyes now ablaze. “If you two are too scared to do it, then I will!” And with that, he snatched up the mushroom, swallowing it whole. Still standing, he rocked unsteadily for a moment, and then collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Got a Match?

2009-06-21T01:29:00.003-04:00

-Sorry, this one is a little longer...

The scent of clinking glasses and fizzing champagne drifted buoyantly through the rich, evening air, caressing the easy laughter and shameless gaiety of the several dozen guests still smiling clumsily beneath their cardboard hats. The New Year had arrived hours before to kisses and squeals of exaggerated delight but the flow of cheap wine and conversation had continued unabated throughout the morning hours of the still black night. Leonard leaned impressively against the canary-cream wall, his fingers drumming lazily against his empty glass as he surveyed the chattering room. He was wearing a tailored, pale grey suit with the shirt unbuttoned beneath the collar, his sharp yet subtle posture contrasting sharply with that of the other revelers now hanging off of each other in various states of intoxication. Though he had ingested beyond his fair due, he had no disposition to drunken extroversion. He sighed tragically and checked his watch.

On the far side of the room picking at his shredded napkin sat Audy. Barely beyond his teens, he was wearing a wrinkled white jacket and an eager, quivering expression that seemed to jog around his mismatched features. Bits of green paper lay scattered around his black canvas sneakers, the left of which seemed to have succumbed to a violent twitch, and was now tapping compulsively against the pale yellow carpet. He was sitting alone beside the bar, where a tanned young man with an unfortunate slur was doing his best to talk a tired looking brunette home with him.

“Is that so?”, the brunette feigned through a poorly stifled yawn.

“Oh yeah, ya know I did two tours, I did. Nasty ‘tuff that. Real nasty but I did it. I ‘hanly wish I hada known ya’ back then, Ida shot ‘em all fah you. Just fah you, ya’ so sweet.”

At this mention Audy’s bobbing head shot upwards.

“You were in the war, were you?”

The tanned man looked down, surprised at Audy’s presence, and then annoyed.

“Yeah so what?,” He turned back to the brunette whose gaze was now drifting longingly around the room, “Like I was sayin - ”.

“I was in the war too you know,” Audy said, rising to his feet and absent-mindedly knocking his chair into another group of party goers, spilling champagne down his side. “Yeah, yeah… over in Kunduz right, right near Tajikistan…”.

“Listen buddy thas really somethin’ special, great ta hear it, ok. Now willya leave us alone? Can’t ya see tha lady and I are a tryin’ ta talk hea?” The brunette to whom he was referring was still searching wildly around the room, clutching desperately at her own champagne glass. Audy continued.

“I still remember the first man I ever killed. He wasn’t even even a man really, just just a boy, but so was I right. Right?” He laughed nervously, the corners of his mouth twitching, his foot stamping double time. “Our convoy was ambushed j- just a few minutes out of base you know, and we lost some you know but we took them worse, and… and we came upon this one kid…k- kid my age, you know, and I was so nervous I just rushed it, I…I…I don’t even remember the actual thing ha ha you know, I was so nervous and it was done. The next one I didn’t even get to think about, you know, already so automatic, right?”

He was so agitated at this point that his foot twitch had developed into a full body shake and he was positively hopping back and forth, his hands wringing the balled up remains of a green cocktail napkin between them, grinning painfully beneath his wrinkled and champagne-stained dinner jacket. The brunette had flitted away to the far side of the room and was whispering conspiratorially with another woman of about her age and get-up, leaving the tanned man to stare dangerously after her.

“The second was really lacking in poetic significance,” Audy continued, his inflection darting up and down like a rabbit caught between two snares. “Ha ha… you got a match?”

The tanned man turned coldly back on Audy.

“You little shit. I’m gonna throtal the fuggen piss outta you - ”.

Across the room Leonard watched as a man standing beside the bar threw himself with the ease of a drunk upon a curious young man in a wrinkled jacket. Their bodies met and seemed to embrace for a moment, before the former, apparently succumbing to the booze, slouched down in the young man’s arms. The young man propped his unconscious fellow up against the foot of the bar, and bent in close so that his hands were hidden from Leonard’s view. He withdrew a moment later with a glint of steel, revealing a dark red stain that was spreading slowly over the drunken man’s abdomen. He slumped down beside him, and laid his wrinkled head upon the other’s cold shoulder.

Leonard sighed again. He had always hated these parties. Looking around, he saw nothing but cheap actors and pretentious suits; self obsessed, spoiled children. He wondered what they would do if anything real ever happened to them, if anything out of real life ever found its way into their privileged, drunken lives. He laughed coldly to himself.

Back beside the bar a crowd had started to gather. At the sight of the tan man’s stain a poor woman had fainted, and the room seemed to be ringing hollowly with the sudden emptiness of their forgotten laughter. Someone was shouting, and the curious man was dragged to his feet and held fast by several men made angry and brave by the night’s celebrations. The brunette had returned, sobbing without tears over the tan man’s body as another man held the dripping red knife beside her head, while still another dialed frantically into the telephone behind the bar. Leonard yawned in disgust. Dramatic children indeed.

Tonic

2009-06-19T20:33:00.001-04:00

The heavy flakes sunk slowly through the cold evening wind, falling eerily through the stoic streetlights, their shadows flashing dispassionately and separate. The headlights drove silently along the deserted road, their tracks soon erased by the pressing flakes and trailing cars. A single figure walked slowly beside the empty street, alone and forgotten.

The metallic tone chirped hollowly throughout the empty store as the door pushed open, the chilling bell reverberating heartlessly on the still night air. Two soggy boots entered and ground heavily into the freshly mopped floor and stalked slowly up to the counter, past the vacant chairs and friendless tables.

I heard the droning of the bell and moaned softly. I slid on my protective, plastic gloves and moved reluctantly out from behind the counter, staring at the grizzled, shell of a man stalking noisily across the store. I smiled dully and adjusted my knives.

“What can I get for you?”

He didn’t answer, and continued to stare sickly, longingly through the glass. I shifted uncomfortably and my gaze fell across my freshly spoiled floor. I looked heavily up at him. His face hung unshaven, and he stood there draped in a heavy, black coat that hung dangerously about his hulking frame with black boots and matching black jeans sullied with darkened, crusty stains. His lips splayed apart and a creeping, guttural growl crept slowly between them, chilling the empty store more completely than the arctic howl outside.

“Give me… an Italian.” I nodded clumsily and reached for a clean knife. His voice was dark and gravely, like sandpaper dragging across asphalt. “I like the sandwich cold,” he continued, with a sick, teasing smile, like it was some sort of lurid joke. I started shivering and opened the bread drawer. I grabbed a fresh roll and placed it awkwardly on the counter, and cut across its middle with a guilty flutter. I could feel him watching, staring ravenously down through the curved spate of glass as if at any moment he was preparing to crash through and take it, soil it as well. My mouth was dry, and I swallowed painfully.

“Do you want a drink?” I asked.

“Give me a tonic.”

“A tonic?”

“Yeah a tonic - a coke!”

I bent over to grab a cup and I could hear him growling again, breathing heavily. I straightened up and he began to unbutton his jacket, staring straight at me, his mouth ajar, waiting. Even standing next to the fiery oven I couldn’t help from shivering. I thrust the cup and the bag into his expectant hands and took a step away from the counter, careful not to let his fingers brush mine. I punched in his order, and opened the register. He had exact change.

He turned away without a word and walked quietly towards the exit. I watched him leave the store with the bag swinging limply between his legs. The door rang coldly open and he teetered for a moment on the doormat and then shuffled out of view.

I saw him stalking off alone into the chilly night past the faceless cars and darkened windows, past every stranger’s stare and every lonely footstep. I watched him turn his key in the empty lock and push open the chime-less door, and descend the weighty stairs. I saw him walk heavily across the empty kitchen and sit heavily at the empty table and stare heavily at his cold sandwich.

Crash

2009-06-19T19:18:00.000-04:00

Sand on my check no no that’s glass now my face wet with surf no no that’s blood now but still warm and forgiving oh god I need forgiving but my back is still warm burning I should’ve worn sun block I thought to meant to but didn’t waves were calling the pressure the booming and crashing pulling me and sucking me underneath the cars stuck together like magnets but crippled and conscious she’s swimming in blood but surf and the sand speeding through waves rolling over crashing down like jaws of life prying open the not my fault screams she’s screaming oh god and the my back is burning under fire the sun out high on perfect today to the beach why not why ask why not smile in sandy fog in my eyes it’s a haze but red all red and wet crash of waves not knowing of crash and I’m through the window again arm twitching yards away not mine anymore but red like me but laying in sun and my back was warm not warm like this fire now burning under fire and sun and its red all red it feels red makes me smell red its dripping from everywhere too much dripping too much oh god it’s pooling I’m floating in red now floating under sun on top of waves rolling crashing but no waves hear just red and more oh god red it was red it was stop but I went and then crash spinning slowly under water sun nice ahead air above but no no just fire and blood and her screaming oh god she’s screaming I’m dying and she’s there holding my hand that’s not mine anymore just red just red it’s everywhere now oh God just red doesn’t fire burning hurt shouldn’t I hurt it’s too much oh god I can’t I can’t I need that warmth oh god this isn’t what I wanted.

Baby Blue

2009-06-19T19:16:00.000-04:00

“Where were you last night?” The question hung between us like the persistent ringing of an unanswered phone. I remember she was leaning against the doorframe and I by my bed when the accusation rang out, surprising us both. She didn’t look away, but I couldn’t meet her gaze, unwilling – no – unable to. That was it, I think; she always assumed I had a choice. Ring ring.

I can learn everything I need to about a person just by looking at their shoes. She was wearing baby blue flip flops the first time we met, the thong kind that exposed her freshly painted toenails, also baby blue, and suggested even more. Young, innocent, and a trusting naiveté that was practically begging to be devoured. Dressed in a tart red summer gown she reminded me of a sweet, new cherry, ripe for the taking.

Ring ring. Today she was wearing a pair of scuffed and soiled work boots. She volunteered…somewhere. I could never keep it straight. I seriously doubted whether there was any baby blue left beneath that ruined exterior. RING Ring. I stood up from my bed, not out of guilt, my imprint was the only one that could be seen, and moved to the open window. She was still watching me. The room, the question, her, all pregnant. The air from the window was cool and fresh on my face, sweet and caressing, ripe with opportunity, but – RING RING.

On the sidewalk below a baby was crying. Peering out through the open window I knew its father was wailing as well, though his tears were admirably hidden. I shut the window, its glassy image reflecting strangely into the room. I walked back to my bed and laid down on top of my sheets, thinking about the new girl at the Kwik RING RING Stop, the cherry red of her nails, RING RING the baby blue of her eyes.

Balloons

2009-06-19T19:14:00.000-04:00

The balloons bounced cheerfully in the bright August breeze, floating skyward, and urged upwards by the warming glow of the sun shining overhead. Straining hopefully against their tethers and willing themselves free, they struggled against the constraining safety of the grey and concrete signpost to which they were lashed, a structure of a concrete and permanent reality, itself impassive and unaffected by the cycle of time. Indeed, the only admission that the passing years had affected any change at all upon that stately post was evidenced through the assembly of deflated balloons from carnivals passed that now hung limply, though elegantly, they seemed to insist, from faded red streamers tied round its top, enduringly and irrevocably shackled to the concrete establishment. A sickly air of importance seemed to emanate from the aged collection of ruined balloons as well, as though they were the once victims and now recipients of a ghastly and timeless mission that was as at present still unbeknownst to the younger generation drifting hopelessly above.

Just beyond the ageless post and securely fastened to his mother’s outstretched and red-gloved hand, Teddy struggled.

“Can’t I ride the Ferris wheel just once?” he called longingly up to the red-gloved woman. “You know it’s my favorite”. A stately woman of thirty-three, Mrs. Bond merely shook her head and kept on walking, unaffected by the sporadic tugs and flights of Teddy by her side.

“You’ve already been on the carousel and the bumper cars and through the petting zoo,” she said firmly. “That’s quite enough fun.”

Teddy, his easy smile not yet punctured by Mrs. Bond’s timeless rebuke, still bobbed hopefully along, tugging persistently at her faded red gloves.

“Now that’s quite enough Theodore! If you insist on acting like a child then I shall be forced to treat you like one. Your grandparents never tolerated this sort of tomfoolery from me, and I shan’t have it from you now.”

Teddy’s grip grew limp in the faded red glove, and he allowed his mother to lead him away from the warmth of the carnival. As he walked slowly away, his eyes drifted spitefully up towards a lone balloon somehow freed of it’s tether, soaring beyond the hard, grey clouds.