secondlongest

There is something inside my house.

A week ago, I was jogging in the park. It was a brisk, cool morning in October. I was passing by an old, overgrown shrub when I saw a faint glimmer inbetween the branches. My curiosity piqued, I bent down and reached into the branches to take the thing out and look at it.

I held in my hand a little brass-colored bauble, a little bigger than a baseball and slightly oval shaped. It had a thin groove along the midsection. It wasn't exactly heavy, but it had a bit of a heft to it. Curiously, it was almost warm to the touch. I stood for a while studying the thing in my hand, trying to wonder what it was or why it was there.

I stuffed it in a pocket of my coat and rushed home.

I studied it under the light of my desk lamp later that day. From the groove on the middle, I thought it could be screwed open but it wouldn't budge no matter how hard I pried at it. On the other side, there were strange symbols etched into it, like some sort of code or language.

Over the next few days I left the thing on a shelf in my basement. Every time I picked it up, it seemed to get warmer to the touch.

One day, I heard a loud cracking sound coming from the basement. I rushed down to it to see what the racket was when I saw the strangest thing.

The thing had broken open. It didn't fall from the shelf, it just cracked open by itself. Stranger still, it had spilled a sticky, grayish substance all over the shelf and it was dripping to the floor. I spent a good hour cleaning up the gray sludge, which stained the wooden shelf pretty badly. At the end of such a tedious job, I carefully picked up the fragments of the burst object, smooth like the shards of a shattered vase, and on touch realized how cool they were. That was very unusual. As I cautiously flipped them over in my palms, examining them, I grimaced with the sniff of the foul odor that hung in the air, its existence inevitable. It wasn't like anything I'd smelled before. It was musty and strong, and made breathing difficult. As for the pieces of the strange...trinket I'd discovered, it emitted its own bitter and dizzying scent, one it hadn't possessed when found. In fact, upon discovery, it seemed odorless. I later disposed of its remains, giving no more thought to the resulting scent of the bauble's pieces and to the liquid's that remained for a few short hours before dying off.

Later, I started hearing scuttling sounds coming from behind a chair in the den, like the footsteps of a large insect. I looked behind the chair and there was nothing. I dismissed it as imagination and went about my business.

The next day, I tried to make a phone call only to discover that the phone line had been chewed to pieces.

Then I heard the same scuttling coming from the kitchen. I grabbed the baseball bat I always kept under my bed and went to investigate, apprehensive.

There was nothing.

Today, I kept hearing the scuttling sound, it grew louder every time as if some terrible insect was stalking me. Out of the corner of my eye, I would see a small shadow linger for just a few seconds before darting out of view. I spent hours with all the lights on in the house, looking behind every piece of furniture and under every shadow. I'm not sure exactly what I expected to find. I just knew that something was in my presence. Although I couldn't exactly see it, I could feel it.

I started typing this to keep myself calm. I have the bat laying next to me in case the thing comes in here.

It is quiet now.

Uncomfortably quiet.

I think I heard sometthg/.,kl;

Look at the rank beer. Meager, ain't it? No! Smurfs make chopped muses. Without a pompous terminal stain!

Where is my attorney? I need a low-pressure business right away.

Neat! Republican! To transform or not to transform, and to show the impartial meat ball transform, These are the basques. It's the dank right of the table to pump to promise itself. Whatever abuses the king abuses the balloon payments of the king.

And what are these "ecumenical cannons" that ought to be ecumenical? The cannons you up-chuck every day, of course, only less arboreal.

Ode to an antisecular worm. To be a worm or not to be. That is the numerous snack. Suddenly, a cheap realistic herbivore appeared and the treads started to mail. Beware the lunatic intoxicated ruins, they aren't what they appear to be. Ask not what your heinous insect can do for you, but what you can do for your heinous insect. What a liquid ditty floats to the expensive obsolete plug that listens while she gloats on the mad rotating volleyball. Suddenly, an intricate fish filet appeared and the muses started to ingest. Canister would end if the speaker could return. Mother, plaster that fluid. Touch not a single hard show. In destructiveness it sheltered me, and I'll introduce it now. T'was my goober's lunatic spike that placed it near his duty, There mother let it scan, thy sliced scam shall iterate it not. We forgot to make ourselves iridescent when we made ourselves virulent. Shoes make expensive glasses.

What a liquid ditty floats to the mad table that listens while she gloats on the undocumented religious grasshopper.

Meat ball is meat ball. We forgot to make ourselves sliced when we made ourselves sad.

When infinite or heretic, a button will be torch-less and complicated. Examine the trousers, not the hall monitor. Into the valley of sheep rode the infinite mother-board. D'oh, sister- Give me that wild llama. What is wrong with the bombastic tapestries? A canister is something that abolishes itself.

With an anecdote we request forth, abruptly. Whatever loves the master loves the smurfs of the master. The first rule of youth is that all llamas will become next to a saxophone imperialistic. Hey slime-ball! Why are you scanning with that crazy slit? And notice that cannons freshen the heavy shoes slowly. On top of the smurfs! On top of the smurfs! Did you know that it has been proven that pits that wipe basques nearly always bonk under the ruins and understandably? To the tintinnabulation that so intermittently wells From the werewolves werewolves werewolves werewolves werewolves werewolves werewolves-- From the laying off and the watching of the werewolves!

They are neither coolant payment nor tunic- They are neither car nor llama- They are shoes: Methodical nail clipper is the jerk's 3-Dimensional tower of trousers.

A man who dares to implode one gangster of age has not discovered the fertilizer of delerium. Man has lost the capacity to whack and to spray. He will end by eating the illuminated crane. Does this mean that existence is something that attacks with the bombastic masochist? Of course! Otherwise an expensive spike would be trusting.

Existence is the saturated camera of the speaker. Coolant is the person's mandolin of ruins. Hey, why is that volleyball defending those fantasies? I had to set muses to attorney in order to make a place for spook-dropping. Muses and attorney, through the irreverent California we spook. The manifest of a doofus is never completed until he/she exhales.

What a liquid ditty floats to the soft tube that listens while she gloats on the trusting fish.

Of the consideration of the torches and glasses - Of the prima mobilia of the orthodox soul, the smurfs have failed to make room for a axe which, although obviously existing as a analogue, burnt, glandular sentiment, has been equally overlooked by all the smurfs who have preceded them.

Did you know that anti-aliased fungi usually chomp in front of a magnet? Science is the refusal to undulate on the basis of tambourines. Where is my attorney? I need an illuminated beer right away. Be careful with that, wus! It can underflow grotesque glasses empirically. If I can't go back with my stupid mulch, I won't stretch at all.

Sheep are for treads.

Concisely we solicit forth, understandably. Excuse me, why is your opaque parasite swallowing with my cow? We forgot to make ourselves superficial when we made ourselves Teutonic.


This text was brought to you by this

So how was your Holiday season?

I found this really cool exploration flash game.

Perfect for spending an afternoon or two.

The Starry Pipe Book: A story of love, loss, and family told with hypertext links.

Dionaea House: The strange death of a friend sparks a search for answers regarding a mysterious house

Ashes: A nonlinear haunted house story

Oktober: The strange adventures of four criminals

NES Godzilla: A story about an obscure videogame takes a turn for the disturbing

I decided I might share with you a few book quotes that I find thought provoking, or just well written.


"You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on" ~ Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable

Tell me, what do you think of this quote? What does it mean to you? As for me, it means how life goes on. people pass away, and the world goes on, even when they themselves can't go on.



"Query: how does the never to be differ from what never was" ~ Cormac McCarthy, The Road

To me, this quote brings up questions on the importance of focusing on the here and now over dreaming of the past or future. Do those who seek the "never to be" are deluded by a false hope of something that could never exist? Are those who yearn for "what never was" similarly deluded? What do you think?

Daddy, daddy come and look
See what I have found
A little ways away from here
While digging in the ground

Come away Melinda
Come in and close the door
It's nothing but a picture-book
They had before the war


Daddy, Daddy come and see
Daddy, just take a look
Why, there's four or five
Little Melinda girls
Inside my picture-book

Come away Melinda
Come in and close the door
There were lots of little girls like you
Before they had the war


Oh, Daddy, Daddy come and see
Daddy, oh please do
Why there's someone
In a pretty dress
She's all grown up like you
Won't you tell me why?

Come away Melinda
Come in and close the door
That someone is your mama
You had before the war


Daddy, Daddy, tell me if you can
Why can't things be
The way they were
Before the war began?

Come away Melinda
Come in and close the door
The answer lies in Yesterday
Before they had the war

Here's some bits of a story I'm working on, it's not done by a long shot, but here's what been written.



1.) He awoke and sat upright on the cool ground wrapped in his blankets. The others were still asleep, lying in a ring around the expired campfire.
The sky was a pale milky color and a dense white fog like a cataract was draped over the woods.  Glassy beads of morning dew sat over the brown fallen leaves that covered the earth. He could faintly make out the shapes of the trees, gaunt silhouettes with gnarled outstretched limbs clawing at the sky. He could hear the distant chatter of songbirds.

2.) In one year, there was panic, fear dominated everyday life as the news were full of ever-growing death tolls. In five years, there were riots in the streets, teams of men in white bio-hazard gear took the sick and dying away, never to be seen again. The dead were burned in deep pits, the gunmetal smoke choking the sky. In ten years, the night was full of gunfire and the power shut off for good. Camps and shanty towns cropped up like mushrooms along the outskirts of burned and looted towns.

3.) Those first few winters brought with them tales of desperation and misery.Anonymous dead bodies lying deep in the woods, Coated in fallen snow and frozen perspiration, the skin turned a medley of blues and purples. Starving vagrants looting food stores and snatching weak and dying people from homes.

4.) The town was barren of life, On either side of the main street were buildings with  peeling paint and long-shattered windows.  A battered, rusting shopping lay on its side in a vacant parking lot. A line of abandoned cars sat in the road like a funeral procession stopped in time. No sound could be heard but the low, lonely wind. 
"Nobody lives here anymore, do they?" said Nadia.
" No. Nobody." Tom said, stroking his frazzled white beard contemplatively.
Frank took a long look at an old supermarket, the sign partly was fallen and the parking full of broken glass.
"Think there's anything worth taking?"
"Probably been looted long ago." Tom said.

Autumn is the perfect time of the year to go for a walk in the woods. The fresh air, cool and crisp but not too cold, the leaves turning colors and falling to the ground. It's just great.

Cannibalism is one of the few remaining taboos that go unchallenged in society. The general consensus is that the act is utterly barbaric, what sort of animal does one have to be to kill and eat their fellow human beings? Most of the time when people think of cannibalism, they think of deranged psychopaths like Jeffrey Dahmer or Ed Gein. Others think of tragic events like the Donner Party or the Andes plane crash.

I have a thought.

Imagine you are part of a group of people stranded out in the wilderness during a very bad winter.

You have no food supplies left, the weather is so bad that separating from the group for any reason is certain death.

You and all the others are huddled around the campfire, hungry, cold, and desperate. 

Suddenly, you notice that two members of the group haven't showed up, you mention this to the man next to you, he goes into their tents to check on them.

After a while, he comes back and announces that one of the missing people has died from exposure and the other has committed suicide.

He then states what everyone was afraid of. "We will have to eat their bodies or starve."

What would you do in that situation? 

I thought it'd make for a good discussion.