Insight

Ok folks, sorry about being a day late with my next story, but here it is. I will also be posting another story on here about midweek or so, one that a friend of mine wrote on this theme as well. Its allot different than what I expected from him, so stay tuned, midweek.

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Theme: Substance abuse
Title: Insight
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“The root of the problem is that you’re just too emotional. It’s nothing I would worry about though. We have a pill for this kind of problem.”

It was easily the strangest thing I had ever heard come out of the mouth of a psychologist in my entire life. I didn’t think that anyone could ever have bee labeled as ‘to emotional’ let alone have a pill prescribed to the symptom. The doctor handed me a small bottle, brown and translucent, filled with little green pills.

“We tested these babies on prison inmates as a means of relaxing their behavior, found out that it made them almost well behaved and put a little research into it. These are not on the market yet, but you could be one of the front runners for the public testing of these bad boys.”

“What do they do?”

“They inhibit emotions, those pesky little buggers that can often get in the way of making even the most obvious decisions, and activate the logical center of the brain.”

“So what? I become like some sort of Vulcan or something?”

“Logically speaking, yes, but no. The drug does not completely inhibit emotion, more so transfers the brain’s focus from emotions to logic. You’ll be able to think clearly, eat less, sleep right, and get in shape. These pills could very well be the first step towards a perfect society.”

Who would have thought that a perfect world would have been obtainable if he had just taken a few moments to stop, and think a little more logically? The pills sounded great, and I didn’t mind being a pioneer on this front, so I wrote in my consent and took home my first prescription.

I was perhaps one in a hundred people who had been asked to participate in this first public test of the drug called Como Logiscinodol or as it would later be known as, Logisill. The instructions are as follows:

1. Take just one pill three times per day, make sure to eat a good meal and wash down with a beverage.
2. Do not exceed the recommended dosage for any reason whatsoever.
3. If strange symptoms begin to develop, contact the doctor who prescribed Como Logiscinodol to you and inform them so they may make notes for further production.

That was it, three steps, easy enough to follow, so that night I took a double dose to get the pills working, ate a full dinner, went about my business and then went to bed.

I would be a liar if I said these things did not work, when they so clearly did. I don’t think I can recall a day better than the one after I received my first prescription. I was already feeling like a champion, ready to take on the world. I didn’t wake up with no emotion, I woke up unwilling to allow emotion to get in the way of tackling the day. While at work I was on top of my game, by 10 I had already created a revised work schedule for myself and increased my efficiency by at least 30%. My friends and co-workers were astounded by my sudden increase in concentration and focus. And when they all asked me what it was, I told them the truth. A magical little green pill and things went on in this direction for months onward. I reported back to my doctor everything I was experiencing and he told me that Logisill would soon be entering into the market as an over the counter drug. I suppose that’s where things went wrong, not just for me, but for countless others. I can’t tell you their stories, I can only tell you mine, however mine was like countless others.

The more Logisill became available, the more I was able to get my hands on it. And the problem is that I had set the bar high while I was using it, and I was no longer able to function without the drug. I was like everyone else in the office who had been taking Logisill, and that simply would not do. I would sit at my desk and tell myself over and over again that I could increase my efficiency a little bit at a time if I increased the dosage just a little bit. There would be fewer emotions to get in the way, more time to see the problems clearly and tackle them with bigger and better solutions. And it would seem that I was not the only person who thought this way. In regards to me and the circle I hung out with, we began to perform small crimes. I would get together with others much like myself, uninterested in emotional solutions, wanting to see things logically, find the real answers, and we would indulge ourselves on Logisill. And the more we began to talk about things and the state of the world around us, the more logical it would seem for us to act against those things, to fix them, to improve not just ourselves, but the world. It started out with public artwork, acts of vandalism. I just couldn’t see the logic behind the need for art. Art produced an emotional response, took people away from things that they ought to have been focusing on. So I did away with whatever I could find. This escalated past artwork to various kinds of stores, clothing stores, jewelry stores, entertainment stores. All of these things were designed to make us love ourselves and others around us. They were an emotional solution to problems that needed to be looked at logically, they had to go. More and more cases like this would make their way to the courts, the abuse of the prescription medication Como Logiscinodol cited as the reason behind every single act. It wasn’t long, probably a few months that the issue of placing the product on the illegal substance list worldwide had come into debate. I was sitting at home coming down from the previous night and watching day time talk shows, an episode about people who abused Logisill was on, and they had a psychiatrist on the show.

“The creators of this product seem to have missed out on one very important thing. Logic is not confined by any one singular universal law. Logic changes from person to person. One person may find something illogical in the methods of someone else’s logic. This is very dangerous and can lead to very extreme states of psychosis. We are talking sociological violence beyond anything we have seen before.”

He was a smart man; there was a lot of logic in his argument.

A few more weeks had passed, and the inevitable had happened, it was the only logical thing for the governments to do, at least in their eyes. They had made Logisill and illegal substance, and it took to the streets by storm. Once again, their emotions got in the way and the problem was made worse. If only they had left it alone, the world could have been such a better place. I found myself buying the stuff two or three times a day, and I was once more telling myself that I was not working to my complete optimum. The dry stuff just didn’t do it anymore. I had grown resistant to Logisill, and had started crushing up the pills into powder and snorting them. And when that had not been enough, I started liquefying the pills and injecting them with needles. That way I was able to see everything logically for several hours, never coming down as long as I had the needles with me. People started ignoring me as I walked down the street, muttering about how everything seemed to be illogical and needed to be fixed. Their ignoring me only made things worse, they needed to hear what I was saying. A few weeks later I was arrested on assault with an illegal narcotic. They caught me forcing a high dose injection into a person. That was the only one the caught me doing. They sentenced me to 10 years prison time, which I could shorten if I had agreed to serve rehabilitative time. I chose the most logical course of action. I went to rehabilitation and that very day fled before I could start to suffer withdrawal. In the privacy of an alley, I pulled a pack of pills in a balloon I had swallowed and took probably, seven to eight of them in one sitting. If I was going to get more Logisill, now called Insight, I needed the best and most efficient solution. And it came almost instantly. A man and his family were walking by and I made my move. The man thought this was nothing more than your average stick up, he moved to protect his wife and child, he was wrong. I grabbed him and through him into the brick wall of the alley and smashed his head in until he stopped moving. His wife was screaming, his child crying. I did not care, they were not the problem, nor the solution, I just took the mans money and took off into the alley. This process would repeat itself several more times and each time it became less and less about the money.

It got to a point where I didn’t just need Insight anymore, I depended on it. It became the driving force behind my actions. Every time I killed a person, I was logically enlightening another. One does not just kill for any reason; there is no logic to that. I killed to live, and I killed to teach. I was a road scholar. I would teach anyone I could set my eyes upon. One person, living off their emotions, clouded, imperfect and non functional would sacrifice themselves so that those around them could leave that life of imperfection. I took my lessons on logic from state to state, gathering Insight as I went along, ridding myself of emotions I did not even have anymore. Dependency was not a need, it was a practice, something I was unwilling to let go of, lest I regress to a state of imperfect, illogical response.

I told them the exact story at my trial. Almost word for word, they would not have any of it. My words promoted fear, so they took the emotional course of action and sentenced me to death. It did not make sense to me, it still doesn’t. I killed to live, are we not all capable of such things? They told me I killed for the drugs, they didn’t see. I was alive, they are all dead, I killed to continue living, I killed so I could stay alive, killed to stay on top, is that not what we are all programmed to do?

All I want

Alright folks, so this is my Revenge/Switch of Roles story. It's a bit of a far stretch for the theme yes but I like it. So by next Saturday Jon will have his story up here with the new theme witch is Substance Abuse. I will have mine up in two weeks time. Till then.

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Theme: Revenge/ Switching Spots
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All I want is to smell a flower…..

Those were the last words on the parchment lendal had found in the dank chapel from a forgotten age. He had been searching for artifacts but instead he found only stories and records, nothing worth any value to a treasure hunter. He looked through the pile of paper he had collected so far, nothing seemed to come after the piece he had just read. Whoever had written it had simply stopped and not bothered to finish. Lendal picked the papers up and placed them in his satchel maybe he could find someone to buy these “treasures”.

As the treasure hunter turned to leave he caught a slight movement at the edge of his vision, a black shadow almost like a wisp of smoking running deeper into the chapel. Lendal looked towards the back on the caved in structure, it was mostly rock and timbers piled onto each other from the massive cave in that had happened some thousand years ago. Nothing of value was here anymore, picked over by the local vagrants by now. There was a small narrow opening near the back, some of the rubble had been taken away to allow access to the sealed off section of the chapel. Lendal had passed over it earlier not thinking the risk was worth it. However now as he stopped in front of the opening again, he could hear the faint sounds of scratches and hard breathing as someone traversed the narrow crawlway.

Lendal got onto his hands and knees as he shone his flashlight into the opening. The yellow light revealed nothing new to him; past the initial ten feet the black inky darkness consumed all, revealing nothing to the naked eye. Securing his satchel in place the young treasure hunter moved forward into the opening, his flashlight shoved out before him. The passage it self was cramped and contorted as it moved this way and that never sure which way it would go until the very last second.

Soon the passage way opened up and Lendal stepped out into a totally different world. This section of the chapel was completely untouched by the cave in. In fact the wall of rubble he had just moved through wasn’t even rubble on this side, it was just a wall. Whoever had cleared the tunnel must have forced their way into this chamber by accident. The chamber Lendal stood in now was filled with pews, perhaps a secondary worship area. Lendal really didn’t care.

Lendal rubbed his hands together and began to look for lost treasure. His blonde hair blew as a light breeze came through the passage way he had just came through and then a rumbling shook the temple violently.

The passageway collapsed.

Lendal’s face dropped as he ran scrambling to the tunnel entrance. He began to curse and shout, screaming for help and divine intervention. He received neither of these things, he was stuck. The tunnel has collapsed in such a way that a large block had fallen and plugged the gap sealing it indefinitely.

Lendal began to hear sharp hissing sounds as he frantically tried to pry the block from the opening. He soon found out that the sounds were coming from him as his frantic little breaths of air. Standing up he calmed himslef and moved to one of the pews in the room to sit down. He thought about his situation for a moment, weighing what he knew and what he didn’t and the overall odds of getting out of the sealed room.

He sat there for a few minutes and then stood up and solidly kicked over a pew and then broke off one of the legs. The leg skidded across the dusty floor coming to rest under one of the other pews in the room. Lendal calmly walked over to the place where it lay and picked it up. He weighed it a few times, swinging it now and then to get a feel for the improvised weapon. Then with a small sigh he rushed forward towards the sealed passage he had previously come through. He swung the pew leg at the unmoving block a few times until the timber gave up and shattered to pieces.

With his final reserve depleted Lendal broke out in tears, he did not know what he would do. He had to no way to survive. He didn’t even like digging around in the dirt for this junk, he just got into it one summer.

Tears welled up in Lendal’s eyes as he fell against the stone wall in frustration; he had come to his end. He would never see the light of day again. He was doomed. That’s when he saw the light. At first he thought it was just his own flashlight but then when he looked again he saw a small candle sitting on a table at the far end of the chapel. Lendal stood up and moved towards the lit object.

The candle was two feet high and colored white, the flame that burned atop of it was a mix of many colors. A constant shift of greens and blues and reds, Lendal had seen candles like this before, the wick was soaked in a special chemical and when the flame burned that part of the wick it would change its color for a short time. Under the candle was a small stack of parchment and an ink pot and quill.

Lendal took up the quill and began to write, he did not know why he began to write but he did. He wrote out what he was doing in this small chapel under the earth, he wrote about what he really wanted to be when he grew up, a florist, he even included his favorite flower a nice little thing called a moon drop blossom. He went on to write about how he had stolen artifacts from a thousand different cultures and even more societies and how he never cared who he sold them to just how much they were willing to pay. Finally he wrote his dying last wish.

It seemed like ages while he was writing his life story, the paper never ran out and he seemed to have more and more to say. Finally when he was finished he placed the papers down and blew out the candle. As he did the chapel began to shake and crumble and the passage way at the front of the chapel opened up bringing the roof down on top of him.

He dodged out of the way as a huge block from the ceiling came crashing down scattering the pages he had been writing into the surrounding room. Lendal rolled as he came down onto the floor crashing headlong into a pew. The pew shattered with the impact and the stone brick that had fallen onto his workspace broke apart sending fragments of stone around the room as well. Lendal lay there covered in rubble. Lendal lay there half buried as a young man moved through the small opening on the other side of the room.

The man did not speak but moved around the room in the dark for several seconds until he reached into his bag and pulled out a flashlight. The light was piercing and penetrating blinding Lendal instantly. The man moved the light around the room several times, once even passing right over Lendal himself however the man did not care or maybe he didn’t notice him in the rubble. Lendal tried to scream for help however the dust had caught in his lungs and made speech impossible. He tried to dig himself out but the rubble pressed down on him mercilessly. The stranger seemed so familiar to Lendal but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The man continued to move through the room, picking up Lendal’s work every now and then to read it. Lendal tried again to scream out for help but still the dust sucked it’s self into Lendal’s lungs and he could not speak. Finally the man was about to leave when Lendal worked his arm free and flung his satchel at the stranger. Lendal missed his mark however he did get the man’s attention, the stranger just moved past Lendal to examine a hole in the back wall that had formed when the ceiling block came crashing down. Lendal was mere feet away from him now. He clawed and wiggled against the rubble all the time trying to scream for the man’s help.

The stranger got on his hands and knees and shone his flashlight into the narrow opening, the light reflected off the ground and wall revealing the man’s face for the first time.

It was Lendal.

The man moved into the opening just as Lendal freed himself. Lendal rushed to the passage way to stop him but in his rush he tripped on the rubble strewn floor and knocked over a pile of rubble that flooded into the passageway sealing it.

Lendal released a long and torturous moan and moved towards the entrance way of the temple. He moved outside noticing for the first time the Latin written on the arched door. “Let ye who enter face thy nightmares and be judged.” Lendal spoke in a revered and hushed tone as picked a stray flower growing on the path and took a deep whiff of it, as he walked back to his waiting jeep.

About the Author Part Deux: Williams Evans

Williams Evans was born in Northern Saskatchewan in the lovely year of 1985. I was actually born in a place called Nipawin, it's a little hick town that I miss dearly sometimes but I am so glad I don't live there anymore. I am a man of few words unless you are doing something wrong then I will correct you. I wouldn't say I have an over active imagination, I do however have a problem with turning my brain off. It's always thinking and coming up with ideas, however I do not remember these awesome ideas and so the world suffers. If you have not figured it out yet, I think very highly of myself, well at least when it comes to online. I will make many Grammatical errors and a few spelling mistakes however I do not care because I try and fix them when I see them. I tend to be very random and dislike routine so I try and shake things up as often as I can. I am not really sure what I am doing with my life yet, I am sure I will find out eventually but until then I shall pick and choose as I see fit. Now enough of this onto the questions!


Who are your Favorite Authors? Why?
My favorite authors are as follows. Terry Brooks, George R.R. Martin, David Eddings and Guy Gavriel Kay. I enjoy Terry Brooks because he was the first author I read, the Shannara stories are some of my favorites and they got me through High School. George R.R. Martin is the only author I know of that really explores the whole Knight in armor kinda aspect of fantasy and they emplys all the more classical elements of fantasy writting. David Eddings, well with Mr. Eddings I was very hesitant to read anything by him because I figured he was just another Tolkien wirtter. Then I read the Balgariad and I found it pretty comical and enjoyable, who knew. Guy Gavriel Kay was just a random pick because of The Fionavar Tapestry, a Coworker suggest it one day when we were at a bookstore and I picked it up and I was pretty impressed, only three books I have read from Kay but one day i hope to pick up others from him.

Why do you write?
i ask this question to myself all the time. I don't write very often because I need to to kinda strike me and it doesn't happen very often or I am busy when it happens. I guess I write because i have a talent for it and it helps express my ideas.

What is a genre you would like to take a crack at writing?
Well I actually try and write a different Genre every time I sit down to wirte, it doens't always work but I try and shake things up ever now and again.

What is your least loved of all the genre's?
Romance, I hate it so much. Enough said.

What do you hope to get out of this project?
Experience, maybe the writting bug will hit more often if I force some writting out of me.

Last question, where do you think your desire to write comes from in regards to your family?
No Idea. I don't know anyone in my family that writes or has a desire to write. If I had to geuss I would say my grandpa on my mom's side. He kinda seemed like a writer type.

Anything else you would like to say?
Save yourselves the trouble and only read my stories, they are much better then Mr. Elric's here. Just Kidding.*

(*Well no I am not but I had to say that or else he would get angry.)

Stress Mangement

Slightly different format then we were going for, so Williams will post his stuff after this story post.

Theme: Revenge/ Switching Spots
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Stress Management

It never used to be this way. It never does right? We all enter into the workforce rich with optimism and eagerness and it doesn’t take long until we crack and settle into a mundane, routine based, robot like life. Some of us take longer, and when they crack, it’s even worse. Some of us just put on a façade. These people are the ones who sling around accusations about your lack of cheer being a direct result of “the Mondays.” Well let me tell you something, when you work in a 10’x10’ cubicle, everyday is Monday. Those optimistic people? They are even deader inside then those of us who have embraced our grim circumstance. These people are robots, programmed with the same ideas, and the same lame Jokes.

“Safety meeting! Nobody moves nobody gets hurt!”

Good one Beth, now don’t forget your ear scraping banshee laugh…there it is, lets get together and talk about how you’re the company cut up over the coffee pot at break. The phone rings and like a good little drone I pull myself away from frivolity and enter back into the rumble and tumble world of inks and toners.

“Hello and good afternoon, you have reached Ink Express, adding color to your office needs in a jiffy! My name is Neil Goodwin and I will be your service provider today. Can I start by telling you about this month’s special offer? Pardon me? Are you serious? What in the seven layers of hell is wrong with you? No, this isn’t Pizza Shack, how did you even get the numbers mixed up? They don’t even share the same digits! Ya, you can talk to my manager, you can talk to him all you want, if you can find the bloody number!”

I don’t have a regular phone, I use a head set, probably for the best I would assume. I could have snapped the receiver in half slamming a phone. People are already looking at me, they are just jealous because I did, no, have done four times now, what they have always wanted to do. And from the look on Beth’s face, she may not take to my uncaring attempt at riotous laughter over her less than satisfactory joke at the coffee pot. I don’t know what’s worse, Beth’s jokes, or that inevitable creaking sound that Dan’s office door makes when he opens it. Time stands still for a moment as I imagine myself leaping on top of my desk and wrenching open my jacket to reveal myself strapped with TNT set to blow, laughing in pure pleasure as I see those miserable people scream in horror. I don’t think I could ever do something like that though. I mean I just bought this jacket and its dry clean only and…well you get the idea I am sure.

“Neil, can you and I dialogue for a moment please.”

Or could I?

The floor supervisor is Dan. Dan is an idiot. This guy has just about every book on how a positive attitude can improve your workplace and every book on how to climb just one more wrung in the ladder of success. He is reprimanding me for my fourth outburst, but I am not really paying attention to him, my eyes begin to glaze over and scan over the office. The office of an idiot, decorated for idiots, by idiots. Complete with artwork that no office could be without! Newspaper clipping’s of Dilbert comics with the character names changed to match personalities of people in the office. Tres bien! And let’s not forget the classic motivational poster. A picture of some prat climbing a tricky rock face with the clever caption; “Determination, only those willing to climb life’s obstacles will come out better on the other side.”. I work hard to suppress the bile creeping its way up my throat. I wish Dan would just hurry up and finish this talk, we both know where its going to lead anyway, I was “warned”.

“Here is the number, Lucy will be checking up with me so I know your going. After this, well, if this doesn’t work that is, we will have to let you go Neil. And none of us wants that, wacky tie Tuesday wouldn’t be the same again!”

BOOM.

If only.

“Hello everyone, my name is Neil Goodwin and I am a stress-a-holic. My work is making me come here because I have stress issues. It has been exactly ten minutes since the last time I have been stressed out, because that guy, ya I’m pointing at you ham steak, cut me off in the parking lot!”

Perhaps not the best way to be making friends, but I am not here for friends. And Lucy, the instructor, is burning a hole in my forehead with that glare, and I am pretty sure I can hear a death rattle coming from her chair. Not that I mind the look though, this fiery little strawberry blonde has got my mind running with all kinds of horrible and depraved thoughts. So much so that I miss what she tells me and I just continue on with a story assuming she told me to continue.

“The reason I am here is simple, it’s probably why the rest of you are here, well except for you ham steak, your probably here because of the stress that keg you got puts on your ankles. But I digress. I am here because like many people in today’s workforce, I was stepped on like a door mat in order for someone else’s promotion. One of the guys who was working on a team project with me and a few others. You think you know somebody and then bam! They toss you out under the gravy train so they can hop on. Things just haven’t been the same since that. I blew up at four customers since then, but really, who cares? I work at Ink express, I sell inks and toners! Customers need to be yelled at sometimes.”

“Ok Neil, your activating your stress chakra’s we need you to pull back a little bit with breathing and soothing words to activate those rest chakra’s. Once you have done that you may continue.”

Do you ever wish that you could have an outer body experience? I do, and that moment was one of them. I wish I could have seen the incredulous look on my face that disgust unmasked and unrelenting in its honesty. Stress chakras? Rest chakras? Was this woman for real? I didn’t need breathing exercises; I needed kung fu class or a pistol!

“Are you kidding? I mean, you can’t be bloody serious, because that has got to be the largest load I have ever heard come out of a person’s mouth. Clearly you weren’t listening to me. I said I work on a phone selling ink and toner all day. I deal with idiots all day! And you come at me with that line? Screw you, I am gonna stay pissed until I finish this story and this session and I can go and get my fucking coffee and donut! Now, like I said, that little pin weasel took credit for some of my work and passed his own shoddy work as mine. He got a promotion; I stayed in that dungeon, that cubicle. So ya, I am little stressed. Be honest with yourselves, what one of you has not at some point wanted to come into work with a higher powered fully automatic rifle and start cracking out shots? Anyway, I have to sit there all day, and the image of that hack sitting in my big office, with my big desk and my secretary drives me mad. Come on, be honest, you, Grey Bush, you got stories, come on.”

As the old woman moved past the insult, she stood up and began to explain about how her care worker had been stealing from her or something, I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention to her. I was looking at the strawberry haired seductress across the sharing circle. Thinking of ways to get her to tell the people at work that I was fine enough to stop going to these things, anything to get out of here before the hugging and the crying…anything.

“Ok Maggie, that’s enough, we will take a break and then we can move into the one on one sharing sessions. Neil, I want to talk to you.”

I have been hearing that a lot lately. At least she said talk, and not dialogue.

“Look Neil, I know this your first day and all, but,” Lucy took a drag of a cigarette, a break time staple. “Those kinds of outbursts can’t happen anymore, and stop calling Walter Ham Steak. He is a stress eater.”

“I don’t care what he is, he ain’t the only one with problems, and he is handling them like a schmuck! You’re like a therapist or something, bust out the punching clowns or something. This isn’t stress, its rage, pure and unbridled. Let me hit one of those rebounding clowns or something.”

I hadn’t seen it then, so caught up in my own self pity, the faintest smirk playing across her face. She leaned in a little bit, not enough to make it look like anything more then someone lecturing another however.

“You really think your life would be better if you had that promotion?”

“Yes.”

“What about your friend?”

“Forget him; his circumstances are far from remembering. He’s not my friend anyway.”

“What if I told you I could take his life for you?”

“I would say that you’re probably the worst stress counselor I have ever met, but let’s hear what you got to say.”

“Not a whole lot else to say, I will take away his life, and all I want from you…is you.”

He dies, and I get sex? Win win baby! Did I accept, yes I did, and who wouldn’t. You morally outstanding people need not apply.

“Good, meet me for dinner, late night shall we? Say tonight at the Flamenco Lounge?”

I was gonna get some tonight?

“Sure, what time?”

“Midnight.”

With that, I ducked out of the rest of the session, I didn’t think there would be any point in staying for the one on one’s since I had pretty well insulted everyone at the meeting. I was pretty sure that if any of them were going to hug me, it would be with closed hands around my throat. No, I would go home, shower up, clean up and later on, bone up.

Midnight proved to be rather uneventful, filled mostly with silence and eating. It was not the crass dinner conversation I was hoping it would be before we finally forwent with dinner and just went to either her place or mine for a night of commemorating the death of that tripe that skewered me. No, it wasn’t actually until about quarter to three in the morning that a word was spoken, and when it was, it was even further away from what I had in mind.

“So I took your friends life.”

“What? How? It was only a few hours before we met up with one another after the meeting. I thought stuff like that took, well, planning and time. Things like that.”

She reached into her purse and put a flask on the table. This was perhaps the most macabre looking flask I had ever seen. The stopper was a skull, a horse skull with skin stretched over it and a thousand little tentacles hanging out of the mouth, so life like in their design. The flask itself was a series of bones, forming a shape confined within the shape of the flask. The whole thing looked like it had dank grey skin pulled onto the embossed images, stretched to form fit and loose and hanging off certain places.

“Um…ya…I am all for like freedom of religion, but I ain’t down with vampirism or goth stuff.”

“Its not vampirism, well it is a bit. This flask has your friend’s life in it. You need merely to drink from it and take the life of your friend.”

“I just drink it and he dies?”

“I didn’t say he dies; I said you take his life. His life will be your life, and your life will be his. Think about it, you can rid yourself of all that anger, you can get that promotion you deserve, and, I agree, you do deserve it. After all, you put in the work. That’s why I want to help you. You deserve the cars; you deserve the pay, the luxury, and the girls on the side.”

I liked that last part. Maybe I can put off blowing up the company. I reached out for the flask but Lucy interrupted me.

“We have one more thing to attend to before you can have this flask. You must be mine first.”

“What, here?”

“Yes.”

She reached into her purse again, she was prepared it would seem. But she didn’t pull out what I thought she was going to. Instead it was a stack of papers and a pen.

“Your soul, I want it.”

“What are you the devil or something?”

“Neil!” She laughed, it was musical. “Come on, we both know the devil doesn’t exist, just consider this all a part of the game.”

Games…did you hear how she said it? I like games, I didn’t need to read it, and I just signed it.

“So did you draw this up?”

Her reply cut my laughter short, but I continued laughing thinking it was a joke.

“William Zanzinger’s lawyer. Well, that about wraps up what we have to do here.”

She got up and slung her purse around her shoulder and looked at me from her shoulder and gave me a wink. “Give me a ring when you come into some money, we’ll do this again, maybe some dessert next time.”

I like dessert.

It was three in the morning by the time I got outside of the place and onto the street. The flask felt wet and clammy against the palm of my hand. It all seemed like a big joke; maybe she was setting me up into her program, like an explorative exercise. But still, I couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding that flask practically leaked! But I had already made the deal; there was no turning back now. I wanted it all; I wanted the money, the respect, the power, and the women. I forcefully removed the stopper from the flask, expecting some strange event to take place, but nothing happened, I could only hear the faint sloshing of the liquid inside, and I could only see a gentle steam rising out from the flask.

“Bottoms up.”

I poured the flask back into my mouth and the piping hot liquid inside reached down my throat like a tentacle. It drank like warm sake; it may even have been just that. The steam reached down my throat, carrying the flavor with it, the drink itself following shortly after, carrying even more flavor with it. Every sip was the same, tendrils of steam and liquor. When I was done, it was just me, the night sky, and an empty flask, my watch telling me it was 3:01. I guess there wasn’t much in the flask. I knew it had to be some kind of prank; she would get an ear full at group tomorrow night!

The again, maybe I would take a personal day.

Wind pulling through my hair, the top down on a cherry red Porsche and people looking at me with more envy on that one street then my entire life! That woman, she wasn’t lying! I don’t know how she did it, but I was taking a personal day, driving around with a couple tennis instructors, and that guy, was sitting in what used to be my cubicle forging onward through a slew of calls from idiots. Dan was on quick dial; maybe I would give him a ring.

“Hey Dan! It’s Neil.”

“Ah Neil, enjoying the sun I hope, you deserve a little time to yourself. What can I do for you today sir?”

“It’s about Jared Dan, I don’t know, he has seemed kind of down lately.”

“I haven’t noticed anything sir, but you were both in the same marketing project, so maybe you can see something I can’t, what should we do?”

“Send him in to see the office counselor, tell her to get him on with working on depression. I think he might still be down over the promotion. Let him know that whenever he needs me, I’m there for him. Any time, I can take him out on the boat for a bit.”

“Sir, you are far too generous, it’s good to have you looking out for things up there.”

“Dan, it’s what I am there for, you taker her easy good buddy, talk to you later.” Hanging up the phone I turned to the girls, standing up and letting the wind in through their hair. “Ladies, let’s hit up a bar!”

I love hearing them scream!

The bar was classy, a lot more classy than anything I had ever gone to before, suppose it could have been middle class, if anyone asked, we were gonna be slumming it up that day. I was going to spread around my wealth in that bar, a drink for you sir, your welcome, how about you mam, don’t mention it. Hey you, lonely fella, how about a stiff one, you look like you could use it.

“Hey, thanks pal, aren’t you Neil Goodwin? Ya…you are, you just got promoted at Ink Express a couple weeks back there.”

“You work there?”

“I did.”

Did?

“You did? As in you don’t anymore? Did you quit?”

“You’re kidding me right? You laid off like tones of us.”

“Ya, good one, enjoy your drink man.”

“It’s not a joke, you did, how can you be so cool about it?”

“Something like that doesn’t go unnoticed pal, your making up stories. Now I bought you a drink, stop trying to make stories. Ladies, lets go play some pool.”

I had my back turned, I didn’t see the man on his feet, pointing his finger at me and shouting his accusations.

“You prick! You gave us extra severance pay to keep it quiet! Didn’t want to make a scene! Well I haven’t seen any of that extra severance! I got a family to take care of man! You made promises.”

“Buddy, enjoy the drink, Ladies, lets get out of here.” I started making for the door. “Man, you need to stop putting your problems on me, if you got laid off, you weren’t meeting the bill, maybe at your next job you won’t put out such a bad performance. Give them my name as a reference, I will hook you up!”

The girls laughed and gave me praise; spoke about how generous I was for humbly putting up with that “ugly old man’s” abuses. We made our way into the parking lot and towards the car. I could hear the door to the bar kick open and angry footsteps coming up on me. The girls screamed when we turned around.

I hate when they scream.

A gun barrel in my face.

“Gimme your money man.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking your money! You won’t gimme what you promised, so I am gonna take it! Now empty the wallet.”

Turning my back on him was probably the wrong thing to do.

“Whatever man, you’re gonna stick me up in broad daylight, go home.”

My head swam, the vision in front of me turned to white and I could hear the girls screaming, he must have cold clocked me from behind. All I can remember is uttering out a few choice curse words and then I ended up…well here, talking to you, relaying every grueling second of my life up until this point. I didn’t think you existed, you said you didn’t, we shared a laugh about it. I suppose the jokes on me. I don’t know what is worse, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, or these sessions with you. Sitting here and pouring over every single detail of my life, millennia at a time, watching every mistake, every step closer to you and to this place. But you said you weren’t real…this place shouldn’t be real, this shouldn’t even be happening right now. There wasn’t supposed to be any consequences. I was supposed to get to live the high life, I didn’t get to live. You promised me dessert! I suppose it’s a little to late for all of that now, speculation now. And I have all the time in existence to speculate on it all now. Here with you.

Boom.

If Only.

All characters and stories are ©2008 to Jonathan Elric.

About the Author Part One: Jonathan Elric

Jonathan Elric was born in 1985 in Edmonton Alberta Canada. He has taken great pride in the fact that he grew up with what some might call an over active imagination. As a child it didn't take much for him to become inspired and transport himself to worlds that no one could ever set foot into unless he invited them into it. Perhaps his family took notice of this and when he was but a small boy he was given the complete Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. It was a relationship that would never cease to end, it was with these books, and a few movies that his love for Fantasy, Fiction, Fairy Tales, and pretty well anything not set within reality was born. Growing up he was like any other person, perhaps a late bloomer, but always within the confines of his imaginations, perhaps sometimes to his own detriment. He was however able to escape from some of the things he did not care for into worlds he did. He showed a love for creative writing though perhaps took some time to properly transfer what he could see in his head into words on paper. All he knew is that he loved doing it. In Junior High he was introduced to one of the largest inspirations, J.R.R. Tolkien and his books. He became an avid fan and read as much as he could get his hands on. As he continued he made more friends who would introduce him to other authors, like David Eddings, and Neil Gaiman (Gaiman becoming the next largest influence on him.). He met William Evans when he was a young man, in his first year of Junior High and the two have been close friends ever since. Jon is now going to be entering into the Ministry field with the Navigators, and wherever else God might take him.

Who are your Favorite Authors? Why?
I can name you five authors who have impacted me the most. First is C.S. Lewis, I believe his novels where the first ones I received as a gift when I started reading as a small child. I believe I received them from one of my aunts who had an equal love for the fantasy genre. The whole idea of being transported to a world filled with the creations of Fairy Tales is something that still keeps my head in the clouds. J.R.R Tolkien is another great author, I love all of his books and the work he put into them. He inspired me to start investigating my character histories and the history of the worlds I put them in. David Eddings and his series the Belgariad, introduced to me by a friend I made in high school, is a huge inspiration in regards to creating dialog that is rich and creating the rich characters and their attitudes to bring about that dialog. His characters are so well thought out and so well fleshed out during the story you could pick them out off the street if they ever existed. You would know them like you would your best friend. R.A. Salvatore is another writer who has inspired me in terms of writing an action sequence, although he is not one of my top choices, he writes a good fight! Last, and certainly not least, one of my all time favorite authors, and yes I realize its odd to be putting up at the top of my list with other Christian authors when he is not, Neil Gaiman. This author is just so amazingly skilled as a writer, there is not a story of his that I do not like. He writes fairy tales, and horrors in the classic style, but keeps it modern as well. I am hooked to every word he writes and he even inspired me to write my small stories about the girls of the seasons, which I will link up in here one day I am sure.

Why do you write?
Easy question really, I write to escape. I used to use my imagination and my dreams as a means of shielding myself from others while growing up, and this was wrong. Its now a means of getting away from a world I do not feel well placed in, born in the wrong time one could say I suppose. Its a means of writing about things I might be facing in my own life and working them out in conversations that are not actually taking place. Its also a means of creating our world into a fairy tale, keeping that last little piece of wonder in it. Science cannot explain my writing, scientists will not bother to try and uncover my writing and explain it either, its just another mystery that I can keep in the realm of the fantastic and not have it dissected and explained.

What is a genre you would like to take a crack at writing?
Ha, I think most of my work can fall under so many different genre's, fairy tales, fantasy, epic, western, romance. I have never done anything sci-fi, its never really interested me, but I suppose if I could take the genre and make it work for me it might be alright, that or a Mystery, like a hard boiled detective novel. Maybe you will see something like that later on in this blog.

What is your least loved of all the genre's?
Science Fiction, and possibly horror, new horror anyway. I won't say I hate science fiction, because there is a lot of good sci-fi that I like out there, however I find it much to cold and often very depressing! I like hiking and being in nature, and often sci-fi takes place in cold space and even colder looking metal cages called ships. But I suppose I could make it work for myself right? Next would have to be horror, new horror though. I like classical horror, like Sleepy Hollow, or Dracula, or old ghost stories. Brotherhood of the wolf, a movie, had a very classical feel to it. The old fairy tales are rather disturbing as well. In grade 12 english we were forced to watch this movie called Wulthering Heights, and everyone hated it, but it seemed to be a kind of ghost story near the end, and there were parts of the story I really liked!

What do you hope to get out of this project?
Honestly, I just want to write, and I want a reason to write, and I want to talk to like minded people and read their work, and get involved in the writing community. Whatever else comes of it is a bonus!

Last question, where do you think your desire to write comes from in regards to your family?
Immediately I will say my mother and my father. I have read some of the poems and short stories my Dad wrote and they are just incredible! I love his writing, though I don't think I ever told him this. He wrote a story for my step mom when they got married and its really beautiful. I thought so when he first wrote it, I still think so now. I also read this story about a pet bird he had when during his first marriage. I guess a gas stove was left on in their apartment and the bird died or something. I read it a while ago, but I liked reading it, I know that much. And I have also read some of my mothers writing, some things she doesn't know I have read, I peaked in her journal, sorry ma, and she has a really great writing style. Even her blog, www.rainingsheep.com is a great read. A very nice narrative style to her writing. I wonder if they know how good they are. My step mom is an excellent story teller, she used to sit with my little brother and I when we were little and sing to us or tell us stories and I always loved that! She went on to run her own day care and day camp, so story telling was always a natural for her, and she could sign as well, so I believe my desire for story telling comes from her as well.

Anything else you would like to say?
Not really, God bless you all, and praise to you God for making this child with an over active imagination!