Losing Control: The story that inspired Crossfades and Bleedovers

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With the publication of Crossfades only days away, I thought I would share the short story which inspired not only that book, but also its sequel, Bleedovers (September 2015, available for preorder now). I'd toyed with the idea of expanding various stories into longer works many times, but none had ever kept a grip on my imagination like this one. Written for an anthology entitled Bloody Ghost Stories, the original idea for the tale was a "reverse haunting"; in most ghost stories, spirits of the dead enter into our world... but I wanted to explore what might happen if we entered theirs. Drawing upon over a decade of experience within corporate America as well as interests in metaphysics and science, the world of Crossfades, Whisks, Sleepers, and The Institute (called The Agency in the short story) emerged. This world established the bones which would later be fleshed out into Crossfades, Bleedovers, and potentially a third book, Juju Horse. 

Losing Control

By

William Todd Rose

           

The first warning in the handbook states, in no uncertain terms, that there’s some malevolent shit out there. This isn’t a job for the timid or weak. To work in this profession, a man needs to be carved from stone; he has to continually face his own mortality and somehow not go insane when out there in the crossfades. That’s what we call The Divide, see. Crossfades. It’s like that moment in movies where Act One and Act Two briefly coexist. They touch one another and melt into a composite before one asserts its dominion over the other. The same thing happens with what we tend to think of as Life and Death. There are borderlands, like little pockets of stasis dimpling the surface of eternity; most departing souls pass over them so effortlessly they don’t even notice their existence. But some specifically look for these warrens. They refuse to let go of the physical and hang on with everything they’ve got, sometimes creating their own cut scenes where previously there were none. Others simply become trapped.

            For reasons we haven’t quite figured out, the majority of these snared spirits come to inhabit the bodies of moths. Johnson, the head of Theoretical Positioning, told me once he suspected these creatures have the ability to flutter through both dimensions simultaneously. He compared them to bees in a field, picking up pollen along the way, but openly admitted the math to prove his hypothesis dangles maddeningly out of reach. Jewell, who should have been a poet instead of an assistant, insists this is why moths continually bat themselves against bulbs: these quantum hitchhikers know their paths have diverted and try, time and time again, to cross into The Light.

            The handbook warns against this as well. We’re not supposed to attach any emotion to the things we see and do. We’re supposed to balance the stoicism of a scientist with the resolve of a soldier. Romantic notions are bad enough in the labs, but they can get your ass in serious trouble in the field. The slightest hint of emotion is like striking a match in the darkness: all things previously hidden are brought to light. With a mind of pure reason, you can see them. But illuminated with the passions of the living, they can also see you.

            Which is where I come in. My official title is Recon and Enforcement Technician, Level II. When wooing recruits, the Agency makes it sound like you’ll be some sort of cosmic cop, patrolling the beat and extending mankind’s reach over the kingdom of the dead. After six months of mentoring you go solo and discover the truth. You’re a glorified janitor, sweeping cobwebs from the corners of infinity. That’s why, despite the handbook’s recommendations to the contrary, we refer to ourselves internally as Whisks.

            As such, life becomes routine. I wake up at six AM, have coffee and buttered toast over the morning news. I catch an unscheduled subway at an abandoned station whose lock is shiny and new, perfectly matching dangling from my neck.

            My office is fifteen stories underground and is the nest in a tangle of wires that siphon energy from structures above. It’s a vast network of relays, switches, and humming transformers that most eyes never see. We take just enough power from each home and business that the owners never notice. Distributed between hundreds of thousands of buildings, we steal enough electricity to power a small town without as much as a bill.

            The handbook highly recommends keeping a journal such as this, but it also warns against mentioning specific cities. I could be in San Francisco or New York. Paris or Moscow. Like those I hunt, I exist nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. So instead, I’ll describe my office.

            It’s a fairly small room with cameras perched in each corner. The walls are painted in soothing pastels and water gurgles over a stone fountain in the corner. I have potted plants that I never water, their needs tended by Maintenance, and instead of a desk there’s a long, plush couch. Behind the couch are monitors and leads, all the equipment which tracks my vitals when I’m in the crossfades. And across the room is my partner.

            I’ve been working with him for a year now and have never known his name. His body is frail and shriveled and the hum of the respirator keeping him alive is a rhythmic constant. An IV drips nutrients into his withered arm, ensuring he never awakens from his induced coma. Being under isn’t like sleeping, you see. There are no dreams, no REM, none of the brainwaves you’d see in a functioning brain. Anesthesia is the little death people plunge into daily without realizing what lurks within those murky depths.

            This much about my partner I know. He was terminally ill. They all are, when first approached. With medical bills mounting, the scouts paint a picture of financial ruin for those left behind. Wives, husbands, and children: in addition to grief, they’ll need to deal with the strain of treatments insurance stopped covering long ago. Staying alive is akin to selfishness, but it can all go away by signing a simple contract. One signature and the patient “dies” in the night. He’s whisked away to our labs and grieving loved ones are surprised in days to come by a settlement from a life insurance policy they didn’t know existed. A very sizable pay-out that ensures their continued comfort while coming to terms with grief.

            These Sleepers are the most important part of our operation. When tuned to the proper frequencies, their bodies act as conduits. Dry lips move so slightly that it almost looks like a trick of the light and the thin wheeze from their throats could pass for the body desperately trying to breathe on its own. But in reality, the dead speak through them. Once, these people had loved and laughed and lived; but now, so close to the end, they’re nothing more than eavesdropping devices and the snippets of captured conversation are dutifully recorded.

            Position can be triangulated by the strength of their voices. The more clear and distinct the words, the closer the crossfade is to physical space. Algorithms I don’t fully understand calculate a coordinate from this data and cross reference it with heart rate and brain activity. This, in turn, creates the equivalent of a pushpin in the topography of Space-Time. That pushpin is both my focus and destination.

            As a Whisk, I’ve been trained in the art of meditation. I’m not the fastest by far, but I can guide myself into Theta in the same amount of time it takes most people to mumble their bedtime prayers. At that level, visualizing the golden cord is a snap. I let it out like a guide rope tied to my mortal body. A little at a time, taking tentative steps into the unknown. Laymen call this astral projection; but to a Whisk, it’s simply The Walk.

            My Walks correspond with the messages my partner broadcasts and most are simply routine assignments. These are the spirits who long to cross The Divide. They sense the mystery and know the trappings of the flesh are no longer a concern. They’ve just become sidetracked on their journey and need a little help.

            But, occasionally, things can go very wrong.

            The day Albert Lewis was executed, my Sleeper screamed. His vocal chords rattled as neck muscles bulged and his body arched off the bed while his hands reflexively clenched. Beads of sweat dotted his brow and for a moment I thought I heard the sizzle of electricity accompanying a whiff of singed flesh. His instrumentation went haywire, spiking like a seismograph placed on the epicenter of a major fault as his face screwed into a grimace of clenched teeth and spasming muscle. To the untrained eye, it probably looked as if he were in the throes of an agony so intense that Death would seem a welcome friend. But I reminded myself that it was just involuntary contractions, no different than making a dead frog twitch with the application of current. I remained professional and detached, just as the handbook says I should.

            Two weeks later, the other screams began. A dozen voices moaned through a single mouth, alternately pleading for help and yelling wordlessly. I could feel their pain and fear as clearly as my clothing, which suddenly felt too tight and constrictive. Loosening my tie, I leaned over my Sleeper’s writhing body and peered at his charts before staring into one of the cameras.

            I knew what this was. I’d read about it in case studies, but never actually witnessed the phenomena. I felt like a child who’d begun doubting the reality of Santa Claus only to awaken to a jolly fat man in red.

            The handbook calls it a Vertices Collision Scenario; but to us, it’s bad news.

            “Chuck, it’s nearly 3:30. Jarvis left an hour ago. Rollins hasn’t come in yet.” The female voice came from a speaker embedded into the ceiling. The familiar lilt sounded strained and I imagined stress creasing a face I’d only ever imagined.

            “Alone, at last.” My attempt at humor fell flat and the woman I’d only ever known as Control let it hang in the air. In perfect silence, I looked up at the camera as I ran my fingers through my hair, weighing the consequences of the situation.

            According to the handbook, it shouldn’t have been a decision at all. Protocol dictates the data be handed off to a Level I Whisk, who’d have more experience in the field. Someone who’d passed the exams instead of continually screwing up the translocation equation.

            “So what’s it going to be, Chuck?” Control’s husky voice always reminded me of a film noir heroine; I pictured her within the booth, masked by shadow as crimson lips parted just above the microphone.

            I’d get my ass chewed and a mark in my file at worst. Or a promotion, if I played my cards right. What can I say? I was ambitious but it seemed like that damn equation would never give up her secrets. If I had any hope of making Level I, it would require a bold and decisive move in place of exams.

            “I got this, Control.” I was so naïve, I actually believed it.

            What I’ve never understood is why Control gave me that option. She knew the handbook as well as I. Part of her duties was safeguarding my wellbeing. And perhaps that’s what it was. Maybe a bond had formed over the years; maybe she realized my eagerness, my drive to rise to the top, and didn’t want to disappoint me. Or maybe she was just bored.

            Whatever her reasons, Control allowed me to walk to my couch with its assortment of tasseled pillows. She let me slip the Halo onto my head, an insanely expensive piece of equipment that looks like a hard hat’s webbing. She let me close my eyes and open my chakras as I slipped from this body like a balloon from the grasping hand of a child.

            She should have stopped me, damn it.

            She should have stopped me.

            Here’s the thing about crossfades. Usually, they’re simply void space. Unless you’ve actually stood in the heart of a singularity, you can’t possibly understand the true meaning of desolation. In a place where the laws of physics no longer hold sway, your golden cord is your lifeline. It connects you to another place, a world of things and events. Without it, you’d never find your way home. Drifting through dead space for all eternity, neither alive nor dead but subsisting somewhere between. That, my friend, is my personal definition of Hell; and it’s precisely what Albert Lewis strove to create.

            Albert Lewis, as we all know, was an evil man. He existed at a crossroads between sadism and black magic, choosing to torture his victims for weeks on end before performing the final rite. Their suffering, he claimed, was like energy flowing into a battery. With every puncture, burn, and scream, he grew stronger. The field behind his farmhouse was a garden of corpses, each one dropped into a shallow furrow sprinkled with lime. Severed hands sat upon his mantle, clutching various ceremonial objects in their withered fingers: a dagger, a bell, the mummified heart of his mother. They say he’d painted murals in blood upon his walls, tortured landscapes of such detail museums would have displayed them if done in any other medium.

            When a person as willful as Albert Lewis gets their hooks in a crossfade, they refuse to let go. Instead of being an empty pocket of nothingness, they exert their determination and create personal realities. The more convincing the crossfade becomes, the wider it expands. Textures, smells, and tastes take hold and the illusion of time reasserts itself. If left unchecked, it can become an entire world with thriving ecosystems and complex weather patterns.

            My job, in a nutshell, it to keep this from happening. We try to clean up these transient dimensions before they become too real and the megalomaniac at their core is convinced of his own divinity. If allowed to grow indefinitely, a crossfade will draw other souls like filings to a magnet. Maybe they’re fooled into thinking it’s the Promised Land. Or maybe it’s governed by the laws of attraction. The point is, once others believe in the reality of this custom crossfade, they’re stuck there. Like flies in a web. And that convergence constitutes a Vertices Collision Scenario.

            Albert Lewis had created a world of darkness. Storm clouds flickered with lightning above a scorched landscape of cinders and ash. Hot winds carried the scent of carrion on their wake and left an oily patina over what I thought of as my skin; my golden cord streamed from my belly button and trailed off into a blank horizon.

I stared into that black, empty space and closed my eyes. When opened again, my cord snaked like a phantom through stone walls. The blocks glistened wetly by torchlight and condensation dripped from beams overhead, plinking into puddles on the brick floor.

            I seemed to be standing in the curved stairwell of a medieval turret. Windows shaped like tombstones lined the wall, the stone frames surrounding them slick with algae as lightning bathed the structure in electric blue. Flames sputtered in the wind and drops of molten tar hissed from the orange glow of the torches. From somewhere up ahead, a woman wailed. Her sobs sounded as if they came from the far end of a long tunnel and I glanced back at my cord again, searching for reassurance in its presence.

            “Remember the feel of warm sand against bare feet. Your 10^th birthday, surprised with a trip to the beach. The smell of saltwater and gulls squawking overhead.” It was Control’s voice, seeming to radiate from somewhere within my mind. “Remember cutting your heel on broken glass, how the wound stung as your blood dripped onto wet sand.”

            She was good. With nothing more than my vitals to guide her, Control skillfully reinforced my bonds with reality, summoning memories from the physical details notated in my file. Her ability to capture emotion, to build a sense of time and place, was just as important as the golden cord. Without that, my cord would fade. Without her, I’d be lost.

            Instead of succumbing to this false world, I turned and faced the spiraling, stone stairs. I heard other voices now, as well, lending their distress to a symphony of suffering. Whimpers, weak pleas for help and mercy, hysterical crying, and strained, warbling wails: their pain and fear swirled around me like an invisible demon. It raked the back of my neck with cold talons and chased chills down the length of my spine. It coiled around my throat like a tightening constrictor and plucked at my golden cord as if testing its resolve and durability.

            Part of me didn’t want to ascend those stairs. In the pools of shadow, I sensed danger, as if some lurking creature followed my every move. My feet had become leaden weights and I channeled every all my willpower to muster the strength required for that next step.

            “Remember your training.” Control again, establishing a link to a world of sunshine and flowers, of fresh spring breezes and laughter. “It’s only as real as you make it, Chuck.”

            Another step and the keening of tortured souls grew louder. My palms felt as moist and cold as the stone walls surrounding me. My instincts screamed to go back, to follow my cord home and turn this assignment over to a Level I Whisk.

            “Chuck…”

            A spasm tremored my thigh, making the muscle twitch and jerk, and yet I still placed my foot upon that next stair. Ignoring fluttering wings of panic in my stomach, I focused on the next bend, the next flickering torch.

            “Chuck, you have to keep that emotion in check. For God’s sake, don’t expose yourself. Commence Kundalini Breathing in three… two… one…”

            Drawing a deep breath through my nose was like snorting a line of decayed flesh. The stench watered my eyes and infected my sinuses, seeping into my saliva glands and flooding my mouth with the sickeningly sweet taste of rotten meat. My diaphragm hitched in protest, expelling the tainted oxygen through choked gags that left my trachea feeling as if I’d belched fire.

            “That’s it. I’m pulling you out.” Control’s words were a panicked babble, shouted so loudly into her microphone that they crackled and popped with static.

            “Negative, Control. I’ve got it covered. Mission proceeding.” I tried to sound confident and relaxed, but even my own ears couldn’t ignore the tremble in my voice.

            The top of the stairs loomed closer and it sounded as if Hell existed right around the bend. So many voices calling out, such much prolonged agony erupting from their souls; for a moment, my head swam with the combined force of their anguish and I steadied myself against the wall. The roughhewn stone seemed to sigh at my touch and the torches wavered as if their flames danced with a gust of air.

            Snatching my hand away, I waited for a reply from Control. But only the cries of the damned answered me. I pictured her dashing from her console room, fumbling with the convoluted override codes that would grant access to my office, and finally letting me see what she really looked like.

            The problem is the passage of Time is a human perception. It would take Control three minutes to open that door and remove the Halo. Two if she were half as good as I suspected. But that seemingly short period can translate into days within a cut scene. Each construct has its own rules governing existence. Time, like matter, becomes putty to be molded and shaped at will. Help was two minutes away; help would not come for millennia: in The Divide, there’s no difference.

            My golden cord fluctuated like a fluorescent bulb on the verge of burning out. One moment solid, the next hazy and indistinct. I knew this meant my perceptions were taking hold, that this tower was integrating into my existence paradigm with each frantic beat of my heart.

The handbook says in a worst case scenario, Whisks can implement an escape technique we call Crashing. I’ve never had to actually utilize it in the field, but mastering it is required to pass the Level III exams. An abrupt change of focus, like shifting a speeding car suddenly into reverse, and your body falls. All the different dimensions making up our universe become like intricately detailed stained glass windows stacked upon one another. Shattering one after another, the Whisk crashes through reality until hitting his own physical body with a jolt.

I knew I could Crash. I knew I could escape from that hellish tower and the nightmares that awaited, so close now that the stench seemed to emanate from the very molecules of the air itself.

I knew I could be free.

And yet, I chose to trudge on.

The chamber was as large as a football field and bordered on all sides by the same stone that comprised the stairwell. Moldy banners hung from the walls with scenes of torture fading into moth-eaten fabric. The glow of torches imbued the crude drawings with lives of their own, creating the illusion of movement in dancing patterns of light and shadow.

There were no windows in this room, nothing to convey that anything existed other than the high ceiling and impenetrable stone. Every few yards a column descended from the gloom overhead and planted itself firmly into the floor. As large as elevator shafts, they lined either side and the cobbled floor became a network of paths leading to each one. Grating covered the gaps between the paths and wisps of smoke curled above the blackened steel, born of the fires raging miles below.

Here, the sounds of agony were deafening and pierced my eardrums like sonic needles. Screams so harsh and shrill that they seemed to vibrate my skull with resonance were punctuated by gasps of pain. Blubbering sobs mingled with animalistic howls and from the far end of the room a man with a child-like voice repeatedly shrieked the word No like a protective mantra.

Underscoring the cacophony was a steady rhythm of clinks and clanks as the tortured fought against their restraints. The iron chains struck the stone columns as manacles scraped away skin, turning wrists into bands of glistening, red tissue peppered with frayed strands of muscle and nerve. The captives hung off so close to the floor that those with the energy stood on tiptoe in defiance of their trembling legs; others, too weak to fight, dangled like limp dolls. With bent knees and bowed heads, they slumped forward. Their body weight supported entirely by the chains, they swung slightly and gasped for breath.

Walking the central path was like strolling through Satan’s personal museum. A stringy-haired woman drooped in one display and her torso had been sliced with surgical precision. Peeled open and pinned to her back, the parted slabs of flesh revealed organs that squished and pulsed as she shifted positions. In another tableau, a rat perched upon the shoulder of a doughy, overweight man and cleaned droplets of blood from wiry whiskers with swipes of its paws before darting in for another bite. Sinking teeth into lips, it pulled away strands of gristle that stretched like rubber before snapping free with savage shakes of its head.

I witnessed things in that chamber no man should ever see. I cringed as roaches scurried from beneath flaps of skin sliced into the body of a tribal warrior. My eyes teared as I passed a woman with an angelic face who was more skeleton than skin; sloughing off her own flesh, the sagging folds held to her frame by hooks and thin twine.

And yet, I persisted.

From the shadows, I a golden throne emerged. Comprised of gilded skulls, femurs, and tibia, it sat upon a riser of writhing people whose distended and mottled skin had been stitched together with silver thread. A tangle of arms, legs, and torsos: it was impossible to tell where one body stopped and another began. They moved as an uncoordinated unit, some scrambling for purchase and slipping in blood, crawling ever forward like a human rickshaw. With bent backs and scraped knees, they carried the throne on an undulating wave of flesh and their suffering rang through the air like fanfare heralding the arrival of dark royalty.

Seated upon this throne, Albert Lewis stared down with watery, blue eyes. His white hair was a disheveled mop of tufts sprouting from a face that looked as if it were carved from stone. With wrinkles chiseled into alabaster features, he pulled his lips into a thin, tight smile devoid of mirth or warmth.

“What have we here?” The voice boomed from the old man’s body as loud as thunder and fresh gales of pain echoed from the prisoners as its vibrations flicked exposed nerve endings. “Have you come to grovel before my Mercy Seat, boy? Have you traveled all this way to present yourself as an offering?”

My golden cord was nothing more than a shadow by now, as thin and tenuous as a mortal’s grasp on life. Knowing that answering would only mire me more deeply into his depraved realm, I focused on my hands as I’d been taught, willing them to be bathed in the white light that is my stock and trade.

“Perhaps you’d like to play with my pet, then.”

As if in response to a command, a thing which was only remotely human scuttled from the darkness. The base of his living litter had been constructed with coarse fibers pulled so tightly that the skin dimpled around each stitch, but this creature had not been so “fortunate”.

The base of its collective body was formed by two burly men on hands and knees with their asses facing one another. Their buttocks had been splayed extensively and then pressed against each other, conceivably bandaged, and allowed to heal into a single graft. Conjoined to them by the same technique was the body of a petite woman. Her legs were extended like a gymnast caught mid-split and the scarring that melded her thighs and calves to the men was like a jagged pink seam. With wrists severed, her hands had been replaced by curved blades whose barbs gleamed in the torchlight like the teeth of a predator. Her face was a contorted mask of insanity, lips pulled back into a snarl, revealing a web-work of needles attached like braces to her teeth.

“This is my domain!” Lewis yelled as he leaned forward. “You think you can waltz in here with your little bag of tricks and usurp my sovereignty?”

His creature scurried forward, surprisingly quick and spider-like. The woman’s hair was plastered to her skull with sweat and her face burned hotly from an infection which made her veins look like roots spreading through reddened cheeks. She hissed as her blades whooshed through the air and I stumbled backward, my hands flailing for the reassurance of my golden cord.

At that moment, I knew all hope was lost. I felt it evaporate within me like a deflating balloon; everything that had ever been good or wholesome was purged from my body with a gasp as my fingers clawed at nothing. No cord. No way home.

Albert Lewis’ laughter echoed off the walls and ceiling, the reverberations seeming to grow in strength and volume as if his guffaws fed off one another like parasitic organisms. The mouths of his victims opened in unison, but instead of spilling more screams and wails, they resounded with the deep baritone of cruel laughter.

My hands tingled as if they coursed with the white light I tried to summon as I backed away from the clattering monster. I tried to narrow my focus, to envision the glow radiating out from them. One concentrated, well-placed blast of healing energy: that’s all I was asking for. But was the numbness due to arcane forces gathering within? Or simply hyperventilation from quick gasps of putrid air?

“Welcome,” Lewis sneered, “to my reign.”

I don’t know why, but at that moment a memory sprang to mind. I saw my grandfather on the sun dappled bank of a stream; squatting beside me, he pointed at the gurgling water and mouthed words I was too young to remember. But that was all it took.

I didn’t need to see my golden cord to know it had returned. I felt it tethered to me like a weight that had previously been missing, anchoring me to my distant body and the world my grandfather had lived in. At the same time, my hands were engulfed in auras of dazzling light. Like the white hot centers of twin explosions, rays burst from central points in my palms and streamed out, dissolving swaths of this false reality in their wake.

The beams of light spun around Albert Lewis like strands of a cocoon, wrapping his body in their brilliance as stone walls quaked and crumbled. I heard his scream, a yell of unadulterated anger amid the rumble of his construct falling away into the void. The monster he’d created stumbled as if the floor had just been pulled out from under and its individual heads glared at their insane creator.

“Die! Die! Die!” They chanted in unison and within seconds the call was picked up by every desiccated soul within the chamber. Some gurgled through a froth of blood, others wheezed from gill-like slits carved into necks, but one voice blared louder than the others; only the raw tightness of my vocal chords clued me into the fact that the voice was my own. “Die! Die! Die!”

Defiant to the end, Albert Lewis fought back. I felt his darkness seep into my beams of light like an oil slick polluting a river. It reached out with malicious tendrils, attempting to trace the energy back to the source as if following its own golden cord.

A tsunami of images crashed over my consciousness. I saw the people he’d chained in his cellar, heard their whimpered pleas as they begged for mercy. I felt organs beneath my fingers, like slippery pouches of warm velvet, tasted the salty tang of blood, and swelled with a god-like sense of dominion. I looked through his eyes, relived his memories, and felt what he had felt.

“Damn it, Chuck!” Control’s voice severed the bond as cleanly as a cleaver and the entire cut scene exploded in a burst so brilliant it could have been the birth of a star.

When the glare faded, I found myself in the arms of a woman with auburn hair. My cheek still stung from her slaps but she cradled my head in her arms as tears streamed from eyes that sparkled like perfectly cut sapphires. The stench of decay was replaced by a slightly floral perfume and she placed a soft, warm hand against my face.

“Don’t you ever pull anything like that again. Do you hear me? Ever.”

And there, in my little office far underground, Control held me and allowed her purple blouse to absorb my tears.

The first warning in the handbook states, in no uncertain terms, that there’s some malevolent shit out there. What it doesn’t tell you is sometimes it follows you back. Like the hitchhiking souls in Jewell’s moth theory, it tags along for the ride, returning to the world from which it came.

I feel him in me, lurking in the depths of my subconscious and wonder how pretty Control’s head would be if it were missing an eye or two. I imagine her chained in my basement, how vibrant and red the blood would be against her smooth, pale skin… her voice screaming a hymn to the glory of my will…

I fight it with meditation. I fight it with prayer and a hundred little kindness bestowed upon strangers.

I fight it.

But it’s getting harder.

Last night, having pulled the information from her file, I found myself on the sidewalk outside Control’s apartment. I watched her silhouette undress through a lit window and stroked the cool blade of a knife through my pocket.

It won’t be much longer now. I’m as sure of this as I am powerless to stop it. She would be so lovely turned inside out, with her viscera quivering like a frightened pet.

No, not much longer; I feel myself slipping away and know it’s only a matter of time before I lose control…

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Searching for Hannah: My Experiences as a Volunteer

Around 1:20 AM on Saturday, September 13^th, eighteen year-old Hannah Graham disappeared. Shortly before this, the University of Virginia sophomore was captured by various surveillance cameras as she walked through the Downtown Mall, a pedestrian area near the university which is home to a variety of restaurants, shops, art galleries, and offices. Even at such an early hour, the eight-block strip still had a decent flow of foot traffic. Yet somehow, after sending a text to friends informing them that she was lost, Hannah disappeared without a trace.

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Nearly a week after she went missing, volunteers were sought to perform a massive undertaking: to search the entire city of Charlottesville, Virginia for any signs of the missing student in the course of a single weekend. Being only a few hours away from the University of Virginia, my family and I decided to lend our assistance to the effort. After pre-registering on one of the official sites, we drove up to Charlottesville, picked my sister up from the train station, and made our way to the search and rescue command center, which had been set up in the John Paul Jones Arena on the UVA campus. Once there, a bevy of volunteers directed us to the registration area; after providing identification and signing a waiver, we were given wrist bands which we were not allowed to remove and assigned a time to meet on Saturday morning. After this, we were seated within the arena to await the 7:00 PM briefing.

Having arrived early, we watched the seats fill up over the course of several hours. Around 1500 people had preregistered online with several hundred more showing up to register in person. The turnout was so large in fact, that organizers had to forgo the official registration process for a large number of volunteers until after the conference had concluded. For this same reason, the meeting also started a little later than initially planned.

Once it began, various search and rescue officials provided an overview of the operation, advising us of exactly what we would be looking for and giving some detail of what to expect when we showed up in the morning. I was most impressed with Police Chief Tim Longo. Though a very stern and imposing looking man, he was very passionate as he addressed the crowd of volunteers as well as optimistic. He, and the others, repeatedly stressed that the point of the search was to bring Hannah home. He did, however, share some legal information pertinent to what we’d be doing. Some of it was fairly obvious, such as not touching anything we found which may be of evidentiary value. However, we were also advised about private property. Though we couldn’t enter private property without risking anything found there being inadmissible, we were free to look into and even photograph the yards if we were standing on a public street or sidewalk.

After the meeting concluded, the remainder of the volunteers stayed behind to finish registration

At the mission briefing

while we went to find some dinner and check into our hotel. Knowing an arduous day would be before us, we called it a night fairly early, ensuring we would be well-rested for the coming day.

Saturday morning, it was boots on the ground at 9:00 AM. We met back at the arena and had to go through registration again, this time also providing the unique ID number printed on our wristbands as well as our names. Once this was accomplished, we were seated in a staging area within the arena. From there, volunteers with previous search and rescue, first responder, or military experience were identified and separated from the pack, being taken to a separate briefing so they could serve as team leaders. The rest of us were advised that that the searches would be divided into roughly two types of areas: wooded terrain and urban. As my family and I are avid hikers, we volunteered for the heavy terrain regions, reasoning that we would more readily be able to identify things which looked out of place or unusual in a forest setting.

From these two distinct groups, we were further broken down into teams of six to ten individuals. Each team had a team leader, as previously mentioned, as well as a communications officer, who was responsible for keeping in contact with the command center, checking in at predetermined intervals, and reporting anything of interest which was found. Our team consisted of my stepdad, mom, sister, and me, as well as three young men from a nearby town who all serve in the army together.

Once assembled, we went over a map of the area we would be searching, an overview of what type of terrain we could expect, and were advised it would take around four hours to thoroughly search our assigned territory. After the briefing was concluded, our team loaded onto a bus and was driven to our drop point.

Some of the terrain we were searching

Our area consisted of a meandering foot path that was roughly parallel to the Highway 250 Bypass. In places the woods were extremely thick with briars and brambles blocking the way as well as steep inclines to contend with. We’d fanned out through the area, moving slowly, methodically, and literally leaving no stone left unturned. We stooped to peer beneath the underbrush, scattered piles of leaves, and shined our flashlights into drainage culverts which fed into small streams. We searched stone cisterns so old that the forest had nearly overtaken them and walked the perimeter of a stagnant pond. A little ways of from the trail, I came across a tent set up in a small clearing with pieces of duct tape littering the ground. With our team leader, we called out multiple times asking if anyone was in the tent and then advising them that we were opening it up. Inside, there were only some flattened boxes. It looked for all intents and purposes to be the encampment of a homeless person, but pictures were still taken and sent back to the command center just in case. Fanning out again, my sister and mom discovered a pile of bones which were eventually confirmed to be deer but had to be ruled out anyway, since at least five girls have gone missing from this area in the last five years with only one ever actually being recovered. While the rest of the team waited for someone to show up to look at the bones, one of the team members and I set out to follow some tire tracks I’d discovered fairly close to the pond and which looked to be approximately a week old. Though that search proved fruitless, we later learned that divers were going to be dispatched to the pond.

I’d volunteered to be part of this search because I felt for Hannah’s family. They are living through every parent’s worst nightmare and if there was anything I could do to help alleviate even a fraction of that stress and worry, I was all in. What I didn't take into account, however, was the psychological and emotional impact these types of operations have. It didn't take long before it almost began feeling like Hannah was someone I personally knew, a friend of the family or perhaps a cousin whom I hadn’t seen for some time. This emotional connection with a girl I’d never actually met sometimes made the task of searching difficult.

The search organizers and police were all extremely optimistic. The official name of the project was “Bring Hannah Home”, but that was also our stated goal: to find this young woman and bring her back. Hannah, however, had disappeared from an urban area, not while walking along the dirt trail which formed the backbone of our search radius. Though no one came right out and openly said it, I think it was probably in the back of all of our minds: out there in the woods, we weren't searching for a living girl who was being held captive. We were searching for a body. We searched with our noses as well as our eyes. We watched hawks as they flew across the sky to see if they began circling. We tried to remain optimistic. We tried to remain hopeful. But it was hard at times.

Once we’d reached the end of the woods, we crossed the highway and headed back toward the rendezvous point, searching the hillside and berm for anything which may have been tossed from a moving vehicle. Every so often, cars would honk their horns and give us a thumb’s up as they passed and this outpouring of community support is what really choked me up. I’m not really sure why. It was just one of those emotional triggers that appear when you least expect it. But that was when I truly realized exactly how deeply this operation was affecting me.

Once we returned to the command center, our team leaders went to a debriefing while we refilled our backpacks with bottled water and snacks as well as hungrily devouring pizza, all thoughtfully provided by The American Red Cross. We’d been combing the woods for four hours and were required to take a half an hour break before being allowed another assignment. Once that half an hour had passed, however, our team reassembled, had a mini-briefing concerning our new search area and objectives, and then it was boots on the ground again.

This time our search area was more urban. While it did include some wooded plots, we mostly

Bravo-25

walked through neighborhoods, checking storm drains, dumpsters, piles of leaves and brush, and even shining our flashlights into the commodes of Porta-potties. In this area, our main goal was to find evidence: Hannah’s clothing, her shoes, her iPhone… anything which would help generate leads for the police. However after nearly another four hours our search was complete and we began walking back to the command center. I found, however, that the search is never really complete. As we walked along the sidewalks, our eyes were still scanning our surroundings. My stepdad still checked rain gutters along the roadway and we veered away from the sidewalks to look through areas of dense vegetation. 

Eventually, though we trudged back onto the UVA campus. With only a couple hours of daylight remaining, no more groups were being sent out, so we checked out with the registration volunteers and found a small, English pub to have a bite of dinner. While smoking in the parking lot, however, I still found myself drawn to the hillsides, my eyes searching the trees and creek below for the metallic sparkle of her shirt, her phone’s pink casing, or her white shoes.

We were all profoundly disappointed. We’d wanted so desperately for Hannah to be found; it didn’t necessarily even have to be our group which found her. At the very least, we wanted something to be found. While we did hear several promising reports come over the radio throughout the search, at the end of the day there was still no trace of Hannah Elizabeth Graham. With heavy hearts and minds, we made the long journey home, physically and emotionally exhausted.

A $50,000 reward is now being offered in hopes of soliciting tips that could lead police to Hannah Graham.

The City of Charlottesville and the University of Virginia are each offering $10,000. In addition, some local residents and businesses have contributed $30,000 to the reward.

If you have information that could help investigators, call the special Hannah Graham tip line at 434-295-3851.

Parkersburg: A Brief Retrospective

It was the year 2000.  The Y2K Bug had come and gone without wrecking the nation’s infrastructure and ushering in the end of days.  Farrell, Devin, and I had just moved back to West Virginia after a miserable winter living in Illinois and we were staying in one half of an old farmhouse my mother was buying which had been converted into a duplex.  We were a twenty minute drive from the nearest paved road and even further from the closest town.  Even that little hamlet, however, had little to offer.  There was a Wal-Mart built upon the grounds where an insane asylum had once stood, a one screen movie theater, Foodland, and a dying sweater factory.  Work was hard to come by without committing yourself to an hour and a half drive to the nearest cities.  Times were good, but lean.  We made do with the little we had, Farrell read books aloud each night in lieu of the family clustering around a television or computer; we hiked through rolling hills and happened upon houses so old and cut off that they were nothing more than rotting boards which had collapsed into overgrown foundations.  Every few nights, the extended family gathered around a bonfire and swapped stories or listened to CDs by Pete Seeger or ones with Native American folktales and lore while the kids chased each other through the darkness.  It was a simple, honest life with the aforementioned lack of employment opportunities being the biggest detractor.

Up to this point in our lives, both Farrell and I had been possessed by gypsy feet.  We tended to never stay in one place for too long, always brimming with excitement to see and experience whatever happened to lie just around the next bend.  However, we’d come to realize that this lifestyle wasn’t exactly fair to our son.  We wanted him to have the chance to grow up and go to school with the same kids every year instead of making new friends on a regular basis;  we wanted more stability and security in our lives for his sake if nothing else. 

I’d been filling out applications and submitting resumes everywhere I could find when I was finally offered a position as a customer service representative at the Coldwater Creek call center/warehouse.  The job was located in Parkersburg, which we knew very little about.  Farrell had gone to a club there with some friends years earlier but that was about the extent of our experience.  We didn’t know anyone there, didn’t have any friends or relatives in the area… but we decided this was the opportunity we’d been waiting for.  When we moved into our first Parkersburg apartment, we took a vow to stay in this area until our son graduated High School, no matter what it took.

It wasn’t always easy to keep that vow.  There were times when our gypsy feet called to us, times when financial strain tempted us to move on to more lucrative pastures;  but we always pressed on, keeping true to our word.  Parkersburg truly became our son’s hometown.  He can’t go anywhere in this city without seeing people he knows and its landmarks brim with memories and experiences.  But something a little unexpected happened along the way.  Not only did it become his hometown, but it became ours as well.  We’d always thought that once he graduated, we’d move on.  Perhaps to the beach.  Perhaps to Texas or Arizona.  But we never did.  There have been great times here and tough times as well… but all in all, Parkersburg has been good to us.  We’ve made friends with some really wonderful people in this area, folks we probably never would have known if not for the pledge we made to one another; we know the streets intimately, the shortcuts, and bus schedules, the yearly festivals, and which hospitals have the shortest ER wait times.  We have a bevy of stories set in this little city, memories which will follow us until the day we die.

Now, fourteen years after making that vow, Farrell and I are preparing to move back to the Charleston area.  She has classes there which require her to drive an hour and a half each way on a daily basis and, after months of being unemployed, I finally snagged a job at a chemical plant in that neck of the woods.  I grew up in the area surrounding Charleston and both Farrell and I spent quite a bit of time there up to our early twenties.  So one would think it would feel like a homecoming of sorts.  But it doesn’t really.  Instead, it feels like we’re leaving home.

True story.

Why We Want an Apocalypse

An essay/excerpt from my current work in progress, "Fuck It, Let's Have an Apocalypse":

Prologue:

Manifesto

People want to know why the fuck we want an apocalypse.  I’ll tell you why.  It’s because we’ve had it up to here with having it up to here, because we trade in the hours of our lives for paychecks that never stretch as far as we need.  Because of this, we prioritize basic necessities and juggle them like ass-clowns in a three ring clusterfuck:  can we put off the electric for another month to make sure that water’s not disconnected first thing Monday morning… and if we pay the water, exactly how much will that leave for food and shelter?  So what’s the solution then?  We delude ourselves into believing we only have to work longer and harder, we drag downtrodden and bedraggled asses home for a few, sparse hours before stumbling out of bed and starting the whole damn farce anew.  We poise ourselves behind desks and counters, behind registers and phones, counting down the minutes and seconds with no true sense of pride or achievement.   We’re just meat in a seat, more human resources to be used up and cast aside once we’re so burned out we’re simply cinders rattling around in otherwise empty husks.

We’re the ones who’ve tried playing by the rules, damn it.  We’ve done everything we’re supposed to, tried so valiantly to be productive and functioning parts of society;  we’ve clung to the bullshit we were fed in school until our hands are raw and bleeding, until our bodies feel as though they’re about to collapse under the strain.  But there comes a time when we have to scream, “ENOUGH!!”

We’ve had enough of discipline-deprived children running amok through labyrinths of cans and boxes while so-called parents laugh and smile, pretending their little terrors can do no wrong; is it any wonder so many youngsters have an over-inflated sense of entitlement and infallibility? When our offspring are supplicated like miniature Gods, they’ll behave accordingly, free of consequence or personal responsibility.   Like all deities, though, some reigns are destined to end.  After being indulged and coddled for the first few years of life, they’re shipped off to school and drugged into slack-jawed zombies when it’s found they can’t sit still. 

We’ve been brought up to believe that we should all be hypersensitive, that the key to a happy and healthy life is tunneling down into the core of deep-seated psychological traumas; we’re told we are broken, that we’re damaged toys whose windup keys can only be repaired by introspection and internal filibusters.  But maybe we just need to keep busy with things that really count.  Maybe we spend too much god damn time within the brambles our own heads and not enough with our hands, building and creating and clawing forward instead of looking back.  Or maybe we just haven’t had enough prescriptions to strangle such a ludicrous idea, because if there’s one thing we can count on it’s that we all get our meds.

Speaking of which, we’re fed up with taking pills to treat the side-effects of the pills we’re taking to patch what’s wrong with us in the first place.  Anal leakage, chemical color blindness, suicidal ideation,  fatigue, hair loss, and potential birth defects:  such a small price to pay to ensure we can get it up well into our twilight years or continue eating spicy foods indiscriminately.   The commercials for these pills tell us to ask our doctors if a prescription is right for us, but doesn’t that seem a little backward?  Isn’t the point of an office visit for a trained professional to utilize his or her education and experience to determine a course of treatment?  But if the ads say we should ask our doctor, then who are we to question?  After all, the commercials tell us how to be popular, how to behave, what to like, and what to think;  they program our brains with insecurity, fear, and doubt and then offer the snake oil to make it all go away.  Better living through fabric softener and increased sex appeal via car insurance.  Clothes, diapers, pet food, and candy: they disguise our wants as needs and we buy into it hook, line, and sinker.  That’s the true propaganda of this age:  it’s not political, but consumer driven.  And we’re inundated with it nearly every minute of every day.

When we turn on our televisions, horror and atrocities are beamed directly into our living rooms with high definition, surround sound clarity.   Crazed men eating faces on busy highways, rape, murder, genocide, war, pestilence, famine, and death… but first, a word from our sponsor.  We’re all fat and gassy and have horrible skin, but here’s an easy fix that doesn’t require us to make any changes to our personal habits at all.  Now back to the newsroom where we see there’s been yet another school shooting, so here’s some footage of grieving parents and teachers to tide us over until the special interest groups have a chance to advance their own religious and political agendas by exploiting the suffering and pain of others. 

But why should we expect anything different or anything more? Politics has become a team sport, complete with rabid supporters waving pennants while the rest of us huddle in the rain outside the stadium.  If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll help us forget we’re wet and cold; maybe they’ll distract us with glitz and glitter, another fucking celebrity wedding/death/divorce/scandal… or perhaps a PSA about the evils of bullying so we can feel righteous indignation before returning to a singing contest where judges attack hopeful contestants who dared to believe in themselves, washing away their dreams in tsunamis of tears as they’re assaulted with words specifically designed to inflict maximum emotional damage. 

We see all this and so much more.  We reject it just as a stomach purges itself of an influx of poison.  We refuse to choke it back down.  We refuse to take part in the madness any longer.  In the parlance of the day, we’re a significant sample of the demographic who just want to see it all burn.

Why the fuck do we want an apocalypse?  Shit, man… isn’t it obvious?

Blasts from the Past

This evening I discovered how to recover my old Myspace blogs and have spent the last hour or so reading through them.  Below are some of my favorite highlights:


Re: Food Day
11/11/2005

For those who do not know, I have been working for Blue Cross and Blue Shield for a little over a year now.  Being that health insurance is our game, approximately every other day or so we will get the "Healthy Workplace" newsletter or memos from the Wellness Committee or one of a thousand other ways they have of promoting a healthy lifestyle for their employees.

Keeping this in mind, also consider the fact that today --to show their appreciation-- the company hosted a "tailgate party" themed buffet in the new basement lunchroom.  The menu consisted of buffalo wings dripping with sauce, hot dogs with every topping imaginable, a veritable smorgasborg of chips and dip, and enough varieties of cookies, brownies, and desserts to send a diabetic into sugar shock just be looking at them.  To begin with, I had to question the wisdom of encouring a bunch of people who spend all day typing to munch on super-saturated wings between calls.  I also couldn't help but wonder if the Wellness Comittee were locked away in some janitor's closet while this orgy of sugar and spicy spilled out in the halls and stair wells.  Or perhaps they were huddled in an office, plotting their counter-offensive to this blatant act of agression.

As I was shoveling the chili and melted nacho cheese from football shaped crock pots onto my mound of tortilla  chips,  realization began to dawn upon me.  Many a morning has passed with the cheerful phrase "Donuts In the Conference Room" scrawled across the whiteboard.  We also get massive amounts of pizza ordered by management on a semi-reular basis.  But the moment of clarity, the grand ephiphany, came when thinking back to the Health and Wellness Fair on employee appreciaton day.  The Wellness Committee had a table set up at the bottom of the stairs where you could stop by and get a bag to put all your paperwork from the various vendors in.  However, when they gave you the bag they also generously threw in a couple handfuls of Tootsie Rolls for good measure.

And that's when I realized that the Wellness Committee is a sham, a ruse, an Orwellien wet dream brought to life in this corporate post-1984 society of mouse-pushers.  Having come to that great conclusion, I also realized that Freedom is Slavery, two plus two really can equal five, and that I could display that extra brownie proudly atop my mountain of BBQ chips instead of trying to hide it shamefully within its caverns.


I used to be a Writer
11/16/2005

I used to be a writer and not too bad of one, if I do say so myself. But it has been years since I have actually seriously written anything. Farrell likes to joke that I am the only writer she knows of who struggles to get published and then quits once it finally happens. Not that it was a conscious decision, though. Sometimes I wonder if I simply did so many drugs that the uber-creative portion of my mind was burned away. If somewhere between all the weed and acid and alcohol, that beautiful little ember simply winked out of existence. I can still occasionally string together words that I like the sound of, but I can no longer go to that place where I watch the story develop on the page or screen without really knowing where it is going. It was a lot like automatic writing or watching a movie that was comprised of letters and words. I was part spectator, part director... and that was the true magick for me. That was the appeal and the draw. I miss it.


Who the Hell Am I Anyway?
1/11/2006

When I was at the dojo the other night, there was a guy there who I had not met yet.  Apparently, he has had some problems with one of his knees and also a hernia, so he has been out for a while.  While taking a water break, introductions were made:

"This is Greg . . . I don't think you've met him yet"

Extending the glad hand, I stepped forward and replied, in all sincerity and honesty, "Nice to meet you, Greg . . . . I'm Sam.  Uh, I mean Todd"


It's pretty bad when you can't remember your own name.  Farrell thinks I've probably started a rumor circulating that I am involved in the witness protection program, but I think it may be closer to the truth that I am in the Witless Protection Program.


Happy Garden Adventure
1/31/2006

After work yesterday, Farrell and I stopped at Happy Garden to place an order for some Chinese takeout.  Happy Garden is basically the first (or last, depending on which way you are approaching it) store in an L shaped shopping plaza on the southside.  As we were going through the parking lot, Farrell asked if I thought it would be ok if she just parked in front of the store since there were no signs warning of fire lanes and such.  After a small discussion, we came to the conclussion that parking in front would be ok since I would just be running in, placing our order, getting a cold drink to go, and then returning to the car.

Once I was inside, I realized that I was not willing to pay the price they were wanting for a 12 ounce can of cola and would just have Farrell drive me up to the cheap machines at the other side of the plaza while we were waiting for our food to be prepared.

Leaving the store, I opened the door of our monstrosity and got in.  For some reason, the first thing I noticed was a copy of Maxim in the floorbaord that had a picture of Hillary Duff on the cover.  I did not remember seeing the magazine in the floorboard but Farrell had been telling me how she had to pick up Devin from school because he was sick and Devin had been wanting a magazine of some sort just a day or so before, so the thought crossed my mind that maybe she had picked up it somewhere for him and I had simply not noticed before. The entire time all of this was going on in my head, I was prattling on and on about how outrageous the price of drinks were in there and that I wasn't going to pay that much for a can of Coke.

At this point, I looked away from the magazine and over at Farrell . . . only to see that my wife had been replaced by a forty-something woman with curly hair whose eyes were almost perfectly round with shock.  Her mouth was open and she kept trying to say something but words would not come out.  For a fraction of a second, I felt like I had slipped through some gash in the fabric of reality and plopped down in the upholstered seat of an alternate reality.  Then I realized what had happened.

I blurted out some sort of hurried apology, threw open the door, and escaped.  I scanned the parking lot quickly and noticed our Monstrosity parked in one of the parking spaces across from the Happy Garden . . . not directly in front of the doors where this other Monstrosity had pulled in to take the spot that Farrell had left vacant during the three minutes it took me to place the order.


Farrell, of course found this hysterical and laughed so hard that she was literally crying and pounding the steering wheel with her fists.  I, personally, was just happy to get out of the situation without suffering a face full of mace or a swift kick to the head.


For Once the Cosmos Didn't Laugh
12/10/2006

It seems that almost anytime there is any type of astronomical event that I really want to see, the cosmos conspires against me in some sort of cruel joke.  I have missed lunar eclipses, countless meteor showers, and many other events because the night sky is always too cloudy.

However, for once atmospheric conditions were in my favor.  I woke up at 6:15 this morning (which is super early for me . . . especially on a Sunday), bundled up in the warmest clothes I could find, grabbed a hot cup of coffee, and headed out with Moe to the cemetery near our house.  I went to the cemetery because you get a really great view of the sky from just about anywhere . . . if I would have stayed close to the house, there would have been countless obstructions to my line of sight.

Anyhow, once me and my trusty canine companion reached our destination it didn't take long to find what I was looking for.  It was made easier by the fact that it was pretty close to the horizon in the east-southeast.  Since the horizon was already becoming tinged with the glow of the immanent sunrise, stars weren't visible until much higher in the sky where it was still nice and dark.  Planets, however, were an entirely different story.

And there, shining in the pre-dawn sky, they were: Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars all nestled close together as if huddling for warmth on this below-freezing Sunday morning.  If I closed one eye, straightened my arm, and gave the universe a thumb's up, all three of them could by obscured from view by my little 'ole digit. However, each one of them is actually hundreds of millions of miles apart from the others . . . which really makes you realize how vast space is and how tiny an individual human and his little dog are in the grand scheme of things.

I stood out there for around 40 minutes looking at these three planets and thinking about the universe and my place in it.  It may seem like quite a bit of time to just be looking at the sky but these three planets will not be this close to one another again until 2053.  And if I am lucky enough to live that long, I would like to think that I will be standing in the dark somewhere, cussing the cloudy overcast sky, and remembering when I last viewed the planetary neighbors in the days of my youth.


Weekend with my Brother
06/18/2007

Over the weekend we drove to my mom's house to have a blow-out bash for my little brother, who is leaving for boot camp today, and a great time was had by all.  There were musician's galore and the back porch had been turned into a make-shift stage for them to perform.  We heard cover songs of Avenge Sevenfold, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and even a growl metal rendition of Ice Ice Baby, during which my little bro stripped down to his skivvies, streaked across the yard, and then proceeded to dance around the stage in a very lewd and hysterical manner.  Following this was a performance by Casey's friend Dwayne.  However, Dwayne was in his full Elvis regalia and could only be referred to as "Dwelvis" as he proceeded to croon through CC Rider, Suspicious Minds, and a bevy of other Elvis tunes.  After that was a break for hot dogs from the grill and marshmallows over the bonfire.  Later, my step dad got up on the stage and dedicated the next song to Casey and everyone joined in for a sing along of Simple Man.  We ended up staying up the entire night, feeding wood to the bonfire, talking, and making memories.

Those who know me well enough know that I have a very scientific mind.  It is hard for me to believe that there is some benevolent being out there somewhere, looking over us, guarding and guiding us through the steps of our lives.  It just sounds like such a fairy tale to me, a way that frightened and distraught minds find comfort and peace in something other than themselves.  A way to explain away everything in life that is unexplainable.  However, I found myself wishing that there was something, someone, out there whom I could implore to keep my little brother safe as he starts off on this newest adventure.  I wanted so badly to be able to plead for divine intervention on his behalf.

But in the end, I have to rely on my little bro, his training, and his own good sense.  Keep your head down, don't take unnecessary chances, and come back in one piece.  I love you, Casey.



First Publication in 15 Years
12/04/2008

I just wanted to post real quickly that my short story "Breeder" has been published in the December edition of Macabre Cadaver and is under consideration for possible inclusion in the upcoming print anthology to be released by Stark Raven Press.  It's good to be writing again :)