Tuesday, May 30, 2006
A word from the editor
::PROGRESS::
Welcome to this, the first edition of Belle Lettre -
A little history for the uninitiated: Belle Lettre is the main physical manifestation of Belle The Cat Productions, my production company, located at bellethecat.com. The company (employees: 1, not counting the cats) was started in December 2002, and Belle Lettres has been published as a quarterly zine for the past two years from my former place of residence, Lakewood, Ohio (just outside of Cleveland.)
Who am I? My name is Sarah Bartash, and I have been a writer all my life - first for school, then for jobs but all the time for myself. I started self-publishing zines in high school, continued through college, and then took a hiatus when “real life” set in and dictated that I stop such frivolous pursuits. That didn’t last long as I soon realized that I needed such things to keep myself from going insane.
The original mission of Belle the Cat was to be “committed to creativity, discovery and courage through action,” and was later modified to “inspire courage, creativity and discovery though action in all people.”
At first, the mission was for the zine to support my own creative needs, then it was to encourage new, nontraditional and searching artists to submit and see their works in print.
With the third volume of the zine, I would like to focus on the readers - the people besides me and the other submitters who might just find this rag intriguing enough to thumb through. It is for this audience that I wish to announce the following.
Every issue of Belle Lettres has various departments (each issue might not have all departments):
* Recipes
* Poetry
* Comics (every print issue contains the illustrious Asshead)
* Adventures (usually a travel piece)
* “The Shelf” (Belle Lettre’s eclectic review page of everything from books and restaurants to movies and video games.)
With this issue, I would like to introduce the first attempts at theme issues:
Spring = Science Fiction Summer = Mystery
Fall = Horror Winter = Fantasy
This issue offers an inaugural chapter of Telove, about a planet besieged by civil wars and seceding factions. When a group of off-world settlers disturb a destructive and ancient evil, it is up to young Match, orphan, former mercenary and heir-apparent to the Prophecy of Telove, to bring about a lasting peace. Unfortunately, he is unaware of his destiny until a man claiming to be his teacher rescues him from a training exercise gone very wrong.
Another very important part of the zine, which sometimes may not get the attention it deserves, is the kids' zine, Banjo and Belle, located at the center of each print issue.
Finally, you can continue to look for Belle Lettre on the shelves of Mac’s Backs Books on Coventry - 1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights Ohio 44118 ph. 216-321-2665, at Phoenix Coffee 15108 Detroit Avenue Lakewood Oh 44107 216-226-4401 and at Arabica University Circle 11300 Juniper Road, Cleveland Ohio 216-791-0300. New distribution locations throughout
I hope you enjoy Belle Lettres. I encourage you to contact me with submissions, suggestions and comments. Thanks, welcome, or welcome back.
Special thanks to this issue’s contributors: DMV, KH and Nicka.
:: Belles-let-tres/ bel lettre/ n. writings that are valued for their elegance and aesthetic qualities rather than for any human interest or moral or instructive content, French, literally "fine letters" belletrism, belletrist.
Belle Lettre – Volume III, Issue 1. May 2006. All material contained within remains the property of the creators, copyrighted at creation. The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. Readers assume responsibility for actions or decisions they make as a result of reading this publication.
Belle Lettre is published four times a year at the turn of each season and endeavors to inspire courage, creativity, discovery through action in all people. New, nontraditional and searching artists encouraged to submit. Prose, poetry, artwork, comics and photography are always being accepted.
For guidelines, go to bellethecat.com. Or send a SASE to Belle the Cat productions :
Submission does not guarantee publication. Belle Lettre reserves the right to edit all material for clarity, length and content. Originals will not be returned without a self addressed, stamped envelope.
TELOVE
By
"What?"
Capitan Mia stood, in all her fierce and unapproachable glory, arms crossed over her chest, looking for every detail as she always had. But the words she had just spoken had turned Match’s world upside down.
"She's your cousin. Therefore you have family. Therefore you are excluded from the mercenary guild, effective immediately."
"You've got to be kidding!" he said, but he knew Mia didn't joke. He pointed back at a girl in the doorway, her blond hair pulled back in a thick ponytail, a blue cap bearing the insignia of the taxi guild perched on her head. "She doesn't even look like me!"
A weak excuse, but true. Match was a full six inches shorter, with dark sullen eyes and wispy brown hair. The girl smiled weakly. "Honestly, er, captain," she said, "I really only came looking for a protection service for my cab. I've never seen this kid before in my life."
"I'm sorry, but bloodlines don't lie. That's why we check; you know that Match. You have been a fine asset to the guild for the last seven years, but I am afraid I am going to have to ask you to leave."
"But, but," he struggled. "I stayed with the guild even after it split! I'm devoted to the squad! What the hell am I suppose to do now?"
"You will have to decide that for yourself. If I have taught you anything, please let it have been self reliance. You may gather your things now, or stop back tomorrow."
She turned, and Match thought there was a catch in her voice when she said, "Goodbye."
_
He sulked in the backseat of the taxi. Britannia Pilotlight, AKA Brit, AKA his cousin, chatted amicably with her passenger, and it grated on him. What a stupid mess. He couldn't believe Capitan Mia had betrayed him. Match was a highly trained soldier-for-hire. What in hell was he doing riding around in this flying tin can, with this stranger, listening to the simple minded small talk of lower class morons?
It didn't help matters any that he was getting car sick.
The ship hovered to a stop at the twenty-second floor of a high-rise building and the customer got out and paid. Then the snub-nosed ship dove for the ground, and Match felt his belly flutter up into his eyeballs. He bit out a curse and dug his fingers into the flaking foam of the seat.
"You know, I'd rather have a wet cat in the backseat then you," the driver said. "Surely the cat would be better company, and probably happier than you too."
Match tried to regain his composure and glared out the window.
"It's because they're afraid your family would sue," Brit continued. "You know, when you were sent into danger. Or that someone you were sent to kill would sue. Hm. Not that it matters. My father, your uncle, died a while back, so I guess I’m all you have now.”
“Whatever.”
"Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I haven’t had such a grand day either."
They were both silent for a moment, and Match thought, "oh god, the stupid girl isn’t going to burst into tears, is she?" The taxi swooped to the side and his brain switched gears; "oh god, she's not going to crash us into a building is she?"
"I've been drafted."
"What?" He blinked, not quite sure if he had heard her correctly.
"I've been drafted! Are you deaf? Here!" She waved a piece of paper frantically in the air and tossed it into the backseat. "So you don't have to worry about hanging around with me. Hell, maybe your stupid security service will take you back.
Match picked up the paper and read it, once, twice. No, it couldn’t be true. It wasn’t fair. This stupid taxi girl had been drafted by the elite
“They drafted you? A taxi driver before me! It’s not fair. I’m a biting archer you know,” Match pointed to the arrow mark below his left eye.
Brit’s face in the mirror was red and fuming. “Oh go bite yourself! If you must know, I don’t want to go to the Kard! Bunch of military obsessed kids.”
Match couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You don’t want to go? It’s an honor!”
“You know, they do have a voluntary draft. Why don’t you come with me. Maybe you will get in too. You are an archer after all. Maybe they’ll take you instead of me. Then I could get back to making money. Ciat.”
Match just stared at her.
-
They marched through the steel corridors of the Kard’arin administration building, heals clicking on the metal floor. Both had been admitted, much to Match’s chagrin. He would have been happy if Brit had been turned away. She really had no fighting skills to speak of, had none of the intensive upbringing he had had in the merc groups. Except for the street smarts she had gained working as a taxi driver for the past three years, along with the mandatory small firearms she was trained in, Match couldn’t see why she had been drafted. Her taxi dispatch leader hadn’t been too pleased at hearing that he’d be loosing her to the Kard and they had complained about it for a good half an hour while match fumed in the corner.
“Match? No way!”
Someone calling his name made Match turn from Brit’s side and look behind him. A boy with hair the color of summer melon, not quite red and not blond, was coming towards them with a huge grin across his face. He wore grays, a uniform Match knew as a symbol of the Kard’arin special forces. In the Mercenary guild they were known as Assassins. Who the hells was he?
“Match, don’t you know me? Come on, remember group A, the split! You really don’t know?” The thin boy came up and grasped Match’s hand in a firm shake. Match was about to pull his hand back and demand to know who the stranger was when he looked into the boy’s huge blue eyes and knew.
“S’lin?”
S’lin pumped Match’s arm as Brit looked on, confused.
“Oh yeah! I knew you’d remember, scared me for a second there! I thought woah, I hope that is Match. I haven’t seen you in like whatever, five years?”
“Seven since the split,” said Match.
“So what are you doing here have you been drafted?”
Match took a breath. “No, I came here on my own.”
Brit took the opportunity to chime in. “But not by himself. Hi, I’m Brit-here-against-my-will-Pilotlite. I’m Match’s cousin.”
S’lin’s eyes darted to Brit and he switched his handshake from Match to the girl. “Cousin really? No way! So you must have been drafted hu? Not to worry, you’ll learn to love it here.” His eyes shot to her hat. “T.D. hu? They snap them up. Oh I’m sorry, I take it you don’t know me. My name is S’lin-as-in-Snake-Shinestar. I know Match from back in my Merc years, we grew up together before the guild split into A and B. But get this Match, you probably don’t know this, but like five years ago group A disbanded. Can you top that! Right in the city. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll see you around enough now. Speaking of that,” he took a breath, “What are you certified as Match?”
A little embarrassed, Match answered, “Oh, only evasion and general weapons.”
S’lin seemed crestfallen. “That is boring. You should be in sprint guard or dash line. And with…” he pointed to his eye. Match touched his arrow mark self-consciously.
“I’m a protection archer,” he stated simply.
S’lin looked away, temporarily distracted by someone walking in the distance. “Well anyway, I gotta go. Great to see ya!”
And in a breathless flurry he was gone. Brit looked at Match, an amused expression on her face.
“Okay so what was all that about?”
Match started walking down the hall again, his fist tightening around the paper schedule in his hand. “S’lin Shinestar. Crazy kid. He’s an Assassin.”
Brit’s jaw dropped. “You have to be kidding!”
“You’d be surprised, he’s really different out in the field. He was in a special team from day one. They worked him until he fell down and passed out. Then they yelled at him some more. And he was like six years old.”
“I can’t understand how you can miss that.”
“I know you can’t,” Match turned from her and walked towards the dormitory.
-
Their first assignment was supposed to be easy.
Brit stood with about fifty other recruits, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She scanned the crowd and saw Match at the end of the row, standing as straight as a post. Since the first week, she'd barely seen him, which wasn't a shock since the women's and men's dorms were at opposite ends of the campus. Still, she'd bet 100 to 1 that he'd been avoiding her on purpose. She’d seen him in one of her physical and kinetic ed. classes and he seemed to do his best to distance himself from her when sparring and pair exercises came. She tried not to care; he was related in name only as far as she was concerned.
At the front of the gymnasium, her commanding officer Blaze, paced back and forth.
"We are conducting this exercise at the old hospital, an abandoned building here on campus. You have been divided into teams of four. One of the members of your team has already been selected to lead and will assign the others to roles that compliment their skills. I have schematics of the building for you to go over, and a briefing, as you might encounter during an actual mission. All teams will convene at the same time in the field, but each one will be going about their mission as if they were alone. Therefore it should be assumed that the teams may have different goals."
Brit's mind drifted off on the fact that team leaders had already been chosen. Since no one had said anything to her, she assumed that she'd been spared that headache. However, the fact that this leader would be assigning her to a duty befitting her skills made her heart drop. Her classes had been going fairly well since she'd resigned herself to being there, but she wondered if the administration was regretting having drafted her after seeing more than just her firearm certification.
What really interested her, she was surprised to find, was the history courses. Or more to the point, how what she heard in her history classes differed from the truth. She knew about the Lanticans, former citizens of Telove who flew off to form their own colony on the planet Lantica. She knew about the fuel dazium which was mined on that planet, and how the Lanticans used it to bomb an entire continent of Telove to bits. And how the archers started appearing soon after that - people born with birthmarks that looked like arrows that seemed to give them control over certain aspects of life. Some archers could run faster, endure more or protect themselves from disease.
The funny thing was, none of this was discussed in her classes. It was as if the Lanticans never were. It was as if the Kard’arin denied the existence of dazium. Most of what she was taught was information about the civil war now raging between North and
"…Pilotlight and S'lin Shinestar." She was jolted from her thoughts by Blaze's voice. He continued reading off more names, and so she turned to the girl next to her.
"What was that? What'd I miss?"
"You're assignment! You're with that girl Kova, that crazy dude S'lin and that cute guy Nightflame over there."
The female recruit pointed over to Match who still stood at attention, but with a furrow between his eyes.
Of all the luck..
-
Kauris waited.
His sickly thin chest rose and fell; the only thing that proved he was not a corpse. Behind closed eyes, he concentrated on The One-who-would-surpass: his equal in power, even at only half his age. The knowledge that the One existed kept Kauris alive.
His skin was paper-white from immeasurable time spent underground, where he kept his constant vigil, knowing that someday, the young untrained mind of the One would give him the strength he needed to break from his tomb. He had overcome the need for little more than token nutrition taken mostly from the air. He breathed in. He breathed out. He reduced the need for movement, and devoted all of his energy to the search for the One.
His role in the life of the young prophet was destined. He would be teacher to the greatest being that would ever be born to the small planet Telove. Kauris had decided, however, in the years of banishment, not to be surpassed. He knew that if he could hold the young one in check, the power of the boy would become his own. And he knew that when this happened, all the years alone and patient to the point of madness, would be worth it.
An explosion reverberated through the ground.
Kauris’ eyes sprung open, pupils wide to almost complete blackness. He felt the One, the trembling of life and energy from the untrained soul, through the soil and rock above him. The opportunity was upon him. Kauris used the power to overcome the barriers that had been placed centuries ago on the catacomb to keep him contained. He rose through stone, moving it aside with barely a thought. Up though the ground, until he broke the surface. Kauris Whiteflare was reborn.
-
Match coughed and covered his mouth. For a moment, he couldn't catch his breath. Dust still billowed around him, hanging in the air like a veil. He slowly regained his bearings. He was lying on the ground, in the sub-basement of an abandoned building. What had only minutes (he assumed) before been the location of the training exercise for him and the other members of his team, was now a disaster area.
His team. Did they escape?
He tried to move and was promptly sick with a violent pain shooting through the right side of his body. He looked down, head spinning, and saw a concrete slab crossing him mid-thigh. There were barely two inches from the ground and where the slab started. It extended, in a mess of cracks and rebar, all the way to the ceiling. It weighed tons. The muscles and bone were pressed to the point of bursting out the sides of his leg, and the ground was saturated with his blood.
Light headed, he lay down as gently as his addled brain would allow. He thought of yelling, of screaming for help. But as he tried to draw a breath, he was almost driven to unconsciousness again by a bout of coughing. He looked up at a ray of light, dancing down in a column through the dusty air and thought, “why bother?” With his leg as ruined as it surely was, there was no hope for him staying in the Kard. He was doomed to a life of mundane uselessness now.
A tear slid down his cheek, burning slightly as it slipped over the arrow mark. He let his head fall sideways in utter despair. Well, there was always his arrow mark. Perhaps he could live a life of a clown, or a magician, using that accursed thing to amuse others.
“My name is Kauris.”
The voice was like cracks spreading over a frozen pond. Something inexplicable in that voice made beads of sweat break out along Match’s brow line. It was inhuman.
“I have come to teach you. You are so much now, but you have the potential to be oh so much more. More even than I.”
Power. That was it. Match was unable to follow what this ‘Kauris’ was saying, wavering as he was between life and the darkness. He attempted to speak and managed to croak, “help.”
A man knelt next to him. “Oh, pardon me. May I help you up?”
Match’s mind swam. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening, and it frightened him to realize how defenseless he felt. The situation was out of his control. Besides, the screaming pain of his left leg had already made most of the world around him disappear. He wasn’t even sure he could get up, defiantly not on his own. Very carefully, Match nodded.
Kauris did not change his expression. He simply reached a hand out and placed it on Match’s shoulder. Instantly, the world went dark.
-
Brit Pilotlight had been standing at her position outside the training facility when it collapsed. For one crazy moment, she thought that was part of the training. When all five floors of the abandoned building pancaked in upon themselves in a terrific boulder-crashing racket, she wondered briefly how in the world the trainers had constructed the demolition to keep it from killing anyone. Then she saw the wild eyes of the trainers as they ran from the billowing dust cloud, and she knew it was no exercise.
“Match!” she yelled. “S’lin!” A hail of debris rained down on her, caking her hair and skin with bits of brick and powder. The roar of the collapse died away and she starred at the mess of rubble. The building was barely one story high now.
She covered her mouth and nose and stumbled through the foggy expanse of the training field. Moments before, the day had been flooded with light. Now she fought to see just a few feet in front of her. Franticly she looked around, saw the ghostly forms of trainers getting up slowly, heard the distance wail of a siren. She squinted and thought she saw the distinctive form of one of the members of her four person team.
Kova held her hat over her face like a mask. She waved at Brit, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes. Brit moved towards her and signed, “Kova - are you alright?”
Kova moved her hands in the language known as windword. It was the sign for snake. Which translated to the name of her partner, S’lin. Brit shook her head and Kova pushed past, disappearing into the dust.
“Step back,” a voice said, and arms wrapped around Brit tightly.
“My team is in there! My cousin!” She fought the arms of her commanding officer.
“The crews will get them out,” Blaze said. “Move away.”
As she had become accustom to at the Kard, once again, Brit felt useless. Match, as leader, had of course assigned her as sentry, the easiest of all jobs. Now she felt the helplessness of not being able to throw the rocks aside and rescue the creep along with all the other unit member. Oh, all the other soldiers!
A body flew at her, clad in the cloud-grey uniform of an assassin. She gasped as S’lin fell over her, clutching his hand to his chest. Kova followed, and tried to steady the boy as he stood again, his pale form all but disappearing in the dim light. He threw a bloody glove to the ground and collapsed to his knees, hugging his hand and rocking. Brit and Blaze, happy to be distracted by a resurrected member of their team, raced to his side.
“Let me be,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
“S’lin what is wrong with your hand,” Blaze asked, trying to pull the clenched fist away. The freckled-faced boy threw his shoulders up, momentarily hiding his face from view. Then he let his breath out in one quick burst and turned a smile to the small gathering.
“Nothing! I’m fine! Where’s Match?” He held up his left hand for all to see. The skin was torn and flapping, his thumb all but severed. Blaze met his eyes and calmly took him by the arm.
“S’lin, that doesn’t look so good. You’d better let me have a look.” As the officer began to remove his own jacket and Kova stroked S’lin’s peach fuzz hair, Brit took the chance to slip away.
She stumbled, heedless of the voices around her. She hurried past arriving rescue crews, passed soldiers with blood streaming over their faces.
“Match.” She reached the building. She put her hand on the jagged concrete wall. It was solid, as if it had been built to exist in a state of ruin. The leader of Team Nightflame had been in the basement. How in hell could he have survived? He’d be crushed like a bug.
Her world started to dissolve into tears. She bit her lip to try to halt the sobs which tore at her throat. In a strange way, Match was all she had left. She leaned her forehead onto the rough surface of the rubble as her tears started to fall.
But instead of pelting the sandy ground, they continued in their descent through a three-foot gap in the building’s foundation. Brit blinked the sting from her eyes and peered into the depths. Someone was down their. Someone about the size and shape of her small cousin. Without a second thought, she squeezed through the gap and dropped to the floor far below.
She hit the cement with both feet and immediately fell forward, her legs stinging. She landed next to Match and her breath caught in her throat. His eyelids closed, dusted lightly with a white powder, made him look as if he’d been entombed for ages. With shaking hand, Brit brushed the dust from his hair, then snapped into focus and checked for his vital signs. He was breathing, he had a pulse. Then she saw his leg.
“Medic!”
-
Match though he must have passed out. He soon realized, though, that he could see himself, his body, and the body of the strange man. But all around him was darkness. Darkness so black it seemed to writhe. He drew his eyes away from it and back to the man, Kauris.
“Please, don’t worry,” Kauris soothed in a cool tone.
“I’m not,” Match gasped, finding it difficult to talk. “I'm confused.”
The form seemed to dance around Match like a specter. “I can set things right. Better, I can teach you to set things right. I can show you what you are. What your power is. What your purpose is.”
Unable to draw his eyes away, Match’s mind began to clear. Slowly he realized that he was no longer lying on the ground, but instead he was standing, both legs extended comfortably. “My leg!”
“Is healed,” Kauris finished. “By you. Your power. Your strength and belief allowed it.”
Kauris, too, was standing. No stain upon his knees from where he had knelt in the pool of blood only moments before. Standing level to him, or more accurately floating for there was no ground to stand upon, Match could see that Kauris taller than him by a good foot. His hand was still on Match’s shoulder, and it began to slide inch by inch down his arm. When it reached the end of Match’s sleeve, it touched the skin of his hand and Match was shocked by the sweet warmth.
“I want to learn,” Match blurted out. “I want to know. I want to feel like this.”
For the first time, Kauris smiled. “I want you to feel like this always. But you must trust me.” His eyes cut into Match, and the boy found himself nodding. “Trust me,” Kauris repeated.
Match closed his eyes. “I need this,” he thought, and he felt Kauris’ arm drawing him close. His brain dizzied, Match caved inwards, towards the chest of the strange man. Kauris hugged him tightly, and Match felt safe, saved. He sensed an indescribable clearness. He could feel it in his body, smell it like a gust of wind, warm and comforting. No, cleansing. He drew as near as he possibly could, gathered up in the arms of Kauris strong though they looked thin as reeds.
He felt himself being lifted, as if he were a child again. Again. To many, Match still was a child. Yet how long had it been since he had allowed himself the innocence? The wonder? The ability to let go and feel again? They were their together in complete nothingness. Who would see if the dark prince let his persona drop for a moment? It felt right. It made him smile.
***
Amy and Annie
cooked my prefab lunch -- that means
that it's homemade, right?
And it's organic
Healthy ranch-flavored crackers
Cheese enchilada
Annie's Ranch Bunnies
Kick Goldfish ass -- but wait! Do
Goldfish have asses?
- KH
Recipes for the perfect day
By DMV
Breakfast:
Instant Pancakes with Banana
Make into a sandwich with peanut butter, fried Treet and cheddar cheese. Serve with a glass of Tang.
Ingredients:
2 Box Instant Pancake Mix
Water
1 Banana
1 Can Treet Brand Meat Product
Cheddar cheese
Peanut butter
Directions:
1. Get 1 box of instant pancake mix. Don’t follow the directions on the box, just pour desired amount into a pourable measuring cup and add water until it looks like batter.
2. Slice 7/8 of a banana into mix. Eat the other 1/8.
In a greased skillet, pour mix into 2 dollops the size of your appetite.
3. Slice Treet and fry on low heat.
4. Slice cheese. Spread a thin layer of peanut butter on one pancake . Add cheese slices and Treet.
Lunch:
Who eats lunch? Eat half a bag of pistachios and drink two cheep cans of beer.
Ingredients:
2 Cheep Beers
1 bag pistachios
2 T. butter or margarine
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 eggs, beaten
¼ c. Parmesan cheese
Parsley
Black pepper
Directions:
1. Open 1 can of beer. Drink ¾.
2. Open bag of pistachios, get large bowl for shells or spit shells into campfire or bush.
3. Open 2nd beer. Drink with nuts. Drink remaining beer from can 1 when cleaning up.
Dinner
Arthur mac&cheese with cut baby carrots, tuna, extra cheddar cheese and sliced green olives. Serve with two cans of soda poured into a large glass with ice.
Ingredients:
1 Box Annie’s brand Arthur mac&cheese
2 T. butter
Dash of milk
Cheddar cheese - grated
1 can tuna, drained
10 green olives, sliced
Handful of baby carrots
Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan ½ full of water, set to boil and cut (or bite) baby carrots into 3rds.
2. I’m not telling you how to make mac&cheese. Follow the box, stupid.
3. Add nearly all the can of drained tuna, saving some for the cat. Add grated cheese and sliced green olives. Serve in the same medium saucepan with 2 forks to reduce dishes.Lie - HAIKU
A voice cool, quiet
You can hear it, the darkness
Breathing, very near
unicorn
By
I lay in bed on a Saturday morning and could feel a horn beginning to sprout from my forehead. Unlike a true unicorn, my horn did not spring from the center of my forehead, but from a position over my left temple.
I thought back to the first time I started to believe I could become a unicorn. It was when I was very young, back when I believed anything was possible because I didn't know any better. I waited in earnest for the day I could gallop away on four golden hooves. I was playing at a friend's house, and her mother was a person who did not believe in unicorns.
"Then I'm a little horse," I said, curling up to go to sleep.
"Horses only lie down when they are sick," she said.
The next time was when I was a teenager. There was a boy in love with me. I didn't know it at the time, but I think he may have been turning into one. I believed this was possible, to turn into a unicorn, because I could believe no less of the world – I was too close to giving up. I dreamed of unicorns falling from the sky, huge massive beasts with stamping hooves and smoke in their nostrils. Then rising up, Armageddon. But it was only a dream, brought on by unrequited love and too much loud music.
Finally, I got older. And I realized that I believed it was possible to become a unicorn because I wanted it to be possible. I wanted to have the opportunity to escape because I always thought the world I’d escape into would be better. I believed escape would bring me happiness. Suddenly, as the horn begins to grow, I knew it would be awful. It hurt. I tried to stand it, but I couldn’t. I felt sick to my stomach, I couldn’t see, my eye wouldn’t open, and the rainbows were blinding. I knew, as a unicorn, I would hurt for the rest of my life. I would be hunted for the rest of my life. I would be hungry for the rest of my life, and I would feel the throbbing, the sickness, and forever.
And so, because I could, I decided not to become a unicorn.
***
Hunter S. Thompson
A little orangutan
Pancake-head bunny
Kitten with rifle
Personalized desk decor
They think I'm twisted
KH
THE SHELF - reviews
“Ecology - The Ascendant Perspective”
Science Lecture by Robert Ulanowicz
First - the background. Robert Ulanowicz is a professor of Theoretical Ecology with the
Probability cannot be applied to biology, and here’s why. Processes involve chance, self reference and are conditioned by history. And more or less, Dr. Ulanowicz said that there are gaps in the development of biological systems that simply cannot be explained in these terms. He likened it to the “infinite number of monkeys” theory, where said simians, when given enough time, will write Hamlet. Ulanowicz said, in not so many words, this is poppycock.
After the talk, he spoke to a small number of invited guests and admitted that he had withheld his religious belief while speaking before the large audience. Though he didn’t say he believed in the simplistic device of “intelligent design,” that is more or less what his theory points to.
“Sleepaway Camp II and III”
Movies
I may be the only person on the planet who actually got a kick out of watching “Sleepaway Camp” - the tale of a 1980s era camper with a tragic past who kills a bunch of bullies and ends up, well, naked. But watching the sequel and… trequil? to this culty treat (as grotesque as a chocolate covered deep fried Twinkie sundae) rolled my eyes rather than turning my stomach. Angela, everyone’s favorite transsexual serial killer, returns to try to wreck havoc on 30 year old actors playing teen campers once again. II merely disappointed, with its lackluster cast and cheesy effects, but III was a complete let down (except for the “bad boy” camper who tagged trees with graffiti). Watching the “DVD added features,” I kept waiting for the blood to flow, but each special effect was more “special” - in the short-bus way. Like watching the supposed spoof of disaster films, “The Big Bus,” these were both a two thumbs-down (on the fast forward button) waste of time.
“Silent Hill”
Movie
Sharon, a little girl prone to seizures in which she chokes out the words "Silent Hill", is taken by her mother to that ghost town against the wishes of her father. After they literally crash into town (a very finely executed scene),
If you have played any of the video games on which this film is based, be ready for the first hour to experience true heady bliss. The cinematography is superb - you feel as if you are playing the game on the big screen. There are some minor plot malfunctions, but the visuals make up for it, and you truly do want to keep watching (the cop, Cybil, is great fun.)
However, things start to falter in hour two, when it seems as if the script is missing about 30 pages. This gap is filled by a convoluted flashback / narrative sequence which serves to confuse newcomers and alienate those familiar with the story. Not that the movie makers shouldn't have taken liberties with the plot to make it more manageable in a cinematic sense, but the way that they determined to change it does not necessarily make it any better a story.
It's your funeral - HAIKU
What remains of you
I'll see at your funeral
in a tiny box
- nicka
Window - HAIKU
moonlight pushes in
It both beckons and repels
I long to give in
nicka
