My Five Senses, back on 1/3/2015

Sound: Intermittent noise of cars traveling down nearby streets. Low hum that must be the house's heater. Somewhere else in the house, Emily runs the water, and I hear the pipes. Clacks as she organizes the kitchen. I hear the tearing sound of a plane, we're not far from the airport.

Touch: I'm sitting on a hardwood chair, with a pillow on top. It's lumpy against my butt. The pen grip is hard, smooth, not like some rubbery grips. I feel the edge of the table against my arm. My hand against my forehead, the skin drags on both surfaces.

Smell: I smell absolutely nothing. Yesterday I was sick, constantly sniffling, and no energy. Now I have my energy back, but I can't smell a goddamn thing.

Taste: I still have a teensy bit of breakfast flavor in my mouth. The sauteed mushrooms, the cheese, the thyme. There was also Kale, eggs, butter, and oregano, but I don't taste those anymore.

Sight: Two things strike me. The Rodin replica. I remember it in my Grandfather's library – dark green, but detailed. It didn't quite make it through the plane trip. The head is crushed, and only the head. Shattered into a million pieces, like a premeditated act of violence. Next are the two aloe plants left on a desk with no direct sun. They're growing straight up, totally pale, in a life or death struggle to find the light.

Update 3/8/2015:

I guess if this blog is anything, it's a chronicle of me teaching myself to write, so I may as well post this kind of stuff. I never took an English class in college (I got out of it by cross referencing with a poli-sci class on Eastern European protest novels from the Soviet era), so this is a fun adventure.

I moved the aloe plants to a window, they're doing better now. At least, they're green now, so that means something.

Cold Water

The lake stays frigid cold well into the hot part of May. It's the mountains, really. The Ozarks aren't exactly what you'd call snow-capped, but they're colder than they should be, and the deep forest canopy keeps the sun from ever touching the streams.

Those brooks run down the mountains' hips, and down into the hot valleys below. It's the kind of water that'll stop you on your run, make you take a cool sip and stand there, panting and drinking.

It's also the kind of water that'll shock you when you jump in. You'll be laughing and joking with your friends, going down to the water and generally having a great time pretending you're all a decade younger than you really are. Then, you'll feel all bold and decide you really need to stop being such a sissy about how you get into the water – toes, then feet, then calves and knees.

You'll walk right onto the dock thinking that makes you a badass. You'll drop your towel right there on the wood and grin that stupid grin, and you'll do some sort of half flip into the chest deep water.

When you plunge in, the first thing you'll feel is the encapsulation. There's that sound of the water closing in over your ears and face. Halfway between a lover's whisper and a threat. Your toes brush against the silty mud, and for a split second you don't even notice the tiny blood vessels at the surface of your skin shutting down.

Summetime cold doesn't come down and nestle inside your bones like Winter cold does. It reaches inside you and stabs your heart before you even know it's there, so when your friends watch you jump in off the dock, they won't notice a thing until you explode back up from it, staggering like you just took a punch. You'll thrash and collapse back under, trying to claw your way back to the shore, and when make it you'll holler something inane, like

“FUCK!”

That's when your friends will all decide to go play volleyball instead.

M.I.N.I.O.N.S.

 M.I.N.I.O.N.S

 (by me)

25 Multitudinous Industrious Neophytes Interning On No Salary slouch over their workstations in Production Room 534. The sound of hopelessness is interrupted only by the Supervisory AI Timecard clicking through their attendance rolls. Our Heroine's sidekick tries not to fall asleep.

BAM!

The workroom door launches across the room, followed by a combat boot the size of a locomotive. It belongs to Glori Von Brockson, head of MonoCorp security. His mountainous frame squeezes, strains, and then bursts through the door, greeted by the sounds of workers' eyes popping open.

“MINIONS!” Glori's voice hits them like a tidal wave. “One of you is plotting against the Corporation!”

A tree trunk finger points at each intern in turn, blanching the color right out of their faces. It finally rests on the intern next to Our Heroine's sidekick. The boy's eyes practically wither right into his skull. He pees a little.

Von Brockson fixes him with the Head Shake of Shame, and moves on to the next MINION, but lo and behold! The pants pee-er has produced a tear gas canister! Salt-colored fumes explode across the room, and the pants pee-er is through the door. He flees to the stairwell in a flurry of pitter-patter terror. The worker skips down to the bottom of the steps and flings the rear exit door open, only to see Von Brockson blotting out the sun in front of him

“How?” The pants pee-er squeaks.

The head of security simply points upwards. Window #534 is open, and the ground below it is cracked and cratered like a meteor's landing pad. The pants pee-er whimpers. He runs, and he is stepped on.

Ten seconds later the interns of #534 are holding to their workstations for dear life. Everything not bolted down is hurled to the back of the room. Such is the admonishment from Security Chief Von Brockson. You produce for MonoCorp, you give of yourself to MonoCorp, but you do not take from MonoCorp. These are the laws of MINIONS.

Our Heroine enters the room. We know she is Our Heroine because she caries a huge fucking sword, and because there is a streak of inexplicable sapphire in her raven black hair.

“Late!”

The word crashes against Our Heroine's back while she flows to the space between her sidekick and pants-pee-er's workstations. Our Heroine's sidekick prints off a note, and hands it to her. The sidekick's role in this particular story is over. The sidekick fades into obscurity.

The note reads “Go time, baby.”

The signal is clear, and Our Heroine revolves clockwise to face Glori Von Brockson, in all his screaming glory. His face erupts in a grin, and his hands emerge from his pockets clad in brass knuckles. The golden light from the knuckles casts the room in amber. Our Heroine grips her sword, the H.F.S Nightblade. Its inky depths reflect the fears of its holder. Right now, it reflects nothing.

We do not root for Glori Von Brockson, even though he is armed with knuckles against the H.F.S. Nightblade, because he towers over Our Heroine. She looks up in defiance, eyes dripping with the words 'I don't,' and 'give a shit.'

No shits are received.

The ensuing battle takes place like a river fighting a mountain. Interns and the supervisory AI look on stupefied, unable to understand the layers of combat taking place. Finally Our Heroine lands a blow, and Von Brockson sails through walls like they're made of tissue paper.

Our Heroine's sidekick wonders aloud why Von Brockson went flying through a wall after being slashed by a razor sharp sword. We tell said sidekick to shut the hell up, and that when the narrator tells you to fade into obscurity, you better not draw any damn attention to yourself.

Anyway, Our Heroine pockets a small package from the pants-peer's desk, and turns. She heads to the hallway, down which lays her prize, but she catches sight of Von Brockson in the corner of her eye. She has knocked him clear into his own office! She sees one of his mitts pound against a pulsing red button.

Alarms sound as Our Heroine enters the hall, and holes open up in the ceiling. Guardian Robots Under No True Supervision rain down into the hallway, and in a shower of clicks and hydraulic buzzing, they point their robo-guns toward Our Heroine. The GRUNTS open fire. Their clips empty into the air between them and Our Heroine, but she spins the H.F.S. Nightblade in a blazing fury. Ears and security microphones both fill with the scream of steel against lead. In moments the GRUNTS are empty, and only one shot has gotten through. Our Heroine tenses and puts a hand to her abdomen. Her fingers come away red. She grits her teeth and readies herself.

With a whir, the GRUNTS transform their robo-guns into blade arms, and descend on Our Heroine. They press and surround her with spinning blades, but Our Heroine swats them dead like a cat with 100 little mice. The sapphire streak of hair on her head grows muddy with engine grease and hydraulic fluid. The blood of automatons.

The Huge Fucking Sword leaves the robots a pile of sprockets and motherboards, and Our Heroine races down the hall. She turns the final corner to see Von Brockson blotting out the fluorescent lights in front of her.

This time the Security Chief is armed with spiked metal boxing gloves, and their fight goes the full twelve rounds. Every time Von Brockson lands a blow on Our Heroine, she flicks her sword to collect the blood spray and fling it against the wall. Time stretches around the fight and no single being can tell you how long it lasts. Planets turn and little boys dream of glory, while the melee of their fight eventually spells two words in dripping red on the wall.

Von Brockson is sweating, near collapse, and Our Heroine is growing pale. The Security Chief looks at the wall and pants; “That? You came all this way, just for that?”

Our Heroine nods.

“I will yield.” Glori Von Brockson bows and withdraws to his office, leaving Our Heroine in front of a nondescript door.

Our Heroine purses her lips and exhales a tiny puff of air. It touches the door and the door bursts off its hinges to shatter against the far wall. She enters and confront a nervous dweeb in horned-rim glasses. His nametag displays a series of letters that Our Heroine cares nothing about, but below them is written 'Head of H.R.'

Our Heroine reaches into her pocket, and horn-rim starts crying. She unwraps the package and produces a contract, and a pen. Her mouth moves, and she utters two words.

“Paid Stipends.”

Thor 2: The Dark World

Going to the movies is a funny experience. Not the movies themselves, only about half of those are funny, but the experience of going to them. Prior to heading out for Thor 2: The Dark World, I had shared an afternoon meal at the home of my girlfriend's parents. When my girlfriend and I announced we would be heading out to the theatre (I refuse to spell “theater” properly, because YOLO), we had this exchange with my girlfriend's mother:

Her: “Oh, so you're going out to see 12 Years a Slave! It's amazing!”

Us: “Umm, actually, we were going to see Thor. We thought we'd have some fun, and save the crying for next weekend.”

Her: “Whaat!? Gross. Well if you decide to be moved, and have something to think about for the next decade, you should see 12 Years instead.”

Right then.

All of this is somewhat unfair to Thor, and I'm sure the Norse god's thundering biceps would disapprove, but I think the convo speaks marvels towards Marvel's (sorry, yolo again) decisions about positioning their movies. They aren't particularly interested in my parent's generation, but they know that to gross the absurdist numbers that they would like to gross with each iteration of their hydraform sagas, they need to appeal to adults who might otherwise go to see a film, rather than a movie. They promise a fun, mindless diversion that won't leave someone in their mid-twenties embarrassed for themselves afterward (Transformers, anyone?). The question is, did they succeed?

The short answer, of course, is yes.

The long answer goes something like this:

I adored about 90 percent of this movie. The original Thor succeeded for me due to Branagh's almost Shakespearean ambitions with the film. The use of royal struggles to explore normal family dynamics is something I love about the Bard, and is it me, or did the laughs in the first Thor movie feel inspired from a few of the comedies (right down to playing with mistaken identity) as well?

This movie delivers that exact same feel, but peppered and zinged with a few Whedon-y spices along the way (he's no stranger to Shakespeare either). The dialogue leaves most cheap-thrill action movies in the dust, and as for the action itself, well, the Marvel movies are like a fine wine.

My favorite thing about the action in Thor is actually Thor himself. He's practically indestructible, so the directors get to do stuff to him that they just don't get to do to the other Avengers. Whedon obvously had tons of fun doing this last summer – Thor is the Hulk's favorite buddy, because he's the only teammate that the Hulk can harmlessly punch through walls – and Alan Taylor does a great job picking up the torch in this movie. The action feels epic and exciting. It completely avoids “apocalypse fatigue,” (the way the impending end of the world can feel boring because you've seen it so many damn times) despite the high stakes, and people wanting to see new and innovative uses of Thor's powers get plenty of the as well.

While the action is awesome, let's get back to Shakespeare idea for a second. This movie is at it's finest when we see the drama of a family in turmoil, both from outside and within. Every single scene with 2 of the 4 members of the Allfather household (Odin, Friga, Thor, and Loki) sizzles, and even more so when one of the two members is Loki. Hiddelston is the gift that keeps on giving, and he's as much a key to my love of the Marvel franchise as RDJ and Whedon.

So that's a lot of adoring. What's that last unpleasant 10%, you ask? Well, I wasn't a fan of the villains. I'm sure the Dark Elves have a rich history in the comics, but they felt a little flat. The head honcho was great, but even his motivation seemed like it might have been purchased at Forboders-R-Us. Those things, of course, are relatively minor when we're talking about what is essentially a stop-gap movie to set the stage for something bigger in 18 months. What really irked me was the orcing.

Orcing is a problem in a lot of fantasy, so this isn't the most horrible offense in the world. The fact that it should pop up in Marvel's fantasy helping of the superhero platter is no surprise, but great sword/sorcery stories have been told without it, and epic battles have still taken place. Orcing, by the way, is explained with quite a bit more expertise in the link above, but is essentially what happens when you introduce an entire race of people who are treated much the same way by your story as othered races are treated by mainstream media in this country. Again, this is a small issue with the juxtaposition of the villains that irked, but did not remove me from the action.

Anyway, I hope you see Thor, most of all because of Loki's charming ass, but also because I'd love to spend some time with you, laughing and applauding the big blondie's innovative use lightning and gutteral screaming. Thousand year old Asgardians really can learn new tricks.

A Child's War

Erik's cart was small, but you wouldn't know it by the rattling behind him. The rickety wheels drowned out all other sound, except of course, for the noise the horse's hooves in front of him. Erik should have known better than to buy the massive draft horse, but the price had been cheap and the animal's stoicism had convinced him. He told himself then that he would need all that power one day, but he now knew the horse could pull much more than he would ever use it for. Not his shrewdest purchase, but it had been his first since returning home from the war. His first since returning more alive than the farmers he'd left.

Erik's horse whinnied, and the rattling grew stronger. He looked backward, the furs he sold were packed in crates, and hidden under wooden boards to protect them from the rain. He strained forward, trying to look past the tall horse in front of him. 

 

Promptly he was knocked off his steering platform as two glorious blue chargers stampeded past. A thunderous crash assaulted his ears before he even hit the ground. The front of his cart splintered into pieces, and instincts developed long ago were all that saved him from the flying shrapnel.

Erik looked up, winded. His duck and roll had taken him into a ditch by the roadside. His shoulder blades ached with a future bruise. The majestic seahorses galloped away, scaled hides gleaming, their gills flaring in panic. They left behind a richly jeweled carriage, and a dead driver. Bad memories kept Erik from investigating the pour soul, and instead he walked to the carriage.

Erik reached for the jeweled handle, but it opened out at him before he could grasp it. The resulting awkwardness was compounded when a familiar face emerged.

“Aah! Peasant. So good to see your desire to rescue your lord. Never fear, I will assess the damage myself.” Prince Denard brushed past him and gazed down the road towards Thanelia, the capital city that Erik was leaving.

“Umm... Thank you Your Grace.” Erik tried not to get flustered.

“No need, Subject, no need. My lady, it appears our driver has passed on. Would you like to assess the situation?” The Prince referred to something in the carriage, and Erik could not help but follow his gaze. This face shocked him, it was even more familiar.

A scarred woman stepped from the carriage. This close, her face was much younger than Erik remembered. She couldn't be any older than he was. Still, ingrained habits dropped him to one knee.

“General Rose!” Erik stared at the ground and watched her feet stroll past him. After several moments, he stole a glance towards the pair.

Memories flooded back as he watched them converse. A mounted woman (a girl, in retrospect) in shining armor stood on a hill as soldiers in much dirtier plate dragged a boy kicking and screaming from his home. A year later, that same boy had looked up at that same woman (no, girl), covered in blood and waving a flaming sword, while she rallied his decimated squad for a suicidal charge.

As Erik looked at them, Prince Denard turned back to him and smiled. Through his royal grin he announced “Congratulations humble trader, today you can be of great use.” He gave a magnanimous sweep of his arms. “As you can see, I have found myself without locomotion, and here you are, draft horse and all. Allow me to give you the honor of taking your prince to court.”

Erik barely heard the royal, he was still remembering. The boy was a young man now. He stood amongst the army and watched the future monarch strut in his fine silks, his voice projected to thunderous volume through a leviathan's throatbox. They would let the greater enemy force pass the border to the north. The opportunity to pillage the northern countryside was bait. This army would bypass the border war and strike at the other nation's heart. Those people's sacrifice would win the war in a single stroke, he had declared.

“Aah, he is in shock from the honor. Rose, would you see to him? You are so much better at relating to the common man than I.” 

 

General BloodRose, Thorn of Thanelia, took two steps towards Erik. He looked up, and a flash of recognition ran between them. It was not their first. Both of them shared this memory.

The girl was a woman now. She sat, battle scarred and terrible on her warhorse, mind occupied with tracking down enemy holdouts. Nearby, the same young man ran sobbing down a familiar hill. The younger Erik was breaking rank, and the farmhouse he ran to was smoldering. He reached the building and wailed, embracing a charred corpse. Men tried to separate him from the body, but he had grown stronger than before. Through tears, he looked up at the woman, and a flash of recognition ran between them. Still, the commander refused to stop. The dead remained unburied.

Erik shook himself and crossed the road. The weight of expectation crushed him as he packed his saddlebags. He climbed his horse, and looked back, Prince Denard was already waiting in the carriage. Finally, something in him broke.

Erik spurred the horse, and it walked away from the two nobles. The prince sputtered.

“What are you doing! This is treason! Unnaceptab...” He trailed off under Erik's gaze.

Erik turned to the General. She nodded. Not an apology, just an acknowledgment. Erik turned and rode off.

End