Short stories/essays by Mastermind. Latest: Birth of Light

[Mastermind]

My writing has been much darker than usual as of late, but it's not always like this. Also, because I've been wrapped up in sports I haven't had much time to write anything that wasn't assigned for me to do. That's why these first two entries are essays/stories I wrote for school.

I was assigned to write about an obsession and/or compulsion I have. Here it is:


Every day I wake up, I don't want to anymore, but I can't bring myself not to. I've been doing it for too long, and although it's less than pleasurable, it's addicting.

I'm addicted to life, to thought. I know it's brought me more pain than anything else in my life and I can end it at any time, but I can never bring enough effort to break the habit.

I stumble into the shower, water sears me to wakefulness. I hate wakefulness, but people out there need me, I just wish that were true.
Why do I lie to myself this way? I needlessly overestimate my importance day after day because this drug, this lie, is forcing me to. I ought to be truthful. The next time I ask: "Who would be lost if I never woke up? " I should answer "No one."

I skip breakfast, food would just add to the illusion of sustained peace. I scratch out a few barely legible homework problems on paper, then I'm at school and the teacher are shaking their heads in disappointment.

Compulsively, I attend this train of condescension for 30 hours a week. Obsessively, I take each word to heart. Why can't I just realize that these disparaging remarks would never have been formed if I had not woken up?

I skip lunch, food would remove the pain in my stomach and make me even more aware of the pain all around me. I scratch a few barely legible homework problems on paper, then I'm back in class and the teachers are telling me exactly how my life has been wasted on me.

They're right, but my selfish obsession with this place keeps any word from my lips, I can only nod in silence. I have no salvation, I cannot believe in anything else.

School's out, time for sports. 15 hours a week, I am told how much better I could be if I took the time to practice. I nod silently.

Sports are done, and I am forced to the dinner table. Everyone there is so happy. I know I am bringing them down.

Searing water, then homework jotted on paper.

"Time for bed!" the call resounds. I ignore it.

The clock strikes midnight, but I still have more I need to do.

Sleep comes before I am through.

I dream.

Everyone is there; they are putting me on a boat. I don't want to get on the boat because I can see
the rocks.

They laugh and push the boat into the river. I call out to them, I call for help, but everyone just laughs.

"There's nothing to cry about." They all say "We've done it before, you can do it too."

I cry because I want to get out of the boat, because I can see the waterfall, I can see the rocks.

"The only person you have to blame for this is yourself." They laugh "We've all done this and we never cried."

I scream that the waterfall is getting closer. It begins to rain.

Laughter continues to echo from all sides, but I can no longer see where it's coming from. I scream and scream and scream and the waterfall is here and I scream and I fall and I hit the rocks and there's rain and they laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and it's all my fault because I cried and they all did this and they never cried.

I wake up. I don't want to, but I have to.

Otherwise, how will I meet more people to put me on the boat?

It's obsessive, it's compulsive, it's terrible and I hate it.

I wake up anyway.

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Another essay, this one about what quote I would get tattooed on me:


If I was to get a quote tattooed on my body, I would sear the words 'He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command' in reverse across my chest. That way, every morning when I look in the mirror, I will be reminded of the fact that I must still learn, every day of my life, the art of command.

Some people think they know what it means to be a leader, but all they really know is how to fake it.

There are no leaders in this world, only posers, but the jackpot goes to the best poser, so I must be reminded not to lose myself when the smell of burning plastic smiles becomes intoxicating. And when my own mask starts to melt it must be known that these are not tears in my eyes, it is just my so called 'clever' disguise.

What is real to the hollow man?

Pain. Pain and blood. When the blades of truth become too sharp and cut through the mask, there must be a reminder that there is something left behind.

Put it in. It's sharp. We bleed. Blood frames the pseudo human runes in crimson on the stark white canvas of my chest. Then the canvas is lost beneath the gushing torrent of life flowing from me, from the hollow man.

Too much blood, I'm drowning, the pain is dulled by blood loss, I am losing the truth.

How can I bring back the pain, the truth of pain?

Feeling, burning coals of anger, the burning iron of suppressed rage. From the ashes of life, this bright flame still tears a scream from lips sewn shut by lies, eyes open, possibly for the first time. Screams echo through the white sanitized room. Color is fading, crimson fades to black. Dark shapes assure me that the ambulance is on its way, that I'll get somewhere I can get help.

Now, every morning when I look in the mirror, I am reminded that I must still learn, every day, the art of command.

Because the words were said by someone who understood. Machiavelli knew, there are no leaders, we are all children, pretend princes laughing in the yard.

[Mastermind]

Here's a random story I did. I really don't like it, but I'll put it up for critique anyway.


"You will forget all of this."

"What?"

"Nothing."

   Daniel left, frowning as he did so. He had been meaning to do something, he could feel a sense of directed purpose, but it was trapped in a dark orb in the bottom right section of his mind. He probed it with mental fingers from all sides, but could not find a crack. He was left to wonder and wish it would either open or dissolve so he could move on to other business.

His stomach rumbled. Seizing on this new problem, Daniel drove other thoughts from his head and looked around. The concrete jungle of nighttime Finleyville loomed around him and greasy solutions blared their neon banners at him from all sides. He picked the one with the fewest people in it and went there.

It was a cheap Chinese food joint, the kind that had added fried chicken to their menu and doubled the fat in all their meals to appeal to western vices. Daniel had to check twice to be sure that he was hungry enough to pick one of the bastardized oriental concoctions and force his system to process it. He was, so he repeated his order three times to the man at the counter who obviously knew only enough English to take the most basic requests.  The food arrived shortly, and with it, a desire for fresh air.

Daniel decided to walk while eating rather than be assaulted by fluorescents through his meal. Wielding chopsticks in one hand and balancing the container of food in the other, he moved away from the restaurant and the lights, stepping over a 'CAUTION, DO NOT ENTER' sign as he did so. 

The old warehouse had already been stripped of everything valuable. Fortunately, for Daniel, this included the doors. It would have been pitch black inside if not for the single bulb hanging from the ceiling that illuminated a body on the ground and a figure standing over it. Both were naked.

Daniel paused, a bite of chicken halfway to his mouth. The dark orb had returned, and in its absence, it had grown so that now it pressed against his forehead. What was it he had forgotten?

Slowly, he placed the tin of food on the ground and moved silently into the shadows. The figure's hands were covered in blood and a knife lay on the floor. Daniel stared to move closer. Unfortunately, there was a can in the darkness that felt the need to place itself directly in Daniel's path before flying away with a clatter that echoed through the warehouse. The figure turned and revealed a flat expanse of skin where its face should have been. It was without hair or any mark of gender, the only marking on it was a large inverted pentagram that seemed to have been drawn on its face in blood.  High and inhuman, it sent a shiver down Daniel's back. The orb broke open and Daniel remembered everything.

"That's right, hold up!"

The figure stopped moving.

Daniel stepped forward and pointed at the body.

"It has no memories anymore, so you don't need to worry about resistance."

The thing nodded before stepping forward and plunging it's long pointed fingers into one of the body's eye, moving further and further in. It's entire hand was in the eye, then its arm moved in, then the entire being was gone, and the eye closed.

The body stood.

The eye opened.

The pupil expanded beyond the eye, covering the body for an instant before receding, leaving a suit and tie. The body nodded to Daniel.

"Thank you, Daniel."

"You are welcome, Daniel."

[Hoopa]

@the first writings: Really deep stuff there. I like it. Reminds me of my life. As for the second, really really mind boggling but cool. I suck at critique though, sorry. Gotta get someone else for that.

[Mastermind]

They loaded me into the small, sleek ship. The whole situation had a very grim feel to it. I remember the men in white coats talking about me. They said I would end the war. I didn't know what they meant; I knew nothing of war, of enemies or allies, of weapons or death. I hadn't even been born yet.

With infinite care, they fitted metal arms around me, and locked me in the small metal compartment where I was to wait. I had not seen anything of the world except the research facility where I first found myself and small glimpses I could grab during the hurried transport to the military base.
I could hear the engines start to operate as the ship began to move. The acceleration began to build, I felt the direction shift, and the rumbling of the wheels was suddenly silenced. It felt as if I was moving up a very steep incline, but the ascent was too steep and too smooth. I realized that the vessel I was in no longer obeyed the command of gravity. The violation of what seemed an absolute law disturbed me, and I wondered why anything with the power to bend the absolute laws would need something like me, a nonentity bound in a womb of heavy metals, to win a war. Perhaps they wanted my other, of whom I had heard. We were twins, they said, bound to compete forever, for our entire existence. I did not know what I was to do.

Time passed, and I began to feel a stirring, a connection to everything around me.

There were ten minutes until my birth.

I felt connected to the man that would be called my father, I could hear him whispering to me, telling me what to say, to do. I felt connected to the pilot, felt his love for his mission, which compelled him to risk the ship he had named after his mother.

There were five minutes to my birth.

I heard the wind pass along the body of the ship; I heard the laughing of thousands below me. I felt their lives, their hopes, and their dreams moving through me.

There were forty-three seconds until my birth.

The metal arms released me and the world opened around me as I fell. The open air was just beyond the metal womb surrounding me. The world was just beyond that thin metallic veil. I wanted to emerge, I wanted to touch it, and I wanted to be it.


There were zero seconds until my birth.

I pushed beyond the veil and saw the world for the first time. I expanded in all directions, letting my light engulf the land around me, taking all of the life, the hope, and the laughter.

"kalo'smi lokakSayakrtpravrddho lokansamahartumiha pravrttah"
"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

[/b]

There was no other sound, no other light, no other life but mine. I stood in the center of a barren land, destroyed by the brilliance of my birth. The lives of all who had lived here were within me.

They had called this place many things. Some had called it Hiroshima, but most called it home.

I walked across the world in three steps; the first led me to the land I knew would be sacrificed for the birth of my brother. I looked at the soft light of the land, stroked the face of a child destined to be a part of one like me, and knew I would not linger here. The second step led me to my twin, still entombed in steel. I embraced him and sang songs of warmth without rhythm as he lay frozen beyond the light. The final step led me to my father, who had whispered my first words in my ear. I knelt and spoke words I knew he would never hear. I told him that he was against my birth because he did not understand that I had not only become death.

I had also become light.