Yes, this is a blog

With his hand upraised and his arm cascading down the hills he led the multitude swaddled in majesty with the fleeting orange blush rising from the other end of time behind him to the blank fields where anguish lived and there he brought the victory that he carried with and inside him. ***** He arose to the glare of the morning light and the sound of birds. Doves twitched and bounced and crowded above him. With his blanket still wrapped around him he wandered out of the broken sanctuary, passed the charred remnants of the bonfire, and toward the familiar voice of his new friend. Cale stood with his back against him, addressing a curious assembly. He looked a bit taller than the rest of them, who all brought their gaze on the boy as he came closer. Some appeared as children with rounded faces and a brightness in their look while others as old men, bearded and jacketed in tweed. The boy tried waving at them but they would not respond. "Up so early?", Cale said as he turned...

Author's note: This crap gets dark. So jus-um... just watch out for that. He put his hand in the bathroom sink and let the water heat and redden it. Water scalding as his blood. Their faces and words ran around track fields in his head. His hand begun to shake. Without warning the mirror filled with a depraved alien visage. Its fists knotted and shaking. Temples pulsating in lunatic aggression. Hate in its core like a beating lump of obsidian. Suddenly, the memories faded and the creature disappeared. His muscles slacked and he breathed in deeply and cooled the water to splash his face and push the anger away. He spared a moment to dry himself before stepping out of the fluorescent refuge and into the pitch blackness. With outstretched hands and shuffling feet he made his way blind to his bed and collapsed on it. He was tired. It was late and already the weighted sunshine of tomorrow had begun to press on him. He wanted peace there in the quiet, but coveted rest...

The smell of fresh brewed coffee and sausages frying in the pan drew him up out of bed and into the kitchen. It was arrayed much in the same way it always was with floral place-mats and silverware exhibited on the table as though the morning bore no uniqueness or significance to any other. The only unfamiliar mark was the collection of flowers in a banded vase on the sill, giving him a reminder of the thorny reality. She hardly saw him sit down against the golden windowpane through the grease smoke from the stove and her own pivoting labor. She said nothing to him, instead going over and giving an embrace that was close and still and prolonged. She took a seat at the table and wiped her eyes. "Did you sleep good?", she asked him. "Not really", he said. "Where'd those flowers come from?" "Oh, those." She looked up from her mug. "The Williamson family dropped them off earlier. They came with a sympathy card and they apologized for not ...

Pieces of ornately carved rock dotted the banks of the worn and the dusted road. Their number increased as he went along it further and further, each bigger than the last. He could see them rising on either side of him when he looked ahead and squinted. Parallel rows of small broken towers. They escalated toward a square ruin of what once was a secluded sanctuary. It was swaddled with the decaying boughs of the surrounding pines, almost hidden. Its four walls and roofing had long since collapsed but fragments of it remained, standing incomplete and disassociated. Only the door frame remained untouched. A flat marble pedestal sat in the middle of the desolate chamber flanked with a water basin on one side of it and on the other a fire pit, both long arid. He stood upon it and saw the moon's amplifying glow through the opened roof.  He set his pack down with the sword and walked toward two looming statues standing in opposition to each other as guardians bordering the ent...

He kept on the path, looking down with measured, punctuated steps. His feet tread on ingrown roots and a carpet of moist leaves and pine needles. A breeze passed through the woodland and tapped his face. When the thicket started to encroach him he picked up a spare, sturdy branch and began hacking away at the firth. As he laid waste to foliage clad with spiderwebs and berries a fevered determination rose in him, something deep rendered long dormant that was beginning to make its way into his tendons. In his mind he pictured a rolling pasture with a tall farmhouse standing on it just past the forest. Children were at play. A loving family lived there and when he staggered out of the wilderness they would call him out and embrace him. They had to be there, he thought. Salvation was out there, for the only other alternative was death. This place would deliver or devour him. He continued to cut away.  He came out through the thickening bush and into a small clearing. It was bathed in...

The shore was white, leading to a deep forest sheared sporadically with amber and burgundy. The boy lay almost unconscious in the boat. For days he had drifted aimlessly on the sea, searching in desperation for any signs of safe harbor. Another fruitless day reaching its conclusion, he remained motionless even when the ark began to rock forcibly. He lay still there in his hamper as pieces of driftwood and stones collided with the vessel, swaying it further and further. When he could ignore it no longer he lifted his head and looked at the coast he was rapidly advancing toward. No sooner did he get a glimpse of the land that was beckoning him that the hull fractured and the boat capsized, dumping him in the water. He sunk in the ocean, disoriented. Among him plummeted pieces of wood that once made his bed. He looked up and saw the mast falling on top of him and he frantically swam out of the way. He found his pack floating in the midst of the murky brine and he grabbed it and swam wit...

Gavin awoke suddenly. He dreamt of being in a wilderness, hot and overgrown, not knowing where he was or where he was going. In fear he scampered out of his bed and walked toward his door, barely dodging the child's playthings that adorned his room; wooden weapons and toy soldiers. The door was closed; light flickered out from its frames. He approached it cautiously, hearing low but familiar voices beyond. It was his father and mother. Their voices were quiet but desperate, their inflections resounded deep worry and conflict. Never before had he heard murmurs like these. He pressed his ear to the door.  "...He can't stay here", he heard his mother say.  "Why?", the father asked.  "You know why. He'll die here."  "He'll die anyway. At least we'll be together."  "You can't mean that."  "And you do? You want to cast him out, let him go alone."  "He has a chance out there. He can find hel...

All are born into violence. All birthed by pain and bloodshed, by war.  The woman peered out of her window. Outside there were fires on the ridges and rain-soaked battalions marching in their light. She turned and set her eyes on her room, on the bed of hay and walls of stone. Swollen and stretched with new life, she sat in exhaustion. Her mind spun with fear and hope; of the battle outside and the baby inside of her. She whispered words of life to her unborn, and as she did she felt a pain sharp like a spear and saw a puddle below her. She cried out in the night.  At once the man leapt from his table, hearing the woman’s scream. He ran to her door and when he opened it his face went white as a dead man. Before him laid the woman, drenched in sweat, writhing in agony. She called to him and he knelt at her bed. He smoothed out her hair and wiped her brow with his sleeve. Again she screamed, feeling the infant forcing its way out of her. She gnashed her teeth and pushed from...

The hollow is vast and yawning. I walk through the darkness into stripes of pale light cast on the floor by the moon, full and craggy. The windows stretch tall and rectangular, observing the twinkling lights of the city below. Incandescent jewels in a dirty maze of concrete. I do not see them, only my transparent reflection. A glass of liquor is in my hand. It is some ungodly hour. A reasonable man would be asleep by now, but I am restless. What am I doing? I am hiding. Hiding from the city and its lights and its people.  I walk to my mantelpiece, adorned with priceless trophies that I own but did not earn. I see their picture and pick it up once more. Father. Mother. You wrestle inside me. The familiar rage trembles just beneath my skin. It settles in my stomach and gives way to a gush of adolescent insecurity. If you were here, would I still be doing what I'm doing? Would I still be who I am? No. Now is not the time for questions. It is the time to act.  I go deeper into...

They rode back into the village by torchlight. It was dark and cold and they would have been frightened had it not been for the leader, whose torch was out in front of them, as it always was. Once the last rider passed through the gate the leader turned to face them. He motioned his hand for them stop and began to speak; his voice like that of a tire slowly treading a gravel road. With few words he told them to quietly return to their quarters, taking with them the dead men wrapped in cloth.  The leader confined alone to a small chamber near where his men were resting. He sat at his table and by candlelight read aloud the list of the men’s names, marking in ink the ones who had fallen. He reminded himself of his responsibility; he prepared for daylight when he would have to go to the villagers and tell them that their sons were dead, and that they were dead because of him. For it was not by his hand that they fell, but by his word. For a moment he faltered, for a moment he buried...

Among the stalks and fronds there is the face of a man. His visage haggard and gaunt, he rises and parts the bushes. He has on him a dirty army green parka and leather leggings zipped over his pants and under his hiking boots. A large, stuffed rucksack is on his back and a bolt-action rifle is slung over one of his shoulders. He walks the terrain, thick and untouched by the brands of civilization. He is far away from it, as far as he can take himself. No home; no trappings of the multitude to surround him. He is alone in the wild except for a burly, long-haired dog and his thoughts. Thoughts detached and reminiscent, swaying from destitute to tranquil. It is autumn now and the nights are growing colder. He searches for a suitable alcove to set up camp, combing the land with his sunken eyes. A cave perhaps or the base of a protective tree; he doesn't know. The land is a mystery to him. Even now he is still lost. He settles for a bald and flat clearing, surrounded by bushes high en...