Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Ages Hense

The rain came down in sheets outside my window. What a cliche line but it was true. The way it moved back and forth in stagnant lines reminded me of the newspaper reels from the 30's and 40's.
This isn't the 30's and 40's anymore though.
This isn't even the same century.
God, how long have I been alive?
A human life seems so frail without technology and I've watched so many pass because they didn't know about the one simple advancement only I possess. I must have been through at least five or six identities so far just trying to protect it.
In any case, you'd have no idea about that. Even now, in 2145... yes... that's it; I've been alive for two hundred and sixteen years.
Seeing how you haven't left the room yet, do you have time for a story? Of course you do, I just answered my own question, didn't I?
Well, it seems that the absence of the process for the past 20 years has made my mind a little weak. Now I shall try my best, but I feel as though this may be my last transcript to you, so listen closely and as you write, remember that no one but you can know this story; I have seen what it does to people and you don't want to be in that world:

The year I was born was nineteen hundred and twenty nine. The stock market had just crashed on the day my mother gave birth to me. My father was protected only because he had been doing projects in our basement for foreign governments and getting the pay put into those same foreign banks. We were United States citizens for the purpose of a good home in the land of opportunity but aside from our middle class facade in a country that had just upped its population of poor people, we were quite average.
My father was a genetic engineer before people had any idea what that meant.
Throughout the 30's and 40's my parents moved around a lot. Much of the reason was projects that he was working on for the United States government, and then selling to the Swiss, or other countries that took the vow of neutrality in any war, on the side.
His work focused mainly on youth and how to stay young, forever. He did not see any problem with this because his work was focused around regenerating body parts and tissues.
As a side note: if my father could see me now, he'd be very disappointed.
He always told me, "Son, all human beings strive for eternal youth, and it is ok to die feeling and looking young but the key to playing god is the brain. This is the one organ we do not even research to be regenerated. It is not possible and therefore no one is god, but god alone."
In 1935, my father moved with my mother and me to Chicago. It seemed as though people had been making threats on hurting my mother and or me if he didn't begin research on a recipe for the regeneration of the brain.
He told no one where he was going, not even my mother or me; One day, we just left.
When we got to Chicago, that was where the basement research got elevated. Government officials were contacted and he told them he would do no more research on regeneration, so being a scientist, mathematician, physicist, biologist and every other form of researcher you could think of, they started him working on a project called Manhattan in Chicago; isn't that a riot?
I wouldn't know it until later but one of the stipulations of him working on this new project was that he be allowed privacy and absolute security. Surveillance back then wasn't what it is now, I assure you of that and you'd know if there was a flower delivery service in front of your house for 5 days straight.
The bathroom was to the left of the kitchen and unless you knew the tile to remove, it was no more or less: an ordinary bathroom. The tiles on the wall were blue and they created a solid strip around the center of the walls, above that, the walls were a teal color and below that were white panels. Anyone going in there would be surprised by it's loveliness and cleanliness right down to its comfortable, cushion fitted, porcelain throne.
Within its walls, however, was the most state of the art laberatory ever made. My father built it himself and he told me that we would never move because if we did, we'd have to blow up the house to conceal his research.
Evidently, he wasn't lying.
It was 1939-1945 that I worked for the Chicago Tribune and listened to the newspaper reels churning out new news each morning. I only got to listen for a few hours before they opened up the doors and sent me off with a fresh bundle but the sound was so intoxicating it almost put me to sleep before the day even began.
On August 6th, 1945, we all found out about the First atomic bomb being released on the island of Japan. 10 days later, dad moved us to Venice Beach California, in the middle of the night, and blew up our house in Chicago. I read about it in the paper a few days after we arrived. The only thing was, it said all inhabitants had been killed.
I felt very much alive.
My father wasn't like other men. Many of my friends got to go for a drink when they turned 18 but instead, I got a far better gift: my father brought me down to his laboratory. We began to do projects together and I watched my father regenerate body parts of his so he'd look younger, even though his brain was 50 years old by 1950.
It infuriated me in secret because I could tell he was getting old even though his body looked almost as young as mine did. My mother did as well and because of his technology they were healthy and fit in every area except the brain, which was, for all intensive purposes, older.
In 1979, I reached my half a century mark. My father was 79 and though his body looked young, he must have seemed like the most cranky, forgetful, and almost naiive young man to those who didn't know that he had been giving himself youth treatments since he was actually a young man. I had better things to do with my time and in June of that year, I perfected it.
I came running into the office where my dad worked and began to tell him about my perfection of the brain rejouvination as he slept. I appologized numerous times for not telling him that I had been working on this research for a long time but he gave no response.
The coroners had put the cause of death as aneurysm in their report. The old-young man had simply thought too much and made his brain bleed. My mother died in 1980 of the same thing. This wasn't going to happen to me.
I began treatments on my brain rejuvenation process immediately and I had the quickness of thought and the looks of a 29 year old. Year after year I fixed my brain until I have gathered the knowledge of two centuries.
I never thought to have kids until I met your mother and age wasn't even the thing that took her. Some things in this world, are abrupt and simultaneous and god gets more vicious the more years you steal from him. You can check all the drawers in my desk, you won't find the recipe. I've destroyed the lab and all the documents were in that lab. I have lived young for too many years and I find I would have been happier dying young as well.
In my older, young age, I have to say it's almost a blessing to be getting old. Life gets boring after a while you know.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Metally Challenged

The music began to play in that oddly sweet stink of my friend's car and I began to feel delicate flames pouring forth from my eyes like blood.
They seemed to gently flow out and downward and rise upwards when they dissipated.
The experience was new to me and naturally I was afraid that my friend would think less of me if he saw my eyes pouring fire so I closed them and put on my sunglasses. When I opened my eyes, I saw my sunglasses in the passenger side mirror and the flames were creeping out the sides of the shades.
The metal in my soul was hidden for a moment with the brunt of the heat behind the dark shades I wore but this was my best friend of 20 years and I knew I couldn't hide for too long before he generally read my mind.
He must have missed the commotion in my brain, though, because he suddenly burst out, "Why ya being so quiet, ya jerk?!?"
The Japanese had finally succeeded in making a song so metal my inner demon had burst into flames and started seeping out my eyeballs.
In the last few moments before I looked back over at him my mind was racing.
He won't understand.
I'm going to freak him out.
This is Alex, he knows something's up.
What is he going to say?
What is he going to think?
He'll keep his calm...
He'll understand...
I turned to face him and removed my sunglasses only to see his entire head in flames.
He looked over for a second and caught a glimpse of my eyes as he began to laugh out loud at the flames pouring from them.
"Newb," he said.

Monday, August 3, 2009

The collector

I sat at a bar and the rotten stench of spilled beer and cigarette ashes was everywhere. My contact approached me and I recognized his face immediately.
"How are you my friend?" He said with that thick Slavic tone I had known for 18 years.
"Alright. Last night was better," I said.
"tell me about it," he said.
So I began:
Into the mouth of the beast I looked. He was drooling but asleep, and his nose sniffed the air every 2 minutes or so.
Unfortunately fortunately, I was covered in his urine from the mud pile next to his cage. He had no idea I was anything but him.
At a closer glance, I noticed he was also so old and senile that he wouldn't have chased a Nazi screaming "Heil Hitler!" in his face.
I ran for the "secret room" I had seen earlier that day on a tour of the grounds. I had to avoid both security and "old un-reliable," but everything seemed pretty standard and routine so work went like clockwork.
It all seemed a little easy considering the guards were conveniently preoccupied with a temperature change in an art aquarium.
Art nuts, I'll never get it.
I grabbed the chip without problem. I didn't even have to move the statue but unfortunately for me, I wasn't alone.
She looked into my eyes and winked.
"Okay, let's go," I thought to myself.
We danced so hard the walls of the art preserve turned into lead slug tapestries. When we met in the middle she kissed me loud enough and quick enough to hear the bang, and her knees hitting the floor for the last time.
The rest of the night was pretty good.

Amnesia Dream

The light from the house burned my retinas like heaven and an angel stepped out of it.
"Who are you?" I thought to myself.
She walked with stunning posture and poise and brought me gently down to my knees with her gaze. Thoughts swam through my mind like serpents with LSD venom, about the important event that had happened 15 years prior to this moment and connected me with this seraph. As if a surge of electricity hit me I was suddenly brought through other moments in time; I saw things and began to remember.
In a brief flash I saw a cake and a party and then a quick transfer to another scene of being blind to her face one instant, and the next being blinded by the light that shined from her heart through her eyes.
As she finally made it to where I sat, blind, on the backs of my feet, scanning time its self to know who she was, she embraced me. In a gut reaction, blurted something out loud:
"I love you," I said.
"I love you too," she said, "And have for 17 years."
My thoughts went back to this day, this event, 15 years ago, what was it.


I woke up and looked over and saw the seraph lying next to me and as I did, I made sure to tell my wife I loved her before I returned to my dreaming.

The Reckoning

The last thing I remembered was that bar in Monterey. Her smooth recklessness making way for her subsequent, "spending the night."
The heat was unbearable and the town smelled like ash from the fires a few miles away.
"Fuck it all," I thought out loud, "It's only business, and the drinking doesn't even start till noon."
So I dropped 20 hits of acid and waited for her to wake up. It was a bad idea considering she woke up speaking basic Russian and somehow I understood her.
"When did I take Russian?" I thought out loud again.
The cool California breezes blew across my nostrils and I thought again of the fire.
"Ya lublu tevya," she said, and I locked and loaded my GLock.

Vignette

She Walked up to him in the alley behind the shoddy drug store and lit a cigarette. Nervously she watched him for a few minutes and said nothing as she puffed away. A breeze blew and fanned out her skirt.
Without warning she asked the ultimate question between the two, "Why do you always look down when I come into the store?"
He looked down.
He then pulled a long drag of courage from his unfiltered Ace and upon looking up, he looked her directly in the eyes for his reply.
"You're beautiful..." He said.
He looked away at the street lamp, which seemed to hum in agreement, the back into her eyes, "...but you are perfect in your eyes. Your 'stunning curves' and 'sculpted body' are wasted on a fool like me because you melt the muscles in my legs when I look into your eyes."
The two stood locked in gaze for a moment and she looked away.
He continued to stare at her eyes the way an old man watches the ocean and gets lost in his immortal wisdoms.
"well, bye," She said.
She turned and began to walk away.
He puffed on his cigarrette and looked up at the stars, and the wind blew, and the street lamp agreed.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Chronicles of Soullessness [1/29/2009]

I stand outside a bar with quiet verisimilitude. I’m probably the only one around with such thoughts on my mind and absolutely drenched in true reality. She waits outside making desperate phone calls to some special someone who has broken her heart. She is Puerto Rican and a Latin goddess at that.
The night air breezes by and I light up a cigarette waiting for the human response that is desperation to make one of them crack. The thick air and smoke clog my lungs but I take it all in with silent breath and exhale with the force of a god.
I am Menelaus waiting outside the gates of Troy for my Helen, meanwhile ready to fight the entire Trojan army alone if she will not come out. The street lamp above me goes out and I am now sitting there in darkness with a half-grin on my face. The light coming at me gives me dark half-circles under my eyes and all of a sudden, as if by magic, she sees me and becomes entranced. My gaze stairs straight into her eyes and it is not accompanied by emotion. It is selfless and true yet dark and foreboding.
She walks towards me without thought of the road she walks on.
I am her poison and she is my addiction.
I toss my cigarette away and stare into her eyes. I can see her pathetic passion arising as if she was about to hand me her heart through her chest and yet I do nothing but stare at her quizzically and lose my smile. I am not after her passion. When I was alive, I was corrupted by it but now I only seek for redemption of my addiction.
I wink with an evil smile and walk towards my car. She follows like I was an evil mother hen.
The ride back nothing is said by me. She talks at me and tells me the story of some lost romance and keeps on asking me who I am and why I'm not talking. She asks me what's on my mind and I stop and think to myself, "your soul"
We return to the house. The door is open and no one is home. They must have gone out for a minute but I notice there's no car so they must have gone further then I thought.


My hunger wells up in me as I remember home. The endless nightmare of life a thousand years and seeing those who I care about corrupted by the poisonous blood that runs through these veins. Visions of ships, in now New York harbor, docked and exporting hundreds a day to an alleyway where the stench is so strong not even a gas mask could protect you.
I can remember a small town in Ireland where a foreigner one day came to stay. Her beauty was poles apart from that of any local girl. I was enchanted by her essence and allure and before I knew it, She was in my room on top of the in.
She showed me her shoulder slipping out of the dress she was wearing and at the speed of light, she was hitting me with her body and kissing me with such force that reality its self disappeared. It was as if I was in another dimension and even my surroundings changed as she sunk her teeth into my neck. I felt the gentle tug and sharp pain of two syringes deep within my jugular vein. My head went weak and the poison of her saliva entered my neck.
Like a mosquito, she could have kept on drinking till she exploded but suddenly she pulled her teeth off my neck and I fell off of her; watching my illusionary existence melt away like an oil painting with turpentine thrown on it. It was beautiful and morbid and I felt my heart stopping. Love ending, passion dying, fear passing and consciousness its self evanescing. She drew a knife from her bag and I begged her to murder me but she slit her wrist and told me to drink.
I bit her with a hunger I had never felt before. Even if I had not eaten for weeks as my family had, I could not have feasted like I did now.


The door swung open to my house and I stepped inside. No one was home as I had expected and I pulled her close to me. The scent of her hair drove me wild. My teeth began to grow like that of a snake from its gums and I bit down with all my force. She had no desire to scream and pulled me closer. The fire in my soul burned again and I felt fulfilled. I drained her not only of her blood but also of her soul. The fire, the flames, the high. That feeling of the painting melting all over again. Images flashing of a girl sitting alone with her mascara running down her cheek and the wonderful warmth of her soul in my mouth.

The vampyr from the bar smiled and stroked the back of my head as I died. She looked out the window and smiled and said, "the sun is setting my child. Watch."
I watched the sun set for the last time and closed my eyes and felt nothing. We made love for the rest of the night and there were no regrets.
At four AM, we drained the bar and left it with corpses all around.
At one point I had been shot with a musket and yet, the bullet and the wound healed instantly.
As the sun came up, we rode off in a black carriage toward a castle in the West of Ireland. There we made our home before moving from place to place with the hunger of the Vampyr increasing. We had our fill till we moved to America.
It was 1959 and she had crashed into a fight between rival gangs in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan, New York City. She was murdered and I dragged her out of the area before the police showed and found two others murdered.
My first, my hostess, my eternal was dead. The steak in the midst of the gang war was uncommon so I resolved to look for her murderer.


It had been 48 years and I had found this girl who had not aged. I would have to drain her worse than I had any other victim. She reached for her coat as I feared my life and threw her to a corner. Her face had changed. She was Dumpeil; I could taste it in her blood. A half breed who killed its own kind. My emotions still ranked none but I prepared to kill for my hostess.
She held a stake in her foreign hand and prepared to finish me off.
"I have waited for you murderer," she says. "My blood runs cold and hot, and I can see your soul as well as the ones you have taken from me and my country." "My family moved to New York to find you and your whore and it's a shame I couldn't have finished you both off in '59."
I said nothing but smiled at how quickly her mood changed. She was an impeccable liar. "You are weak young one. It is not wise to fight the elder."
"My mother murdered my father because of you. Do you remember her? 1868. The confusion and revolts must have made things easy for you. death was all around at that time and you raped and drained an innocent woman," she said.
"Your bleeding and you strength is low, I would not recommend fighting me now child," I said.
"I will die before you leave this house," she said.
I threw her with the force of Zeus at a wall that broke open and she stood. Once again I was on her with her stake across the room. I drained her till my eyes closed and something strange started to happen.
"You can't take Vampyr blood can you? It is that of your own kind and kills you like an overdose of drugs. You are dying you vapid creature," she said.
"I will not be killed by a pathetic half breed," I said.
"The night is not over yet subhuman, I have not had my fill of you, just yet," She said.
Her fangs sank into my neck and I shrieked as I was raped by this creature who I was about to murder.
We watched the moon outside and drained the tenement at 4:00 AM. From here, there was only destiny.