Yes, this is a blog

Beneath his cloak was a body weary and secluded. A chest bearing marks of old skirmishes in distinct pattern and a musculature that had been forged within heavy steel armor and ornamental weaponry of every caliber heaved on his back, in his hands. He walked without it. In his mind virtually naked, bereft of the second skin he could scarcely remember the last time he went without. How long had it been? Years, had to be. Maybe since he was a boy; the last time he remembered being a child, before he was abducted by heavenly forces and transfigured into the paragon of bravery he was now. But today he was not that man, no. Today he was no one. It was raining. There were people lining the streets. Some standing, some sitting on downed wheelbarrows. Some with drink, some munching inside their beards on soggy soda bread. This is what people do? He could feel their lethargy, their oppression. Even the clouds turned downtrodden away from them. There was a light up ahead and an open door and a fl...

He stood in line shuffling in his pennyloafers. Wearing his cheapest business casual attire and keeping his face low, inconspicuous, averting any attention that might come his way. Loosened collar and untucked shirttails. He looked tired. Next!, she shouted. He took a step forward. Hello, he said quietly. What's the name? Uh, Bruce. Wayne. Her head turned upward, glasses on her nose. Bruce Wayne? The Bruce Wayne? He sighed. I'm afraid so. A skeptical eye narrowed. ...Nah, can't be. You just look like him. I wish that were true. His smile betrayed his embarrassment, his attrition. What is this some kinda joke? He was almost hurt. Crestfallen like a little boy. No. It isn't. Is this the kind of stuff you rich pricks do for fun? No ma'am. Coming down here to make fun of people in need. That's right, isn't it? His face hardened towards her and his voice took on a deep baritone. Absolutely not. She paused, swallowed in her mouth. Wh...

(Part Three of Bird Trilogy) The balcony overlooked a swimming pool and the twinkling jewelry of the city lights distant and obscured through the evergreen pine. A remote no-name hotel circumspect at the outskirts of the highway, home to any itinerant traveler or downtrodden resident it lured in from the road like a lighthouse beckoning from the dark. It was the third night, though their number had seemed to blend all into one single twilight of equal parts lethargy and stupor. When it was day they rested, smoked, and ate petty meals like scavenger mammals. Sunglasses worn inside. Holed up with anemic frailty from the mania of the night before. As the sun set they would brandish themselves with every glamour and elegance and cut a vampiric swath through the city that left in its wake a toll they would never repay nor even consider. It was a cycle they'd fallen into, an inevitable tempest arising from the alchemy of their interaction. Two elements swilled from strangers to acquain...

There were tremors in the west they had not been witness to before. The man, the woman, the children. In the decayed base of what was once a great tower they huddled and cooked the day's kill. The bear that would feed them, its hide fashioned into their tunics and the bones their tools. Adorning weapons of sharpened metal shafts trodding on the path with their feet. They had been moving from the eastern mountains down over a vast ocean of hillcountry. Spare and fallow in the early cold. Soot in the wind that lashed your face. A night blanket over the tall grass prairie, thunderous and entwined with lightning bolts. They watched as they walked the serpentine fingers articulate and snap down to touch the trees with smoke and fire. The breath of the gods. Judgement. Their bearing followed the hard black ground whose trail swerved about in every direction their compass rose could indicate. The prized and rare memento rusted orange and glass cracked and broken and repaired perhaps a hun...

Fog duty. It was his turn to go. Had it been twelve months already? He'd only gone three times before and the first was before they had implemented the draft. No one volunteered anymore. Everyone who was able played their part whether they wanted to or not. It wasn't long after it had started, that first time. He remembered a curiosity as morbid as it was insatiable. Once someone had gone out there and come back he knew it was an experience he had to have for himself. A young man with little attachment and a daredevil streak. The perfect candidate. They went out always in groups of three, each tethered to one another by a steel cable that trailed to base several thousand feet behind. The suits were specially built with a Kevlar overlay and a mounted flashlight and camera on both sides of the visors. He felt like Iron Man inside it. He felt impervious, at least he did then. Now he was older, now he knew better. That first trip ended with his co-worker tripping, falling on his fa...

There was a prevailing sentiment at that time that things were just about as bad as they could get. This was in large part because a lot of the old timers in the community had passed on to Glory, and had taken with them the remembrance of a generation that could still speak to the days way back of famine and poverty and violent dissension the likes of which the children today scarcely have the vernacular to describe. These kids with their engorged sense of privilege. Their antiseptic shelters and computer screens. Always looking at themselves, always eaten up with status and whatever trends the wind blows their way. We've raised a fallow crop that could never withstand the breed of adversity that was around back then. Must've been why people felt the way they did. That the world was going to seed and that somehow when they were young it was better. But that wasn't really true, not entirely. It wasn't even true that all the old timers felt different. In fact a lot of the...

A close friend. She has no name. Clothing she has in wardrobes stocked, multitudes of configuration and pattern. Hair in all varieties of style. Color, cut, curl. Looks for every season, whims with every reason painted on an opaque visage in rouge and shimmer. Pieces carefully charted and measured in some always-shifting optimal pursuit like the meticulous work of engineers revising their mass marketed product for annual release. It never ends, the tinkering and deliberation. The meters that are ticked and the dials turned. The thought the engine that drives existence, a memetic virus burrowing comfortably in your conscious. Once the door is opened, there her home will always be. A live-in house guest custom made to serve. Her body. Contorting, distending. The face a mosaic of parts stolen from a catalog in constant update. A billboard, a commercial, a person picked out from a crowd. The puzzle pieces move as oil stirs in water, quick to morph and disseminate after holding form for an ...