Chapter 3

How had he come to this? He didn't remember choosing this tiny raft, or how he had even gotten to the sea. Did he even like the water? How then did he get to this hopeless place? He rolled over on to his hands and knees and looked to the horizon. The blue of the water met the blue of the sky in an almost indiscernable line that seemed a thousand miles away.

As he looked out across the expanse of water seeking answers to his questions, the overwhelming weight of his life crushed in around him. He shoulders stooped even lower and his breath caught in his lungs. What did it matter how he got here? It only mattered that here is where he was, and where he would stay. Hope was pain.

He looked down at his hands displayed underneath him against the wet wood. His hands that had once brought him so much joy, creativity and expression, now were bloody and broken, like the rest of him. He brought a trembling hand up in front of his face. He stared at the shaking fingers, once so delicate, now bruised and shrunken from lack of food and water. His hand disgusted him. It was useless, a hand not talented enough to make him smile, not passionate enough to tell his story, and not strong enough to save him from this hell.

His lips turned to a scowl as he slowly and painfully bent his fingers into a raw fist. With all of the strength he had left, a strength that betrayed his weary condition, he brought his fist down and struck the wood beneath him. The skin of his knuckles scraped off on the dense wood, and he felt an echo of pain stab through his mind. No sooner had the blow landed on his raft with a dull thud, then he brought it down again...and again. With each strike his body rose up higher, gaining strength from his rage. Soon both fists pounded into the wood, sending out a dismal rhythm into the air.

He barely noticed the red stain beginning to form on the wood under the torrent of his fists. He wondered if it was his blood, or the blood of whatever demon held him trapped here. The man slowly started to realize the pain that was creeping into his subconscious. Something, somewhere in his brain was telling him to stop, that he was hurt, but it was too far, too deep to hear.

He struck the wood and heard, rather then felt, a loud crack come from his wrist. With a loud cry he collapsed into a heap on the bloody wood. With his good hand he felt his wrist, already knowing that it was broken. It was then he heard a sound traveling over the waves. A sound he didn't recognize. He strained his ears to hear it, wondering where it came from. He tried to raise himself up off the wood to listen, but as soon as he put weight on his injured hand he collapsed again in a fit of pain. It was then that he realized the sound he heard came from him. His anguished cries dissipated into the air, and the nearly inhuman howls of misery were soon lost to the neverending blue around him.

Chapter 2

A wave caught the corner of the tiny fragment of wood and caused it to tip precariously towards the water. The man’s fear took over and he edged back towards the middle of his raft. Afraid that his movements would capsize his safety, he curled up in the middle of the piece of wood and stared at the empty cloudless sky above him.

He would die here, of that much he was certain. The day, the time, those things didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the certainty of it. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. His tears had evaporated long ago, along with his hope, but deep inside he wished for more tears. He wished to cry, if only to feel something. Anything. But misery had long ago given way to despair, and eventually, even despair had fled, leaving him with nothing. Now he was just empty and hollow, and waiting for the end of his days.

He drew a deep breath of the thick, hot air and exhaled quietly. He closed his eyes to the sun and tried to search his memory. He tried to remember his past. Surely there were days before this raft and this sun! He rolled onto his stomach, his face pressed against the damp, rotting wood he floated on. A distant memory flickered in his mind. Perhaps there was a time, when his body didn’t ache, when he didn’t wake up every morning on a slab of wood, but on something soft, exquisite…beautiful. But what? When? A flash of green in his mind and the smell of something sweet in his nostrils caused his eyes to open with a start. But as quickly as the flame of the memory entered his mind, it was extinguished. He rolled on to his back and stared again into the scorching sun, convinced the memory had never been there at all.

There was no other bed, no other smells besides this salty hot air and this rotting wood. There was nothing sweet, or green, or beautiful. There was only this raft, this sun...this nothing.

Chapter 1

It was the sparkling of the sun shining off the surface of the water that finally awoke him. His body, tired and bedraggled by the abuse of the elements, heaved itself up to look around. The man grimaced as he rubbed his neck, hoping to ease at least some of his soreness. He looked around at his surroundings, hoping for a change, but everything was as he had left it.

The tiny piece of wood, barely the size of a bedroom door, still floated aimlessly in the endless expanse of water. Sunlight from above, and it's reflection from below, caused the man to squint and look off in the distance, searching for some sign of hope.

He had forgotten how many days he had lived on his makeshift raft. He had no recollection of how he came to be here, or even his life before this picturesque prison. He couldn't remember when he had finally resigned himself to his fate, but for any that knew him, he would have appeared a dismal shell of the man they knew.

His shoulders were in a perpetual slump under some unseen weight. His brow furrowed from the sun and his own consternation. And his hands. Once delicate, slender fingers of an artist had become bruised, blistered and dirty. Callouses on his fingertips lay open and bloody. Where once his fingers would have appeared to move with a grace and beauty, now only was a fist clenched in pain and despair.

He slowly worked his way to his hands and knees and stared into the blue depth of the water. What lay below the surface was a mystery, but he knew that to abandon his floating prison meant death.

How I Proved I Could Write an 800 Word Paper in Half an Hour

For as long as history has been documented, man has sought to categorize. Perhaps it is conquering in a sense, or man's desire for natural order that created this dynamic, but if discovery is man's most potent drug, then categorizing those discoveries is the high that drug produces. In no aspect is this clearer, then in the wide ranging and detailed minutia of cheese. There are literally hundreds of types of cheeses and they can all be categorized by their aging techniques, their flavor, their elasticity, and in countless other ways.

The most popular group of cheeses in the United States is the "hard" or "semi-hard" cheese family. Among these delicious cheeses are cheddar, Colby and Monterey Jack. These cheeses have a lower moisture count and are pressed into molds and pressurized for a length of time. But even this category can be further broken, pieced and dissected. It's not enough for the human race to call a cheese "hard" or "soft". This is not enough distinction, not enough control for our domineering minds to maintain. That is why we have "grated" cheeses, "semi-hard curd" cheese and the like. It's a wonder we ever left the shelter of our caves with so many rocks and pieces of dirt to name and put into plastic baggies with tags on them!

And this is even considering the large amount of spread able, "soft" cheeses. If there were any more diverse classification of a subset we'd have a hair split into micro fibers. Some are made by souring the milk, then straining the curd or passing it through a separator to remove much of the moisture, giving a white, crumbly, but soft spreadable product. The flavor is mildly acid. This type of cheese lends itself to rolling in or mixing with herbs, spices, fruits etc. and being sold tubs, small rounds or logs. So not only can we describe it's culture, milk source and souring technique, but in our grand vision of conquest we even categorize how we decide to shape the final product. Now we truly have become masters of minutia! Perhaps there is a party somewhere were a great and wise duke is impressing his neighbors by offering not just Pantysgawn goats cheese, but Pantysgawn goats cheese in the shape of a 1911 model Zeppelin! Have we gone insane?!?

“Why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to my table, so many meals?” These words are as true today as they were when Shakespeare himself first penned them. Most likely he was speaking of the monastic category of cheeses, but with so many subcategorizations of his time, who’s to really say. Cheeses in this group are often linked historically in that they have monastic origins. Such cheeses as Port Salut, Saint Paulin, the various forms of Trappist cheese made throughout the world, Esrom and Havarti have similarities of taste, although varying degrees of strength of flavor and aroma. Several mountain cheeses, such as Beaumont and Reblochon, are also classified as monastery type cheeses. The majority of monastery cheeses are of the washed rind variety. “Washed rind”? Even monks are not above the need to overclassify! Perhaps the concept to call a cheese “good” or “too runny” is above these men of the cloth? Far be it for them to be called to a higher order of thinking. But is that then yet another classification that need not be made? Perhaps “holy” and “secular” are in themselves concepts not specific enough.

Is the classification of men and cheese indicative of a greater evil in this world? Is the control we attempt to exert over this planet and all its varied inhabitants a vain attempt to hide our fear of our own categorization? Do we fear a grand reckoning where we are given our own tag and label as “good” or “bad”? “Heaven bound” or “Hell bent”? Or maybe it’s something much simpler. Perhaps we designate, and create uniqueness out of the ambiguous in order to alleviate our own fears of being commonplace. By diversifying to such an alarming degree do we hope to stave off the bland “normalcy” that we fear will overtake us, homogenizing us into just another cog in an ever-turning machine who’s only production is the crowning the diminutive as royalty and exonerating the plain, thus making them extraordinary. But therein lies the rub. Like so much Camembert lying in the sun, we have doomed ourselves to lives of the mundane, by treating the unique and bland with equal favor, we have removed the same power we hoped to wield over this world.

A word by Any other name

When does a word become a word? Do a certain number of people have to have similar definitions to a guttural mix of sounds before we call it "a word"? Is there some board of directors that sits atop some kind of Dictionarial Shrine hearing cases one after the other over why a new mix of letters and sounds should now be considered a word?

In the last 10 years the word "d'oh" made it in to the dictionary. This is not a word as much as a cry that was by and large credited to Homer Simpson. But now it's in the dictionary, so I guess it's a word.

English is baffling enough without knowing the fact that cartoon characters have some power over it's creation.

A website that I frequent (which also happens to be a cartoon) has a propensity for making up words at will. A few examples of this would be "wood daver" (some kind of craft made with pine cones and peanut butter), a "stnank" (a mistake), and one of my personal favorites, "burninate" (you guessed it, to burn something..).

Are all these now "words"? If I approached a black robed member of this dictionarium and threatened to burninate him if he didn't come up with a word that rhymes with purple would he know what I'm talking about? Probably not.

I wish math were the same way. I wish I could just make up "new math" and have it mean something. I woulda done a lot better in Calculus if that were the case.

x ~~ (y2 @^ b - 4) = very yes.

Oh well.

Accident Waiting to Happen

Let me set the scene.


I'm stopped at a stoplight in South Minneapolis and my ever-present curiosity and Sherlock Holmes like observational skills notice some odd things about this particular corner. The most obvious to me at the start was the police car parked at the convenience store to my right in the process of arresting a rather exuberant felon. While this is not an uncommon sight around this neighborhood it is still unique enough to warrant my noticing. The second thing I noticed was that the traffic flowing opposite me had stopped and was backed up quite a ways.


A big white mini-van had been forced to stop in this traffic debacle in the middle of the intersection as the light turned red. Noticing that cars are now barreling towards him, the driver of this vehicle decides he should probably back up a tad, since going forward was not an option. So he pops into reverse and coasts his big ass van backwards.


Now is when the capital scene begins to unfold. A moderately hygienic girl is crossing the street on the crosswalk, her attention clearly focused on the police and their accosting of the ne'er do well taking place behind her. Little does she suspect that in a scant few feet she will be walking into the path of a large vehicle that is backing up in its clandestine way out of the intersection.


What happened next took only a matter of seconds, but I had the great dispensation to watch it play out in slow motion. As I come to the realization that the innocent girl is about to be "run over" by the truck I did what any of us would do. I leaned forward. Why you ask? To watch. And before you criticize me for not trying to help or interject into the scene let me say this. You would've done the same.


You know how when you're driving alone after dark up on a small road and suddenly a deer jumps out of the ditch in front of your car? What do you do? Well the first thing that happens is you yell "DEER!" Or at least that's what I do. Same thing. I'm merely acknowledging the situation and impending circumstances.


So truck backing, girl walking, me leaning.


The girl proceeds to faceplant into the side of the van, nose first. After ramming the van at full walking speed she staggers backward, shaking her head in that cartoony sort of way in disbelief. The van driver upon hearing a large moving object hit him, stops abruptly and looks in his rear view mirror (something he hadn't been doing up to that point, even though he was driving backwards). He sees the girl staggering around, and in an act of humane servitude, busts out laughing at her.


Meanwhile, the scofflaw being arrested is jumping up and down yelling "that dude just hit that girl! That dude just hit that girl!"


The girl, after "shaking out the cobwebs" continued on her way, the light turned green and the guy drove off and the police didn't believe their prisoner in the slightest. All became right with the world once again, and I smiled and laughed to myself for the rest of the morning.

In the Mouth of the River of Death

photo originally posted by Yanec


March 22, 2000
Cotonou, Benin

The air hung like a thick blanket over the city, slowing down everything and everyone until time itself labored from second to second. The heavy atmosphere caught in the lungs, making even the simplest of tasks laborious and difficult. One questioned the very need to breathe, as even that became strained and exhausting in the tepid air.

Above the concrete maze, the air seemed to dance and ripple to an unheard song, as if taunting the denizens who wallowed in laziness below, and flaunting its own freedom. The sun seemed to betray its own motives as it twisted and turned the air into a masterful work of invisible art, done only for the torture of the many pairs of hollow eyes that occasionally glanced skyward in hopes of finding relief and shelter from a misguided cloud. Not even the clouds questioned the stern gaze of the sun this day, and they all found folly elsewhere, departing from the angry gaze, like so many children fleeing the tirade of a cross mother.

The eyes that hopefully glanced upward soon drew themselves back to the steaming ground, as sweat made its stinging welcome into those peering eyes. It was as if the air, the thick, hot air, had become a second skin, laying heavy upon humanity. All are soon drenched and thoughts of solace, comfort and sleep drip away as beads of sweat. For there is no sleep this night, as even sleep becomes a hard and strenuous labor amidst the torrent of the sun's coarse waves. Choking life from every pore, the sun has left me defeated.

There For the Grace of God Go I

I remember an otherwise completely forgettable day in South Florida when I was first introduced to that thing that would define my generation. I was in the middle of doing my best to follow dreams, make parents proud, "find myself" and all the other societal detritus that tends to sideswipe me on idle sunny afternoons. At the time I was smack dab in the middle of an existential quandry that largely revolved around simplifying my life and eliminating that ever present buzzing noise that our culture has conveniently created to distract us from what really matters.

It was in this state that I first witnessed my sister, (who was not in the same crisis as I) chatting in the now largely antiquated mIRC online community. I sat down, quickly found some chatrooms with interesting people and made my insignifcant mark upon the cyber world.

And so it goes.

As history is wont to do I find myself cyclically returning to that day, albeit a tad more self-aware, yet still trying to follow dreams, make parents proud, and find myself. So here is my blog. And once again I participate in the grand old buzzing of the world.