Saturday, December 31, 2011

Hey Look a Post

This is not a story.  I forgot that it's New Year's Eve today, and totally forgot to write something.

2011 was probably the best year of my life so far.  There were bad parts, but the good parts out weight those by, like, a million. And because I forgot to write a story or a poem, here's two quotes by one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman:

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness.  I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art - write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can.  And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."

And......

"I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and like in return.  And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind."

I like these quotes.  These are good quotes. And now go look at Neil's hope for this year, because I'm too lazy to just put it in here myself: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/12/my-new-year-wish.html

Thanks, Mom, for that link :)

So yeah. Let's make 2012 as good a year as 2011 was! :D


Until the apocalypse kills us all and we all come back as zombies :P

Friday, December 23, 2011

The Apocalypse

The Divine and Diabolical powers got impatient and tried to bring about the End in 2011 instead of waiting until 2012. The world came out of it OK, but there's one particular unidentified immortal being who isn't very happy about all of this. And she has something to say about it.

Happy Holidays, everyone :)
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The End had come and gone, and really, the world wasn’t much better or worse for it.  There were just a lot less people and a lot more zombies.  But that was okay, most people reasoned.  Less people meant more resources – thus better lives – for the survivors, and more zombies meant that zombie hunters had more prey to hunt.  So really, the End hadn’t been such a bad thing.

Of course, that was all in the perspective of humans, and humans couldn’t be trusted.

Anna and Alex were sitting in a diner together.  Alex looked like a fairly normal young man.  Perhaps he did scowl a bit more than usual, and yes, perhaps his eyes were an unnatural red, but people these days had learned not to judge.  He was glaring out the window at the hazy drizzle.  Alex didn’t like the rain.

He glanced over at his companion.  Anna was holding a newspaper in front of her face, and her fedora was pulled low over her dark eyes.  Alex knew that even if he spontaneously combusted, she would probably just ignore it.

A zombie stumbled into the diner, roaring and gnashing its teeth.  Four zombie hunters sitting at the bar spun around on their spinning stools and shot it repeatedly until they were sure that the undead was really dead.

Alex yawned and sipped his coffee.  Anna turned a page in her newspaper.

“You'd think,” Anna said after a while, folding her newspaper shut and setting it down carefully on the table, “that people would be talking more about the fact that we just experienced Armageddon.”

“You know what they say.  ‘Talk is cheap, but a wise man chooses when to spend his words’.”

“Yeah, and when that wise man is getting his throat torn out by zombies because he was too much of a prick to scream for help, I’ll be laughing.”

Alex’s eyebrows slowly traveled up his forehead and were quickly concealed by his fantastic hair.  “Someone’s not happy.”

“I’m not paid to be happy.”

“You’re not paid at all.”

Anna sighed huffily and glared at him.  “I wasn’t looking forward to the End, okay?  I quite liked the world the way it was, thank you.  But there wasn’t much I could do about it, considering that I was stuck upside-down in a supply closet until the actual day of the End.  So what I thought, while the blood was rushing to my head, what I thought was, ‘Okay, the world is going to end.  Too bad.  But at least it’ll be something new and interesting, to see the world during the rapture.’  And guess  what, Al?  It wasn’t interesting.”

“…Anna,” Alex said.  “The seas boiled.  The ground shook.  People died.  The dead were raised.  Volcanoes exploded.  And you’re telling me that you were bored by it?”  He shook his head.

Anna spread her hands.  “I expected the world to be left in more carnage.  Obviously, it’s not much of an apocalypse if there’s still civilization after it.  Besides, there was not clear winner.”

“A truce was called,” Alex sighed, resting his cheek on his hand.

“Exactly.  In all our millennia of living, Alex, you ever hear of the Divine and Diabolical powers calling a truce?  I think not,” Anna shot back.

“Well, whatever.  I think we can agree 2011 was a pretty rubbish year for the End to come about.”

“They should have waited until twenty twelve.”

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I love winter break. It gives me time to work on my book. Obviously, I take advantage of this time and do what I always do, and that is slack off xD I should just compile all the things I write when I'm procrastinating and try to get it published as a short story book.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Rapid Eye Movement

"People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles.  Dreams are real.  But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes."

- Neil Gaiman

•••

Ren could feel herself.  She could feel the crisp, pastel blue sheets crinkling under her as her muscles tensed, could feel the warm weight of the comforter wrapped in a messy nest around her body.  The mattress was doing what all good mattresses do and was sagging comfortably under her weight.  There was a fluffy pillow under Ren’s head.  Somewhere in her mind, she was perfectly aware of all of this.  A part of her knew that she was asleep and dreaming.

The lights were going out, one by one.  All the students were being ushered out of the school.  It was nighttime.  ‘How?’ and ‘Why?’ didn’t come into it.  It was a dream, and dreams didn’t need to have a point.

The floor was glowing green.  That was bad.  Something bad was going to happen when the entire floor turned green and when the lights all went out.  For some reason, Ren wasn’t running away like everyone else.  There were people stuck in the school’s lower level.  Someone needed to go save them, and in dreams, the dreamer was always either the victim or the hero.  Ren was the dreamer, and right now, she wasn’t a victim.

Something in the outside world jolted Ren, trying to bring her back to consciousness.  But the dream wasn’t letting go.  It tugged and pulled at her, like the rough waves of the ocean, keeping her from waking.

The stairs were all green.  The antagonist of this dream didn’t want to be beaten.  Ren swung her leg over the balustrade and with a sort of terrified, excited scream, she slid down the railing.  Her no-longer-white sneakers flew out in front of her and caught the rushing floor square in the face.  Momentum was nonexistent right then, and she didn’t go tumbling into the wall.

The ghastly green light began creeping out from the shadows, reaching slowly for her.  Ren took off at a run.  The thing hiding in the dark wouldn’t wait much longer.  She was playing a game against time and she was losing.  It was a dream, but the sense of urgency was scarily real and overpowering.  The orchestra room.  There were people trapped in the orchestra room.  Ren wondered how she knew that
.
But in dreams, you just know things.

Ren’s mind lurched again, balancing precariously on the edge of consciousness.  She didn’t want to wake up yet, though.  Too many of her dreams were ended at the wrong times.

Someone was calling after her.  She recognized the voice, but couldn’t place its owner.  They were telling her to come back.  But Ren’s legs wouldn’t let her.  Dreams were powerful, especially when a lucid dreamer decides not to take control of their own dream.  The dreams sink their claws in then.  They realize they are in control and go power-crazy, refusing to be dominated.

‘You had your chance,’ the dreams say.  ‘You had your chance and you didn’t take it.  It’s our turn now.’

Ren flung over the doors of the orchestra room.  Someone screamed.  A mass of shadow rushed at her face.

She woke up.

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This is how I spent my day: sitting on my couch, looking up quotes by Neil Gaiman, contemplating irrational fears and other aspects of life, and finally, writing this. Sometimes I think I think too much. Basically, this was a way for me to organize my thoughts about some things. When I dream, I'm a lucid dreamer. I almost always know that, yes, I'm dreaming, and nothing is real, but I don't take control of my dreams like some people do. A common accompaniment to lucid dreaming is rapid eye movement cycles. REM sleep has more "creativity" than NREM (non-REM) sleep, and dreams that occur during REM are more easily recalled.

Over the past few days I've been having loads of dreams (I don't dream that often). The dream that Ren endures during this story is quite similar to one I had last night, though mine had the Harry Potter cast in it (I don't know why). The "bodily awareness" that is described in the beginning isn't something that happens normally, I think. I get it a lot though. Just last week, during a lovely dream about a zombie apocalypse, I was perfectly aware that I was sleeping on my fist, which was jammed in my tummy. Also, Ren's name is just me changing the last letter of REM. Did anyone notice that? (Oh my God, why is this so long?)