Rework of scifi story part 2

Naeliim was seldom under my direct observation.  His people called themselves guides though they were in truth vagabonds.  Wanderers who contributed nothing to the various communities and fiefdoms they passed.  Offering use of the passages and back ways they controlled for a price.  Others like Naeliim bound themselves to contracts of service for the right to dwell within a community as they traveled.  It was upon a contracted sojourn that Naeliim came to hold my attention.

Naeliim traveled as guide to a pilgrim from one of the aft hold fiefs.  The first steps of their travels were of little concern and have passed from my mind, as much has.  My memory starts with fire and darkness, where normally there is nothing.  A great darkness that I can not penetrate is held in the center of my perception.  This is different from the black horizons all around, they are dotted with figures and forms.  This central blackness holds those lost and seemingly returned later.  But for a moment all awoke and blazed agape with light.

Here I beheld Naeliim and flame.  Others were seen in their wanderings but only Naeliim and another wrapped my attention.  Fire by which first I saw clasp about the guide but quickly failed away to black.  I figured the dark again held sway but I continued to see.  Some light filtered in from behind.  I first thought it light like any other but it was not right.  Its seemed brown and gold, perhaps ocher ; and sticky.  From the distance it conformed to optics' steadfast rules.  Though in seeing directly it held itself flat as if a plane or region mathematical.  It was horrible though only Naeliim seemed to see and recoil at the approach.

Reworking of scifi story part 1

Memory seems to have failed, can only hold thoughts so long before they dissolve.  I have flashes of light and pain that I recall and phantom sensation which is not meaningful with what I comprehend.  I see with a strange multitude but find only able to focus on small fragments of that whole.  At times I feel jarred by an electric coursing, this often I react with instinctive recoil.  I am unsure but even this seems a conditioned response. 

There is that "I" again, it doesn't fit any way that I know it.  I understand the persons moving through halls and hear their words within my consciousness, they say I and we.  It can be supposed my words come from theirs.  There is no self beyond, no momentary shell I can point to and understand it is me.  I have my guesses but I am unsure of my observations and hesitate to conjecture.  Of those observations I have seen much and and will speak a story that held my interest as it was played out.

Winter Wine

Something comes to me on the evenings. Its like a reprieve in the silencing cold of the muted sun.  A greater moment of still that expands beyond the confines of place and self.  Rapping at the doors and windows for a warm welcome and finding no one's at home.  Then greeting the singular and making peace with being alone. 

The smells are all there! lingered long with memories of youth come with the crisp mulberry leaves scratching down the street.  Scraping out a song as driven in the wind, there are stops and starts and fluttering with the days breath driving it away. 

Come on night, come one winter your almost through the door.  Yet the rain to us, force the birds and bugs from the sky.  Give us our supper, let me go in and sleep. Take down the fetters and send me back from this dream, I'm no longer young, it's not as grand as it seems.  Let me back to my daughter she shrieks joy from inside.  My wife also waits hoping to sleep soon a I return.  Let me leave the evening for warm and nettlesome tamed.

Wheat from the Chaff

Well the vampire stat folks are out in force today, one post after a couple weeks of in activity and bam a ton of extra views show up associated with them.  I don't even visit these sites so I don't know why they are interested in me.  Seriously you guys are the chaff of our society and need to go.  You are the extra weight we need to see die off in the next frost my vampirestat.  Please if you have a moment of weakness and doubt, remember my vote of encouragement and pull the trigger.  That goes for you too 7secretsearch too.

Turning 53

you're choking down the days
like bad medicine
And I'm stumbling around
in the vacuum

Everywhere is the absence
tugging at all of us
Spiraling in low orbits
of a missing planet

lasting yet lashing at me
if I'm not mild and meek
We're both confused
and no one know what to do

IF too much I'll explode
then you scold I implode

Block buster closes with little fanfare

Blockbuster closed completely I guess, today.  It got me thinking about all the video stores I frequented over the years, and one in particular.  In the south bay we had a solid competitor to the Mega video stores called American Video.  This place was huge before stores were huge and the video selection was second to none.

I first came to rent from these folks back when I was living at Park Branham.  They were located in the shopping center at Branham and Almaden Expressway.  I guess this was where the Taco Bell is currently.  The shop was a jumbled maze of racks at this time, with no where near enough space.  Entire sections where hidden away in nooks.  If you wanted Stalker yes they had it you had to nearly get on your hands to find it behind a cash register but it was there.

They moved fairly quickly afterwards, going to the shopping center on Almaden near Cherry.  I think it is or was a dollar store now.  This was sort of the stores hayday, back when it was huge and could hold a sea of folks.  They even had pinball machines going!  This being an independent store had some of the more adult titles, this section of the store was the size of most small video stores at the time.  This being the zenith of blockbuster this store dwarfed two or more of their stores.

Next the store just up and disappeared.  A friend finally let me know they moved over to the Cambrian park shopping center.  This was my favorite configuration of the store.  My buddy Andy once described it like an opium den and this description was pretty apt.  There was a big section of new stuff and newish stuff that mouldered into obscurity.  but it was the hidden alleys of Scifi and Horror that really were filled with forgotten gems.

The staff were great two most knew their stuff or could direct you to the horror , foreign or thriller guys.  Westerns were actually a section, that died off long ago at blockbuster.  They closed up a couple of years ago and become a ski place.  I have to say I regret it you don't get the feel when you scroll through Netflix on your roku.   

An Interesting side note:
We used to have a PaPa Murphy near my house, it closed shortly after the Hollywood Video place, it was next to closed down.  I guess it figured people would not visit it without the video store even though there was a Blockbuster in the shopping center less than a mile away.  I just saw a new Papa murphy is going in, back in the shopping center were the first one was.  I guess people wont make an extra stop for pizza if getting a video, but will a single stop if they are downloading and streaming.

Fucking up: Flaming Lanterns

This story of fucking up begins with a lack of power in the battery of our tent trailer.  My cousins and I used to go camping for a week or so in the Santa Cruz mountains when i was a teenager.  This was usually in the Big Basin campground but Henry Cowell the location of this actual story.

If you have read this site in any depth you know I am a nerd and fond of role-playing games.  This was the focal point of all our camping trips.  We would load my parents old Coleman tent trailer full of food and games and spent a week or more with limited supervision.  This was great for us though really we should have had someone a little wiser watching us.  While we were playing dungeons and dragons 90% of the time, it was the remaining 10% that was worrisome.

This particular trip we had my cousin Rick, his cousin Anthony and my friend Keith De Carlo in attendance.  It was fun but early one we realized we had an issue with running the lights inside the tent as there was something going funny with the battery.  It was some years old and may not have been up to snuff to begin with.  This was a problem as we wanted to spend most of the night playing Dungeons and Dragons.  The nature of the game is reading and note taking intensive so you do need full visibility to see.

We had a few candles stored for emergency purposes, by my parents, stashed in the trailer.  This was the best solution we had and quickly we had a glass ash tray configures with a candles to provide light.  This was passable for an evening but really was not great.  I say this until a strange set of events turned the candle stand into an open flame lantern.  The first step in this process was the complete liquidation of the candles into a broth of liquid wax, due to the heat of an enclosed tent and the lit candles themselves. Next there was some sort of wagering about putting things in and out of the flames uncharred.  At some point the outside of a box of matches was played over the flames.  This was almost magical as the cardboard soaked up the wax and served as a wick. 

Circumstances had provided us with the ideal solution to our lighting needs.  Here then the male brain's simplicity befouled our results, If one was good more is better.  The next day we traveled into the little town of Felton to gather supplies to make more of these lanterns.  We didn't really find a cheap solution of the ash tray but assumed the bottom half of coke cans would do the job.  This would be the turning point from novel solution to out right fuck up.

The coke can versions of the lanterns worked all too well.  Providing light for each of us to study our Players Handbooks and read up all the spells we needed so desperately to know.  The continued until the cans reached a certain heating point where the liquid wax was actually drawn up the inner wall of the cans.  The wicks we provided were no longer the point of ignition but rather the entire top of the coke can.  The cans had now become some thing akin to a modest Molotov cocktail, blazing freely at one end the other ended in a heated to scalding hot coke can.

In recognition of our Fuck up the ersatz braziers were quickly hurled out the door, generally at the fire pit the good folks at Henry Cowell had provided in our camp.  The burns were luckily minor to our persons, though the trailers table was burned and I was doomed to catch some level of hell from my parents.

I suppose the lesson was not to experiment with fire upon your parents property or perhaps something with heat and vacuums.  Really i am not sure.