Werther de Goethe in Blue

One of my neighbors has a prescription for Xanax... and a prescription for Kolonopin... and a prescription for some kind of adhd medication that appears to be triggering an episode of hypergraphia... too bad writing compulsively doesn't automatically ensure that I'm spelling things correctly.  The red squiggly line is my constant companion, as my words flow from fingertips unfettered through the crimson and indigo keyboard upon which I tap tap tap like a demented mynabird.  Ka-caw mofos.

Had too much caffeine and nicotine.... I let the insomnia demon drive and now it's nearly 6 am and I have to be back on the road at 9.

The nice thing about LJ is ... no one who might worry about me will see this.

I know like one person who still uses LJ regularly and I doubt she clicks the friends feed button very often.

The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are the most important stories we will ever learn.  It is a fearful thing to be an unreliable narrator unto oneself...

Chapter 1:

Detective Amelia Turner gazed out of her office window, the city's skyline was painted in wavering hues of orange and purple as the sun descends below the horizon. The indigo waves of light splashed onto her face as she waited for that elusive green flash that some claimed could only be seen at the last moment before the sun vanished for the night... Restlessly she drummed her fingernails against the windowpane.  The moment came and went without any green being visible... maybe it was only an urban legend... or maybe you just can't see it in the city... She was no stranger to the relentless undulating rhythms of the metropolis, its streets pulsating with the aspirations and excesses of the ultra-wealthy. The life of privilege and opulence sprawled before her, a stark contrast to the struggles hidden in its shadows. The poor, those who once might have been middle class before the 1% sucked the money from the middle of the pyramid scheme that used to represent American life and upward mobility. The pyramid was little more than an obelisk now and the only way to climb to the top was over the bodies of the desperate poor who died crawling their way up from the bottom. She grimaced a little at this thought and imagined the obelisk as if it was drawn by Dr. Seuss.  

"Turtles, all the way down..." she said to herself, as if that meant something.

I have youtube videos I worked on that have millions of views.  Ads I created or edited sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Poems I wrote have been published.  Stories I wrote have won contests. Pictures I posted have been memed to death.  My TikToks get thousands of views, my old twitter had 50K followers at one point.  When am I viral?

Chapter 5
Rome. The name conjures up images of empires and great battles, slaves and heroes. Rome was glorious but in time it grew decadent and corrupt.
Following Theseus’s loss of the Golden Orb many tales sprang up saying that it could be sought here, or was in the possession of a carpenter there. Miracles and revelries were attributed to its influence, yet no one could truly say where it had originated from or if was the same Golden Orb each time it appeared. The situation remained unchanged until the time of the Roman emperor Nero.
The emperor Nero lived at the pinnacle of vice. Some historians point to Caligula or Heliogabolus as being the most eccentric of all the Roman emperors, yet Nero’s reign was special because he was a great host and known to entertain thousands of guests at a time. His parties lasted weeks and consumed the spoils of tribute from a hundred subservient states of the Empire. His feasts and orgies were legendary throughout the civilized world and into the barbarian realms that crouched lusting beyond the Empire’s boundaries. At one of his tribute dinners, a petitioner came from Jewish lands bearing a gift for the great man and a request. The request was secret business only for the ears of the Emperor, and Nero vowed to grant it if the artifact was indeed what he claimed it to be, a cask of wine from the court of King Solomon, untapped and perfectly preserved. He called his archivist to check the seal against those in the great vault. The small man was not long in returning; indeed the seal matched the records as being that of the legendary king Solomon the Wise. Nero granted the Jew his request and sent him on his way.
The cask sat beside Nero's throne throughout the remainder of the festivities. As each gift was presented before him he nodded and accepted graciously if he approved or had the giver removed to a separate chamber where the screams wouldn't intrude on the dinner if he did not. Nero was considerate that way.
When the dinner concluded Nero made his apologies and retired to his chambers. One Senator recalled later that the Emperor's exact turn of phrase as he left was "I go to make an offering to Bacchus."
He took with him, when he left, only a pair of favorite slaves, twins, a boy and a girl, who carried his beautiful gilded violin and the cask. That night flames began to rise in the city, spreading faster than a brush fire in the crowded streets of Rome. In the palace violin music was heard echoing down the halls along with strange, unearthly laughter.
Historians agree that the fire ravaged through the city and cost many lives. They do not agree that it was Nero himself who started the fire or even if he was in the city at that time. There are those who say that the fire was nothing more than a simple fire. There are those who say that Djinn, the people of the fire, are nothing more than a bit of mythological claptrap. There are those who doubt that the Seal of Solomon held any power at sealing demons in jars. However there are also those who believe that Nero did not act alone, that something otherworldly flew through the air above Rome, fueled on the sacrifice of two innocent souls.
Is it possible to bottle fire for a thousand years? With the heat growing with each long year of imprisonment? Did Nero care about the warnings written in Kabbalist script over the surface of the cask? Did he see the golden glow seep out when he approached? Or was he already too drunk from the festivities and from sitting next to the cursed cask and its arcane cargo?
Nero made a wish that night. He made a wish before he opened the cask. He repeated his wish as he took out a bottle of wine a millennium old made by the god who knew the most about such things. He made a wish as he broke the seal of Solomon that had been pressed into wax melted in a concave circle as if the heat from a certain Golden Orb had fused the wax and glass together. It remains to be seen if the world has benefited or suffered from his wish. Nero rebuilt Rome his way, but it existed in a wounded state and although it lingered for centuries more the heights that had once been were never quite so near. If Rome had not fallen, would we have had so many wars of conquest? Would world culture have advanced as it did? Would the Holy Roman Empire have evolved to fill the gap of power created when the Ceasars moved to Constantinople? Would Constantinople have become Istanbul? The tiniest choices of great men cause ripples that expand forever in time.
The cask and its contents were gone when the fire was finally put out. Servants whispered that a man who left hoof prints came during the night, yet no one saw him leave. But servants whisper many things and only a fool would believe a tenth of them. Reports of rune-covered pieces of wood getting fished out of the Tiber with circular burns were likewise ignored. For many things were burned during the fire. What did it matter that those pieces of wood were stained with blood and wine? Blood and wine flowed equally freely, in those days.
Whatever happened that fateful night, the fact remains that Rome was changed following the fire. It was as if a spiteful spirit, a genie or demon, had come to reside within the city walls. A powerful malevolent force crouching like a mangy dog in a back alley poured offal and disease across the once-proud city.
In the fullness of time the empire died and from its bloated rotting corpse many new kingdoms arose. Would these societies make the same mistakes as Rome, or would they find new ways to come to destruction? Every end is a beginning, and every beginning an end.