The Storm on the Desert

 Illya was not frightened of thunder. Even as a little girl, she simply knew that it was the sound of a storm overhead. In fact, she associated that sound with the idea of rain. Rain that would come and give life to the land all around her, that was what thunder meant to Illya. Now, staring at the vast desert sandscape before her, Illya began to pray. You see, storms in the village were times of calm and peace. In the forest, rain meant safety. In the mountains, rain meant fresh water to drink. In the desert, it meant that the sand would become a demon made of daggers and the wind would steer you deeper into the unknown. A storm in the desert was the closest one could come to death in Illya’s mind. Even now, atop her horse, she could only debate the options before her. Set up camp and hope it is a short storm or to outrun the clouds and their demons.

Illya’s eyes looked out over the shadows cast by the storm clouds at her back. They grew longer and longer every moment. Each passing breath was another foot of shadow that had crept its way across the sands. Torok was champing at the bit, knowing that his rider was uneasy and that they would soon be racing at top speed. Illya had to make a decision and the roll of distant thunder somewhere behind her kicked her heels, driving the horse to charge off towards the dunes in front of them.

The wind roared around them, both due to the speed of the horse and rider as well as the new gusts of wind coming from the storm at their heels and hooves. Torok’s hooves thundered across the packed sand, pounding as his breath began to grow quick and labored. Illya kept her gaze locked to the dunes on the horizon even as the clouds behind her roared out yet another heavy roll of thunder.

Every hoofbeat seemed to echo Illya’s heartbeats, her hands clutching the reins tighter as the wind began to blow a bit harder at her back. Turning her head towards the clouds, she could see what made the people of the desert fear these storms. Towering into the sky, blasting sand across the world, a wall of dust blanketed the world. Lightning tore from the clouds and pierced the sand only to crash against the desert floor. Then came the raindrop.

First, there was one. A small raindrop that spattered itself against Illya’s goggles. The girl’s heart skipped a beat as she urged Torok to run faster. Another drop, then another, then four more, and before long, the rain came crashing down. Sheets of cool, clear water pelted Illya’s body as she raced against time towards the horizon. Her horse’s heart thumping loudly under her as she chanced another look back at the wall of dirt behind her. It was close, close enough to smell, and it looked like it was full of rage.

Torok beat his hooves as fast as he could, his eyes looking bewildered as he hoped for a place to hide out the storm in, and Illya was doing much the same. Illya could almost feel the wind gripping at her hair as she rode faster across the sands. Without word, without warning, the storm came and Illya, Torok, and the sands of that desert were wiped away. Were the storm a living thing, it might have seemed like the hand of God had descended upon this mortal plane and swiped away the living from that very desert.

Minutes passed, the storm dropping an ocean of water onto the land before drifting further across the desert. The wind died, the sand settled, and the world was calm again. No more were the thunderous beats of hooves, the roar of the winds nor the clap of thunder. Now, there was only silence. A deep silence that can only be found in the darkest depths of night.

The Story behind France

Elias Gaines was a man of few words and fewer faults. Naturally, as a farmer, the idea of wasting energy in fruitless ventures was akin to wasting energy in slothful languish. Elias Gaines did much of what any farmer did, he woke with the sun, worked himself to the quick, and went to bed as the sun did.

His good wife, Amelia, cared very much for him, often working herself through the house just as hard as Elias did in the fields. Yet no matter how hard she worked, she could never keep up. Even as a young newly wedded bride, she could feel the dark shudders of cold much harder than they ever could have been. When she passed, Elias found her laying in the pantry.

Elias never really talked much before his wife passed and after, his lips remained just as welded shut as they had been if not more so. He went about the chores as usual, he went about his life as usual, and yet rarely did he spend time at the pub. Rarely did he spend time at church in spite of Father Logan’s insistence. Rarely did Elias receive mail, but when he did, it was always packages from France.

While post from France was hardly news worthy, it was for a small farming town in Texas. He never said much when he picked his mail up from the post office but simply smiled. Each package was a small smile, a gift to grace us from the hard, sun-scorched skin of the old farmer. His aged, callous, and worry-worn hands gripping the edges of the packages. Fingers inspecting the edges for damage, identifying any faults in the surface, and when satisfied, he would always nod and thank us, thank the world for his gift. It was always a strange moment when he left the room with his package. It was as if we had missed some strange joke that the old man had played on us.

It was rumored that the packages were letters from some long-lost love. Gifts from a French gendarme who he saved the life of in the trenches at the Somme was another story. Another story was each package was a painting from a French artist he patronizing.

Each story, although riveting, was far from the truth. The truth was far less interesting, far more mundane, and when that truth came out, the townsfolk could only nod and smile.

Every day, after tending the fields, fixing his tools, going into town, making dinner, and after finally kicking off his boots Elias sat in his living room and listened to the sound of Mozart. His antique phonograph softly filling that old farm house with the sound of masterful violins, enchanting piano, and the gentle notes of woodwinds that floated from across the sea into Elias’ eager and overjoyed ears. Each night he would choose from his collection, choose a master of music and enjoy their craft to their fullest extent. Handel, Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, Tchaikovsky. A wall of his house had grown fat with their collected works, shelves packed to sagging with vinyl records for his enjoyment, and enjoy them Elias did.

Elias passed with a soft smile at his lips and his record player skipping on the last line of Chopin. His house filled with the crackle of the needle, covered in dust from France and Texas, and yet still, this farmhouse might have rivaled the grandest of conservatories.

On Old Journals and New Beginnings (a.k.a. Illustrations of Frustrations)

 It's always interesting cleaning up your room and finding old toys and old bits and baubles from your childhood. You always think, "Wow! I haven't seen this in forever!"

Naturally, the inevitable happens shortly after that. You start to lose yourself in those memories, you start to think about where you were, who you were when you first experienced that object. It's funny how desire to make something can slowly be twisted and warped as you grow away from that person you used to be. Looking at this blog, I can only help but laugh as I remember how proud I was that I was able to produce writing for it, and then I started to slow down on writing, slow down posting. One week went by, then another, then a month, and before I knew it. It had been EIGHT years since I last posted on this blog.

I want to rectify that.

So, if I can, I'd like to turn this into a project that I'll finally keep up with. I want to post at least one thing a month to this blog. One short story, one poem, just one thing that keeps it from being another forgotten thing in a closet.

And so, without further ado, here is that one thing.

Illustrations of Frustrations

 To say that I was frustrated would have truly been a lie. I was not merely frustrated, I was immensely frustrated. I was that feeling of anger and annoyance swirling within the confines of your mind as you struggled seemingly uselessly against some invisible wall all to accomplish a task that leads only to more tasks with more walls. I was that sense of hopelessness that still held onto that prideful vanity of "it's gotta work this time" and yet even deep down, regardless of whatever minute detail I change, I'll still fail.

 I was not frustrated. I was irrationally frustrated. Not to say that my frustration was irrational, but rather that my frustration made me irrational. I punched my thigh as hard as I could to physically manifest my frustrations. I cursed my inability, I flagulated my emotional flesh to drive home my frustrations, and still it did nothing to help me or my frustrations. The pain still hurt, the emotional damage never healed, and still I blame myself for my frustrations.

I was not frustrated. I was inconsolably distraught. Like some kitten on a row boat in a storm, there was no place for me to hide. Instead, I simply forced myself to claw at my frustrations weakly and without any real ability to damage them. My body tossed about, leaving me with no foothold to steady myself, to give me leverage to right myself and to give me a fighting chance. I was at the tumultuous seas whims.

 I was not frustrated. Because frustrated would imply that I could accomplish the task but was simply without the skill or the equipment or luck to do so, of which I had none of those to rely on. I struggled uselessly like a fish in a net, I was already caught by my own intense desire to be successful that I resigned myself to do or die. DO or DIE as if it were a choice that I could so easily make as I hammered and bashed and pounded and pulled and pushed and heaved and cried and wept and pleaded and begged. Still, I cannot say I was frustrated, because it was so much more than that.

I was not frustrated.

Scrap: I Need to Die

Well, this is obviously the culmination of boredom and a writing prompt I found on the internet, and not a cry for help at all. Don't worry, the title just seemed to fit much better than: "Old Man", which might've been even more distressing...Anyways! The prompt asked the question: "When would it be okay to be happy to die?" At first I thought, "Well, Cancer patients... Long term illness", but then the idea came into my head,  "What if God was trapped on Earth in a human body? Who could he tell? Who would really believe an old man who just popped up into the world with not even a cent to his name?"

This is the culmination of my efforts and spontaneously decent ideas! Short, sweet, and simple. ENJOY!

"I can no longer remember. I used to be somebody, a soldier I think, or maybe a newspaper man, or even a judge... I just know I was very important and wore a uniform. My name? I can't really remember, just... Please... I need to die."

That was all the man repeated, that was all he ever repeated during his interviews, but he was still locked up in the seventh cell of the St. Michael's Hospital for the Mentally Ill in the Alpha wing. It was quite humorous to Doctor Henry Davids, it was almost like the man was begging to die, and while as a youthful intern working his first "Psych rotation" at Boston General he had toyed with the idea of euthanasia. Assisted suicide, it was still called back then, it would be more appropriately called "Murder" now, but since the man was not in pain it neither compelled Dr. Davids to actually do anything about it. The man  after all was brought in after being found stone drunk in the middle of interstate with only a white robe on. The damned thing was the only clean thing about him, the rest of him was dirty, bruised, some spots sported sores, but all of it pointed to things such as Disassociation Disorder or Alcoholism. The man was quite old though, remarkably in great health, and was spirited for an old man. His gray eyes always frittering about, telling stories from the Bible, Koran, the Tanakh, and even a few lines from the Tao Te Ching, and a few other books of great philosophies, but other than that, the old man was forgetful.

Everyday he would wake up before the sun came up, he would stare out the small, barred, glass window, and the moment the orderly came to open the door he would turn and ask the same question, "Is today the day I die?"

He would go about the day, smiling warmly to the other patients, greeting them as if they were all old friends, and then he would sit and have a staring contest with the one man in the room who cannot say a word. It was almost as if they were having a quite ginger conversation, their faces not moving, but there was a sparkle in their eyes. Next came story time after morning pills, Jonah and the Whale, Isaac and Abraham, Tower of Babel, Mohammad's ascension to Heaven, all of these were like memories that he was sharing with children. The old man smiled so wide as he spoke, his eyes gleaming with pride as he told the stories, but there were many times where he would almost begin to cry. Stories such as Noah's Arc, Sodom and Gamora, or even stories such as Job's persistence all brought the old man to the verge of tears or even over the threshold, but every story was finished without interruption. It was quite interesting to see how every patient listened, hanging on every word , even if they had heard the story over a hundred times already. The old man, once done with story time, would sit and listen to the others tell their stories, smiling, laughing, and enjoying every moment. The nurses were even taking notes as much of what he was told was more than any of them had ever said in a group therapy session.

The old man would then join the rest of the patients out on the lawn for some exercise, he would look about the world as he walked, noting flowers, remarking the way the grass was cut, commenting on the sky's color, and said all this as if he were seeing at all again for the first time. After exercise would come lunch, he loved every morsel of food he was served. He was always complimenting the staff of cookers and food preparation professionals, giving them each a firm handshake after every meal. The staff simply adored him, he would listen to them talk, smiling as the nurses and orderlies all gave him their problems and he would return to them with the most sagely of wisdom and advice. After dinner, depending on the evening's entertainment, the old man would either sit and look at the stars with a few of the other patients in the windowed common room, or when it was "movie night" he watched intently, eager to take in every emotion before weeping and giving a standing ovation at the end of every film. When bedtime rolled around though, he brushed his teeth, put on his long-limbed pajamas that almost covered his hands and feet entirely from view, and would then look to his orderly with a look of almost disappointment before saying, "Perhaps tomorrow will be the day I die."

Dr. Davids began to wonder about the old man, wondering if his life were truly at an end, and it was interesting as he began to take into count his own life. Each day seemed rather boring in comparison to the life the old man lived, a day full of wonder, of uniformity, but also full of the expectancy of death. Living each day as if death would come to take him was quite a daunting feeling to master, but this man seemed quite content with the thought of death. The day of July first rolled around, the Old Man did not wake up early.

The orderly quickly rushed into the room, checking the man's pulse, and was surprised to find it was dreadfully weak. After almost ten years in the Hospital, the Old man had finally been asleep when the orderly showed up to unlock his door, and the nurses and doctors all gathered at his doorway to look on as the old man was inspected. He simply smiled that intoxicating old smile as he waved at them and said in a raspy, weak voice, "Don't fret, I'm just dying, be happy."

Doctor Davids began to order him transferred to the local medical hospital for more on hands care, but the old man refused. He smiled as he did it, shaking his head as he asked Dr. Davids to put down the phone he had in his hand, and simply thanked the man for caring for him. The nurses seemed a bit distraught at the transpirations, begging him to let them help, but he refused and smiled at them, "No, no, this is a good day. It's sunny and warm outside, see?"

It was true, the day had been unusually perfect, but still, the thought of a death was incredibly heartbreaking. Dr. Davids had not expected the Old Man's last wish to be to see the other patients, his weak voice happily saying, "I just want to say goodbye to all my friends."

Each patient walked in, one at a time, each sobbing, or smiling, or laughing, or crying, or even angry at the old man for dying on them. He laughed with them, they hugged him, and he told them that he loved them each as though they were his child. He beamed with joy though, every second was full of joy as he began to feel the pain of his body beginning to shut down, and when the moment finally came, there was silence. A comfortable one. When the last breath left the Old Man's body it was a beautiful moment. There were no tears, no sobs, not even the squeak of a wheel chair, and everyone in the Alpha wing was gathered in the room.