Meeting the Prince

The sun shone a bright, warm light on his cold, pale face. He dared not open his eyes, knowing what pain would befall him to expose them to the light from which they had been hidden for a time so long. He felt the soft grass rustle between his spidery fingers. He listened for the wind—this was his mistake. The sound of dripping water and the moans of people in pain snapped him away from his dream. He opened his eyes to the nothingness of darkness that awaited him. An ache pulsed through him as he sat straight in his stone throne. The excitement of his title, “prince,” had long since worn off, leaving only the rage of rebellion and a longing for warmth rushing through his icy veins.

A long table appeared before him, covered in foods so wonderful he could only have dreamt of them. A screech of nails called the workers to the meal. He stared longingly at the meal as the crazed humans rushed in, their bodies mere skeletons. They fought over chairs and dishes, shouting at each other in rage and envy, each wishing they could have what was on the plate of the one beside them. He watched in a sort of pitied awe as each of them tried failingly to feed themselves with the long-handled fork. Every rare occasion, one of them would figure out to feed the person across themselves and the warm light would fall upon them, causing the others to scream in fright and pain. He would merely close his eyes, hoping to feel just a flicker of the warmth. Most nights, however, the workers would each gradually give up and sit at the table until it would disappear. As the table disintegrated from sight and the newcomers clawed hopelessly at the dissolving food, chains would appear around their ankles and he would lead them to their cells, locking each cell with a silver skeleton key, promising them they would be released soon and let to be with Him—a lie that far less than few of them believed until the Silver Tongued Prince let it slip from his cold, black lips. Anything seemed possible when he said it.

He walked down the stone hallway, ignoring the skeleton hands that reached out to touch him, wanting merely physical affection.

Entering the doorway hidden by the shadow of his throne, he removed the black cape that rested on his shoulders, and arched his back, unfolding his black wings. They would hang in sorrow, broken and bleeding, as he stood, his head bowed in an aching tire, never looking up at the bleeding heart before him.

The Little Town

The carriage ride came to end much later than I wanted it to. I was sick of sitting down and I was very happy when the Small Faced Man came to help us out of the carriage. A tall man came up to Lady Kate and welcomed her to the Little Town. He asked who her companions were, looking over us with a curious glance. She said we were her nieces. I didn’t know I had an aunt, so that news was especially surprising to me. The tall man then asked about the Small Faced Man, looking him over with an almost angry glare. Lady Katie dismissed him as being only her driver. She changed the subject quickly, saying something about somewhere to stay and a place to put the girls. It was all very confusing. My older sister kept tugging at my sleeve, I brushed her off. I don’t understand what could possibly be so fun about tugging my sleeve that she insisted on doing it so much.

She stopped when Lady Kate came over by us. She and the Small Faced Man led us into the Little Town. They walked us down the road to a very little house. The Small Faced Man opened the door and held it for us as all of us ladies walked inside. As he was moving Lady Kate’s bag inside, Lady Kate took us around to find us our room.

It was a small room, but I supposed it would do. We didn’t seem to have much other option; this game was taking us in a very strange direction. I didn’t like it very much. I usually shared a room with my younger sister, so it wouldn’t be very different from home- although the room we shared at home was so much larger.

January 1st 2008

January 1st 2008
Dear Diary,

I officially declare you my dream diary. In here, I will record all of my dreams… or at least the parts I remember.

A group of people and I were at a water park and we were having fun. Then, it’s time to leave, and my mom makes me get into my Christmas dress. I don’t want to, but I do it anyway.

Then I woke up for a little.

I’m at a retreat camp and I hear that there was a plane crash and a boy in my class was killed. I see my friend’s mother putting the box holding his ashes into the water and think about how cool that is that he was buried where he died. The plane had crashed into the lake area of the retreat camp. There were a lot of gruesome details, such as the fact that he died because he was run through with a broom stick that a chef was holding, and that the plane crash would otherwise not have killed him. But I think I really just thought it was cool because he got to be buried in the water—essentially. The rest is a blur, until I’m sitting in the auditorium, watching the musical. I suddenly feel like something isn’t right. Then, everyone on the stage dies, I run down to the stage, and there is green goop all over the sheets of music sitting on the music stand. I’m desperately trying to get it all out, but I can’t. Finally I think, “Oh duh!” and I find the word God in all of the sheets and pull the goop off of the word, and in doing so, pull out the word. And everything stops. Then my sister walks in and I say, “You have to see this.” I rewind it the way you would a movie. When it begins to “play” again, I’m sitting by this guy wearing a red cloak (who I had seen earlier) and his son, also wearing red. The son looks at his father and says he’s bored. The father pulls out a gun-like thing and pulls the trigger. Everyone on the stage cringes, covering their ears. He walks down to the front and sits in front of a kid on the stage. The kid, if I remember correctly, was Sam Xiao. Sam is shouting at him to stop and that if he doesn’t they would explode. The guy says he knows, and after a really long time, Sam explodes. I frantically search for the word God, and when I find it, I hit it repeatedly with a red slingshot/hammer thing until it’s destroyed and the word God isn’t there anymore. Everything stops.

Then I woke up.

The Red Bench

Whatcha doin'?
Sitting on a red bench.
May I join you?

Stagnating silence.

Notes on Pessimism

Pessimism is certainly not the worst condition a person could have. After all, what is pessimism but a severe case of idealism? If you look at all of the other things that you could have, be it schizophrenia or cancer, pessimism looks pretty dang good. I suppose I’m more here to talk about idealism- how it causes pessimism, anyway. It’s an interesting enough topic, and I find it consuming many of my moments of thought.

This is the time at which I would love to talk about the origins of idealistic study: in 1736, a man named…; however, there really is no history to idealistic study. If I were to tell you that idealistic study began with me, I would probably be wrong. On that same note, I would probably be wrong to say it began with any other specific person. Honestly, I think about idealism just about as often as Plato thought about the four elements- in other words, enough to be a philosopher on the subject.

Idealists, in the early stages of their career are upset very often and very easily. This is not to say that once they pass this early stage that they are never disappointed or upset, but the caliber of these feelings is significantly lower with each passing day. Idealists envision the world as it “should” be (according to their perspective). This includes all matter of subjects; ranging from world peace, to health care reform, to the number and gender of children. What I have just described is what many people would call “woman.” Anyone who takes the description I just wrote and tags it as “woman” deserves to die. Many women are what I like to call “romantics.” There is a key and important difference between idealists and romantics, which I will try and remember to discuss later on.

Perhaps the problem with idealists is that they see world as something that is totally and completely logical, when in fact the world is created with anything but logic. Yes, the evolution of creatures is a fairly logical process, but it is mastered by the environment- which, might I remind you, is completely unpredictable. If something is unpredictable, we can hardly call it logical. As such, idealists are often disappointed with what they encounter in the “real world.” And thus, a pessimist is born.

What I find most miraculous is when an idealist remains an idealist and yet does not become a pessimist. The questions of fate, freewill and luck suddenly become more than questions, but actual thoughts with processes that form and alter with time and study. Being an idealist and a pessimist myself, I find it highly unlikely that these people are lucky, but rather that they are naïve- they simply don’t realize that nothing works out the way it should.

Now, as promised, I shall discuss the difference between a romantic and an idealist. It is true that many idealists are romantics, but a romantic is not necessarily an idealist- kind of like how a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square. Romantics have an idea in their head as to what should happen in the world, however, they do not rely quite so much upon the successful happening of these ideas. While a romantic will look at a situation and see what should happen, an idealist looks at a situation and sees what must happen. Idealists fill their theories with logic and reason while romantics simply have the ideas. Essentially, romantics are people who think idealistically; idealists are people who live idealistically. The result is one group that is mentally happy and another that is mentally disappointed.

Pessimism is not always a bad thing. In fact, pessimists are more fun to surprise because they are so thrilled by the fact that something in the imperfect world in which they are forced to live made them happy. Pessimists are not people suffering from depression, they are more similar to people with depressive personalities. I know, the difference seems hardly noticeable, but it is a crucial one. The point is, if you have a friend who is a pessimist and they seem to be having a bad day, don’t treat them they way you would someone who is suffering from depression, as you are more likely to cause the depression than cure the depressive feeling that may or may not have been there to begin with. The best way to deal with a pessimistic friend is to treat them like any other friend. What a concept, right? Who would have thought that we would be just like regular humans too?

Be careful where you step, young one. The water is only shallow for so long.

Louisa Carpenter

Louisa Carpenter exited the church, ignoring the whispering from the women who had apparently been more focused on the reverend’s wife than the reverend’s words. Having grown up in a much stricter Puritan town, she was surprised by the lack of discipline among the adults. Gossip was hardly tolerable.

She was barely four steps out the door when Edward Porter appeared at her side, asking permission to escort her home. She accepted and almost smiled as she saw the disappointment that crossed over the face of Joseph Hale. Every day the two men seemed to race to her: eager to escort her to wherever she was headed.

Edward Porter was a man of 22, with significantly worse prospects. He had extremely strict views, very similar to her own--not that he would ever know such a thing. She was a woman and therefore had no opinion of anything as far as he was concerned. But he was a nice enough man and did show sincere interest in her. She was quite convinced that he would be capable of caring for her. But she did not wish to be cared for.

Joseph Hale was 20 with fairly good prospects. He was the youngest of three sons and very much in need of some property to attain, as one of his older brothers was sure to receive their family’s land upon his father’s passing. He had virtually no opinions on anything, and rarely ever spoke—no doubt due to his lack of opinion. He showed keen interest in Louisa but didn’t seem to even try giving her a reason as to why she should consider him at all.

Louisa and Edward walked down the slightly winding dirt road to her home. She had listened quite honestly fascinated to Edward’s ranting for the first five or so minutes of their slow walk, but was now beginning to doze in her attentiveness. Her mind wandered away from Edward as they came into view of the house that was hers. The house was large for just her and the land was even larger. The home had belonged to her father until his death when it was signed to her in his will. He had been assuming that she would soon receive an offer for marriage. The assumption was not unwarranted. In fact, she thought it remarkable that after two years of courting and no parental consent required that neither Joseph nor Edward had proposed. But it was well enough. She wasn’t sure that she’d actually ever accept either one of them. They were walking through the fields that surrounded her house when a man about 2 years older than Edward standing in currently barren the field. He seemed surprised to see them at first.

“Mr. Clay,” Edward said somewhat snobbishly, “were you not a service?”

“Indeed I was, Mr. Porter. I came right here afterwards. It is planting season now, and Miss Carpenter can’t be expected to do it all herself.”

“No, I would imagine not. However, I am sure she could find suitable workers herself.” He puffed his chest a bit as though to imply that, had Miss Carpenter been given the chance, she surely would have asked him to do it instead.

“I did ask Mr. Clay to do it, Mr. Porter,” Louisa said rather pointedly.

A Five Day Late Introduction

Of course it occurred to me this morning that some sort of introduction to this blog would be appreciated or possibly desired. Honestly, reading a bunch of random rants and ideas that don't seem correlated in any way to each other can only be so inspiring before it just gets dull. So this is where I explain myself.

Some of the posts posted will honestly be rants and thoughts. Others (the posts with labels--the exception being this one) will be segments of stories or ideas for stories. If you, dear reader, wish to comment, please feel free. All of my rants are open to criticism. All of my story ideas are open to constructive criticism and the like. Also, if you have any questions, feel free to put them in the commentary section (unless you wish to contact me in some other way... but I don't know if I have the information available). I hope to hear from some of you every rare occassion or so, and I sincerely hope you enjoy whatever you read, regardless of commentary you may or may not post.

Thanks for reading and enjoy!
V McCaffrey

Lady Kate and the Small Faced Man

Lady Kate and the Small Faced Man picked us up on the side of the road. Lady Kate was beautiful- no doubt the center of every young man’s fancy. She was like a porcelain doll. Her skin was the palest, softest white and her hair was smooth and blonde. The small faced man, on the other hand, looked scratchy. He wore a straw hat that covered, for the most part, his spiny, dirty blonde hair. But he had the sweetest countenance.

They were driving by in an open, horse drawn carriage when they saw us. I could not see them, as I was placed facing the water. I heard Lady Kate gasp, telling the Small Faced Man to stop. I heard her shoes hit the gravel as she leapt down from her moving castle. She took the cloth out of my sister’s mouth while the Small Faced Man untied the rope. I was so glad to be detached from my sisters.

Lady Kate and the Small Faced Man sat us down in the back of the carriage- luckily it was built to hold a lot of people. Lady Kate sat up front with the Small Face Man, who drove the carriage very slowly, leaning close to Lady Kate, whispering things in her ear that made her giggle.

We were surrounded by hay and corn. It was so nice of them to have their carriage cushioned for us. My older sister held my younger sister the whole ride, a look of fear sat on her face. I couldn’t understand why. We had gotten not only a free ride on a flying boat with magicians, but also a free ride down the street in the giant carriage. The carriage wasn’t as fancy as the ones our parents had, but it was still fun. We only got to ride in carriages at home when we were going to church, which was never any fun at all.

New York, 1845

Elizabeth Cartwright let her head fall onto the table with a crack. She looked up, an expression of pain on her face. Her head had fallen much more quickly than she would have preferred. The bottle of ink sat open on her desk before her; a layer of skin formed on the top of it. She sat up completely once again and looked down at the blank sheets of paper, releasing a long, tired sigh. She had been up all night trying to write. The clock on the wall was ticking incessantly as it had been for the past seven hours that had been tirefully spent picking at her mind and memory, praying for some amount of inspiration.

The clock struck 6:00, startling her. Frustrated, she quickly stacked her blank pages, stuffed her ink case and quill into the deep pocket of the faded brown coat that had once been her father's, and headed out of the library door.

Rushing somewhat, for reasons unbeknownst to her, she rounded the street corner rather quickly.

Then she was on the ground.

“Oh, my God, I am so sorry,” he said, stumbling over himself as he knelt to help her up. He had come out of nowhere--as though he had fallen from the sky. She took his gloved hand and he pulled her back to her feet, clumsily. She looked him over. He was an eccentric sort of man. He seemed too tall and too thin. She felt as though if she were to shake his hand to thank him that it would simply snap off at his wrist. He removed his hat, bowing deeply. “I am so sorry, ma’am.”

“No, that’s fine,” she mostly ignored him, brushing the wet leaves from her skirt.

“I am Mr. John-”

“Sir,” she stopped him, “I have only just met you. I thank you for your assistance, but it is no longer needed. If you would, please, I need to be going.” She walked past him, holding her, now wet, blank pages close to her chest.
-New York, 1845

Remarkable

Why is it that I am the remarkable one?

People grow, they change, and they move on. They make new friends that often replace the old. There is nothing unique about growing up and moving on. It's a fact of life. It's an inevitability.

And yet...

I wasn't ready to begin college. I had met my two best friends barely over a year before, and neither was heading in the same direction as me--in fact, my very best friend was moving far away in the opposite direction. It's been one year. I'm just entering my sophomore year of college and already my friends from high school are moving to forget. It just freaks me out: change. I don't like to lose people. I'm horrible at gaining people, so I can't really afford to lose them. I have one friend in particular who is moving on and out very quickly and I am driving her nuts with how often I have my "oh my God, I'm losing you!" freak outs.

I haven't had the best experiences with change. My sisters left for college when I was entering my junior year of high school, and they really didn't come home at all. I'm guessing that's when my loyalty complex kicked in. You see, I have this thing where once I decide someone is a friend of mine, I am loyal to them. No matter what. I will defend them; I will support them; I will take a bullet for them. My sister told me once that I was loyal... to a fault.

Would not the world be a better place if people tried harder to hold on? I think it's sad that my "condition" should seem so exceptional. I find it a bit frustrating that my loyalty is considered a virtue rather than a regularity. Why is it that I am the remarkable one?

Arithmetic- In The Beginning

I don't remember much. I remember sitting, in a rowboat, with my sisters. I couldn't see where we were, but it looked like we were in the clouds. The men rowing the boat were magicians. They had made the boat fly. They had tied rope around my sisters and me, all of us sitting different directions, so we could all see out at the sky, but they wouldn't have to worry about us falling out. My older sister had made a lot of noise, so they put a piece of cloth in her mouth. I think they were afraid that she'd scare away the birds.

The magicians dropped us off at the side of the road the next morning. They talked quickly and quietly to each other. They left without untying. They had heard something snap--I could tell from the way they looked up so quickly. One jumped back into the boat, grabbing the oars, the other pushed the boat off of the shore and jumped in after the boat was in the water. Then they vanished. I never saw them again. They really were amazing magicians.

I don't know what the magicians heard that had scared them away so, because nothing came. We sat and sat and sat, my older sister still trying to spit out the piece of cloth. I watched eagerly as the clouds lifter off the water, hoping to see my magicians again. They were gone. They really could fly.

Notes on Love

The words need to be said. Yet I am too afraid to say them.

I wish so badly that I could see him. Just see him. Ok, not just see him. Talk to him. I long to talk to him. Somehow he always has the answer. And I could really use and answer right about now. But I will have to wait. And I will wait. I will close my eyes and listen to the soft, sad music pouring out of my soul while I wait in the dark abyss of unanswerable loss. Until he comes. He will enter like a crack lightening, flashing across the black clouded sky, shining a bright white light on everything in reach--the light that, until I met him, I never wanted to see. The light that would burn every time it touched me. The light that would expose me for...

He's here. It's amazing. The music did not change, but somehow it feels happier. I can no longer see myself as that wretched thing I was about to describe. Suddenly I feel light--as though I could pick up my feet and float away. I feel beautiful. I feel loved. Yet I don't know that he does. Love me, I mean. Yet somehow, when he is near, I feel content. No, more than content. There must be something there. What else would light up a room so? I'd call it love. I dare to call it love.

"Is love a fancy or a feeling?"

It's funny. When beginning this analytical, I looked up the word "fancy," to be sure I had my perception of the word's meaning correct. The 9th definition listed was a single word: LOVE. Inspired by this interesting attempt at defining a word that is itself so indefinable, I looked up LOVE. No where did I find that word "feeling" in those definitions, nor did I truly expect to. The writers of the dictionary would have been fools to include the word "feeling" in one of their definitions of "love." And yet, the word was implied.

I guess I don't think of love as a fancy or a feeling. I do not truly believe that you can truly love a completely inanimate object. Very few would dare to disagree that when they love an object, it either has a personality attached to it, a memory associated with it, or it symbolises a living being in their minds.

Love. What an obscure thing. Love is one of the few things that psychologists simply cannot reason out. Yes, it is caused by some function of the brain, but why? Why do we have crushes and infatuations, and how are they different from love? Of course, asking this question is fruitless. No studies can truly prove any answer, let alone the answer. Some people are attracted to those similar to themselves, others feel quite the opposite. Some people take years to fall in love while others take mere moments. The variation in love is, I think, what makes it so impossible to define and even harder to study. No two people love in exactly the same way. Some people like the "bad" boy or girl, others like the "funny one" and still others prefer the "smart one." So why are we so susceptible to this indefinable feeling of love? Perhaps it is true that humans are not the only species who are affected by it. Regardless, as is often the case, I think it is safe to say that we are the only species foolish enough to try and define it. Love is fairly east to define as a verb. It isn't until we attempt to define it as a noun that we stump ourselves. Love is neither a fancy nor a feeling, for it is that which we love. Part of the reason love seems so impossible to define is because one cannot simply say that which we love and get away with it. People would claim that the definition only covered love in the form of a subject. Most, if not all, of us were trained from an early age to never define a word with the word. Even I am having trouble explaining this, and I know exactly what I'm talking about.

If love were a single, identical feeling or impulse no matter with whom we were, it would be as easy to define as peanut butter. Peanut butter, after all, is still peanut butter, no matter what you put it on (or vise verse). But love... love is different for every person. The love that we feel changes from one person to another in our list of friends, family and acquaintances. What is the love for your mother? Well, it's the way she squeezes you when you walk in the door after being gone at college for a few weeks; it's the smell on her clothes when she's cooking dinner; it's the lone of her voice when she calls your name.

As much as I would love to clap my hands together, grin and say "case closed," I am aware that defining a word with itself is the worst of all dictionary sins. So what is love really? Love is the perception of the world around oneself when in the presence of a particular other being. The story at the top of the post illustrates this quite nicely. Nothing really changes in the world when he enters the scene, but everything changes. Suddenly the sad music makes her happy; the room is lit with a soft light rather than the harsh interrogation light that preceded it. And this, it is love. Had someone else entered this particular scene, the results would have different. This is where it gets interesting. If someone else had entered, the light may have seemed harsher, maybe the music would eat away at her soul, and she would sit in the corner and cringe.

Love is hate is love.

"Be careful where you step, young one; the water is only shallow for so long."