15

A cage can take many forms. A life, employment, a mind, isolation and conversation. I find myself with all of these today. No amount of strain against it has pushed this rock any further, the harder I strain the stronger the roots become. I become my own competition in this engagement. Even though I see the way to freedom I cannot take it. I cannot wholesale abandon all that I was or am, not without abandoning you. I feel this chain tug at me with what seems to be eons worth of inertia behind it, a length that stretches beyond galactic in scope. I wish to be free with you, because of that I am chained to the earth that consumes me as I stand. As I sink and gasp for air I dream of death because it will at least grant me the chance to forget, to cease.

I stand alone now, most of my self torn from this body. I feel unable to walk and so I drag myself forward. Through this pain I find some motivation, I find consolation in that this road will either consume me in the fire or take me back to you. Whether I live or die, break or hold, I will press on as long as this life is capable. Should I never reach you, do not worry or fear, I shall see you again next time. When two lovers eye’s meet, I will be there for you. Male, female, human or otherwise, I am the one who would create a hellscape of himself merely to forget something strong enough to make it back to you.

In whatever form I come next, whether this mind or another, give me time, let me rest in your healing presence, let me find shelter from the wind, even if I am still to be cast out. In the wasteland I will find myself, even as I wander only to find you.
I do not fear loosing you, nearly as much as I fear never finding you again.

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The scene is simple, cliché and very familiar, the lounge of a bar, smooth piano jazz, cigarette smoke hanging in the air. The bar is near empty, nothing unusual for this time of night. My eyes drift back to my glass… The palatable silence beneath the light wall of noise in this place, melancholy, soothing. I don’t feel so lonely and yet… Something oppressive about it.

Moments like this make you want to leave it all behind. Just pick up whatever bare essentials you need and pick a direction to walk in. Thick or thin. The bartender, a man named Joey taps my table as he walks past, closing time. Least the man can see it’s not my chattiest mood ever. Bottoms up…

14

Some choices are best unmade before they begin to unravel the person who made them. I have made quite a few such choices but now I find this one to be oddly satisfying and extremely harmful. For obvious reasons (to anyone ”in the know”) the part of me that loves to watch me break is squeling with joy at the sight of that harm I’ve done to myself and yet if I stay this course, I make the next step easier for myself.
An odd tradeoff, future health issues and pain and murderous strain for the chance to get ahead of my curve of economic needs and set myself up pretty well. Frankly, I think for all the good reasons there are to continue to do this job I only stay here out of sheer masochism. This may not be much of a story, but it’s my way of apologizing for missing yesterday. Two stories will be put up as penance on the morrow.

13

There is always that moment in fleet warfare where all the ships are not changing their tactical vectors, however due to the sheer vastness of space we have a minute where all we are doing is closing to engagement range. I stand at the observation deck of my cruiser, my eyes blankly stare out into space as my mind replays sights from my childhood.
A child drawing in the sand engaging my friend in a battle of the imagination. I always stood for something noble, but truth be told so did the other children. Only I took this to the academy with me, I was the one who spent sleepless nights whitling time away in the simulation managing maneuvers, guiding wings and drawing lines. But even now, I fight to be remembered as one who stood for something noble, just like the guy. History is afterall written by the victor.

A laser flashes in my peripheral vision and a soft voice booms over the comms "Admiral the Marsouin has engaged the enemy, t minus one minute until we are in long engagement range".

I look out once more at the view, the stars, even in this day and age, so distant, even in this age...

12

   A row of streetlights stretches out as they whizz past my sight, the edges of the windscreen framing this sight into a tunnel all too familiar, all too repetitive. I have no motivation to look at it anymore and my eyes gently close. I am back, in a forest clearing and I stand before a sculpture of me, they eyes, the face… Still, like foul water, a rotten, infectious apathy is all I can make out in them. I shift my weight and I feel the weight and shape of a pickaxe in my hand and my body swings into action. A motion so familiar and dreaded now infused with actual passion as shard fly, a few rip my cheeks but over the clanging, laughing and the smell and taste of my blood I lose myself in this moment, this destruction. I open my eyes, the streetlights stretching out as they whizz past, 25 more miles to go. A few more weeks, but I will see this deadened form broken. I can feel the passion that will end it like the dust on my skin.

11

   My eyes close for a second, my back arches rearwards to straighten out and a wave of sensation washes over me, the pain my poor posture had been hiding away from me comes rolling down. My tricep stings as though a thread had been run through the length of it and was being yanked to cut its way out. My knee sending out waves of dull pain for every motion. In my mind a single thought of gratitude stirs for the exhaustion that helps me maintain my numb composure, a breath, in, out and once more and I’m back to this work. I am long past working when I have the strength for it, I work out of anger, a wish let them see my strength of will, a desire to see this done and limp my broken body back into a bed where it can heal before the next day, but most of all, I work from a determination to not let this break me. Foolish that may be, but none-the-less it drives me, fools should be guided by foolish things so it all shakes out.

A heavy thumping rolls over all other sounds in my head and my body naturally leans back into a hazy trance as the rhythm sets back in. Tha-dum, shack, tha-dum, shack, tha-dum, shack….

10

   The frame of this bed, I find, has one distinct advantage. Crooked, bent on one corner from when I threw my full weight upon it. To a less peaceful sleeper this may have made the whole thing a nightmare to sleep in but I found it to make the mornings rather easier. I wake up and each time before the dread of doing the work I do sets in I let myself fall downwards, I roll and I catch myself just as I am at the point of falling off. Well most times I do...