#588 words

[asheewrites]

(Un-)Holy Fishy Encounters

Asmodeus smirked as he sauntered uphill towards the lavish temple. It promised to be an interesting visit to Earth. Another traveller had arrived. Another dimension had gotten around to opening a portal to his own.

This time, another version of ‘Leviathan’ had misplaced themselves. And apparently taken up residence in this temple for a good half year. Without any attempt to contact hell.

It was certainly a curious case.

But he had to be honest with himself and admit, that these flowing Chinese robes with their intricate dragon patterns were something he certainly enjoyed. Especially in blue. It did suit him. The temple maidens dressing him and blushing the whole time were not unappreciated either.

Why not combine business and pleasure.

It was quite a way up on the sandy floor, framed by trees and, behind them, several ponds, each containing Kois that… should not be that big.

The first somewhat discerning thing was the smell of grilled fish wafting over from the temple. They  had advertised it. Yet seeing and smelling this ‘meal’ was a different matter entirely.

At least it was a bit of a chore to walk past it. Enough to ignore the architecture in favour of getting in. A strange day that he welcomed the smell of incense.

But welcome it he did. And adjusted his walk to the solemn pace of the people surrounding him. They strode through the hall, full steps, legs hidden under their robes. All predominantly blues and greens. Iridescent in places, leaving a rich and glamorous impression.

Of course, there were also more Koi in the basins at the walls, constantly swimming in large circles, giving their own ‘prayer’, so to say.

In the middle of the room stood altar, candles lit, but no sacrifices to be seen yet. It was elevated, with a seat for the priest behind it. And, apparently, it was occupied.

Slightly more curious, he stepped closer. Until a Gong vibrated through the room.

It made Asmodeus stop in his tracks. And as he saw that everyone – acolyte to visitor – turned on their heels and left the room, he tried to join them.

Until two men crossed their tridents in front of him and forced him to stop.

They were, naturally, not a real threat, but he could humour them, for now. He was rather curious about this whole thing.

This ‘thing’ apparently involved everyone leaving, almost soundlessly. No one spoke, only careful steps could be heard. It felt wrong to speak. So no one did. When the last note of the vibration ebbed, even the two men keeping him there simply turned around and left, closing the door behind them.

Huh.

Step. Step. Step.

Could be heard from the direction of the altar. The carpeted walkway there was occupied now, a lady walking on it. Her robes long and flowing, iridescent green and a few blue hues, her long black hair held up by golden needles, tiny ornaments on them swung with each step and giving her a feeling of always flowing through the room. The cut of her robes doing the rest.

She walked towards him, every inch the unquestionable owner of this establishment.

“Greetings.” She said, still one step elevated above him, “I am the high priestess of Ao Gang in this temple. You shall be blessed for your sacrifices. Mr. King, I presume?”

…

Asmodeus was somewhat speechless for a moment. This was, undoubtedly, the ‘Leviathan’. And she chose to be alone with him.

Mh.

This truly was an interesting day.

[nic-mccool]

The Closet

It’s dark in here, and everything is close. There is no light, there is no space. I see the faint outline of the door but the light that slips through the cracks fails to illuminate anything else. Not that I could see anything anyway if it did; I can’t move at all, not my legs, not my body, not my head. I can only move one arm, just a little. I can lift it to the doorknob that I can locate by touch and by memory. That is all.

I think the closet might have been bigger, once. Or I was smaller. Whatever it is, whatever the reason, it didn’t used to be so confining in here. The walls didn’t always press up so close to me. It was only as time progressed that I even noticed I was inside of something, and even longer to comprehend that that meant that there was something outside. Not that I want to go outside. I imagine I’m not presentable in this state. Not that I would know. 

I can hear voices outside, and they can hear me. They whisper at me but I can barely hear them through the door. They don’t seem to care that there’s a door between us. I don’t say anything, though. Best to just leave it alone.

I can touch the doorknob.

It’s just as well, I think, that there’s a door. What if there wasn’t a door, ah, what then? Then they would see me. Then I wouldn’t be safe. The door protects me from the terrors outside…

Someone noticed, once, that there was a door, and they asked why I didn’t just open the door. Because you would see me, then, I said. And they said they wanted to see me, so I opened the door… well. They were wrong. I was wrong.

So I don’t open the door now. 

I think if I died in here no one would notice. It would be a simple matter. One moment it would be dark and closed, and the next it would be dark and open. Darkness everywhere, but nothing pressed up against my skin. I might miss the light coming through the door, though.

And, with the door here, I can touch the doorknob.

I put my hand on it because I can hear her voice outside, greeting me. She makes me want to open the door. She says she knows about doors. It’s okay to come out, she says. I say there is no door. This is me. In front of you. She says are you sure? Because if you are hiding behind the door, it’s okay to come out.

Somehow, despite the door between us, her voices rings clear and true. I see the light coming through the cracks in the door. I can touch the doorknob. I could turn it, I could open it. It isn’t locked. It’s never been locked. I could let her see me, and I would have room to move. To breathe. I could see someone’s face.

I know about doors, she says, and I know about closets. Everyone has a door, she says, and you can always open yours. If you want. Because I want to see you.

The door seems to press a little harder against my forehead. My feet ache to move. My lips ache to smile. My hand is on the doorknob.

There is no door, I say, I am fine.

And I am fine. Here. I can, after all, touch the doorknob.

[asheewrites]

#Doubt

She did it again.

‚It‘ made his  heart ache and his stomach turn.

Because he could not help.

However much he wanted to.

So, he continued to pretend to be asleep. And let her squeeze that pillow, turned away from him. Doubting their relationship and their not-yet-existing child and this whole circumstance.

As if he didn’t know she did.

She didn’t want his support, though. Because she didn’t say anything, whenever he asked. But she doubted. Because it was forbidden. And it was not as easy for her to say ‘fuck it’.

He never wanted to make her feel like that. It was already terrible for him, he couldn’t even imagine how it was for her, with the whole ‘forbidden’ thing stacked onto them not being able to be together.

But he didn’t want to just… leave her alone with that.

So he turned around himself and snug an arm around her, breathing calmly, still.

She tensed. Of course she tensed.

When the tension didn’t leave for a minute, he nibbled on her neck: “I can feel you think from over here”

Nothing in her posture changed.

“Is it about the electric sheep?” He said, thinking he got the genuinely questioning tine rather right.

“… what?” At least the tension shifted a little bit.

“Well, if androids dream of electric sheep, how do they even know?  Do they spark? Are they robotic? Do they even have wool anymore? It is difficult for them to jump?”

Richard could feel her slight frown forming,

“Or maybe they are just electricity. All sparkles and no body, just electrifying everything around them like an impossible floaty lighting-strike on legs!”

After a beat of silence: “… … are you dreaming of those?”

“Well, that would be amazing, wouldn’t it? Self-sustained lil electric animals? I mean… petting might be difficult, but reaaaaally bright!” It was kind of an intriguing idea, even as not-a-distraction.

“Bright, huh?” She relaxed the slightest bit.

“Yeah, not sure how you count them to fall asleep. But maybe good if you still want to read!” He raised a brow and snuggled closer to Trinity.

“… they dream of them, they are already asleep,” there was a little mirth in her words.

Richard kissed the back of her neck: “Mmmmh, but it’s much better to dream of yooou”

“It’s not about you. It’s about the androids,” always the logical lady.

“Mmmh, but I was thinking of good dreams. And if they dreamt of you, they would be,” he continued to nuzzle her neck and his hand wandered under her pyjama shirt to rub her belly.

It made her tense up. A mistake on his part. But she still answered: “I’m… not a sheep”

“You,” he nuzzled his nose into her hair: “… would be the cutest sheep ever” He pulled her closer: “… the softest, too”

She took a breath and chuckled, tangling her legs with his: “… you silly man”

“But look the amazing person I found myself in love with!” Another off beat. He guessed. But he still kissed her under her earlobe and whispered: “Because I do, you know? Love you. More than anything… and I’d also love for you to get a good night’s sleep”

She nestled against him. Gabbing is arm instead of the pillow, completely wrapped in him: “Sleep, mh?”

“Yeah, dreaming of electric Trinity-sheep”

She chortled: “I love you, too, you dork. Sleep well”

“Mmmmh”

She smiled, for the moment.

… it’s all he could hope for, really. And breathing in er lovely scent.

[thewritehag]

I gave future-Holly a task to finish or scrap the scene I was working on where Rick is escorting his sister and nieces to a subterranean train (kinda like a subway, but with a different power source and with much more sulfur). I like having dialogue, even dialogue that doesn’t serve plot, but what they would be talking about--if I stuck with it right now--wouldn’t even be for character building. So, yeah. future-me has homework. Correction: she has more homework.

[thewritehag]

I live in Utah and today is Pioneers Day. It’s basically the Fourth of July part 2 here. It can be fun, like any holiday when you eat root beer floats and blow stuff up. It’ll be a holiday I reference in Witching, even though the setting is in Idaho. Since Leicester is in the south east part of the state and was originally settled by the Mormon pioneers, I can fudge that they would pay some homage to the holiday, too. Actually, this won’t be in Witching (first book in my Witching series), but in the next book Little Black Book of the Dead. 

Some explanation as to why I set Witching in Idaho under the cut. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that I know this part of the world really well and it wouldn’t do to not start from there. I mean, magic folks out west? C’mon. 

I wrote an academic paper analyzing the parallels between perceptions of Mormons (beginning to present) and vampire myths. It was a fun paper and one that I could see revisiting someday. I submitted it to BYU as part of my application. You can guess how that turned out, which I totally expected. They weren’t going to take me anyway because my grades and ACT score were shit, so no hard feelings. Even so, if it was based only on my app essay, I doubt it’d be because of the subject. It’d probably be because it wasn’t done up to their standards. It really wasn’t. Which is why I wouldn’t mind revisiting it. 

In an infinitesimal sense, I am rehashing that paper in Witching because you really can’t write about settling out west and not touch on the early pioneers. Or you could, but why not embrace the absolute bonkers resolution those folks had? 

I’m going to be drawing from a paper I wrote in grad school, too, but that one was about how belief in something gives the thing (object or creature) weight in reality, but that it is a two-way exchange in the case of vampires. Literary vampires. 

[she-confabulates-blog]

day one

(there's a bolded tldr paragraph at the bottom)

Naturally the simple urls of "confabulation" or "confabulations" were taken by people who posted once in 2009 or something. But stumbling on to the combination of she-confabulates still resonates with me because my other internet presences also highlight on my womanhood, which is very important to me. And I have other social media with a variation of confabulation so hey consistency. I managed to choose a url that combined my anonymous and public personas: I accidentally chose something that is meaningful to how I have grown over the years. 

My anon presence grew from frustration of being a woman in engineering. It was a hostile environment that I didn't have the experience or eloquence to stand up against, so I took to the internet to vent my frustrations, which then led to meeting so many other ladies in the same position as me and getting comfort from not being alone. 

Then I gained different strengths. I am now really good at shutting that shit down. As a result, I think my twitter account is a lot less funny because I have much less to vent about. But I'm happier and less stressed and that is obviously what is more important (except I feel less connected to my followers and that makes me sad because it was once a dynamic that was the only thing I had so it is very important to me). 

As far as confabulations? Well I have a lot to fucking say. And not all of it is easily themed or necessarily meaningful. I know I want to write about important memories and failures that I have learned from. Which is funny because the third definition for confabulations is when you fabricate memories accidentally and you don't think you are lying. And considering that we were all insecure little shits in high school, I can put money down that I remember things differently than they actually happened. 

And making this a blog? Well this is my first year of grad school and I just feel like it's going to be important and deserves to be documented. I would like something to look back on and something to reflect with. I had pondered just having a handwritten diary because those are nice too, but 1. I am always on tumblr so this will be easier to maintain and 2. I literally just shut down a sexist email (from another woman!) and one friend said that it was more eloquent than anything she could have said and then my roommate said that if the science thing doesn't work out, I could make a career out of being eloquent. That pushed me over the edge of finally making something I had been mulling over for days. 

Starting my life "over" for grad school has brought up a lot of things for me concerning how I've grown. I finally got myself in a good, strong place for undergrad to only have it taken all away and I have to weed out the same crap I did before. And I'm tired of it. I would love to communicate through my twitter as I did before, but I am a different person and want to try something different. I'm still down to vent on twitter, but I want to reflect here. 

I'M ALSO GOING TO TALK ABOUT COOL THINGS LIKE SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK AND ROLL (okay, more like sex, alcohol and probs Blank Space by Taylor Swift).

Nice to meet you,

Julia

[angel-byungkitty-blog]

there, wrote it, goodnight 

So this is my failure.

I have failed at being the best I could be at my age.

This is not a sob story, rather, it’s more of a statement that I have recognized I was lazy. I haven’t done what I’ve wanted to do yet. That doesn’t mean it’s over though. Like I said, I’m only sixteen.

I want to come back to a blank word document in thirty years and have an accomplishment worth 650 words. It doesn’t have to be as extravagant as ending world hunger, just something I’m actually proud of.

I want to write a book that touches your soul, whether it be heart wrenching, or full of humor. I want to touch people’s hearts and make their life better, even if just for a moment. I want people to highlight my sentences and dog ear my pages to come back to if they ever need encouragement. Have a little slice of me and my scatter-brain on the bookshelves of people’s homes around the world.

I want to teach kids that English can be fun and not just over analyzations of blue curtains and depression that somehow equates to their longing to be with their long lost cousin. That’s something I’d be proud of: To make students excited to go to English class every day. To want to explore the English language and all its beauty has to offer.

None of this can possibly happen with me lazing around and staring at a wall for thirty one days straight. If I want to reach my goals and make myself proud, I must work for it. Study hard, explore, find myself, break away from my shyness. I can’t look to anyone else for this; I’m alone in the inner battle that is my life.

Sure, I won’t reach these goals overnight, but the least I can do is start by living my life so that I myself can be happy. The only way I can do is to throw myself into the world and start walking. If I fall, I’ll get right back up and walk even faster, till I’m running in the direction that hopefully leads me to my goal.

Until then, I’ll be taking my first few wobbly steps in the right direction.

One step at a time.

[revis-a]

El Tunel by Ernesto Sabato

By Monse Olmedo 6th grade B group The Tunel by Ernesto Sabato is an extinguishing book that contains a character with a lot of internal issues and disturbed ideas about humanity. The tunnel is a novel written by Ernesto Sábato psychological structure. Presents María Iribarne, understanding of the whole and the absolute character at the same time that the hidden areas of mystery that will drive to Juan Pablo Castel to kill her. The painter, to shape his domestic obsession, must abandon any other option, in a constructive and destructive process which focus the analysis of the motives of the crime.The protagonist in this book are Juan Pablo Castel, y Maria Iribarne. The antagonist in the book are Allende and Hunter. Before we analyze the characters we should get the theme and a sense of the story. The main theme In the book is the obsessive love that Juan Pablo has for Maria and the lack of communication that lead to jealousy and ultimately the serious crime of murdering Maria. The obsession is what lead Maria to her death, after Juan Pablo finds out that Maria has been married to a blind guy this whole time and he find out that she goes to Hunter’s house occasionally for visits, this forms a misunderstanding and mistrust from Juan Pablo’s side. The character that Juan Pablo Castel takes is very complicated, since we can see that he lives in emotional imbalances, there may be instances where he is an a fragile and unstable state and others where it is often introverted and / or violent, this due to the depression that overwhelms loneliness because of where he lives until he meets Maria, who was something like the ray of light that both sought, their hope, but strange things of happen that Juan decides to yank Maria out of his path. In the book, Maria is described as manipulative, and she her love for deceiving men was also apparent, it was like she liked hurting them and destroying their hearts and not letting them in to hers. After a few chapters we see the violence beginning to emerge from Castelo when he interrogates Maria and makes her feel horrible. We witness a serie of brutal encounters between Maria and Castel. María let him grab her by the arm 'almost brutally' and march her down the street? Later Sábato has him verbally threaten her: ''If I ever suspect you have deceived me,' I raged, 'I will kill you like a dog.'' As he becomes wracked with suspicions he begins grilling her, accusing her of the most preposterous dishonesties. His cross-questioning is dogged and cruel with no hint of an remorse in sight: he refuses to capitulate and, perversely, María continues to let him twist her words and pervert her meaning. The title "The Tunnel" refers to the darkness where Juan Pablo Castel was, as if saying that his whole life had been spent in a difficult, bitter and lonely darkness, but when he meets Maria he begins to think she was his hope , the two of them looked and understood, until they realized that there a only a single tunnel or path that Maria was on and she had her own tunnel and he was not part of that path that the tunnel formed. The relationship between Maria and Juan Pablo are a bit overwhelming and strange considering that both characters and complicated. The question is, could events have played out differently if it hadn’t been for the obsession that over took Juan Pablo to ultimately kill Maria?