Positional Distortion

Test of Character

2005-10-01T22:24:00.000-07:00

Welcome Christopher, take a seat, make sure you have a number two pencil. Fill the circles in darkly and completely. Absolutely no cheating will be tolerated. You may begin when the minute hand reaches 5.

Click. The minute hand fires the starter pistol. I'm off.

A test paper. Crisp and foreboding. Sure, it's harmless now, but give it a little time and it'll end up all covered in blood colored ink.

This is wrong. Check.
That's incorrect. Minus 5.
Wrong again. Minus 10.
Here. Half credit.
Here. No credit.
Here too. Some illegible comment.

Is it worth the effort when you know failure is unavoidable? Who wants to be shown all their shortcomings anyhow?

For now, I'll daydream of another place. A place not called home.

The paper looked so nice and neat before I started marking my answers anyhow.

I'd rather just chew on my pencil.
Or doodle.
Or stare out the window.

Remove myself from the threat of red ink.

Choons

2005-09-06T14:24:00.000-07:00

Well this is my first post sent in via email. Nothing lengthy here. I
would like to add more to the story soon. Maybe finish Chapter 2 and
get it in a better format for web viewing.

In the meantime, check out some of the tunes on my playlist:

"Another line...in a Crazy World," Loner
"Tribulations," LCD Soundsystem
"Zealots Awaken," Beneath Autumn Sky
"Hide and Seek," Imogen Heap
"Make Love," Daft Punk

...and anything off of Thievery Corp's newest album, "Cosmic Game"

Also, if anyone out there knows how to easily indent in blogger, please let me know...lucid@djlucid.com

New Blog

2005-09-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

So I started a class on blogging this semester. I know you're jealous, but if you're interested in checking out my group blog, click here. I post as "Jive Turkey." Don't ask why because I don't know.

Carry on.

Chapter 1

2005-08-17T03:01:00.000-07:00

"Your utter disregard for anyone other than yourself is only shadowed by your irreverent greed for that which is not yours to have! Darling, what don't you require?"

"Require? Require?" The tall dark-haired woman shrieked with a certain ferocity, not too unbecoming of her obviously abrasive nature. She sat indian-style amongst a menagerie of pillows on a large bed.

Standing in the doorway, the man took in a deep breath and opened his mouth to say something. After a slight pause his mouth closed abruptly and it was clear he had changed his mind. Whatever witty retort was brewing fell short of making it to his tongue.

The room was styled in an old Victorian theme, with dark shades of purple saturating nearly all the furnishings. Tall windows crawled up to the vaulted ceiling and large ghostly drapes tethered them to the wall. In the center of the room sat an enormous bed so high off the ground it had its own small wooden staircase.

I'm not going to lie, I was anxious for the inevitable skirmish. Not often do they get the chance to showoff this colorful affection they so amicably share with eachother. Holding my breath, I waited patiently for the onslaught.

The broad's name was Juliet Longsbell, his, Jack Warner. Together they might have come off as a modern day Bonnie and Clyde. Real in love. Real dangerous. Juliet's normally keen eyes were weary from the remarkably busy day she'd been through. She wore nothing more than her undergarments, silk and revealing. Attractive and muscular, she was so beautiful that no amount of clothing could fully conceal the curvaceous figure beneath. A freshly lit cigarette hung delicately between her two fingers.

Jack was dressed in his usual attire: a finely pressed suit hidden beneath a cobalt blue trench-coat. He was a man of average height and build. In fact he was average in almost every way, with the exception of his face which consisted of sharp angles and an offensively oversized mustache. Together these features demanded attention and gave him an unspeakable aura of importance.

Unable to imagine how Jack had found her, she coyly tugged her bra strap. "Really Jack, what the hell do you want from me?" she uttered, stern but not without the slightest sprig of desperation.

While frantically negotiating with a stubborn button in an attempt to remove his pants, Jack suddenly realized what he was doing. He had come here to set things straight, to find out the truth. Instead, his intellect lost out to his bodily desires. With the reigns of self-control let loose, his movements became less restricted and more automatic. The button finally forfeited to his tenacious digits, bringing his pants crashing to the floor. He glanced up and focused on Juliet's lips.

It soon became clear that the bout I had expected to witness was either being put on hold, or postponed indefinitely. I suddenly felt foolish for expecting otherwise. My anticipation was quickly drowned by my growing concern of being discovered by Jack. I could almost make out my own worried eyes in the reflection of his meticulously well polished shoes. They poked out menacingly from under his previously worn pants. My grip on the revolver hardened accordingly.

A Clean, formatted verion of this can be found here.

Back to Here

2005-05-25T16:26:00.000-07:00

Heading back to B-town in the purple Corolla. The "a" is still missing from the car's title on the trunk. There's a compartment in the dashboard that won't stay closed, even with the application of some withered scotch tape. This is new. So is the way she bites me in bed. I'm not sure what I'm more impressed by: how much she's changed, or how much she's stayed the same.

It's probably best if I don't pursue such trains of thought. Even still, she's here next to me, disturbingly quiet after a long weekend, gripping the wheel with a robotic persistence. We are children reconvening in the same sandbox only this time with new toys, new clothes, and a new sense of self. Everything feels right-ish and I can deal with the changes. It's just hard to ignore the obvious awkwardness of it all.

We dart up 22A. It is a sullen drive and it's difficult to place the cause. Perhaps it's nothing, maybe I'm just trying too hard to label every moment in time. Cataloguing the ups and downs. Indexing the smiles, and cross-referencing the frowns with expressionless glances all in the name of dependence. Emotional security. Relational consistency.

And it all makes me so tired. So many things to look forward to, even more things to appreciate, but the one grey drop of doubt in my lake of emotions is enough to taint it all. Maybe I need more sleep. Maybe I need more death.

Maybe I need to lighten the fuck up. After all, she's going to leave me. Time to pony up. Again. For real this time.

Moot

2005-04-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

Joe and I climb aboard a shuttle bus. Our stay in Vegas has come to an end.

The driver, a witty woman, probably in her early thirties, keeps yelling at the traffic as though she had personally designed the roads herself. We're sitting directly behind her in the first row of seats. I suddenly realize she bares an uncanny resemblance to Wanda Sykes.

"I bet there are a lot of accidents," Joe mutters as he glances at the controlled chaos of Vegas traffic. The windows are tinted and I can see the reflection of the old couple sitting behind us.

"Oh, yeah! You kidding?" she began. Her voice was filled with an intensity that could only be evidence of her unquestionable knowledge of the subject. "There was a big bloody accident just up there last week!" She points a quick finger somewhere down the road in front of us. After a brief pause Wanda adds, "Happens all the time."

As soon as her lips stop moving, an ambulance races by and it pulls up to a curb about a block up. The siren beats against my hangover like a stubborn ex on a locked door.

Outside, I can make out some people gathered around in a circle. They look like a school of fish that's lost it's ability to travel. Eyes wide open, mouths gaping. We speed by and no one says a word.

---

Addendum.

In ancient Rome cowardice was the most despicable crime. If a soldier deserted battle or disobeyed even the most suicidal of orders, the punishment was unthinkable. Specifically, his unit was lined up and every tenth soldier was taken aside and beaten to death by his comrades.

Here, have a stone.

Flashbacks

2005-04-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

Fast forward.

It's been close to three weeks since I returned from Vegas. Things are significantly different now. Consider the details forthcoming.

I sit in the dark and try to find a place worthy of starting. A friendly, warm (albeit restless), body lays adjacent to my chilly feet. Her head is buried face down in a pillow. Her naked back strokes my imagination. Sitting Indian-style, back against the cold wall of my bedroom, I close my eyes tight and try to remember the little things.

We're listening to whatever my computer decides is right for the time. This time it chose Goldfinger. The empowering lyrics stir up energy in my finger tips and I type harder. My eyelid twitches from sleep deprivation. It's been a long week.

It's been raining all day. The sound of it falling outside has kept me in a constant state of naive bliss. A deep breath later and I'm covered in goose-bumps.

---

Joe and I float by three casinos and end up at the Mirage. It's crowded. I feel like I just walked into a cage full of monkeys. My company looks lost but I follow him anyway. The gentle smirk on his face tells me that we'll end up where we're supposed to be one way or another.

I love this shit. Makes me feel like a spelunker, exploring some massive cave. We pause and survey the giant stalactites of neon and chrome.

Before long we find ourselves in a jungle. Instead of ferns and fauna, we brush by tables and cocktails. There's a band playing. The lead singer is splashed in a sexy red light. Her words slap the microphone like it was a playful lover. For a moment I'm completely hypnotized. Joe goes on ahead to the bar, no doubt hunting for a gin and tonic.

I break free from the siren's song and spot an empty table on the other bank of an indoor stream. Joe finds me minutes later and sits down, holding his drink like it was a trophy. An unexpected smile finds it's way to the surface of my face. For the first time in weeks I feel something. Skipping right past the comparably mundane spectrum of emotion, I fall face first into euphoria.

Looking across the table at Joe I suddenly find myself fourteen again, sitting at a lunch table in a crowded cafeteria. He's sitting there eating something his mom likes to call a brick sandwich. It could feed a small country. Joe sinks his mouth into his meal and motions toward my last Oreo cookie.

As he takes a single monstrous swig off his milk, the carton goes transparent, the cafeteria dark, and the lunch ladies turn into cocktail waitresses.

Another nostalgia laced deep breath. Another drink. Another smoke.

Destination Unknown

2005-03-26T19:49:00.000-08:00

They say hind sight is 20-20. In my case it was 20-20 with binocular vision. I know exactly where I messed up, and that makes it even more painful. Regardless, here I am now, struggling like life was a well and I fell down it.

Sometimes I just look up at the sky and wonder. What the hell is all this and how did I end up here - was it my doing or was it fate? And I inevitably try to crawl out. Scratching the earthen walls vigorously, only to be stuck at the bottom.

But that's all just self pitying bullshit, and I apologize sincerely. I'm not writing for your sympathies, I'm writing simply to make sense of it all.

So I was headed to Vegas right?

It's bright, smokey, and soaked in booze.

And it is now seven hundred dollars richer. Not that I regret it - it was worth every cent. What can I say - blackjack plus gin and tonic, plus a fat paycheck. It could only have ended up one way; inebriated defeat. It's what I expected. I greeted it with open arms. What the hell did I care?

---

Walking down the strip with Joe, who was shit faced to the point where he was no longer goofy and lanky, but smug and stiff, I struggle to slide my foot in reality's door. Shadowy figures with hoods approach us at every crosswalk, smacking stripper's calling cards against their hands in an attempt to draw more attention to themselves.

"You want a good time?" they collectively mutter, expressionless and distant.

I grab a card and look down. Andrea is only forty four dollars and has red hair and a thong. I flashback to better days and cringe seconds after. The card gets stuffed into my pocket to get reviewed later.

Signs, as bright as the stars used to be, dowse the strip in a fiery ambience. In the distance the Mirage erupts with a pang, complete with orange lights, neon water, and the scent of pina coloda.

I unsheathe a cigarette and light it with distaste. I hate smoking.

We keep walking, destination unknown. Intoxication was as far as we thought this one through. In Vegas, that's enough to go on, and often times the only thing left in your pocket.

A Story

2005-03-22T15:28:00.000-08:00

And so it begins. Tired, eyes swollen from insomnia. The circles around my eyes are so pronounced I could be wearing a mask. The masquerade ball type. Pangs of hunger consume my mid-section. Digesting food is a luxury my depression won't grant.

I'm sitting in the passenger seat of an ancient plymouth on my way to Albany International Airport. The radio is playing The Cure.

It's Friday, I'm in love with you.

My best friend is driving. His name is Joe and he's a good kid. A lanky guy, the way he grips the wheel makes the whole car feel miniature. Some kind of big toy. Except for his congested head, he's feeling like a million dollars. Passing the time by joking around about airport security, we slice through the empty road.

It's early on Saturday morning. Overcast, dark, and foggy. Dirty snow blankets the ground, bordering the road on each side of us. The trees are dusted white. They look spray-painted that way. We get off exit 4. The airport is huge.

In the terminal, waiting in line for our boarding pass, we spot an old high school friend amongst a crowd of people. Turns out he's on his way to Disney for a baseball game. His name is Ben. The last time I saw him he had an Abercrombie model hanging on his arm. We used to party at his vacation home on Lake George. He still looks like the model American.

Joe and I lurch our way to the gate, and get in line for the mandatory security check. I'm taken aside because I didn't remove my laptop from my backpack. A short bulky woman motions me towards a table off to the side and I set my coat on it.

"Please do not touch this table, the backpack, or your laptop sir. Stand back." I suddenly find myself much more awake now. As I take two large steps back I notice that she never made eye contact.

Joe gathers his effects and puts his belt back on. We march off to the gate with a sense of accomplishment. While standing on line at the gate my stomach starts to inform me that it hates me. I find a bathroom and vomit the two sips of juice I had just before the car ride. Back on line I fall asleep standing up.

All I can think about is my ex-girlfriend. Together for four years and she up and quits on me out of the blue a week ago. At present, I'm the embodiment of self pity. It's really a terrible sight. Nothing worse than an emotional cripple without his walker.

This trip was planned in a hurry; help me get my mind off the girl. Las Vegas. Couldn't think of a better place.

Liftoff.