Dark(en Her {Gee}) Daze

the last supper before “Her” first rite of passage

Sometimes, especially lately, I’ll catch myself transfixed while watching water and suds spiral down a shower drain because it reminds me of a cosmic hurricane centered not by a tranquil eye that offers temporary reprieve {like an evolved tropical storm}, but rather by a SMBH supermassive black hole dark orb [S{m}DO] which relentlessly deletes everything that succumbs to its gravity. In other words, it reminds me of a galaxy.

Then I’ll feel foolish for spending time and energy on circular, unending, abstract contemplation.

Then I’ll feel like an asshole for wasting water.

Why are my thoughts so obscenely loud? The only thing louder is pure silence.

I don’t know how much longer I can shoulder this burden, but I suspect my time is rapidly running out.

I must have written that two years ago before tonight as I smell stagnation.

This neighborhood [where I am/was at the time of generating this paragraph] reminds me of the kind of place where I wish I would have had the chance to grow up as a normal kid {if only for a few years}. A street with decades of history under its belt, as evidenced by the fully developed trees and the wear-and-tear on the modest houses, advertises a decidedly middle-class vibe. People go walking just to get out and be social with neighbors—families grilling out, kids riding bikes, playing in yards, whatnot. Very communal. Everybody knows everybody. That’s how I imagine it anyway.

Not much happening at the moment. The fact that it’s half past two in the morning might have something to do with the lack of activity. Lights at this lady’s house have been out since 00:55; entire street eerily silent since 01:30. Starting to think they’re not coming for her tonight. This would make three consecutive fruitless nights. I think I’d leave if not for the cooler air due to hit by 03:00. 23°C is astronomically more tolerable (to me) than 30°C.

Incidentally, I predict that on the first day of October in Nashville, the temperature will reach the upper nineties.

02/10/19

Hope this tree branch is sturdy enough. A twenty-foot fall could hurt me. Theoretically.

If I pass out and invert on the way down.

Maybe.

If F&F are still in town, then they’ll be here tonight.

If they don’t show, then their mission was merely to scout.

Of this, I am one hundred 99% sure.

No, that doesn’t make sense. Overkill. It’d be like sending a Seal Team to sort out a domestic disturbance.

Perhaps they’re here neither to scout nor to kill, which leaves only capture as a possibility.

I guess. Especially if Sleeping Beauty down there perpetrated a crime against Dick Purdy so vile that he wants to watch the life leave her admittedly amazing body.

She must run a lot.

[as Lloyd might’ve said in my/(y)our head]

Almost forgot that I’m wearing Halcyon on my back. Kinda cool, I reckon, that something this big/sharp could be so unobtrusive.

I can’t emphasize this enough—assuming you’re able to cultivate a real proficiency at wielding it: you should develop an unhealthy attachment to a trusty weapon which you assign a thoughtful name, and of which you take obsessively good care.

Back home (in 1969) my best bud’s life was saved basically thanks to separation anxiety from his weapon of choice—he preferred a bolt-action dinosaur in those days. These days, being the same person {obviously}, he prefers one of his trusty .50-70[-90] Sharps rifles, all appropriately named Sharpy [insert Roman numeral in reverse order of acquisional chronology], which (due to a slightly longer-than-usual lifetime of practiced familiarity) suggests that he’ll never adapt to the tactical superiority found in more modern(ized) weaponry.

Confession: I know how he thinks. A handy-dandy, fancy scope would only get in “his” way. Granted, he augments personal vision with the latest technology—he can reload the chamber in 4.2 seconds.

Ernest is as “old school” as he is a sly dog. He’s not big on learning new (mechanical) tricks—i.e. developing new muscle memory—but he remains at the cutting edge of computer science [among other cerebral fields].

EQ2 was introduced by happenstance to Sharpy I in 1861 when he stumbled upon a struggling trapper who relinquished the rifle {for 19 bucks}, which he kept as a relic on display in his living quarters until, after an impromptu sniper dual in 1919, he found Sharpie II at the abandoned post of his target. As of 2019, he has collected 10 iterations of Sharpy, all of which must function with a striking degree of similarity.

The dude is nothing if not stubborn. He has been known to scout a hawk’s [sniper’s] nest for varying periods of time well in advance of a planned mission. His personal record for location-scouting is 12 months and 24 seconds—ironically, of course, that mission had to be aborted mere minutes before he could pull the trigger. Womp, womp.

Not sure why I’m going on about my “childhood BFF.” I guess I must miss him. Emotions are crazy. I walled them off for 98 years. Friggin’ energy, man.

God, since I’m a gushing puddle of warm, fluffy rainbow{-flavored} vibes, please allow me to admit (thanks to your continued absorption of this sentence) that I love my sword. Honestly, I’m not sure whether I love anything else. That’s probably weird. How am I only just now birthing this thought? “How long have I known you, Halcyon, you inanimately perfect object you? 42 years?” Yeah, actually, I might care more about my sword than anything else in the world. I know I’m a jaded cynic; it’s the natural outcome of the hugely unnatural trajectory of my existence. Even knowing that, I can’t control my cynicism. Wait. Is that movement? Down the street, coming out of the brush. Did I forget the concept of the “ENTER” key? Am I actually “blogging” this as it’s happening? Not exactly, but yep, here we go—a female shape makes a swiftly silent beeline across lawns, between houses, toward this seemingly unsuspecting lady’s house. Why do I detect only one of them? Confusing, this! No person has ever seen one [F] without the other. Who is this? Fausta? Maybe. Yep. Nope, Faustina. Visibly pregnant. Yikes! Looks like she’s been knocked up for about three years, maybe four. How would I know?

Is that your bun in her oven, Sevy? Perhaps it’s your slimiest best pal Vilfred’s latest sprout. Have you missed me, Villy? Your brain stem has a severance package coming due soon as well. Don’t worry, pumpkin; I’m going to make sure you see me coming. I want to stare into your eyes [remember the Tube?] while your spirit slips into a surreal trance. Together, in spite of your initial resistance, we’ll be doing a dance of death, but you’ll be the only one seeing the light as I slice into your sightline and bisect the depths of your starving energy.

Anyhow, great, this slutty viper is already unnervingly strong—or so I hear—and now she’s armed with bonus pregnancy power. And she’s combat-trained to boot {or so I’ve heard}. Damn it. Why is she alone? [I’m not really typing all this as it unfolds—to label my memory as photographic means to undersell its ridiculous potential and processing power.] Faustina looks to be on track to pass almost directly underneath me within two full fistfuls of seconds. Where is her mother? This is a gamble; shouldn’t engage. Why would she be alone? What the hell is she wearing? Looks like she robbed a drunken tourist who had just wandered out of a souvenir store after a sequence of bad decisions. At least she’s (un)comfortable. Hell, I dunno. Less than ten seconds. Detecting no other presence. Nobody else anywhere. All alone. Shit. Five seconds. She just slowed down—a futile attempt at “stealth mode,” I presume. Six seconds. Can’t afford to miss. Focus. I’m not doing this. Fuck. My hand was lightly gripping the hilt before I knew it. Three seconds. This’ll be interesting.

Welp. That’s over. She didn’t even have time to display her fangs.

I just killed a sentient female.

And it wasn’t human.

Where’s her mama? Can’t be this easy. Been years since I’ve had such an uneventful, one-sided, clean encounter with g/b. Guess I’ve retained the portion of my training rooted in the kind of mindless muscle memory that makes such a technical, textbook strike possible. Reassuring. Not outta the woods yet, though.

Crickets chirp. Steam rises from the blood spilling from Faustina’s dismembered body. Other than that, stillness reigns.

Eyes closed to amplify a keen sense of fine-tuned hearing. It’s much easier to detect noise when your eyes can’t distract you. As predicted, I listen, sweat, concentrate for a full ten seconds of frozen silence before relaxing, sheathing Hal, scooping up the two parts that comprise Faustina’s formerly functioning body then taking the shadowiest path available on foot out of the area. 

I could be the only person awake for 7 miles. Possibly 42 24.

It’s almost like it never happened.

That’s not my boat, by the way, but it might as well be.

Sometimes my hyperactive head wanders down a “dark” path and next thing I know, it feels as if I just can’t summon a normal breath, but the gentle sloshing of a properly functioning [i.e. floating] boat in still water on a quiet eve has an incontestably soothing effect on me; its sluggish rhythm reduces the cadence of my respiration to a relaxed pace. Super strange that I would ever notice—my respiration should not require external stimulus to regulate. I’ve always assumed that I am immune to a condition as pedestrian and human as anxiety. But at the present time, listening to my little craft drifting (up)on quiet (liquid) water and nothing else, I’m fine. I’d even go so far as to say, “I’m content right now,” but all the while, I know it’s only for the moment. It’ll vanish as suddenly as it appeared. That’s the nature of existence. Yin meeting yang. On repeat. Since the beginning of time and for all that remains.

A foreboding sensation swells in my gut, and unless I’m missing something terribly obvious, this is due to my relative certainty that very soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow, I will finally lock eyes with Thierry Nova Tuck. Whoa. I think that for the 5th time in my 99 years on our planet, I’m about to throw up.

The first time I felt nausea at age 12 {after tasting English peas in spite of my instincts}, I could have cried. Naturally I didn’t, but what a miserable feeling! I had only been told about it. I remember wondering if I could shit my way out of the misery. Give me a break. At that point, I carried the body of a toddler, the brain of a budding egghead, and I had never left Bessi’s 8-mile perimeter. Life was almost as confusing back then as it is now.

Luckily, however, the expansive pool of potentially gained universal knowledge will never be found empty.

In every instant, anything will change.

Augustus De Morgan Alfred Holt, Nevil Maskelyne, Paul Jennings, John Sack, et al. [kinda]

Snap your fingers. Not only is that how fast your life can (effectively) end, but also that’s how fast ignorance can be rectified.

Great news: you may feel free to never stop learning.

Wise up. Get smart. Know.

Now go.

Postscript: …and (please) don’t dilly-dally; after all, we’re already far behind.