Friday, April 27, 2018

Monsters on a Mountain (a fanfiction)


No matter how fast she could run, no matter where she tried for cover, or what wood she could get herself lost in, or ruined suburb she could thread through, those red eyes were always there behind her, smoldering in the night like burning embers. 

She was still only a child, but she knew fear better than any living man could still walk the earth. The red eyes belonged to a monster. And that monster was coming for her. Her muscles were too young to escape it. She fell at last, panting, exhausted. Sweat drenched her. She was terrified. She would have screamed if she had anymore energy in her to do so. Instead, she put the last of her strength in her arms and she crawled. The dry dirt beneath her felt like a hot desert’s sand between her fingers, even though it was the black of night, but still she heaved. There was no respite from the heat anymore. 

Twisted metal, and old charred rubble surrounded her. The skeleton that remained of the world of yesterday fascinated her youthful imagination. She always wanted to know what that world was like, before their own massive stockpile of antiquated death was launched against the world—before they took the world. 

Now it was coming for her, like it came for everything: the beasts with the red eyes. She could hear the weight of their footfalls drawing in. It was behind her, like all that wonder she had for the fallen civilizations that made them. She rolled on her back, seeing it with wide-eyes through a curtain of sodden bangs sticking to her face. It was awful. It’s eyes pierced the night, and it’s silver skeleton hand reached out to grab her. 

Natasha sprung from her bedding with a gasp in her throat. After a few gulps of rotten air she new at last it was all only a dream... but it wasn’t. It was all very real, and inexorable. Nothing can stop it... nothing. She looked. There were people around, of course, but they were sparse, and miserable. Silhouettes of the life moving about the ghetto were thrown on the broken walls by candlelight. They huddled in their corners with what scraps remained to remind them of their lost humanity. She saw a mother and her child, close in arms, whimpering. The adult wept for the life she wasted in front of the beloved box, where the child cried for that life he could never know. Natasha at least liked to think they were kin, it was a romantic idea in her head; part of her own stubborn humanity that just won’t die. They were watching a television, but it was only the frame of one. Grandfathered survivors had told her once how it used to be, when there was power, and there wasn’t a care. But it could have all been bullshit, for all she could know. That magical box—as it was said—told them endless stories about man’s triumphs, and even their humilities. She wished she could have seen it then. But she was born after the cities had gone up in flames. Now, all the mother and son, or stranger and waif could do was watch a fire eat away at debris that had been piled inside where the tube once had dwelt. It was such a very poignant image to behold. 

Something hurt. Her legs were sticky in strange places. Natasha did not feel well. An unusual sickness turned at the pit of her stomach. She removed her threadbare sheets, and she suddenly knew it at once: It was very bad. 

“No,” she panicked. 

Quickly she scrambled out from her bedding and she was running, like in her dream. The couple in front of the relic television watched her go, their eyes curious, and sore from the wistful tears.

When Natasha was alone she ripped down her pants, and only stared at it, not knowing what to do. The hollow wind howled through the decrepit complex. Distant on the breeze, she could hear the high scream of the droning air vents on the patrolling Sky Hunters. She could not let them find her, not like this. She then hurriedly took off her top, leaving herself standing naked under the stars. All of their shelters in the ghetto were without roofs. It was so the warden could always watch them as they lived, scrutinizing—studying how they lived.

Natasha would have to be quick about the matter, and she would have to burn the evidence. Her maturity was becoming vastly difficult to conceal, but she had to, for as long as she could, so long as she lived there. She had not grown too full in the breasts, so that was at least one blessing she did not have to fret for, but now she was bleeding. It ran hot, thick-bodied and copious down her thighs. She spit on her bundled up shirt and she scrubbed, sobbing all the while she worked. 

Her blood was a rare thing. They kept a close watch on her development all the long years she had been trapped in captivity. A cult were left as her guardians, recording her every change. At first, in her naive  innocence, she was proud to have them, calling them mommy, and daddy, and uncle, joining them in ritual. But that was before she knew the truth: that they had meant to harvest her when she would come of age. 

“The Time Has Come!” 

She was too late. Standing there bare as a new born under the cloud flanked moon, Mommy had found her. 

Her vanity prompted her to fold her arms around her body, and she begged them to show mercy. She asked them to keep her secret. But it was useless. Before long they were dragging her by both arms. Her tattered jeans clung to her foot as they took her up the mountain, where They were waiting for her—the ones with the red eyes. She wailed, and the cult sang, rejoicing in her horror. The beauty in the stars high above mocked her naked and scourged body, exposed for her prey to feast on. They threw her down at their feet. The cult in unison dropped to their knees and they prayed. They thought these things were gods; they have been lost in this world far too long. They were not gods—They were demons. Several of them stepped out from the darkness, their silver bodies glistening in the night. Their Sky Hunters slicing the darkness with high-beams, like great birds of steel floating over the scene. The beasts moved hard on her, their eyes blazing red as blood, always analyzing and calculating. They were always precise, and that’s the true reason why they could not be stopped. Nobody was as strong as the brain that knew only math, logic, and balance. 

Natasha stopped crying. She sat up on her knees and glared at them. There was nothing more left for her to do—it was over. 

Her blood was too special. The cult stripped off her clothes, and that was bad, but They would strip her flesh. That was what they wanted. The machines encircled her, and they wasted no time. The whine of gears was all she could hear beyond her own screams as they tediously cut her open, and drew her apart, collecting every drop of blood that sprayed in the process. She remembered seeing shattered pieces of the massive letters that used to spell the word Hollywood there on that strange mountain, but now it was where the beasts did their malign work, and where their sycophants worshipped them as slaves. 

It was a long time before she was dead. They were called T-800’s. They were different from the ones before; they were worse. They could be more human, and that was an egregious thing anything with such a mind as Skynet could ever possibly achieve. Natasha thought that before she finally went. She was grateful for death, though, at least in death she did not have to face the impossible trials humans only had left to confront before their final descent. Only a miracle of invention could save them. And that miracle was far from their mortal reach. That would take a mind with more time to be so dangerously ambitious. Or perhaps so cunning that lack there of would dare challenge them to think in their final moments so brilliantly. Still, none of that mattered for her anymore. In death, all was forgiven, forgotten, and done.


#fanfic
#terminator

***Terminator
Inspired by characters created by James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd***

Beautiful Hunger

I heard her calling so I went.
The night was peaceful and somnolent, but the wind was pressing hard at my back. The breeze was cool and soft as a lover's touch, but demanding, hungry, and cajoling. Like a voice caught in the whistling gales she whispered into my ear. She told me to go to the sea. Somewhere near the smell of death lingered, but I paid it no mind as I followed her music to the break of the shore. Her airy voice floated on, beckoning me further. The frothy white waves stirred and crashed, erupting into plums of mist against corals and rocks. The tide advanced, eager to lay claim to the beach, for by the call of the moon it was rightfully hers. Cool spray took me like the spittle of a great beast preparing to taste its prey. Coaxing, as intoxicating venom administered to lure me into her trap, her song carried me forward… her beautiful song.  
Wading through the icy waters I went deeper, and deeper still. The ocean was alive, churning and shifting wildly, but I sensed a patience no terrestrial mind could ever understand—she was waiting, and she savored that. But for what, I did not know. The moon swelled over me, like wanting pupils, it's rays reflecting off the placid sea, shimmering as to eclipse the heavenly bodies in the sky. She guided me on my quest to seek the singer of this bewitching song at my ear. So beautiful she sang.
Then there came a darkness so absolute I felt as though I had lost myself in a great pool of nothingness, an endless abyss. The living body fell suddenly silent, stagnant in my wake. In the depths I found a leafy green growth swimming in the water, as if dancing to the lilt of the mysterious voice that still hung on the wind. The weeds swayed from side to side, like a submerged willow. Spiraling green ribbons caught in a vortex turned my way. Suddenly there were eyes upon me, peering up from the queer shrub. They were luminous, glowing in the red of love, the crimson of blood. Spellbindingly beautiful as they were, she caught me in her web.
She calls me still, and so I go to her. Her osculate lips locked on to mine longingly. Her full breasts against me, and her lathery tongue darting into my mouth, I tasted her hunger—I craved her desire. I prayed she would never let go. To my dismay she does not. She seized me by the neck, and wrests me from my own will. Though lissome and smooth as silk, her hands were strong, and so I did not resist, nor did I want to. Like a forbidden ecstasy, I willed her to pull me in and wished I had the strength to free myself from her grasp. The creature asked me to join her, to descend into her realm. I went, and even as my lungs heaved and the burn of the salty water filled them with blissful agony, I never fought her. Oh, so beautiful she was.
Her sleek scaly body coiled around me and squeezed like a vice, yet still I wanted it. My muscles turned to rubber, and my ribs shattered, yet still I begged her to take me. I was hers, she knew well as she opened her mouth to feed. Her jaw seemed to detach and grow. Her teeth were all at once spears and daggers sinking into my flesh. Drowning in my own hot blood, I bathed in her saliva, and came to be one with this beautiful monster. Piece by piece I filled her belly, dissolved in her acids, nourished her fibers, and fed her cells, giving her all the power that was in me.   

With the sent of my own flesh upon her breath, I have been transformed into this magic that was her song. Together we will call on the next to join us, to be consumed by love, and devoured by the sea. Soon another will follow suit, in search of the caller of that song so lovely, so beautiful… so hungry. Soon he will join us.

Friday, April 13, 2018

A Night Out

The music is beating, like a heart testing it’s mortality against a can of Wayyy Tooo Much Shit Fo Dat Vein Energy Drink. The drinks are overpriced. I hate everything! Why the hell did I come?! Everyone is dancing bad. One guy is ambling along, droning around with high sleeves, showing off his new whatever tat, looking tough. I love how people bitch about high shorts on young women but never peep a word about the man-sluts with bare Planet-Fitness-level bicep syndrome. And on that note, the world is getting hot, so skimpy clothes makes sense now. I suddenly realize—naw, I’ve always known it—that I’m no better. I’m that fucking guy who thinks he is so cool that he has some over-all-this-shit attitude, sitting there judging everyone doing what adulthood and what little rope society will allow them to have on this thing that we try to call fun bull shit! All the while I’m wishing I had the guts to be so untethered. I’ve been derided for being a man, for being ugly, short, balding, for having bad teeth, having a quick temper, for being weird, liking stupid bands, wearing lazy clothes, I’ve been ripped apart so much that I am literally afraid of being caught enjoying myself. But I’m thinking shit about these goddamn people, placing everyone in categories, judging, when I’m the one that is damaged. I want to dance—damn it—fuck off, if you hate on it! But instead I drink, and I hate before they can have the chance to hate me. I’m at the club, making stink-face, talking shit, praying I live in a world where the hot girl, with the midriff and raccoon tail—don’t ask—dancing to anyone who she might get a free drink from, will see how cool I am. But no. I suck, and in the worst kind of way. And she gonna get her drink, and I’m gonna keep sitting here writing this story like a miserable fuck who don’t know how to enjoy life anymore. And I deserve it. I’m no better than this guy, or that one. All of us are trying in our own fucked up, damaged-by-the-cards-this-world-has-dealt-us way to stand out and maybe get the girl that does not know we exist. The twist in this story is that sometimes that girl is trying to do the same thing. Most of the time, not so much. Most of the time people just want to have fun. Men have forgotten how to do that as they have left their young-self lost in oblivion. The club is a place for old people to try and remember to let go. Have fun. But things said, things experienced, the disparagement, the jokes, the lies, the peers who have even bigger scars, they make us forget that, and instead we remember all of that which we wish we would forget. So the base thrums, the beat kicks, and we scowl, we float around looking angry or creepy, we sit and brood hoping it somehow looks captivating, we want attention, we want the fun ones to notice, but we only make ourselves look worse than who we really are. Misperceptions sometimes even make us worse than who we are. Being a man should not be so ugly. It should be embraced. We should be proud. And free. We should be like, “fuck you! that’s my song, get the hell out my way!” But who wants to be laughed at? I think that even as I watch these ladies dance with no damn clue what the hell they are doing. They figured it out, but I can’t. Even though I know. I know that I need to just let go. But I’m afraid. I’m damaged... and I’m drinking an over priced light beer. $5 for this shit! Fuck this song, fuck this club, where the cold pizza at?! 

(Sigh) whatever, watching Lost in Space on Netflix 


Sunday, April 8, 2018

Gods of Carnage


The wolf snarled with her marvelous, evolutionarily dominant fangs showing—dripping. Her paws were heavy and big, they thudded as she prowled. Of course she wanted it that way. She desired to be heard—fear somehow made the meat all the more better. She could just as easily have skulked under the overgrown hedges, and there she would have been as quiet as the whisper of death. But there was nowhere for her prey to run. He stood there, eyeing his fate so boldly, as if he wasn’t even afraid. They were slow, dumb animals, these ones were. They were curious, far too curious, but very weak, even the strongest of their like. In packs they could be dangerous. They could hold things with their funny paws. They could shape branches into long claws, and have them cling to the air, and bring them down to captured their prey, much like a wolf could. But they were not wolves. They were tricks, and they would not work on her, not this time. She had this one cornered. She will lap at his blood and piss on his corpse. 
The wolf’s muscles were dense, sinuous, and rolling all across her flanks as she closed in. Her hackles went back. She gnashed, and rumbled a growl. The stupid beast only blinked emptily at her. No sign of emotion written anywhere around his long, dull face. They had learned to stand on their hind-legs, the beast observed. Neat trick, though, it will do him no good.
The wolf drew in closer. She flicked her wet tongue across her black snout. And then she said unto her prey, “Soon, I will eat you! How are you so insouciant?”
Poised with his impenetrable sangfroid disposition, the primate set his chin high, analytically. He frowned at the feral creature. And he answered, “Soon, I will dethrone you. Soon I will make you my bitch to call to heel. Soon I will eat everything, and you will beg for my dregs. How are you so complacent?”
“Because,” she said, “That is tomorrow...”
The primate replied, “but not today?”
“Not today,” she agreed, eagerly.
Today—“
“—I,”
“am—“
“—hungry,” the last human languishing on earth whimpered weakly millions of years later, dying alone on a vast horizon of dry, ravaged ruin. 

Friday, April 6, 2018

Graphic Design project: Oliver Spitts

Here is the original illustrations I was commissioned to do as a promo for an upcoming hiphop community event, hosted by Pennsylvania’s own Oliver Spitts of F.I.T.C.H TEAM 
lots of nature! Everything in this illustration was orchestrated by his wildly creative mind. I brought it to life with ink and photoshop. 

Sunday, April 1, 2018

She Figured Me Out

It’s late...
It’s October...
It’s Halloween and I’m stuck here...
We were pushing toward the home stretch on a day that I hold very dear to my heart. Unfortunately I was stuck at work, drawing caricatures for the good’ol Alabama Peanut Festival! Don’t get me wrong, I love that carnival, and I mostly enjoy my guests there... Mostly... Alright, that is my last Aliens throwback joke this week. Anyhow, I’m out there working with Flash Cartoon Fan and V-Blog legend Ashley The Man with the master draw Hand Ro**** (name edit for privacy, but this man is an ol G, just don’t ever say the phrase book-on-tape around him) occupying the candyland stand (the kiddy area stand) on the last painfully slow hour of the day. 
Look, I have ADD, and I LOVE Halloween. So when things get slow at a time like this, it gets me pacing, it gets me facebooking, and it gets me jabbering about off-the-rail nonsense. I just want to get the heck out of there! But darn it, I’m committed! And I’m suppose to be the manager, so I have to stay, tuck in my shirt, thumbs up, smile, quietly hate myself, and count the minutes of my life ticking away waiting for someone bold enough to bail on Trick-or-treating to ride some sick carnival rides and buy an awesome cartoon face of themself. But sadly, what happens is not really that. The trick-or-treaters are in bed, high on sugar, and dreading the school day waiting for them in the morning. And then the ones who do come out—there is no safe way to say this, so I’ll just go ahead and call them the late-hour-carnival patrons. 
So we are hanging out up front. The carnival is dead, at least our end of it is. The midway circle where all the rides are always appears busy, but its wristband holders, it’s teenagers abandoned by their moms, and it’s a bunch of kids with not much else on them then what little can keep them from dying of hunger or dehydration. We are back in the dark, hanging out next to candy castle. I’m staring at it debating going on a diabetic run, but then a Mom approaches with her children. She wants a caricature. She sits them down. I’m a little bit annoyed, a little bit relieved that I got guests to draw. But somehow—call it intuition—I get this feeling that no matter how I draw her kids she is going to hate it. She took two seconds of deciding before she put her kids in my chair. I never saw her so much as glance at our displays, or ask even what the price was before she got the impulse. My strategy in this situation is to succinctly explain our pricing so she can understand that we have to charge per person. And yes that means every face we have to draw. Never quite understood why people think their babies would be cheaper or even free sometimes. They don’t cooperate, (though sometimes they are better than their adults) their heads are about the size of yours, and they are mostly crying... mostly!! Damn it, I did it again. Get out of my head, Newt.
So, my strategy didn’t work. But never fear, they are still going to reject it. So I sit at the board and I start drawing. Ash is watching. I feel the mom’s eyes burning into me, scrutinizing every line. She doesn’t say a thing for a time. She just gets lost in the magic of it. Suddenly, Mom gets flummoxed. She starts scoffing my work. I get flustered. I turned around to try and explain what a caricature is. But before I could Mom gives me a I-got-your-hustle-figured-out side-ways glance. She says to her children, “naw, come on now. He got a trick marker.”
That left me nonplussed, and Ashley laughing his ass off. 
I could do nothing but watch, dumbfounded as they scurried off as though I was some sort of scam plague they might catch before they spend all their money trying to win an on the brink of death Carny fish. 

That day I knew I should have just went trick-or-treating... or at least just stayed out in the woods to get drunk with some Dead family members by the fire.