Day 7—Nineveh and the Warrior

It flowed up from the sewers, up and back into the storm drains. Like gelatinous donut filling or dishwasher detergent. That strange smell, like tempera paints from an elementary school art class. Down, surrounding the first and second floors of the skyscrapers; over the possessions of Downtown’s homeless. From the aerial view it was a satin sheet over the mattress of the land. Yet the citizens felt safe, going about their usual routines, though slightly inconvenienced.

Jaime spoke with the Ones on a daily basis. Their message to humanity was clear and their intent true. Sometimes he walked with his staff to the quiet grove to give an offering. Of all the humans, he was least afraid of ascension. His apartment was small and modest. He had dropped out of community college, moved back in with the family to help support them for a while, moved back out, finished his AA and wandered rather aimlessly until he’d found the Study Program. Little did he know it would get him in speaking with the Ones.

On that day of woe, the Ones saw the purple blob rising up from the sewers. They were touched but worried that humanity could remain so passive. So the Ones gave Jaime a mighty lightning bolt to throw. He aimed it at the city hall downtown. “If you can’t fight them, throw a lighting bolt at them.” The flames rose higher and in the conflagration, from his apartment just barely over the border of the West Side, he heard screams. “Thank you, Ones. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.” Suddenly, the Ones sent down a being that looked like a phoenix to chase Jaime. They had not been pleased with his decision-making. Jaime wondered whether he had time to load his rifles, but most of him knew that he would have to fight the phoenix alone. He grabbed it by its beak and started clutching towards its eyeballs, clamping his ankles around the beak. The phoenix bucked him over. Jaime flew, hit just above his tail, and fell. He fell and fell and fell, into the storm drain of purple goo.

“Humans just ain’t like we used to make ‘em,” thought the Ones.


And so the whole City was destroyed. Not due to lack of Mercy, but because True Warriors are not doing their homework these days.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gender rant: I'm not here to give you a boner and neither is anyone else.

I'm going to work this kind of like a list of extended bullet points. Hey, kids. So let's talk about a little something called gender expression. Gender expression comes in many different varieties, and has taken on different sub-labels in popular or regional culture. Some of these labels that you might know are concepts like "dyke" "femme" "twink" "tranny" and other terms. Though there doesn't seem to be an overarching consensus on whether or not certain terms are considered offensive, partially due to the culture of term reappropriation in recent years (for instance, affectionately or cattily using the term "fag" within the gay male community), mainstream culture has adopted some terms and concepts as shorthand for certain gendered lifestyles. I argue this- No one should be unfairly reduced to their gender expression by anyone else. I believe that it is unfair to assume that someone considered to adopt a more convent...
Read more

Pop Culture Nation-A Recovered Memory of Cherished Treasures

Sometime between 2004 and Spring of 2006, I forcefully slammed a very large shoebox full of cassette tapes into the garbage can at my mother's house. You don't understand. Not just original cassette tapes. Mix tapes. During the peak hipster era of High Fidelity and Say Anything (much older, because yes we were already rehashing nostalgia), I committed a high crime against art and Xennial self-determination. I remember neither the context of the conflict, nor why I desired so strongly to sabotage myself. Was it later than then? Had I moved out again? Was it closer to 2008? I couldn't tell you. But I knew I was on one of my decluttering kicks. Inasmuch as I am messy and allow things to pile up (hopefully not to a hoarderly level) I have also gotten on occasionally forceful kicks of throwing my possessions away. Mostly because they reminded me of a part of myself that was over. Around this same time I think I dumped all the handwritten letters between me and beloved friends be...
Read more

Dream Brother

Twin seeds, planted in one long planter. Soon, a large landmass would stand between us. I wish I hadn't absorbed, from somewhere, that only the coasts mattered. And here we are. So much between us, including life & water under the bridge. I miss New York but I'm not built to root there. Just to visit. I think there was a time in my life when going there could've propelled me. They would've "gotten" what I was doing. But that was a small window of time. Now it's over. So much similar between us but so many parts of us different. And yet so much in common too. It feels like long ago but hey, obvious why we were pretty much "The Crayons" together. The queers in the 'burbs claw in the dark to find each other. Our absurd reads, endless summers and maybe the mystery trousers left in my trunk. Beach days, then you moved out right after we graduated. Things got tangible quickly. We did grownup things at 18 in a state where you didn't have to...
Read more