Immortal Updates Are On Sale.

      Art has abandoned us, as we have abandoned it. Threw it off to the curbside, left to haggle with all the old emotions down in the gutters of our underdeveloped psyches. How would we go about expressing ourselves with old programming? Will we have to face this storm alone and battle the demons and the monsters we will inevitably encounter? On a journey through uncharted paths and corridors of mazes and trials of overwhelming brightness, the white blinding bliss of the new age, we move forward faster than ever, headlong into the abyss without a second thought.
     

    Flesh hearts removed to make room for the artificial ones. Warranty is good for only three years; before that, you have to check up on yourself every week to keep it updated with all the latest anti-virus programs and hyper-body performance modifications. High-class hot-wired vascular hacking, pulmonary data infusion tests that usually account for most of the day-to-day illnesses and time lag epidemics. Programmers struggle to keep up with the demand of these overpriced performance systems and software; the public can only stand and suffer waiting for the release dates of the new products. And who pays for all this? It's a dark world, and the shadowy investments keep this machine alive. 
      

    The homicides became rampant in all the densely populated areas due to the New Thing discussed around the globe at any given minute of the day. During the sales season, street people get anxious, and they'd turn on each other, like a triggered beast if triggered at any moment. Huge crowds of buyers riot and camp outside of the companies for the product they so desperately want, to replace their worn-out ones, outdated free public software; for the new stuff seen on adverts and movies they recently got blasted into their consciousness. 

    They hold signs that read:

- Operating Systems' DUMB DUMB!

Or,

- Malfunctioning Productivity Give Us Simplicity!

      Twenty-five floors up, in my office at Viotec Industries, hidden from the crowds growing like spilt ink on the clean streets far below, Vice President James of the company's second branch stares with disdain at the sight. Wearing a rare French leather Asian tailored suit, watching the rioters in their shabby, dark, dirty fashions flashing their neon picket signs. All that was on the mind was about how this scene would look in oil paint or acrylic. But, there was never getting around to painting the sight, come every rush season, procrastinating or business feeding the generations their extended lives got it the way.  
      

     From across the city, straight down to New Broadway to the ocean and the setting sun kissing the horizon, all was quiet and peaceful. Through the colossal towers, and passing cars, levels of traffic like weaved checker boards casting dark shadows on our frenzied customers below, soaking in the last streaks of sunlight, a calm before the storm. 
      

    Looking down at them, then turning away from the window back to his desk. Automatic curtains sense the thought to close themselves over the floor-to-ceiling window panes, becoming another concrete wall. On the wall behind the great desk, an antique painting, Saturn Devouring His Son, by Goya -- one of many in his large eclectic collection that was saved from the fires of the Old Museum of Art -- just last war's mess. The Wonderful desk, a large rectangle of synthetic redwood, is clear from anything except a glass box with a 21st-century cat inside. Also, in the middle of the empty floor, a sculpture by Hartreuse Elizees -- a rare floating marble statuette of a realistically rendered forest nymph (it hovers almost magically in, almost dancing with realistic flesh under the projector). 

    To his left is another floor-to-ceiling glass partition, a narrow window, from which options to change the visibility or scenery could be displayed. Currently, it's on a video of space, the heavens, in real time by way of a stagnant satellite cam.
      

    As soon as his eyes close to log into the system to get to work, the hidden door of the office annoyingly pings in his ear. Someone's ringing from the other side, seen on a pop-up in his mindseye. The scene fades from sky to a one-way view of an anxious person standing on the other side, Misty, "floor manager". She waves, sardonically aware this is a one-way view. He tells the door to open. She steps in with her hands clenched behind her, staring at James with a mischievous look, but walks over to the hidden window, commands the curtain to open halfway up, to get a better look at the circus below.
     
    "What does that look like to you?" She asks all the while looking down without kinking her neck toward her left shoulder. She doesn't wait for an answer.
    

    "To me, it looks like piles of ants, or black worms, groveling their way towards us for more."

    "Oh, behave yourself, Misty, dear," was an attempt, however disingenuous, at consoling her. "So, what of the news of the program? Is it almost complete?"

    "Complete?" She isn't happy.  

      She turns away from the window, whipping her platinum blonde ponytail, and walks closer to the desk. "Goodness! It's no more complete than they are down there, destroying each other again and again. And for what, more life? How inane, how ignorant of them, to think they could live longer because of our product." She examines a small speck of blood on one wall, still holding her hands behind her. Before another word is said, she turns away and walks back to the window, looking forward. The sun has finally gone under, and darkness fills the sky. Her reflection appears on the window pane as headlights pass, and the neon glow of the city slowly replaces the daylight. 

    "A simple answer: Yes. It's complete, technically. It's been complete, has been since morning.  You understand?" She turns around, a devilish grin on her porcelain face. She then starts for the door, biting her lower lip -- a move she makes when overly excited.

    "What do you mean by always has been complete?"

    "What I mean, dear boy, is that," She steps methodically, and with a reptilian-like slither, the kind you see in a Haute Couture walker. Her hips are hypnotic, her aura like an opioid, soothing, an evil hidden in undertones when she speaks. She sneaks up to the desk and whispers in one ear, continuing,

    "What I mean is that there is no new updated program, or evil viruses, no customer protection services, or any original works in the making. What we do is keep the population hungry for more of whatever that may be: safety, fear, happiness, pleasure, food!  What we do here is only a staged production, an act. Sure, we add all new features like different color palettes on devices, or easy-to-use thought commands, but all that is vanity, like makeup for the ugly truth." 

    "The truth is," She moves in closer. Her eyes look straight into his with a flirtatious wink. Along with that, there was a look of both sadness and grief hidden, glossed over with a flame of ecstasy. Her eyes glistened under the blue hue from the recessed lights above. 

    "You see, what I need is a break. I'm sick of it all. All the make-believe crap and social experiments and games. I need a vacation!" 

      He had never heard those words coming from anyone at work, especially someone of so high esteem as herself. This commanding figure from floor negative thirty-three, here confessing such human emotions that all had been trained to mask and hide. She leaves the office in a huff.
      

    Outside, down below on the surface streets, explosions are heard and blasts from rifles and flash grenades that electrify the already vibrant and moving night. 

    "Window! Mute outside." The sounds of warring turn off, no longer audible from this height as normal (sound was coming from the microphones placed at ground level). Sitting back down at the desk and tossing back the warm scotch, there is a moment of silence. It's almost getting-off hour, and that means "roll out" -- showtime.

      On the third floor, everyone waits for the transport shuttles to arrive. These bypass any surface streets and public airways, taking all safely to homes just beyond the city limits. The crowds outside had increased dramatically, accumulating around the base of the building -- even taking over the parking garage so that those who drove to work had to use the shuttles. Viotec isn't responsible for any actions by them or against them; everyone stands aside and lets the enforcement agencies take care of the drama outside. At midnight, the customers will finally receive what they want if only they had the patience to wait just three more hours. After this big sale, things would go back to normal. No more anxious customers clawing at the doors, nor more violent rage; only then would the employees be able to use the front entrance instead of these stuffy terminal ports.

                       °••••••••••□□•••••••••••°
     

    Vice President of Operations, James Hardy

    Journal entry #1717:

 
      At exactly Twelve O'clock, I pull out my company's freeware memory chip and insert it into a console at home. It's a biological 3D printer, run at home, an at-home DIY lab. I begin the download of our new product and wait for it to finish. As I waited, I thought about my boss and why she acted so strangely in my office. Why did she tell me what she did, and for whose benefit? I hear the soft ping of the finished download. Looking at the immense code on the screen, I could read what was printed onto the bioware chip. That was phase one, and for the second phase, I had to insert the bio-chip into my cerebellum jack, and from my wrists ran two tubes with the new and old lubricant. I plugged everything in, all the time hearing my boss say, "I need a vacation."
     
      "Commence Update!" Wirelessly, the neurons were being updated with a new software system. With eyes closed, you would see the update in real time if you wished. 

      Besides, vacations are for the weak. I remember my discipline as a child growing up on the company floors high up, that made me to where I am today, lower down. I watch the flickering green coding reeling out of my vision to my system's mainframe, through the nerves and veins coursing along to my new beating heart and fine-tuned custom brain. The feeling is pleasant, ticklish. It's good to know that I will always be maintained like royalty, that we are looked after by responsible designers like Misty, and the entire under floors of Viotec, all the great programmers hard at work. We produce excellent quality products together. No matter how unreal it may seem to anyone who lives in flesh, it keeps the rest of us satisfied and content knowing that we will keep on surviving as a species.  We are in this new evolutionary change, we, the immortal ones. 

      --Download Finalized:  100%

      I blink three times to shut off my view of the system. Then I feel it, the new senses, the same feeling I suppose my boss had when she gave that look in my office. I felt bitterness, contempt, and love. I sit on my couch with a glass of wine and stew in a feeling of both depression and happiness. Could she have been updated before us all? That would explain her mood and the odd confession.  Well, now, I thought...vacation would be really nice indeed.
      

     I told the TV to show the news. Instantly, the image filled the wall with today's reports.
      

    Slowly, I started to get used to the new emotions of this new product and the heavy comfort it provided. I sat, watching the videos of the riots, the images of the customers stampeding their way into our shops to buy and buy. Rampaging through aisles of products of the same design.
      As I fade into sleep and the TV screen begins to blur, all I hear is a commercial advertiser preaching her sales gimmick of a completely new product...

"Need a vacation?  

You!  

Feeling down and out?  

Sad and Lazy?  

Well, folks, here's your answer to all that melancholic sickness.  

It's called ByAtrixx!  

Yes, this is an all-new product and much better than the last!

BUY NOW..."

°●●●●●●●●●●●□□□□□□●●●●●●●●●●●●●°

The Last of the Hackers

      It's the goddamn arthritis that holds me back.  My fingertips feel frost bitten from years of pounding on all these keys.  The screen is ice.  I'm getting through.  It's working for me and I thought I'd die before having a hand in the great change.  All my eighty six years on this planet, and here I am still punching in strings of code at the rate faster than any punk sucker hack with holds on credit cards or social media sites.  That ain't for me.  Those puddles of waste collecting more dumb brained fools than any other worldly vices here on this planet.  I keep my distance from online social media, it's the morals and vintage integrity in me. 
      I watch them from the outskirts, like I'd always done my whole life.  I'm always doing much more meaningful stuff, like remove from office those that doesn't belong.  I take out satellites and watch them come crashing down to earth like meteors just as news teams cover it.  Those leeches.  I feed into the prompt what I dream, what I envision, or see in everyday waking life that no one can or refuses to see.  It's like the tiny lint on the surface of your eye, it resembles blurred script--that's the code, the message.  I have the right eye to focus and remember what it reads, and then the experience and the know-how to where to put it into play. 
       My old ass sits at the desk and translates the eye binary right here on my silver cased desktop.  Old school gear with a post futuristic power.  The kind of power kept from the people.  Never taught, revealed, or sold in any tech shop underground or consumer markets.  Where I get my electronics is none of your damn business!
      So . . .  Back to my send off masterpiece--since this will be my last recording to whomever it may concern.
      I get through another black hole booby trap, a waste of art, waste of digital space.  Through the countless back doors I surf like hellfire reused, through outdated wares and never before seen or touched highways, right to the central point of no return.  My elderly fingers bruised, taped up, and quick like the shanks of a cultivator moving in mad fury at my dual text board invisible to any one but me, (custom made.)
      This will change the world and it will be my legacy to leave behind for my kids and others of this otherwise grave doomed future.  I'm taking down an empire.  Bigger than an empire, a omnipotent source that breathes life into this machine we fuel by our blood and sweat.  For too long it's driven us further away from each other and from reality, telling us that reality is tangible and a form to program and login to.  No matter how far you reach inside your virtual headsets you'll never be able to physically touch the flower.  But this 'thing', the big force, tells us to imagine and don't be afraid to explore new possibilities.  It's a rabbit hole, and we've all been led into it.  Including myself. 
      My screen blinks.  There's someone else here.  Like the others, try their hand at attempting to stop me from getting closer, but it's too late and they know it.  It's Horse Inc.  A company designed to send troops across the digital Web to seize old timers and other skilled Cowboys like myself.  Here I am at the edge of the collapsing chrome wave inch in my way closer, and closer to the reinforced door to the whole shebang.  I could sense it there in all it's splendor and hype.

"Herv?"  It's my wife. 

"There you are, here take your vitamins."  She fiund me, and gives me a hand full of colorful pills.  I take them for the energy, for vitality, for strength. 

"Honey how much longer you gonna be in here I need to check my mail, you know Jackson just had his baby and I want to see the pictures. . ."  She rambles on as I guide her out of my office. 

"Okay, but that's why I made your touch screen for you, just plug it in and you can check your mail from there."  She knows that my wall screen is much better.  Plus she sees the images clearer when it's life size, and life-like when outputted to 3d.  My office is built for multitasking, but I use it modestly and only just as soon as my job is done I'll be on my way.  Until then I'm logged in for the ride.

      Just as I sit back down into my easy chair, creme my hands with the pain ointment, and take one long breath, I begin bending my fingers in contortions no normal human could match.  The tips of my numbed finger tap on the soft glowing plastic desktop like a impatient man in the waiting room expecting to here what STD he has this time.  If it were piano keys under my hands I'd be playing Ludwig Van, better than Ludwig Van himself.  It's a do or die mission here in my dim lit room, eyeing the screen and the lines furiously bleeding up the wall fading away into the ceiling.  Lines of codework.  A language only a small group of people know, including me and this bastard hot on my trail.  I could lose him in nano-bits.  I'm focused on the prize and it's there on the filthy golden horizon.
     
      And just like that, I'm pass the main gate!

      After getting through I make my way up to the front door, placing carefully bugged script, hiding it in dusty crevices and kinks in their surprisingly shitty vault secured property.  I high tail out to a safe haven, quickly mop up my tracks, and finally. . . I unplug.  The wall screen goes dark.  I breathe once more and command the heavy window shades to open, theu split apart revealing the bright forest, the trees, the vines creeping along the glass like thin silk snakes.  The blue sky so real.  The sun peeking through the greens and brunette browns in shattered pieces and shapes.  I tell the window to open.  It rolls down through the floor sending off the oily vines and letting in a nice calm breeze carrying a scent you could never replicate and shouldn't ever want to.  This is life.  Finally I'm free, we're free!  All my typing away to live another day once more.

No One Owns A Television Set.

     In a town of less than two thousand people, a place where it snows only half the year and the very short summers are too hot to bear; there live a man, Scott Tompkins, and his companion Tree--a dirty white raggedy wolfdog looking thing.  These two living able bodies have been in our town now for more than a year and already they have caused as much damage and chaos as a small twister, or miniature atomic bomb, or a crashed landed bus full of Tasmanian Devils from outer space.  They are an irritating nuisance, and a hindrance to us all.  They were up to noo good, we all knew it.  They had a stench about them that no one would dare touch with a four yard pole.

"Witchcraft!  They are some kind of wizards, sorcerers I tell ya!"  Old Hartford, the clergyman, would shout out. 

"That's right!  It's sorcery of some kind, that's what it looks like to me,"  Followed in other townsman of this rowdy crowd in aberration.  It was always commotion like these that would start up at City meetings at the Town City Hall.  We would openly talk about things there that we wanted done, things that we wanted to see change. 

"We want that hermit and he is mangled ugly mutt out of our town now, this is our town!"  Violence would ensue at the meetings but never escalate towards Mr. Tompkins and Tree inconspicuously sitting at back of the room.

     The children would be the bravest of us all by sending across any message the adults had; they committed to throw eggs, toilet paper, gasoline on Mr. Tompkins yard.  Nothing phased the man.  Nothing bothered Mr. Tompkins, not even the yolk thick windows of his squat little home.  A solitary wooden shack of a cottage home; falling on itself it was practically unhabitable but he still held it up somehow, the magic we believed.  Always dark in the yard full of thick vegetation and overgrown weeds this is what led to the outburst of Mr. Fitzgerald,  Tompkins' neighbor a mile down.  It sparked up anger from his other neighbors too, Mr. and Mrs. Harrelson.  They were the ones to finally call for an eviction of Tompkins and the dog.  Both neighbors threatened to cross the rotted down picket fence to his yard, with force, and drag him out against his will.  Of course, no one ever had the courage or indecency to do such a thing--to act out in bad taste again.

     After a couple of days pass, and this time for certain, we have someone ready to serve the notice to the pair.  The letter from the court explaining in full detail the activities of Mr. Tompkins, the strange behavior, the questionable acts and sounds produced from his home late at nights; all the oddities seen by the surrounding neighbors of Tompkins that raised the question of his sanity.  Maybe he simply was just mentally ill and only needed medical attention.  Mr. Tompkins was thereby invited to a meeting, of counsel, to discuss his lifestyles, his habits; and with the hope to settle all gossips that may or may not have caught like wildfire throughout this dusty, green mist filled little town.  This meeting would only bring understanding to the folk of everything before believed about the pair.

     Mr. Tompkins agreed to make his appearance by way of letter carrier--his dog Tree.  When Tree arrived at the Mayor's front porch, the crowd waiting around gasped in fright of Tree sitting there panting.  The Mayor himself, tangled in the bodies of his surrounding colleagues holding each other, slowly went up to the carrier and took the letter from the mouth of Tree and took a quick step back in another loud gasp from the crowd.  He carefully examined the letter as Tree sat patiently.  The Mayor saw Tree waiting at the bottom of the steps.

"What's he waiting for?  Give him something already, make him go away!"      
     A bread crust was thrown from the crowd down the steps to Tree.  The dog noticed it, but without looking at it or moving a flinch for it, Tree stood on all fours and dashed away leaving us behind in our dumbfounded business air. 

     We were in awe.  At what, it's hard to say really then.  This town is notorious of conjuring up all sorts of superstitious rumors.  The dog did have a flame in his eyes when he looked at us, it makes me shutter even now just thinking about the eerie image.  There was something humane and ambiguous in the black beady eyes.  But again there's my paranoid feverish thoughts rising up once more.  Curse that dog and its invalid owner!

     At the meeting, a splendid scene bloomed free.  It was held at City Hall.  Crowds gathered almost a day before to await the arrival of the infamous Scott Tompkins.  All the time continuous gossip was heard in the halls over dramatic imaginative theories of different outcomes of the meeting.

"Ban him from our town!"  Some would whisper.

"Hang him, they should put his neck to the knot I say."  Others would shout.  It was a madhouse circus at City Hall.  One could even make out the faint sounds of music being played somewhere among the mass of town folk, stringed instruments and flute music.  The meeting was set for four-thirty new is already five and our guest, Mr Tompkins, hasn't shown. 

     In fact it was foretold by the priest of our town.  The man was the biggest gossip of them all, no one ever took notice of his words except on Sunday's service, that's when we pricked our ears up and listened to him.  In the hall the Priest's loud sermons boiled our patience over, and with our itchy fists ready, we decided to storm over to Tompkins home and once and for all exterminate the bug that is Scott Tompkins.

     We made our way down the road to Tompkins home.  It was a dimly lit, unaware of an impending mob.  Inside Mr. Tompkins was carefully preparing tea for Tree and himself as the group approached.  We stood by each window and looked in.  Mr. Tompkins relaxes back in his chair with guitar in arms and plays for the evening.  He glances over to his pal lapping up the tea from a saucer pan and asks, "Do you like it boy?  Good herbs ain't it?"  The dog looks up at his owner with the same glazed beady almond eyes he gave at us back at City Hall, and smiles.

"Yep, that's straight from humbolt herself.  Kind buds man. Crushed good and filters nice when brewed, an almost 80 percent pure extract there.  Taste it?  That's the high cannabinoid strength you're feeling. Ha ha!"

     We watched him break into an toxicatingly sounding laughter, almost rolling off his arm chair dropping his gypsy caravan jazzy guitar.  This was a scene that we never could or ever will understand.  His words were archaic, and sometimes downright abstract.  But we could not help but watch; through the open dirty window we gathered around peering in to make out what exactly he was up to.  There was a nice breeze in the leaves that muted out our whispers 

"What is it? Is it black magic, a sacrifice? It's alchemy of somekind I just know it!"

"Will you be silent Groenvald!  Something is happening to the dog, look!"

     From our low crouched view we watched as the dog slowly rose up on his hind legs imitating a person!  He then started towards the kitchen where on the wood counter top sat a glass jar about the size of a quart of milk.  But there was no milk inside from what we could make out, but something organic and green vegetable like. 

"Is is cooking spices?"  The Father questioned.

"Shut it!  Look now, what's he doing?" 

     Of all the amazing things I've seen in my life, and what this small town has seen, we couldn't make a guess to what these two were up to, we watched in stunned ambivalence.  In the kitchen Tree took the jar in his mouth carefully over to Mr. Tompkins, giggling in his armchair, strumming his guitar with his feet propped up on a pile of animal hides.  Tree came up to his side, (still on his hind legs mind you,) and dropped the herbal unknowns onto his owners lap.  He resumed the natural dog position on all fours. 

"Yep.  This is it.  The Triangular Kure."  Tompkins said, then broke out in drunken laughter.

"What was that?  Triangle cure, what is that mean?  It's some kind of spell ingredient for a potion!"

"It's something alright.  Something bad that's for truth!"  The crowd was growing restless.

"Will ya' all be quiet for a second!"  The Father lashes out hoarsely.

"Look now, he's put some in paper and rolling it with his tongue!  I can't believe my eyes."

     By now all windows were occupied by small groups of us just trying to figure out what in the world Scott Tompkins was doing, we were baffled, but intrigued and stuck on this dramatic scene.  The Mayor took up position in front of the good windows cleared of dust or mold, a straight look down the hall into the living room where the final act of Tompkins was soon to take place. 

     Mr. Tompkins fingered the piece of paper and pinch of herb to form a small cigar looking thing.  A clerk began to walk away from the house, "Ack!  Its only tobacco, come on now."  But we all knew it wasn't anything close to tobacco, it was too green.  And when it was lit up by a flame of a candle, from the cloud of smoke was as thick as ignited gunpowder.  A blue grey cloud puffed out from hus mouth.  The cloud gathered and multiplied in the living room, screening off Tompkins and Tree, and that's when we started to smell it leaking from the small cracks in the thin plate glass windows.  That fragrance, that pungent tickling smell, we all had to back away from our window view for a quick breather.  By then it was too late.

     When we got back to the window sills, behind the bushes and shrubs, we struggled to see inside and at what Tompkins was doing now.  We heard faint jazz but the pair had vanished now.  Then the tunes stopped, and the smoke cleared, and now we saw the guitar on the chair the dogs sauce pan empty on the wooden floor.

"Hello?  What are you people doing at my windows?"  Mr. Tompkins was on his porch aiming an antique double barrel shotgun straight at us.

"What do you want? Explain yourselves!"  Tree was to one side, silent, staring.

"Well, you see . . .Uh. . ."  I couldn't come up with an answer.  The Mayor was at first frozen and muted, the he spoke up.  At first mumbling, but then slowly escalated into an out right shout.

"We are here only to ask that you leave or face the consequences, Mr. Tompkins!"

"What law is that?  What have I done wrong?"  He put his weapon down and leaned against a wooden beam smoking, and grinning wildly.

"Tell us now dear sir, what are you up to in there, and please don't withhold any truth."  The Mayor asked.

     What happened next was the lock onto the coffin of Mr. Tompkins.  Tompkins didn't speak, he just stood there in silent and stillness almost hypnotized.  His gaze was strong and focusing on something else. 

"Are you ignoring our good Mayor sir!"  The Sheriff made his voice heard.  But Tompkins didn't hear us or feel the branch flick in his cheek from someone close to him.  The mayor grew impatient, irritable, and boiled over with anger at the blatant attitude of Tompkins.  So he ordered two of his arms men to apprehend the man and his dog included, for unlawful social conduct and disturbing the peace.

"What will happen to him then?"

"Death!  Yes, the incompetent bastard should be executed."  Someone shouted as the crowd again tripled in size when they all heard of the nihilistic character that offended  the great Mayor.  Tompkins was being lead in the front of the mob as they followed him all the way to the holding cells where he would be held up until the morning--a respectable hour for an execution--he would be brought up to the platform at dawn.

     Three hours before sunrise Tompkins came to.  He splashed some water in fave to clear his vision.  He yawned, and stretched in routine, but the surroundings had changed from his usual bedroom walls. 

"That was some strong herb, wasn't it Tree?"  He asked his pet who stood outside the cell calm and staring curiously at his owner.  The guards were asleep as the moon took its exit as the golden Sun rose out from behind the rolling green hills.

     It was decided that Mr Tompkins be sentenced to death by guillotine for the practice of voodoosim, black magic, white magic, alchemy, and the illegal practice of self pharmacopeia and pharmacogenetics.  Also, in those days it was believed that dogs could host spirits of the undead, and unfortunately he got the same punishment, except death by guillotine.

     As was tradition the entire village showed up to the executions early.  Women, children, all gathered around the platform where the giant blade reflected the sunlight in all its metallic magnificence.  Both Mr. Tompkins and Tree were brought up through the crowd, up the five steps to the top of the platform.  They had their black blindfolds removed, their bloodshot eyes squinted at the sunlight.  They knelt down before the great machines, in there horrific beautiful essence.  The crowd started to cheer.

     "Can I say my last words?"  He asked the crowd and the executioner, (his hands on the lever ready to pull.)  We gave him a final word for the audience that awaited with gaping mouths, pale faces and wide eyes--all standing in silence save for the birds singing their morning hymns.

     "Firstly, I would like to say,"  Mr. Tompkins began quite majestically.

"It all has been a privilege to have been  warmly welcomed into your small homely village.  I have gotten a lot of work done, and if not for obvious circumstances, I would have unveiled my works to the public not more than a week from now in an exhibition.  More specific, a book.  A book on life, about life, and for our lives.  I mean only to share and not add, or take away.  I share to the world a book about the truth of . . ." 

     At this point in his speech the crowd grew restless again, and some started throwing rubble from off the street.  The executioner brusged silent the crowd with a wave of his hand and began for the lever. 

     Raspy gasps resonated throughout the crowd. In a moment of anticipation and shocked as the blade sparkled in the sun, and the sweat gathered heavy on Mr. Tompkins face, Tree with that same stare as usual, time slowed to nanoseconds of slow motion as a wonderful orb of light grew between the Man and his best friend.  A great white light that enveloped the two as we were blinded by the glory of the illumination, then. . .they were no more.  The light had gone from the platform.  The sky was blue.  The orange sun at its peak.  And no sign of Scott Tompkins and the mutt Tree.

-The End?

Legendary Chicken Foot?

     Every morning for breakfast I make an egg sandwich with two ham slices and sometimes cheese melted over and still sizzling.  Bacon is also an important part of my early pre-noon diet, always bacon, and bacon always everyday.  I love this time of day, when the food taste fresh and is the first to coat my internal me.  It has to be treated kind and carefully when cooked.  Cooking food is a sensual part of my creative expression like any other form of art.  I am focused, prepared to start the day with a practice that any professional chef would be accustom to do on their own time of relaxation on a Sunday morning.

     

     However, this morning was different.  The routine was going well and good, but there was this odd sound from the backyard.  See, we have four chickens back there and are constantly making their noises and clucking about as chickens do. But this sound that I heard was not normal, almost human and estranged.  In fact, the sound was definitely similar to when a man poorly tries to mimic a chicken talk, the "bacock!"  At first I ignored it.  I left it alone thinking maybe it was one of the hens passing an overly large egg.  Maybe one lost its mind and believed it could communicate with us humans; maybe it was hungry and was trying to say so through the English language.  I don't know, I was only assuming these things at such an early time of day.

     

     Watching the egg being fried in the oily black skillet, again I heard the "bacock!" and again and again.  It was a drawn out moaning sound, longer this time than the first, and quite annoying that my nerves were pinched.  So, I investigated.  Turning down the flame on the stove and putting the bacon in the microwave, I went over to the sliding doors and looked out from side to side examining the one acre yard.   

     

     All was normal and appeared as the same as any other day.  There on the patio the chicken turds spread out among the spilled chicken feed;  on one side sat the four broken beat up rusted Volkswagens;  old wood piles rotted and water stained; the chicken coop too was there on the opposite side, but somehow just a little different than before.  This small detail made me open the sliding glass door and step out into the brisk morning air.  I was barefoot and had to watch my step over the fecal mind field on the pavement.  The chickens love to hang around the door in hopes to catch an opportunity to sneak inside where the restricted area would present new explorations for these feathery fowl.  Only god knows what they desire most in life besides the feed--maybe escape, or a taste of the inside air.  

     

     Making my way towards the shaded and enclosed coop, I could make out a faint but recognizable moan.  It was the sound from before.  Something or someone was inside the coop.  All four chickens were over by the sliding door, silent, and watching me with their beady eyes.  The chain link door of the coop was slightly ajar and was the only way to have a better look in.  I opened the door further and slowly peered in.  Just as half my body was inside, all of a sudden in a burst of feathers an overweight man in a dirty white chicken costume flailed out pushing me over onto the dirt.  The guy screamed the impression of a chicken loud and obnoxious as before and was wildly running around the yard kicking up dust.  From where I lay, astonished at the sight, I watched dumbfounded at this person.

      

     What was this, I thought.  It had to be a sick joke or at the least some distraught mentally ill person going through some kind of breakdown that happened to choose my backyard of all places.  Maybe it was my chickens that brought him here.  This man-chicken, or chicken-man, ran around zigzagging his way about as I stood up, got my thoughts straight and decided on what to do with this insane situation.  My chickens just stood at the edge of the concrete patio watching in disgust and horror at the mockery that was on display on such a beautiful morning.

     

     I yelled at him, "Hey! Get the hell out of my backyard before I call the cops!"

That didn't phase the guy, but he began to calm himself now, obviously out of breath and trying to catch it--At this point that's when he broke character, I heard a distinct unhealthy cough that only a obese bastard would make.  This pushed me over my patience edge so I picked up a steel bar from a pile and started to walk over to the asshole.  

     "Hey!  Did you hear what I said?  Get the hell out of here or I'm calling the cops!"  Walking barefoot in the dirt I held up the pipe, pointing it at the guy, warning him. Then, suddenly, he darted for me at full speed.  Only six feet away from striking him I was taken aback as he rushed me in his full wide figure.  He put me back on my ass and sprinted his way to the side of the house where the gate door was.  I heard it being open and slam shut.  Quickly I got up and ran inside to catch him out front. Through the front window I could see him running across the yard flapping his wings.      

     

     There on the porch I stood with the steel pipe in hand and watched him shuffle his heavy ass down the street.  "God. . .dammit."  It was way too early for this kind of nonsense, I was hungry, and had to let the prick go.  The microwave ding rang off and that's when I could smell the bacon.  It was time to get back to my routine and finish cooking up my breakfast.  There was coffee to be brewed, and the sandwich to construct.  I had to forget about what just happened.  It would make me go mad if I held on to it.  Forgive and forget, you know.

The Swamp River's Warm

     When the tundra turned to tantra sex, and when moths and gorillas' DNA turned into a hybrid; life began again and grew less and less foggy. Like the appearance of a high famed celebrity in the wild, they are only a different sect of human beings. Think a branch of a tree ever reaching to infinity...

     Cleared off the fog and blood from my lenses and took the chainsaw to the bathroom, to the bathtub, through the water, and washed off the bones and hair, and meat of flesh of lust and tastiness. The monster is dead! They will all say in the small town right down the line; its a boggy rugged type cottage of a Town, with a princess that stands attention all days, and waits and waits with her emaciated frame. This Mansion here on top of this brown black hill, is a shadowy figure to the Town below. The leaves are dead on the ground and on limbs of the tree's. The dust on the bookshelves are as thick as snow with a melting point of much more. The writer, getting migraines over writings that don't matter, or most likely, will never matter in the future; the writer is Optimistic although, the writer sits and writes, and develops tumor inducing migraines, again and again, in a room of gray, shelves, boxes and books and cardboard cutouts of one specific Woman. That cutout lady stood attention at one end of the corners of the medium sized studio. The Miss, sometimes seemed to have been under the knife frequently,(or markers in this case), many times over, through the coarse of our visits to that particular apartment room.

     The monster is dead! They shouted after all, there in the groggy town. The little old lady with a hand crocheted purse and hat and wheelchair, just sat and waved, with a smile of orderliness. The little children clapped their hands, and yelped and skipped and would jump, as the parading newborn news was passing by. Most of the Mid-aged persons stood and looked tired, but smiled kind of, and try to keep their own children in close eye range, (as not to lose them in another human beings custody, in fear or futuristic thoughts of self-denial, pity, grief, one or the other).

    The passing carnival lasted an hour or more, definitely felt like more. On the streets grounds and in the grass and in the mud, held confetti of the rainbow, wrappers of ice cream treats and lollipops, popcorn kernels and peanut shells, cups made of plastics, or paper, foods of all sorts and even maybe, the tooth from the kid that bumped into the horse that had carried the princess. She'd looked down at him from atop her stead. The kid felt nervousness climbing out of its bed and pissing down his spine. He didn't even feel the blood as it ran down warm on his exterior, the winter came early in his interior and froze his pose. She just smiled at him, through a screen of pixels, like a computer screen or a Television set. She smiled one healthily wonderful vibrant exuberant free flowing of a smile. The boy, started his own.

     The years went by, with the wars and famines and growth and demands; and left behind crumbs and more demands and more wars. Cars began to fly, and computers began to fuck. The computers took the orders, cooked the food, took the money, processed the card number; then, after applying the correct number of units from the customers I.D. card, they're charged, gave the card back, (with the "purchased" history transcribed already on your account), gives the customer their order, with a suggestion of varieties of hot sauces, and any other various condiments. Then ending with a few kind gestures and sounds as you fly off to the skyway.

     The new dark age was among us, if not all then a select few. Here, the dogs would have barked, then, would be recorded for future reference or future curiosity. The barking would then be translated into, an almost, forensic evidence or a computer decoded mathematical image recording of the dogs surroundings. The dogs barking would unleash vibrations, the time and space dance steps, toward an object, a solid to touch Inanimate or Animate object, and, by gravity, would return with an imaged diorama of the area, or crime scene; and by fate, the owner of the dog, would want to see exactly how their pet, bit, pulled, and eventually mauled, their doggy selves into K-9 death row.


    Beep Boop Beee! I awoke standing in the middle of a very crowded sidewalk, like a river almost, of people coming at, or past, or from behind me. Every soul that bumped passed me, each, dissimilar in every aspect of this futuristic culture of now. And with the exception of a robot or four. Business types, School administrators, high end lawyers, simple class folk, the hipsters, the interns, the bums, the tourists, the girl, the boy, the Man, the Woman. Everyone wearing company branded earmuffs and sun goggles, and lip sealant. The case was simple, as I remembered what I was doing there in that busy city sidewalk path. The Job, was simple, I thought, simple.

Inspiration For The Work You Do

     With all the work I've been doing over the years this will finally be a place where I can put it all together and see it flourish on its own.  I don't claim to know anything or act like I'm good at what I do, but with a little time and effort like anything else in this world, I will make a name for myself through writing.  What I choose to lay down will be evidence of how I progress and how I deal with the world that We all share and live in.
     I believe in the saying that with practice anything is possible; over time things get better with the right attitude, believe that.  Negative thoughts produce negative feedback, this is what I have learned in my twenty five years now.  Still, there is so much to be learned and to create.  I know this much.  Time doesn't wait for no man, and to battle this we must work hard and tirelessly at what we desire most in life.  To become great at something we work at it: practice and experience.  There's still so much I want to know about life and time is fleeting, never ending.  I'm beginning to put myself out there, out here, where I could gain the critique I necessarily need to keep up my work.  It's a vital thing to want feedback especially for writing, I've felt it many tines before.  The other thing in bettering ourselves is constructive criticism, and I'm calling it out like a hunter calling his prey.
     Over the few years I have been underground.  I've seen most get trampled under by the weight of the harsh reality and opinions brought on by others leading them to give up and give themselves over to the underbelly of the hidden laboring machine, the gears that run on blood of hopelessness and doubt.  Thick skin is key to survival.  To go into battle one must wear armor to shield against the onslaught of others.  Grow a pair and move forward.  Watch your back and never give in to the comments that force you to quit, (even if they're of your own.)  Many times it's happened to me and now I can't let it go.  I have to do this, whatever I tell myself or what others tell me I have to see what's on the other end of this journey.  The same goes for anything as well.
     If you stop now you'll never know whats ahead, what it is that your hard determination has been for.  It's about fighting idleness with work of any kind that will produce something meaningful, to you, or to anyone else.  And the good work that you do will indeffinitely benefit others regardless of how minute it may seem at the moment.  Be happy with what little you have for it may be bigger in the end then you imagined.
     Work comes in many forms and to think that only manual labor is the only way to make a living is crazy to assume.  Hard work starts with an idea and building on that.  Thinking is a sort of work, and when you put your ideas into action then you see what all that work was for.  I may be wrong on this but show me a time when only one way was worth doing than the other way.  Everything comes together to build up and create an idea.  An architect has an idea, the construction workers build on the idea, producing something great.  Same goes for many other things, and some times you can be both, doing both jobs without having to bring in more than two of three.
     That brings me to relationships.  Work at building a relationship with others to help realize your ideas and desires grow.  Create a bond between people in order to keep a working line that will transfer your work through other filters to better the idea and help it mature and get into the right places at the right time.  Another thing is to listen.  Listen to everything and always be ready to use what you've heard to better your work.  Your relationship with others will open up a communication line to understand what your audience has to say before hitting them with raw material.  Thirst for feedback and accept critique.  Never let it get too far into your psyche to where you'll want to give up, it's supposed to help, it's meant to push you not pull you down.  No matter what the message comes across as, you are in motion and nothing can stop you from getting to where you want to go, where you're meant to go.  You are in the right place at the right time, with the right people.  Always stay true to yourself.  Always be ready to fight no matter what life throws at you.
    
  

Smoking Man

    There is this man; a gentle and sturdy looking man. He sits on the top of Volkswagen bus, smoking on a long ivory tobacco pipe; the shape of a rhino. There is a thing about this man, that never leaves and never demands; he is a wizard of a sort, a jewel miner of another. The fine young ladies all dance in his presence, as they pass by the 1969 German automobile. The scruffy man is smoking a native Indian blend of kind tobacco, makes him woozy, in a great way. Love symbols spew from his lips, not for anyone in particular, just for the women that hold their dresses and twirl, and twirl. He is sitting cross legged, puffing on his pipe, murmuring small talk to himself about the wolves and golfers that praise the moons glow as it races towards the earth's endless edge of eagerness. We are those symbols of life like Aries and Hercules. The whole thing is a piece of a story that shivers lightly; migrate! Migrate mighty mice and moles and mud rats and mold! He gives everyone hugs, for free, no paper money trail he needs, he gives and gives for free.
     There is this Tree, this awfully huge growing tree.  For me, for you, for them, for the truth, the birds and the roots, the roots! Oh Soil, don't toil with me, oh soil, you are so cute! Such beauty! Smoke on Man!  Blow your symbols and groove beyond!

Visions of An Elusive Kangaroo

     Prescription pills cost sixty credits at a local inn and brothel.  The naked mole rat faced old man takes your wrist and scans it, a beep goes off on the computer screen.  Credit received.  The old man goes to the back, down a dim lit hall, and shuffles his feet through empty orange plastic containers scattered on the floor.  He comes back to the counter with a case of purple bottles filled with glowing capsules of the stuff.  He says the white round pills have a tendency to cause hallucinations unworldly, and that the city would be a perfect place stroll while on them.  I grabbed my prescribed amount and quickly headed out onto West street where everything jumped with energy.  Multicolored neon lights brought daylight to midnight.  Crowds of people and animated things-- a normal Tuesday night.            
 
     Going into a deli just below an apartment complex to buy a fizzy drink--wrist is scanned and computer beeps--it glows every time a black light touches it. Downing four pills I feel my throat itchy with the fizzy bubbles of the drink.  Not a minute goes by as my drink slips from my hands crashing on the white and peach colored tile floor.  The deli owner begins to yell some sort of language that fades in then out like slow-mo on repeat in scattered frequency.
   
     I leave that god awful shop and stomp up East Tourking Street over to Gonzo's for a early power up and a wild sit in full of elderly hackers.  For a minute I stayed and got myself out of there before the orgy kicked into full gear.  Without my shots I would have been caught dead and the night was still young and throbbing with juice to be sucked up and purified quick.
   
     Wasted tourists and local alike crowd the streets like zombies looking for a sight they've seen before so many times, always searching for something new and coming up short just before the cherry pops.  My eyes begin to warp and melt and grow abnormal as I try keeping them open. Walking through the crowd I see faces of disgust, torment, and ugliness; directed at me or themselves, I could not tell in this state.  Every laugh heard I thought was about me; the way their faces seem to be all gazing toward my way, I told myself in a monotone inner dialogue, "Side effects may include paranoia and schizophrenia."
 
     So, I tilt my head back and drop in three orange tangerine tears into each of my eyes with a syringe.  Standing with good faith that I would make it through the night without losing my mind to these vultures and haggard cultists, I trudged on.
 
     I turn down a street I couldn't read from the blurring LED sign, then hailed a cab with on weak fist.  The cab was a brown bear and only took fish for toll, I had none, couldn't afford it.  So I left the canny cabby grumbling and cursing as he turned into an open lane without signaling.  Bumping and rubbing against other cabbies of all varieties and size, all abusing their horns and their right of way, chaos in ordered one ways.  I drift towards the Fair in the square, where I read on my vision dashboard, would be performers of stripper acrobats and medieval knight jugglers singing experimental hymns for charity; instead I find drunken marionettes and more tourists polluting the fountain in the middle of the square.  My feet felt like silly puddy and I lost my sense of smell, a second tangerine squirt into the left eye and my senses heightened back. The stars came down to greet me, as they do on these occasional overdoses.  Watching them twirl about I got horny and felt up the wrong broad leaving me with a bruised chin and a bloody nose, (later, I would see in the mirror a black eye inflamed like an ass of a baboon.)

     This trip was special to me but strange on its own and from all others I've been on.  Somehow I happened my way into a library.  Lying in a pool of my own vomit alone in the corner with the old holo-decks, I chas my high with a catalyst pill designed by myself to keep these trips on constant flow.  I saw a ghost of a lady in blue skin, she smiled wickedly and lovely white row of teeth.  With a tender dry warmth in her voice she said to me: "You're doing fine, Kangaroo.  You are fine, keep it up!"
 
     I got up out of the sewage I dispelled onto the vibrating carpet and left the library giving a guffaw to those around to whom it may concern.  Outside, the forest of the big city was drenched in sunlight, I put on my heavy lenses.  I saw a path leading to somewhere, I couldn't know where, but I'm on my way now down it.  That's for sure.  To keep it up.