Number 19: Ordinary Mind

Man I have not had much time to do some nice relaxing writing, and well I have no talent in art. I...

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 23:18:09 +0200

Man I have not had much time to do some nice relaxing writing, and well I have no talent in art. I dislike reblogging things just to reblog them, maybe I’m just not fit for the modern day social media on account of my tendency to stay silent.

Sadly I am becoming a bit untethered at the moment. My ears are becoming too acute and I cannot sleep, my eyes are beginning to ache. It is the subtle signs of madness that I hate. I am oscillating too freely.

Still I have followed this course too many times to be swept away by it again (tempting fate?). However, I really should know better than to drink in this state. A bottle of wine does my head no good. Sadly there is little time to waste, I shall have to gain my perspective and find my footing quickly, always so much to do. I always find my way back to the path, and I am confident I always will, but right now I’m just a bit turned around.

"I thou thee, thou traitor!"

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 23:30:02 +0200

“I thou thee, thou traitor!”

- Sir Edward Coke, prosecuting Sir Walter Raleigh.

How I became enlightened, or: Burn a field and new growth will come whether we planned it or not

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 00:18:00 +0200

Once upon I time I was a child, shocking but true. When I was a child I possessed fear. I guess I possessed some level of insight too, for it seems that fear should be impossible without understanding. Tornadoes scared me. Roller coasters scared me. Death scared me. Life scared me. Time scared me. Anger scared me. Pain scared me. My own sorrow scared me. I was an unhappy child. I gave up these fears sometime, and I gave up that unhappiness too. I’m not entirely sure when I let go of fear, I think I know when I let go of unhappiness.

It was a bitter medicine that I took, and it lead me down a dark path. There were times when I wanted to go back, I even tried once. But the way was lost to me in the darkness. You see one year back in highschool I cut out my heart, and put on a mask. I insisted myself with others, and smiled when they smiled, and laughed when they laughed and offered lies to their truths, at times I became cruel. It was exhausting, and terrible. I often felt like I was about to shatter, like the whole of my being was an eggshell, a fragile facade, but I wasn’t alone.

There were two moments, two realizations I remember having as a young child that seem to me profoundly relevant to this decision. The first was when I was about seven years old, in a store with my parents, and it occurred to me, that I could better get what I want by feigning sadness and letting them offer it to cheer me up, than I could by getting angry and demanding. The second was about the same age, when I first realized that to be thought of as smart all I need to do was know when to be silent. Never show effort in answering a question, keep contemplation silent. Never offer an answer that you’re not sure of. And never ask a question, trust that you even if you don’t understand, you will in time, someone is surely stupider than you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the answer so long as no one else finds out about it, but they will associate your failings with you more strongly than your successes. So began my lifelong descent into sophistry and manipulation. A conversation is a war, it is not always best to make a headlong charge. How we present ourselves, what we let our opponents know, letting them take momentum to thin out their lines and present a target. I was a manipulative child. Honestly, I still am.

For some years I continued in this fashion, the part of me that could be hurt, that felt pain and fear, it dried up and atrophied. People were at arms length, just the distance I wanted them. They weren’t true friends, but I wasn’t alone, my own thoughts were drowned out, and I while around them became something new. In those days I would find myself in the hours before sleep struck heavy with despair, I could only be me when I was alone, and I desperately didn’t want to be.

But time kept passing, and before long I was in college. Everything was new. The chains that held me back to the time before the mask were gone. I was washed clean. Who I was hadn’t changed, but I was free to become. So there in college I met new people, and tried on new masks. I was so free that it was itself unbearable. I had lost all firm footing. I knew I was wearing a mask, but I couldn’t remember what was under it. It tormented me this thought, I had made myself into a nothing, a shadow. I met a nice girl, she was bipolar or so it was thought at the time I think the diagnosis has since changed but we don’t keep in touch, we bonded once briefly over madness, in the hallway of a dorm, for only about two minutes, but it was important to me, I had been honest. I once tried to peel away the mask, but found myself only taking on an airs. I was imitating a hollow memory of who I was. In those days I would find myself in the hours before sleep surprised to find tears on my cheeks, I did not know why they were there, I could feel their presence but not their significance.

I studied philosophy and I studied physics. It is my physics degree that I use in my current position, but the philosophy probably helped me more. Donald Davidson more than anything rang true with me, that truth is neither objective nor subjective, that meaning lies in discourse in human interaction. A thought in the head is meaningless unless spoken, and once spoken it is by force of who we as humans are. We participate, in good and bad, in true and false, but we do not legislate them. We fight, to change but must accept that what is at this very moment is outside us. We have our own personal beliefs, but we are not islands and those beliefs did not come from a vacuum. We influence and we are influenced. We do not need ethical certainty, for we are a part of the ethical machine.

I had sunk lower, but no one knew. I wanted to recover what I had thrown away, pain. And so a self-destructive time started. I knew I had to escape from those overt scars though. So I took up smoking cigarettes. People still ask me to this day what a smart person informed person would start smoking. I didn’t give the answer.

I felt such anger at these times, though I was too walled off to act on it. Here began my envy of those with faith, it would be so wonderful to have a god to be angry with, but I had nothing, just the anger. In the dialogue of my own mind I always compared it to a catapult being fired without payload, the force has nowhere to go but into the frame itself, given enough time it will tear itself apart. Human beings made me so angry. Warehouse stores, great cavernous spaces with people in every aisle. Elevators made me dream homicidal dreams. I fantasized about snapping necks and breaking shins and stomping on them when their down. Of power and domination, and the human acts that descend from these—that forgive me, but I do not wish to speak of. Rage tore away at me, within my head I could feel it. There was a noiseless cacophony in my mind. It was pressing out, and the only way to escape it was with real noise, real thought drowning meaningless noise. I often desired to tear out my left eye, saying that was nothing in this world which merited seeing two-fold.

The rage never managed to get beyond my mind, I never so much as hinted at its presence, that made it the worse for me, but I am of course glad I did not.

I also remember at these times the feelings of unrealness, that I wasn’t connected to anything. The world felt like a facade it was stretched thing and hollow. A canvas, a painted backdrop. Corridors especially felt absurd and often presented me with a feeling of extending for infinity, meaningless, like an old cartoon where I could walk and walk and the scenery was just being reused.

I was so untethered.

The cycle of madness had been steady, constant for over a decade, perhaps nearly two. As it continued passing, is highs and its lows, I myself grew up with it. For the longest time I noticed only the low ebbs, but as I aged I became more self aware. The patterns of my existence played out in front of me. I began to understand myself, and my passions. I began to understand it all. You see the true madness of it is just how blind you are. In the brightest light you cannot remember what the darkness was, what it felt like and vice versa. The full weight of half my life was missing, unable for me to connect to. It’s like a song that you ache to remember but you know none of the words, you could not even hum a bar of it, you just know it somehow. There’s a sense of the abstract of it, like there’s some visceral feeling, a pre-conscious sound you’re trying to dig up. When you do hear that song again, it all at once comes flooding back and you know it all beginning to end.

The pattern was beginning to become clear, but the substance of it was still lost.

All the same it was beginning to fade, the weight of it was lifting somehow. Its odd, you know, they say, or at least a TV show once said and I find it interesting enough to believe, that people falsely diagnosed with a terminal disease, upon finding out the truth, miss it. They don’t feel relief. They’ve begun to identify with it. Its a battle they’re waging, a side they’re on, a piece of who they are. I was not truly terminally ill, at least by any but perhaps Kierkegaard’s reckoning, but all the same as it began to fade, and it faded slowly there was still a pang of loss. How’s that for irony? the identity of non-identity should be valued. It was madness, I guess.

And then one day about two years ago now, I was standing on my porch, when I felt it. First bubbling up from within as contentment, not euphoria, contentment. Then it crashed over me, inundated me, and yet it was welling up from within me. It filled me, and I knew that everything I had been had culminated to this person standing there now. The wave that crested over the sum of being was this: “I know who I am. And I don’t hate myself.”

I am still not a particularly nurturing person, I still have the walls around myself, a hyper-vigilance about how I present myself. I make no claims to love anyone, but I understand them, and I do not hate them. I have given up thinking of people as caricatures, as monsters, as fools, as saints.

Though in my title I have pretended to enlightenment, all I really mean by that is that I came out of the dark.

Sometimes I fall in love with the stupidest ideas.

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 19:39:00 +0200

I currently desire to write a version of the Brothers Karamazov set in a twisted world of organic magic and engineered creatures to track down the traitorous Smerdyakov, avenge their father and clear Dmitry’s name. I have a surprising number of ideas for it. Should I be rethink this?

bergopolis: Says it all, really. I disagree. From what...

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 01:27:53 +0200

bergopolis:

Says it all, really.

I disagree. From what I’ve seen ‘anti-intellectualism’ is largely a myth. Its a persecution complex no less than any other. There is a political reality that cuts deep, a rhetoric that gets thrown around and people are confused about evolution and global warming. But in general people accept the greater bulk of ‘intellectualism’ than they oppose.

“Anti-intellectualism” is ill-defined and whenever people argue for its existence they point some isolated issues without looking at the broader culture which is hungry for the wonders of technology, which goes to doctors for illness, consults dictionaries for definitions, etc. So what should I believe anti-intellectualism is? What is intellectualism for that matter?

There is confusion, there is defensiveness, but there is no true “anti-intellectualism”.

Blue Cliff Record 57

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 21:22:00 +0200

Monk: 'The supreme Way is not difficult; it simply dislikes choosing'. What is non-choosing?
Joshu: Above the heavens and under the heavens I am the only one, alone and exalted.
Monk: That is still choosing.
Joshu: You stupid bumpkin, where is the choosing?
The Monk remained silent

--I call too few people bumpkins, and of those I do very few of them are monks. It must be nice to be a zen master.

"A monk asked Tozan, “How can we escape the cold and heat?” Tozan replied, “Why..."

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 21:55:00 +0200

“A monk asked Tozan, “How can we escape the cold and heat?”
Tozan replied, “Why not go where there is no cold and heat?”
“Is there such a place?” the monk asked.
Tozan commented, “When cold, be thoroughly cold; when hot, be hot through and through.”“”

- Blue Cliff Record 43
(Though this translation comes from elsewhere I believe.)
In case you didn’t know, I like some Koans. They’re pretty much nothing until we make something of them, but once we do they’re swell.

"Sifu Kisu How do you deal with Anger?

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 19:55:00 +0200

sifu-kisu:

Be aware then let go.

Cultivate the good roots of non-contention.

Gaze through the opponent as if scanning through to a distant horizon.

Guide as a gentle example.

If you do not allow yourself to attach to what you feel is most their most annoying aspect then suddenly it is no longer annoying right?

Emptiness & compassion.

Row the boat with the flow of the river row the boat with the flow of the sea.

Sifu Kisu
The Harmonious Fist School of Northern Shaolim Swordsmanship

Perfect. Thank you.

All of the above. Seeing it written out in simple yet incredibly deep words soothes my mind with ease. These may become mantras in my life, especially when the seas are rough.

Anger is a part of us, it wells up from within. It is therefore not sufficient to deal with anger by ignoring, delaying and restraining it. We must never run from our anger, never seek to cut it away. It is a part of us. Just the same we must not sit back and wallow in it letting it overrun reason and wash us away to be broken in the rapids.

To deal with anger we must turn our eyes inward and come to understand it.

First we recognize it.

Then we ask where it flows from: annoyance, insecurity, frustration, or pain. What is it within ourselves that has been moved to anger.

Next we ask where it flows to, where would the anger send us.

Finally it is up to us to choose whether to follow the path wholeheartedly, not just rashly, or to turn our back to that path accepting its source but not its destination. Understand the annoyance, pain or insecurity, face it directly and let the anger be dissolved.

We should be moved to follow the first path when our anger flows from an injustice beyond us that we can move against and the second when it flows from within us.

There is no greater cure for anger than understanding.

arcaneimages: Wait for it… I flocking love this.

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 20:34:30 +0200

arcaneimages:

Wait for it…

I flocking love this.

Uncle Iroh is kind of an existential coward

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 13:19:00 +0200

First let me say, I love Iroh. I enjoyed his antics, and the interaction between him and Zuko carried half the show.

I admire many things about Iroh, he’s clear headed, strong but humble, recognizes that balance should be preserved, the spirits should be honored. He is compassionate and wise.

However, after the death of Lu Ten, he gave up. He did not abandon merely the siege at Ba Sing Se, he stepped back from all ambition. He let Ozai claim the the throne without challenge. He neither wanted to conquer or to defend. He didn’t want power, maybe he didn’t feel he should have, that he was worthy after failing his son. Maybe he just wanted to retire. Either way its clear that Iroh really desired only three things: a cup of tea, a game of paisho and to help his nephew.

It seems he knows the world is coming unbalanced, he was aware that General “slaughter a division of our own troops as a diversion” was wrong, but he left it up to a child to say something. He knew the belief was worth fighting for, but he left it up to Zuko to defend it in an Agni Kai.

On one hand I feel that it is wrong to think that someone should be compelled to be ambitious. That Iroh has the right to find what brings him contentment to pursue that. My problem, however, appears when Iroh refuses this burden by saying that a 12 year-old child is the one who must carry it.

Iroh is an adult, an adult with potentially enough strength to stop Ozai. Whether he is afraid of failing, whether he is doesn’t want to succeed, he refuses. He says that it is the Avatar’s destiny to face Ozai, and indeed it is. What he conveniently forgets, or ignores, is that this destiny was not forged by gods or spirits. Aang’s destiny was forged by human hands, it follows from the actions of countless people, chief among them Sozin and Roku, but also Azulon, Iroh, Ozai, Ursa, Zuko, Azula, Katara, Sokka, Toph, and the whole world really, whether it was in starting the war, or fighting the war or whatnot. The firenation pursues the avatar, the rest of the world places the burden of stopping them on his shoulders.

So why must Aang face Ozai? simply because he has potentially enough power to stop Ozai? that can’t be it. Because of his destiny? But Iroh himself is creating that destiny, has created that destiny. He could have stood up to his brother, he could have lead the armies in revolt, he could have done any number of things since he started believing in the balance of the world. But he chose to leave the burden of it on a 12 year-old.

Everyone decided Aang’s destiny for him, and in truth, our destinies, the world as a whole is always held in the hands of other people. Who we are, how we were raised, what injustice exists in the world, and what umbrage we take at them, they are all influenced by other people.

He placed a heavy burden on children so he could sip tea in Ba Sing Se. He had lost the will to fight for the world, even after finally discovering what was worth fighting for, I’m just not sure a world that offers up a child to fight and potentially kill a power mad supernova-incarnate is what was worth fighting for.

Did you know?

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:28:00 +0200

That resonance is the most useful word science has given us. I encourage you to use it at all points in time, especially if writing trashy sci-fi.

Loose lips stop crack ships

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 23:45:00 +0200

In a darkened control room illuminated only by the flickering light of a dozen screens, there sat a man astride two worlds. Here he viewed into the collective dreaming of thousands, the twisting the turning, the maelstrom, the war of visions and conceptions turning around a central point. It was here that Bill sat, looking in on the dreamers, on the contention in their mouths. He smiled a soft smile. This is what he had hoped to see, it was not cruelty that made him smile at their strife, but this would support his thesis, his final dissertation for a degree in tumblodynamics. By day a videographer, a martial arts coordinator, but now he pursued his avocation, a student of the illusory, of the subtle dynamics of an imagined community.

What the-soon-to-be-Dr. Rinaldi did not notice, however, as he sat on the threshold of a dream world, was that something had been coming back to him following the links between the shared dreams all the way back to his front door. Outside a throng had assembled. Pulled, each and every one of them. They no longer had the capacity to understand the pull, nor the ego to reflect upon it, they were drawn like the waters are drawn to the sea, but here at Bill’s house they gathered and swirled, before drifting away. There is a taste of something there, something hovering in the air, or hovering in something less substantial than the air. Though Bill had not seem them gather, their slowly building rabble seeped in through his walls and he heard washed amongst the thousand voices a meaningless babble building first softly then louder as the throng pressed inward towards his walls.

At first Bill was confused he, not knowing what to make of it, and then moving to the window he saw them, gathering from all directions and sparsely spread out in the distance and packing together the closer they get. But they too had seen Bill. They had seen him, and they turned, their bodies limp, and twisted, some broken, some decaying. They carried no pain on their faces, they clustered and babbled and then spread apart. The same dance repeated over an over and always the incomprehensible babbling. But they had turned to face Bill through the window, and their eyes were cold but hungry, their mouths opened and with a contorted rasping they screamed “CA... NON… CA…NON” and the babble suddenly came clear. The hunger in there eyes came to the forefront, now absolute, they no longer milled about, all of them turning, they found something they want.

Bill could not yet have known what they were, but he knew the look they give could bring no good. Somewhere in his soul terror was creeping in, but Bill had walked with giants and would not yield so easily. Throwing wide the window he called out boldly, his voice, resonant with his inborn auto-tune powers “Get off my lawn you crazy kids!!”. He did not notice it, but the screens behind him flickered at this, alive with activity. The assembled crowd however is only encouraged, pushing forward their shrieks, now desperate, “CA… NON…” They pushed and groaned, and the buildings frame began to yield. The door creaked, and They piled upon themselves to reach the windows.

Bill moved to the phone, but it was of no use. Just as it was within his grasp, the door gave way the windows broke inward, glass shards cut deep into the would be invaders, but they paid it no mind. And then Bill knows what’s at stake, he stops playing around. Drawing a deep breath, he let’s his mind flow into the sea of cognition that binds all people. Through the chaotic waves and turmoil that surrounded him, out into the world. And from there, he let fly the summons: “MARTIAL ARTS REFERENCE TEAM, ASSEMBLE!” He need only hold them back now for nothing will stand against what is coming. A second breath. Drawn and released, but released with the ancient technique passed down by his ancestors. He ensnared them with his glorious melody. His genetic auto-tune mastery will hold them hypnotized, for a time.

A time of pure auto-tuned perfection passed, where nothing in earshot could resist the power of Bill’s binding-song. But his concentration was broken when suddenly out in the distance a great commotion was raised, and he accidentally shifted key, the snare broken, and the advance of the monstrous hoard continued. The terrible undead dove at him, grasping him by his mighty limbs. He thew them, lashed out, but they would not be stopped. They held him restrained by the weight of their numbers and their mouths distended as they moved for his skull “CANON” they shrieked, and moved to crush his skull in their jaws. Out into the hoard he could see his reinforcements making steady progress towards him, but they were too far away, all was lost. He could feel the rancid breath on his skin, he could hear the babble clearly now, “ko … ko … bo … ko … zin … mon … do … ko … ”. He prepared for the end.

The end did not come, the monstrous undead, broke apart on the spot. Shattered and decayed when arms like tree trunks struck them. The rest were thrown and broken by towering giant of a man. “Rodriguez! Praise be to Wodan!”

“What have you got yourself into?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll find out, first we need to assemble the full team.”

As if on cue, the incoming disturbance in the throng burst through the last line of the half-dead creatures with a mighty splatter of offal.

“Danzig, Umphries, by Shiva’s loins you’re slow! If not for Rodriguez I’d be dead, what took you so long?” Declared Bill.

“There are ten thousand of them out there!” Danzig exclaimed.

“A better question is how did Rodriguez get through so quickly?” Finished Umphries.

“I had my uncredited son draw them away in the car, then I came in the back door. But where is the last member of our sworn brotherhood?”

“Always late, but we’ll talk more later, they’re regrouping! I have an idea I just need time, guard the doors!”

The shambling undead pushed closer, the ten thousand strong army outside groaned forward over their newly re-dead kin. Bill looked at his displays, closed out the analytics and the statistics, the meta-analysis, the memorial day test design parameters and viewed the raw data stream. The first thing he saw was”

Sifu-Kisu

Stuck in traffic, Sifu-sense tingling. Bill needs me. Probably shouldn’t be tumbling, LOL.

Then he saw what confirmed his suspicions and his fears:

KoSamiEndgame

Bill Rinaldi says “Get of my lawn you crazy kids”

#CA #NON #CA-NON #CANON

7,342 reblogs 18,973 likes

He was putting together a theory as fast as he could, but even his work in tumblodynamics had always been experimental, he never put much stock in the radical theories of quantum-memeto-phase fields. He needed time, but time was against them. The three fighters struck with all their might, tossing and grappling, snapping bones and ripping flesh, but the hoard couldn’t be stopped. They seemed to be coming even faster now than when Bill had been alone at their mercy. Something was calling them.

Danzig and Umphries leveled devastating strikes that shattered skulls, but in the chaos of battle, Danzig lost momentum for a moment, and instead of cleanly withdrawing his hand from bone, the whole body came with it, he was open for just a moment too long. A half dozen surprisingly spry corpses were on him. Umphries tried to pull them off but as soon as one was removed another moved in. The numbers were just too great. Rodriguez too put up a valiant fight, but was pressed in from all sides, with less and less space, to move, the floor slicked with half-coagulated blood. It was only a matter of time before he too was overcome.

“Bill, you have to use that technique!”

“I can’t it’ll destroy you too”

“We’re losing ground, and they just keep coming. We need something.”

Before Bill could draw his breath, a perfectly color-coordinated blur entered the fray. In the blink of an eye the zombies that had been standing fell, in pieces. Standing in the doorway, a man of incomparable swagger, sheathed his sword.

“Sorry, I’m late, traffic was dead out there… Why am I the only one who brought a sword?”

“By the infinite compassion of Avalokiteshvara you’re damn late. Stop posing in front of the mirror, Kisu, they’re still coming!” Bellowed Rodriguez as he threw a dozen newly re-dead corpses at once back out the window.

“Yeah, but they’re outside where I have plenty of space to use this.” Kisu declared displaying his glimmering nine-segment chain whip.

“Go get ‘em Kisu” called Danzig, but adding a softer “50 dollars says he hits himself in the eye… again.” to Umphries.

Kisu pushed onto the lawn, throwing the undead throng in all directions with his charge. His chain whip crushing bone and flaying undead muscle with each swing. With the threat held back, Rodriguez turned to Bill “So what are we dealing with?”

“Something that was just a theory until today, if what I’m seeing is right.” Responded Bill. “It seems that quantum-memeto-dynamic-field has been been established, its resonating with the soulless bodies of the dead, and giving them new “life”.”

“A quantum-meme-resonance? How is that possible, it shouldn’t have such long range effects?” Asked Danzig, sociological-evolutionary-physics long a hobby of his.

“It wouldn’t have been, five years ago. Back in the day little ideas would flit in and out of existence, unpreserved, but in recent years they’ve drastically increased in staying power. The odds of getting a hundred or a thousand people who a particular meme resonates with together used to be small, but then Tumblr came. The ideas persist, they build off one another. The memes move back and forth through the network of human cognition, and some achieve resonance.” Bill answered.

“So what’s doing it now? And what will lead to?” The ever-inquisitive Umphries queried.

“If what I’ve seen on the Tumblosphere is accurate, its Korra. I can’t say what its leading to, but nothing good, best case scenario, the memetic plague covers the world, infecting everyone.”

“But I thought it was only affecting the dead?”

“Initially, but those raised by the plague crave canonicity to survive. They’ll move after every head-canon they can find, and they’ll feast on the canon within. Those affected will have their ego destroyed, moved by crack ships and crazy theories they’ll become vessels for the infection, they’ll too be moved to seize canon as well.” Answered Bill.

“How do we stop it?” Inquired the ever pragmatic Rodriguez.

“They’re drawn to the strongest source of canon they can find. We’re a powerful local source here due to our connection to the show, and so the hoard is drawn here, but the canon-singularity is what really draws them. The absolute point around which the whole wheel of canonicity turns.”

“You can’t mean—”

“The studio, Bryan and Michael.”

“We have to warn them.”

“We need to do more than that, as the architects of the canon, only they have the power to undo the damage. We need to get there. Its time to break out the Martial-arts-reference-mobile.”

With the alacrity of rather tired martial-arts masters, they made their way outside, the lawn was covered with the remains of countless undead and in the center of it, swaggering, Kisu sang out:

“Captain Gung fu
Here to save you
With mighty punches
from zombie munches
against their crack ships
I’ll take my chain whips
My vast and powerful qi ‘ll
makes the ladies all squee-al
has the undead Buddha-Nature?
Hmmmm, well I would wager
If you asked Cōngshěn
The great master of zen
He’d likely say “Mu”
…something, something GUNG FU!!”

And on the final word he struck a grand pose as the last zombie for 30 feet fell.

“Kisu, get over here, we’re leaving!” Bellowed Bill.

“Wait, where are we going? What did I miss? Did we figure out what was going on?” called Kisu.

“I’m not repeating the whole exposition, we’re going to find Bryan and Mike so they can stop this. Now let’s go.” Bill responded, with an auto-tuned aura of impatience in his voice.

“Sounds good, we’re running low on zombies here.” He said, briskly limping over the rest of the team.

“Shit, did they get you?” asked Umphries.

“No, I just sort of hit my leg with… the uh… chain whip…. tactically… It was a tactical tactic… For battle.”

“Pay up” muttered Danzig to Umphries.

“You said eye.”

“Its within the spirit of the bet.”

“Bet’s don’t have spirits. There’s no grey area.”

“Do you two need to be put in time out?” called Bill, his voice modulating a terrible sing-song threateningness, “Just get in the car.”

The martial-arts-reference-mobile screamed out of the driveway and into the city streets, the traffic was indeed at a stand-still as the zombie hoards weaved in and out trying to sniff out canon, but they were going with the hoard, the same thing that called to the zombies called to them. They tore through the city, the reference-mobile jolting over sidewalks and what they hoped were zombies.

The studio was perfectly still when they got there. A deathly stillness. The kung-fu masters felt a chill up their spine, here at the center of it all, the twisted meme-qi was strongest. They could feel it, assailing their minds, only their mastery of self-control, could have let them move closer, into the parking lot. What they saw, however made even them pause.

“My god, the studio… It was built on the site of an old Spanish church.”

“So what does that have to do with anything?” asked Umphries.

“Churches have graveyards, and look”

There in the parking lot, was a figure clothed all in black. At his side a rapier and whip.

“But he’s not even real.” Protested Rodriguez.

“The memeto-dynamic field, is strong here, too strong. Its transcending reality. Its raised the fictional dead.”

“Don Diego de la Vega. Zorro.” Rodriguez said flatly.

The black clothed corpse, rose his thin and rotting fingers to his mouth, and with a whistle called a mighty black steed, red eyed, and thin fleshed, but powerful.

“and it seems Toronado.”

The steed and rider charged at them, the steed reared up and they barely could dive away in time even with their masterful reflexes. Where they had stood but a moment earlier the pavement now had two great craterous hoof-prints.

“Undead evil Zorro? Best day ever or what?” called Kisu gleefully.

The ghastly Zorro’s hollow eyes turned to Bill and let loose a raspy call “Do… Ko… Ra… CA… NON.”

Bill froze, something had seized him to the core. The black masked figure’s whip snapped, and had Rodriguez not pulled Bill back it would have cleaved flesh from bone.

“Help Bill, the fantastic Mr. Fox here is mine.” said Kisu.

Facing the undead nobleman he said “I’m going to show you that color-coordination don’t mean shit if all you wear is black, so let’s whip it out.”

The steed turned, and charged, the rider snapped his mighty bull-whip. Kisu was ready, dodging and bringing his own heavy chain whip around he swung for the horses legs. A wise move, but this was no mere horse. Toronado jumped effortlessly over the whip as though it were a game of skip-rope. And the rider turned his body180 degrees his spine cracking and his flesh ripping without the smallest sign of concern. The whip cracked again, and Kisu tumbled back out of the way, narrowly avoiding the strike, but the chain whip was snared by the bullwhip, and pulled by both wraith and steed, it flew from its master’s hand.

“You can’t beat him with a whip, Kisu, fictional skill will always trump real skill.”

“Then I’ll use my sword.”

“No, Zorra was a master swordsman too, and he still has the horse. You can’t do this alone.”

“What are you thinking Rodriguez?” Kisu replied dodging another combination of powerful crushing hooves and lighting speed whip.

“We combine our skills. Harmonious fists.”

“Alright, Rodriguez, get over here. Umphries, Danzig, get Bill inside! Find Bryan and Michael.”

Needing no further instruction, the wiry MMA masters ran for the doors with Bill, still seized by the power of Zorro’s meme, hoisted between them.

Rodriguez and Kisu, slowly gained distance, circling around their enemy, making use of his speed and and the horse’s slow turning to gain the advantage. When next the rider came to charge at them, they locked arms and chanted in turns.

“Northern Shaolim style!”

“Southern Praying Mantis Style!”

And then together, “FUSION!!!”

“Harmonious fist technique: NORTHERN-SOUTHERN PRAYING AT SHAOLIN STYLE”

Rodriguez seized Kisu by his arms with his mighty frame, and threw him with all his might at the rider. The rider could not turn, the whip would not snap in time, the sword would not draw. “HARMONY FIST!” Called Kisu as his mighty punch made contact. For an instant it seemed that a rainbow radiated out from his strike. The long dead, and now undead, Don turned to dust along with his horse. Where it had stood a field of wild-flowers bloomed from the pavement. The flowers cushioned Kisu as he fell to the ground, and then the two warriors raced into the building in pursuit of their comrades in arms.

Inside they found the battle in full swing. The undead hoard was filtering in from all directions, and spreading through every little bit of canon in the building from receptionists to storyboard artists, everyone was being drained and left wanting. They followed the path of destruction left by the high speed fists and powerful breaks and submission holds of their comrades towards the Avatar offices. “By Dionysus’s wine let it please not be too late for Bryan and Michael.”

They entered the dimly lit offices, and found nothing out of place. At the center of the madness, it was the eye of the storm, there was no sign of any of the chaos that filled the world outside. Here was the holy-land, the resonance still needed time to be able to breech the walls. They could still stop it. Hope welled up in their hearts. They found a blood smeared Umphries and Danzing and a shaken Bill sitting on a couch in front of the offices of Bryan and Michael. The receptionist was quite insistent they wait to be buzzed in.

When Bryan and Michael’s “meeting” was over, that is to say when they had finished their lunch of veal, foie gras and 50 year old scotch while laughing at dossier full of reports of their fans pain, the martial arts reference team was at last allowed to enter.

“We’re not doing references today, what are you doing here?” Asked Bryan.

“And why are you dragging all this blood and what appear to be bits of flesh into my office?” added Michel.

“The memes, they’ve mutated from benign virality to have life of their own. The fans have been overtaken, they now crave to control the canon.” Said Bill, his voice still shaken but pitch-perfect. “Only you can stop it, so long as you’re not infected, you control …..do…… the canon.”

“Bill you don’t look so good, what happened?” asked Bryan.

“Nothing, I’m …ko…fine.”

“You’re not fine Bill, what Zorro said to you out there, you’re infected.” Supplied Rodriguez.

“Yes,” admitted Bill, “and here the Canon is so…ra… strong, its hard to fight.”

The walls shuddered. “They’re getting in, now they’ve got a foothold in Bill, they’re strong enough to make a move for the center of canon. We have to get everyone out of here.” Said Danzig. “Once the meme field amplitude is large enough they’ll cascade in here without end. Bryan, Michael, you need to wield the canon against them. You need to bring the endgame.”

Bryan was shocked, immediately saying, “We can’t do that! they’re not ready, the build-up to endgame was meticulously designed, if we force it on them now, it could shatter their entire psyche, and with the feedback from the resonance, it could be devastating.”

“devastating how?” asked Umphies.

“As in turning their head-canons into literal head-cannons, they could suffer total cephalic collapse.” Supplied Michael.

“What?” replied Kisu.

“Their heads would explode.” Finished Michael.

“These people are our fans… I can’t do it to them. I just can’t.” said Bryan.

“You’re the only one who can. And you have too, unless you think they’re really better off as soulless monsters.” replied Michael.

“Why can’t you do it? Don’t you know the endgame?” asked Umphries.

“No, neither of us does. When we devised endgame we knew it was powerful, too powerful; it had to be built up to. Since we couldn’t risk leaking it, and we couldn’t take the burden of carrying it, Bryan wrote it down in ancient Sumeric Cuneiform. Then we cleansed it from our memory using a technique past down by the writer’s guild for millennia.

“It’s true then …. do…. the namshub of Bryki isn’t just a story that Joaquim made up.” spoke Bill, his auto-tune contorting painfully.

“Yes, its true. Bryan is one of the few people in the world who can read the ancient Sumeric dialect he used. He alone can reveal the endgame, but you weren’t even supposed to know about it. Joaquim only knows it exists because he got us drunk.” Michael finished.

With a great crash the Avatar office doors gave way, and with steps first tentative then bold the undead hoard advance.

Danzig reacted immediately tossing a chair the entire length of the Avatar offices he called, “They’re here and they’re powerful. We need to move. We need to get to the broadcast booth and get the namshub out.”

The Martial-arts-reference-team, exploded into the aisle ways. Their fists alive with purpose, but the undead hoard was indeed stronger now, and it took everything they had just to hold them back.

“Everyone out the back door, head to the broadcast booth. Kisu, you take point with your sword and get them there. We’ll be the rearguard.”

The whole of the crew began to follow the Northern Shaolim master, out into the halls. But Bryan and Michael and the shaking Bill were still tarrying, “I need Mr. Biscuits!” cryed Bryan.

“We don’t have time for your stupid stuffed lion-turtle, Bryan, he’s not going to give you a magic risk-free solution.”

“No, I need Mr. Biscuits.” Insisted Bryan ducking back into his office to seize the plush talisman from his shelf. Then they too followed Kisu into the familiar and yet now dangerously unknown hall, the rearguard close behind.

Through the labyrinthine halls they weaved, Kisu cutting down all ahead and in the rear Rodriguez powerful frame and techniques provided cover, while Umphries and Danzig darted back and forth delivering a lightning-fast series of blows. The halls seemed so much longer then they used to. Making to turn right at fork towards the broadcast booth. Bill stopped them, “No left” he said pained.

“Bill, that’s a dead end, we need the broadcast booth, the only thing down there is the sound booths.” Kisu said shocked.

“I know, but we need to go there, trust me, we swore an … ko… oath of loyalty, trust me. I can feel them now, through the field, there’s too many to the right. Trust …ra… me.”

At that they turned to the left, and entered the recording rooms. Standing before the great plexiglass dividers to sound-proof booths Bill spoke again “get in. I’ll clear the way to the control booth.”

“how, you can barely stand?”

“I’ll use that …CA…technique.”

“No, Bill, we need you! Even at your prime you’d barely be able to stand after using it. You won’t have the strength to keep fighting the resonance.”

“I DON’T HAVE THE STRENGTH NOW! And the worst part is, I’m not sure I want to. Dokorra, its just so much fun…NON… GO, NOW!”

The whole crew packed into the sound booths like sardines and the chaotic world outside fell silent. The zombies crawled into the studio, and surrounded Bill, slowly tentatively, not sure if he was one of their own.

The crew watched through the silence as Bill drew a deep breath, and they watched silently as he used the ultimate technique of his ancient families absolute domination of sound. To fight resonance with resonance. They could not hear it in the booth, the absolute destruction of neural tissues, a pitch-perfect destruction of the protein strings in the human brain, but they saw the zombies fall, Bill too fell, he was immune to the effects, but not the strain it placed on him.

They had to move fast, outside the recording studio the effects would fall off fast, but even those that weren’t again dead would be too scrambled to move. They spared but a moment to listen check on Bill, but all they could here was a soft and untuned “DO KO RA CAN ON”.

They met little resistance on their way to the broadcast booth, the corpses scattered on the ground started twitching about ¾ of the way there, but could do thing else. They were weary, they were bruised, and they were heavy hearted about their oath-brother and comrade, Bill, but they made it to the broadcast booth.

Inspecting the broadcasting equipment, the consoles and screens. Danzig spoke, “From here we can send a canon-meme on the memeto-resonant frequency. This equipment isn’t set up for a broadcast like this, but I can hack it to work at least city-wide, just give me a few minutes.”

“Uh, Dan, you might not have it, they’re doing something in the Avatar offices.” called Umphries.

On a security camera screen they saw it, the zombie hoards were, fusing. At the heart of the resonance with all the power of the studio, they were gathering into something new.

“What is it?” asked Umphries.

“Oh, dear Quetzlcoatl, I think I know.” Bryan said. “The zombies that are fusing… they all have beards. You told me they brought a fictional character to life before right? Well…” He was struggling to say it, terrified of his own thoughts. Gulping, he continued, “I think they’re condensing the meme-field’s power into Wang Fire.”

“Sokka? I mean he’s funny and all, but he’s not world ending, why aren’t they making Ozai or evil Aang?” Asked Kisu.

“You don’t get it. They’re using a meme-field to create WANG FIRE, he’s a character that’s been memetically enhanced to the point of absurdity already. If they make him the only thing that could possibly stop it would be Chuck Norris from five years ago.”

“Oh.” Replied Kisu.

“We’re out of time Bryan you have to read the namshub.” Said Michael.

“I can’t, I just can’t. I can’t be responsible for that.” Protested Bryan, desperate, pleading.

“So you’ll sit back and be responsible for what happens if you don’t?”

With sorrow in his heart, Bryan seized up Mr. Biscuits, and reached into his soft underbelly, where was carefully concealed an opening. From it he pulled a sort of clay tabled, with characters incomprehensible to nearly all assembled. Slowly, with pained voice he spoke, “Danzig, are you ready yet?”

“Yes. Read into this mic.” Returned Danzig.

Bryan stepped forward, and summoned his courage.

“Once upon a time, there was no snake-monkey, there was no scorpion-pig,
There was no hyena-bear, there was no lion-turtle,
There was no wild polar-bear-dog, no wolf-bat,
There was no fear, no terror,
Aang had no rival.

In those days, the land Avatar,
Harmony-tongued fire-nation, the great land of the me of prince-shipping,
Earth-kingdom, the land having all that is appropriate,
The Water-tribe, resting in security,
The whole universe, the people well cared for,
To Wan Shi Tong in one tongue gave speech.

Then the fire-lord defiant, the water chieftain defiant, the earthking defiant,
Bryki, the lord of abundance, whose canons are trustworthy,
The lord of wisdom, who scans the land,
The leader of the gods,
The lord of the Show, endowed with wisdom,
Changed the ships in their head-canons, put contention into it,
Into the canons of man that had been one.”

And then he spoke the name of the OTP. And all was silent. Even the crew felt a shock of electricity through them at the sound, though they were the most prepared of any to hear it. The zombies that had risen from the grave convulsed and and fell, the meme-shockwaves backfiring through their bodies tore them apart. Those who were corrupted by the memetodynamic-resonance while still living, fell like stones, some shaking, some convulsing, a few however, smiling.

Danzig spoke up exuberant, “Look at the security cameras, they’ve stopped fusing. But its not enough to just take them out here, they’re incubating all over the world, they flared up here because of how dense the canon is, but the resonance can still build elsewhere, how do we spread the cure to all Korra fans?”

Michael however spoke up, “I know how, we need to hide it in the show, encode the namshub directly into the signal, and if its in the episodes it will keep them immunized.”

“This is a powerful message you want to hide, it’ll need to be encoded into a moment when they’re at their hungriest for canon, and associated with a character of exceedingly high memetic power.” Danzig replied.

“We have just the opportunity in the next episodes. The flash backs. We’ll encode it into Toph’s chin and fingers.” Michael explained, voice full of resolve.

“That’s madness, this is a massive amount of information, there will never be enough space.” Replied Bryan

“We can make it work.”

At that moment Joaquim walked in, looked around at the gathered and weary crew, stained with blood. Looked Bryan and Michael in the eyes and said “Hey what’s going on, I was just… working… and when I woke up… I mean… stopped working, found a whole bunch of crazy shit going on in the halls… Have you two been going over board getting into character while writing for old kill-‘em-all-Kyoshi again?”

Flash-fiction roulette #5: "Memories not included"

Thu, 31 May 2012 13:53:01 +0200

A middle aged man, walked across the threshold, and his eyes lit up. Any sense of tedium quickly faded, the bordello had that effect, inside there was just fun. The girls were beautiful and sophisticated, they wouldn’t likely have gone down the path of easy money like this at any place but the Lethe Bordello.

There was no shame in it here, they wouldn’t bring the work home with them, they wouldn’t tend to families, or lie with boyfriends and husbands with thoughts of their debasing and carnal actions flowing through their mind. It was all part of the intrigue of the place, sometimes the bordello would hire big name celebrities, a premium cost as a loss leader to entice potential clients. You never knew when you might walk in and discover the latest 18 year old movie star flavor of the week showing off everything she had. The customers all paid the flat rate per hour, of course they had to, if they knew who was in there before they entered it would defeat the whole point. Here you could be completely at ease, to be depraved, to be passionate, whatever. The middle aged man had a wife at home, but her passions had slowed and his needs remained. Yet when he went home, he would feel no guilt, nor think about his actions during the hour or two he spent there. He spent his time with a tan skinned twenty-something who came to work with the enthusiasm of a first day on the job everyday. He explored every curve of her body, his body, paunchy and aging was shamelessly on display, maybe these two had done this very dance before? Maybe this was their first time together. It didn’t matter. He felt connected, he felt warm, and he drained himself all the pent up anguish that his life, which was more or less a good life though not without the everyday stresses and strains, and basked in the satisfaction. A quick rinse, and a quick shower. Clean and ready to return to his life, he tipped his hostess, and before leaving reflected back for a last time on the fun he had that day.

Memories aren’t included in the price of Lethe Bordello, they fade away like a dream when you cross the threshold to leave. Faces, bodies, actions, all give way only the sense of satisfaction remains. Only the knowledge that the money was wells spent remained with him as he went back into the world where regrets never fade.

Flash-fiction roulette #4: returning home to find dead family (it was a rather specific prompt, I added the sci-fi)

Wed, 30 May 2012 13:55:23 +0200

Commander Clinton Laster, the hero of the battle of the quantum fissure, receive his last salute of the victory tour and entered the En-Dis cell. His vision clouded and unclouded. But even before his atoms were disentangled, even before he was again a single person standing in the fields of Algidus he knew something was wrong. His eyes were clouded with the double-scene effect from entanglement, but he could smell it. It was sweet. Too sweet. It should have been earthy, musty and heavy with sweat and compost. This wasn’t the season for wildflowers or fruits, but the smell hang in the air, a growing, terrifying, noisome crescendo of intensity as the entanglement built to completion. So in the instant the image of space-base 2776’s En-Dis cell faded completely, he was already terrified.

He had shown courage in battle, so they told him, but this wasn’t battle, this was home. And the fields of Algidus lay out before him, ghostly, unmoving with the wind. His stomach was a battle-cruiser hit by 3-5 DIM, a dimensional inversion mine, tied up in knots, sitting heavy in space just waiting for the final blow. His feet moved without his will, he would never have been able to will them to move forward, to what he knew he would find at the end of the field, at stately manor that had sheltered 17 generations of his family, the manor house he had visited in his dreams so often, where he had been so certain his family had been kept safe during the war. With each step forward he brushed the crops with his body, the stalks of grain shattered and splintered, disintegrating piecemeal where he touched them, but broken shards stayed suspended unsupported unmoving. He didn’t look at them. It was too much, he already knew what had happened.

From up close he could see the facade ghosting. It must have been over two months since it would have happened. The electron waves that compose all matter had frozen, and were beginning to relax, in six months maybe a year even the densest rigid-lead foundations would be gone from Algidus. But now he could just barely see the translucence on the building, as atom by atom it slowly disintegrated. Instinctively reaching out for the bio-locks on the door he found his hand passing four inches through the facade into the titano-crete frame. The atomised mist that was once his wall fell away into the wind and earth, and he stepped forward, straight through the heavy door. The door brook apart into a cloud that dispersed so swiftly he barely had time to blink. Behind him was a cartoonish hole in a heavy duty iron-wood door. The image made him chuckle. It didn’t make him smile.

His home lay spread out before him. The smell of dinner was still in air, it was even heavier actually then when the dinner was first cooked. For months the roast had been fragmenting away imperceptibly small particles of it filling the air, but they carried the smell. So strong so heavy he could taste his mother’s cooking. The smell comforted him, bolstered him just enough to face what was all around him. His home, so much like he remembered it, but all beginning to ghost away just like the fields, just like walls. Idly his hand atomised an umbrella standing by the door, and his mind drifted to listen to the house. The stillness sounded through his head. Nothing moved. Nothing but the wind, slowly, quietly cutting through the walls. Cutting through the furnishings. Cutting through the people.

He found them in the sitting room. His wife and his newborn son at her breast. He knew of course the boy had been born, but he had never seen a picture of the child, he’d been away for a year, a year where the only way of communicating without giving up your location was through an entangled relay and that couldn’t be spared for family photos. They were so peaceful, but then again, they couldn’t have been anything else. He wanted so much to reach to her, to feel her, to hold his son. Instinctively his hand had already started to move, but he caught himself. He could not reach out them without destroying the only evidence left on the whole world that they existed. The only proof he had that he had fought for something important. They had died in an instant, never even known it was happening. Time had literally stopped for them, cause and effect had been disrupted, and so they had ceased to live. Now they were shadows, ghosts. By comparison the two-milliseconds it takes for his sidearm to kill was an eternity. But there was no other choice. Commander Laster, hero of the battle of the quantum fissure, fell to his knees.

On world of Algidus, the only proof that time still existed was a single man’s corpse, decaying before the ghosts of his family.

Flash-fiction roulette #3: Noir/hardboiled style (this one is the worst of the set)

Wed, 30 May 2012 12:17:00 +0200

A corpse washed in off shore. A corpse: naked, frozen, and wealthy. They called her the queen ice-bitch of finance. The most powerful single woman in the world, or so they used to say. Every piece of shit reporter in town was already trying to step on their mothers back for an edge, usually the gulls served the role of filth around here, but today these vultures were in a frenzy. In the ice-bitch was battered, bruised, naked and frozen. All she had was a picture of herself, in all her strikingly haughty beauty some ten years ago, with a child, boy of maybe 10, eyes sparkling, and on it written in her own hand “for my son”.

The reporters, the whole city was in a frenzy, as far as anyone knew she had no kids, there were none on record, none in the will. But if he were found, he’d contest that will, and be worth at least half a billion. The talk of the town was the only clue, that one picture. Why had she died like that? A woman so wealthy and powerful, died alone, cold and battered?

The estate hired me as an investigator to find the child in the picture. After searching every record in her home and office and finding nothing. I went to the papers, every back issue I could find. And that’s where I found the photo, a little piece on an up and coming business woman, setting aside a few thousand dollars for the comfort of the terminally ill. There was the picture.

Now there were more questions, why had she written “my son” on a picture of some kid she knew only as a charity case? If she felt so much for him why only donate a mere couple thousand, he was getting treated by charity hospitals? Why after all these years?

Clues came few and far between, and the legwork took weeks, but I slowly pieced together the puzzle. The kid died later that same year. She never visited him besides that one photo-op. There’s no sign she cared at all about him in any way particular, but his mother told me, through some degree of drunkenness, that he was adopted.

From there it was just a matter of getting some confidential records from a public office, it might be a crime, but it’s not a difficult one. It seems the ice-bitch, had a baby at age 15, before she was anybody, before she made her millions a dozen years later, and indeed it was the kid in the photo. When she was rising in the world, she gave a tiny little write-off donation to a hospital and posed for a photo, never realizing who she was posing with.

Then madness hit her, now 20 years later. One way or another, maybe she went looking, maybe it found her, she learned the truth of all this, she learned she had posed with her dying son, disinterest in her eyes, while she gave him and a half dozen others a couple thousand dollars to split and die more comfortably. Struck with mad contrition, she disappeared into the city, without her wealth to protect her, and after enduring it, finally threw herself into the icy waters. Seems that the improbabilities of fate conspired to thaw the heart of the ice-bitch. Ultimately her last act was to freeze it again.

Flash-fiction roulette #2: mash-up creepy/romance

Wed, 30 May 2012 01:06:00 +0200

I leaned in and kissed her softly on the neck. She turned with a start and a jump, eying me with fear. What caused me to act so brash, so brazen. Ego? no, I had been intoxicated by her, I had grown tumescent. She could see it couldn’t she? She could see the inevitability, that she would fall in love or lust, tonight she would fall, and as she lay I would take her. Her eyes were cold and narrow. Defiant? Expectant? Was this fear of what I would do? Fear of what she would do? I would warm her this night, she must have been able to see that. The inevitability of it all. She walked without sensuality, but she teased at it none the less. She may as well have had her dress sewn about her. Her skin that showed was flawless, and I was moved with passions of the flesh that surely were beyond control of such a mortal man. Surely, she saw it, the inevitability. She must have. Placing my hand in her thick brown hair, and guiding her mouth to meet mine. Her eyes widened in the meeting. Surely by then she had realized it, the inevitability. We were locked in this dance by all that we are. I was captured by orbit of her sex and she could not escape the inevitability. What came to pass, must of have come to pass. The coming was inevitable.

Flash-fiction roulette #1: A sailing story

Tue, 29 May 2012 15:58:12 +0200

Thick slick slime on the decks, grown heavy with algae and grog, “heave you rat bastards, heave up from the depths the treasure of legend”. An ugly crewman slipped on a patch of rotting wood, and fell face first into the mizzenmast, his face now even uglier as it spurt blood from a broken nose. A grand chortle went up among’st the deckhands, even as sudden weight jerked them all forward. The Captain glared downward, a greedy glint in his eyes, brooking no delay, he called “heave. If we’re not clear of these waters before the dreaded whale-eels come to call, I’ll chum your hides, and make my escape on the dinghy.” Finally after great crate cleared the waters edge. They heaved it up still further, onto the deck. “Open it!” bellowed the captain. And the quartermaster approached with a heavy pry. The besotted wood warped and groaned, his pry-bar struggling to grip. Finally the long lost cache was freed. A bounty of glinting silver discs lay before them. Placing one in the ancient cradle, they waited with bated breath when alas, the holy words blared forth, and they all joined in as if in prayer

“In the navy
Yes, you can sail the seven seas
In the navy
Yes, you can put your mind at ease
In the navy
Come on now, people, make a stand
In the navy, in the navy
Can’t you see we need a hand
In the navy
Come on, protect the motherland
In the navy
Come on and join your fellow man
In the navy
Come on people, and make a stand”

They had their bounty, and with bright spirits set sail for the holy city, where their good works would earn a handsome profit.

"In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backward. That is a very..."

Tue, 29 May 2012 02:50:00 +0200

“In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backward. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise it much. In the everyday affairs of life it is more useful to reason forward, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.”

- A Study in Scarlet, A. C. Doyle
I am not a great fan of this story, but as with almost all stories of at least a little renown there was something I thought worth noting. The logic Mr. Holmes here espouses seems to me to be the cornerstone of all those gifted in dissembling. Those who construct narratives, for whatever reason, need to be able to reason in this manner.

Though I think he undervalues it in the ‘everyday affairs of life’, if we spend the time to construct the narrative that leads to a given effect we are much more likely to not take undue umbrage.

In the pipe

Tue, 29 May 2012 02:42:00 +0200

Coming soon a handful of flash-fiction stories I wrote a while back playing a game of writing-prompt roulette. Quality very not guaranteed.

Wúménguān 19

Sun, 27 May 2012 21:46:00 +0200

Zhàozhōu: “What is the Way?”
Nánquán: “Your ordinary mind—that is the Way.”
Zhàozhōu: “Can it be grasped?”
Nánquán: “The more you pursue, the more does it slip away.”
Zhàozhōu: “How can you know it is the Way?”
Nánquán: “The Way does not belong to knowledge, nor does it belong to non knowledge. Knowledge is illusion. Non knowledge is beyond discrimination. When you get to this Way without doubt, you are free like the vastness of space, an unfathomable void, so how can you explain it by yes or no?”

Upon hearing this, Zhàozhōu was awakened.