What compels a person to stay up all night, reading, typing,
what compels us to keep watching as the world floats by, even when sleep threatens to cloud our eyes and topple us where we stand?
Is it a need to tell a story?
A need to escape a poor reality by reading or writing a new one?
A love of solitude or need for silence.
What keeps our fingers clicking down on the keyboard until we cannot move anymore?
Until the familiar melody of the key’s becomes the writer’s lullaby.
Is there a reason to it all,
Or is this a madness?
What is the spell that writers find ourselves bound in?
An art;
A curse;
Both.
Why do we write for hours, days, years, what are we accomplishing?
What is it we reach for?
When will we find it?
Are we hunting for fame?
Imortality?
The perfect page?
Or are we just lost, trying to find our way after trudging through the storm of human contradictions.
Why do we write the things we do?
Are we born with the knowledge that we must write?
Is it a part of us?
A trail of ink flowing through our blood? 
Or are we just fumbling around in the dark, each searching for a light to guide us to inspiration.
Do people care?
Do they see us as a part of their lives?
Do they imagine us at our computers, or over pad and paper, never totally apart from our stories when they read our work?
Or are we invisible as the pieces we discard in distaste?
Invisable hands.
What keeps us going?
Imagination;
Desperation;
Both;
Do we care? 
Do people see us in our works, or do we hide behind them?
A sheild from societies limitations, or a bridge to rise above them?
We are writers;
we are artists. 
One more simply complex form of human life.

Rain Rain Don’t go away,

stay to bring a better day.

wash all of the pain from our minds.

Rain rain when I cry,

send your drops to sheild my eyes.

Create a tragic hero,

to hide the sobbing child,

as I call out all the while,

Rain rain.

(slow, soft rift . . . like a music box maybe)

Rain Rain I’m sick inside,

perversion that I try to hide,

can you reach inside and make me clean?

Rain rain never tell,

what you see inside myself.

Because I’m frightened of,

the person I could be,

if I let my monsters free.

Rain rain.

(longer rift, minor key, more complex than before)

(spoken/sung [in a child’s voice?]

It’s raining, it’s pouring.

The monster in me’s roaring.

It can’t be heard over the drops,

what will I do when the rain stops?

Rain Rain I changed my mind

I’m just so sick of constantly trying

Rain Rain

(spoken/sung during ending rift (complex morphing into music box and fading out))

Rain rain go away,

come again another day.

The monster in me wants to play.

Rain rain . . .

Rain rain . . .

Rain rain.

Don’t ask why. I’m still trying to figure that out.

I hate my computer. For two hours now I’ve been trying to type a story. I have to save every couple words because my computer has been restarting itself or glitching and freezing, or suddenly my screen goes crazy, or the program I’m typing in shuts down. Two hours and I haven’t even gotten a page done because most of that time was spent waiting for my computer to boot up again.

 Yes this is a rant, I know I try to avoid ranting here, since it does nothing helpful. At the moment though, it’s cry or get angry, and so shall I rant.

This stupid computer was given to me by my dad, who got it from his friend because it did things like this, and they thought my dad could fix it. . . he couldn’t. So he gave it to me.

Yay.

I’ve done virus scans, defraged it, reformated it, and now I have officially given up.

. . . that didn’t make me feel better at all.

. . . and the computer restarted three times, causing me to have to write this over three times.

Have I mentioned that I hate my computer?

I was writting a bit on my second novel and decided to share it, since it stemmed from the same odd mood which caused the last random blog I left here . . .

_________________

They'd only been walking for a few minutes before Zarr halted and grabbed Enrick's arm, making sure that the other man did the same. "We are standing in front of the river." He spoke in a too neutral voice. "As funny as your falling in may be, I do not want Uncle Sakura to think I am trying to drown you."

The pale boy nodded and stood for a moment, feeling the ground beneath him and the breeze on his skin. If he concentrated he could smell the water of the river, and feel the slightly more humid cast to the air. He'd missed it since in Din, water held a slightly chemical smell to it from the processing, and humidity was regulated throughout the domes and didn't waver. He'd never had to be able to tell when clean and natural water was near, because there was no natural water in Din, not anymore. He was in a world as alien to him as Earth may have felt to a child born and raised in a space station. Nothing felt right, while at the same time it felt more right than anything he'd never known. He finally spoke, "Which way is the gate to the city?"

Zarr spun him to face in the direction he'd requested, "Why? Leaving so soon?"

Enrick ignored the cold words and slipped gracefully to his knees and opened his third eye.

When the vertical eye within his forehead was closed, Enrick held no concept of sight. He didn't see pure black or white behind his eyes. His vision was not blocked, or empty. His vision wasn't there. He could use his eyes in the manner anyone else may wriggle their eyebrows or scrunch up their nose. They were another feature to express feeling with. They weren't functional at all, and he didn't feel like they should be. He wasn't blind so much as he had no sense of sight. It was a differentiation that not many would, or could, make.

When the third eyes opened though, the world stretched and warped and shifted before falling into unfamiliar and slightly frightening patterns. After a while it felt right, but for the first moments, sight was terrifying. Even with his eye open, he could not see most colors, only the deepest and brightest shades could reach him but even then they were muted. He could see Deep Cobalt, but it seemed like a faint, gray/blue instead. Dark Crimson looked like a dusty and faded red. More than anything his sighted world was composed of gray, black and white, there was also a shining white that sparkled and shifted like crystal fire. It was the way he saw power, energy, maybe even magic. In Din, Chosen gleamed a bit with it, as if a soft, fluctuating glow overlaid their true images. In Ur though, it was everywhere. The trees, the river, the people far in the distance, even the air thrummed with the crystal white.

He swallowed and then focused inward, pulling back the mental and physical shields that he'd placed to cap his power. The rush was instant. He felt like liquid crystal sang through his veins, clear and cool, but more thick than water. It washed through him in cleansing torrents and then he could breath again. He was awake, after sleepwalking through most of his life. He focused that power on taking in the land around him, building maps and depth charts inside of his mind. He'd learned Din in a more traditional manner, storing the information bit by bit over his lifetime. He wouldn't have time to do that in Limbo. Instead he pulled the information to him and secreted it away. He wouldn't need to fear balconies or falling in rivers, or not being able to orient himself.

Enrick memorized the feel of the natural, and then moved on. The power in the air had become sharper since his own power had been released. He could see it as if the glowing mass were tangible. Webs. The power in the air was shaped like thousands upon thousands of webs, each full of their own cords and strands and all of them opening the Torn Lands to the eyes and ears of the demon queen. He pushed his own power forward and into the threads, skimming over them until he had followed to their source, the suns.

The chaos is returned.

The sun, which was alive. Enrick took in a deep, involuntary breath as he realized that the suns weren't suns at all, they were giant Phoenixes. They were the originators of the webs which ran throughout all of the Torn Lands. And they were talking to him.

Not broken, the chaos is whole. Shall the chaos lend his whole status to heal the little prince who is so shattered?

He took in the fact that the words he was hearing were his own mind's simplified interpretation of what the magnificent creatures were sending to him.

They were singing. They were singing in voices that pulled emotions up inside of him and pressed them down again. They opened their own souls and pulled him into them. Images raced passed his eyes as the song went on and he could translate them, however inadequately into words.

Will this little child of Famine and Death, this little chaos, bring chaos of the good upon our home?

He fought down his awe at the beings engulfing him. What did he seek? He sought family that he didn't need to fear. His father and Uncles and the memory of a mother he couldn't quite remember. He sought Zarr and the person he had been and the person he could be as much as the person he was. But the phoenixes didn't hear spoken word, they were to far beyond it. Instead, he pulled forward memories, since he had no true pictures to give. As he brought up the memories, picture formed unbidden and he saw them for the first time. Zarr, his father, Malickai, his mother, Kaadra, Rikyu, whom he'd lost before he knew. Sakura, his uncle, protector, and his only link to his mom. He thought of Zarr before, when he was known only as Dark. The child he'd been. He thought of the love that had slowly built between them throughout their young lives, embarrassing discoveries and heated moments stolen when no one could find them, before Jake had found them. He thought of Malickai, and the sound of his voice when he'd first spoken, and he was seeing his father then, eyes lit up with hope, awe, sorrow, wonder, and overwhelming love. The memories and images felt dry and flat. It wasn't enough.

Without conscious thought, Enrick began to sing.

It wasn't a song in any traditional sense. It had no words, no tempo, no beat, no rhythm, no true beginning or end. It had notes though, notes that soared and plummeted and fluttered and lived. The notes were coming through his throat, but they were born in his very heart.

Phoenixes didn't speak, they laid themselves open and felt, and sang. In that moment Enrick understood why they burned to ash and were reborn over and over again during their endless existence. He couldn't imagine feeling so much, being so burningly free and honest, without any respite for eternity. He burned and remembered and sang on.

He speaks to us as we speak.

He felt the paths open and gasped when he found himself traveling multiple paths all at once. He could see every Torn Land, every place between. He could see Hell through the seals that capped it off as sure as he'd capped his own power. He flashed through oceans and forests, and forests resting within oceans. He saw volcanos that boiled over with moonlight instead of lava, and a world made of tangled trees and roots, with no soil in sight. He saw worlds made of sand and cloud and fire and ice. There was a world of air, and only air, but somehow set apart from the air around it. There were worlds that looked inside out and upside down and twisted and mad places that made no sense but nonsense. He saw places that he couldn't wrap his mind around, so used to thinking in human terms. Just before he could be overwhelmed, his mind was swept back to the first Phoenix he'd reached to.

A little at a time, young chaos. The worlds will not go away.

He felt dizzy, his head was full of new maps and diagrams and information threatened to leak out of his pores if he tried to take in anymore.

Come back to sing to us again little mortal. So few of our beloved watched ones can sing to us.

Enrick nodded and let himself slip back to his body and then up from the meditative state he'd fallen into. He carefully pulled in his power, letting blood overrun the crystal and chase it back into the center of his being where he capped it off again. He hadn't used it so much at once and the feeling of rightness scared him. He didn't want to get too used to such power. It wasn't human, and he wasn't ready to let go of being 'human' yet.

The moment that the power was capped, he fell back from his knees to his backside and then lay down where he was, the grass soft beneath him. . . too soft. There wasn't a rock or stick near him, and there should have been. He blinked his third eyes and cast around with it to see what had happened. Dah K'Zarr was gripping the ground beside him with a startled and fierce look on his face like a cat who had been suddenly dropped into a bathtub. His fingers were actually dug into the earth and his back was arched, his feet planted solidly behind him. His hair looked like he'd just been through a hurricane, it was spiked up at odd angles, fluffed and wind swept, and it made him looked like an angry black colored dandelion. Enrick blinked his eye. Zarr blinked shell-shocked eyes back at him.

Enrick began to laugh.

________________________________

There were throngs of people within Limbo's royal palace. Hundreds of them, and Malickai had no wish to go back inside. They were all human, Chosen were still human, and he kept getting glimpses of their deaths and whether they could pass unaided or if he would need to collect them. Instead of entering the castle, he remained upon the lawn of the training grounds and watched the place where his son had disappeared over the crest of the tall hill that the castle rested upon. He was still struck each time he saw the young man. It felt like a lance of pure emotion hitting him. His son was home, he was all grown up, he was having trouble letting go and accepting his power, he was brilliant, he had his kaadra's eyes. The last was what hurt the most. Enrick looked like Malickai in the shape of his face and his build, even the color of his hair which thankfully was much less curly that Malickai's own. However his eyes, in shape and color, were Rikyu's. It almost hurt to look at them.

"It is a good thing that Enrick cannot see." Timothy whispered beside him, allowing Malickai to realize that Sade and Sakura and their angels were still upon the field with him.

"Why?" He asked softly.

"Because he may be hurt that you cannot look him in the eyes."

Sakura snorted, "My eyes are the same as Rikyu's, my whole face is the same. You have no problem looking at me."

"Enrick's eyes are that shape and color because Rikyu's were. He is Rikyu's child and they prove it." Malickai explained before glancing at Sakura and smirking playfully, "Your face was an accident of your birth."

Sakura snorted, unsure of how to act around the taller man if he wasn't picking fights.

Furthur conversation was stopped when the air around them all exploded with a force of power so strong that it whipped around them like heavy winds and sent shocks through their skin. Stones at their feat were randomly shifting into other things. One had become a bird which flew right into Sakura's face in it's confusion.

Stone's weren't meant to be birds and the creature knew that. It knew that it was a part of a mountain worn away over time. It remembered a child pocketing it and then skipping it across the river, and then it had lodged in a soldier's shoe when he'd been sparring and had fallen out upon the grass. It knew that, but now it also knew that it had wings and a tail and it had flown into the annoyed face of a man who'd stepped on it once, and so the stone/bird pecked him and flew toward the mountains, happy to be going home, but still confused as to why it was a bird at all.

Many stones were facing the same dilemma as they were became anything from chairs and dolls and balls of random fluff, which were all quickly blown away by the wind, to animals who quickly ran away, to a confused looking baby who's last memory was falling off of the palace the last time the large golem had stood up.

Timothy picked the baby up and Malum was gathering stones/fish and dropping them into a large glass of water which had once been a stone as well. Sade watched the sticks and twigs upon the ground animate and climb back up to reattach to the trees they'd fallen from. The trees themselves were changing shape and color, although being more self aware than a stone or a twig, they managed not to transform into anything but another type of tree.

Malickai, Sakura and Sade all took off at a dead run, fighting against the wind and toward where Enrick and Zarr had disappeared to.

They came over the crest of the hill just as the winds died down and the shocks stopped buzzing over their skin.

Enrick collapsed back to the ground, the Prince Zarr was clutching the dirt and arched in what had probably been an effort to avoid being blown back from the source of the strong winds. Even from where they stood, the three men could see that he looked not only wind blown, but stunned silent.

Everything was silent a moment before Enrick turned his head to see the Prince. Then the pale boy began to laugh uncontrollably. Sade and Malikcai couldn't help but chuckle, even Sakura snorted at the insanity of the moment. The two angels came running toward them, Malum holding a glass of water and fish and Timothy with a baby, all of which were actually stones, and they lost it. The chuckles became all out laughter and Malum smiled, walked by the two startled men sitting on the grass, and dumped the fish into the river.

The angel turned to Enrick and mouthed, 'those fish were stones once'. Then he looked up and waited for the others to catch up.

Sakura pried Zarr's fingers up out of the ground and helped him to sit, then looked annoyed at the two Incarnate who were still laughing.

"Um. . . stones?" Enrick asked, jumping a bit when his father and uncle Sade began to laugh again.

Sakura mumbled something that might have been an insult, and then turned back to Enrick. "What were you doing?"

"Building inner maps so that I can move around more confidently. I followed the webs to map out the places I couldn't see." He decided to keep his talk with the suns/phoenixes a secret for the time being. It felt to personal an experience to share, being opened up and read inside and out as he'd been.

"You let more than your eye open." Timothy guessed as he tried to calm the baby.

"Where did you get a baby."

"It used to be a stone." Timothy glared at him a bit, "And it doesn't appear to be happy with it's transformation."

"I . . . how. . . does. . . does this happen often in Limbo?"

Malickai finally managed to stop laughing and simply smiled at his son, "Only when the Incarnation of Chaos randomly floods training fields with his power."

The third eye slammed shut and Enrick's face went ashen, "I. . . I did this?"

That stopped all laughter.

"Enrick," Sade sat at his other side and touched his arm gently, "Did you not know what you are?"

"I am Chaos."

"But you don't understand what that means. What you mean to the people of Limbo. Not only Malickai and the rest of our close little family, but everyone."

"I . . . no. I'm his son." He motioned to Malickai, then he made a gesture toward Sakura, "And his nephew. My mother, I mean, my kaadra, is dead. I'm a philosophy teacher and a skilled herbalist when it comes to Dinnian plant life. I can teach, and I can make improbabilities happen." He turned toward the sound of the baby, "Which in Limbo means I can turn stones into children and fish. . ." His nose scrunched up. "That isn't improbable, it's impossible."

"Chaos doesn't bend to logic." Sade informed him, suddenly realizing that there was a lot to inform him about. Enrick was raised in Din and completely oblivious to so much of what the demons and Incarnations and angels held as elementary.

"I'm not just a long lost Incarnation, am I." He whispered.

Sade took a deep breath. "Enrick, Incarnation of Chaos, how many people do you think are in Ur?"

"Two or three hundred maybe. The streets were crowded but I got the feeling that those were most of the people in the city."

The red haired Incarnate son nodded, "The demons of the Torn Lands have been hunted to near extinction by Hellions and Humans and Chosen like Jake Yani. New souls don't end up here often anymore. Human's don't walk the middle paths so much now as they remain good or evil. Ur is one of the Torn Land's largest cities. Through out all of Limbo we may have a few thousand people at best. We have less people in all of our worlds than most states did, in America before the domes. We have a few thousand. The Angels have about the same amount that we do, between their ranking angels and the lesser. Hell Has nearly a hundred and forty angels who fell or were cast into Hell. They bred and total nearly three hundred now, though since angels breed through love and Hell tends to sap that emotion away, they breed more slowly than those still in Heaven. There are Billions of souls in Heaven at any given time, whether waiting for rebirth or there for good. There are even more demons in Hell then souls in Heaven, possibly beyond the trillions. Earth was blossoming with life before humans destroyed it there are still millions of humans alive there. There is life on other planets in Din though, so in all of the realm of Din there are billions of lives."

Enrick didn't understand why Sade was telling him all of this, but he held his tongue and waited.

Sade, seeing the young man's confusion, tried to sum it up more quickly, "So there are thousands of Limbians. There are millions of Humans and within those, thousands of outcasts. There are hundreds of fallen angels, and thousands of angels. Thousands in Limbo, Billions in Din, Billions in Heaven and Trillians or more in Hell."

"Alright."

"Now standing amidst all of these thousands and more, you have those who dwell in Purgatory. Since Sedral and her Elementals sank to Limbo, there is only one true balanced Force left, his name is Kronos, Time. There are the Furies who are three and the Fates who are three and the Horsemen who are four, and there children who are now only four."

Enrick nodded, still not understanding, but comitting it to memory non the less.

"And finally there are two without any place."

That gave him pause. "What?"

"There are the four Horsemen, Death, War, Famine, and Plague who is sometimes called Conquest."

"Yes."

"Of those, there is also Peace, who is not a Horseman or a force, but is still an Incarnation. He is Dinyel."

"The one who shares a body with War."

Sade nodded, "Yes, Dinyel is Galyth's body mate. And then there is you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Grandson of the Fates, the Furies, Death, Famine and Time. Son of the Incarnate sons of Death and Famine. You are chaos Incarnate. You are improbability and impossibility at it's highest form. You are what might happen."

He was starting to get a bad feeling about where this was heading.

"And with the rogue angel, the Hellion's uprising, the Chosen turning their sights once again on Limbo, you are probably the closest thing to hope that any of these people can turn to."

Enrick was at a loss for words. He finally choaked out, "All that and I turn stones into babies."

Timothy glared at him since the baby had yet to stop crying.

Sade nodded and all of them watched him, waiting.

Enrick fainted.

__________________________

On a related note, I am trying to get my first book published and would love some feedback on it. If any of my friends read this and are interested in proof reading. 

My mind is too full, so I need to get some of the words out of it, therefore I am sitting and typing while pulling down mental filters . . . do not expect this to make much sense . . .

Do you know where dreams are born? I do. But you have to keep it a secret. Because my sister doesn't like me to get out of bed. She worries, but I don't hurt when I visit. Do you know how to get there? Well first you have to learn how to swim to it. Water? No silly, through the air, who would swim in water?

I feel a bit better now. . .

A Scholar's Ink Lasts Longer Than A Martyr's Blood.

It is so easy, to take people for granted. Even as an adult, you know people come and go, you know how life is a tenuous balance at best, and yet. . . you never actually think about what that means. People in general don't like to think about death taking people they love. Even when you believe whole heartedly that those we lose go to a better place, or a new life, it hurts to think of them as leaving. I lost my Uncle Bill when I was very young, and I remember him smiling until the end. I can recall the hospital, and his sleeping face wrinkled and dark against the white hospital sheets, but I also remember him smiling.

My Granddad's heart is sick. Mom told me they'd seen a doctor and that they were going to see a special cardiologist on Tuesday. She told me that they're doing everything they can. She told me that he's still cracking jokes, and that made my throat seize in panic. . . Because I still remember uncle Bill smiling, and then I never saw him again.

It's so easy to take people for granted. You never think of life without your loved ones.

I love my granddad. He's rough around the edges, stubbourn, wonderfully awkward at times. He splashes puddle water at us during walks and bakes magic cookies that seem to make the world taste better. He worries about us and loves us and we love him. I love him. He's my granddad.

Even though I've been doing Live Action Role Playing (LARPing) for a while now, I've only recently started playing Dungeons and Dragons again (yes, geek, I know). Hadn't realized quite how much I'd missed it. ^_^ And I'm part of a great group! Would you like proof? Well, how do you know when you're in a great Roleplaying group? When you have moment like this . . .

R: He's an air fern. He thrives on neglect and starvation.

(a few hours later)

A: You make a good space-heater.

R: He's an air fern with cross class space-heater!

And this . . .

B: (Drops a ring down a dark chasm)

M: Why do I get the feeling that you hope that pit is bottomless?

B: Actually, I was hoping for lava.

And this . . .

A: That is the last time I jump a flaming troll to save your ass!

All Others: (Long pause followed by roaring laughter)

. . . conclusion, I have a very good roleplaying group.

^_^ It's all about the moments.

Thanks you guys.

. . . and I lied, I'd take a flaming troll for you any day .

. . . why do these things always come out sounding so wrong?!

Before I begin this topic, you need to know something. I do not have nightmares. I have strange dreams-on-acid involving oddities like gooey drippy one eyed slime frogs, actresses getting sucked into life draining playing cards, climbing nets made of electric eels and on one occasion, slaying a dragon which then turned into Twinkies. But I very seldom have nightmares. The ones I have are always of people I care about getting hurt and I've have three of them . . . Three nightmares in 26 years . . .Until the other night. On Tuesday night I had a most unpleasant experience.

It all started in real life. At work I was short a day worth of pay on my check. When I asked the supervisor they went back in the records and found no hint of my being there when I'm sure that I was. I am still sure I was, but there is no record of it. It confused me, that I couldn't prove something I was so sure of. Reality had gone topsy turvy in a bad way. I didn't realize how deeply it had affected me until that night.

First I had no real dream, just a sensation of terror and confusion and anxiety over both of the aforementioned feelings. I woke up and heard a loud noise in the living room, but there shouldn't have been a noise because I live alone and my cats who might have made noise are at my mother's house for the moment. Nervous and still feeling the terror from whatever dream I'd had before, I tried to turn my bedroom light on, but the bulb was burned out. I stumbled into the hallway and my black cat (archemedes, aka fuzzy lumpkins. . . don't ask) ran under my feet and tripped me, sending me to slam against the wall, but fuzzy wasn't supposed to be there, he was at my mothers house with the others! After checking to see there was no one in my house, I went to the cupboard where I keep my lightbulbs, but the cupboard had been completely changed around, instead of linens it was full of the food from the pantry, and when I tried the pantry, trying to work out in my head when I had moved things and why I had forgotten, the pantry door was gone. I decided that I could just turn on the hallway light and look for bulbs in the morning since I was exhausted and obviously hallucinating. When I entered the bedroom, the ceiling was covered in helium balloons. I reached up and pulled on one of the strings and it wrapped around my wrist, I fell back in shock and more wrapped around me, choking me. I fell back onto the bed and woke up. . . again.

Now those of you who know me well, know I'm battling manic depression and that I get random attacks of disorientation and anxiety. . . I woke up in the middle of an attack, I don't know if the dream had brought it on or if it had just been building throughout the day, but because of it, when I woke, everything felt unreal and frightening. The house didn't appear to be put together right, the air was too heavy. I fell out of bed and tried to turn my bedroom light on and it was burnt out. That connection to the dream sent me deeper into the attack. I somehow ended up on the floor in the kitchen. My cell phone was on the table and I pulled it down with me and tried to call someone. Anyone. My boyfriend's number was the first I saw but he'd invited me to play D&D earlier, so I knew he would be playing and I didn't want to make him feel like he had to come to my rescue and ruin his night. It was a strange moment of lucidity. The next number was my parents. I called it and my dad picked up after the first ring. The moment I heard his voice I started crying and babbling, all I can really remember of what I said was, "Am I still there, I don't know if it's real yet or not." And  "Daddy I had a bad dream." I was hyperventilating by that point and my dad very calmly talked and talked and talked until I calmed enough to realize that I was 1) really awake 2) sitting in my panties (it had been too hot for a sleep shirt) on the kitchen floor 3) talking to my dad whom I'd just called at 4 am . . . that's when I started apologizing for waking him up.

He told me that actually he'd been unable to sleep and had just sat down in the living room when the phone rang (yes, I do believe the some spiritual connection was warning him his child was in trouble . . . both of my parents seem to have a Spidey Sense when it comes to us children). He promised me that I should feel free to call whenever I needed him or mom, then told me to watch a cartoon or something to get the dream from my mind before I tried to sleep again. I was exhausted, strung out, still frightened, and alone with my tanked lizards in a dark apartment. I was still too frightened to check for lightbulbs lest I realize I was still dreaming. So I got on my computer and stayed awake until dawn. Needless to say I was a zombie at work the next day.

In the nightmares that I've had. . .

1)      My mom singing and dancing naked on stage in front of thousands of people while she was full of bullet holes that went all the way through so that the stage lights could be seen through her body like an obscene light-bright, while I tried helplessly to get my father to notice she was hurting. (I had that nightmare from 2 years to six years old)

2)      Our house filling with water and sharks swimming through it killing all of my family and friends in front of my face until I was alone, floating on my grandmother's bed, holding my little brother's hand, only his hand, it was all that was left. (That was when I was nine)

3)      And lastly, the dream that my family went on a vacation in the RV we used to have. One of my brothers, my sister and I stepped out and when they went to pull away, the RV rolled down the mountain we were on and slammed into the ground. I handed Sarah to Ivan, who is my oldest younger brother, and slid down to the wreck. Mom and dad were dead, the glass from the windshield and twisted metal piercing their heads, and their faces frozen in death, panicked. I crawled over their bodies and found my younger cousins all in similar states of death. In the very back, my youngest brother, Grant, was gasping and blood was bubbling out of his mouth. He had a huge sheet of metal through his stomach and one of his arms was gone. I had to kill him myself, then I climbed up the mountainside and took Sarah into my arms, covered in their blood, and shook my head at Ivan over her shoulder. I wake up when he starts to scream. (this was when I was in college, about 19 I think)

. . . notice a pattern? They're all about my family or beloved friends dying or hurting, and none of them are really terrifying, just full of helplessness and sorrow. I'd never had a dream like the one a had Tuesday night. I couldn't handle it . . . I didn't know how.

Even now it feels like reality has shattered and I can't quite find all of the pieces to glue it back together. . .

Matthew says to use duct tape, not glue. Duct tape fixes everything right? Even reality.

Shiny.

In the bath today, in the white foam left when the suds bubbles all pop, I saw a face. It looked like a dragon at first, then a sad demon and then a sadder and older demon. While I watched it melt from one form to another and then begin to lose its shape I wondered if it knew it was dying, if it could feel itself go, if it hurt. I splashed then and ended it quickly. It's silly, I know, it was just random soap bubbles, but there was the slightest possibility that beyond my perception of reality, it was more, and it was hurting. Maybe it was only changing and I killed it. Maybe it wanted those last minutes.

At work someone was trying to convince someone else that dogs can not really be seen as children by their owners. Not even when the pet owner loves them as their child. He asked, "if the dog was hit by a car and horribly mangled, would there be a limit on what you would spend to let the dog live? Or would you put it to sleep? What if a child had been hit? Would there be a limit then?" But that made me think. People don't euthanize children if they are horribly mangled or brain damaged in an accident because there is always a 'what if' in our minds. Animals we let go. Is it because animals mean less to us? Or is it because we can see more clearly in one case or another? Is it wrong to steal an animal's last moments? Or to prolong a child's? Who are we to decide when something dies? I can't say if I would euthanize an animal or not. My poor dragons and geckos, as sick as the disease made them, went on their own. I couldn't take their live when they tried so hard for just one more day . . . I don't know if I'd offer the same when my cats become old . . . I just feel, at the moment, that no one has the right to take a gift as precious as life away from those who can't let us know if they want to see just one more day. It would be stealing that day from them. How can anyone claim the right to do such a thing?

After I killed the foam man, I felt bad for doing it. Isn't that funny, strange, sad? Sorry for killing a man made of soap.