I left my faith on the kitchen floor.
It was many years ago, and its passing was as anticlimactic as I expected it to be. It crashed to the linoleum, burned with soundless fury and promptly withered away to dust. The dust was kicked up, settling on every crisp white appliance of the kitchen, dirtying them. I took to scrubbing sixteen years of mold from underneath my fingernails. Religion clung to the grout, and I scrubbed at it until it was bleeding and raw. Its stains are stubborn, and I am just a fleeting memory in the history of blood.
I am no match for its institution, and it will swallow me.
About Me
- D.Marciniak
- A recent graduate of CCAD, I am an illustrator & designer with interest in music & tattooing.
All the artwork you see in my blog belongs to me, DMarciniak. You are not authorized to use artwork contained here. Thank You.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Old Provenance stuff
DEMON!
It was five years before I could bear to move from the fetal coil I was in. It took that long before the silence deafened any other sound or thought. Five years in the field of sinners whose curse was silence. My favorite place in hell, where thousands sat crossed-legged with gaping mouths, so close to each other, but completely alone. A crowd of a thousand lonely souls.
Five years it took to make the trauma bearable.
My hurt was too deep; I couldn’t forget it. Only time would be able to lessen it, but it was something that could never fully heal. So I did what most did when irreparable pain was done to them. I swore I would repay him tenfold for the atrocities he performed on my body and soul.
Damaged beyond repair, I went into my next life, started on a path that would continue to descend into suicidal depression. I had always tread on the edge, and this pushed me over. I would blaze into the 16th century, a slave to my anger. It would take almost a hundred years for the pain to dull to a throbbing, the anger to cool so I could think rationally, and the constant anxiety and fear at even my own shadow to abate. Another hundred before I would willingly let anyone touch me, and over two hundred years before I let someone I loved kiss me.
All the while I searched for the bastard who tortured me, raped me, and murdered me.
****
With any family, there are always relatives you wish you weren’t related to, be it brothers, sisters, or cousins. With demons, it was the same, but this family was some 120 million strong. Sharing the same Father, every demon differed only slightly from the next individual before evolution dictated the change from loose clans to established species. There’s even subspecies, and what could be considered ‘cross-breeds’ if it weren’t for the fact that absolutely no procreation has occurred in four billion years. The 120 million individuals were spread across twenty-seven established species, with only 18 species being able to inhabit earth in some form.
Certain things such as this could never be forgotten, as much as he tried. From incarnation to incarnation, the amount of subconscious or involuntary information grew.
What he hated even more was that he had to deal with human relatives, in addition to his demonic brethren, some of which were as slimy and corrupt as some of the species. He hid his distaste under proper pompous etiquette as he stared as his uncle, thinking that he wasn’t that far off from a Greater Vermis. He had more respect for the Vermis though, because at least they didn’t try to hide what they were. He was almost wishing that a Vermis would do what a Vermis does best, and rid him of his unsavory uncle. Then he could easily get rid of the Vermis on his own time and be relived of both pests and have fun in the process.
He always hated the clanking of utensils against dishes, the scratching and squealing hurt his sensitive ears and made him wince. But all of his self control could not stop him from making the most unpleasant face as his engagement was announced.
Caecus almost choked on his food. He was twenty years of age, his twenty-first birthday coming up very soon. He knew that nobles in the 1500s married young, but he still wasn’t expecting it so soon. Much less, he would have to be married to a female. His older brother had gone off and become a Cardinal, and he was left to marry to carry on the family name and strengthen good standings with the other noble families. Just as well, his plans to leave have become expedited.
The thought of having to bed a female, touch a female, bear a child... caused him to feel sick, so he took a lull in conversation as an opportunity to excuse himself from the table.
She would be younger than him, and in addition, someone he’s never met before. The marriage would be in name only; he was just hoping that she wouldn’t be interested in getting to know each other before he was able to leave.
He banished those thoughts to the back of his mind, no sense worrying about something he couldn’t do anything about for the time being.
+JUMP IN TIMMMMME+
He waved his hand as if to dispel the nagging voice. He knew it was a futile matter, but he couldn’t stop it either way. He uttered Latin to the voice, knowing that all spiritual beings spoke the language of God.
“Leave me be, Whistler. Its useless to tempt another demon, go waste your efforts elsewhere.”
“Apologies, Brother. You hide well among the humans, I did not recognize you.”
And off the Whistler went, leaving him to the quiet of the courtyard once again.
The remaining nine species were demons that could only live out their existence in Hell, and as far as their time on earth went, they only had the ability to affect the conscious. The Whistlers could be rather harmless most times, but their effect has been deadly on more damaged individuals. They sometimes seemed to humanity as spirits, whispering temptations and urging in human’s ears, though they were little more than a nagging at the back of the mind.
It was five years before I could bear to move from the fetal coil I was in. It took that long before the silence deafened any other sound or thought. Five years in the field of sinners whose curse was silence. My favorite place in hell, where thousands sat crossed-legged with gaping mouths, so close to each other, but completely alone. A crowd of a thousand lonely souls.
Five years it took to make the trauma bearable.
My hurt was too deep; I couldn’t forget it. Only time would be able to lessen it, but it was something that could never fully heal. So I did what most did when irreparable pain was done to them. I swore I would repay him tenfold for the atrocities he performed on my body and soul.
Damaged beyond repair, I went into my next life, started on a path that would continue to descend into suicidal depression. I had always tread on the edge, and this pushed me over. I would blaze into the 16th century, a slave to my anger. It would take almost a hundred years for the pain to dull to a throbbing, the anger to cool so I could think rationally, and the constant anxiety and fear at even my own shadow to abate. Another hundred before I would willingly let anyone touch me, and over two hundred years before I let someone I loved kiss me.
All the while I searched for the bastard who tortured me, raped me, and murdered me.
****
With any family, there are always relatives you wish you weren’t related to, be it brothers, sisters, or cousins. With demons, it was the same, but this family was some 120 million strong. Sharing the same Father, every demon differed only slightly from the next individual before evolution dictated the change from loose clans to established species. There’s even subspecies, and what could be considered ‘cross-breeds’ if it weren’t for the fact that absolutely no procreation has occurred in four billion years. The 120 million individuals were spread across twenty-seven established species, with only 18 species being able to inhabit earth in some form.
Certain things such as this could never be forgotten, as much as he tried. From incarnation to incarnation, the amount of subconscious or involuntary information grew.
What he hated even more was that he had to deal with human relatives, in addition to his demonic brethren, some of which were as slimy and corrupt as some of the species. He hid his distaste under proper pompous etiquette as he stared as his uncle, thinking that he wasn’t that far off from a Greater Vermis. He had more respect for the Vermis though, because at least they didn’t try to hide what they were. He was almost wishing that a Vermis would do what a Vermis does best, and rid him of his unsavory uncle. Then he could easily get rid of the Vermis on his own time and be relived of both pests and have fun in the process.
He always hated the clanking of utensils against dishes, the scratching and squealing hurt his sensitive ears and made him wince. But all of his self control could not stop him from making the most unpleasant face as his engagement was announced.
Caecus almost choked on his food. He was twenty years of age, his twenty-first birthday coming up very soon. He knew that nobles in the 1500s married young, but he still wasn’t expecting it so soon. Much less, he would have to be married to a female. His older brother had gone off and become a Cardinal, and he was left to marry to carry on the family name and strengthen good standings with the other noble families. Just as well, his plans to leave have become expedited.
The thought of having to bed a female, touch a female, bear a child... caused him to feel sick, so he took a lull in conversation as an opportunity to excuse himself from the table.
She would be younger than him, and in addition, someone he’s never met before. The marriage would be in name only; he was just hoping that she wouldn’t be interested in getting to know each other before he was able to leave.
He banished those thoughts to the back of his mind, no sense worrying about something he couldn’t do anything about for the time being.
+JUMP IN TIMMMMME+
He waved his hand as if to dispel the nagging voice. He knew it was a futile matter, but he couldn’t stop it either way. He uttered Latin to the voice, knowing that all spiritual beings spoke the language of God.
“Leave me be, Whistler. Its useless to tempt another demon, go waste your efforts elsewhere.”
“Apologies, Brother. You hide well among the humans, I did not recognize you.”
And off the Whistler went, leaving him to the quiet of the courtyard once again.
The remaining nine species were demons that could only live out their existence in Hell, and as far as their time on earth went, they only had the ability to affect the conscious. The Whistlers could be rather harmless most times, but their effect has been deadly on more damaged individuals. They sometimes seemed to humanity as spirits, whispering temptations and urging in human’s ears, though they were little more than a nagging at the back of the mind.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Really Really Really Old Stuff
Found a few things from before college days. Three years+ old?
The scene's my lover,
straightedge talks and vignettes blow my cover,
these streets that lead me to the music lead me to my home.
chords are my lifeblood, frets are my bones,
and ill be right there with you as you sing along with me,
I am the thrum in your heart,
the beat in your brain.
----
So we collapse into some uneasy tolerance of each other, the trials and tribulations started with us and faced by us still lingering, weighing distantly on our minds. I go my way and you go yours, only tethered together through the troubled association of our kin while we deal with the ill affects of shattering and breaking. The days left that are spent together are constant reminders of the long-awaited inevitable end to which we will finally be free of one other, an end to which freedom will dull the mind and erase the memories. With time, each of us will forget and that same time will make shadows of us all as the stories of human existence repeat again and again, whether with us or without us. In another place the roles may reverse, with our unconscious mind screaming in quiet desperation while pain is passed on and by that way thus, our revenge will become complete, yet not on the one who came before but on the one who came after. Apathy ravages the mind and soul of own selves; blindness is the only crippling factor that lets us go on, uninterrupted. A cycle of brokenness entailing brokenness is the very core of cause and effect, creating a suffocation too overwhelming to subdue. Disintegrating faith through the ages sustains rebellion as the pieces that once fit rot away. Everything rooted in love brings about the downfall of soul after soul.
---
“When you’re just a child,
A year is an eternity
And innocence is your forever.”
---
Morbus
There is beauty contained in tragedy; which
attracts like moths to a flame.
This strange fascination with the horrific,
A juxtaposition of morbidity and desire,
Innate longing for glorification.
Red painted suicide angels;
The lucid eyes and frenzied faces.
Picture perfect surreal obsessions,
Lusting devastation, branded and burning,
Ivory flesh protruding bones; art.
Dancing silver blades; captivating,
Holding static reflections of stark naked souls
ripped open, life spewing forth.
The erotica within the macabre,
The spell of fading life; immortalize,
Forever captivated in this celluloid dream.
----
Pale skin permanently stained blue, he’s etching a star deep beneath his flesh. Its not blood he bleeds, but his inner demons. Dare he subject himself to conformity?
“Do I make you want to disappear?” he whispers, pressing harder, deeper.
Delusion is the only thing he weaves, cliches are his specialty. Velvet words from velvet tongue, its all an obliteration of reality. The eye can’t see if its shut.
The scene's my lover,
straightedge talks and vignettes blow my cover,
these streets that lead me to the music lead me to my home.
chords are my lifeblood, frets are my bones,
and ill be right there with you as you sing along with me,
I am the thrum in your heart,
the beat in your brain.
----
So we collapse into some uneasy tolerance of each other, the trials and tribulations started with us and faced by us still lingering, weighing distantly on our minds. I go my way and you go yours, only tethered together through the troubled association of our kin while we deal with the ill affects of shattering and breaking. The days left that are spent together are constant reminders of the long-awaited inevitable end to which we will finally be free of one other, an end to which freedom will dull the mind and erase the memories. With time, each of us will forget and that same time will make shadows of us all as the stories of human existence repeat again and again, whether with us or without us. In another place the roles may reverse, with our unconscious mind screaming in quiet desperation while pain is passed on and by that way thus, our revenge will become complete, yet not on the one who came before but on the one who came after. Apathy ravages the mind and soul of own selves; blindness is the only crippling factor that lets us go on, uninterrupted. A cycle of brokenness entailing brokenness is the very core of cause and effect, creating a suffocation too overwhelming to subdue. Disintegrating faith through the ages sustains rebellion as the pieces that once fit rot away. Everything rooted in love brings about the downfall of soul after soul.
---
“When you’re just a child,
A year is an eternity
And innocence is your forever.”
---
Morbus
There is beauty contained in tragedy; which
attracts like moths to a flame.
This strange fascination with the horrific,
A juxtaposition of morbidity and desire,
Innate longing for glorification.
Red painted suicide angels;
The lucid eyes and frenzied faces.
Picture perfect surreal obsessions,
Lusting devastation, branded and burning,
Ivory flesh protruding bones; art.
Dancing silver blades; captivating,
Holding static reflections of stark naked souls
ripped open, life spewing forth.
The erotica within the macabre,
The spell of fading life; immortalize,
Forever captivated in this celluloid dream.
----
Pale skin permanently stained blue, he’s etching a star deep beneath his flesh. Its not blood he bleeds, but his inner demons. Dare he subject himself to conformity?
“Do I make you want to disappear?” he whispers, pressing harder, deeper.
Delusion is the only thing he weaves, cliches are his specialty. Velvet words from velvet tongue, its all an obliteration of reality. The eye can’t see if its shut.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Synesthetes
A/N: I wanted to write a Synesthete suffering from a seizure while listening to Oingo Boingo. More? Maybe when I hit another thing of inspiration. :|
Insanity is dripping out of the speakers, and he's stuck in some sort of seventies acid trip, Danny Elfman grinning like an imp while he's all dolled up like the one time he played the devil in St.James infirmary, except this time he's not stuck in black & white. He feels like he just swallowed a rainbow and it ripped through guts and numbed the back of his brain. Delicately, delightfully swallowed up the blues that spun out from the tuba. The red burst from the vocal harmony, burning fingertips. Crescendo, break, percussion. When his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he was looking back at himself, everything faded to black and he wanted to take a bow, but he couldn’t move. They were shouting for an encore, but he was frozen. His arm bent at the elbow, rigid and flapping like the flipper of a Thalidomide baby.
Insanity is dripping out of the speakers, and he's stuck in some sort of seventies acid trip, Danny Elfman grinning like an imp while he's all dolled up like the one time he played the devil in St.James infirmary, except this time he's not stuck in black & white. He feels like he just swallowed a rainbow and it ripped through guts and numbed the back of his brain. Delicately, delightfully swallowed up the blues that spun out from the tuba. The red burst from the vocal harmony, burning fingertips. Crescendo, break, percussion. When his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he was looking back at himself, everything faded to black and he wanted to take a bow, but he couldn’t move. They were shouting for an encore, but he was frozen. His arm bent at the elbow, rigid and flapping like the flipper of a Thalidomide baby.
Somnambulist
A/N: HMMMM. This needs heavy editing. I love this story so much, but its taking a lot of work. I started it my freshmen year of college, but alas.... WRITERS BLOCK AND LACK OF TIME FOR RESEARCH AUGH.
In developing and writing this story I really want to create a Zombie novel that breaks many of the clichés. I also want to push the fear of Zombification (loosing the self/mindlessness) as well as the horror of being eaten alive. In my opinion many Zombie stories gloss over or don’t utilize the full potential of the Zombie, and I have never come across a realistic telling of a Zombie horror story. Many movies focus on a very short span of time following the horror movie formula, creating disposable characters and unrealistic actions to solve problems. Things such as weapons and experience as well as accuracy under stress are rarely taken into account.
I want to create a story that follows the life and development of one character and their attempts to realistically survive in a horrific apocalyptic world.
I am shooting for a novel that will eventually be between 500 to 700 pages in length.
The novel will be split into 15 -20 volumes that are furthermore split into three sections. It alternated between third person and first person.
Volume One : The Human Factor
Chapter One
Metal. It was the taste of metal. Polishing, polishing, polishing. Take it apart, put it together. Test the silencer. Take aim. Shoot. Waste a bullet for the sake of making sure that the thing still works. Waste a bullet, save your life.
It was the taste of metal. Everything tastes like metal these days. The food, the water, the air. A constant lingering of blood in the mouth. It would have driven me crazy had I cared. I stopped caring sometime ago. Can’t blame me. I’m still alive. I’m one of the lucky ones. Sure, got called crazy. But hell, it was the crazy ones that lived. The stupid ones died, disappeared in the maws of undead. The weak-willed ones; they killed themselves. Wasted themselves. Suicides.
Idiots.
I’ve seen a fate and dealt with it. Still am. A fate worse than anything you can imagine. Worse than your nightmares, your anxieties, your fears all crushed together to make an oozing mass of despair. There was no hope for our fate. No end. That’s what makes this worse than a nightmare.
There.
Is.
No.
Hope.
Chapter Two
I’m a guy who likes dramatics. Dramatics can get you killed in this world. Post-apocalyptic. I always favored the word apocalyptic. Apocalypse. Never thought I would live during one.
Polishing.
Metal.
The taste, the smell, the touch. Its all been branded in my mind; I’ll never forget it. Its cold, unfeeling. Appropriate. We’ve grown cold. Numbness settled in. A few still hold onto emotion, a few aren’t totally dead inside. But that’s it; only a few.
I’ll polish this till the day I die.
Hah, I laugh. “The day I die.”
Death is nothing. Sometimes it is more preferable than this sorry state of existence I have right now. The only way I refuse to go is to become one of them. One of those zombies.
Oh, but I’m still polishing. This is the thing that saves my life, over and over.
It may one day be the thing that ends it.
Oh, how trite. How ironic.
I live for irony.
My gun. My gun is my life-saver, my lover, my life, my everything. The only dependable thing. I take care of her and she takes care of me. The only dependable thing. Barracks can be broken down, buildings can burn, humans can turn on each other...but good old machinery will always be there for you.
My only thing.
Mine.
Chapter Three
We’ve all been lucky enough to survive. Its been a little over two years, or was it just shy of two? I can never remember. Time doesn’t mean much to me. Survival is the only thing I strive for. The others have taken to rebuilding their lives, rebuilding themselves. New persons in our remote little crevice of Hell. How quaint. I’m one of the few that’s too broken to go back. And yeah, cliches still exist in post-apocalyptic worlds. Loner. I’m one of those. I barely associate with a few. I can see our self-appointed leader shaking his head sadly in my direction. Pompous ass.
Not really.
A good guy, but he gets on my nerves. He’s all about bringing everyone together, fighting as one, blah blah blah, bullshit. I sit away from their “fire-side chats”. I give him credit for keeping most of us alive these past two years, though. In my small part, I helped keep the rest alive. I was also the one that put a few of them out of their misery. That guy though, he changed them from soft Americans, to tough and hard-as-nails...survivalists? I guess that’s the right word. Our entire purpose is to survive. If enough of us can survive the next five or ten years, humanity might have a chance. Heh, those sons of bitches have to rot sometime!
I let out a huge grin, finally stopping the never-ending act of polishing my gun, and I somehow managed to stumble up into a stand. Food was on my mind.
My name is Stolkstad.
Chapter Four
My name was Jeremy Graham.
Chapter Five
Rebecca was whispering something to John. She was smiling.
The jealousy that usually bit me at moments like this has started to fade.
Chapter Six
The life that we knew has ended. In 2007, everything changed. I couldn’t say it happened overnight, but it happened fast. Everything turned upside down in the span of a few months. At first, the attacks were rare. Unconnected. The work of madmen. We didn’t pay much attention. We had become that desensitized to violence and crime. But when the attacks started happening more frequently and started spreading, then we began to notice. At first it was the supposed work of a cult. Then some kind of Mass Hysteria... a biochemical weapon that had been engineered to cause delusions and murderous inhibitions. Contaminates in the water, some kind of drug in the food. Word came to us that it had started in other countries days before anything happened in the US. It had to be some kind of disease. Every single theory for this madness was exhausted until finally, the ridiculous was accepted. Zombies. Mindless, soulless, flesh-eating zombies.
By then, as the cliche went, it was too late.
Luckily, Gregory had managed to convince myself and Rebecca that it really was happening. That way, we managed to get out of the city before swarms of people tried to flee, blocking the roads and inevitably, signaling the death sentence for everyone. The place turned into a buffet.
The zombies went where the people were.
I saw some of it. I saw the massacre, the feeding-frenzy. Nothing I ever saw before that or after even came close to the magnitude of fear and horror I felt because of that one moment.
In developing and writing this story I really want to create a Zombie novel that breaks many of the clichés. I also want to push the fear of Zombification (loosing the self/mindlessness) as well as the horror of being eaten alive. In my opinion many Zombie stories gloss over or don’t utilize the full potential of the Zombie, and I have never come across a realistic telling of a Zombie horror story. Many movies focus on a very short span of time following the horror movie formula, creating disposable characters and unrealistic actions to solve problems. Things such as weapons and experience as well as accuracy under stress are rarely taken into account.
I want to create a story that follows the life and development of one character and their attempts to realistically survive in a horrific apocalyptic world.
I am shooting for a novel that will eventually be between 500 to 700 pages in length.
The novel will be split into 15 -20 volumes that are furthermore split into three sections. It alternated between third person and first person.
Volume One : The Human Factor
Chapter One
Metal. It was the taste of metal. Polishing, polishing, polishing. Take it apart, put it together. Test the silencer. Take aim. Shoot. Waste a bullet for the sake of making sure that the thing still works. Waste a bullet, save your life.
It was the taste of metal. Everything tastes like metal these days. The food, the water, the air. A constant lingering of blood in the mouth. It would have driven me crazy had I cared. I stopped caring sometime ago. Can’t blame me. I’m still alive. I’m one of the lucky ones. Sure, got called crazy. But hell, it was the crazy ones that lived. The stupid ones died, disappeared in the maws of undead. The weak-willed ones; they killed themselves. Wasted themselves. Suicides.
Idiots.
I’ve seen a fate and dealt with it. Still am. A fate worse than anything you can imagine. Worse than your nightmares, your anxieties, your fears all crushed together to make an oozing mass of despair. There was no hope for our fate. No end. That’s what makes this worse than a nightmare.
There.
Is.
No.
Hope.
Chapter Two
I’m a guy who likes dramatics. Dramatics can get you killed in this world. Post-apocalyptic. I always favored the word apocalyptic. Apocalypse. Never thought I would live during one.
Polishing.
Metal.
The taste, the smell, the touch. Its all been branded in my mind; I’ll never forget it. Its cold, unfeeling. Appropriate. We’ve grown cold. Numbness settled in. A few still hold onto emotion, a few aren’t totally dead inside. But that’s it; only a few.
I’ll polish this till the day I die.
Hah, I laugh. “The day I die.”
Death is nothing. Sometimes it is more preferable than this sorry state of existence I have right now. The only way I refuse to go is to become one of them. One of those zombies.
Oh, but I’m still polishing. This is the thing that saves my life, over and over.
It may one day be the thing that ends it.
Oh, how trite. How ironic.
I live for irony.
My gun. My gun is my life-saver, my lover, my life, my everything. The only dependable thing. I take care of her and she takes care of me. The only dependable thing. Barracks can be broken down, buildings can burn, humans can turn on each other...but good old machinery will always be there for you.
My only thing.
Mine.
Chapter Three
We’ve all been lucky enough to survive. Its been a little over two years, or was it just shy of two? I can never remember. Time doesn’t mean much to me. Survival is the only thing I strive for. The others have taken to rebuilding their lives, rebuilding themselves. New persons in our remote little crevice of Hell. How quaint. I’m one of the few that’s too broken to go back. And yeah, cliches still exist in post-apocalyptic worlds. Loner. I’m one of those. I barely associate with a few. I can see our self-appointed leader shaking his head sadly in my direction. Pompous ass.
Not really.
A good guy, but he gets on my nerves. He’s all about bringing everyone together, fighting as one, blah blah blah, bullshit. I sit away from their “fire-side chats”. I give him credit for keeping most of us alive these past two years, though. In my small part, I helped keep the rest alive. I was also the one that put a few of them out of their misery. That guy though, he changed them from soft Americans, to tough and hard-as-nails...survivalists? I guess that’s the right word. Our entire purpose is to survive. If enough of us can survive the next five or ten years, humanity might have a chance. Heh, those sons of bitches have to rot sometime!
I let out a huge grin, finally stopping the never-ending act of polishing my gun, and I somehow managed to stumble up into a stand. Food was on my mind.
My name is Stolkstad.
Chapter Four
My name was Jeremy Graham.
Chapter Five
Rebecca was whispering something to John. She was smiling.
The jealousy that usually bit me at moments like this has started to fade.
Chapter Six
The life that we knew has ended. In 2007, everything changed. I couldn’t say it happened overnight, but it happened fast. Everything turned upside down in the span of a few months. At first, the attacks were rare. Unconnected. The work of madmen. We didn’t pay much attention. We had become that desensitized to violence and crime. But when the attacks started happening more frequently and started spreading, then we began to notice. At first it was the supposed work of a cult. Then some kind of Mass Hysteria... a biochemical weapon that had been engineered to cause delusions and murderous inhibitions. Contaminates in the water, some kind of drug in the food. Word came to us that it had started in other countries days before anything happened in the US. It had to be some kind of disease. Every single theory for this madness was exhausted until finally, the ridiculous was accepted. Zombies. Mindless, soulless, flesh-eating zombies.
By then, as the cliche went, it was too late.
Luckily, Gregory had managed to convince myself and Rebecca that it really was happening. That way, we managed to get out of the city before swarms of people tried to flee, blocking the roads and inevitably, signaling the death sentence for everyone. The place turned into a buffet.
The zombies went where the people were.
I saw some of it. I saw the massacre, the feeding-frenzy. Nothing I ever saw before that or after even came close to the magnitude of fear and horror I felt because of that one moment.
Bourbon, Scotch, and Monologue
A/N: I've been stuck on this story for five years. I have the entire story outlined. I have character development down to every detail I can think of, I KNOW how I want this story.... But after three rewrites and a change from third to first person, I have NO IDEA HOW TO WRITE IT AHHHHHH
I want my idols strung out from the booze, fucked up by the coke, burning the candle at both ends and tripping into the grave, still screaming. None of this commercially packaged shirt churned off the conveyer belt, like safesex for the ears, bleached and sterilized.
Someone give me the wild boys, all the hippies traded their souls in for a two-for-one deal and prepackaged hamburger meat.
I want them playing from their fucking heart, I want the anthems that defined a generation, the men and women that shook the world and made history. I want music for music’s sake.
Words churned and burned in the back of my mind as I cradled the bottle of jack between my thighs. Waking up from doing shots of absinthe in my dreams worked up my thirst for hard liquor. Craning my head up as I took another swig I stared at the posters on my bedroom wall of Morrison, Scott, Bonham, Clark, Pop, and many others. Boys that didn’t survive their wild days and a few that never should have. The power behind the music that snaked its way into my brain and seduced me; it was glamorous and alluring. All it asked for was my soul, but twenty years later I know it wasn’t just the music that sent me down this path.
The digital analog clock glared back at me. July 29th. Today was my 35th birthday. Booze in bed and it was only two in afternoon. It was turning out to be a great day.
-BREAK because I don’t know what else to write here-
I started scribbling memories furiously the day I found out my liver was failing. I remember this birthday pretty well because it was the day before we flew out to Greece for the big family reunion that was held every three years. As I got worse it was harder to keep things straight, and right before and after I got my transplant it was damned near impossible to recall anything. I kept thinking I was going to die, and kept freaking out thinking that no one will remember me. The real me. Not the one night stand, not the fag rock star, not the alcoholic bastard, not the party monster. We had fourteen studio albums and rocked for twenty years. We smashed guitars, cars, and faces and I’m worried about what people will think of me after I’m gone?
Our lives were stained with sex and drugs, and though we were never even close to the men who burned out so early in their lives, we still had a story to tell. How we got to where we are now is something I’m still trying to figure out though.
When we brought forth the idea of writing this biography, we couldn’t work on it fast enough. Shit pour out of our heads, and we were pulling all nighters cause we were just so engrossed, so entrenched in this work we never noticed the sun go down. Or come up. We had the giddiness spark again, that excited youthful anxiety that you get when you’re a new freshface band, your first gig, the first single. Decades worth of shit to work out, of squabbles and fights revisited, of opportunities missed and friends lost. Ashtrays filling with the cigarette butts and stained napkins of our conversation as we put our life to words. And we reconnected.
BREAK WAT
I was born in a little unknown place in Greece, but reared in England. The oldest of what would eventually become known as the Antoniou Five and the only boy my mom was blessed with before the adoption, I was nine years the elder to my youngest sister. Most of my dad’s family was in England and had been there for a few generations now-three, if I remember correctly. Mom had timed my pregnancy so she’d be in Greece visiting her own family; she wanted an real authentic Greek boy.
I had a generally normal upbringing, so how did I end up becoming the only loose screw out of the whole bunch? I can’t chalk it up to have a predominately female presence in my life, as Milliken turned out to be more than okay. The model son, I’d often snort as people grinned when he’d show up in pressed slacks yet grunt at my cut-off jeans and dyed hair. But I wasn’t bitter. I was satisfied with the way I was.
The family still lives in the same house I grew up in—a moderate sized English Victorian that still felt cramped despite how unusually large it was. I can contribute this to the large number of family members living with us, there was no time or place where one could be left alone. I remedied that by retiring to the old woods behind our home, where the underbrush was so thickly woven between the gargantuan oaks it took woodcutters and a shit ton of patience to make a path get anywhere. I was allowed free reign with the only requirement to be home on time for dinner each evening.
Stealing old blankets when I could, and dragging pieces of wood board and any other ‘building materials’ I got my hands on, I made a mish mashed fort. One time I managed to save up enough nickels for some paint and then the place looked like a clown exploded.
With my brown worn sandals slapping against the pavement as I carefully balanced the little tubs of paint, I was exhausted and sticky with sweat by the time I got home after the half mile walk to the ‘Jimmy’s Corner Mart’. The dripping sweat glowed golden against my tan skin in the fading sun. I wanted to go back to my fort before the sun was completely down but my parents stopped me when I reached the back yard, somberness hanging heavy over their shoulders.
They were quiet, uncharacteristically so. Tenderly, they ushered me to the cement stairs where they broached the subject of ‘adoption’, pausing tentatively and often as if to make sure their conversation wasn’t upsetting me. At the mention of getting a new brother but having to forego all that baby stuff, my ten-year-old body quivered with anticipation. Three years older than the eldest daughter, the age gap was still enough to leave me wishing I had someone closer to mine to play with and after three sisters I cherished the thought of a brother. To say he was not what I expected was the least I could say of him.
He was a sniveling little thing when I met him, skinnier than me and a lot shorter. His shaggy blonde hair and pale pink skin was so different from my own Mediterranean ethnicity. It threw me for a loop, not that I wasn’t used to Caucasian families, but in the Seventies interracial mixing on the family level was still something that was not all that common in my life.
He was nine at the time; very quiet and jumpy. He didn’t talk much, and I heard the word abused being thrown around when the adults didn’t think I was listening. Very much of this talk flew right over my head. I was oblivious in my child-like state of mind and did not really understand the crushing power that words like abuse, disownment, and negligence had.
I want my idols strung out from the booze, fucked up by the coke, burning the candle at both ends and tripping into the grave, still screaming. None of this commercially packaged shirt churned off the conveyer belt, like safesex for the ears, bleached and sterilized.
Someone give me the wild boys, all the hippies traded their souls in for a two-for-one deal and prepackaged hamburger meat.
I want them playing from their fucking heart, I want the anthems that defined a generation, the men and women that shook the world and made history. I want music for music’s sake.
Words churned and burned in the back of my mind as I cradled the bottle of jack between my thighs. Waking up from doing shots of absinthe in my dreams worked up my thirst for hard liquor. Craning my head up as I took another swig I stared at the posters on my bedroom wall of Morrison, Scott, Bonham, Clark, Pop, and many others. Boys that didn’t survive their wild days and a few that never should have. The power behind the music that snaked its way into my brain and seduced me; it was glamorous and alluring. All it asked for was my soul, but twenty years later I know it wasn’t just the music that sent me down this path.
The digital analog clock glared back at me. July 29th. Today was my 35th birthday. Booze in bed and it was only two in afternoon. It was turning out to be a great day.
-BREAK because I don’t know what else to write here-
I started scribbling memories furiously the day I found out my liver was failing. I remember this birthday pretty well because it was the day before we flew out to Greece for the big family reunion that was held every three years. As I got worse it was harder to keep things straight, and right before and after I got my transplant it was damned near impossible to recall anything. I kept thinking I was going to die, and kept freaking out thinking that no one will remember me. The real me. Not the one night stand, not the fag rock star, not the alcoholic bastard, not the party monster. We had fourteen studio albums and rocked for twenty years. We smashed guitars, cars, and faces and I’m worried about what people will think of me after I’m gone?
Our lives were stained with sex and drugs, and though we were never even close to the men who burned out so early in their lives, we still had a story to tell. How we got to where we are now is something I’m still trying to figure out though.
When we brought forth the idea of writing this biography, we couldn’t work on it fast enough. Shit pour out of our heads, and we were pulling all nighters cause we were just so engrossed, so entrenched in this work we never noticed the sun go down. Or come up. We had the giddiness spark again, that excited youthful anxiety that you get when you’re a new freshface band, your first gig, the first single. Decades worth of shit to work out, of squabbles and fights revisited, of opportunities missed and friends lost. Ashtrays filling with the cigarette butts and stained napkins of our conversation as we put our life to words. And we reconnected.
BREAK WAT
I was born in a little unknown place in Greece, but reared in England. The oldest of what would eventually become known as the Antoniou Five and the only boy my mom was blessed with before the adoption, I was nine years the elder to my youngest sister. Most of my dad’s family was in England and had been there for a few generations now-three, if I remember correctly. Mom had timed my pregnancy so she’d be in Greece visiting her own family; she wanted an real authentic Greek boy.
I had a generally normal upbringing, so how did I end up becoming the only loose screw out of the whole bunch? I can’t chalk it up to have a predominately female presence in my life, as Milliken turned out to be more than okay. The model son, I’d often snort as people grinned when he’d show up in pressed slacks yet grunt at my cut-off jeans and dyed hair. But I wasn’t bitter. I was satisfied with the way I was.
The family still lives in the same house I grew up in—a moderate sized English Victorian that still felt cramped despite how unusually large it was. I can contribute this to the large number of family members living with us, there was no time or place where one could be left alone. I remedied that by retiring to the old woods behind our home, where the underbrush was so thickly woven between the gargantuan oaks it took woodcutters and a shit ton of patience to make a path get anywhere. I was allowed free reign with the only requirement to be home on time for dinner each evening.
Stealing old blankets when I could, and dragging pieces of wood board and any other ‘building materials’ I got my hands on, I made a mish mashed fort. One time I managed to save up enough nickels for some paint and then the place looked like a clown exploded.
With my brown worn sandals slapping against the pavement as I carefully balanced the little tubs of paint, I was exhausted and sticky with sweat by the time I got home after the half mile walk to the ‘Jimmy’s Corner Mart’. The dripping sweat glowed golden against my tan skin in the fading sun. I wanted to go back to my fort before the sun was completely down but my parents stopped me when I reached the back yard, somberness hanging heavy over their shoulders.
They were quiet, uncharacteristically so. Tenderly, they ushered me to the cement stairs where they broached the subject of ‘adoption’, pausing tentatively and often as if to make sure their conversation wasn’t upsetting me. At the mention of getting a new brother but having to forego all that baby stuff, my ten-year-old body quivered with anticipation. Three years older than the eldest daughter, the age gap was still enough to leave me wishing I had someone closer to mine to play with and after three sisters I cherished the thought of a brother. To say he was not what I expected was the least I could say of him.
He was a sniveling little thing when I met him, skinnier than me and a lot shorter. His shaggy blonde hair and pale pink skin was so different from my own Mediterranean ethnicity. It threw me for a loop, not that I wasn’t used to Caucasian families, but in the Seventies interracial mixing on the family level was still something that was not all that common in my life.
He was nine at the time; very quiet and jumpy. He didn’t talk much, and I heard the word abused being thrown around when the adults didn’t think I was listening. Very much of this talk flew right over my head. I was oblivious in my child-like state of mind and did not really understand the crushing power that words like abuse, disownment, and negligence had.
Darius
Darius groped around in the dark, hand brushing against the dimpled wall of the bedroom while he tried to reach for the light. The alarm clock across the room was flashing twelve; the power must have shut off during the morning. That would account for the lack of air conditioning, he thought. His hair, thick with sweat, stuck to skin where skin was available. The light flicked on and he put a name to the what was making that horrible nose–burning smell. He could practically taste the alcohol mixing with the smell of vomit–he had dropped a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the floor last night. Rather, this morning. Very early morning. He was surprised he made it to the bed this time.
“Shit.” Whether it was about the loss of a good bottle of Jack or the mess on his floor, his expletive could go either way.
He welcomed into the world that day a very deserved hangover, but the effects would be over quickly. Comparatively, this year that was comprised of what most people would see as a complete and utter breakdown is nothing but a speck in his mind, a second making up what he felt was a long and laborious life. Not everyone could agree with him on that matter though. And one of those somebodies was thumbing through a magazine looking incredibly bored and irritated while sitting on his couch. He snorted in the brief glance away from the magazine. Definitely irritated.
“Shit.” Whether it was about the loss of a good bottle of Jack or the mess on his floor, his expletive could go either way.
He welcomed into the world that day a very deserved hangover, but the effects would be over quickly. Comparatively, this year that was comprised of what most people would see as a complete and utter breakdown is nothing but a speck in his mind, a second making up what he felt was a long and laborious life. Not everyone could agree with him on that matter though. And one of those somebodies was thumbing through a magazine looking incredibly bored and irritated while sitting on his couch. He snorted in the brief glance away from the magazine. Definitely irritated.
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