i’m always hungry. [trigger #355]

One thing I’ve learned in all my unnaturally numerous years of life is that the one key to staying sane as an immortal is appetite. You have to always want more… to learn more, to experience more, to be more. The moment you’re satiated for too long is when the despair sets in. Soon after the despair sets in, the madness sets in. For mortals, the reality of how short their time is causes despair for many. For immortals, it is the opposite. If you’re not hungry for the next thing, it all becomes unbearable. Of course, you need to be able to enjoy the current thing while you’re in the midst of it, but then be craving what’s next immediately afterward.

And you appetite can’t just be voracious. It also has to be varied. Even your favorite things will grow tiresome after a while when you live for centuries. You hunger needs to be multifaceted, your desire needs to have as many heads as you can muster. A dead end in your inner world is disastrous when you can’t die.

my pet raccoon, mr. pickles. [trigger #354]

I got the idea from my pet raccoon, Mr. Pickles. Wait, wait, no, I’m sorry, old habits die hard. I got the idea from my friend, Mr. Pickles. I still slip and call him my pet raccoon sometimes, because when he first became my pet he hadn’t developed the ability to speak yet.

That was back right after my wife left me for her yoga instructor and took the kids, when I would just sit out on the back porch with a beer and some potato chips. However, that day I was eating  sandwich and snacking from a jar of pickles.

I’d heard the raccoons scrounging around in the garbage at night, as raccoons do. Then, that day Mr. Pickles slowly ambled up to the house, with that strange fat wattle suburban raccoons get. He was hesitant, wary of me, but the smell of pickles was too much for him to resist. Maybe I was just getting too lonely, but I tossed him one from the jar. He snatched it away off the dirt and ate it greedily. Then he moved a little closer.

I decided to see how close I could get him to the porch if I held a pickle in my hand for him. More quickly than I would expect, he came right up and pulled it from my hand before darting back down the porch steps to eat it. Eventually, after several weeks like this, I would find him waiting for me on the porch when I came out to eat dinner. Eventually, I just started letting him into the house, and he would come and go more or less like an indoor/outdoor cat after that.

It was still a few months after that before he started talking to me.

At first I thought I was just losing my mind. I’d finally snapped. Too much emotional trauma with my family leaving me. Too much isolation and loneliness when all of our friends took her side for some reason, something I still haven’t figured out yet.

Mr. Pickles assured me I wasn’t losing my mind, that he’d been practicing speaking like a human for years and finally decided he trusted me enough to try it out on me.

It wasn’t long after that before we started having long talks. Sometimes I had to help him along. You can only learn so much language from loud tv sets and conversations overheard through open windows and on nighttime sidewalks. Still, Mr. Pickles was a fairly enjoyable conversationalist.

He started teaching me as much as I was teaching him. That’s when he gave me the idea to give up on western adult humanity. He made a lot of sense, when he told me I could bathe way less, and stop paying my bills. Of course, eventually they’d cut my lights and kick me out of my house, but he said it would take longer to evict me if I just ignored them and forgot about all shame. They’d drag me out eventually, but that was a problem for another day.

After that, he said, I could just live out on the streets like he and his brothers and sisters did. People threw away so much perfectly good stuff, a guy could live like a king on a raccoon lifestyle, according to Mr. Pickles. And, he reminded me, what goes around come around, and there’d be kind souls out there who would occasionally offer my pickles or other snacks off their porch.

 

i think that guy is a wizard. [trigger #353]

I saw him right after I sat down and took a sip of my coffee. It wasn’t great, but it was caffeinated and some take you simply take what you can get. Plus, I had a book to read and no responsibilities for the next few hours, so the afternoon was shaping up to be a good one overall.

He was wearing a black porkpie hat, and his facial hair looked like he’d walked into a barber shop and asked to look as much like Cardinal Richelieu as possible. His suit and jacket were ill-fitting and the fabric looked out of place, like a character in a movie with terrible costume design. At first I thought he had a briefcase, but then I noticed it was more like an old doctor’s carryall. He walked strangely, too. Self-consciously, like he wasn’t used to doing it in public and was thinking really hard about how to do it naturally.

I hoped he’d walk into the coffee shop, but was surprised when he actually did. He got on line, which had grown considerably since I’d gotten my cup. His standing was significantly more self-conscious and awkward than his walking had been.

There was something otherworldly about him. An overwhelming quality that in no way fit into downtown Seattle. I glanced around the coffeeshop and noticed that no one else was paying him any notice. This confused me. I mean, I know Seattle has its share of odd characters, but this guy still should have struck at least someone else as strange.

When he got to the front of the line, the barista started to ask the man what he’d like and then stopped. Suddenly she looked glazed and vacant. She turned, poured a cup of coffee into a to-go cup, slid it across the bar, and let the man take it without paying. It wasn’t until the man was out the door that the barista shook off the fog and looked around as if trying to figure out where she was. She then hastily apologized to the next person in line. “I’m so sorry, I must have been daydreaming. What can I get you today?”

I’d seen enough to know I needed to make a bad life-choice. I stood up, quickly poured my coffee into a to-go cup, and hustled out the door to follow the strange man in the porkpie hat.

they’re painting over our old room. [trigger #352]

I just went back to the house one more time. I told myself it was to check-in with the various handymen and painters and to make sure that there wasn’t anything I wanted to take with me last minute. I know the real reason is because I just wanted to see it one more time.

After all those years away, I just needed to be in those rooms one more time. I try to forget the happy times, but there were definitely happy times. Kids normalize things, right? Kids have to learn they’re having a bad childhood as they grow older, no matter how ugly it would be to anyone else, their private hell is the only world they’ve ever known. We had moments together when we laughed and played and delighted in the world. Maybe not with Mom or Dad so much, but with each other. I never went back after you died. Literally. When we all left the hospital that night I said I was going over to Debbie’s house and got on the first bus leaving town. I’d already brought all my cash with me, what little I’d saved working my junior year. I just had a feeling, when we heard you’d been in a car accident, that the worst was true.

I came back when Mom died. The house goes to me, and I need the money. If there is an outside chance that there is still something left after the sale of the house pays off their debts… anyway, I need the money.

I didn’t expect to come by the cemetery, but then as I was leaving I saw that they’re painting over our old room. I mean, of course they are. They aren’t going to sell the house covered with our old pencil graffiti and scratch marks. I just wish I didn’t see them doing it.

I try not to think about you much. Still, I know you’re in there, deep down in the darker places in my brain. Not the bad memories, most of those are because of Dad. It’s the good ones with you I try to forget, those are the ones that hurt the most. But seeing them paint over all the secret jokes and codes we left there, the signs of what we meant to each other, that was just too much, to actually see them doing it with my own eyes. I wanted to scream at them, to tell them to get the fuck out. Of course, that wouldn’t have made any sense. I guess resisting that urge is what keeps me from being a crazy person like Dad was.

I guess, as they paint over our walls, I should feel like we are being covered over like a secret, like a hidden treasure. Little will the new tenant know that underneath the paint in their new home our script is there, a chronology of the joys and pains, triumphs and abuses of two little boys they’ll never know existed.

I should feel that way, but I don’t. I feel like they’re erasing us. Deleting everything we went through and had. I feel like they’re accomplishing what I’ve been trying to accomplish all these years since you died.

Anyway, I have to catch a plane. I just thought you should know. They’re painting over our old room. And I miss you.

what is that burning smell? [trigger #351]

I’d done it. Against my wife’s protestations I had successfully repaired the dryer using only the tools I had around the house and several Google searches pertaining to the schematics and repairs for my particular model.

I looked down on my handiwork, and it was good. “Let there be heat,” I said.

I moved a load of wet clothes from the washing machine to the dryer, set the timer, and hit the button to start the cycle. The presence of the wet clothes was a sign of confidence on my part. I’d resisted my own self-doubt when beginning the dryer project by starting a load of laundry in the expectation that when the cycle was over the dryer would be ready and waiting. It took a bit longer than expected, but I was still delighted by my foresight. Of course I did it, just as the better part of me had expected.

To get from the basement with the washing machine and dryer to the main house, we had to go outside through a basement door and in through the kitchen. It was supremely annoying, but the cost of the house was too good to pass up and we loved everything else about it, so we put up with the need to go out in the elements every time we needed to change laundry over.

I went outside through the basement door and took a moment to stare at the sun setting over our subdivision. I was triumphant, a conquering general taking in the satisfaction of victory. I imagined my arrival into the kitchen, my wife delighted that I had fixed our poor dryer without it costing us a dime. She would be impressed, perhaps even aroused by my prowess.

Having enjoyed the moment alone, I went in to the kitchen. My wife was there, making herself a sandwich before getting back to some work on a case her firm was working on that had her busy every day of the week. I closed the door behind me. As she looked up at me as I came in her face wasn’t the mask of joy I’d hoped for. In fact, she looked a little alarmed.

Before I could speak, to tell her of my achievement in the hopes of creating the scene I’d hoped for, she worriedly put down the butter knife she was holding, and looked me in the eyes.

“What is that burning smell?!”

epic rap battle. [trigger #350]

Welcome to another installment of Air Battles, where we explore the greatest confrontations in the history of Hip Hop.

Last week, we took a look at the Dunkirk Projects Massacre, where nine-year-old Marquis LeRoy took down the entire West Street Killas by himself, while also uttering a long-winded free-style verse that is still canonized by most as one of the greatest single diss tracks in history.

This week, we go in the opposite direction, we leave the realm of youth where Hip Hop was born and move to  the Battle of Restwood Springs, where Delores Martinez and Henry Anderson competed in a battle for the ages, setting the record for the highest combined age of two emcees in rap battle history.

Henry Anderson, more commonly known as the Hand of Dopeness, or H-Dope, had been the reigning king of not just Restwood Springs, but the entire metropolitan area surrounding Spokane. Many young emcees had challenged him over the decades, and every one had left in abject failure and humiliation. Too many didn’t take the old man seriously, and even the ones who did were completely destroyed. H-Dope was the oldest reigning champion in history, some pundits speculated that it was only a matter of time before some young buck would come in and take the throne, where others argued that at this point it would never happen, that the old man would die as king, unchallenged and undefeated.

Of course, none of them predicted what would happen when Delores Martinez, aka Delores or Mrs. Martinez, moved into Restwood Springs. No one had ever heard of her before. The 73-year-old had lived her entire life without realizing her own talent, and even she had no idea she was about to dethrone the greatest emcee over a five decade span over a twelve zip code area.

The woman didn’t even intend to challenge H-Dope. She was just irritable one day when lunch was late and got tired of hearing the old man practice down the hall. Her innate skill, untested before, included a great ear for the weaknesses in another emcee’s flow. She didn’t realize she was challenging him by questioning his turn of phrase, she didn’t know how easily she would bring words to mind when he insulted her absentmindedly in what he thought would be a quick retort to maintain his rep in case anyone was listening.

But Delores could bring the words to mind, and her uncanny ear for an emcee’s weakness noticed something other challengers and critics alike hadn’t, H-Dope’s clutching was getting sloppy and awkward. Mrs. Martinez could hear it, even if she couldn’t really articulate what she was hearing in so many words, and she used it to dismantle H-Dope in a wildly lopsided affair that made her queen for several hours. She never actually lost, but relinquished her throne via forfeit when up and coming indie-influenced emcee Horace Grant-Master Flash kept his appointment with Hand of Dopeness only to battle Mrs. Martinez instead. She said she didn’t have time because her shows were on, thus ending the shortest reign ever, and by the oldest woman ever to hold a major title.

make sure that never happens. [trigger #349]

It was a hard day because they had to kill Martin. Even after the apocalypse, killing your friends is never easy, and Martin was hitting Ashley even harder than she expected. Martin thought he was safe, because they all cared about each other. He thought he could let his guard down. He was a fool, and fools don’t survive in times like these. Martin just didn’t have enough to offer the group in a post-apocalyptic economy. Not when he is a constant drain on the group’s limited resources. And certainly not when so much of his organic materials can be utilized for the good of the ones who actually have a real chance at survival. They did what had to be done. That never makes it easy. At least not for Ashley. She forces herself not to look away, whether the life their taking is of a friend or an enemy or a stranger. So often, as they bleed out, they register the same emotions on their faces. They realize what’s happening, but there is clearly a part of their mind that just won’t accept it, a level of shock and disbelief. Surely something will save them, even in as improbably a moment as this. As certain as they are that their own death will come someday, and as more acquainted everyone has gotten with early deaths since society imploded, our own death is just beyond our grasp, at least for most of us. Tonight, even after all she’s seen, every time Ashley closes her eyes she sees Martin’s face as the fear and shock and despair take him. She will continue to do anything she needs to do, including betraying those closest to her, to avoid knowing the experience personally for as long as possible.

beneath the surface lay only a shallow depth. [trigger #348]

It was in Rowan’s 252nd year that he encountered the Sea of Verbosity for the first and, he hoped, only time.

He would have avoided it altogether if he could have, but the life of a scoundrel and rogue gets complicated enough as it is when you don’t add magic and prolonged life into the mix. Rowan had gotten himself into trouble again, but as the caretaker for an artifact that was prophesied to save the world, he had no choice but to get himself out of the current installment of self-inflicted woe.

Rowan had been riding high for a bit, had a streak of a few decades where everything seemed to bounce his way. As a result, he’d gotten cocky. The same would have been true for any of us. For Rowan, that cockiness is especially dangerous, being that he frequently brushes shoulders with some of the most dangerous people in the world, villains as sadistic as they are ancient. They aren’t the sort you want to irritate even the slightest bit, and they are definitely not the sort you want to find yourself owing large sums of money. Rowan has a tendency to irritate people even in the best of circumstances, and to call the sum of money he owes large would be an understatement on par with some of the greatest understatements of the age.

Thus, here Rowan is, at the Sea of Verbosity, against all his better instincts. He somehow has to make it to the other side, collect whatever it is he finds there, and then make his way back. At first appearance, this doesn’t seem to difficult a task. The Sea of Verbosity is large, but not truly a sea. It is dark and foreboding, but there is no depth to speak of. One could stand up in it at its deepest point without getting wet knees. Yet, many who have tried to cross this peculiar body of water have drowned, most have gone mad, none have made it back from the other side with anything they didn’t take with them.

The problem with the Sea of Verbosity is that it is constantly speaking to whomever tries to cross it. Speaking incessantly, not in any way that is particularly menacing or dreadful. The Sea whispers at times, which can be a bit eery, but for the most part it speaks at a reasonable volume. It talks and talks and talks, and eventually, those trying to cross it begin to lose sense of reality. What happens it that the Sea of Verbosity obscures reality, clouding reason and judgment to frightening degrees. The Sea speaks in circles, recites facts, mixes in a few artfully told lies, brags and flatters, tells stories and fables, carefully explains historical events and their significant, and all the while, whether they want to or not, the person listens, and eventually, they lose the line between what is real and what isn’t. The Sea of Verbosity never seems to have a single goal in mind, it mostly just talks and talks to hear itself speak, indifferent to the listener altogether. The brave adventurers who try to traverse the Sea become confused about even the most basic parts of themselves and their reality. Sometimes the result is harmless, the journeyers return without the aim of their quest, but are mostly none the worse for wear, merely believing that the earth is flat, or that they were hatched from an egg and raised by chickens, or that Two and a Half Men was the greatest sitcom in history. They adopt various mad and absurd beliefs that invoke pity from friends and enemies alike.

Others discover a darker fate. They forget whether or not humans breath air or water, or become convinced that their legs don’t work, or become convinced they actually live inside an episode of Two and a Half Men, far scarier stuff indeed. These are the ones who die or never return, or else do return but so stark-raving insane that they are institutionalized for the rest of their natural lives.

So, if he can make it to the other side and collect whatever is to be found there, Rowan will be the first. In the interest of self-preservation, Rowan has a plan. He is going to beat the Sea of Verbosity at its own game. He isn’t the first who has planned to speak back to the Sea, to fight fire with fire in a battle of wits and conversation. Most who have utilized this strategy go mad quicker than the silent types who try to block it out, eventually talking themselves in circles right along with the Sea. Those who have rigidly held to reason and fought tooth and nail to keep a grip on reality had failed, every woman Jack of them. That’s why Rowan’s plan is to throw reason and sense out the window immediately, give in right away to the insanity of it all, and hopefully poison the Sea of Verbosity with its own bitter medicine. Rowan’s plan is, from the very beginning, to argue the claim that the Sea of Verbosity isn’t a body of water at all, but a small dog named Abelard. He has armed himself with facts and statistics and philosophical arguments to prove it.

 

just a horse and buggy. [trigger #347]

Morgain was a taxi service, delivery person, and junk carter for one simple reason: when they took everything from her, what they left her with was just a horse and buggy. It wasn’t intended as a kindness. It’s a different kind of cruelty to leave someone with almost nothing, to watch them cling to what they still have in desperation and powerlessness. Leaving them with nothing is closer to a clean cut, they either die from it, or they can heal. Leaving them with almost nothing is like breaking off a part of the blade within the flesh, it might still kill them, but likely in a gangrenous fashion. The horse and the buggy were calculated when they left her with them. The horse was sick and weak, wheezing like pneumonia would claim it sooner rather than later. The buggy was rotted and eaten away by water damage and termites. It was barely holding together, and was missing a wheel besides. They left these two things with her, as insult added to her injury, but Morgain took it and began to build her empire with it. She would not forget or forgive, but she would play the part of the lunatic and hide her growing return to glory from them until it was too late for them to do anything about it. No one else in town could have nursed that horse back to health, but Morgain did, enough that some wondered if it was a new horse altogether. No one else could have gotten even scrap wood out of that buggy, but Morgain had it operational again, freshly painted and mostly useful. Morgain was on the rise again, and for some reason, with the new fuel of vengeance fueling her, the second rise from almost was even sweeter than the first, back when she was but a girl.

she finally died. [trigger #346]

On a Tuesday in February, Abby finally died. It’s what they all thought, even though none of them would say it out loud. The relief they felt was simply the strongest emotion in their hearts, and it was no fault of their own. The sadness was there, but was nothing more than a coda to a grief they’d been processing for some time. Abby hadn’t been herself for over a decade. Her mind had deteriorated, the dementia cruelly eating away at her sense and awareness as it is wont to do. To her children and her sister and her grandchildren she was no longer a person they could speak to. She no longer recognized any of them for who they were, no longer responded to them in ways that made any sense outside of her own broken mind. There was still a likeness that was precious to them, but mostly she was just a body to be cared for, bathed and fed and clothed. For them, Abby had been gone for so long, and her death was just a formality. It was a formality to everyone. Everyone that is except for Abby. For Abby, her life was still a thing to lose. She had long since been untethered from chronology and sense, the faces in her mind were no longer tied to reality, but they were still faces she treasured and loved. She bounced in her mind from memory to memory without realizing they were memories, the moments she experienced were no longer the ones her physical body was in, but they were still precious to her. She was trapped within herself, on an island within her past, but she still had something to lose. For each of us, no matter how dark things are, no matter how much of a relief the end might be, no matter how inevitable our demise might have grown, death is never a formality. We all die, finally, but none of us finally die.