Over&Out

Some time ago, there was a lazy bastard who wanted to be famous. He had seen quite a few other lazy bastards get famous, and so he tought, why not me? So the lazy bastard got to work, which was quite an experience for him.
He tried a lot of different things, but in the end, nothing worked out, and he was still not famous, and still a lazy bastard, although maybe a bit less so. So, as any lazy bastard would, he dropped the idea of getting famous, and returned to his old life of being just another lazy bastard. And all he kept of those strange times was a blog.

I've been keeping this thing alive (more or less) for about two years now, and even though there weren't a lot of you who read it, it still made me happy, so thanks a bunch for that!
But life goes on and all that, and I'm finding it harder and harder to keep a regular update schedule, 'cause I got more and more other shit going on. So instead of watching as the quality and length of my posts slips further and further down, I'll call it quits. I'll leave the site up for now, and I might post some stuff from time to time, but no promises.

Thanks to all you gals and guys who read my stuff!!!

Z

1999

The year was 1999, and somehow we all knew there wasn't going to be another one quite like it for at least a thousand years. I had gotten into an accident a couple days ago, 'cause I was going too fast, and might have fallen asleep at the wheel. So my little red corvette was in the shop, which sucked. I loved that car.

And to make things worse, the shock of the accident had left me with a high fever, and I spent two days being completely delirious, pretending to be married to my living room. All in all, it was a rather strange experience.

Anyway, I had to go out tonight for a session of dance, music, sex, romance with a couple friends. So I rented a car, some shitty automatic pile of garbage. But it got the job done, and I met up with my pals outside the disco two hours later. They were already in party mood. John didn't stop saying that there had to be something in the water, and the way he acted, you had to believe him. The dude was high as fuck.

The owner was in a good mood that night, and gave us a couple drinks for free, which was a nice gesture, but meant I had to grab a taxi to get home. The lady cab driver asked me where to, and it took me a while to answer. “New York!” I said after a few seconds.

“New York?”, she asked, bemused.

“Yeah girl. All the critics love U over there. Sounds like the place to be.”

“That's gonna be a long drive...”

“Not to worry, darling. I'll find us something to do with our time. Did I tell you that I'm an international lover?”

Gotcha!

It's amazing how you sometimes see the right things at the right time. The other day, I was walking through the grey mass of concrete that is downtown. The sky was overcast, and a few raindrops timidly made the journey from the clouds overhead down to earth. It was one of those days were the dreariness of modern life hits you full face, the clouds and the buildings merging into one big monotonous blob. Even the violent proof of life that real rain would have given the scene was denied. And with each step I took, the realization that we were being stripped, slowly but surely, of anything real, of anything tangible that could be found in life, sunk in a little bit further. And just before the depression set in for real, I saw it.

Up in the corner of one of the buildings sprouting from a clogged-up rain gutter, was a bright yellow flower. Because no matter how much you try to hide it, and no matter how much you try to make people forget about it, the beauty of life will never vanish.

Treasure Hunt

The forest was waking up. Spring had come, and wildflowers vied for a spot in the sunlight with the new spruces of bush and tree. They had to be fast, because in only a few weeks, abundant foliage will cover the ground in shadows. But of course, I wasn't here for the flowers. Somehow, I never am.

There was treasure in the ground in these parts, or so they said. Looking through the mush of dead leaves and decomposing wood, pushing aside the undergrowth with inconsiderate force, I kept on searching for the gold.

Not real gold of course. I was looking for the metaphorical kind. Which, not being subject to market fluctuations, always seemed the safer investment to me.

Perspectives

There ain't nothing quite like it. Soft sunshine and a cool breeze. Blue skies and white clouds. Sandy beaches with big waves. It's amazing how big the little things can get if you let them. The tiniest detail turns into the crux of the whole story, and suddenly everything falls into place around it. The world's crazy like that, sometimes.

Mike wasn't really the philosophical type, but right now he felt like thinking about this kind of stuff. It could help you sort things out. Or maybe it was just one of those times where you needed to put the important stuff on the backburner, and let it simmer for a while. See how the flavour would change. The important thing was to take it off the flame again before it burned.

Summer Snow

Johnny boy was walking down the street, snot dropping off his nose. Spring was in the air, but so was winter, lingering around with nothing better to do. The mixture of pollen and cold had prevented Johnny from taking a breath through his nose for the last week, and he was getting sick of it. While everybody else lazed around in the warm sunshine, admiring the bright colors, he spent most of his time inside, trying to find the right combination of air-purifiers and indoor scents to get his truffle working properly again. He went about it as meticoulously as any scientist, but even after all these years, he hadn't found anything that worked. He had started to seriously consider the possibility that he was being sabotaged by the tissue industry. Right now, though, he had set out to resupply on said paper-squares, his mistrust of their creators forgotten for the moment.

He was making his way back a short while later, arms laden with kleenex, when it came to him. Like all brilliant insights, it started with a simple question mark. He looked at it hanging there, and wondered to what question it might belong. And when he found out, his lips split into a big smile. Of course, the answer was there all along. It might not be the most ethical solution, and it certainly wasn't legal. Then again, if you had to go up against saboteurs and industrial spies, no point insisting on the high road. And besides, it had a nice ring to it. Snow in summer.

Over&Out

John was sitting in front of the screen, his eyes two blurry red dots. His fingers moved sluggishly over the keyboard in search of the right sequence to type in. His eyelids flickered slightly as he read line after line of code, trying to spot his mistakes. A half-empty bottle of beer was losing the last of its bubbles next to his computer.

It had taken him a long time to get where he was. But he had started to think it might just be worth it. Sure, there were still a couple of points that needed fine-tuning. Constants to be adjusted, formulas to be overhauled, segfaults to be avoided. But on the whole, it seemed to work. He almost couldn't believe it. Conceptually sound. Never had two words sounded so beautiful. John smiled to himself. Soon, he thought, soon, he would let the world know about what he could do. Then it hit him. What about sleep?

Seafood surprise

John was smiling to himself as the water ran down his body. Nothing quite matched the feeling of a warm shower after a sweaty workout. He didn't particularly care for the macho-banter of his shower-mates, but it was a small price to pay for the slice of heaven he was now enjoying.

Stepping out from under the water was disappointing as always, and the smell of manly sweat hit him full force as he stepped into the locker room. A tangled mess of after-shave and hormone-laden bodily secretions that made him think of the results he had gotten when he decided to mix together all the ingredients of his chemistry kit as a kid. Nothing good could come of it.

He pulled on his boxers, his shirt and his pants, and sat down to take care of his socks. Then it happened. He straightened up and looked around. Was he going crazy, or did something in here really smell like boiled crab?

Lawrence the rabbit

Lawrence wasn't a rabbit like the others. He was one of the big ones. Two meters in length, with front teeth longer than a human head, he was a fine specimen. But being tall and strong isn't what life is all about in the world of lagomorpha. And there was one thing about Lawrence that had made him an oddity since birth. He could only leap straight.

While his fellows were zigzagging all over the place, Lawrence would make a bee-line to where he was going. And that didn't go down well with the others. Outcast, ridiculed, heckled, he would often sit all alone on the edge of the prairie, wallowing in his misery.

One day, as he was just minding his own business as usual, the other rabbits made fun of him once more. “Lawrence, Lawrence, straight as an arrow. Can't make a turn, no matter how narrow!”, they would chant at him. But this time, he didn't just listen to them in silence.

“You're all so stupid!”, he yelled back. “Wherever we go, I always get there first. And also, I'm bigger than you. You're all just jealous, you idiots!” And then he ran away, straight over the prairie, as fast as he could. The other rabbits didn't chase him, because they knew they couldn't catch up.

As Lawrence finally couldn't run anymore, he lay down on the dry grass, his body heaving under his strained breathing. Just as he thought he might as well take a nap, he heard a wheezy voice from behind.

“Lawrence, Lawrence, Lawrence.”, the voice said, and he realized that it belonged to a hare so old, her fur had turned white. Her eyes were milky, but her gaze remained steady as she kept speaking. “It's true that you're big, and that the others can't catch up with you if you run straight. But the world is round anyway, so even if you always keep going straight, you'll end up in the same place again. And if you don't make any detours wherever you go, you'll miss all the fun.”

“You stupid old hare”, said Lawrence. “So you waited for me here just so you too could make fun of me?”

“No”, said the hare. “I came here to tell you something important. I hoped you would notice on your own, but since that doesn't seem to be the case, I'll just have to tell you myself.”

“Tell me what?”, said Lawrence. “What important thing could you know about me, anyway?”

“Lawrence,”, said the hare, “remember this well. Zigzags are just a lot of different straight lines put end to end.”

Early-morning tension

I had had a terrible day. Chased from one place to the next, attacked by vicious animals and roaming stormtroopers, I had to fight my way through an overgrown forest with my two companions. It took us over twenty-four hours to finally get out of this mess.

We met up with a friend outside, and then we went our seperate ways. But alltough the worst seemed to be over, a nervous tension lingered in the air, crisping the muscles and kicking the brain into overdrive. I reached into my pocket and got out a skin, wanting to roll myself a cig, when it happened. The guy had been following me from before, some beat-cop with nothing better to do. He took my skin out of my hands, with a kind of “what-have-we-here” look in his eyes. I just knew he tought he could make an easy bust, probably find some weed on me, maybe more if he was lucky. But he wasn't.

I told him it wasn't for a joint, that I rolled my own cigarettes, and would he please hand it back. My jaw muscles clenched and my whole body was one big tight-wound spring, ready to let loose at the slightest touch. The guy just looked at me, a bemused smile on his lips. Before I knew it, my hand was around his arm, and I forced him against a nearby wall. I was barely touching him, but I had to use all my strength to keep myself from trying to tear him apart. “Do you really wanna do this?”, I whispered in his ear.

It seems that at that point, he realised that it would be a bad idea to mess with me in my current state. He looked like a child caught being naughty by its parents as he disentangled himself from me. I walked back out into the street and rolled my smoke. I lit up while looking at the grey early-morning sky. This wasn't gonna be one of my better days.

Library

The silence is oppressive. It is heavy. It envelops you like cold molten lead, stifling your reflexes, dimming your movements. As if by divine providence, its existence becomes paramount, and each gesture is executed with utmost care, so as not to break its holy being. As you loose yourself in this transcendent state, it becomes second nature. Your thoughts become more organized, your fingers type gently on the keyboard. As if in meditation, your whole self seems to fall into a new state of being, the world around you slipping away. And only once this unconscious reverence of silence has reached its peak, do you start to forget all about where it came from.
Until you swear out loud.

Lingering...

The winds are still rough, but the rain has stopped. The clouds shift uneasily, ready to be parted, while the sun does some push-ups to prepare for its grand entrance. The ground is still wet, the leaves still dropping, all of them waiting for the warm light to finally make them dry again. And just as you put on your coat, thinking that it'll take a while still, the sky opens.

Sunshine.

Here we go Again

There it is again. A slight trembling in my fingers. A sensation of lightness in my tummy, which could be exiting if it wasn't so queasy. My brain is blank, and yet working at full speed. It seems as if my whole being is running at ten-thousand rpms, just waiting to shift into gear.

Last check. Chocolate. Water bottle. Pen and paper. Shuffle it around a bit to make it more tangible. And just for the sake of doing something. Hands nervously fumbling with my pencil. I look up as the sound I was waiting for finally finds my ears. And we're off!

Oh, god, I hope I get a passing grade!

Tomorrow

The sun is shining bright outside, and the earth seems to steam as the translucent rays of light beat upon it. Flowers sprout, and birds sing. The ice and snow recede into the shadows. I look out the window, wondering how much of it will still be alive next year. Nature woke up early this time around, so it might not be able to hold on until the end. I open up another bottle, because I haven't got anything better to do.

Actually, I have a lot of better things to do. Goals to achieve, dreams to realize, duties to fulfill. But those don't count. These days, they never really do. Not as long as I've got time. And even though the day always seems to fall short, the nights are long.