everything except himself

The whole city knew when the boy had hit the tower: everything stopped. Except those people who were standing, starring, video-taping the carnage, everyone was panicked. There’s some ethereal calming feeling, inherent only to humans, to watching a disaster, like how people slow down in cars to look. Only willing to watch, people stand apart from the mess. They take it in as a sort of chance entertainment, not as they would a book or something of importance but as a terrible sort of sideshow to their daily lives.

That’s when it happened. The maintenance man came running out of the pizza shop in a rush, followed with no real sense of the situation by pop.

“Drive my truck over to where the accident is. I’m going to go do what I can!” The maintenance man tossed pop the keys to the ‘truck’ — really, it’s a white service van with the tower company’s logo on the side. On account of the maintenance man being the only real adult in this city full of children, the maintenance man is hereafter referred to plainly as “man”. Not “super”, not “special” — just “man”.

Pop looked at the keys and then over to the burning wreckage at the tower. He looked back down at the keys, but his attention was on the tower.

By this time, the man was close enough to the wreck to see that nothing had been done at all to help the situation by the onlookers. He saw only one car, and so he headed over to it. The car looked like it was laying peacefully next to the tower, catecorner, taking a nap on its side. In the driver’s side seat was a boy of about seventeen years in appearance, also napping — unconscious — between his driver-side window and an airbag.

As big as the tower was, the SUV, motionlessly laying to one side of the tower, looked like it was trying to hug a tree. What occurred was that the SUV, in a last ditch attempt to stop, had flipped with such force that the SUV had furiously slammed into the tower with it’s bottom side and bounced off from the force. In a more violent world, you might say that the tower had sucker-punched the SUV.

For all that, the fire that had started at the base of the tower was still in need of an explanation. The man was looking around for the cause, and then, being close enough now, he saw that the control box for the tower’s all-important electric power transformer, which the SUV was using as a sort of pillow at the moment, was crushed flat, stomped like a soda can. To the man, it looked like the destroyed control box was the source of the fire, which screamed of danger on its own and practically yelled itself hoarse to the man that it was only a few feet from the power transformer.

Fearing the worst for the situation, the man looked behind him to find that pop had brought the truck around as close as it could get for all the traffic. Running over to the back of the truck, the man threw open the doors, grabbed his tool belt, and ran over to the SUV. Climbing up the side of the overturned SUV, the man proceeded to open the driver’s side door with his back to the flames. The airbag had failed to disengage. Taking the X-Acto knife from his belt, the man released the blade, covered his face, and slashed the airbag like a tire. In the following moment, accentuated by the “POP!” of the airbag, the man had reached in like the jaws of life and grabbed the boy up out of the SUV.

With a sudden “BOOM!” and shockwave from the transformer, the man knew the fire had spread and the worst-case scenario was in tow. Jumping down off the SUV, the boy held length-wise across his arms, the man landed with a “THUD!” From there it was a short dash to the safety of the backside of his truck. Pop was there, cellphone in hand.

“I keep trying to call 9-1-1, but I can’t get through,” pop told the man.

“Tower’s down.” The man said between breaths as he laid the boy down on the ground. “Not gonna do you any good. Besides, look at the traffic.”

Pop turned around to see cars in every direction — vultures, waiting to eat up the scene.

Standing up, the man drew out a dolly from the back of his truck. Laying the jacket he was wearing on top of it, the man commanded pop, “Help me get him on there.” Pop, while he meant no ill-will towards the boy, just stood there. “He has to get to the hospital. Come on!”

It was at this point that the man realized he was on his own in the endeavor to save the boy’s life. Managing to get the boy onto the dolly with difficulty, the man pushed pop aside to get to a length of rope located inside the truck. Tying both ends of the rope to the dolly, the man got behind the rope and began pulling the dolly like a sled dog in a race for the boy’s life.

Leaving the horrible accident scene behind, the man mushed across the street to the sidewalk, crowded with just as many onlookers as the street, but the sidewalk’s obstacles could be moved. Yelling like an ambulance siren, the man pushed through the sidewalk up the emergency care entrance, which had street access to the main road in the city.

Getting the boy through the double-doors on his own, the man called out with all he had left to the attendant who was supposed to be attending the door.

So, it’s been a while since I’ve written here. That doesn’t mean it’s been a while since I’ve been writing, though. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that prose puts me to sleep (yes, literally and on more than one occasion). So I’ve got a bunch of pages kind of laying around half-finished, and, without further ado, here you go:

The boy had been at sea for over a month now. Today, he was a passenger on a military cruiser. A month ago, he was leading a peaceful life on a small island located in-between two very developed embankments. The east bank marked the westernmost boundary of the kingdom of Aretolla, a land made fertile under the long rule of the Aretolla family. The west bank, on the other hand, marked the easternmost boundary of the land of the Ottoruk people. The two embankments provide a common ground between the two entities though, allowing for trade and information to flow across the channel.

Today, trade flourishes in this region; however, this has not always been the case. In fact, before the channel was used for trade, it provided a road for raiders to pillage the settlements along the channel. At that time, the nation of the Ottoruk had not spread to the channel, and even the people living on the west embankment were mostly from Aretolla. But, even if they were constantly being raided, the people could rebuild and move on with their lives — this was the stance taken by the Aretolla family. Because of this callous disregard, the raiders took up permanent residence on an island located within the channel, which allowed them to begin making raids farther and farther into Aretolla’s territory. Ten years of raiding found the raiders at the doorsteps of the royal Aretolla family residency, prompting the family’s immediate withdrawal to a safer place. It was out of this circumstance that a new leader rose to power: Merrian Winchester.

It was Merrian Winchester, a man of the working class of the kingdom of Aretolla, who organized the remaining people of Aretolla, specifically those living on the embankments, to fight against the raiders. It was, however, very much a failed resistance at first. For one, the working class of Aretolla were only a step above slavery and basically farmed to live, paying tribute to the royal Aretolla family for use of the land, so the average man could not afford to equip himself or his family to participate in a war against the raiders. It was because of this that Merrian Winchester sent himself as an envoy to the leader of the nation of the Ottoruk.

In short, the leader of the Ottoruk accepted Merrian Winchester as the acting leader of the kingdom of Aretolla, since the nobility had forsaken its people. In return for control of the west bank and exclusive rights to trade over the channel, the leader of the Ottoruk entered into an alliance with the people of Aretolla. He sent weapons and commissioned the craftsmen of his country to design and construct a war-ship to combat the raiders at sea. However, the design could not be brought to fruition within the land of the Ottoruk and was instead constructed from the materials and by the labor of the Aretolla people, all of which had a significant burden removed from them with the indefinite absence of the Aretolla family. So, after many months, the first war-ship, a joint-effort by the Ottoruk craftsmen and Aretolla labor, sailed down the channel.

It was a great day for the Aretolla people when news spread that the war-ship they had built had successfully sunk 3 of the raiders’ ships. It is important to note that the raiders had only been using the large ships at their disposal as storehouses for their loot, so the war-ship, specifically designed for combat with large ships, had the absolute upper-hand against the raiders’ ships. In the wake of this great news, the Aretolla people were also becoming increasingly successful at defending their homesteads, forcing the raiders to regroup what little they had left at their island headquarters. It was because of this that, in order to seal victory and expel the threat of the raiders, the leader of the Ottoruk advanced a set of mercenaries to the island in the middle of the channel, permanently burying the threat with the raiders’ bodies. As was his custom, the leader of the Ottoruk built a shrine to the god of his ancestors, leaving the spoils the raiders had left behind as an offering.

It was after the storming of the raider’s island that the Aretolla family returned, only to be turned away in a most violent fashion by all of those who had remained on Aretolla soil. For his leadership during those ten long years of hardship and for his key role in ending it, Merrian Winchester was recognized by the Aretolla people as their leader. The tribute system was removed by Merrian Winchester in favor of imposing a small transaction fee on trade to the citizens of Aretolla. The fee supplemented the rather large sum of valuables left behind by the royal family’s caravan, which, as was mentioned, did not quite serve the purpose the Aretolla family had intended in that their possessions had returned to the land but they had only barely escaped with their lives.

Poor Prometheus!
I, if no one else, know that
The true fire is not a flame but a fountain!

In contrast, our daily lives
Are a sinking boat
On which our fair futures float.
Though, we don’t get very far –
Life is a pond
Where we and the algae dumbly abscond.

Lying on our stomach with the water’s floor,
We claim to see the whole world and more.
To us, it is all darkness at best,
But, Darkness, confess!
Worlds within worlds from you can be wrest!

So I light my torch with that knowledge –
For in dreams and lighter things
We are not to rules bound
But in that free space found
To break or hold laws
For our own unwieldly cause.

See past what is in front of you –
Look into the depths!
Cast out your soul like a bucket,
And draw in what you can.
Drink deeply like the sponge you are!
And maybe you will go so far
As to tell the algae what it is
And tell your surroundings what they are not:
That they are not the whole, but just a part.

He lived everything forward. In the morning, he got up, went straight to the bathroom — he’d laid his clothes out the night before — on to the shower, ate breakfast after shaving, brushed his teeth, and went out the door. Rising from bed, he would sometimes feel as though he were pushing against something. His doctor said it was his age — he was an old man. The old man always informed his doctor that the opinion was only half right, went to get his prescriptions filled, went home, ate dinner, laid out his clothes for the next day, took his pills, and got ready to get up the next morning.

He talked to himself. He would sometimes say things when he pushed his way out of bed. His wife had heard all sorts of things — that is, before she had passed on. She had once remarked to a friend that she was worried about her husband. She was so frightened once by the tone in her husband’s voice that she thought a burglar or a robber — as though there were really any distinction — had startled her husband and moved him on to a rage. She told of how he made the most strained and forced noises. Now, her friends all knew her to tell stories high as the Sears Tower, but she convinced them all to gather around the apartment door one morning, bright and early at 5:00 — precisely at five is when the old man woke up every morning. Well, what a sound they heard! One of them almost had the mind to call 911 for an ambulance or the police or something.

He didn’t like rainy days. He would always yell the loudest on mornings when the weather was bad. He’d always mumble to himself about how “it wasn’t enough already” and “you just got to go and do that — today of all days.”

His life wasn’t especially exciting. In fact, the highlight of his day was getting up. The woman in the apartment next to his tried striking up conversation one time when she passed him in the hall — she had planned it, too, but never again! She asked him if he had company over that morning, on account of all the noise. He replied in a very serious way. He said he couldn’t get rid of the company fast enough! She knew — ’cause she’d watched and watched a lot — that he didn’t have any company. She didn’t try talking to him again.

His doctor told me a peculiar story. The old man had a heart condition. The doctor said that it took some doing, but his remaining family convinced him to get surgery. Well, they put him under, started to operate all serious-like, and there goes the old man hoopin’-and-a-hollerin’ like the comin’ of the Lord was upon us — the doctor-surgeon-man was a long-time Baptist. He said the old man was yelling all kinds of things, mostly hateful — like fightin’ words or something.

The man recovered. He seemed to get a little bit quieter though — I learned that from his nosey next-door neighbor, the one who about called an ambulance when she didn’t hear the old man screaming at 5:00 in the morning like usual. She probably should have. He was at the hospital by the end of the week.

Stingiest old man you ever saw! I was one of the hospital staff on hand when he came in. He grabbed me by the hand as we were rushing him to the ER. He said very deliberately his name and address. Then he told me that, just to the left of the apartment building, there was a funeral home and that, not a mile more, there was a cemetery — said it was his part not to be a burden, what with how much of a rip-off caskets were already.

Spoke in his sleep, too. You’d never believe what it is he was yelling about. I got to know him pretty well on account of working graveyard shifts and his garrulous out loud dreaming and all. I asked him about all of it one time when he was awake during my shift — we went to check on him because he wasn’t being noisy. He told me about how he had to yell all the time at time to keep it moving; otherwise, he’d catch up to it, on account of it being so slow — said that before that he yelled at it for taking his wife’s beauty away — said that he yelled at it because it hadn’t taken her with it! You should have seen the nurse’s eyes roll!

He died in his sleep. Honestly, I don’t know how he did it, being the way he was. It was on one of my off-days — poor guy probably thought he was doing me a favor, seeing as I was one of the regulars that took care of him.

Anyway, it went just like he said that first time I met him. He spent an afternoon at the funeral home, got visited by his family and a few people living in the apartment building next to the place, and then he moved on down the road to the cemetery, where he was gotten ready to get up and go the next day.

It had just started to rain lightly as the tower’s maintenance man parked his utility van a block down from the tower, right in front of a mom and pop pizza shop he knew well. The shop, in the face of bankruptcy before the tower’s construction, has flourished since the tower was built. Back when the city hall building was still standing, no one came, until the proposal for the tower came up, that is. At first, the town hall meetings for the tower’s construction didn’t effect the shop’s business, since people still left the meetings to go eat at the newly built and highly advertised West End: Theater, Restaurant, and Grocery. Though it was much farther away than the pizza shop, everyone wanted to go feel like they were a part of something new, and, hey, it was popular at the time. So, people did it.

Now, what changed the West End fad? One day, as everyone was sitting together in the former city hall building — there is a new one being built — the people, forced to sit closely together for lack of space, were also forced into talking for the failing air conditioning unit.

“Boy, I can’t wait for this meeting to be over with. Wonder what’s takin’ em so long?” A man said this aloud to no one in particular.

“Hey, where y’all goin’ after the meeting?” It was a rhetorical question from a man dressed in a way that didn’t suit his drawl. “We’re all headed to the West End,” he continued, even though everyone already knew that everyone else was going to the West End, but saying it still had that kind of effect of impressing people.

All the while, the mom and pop of the mom & pop pizza shop were passing notes back and forth like high school kids, until pop broke into laughter and mom turned her head to snicker in secrecy.

“Hey, what’ch’all laughing about over there?” A different man asked. “Heat gone to your heads?”

“You know West End?” Pop asked.

“Yeah, an’ who doesn’t?” Another man broke in. “We’re all gonna go eat there later, maybe catch a movie, too.”

“Yeah, yeah, but it’s called ‘West End: Theater, Restaurant, and Grocery’, right?” Pop said it with a smile.

“And it’s the best thing what ever happened to this town!” A woman chimed in, leaning over the back of her chair.

“Yeah, yeah, but don’t you think it’s got the damnedest name?” Pop said, hinting at something with a wink.

“I mean, it’s long but I don’t mind saying ‘West End’. It sounds nice!” The woman was looking confused.

“Well, I got another name for it!” Pop shouted, looking around and standing up a bit to make sure all the others could see him. “Let’s spell it out! ‘West’ starts with a…” he waited.

“‘W’,” mom said, acknowledging her husband.

“‘W’!” Pop repeated it loudly, getting more people interested. “‘End’ starts with a what?”

“‘E’,” a few people said back, trying to figure out whatever pop was talking about.

“‘E’!” Pop was smiling. “‘Theater’ starts with…”

“‘T’,” more people shouted back in a kind of unison.

“‘T’, and that spells, ‘WET’!” Pop was turning around in place, with his finger pointing up at the ceiling. “Now what does ‘Rest-aur-ant’ start with?” Pop commanded.

“‘R’,” more and more people were interested.

“And ‘And’ starts with an ‘A’, and ‘Grocery’ starts with a ‘G’, and that spells all together…”

In one big guffaw, pop’s makeshift congregation shouted, “Wet rag!”

Like a lightning strike, this revelation shot through the crowd. Everyone realized they couldn’t be caught dead at a place called “Wet Rag” now that everybody knew about it. They had to come up with somewhere to eat after the already late-to-start meeting ended.

“So, where we gonna eat then?” A man asked his wife.

“Well, now!” Pop interrupted. “I don’t know if you know,” Pop was drawing them in, “but me and ma’ here we run a pizza parlor. We’d be real happy to see you all there after the meetin’.” Pop was smiling the same smile he wore when he and ma’ applied for the loan to start up their business 10 years ago. It worked then…

“Now, I don’t know if I speak fer everyone here, but I know I don’t know where that is…” The man pop interrupted said back.

“We’re right down the road! You can probably see it from the winduh!” Pop was pointing out the window. “See? There it is!” Not that anybody could see it — not that anybody had seen it for all the times they’d probably driven past it — but Pop’s confidence made it seem like it was there. “So, can we ’spect y’all there after the meeting?” Pop was still smiling the smile, the one that got him the loan — the very same one that got him his wife, even!

“Well, shucks, it’s right there, too. ‘course’n I’ll be there,” said the man back to pop. “How ’bout y’all?” The man was striking up the crowd.

It worked, though. Mom and pop hadn’t seen so much business ever before in their 10 years of running the pizza shop. It’s really amazing how it all worked out, since they served well over a hundred people that night, but now, the catch is, just what were ma and pa writing back and forth to each other:

This is what ma wrote: “Sure is hot.”

And pa: “Yeah.”

And ma: “We should leave this joint. They ain’t even got A/C.”

And pa: “We can’t just leave, ma.”

And ma, again: “Then you better come up with an excuse!”

And pa after a few seconds to think: “Okay, you start laughing.”

And ma, kinda upset: “You gonna tell ‘em I’m crazy or something! No, sir!”

And pa, again: “You wanna leave, don’t'cha? Just start laughing. I’ll do it, too.”

Ma and pa have been busy almost every day since then, and that’s how it all started, with them just wanting to leave. Of course, you couldn’t exactly tell other people that’s how your business took off. You have to come up with a good story, like, “That new tower’s what brings us all our business. You’d never believe it’s been standing for five years already!” It’s not like they’re lying when they say that, either. It was the meetings, and the tower has been up for 5 years at this point; it’s just it isn’t the whole truth, but who has to know?

Things I’ve yet to add:

• Establishing the time of day (it’s dusk and partly cloudy).
• Maybe clarify the references to Myspace.com profiles.
• Make the overloaded profile page idea more outrageous than I’ve presented it.
• Maybe add words like “thin” and “empty” or “basic” to help guide the reader through to the purpose of the online conversation part.

Part II - The Nation of Neglected Children, Profile of a Child of the City

Since the tower’s construction and subsequent activation, things have changed in the city. There seems to be a growing divide between people; the social landscape of the whole city has been altered by this thing! If you were to look down the city’s main road toward the tower, you’d understand: you can see the two sides of the city — the left and the right — and what looks like a deep and fearsome gash — the tower — separating the two. Looking at it again, maybe it’s more like an incision, as though someone had skillfully pierced the fabric of the city, taken out some important part, and sewed it up neatly, albeit noticeable, so that people could overlook it. If you’re curious, they commercialized it and sold it for profit like organs on the black market. That important thing — whatever you want to call it — got replaced with a lifeless “equal-value” alternative lifestyle.

Take this boy, for example. Male. 16 years old. That City, That Place. Looking for Friends. His day consists of sneaking text messages to his friends during class and chatting with those same friends online after school. However, he’s never met most of these “friends” in-person, face-to-face. Still, he has a girlfriend and a best friend all the same. If he’s never met these people in-person, how did he come into contact with them? Imagine, if you will, a place where you can post one long personal ad, complete with a description of who you are, pictures, your favorite songs, your favorite bands, videos, and the ability to comment on every part of it. Now, quit imagining; it’s reality. This kid has poured his whole life into such a page, and anyone with wireless access can view it. His “friends” — read “complete strangers” — saw his page and, having pages of their own, added him to their friend list. That’s how the makeshift relationship between the boy and these people started.

“lol! i liek ur new pic,” his girlfriend comments on his page around the time the boy would get home from school.

“yea i was tired of being like every ne else,” he replies on her page. “u like the pose? :D”

“me likey <3,” his girlfriend continues the conversation after about 10 minutes.

“well if i do change i change for myself and not for anyone else,” he posts back on her page. The part he left out was how he kept reloading his page to see if she’d commented and how he’d made sure to wait a minute or two before replying in order to make it look like he wasn’t being desperate.

“lol ur so sexyyyyyy. hehe and dont be sorrry. lol hehehehehhe,” she replies quickly.

“lol thanks,” he says. “wait, sorry about what?” Now he’s nervous.

And then there was nothing from her. An hour went by before he decided to check her page only to find he’d been blocked from viewing it! Fear and sadness came creeping into his heart like thieves, bent on stealing his common sense. Those time-honored masters did it, too. The boy, rife with confused thoughts, posted on his best friend’s page, “hey can u see her site?”

“her? o yea y wouldnt i b able to?” his friend replied shortly.

“can u check her mood for me?” the boy was on edge.

“o dude it sez she’s angry, sry man,” his friend returned.

The boy was crushed. To be blocked was to be purposely ignored, hated. Logging on to a different account he’d created out of paranoia some time before, he visited her page as that alter ego. Without even looking around the page, he found the area to send her a comment and went off: “i can’t b lieve u!! danny was teh best thing that ever happend 2 u and how cud u du that 2 him and youre going 2 die alone some day and regret it all the way to hell u fake!!!!” As soon as the comment had been posted, he stormed away from his desk in a rush to be anywhere but in that moment. Stealing the keys to his mother’s car from the coffee table, he ran out, slamming the door to their gloomy little apartment on his way out.

Starting in the parking deck across the street, the boy drove his mom’s car down onto the city street. A honk came from behind him, as he drove slowly down the road — really, where do you drive to when you’re a mess? In a split-decision to go forward on this side-road or turn right, he chose right, turning onto one of the city’s main roads. Like a boat dead in the water, the boy was looking for anything that could save him, and then he saw it — the tower — floating there down the road, off in the distance. In a sudden moment of anger, he shifted all of the blame for his pain to that inanimate object.

“I’ll kill you,” he muttered, driving towards it with the setting sun at his back. “I’ll kill you,” closer. “I’ll kill you,” closing in on the tower. “I hate you and your damn blinking lights!” 60 miles per hour, “You’re stupid and ugly!” 80 miles per hour, “I wish you’d never been built!” 90 miles per hour, “Go to hell!” And then it happened; he heard it — the unmistakable song that his phone played when his girlfriend was calling — but it was too late to save himself. He stomped his foot on the brake pedal, pulled up the emergency brake, but, instead of getting the car to stop, he crashed it into the massive base of the tower. In an instance of screeching wheels, crunching metal, and the shattering of glass, the tower turned off with a massive heave, as it and all of its artificial lights were drained of their electricity.

Part I - The Tower

There is something broken at the center of the city. Where once there was a vibrant pulse, all that can be observed now is a flat line. That flat line runs about for twenty or so feet each way to form a square, which is the foundation of a monumental, state-of-the-art broadcasting tower, but, in fact, that foundation is also the only thing left of the old City Hall building. Built on top of that foundation — around which the whole city was built — is now another flat line, which extends up from the city and goes on as far as the eye can see: the new center of the city is a gigantic, self-maintaining, lifeless tower.

For all the opponents to the tower being built where it now stands, tall and impregnable, many more were thinking about the positive changes this new structure would bring: anyone within the city’s proximity would be provided with free and unlimited access to all of the special content just floating around in the city’s information-saturated air. Yes, there would be no land lines or wires, and there would be no strings attached! Phones, computers, TVs — all revolutionized by this one edifice! Even the city’s remote-controlled traffic lights could be run in-tandem with the tower! So, how could the city not build this tower? Really, the issue was never the building of the tower but where it was to be built and what it was to replace, but this facet of the argument was largely glossed over by the tower’s proponents.

For better or for worse, the tower now stands — looms — at the center of the city, and, at night, it can be seen from anywhere in the city. It lights up one of millions-upon-millions of tiny diodes as proof of some tiny bit of information being received or transmitted, and there are lots of people in the city. As proof of this fact, the part of the tower that can be readily seen from the ground is always lit up in a most magnificent way. However, much like the moon, the tower, by itself a dark hunk of cold and inanimate white, merely reflects the light of the bright sun that is human communication, but who among the people of this city recognizes this? Indeed, for all the tower’s brilliance, the city has even taken down its streetlights in favor of that ominous and deceptive ever-glow.

The following is a submission for a creative writing group on campus. No people were harmed in the making of this story. It’s completely fictional. This has been a public service announcement.

Where is it that one may truly float free? Is it in the sea of one’s dreams, or are those merely a distraction meant to drown us in things that may never be? To close one’s eyes – to ignore the very danger before you – is to slide gently out with the surf. Open your eyes: it is an endless sea of blue! Forget your vanity and swim to shore!

I am a man of few relatives. Over the years, keeping the relationships established has been a burden I’ve forgone. Truly a mistake, I know. Indeed, all I really have to show for the time I did spend trying to mend those relationships with my family is a picture of my niece. She’ll be twenty-four this year. However, the photograph I have of her predates that by almost ten years. Her mother, mind you, was so proud of her. It was a sweet card that even now evokes a certain nostalgia:

“Dear Brother,

Your niece is fourteen! Can you believe it? She’s such a beautiful young lady, isn’t she? Just yesterday she was trying on makeup. It was so funny! She looked a little more like a clown than your darling niece. Anyway, keep in touch. Will you be coming back to town any time soon? Let me know.”

The picture I have of my niece was tucked away with that very card. On the back of the picture, the words “Bright eyes” are inscribed. It’s really true, though. The girl in that picture is so full of life; she quite resembles her mother. It is a shame that this girl had the misfortune of having to grow up without her mother. You see, her mother left later that year. That woman went missing one night after a particularly rough fight with her husband. There were rumors that she may have left him for good, and time has seemed to prove those rumors true. Indeed, she has always been a very capricious and self-oriented woman.

From that point on, it was like the girl never had a mother. The girl herself left her father’s house as soon as she was old enough. Much like her mother, she didn’t say where she was going to anyone that I know of at all, but anyone who has heard the stories can tell you why. She simply left with the intention of never coming back. Those two women, my niece and the runaway, are a lot a like.

In any case, I recently received a letter from a certain city’s police department. They apparently had been trying to close missing person’s cases from years ago. You’ll have to understand, that woman’s husband – if you can still consider him her husband – isn’t a very bright man by any standard. What I mean to say is that he filed a missing person’s case on a woman who did not wish to be found. Not only is he dumb, he’s clearly been wasting other people’s time for the past ten years as well.

Mind you, the woman is nowhere to be found, but they say that they have found my niece. It was news to me that she was reported missing at the time; however, they assured me that was the case, and, furthermore, it was my name that this girl was murmuring. You see, she has apparently become afflicted with some sort of disease, though one that consists of amnesia, regular spells of blacking out, and an unparalleled sense of anxiety is unknown to me. It quite sounds like that awkward moment preceding death, though.

For this reason, I have traveled to the home of a relative I did not know I had. I dare not call him family, but he seems well-meaning enough. The man, a supposed cousin of mine, lives with his family in a house outside of the queerest place you’ve ever seen. Upon first glance, it looks like a massive frozen snowflake. I do believe he called it the “Crystal City.” However, it is quite an odd city, having no roads or bridges leading to it, surrounded on all sides by water, reminiscent of a moat. People have such a stigma about it that no one has ever tried boating out to it. It is indeed a most awe-inspiring sight.

Now, supposedly my niece came from that city into the custody of this cousin of mine. She was found beached like a whale on the shore across from that evil city. To top that off – if you’ll believe me – she looks exactly as she did in that picture of mine! “How can that be,” I know. Well, here then is the exchange between myself and this cousin of mine.

“Are you good at puzzling things,” my cousin was fidgeting in an armchair next to his fireplace. “Who is worse? Is it the man who watches someone else drown, or is it the one who watches such a man?” He was nervous, it looked like.

“They’re both bad. They both knew someone was drowning,” I replied.

“No, but I didn’t know what he was watching! He would sometimes bring coffee or set up a chair…” My cousin’s voice trailed off, as though he were hesitant like a guilty man on trial. “How was I supposed to know?”

“What are you talking about?” It had been three days now that I had stayed here. I felt obligated to talk to my niece while she was conscious, but those days were few and far between. In the meanwhile, I was to be entertained by this man, what may be considered “bonding,” though I quite wish that blood had not bonded the two of us in such a way.

“You can see for yourself, if you don’t mind becoming the same as me.” At this point, the man’s eyes seemed to take on a different light. It reminded me of the look one naturally gets at the opportunity to witness first-hand some kind of traumatic event. This kind of look is quickly followed by one of sheer and complete awe, upon viewing said event.

“Show me.” I’ve never been one to gawk at or pine for such events, but I was intrigued. He led me out of the house toward that great sea-surrounded city. We were on the beach before I even realized that we were close.

“Look out there and tell me what you see.” My cousin’s voice was almost ominous.

“That is the Crystal City. It appears to be as tall as a skyscraper all the way around. As though I’d need to mention it, it is surrounded by this dark water on all sides. Does it really have no entrances? I see no structures of the sort.” For whatever reason, I was the one asking questions now.

“It has none.” My cousin was looking away from both me and the city. He had become distracted by the man he spoke of earlier. There this man was, solemnly sipping a cup of coffee – it was steaming in the morning air – looking intently at something. The man wasn’t quite looking at the city, though. I thought back to my cousin’s words. Slowly my head turned to match the watcher’s focus. It was then that I saw it. People – no, bodies – were crawling over each other trying to scale the walls of that dark city without drowning. It was something only Dante could have dreamt! I nearly lost my composure.

“Those… those are people?” I asked, knowing full well the answer, but my cousin only answered by pointing to something else. In horror my eyes followed to the end of his fingertip and off the deep-end of reality. The whole sea was filled with that city’s victims, rocking gently up and down, back and forth. My knees gave way, and I began weeping. They had to drag me back into that house, as I was quite incapable of anything but shock.

I awoke the next morning in a bed placed next to that of my niece. My cousin’s wife had been tending to her motherly duty as a nurse, but she was not present when I woke. Instead of opening my eyes to something natural, I was greeted by the ever-open eyes of my frozen niece. She truly looked dead to me, save for her deathly blue hue. She reminded me of a mannequin like one would see in a store.

“I see you’re awake.” It was the wife. “How do you feel?”

My lips had turned cold. “B-better,” was all I could manage at that time.

“Don’t worry. I know you’re wondering if she’s even alive. I’ve seen her speak. She should be fine with rest.” Was this woman blind? My niece clearly needed something that transcended rest, perhaps holy water to counteract the draught she had taken in – not rest! Even I had felt that icy chill, and I hadn’t even been close to it! “You get some rest now,” was her advice, and she left.

It was after that that I felt chills run down my spine. Slowly, I turned to face my niece. She was sitting upright, our faces not more than a hair’s width apart, her horribly empty eyes fixed on mine. Seized with a sudden fit, her eyes rolled forward and her face became animated to the feverishly panicked tune of fear. She had grabbed me by the shoulders. In that moment I saw her whole life go by across the screens of her now tear-soaked eyes – hatred, disgrace, fear, but most of all sadness. What I saw was cruel. It made me shake in despair even to the very core of my being, but I could not look away. At last the girl burst out, “Save my mother!” Those were her dying words; she collapsed onto my shaking frame. I had seen something worse than death, and now I was embracing it.

I walked out of the house in a daze, stripped of my clothes, and plunged into the depths of that murky water. I hear there is a missing person’s case for me, but I will not return, not until I have guided that great throng of people back to shore. Yet, will they not follow me back into the sea? The nature of man is surely an unnatural and grotesque sight, indeed.

(uhm, yeah, this is part of a larger thing I’m writing)

I was born to a family of puppeteers. To be fair, my father was really from an acting family; my mother was the puppeteer. Of the two, I think the title “Actor” is more diverse — it’s flexible. How else would you deal with a puppeteer but to play the parts she expects of you?

Don’t think for a minute that my father was a pushover. With actors, you never can tell what parts are real and what are borrowed. A good actor, like my father could have been, will never let you know. For the years they’ve been married, I still don’t think mother has a clue that father is the true puppeteer. He really is something and it comes to him so naturally, too.

For example, my parents are quite different when it comes to putting on shows. On the one hand, my mother only cares about entertainment, making people laugh, so that the people keep coming back to watch while we’re in town. My father, on the other hand, knows how to “Wow!” people. He knows that, if he can get someone’s attention, he can have a follower for life. His audience doesn’t forget the show as soon as we leave town because he made a mark in each of those people, but my mother only understands money: followers are only customers to her. However, my father has never been one to let others stop him, unless he found it favorable to stop, too.

We don’t stop moving much, though. In each town, we settle into a hotel of sorts, hitch the horses at a stable, and perform the very night we arrive. As a child with this kind of schedule, my eyes came of age well before the rest of me did. Gentlemen would leave their wives to go “shopping” for cheap produce in the back-alley bazaars. Wives would use the time to pen a letter to inquire about the “attractions” in the next town over. It was odd to see the same people from the town we had just left in the new town we had just arrived in; I thought I was seeing things until I started watching closely. Some of these people moved between towns more than we did! They certainly have a devotion about them to their craft. What, with such continued work they must have easily become master craftsmen in their field!

Speaking of craftsmen, my mother was the original craftswoman. I think it had to do with her love of money. I mean, in my hometown, there was quite a celebration at my birth: everyone was dying to know what man I would grow up to look like. I heard that there were even bets placed as to whom the fatherhood of this wayward woman’s child belonged. It was indeed the man I have mentioned. Taking this woman was the only time I have heard him stay in one place for more than a month. I think we keep moving so much because my father wants his wander-prone wife to be continually occupied. Being a good actor, like my father, is about understanding not only your character but all of the characters in the show. You should never ignore the roles of others, because, as an actor, you can use anything and anyone to your advantage.