Below are the 12 most recent journal entries recorded in Zak's LiveJournal:

Monday, February 2nd, 2009
11:23 am	Announcement (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 4th, 2007
11:18 pm	REAL Japan Update...For Real Alright, so here we are.  Lots of stories to tell.  I'll go right down the list. -Let's start with arcades, since I spend A LOT of time there.  It needs to be kept in mind that these are not standard run-of-the-mill crappy American arcades.  These are super amazing Japanese arcades.  Most of the good games inside involve cards.  These cards are purchased from vending machines next to the arcade cabinets where you pick up a starter pack.  It has just enough cards to get you started as well as an ID card that tracks your progress.  There are TONS of different games in this style in all different genres ranging from Idolmaster to soccer to Chinese RTS to a Diablo-esque game to Gundam.  A few links are here:  http://www.sangokushi-taisen.com/ http://www.questofd.com/ Also, Gundam pods are as close to the real thing as we'll ever get: http://www.gundam-kizuna.jp/ -Next, Akihabara, the otaku's paradise.  More ridiculous electronics, video game, manga, anime, and hentai/sex stores than you could ever imagine to be in a 3 or 4 block area.  Tons of vintage and used things.  The most amazing part is that all the used things in this country are basically brand freakin' new.  Used consoles and such are indistinguishable from brand new ones.  Complete with original packaging, paperwork, etc...  Completely unlike how similar products are in the states.  The people here actually care about stuff they own and take pride when they spend their hard-earned money on something.  If you're in search of even the most obscure electronic component from decades ago you can find it in this part of the city, there aren't words to explain the breadth that it ecompasses.  Also, pretty good prices on brand new stuff, especially considering the exchange rate of dollars to yen(about 1 dollar to 115 or so yen.) -Now we're getting to the really good stuff...Tokyo Game Show.  Biggest public gaming show in the world right now, especially after they made E3 corporate.  I got to see brand new trailers for FF13, the 3 new Kingdom Hearts games, and other Squenix stuff as well as play loads of Sony, Namco-Bandai, Sega, and other smaller companies games in demo format months before they're coming out here.  Which is to say that it's stuff that won't be out in the states until about this time next year.  On a similar note, I picked up one of the new model PSP's here and I've been playing FF7: Crisis Core but my lack of Japanese language proficiency makes it hard at times to even figure out where I'm supposed to go next.  That's alright though, it's pretty enough just to look at.  I don't have all my TGS pictures yet cause some were taken by the guys I went with, but as soon as I get them all I'm going to load them into an album on some site and I'll post a link here.  There are pictures included with this post though, no worries. -Square-Enix store in Shinjuku.  Shinjuku is crazy enough without having a good selection of unique stores considering all the bars, restaurants, chain stores, etc...  When you add the fact that it has the only Squaure-Enix store in the world as well as tons of other commercial stuff it's really astounding.  Of note are the 100 dollar baseball caps with FF7: Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts themes as well as the 60 dollar t-shirts from the same franchises.  On the topic of jewelery, nothing under 100 dollars, and even figures and models will run you upwards of 30 or so dollars a piece.  A great store to window shop at, but buying something feels like they take a kidney with every purchase.  Best part though, the lifesize Sephiroth statue in the floor visible through 3 clear panels.  Really something you have to see to believe. -This part is basically a log of the journey I took on Wednesday(my time) out to Nakano, Harajuku, and Shibuya.  Nakano is about an hour train ride from my dorm, which as reference is about 20 minutes on train from the center of Tokyo.  It was a treck, but my sources had told me that there was a mall there whose entire second floor was anime/manga/figure/video game stores and, lucky for me, my sources were right.  You'd never believe what some of these stores specialize in.  Specific shops just for little Gashapon figures that come out of vending machines(for much more than the 200 yen price of taking your chances buying one out of a machine) though some people are really intent on getting a specific one so they'll shell out between 500 and 2000 yen for a specific one.  Really rare stuff or entire sets of figures can run upwards of 5000 yen, but that's really just about the price cap on everything.  The punchline of the story is that I got some cell phone charms for myself and found...wait for it... ... ... ( Catbois ) Next I hit Shibuya, another really popular spot in Tokyo, especially for younger people.  It has quite the underbelly, and that's putting it nicely.  There was a shop I had heard of called Rope.  Rumor had it that this place sold used school girl uniforms and panties.  These rumors were true, and really it was beyond words.  Suffice to say I had to purchase some if only for the sole reason of proving its existence to the world.  I went as cheap as I could without purchasing anything from the "bargain bin."  Now, most bargain bins are places for deals, this one was a plastic tub of worn, unwashed bras and panties, some even had skid marks on them.  Yes, it's gross, and yes, the creepy old man behind the counter made me uneasy, but this is all for you guys. ( You don't have to see if you don't want, but it's not THAT bad...just NSFW ) So yeah, that's the bulk of my "good" stories.  Suffice to say I've been out to some bars and stuff and have done karaoke, etc(drinking age here is 20 and they almost never card foreigners, so I'm set either way) but these stories are way more fun than the "I drank a little too much and missed my train cause the trains shut down at midnite" ones.  And, in case anyone's interested, here's a picture of my hair that I had done in Harajuku(fashion district) here. ( Japan Hair ) That's all I have for now, but I'll try to do more posts like this in the not-so-distant future as well as get lots more pictures up.  Hope everything is going well for everyone State-side. Peace and Love (3 Comments |Comment on this)
12:21 am	Update...kinda... Alright, so I'm really bad about updating...BUT, within the next 24 hours I promise a post including the following: -Pictures -Stories about my adventures.  Including but not limited to: TONS of anime/manga stores, Akihabara, Shinjuku(Square-Enix store), Shibuya(used panties store[I'm not even kidding]), Tokyo Game Show, Arcades, others I can't think of -Previews for things I've bought for all of you wonderful people as gifts :-) Until then, don't let the suspense kill you. Peace and love (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 9th, 2007
7:49 am	Stupid...internet...do you have any idea how hard it is to try to troubleshoot networking stuff when you're getting errors written in kanji?  Yeah, that's how my last night was.  Here I thought I could get back a little early so I could talk with people after not being able to for a few days, but oh no, apparently there were bigger, "grander" plans in store for me, mostly almost 3 hours of trying to get my connection to work only to find out this morning they were doing server maintenence and just didn't tell us.  Sigh...I'm done for now, long day out in Akihabara and Harajuku to see the crazy people and do some crazy shopping... Peace and love (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 8th, 2007
6:03 pm	Nippon something something For those unaware, I am in fact in Japan right now.  I just got done with orientation and moved into my dorm that I'll be living in for the next 14 weeks.  I'm taking classes here starting Monday and, well, doing other Japanese stuff.  Mixed emotions abound of course, and every few minutes I feel different about being here.  I mean, I know plenty of people who would kill or die for this but I feel like just when things were going good for me I ran out of the country and I don't want to screw things up for myself.  They say that the less you try to connect with home the less homesick you'll be.  This is in fact painfully true.  I went almost 2 days without going on my computer and communicating with anyone in the states and I was mostly happy in my blissful ignorance.  This is good and bad in vastly different ways, most of which are incredibly obvious.  Now, my problem falls where I have no idea where I should draw the line for contacting home.  I find it somewhat asinine to try to ignore the existence of people that I know and love but at the same time it tears me apart to think that I'm not going to see any of them for almost 4 months.  In the long run that's really not that long, but right now it feels like I'll be gone forever.  I have moments here where I would literally do anything to be able to get on a plane and go back to the states.  I enjoyed this summer so much, and it's silly to want to have that forever cause things of that sort aren't possible but I really haven't enjoyed myself to that extent in a long time, if ever before.  I don't want to mess anything more up for myeslf is really what I'm scared of.  Part of me knows that that's an overreaction, mostly because I'm so young and have so much of my life ahead of me, but the other part of me reminds me that my feelings are still meaningful and that I do have a pretty good handle on how the world works and what's going on.  I think the real problem is that I can't stop my brain from going a thousand miles a minute.  I'm so torn and so confused, which seems to be something I'm good at.  Even right now as I'm heading out to the arcades with a few friends I've met here part of me wants to just pack everything up, pay the extra money to change my flight date, and run away from all this and head home where things are nice and familiar.  Any advice anyone has would be greatly appreciated, cause I'm just coasting along for now and I'll make it but it's gonna be a long 4 months... -peace and love (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 11th, 2007
12:26 pm	Once more with feeling I tried before and failed, but this time it's for realsies.  I'm actually trying to start this roleplaying board.  If you're interested or know people that you think might be, tell them to take a look.  It's a cyberpunk/shadowrun-esque world, but no magic, though technology can replicate most magic effects that someone would want anyway. http://theoentrop.proboards80.com/index.cgi Hopefully I get at least some people this time. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 25th, 2007
10:50 am	Forever and a Day I don't ever actually update this thing, so don't confuse this with some kind of update.  Oh no, I just need to vent somewhere and everyone's either at class or at work.  I, on the other hand, sauntered back to my dorm room about an hour ago from this girl Anne's apartment and now I'm letting the stress of everything sink in.  Why am I stressed? No idea really.  I shouldn't be.  There's not good or logical reasons for me to be.  It's the last week of classes, finals are next week and then the semester's over for my 4 month summer.  After that?  I'm going to Japan for the fall to study in Tokyo.  I should be ecstatic over everything that's going "good" for me.  Can I accept that and just run with things?  Of course not.  I have to tear myself apart emotionally first.  I guess an annotated history of the past 6-10 months would clear a lot of this up.  I'm really fucking lonely.  Like, not just sometimes, but basically all of the time.  I have literally 2 friends here on campus.  I found a card shop up here where I can go and play DnD and hang out with the locals and regulars, but that only goes so far.  I'm used to having people that I can just hang out with and talk about whatever.  I MAY have one person like that up here, but whenever I go and hang out with her we sit around, drink, and complain into the early hours of the morning.  Now, I don't really enjoy drinking.  I try to force myself to do it from time to time to fit in with people because that's basically where the world is right now, especially for college age people.  Maybe that's a shallow statement to make, but I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.  I'm not saying that it makes it right to jump on the bandwagon, but I'll be damned if it isn't hard to make a stand when you have nothing to back you up except a couple creepy, 40-year old men at a card shop in a back alley to fall back on when you get depressed.  So, I go and drink every so often.  This semester I've drank more than I probably have in the entire rest of my life combined.  I'm not really happy with myself about that fact, which doesn't help anything or anyone.  This semester crawled by basically uneventful, and that was ok.  I got by for the most part, took it day by day, and didn't really think about what was happening or what was going on.  Nothing was there to stimulate my emotions or my mind, so I was set on cruise control and coasting by everything that I passed.  Up until last week.  It was another typical night where I was bumming around Anne's apartment with her having a couple drinks and complaining about how much life is "cruel and unfair" and all that jazz.  Her roommate got back and wanted the place quiet so she could do some work and get some sleep so we left her place to go to my dorm room, which happens to be a double room where I don't have a roommate.  I offered her the extra bed to stay in for the night if she wanted it given the distance from campus to her apartment, and she kinda shrugged off the comment.  We got to my room, hung out for a while, and next thing I know she's lying in my bed.  We were both a bit tipsy, but still entirely cognisant.  We both knew what was about to happen, and just sorta allowed it to take it's course.  I'll let you fill in the blanks, because there's no good reason to go into detail here, but the punchline is that we woke up next to each other in my bed the next morning.  Things were normal, they were fine, they were whatever.  It happened, we were there, and that was it, right?  Well, not so much for me apparently.  I don't do things like that.  I never have before, and I never really thought I would.  I can't just let this exist to me as a one-time instance sort of thing.  That's not alright in my mind for whatever reasons.  Later that day it started to get to me.  The uncertainty of the emotional repercussions of the entire situation put me in a state where I was very near having panic attacks on and off.  I don't know exactly what it is that was setting me off, but it must've just been the entire situation.  She and I were on good terms, and both acting like nothing was different between us.  I didn't know what to think, I didn't know what to do.  I figured I just needed some time to get it all figured out.  So the week coasted by and I went to Magestry, which is usually my safe haven from the problems of life.  I don't have to be Zak there, so why should I worry about Zak's problems when I can entirely escape them, if only for a few days at a time.  There would be no such sanctuary at Magestry though.  It was easily my worst Magestry experience ever.  Twenty minutes into game I got killed by a PC and everything just went downhill from there.  My character is dead to the world at this point, and apparently never had plot written for him because he got passed around like the village whore.  So in the middle of the event I found myself in the middle of the woods sobbing to myself about everything, problems contrived from the game and others having nothing to do with Magestry.  I was so angry and so upset that I didn't know what to do with myself.  The event crawled by and I spoke with GMs, NPCs, and PCs alike about what had happened to try to shed some light on the entire situation.  I have since then decided to create a new character, start over, and hopefully make things better for myself and for the game.  One problem solved, and a solution that also allowed me to concentrate my time on new character concepts, costuming, etc...  That was my 2 day escape from the other issues dominating my consciousness.  Of course the story can't end there though, that's no fun.  Fast forward to last night, another night of drinking and talking with Anne, only this time the drinking stops early and the talking continues.  We go on and on about nothing, her roommate comes and leaves for the night, and we're left sitting there staring blankly into each other's eyes, neither of us knowing what the other could possibly be thinking.  If I ever in my life shared a moment with someone it was right there, in that instant.  We simultaneously smiled at each other and things went down the same road that they had the week before.  It was different though.  There was no alcohol induced stupor, there was no idiocy and shame involved.  It felt meaningful.  Whether that's just me trying to put justification to my actions or if there was truly something there last night I may never know.  And here's where I'm left now, sitting in front of my computer ranting to a screen via keyboard.  I'm starting to read way too deep into everything that's going on and it's not good for me.  I keep running scenarios in my head, all but one of which will never come to pass.  Or maybe not even one of them will, maybe some other amalgamation of my thoughts will come to pass instead.  I try to imagine what it would be like to just walk away from this girl and leave things at nothing, and it wrenches my insides clean out of my body.  I imagine that something comes of what we shared, and then the fear sets in, that I'll allow myself to feel something so deep and pure only to wind up disappointed.  I imagine a beautiful thing blossoming only to leave the country for a few months and to come back to the horrifying realization that I was lied to or deceived.  I imagine a life of happiness with someone I can see myself with and then the crushing defeat of a harsh reality.  Like I said, I'm reading far too deeply into all of this.  On top of it all, I'm more afraid than I've ever been of anything before in my life to talk with her about it.  I imagine her disgust and fear at the mere mention of my feelings, something that college students aren't supposed to have for whatever reasons.  We're supposed to throw caution to the wind and "have fun."  Does that mean I have to go back on everything I've ever believed in and thought to be true.  Should it have to mean that?  Is it fair to back-burner my emotions to fill an imaginary gap created by other people's opinions and ideals?  I don't know any more.  And from moment to moment I feel different about every part of this entire situation.  I'm searching for answers and all I find are more questions.  It feels like I'll never find my place, and that I don't belong anywhere right now.  Like I deserve to be up here alone and unhappy.  Like I'm doing my penance for sins that I've yet to commit, and that I'll always pay for deeds undone because I'm too blind or ignorant to "do the right thing for myself."  I'm looking so hard for someone or something to care about and for someone or something that cares about me that it feels like I'm not looking at all.  I know that most of this doesn't make sense, but it's hard to put these emotions into words.  I'm hoping that someone out there can help me along, because I know that right now I'm blindly pawing my way through life and if I don't stop myself, I just start sobbing and can't force myself to get my work done and even open my shades in the morning to admit that the world still exists.  Say a prayer for me to to whatever benevolent, dark, or indifferent force it is you put your faith in and I'll do the same for all of you, in hopes that we can all be a little happier at the end of the day, to not have to force out that smile, but that it may come naturally and we may look at our world with brighter eyes and rejuvenated hearts. -Peace and Love (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 21st, 2007
5:32 pm	It Begins I've been trying to decide at what point I wanted to start trying to recruit people, and I guess now is as good a time as any.  I have made brief references before to a role-playing board that I've been preparing for a couple weeks, and it's very close to being ready.  If you were to go to it RIGHT NOW you would find all the rules you need to make a character and start posting, but what you would not find is enough about the history and setting of the world to be properly immersed in it.  I'm trying to get that information put up before the night is over, but I also have a pretty demanding programming assignment I should finish up.  So we'll see what tonight brings, but for now if anyone wants to check out what's there the url is http://theoentrop.proboards80.com/index.cgi It's a cyberpunk game, set just over a century in the future on Earth, that means no weird geographies or cities, just alterations and embellishments on existing things. Things are vastly different from modern day as I'm sure you'll gather from the little setting info that is there, and if you have any questions post them here, make an account on the board and PM me or post there, or send me off an email at zaks707@gmail.com.  If you know anyone that you think would want to be part of this, feel free to refer them to the site, I'm hoping that it will turn into a trove of creative ideas and will be an artistic output for a whole group of us.  Thanks, and enjoy. EDIT: I think I have enough up there to start now.  We shall see. Current Mood: hopeful (Comment on this)
Friday, January 19th, 2007
11:20 pm	Lonely Banter EIGHT lasts 8. last cigarette: clove at theatro 7. last beverage: water 6. last phone call: all the ones i made today were answered by machines 4. last cd played: tigerbeat6 inc. - meow012 compilation 3. last BUBBLE bath: aeons ago 2. last time you cried: couple hours ago 1. last meal: crappy sandwich and pretzels from the student center SEVEN have you's: 7. have you ever dated someone twice? kinda sorta...let's just go with "yes" 6. have you ever had to fill in a question that someone previously deleted from a quiz? nope, previous posters do that for me 5. have you ever kissed someone & regreted it? yea...and that's a hell of a loaded question 4. have you ever fallen in love?: so many times i almost can't count it on one hand any more 3. have you ever lost someone?: in a few different ways, yea 1. have you ever had a heartbreak? a few times...it always heals without issue, must mean the breaks were clean SIX things you did in the last three days: six: read five: wrote four: worked on cyberpunk board three: read two: class one: practiced list FOUR people you can tell pretty much anything to: 1. everything i tell people is censored and edited...i do it so much even i have trouble discerning the truth sometimes THIS YEAR... (as in this year 2007) Made a new friend no Fallen out of love wasn't in it Laughed until you cried maybe, if i did i don't remember Went behind your parents back don't have to Met someone who changed your life nope Found out who your true friends were? kinda WHAT DO YOU THINK OF 1. Bush? he made a good speech a couple weeks ago, otherwise he has no clue 2. Gay marriage? do what you want 4. Straight, Gay, Bi? die in a fire 5. Who is the best hugger that you know? i can't remember the last time i was hugged 6. Do you believe in love at first sight? maybe...if it's there i apparently have never seen it 7. Is there something you want to tell someone? i'm sorry to everyone i ever lied or deceived...i preach truth and then drown in my hypochrisy 8. what kind of shirt are you wearing? t-shirt, boring...the usual 11. How many kids do you want to have? enough 12. Do you have a good relationship with your parent(s)? i'd say so 13. Do you wanna change your name? never 14. What did you do for your last birthday? nothing...had no one to spend it with and have nothing to show for it 15. What time did you wake up today? 10:12ish i believe 16. What were you doing at midnight last night? writing 17. Name something you CANNOT wait to do figure something out about what i actually want to do with my life 18. Last time you saw your father a week ago-ish 19. What is one thing you wish you could change about your life? uncertainty or lonliness...either one is acceptable 20. Which hand do you like better? i need both for music 21.What are you listening to right now? crappy tv because i need a break from all the techno/electronica 23. Have you ever donated money to a good cause? i'd like to think the cause was a good one 24. Have you ever talked about someone behind their back? we all have, and we all do 25. What's the last piece of clothing you borrowed from anyone? i don't know if i ever have 26. Who's getting on your nerves right now? every other personi run into on campus here...they're all such idiots 27.most visited website? gmail maybe 29.Coke or Pepsi?: either one if they're without caffeine 30. Do you have a crush? i don't know how i feel about anything or anyone any more 32. Do you disagree with a lot of things going on in the world? yes, infinitely...things need to change 33. Do you think there are some models/people out there that should gain a couple pounds? be however and whoever you want, just don't drag anyone else into it 34. Do you enjoy your friendship with your friends? yes. (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 13th, 2007
2:53 am	Tonight was one of THOSE nights Allow me to apologize to anyone I didn't say goodbye to before leaving the Webster tonight/last night.  I'm being incredily self-defeating lately and it feels like everything I do to try to work in the other direction just digs me further into my hole that I've created for myself.  I don't feel like I belong anywhere.  Of all the place I've been I don't know if I've ever really felt at home or at peace.  This worries me to no end, and also causes me to think that I will go on this way for the rest of my life, not knowing where I belong or what I should be doing.  I'm so scared of being alone and unsuccessful and not fulfilling my aspirations that I let it get in the way of enjoying myself most of the time.  I've tried really hard to be sociable all break when I've been around and it feels like every time I go out with people I feel even more alone and alienated by the end of the night.  I don't blame anyone, my shortcomings are no one's fault but my own, and the last thing I want is for anyone to feel any sort of guilt for the way I've been feeling.  I have some sort of emotional issues going on right now and don't really have much of an idea of how to deal with it.  What I've been trying isn't working and I don't want my friends to have to suffer because of my problems.  So my apologies are many and sincere.  I hope everyone is well and enjoyed their respective evenings.  I really do love seeing everyone, I just need to find my niche.  I don't know where I belong, and I've never found it so hard before to be happy.  This is just how it is for now.  You can only ever go forward, because there's no going back. As a side note, I'm looking into starting a Role-Playing Board.  It wouldn't be a solo project, and those people I've talked to know who they are, as there is no need to name names at this point.  The running idea is a Cyberpunk setting, though some people that I've spoken with have displayed noninterest because of that.  I want this to be something that good friends can share and enjoy.  It's not about creating a "broken" world where the characters can "do anything."  It's supposed to be about excersizing our creative potential and having a small escape from the daily toil and an outlet for our creativity and artistic vision.  I don't know what to think, because I'm trying to please everyone and I'm afraid i'm going to end up with no one interested and a vision left in shattered pieces.  If smart, decent people are involved there should be no reason that any setting would be too far-out to work and not have people abusing "power".  It's just words, the whole point is that the world that is created by something like this is a personal, dynamic thing that everyone involved is enjoying.  If people aren't having fun, or don't think they can handle the "responsibility" of being a person in a make believe world, then the point is lost.  I'm trying to do something fun, please don't kill it... Current Mood: uncomfortable (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 7th, 2006
4:38 pm	Part 2...Belated and extended ( The story so far. Much more than before. ) This is it so far.  Input is always appreciated.  Love it, hate it, do what you will with it.  Once read it can't be unread, sorry. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 23rd, 2006
3:10 pm	The Beginning Following this actual post is the first part of a story that I am attempting to fabricate from basically nothing. Enjoy if you want to, otherwise feel more than free to blatantly ignore it. All CONSTRUCTIVE criticism is appreciated. Saying you hate is isn't enough, I want reasons why. Likewise, if you enjoy it, please include why you did. Thank you in advance. That said, here we go. --- Today our hero will be Alex. Who he is and what he stands for are yet to be seen. Half the fun is not knowing, I promise. And of course with the existence of a protagonist we need our villain, our heel. You’ll all get to meet him later, don’t worry. Her name is Kate, or Amy. Or…wait. Was his name Dirk? Maybe it was Jack. Oh well, it doesn’t really matter until you meet her…or him. Gender and disposition don’t mean a thing when the persona of this figure doesn’t exist. Point being, you now know that this evil lurks blindly somewhere in our story, his story. Best of luck. ----------------------------- I’m falling. Not just falling though, I’m flying. Not really flying though. It’s much more like I’m falling. The sensation is almost too good for me to open my eyes. Almost being the key word in that genius thought. My eyes do open though, in the most metaphysical way that eyes can open. I am falling; there is no flight involved in what is happening here. The sky is speeding away from me, the clouds are a blur. Darkness is slowly surrounding me. My eyesight must be going. The shutter is closing and the air is bitter cold. My last vision is the barren Earth some thousand feet below me quickly closing in. I’m a rag doll being flung toward an urban grave. It’s getting warmer. I can feel my skin again. The smell of cheap factories and a dying humanity fills my nostrils. With impact imminent, I can’t help but feel the anticipation building. I scream once and it lingers in my skull instead of leaving my lungs like it’s supposed to. One more scream and my head slams itself against the imaginary brick wall hovering inches above my plummeting figure. No screaming…check. The screaming subsides. I feel much better now. So what’s going on here again? Oh yes, it’s all so clear now. I’m getting what I deserve. It would be far too comforting to know when I was about to hit the ground anyway. Now I get to panic for the precious few moments left in my life. Let’s figure this out then…nothing better to do right now. Terminal velocity for a free-falling sky diver is right around 120 mph. If I’m still a few thousand feet up I should have, well… 2500 to be safe… 120 means two miles per minute… 5280 feet per 30 seconds… 30 goes nice into 5280…3 into 528… 200…no…less than that… 176…yea…that’s the one… 3 by 6 18 carry the 1 times 7 plus 1 is 2 carry the 2 times 1 plus 2 is 5… *SLAM* That was highly inappropriate. Melodrama at its best I suppose. Why can I still think? This is hardly fair if you ask me. *CONVULSE* Too bad there’s nothing in my stomach for me to vomit up. If there was, my tongue being halfway down my own throat might be bothering me right now. I know better than that though. Does make it kinda hard to breathe, but I can’t move anyway. And now more screaming. If it didn’t make it out before, there’s no way it’ll make it out of my lungs now. Might as well be necrotic like the rest of my body. *SCREAM* Bad dream? Nightmare? Night terror? Nothing compared to the reality. Where am I and who the fuck is on top of me? Let’s try that once more, but with feeling this time around. “Where am I and who the fuck is on top of me?” in as demanding a way I can muster at…shit, I can’t even move with --- on top of me. “Go back to sleep babe.” I’m frozen. It’s a warm breeze on a cool autumn day, but it chills my bones. Who is this? Why am I on this couch and why is --/--- on top of me. As I force myself to sit up, --- head falls from my chest into my lap. Nothing about what is going on makes any sense to me. This is definitely my apartment, and there were definitely people here last night. In fact, there are still people here. And not just me and this mystery person, but three, four, at least five other people asleep on the floor. Some are on top of each other, the rest are huddled with themselves clinging to their freedom and idiocy like a tattered stuffed animal. “Who are you and what are you doing in my lap?” I manage. “I’m whoever you want me to be and I’ll be doing whatever you want me to be doing if you give me a minute to wake up,” comes from the anonymous, silky voice. Every hair on my body stands on end. It wouldn’t be polite for me to turn down such a pretty voice. Seems safe, but this isn’t why I throw these parties. It’s because most of the people that show up don’t have anywhere else to be. At least not anywhere even remotely nice or fun. It’s somewhere that every nobody is somebody, if only for a few drinks. My absence from my own bed scares me, but I keep that door locked anyway just for situations like this one. As I snap out of my half-sleep trance I see --- staring at me with pouting, innocent eyes. The blanket that was formerly covering the both of us is now wrapped around --- body and head such that the only visible details are the face and two strands of black bangs hanging down in front of --- face. I take a quick glance down and realize that I’m in boxers and a tank top. Not my most flattering moment, but I’ve had many worse. How does my hair look? As my hand is making its way to the top of my head it’s intercepted by another hand. “You look fine,” eyes fixed on the top of my head, “that’s not what I’m interested in anyway.” The eyes move down my body. I could die in this instant and be happy not knowing the outcome. “Please…don’t,” are the words that leave my mouth. You can watch them float over to the blanketed figure as --/--- slowly leans towards me. The blanket opens but the darkness persists. Damn interior apartment: no windows, no lights on. Just eyes, hands, ---, and me. One soft hand pressed against another. Which is mine and which isn’t doesn’t matter right now. What gives me the right to feel this way? Why should I be so happy when I have no idea what’s going on and who it’s going on with? If my mind would stop wandering I’d be able to realize the part where our lips are pressed together. My hand falls off the face of the planet. Or it would have if the couch was a planet and my hand wasn’t attached to my arm. To everyone else it was my hand falling out of ---/---- and hanging limp off the edge of the sofa. On that note, my whole body falls limp and I slide back down with my head resting on the arm of the couch. I’m now being straddled by ---, body cloaked by the same god-forsaken blanket. We’re back where we started and I’ve figured out nothing. My last sensation is hot breath on the nape of my neck. My last sight is the clock on the end table on the other side of the room. 12:00 *BLINK* 12:00 *BLINK* 12:00 I knew tonight was different, but existing outside of time even threw me for a loop. ----------------------------- Now at this point we should all realize that time was very much present at the party that night. The clock was blinking not because it was confused by some anomaly that was making it continually fuck its own skull, but because the transformer a few blocks over met up with a series of delinquents with baseball bats. And, once they hit the juicy, gooey nougat center of said transformer, it blew faster and harder than a Vietnamese whore. Once the electric company managed their way over to this bloody, fiery mess, they found three charred bodies and a few roasted wires. The city would later discover that this wanton destruction was the result of a few too many chemicals pumping through their bloodstreams and an all-too-easy access to sports equipment. Needless to say, the power was restored an hour or so later, just around the moment our boy Alex was taking a glance at his trusty digital clock. The truth was that it was 3:47 AM when he saw his clock blinking 12:00. Time was stopped for him anyway, and he had no desire for it to start back up again any time soon. (2 Comments |Comment on this)