Sunday, November 28, 2010

He Would

That's pretty much Kal for you. Wandering into places he doesn't belong, showing people up. I suppose I could kick him out (I could kick him out of this apartment too because I pretty much pay the rent and maybe he should remember that), but this little piece of Internet property could probably use a little devil worship every now and again. Yeah, you're never living that down Kal, even if it was only just the one concert. Especially when you want to student teach. Good god that's way too funny. I can see it now: Kal earning the trust of scores of small children and then turning them into miniature legions of hell. His empire will start with a school and end with the world! And, being the best friend (or something), I'll get first dibs on all the action so my journalism career will really take off. Perhaps that's not such a bad idea.


But in all seriousness, Kal's not a bad guy. Sure, he may need  to have labels on the food in the fridge to know what's his and what isn't, but hey. At least he isn't plotting to kill me in my sleep. I've known people like that. My youngest sister, for instance. A nice girl overall, but don't dare piss her off and try to sleep in the same house. I woke up with water being poured on my face in the middle of the night once.


Right. Anyhow, I wrote this last night while I was failing at sleeping:


                The wind snaked its way around and through the trees, bringing with it the smell of air kissed by the plains and dosed with the barest touch of pale sunlight. The badger rose to greet the wind and drink in the fragrance that signaled the changing seasons. Birds and squirrels and cats all mimicked him. The time to stockpile and share had come. The trees were alive with hurried activity, though to the unpracticed eye the woods looked and sounded much as they ever did. But should more attention be paid, soon rabbits would be seen fleshing out and widening burrows, chipmunks hiding food and the trees swaying in graceful preparation to doff their leaves. But the single Hound stood still, a sad look on his old face. He knew what that wind really meant. He had tasted the hidden scent upon it.
                Somewhere, beyond the peaceful trees and across the plains, the Hunters were getting ready, and Loggers and the Trappers. The smell of Man was unmistakable. And Man getting set to march released a scent so acrid – but too subtle from so far for those who do not know it to catch it. Tongue lolling slightly in the fading remnants of summer’s heat, the Hound looked all around him, that he might remember these woods as they were now. For he knew what they would become. Rows of stumps, surrounded by short grass. Black patches of char. Rotting bodies and great fire pits. And eventually, freshly tilled rows of the softest dirt, with pretty little houses to keep the Men away from nature. The Hound had seen this all before, over and over. Man was inexorable. Is inexorable, he corrected himself. The Hound took his last glances of those trees and those animals that called these woods home. And then he left, silently, without even a grunt of warning. Let them have their last days of peace, he thought. No amount of preparation could stop the inevitable at this point. The Hound mourned for weeks.
                And he found another home. He settled in. He let himself forget, and he made friends. He established a routine. And one day, as those around him readied themselves for autumn, a foul taste came to him on the wind. Faint, but meaning only death. Only loss. The Hound’s grief returned to him as he drank in his last glances of this place, still so new to him for all that he’d spent the better part of a year there. He left, wondering if he was ever missed at the end. Then he thought that if he was, he was surely only counted one among many who had perished or been forced to flee. Just another casualty. And, he thought, perhaps he was that.
                He wandered long before he found another place to rest. Another place to name home. He realized that each new haven was slowly decreasing in size. Becoming less trusting, less inviting. More wild, more vicious. He wondered what there was that man could not ruin. The Hound shook off the thought and adapted himself to this new place, just as he had with all those before. He made himself fit in. And he let himself forget again, for a time, the endless march of Man. But the smell, that haunting and taunting smell, came once more. Did they never rest? Did they always move, at every summer’s end? But the smell did not spark recognition immediately in the Hound. At first he could only wonder at the oddness of its bitter quality in this remote wood. And memory came back in a rush as tears came to the Hound. He fought them back as a careless rodent let a rock fall from the dark canopy down to the ground. Man loomed, terrifying, in the Hound’s mind.
                Without even a parting glance the Hound fled, eager to put as much distance between himself and Man’s frontier. He was so tired of this never-ending chase, but he could do naught else but flee. What simple Hound could withstand the legions of Man, that faceless and formless beast? The Hound ran for years, stopping in the ever wilder havens that he could find, resting and relaxing. Fitting in, molding himself to the place around him. And each autumn, smelling the foul scent on the air that betrayed the march of man, the Hound would flee once more. But each time, the memories came back slower. The urgency of his flight grew less and less with each passing year. So it came to pass that one day the Hound did not remember at all.
                He wrestled with a fox, playfully and happily breathing in the fresh air, the sweet air, as others around him gathered food to hide away and strengthened homes against the coming weather. A wisp of smoke floated in the sky. The Hound did not see it. He did not smell it. Not until it was too late. The scent of flames burst upon the woods and the shouts of Men and the hard, sharp report of their axes thrust themselves onto and into the trees. The animals, confused and panicked, did nothing. They merely stood and listened, watching for anything, questing for some signal. And then the first Man appeared before them, tall and grand and new. The Hound felt none of his old fear, his well-earned terror of this figure. He only possessed the instinctual fear of noise and flame, of the presence of a potential hunter. More Men appeared. Gunshots rang out. The exodus and slaughter began in earnest. Deer and bears fell in vast numbers. However valiantly they fought, the bullets of Man were no trifling pain. The Hound knew not what to do until one of the Men approached him. Seeing the destruction all around, he bared his teeth at the Man. He snarled and growled and did his best to look scary. But the Man was unconcerned. He hefted his axe with both hands and brought it up, high above his head. As the Hound leaped in attack, the axe fell and caught the Hound across the top of his head, driving him into the dirt.
                Blood spilled from the Hound as the Man moved on, bringing his axe to bear on any other threat. The Hound died slowly, in agony, as he remembered all that he had forgotten in the years past. The cruelty of man. The baseness of their march. With a bitter mental laugh, for he had not the strength to truly manifest it, the Hound cursed his own complacency, his own willingness to leave his past behind. His desire to forget. He died, broken in all ways and finally defeated, able to flee no longer. He was not remembered, as Man was. He was left to become dust. He was nothing.

I know, I know. It's a bit of an anvil. It could definitely use some work, but that's what you get from insomniac writing.

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Mwahahahahaha

Before I go and explain how exactly I have managed to go and hijack this blog from my roommate (Worry not dear readers, for I am a kind and benevolent overlord... mostly anyhow.) I would like to tell you all about my wonderful Thanksgiving break.


I got the opportunity to head back to Austin for the break to have Turkey Day with my family, while I was there though I ended up spending a fair chunk of my time with this old friend of mine from High School. Dude's name is Damien, and he's one of my best friends these days, anywho Damien is basically the guy who singlehandedly got me into music (not that that's terribly relevant to this story). In all honesty most would consider him a pretty strange guy, he's into tomes on magic and occultism and such, but he's a great resource on any number of subjects and makes for great company. So while I was down for my visit he hauled me off to this black metal concert, which is coincidentally the first kind of music he tried to get me into.

Now I'm not the sort these bands attract as I am very certainly not a metalhead, and the last concert I went to was a Weird Al concert when I was like 12 (Don't judge me Internet, I know what sort of things you're into.) so imagine my surprise when I throughly enjoyed myself. It all started off pretty dull, the first three bands were shit, Damien leaned up against a support beam looking bored in his ripped band shirt, black jeans, and skull crushing boots, I on the other hand stood there slowly head bobbing and hoping that the concert would end in my casual everyday clothes looking extremely out of place. But then... oh but then GoatWhore took the stage, and god were they awesome.The music was hard and fast and powerful, and they fucking knew it, a wild mosh pit appeared and wanted to fight, so idiotically we two scrawny little bastards jumped into the pit before our brains could point out what a horrendously terrible idea this was.

Now I have never gotten into an actual fight before but i was a god in that chaotic mass of violence and bodies, Damien and I were at a severe disadvantage as everyone else was roughly twice our size, me being 140 and Damien slightly smaller just to give you all a mental image.We kicked ass, not relative ass but actual full blown ass, I sent the biggest fuck in the mosh down with a series of well timed shoves, Damien and I never fell. And when I felt content with my display of superiority and some asshole tried to shove me back into the pit, I grabbed that bastard and hurled him into the fray, and then made sure he didn't escape nearly as hastily as he would have preferred.

And then when GoatWhore finished their piece it was time for the main attraction... Watain.Setting the stage took what felt to be an hour of grim anticipation, there was an alter, and banners, and great candelabras adorned with the rotting skulls of animals. A stench of death passed over the crowd like a wave and I was forced to breathe through my mouth to prevent vomiting. And then the band... the band strode onto the stage. The band so covered in blood and filth and shit and sweat, in tattered rags, they stank worse than the rotting flesh. I held back vomit a second time and started to headbang to the music, knowing nothing else I could do, just headbanging and staring up at the vocalist more ragged and filthy than any of his fellows... he danced about the platform like some kind of goblin on trollkin of a man. And as the blood and shit rained from the band I could do nothing at all but stare up at the vocalist as if he were some shit stained god. I could simply stare in horrified fascination.

When the concert ended we went to IHOP, bloody, stinking of death, exhausted from exertion, and flowing with adrenaline. As we ate a small girl approached our table and spied the blood caked on Damien's arm, she fled behind me blissfully unaware that I too had blood contracting my flesh.The night ended as any good night should, with Damien whining holding down blueberry vomit and zombie killing sprees via PS3. It was my greatest night in recent days.

As for this blog however, I came home from my delayed flight and adventures back home to find it open and logged in. It seems in my absence that Mr. Michael Henry Abner AKA Henry AKA Hank AKA this roommate of mine set it up for some reason more trivial than my own amusement, and it seems that he was foolish enough to leave it up for my vandalization. But of course kind man as I am, I decided that rather than defacing it with forged admissions of homosexuality and various other means of malicious tomfoolery I should invite myself as an author onto his blog.

It seems now that I failed to introduce myself so much earlier on, so hello dear readers and the internet full, I'm Kalvin Jameson but you can call me Kal. I'll see you folks around.


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So I Say Hello, Right?

I suppose that's how these things work on the first post. I say hello and introduce myself to the Internet. I guess I can do a little bit of that. The name is Michael Henry Abner (hence, Michenab - creative right?) and I am  majoring in journalism at Metro State University of Denver. I go by Henry. The break for Thanksgiving has just ended which means classes are starting back up soon. And of course I'm still procrastinating by writing on this blog instead of finishing my work. Sometimes I swear I don't know how I get everything done. But enough whining about problems I cause. For now.

So why create a blog? That's usually what I wonder when I stumble across one: why did this person make it? So I figure I'll answer that question straight out in the first post. Y'see, I like to write. But not everything I write is applicable to my classes and some of it is just too good (in my opinion) to let it rot in some dusty notebook or rarely used computer drive. So I figure, why not let it out to the public, right? And maybe I'll get the motivation I need to publish myself. Who knows. But for now, I'll say this:

tl;dr I'm Michenab and I like to write so this is where I'm going to foist myself upon the Internet.

-Michenab

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