The House

We all have a story from our childhood involving the House. A house that earned it's proper noun status from all the stories in which it was the main character. Depending on your group of friends it could have been the derelict ranch at the end of an undeveloped cul-de-sac or the two story brick home occupied by the old, reclusive veteran. Beautifully maintained or blistered, pock-marked exterior. This House earned its attention and respect through the years. A parent's vague warning turned into a litany of sinister tales. "Don't go near that old house." transformed into "My dad said that someone was murdered there." Each child's story of what happened in the House a tale of his deepest fears. The House becoming a blank canvas on which our imaginations splatter painted everything that terrified us. Were we closer to an age when reason took the reigns from the ape within, we would have seen how we belied our true fears with the projections we threw against that House.
How Donnie told of a ghost with features similar to his father. The broken blood vessels of the nose and cheeks, the hot, sickly sweet breath as he rage-whispered "what did you just say, you little shit", the stumbling down hallways, reaching out, hands clawed in a rictus, his grip like the mouth of a snake.
Or Alex, saying he walked by the house last week and heard the long, tortured wail of a young girl who died of neglect. Her face seen behind the off-white lace curtains in the upper bedroom. Alex, who broke his arm while trying to slide down the basement steps in a sleeping bag, and had to wait three hours until his parents came home from the matinee. "We'll get him a babysitter next time."
After we all jostled by shouting above the others "Well *I* heard that the rats chewed them down to their bones." "No no no, *I* heard that the clown they hired was actually a maniac who has just escaped from the insane asylum."
Then there was Joe. After we had all thrown out our incredulous accounts of murder and hauntings, we turned to the one boy who had yet to proffer a theory. When he started he spoke so quietly that we all had to lean in to hear him. He kept his hands neatly folded on his lap throughout the entire tale. His voice never wavered and he spoke evenly, never rushing. This is what Joe told us happened in the House.

HI EVERYBODY!

So I went into a CVS looking to get a passport photo. I walk through the door and a female employee is checking out another customer. She looks up and says "Hello! Can I help you?" and I say. "Hello! Do you take passport photos here?" to which she replied "Well, while I was on medical leave the camera got stolen because I work with GENIUSES and they left it laying around." So I said "Ok....so...bye then." Because that's a lot of gratuitous narrative packed into a single sentence...

It follows (MEGA SPOILER ALERT)

Plot holes:

1) Girl at the beginning. Why doesn't she run more? Too scared? Out of Gas? Why does she stop on the beach?

2) Dude1 has the clearest and most in depth understanding of the infection phenomenon. How does he know all of the details? He said he got it from a one night stand? Who was the girl in the beginning of the film? Maybe he has infected many girls and it keeps coming back to him after it kills them.

Goes on a date in a movie theater where his back will be to the door for the whole performance and it will be dark. This seems to be the worst strategy when followed by this entity.

He infects the girl then explains what it is. Why does he have to tie her up? Why can't he explain (perhaps remorsefully) or put her in a situation where they both can see the walker, but no one else can. Why doesn't he stay with her until she infects somewhere else?

Why would he just go back to his home town? If she can't transfer it and it kills her, it'll just come back after him...and he won't know if/when it's coming. that should drive him BANANAS. 

Suppose the thing can walk at a fairly good clip, say 3 miles per hour. Say it cannot take any other mode of transportation and always takes the most direct route to its victim. The kids take a car and drive for what appears to be some length of time, say, 6 hours. Let's say they average 50 miles per hour for 6 hours. That's 50mph *6h = 300 miles. The walker would take 300 miles/3mph =100 hours to reach them. That's 4 days. It seems to catch up much faster. Has anyone thought of taking a goddamn airplane? Let's say I fly to Stockholm, Sweden. that's about 4258.2 Miles. The walker is gonna take about 60 days to get there. Say you infected someone there, then it has to kill that person then walk all the way back. Boom. that's 4 months you just bought yourself. Now, the best thing would be to infect an airline pilot or a flight attendant. Shit, even a cruise boat captain. ASTRONAUT??? Walk to the International Space Station, MOTHERFUCKER!

But I digress...

Why did she infect the people on the boat? What good would that do? Did she feel any remorse for killing (indirectly) those people or that person?

Why did they think they could kill it with electrocution when a gaping bullet wound to the neck only slowed it for a second. Why did they think that electrocution thing would work. those looked like really heavy doors, did they think about trapping it down there? Would it show up on surveillance video? Only to the person infected? 

Ways to get everyone on your side/believing you.

1) Lead the walker through flour on the floor. Set up infrared cameras. Video tape the walker breaking shit. Show footage of you smacking the thing with something. Wrap it in a towel again or throw paint on it. 

It has to crawl through the gap in the door, it can't teleport. Lure it into a lockbox or cage.

Injuring it can stun it or stop it for a while, i.e. bullet to the head. Knock it out and drag it into a cage. Cover it in paint or flour so everyone can see it. 

What mechanism makes it selectively invisible? 

Different Paths

While my best friend was helping usher his third son into the world, I was drinking vodka redbulls and singing Karaoke with 7 women.

Welcome to planet earth, Oliver Olaf Nelson, you were born into one of the best families for which you could have hoped. Your Crazy Uncle Peter will be your friend and ally from your first day to my last.

...now where did I put that advil?

Winter Rain

  My sleep was uneasy and some sightless horror chased me into the gray dawn. The morning, hardly distinguished from night, mocked the weariness in my limbs. Born into the gray as a fish below the ambits of light, I struggled upward, hoping to find a point where reach could meet reach.

  The cool, damp air crept between my seams pressed dead lips to my flesh. I showered until steam billowed into the hallway, heat grabbed rapaciously by the darkness. Below my red, scalded flesh, was slate, cold and unmoved.

  Driving through puddles, a gray wall of clouds caressing the skyline, like a Siren reaching down to stroke a piece of driftwood. She wonders about the acorn that became the tree that became the boat. As I wonder about the thought that became the word that became the virus in your heart.

Finality

Well, it's over. A brief 2 months and 17 days.  The candle burned, then flickered, then bloomed brightly one last time before leaving the room to darkness.

So what did I learn? What's the takeaway?
I  try not to do regrets. What good are they? Every regret can be redirected into a lesson.

I should have listened to all the warning bells that went off in my head right away. The feeling of being tired, unbalanced, almost manic. I should have realized the cold seas of her eyes were the same that filled men's lungs as they sank to the bottom. I should have realized when there was no honeymoon period, when, after the starter pistol went off, I was pulling my feet through mud. Fighting for every inch of affection, running through the hurdles, too tired to lift my legs over.

So what did I learn. Relationships are like a dance, both people are responsible for their own balance, but when you can trust someone enough, you can start to play with counterbalance. That's where you can explore different centers of gravity, push yourself beyond what you could achieve alone. But when your partner drops you again and again, it's time to find a different dance.

August 28th, I sent a text to my friend Jen. I wrote:

She is going to either utterly destroy me,

or she's going to gild me with invicible armor. 

Either way, it's going to be a hell of a ride


So clearly I wasn't totally blind to the perils. I saw great potential for either success or failure. 

I am relieved that it's over. Relieved that I get to take care of myself for a while. 

And can I just say for a second that I'm a great fucking catch? Can I say that? I am bright, funny, and charming. I'm a good dancer. I am financially secure. I am disease free. I can speak, with some eloquence, on most topics of conversation. I am a passionate and attentive lover. I am thoughtful and kind. I surround myself with good, honest, well-intentioned people. I have an open mind and a full heart. I respect people and their stories. I constantly strive to understand the world better. I am playful and witty. I like to play games, to improvise, to "yes-and" almost anything. People at my job like me and value me. 

What the fuck was she thinking, throwing this away? Driving me to the point of insanity. Draining every last ounce of energy. What was she thinking?

Sundays with M.

Dear Follower,

As there is now only one (1) of you, I guess these have become letters more than blog posts. Although perhaps even you having adjusted your notification settings so that my infrequent updates don't manage to make their way into your sphere of perception. Nevertheless, I shall blog on. It's almost liberating knowing that these little posts are more of an offering to the goddess Entropy.
Maybe Entropy is male. It seems like destruction is more under the purview of the less fair sex and creation under the purview of the fairer. Maybe, intrepid follower, you will grant me the poetic license to do what I may and if the gender of my personal pronoun offends, then I shall hide behind my aegis of atheism.

I met a girl. Her name is M[redacted]. She is...complicated. She is complicated and lovely. She is complicated, lovely, and warm...like a slow sip of scotch.  She looks taller than she is; she has pale blue eyes, like the heart of a glacier. The heart where the ice is pure because all imperfections have been forced out under titanic pressures. Shipwreck allusion unintended.
She has dark hair and a dark wit. She dances like a succubus on duty. She can pierce my heart with a glance.
I've known her for fewer than 14 days.
I feel especially exposed with her. I told her as much after an incredible night of swing dancing. I told her that she scared me because I didn't know what she was going to do with me. This sounds, inadvertently serial-killer-ish, but what I meant was that I was...like those Black Lab lyrics "Will you be there on the ground if I should fall...fall for you." This relationship is starting to feel like a trust fall, but I didn't even look behind me to see if she's looking.
We exchanged books. She gave me The Perks of Being a Wallflower and I gave her Jack of Shadows. Aside from the fact that you would be hard pressed to find two more different novels,
Perks was fantastic. Truly the heartbreaking work of a brilliant mind. The more I read the more I think I learned about M. Someone's favorite books can tell you more about them than a direct interview.

My word well is starting to dry up, so I say goodnight, gentle follower. I hope whoever you are, wherever you are, you are loved the way you deserve to be loved.

Your friend,
Charlie