Reset

In the days after the funeral, he'd had serious doubts about medical school.

He thought about Dad and Uncle Rick and Mom and Cat and now, in a different sense, Lucas. One by one, they'd disappeared, suddenly like Dad or slowly, painfully, sometimes too quietly to even notice. Like Cat.

He thought he'd be better off doing something at which he hadn't already completely, repeatedly failed.

But then, in the aftermath of the earthquake, he'd found himself running a makeshift Red Cross clinic out of a half-crumpled motor home just beyond the burned-out shell of the college library and realized that it was just time he started over.

He drove home one weekend in complete silence, ruthlessly suppressing the urge to glance over at the empty passenger seat. Deliberately, he parked in the street by the grassy curb and squinted up at the long, sloping drive. Hands in pockets, he crunched through the gravel and unlocked the front door, tossing his keys into the fake plant beside the cluttered shoe rack.

It took the better part of the following week to box things up, arrange for storage, and post ads online, but he managed alright on his own, and on the following Sunday night, he stood again in the foyer, keys in hand, staring at the crisp dust sheets ghosting over the sweeping banister. Caught in the faint draft from the open door, they fluttered limply, bathed in artificial moonlight.

He stepped outside and shut the door.

A Death in the Family

There's been a lot of dying and nearly-dying and almost-dying going on recently, Cal thinks to himself.

He slumps lower against the wall, pillows propped against his back, feet dangling over the edge of the bed, laptop emitting roughly enough thermal energy to keep his calorically-sufficient dinner tolerably lukewarm.

Hilary Hahn has been playing an E minor since sunset.

Outputting matrices to the console is a simple matter. Nested for loops set to row and column length, one added white-space per loop, set width to make things look pretty.

Hilary Hahn is briefly interrupted by the sound of a continuous moan.

Push back the string onto the vector, which is preferred over the list, for reasons of indexing. Usually. Unless you want 2-D structures. Then go for the array.

Allegretto non troppo. But not too--

--overloading is not a bad thing? It's fairly useful when it comes to operators, actually, and simplifies things a lot, especially when you want to compare classes.

Round--allegro.

My logic is faultless.
if ( ?? )
{
     bool is = true;
}
else
{
     bool is = false;
}

Molto. Molto appassionato.

I have developed a fault.
void (bool is, string name)
{
     return false;
}

Bravura. Bravura!

Seeded in time, after the first declaration.
while (is)
{
     srand((int)time(0));
     is = (rand()%68) + 1;
}

Coda.

while (is)
{
     srand((int)time(0));
     is = (rand()%68) + 1;
}

Coda.

I have developed a fault.

Non troppo. Non troppo.

I have developed a fault.
error: void function cannot specify return value.

Poco agitato. Agitato e con fuoco.

I have developed a fault.
fatal error: cannot locate "system.link//file_matrices.exe"

Un poco agitato, ma andante;

I have developed a fault.

Modulate to F minor; allegro vivace assai;

Cannot execute file.

Requiem;

System failure.

Coda.

I Can't Find My Shoes

I am waking up at 5:30 to take the GRE tomorrow. I am terrified.

I've gathered together all my standardized-test-taking accouterments: the ripped gallon Ziploc bag that still had my AP Student Test Packet and eight No. 2 pencils in it, a relic two years old; the faded and creased white "Splatter in D minor" shirt my brother got for me ages and ages ago; my secondhand black jacket with the breast pockets; my soccer sweats from sophomore year of high school that I need to roll twice at the waist to keep from trailing on the ground. But I can't find my shoes.

Good Lord. I can't find my shoes.

They're a pair of blue-black-grey patterned Vans I got in seventh grade, my first pair of not-tennis shoes. They've got holes in them nearly all the way around, but I've worn them to every single major exam I've taken since then--the AP's, the SAT's, the SAT II's, even college finals. But, holy crap, I'm taking the GRE tomorrow and I can't find my Vans.

Somewhere, future me is laughing at my priorities.

Endings

I really don't know what I'm writing anymore. Words get jumbled and disappear.

I've been thinking for a while about signing off of this thing, and now, I think it's time. As I've grown older, I've begun to cherish what privacy I can still call my own. That doesn't mean I'll stop writing. I've decided that nothing can ever stop that. Heaven knows I have enough empty notebooks lying about to guilt trip me into rambling over hill and dale with pen and paper.

I made this blog on a whim when I was a junior in high school. Looking back, I cringe at my skewed priorities and sentences-ending prepositions. Beyond the prose, however, I'm much more deeply ashamed of who I was--that scrawny little kid with an ego the size of the Milky Way. I'm still a bit like that, more than I would like to admit. In a way, I feel like blogging has become a bit of an ego-stroking activity--Hey, world! Check out what I did today! Here's a story about my childhood that I hope is funny and witty and super, super cool!

I've only ever shared this blog with a few friends, and that was at the very beginning. It was never meant to be anything big. I wasn't diving into the TMI world of social media to get attention. I just thought I'd like to have something I could scroll through when I'm old and the world runs out of trees for paper printing. In that sense, I think this blog has served its purpose. I really cherish my memories of high school, especially those of the relationships I had that now are gone. I get to look back on them with a mixture of fondness, regret, and no little self-loathing, which I suppose was part of the plan all along.

The bottom line, though, is that I'm tired. Although (nearly) daily blogging has forced me to write regularly, too much of it has been forced and falsified and glammed up for the likes of a strange, vaguely threatening public. That, I think, has been the worst of all, stifling my thoughts in a truly pathetic attempt at concealing private thoughts and stories that never should have been voiced at all. I'm trying to return focus to what I'm doing with my life, which ultimately is not my own. I need to slow down enough to grow and learn.

I'll be taking most of this blog down throughout the week, stripping it down to what I'd always hoped it would be: a focus on my writing.

It's been a good run, and I'm sad to see it come to an end. Like so many things, though, it's become an exercise in passing. That version of me has been dead some time now, and I believe it's about time to rise and shoulder the responsibility I've been given.

So it goes.

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!”

 ~C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

Ghostwalking

Face down, fixed, not on feet.

Wind blows, chill, darkened street.

Bright light, cold, draws you in.

Feet move, numb, where've you been?

Don't know, why, sorry, what?

Hold on, wait--

Fingers, hot, nimbly read.

Mountain, hill, not you, tree.

Noodles, ears, deafness choice.

Pleasure, love, taken, voice.

Move it, you; sorry there.

Missed you, just, cannot bear.

Clatter, hard, ground shatter.

My soul, stop, I do matter.

Pick up, life, brush it off.

Check now, slow, nothing lost.

Again, off, always on

line up, load, time-how-gone.

Ghostwalk, you, ghostwalking.

Neck bent, must, like, so much.

Before, gone, for a touch.

A touch! One, just the one.

The dead, you, crave the done.

Devour, more, always more.

Eaten, grave, yours is poor.

Writing, done, tapping in.

Refuse, walk, seeing, not.

Away, split, together, sit.

Apart, lands, consume plans.

Walk on, shell, fun'ral bell.

Silent, we, too many be.

Breathing, kill. Living, stilled.

Ghostwalk, you.

Ghostwalk, me.

Traitor

Cal leaned casually against the rail, one hand absently tracing the cold curls that twined down to the ground.

Through the haze of the room, he watched the crowd watch the lights and flowing scraps of cloth.

Cal realized that the fog machine had died a while ago, but the flashing lights hardly cut through the cloudy air, filtering through instead, struggling rays flickering once, twice, right in the eyes, before disappearing forever, rippling like ocean glare.

Cal bobbed his head along with the others, the bitter taste in his mouth matched by the pain in his stomach. His jeans rippled with the pulse of each beat, a heartbeat that rattled in his chest, kept him breathing. His ears had stopped ringing a while ago. They too, like the crowd, were hazy and muffled.

Cal swirled the half-melted ice around in his little plastic cup of whiskey and ginger. Or was it ginger whiskey? Whiskey and gin? Gin and whiskey? Cal glared at the little black straw and frowned, breath traitorously rich and hot in his mouth. He took another drink, and the crowd grew hazier.

Someone on the floor blew a cloud of smoke into the air, and it floated, suspended, like a thought cloud over his head before the fog machine kicked in again and swallowed him whole.

Cal hated whiskey. He took another gulp, ice pressing up against his lips, big fish in a little pond. Someone else on the floor saluted the lights with a fairly large plastic cup that was also fairly empty.

Another thought cloud went up, was swallowed.

Cal traced the twisted rail again, tucking his head farther back into his hood, taking comfort in the weight of his leather jacket. He was tired of holding the whiskey. Or gin. So he took another drink.

He was only doing this to make her happy. Why did it always end up like this? They hardly ever talked and met up even less, but every time they did, Cal would leave smelling of thought clouds and whiskey.

Cal shifted against the rail. His foot had fallen asleep.

The lights flashed red and orange.

All the trumpets and the marching bands,

And the thunderclaps and trembling hands,

And the people stood up in the stands,

And I just felt so alone.

‘Cause the halos, the black rusted chains,

In the light

As we screamed

In the dark

“I just wanted to find a way home.”