And now there is FROOGLE!
I love those Google boys…
And now there is FROOGLE!
I love those Google boys…
This is an actual conversation of two self-proclaimed hackers, overheard moments ago:
1: This is my webpage! Yeah, it’s amazing except for the fact it only loads in Internet Explorer!
2: Cool… Are those full sized pictures scaled down to thumbnails?
1: Yeah, they are… I figured it was easier than making a bunch of small ones, you know?
Selected items from the 2002 World’s Largest Scavenger Hunt (And yes, all of these are real.):
“I know now why you cry…but it is something I could never do.” A maximum 10-minute (spliced) video rendition of The King and I. Of course, the king must be played by Sir Arnold Schwarzenegger, and, in fact, Arnold should also play “I.” Come to think of it, Arnold should play all characters. Be sure to include the following lines somewhere in the production: “Give these people air!” “I eat Green Berets for breakfast, and right now I’m very hungry,” “Is it a water-heater?” “Hey, I’m a police officer,” and “These people, they tried to kill me, but I killed them.” [218 points]
The destructive power of rock: have a guitar ensemble play any of Slash’s 3 solos from “November Rain” in perfect unison (personally, we prefer the third solo on the album, but we’ll settle for the first). This item can be performed at any time between Item and Item , as long as the Head Judge is present. [60 points per guitarist; 5 guitarists maximum. 10 bonus points will also be awarded on the basis of your destruction: in other words, your ensemble must rock so hard that they break open some sort of glass container with their sound waves. It will not count against you if your guitarists are dressed as ninjas, which are cool. And by cool, we mean totally sweet]
Find a Jeeves or an Alfred enrolled at Butler University and take a picture of his ID. [80 points]
Using locals, re-enact the opening of The Drew Carey Show. [34 points]
In honor of Martha McClintock, create the perfume that killed Grenoulle. [88 points]
Every item from the ransom list in Airheads. [100 points]
At 8h00 on Friday, one non-captain member of your team must arrive at 54th and Kimbark (don’t get lost) They might want to bring $60 in personal burial money, a ripe orange, 15 sheets of lined paper (or a Big Chief tablet), one can of caffeine-free Coca Cola, two perfectly-glazed donuts, a valid U.S. passport, a plastic bag from Blockbuster Video, month-old menthol cigarettes, and a transcript reflecting a GPA of less than 2.5. That is all they can bring. Get your goodbyes out of the way beforehand. [510 points]
From a MeFi thread about the recent IKEA bombings in Holland:
You think the bomb is because of the child labor. That is because you crazy. The child feels nothing. And the new lamp is much better.
A quote from A Salon article, regarding an American couple that were criminally charged after dropping their disabled child off at a hospital, because they felt that they could no longer care for him:
“It’s very disturbing to think a parent would get to the stress level that would cause them to abandon a child,” said Diane Carey, executive director of the Chester County chapter of Association for Retarded Citizens (ARC), an advocacy group for the retarded.
Bullshit. It’s very disturbing to think that someone who runs an agency like ARC would say something that naive about the families they are supposed to be helping.
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,
“Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against, because they have been wronged and surely, Allah is Able to give them (believers) victory” [Quran 22:39]
“Those who believe, fight in the Cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve, fight in the cause of Taghut (anything worshipped other than Allah e.g. Satan). So fight you against the friends of Satan; ever feeble is indeed the plot of Satan.”[Quran 4:76]
Some American writers have published articles under the title ‘On what basis are we fighting?’ These articles have generated a number of responses, some of which adhered to the truth and were based on Islamic Law, and others which have not. Here we wanted to outline the truth – as an explanation and warning – hoping for Allah’s reward, seeking success and support from Him.
While seeking Allah’s help, we form our reply based on two questions directed at the Americans:
(Q1) Why are we fighting and opposing you?
Q2)What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
As for the first question: Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple:
(1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.
a) You attacked us in Palestine:
(i) Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its*price, and pay for it heavily.
(ii) It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed. Muslims believe in all of the Prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this.
When the Muslims conquered Palestine and drove out the Romans, Palestine and Jerusalem returned to Islaam, the religion of all the Prophets peace be upon them. Therefore, the call to a historical right to Palestine cannot be raised against the Islamic Ummah that believes in all the Prophets of Allah (peace and blessings be upon them) – and we make no distinction between them.
(iii) The blood pouring out of Palestine must be equally revenged. You must know that the Palestinians do not cry alone; their women are not widowed alone; their sons are not orphaned alone.
(b) You attacked us in Somalia; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon.
(c) Under your supervision, consent and orders, the governments of our countries which act as your agents, attack us on a daily basis;
(i) These governments prevent our people from establishing the Islamic Shariah, using violence and lies to do so.
(ii) These governments give us a taste of humiliation, and places us in a large prison of fear and subdual.
(iii) These governments steal our Ummah’s wealth and sell them to you at a paltry price.
(iv) These governments have surrendered to the Jews, and handed them most of Palestine, acknowledging the existence of their state over the dismembered limbs of their own people.
(v) The removal of these governments is an obligation upon us, and a necessary step to free the Ummah, to make the Shariah the supreme law and to regain Palestine. And our fight against these governments is not separate from out fight against you.
(d) You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of you international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.
(e) Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures.
(f) You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day. It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern. Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down.
(g) You have supported the Jews in their idea that Jerusalem is their eternal capital, and agreed to move your embassy there. With your help and under your protection, the Israelis are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque. Under the protection of your weapons, Sharon entered the Al-Aqsa mosque, to pollute it as a preparation to capture and destroy it.
(2) These tragedies and calamities are only a few examples of your oppression and aggression against us. It is commanded by our religion and intellect that the oppressed have a right to return the aggression. Do not await anything from us but Jihad, resistance and revenge. Is it in any way rational to expect that after America has attacked us for more than half a century, that we will then leave her to live in security and peace?!!
(3) You may then dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which they did not partake:
(a) This argument contradicts your continuous repetition that America is the land of freedom, and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American people are the ones who choose their government by way of their own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.
(b) The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected candidates.
(c) Also the American army is part of the American people. It is this very same people who are shamelessly helping the Jews fight against us.
(d) The American people are the ones who employ both their men and their women in the American Forces which attack us.
(e) This is why the American people cannot be not innocent of all the crimes committed by the Americans and Jews against us.
(f) Allah, the Almighty, legislated the permission and the option to take revenge. Thus, if we are attacked, then we have the right to attack back. Whoever has destroyed our villages and towns, then we have the right to destroy their villages and towns. Whoever has stolen our wealth, then we have the right to destroy their economy. And whoever has killed our civilians, then we have the right to kill theirs.
The American Government and press still refuses to answer the question:
Why did they attack us in New York and Washington?
If Sharon is a man of peace in the eyes of Bush, then we are also men of peace!!! America does not understand the language of manners and principles, so we are addressing it using the language it understands.
(Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.
(a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them – peace be upon them all.
It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language.
(b) It is the religion whose book – the Quran – will remained preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Quran is the miracle until the Day of Judgment. Allah has challenged anyone to bring a book like the Quran or even ten verses like it.
(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.
(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling’s, and trading with interest.
We call you to all of this that you may be freed from that which you have become caught up in; that you may be freed from the deceptive lies that you are a great nation, that your leaders spread amongst you to conceal from you the despicable state to which you have reached.
(b) It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind:
(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator. You flee from the embarrassing question posed to you: How is it possible for Allah the Almighty to create His creation, grant them power over all the creatures and land, grant them all the amenities of life, and then deny them that which they are most in need of: knowledge of the laws which govern their lives?
(ii) You are the nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all the religions. Yet you build your economy and investments on Usury. As a result of this, in all its different forms and guises, the Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have then taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense; precisely what Benjamin Franklin warned you against.
(iii) You are a nation that permits the production, trading and usage of intoxicants. You also permit drugs, and only forbid the trade of them, even though your nation is the largest consumer of them.
(iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.
Who can forget your President Clinton’s immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he ‘made a mistake’, after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?
(v) You are a nation that permits gambling in its all forms. The companies practice this as well, resulting in the investments becoming active and the criminals becoming rich.
(vi) You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools calling upon customers to purchase them. You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of women.
(vii) You are a nation that practices the trade of sex in all its forms, directly and indirectly. Giant corporations and establishments are established on this, under the name of art, entertainment, tourism and freedom, and other deceptive names you attribute to it.
(viii) And because of all this, you have been described in history as a nation that spreads diseases that were unknown to man in the past. Go ahead and boast to the nations of man, that you brought them AIDS as a Satanic American Invention.
(xi) You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history. Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and*industries.
(x) Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts. Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy.
(xi) That which you are singled out for in the history of mankind, is that you have used your force to destroy mankind more than any other nation in history; not to defend principles and values, but to hasten to secure your interests and profits. You who dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan, even though Japan was ready to negotiate an end to the war. How many acts of oppression, tyranny and injustice have you carried out, O callers to freedom?
(xii) Let us not forget one of your major characteristics: your duality in both manners and values; your hypocrisy in manners and principles. All*manners, principles and values have two scales: one for you and one for the others.
(a)The freedom and democracy that you call to is for yourselves and for white race only; as for the rest of the world, you impose upon them your monstrous, destructive policies and Governments, which you call the ‘American friends’. Yet you prevent them from establishing democracies. When the Islamic party in Algeria wanted to practice democracy and they won the election, you unleashed your agents in the Algerian army onto them, and to attack them with tanks and guns, to imprison them and torture them – a new lesson from the ‘American book of democracy’!!!
(b)Your policy on prohibiting and forcibly removing weapons of mass destruction to ensure world peace: it only applies to those countries which you do not permit to possess such weapons. As for the countries you consent to, such as Israel, then they are allowed to keep and use such weapons to defend their security. Anyone else who you suspect might be manufacturing or keeping these kinds of weapons, you call them criminals and you take military action against them.
(c)You are the last ones to respect the resolutions and policies of International Law, yet you claim to want to selectively punish anyone else who does the same. Israel has for more than 50 years been pushing UN resolutions and rules against the wall with the full support of America.
(d)As for the war criminals which you censure and form criminal courts for – you shamelessly ask that your own are granted immunity!! However, history will not forget the war crimes that you committed against the Muslims and the rest of the world; those you have killed in Japan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon and Iraq will remain a shame that you will never be able to escape. It will suffice to remind you of your latest war crimes in Afghanistan, in which densely populated innocent civilian villages were destroyed, bombs were dropped on mosques causing the roof of the mosque to come crashing down on the heads of the Muslims praying inside. You are the ones who broke the agreement with the Mujahideen when they left Qunduz, bombing them in Jangi fort, and killing more than 1,000 of your prisoners through suffocation and thirst. Allah alone knows how many people have died by torture at the hands of you and your agents. Your planes remain in the Afghan skies, looking for anyone remotely suspicious.
(e)You have claimed to be the vanguards of Human Rights, and your Ministry of Foreign affairs issues annual reports containing statistics of those countries that violate any Human Rights. However, all these things vanished when the Mujahideen hit you, and you then implemented the methods of the same documented governments that you used to curse. In America, you captured thousands the Muslims and Arabs, took them into custody with neither reason, court trial, nor even disclosing their names. You issued newer, harsher laws.
What happens in Guatanamo is a historical embarrassment to America and its values, and it screams into your faces – you hypocrites, “What is the value of your signature on any agreement or treaty?”
(3) What we call you to thirdly is to take an honest stance with yourselves – and I doubt you will do so – to discover that you are a nation without principles or manners, and that the values and principles to you are something which you merely demand from others, not that which you yourself must adhere to.
(4) We also advise you to stop supporting Israel, and to end your support of the Indians in Kashmir, the Russians against the Chechens and to also cease supporting the Manila Government against the Muslims in Southern Philippines.
(5) We also advise you to pack your luggage and get out of our lands. We desire for your goodness, guidance, and righteousness, so do not force us to send you back as cargo in coffins.
(6) Sixthly, we call upon you to end your support of the corrupt leaders in our countries. Do not interfere in our politics and method of education. Leave us alone, or else expect us in New York and Washington.
(7) We also call you to deal with us and interact with us on the basis of mutual interests and benefits, rather than the policies of sub dual, theft and occupation, and not to continue your policy of supporting the Jews because this will result in more disasters for you.
If you fail to respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight with the Islamic Nation. The Nation of Monotheism, that puts complete trust on Allah and fears none other than Him. The Nation which is addressed by its Quran with the words: “Do you fear them? Allah has more right that you should fear Him if you are believers. Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of believing people. And remove the anger of their (believers’) hearts. Allah accepts the repentance of whom He wills. Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise.” [Quran9:13-1]
The Nation of honour and respect:
“But honour, power and glory belong to Allah, and to His Messenger (Muhammad- peace be upon him) and to the believers.” [Quran 63:8]
“So do not become weak (against your enemy), nor be sad, and you will be*superior ( in victory )if you are indeed (true) believers” [Quran 3:139]
The Nation of Martyrdom; the Nation that desires death more than you desire life:
“Think not of those who are killed in the way of Allah as dead. Nay, they are alive with their Lord, and they are being provided for. They rejoice in what Allah has bestowed upon them from His bounty and rejoice for the sake of those who have not yet joined them, but are left behind (not yet martyred) that on them no fear shall come, nor shall they grieve. They rejoice in a grace and a bounty from Allah, and that Allah will not waste the reward of the believers.” [Quran 3:169-171]
The Nation of victory and success that Allah has promised:
“It is He Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad peace be upon him) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam), to make it victorious over all other religions even though the Polytheists hate it.” [Quran 61:9]
“Allah has decreed that ‘Verily it is I and My Messengers who shall be victorious.’ Verily Allah is All-Powerful, All-Mighty.” [Quran 58:21]
The Islamic Nation that was able to dismiss and destroy the previous evil Empires like yourself; the Nation that rejects your attacks, wishes to remove your evils, and is prepared to fight you. You are well aware that the Islamic Nation, from the very core of its soul, despises your haughtiness and arrogance.
If the Americans refuse to listen to our advice and the goodness, guidance and righteousness that we call them to, then be aware that you will lose this Crusade Bush began, just like the other previous Crusades in which you were humiliated by the hands of the Mujahideen, fleeing to your home in great silence and disgrace. If the Americans do not respond, then their fate will be that of the Soviets who fled from Afghanistan to deal with their military defeat, political breakup, ideological downfall, and economic bankruptcy.
This is our message to the Americans, as an answer to theirs. Do they now know why we fight them and over which form of ignorance, by the permission of Allah, we shall be victorious?
Have you ever had the feeling that somewhere out there, there is an another you? That there’s another life for you, one perhaps not dissimilar to your own, being lived at this very moment?
Have you ever felt that right now, that other you is experiencing something very real, very profound? That you are, in some way, within sacred space?
…
Canal and Broadway, New York City.
Street lights reflected on wet pavement, and a murmur of cars and conversation that is somehow more solemn than silence.
I really like this quote: “Within every story featuring time travel there really exists two stories: The one about Marty McFly who went back in time and saved Doc Brown from being killed by terrorists and the (much less contemplated) one about Marty McFly who disappeared forever the night Doc Brown was killed.”
1: An observation of two brothers.
They are wearing matching ski jackets, pants, gloves, and headwarmers, but in different neon colours. One, the older one, is fast asleep with a copy of Important Black Men through History forgotten in his lap. The other one, the younger one, is bouncing up and down in his seat, eyes wide with wonder at The Hobbit.
2: A conversation with an old lady.
Her: “You are young, and I hate you. I hate your air of arrogance, of contempt. I hate your blue hair, your leather coat, your aesthetic. I hate everything you stand for, you and all people like you.”
Me: “You hate me because I am young and you do not know me, but you are old, and I have known a thousand of you. Every day, you find me and say those words to me, but there are less of you now than there were yesterday, and tomorrow there will be less still. You hate me because you do not understand me, and you never will. Your hate is fear, and your fear will never move me.”
No one on the bus took notice of this exchange; they did not see the way we looked at each other, how we spoke without words.
It isn’t in my head that I feel these things. It isn’t in my heart, my gut, or my skin. I feel them only at a very great distance.
It hasn’t always been this way.
…
Within antiseptic hospital walls coloured to disarm, all I hear from Dr. Doctor is a low buzz; Something like a hum, but not nearly as sinister. Something that could not possibly hurt me, something that matters so very little as to be insignificant, to be nothing.
What matters is the translation: we don’t know what is wrong. if we try to find out, you may die.
That the odds are in my favour carries a remarkable lack of reassurance.
Dr. Doctor says these same words to a thousand people, and not all of them will live.
…
Have you ever been conflicted?
With winter pounding at the weak spot between your bones, and despair screaming static in your head, have you ever felt blessed?
Have you ever known beauty like this?
Has fortune ever forgotten her scales, and let slip something into your life that you could not have possibly earned?
Have the poets ever been where I am?
Did they ever have anyone like her?
“…the difference between men and women, the difference between men and women. Lots of people talk about the difference between men and women nowadays. But they forget that men and women are very similar in many ways.
Like, for instance, when they are on fire.
You see, it’s not like when men and women are on fire, the man will run around going ‘Goddamit, I’m missing the game’ and the women is thinking ‘Oh, I wish I was shopping and not on fire’. It just tends to be ‘help, help, I’m on fire’ all round.”
jairus is like a normal key-ring, but it swears.
So says the Prior-Art-O-Matic.
dj leslie is a bubble-car that can be controlled remotely! It fits in your pocket.
antigen shift is a breakfast cereal that improves upper-body muscle, automatically updates your weblog when used and connects to the Internet.
dephenestrata is a bedside table that’s water-resistant and has velcro pads on the side.
xorcist is a hair gel that removes stubborn stains! It quacks like a duck.
(I love ducks.)
From an interview with Stromkern:
“I take our music very seriously, I take music in general seriously, maybe too seriously. But that doesn’t mean I can’t poke fun at it when I’m off-camera, so to speak. Maybe we’d be more successful if I’d have some über-spooky website and updated a LiveJournal every day about how I was about to go sacrifice a goat before engaging in a wild sex orgy, but I can’t be bothered, really.”
(and!)

Visit the harsh reality website for details.
Samhain
Halloween
Dia de los Muertos
All Souls Day
These days draw near.
This may explain some things.
…
Celebrate.
This is to be a thin time, after the God has returned to the Summerland, and the veil makes itself known.
The darker and wiser parts of self see light that they have not known, and the dead whisper to the living.
Look ahead of you now, and look behind you.
Know that the worlds are not as distinct as they seem.
Know that you too, will one day be on the other side of the wall.
Look ahead, look behind.
There is something beyond these walls, past these city streets which run empty at night, reflected streetlight on asphalt.
I can taste it in the air sometimes, in those quiet moments where the stillness seems almost holy, and you know that if understanding were to reach you, it would be now.
But it never does.
…
All the holes, scars, burns, inks and modifications i inflict upon myself are with purpose and meaning, to cultivate an aesthetic; to remember, to forget, to learn. They are not born of anger and hatred, of flashpoint emotion and a need to drown out pain.
But sometimes, in those moments, I wonder if I were to take steel to skin, if it really would stain red, or if I would expose something greater, something I cannot possibly know.
…
This illness, this weakness of flesh and spirit takes away what I need to keep myself complacent, what I need to ignore the hidden and muddle through life, concerning myself entirely too much with matters of circumstance.
The nights pass slowly, the protests of the skin screaming through the fatigue, just enough to prevent me from crossing that threshold to sleep.
or
The nights pass slowly, wrapped in dreamworlds where I can live days before I wake, lost in tortured scenarios of death and pain, leaving me grieved and tattered pieces of self to pick up and present to the world the next day.
These emotions and events are made no less real by the fact that I experience them outside of my waking life.
…
I have been here before.
The quality of air, the illness and insomnia, the chemically stained profoundness of the world.
I have been here before.
And when I was, I spent myself on bandaging others and peacekeeping, on moonlit walks through deserted streets, waiting for things to get better.
I will not wait for things to get ‘better’.
I will not lose this.
I will not lose myself.
…
There is something more.
My head is pounding and my legs are weak, so much so that I do not trust them to carry me much further, and my fingers seek out support when I walk, be it a handrail or cubicle wall.
Something about this environment/headspace drives me to write, but when I look over what it is I’ve written, only trite, uninspired words greet me.
…
The fire behind my eyes that makes the world double when I am not paying strict attention is casting a harsh edge on my vision, somehow making the florescent lighting even more cruel to the people I see.
I almost typed there the people I mutter ‘hello’ to — but it occurred to me that I didn’t say hello this morning, not to a single person.
In fact, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen anyone in this building before in my entire life.
If I left now, not a soul would notice. No-one here knows my name, my face, or why it is I come here.
No person would notice, but a mark would be left in some computer database in a place far, far away from here, and I would never be welcome within these walls again.
…
There is something more.