Tuesday, June 7, 2011

It's Where I Am That Matters

A.N. I wrote this story in 7th grade. One of the few that I really like. I forgot this even existed.

“See that dog?” the old man said, pointing towards a pack of black dogs, scrounging for meat “That dog will be the finest seller of wines and spirits you’d ever have seen”. I nodded in agreement, though I didn’t see how this could happen, and said “They’re unlike any dogs I’ve ever seen, already.” He chuckled and told me “Oh, that’s not all! It’s just the one. It’s the special one”.

My friends and I went out on The Freeway, that morning. We saw the dogs. The Freeway, of course, was a very deep state of sub-consciousness that was popular among children at the time. Not so many people go there anymore. On The Freeway, you were physically alone but despite the lack of people around you, you were still in contact with the people who came there with you. I probably should have mentioned that the freeway was a concrete road, suspended in the branches of a canopy that was so thick, you couldn’t see the sky. Endless. I have no Idea what made us so attracted to it but we were there and we had all seen the dogs. They ran right up to us and you could see their own future in their eyes. We couldn’t see each other or feel each other and there was certainly no trace of anyone else but for some reason, we could all see the dogs. They were with us.

I walked down the road, as I usually did and I found that the dogs plagued my thoughts. Of course they did. They had showed up in my sub-consciousness. And the dogs, unlike any I had seen before, were there for my life. My life to stay theirs. It kills me to leave it in the hands of others. But then again, wasn’t it always? I needed them out of my head. As we all knew, to get off The Freeway, you just have to jump off. Let it all be done and go back to your horrible monster of reality. Just jump off and that’s all.

You don’t remember exactly what it feels like after you’ve left The Freeway. When you yourself are in The Freeway, you can’t help but think that going there is just what you’ve been living for. And that the whole day was worth it. Some people go missing on The Freeway. You don’t remember how it feels but you always find yourself going back there. It can get to the point where you just can’t help it.

The wine I drank that day was bitter and tasted of ashes. As did all the wine I drank until the day I saw the dog again. It must have been many years later that I saw him. He was wearing a long, dark overcoat and a gentlemanly hat upon his sharp eared head. He looked like a man with business. He was a man with some purpose to his life and swiftness in every two legged step. I ran to him in a great admiration and said “You’re the dog! You’re him!” He looked at me in disgust as though I was discriminating against him for his possession of a dog’s body. “Show some respect,” he said. He eyed me suspiciously and then courteously nodded his head. “I’m sorry for any offense I caused you,” and bowing his head once more, he continued “I am quite famous for my accomplishments as a wine maker. What is it that you wish of me? I can offer you many things”. During this time, all that I could muster was silence. All I knew was that I wanted to taste the sour flavors of wine again and I was a fairly contented man.

We used to go fish in the river that waters the grapes, me and my friends. They told me that one side of the river was luck and the other side was skill. I tried fishing on both but I never caught anything as good as they did. The fish that I caught were the color of swamp dirt and ate the trash from the river. Some couldn’t get anything from the side of luck and had gotten their lines snagged in the grape vines. It was refreshing that I was better than some people. It a feeling almost half as good as I’d imagine The Freeway being.

The river was beautiful if you looked at it in the right way. In one way, it was muddy and full of scrap metal that people had thrown in but in another way there was beauty in that.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Schlachthof Fünf

Response to slaughterhouse five. The author wrote the book after he survived the firebombing of dresden, a famous massacre in world war two. This poem plays on some of the themes in Slaughterhouse five.


Today
a house burned down
Nobody was there to
start a fire
or end it
It just
happend

20 years ago
A world burned down
and I
hid myself
I saved myself
And nobody else.
Others died
They lived as I did

Today
my house burned down
and I can't complain