Pamplona (Vicarious vision through Hemingway)

Pamplona, Spain, Running of the bulls and it smells like shit.

The stench of the arena is thick as fog on a hot day after a cool shower. People push in all directions. They are herded like bulls toward a large square where fireworks explode and drunken meat puppets sway like an ocean.

If I saw this from above, I’d want to stay away just as I wouldn’t dive into murky waters with a visible scent for fear of leeches among the crowd or pond. Like a scourge of Piranhas fighting for meat and people so thick back touches abdomen without moving an inch.

I’ve got Sangria on my shirt and my shoes are covered in the solid grunge that becomes the visible odor and makes the street smell so foul. Everybody for some reason is wearing white. As if they expected this day to practice savage tie dying.

The droplets of Sangria make me think bitterly about the crowd as I look into their joyous, drunk, smirking faces being stained with blood rain and think about the bullfight earlier on in the day:

The eyes of the ferocious animal I was about to run from were looking me in the face as I sat in the first row of the bullfighting ring and watched it killed in cold blood. It screamed out to me in my thoughts as if to say: “Murderers!” Then, it was gored and stumbled around the ring like a wounded pup. It was getting slower but it still charged with full spirit. The bull made me think of its passion and its struggle with a hairless monkey. I envisioned in my head, a rodent fighting a scorpion. Its teeth bared and sharp, yet the stinger of the scorpion killing without a fight by stabbing it in the back before it got a chance. It almost made me want to fight the bull myself…

The crowd is beginning to move away and a runway is being set up with wooden fences. People are screaming, “Encierro” all over the place. It’s not constant, but I hear it in sparse shouts as I listen to the great din of thousands of people. Among them are Americans, Spaniards, Germans, French, Italians, Dutch, and dozens of nationalities dying to get close to the mighty beast.

Many of them stand in the runway but a few of them are hopping over the fences back and forth as crowd control tries to keep it from becoming a blood bath. A second becomes an hour and soon all I hear is a high-pitched ringing in my ears as the giant doors are opened and the bulls charge into the streets.

I run along the fences to get a better look and find only madmen who gore themselves to death by standing just a centimeter too close. My hearing comes back as I watch people being flung twelve feet into the air only to come down onto a natural spear ending their small but fortuitous excitement.

One missed step could mean you trip and never get up again.

As the bulls get to a corner that is blocked off by a gate I find myself running into it and falling face first about 70 paces from the first running Spaniard. I begin to run and everything once again goes deaf. All I can hear is ringing and my heartbeat as I run 50 paces to the next fence and hop over it. I stop and sit down on a bench as the bulls, runners, and crowd rush by me.

I would go home on a jet later that evening but for the next couple of days, I would have a constant eye on the bull that chased me all the way home.

Just Another night out

Sitting at the bar, admiring their impressive selection of rail liqors; he sat in quiet veneration of the girl sitting next to him. Breathless, he wondered how he'd gotten here and how such a beautiful woman could be his? It seemed like only yesterday, he'd seen her for the first time on a skype date, from accross the country.

She smiled at him periodically as she sat poised as a dutches making love to her favorite drink, Gin and tonic. She glowed like a dream from some acid euphoria. The little light they did have in the divey bar shown in a circle around her head and with each drink, he swore more and more it was a halo.

As she got up to sing Karaoke, He realised he didn't care how he'd gotten there or why it was that he'd grown to love her so quickly. In his mind and in his entire being, he knew she was the one he was supposed to be with. He knew that no other girl could ever own his heart the way she did.

As she belted out Bjork's "Oh So Quiet," and The Jackson Five's "I Want You Back," he felt each note hit him in his chest like bullets and her stage presence was also felt by the entire room. Sure other guys might have wistled and cat-called on the drunken night, but he got to go home with her and as he did, his eyes sparkled as much as hers did, star studded on the stage.

He knew he'd love her forever from the moment he met her and in the days to come, all he needed to do was proove it by being the kind of man he felt, she deserved.

**********************************************************************************

She lay on her back with her red hair strewn about like lava trails from a volcano. Her eyes sparkled like two crystal-clear, blue, tropical tide pools and had just as much life; swimming with the characters of her thoughts.

Her dimples would make little alcoves for his many kisses laid across her face like tire tracks and she would not allow herself to be the only one barraged with kisses.

All around her an aura of warmth hugged him and drew him in (this was in addition to the hugging going on, normally) but he resisted. they talked for a long while, laughing at the stupid things before it was one too many.

One too many perfect things said; too much love between two people; the intensity of one so good for the other and visa versa that the two begin to lock together like wind fronts in a storm.

Even their personalities were hot and gave off an aura of what they were feeling, creating a bubble that surrounded them and moved slowly outwards...

He kissed her and began a series of biochemical electromagnetic exchanges that drew the two together with enough energy and intensity to wake the entire apartment with boiling vibes. For some it was too great and as they stirred from their slumber, one left.

They'd make a good couple.

Meeting Sarah

Sitting at the bar, admiring their impressive selection of rail liquors; I sat in quiet veneration of the red headed beauty sitting next to me and breathless, I wondered how I got here.

It seemed only yesterday I'd seen her face on a skype date from across the country and now here she was and I felt like I had known her for years. The feeling can't be described in words but the closest one can come to it is that it felt like the world was exactly as it should be.

As she sat next to me and chatted with everyone at the bar, I felt like Batman and she was my Robin. We were the dynamic duo of conquering all that we saw around us and without hesitation, I felt completely secure, for the first time in my life, that somebody loved me with everything they had and I had the same to give back.

She sang like an angel and lit up the room while making everyone else look like just another karaoke singer. My ruby queen was mine and I was her king. For the first time in my life, everything was just as it should be.

Interupted thought

"Father!" I said, "Stand down amongst this madness. Roxas is no longer your daughter. She has turned to death and outlaw now and she will not do our royal name justice."
"You turn against your own flesh and blood, son, I cannot allow you to hurt your sister as she is still mine. I am sorry I have to do this, but you must face your destiny before I will let you kill your own sister. Dragon nigrum Surgite!"
The ashes in the room from the numerous fires in the great hearth to my right began to gather together till they gathered together at over 15 feet high. There in the great room of my father's throne room, the great black dragon stood before me and my knights. Our speed was unmatched but its determination to kill us was not.



With a downward killing blow, I jammed my sword down through the spike on the dragon's head and he thrashed against the walls and ceiling as I held strong to the sword. At last he began to fall and dissipate into fire as the remaining knights stood round me like wings to face my father.
"Listen to me father," I said, "your daughter was once that child that you loved but she is no longer that loving child. Here we stand before you, loyal knights. She is nowhere to be found because this war is about her and not you. You protect her kingdom here at the gate but we need to get through and end her madness because ultimately it will become a burden on all the people who come across her."
He began to cry. With his lips at first and then his eyes. He cried for only a minute or two before he spoke.
"You children fought bitterly and created a war ground out of the kingdom I built! It is time that you created your own."
The old king's eyes turned white as if they had no iris's or pupil's and a wind came through the walls as if it had come from all four corners of the world.
He spoke some words in Latin before the first two bricks began to fall from the walls, "Celerem mortem."
The walls of the castle began to crumble and the Knights of Zen looked for quick ways out. Although we were all for one, this mess required we each take to ourselves for the moment.

beautifully grotesque...

Yea, though, I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; rather, I shall become evil in its self.

My first thoughts of murder had not been so simple as other killers; mine was a pure crime of passion. I was twenty seven years old and had the fire of a young man’s rage in my heart.

There was no reason for me to hate him. He had brought me into his business, paid me more money than most of the other workers, and, at times, even treated me as a son but all was not well in paradise.

The end result of a small mistake lead to his temper rising to the point of violence. He never would have killed me as I did him but he was not fueled with his own mortality and the youth of a young man such as I.

He would tell me on certain days that “just because I happened to be his son, did not mean I was the best worker at the job” and “it was my prerogative to work up to the pay that some of the other workers had already earned.” He would tell me that a father wants to see his son making something of himself rather than getting it for free.

The night I killed him, I felt no remorse. The house was quiet and even the field mice were asleep. My pay had not allowed me to move out of the house but I feel my father rather liked that I stayed at home anyway.

I planned everything so carefully, nothing could have gone wrong. If I got away with the murder, I even had an alibi: I was to be spending the night at a dear friend's house and I had locked my room from the inside so he would never discover that I had quietly slipped out the window. My friend even lived on the first floor so I didn’t have to use a rope or leave anything that might be suspicious.

The knife was clutched tightly in my hand and I could think of nothing else but the anger I had for playing my father’s second all the time. I could see the stairs in his house that I had climbed so many times. The carpeting still smelling like the Old Spice soaked old man.

The hallway seemed to stretch on for a mile as I crept down it towards his bedroom, putting to reality the technique I practiced every day as a kid to surprise him. I memorized all the creaky boards and stepped on none of them.

The door creaked open and my father awoke to see me standing at his door. He ran to me to ask me what was the matter and I hugged him sliding the knife below his sternum and into his heart while embracing him at the same time. Gently I kissed him on the forehead as he slowly started to slide away, with a look of utter confusion, directly in my eyes.

As he slipped away my mind started to race. My heart started to beat faster, my condition started to wind down and I saw death standing at my door in addition to that which had already come and claimed my father.

I fell to the floor and began to cough. Blood rushed from my mouth and seemed to congeal in a comfortable position because it knew that which joined it had already spilled that night.

I knew before I murdered him, that I was dying. I had expected to die on this night because of what my doctors had told me about the approaching doom if I did not quit my life habits.

As I saw the darkness coming fast, I thanked god for a quick death, even though it seemed like an eternity. I had accomplished my last goal in life and would not be found guilty for the death of my father because for all the police would know, it may have been an argument that escalated.

Murder was to be my final act. As I slipped into darkness, I asked no forgiveness; I only told the world I knew goodbye and wished all a holy hell.

The night was cool and passion ran deep in the room. Two bodies lay on the floor; the last two of a generation, father and only son. The night wished them well and brought a cool summer breeze to the apartment they wouldn’t be found for three days.

Vengeance was found one night on a non-vindictive basis and all was quiet and forgotten at the end of the day.

True Malice

Lo, as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; rather, I shall become evil in its self.

My first thoughts of murder had not been so simple as other killers; mine was a pure passion crime. I was twenty seven years old and had the fire of a young man’s rage in my heart.

There was no reason for me to hate him, he had brought me into his business, he had paid me more money then most of the other workers, and he had, at times even treated me as a son but all was not well in paradise.

The end result of a small mistake lead to his temper rising to the point of violence, he never would have killed me as I did him but he was not fueled with his own mortality and the youth of a young man such as I.

He would tell me on certain days that “just because I happened to be his son, did not mean I was the best worker at the job” and “it was my prerogative to work up to the pay that some of the other workers had already earned.” He would tell me that a father wants to see his son making himself something rather than getting it for free.

The night I killed him, I had no remorse. The house was quiet and even the field mice were asleep. My pay had not allowed me to move out of the house but I feel my father rather liked it that I stayed at home anyway.

I had planed everything so carefully and nothing could have gone wrong. If I got away with the murder, I even had an alibi: I was to be spending the night at a dear friend's house and I had locked my room from the inside so he would never discover that I had quietly slipped out the window. My friend even lived on the first floor so I didn’t have to use a rope or leave anything that might be suspicious.

The knife was clutched tightly in my hand and I could think nothing else but the anger I had for playing my father’s second all the time. I could see the stairs in his house that I had climbed so many times. The carpeting still smelling like the Old Spice soaked old man. The hallway seemed to stretch on for a mile as I crept down it towards his bedroom, putting to reality my technique that I had practiced every day as a kid to surprise him where I memorized all the creaky boards and stepped on none of them.

The door creaked open and my father awoke to see me standing at his door. He ran to me to ask me what was the matter and I hugged him sliding the knife below his sternum and into his heart while embracing him at the same time. Gently I kissed him on the forehead as he slowly started to slide away with a look of awe directly in my eyes.

As he slipped away my mind started to race. My heart started to beat faster, my condition started to wind down and I saw death standing at my door in addition to his that had already come and claimed my father.

I fell to the floor and began to cough. Blood rushed from my mouth and seemed to congeal in a comfortable position because it knew that which joined it already had spilled that night. I knew before I murdered that I was dying and I had expected to die on this night because of what my doctors had told me about the approaching doom if I did not quit my life habits.

As I saw the darkness coming fast, I thanked god for a quick death, even though it seemed like an eternity. I had accomplished my last goal in life and would not be found guilty for the death of my father because for all the police would know, it may have been an argument that escalated.

Murder was to be my final act though, and as I slipped into darkness, I asked no forgiveness but only told the world I knew goodbye and wished all a holy hell.

The night was cool and passion ran deep in the room. Two bodies lay on the floor, the last two of a generation, father and only son. The night wished them well and brought a cool summer breeze to where they wouldn’t be found for three days.

Vengeance was found in a night on a non-vindictive basis and all was quiet and forgotten at the end of the day.

Dear Franz Kafka,

Upon reading your latest manuscript, "The Metamorphosis," the only regret that I had was having been forced to read it as a part of our class.

So, as I am to understand, Gregor Samsa was such a pussy that he became stuck up in his own life's filth and slowly turned into a vermin? From the lucid description, we assume it's a cockroach, yes? WTF is a vermin anyway? Who says that?

Well, I just have to say, WEAK man. Seriously? A cockroach? Nothing cool can happen with a cockroach unless he's a BAMF Cockroach. Yeah! With a capital C and everything attached! He is Mr. BAMF Cockroach, to you! Unfortunately, Gregor Samsa was the emo cockroach who cried and then used his own tears ** ***********. I appologize for the last comment, apparently, that was a little rude, however I stand by my point and just to illustrate it, I give you this story of:

The Realization:

He sat by the fire in the dark house and pondered his existence. His hair bloomed from his head like a pharaohs hat and in the darkness, you couldn't tell weather his eyes glowed or if it was just the reflection from the roaring fire. He stood at 5'10" with a muscular football skeleton but for now, he was just sitting, hunched over, with a lost look in his eyes.

Strange things had been happening in the weeks prior to this night. As he would nap in his room, things would catch on fire but not burn. In his waking moments, he could swear that he'd feel his forehead skin cut but then it would heal and he didn't notice.

He lived with his sister and his parents in an old house in New Jersey. They noticed the change in his moods as he grew more and more weary of the pursuit to happiness. He began reading the bible obsessively and began to notice slight flaws in perfect logic that he would consider godly. Is it possible, he thought, that our god is not a god at all but merely an alien that helped us create religion in exchange for worship? What a strange thing to desire, he thought.

His sister came into the room and spoke, "John, are you ready for dinner? We're having eggplant parm again..."

She was blonde and small, an 8 year old with the silliness of an only child, in a house of four. She skipped and smiled with rosy padded cheeks and had her hair tied back in a pony tale.

"No, not right now Miri, I have to think and read," John said.

"Thou shalt not kill," said John. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. Genesis 9:6!" "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. John 3:36." "שמע ישראל ה 'אלוקינו, ה' אחד."

With such contradiction, he started to feel a loss of belief or a super belief...

His father came down an hour after his sister. A strapping man who had his days to sit at home until John's recent illness which caused him to scream and convulse violently while speaking in tongues. The dentists called it a bad tooth, the doctors called it fractured ribs, but what they didn't know was that the change had already begun.

"Hey John. How ya doing? Had a long day? How was work?" Said his father.

"Good dad, thanks. I made a lot of money today. You can keep the lights on," said John.

"Oh. Okay. Well glad to see you're doing well, then," said his father.

"yeah," said John.

His dad left the room, closing the door to read his newspaper.

Johns ribs had grown larger and the fractured ribs were now instantly healed in a bigger frame. The fat began to melt from his body and his temperature rose significantly as he stared at a thermometer that read 103.2. He laid down in his bed and attempted to go to sleep.

"That's all he does is read his newspaper, I did the work around here until he took control from me due to this illness. I should light them on..."

The lamp shade burst into flames and burned down to the wire.

John's mother came casually walking up to the door and knocked on it, softly.

"Are you smoking in there?" She said.

"No. No. I just had a little accident with the fire and some smoke went into the house," said John.

"Are you alright?" She said.

"Yeah ma, I'm fine," said John.

He heard her footsteps leave the general area and he began to open his mind in ways that weren't ever possible before, or to anyone else for that matter. At least no one human.

"I've known it for so long but failed to see it. If I can not grasp heaven and feel the reality of this war, then I must be..."

"A demon!" Said John as the fire came out of the fire place and covered him. It melted away his skin and left a tender more scale like skin underneath. Like that of the Green Anole but with a nice shade of red.

"So," said John, "this is what it's going to be like from now on, huh?"

His first decision as a transformed demon was to light the neighborhood on fire. He walked down the stairs with such speed, the human eye could not even see it. Even his little sister didn't notice the door opening or closing.

As he stood outside, he summoned a deep inner hatred and his head split open, spilling preternatural fire all over every house in the neighborhood. The houses burned viciously but from the top down so nothing would collapse as if the fire was a living thing.

For this was no ordinary fire, it went back and forth. At one moment, it would glow and look as if a beautiful light, then it would change and burn its victims mercilessly without their skin ever showing the results of a burn.

Screams of pain and agony at the light they can never grasp, came from the shells of houses that began to dwindle in the ground.

A squirrel came running into the street where he walked. You squirrels have tried to kill me more than once as you dart out in front of my car. A deer came running after the squirrel. They too burned. Strangely, the neighborhood cats and dogs were perfectly fine and lay on sofas in the middle of a fire pit that didn't burn at all but instead cased them in a bubble of sleep and comfort.

As the world around him burned, John thought to himself out loud. "So demon's are real, where's your god?"

Sincerely,
Dylan Paul