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Thread: Winter 2013 Scriptorium Writing Competition - Long Category Voting Thread

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    Default Winter 2013 Scriptorium Writing Competition - Long Category Voting Thread

    -Here are the submissions for the Long category. Please vote for your favorite one.

    Also, please bear in mind that anonymity is still required here. Authors of any works below may not declare what submission may be theirs, or in any other way ruin the anonymity of theirs or another member's submission. Those found to be doing so here or anywhere else will be rightly and sneakily punished. The thread is for discussion of the articles at hand and voting, NOTHING ELSE.


    The Melian Dialogue: The Last Stand of the Polis - Entry 1
    The Melian Dialogue: The Last Stand of the Polis Ever since it was set down on paper, elements of Thucydides’ greatest work ‘The History of
    the Peloponnesian War’ have been the subject of much discussion and debate, and arguably
    none more so than the passage that has been termed the ‘Melian Dialogue’. Often marked
    as the focal point of the whole work, the Dialogue has come to be seen by many scholars as
    the epitome of Athenian imperial expansionism and domination, and the exemplar of the
    helpless annihilation of a comparatively defenseless island state by Athens. However,
    though this view is not unjustified, it is very unilateral and linear, and a deeper inspection
    leads to a much broader interpretation. Through the way that Thucydides sets out this
    exchange between the two peoples, the differing philosophies that show through in their
    words, and the context of the event, it is possible for us to see in the Dialogue not just the
    last stand of the Melians against the Athenians, but that of the old independent Greek polis
    against new expansionist Greek imperialism - a clash not just of states, but of ways of life.
    The first thing that strikes any learned reader of Thucydides upon arriving at the final
    episode of Book 5 is the setting aside of his famed medium of speeches in favour of dialogue.
    This is the only such case in the whole of Thucydides’ work, and cannot be dismissed as
    coincidence.1 Unlike a debate of opposing speeches, wherein the purpose is to
    convince some third party of the views of one side, the structure of a dialogue is designed
    for one to convince the opposing other without a third judging party.2 It enables
    each side to present their points one by one, as well as allowing for immediate rebuttal and
    challenges, creating an active, almost emotive, atmosphere where both parties thrust and
    parry in support and defence of their own standing. Not only is this imitative of the debates
    frequently seen in Greek drama - such as the agon in Attic comedy, and the heated
    arguments in tragedy between main characters, where contrasting values and ideals often
    come to a head - but also is reflective of the philosophic discussions emerging at the time,
    where opposing doctrines were hotly contested. In this way, Thucydides can ‘juxtapose the
    two perspectives more subtly than was possible in a single pair of speeches’,3
    and emulates a philosophical debate on an international scale. Additionally, Thucydides, due
    to his own background as well as his decidedly scientific and neutral writing style, gives no
    sense of bias - he is patriotically Athenian, yet at the same time, as an aristocrat, has
    sympathies with the Melian oligarchs. It is left up to the reader, as a
    ‘spectator’,4 to decide who to favour, as both sides are shown to make just as
    strong a case, though from different viewpoints. Thus, the unique presentation of the
    Dialogue distinguishes it as dealing with contentions greater than just the fate of Melos.
    This broader view of the Melian Dialogue is supported by the fact that the attitudes taken by
    both Melos and Athens are more than just their own thoughts and feelings - they are
    representations of completely different philosophical and political ideologies. The Melians
    stand for ‘aristocratic pride, Doric steadfastness, and ... the old Greek ideal of the
    independent even though small, city state’.5 Theirs was a policy of only
    governing their own people, of minding their own business and only reacting if provoked.
    Rather than holding in high importance material and tangible assets, the Melians held onto a
    way of life drawn all the way back from the Homeric ages, based on ideals of honour, kinship
    and trust in the gods. They do not necessarily believe that they will win, nor is success
    something they will realistically be able to attain, yet they resist because ‘[they] are not
    prepared to give up in a short moment the liberty which [their] city has enjoyed from its
    foundation for 700 years’.6 It is not so much the material losses they will sustain
    that will hurt them most, but rather the loss of the honour of what it means to be Melian,
    and the surrender of the freedom to do as they wished. By this, the Melians judge their

    cause to be ‘just’ and hence believe they can count on the aid of the gods, on fortune, and
    on hope. Although this attitude seems foolish, almost naive,7 it has been noted
    that this was exactly the same sort of attitude adopted by Athens a mere seventy years ago
    in the Persian Wars against another imperialistic invader.8 In that case, the clash
    between governing philosophies warranted no discussion - it was a foreign ideal, a barbarian
    ideal. But now it had been taken up by Greek states, the very ones that had originally
    opposed it. It is this philosophical polarity within the Greek peoples at this time that the
    Dialogue represents, and to see that, we must now turn to the values espoused by the
    Athenians.
    The representation expressed by the Athenians is based on ‘the assumption that the
    relations of states are guided by reasons of expediency and not of morality’,9
    and hence there is nothing unjust about their expansionist actions - it is merely the way
    nature works.10 This is a perception built up from years of consolidated military
    and financial power, during which the political ideals of the Athenian people were gradually
    influenced and mutated by their ambitious leaders and their sense of self importance after
    the Persian Wars. The result is a ‘new dynamic force of an expanding and fighting
    empire’.11 However, the evidence that this is not a reflection of just the
    Athenian attitude but of a whole new Greek outlook on the relationships between states can
    be seen in the Spartan adoption of a similar attitude. Although the Melians look to the
    Spartans as honourable kinsmen to come to their aid, the Athenians point out quite
    correctly that the Spartans too have embraced the motives of expediency and self-interest
    over the traditional abstract values, and will not help the Melians merely because it would
    not be worth their while and would be of no material benefit to them.12 By this
    modern outlook of pragmatism and realism, the Athenian proposal of surrender, so that
    both parties would benefit materialistically from the outcome, is indubitably the more
    logically acceptable, and in the better of interests of both parties. But as has been pointed
    out ‘[i]f no more than a clash of interests were involved, a compromise would be
    possible.’13 The complete incompatibility of the two underlying philosophies,
    however, is something that compromise cannot resolve, further confirming the notion that
    the Dialogue is not just a mere haggling over the terms of Melos’ treatment.
    Finally, the context of the Dialogue must be taken into account in judging the full scope of
    what it portrays. By this stage, Melos is one of the final states in the Aegean still
    independent of Athenian control. There is no reason Athens could not have attacked,
    captured and dealt with the Melians just like any other island state, especially since it held
    little military or economic potential - the whole affair would have been mentioned and dealt
    with within a few lines of Thucydides. There is nothing that obliges the Athenians to bring up
    such a discussion, since it ‘has no external results and cannot have any.’14 They
    are determined to subjugate Melos by either making it a subject state or completely
    destroying it, and regardless of which path is taken, the freedom of the Melians as an
    independent state was forfeit before the Dialogue even began. But the Athenians, like all
    conquering empires, ‘want their subjects not only to accept their rule, but also their
    philosophy’.15 In trying to convince the Melians of the logical course of action,
    the Athenians are also promoting their ideology to them, and thus Thucydides sets up a
    philosophical rather than circumstantial confrontation. This view is further supported by the
    fact that, as scholars have pointed out, Thucydides has the Athenians brought before ‘the
    governing body and the few’16 rather than the Melian people as a whole, ‘an
    audience predisposed to reject [the Athenians’] overtures.’17 This can be no
    coincidence, but rather Thucydides’ deliberate bringing about of clash of political theories.
    Given that the discussion essentially changes nothing about the future freedom of the

    Melians, it is clear that Thucydides was illustrating a much broader and more intellectual
    dispute.
    Therefore, it can be seen that the Melian Dialogue is Thucydides’ portrayal of one of the
    greatest conflicts in the Greek world at the time - not so much the armed hostility between
    Athens and Sparta and their respective empires, but rather the philosophical clash between
    the antique ideology of the Greek polis and the modern expedient doctrine of the Greek
    empire. Although at first glance it can easily be interpreted as a condemnation of the
    Athenian attitude and a bid to stir up pathos and sympathy for the Melian cause, a deeper
    analysis of its structure, the values behind the arguments and its surrounding situation
    brings to light a ‘contest within Thucydides of two fundamental political
    philosophies’18 which, being unable to exist together, must result in the
    ultimate destruction of one of them. It is not surprising, thus, that the Dialogue occupies a
    distinguished position, both within and without Thucydides’ work.
    _____________________________
    Footnotes
    1. Wassermann, Felix M. ‘The Melian Dialogue’
    2. Boyarin, Daniel (2012) ‘Deadly Dialogue: Thucydides with Plato’
    3. Bosworth, A. B. (1993) ‘The Humanitarian Aspect of the Melian Dialogue’
    4. Wassermann, Felix M. (1947) ‘The Melian Dialogue’
    5. Ibid
    6. Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War
    7. Connor, W. R. (1984) Thucydides
    8. Ibid
    9. Liebeshuetz, W. (1968) ‘The Structure and Function of the Melian Dialogue’
    10. Bosworth, A. B. (1993) ‘The Humanitarian Aspect of the Melian Dialogue’
    11. Wassermann, Felix M. (1947) ‘The Melian Dialogue’
    12. Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War
    13. Wassermann, Felix M. (1947) ‘The Melian Dialogue’
    14. Ibid
    15. Ibid
    16. Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War
    17. Bosworth, A. B. (1993) ‘The Humanitarian Aspect of the Melian Dialogue’
    18. Boyarin, Daniel (2012) ‘Deadly Dialogue: Thucydides with Plato’


    Golden Spurs - Entry 2
    Golden Spurs Robert watched the field beneath him from astride his horse. The masses of infantrymen blended together in the shadow of Courtrai Castle. The besieged French fortification had been under assault from the Flemish, led by the brothers and sons of the imprisoned Count in revolt against the French monarch.

    And so King Philippe of France had sent Lord Robert de Artois as his word and will against the uprising of the County of Flanders, his commission to defeat and annihilate any armed forces standing in his way. He had found the opposition here, beneath the walls of Courtrai, waiting for the castle to give up.

    They would not get that chance, Robert had decided at the war-council the evening before. He would decimate them with all the might and chivalry of the Kingdom of France, in the name of Philippe. He had sent in the infantry first; armed with pikes, axes, swords and, in the case of the poorest, whatever weapons they could find. They were doing well, he judged from his peaked position.

    “They are doing well,” Simon de Melun announced from his right side. The Marshal of France was a veteran of two crusades, both in Africa and Spain. He was as tough as the noblemen of France came. Robert eyed the morningstar attached to his hip, a savage weapon he had learnt to use by an old crusader. It would bash the skull of a man clad in a steel plated helmet. Lord Robert shuddered at the thought.

    “Aye, they are. We must pull them out soon.” Robert stared determinedly down at the plain. It was tradition that once the battle had been secured by the footmen, the lords, counts, knights and squires would come to do the killing blow.

    “Must we really do this? The battle is easily won without us,” Raoul de Clermont objected. Another man high in the King’s regard, the Constable of France. At the Constable’s side, his younger brother, Guy de Clermont, a Marshal of France, seemed in conflict whether to support his brother or commander. Raoul carried a regular wooden lance tipped with a steel spike, in his scabbard a longsword. Guy, however, preferred a cruel two-headed axe, capable of lethal impact when the carrier knew what he was doing. Robert was sure he did.

    “Yes, we do. Simon, give the signal.” Robert would not have his command challenged. He was among men of high standing, feted in great crusades, but he was nothing less of a warrior than them. He had won several of the tournaments hosted by King Philippe.

    The long cry of the horn sounded across the field. The officers commanding their contingents of infantrymen reacted quickly and retreated their men towards the hill occupied by Robert de Valois and his fellow commanders. Their swift withdrawal left the field muddy. Behind them a roaring horde of men, half pursuing, half waiting uncertainly. The footmen had done their part, Lord Robert de Valois decided. Now it was time for the real army.

    “I’d say they still number about nine thousand, maybe eight,” Lord Simon de Melun reflected. Robert could see his frowning expression.

    “It makes no matter. Our steel will smash their leather,” Robert said determinately. I cannot lose faith now, he decided, agreeing with himself.

    Robert turned around in his saddle as the infantry were approaching them, clearing the field. He saw two thousand horsemen, heavy cavalry. Knights and their squires, the noble aristocrats of France. The chivalry of France was quite a display to behold. The fluttering banners were those of Normandie, Picardie and the rest of northern France. And towering above them all was the banner of King Philippe – the standard emblazoning golden fleur-de-lis upon an azure field.

    “Go to your men,” Robert turned to the Clermonts and Simon de Melun. “And let us give these Flemish dogs a true taste of what comes with defying the might of France!” The men saluted him and spurred their horses to ride down the lines of mounted men.

    This was it, Robert knew. He heard the clanking of his golden spurs as he shifted in his saddle. A chance to forever bolt his name in history, a chance to live forever. Robert swept a hand over the gorget protecting his throat and neck. As he signalled for the squire to hand him his helmet – a beautifully adorned piece of steel made by the King’s own royal master armourer – he pondered over how invulnerable he was. From his seat atop his huge destrier, he was only reachable with a pike. He was protected heel to head in steel, almost impenetrable he was. The only way to kill a knight would be to unhorse him. Then he was exposed. Then he was killable. All Robert de Valois would have to do was keep his seat, perched atop his barded destrier.

    “Forward!!” Robert cried with all his might whilst he had lowered the greathelm onto his head, narrowing his vision into the two thin slits. He saw the Flemish waiting. Lord Robert spurred his mount into action, hearing behind him the rumble of two thousand knights charging at his command. For glory and for God, he thought to himself.

    The Flemish stood waiting. They had lowered their spears and pikes, and whatever else they had which had substantial length. Robert felt his pace and momentum slowed across the muddy field, but paid it no mind. He would win the battle, to be sure, and earn an even higher position at the court of King Philippe.

    The brutal clash had Robert de Artois clambering to the reins of his horse, the impact nearly shaking him off his mount. He drove into the crowd of forces, devastating those who stood before him. The wooden shaft of his lance had broken on the body of one unlucky infantryman. He discarded it and drew his longsword. He thought he could glimpse Simon de Melun wreaking havoc upon the surrounding hostiles.

    A destrier raced past him, a limp man hanging from the golden spur. Robert realized the beasts head was impaled with the tip of a spear, the dying animal running wild before finally collapsing dead upon the ground. Another man fell, Robert slashed his weapon in pure anger into the side of a footman standing in front of his destrier. Trying to twist the weapon free from the man’s rib cage, he suddenly felt a twinge of pain in his back. He abandoned the weapon to see a plain faced farmer wielding a club.

    Robert de Valois smashed his shield in the farmer’s face, but in his wake, two more came. Desperately looking for something longer, Robert whirled his destrier around to look for his squire. He found him on the ground, a spear buried into his gut. Robert cursed to himself.

    Robert was surrounded again. Using only his shield upon his opponents, he realized he was losing the battle. Then, Lord Robert the Valois was pulled off his warhorse and fell to the ground.

    Johnny - Entry 3
    Johnny His parents never understood his addictions to video games. Johnny just thought them ignorant, and they didn't understand. He preferred to blast his way through zombie infested alleyways, and partake in late night dungeon raids, with his guild, than to go out and socialize with his school acquaintances. He figured he didn't have many friends, offline. The kids at school, the ones that would bother acknowledging his existence, he would refer to as acquaintances more than friends.

    His father, when he did come home, would often go hunting for a week or two at a time. Johnny didn't like the idea of actually going hunting in real life, as it would part him from his game addictions. So he could never truly bond with his father about that, or anything else. His mother would never be home, she would always be out with her friends, and she, alike his father, paid little attention to him, or his needs.

    Elementary school was hard for Johnny, he always thought. Children can often be cruel to those they view as different or easy targets. Perhaps it was that he did not have much in common with the average kid in his class, he suspected. While other kids talked about the birthday party they all attended on the weekend, which he wasn't invited too, and how their baseball game went, afterwards, Johnny would sit there, perplexed by his inability to share a common experience with them. His socializing on weekends was through his computer screen, with what he viewed as his real friends, a restoration druid by the game moniker ‘Anduril’, a fire mage named ‘Marvawsum’, and a druid tank, named ‘Manbearpig’. He, himself, played a marksmanship hunter, a dime a dozen on his server, but he was part of this solid core of friends, and their combined availability during prime raid times allowed him to squeeze into the raid group each week, within his small group, luckily. Hunter ‘pickups’ seemed more plentiful each day, so he knows he has to play his best each day. He assured himself that as long as he had this group of friends, he didn't need anybody else.

    He often enjoyed exploring the epic landscapes of Azeroth by himself, when he friends were offline. He would pretend he was a hunter on a mission that took him all over the different regions in the game, hunting different game. He thought of himself, at times, as the best hunter in the world.

    Even on school nights, he would stay up until five o'clock in the morning playing his game. He would quest, and hunt the entire night away. He would get about two hours of sleep, and then endure another grueling day of high school, now in the ninth grade, he was treated no different than in elementary school years before, one boy, in particular, Todd Terrans, made it a daily ritual to sneak up behind him, in between classes, and shove him into his locker, to gather laughs from the other cruel children around, and in particular, Todd's own personal clique of followers.

    Johnny would look at him with disdain, for Todd was the captain of the school lacrosse team, and the most popular guy in his grade. He's been in Todd's cross hairs for as long as he can remember. He would often spend his days trying to avoid Todd, and then, when he gets home, he would forget about his bad day, by logging onto his game, and living his alternate life, where he was shown the same respect, most often, as any other player. In this alternate life, he was the popular guy.

    This day, seemed unlike any other, and he hated getting up early. It was seven o'clock in the morning, and he would have to get up from a short sleep, and prepare for a grueling day at school, unsure what Todd had in mind for him on that given day. But what kept him moving forward was knowing that it was a Friday and when he got home, after school, he would log into his game, and seldom log off for two days straight. He had nobody to force him to get off his game, as his father was gone hunting for a few weeks, and his mother had a social club event all weekend long, so he had the house to himself.

    As he walked to school, all he could think about was the new patch he purchased, with his mother's credit card the night before. He could not wait to get home and get straight to work on preparing for the new dungeon. Him and his in-game friends were going to meet at four o'clock in the afternoon and quest together for it.

    At school, the first half of his day went by slowly, and it was lunch time. He was sitting at a corner table by himself. He bought a poutine, and a soft drink at the cafeteria, and he was drawing his character, from in the game. He paid no attention to the others walking by him, and he ignored them as simply as they ignored him.

    Johnny was unaware that Todd came into the cafeteria. He had his back turned to the entrance, and Todd was able to walk up right behind him. The teaching monitor was busy talking to another teacher outside the cafeteria, and there was no supervision. Todd walked up behind hm and grabbed him by the hair, and put his face right into his poutine. He then grabbed the soft drink and poured it down Johnny's shirt.

    There was an uproar of laughter from all the other kids. Johnny forced his face out of the poutine, and he pushed his body off the table, backwards, trying to shake Todd's grip on his hair. Todd then used Johnny's momentum to pull him backwards. Johnny lost his balance, and fell off the bench, onto the floor. The soda had soaked his shirt, and gravy all over his face. The other kids laughed remorselessly at him. He tried to leave, to go to the bathroom, but Todd grabbed him him again, and shoved him into a nearby vending machine. Johnny was utterly embarrassed this time. Mostly, he would brush off Todd's bullying, but this time, he could not contain it. He broke out crying, and ran out of the cafeteria, and into the nearest bathroom. There, he washed his face in the sink, and soaked his shirt in the sink, and then spent the next thirty minutes of lunch drying it in the hand dryer. He was so embarrassed that he never wanted to leave the bathroom. The other boys would come into the bathroom and go about their business, and they would all look at him, shirtless, drying his stained shirt. Most of them would just laugh at him, or show him indifference. Nobody showed him any pity that day.

    The bell rang, and he left the bathroom. He was stopped by Mr. Johnson, the counselor, who had heard what happened. Mr. Johnson told him that his work was transferred from his afternoon classes to the counselor's office, where he would get a temporary shirt to change into, and spend the rest of his day. The most irking thing was that Todd was not even reprimanded for his dastardly act.

    He spent the next few hours in the office, and watched the clock hit two thirty, and he got up. He left the counselor's office and speedily walked home, to avoid the bulk of the kids that were leaving.

    When he got home, he showered, and immediately logged onto his computer, and into his game. When he got into the game, he realized all three of his companions were online already, and in a regular dungeon. He messaged them asking if they had room.

    Anduril, the holy priest, told Johnny that they didn't have room, and that they wanted to try the dungeon with a feral druid, instead of a hunter. He was shocked. He got into an argument with Anduril over it and finally Anduril put him on ignore. He was furious by this act. He messaged both of the other two of his friends and both of them put him on ignore as well. He attempted to log onto the voice chat client they all used when they played the game, but when he got on none of them were online. It was the first time they were not online on a Friday evening in months. He knew they had all blocked him on Skype. He was enraged beyond all measure. He screamed obscenities to himself, and threw a temper tantrum. He started crying profusely, jumping onto his bed, he slammed his clenched fists into his mattress repeatedly.

    He eventually calmed down and went back on the game. He attempted throughout the night to contact his friends but they all ignored him. He just walked around open areas killing creatures over and over. He went to bed early that night.

    The next morning he got up around eleven o'clock. He put in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and watched it for most of the day. He completely ignored everything else in life. Later that night he logged into Facebook. When he got on, he noticed in his news feed a video had been highly commented on, and liked. He clicked it to begin, and to his horror, it was the event from the cafeteria the previous day. One of Todd's friends recorded it on their phone and uploaded it on Facebook. He shut off his computer and broke down crying. He spent hours just crying in his dark room. He eventually cried himself to sleep.

    It was Sunday now. He got up early, and he logged onto the game and began to play. All he could think about was how much of a joke he was, and how the others all laughed at his expense. Now he had no friends at school, and his friends on his game ignored him. Friday had been the worst day of his life, he thought. He had nobody. He spent most of Sunday aimlessly shooting creatures down with his bow in such a repetitive nature. He lost all interest in playing, but continued to do so out of sheer boredom, and unwillingness to do anything else. His addiction had consumed him, and he hadn't even known it.

    Johnny heard his mother get home that night. She was laughing as she got to the door and he listened in and heard all her friends giggling. She went straight up to her room and to bed. She didn't even stop in to see him. Or even to say goodnight. He was so disheartened and hurt after what happened to him Friday that he went to bed early that night. He could not do much at all, except stay awake, eyes wide open. He recited to himself for hours, in his own mind, that he wished he would just die. He thought nobody would miss him. He thought he would never get back in the good graces of his online friends and he fathomed going to school in the morning. He eventually passed out for a few hours.

    When his alarm clock went off at seven o'clock, he got up. He felt no different than the night before. He just wished somebody would come kill him so he could get out of his miserable life. He was so lonely, and uncertain of his future.

    That morning he didn't go to the bus stop. Instead, he had another idea in mind. He went to his parents room and he opened their bedside nightstand drawer. In there, he found the keys to his father's gun safe. His father didn't care for his property's security. Johnny took the keys and went to the gun safe. He opened it up and to his astonishment, his father's arsenal was immense. He saw a rifle and a handgun missing, from their rack outcrops, he assumed it was what his father had taken on his hunting trip.

    Johnny looked over the arsenal, and found one hand gun he liked. The description label on the holder read 'Smith & Wesson Model M&P22'. He took the gun into his hand and aimed down the sight. He took the owner's manual from the gun safe door flap. He read all about the gun he was holding. He learned that it was one of the easiest beginner guns, and step by step, he learned how to load it, remove the safety, and fire it. He spent an hour reading about the gun, and playing around with it.

    When he was ready to leave, he loaded the gun with a full ammunition cartridge. It had twelve shots in it, plus one in the chamber that he had already prepared. He held in his hand a killing machine, he thought to himself. He spent a few more minutes aiming down the sights, enjoying the gun some more. He ensured the safety was on and he put the gun into his cargo pants side pocket. He had baggy cargo pants on and the gun was created a barely noticeable bulge in his pants pocket. He was about to shut the door of the safe when he stopped himself. He opened it back up, and took another full cartridge out for the gun. He put that into his other pocket and shut the safe. He locked it up and went downstairs. He didn't even grab his school bag, he just walked out the front door. He walked to school. It took him over thirty minutes, but when he got there all that he saw outside was a few of the kids at the smoking section. He walked right by them, some cracking smiles at him. He noticed one of them was Todd's friend. All He did was smile back, a rare expression for him.

    He walked into the front door. He noticed the halls were empty. He walked down them knowing where his class was. He didn't go to class. Instead, he waited outside his class, at a nearby bench. He knew Todd was in the class. When the bell rang for lunchtime he hid himself in a corner, putting the hood up on his hoodie, he turned his back to the hallway. As the kids moved about themselves, ignoring him as usual, he peaked over his shoulder and saw Todd leaving. He started to follow him. Slowly, all of Todd's friends would attach to his growing entourage. He followed them right to the cafeteria.

    In the cafeteria he seated himself by the door. He watched Todd at the food service. His friends clung to him the entire time. He was sick to his stomach. He still had his hood on and he was confident in what he was about to do.

    Todd seated himself next to some of the popular girls in the school. These girls seldom knew he even existed. Todd's entourage sat with him. There was about fifteen kids in all at the table. They were all laughing and giggling to each other Todd was the center of attention as usual. He garnered all the laughs.

    Johnny got up off the bench, and walked over to the table. Before he arrived, he pulled his cargo pants up high around his stomach, and fastened his belt. He could now reach comfortably into his pants pocket. He slipped his hand firmly around the hilt of the hand gun, memorizing where the safety on the gun was. He clicked the safety off, and slipped his index finger over the trigger.

    Todd saw him, and began to laugh. All of Todd's friends also laughed at him. The girls just smiled, some gave him disgusted looks.

    He smiled back at Todd, pulling the gun out of his pocket. He pointed the gun at Todd, and put his other hand around his gun hand, to reinforce his grip on it. All of the kids were shocked. Some of the girls screamed, and tried scrambling away from the table. He now felt, for once the table was turned. Instead of being Todd's target everyday, that today was his day. Todd was his target. The shock, and fear on Todd's face was priceless. For once, he wasn't laughing at his expense anymore. He pulled the trigger, putting a bullet into Todd's chest. He fired again three more times at Todd. All of the kids panicked. Some ducked for cover. Others ran from the table. He then turned the gun on the popular girl who was sitting next to Todd, the one that had given him a dirty look. He didn't know her well. He proceeded to shoot her three times in the back as she tried to get away. He shoved one of Todd's nearby friends, Eric, who just then, had gotten the courage to try and run. Eric fell to the ground and turned around. He begged Johnny not to kill him. Eric was the one who posted the video on Facebook. He aimed the gun at Eric's chest and fired three times.

    Johnny then ran to the entrance of the cafeteria where the kids were all in a panicked frenzy. They continuously shoved each other, trying to get out. One of the teachers, Mr. Gordon, attempted to confront him. He pointed the gun at Mr. Gordon, and fired twice, striking him in the chest both times. Mr. Gordon dropped to the ground, and Johnny, knowing he had one bullet left, shot him in the head.

    He then proceeded to climb over a table, and ran to the door. Some kids were still stuck inside the nearly cleared out cafeteria. It was all happening so fast, he thought to himself. He pulled out the empty cartridge and took the spare cartridge from his other pocket, then loaded the gun. He cocked it back, and aimed at the crowd by the door. He fired ten shots, continuously. He then stopped. The rest of the kids had left by that point. Four of the kids were hit, and had fallen to the ground. One of them did not move. The other three screamed in bloody agony. He looked from one to the other. He didn't really recognize any of them. He knew he had three bullets left. He walked over to the closest one and aimed the gun at his head. He shot him. Then he turned and shot one of the other's in the head. He then put the gun in his own mouth and fired the last shot. He fell to the ground and the light slowly faded from his world. His eyes shut slowly.


    Roof Garden - Entry 4
    Roof Garden We sat on the roof in wicker chairs and sipped from ice blue glasses against an ice blue sky. The wind turned the heat away, flowing through the palm tree fronds that lined the roof, their thin gracious shadows splaying across the floor and disappearing off over the edge. The city fifty storeys beneath shone pinkly in the evening sun, a glowing haze in the distance preparing itself for night.

    “I think it’s going to be a lot like life,” my friend George said, sipping from his glass, watching the sun diffracting through the glass façades that rose above and around us. “A whole lot of noise and worry, but not so bad really, longer than you expected but shorter than you hoped, and then you die.”

    I looked at him and he looked at me and shrugged and we watched the sun again. “This is a good thing,” he said.

    The wind stirred the silence for a moment, then my voice. “You’ve always said you didn’t want to die old and withered with all the joy sucked out of you. Better to go out young, and bright, and happy – right?”

    He frowned. “Yes and no,” he said. “I think I was wrong. I think we think of joy as a finite commodity that dwindles linearly, that you start out with the greatest possible supply of joy as a kid, and then gradually it fades over time as you age, through a sort of joy attrition, through bartering for a job and a pension, school, car, such things … I am no longer convinced there is a joy-to-age graph with a negative slope. I think joy is a supply that can be regenerated, grown, cultivated even, and grows out more when given, like a plant, a living thing. The more you give the more you get. Maybe it’s the desire to share joy that dwindles, not the joy itself, so you give less out to the world, and you get less back, so you think the joy is the problem, when the problem is your refusal to share it.”

    He’d always had that strange way of making me think, even in college, when he seemed to think in ways he wasn’t supposed to, and came across not as wise or as pretentious but as studious, interested, very much alive and fascinated by it. “So it’s like a painting, or a story,” I said, trying to keep up.

    We lit cigarettes, drawing smoke, watching the wind catch it as we exhaled and curl it through the air and out into the city. “How so?” he said.

    “They grow from being seen, or read. They don’t start out with the most meaning, the most truth; they accrue truth as people understand them, like or dislike them, appreciate or forget them. A painting carries the meaning of every pair of eyes that has ever looked at it. That’s what matters – not the color or shape but the thoughts they have evoked.”

    George smiled. “This reminds me of dorm nights, drunk nights. Get wasted and talk about life.”

    I smiled too. We raised our glasses, clinked them together, drank the rest. There were a lot of memories there, underneath the surface, and the idea that there would soon be no new memories felt ugly and empty.

    “Do you think we simply are our brains, the chemicals and neurons and such, they’re all we are? Or is there some essential nonphysical part of us that exists independent of the brain, of the body?” he asked.

    “I think I would like it very much if we were more than our brain, but the honest answer, the one I believe in my head but not in my heart, is that we are nothing more than our brains, yes,” I said. “The soul is electricity pumping through fleshy gray matter.”

    “So,” he said, smiling, “I don’t have brain cancer, I have soul cancer. If the cancer is a part of my brain, is it a part of me? Is it me? Am I killing myself?”
    I didn’t want to talk about it. But it was his cancer, not mine. He could talk about it if he wanted to. He was the one who was going to die; it would be selfish, I thought, to feel sorry for myself. I dipped the glass in ice, poured more clear liquor into it, poured him another too.
    “The idea that you can believe something in your heart, but not in your head, that’s interesting,” he went on. “That suggests that for some reason our brain – our self, I should say – wants us, encourages us even, to believe in contradictions. In the relevancy of irrelevant organs.”
    “The brain, being aware of itself, knows it should not be too aware of itself,” I murmured, half-smiling. “Or else it may suddenly realize, ‘, I’m squishy, and the only thing protecting me from the bright pointy world is several centimeters of bone.’ Better to convince itself it exists elsewhere too, or it might start asking itself tough questions. A sneaky bastard, the brain.”

    “A smart bastard. Protecting itself from itself,” he said, smiling too. We fell silent, looking out over the city, over the glass and people and cars, the bustle, the lights that were beginning to turn on, windows flashing into illumination, the electrons beginning to be excited by countless electrical currents in countless glass tubes in countless storefronts and homes and offices and galleries and theaters and clubs. Darkness was falling, and in response life stood up on its tiptoes, puffed out its chest and refused to be silent.

    “I really think this is a good thing,” he said again. “I’m excited, man. I really am. That’s why I asked you to come here.” He met my gaze. “I’m getting on a plane tomorrow morning. I’m going everywhere I can, seeing everything I can. This is a blessing, a message, to go out and live my life, in a way I never would have otherwise, at least not until I got much older. I want to learn as much as I can. Mean as much as I can. Will you look after the place while I’m gone?”

    “Of course I will, George,” I said. “You don’t even have to ask.”

    He smiled. “There’s liquor in the cabinet, and I’ll leave you a credit card—”

    “Please, George, I can take care of myself.”

    “No, I insist. Order anything you want. Have parties here. Live it up. I know you’ve always, always wanted a penthouse and a view,” he said. “Consider this yours.” I thanked him, and we sat quietly for a few more minutes, drinking.

    “I’m so lucky,” he said.

    * * *
    I got a postcard a few days later, in the mailbox in his apartment. I had never actually gotten a real, physical postcard before, in my entire life; it felt like a relic, something that still existed entirely because people wanted it to, not because it was useful. There was a picture on it of a beautiful South American rainforest with snow-capped mountains looming gracefully in the background, teeming with life and brightness.
    On the back he had written, “Step one,” and underneath that, “Happiness is the intersection between having all that you need and giving all that you have.”

    That night I had a party in his roof garden, and I invited everyone I knew whose company I even mildly enjoyed, and I invited all our old college friends who had lost touch or kept touch or oscillated between the two. A lot of people came, mostly because of it being on a roof with a breathtaking downtown view, and palm trees that swayed in the breeze, and an open bar. I felt the need to have people around me, to be surrounded by laughter and noise and conversation, to feel whole and complete. I preferred not to think.

    It was a mild, adult sort of party, where everyone got comfortably but not raucously drunk, partly because at some point between twenty and thirty you become hyper-aware that you are at some point between twenty and thirty, but mostly because having parties in very nice places where you don’t live leaves you afraid to break very nice things that you don’t own.

    As the party wound slowly down, I went off and sat down in one of the chairs on the balcony, and looked out over the sea of flowing lights. Even up there, you could hear car horns and sirens; it was easy to imagine snatches of conversations, lover’s quarrels, pretentious reviews of pretentious movies.

    “How could anyone ever be sad, with a view like this?” my friend Lily said, sitting down in the wicker chair where George had been sitting a few days before, when he told me. “I would kill to come home to this view every night. I’d never have to leave my house.”

    “It’s been great, living here while George is away,” I said. “You know, he didn’t even really need anyone to look after it. He just knew how much I would love it.”

    “Just like George,” she said, smiling. “I had the biggest crush on him in junior year, you know. Remember that time we all came here for the Fourth of July, and went out on the boat in the Hudson to watch the fireworks? He told me he was going to move here after he graduated. I asked him to take me with him. You know what he said?”

    “What?”

    “He said, ‘I don’t make promises I can’t keep, and you don’t need anyone to take you with them. You’re bright enough, smart enough, driven enough, to take yourself.’ And he was right. Then we made out,” she blushed, laughing. “Oh, I haven’t seen him in a while. When does he get back?”

    “I don’t really know,” I said, and I wasn’t lying, though I wasn’t really telling the truth. He had asked me not to tell anyone about it. The man had brain cancer, and worried about how everyone else would feel. “It’s kind of an indefinite thing.”

    She made a little ‘o’ with her mouth and looked out into the lights again.

    “How are you and – what’s his name? Alex, right?” I asked.

    “Oh, we broke up a few weeks ago,” she said.

    “I’m sorry.” Everyone apologizes for things they can’t possibly control. It would have been more honest for me to say ‘I empathize’, or, ‘I’m not really sure what to say, but I’m here if you want to talk about it’. ‘I’m sorry’ is practically teeming with these less ambiguous meanings, when it comes from a friend to a friend. ‘I’m here,’ it says. ‘You don’t have to be alone unless you want to be, in which case, okay’.

    “It’s alright. I’m actually happier now. I think we were better off as friends, you know. There was no real passion there. Hadn’t been for a long time. We had just devolved into a kind of cycle of codependence. It’s really pretty amiable between us.” She looked at me, smiling again. “Do you think, um … is George … well, is he single, still?”

    I lit a cigarette to occupy myself. “You should ask him when he gets back. I always thought you two were great together,” I said, hollow.
    * * *
    “I’m in Peru, man. I touched down in Lima two days ago – such a beautiful city, and the people, the girls, my god. But the real reason I came, I went out into the jungle with a guide, into the Amazon rainforest. It’s like a different world, a darker, archaic, secret world where things haven’t changed all that much in a thousand years, and people know exactly who they are and where they came from and where they’re going. It’s not simpler, it’s just more complicated in different ways, and less complicated in other ways. There is more time to think. And I came here, what I came here for, man … we’d always talked about it, and I finally did it, I drank ayahuasca. It’s like my eyes have been opened. The veil was torn away and I saw things, not as they seem to be, or ought to be, but as they are…

    “I threw up and then I closed my eyes and my soul was torn out of my body and thrown out into the Universe, I touched the stars, I felt the tug of the black holes pulling me towards them, I felt energy and light you can’t even imagine, surrounding me, bathing me, spreading through my pores and shining through me. I saw every galaxy that ever was or ever will be, and they all moved and danced together in a neverending harmony, a harmony that doesn’t care about you or me, that’s why bad things happen, Alan, even to good people. I understood the great balance that holds this universe together, that ripples down from galaxies to solar systems to planets to people to molecules to atoms to galaxies again…

    “We measure evil and injustice in quantifiable terms, in murders per capita, in infant mortality rate, in starvation statistics, we throw up our hands and say ‘how could such evil exist in any good universe’? We think the scales seem horribly tilted in evil’s favor, we think life is a gift we would rather not have been given. But we are missing the other half of the scale, the counterweight, because it is not quantifiable, it can’t be put into an Excel spreadsheet and filtered down into news headlines, it can’t be explained in numbers and formulas. I’m talking about love, Alan. You will never see ‘Mother loves her four children selflessly’ as a headline. You will never see ‘Old man is perfectly content to sit in the sun and listen to birds sing’. The sum total of all the bad that has ever existed could never hope to outweigh all the love in the universe, in our galaxy and in other galaxies, and the bad tempers the good, gives it meaning. For every twenty-five-year-old man who gets brain cancer, a child draws its first breath, Alan.

    “Gravity, electromagnetism, space, time, energy, mass, entropy, they all exist to give us capacity, opportunity, do with it what you will. And the universe wants us to know how we fit into its biggest secret. You think I’m crazy but the tumor isn’t big enough to press down on any nerves yet. This is real. This is what I believe.”

    This went on for some time on the phone between Lima and New York, and some of what he was trying to tell me was lost, understood only to him, but most of it wasn’t.

    * * *

    I got a package from Greece. Inside the package was a large clock, about as tall as my whole chest and wider around. The numbers on the clock face had each been replaced with a word. Twelve o’clock was Hope; Love, Joy, Peace, Inspiration, Truth, Beauty, Compassion, Generosity, Patience, Justice and Happiness followed. I hung it on the wall in his apartment and then I always knew what time it ought to be.

    There was also an envelope with another postcard, of the Parthenon and ancient Athens, and $5,000 in cash. On the back it said, “You know those homeless people we pass on 32nd St every day?”

    * * *

    People who have been to more than a few funerals said George’s had more tears than many, though less than some. I did not cry during the service, or the eulogies, or at his strangely doctored-up looking pale smooth waxy bloated face, or as the casket was lowered into the ground and dirt piled on top of it and over it until the hole was filled. It wasn’t that I was afraid to cry; such fears fall away in the face of cold, immovable reality. Fear seems banal. It was just that he was still alive, to me. He was still off traveling somewhere. Nepal, Qatar, France, Brazil, New Zealand. There would be another post card, another strange gift and a cheerful note and ‘Oh, by the way, who’s that guy you buried on Sunday? That’s not me.’

    You think you know what to expect – that seeing other people go through pain somehow prepares you for it, vicariously; that pain and loss in music, movies or books gives you a template to follow for how it will really feel in your own life. It doesn’t. In reality it’s both better and worse than you expect.

    When I got back to his apartment to empty out my things and move home, the mailbox was empty except for some delivery menus, and it finally all fell in on me and I sat down and saline solution flowed hotly down my face and my own voice sounded choked and alien and my breath was ragged and the large clock on the wall was the wrong time, and always had been.

    I promise you this, and the worst promises are also the most reliable: some day, you will die, and so will everyone you have loved or ever will love or ever could have loved, if you had the chance. This is an indisputable reality. It is as tangible as gravity and just as inescapable.

    It is a testament to human resilience that we are able to think of anything but this, at any time. It must mean something that, from the moment we emerge from the womb, we don’t say ‘no thanks’ and crawl right the back in. Instead we claw and fight and grow our way into life, and some are happy with it, some are unhappy, most are both, a few are neither; but everyone has the sneaking suspicion that something they’re doing matters, somehow, and that is either the most convenient lie or the purest truth, and I’m not sure it matters which.

    I stood up and went out on the roof with the wicker chairs and the palm trees and the spectacular view. The sun was shining, and would continue to do so for a very long time.
    Last edited by Mhaedros; March 11, 2013 at 11:33 AM.
    Under the patronage of Finlander. Once patron to someone, no longer.
    Content's well good, innit.


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