Change blogfest

The fabulous Elizabeth Mueller is hosting the Change blogfest as a housewarming present for our one and only Sangu Mandanna.
Thanks for hosting the event Elizabeth!
Congrats on your new place Sangu!

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“Small change.”

You know what? I think I’m in a rut.

I don’t dislike my job, it pays my rent and lets me live comfortably.

Most of the time, I think it’s a pretty good deal for nine-to-five behind a desk in a law firm, faffing about on a computer.

But sometimes I can feel the wheel turning. You know, the wheel of life, the wheel of time… and I think to myself, “What the hell am I doing?” But then I pick up my book and forget completely about it.

My clunker of a car broke down and would cost more to repair than it would to replace. I knew it was coming. I’m now officially 30 and I’m car-less, the way I was when I was a teen. So here I am sitting at the bus stop thinking about my life. My book is in my purse, but instead of taking it up I’m pondering the meaning of life… Without the benefit of the pythons.
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So her thoughts ran as she sat on the wooden bench waiting for the bus. Then she noticed something next to her foot. Taking a closer look realized it was a coin the color of corroded copper. When she picked it up she was surprised to find that it was much heavier than she expected. She didn’t recognize the writing around the edges. One side was embossed with a curious geometrical pattern of concentric circles and the other with strange-looking symbols that looked uncomfortably familiar, they reminded her of… Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of her bus, and so she hastily pocketed the coin and grabbed her bag and her purse.
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Later, during her lunch-break, she had as usual shunned the company of her co-workers. She liked eating her sandwich in a nearby park while reading on her favorite bench. She was about to sit down when she noticed the strange greenish-blue coin on the bench. At first she thought that the one in her pocket must have fallen out onto the bench somehow, but she pulled it out of her pocket. She picked up the second coin and compared it to the first. They were identical. She shrugged and stuck them both in her pocket. And set about reading a chapter from her book as she ate her sandwich.

Shortly afterwards she had finished her chapter and her lunch. It was time for her to go back to work. “Just one more chapter…” she thought to herself. Four chapters later she closed her book and looked pensively up at the sky and the passing clouds. The pointlessness of her job struck her like a kick to the heart. She realized that nothing much would change in the world if she just stayed in the park until she finished her book. Nobody would care if she didn’t file her afternoon’s stack of reports in the system.

She decided to flip on it. Going through her pockets for a coin and coming up with one of the weird ones she had found with a shrug and a smirk she said, “Circles I go back to work, weird symbols I stay and finish my book!” With a flick of her thumb she sent the coin spinning in the air and it rang a single clear note, like the singing of a crystal glass. At the apex of its flight something strange happened. Instead of obeying the laws of gravity, it hovered in space, spinning faster and faster, and humming a sharp crystalline note. It hung in the air thus for a few seconds, then started to glow like a bluish green candle flame, then fade from view… The ringing note lingered for a few seconds then it too faded away.

She quickly looked around to see if anyone else had seen what had happened but no-one seemed to have noticed. Baffled, she decided to go back to her desk and look up what had happened on the Internet. So she gathered up her stuff and headed back for the office…

She walked through the door into the reception area of the office. Gillian was at her post behind the front desk.

“Hello Ms. M. How are you today?” the receptionist said with a polite smile.

“Um… Gill, I saw you just this morning when I came in? And what’s with Miss?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean Ms. M. Did you come in this morning? Anyways, can I just say I’m very much looking forward to your next novel! Are you coming in to deliver the manuscript?”

She was completely confused but her gut reflexes took over and she said, “Thanks, I’m glad you like my work. I’m still working on editing my latest novel… I just remembered I needed to be somewhere… Bye Gillian, nice chatting with you.”

“Huh? Alright, Ms. M. Good luck with your manuscript!”

She walked through the doors and onto the street. Utterly baffled by what was going on, she turned around to check that she had entered the right building and noticed that while the building was the same, the sign was different, it said “Oryxkin House Publishing” instead of “Ramkin & Usulügner, Attorneys at Law”!

She took the bus home in a daze. At her door she fished in her pocket for the key and pulled out the other mysterious coin. Once inside she found that her apartment, while still her apartment, had been remodeled and redecorated. A quick trip to her bookshelf turned up three hardcover books with her name on them. The manuscripts she had written in college but had never queried… She set the books in the middle of the dining-room table and set the mysterious coin on top of them. She sat there a while, staring at them, and grinned.

“I wonder if I have a car now.”

 Image found here

Character interview blogfest

Somewhere in blogland, the seven o'clock news has run through all of the important stuff and is preparing to wind down with the obligatory human-interest story.

Onscreen, you see a mustached man with a carefully styled and spray-frozen hairdo. He is sporting a loud aubergine nylon suit with as much ease as his affected smile, trademarks of the veteran anchorman.

Ron Burgundy: "...And now lets go to our foreign correspondent, Asian reporter, Tricia Takanawa, who is in Atlanta with very special report.”

A beautiful, fair-skinned, dark haired, and clearly non-Asian young woman holding a mike appears on screen.

Ron: “Tricia, what happened? You aren’t Asian anymore!"

Ezo: "Ezo C. Mortucan here. Unfortunately Tricia Takanawa was detained in the traffic caused by madwoman getting hit as she chased a publisher across the-"

Ron’s voice, speaking loud enough to cover Ezo’s voice completely: "What happened to Tricia? Her hair looks dark and delicious, like curly delicious black chocolate I would eat with relish. What’s that you say? My name is not Mike! I am Ron! What are you-”

Someone turns Ron’s mike off.

An efficient woman’s voice: “Co-anchor Veronica Corningstone here, I’m sorry Ezo, could you repeat that, we had trouble hearing you because of technical difficulties.”

Ezo: “As I was saying, I’m here at the Philips Arena in Atlanta Georgia with a trio simply known as “the neopenguins”. The neopenguins are starring in a highly successful theatre piece called “Special Delivery For Kass” and have been kind enough to take some time off from their busy rehearsing schedule to answer some of our questions.”

The camera pans off of Ezo and onto three empty seats.

Ezo, too much of a professional to be flustered: “The Neopenguins appear to be eating gum off of the bottom of the chairs…", holding out a packet of triple fresh peppermint gum, " If you’d like to come up and answer some questions, I’ll give you some of this new gum.”

One purple mohawk followed by a pair of mirrored ray-bans appears over the backrest of one of the chairs. The neopenguin spies Ezo’s gum in her outstretched hand, and leaps over the chair in an effort to get to it first as its companions come bursting from beneath the other two chairs. The chairs go flying in a flurry of penguins hastily scrambling to get gum. Though there are only three of them, the scrabbling penguins look like a frantically writhing wave of wings and webbed feet charging toward Ezo who, with trained reflexes of an experienced field reporter, quickly tosses the packet of gum into the air and steps away. The penguins promptly start a three-way wrestling match, complete with impressions of the three stooges.

The camera stays on the penguins.

Ezo’s voice off screen over the sounds of scuffling penguins: “Regular penguins are flightless birds that live in the southern hemisphere… But no one seems to know where the neo penguins came from; their origins are shrouded in mystery. As you can see by the way they are pulling on each other’s Mohawks, they seem real. We have first hand witnesses who report having seen them fly. They seem to be perfectly cognizant of human speech and have demonstrated high levels of intelligence and yet, they often seem to act in… Unpredictable ways. So what is the truth behind this mysterious trio? I suspect we aren’t going to find out by asking them, because speech is not one of their many skills. I for one place little stock in the theory stating that they come from outer-space and that their purpose in life is to battle moon bears and the intergalactic wizard alliance. But who knows? This was Ezo Mortucan reporting for Blogland news, back to you Ron.”

Ron: “There you have it folks, that was non-Asian Tricia Takanawa reporting about something that concerns us all.”

Veronica: “Indeed… And that concludes tonight’s 7o’clock news. For the entire Channel 4 news team, I'm Veronica Corningstone.

Ron: “You stay classy, blogland. This is Ron Burgundy?”
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Scenes shifts to the dark control room. Veronica and Ron can be seen through the pane of sound proof glass smiling insults at one another as the credits roll.
 
Chief editor: "Dammit. Who typed a question mark on the Teleprompter?"
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This blogfest was brought to you by Sangu, from "Echoes of a wayward mind".

Internal conflict blogfest

An awakening... My own... I can’t see anything. The darkness is almost tangible. The darkness IS tangible! I can feel it weighing on my entire body like a disgusting shroud, draping my being with a weighty wave of mounting fear. The fear jolts me into movement and I try to sit up, but fail as my head painfully strikes a ceiling that is inexplicably just inches away from my face. I reach out and a quick exploration of my surroundings reveals the awful truth: there are walls all around me, invisibly close to me in the darkness. Too close! I long for movement but those damnable walls restrict me. I can’t even bend my legs or turn over… A wave of panic crests and sweeps away the tattered pieces of my reason. I want to move! I’m going blind! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I writhe frantically slamming myself against the walls as well as the cramped space allows me to. How long was I in the grip of this unreasoned madness? I cannot say…. Maybe minutes… Maybe days… I don’t know. But at present I have exhausted the madness… The panic is still there, hiding under my skin, waiting for I know not what. The heat of madness in my blood has turned to icy terror as I comprehend the meaning of the dull sounds I obtain as I strike at the walls and ceiling. It’s obvious and the only reason I didn’t realize it earlier was because it was too horrible to contemplate… I’ve been buried! I am buried alive!

Panic engulfs me once again and the walls of my coffin shriek hideously, an unending wail of horror coming at me from all sides… The primal sound in the blind darkness is mine. I drown in it, it wrings my soul, and throttles my being with deafening sound that is only made possible by the horror of the absolute silence slithering around me in this tiny space. I imagine it constricting in the darkness of my coffin. The air has become hard to breathe, as if it had been changed to poisoned water that would fill my lungs and silence me… This space in which I am confined wants to crush and devour me!

There is no escape!

THERE IS NO ESCAPE!

Soul wrenching terror crushes my reason once again: there is no escape! I have ripped and torn my nails clawing at the panel above me and now I strike at it with my fists… Again and again, I strike out, harder, always harder… Time has gone the way of reason. There is nothing but the blows against the obstacle above me and the terror that is consuming me. My blows sound muted and dull, unless I’m no longer battering the ceiling and that sound is the beating of my heart. I no longer know… A cracking sound? Was that the sound of my heart breaking at long last?

The desperate energy that fills me has deadened my senses. I feel no difference in the target of my blows. I only realize that I have broken trough my coffin when a light and volatile substance comes pouring through the hole, entering my eyes, mouth, and nose. The unbreathable air of the coffin disappears. I jam my damaged and broken fingers into the breach. I don’t feel the cruel shards as the shred my hands. This invasive powdery dirt feels vile against my skin as I grope upwards through it pushing past strange oblong stones. My being has become a white scream… My thoughts are ruled by the imperious visceral need to flee, go upwards, to climb, to continue my nameless ascension with no other objective than to escape myself, to escape the fear and the madness that inhabit me. Finally I reach the surface…

An awakening… My own… I can’t see anything.

I open my eyes to a bronze colored sky streaked with green and purple will-o’-the- wisps. I sit and look around seeing nothing but an endless ash colored wasteland as far I can see in all directions. I feel no wind on my face but surely there is a breeze, for I see ash clouds twirl and form into phantasmagoric shapes all around me…

Have I been forgotten in the grand scheme of things?
I know you can see me…
I know you can hear me!
I’m still here! I’M STILL HERE!
...
..
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A small world within
An ash filled urn on a marble tablet
A locked and hopelessly rusted crypt door
Eternity.
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Un éveil. Le mien. Je ne perçois rien. L'obscurité est presque tangible, elle est tangible je la ressens tandis qu'elle me recouvre comme un détestable linceul ayant les attributs d'une lourde couverture d'effroi. Je sursaute et mon front butte douloureusement contre une des parois inexplicables qui se trouve à quelques centimètres de mon visage. Je m'aperçois que les parois me cernent de toutes parts, de très prés, invisiblement trop prés dans l'obscurité. Je voudrais bouger, mais ces mêmes parois détestables m'en empêchent. Je ne peux peu même pas plier les jambes, ni me retourner... la panique m'emporte, je veux bouger, je deviens aveugle! Je ne sens plus mes membres! J'étouffe! J'étouffe! Je me débats, je me cogne contre les parois autant que ma mobilité réduite le permet. Longtemps ma frénésie dura, peut-être quelques minutes peut-être des jours, je ne sais plus... mais je suis épuisé maintenant. La panique est encore présente, mais elle est désormais tapie sous ma peau en attente de je ne sais quoi, en échange une froide terreur me coule dans les veines lorsque je réalise que tous les coups que je frappe aux parois rendent des sons pleins. L'évidence me frappe, je comprends... Je suis enterré! Enterré vivant!

La marrée de panique revient et un effroyable cri d'horreur jaillit de toute part autour de moi, un cri qui est mien dont le bruit m’enveloppe, m’enserre et m’étrangle dans un assourdissement que seul l’horreur du silence absolu serpentant autour de moi permet. J'imagine que le cercueil effectue, dans l'obscurité autour de moi, des mouvements de constriction. L’air devient irrespirable, comme mu en une eau assassine qui voudrait m’emplire les poumons en me noyant ! L’espace clos où je me vois réduit veut me broyer et me digérer !

Il n’y a pas d’issue !
Il n’y a pas d’issue !

La marée de panique monte, ma pensée raisonnée veut s’effacer devant elle : il n’y a pas d’issue ! Mes ongles se sont déchirés à griffer la surface de la paroi au-dessus de moi, alors je la frappe à nouveau de mes poings.. Encore et encore, je frappe, toujours plus fort… Le temps s’étant effacé avec la raison il n’y que les coups et la terreur qui me consume. Mes coups ont un son mat et assourdi, a moins que je ne frappes plus et que ce ne sont là que les battements de mon cœur, je ne sais plus… Un craquement ? Est-ce mon cœur qui cède enfin?
L’énergie désespérée qui me possède me rend insensible. Je ne sens pas la différence de texture de la matière que mes mains travaillent. Je ne réalise avoir percé mon cercueil que lorsque la terre légère et volatile m’aveugle et m’étouffe en s’introduisant par tout les orifices de mon visage. Elle pénètre mes poumons et l’air irrespirable de l’espace clos disparaît. J’enfonce mes doigts poisseux de sang dans la brèche. Je ne ressens pas les échardes qui s’enfoncent cruellement dans la chair de mes mains et qui lacère mes doigts. L’oppression que procure le poids de cette terre poudreuse pleine d’étranges pierres oblongues contre ma peau est innommable. Je me noie dans le silence d’un hurlement blanc. Mes pensées se coagulent autour du besoin impérieux de fuir, de monter, de grimper, de poursuivre l’ascension anonyme, sans but autre que de m’éloigner de moi même, de la peur et de la folie qui me guette. Enfin, j’atteins la surface.

Un éveil. Le mien. Je ne perçois rien.

J’ouvre les yeux et j’observe un ciel cuivré strié de feux follets verts et violets. IL n’y a autrou de moi qu’une vaste étendue de cendres à perte de vue. Je ne sens pas de vent sur mon visage, pourtant les nuages de cendres tourbillonnent en adoptants des formes fantasmagoriques...

Ai-je été oublié dans le bon déroulement de l’univers ?
Je sais que vous me voyez ...
Je sais que vous pouvez m’entendre !
Je suis là ! Je suis encore là !
...
..
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Une urne pleine de cendre posée sur une tablette en marbre.
La porte complètement rouillée d’une crypte.
L’éternité.