Book Review- Suzanne Collins' "Mockingjay"

Let me start out by saying that I both love and hate this book. It was an emotional roller-coaster but at the same time I don't know if it really tugged at my heartstrings enough.

This final installment covers the revolution and over-throwing of the Capital. You find out that District 13 has been hiding underground for 75 years to build up the strength to finally free the land of the Capital's mistreatment of its' people. Katniss awakes to find that she is wanted to be the face of the rebellion and she finally accepts after much deliberation with herself. Everything that she knew about herself and those around her is lost throughout the war, and in the end she is faced with a future that she could have never expected when she took Prim's spot in the Hunger Games.

I found myself as confused as Katniss about who to trust and whether or not she was making the right choices. This book is the first time we really get to know Gale as a person and the more we learned about him the more I disliked him and the more I hoped to be wrong about her ending up with him. He reminds me of the "bad boy" that girls go for. For Katniss he was always just a friend until she started kissing Peeta, then her mind wondered about whether or not she loved Gale. In this book we learn that it was six months prior to the Hunger Games that he decided he cared about her as more than a hunting partner. This realization only came when someone else flirted with her. He has no trouble telling her of the many girls he kissed, and his arrogance doesn't stop there. Katniss loves the boy she knew in the woods, but it is apparent to the reader that she only saw him for his good points, never realizing his hatred consumed him and his ability with snares would mean the death of so many, including one she loved above all others. We also see a different side of Peeta. His charm and love is destroyed by the Capital while they hold him captive and he comes back to Katniss a different person. It becomes easy to hate Peeta for how he treats Katniss, to think he is the biggest jerk and to want Katniss to run into Gale's arms. Gale tells Peeta that Katniss will end up choosing the one that she can't survive without. It seems weird that both boys agree that her only choice would be one or the other, it shows their immaturity and idealism. These characteristics of the two boys kept me conflicted throughout as to who I wanted her with. Peeta has lost all the traits that made me fall for him, and while Gale isn't my cup of tea, he is still by Katniss' side, trying to keep her safe and loving her no matter how she acts.

Through Peeta's memory problems, we are shown a side of Katniss that isn't flattering. She seems so weak and unforgiving. This though, makes sense when you remember she is only a 17-year-old girl who was turned into a murderer because everyone around her keeps wanting to kill her. Her mental break downs make sense, as does her coldness, but both are beyond frustrating as a reader. Everything she goes through leads her to holding the bow and arrow and killing the leader of Panem who wants the Hunger Games to live on. She is able to see that everyone has an agenda, and that people who seem to have good ideals can be as evil as people who have ideals different to your own. Katniss causing the last death of the war seems to be a symbolic irony, as she is trying to end a world where children have to be murderers while she is still a child herself.

The writing style in this novel was in many way more sophisticated that the other two. The first book was grotesque but about the power of love to conquer. The second book reminded me of Murphy's Law- whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the most inopportune times. The third instillation was about the evils of humanity. It was about falling into drugs, it was about learning who people really were, it was about how people can be mislead into fighting wars they don't know they are fighting. In the end though, it is also once again a story about true love, that when everything seems lost, a person whom you truly love and loves you will eventually make things as right as they can ever be.

While reading the book there was something bothering me about it, that I couldn't place my finger on. I think what it is, is that this is supposed to be a story for young adults. For that awkward time in a person's life where fairy tales are passe but the mind is still impressionable and material should be carefully presented. This book seems to ignore those ideas and goes straight into the worst qualities of humanity. As the young teen sees her hope of mankind be shattered time and time again, the reader is opened up to a world of pessimism. Stories don't have to be happy, and if they are only happy they are usually no good, but this story leaves nothing but despair in my heart. I wonder if children experience it the same way, or if they cling to the good points and ignore what an older reader is troubled by. I suspect that to some extent this is the truth, which would make this book one of the best written because it would mean that as a person grows they will see the book differently. Books like Twilight and Harry Potter have a similar following, but while they are both good in their own ways, I do no see them comparable in their reach into the depths of relationships and motives. Professor Snape in Harry Potter is a character who touches on similar ideas of trust and motives, but not to the extent that Katniss faces with everyone she knows. Furthermore, in both these noteworthy books, though there are sad moments, the endings are both happy, promising a bright future. The end of the Hunger Games series shows readers that although things have changed, Katniss will never have her guard down, she will never really be free from the scars of the arena, and no matter how happy she is, her life will always be haunted and therefore bleak.

To end this review, I have to once again say that I love and hate the book. In a few months I will probably pick up the series again, go back through and see what I missed in my rush to know what happens. Maybe then my thoughts will be less jumbled, but for now I think if I don't stop myself I will end up rambling on and on. I hope not too much was given away to enjoy the book for those who have not read it, but for those who have please feel free to leave comments here with your opinion. This is a book that warrants much discussion, I only hope that this review can be the catalyst for your own ideas on what Suzanne Collins was trying to say.

Book Review- Suzanne Collins' "Catching Fire"

I read this book between getting home Monday night from work and 10pm the next night. It was too good to put down and being half-awake at work was completely worth it. I very much considered calling out of work so that I could stay up all night and  finish it. Unfortunately, I'm far too responsible and far too broke to have the luxury to do so. This book would have been worth it.

The story starts following Katniss and Peeta jointly wining the Hunger Games. They are brought back to life and made to once again show off to the world. Katniss soon learns though that her acting as a crazy-in-love teen has set the path for the rest of her life because in outsmarting the game she has started a revolution and pissed off the wrong people. During the first half of the book she struggles with trying to keep her life together. Peeta gets hurt when he learns that she acted up most of her feelings for the camera, and Gale gets hurt because he loves her. She doesn't really want either but wants them both and spends most of the book very confused. She thinks about running away, she thinks about staying, she thinks about just going along with what the Capital wants in order to save everyone around her. Then, the unspeakable happens, she finds out she has to go back to the Hunger Games. The rest of the book is her deciding to give up everything and save Peeta as he tried to save her in the first game. She has no idea that she is just a pawn in yet a larger game.

The writing was again superb, but I found one major flaw with the story. While the entire book was interesting and definitely needed to be there, the end seemed too rushed to me. I wanted a little more action from the new Hunger Games arena, I wanted to know more about the characters in the alliances she made and the struggle to survive. I understand the idea of keeping it short, but to me something just felt like it was missing. I laughed, I gasped, I felt sad, but I didn't feel as connected to the characters in this story as I did the last. Mag's suicide didn't leave me hysterical, nothing did. I did not expect the twist at the end, but I did see parts of it coming because her foreshadowing seemed so blatant the minute it happened, it actually annoyed me that Katniss didn't wonder more about certain situations. I also really don't like that she decides to choose Gale over Peeta, girls are just so dumb. That being said, I still do think this story was great, and I am itching to get my hands on a copy of the next so I can devour it, I just hope it leaves me with something a little more satisfying.

Katniss' evolution of a character is great to see. From the first book to the end of the second, we watch her go from a girl who feels the need to take care of her family to one who acknowledges that her mother should be the head of the house. She goes from a girl who is selfish in ways to one who looks out for the lives other others (ie puts Peta before herself). She starts to see good in people who she would normally have judged and lets people into her heart as friends when before she preferred to be alone. The lessons that she is learning seem to be setting her up for the final book, in which I'm sure she will shine even brighter.

Book Review- Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games"

My youngest sister told me to read this book a year or more ago. I've always been too preoccupied to give it a shot. I now see what a mistake this has been because the book was incredible!

The story follows Katniss as she is thrown into a cruel game of survival, where children fight each other to the death as punishment for their forefathers rebellions against a cruel government. Katniss tells herself that she will survive for the sake of her younger sister (and mother). The idea of the glory that the Capital shines on the victors of the Hunger Games is not something that she cares for, it's not something she wants to be proud of, it's not something she thinks anyone should be proud of. The Capital turns the children into a circus like act. Many coming from the deepest poverty and starvation to be pampered before turned loose to slaughter one another. The lives of the children being bet on like they meant nothing. Katniss is bitter the entire book because of what life has dealt her, but she is impossible not to love.

Ms. Collins' writing shocked me. It is very hard to pull off a present tense story. I myself would be much too afraid to do so, but she makes it seem flawless. I never felt like it would have been better in past tense, I never felt like it would have been better in anything but first person. The simple structure of her writing technique makes her amazing, but her story content takes her to the realm of the extraordinary. She found a way to piece together a story about coming-of-age, romance, war, death, loss, poverty, indulgence, and so on, and do it in a way that speaks to a wide range of audience. The vocabulary was never pretentious, and every word felt as it should. There is nothing worse than a writer who tried to "smart up" their piece, which in the end usually takes away something far greater. One of her greatest talents in the story is how real it all feels, she mixes elements of our world with her "future" land of Panem so brilliantly that I almost expect to see a mockingjay out in the woods at some point in my life.

Taking a step back I have tried to piece together her influences. I felt a Romeo-and-Juliet theme going with the romance between Katniss and Peeta. He, from a merchant family, her from the Seams. From his first sight of her he knows that she will be the only one for him, and as a young boy even puts her well-being before his own. He is every mother's dream for her daughter. Unfortunately, Katniss can't decide if she wants to be his Juliet, and she always has her friend Gale in the back of her mind making her wonder if she doesn't want that instead. This torn-between-two-amazing-guys theme is very reminiscent to the popular Twilight series to me. Peeta would be Jacob, and Gale would be Edward. Following this logic, I can only assume that she will break Peeta's pure heart for a man who, while also good, just can't compare. The theme of people hunting each other reminds me of "The Most Dangerous Game" taken to an even more grotesque level.

All in all this is an excellent book, one that everyone should check out.

Book Review- Alison Croggon's "The Crow"

The third book of the Pellinor series was far from what I expected. For this novel, we follow the story of Hem after he separates with Maerad. In this book, Ms Croggon explores her dark side, creating beings that are repulsive and their qualities horrifying. A writer who can make you fall in love with the hero is normal, but a writer who can make you feel the repulsion of the antagonists and their goals is beautiful. Ms. Croggon eloquent writing skills give her readers the desire to jump into the book, become a Bard, and fight for the Light. Her story wraps its tendrils around a person's soul and brings them on an emotional rollercoaster of fear, longing, loss, love, and loneliness.

Much like the first two novels in the series, this story has so many parts. The action is constantly moving and changing like a chameleon. I find it amazing how in all three of her novels there is a lot of time spent traveling from one spot to another, and yet it never gets boring. It's also amazing how Hem and Maerad's stories are so different, yet share a cohesion and parallel structure to one another. Through these similarities, part of her story is clarified through the things he goes through, yet it is obvious still that guessing what will come next is a moot point.

The Crow to me was really one large, tangled up love story. Yes, there is fighting and death and gore, but I think the relationships were what really drove the story. The first love story is that of Saliman and Hem. The admiration for Saliman bordered on an almost homosexual tension. Whenever they admit their devotion to one another I wondered if there was not something sexual about it. At the same time though, these tensions could be due to the fact that Bards are people all about love and helping one another. Hem, on the other hand, was raised in a savage orphanage and then placed in a house of evil Hulls, forcing him to grow up without the concept of what caring and loving another person really is. His incredible love for Saliman, whom he looks at as a friend but also a father figure, may be so intense because he has never been allowed to love before and therefore he is going at it with full force. A different love eventually pops up when he realizes that his friend Zelika means more to him than just a friend. This passion may also be displaced emotion though. She was the first girl he really got to know, his desire to marry her towards the end of the book may simply be because he missed her so much and was idolizing his memories of her. It could also be, that maybe he was trying to repress his homosexual desires by going after a girl (since the story has had no male-male partners, one must assume that in Pellinor there is the same stigma about gays as there is in our present day). Both relationships that Hem develops in this book are exciting and engaging.

My final critique of this book is that, while it is a great read, it is not as strong as the first two were. I would highly recommend reading it still though, because it is a phenomenal book. 

Book Review- Alison Croggon's "The Naming" and "The Riddle"

So let me start off by apologizing for putting these reviews together. I am only doing so because the first on was SO GOOD that I just had to tear into the second one before I had the chance to write a review. I actually just started the third and knew I had to get to this before all four books were under my belt and ended up getting lumped together.

The Naming
This novel starts out a bit slow. I wasn't sure what to expect, but page by page I realized the beauty in Ms Croggon's writing. Shortly after the two main character's meet, their personalities and histories start unraveling at a beautiful pace. As they get to know each other, the reader gets to know them as well. It's fun exploring the relationship and world alongside them, not knowing or being able to truly speculate what was coming next.
The pacing of the story was interesting. On one hand it was slow and on the other it was action packed. This was accomplished because of the main character's lack of knowledge about everything. The reader is introduced to many details, but they don't bog down the story because they are presented as exciting observations. The mix of summary and dialogue was just perfect. All together, I think that her writing style is incredible.
I especially like that Ms. Croggon includes things that many other writers forget or chose to leave out. For example, the main character starts her period and thinks she is dying because she never had a mother to teach her about menstruation. Not only does she bring this issue up here, but she every now and again will have the main character mention that she had just started her period again and was grouchy because of it. One of my favorite parts (though I don't recall if it was the first or second book) was when the main character was traveling and upset that she had no way to take a shower and clean up after the smell of the bleeding. I have always wondered about just that in any fantasy book that I have read, and I am so happy that she doesn't skirt from such a natural issue.

The Riddle
I can't imagine how Ms. Croggon is going to top this book, it was beyond amazing. Her writing is clear and imaginative and enthralling on the reader. Every page made me want to read the next so much faster, but at the same time I wanted to savor every word. So much happened in this book. I laughed, I cried, I made sneak peaks to random pages trying to find out who was alive or dead. Ms. Croggon explored sexual tensions between the main characters without really exploring them explicitly. She brought new characters into the story that enhanced the existing ones, threw in more than one awesome twist, and made every word in the story count. The only negative thing I can say about the book is that I get confused about what everything is. This is my fault though because Ms. Croggon has a clear map included in the second book, it is just the strange names that I get mixed up every now and again.
I have so much I want to say, but I don't want to give any details of the book away. So, after you read this I need you to either run to your local bookstore and purchase the entire series, or search the net for a copy.

Book Review- Chelsea Handler's "My Horizontal Life"

My sister purchased this book for me for Christmas thinking I would find it amusing. I've enjoyed her show Chelsea Lately so I was excited to open it up and give it a try. What happened over the course of my reading it was something I didn't expect.

At the start of the book all I could think about was, "wow, she got around." I was less than amused. I had never pictured her as such a hot mess of alcohol and self-destructive behavior. The first few chapters made me like her less and less as they shattered my notion that she was the kind of girl who would be such fun to go out with. Now I saw her as one of "those girls" who I would see acting out of control at a bar and judge her for it.

As the book progresses though you start to feel her maturing, even though the stories are still obsurd. My judgemental attitude slowly changed to one who saw that deep down she seemed pretty lonely and unhappy with her life. She may have been having some incredibly funny evenings, but reading what wasn't said showed something else. Eventually at the end of the story I realized that all the stories, though originally seeming very random, were tied together in a beautiful way. What was originally presented as a hell of a lot of fun turned out to be something that it seemed wasn't so much fun.

The writing in the book was nothing spectacular. There were times when I felt like I could tell where an editor changed a word/where Chelsea tried to "smart up" her writing and it was just awkward. Some of her strengths as a writer include using just enough detail to paint a picture, but not enough to boggle down and annoy the reader. She also does well to not try and be funny, but just lets her natural humor come through in her voice.

All in all, this is a short book with a good amount of laughs as well as a form of a moral to the story at the end. I would recommend it to anyone who wants light reading that isn't thought-provoking but rather just a good time.

Book Review- Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" series

As it turns out, I was unable to write about each book/section of Ms Cooper's series because it would have said the same thing over and over again. Yes, there are times when the story gets interesting and exciting; but for the most part the book is predictable and, for lack of a better word, retarded. What an Old One really is doesn't make much sense, and how the main character goes from sucking at being an Old One to having all the answers also makes no sense. Bran turning into Arthur's son isn't clearly developed. Why Will stays behind makes no sense. Why everyone has to forget what happened is dumb, as is the fact that "normal" kids would even have been needed in the first place. The bad guys never really do anything but chase the good guys, which leads readers to boredom. The ending is completely unsatisfying.

I have read many books that I have disliked, but this series is by far one of the worst. The writing was poor, the story line had far too many holes, the characters were unimpressive, there was no brilliance anywhere. I hope to be able to sell this book and at least walk away with something from it, as opposed to the blah it has left me with as of right now.

Story written Dec 23rd- Eva Braun (1st draft)

The Jews killed Jesus. That was Drew’s first reason to hate them. Then, throughout history they proved they were slimy and sniveling people, surviving harsh times by only helping each other out. Drew knew why too- when a Christian suffered because they wouldn’t help out, they equated it to killing Jesus all over again. They were the scum of the Earth.

            Drew’s father had been the first to introduce him to anti-Semitism. It was a family tradition that started before his great grandparents joined the Nazi party.  The family even joked that Hitler had stolen their ideas but was smart enough to exterminate the cockroaches known as the Jewish race.

            Drew looked over at the Jew sitting across from him on the crowded subway car. The man was obviously a Jew, he had that “look.” The look that screamed, “We murdered Christ, hahahahahahahahah” through beady eyes and a nose that was four times too large for the face.

            Drew thought back to WWII and wondered how amazing it must have felt to pack those rats into trains and ship them off to their demise. Sometimes when the subway was so crowded that people touched shoulder to shoulder he imagined he had gone back and was one of those Nazis. It was his favorite fantasy.  Drew road the subway to go back to that feeling. He liked to live on the edge, though his concept of what living on the edge was made no real sense to anyone but him. He would stand on the yellow line of the subway platform as the train approached to get his thrills rather than participate in a real extreme sport. He liked to take the subway lines into the shady areas of the city late at night when all the characters came out and all the decent people were tucking into their safe beds. What he didn’t understand was that he gave off an aura of strangeness that gave even the hardest thugs a chill down their spines.

            Drew transferred at Grand Central Station to the uptown six line at 2:35. The car was unusually empty and unnaturally clean. It gave him an ominous feeling. He knew it was a sign that something was about to happen to change his life. A moment later the train pulled into the 51^st street station and the doors opened to reveal the most inspiring thing he had ever seen.

            Drew had grown up a very privileged boy. He had traveled the world, been to the most amazing places, all the wonders of the world. The stained glass of La Sainte Chappell no the Coliseum nor the Mona Lisa nor the Great Pyramids of Giza no anything else in his life made him feel so alive as he did in that moment.

            She could have sat anywhere in the almost empty subway car, but she chose the seat across from him. He felt as if he were the narrator and she his rose, a true life rendering of the Romance of the Rose, Chaucer’s biggest literary inspiration. He knew also though that this meant she would be near impossible to attain, or worse yet, undesirable once she was had.

            He pushed these thoughts to the back of his head, as they were of old love poetry and he was a modern man. He glanced at her as best he could through the corner of his eyes, drinking in her essence.

            She was of the perfect Arian features- soft, long blonde hair, crystal blue eyes, a slender hourglass figure of creamy white skin.

            Drew knew he wanted her forever in the first moment he saw her. He felt as though the empty subway was a sign, a sign from God (or Hitler himself) telling Drew that she was the classy sort of woman who would never be found amongst the swine of a crowded NYC subway.

            Drew decided to follow her that Saturday afternoon.  She got off the train at 86^th street. She walked to 84^th and Lexington and had a slice of pizza at Mimi’s pizza.  Drew loved pizza and the fact that she had hers with sausage meant that she wasn’t a dirty Jew. From there she walked back towards 86^th and did some shopping. She tried on 6 pairs of shoes at Steve Madden and bought the most expensive pair. For Drew this was another sign that she was the perfect woman because a Jew would have gone to the nearby Payless and bought a similar pair for a fraction of the price. After getting shoes she walked into a few different boutiques and then to what Drew figured was her apartment building. He sat in the coffee shop that it was over for hours just waiting to see her leave. She never did so he decided to go home for the night.

            When Drew said his prayers that night he asked God to grant him her. He dreamt about their lives together that evening. They would have a large, extravagant wedding that all the papers would be buzzing over.  They would spend their honeymoon traveling wherever she wanted for as long as she wanted. Once back she would start setting up their first apartment together and she would get pregnant and start their family. He would have to actually make a name for himself in business and stop living off his trust fund. He didn’t want his sons to grow up thinking their father wasn’t an important man. In his dream he was a politician, cleansing America of many of its’ problems.

            Drew didn’t want to wake up that Sunday, he knew reality wasn’t as sweet as what he lived when he wasn’t conscious. He wanted to go and look for her, but he always spent Sunday with his family. He was anxious to tell them about her, he knew they would be excited to hear that he had finally found a woman worthy of his attention. On Monday he would try to find out more about her and hopefully figure out a way to bump into her and bring her out on a date.

            The next day he woke up before the sunrise, he was too nervous and impatient to sleep any longer.  He decided to start the day with a prayer, hoping Jesus would hear him and guide him. He even knelt on the floor near the bed with his hands held together in reverence to pray like he had when he was a little boy. It felt invigorating to him.  He walked into his closet and stared at his clothing for a very long time. Everything was organized precisely. Long sleeved dress shirts together, sorted by color with the most expensive fabrics in the front. He wanted to look his best for their “meet cute” that day.  First he considered a blue shirt to match her blue eyes, then he thought maybe a classic white to make him appear to be a professional. Nothing he saw struck him as fabulous. He almost wished he had a yellow shirt to match the beauty of her blonde hair, but laughed at the thought of even being caught dead in the same color that the Jews had donned on their chests so many years before. Black seemed too cold and he didn’t want to put her off. He finally decided on a red because he hoped it would make her think he was passionate and desirable. Plus, he heard that red made people hungry and that would make her more likely to agree to go to dinner with him.  

            He showed up to the coffee shop she lived above at six am.  He had two cappichinos before he saw her leave the door and start walking towards the subway.  He followed at a leisurly pace and waited a few paces down from her on the subway platform. He tried to play it cool but the anticipation of finding out about her and meeting her was driving him insane. She got off at 33^rd street and walked to a small office building off 30^th.  There were three companies located in the building and he knew that she must have worked at one of them.  The first was a travel agency, the second a law firm, and the third a headhunter’s office.  Drew jotted down the names of each and walked to a nearby internet café to do some research.  He didn’t find any information about the employees of the travel agency, but figured that she was too classy to work for a place like that. He looked up the headhunter next, praying she didn’t work for them because he found it boring. The website was mostly unimpressive and uninformative.

As he searched for the law firm he could feel his heart pumping the blood through his body faster than it had in a very long time and perspiration developing in his palms.  What he found made that same blood feel like ice in his veins. The Law Firm of White, Smith, and Jones was dedicated to hippie ideas of helping those who had been wronged by one stupid thing or another. They handled cases of reparations for various reasons mostly.  He couldn’t believe she would be part of a group of low-lives like that. They had a “meet the staff” link that he did not want to click but knew he had to. He scrolled slowly, his hands shaking with each click of the scrolling wheel on his mouse.  She wasn’t a partner, that was a good thing, maybe she wouldn’t be on the staff at all. The travel agency was starting to look like a much better option for her employment, in fact it meant she would be even better about planning their honeymoon if she worked there. The further and further down he looked the better his spirits became. He didn’t see her, she wasn’t one of them.  About to sigh a breath of relief, he came to the last member of the staff and staring back at him was her angelic face.  Immediately the two coffees came out of him like the water from Old Faithful and soaked the computer station he was at.

Drew didn’t know what to do. He stared at her face for a long time before he had the nerve to click on her and learn about her and the cases she was working on.  Things were worst than he thought when he saw that she was assisting on a case to help the families of victims of the Holocaust recover heirlooms that had been “stolen” by the Nazis while the “rightful” owners were shipped off to concentration camps. If he hadn’t of already thrown up the contents of his stomach he would have upon reading that. The news made him heave, it made him feel as though all happiness had been sucked out of his life and out of the world.

He walked to the bathroom to clean up. He needed to clear his mind and figure out what to do. While washing his face he realized that Jesus had sent him to save her. She was meant to be his Eva and for that to happen he would have to show her the right path in life. Drew suddenly felt very optimistic.  God had sent him on a very important mission because he had faith that Drew was capable and Drew decided he was more than happy to accept it. 

He waited outside her office and when she came out he “accidentally bumped into her with his coffee. “I’m so sorry miss, are you okay?”

“Oh my, my new shoes! Do you have a napkin? Oh, I hope they aren’t ruined.”

Drew handed her the napkin in his hand, “Take this, I’m so sorry. I will replace them for you, I should have been paying more attention to where I was going.”

“It’s all right. I wasn’t watching either so it’s my fault too.” She looked up into his face with apologetic eyes that made him tingle all over, a strange sensation he had never before experienced.

“Please, let me do something to make it up to you Miss. I’m Drew by the way.”

She blotted her shoes a bit more, “Really, it’s not a big deal Drew. I think they are fine, no harm done.”

“Well, you are extremely attractive. I hate that we met this way, but would I be out of line asking you to have dinner with me? Your choice of course.”  Drew wondered how he was able to get the words together and sound so confident. He had never asked out a girl before.

She made a face much like that of a girl who just learnt that Santa wasn’t real, “Thank you, that’s very kind of you, but I’m not interested. I’m sorry. I just have a lot of work to do and it would be wrong of me to lead you on.”

Drew stood there motionless as she walked away.  He couldn’t believe she had said no. He never imagined that she would say no to him. Nobody ever said no to him. He was hurt and angry and confused and betrayed and so many emotions at once that he didn’t know how to make his head stop spinning.

            Drew woke up in a hospital bed with his mother at his side.

            “Oh darling, are you okay? The doctors think you had a mild panic attack. Luckily there was this sweet lady who saw you fall and called an ambulance to come take care of you. Waited with you until they arrived.  You were lucky she forgot something in her office or who knows what may have happened to you laying there on the street.”

            Drew knew the lady had to have been his lady. It was another sign from God. He had to save her from herself, just as she had saved him from being mugged or beaten or maybe even dying on that sidewalk.

            The next day Drew hired a private detective to follow her and find out what he could about her. He would have done the work himself but his mother was fretting about his health and making him take it easy for a few days. It was a good excuse though to set some things in motion. He placed a craigslist ad for  an assistant. Within an hour he had hundreds of resumes and took down the ad just so he would have time to go through them. He hired the first person who emailed him back saying she would be able to start immediately. Drew told her he would pay her 200 dollars a day in cash on the stipulation that she be discreet and understood that he only needed temporary help and therefore would appreciate it if she kept her work for him quiet. She agreed, thinking the cash would be great until she found a permanent gig.

            The first errand Drew sent her on was to buy him a new car. A black car that would blend in with the hundreds of other black cars carrying executives and elite around the city, though he didn’t tell her why it had to be a black car. He then asked her to get him a list of different warehouses that were out of the way of the busy city and available to rent. He sent her to look at a dozen of them and report back to him with pictures, measurements, neighborhood details, and so on. He told her that none of them were good enough and to just give up. He then asked her to get him a uniform for a driver and then to interview a couple of drivers for the car she had found him. He denied all the drivers but kept the uniform. After a week he fired her.

            When Drew awoke on that Monday he again got down on his knees and prayed. He walked to his closet with confidence, knowing that God sending him to do his work. He carefully put on the uniform and went over the plan in his mind again. He had agonized over the details and knew that nothing would go wrong. He got into his car and pulled out his cell phone.

            “Hello, I have an urgent message for Miss Holly Brown. She is needed at the courthouse immediately, there are some papers relating to her case that are missing signatures and if she doesn’t get down here the judge will have to throw it out before it gets to court. We have a town car on its way right now, number 143. Tell her to get here as soon as she can, it is very important. Thank you.” Drew felt the adrenaline run through his veins as he hung up the phone and turned the key in the ignition.

            Holly was waiting outside for him when he pulled up. She had a briefcase and threw herself into the car, not even waiting for him to open the doors for her. Drew knew that it was going to be easier than he had though. She was so busy studying all her legal papers that she didn’t notice they were heading in the wrong direction, speeding along a route that was heading out of Manhattan. It wasn’t until they were in traffic on the bridge that she saw something was wrong.

            “Excuse me driver,” Holly said with agitation in her voice, “why are we on the Brooklyn Bridge? I have to get to the courthouse, it’s imperative and this is the wrong way. You need to turn this car around.”

            Drew chuckled, “Holly, Holly, Holly. We are going to the courthouse and the manner of getting there is direr than you realize. It’s just that we are going to a courthouse of God so to speak. You have been poisoned by the Jewish parasites and I have to help you see the error of your ways. I tried to do this the easy way weeks ago but you turned me down and left me with no choice but to show you the truth this way”

            Holly started tugging at her seatbelt and trying to open the door, “Let me out of here you freak!”

            “I’m sorry darling,” Drew said as he looked at her struggling through the rear view mirror, “but I’ve made some adjustments to the car. The doors only open on the outside thanks to the child lock and the seatbelts can only be undone with a key. And, thanks to the privacy tint on this car nobody will be able to see you trying to get away. Just relax, I promise that you will thank me for these measures very soon.”

            Holly stopped squirming and just stared at him. Drew turned on the radio and pleasantly drove to the warehouse that he had picked from the pictures his assistant had given him. It was remote, abandoned, and full of “junk” that he knew would be helpful to teaching Holly about why she should love him and save herself from the fires of Hell that were waiting for her if she continued her life the way she was going with it.

            When they arrived Drew turned back to Holly and shoved chloroform into her face before she realized what he was doing. He needed her sedated so that he could get her inside.

            Drew was looking at Holly as she woke up, tied to a chair in the empty building. He painstakingly explained to her the signs that had told him of her coming into his life, of his noticing how perfect she was through her actions that day, of how she made him feel, and of everything that had come to pass since he discovered what she did with her life. She was gagged but didn’t even attempt to say anything. She listened calmly and Drew prayed that she was taking to heart the truth of God’s plan. He then told her about his life, his family history, and the history of the rotten Jewish race. He explained that while they were around they would try to run the world and that they had to be kept in check until they could be all together eliminated. When she started to look sick he tried to lighten the mood with a cute saying he had been told once, “Roses are red, violets are blue-ish, if it weren’t for Christmas, we’d all be Jewish.” She didn’t seem to find it amusing.

            “Now that I’ve explained myself and witnessed to you I hope that you see that I am doing this out of love. I’m going to take the gag out of your mouth and we are going to have a conversation about all of this. Please ask me any questions that you have and we can work the out together. Okay?”

            Holly nodded her head in agreement and Drew walked to unbind the knot from behind her head. Once she stretched her jaw a bit she looked at Drew with one of those piercing looks that made Drew feel as if she were looking into his soul. It was very intimate for him.

            “I have but one question for you Drew,” Holly said slowly and with a tone of superiority in her words, “Wasn’t Jesus a Jew? Didn’t his parents celebrate the Jewish holidays and bring him to temple with them?”

            Drew flew into an outrage that he didn’t even know was possible. He couldn’t breath he was so angry. He could feel the fire of his hate for what she had said consuming him. She was beyond help, she was so poisoned that Drew knew he would have to save her from herself by stopping her from going to Hell.

            “By the mission sent to me by God, I forgive you of your sins for you did not understand what you did wrong. I now must cleanse your soul and remove the lies they have infected you with. I am so sorry Holly, I thought you would be the one. I thought that you would see the light. Maybe you were sent to me to show me the light though, maybe you were a test to me from God to see if I was ready to be his willing servant. I promise you that he will take you into his arms for he does not punish those who are innocent by means of ignorance.”

            He then walked to her with another chloroform rag so that she wouldn’t struggle as he moved her again. She woke up as the first nail was driven through her arm, just above the wrist. Her scream was muffled by the gag that Drew had replaced. Tears streamed down her face just as the blood just out of her arm. Drew moved to her other arm and drove another nail into her body. She passed out. He figured it was from the pain and the blood loss. As he drove the nail into her feet she woke up again long enough to make another muffled scream. Drew then dug the crown of thorns onto her head and hoisted up the cross with the pulley system he had rigged. Once she was up he sliced her in the rib area as Jesus had been cut by the Jews. The blood slowly started to clot and run less aggressively down to the floor.

            Tears ran down Drew’s face as he looked at her, “I’m so sorry Holly, but the only way to cleanse you of the Jewish taint in you if for you to suffer as our Christ suffered due to those monsters. When you meet him he will greet you with open arms, thanking you for your bravery in your final moments, and connecting to you on a very deep level. You will not only be saved from Hell because of your death, but you will become one of Jesus’ most precious followers. Give him and all the angels and saints my love and know that I love you dearly or I wouldn’t have cared to save your soul.”

“So, if I might simplify your story for the court Dr. Addol, you are saving that this first rejection, along with being brought up in a family of prejudice lead my client to commit these crimes without realizing that he was doing wrong?”

            “Yes. Drew suffered a psychotic break when he was denied a date by Miss Brown that was misdiagnosed as a mere panic attack. Had he been given the proper attention and put on the proper medication he would have never kidnapped and murdered Miss Brown in my opinion.”

            “And, Dr. Addol, in your opinion the other murders were also an effect of this psychotic break?”

            “Yes. Drew believed that the Jewish people had corrupted a woman he wanted to love and saw a life with. When he had to “save her” because of this corruption it caused his psyche to deteriorate even more. His serial murdering spree was a way for him to punish the Jewish people for his loss. Though the bombings, poisonings, and numerous gruesome murders over the past three years are a tragedy I don’t think he was aware enough that he was doing anything wrong. The greater tragedy would be for him to go to prison rather than a mental health facility that can treat him and help him see the mistakes he made.”

            “Thank you doctor, that is all. The Defense rests.”

Update!

Hey there folks,

Thanks for reading (and following) this blog! I just wanted to say happy holidays to ya'll out there and give you a little update on what's going on and what to expect in the next few weeks on this blog.

1)I just wrote a new story that I will post on here after Christmas. As always, I would love all your feedback on it. Editing is best done by people who aren't connected to the story and can see flaws that the writer can't.

2)I FINALLY finished the Dark Is Rising book series and will put up a review on the last three books from it (as I decided to stop posting individual reviews on them)

3)I have already started reading another YA fiction novel and am about 100 pages in. A review for that should be coming out pretty soon as well seeing as it is pretty interesting thus far.

4)My sister brought with her a copy of The Hunger Games so once I finish the new book I just started/the series if I like it enough, then I will read the HG series and post about it. I'm excited since I have heard nothing but good things about it.

5)I know I have been horrible about writing stories and putting them up here. How will I become a good writer if I am not working on it every day? I plan on becoming better at this and going crazy with the writing. I think I am going to focus on creating a short story book before writing any novellas or novels, but you never know what the future holds so we will see where my writing takes me.

Love and kisses,
KABO

His Missed Exit- short story written Dec 18, 2011

She placed him in her lap, petting his hair. She missed when his coat was silky smooth, age had made it coarse and thin. She wondered if he knew what ageing was, if he understood why he couldn’t see as well anymore. She wanted to know if he missed the sound of her voice as his hearing progressively got worse and worse, or if maybe he just thought she had stopped talking to him.

She prayed that he understood how much she loved him and she asked God to let them stay together as long as possible. She hoped beyond anything that there was a God and a heaven because she knew if there were he would go to wait for her there when he passed, just like he waited for her every day when she left the house.

She gave him a kiss on the nose and started to cry. She couldn’t bear the thought of living without him. He was her prince, the one boy who never let her down. He had stolen her heart the minute their eyes met in the most beautiful and pure forms of love. He gave her so much more than she felt she could ever give him back because his love was unconditional and she didn’t even think people were capable of having hearts that ran so deep.

He sat in her lap, feeling at peace as she stroked his back. He wondered if she understood what ageing was. He hoped she didn’t think he was ignoring her, he just couldn’t see her or hear her or run after her the way he had once been able to. He missed the sound of her voice, it had always soothed him. He wished he didn’t have to strain for it, but understood that he was just fulfilling his life. Life was full of gains and losses. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, how he didn’t want to leave her, but he recognized that she wasn’t capable of understanding him. He kissed her hand, using actions he knew she could decipher to show her what he couldn’t say.

He felt her tears falling upon his hair. He hated when she cried because she was so amazing in his eyes. From the moment he had seen her, at the start of his life, he could see how pure her soul was. As the years went by he was forced to watch her get hurt, see her sparkle fade through the torments of life. It had been his job and his honor to bring it back every time he could. Making her laugh and smile were the greatest joys of his, the only way he could pay her back for the unconditional love she gave him.

She hugged him tight and he breathed in her aura. He loved when she cuddled him close. He felt that his time was getting short, but he promised himself to hold on as long as he could for her. He wasn’t ready to let her go, he didn’t want to leave her without someone to look after her. He prayed that she would understand that he would have stayed with her forever if it was his choice.

He closed his eyes and started to drift to sleep. He got tired very often, but when he dreamt he was able to go back to days when he could run and jump and play and keep her laughing for hours.

            She felt him falling asleep in her arms. He was her old, little baby and she loved him so much. She wanted to capture the moment forever in time, to carry with her after he was gone.

            Her phone rang and the moment was lost as he woke up with a start.  She had errands to run and the outside world to deal with. She put him down and gathered her things and rushed out the door, missing her chance to say goodbye.

Book Review- Susan Cooper's "The Dark Is Rising"

So, let's first talk about how this book gave the series the name of, "The Dark Is Rising."  Once I realized that I wondered if the series title was set before she started writing them, or if it was decided after the second book was completed and deemed much better than the first, or if it means that of the entire series this is the best section. I really pray to God that the later is not correct, as this book was not of a very high quality.

While leaps and bounds better than the first novel, this story still seemed to lack a good story line that teeters between believability and fascination. The main character, Will, is an eleven-year-old boy who finds out he is immortal (though it never specifically states that). Once he comes into his "learning" he is all of a sudden not a boy anymore, but rather a rational being stuck in a child's body. The concept may have made sense, if the character still hadn't of acted like a child and needed so much guidance. The next flaw is that he was supposed to go on a quest to find the six signs of power, or whatver they were, because he was the sign searcher. What doesn't make sense about this is that everyone already knew where to find the signs and almost always lead him to them. I would more aptly call him the sign collector or sign retriever or just the Old One's go-for errand boy. Not only did everyone help him, but it seems so highly unlikely that the signs would be so close by him, even though he traveled through time for a few of them, because if they were so powerful you would think that the Light would have tried to hide them a bit better than all close enough for an eleven-year-old to walk around town and pick up.
Also, the fight scenes were never really fight scenes as tensions would lead up to no real combat which made for let downs and boredom.

So, although it seems I am really bashing this book, as it was entirely predictable and stupid, I still have to say it was an interesting read and parts of it were almost good. A huge improvement from the first makes me optomistic that she will improve her skills and that the third book will be even better. Stay tuned for the next reveiw, but for now, I'd suggest holding off on buying a copy yourself.

Love and Kisses,
KABO

Book Review- Susan Cooper's "Over Sea, Under Stone"

So, this novel is the first of Ms Cooper's "The Dark is Rising Complete Sequence." I don't even like to call it a novel since it is so short and the end so blah. Let's refer to it as a novella section of a novella sequence, as it is the first of five parts totaling only about 1000 pages.

The story follows three children on a vacation with their parents and strange great uncle. While staying at a house the children find a "map" that is really just a strange puzzle drawing that leads to a grail of King Aurthur. The children, with a bit of help from their uncle, set out to follow the clues and find the missing grail. As it so happens, at the same time, there are "evil/bad" people also looking for the map and the grail it leads to. The story ends with the children finding the grail, but losing whatever secret the grail was holding in a very pathetic climax. With the secret lost the children turn over the grail to a local museum for a reward of 100 pounds.

In my opinion, not only is the story line quite boring, but there is no way it captivates the attention of its intended audience- children! It is poorly written, with vocabulary that is incorrectly used. For a Simon and Schuster publication, I am highly disappointed with my purchase and the amount of time I wasted trudging through this awful work. The details were obscure and hard to follow, and the characters lacked much depth. Point-of-view was switched so frequently it was hard to follow who was thinking what, which made all the characters blend together. The only interesting character in the story is Great Uncle Merry simply because there is such a shroud of mystery behind who he is. At the end, one of the children wonders if he is Aurthur's Merlin, but it is just a fleeting thought that isn't developed at all.

All that being said, I did spend $15 on the collection so I am going to continue with Ms Cooper's tale and hope that it gets better. My guess is that she put a lot of hints/foreshadowing into this first sequence that will be significant later on, but just lacked the talent to create an interesting start for what could be a good series (if the reviews on the cover mean anything). Though it's hard to say at this point that she will ever be on the level of Tolkein or C.S Lewis as is quoted by Psychology Today.

Love and Kisses-
KABO

Horrible Story attempt, March 2010- Used Book

Used

    I had lived a long and happy life but it seemed my time was up, I was being mauled by a vicious dog and I couldn’t see how I could be repaired.  All around me I saw pieces of me on the floor in the room, dripping with the beast’s saliva.  I was in so much pain. I never realized that dying would be so sad.  As Killer was ravaging me I saw on his snout one of my pieces, a sticker that said “used”.  That sight was incredible, that singular word explained who I was an how amazing my life had been. 
   
    Many of my peers were not as lucky as me, once they were purchased at the bookstore they went to their new homes, were read once, and then they lived a sad existence on a bookshelf, craving human interaction, silently pleading that they would be remembered.  I on the other hand, well I lived a magnificent life.  Soon after being born at the printing press I was sent to the adoption center that humans call a ‘bookstore’. 
   
    I was eagerly chosen by a man named Professor DeLivres.  For years we taught together, enlightening the minds of college students. Professor DeLivres constantly read me over and over, letting me help him understand my story more.  He rewarded me with upgrades, with what people would call ‘tattoos.’  These additions to my body were so beautiful, making my pages so much more effective.  For years he and I were good friends, working together in perfect harmony, but one day everything changed.  He had put me in his laptop’s case.  I usually preferred my personal chariot that he called his ‘briefcase’ because Laptop was kind of a bully, always telling me he would one day make me obsolete.  We were just sitting there, minding our own business when all of a sudden Professor DeLivres started jostling us around violently and was screaming something, then he was running in a mad dash.  Before I knew it a stranger was opening the case and grabbing at us in it.  Laptop was the first to be examined and that was the last I ever saw of him (not that I’m complaining). 

    My fate wasn’t as bas as I thought it would be.  I was brought to a new adoption center and sold to a sweet old lady.  After agreeing to foster me she decided to do some ‘plastic surgery’ (as humans call it when done to their bodies) on me.  She got rid of the wrinkles on my face by affixing a new clear skin to my areas of impurities.  After that I received my pride and joy- a bright yellow piece of skin with the word “used” tattooed on it. Oh the joy of having that placed on my spine! To me it screamed “look at me, I’m brilliant and I have experience to make you brilliant as well, pick me!” 

    Sadly I sat there for weeks, maybe even a couple of months, just waiting to be loved again.  One day at the end of the summer it happened, the sweet old lady plucked me off the shelf and put me into a soft bag.  For a few days I was tossed around, jostled this way and that, but then when I was really started to feel claustrophobic for fresh air I saw the light.  The bag was opened and I was looking at the bright young face of my new partner.  After opening me to flip through my pages she seemed elated at the multiple tattoos that I had from Professor DeLivres.  She ran me into the other room to show her friend Kate saying, “look at these notes, they are brilliant! This book is going to save my grade in 410!”  From that moment on our bond was inseparable.  She brought me everywhere, always taking ferocious notes about my story and about my tattoos.  In her class she was always the first to comment and as the semester went on she gave me a few more tattoos but in pink instead of the black that Professor DeLivres used, she even added long lines of a bright yellow color to some of my pages.  My time with her was very happy indeed and I thought we would have a long future together.  I soon had my heart broken though.  Apparently, unlike teachers, human students don’t keep their books after a class is over.  I learned this when one day after a final she handed me over to somebody in the cafeteria saying, “trust me this book will get you an A next semester, whoever had it before me was brilliant and the notes are incredible!”

    My new owner wasn’t as great as she had been.  His room was always cloudy and smelled weird.  His friends and him were always sitting around eating junk food and smoking something that I don’t think they were supposed to.  There was an entire month between the semesters so for all of that time I sat on a shelf along with a few other books.  One large book told me that my expectations were too high, that I would be sorely disappointed because although this boy was smart he did not care very much about his studies and therefore I would probably only be given attention before tests or in class when he wanted to glance over me before making a comment to lead his teacher on to thinking he did his work.  I was flabbergasted by this news, how could anyone want me but not want me at the same time, why would he not give me a chance to open my secrets to him and bring him joy? Once his classes started this prophecy unfortunately came true and yet I still sat with bated breath hoping that I would be an exception, that he would fall in love with my story.  Although this never happened the way I prayed it would he still did give me a few extra tattoos when his professor would ramble out a certain page to look at.  These instances would fill me with pride because he was very intelligent and the comments he would make off of just a brief scan of my page would be elegant and always started a meaningful discussion.  I wish he had put that effort into every excerpt from my story but alas it never happened.  Before I knew it the semester was over and he was putting me up for adoption at the school bookstore. 
   
    Weeks later I was chosen off the shelf and put in a pile of other books that were wrapped together and put on a shelf in the back that was labeled “online purchases for pick up” and was informed by the other books that this was a good thing.  A few days later all of us that were bundled together were picked up by a pretty girl who took us back to her house and lovingly examined all of us one by one.  When she got to me she looked a bit disappointed and said, “oh my, aren’t you marked up quite a bit, well I guess I will have to make due with you anyways, maybe it could even turn out to be a good thing, I guess we will see.”  When she started reading me a couple of weeks later I think her tune changed a bit and before I knew it she was tattooing me over some of my other tattoos and adding even more extensive tattoos.  Though I loved her passion I was starting to get tired of the tattoos, a few here and there are nice, but I was starting to feel trashy with every edge of my pages having something on them.  Even though I felt a bit overwhelmed with the ink I was at the same time overjoyed by her devotion to me.  She brought me to the most incredible places too.  It was the summer and she did her reading of me in the park and at the beach and in cafés.  Life was perfect with these outing during the day and classes in the evening.  She made me proud, always leading discussions with her commentary.  Unfortunately the summer classes ended soon and I was dreading the thought of what my next reader would be, dreading the time just sitting waiting to be adopted again.  She was different though, like Professor DeLivres she loved me and did not want to part with me. 

    For two years her and I had a great life.  She would refer to me often when writing papers and whatnot, always finding a way to incorporate my story into her scholarly documents.   She would talk about me as her “favorite book” to anyone who wanted to talk about reading.  She loaned me out to her friends so that they could see why I meant so much to her.  Aside from my time with Professor DeLivres I had never been happier.  One day everything changed though.  The boy who she had moved in with bought a new puppy and named him ‘Killer’ and let me tell you I could see it in his eyes that he would be trouble.  How right I was!  He was always tearing something up or using the house as a toilet or doing just about everything he possibly could that he wasn’t supposed to.  Luckily I was safe to watch from a shelf that was too high for him to reach.
   
    One day though my luck ran out.  Killer was about a year old and was still as rambunctious as ever, and while running through the house while he was alone one day he knocked the entire shelf that I was on over.  It was like Christmas came early for him!  That’s when the massacre started, before I knew it he was tearing up all of my friends and I just hoped that he would get tired and leave us all alone.  I had no way to escape him and therefore was at his mercy.  Apparently though he wasn’t feeling merciful that day and he soon began to eat me alive.  There was something about me that he found very alluring and so after his initial chewing session he proceeded to carry, drag, and fling me about the house before dropping me because he was distracted by the door opening.

    My lady and her man came in and she just stood there in shock for a moment.  Then she noticed me laying under Killer’s feet and lunged.  Tears streamed her face as she picked me up and examined the damage to me.  Dozens of my pages had been torn out, I had puncture wounds everywhere from his sharp teeth, he had chewed the top corner off of me completely, my pages were slobbery and ripped,  essentially I was a disaster.  For what seemed like forever she just sat and turned me page by page crying at the destruction.  Her man had put Killer outside and was trying to clean up the mess when she turned to him and said, “that fucking dog! You let that fucking dog ruin my favorite book! You know how much this book means to me! You know that this book can not be replaced and look at what your fucking dog did to it!”  He knew better then to argue with her about me, I was her favorite after all. 

    I thought she would fix me, I thought she would find a way to make it all better.  I thought all I needed was a little more plastic surgery (ok well maybe a lot more but still) and then I would be okay.  I thought she would go to the ends of the world to make me all right.  I was wrong.  After crying for a long time, after looking through me for hours and hours over a few days, after transferring everything she could from me to another copy of me she tossed me into a recycle bin.  I thought it was weird for her to be holding another version of me, I thought that it was odd when she was going page by page and putting the exact same tattoos on the other’s pages, but I still thought nothing of it, I figured that she was doing it for a friend or something, I didn’t realize I was being replaced.

    I don’t know what is going to happen to me now.  My soul seems to have died with Killer’s attack on me.  I am a book, what good am I now that I am in pieces?  What will become of me at the recycling plant I do not know, I don’t even know what it means to recycle.  I hope that in the next stage of my life I am just as happy.  I hope that I have another stage of my life and that this is not the end.  If it is though at least I have lived to the fullest.  I have helped to teach dozens of people.  I have individually assisted students master my material.  I have loved my readers and been loved by them.  What more can a book ask for?  My pages may not have been old enough to fade from time but I know that the mark I made on the people I touched will be there forever.

    I am a Used book and I have a story to tell, not just the one on my pages, but the one about where I have been and what I have done.   

Horrible story attempt July 12, 2010- The Devil's Hour

In the dark bedroom there were eerie shadows dancing on the walls.  The shadows seemed to be alive and Charlie laid on her bed with her eyes shut tight, her rosary in her fingers, praying as hard as she could for God to keep her safe.  Her bedroom was in a tiny apartment attached to her parents house.  Charlie had moved from the main house to the apartment when she turned eighteen for the privacy and independence it promised to give her, she was regretting her decision, too far away for anyone to hear her screams.  She was petrified of what was watching her in the dark, tremors of fear coursing throughout her body, her breathing rapid, and her heart beating faster then the wings of a hummingbird.
    Charlie was cursed and had been for as long as she could remember.  She could see ghosts, she could see spirits, she could see things that people were not meant to look at.  Ordinarily the things she saw were passive, they simply existed on a dimension that her eyes could see into and they meant her no harm.  These ghosts or spirits or whatever they were sometimes noticed her but usually were too busy with their own existence to care who she was.  Every now and again though she would have conversations with those who had passed out of life and would help them, usually sending some sort of anonymous letter to a loved one or the police to clear up unfinished business, letting the living move on with their lives so the deceased could stop worrying about what they left behind and focus on what lay ahead for them.  These conversations were few and far between, sometimes happening in her sleep, sometimes happening when she was deep in prayer, and very seldom happening when she was busy with her day to day life.  The dead were, for the most part, very considerate when they contacted her, only bothering her at inconvenient times when it was an urgent matter.
    There was something entirely different about what was happening to her this night, there was a thick layer of evil surrounding her like an early morning fog.  This was something new, she could sense the hate and the intent.  This thing meant her harm, serious harm.  Charlie was running out of time, trapped by the darkness that pinned her to her bed.  She had to act fast but doing anything meant opening her eyes and that meant seeing whatever it was that she could feel approaching her, seeing what had first prompted the fear to arise from her soul. 
    Getting out of bed to flip the light  switch was out of the question, it was too far and left her too vulnerable to whatever it was lurking in the dark.  Charlie could feel its’ anger build as she prayed harder and louder for God’s strength, her rosary wrapped around her hands in protection.  Her bed also kept her safe, it was the bed that her aunt had died in, a fact that creeped most people out.  The bed had an aura of peace attached to it though, a layer of love that lingered, a family link to another dimension that protected Charlie in ways no living being could.  Charlie clung to the sheets, afraid to open her eyes, afraid for the first time ever of what she would see.  She needed to grab her cell phone and call for help, it was the only thing she could think of to do.
    Charlie slowly removed the covers off her head and opened her eyes.  What she saw was worse than her most horrifying nightmare, she was paralyzed by the sight of it.  She could not make any sounds, could not think of anything but the fate that loomed only inches away from her. 
    The demon was inescapable

Scene written July 7, 2010- For Alice

It was over and I had survived it all on my own. I did it through sheer power of will, mind over matter. Alice would be so proud of me. 
    I took her photo off the moldy wall and looked at her face clearly for the first time in almost eight years.  We had the same eyes, a bright green color that I’ve never seen on anyone else. When we were young we would tell strangers we were identical twins, we’d always get a kick out of it when they would try to explain that being a boy and girl makes it impossible for us to be identical.  Our mom called us her little mutants because green eyes are supposed to be some kind of genetic mutation and, with as green as ours were, she said we must be some kind of mutants.  I’m sure I look like a real mutant right now.  I just woke up with my elbow in butter, my skin-and-bones elbow that is, already saturated in grease.  My dirty, smelly, old, ill-fitting clothes were engulfing the rest of my body, enhancing my skeletal shape.  I guess I had forgotten how to eat in the last eight years, nothing really mattered with Alice gone.
    Alice was always the better of the two of us.  She would have never let me get so lost that I would end up in a dump like this, an extended stay motel with grime on every surface and bed bugs and a stain that looked remarkably similar to dried blood on the carpet.  She would be appalled to see me now, wasted away to nothing with roaches scuttling about my half eaten toast and spiders dangling from the ceiling. Had she been alive to see my life spiral this out of control she would have been so heartbroken.  Then again, maybe if she had never died I would have never had a reason to spiral. 
    We had always been best friends, even during the stages of growing up where most twins bickered and grew apart, where the boy twin starts hanging out with boys his age and the girl does the same with girls.  We had friends but we always shared them, which made Alice a tomboy in a way.  When it came time for pee-wee sports our mom had to find co-ed teams because we refused to be separated.  It was like that for most of our lives, we just did everything together. Our bond was unique but the best.
    I looked down and saw the filthy, midnight black, stray cat that wouldn’t stop following me around laying at my feet.  This cat somehow always managed to sneak in the door any time I walked into my motel room even though I did everything to keep it out.  Alice had always loved cats and I wondered if she sent it to me. I mean despite the fact that it made me sneeze like crazy it still stayed by my side through all the pain and torment of withdrawal and detox.  It was a friend when I needed one even though I didn’t ask for it. Maybe Alice wanted me to start my new drug and alcohol free life by saving this poor animal. It would be a very Alice move seeing as our whole lives growing up she was always saving strays, nursing them to health, and finding them loving homes. She had a good heart, the best heart, and I missed her so much.  I decided to name the cat Alice if I found out it was a girl, Al if it turned out to be a boy.
    First thing I needed to do was call my parents and tell them I was sorry for the past eight years, sorry that I let one accident take both their children’s lives. I needed their help to get back on a straight path, their help to live how Alice would have wanted me to.  I had to live for her, do all the things she would have wanted to do if her life hadn’t been taken so early. I’d start with the cat and as I slowly got stronger and healthier I’d find a job and save up and get a real place to live and save another stray, probably a dog though.  One day I’d climb Mt Everest, one of her biggest dreams, but for now I had a call to make.

Story written April, 2011- How to Date The Goddess of Love and Sexuality

    If you ever meet the most beautiful woman imaginable you should blow her off.  Beautiful girls are everywhere and cause nothing but suffering; the most beautiful girl imaginable will cause pain and suffering beyond your imagination. She really will be ‘too good to be true’ because she’ll really be Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sexuality.  Part of her personality will be to foster that beautiful side of human emotions that people call love.  The other part will be the animal desires for procreation, the madness that takes over the mind when people fall in love, it will be uncontrollable and passionate.  You wont realize this because you will have slept through your mythology class back in college, you’ll make the mistake of thinking you just got lucky.  You’ll even think you’re in charge of the situation, but she’ll be the one who approaches you and pursues you. She wont know that she was once again being manipulated by Zeus, who was fed up with her making him fall for mortals and then having to deal with Hera bitching him out for his infidelity. You wont realize that you are just a pawn in a game, insignificant in all ways other than that you were where you were at that moment.
    “I saw you across the room and I just had to come and introduce myself.  My name is Ro,” she will say to you through voluptuous lips and perfectly white, straight teeth. Will have a thing about perfect teeth and hers will be the best you have ever seen.
    “I’m so-and-so, nice to meet you too. What brings a girl like you out to a bar like this?” you will say to her, wondering how such perfection could be chilling in your favorite back alley dive. She will look like she should be sitting VIP at one of the hottest clubs on the arm of some superstar, not hanging out in a t-shirt and jeans in a dimly lit bar with cheap beer and customers like you.
    She will flash her smile at you again, “I heard this was one of the unknown secrets of the city, I didn’t think I was going to enjoy myself when I showed up, but I think I may end up having a great time.”
    You will talk for hours in the dim lights of the bar. The flickering of the neon Natural Ice beer advertisement will make her eyes sparkle and dance. You will feel like there was nothing else going around outside of the two of you. You wont hear any noise but her sultry voice and the loud, rhythmic beating of your nervous heart. She will be polite and funny and it will seem effortless. Her plain white t-shirt will cling to her skin as it if were just another part of her anatomy, accentuating her perfect physique. You will have never seen anyone with curves as divine as hers, a feat hard to come by in a city where everyone had a plastic surgeon on speed dial.  Her jeans will have a slightly worn appearance to them, not in a dirty way, but in the way that you can tell they are her favorite, most comfortable pair. Time will become a matter for mere mortals, something suspended for you in her presence.
    You wont be able wrap my head around such a flawless creature being real, but your mind will never really consider the possibility that she was a true goddess. You’ll wonder if  you are really drunk and suffering from a severe case of “beer goggles” but that just wont make sense to you because you will only remember having one Manhattan before she approached you. You drink Manhattans because you think it makes you look suave, it reminds you of the 20s or the 50s (you aren’t so great with history) and that makes you feel classy. You’ll look at Ro and start to think that maybe you are hallucinating.  Your brain will run through the possibility that the bartender drugged your cocktail so that his soulless friends could cut out your kidneys to sell on the black market leaving you to wake up in a bathtub of ice at a dirty motel.  You’ll have to remind yourself that stories like that are just urban legends and you’ll decide that it had to be karma. You had always tried to be a nice guy, always gave up your seats for pregnant ladies or helped the elderly cross the street, and it was finally coming back to you in the form of Ro. Your sense of reality won’t trust that hypothesis though so you’ll imagine it was some horrible bet that she lost between her and her friends.  Your eyes will search the bar to see if there was a group of out-of-place girls laughing at your expense, but there wont seem to be anyone waiting for her to rejoin them.
    You’ll really want to bring her back to your apartment, but you won’t make a move because you won’t want to believe she is that type of girl .  You’ll decide that she is the kind of woman whom you wine and dine and respect, not your average one-night stand.  You’ll call her the next afternoon, invite her out to dinner, and she will  agree with an excited tone in her voice. You’ll decide that you’d rather go broke than fail to impress her, so you tell her to dress up because you’re bringing her to one of the fancy reservation-only restaurants on The Strip. You’ll go to church that afternoon like you always do on Sundays and meet up with you mom.  You’ll ask her if she could loan you some cash for your big date, she’ll agree because you’re thirty and she wants grandchildren before she dies. You’ll laugh and tell her that she’s only fifty and still in her prime.  She’ll tell you that she’ll keep her fingers crossed and pray and all those cliché sayings that people say as if any of it made a difference.
    When she walks out of her house you’ll feel like you’re back in kindergarten and having your first crush.  “You. . . Look. . . Amazing,” you’ll studder as she smiles and asks you to hold on for just one minute while she grabs her keys.  She will be wearing a skintight, bright red dress, with an ornate black belt. You wont realize that the belt is the same one as the night before, and because of this you won’t realize that it isn’t an ordinary belt but rather a magical attribute of hers called the cestus. 
    She will slowly walk towards you, her hair will flow like a supermodel’s in a photo shoot even though there will be no wind. “You look quite dapper yourself,” she’ll say as the scent of vanilla reaches your senses, “I’m so glad you called, it’s been centuries since I’ve felt this way about a man.”  You’ll think she’s just being an exaggerative female, you won’t realize that she’s referring to Anchises, the shepard that Zeus made her fall for in ancient times. Her comment for some reason won’t give her a proper sense of deja-vu, so she won’t realize her feelings are exactly the same because they aren’t real.  It will later remind you of when your grandfather loses his glasses and everyone searches his house for them, only to realize they were on the top of his head the entire time- the most obvious things become hidden in the distracted mind.
    Dinner will be perfect. It will be the best service you ever receive in your life. The chef will even come out to meet you both and gave you a free dessert for no reason at all.  After you eat,  you will dance the tango and the waltz on the small dance floor on the first level of the restaurant.  Everyone seated within view will stop what they were doing and just watch.  You’ll feel like a king, enjoying the stares and the presumption that everyone was envious you. As you let your body feel the music and the passion of her body being so close to yours build up you’ll realize that she reminded me of what you always pictured the Greek goddess Aphrodite to be like.  The good Christian that you are will chuckle at such heathen thoughts.
    That night, despite your wanting to take things slow and treat her with respect, she somehow ended up back at your place. You’ll blame it on the alcohol and the seductive dancing and the fact that you had never been more attracted to a woman before in your life.  The truth will be that you were powerless to her desires and couldn’t have convinced her that it was a bad idea even if you had summoned up the will power to do so.
    She will walk in, kick her shoes off, and say, “Which way to the bedroom?”
    You’ll feel like a bumbling virgin all over again and not know what to do.  She will make it obvious that she wants to skip the games and go right to the main event. You will wondered if you would even be able to perform or if you will thoroughly embarrass yourself. The anxiety of not wanting her to be disappointed will start to creep up inside of you. You will point to the door, “Right in there, the door on the right is the bathroom.”
    You will learn first hand that night how much ecstasy the body can experience. You’ll feel like the biggest sinner ever, you’ll wonder if she is a demon, because you won’t be able to understand how someone who seemed so wholesome at first could be such a sexual zealot. You shouldn’t be surprised though, you were sleeping with the goddess who inspired the Kama Sutra and Playboy.  You’ll do things that you didn’t even know was possible.
    For a month you will see each other.  You will be naive in your thinking that are the only one in her life. You will be stupid to think she isn’t married, stupid to not realize that you aren’t her only affair.
    He will up on your doorstep one evening on your way to meet Ro.  He will be the big, so big that he looks like he could take on the most seasoned NFL lineman, the most talented MMA heavyweight fighter, even the toughest inmate in any given maximum security prison.  This will scare you, a lot.  You’ll be especially scared because he looks Middle Eastern and you are a bit of a racist who imagines all people from the Middle East are Muslim religious-extremist terrorists. He will look like he is about to suffer a bout of roid-rage.  Your heart will begin to pound and your “fight or flight” sensors will start urging you to run like Forrest Gump.  He will drink in your figure, “Are you Cal?” he will sneer.
    “Yes,” you will whisper back, “who are you?”
    “I want you to stay away from my girl,” he will say through gritted teeth, “it’s bad enough I have to deal with her meddlesome husband, I don’t need some puny human stealing her attention away from me.” 
    You’ll wonder how your Ro could ever be involved with a man who radiated hatred, “I’m sorry, who are you talking about?”
    He will lose any collection he had over his emotions and spit at you as he screams, “You know damned well that I’m talking about Aphrodite, you’ve been messing around with her for weeks now and it has to end.”
    “Wait, what?” you will stammer, “I just thought her name was Ro, never realized it stood for anything longer, but I’m real sorry man, I didn’t know.”
    He will start laughing like you said the stupidest thing he has ever heard, “You didn’t know her real name? Are you telling me that  not only is she cheating on me with a human, but an imbecile? Do you really think any mortal could ever look like that? Did you not realize that she was wearing the cestus around you to turn you on? She’s really outdone herself this time!”
    You will realize that you should have gone with the “flight” instinct rather than talk with the huge Middle Eastern terrorist man because he looked like he was about to beat you like the filet mignon that Ro ordered on your first date.  He will continue to get wrapped up in his rant so you will  run back inside your apartment building, into your apartment, lock all the deadbolts, and move the bookshelf in front of the door. Then you will call Ro and leave her a message saying, “I don’t know what the fuck is going on but I don’t need this.  Yea, you are incredible in many different ways, but I’m going to follow the advice of that song and find me an ugly woman because at least they can cook.  I never felt small like the song says pretty girls do when I was with you, but I definitely felt small just now when your massive other boyfriend just threatened to pummel me. Oh, and by the way, maybe you should stop putting on such a façade because you obviously are just a golddigger and a slut because your charming other play thing just informed me that you are married.  I’m going to have to go to church every day now to make up for all the sins you made me commit unknowingly.  Didn’t anyone tell you it’s against the Ten Commandments to “covet thy neighbor’s wife,” so thanks for fucking me over on that one. Have a good life and try not to go around and break any more nice guy’s hearts because I didn’t deserve this. Oh, and by the way, don’t bother ever getting in touch with me again. ”         You’ll feel slightly better when you hang up the phone, but at the same time you’ll really be hurting because the chemistry between you and her had been so great.  Twenty minutes after you leave your voicemail there will be a loud pounding at your door. You will be scared the terrorist had figured out which apartment was yours but you‘ll chance it and look out the peephole.  You’ll see Ro standing there and think that it would be safe to let her in.  
    She will burst through the door once you unlock it and shove a tiny bundle into your arms, “Take this you ungrateful bastard. I give you attention, I bless your life by being a part of it and watching out for you, and you pay me back by breaking up with me in a voicemail. I don’t think you understand what you are doing, nobody breaks up with me, I’m the goddess of love, I decide when it is over!”
    In her anger she will only look more beautiful, though it won’t be something to appreciate, it will be a frightening form of beauty, something you will want to shield your eyes from, like how the most colorful frogs are always the most poisonous. That’s when the bundle will start to wiggle, “What the?” You will start to unwrap it, you’ll wonder if she bought you a puppy because you had told her you really wanted one, and then you won’t believe what are really holding, “Ro, why did you give me a baby girl?”
    An evil smirk will grow across her face, “I was going to give you  her as a farewell gift tonight. Ares has grown uneasy in my absence, and I’ve started to grow tired of you, but now I want you to accept our daughter to raise as a curse.”
    You won’t like how she emphasized the word curse, “Our daughter? Curse? Goddess of Love? Ares? Are you on something Ro, what the fuck are you talking about? Don’t tell me you kidnapped this child, please.”  You will start to see why she would be with the terrorist, she was obviously crazy. 
    “Well, as my child, she would have been beautiful to begin with,” she will respond in a callous tone, “but now she is going to be entirely irresistible.  You won’t be able to trust anyone with her, she’s going to be promiscuous and it’s going to cause you a life full of hardships. No woman will want you once they see her because they will know intimidated by your past and will never feel confident enough to take my place in the two of your lives.”
    You will look back at the child in your arms, an odd sense of belonging will come over you.  You will feel the truth in her words, that is your child and you will know that no matter what you would take care of her. When your eyes move back up to speak to Ro again, she will have vanished.  You’ll start to really let the information sink in and that will make you start to feel like you are losing it.  You will wonder how a baby could have been born in a month.  You’ll panic that you will do something wrong and hurt the infant.  You will start to wonder how you could support her and how you are even supposed to take care of her.  You’ll also start to wonder if maybe Ro really is a demon and if she is then you will have to find out if your daughter could be exorcised or if you would have to murder her.  The thought of killing the innocent soul in your arms will disgust you so then you will wonder if Ro really is the Aphrodite, and if she is what would that do to your faith in God. You will start to feel sick from being so overwhelmed so you will decide to take it one step at a time and get on the internet to start doing some research about babies and Greek mythology.
    You’ll think that you have received your punishment in the child and you will falsely assume that Ro is out of your life forever.  The next day though you will learn that strapping you with a baby wasn’t a big enough punishment for trying to break up with the goddess of love and desire, but rather that it was only the first of many repercussions for your actions. You will rapidly learn that pissing off a female whom even the gods lust after is the stupidest thing you can do.
    Hephaestus will be the first to attack you. You will wake up the next morning with all the electrical devices in your house going haywire. They will all have been somehow altered so that they had feet of sorts and will be tearing your house apart. The microvave will be popping all your popcorn and loading it into the vacuum which will be working in reverse to distribute Pop-Secret Movie Theater popcorn and dust and whatnot deep into your carpets.  Your blender will be blending up all the books from your bookshelf.  Your lamps will be shadless and working on heating up the window treatments to start a fire.  You will realize just how many electrical devices you own and will start jumping on everything you can get to and doing whatever it takes to stop the destruction. Disabling everything will take forever and exhausted you. You will habe been up and down all night with the baby and you will decide that it was time to take a nap once you finish.  You will walk back into your bedroom to set the alarm clock.   When you touch it, it will go off, “My wife told me how you seduced her, take this as your only warning, next time I wont be so nice.”  It will be really weird, the voice will come out as a booming cacophony of sounds turned into words- think Peter Frampton’s guitar from  Do You Feel Like We Do but very unpleasant as it will be made from the ringing beeps of an alarm clocks . You will immediately throw the clock away and just set the alarm on your phone. I will lie down in bed, really needing an hour or so to rest when, out of nowhere, a net will start forming around your bed.  Needles will spring out of the ceiling and fly down to the mattress where they will start sewing themselves together in an intricate and advanced pattern.  You will remember that Hephaestus had done the same thing to Aphrodite and Ares in the mythology and will smile at your ingenious idea to have googled Aphrodite the previous night. Unlike the mythological story, the net in your apartment will be made of normal sewing thread so you will be able to escape being trapped. Unfortunately for you though, the net will continue to form and you’ll decide it’s safest to sleep on the couch because you don’t know if it would reform if you tried to take it down. 
    The next god that will help Aphrodite will be one that you had already met- Ares. He will have found out about the baby and be less than happy.  He is the god of blood lust and will use his powers to make the world very dangerous for you. Basically, anywhere you go somebody will try to fight you. The first time you try to venture out of your house you will think that you just were at the wrong place at the wrong time, but very soon you will remember that Ares can influence people to hate and you will assume that he was trying to deal with you without personally dealing with you. You will be very appreciative of that, but after receiving a black eye from somebody’s grandmother who ran up you me wailing, “You son of a bitch, you son of a bitch,” so you will decide it’s just best to stay alone in your apartment.
    Aphrodite won’t be okay with you hiding in your house and will decid to make your life all the more miserable. You will be buying things you and the baby need online and working via email. Everything will appear fine for a day or so and then you will notice that your emails weren’t sending. When you sneak out to check the mail you won’t have anything even though you had ordered plenty of things for the baby like diapers and formula and a crib and so on. Finally, you will receive an email saying, “Nobody insults Aphrodite, nobody! See how easy it is for me to mess with your life? I haven’t played a good trick on anyone lately, you do anything more to upset our beloved and I will play an epic one on you. -Hermes”  As you look up from your computer, you will see all the boxes of things that you had purchased for your daughter piled up in front of you.  You will guess the goddess didn’t want her child to suffer and that was the only reason the packages showed up.
    Your final issue will come from the king of the gods himself. Right after you unpack all of the baby furniture and toys and clothes a horrible storm will hit the city. It will turn out that there was no storm anywhere in the city, which means a terrible storm will hit just your apartment and make the cable and power go out. The lightning will draw pictures of horrible creatures on the walls when it strikes, creatures you will remember reading about online but whose names you won’t recall. You wont have candles and the batteries in your flashlight will be dead so you and the infant will have to sit there in the dark and watch these being appear on and off your walls. It will seem like days have gone by before the storm will start to calm down. Then, in the thunder, a booming voice came out to you, “You have been warned by the king of the gods, by the destroyer of Cronus, by the almighty Zeus, do not be foolish and think our power is gone, do not think that you can put any of us down. You are but an insignificant blink of an eye for us, repent for your ways, or be doomed for the span of your small life to be in our bad graces.”
    For such an insignificant being you will feel that Aphrodite and all her consorts were starting a pretty big fuss, but you would decide not to risk living forever in that manner. You will pick up your daughter, give her a kiss on the forehead, and raise her like Simba from the Lion King, “Aphrodite, hear me now. I lift the most beautiful baby alive in your honor, honor of the mother who produced such a perfect creature. I have chosen a name for her, a name that will honor you every day she breaths. She will be Ro Helen Brooks. Ro, from the name I knew you by. Helen for the name of the woman you deemed most beautiful among mortals thousands of years ago.  Please accept my apologies for having ever offended you, for having ever thought you to be a mortal when you were so clearly something much more special than any of us could dream to be. I pledge to bring her up following the old ways of devotion to you and your kin. I’ll devote my life to learning and teaching all I can about you and the other deities of Olympus. Please forgive me for now and smite me if I ever fall in your bad graces again.”
    Then you will sit waiting to see if she will accept your offering.
    You will wake up in a bright room, your arms and legs tied up and Ro will be approaching you wearing scrubs and holding two tiny plastic cups, “Good morning Mr. Brooks, Time for your medication.  Please do me a favor and be good today, I hate when my patients have to be sedated and restrained”