The dream is perfect. Waking is pain.

I remember what it was like to write. The way I felt when I could push my words and thoughts onto paper instead of into unheeded air whispering answers through leaves and grass. Terrible sadness has taken the void as a player in this game and turned it against me. My words fail me now more than ever. I am what I've become to accept as empty, empty in the sense that fulfillment and completion are creation. I am purposeless now, just another grey rider racing against time but with no clue as to purpose. The soulless puppet of old.

There is no end in sight. The end is nigh. 

Same old night.

It amazes me at times how I can spit out work related rhetoric for streaming minutes upon minutes while I have no clue what words are tumbling past my lips and into the ears of listeners. The amazement comes in that behind my teeth and tongue the words I find coming to mind are low, perpetually dimming words regarding my current lack of feeling anything except sorrow and hatred. The two sensations couple nicely in alternating streams; one of them pushes me to dig the cloves I shouldn't be smoking out of my trash can, the other gets me to walk methodically to the parking lot and sit in the back of the truck breathing in acrid smoke. I smoke because it kills time. Because I don't know anything else to do.

I inhale, listening with perverse pleasure as the black clove lining and loosely packed tobacco crackles like logs in a hearth. Half the smoke escapes my mouth in a wind tangled mass, dancing malevolently to the side and front and back before disappearing in the night. Half enters my lungs on a fresh wave of oxygen, shredding and biting and tearing who knows what problems into my body. I'd roll my eyes in indifference, but my posture suggests that already. Slouched to the point of pain and in danger of falling off the truck, I spit out the flavor of burn and ash onto the ground. Inhale again, watch the smoke whirl around, and wondering if the tears will fall this time.

They don't. Only instead a small pile of grey burnt matter drifts lazily off of the orange red cherry and lands in the dirt and dust of Iraq. I spit again, tiny clouds puffing back up in exchange. I offer water, the earth offers dust. We're both wrong. Another inhale, another deep breathe of air to rush the smoke into my body. My head doesn't buzz this time like normal. Doesn't make it harder to walk back to my room afterwards. Doesn't let me feel anything, except the sweet shit smell stained on my fingers and lips now. I'm reminded of a time I kissed a girl in a car and she tasted so much like cigarettes I choked. If she could only see me now.

Moon slips behind the clouds and things get slightly darker. I can't see the smoke leaving my lungs anymore, but when I stare at the north star four small lines of yellow street light shine on my retina and skew my vision. A glance down and they vanish. Glance back up, and they're gone. Perhaps I was imagining it all along. Perhaps nothing is ever the same if you look away.

The clove burns down further. A car drives by, lights illuminating nothing I couldn't see already, but my eyes instinctively flash towards the living area across the street. I look away in disgust not at anyone in particular, but with myself. While she was backing off, I was stepping in. It's always this way. Inhale again and a feeling of numbness washes over me. Non-euphoric, just indifference. Stumble through thoughts chaotically arranged and meaning nothing. The clove is so short I can feel the heat through my fingertips. Take one last drag and flick it, edge still red hot, into the distance. Let this world burn and burn down everything with it. I'm not concerned.

Stumble back to my room and realize that nothing, at all, has changed. Time hasn't even accelerated. As if my bad idea simply delayed the world from advancing, just long enough to annoy. Approaching my door and a hesitation to enter manifests. As if...As if I can escape everything if I just. Don't. Return.

Silly words.

I drink vodka because that numb feeling I get, the sensation of indifference and flotation and mild euphoria, I can't seem to replicate it on my own anymore. Was it the first few days, as a drinker, where I exhausted my supply of concern and sensation? Or did the years grind down on my spirit so steadily that now the only way it can be free to act and feel and smile is by dulling my own senses?

I turned 29 last week and have since been living what feels a nightmare. I feel in love, head over heels style, with a girl who instantly left my bedroom to go on vacation. We had a day together, and now every evening and morning is agony wondering if she will contact me and second guessing all of the words I've spoken and wondering if perhaps I've made a grave error in speech or style or thought. But I haven't. I'm just afraid, because I'm reminded so much of a girl I knew once who ripped me apart.

Is this vodka I'm drinking or mouthwash? It was mailed to a friend in a mouthwash bottle, complete with green food coloring and reeking of mint, but it seems more potent than mouthwash should be. Wait, when did I last update this? I'm working in Iraq, a liquor free zone. Hence the surreptitious vodka. Or mouthwash. Whatever.

These days, I'll drink anything to feel something.

One Split by Zero.

A very wise, very good friend of mine once told me to do that which is best for me. And the more I thought of this phrase, this singular saying, the more I understood it. What is life, I had to ponder in my own mind before I could fathom the depths of the resolve upon which I must stand in order to succeed. Is life a game, as some would believe? Is it a quest for financial success? Power perhaps? Is life the idea that we are here, and hunting for that which makes us happy? Some would say all of the above. Others might argue that life is the ideal that we should treat others the way we would enjoy being treated, though for masochists that certainly brings up problematic points. Some say life is life and there is nothing else. Many believe life is merely a stepping stone into another world, be it heaven or paradise or simply a higher state of being. But for me, life has always been and always will remain a byproduct of cellular evolution.

We are born, and for whatever purpose we are both with cognizance. Some have depths upon depths of intelligence to savor, others merely recognition of patterned imagery. Regardless, we are a sum of a whole, and that whole is worth far more than the sum of the parts. Each tiny cell has, for many many years been replicating itself. And that is where this story begins.

Because once upon a time there was just one little cell. Just one little part of what today could be anything. And that cell took it upon itself to split, and create more cells. There was certainly no reason not to - resources were available, space was infinite, and competition was slim. So that cell and its new cell split and split again and continued this until by chance the cells formed a cellular organism. A slum housing complex of tenants, joined together for a common purpose: survival.

That complex of cells in turn split and split again, and eventually, years upon years later there were actual functioning organs inside of organisms. That's biology 101, in case you were wondering. So now we have these organisms and what do they want? They want to keep splitting. Except as higher advancement of cells, they can't just align mitochondria and rip apart. No, they had to snuggle up next to another organisms and procreate. Because asexual reproduction was a thing of the past. Not for everyone, but certainly from the organisms of which I speak.

And once they split in this new collective split sense, you know what they did then? They split some more.

Fast forward a few thousand years and look at what we're doing. We're splitting. Piece by piece we're ripping ourselves apart and making newer versions, hopefully with the help of someone who has traits we desire. Because why make a new, weaker version of you? It must be bigger, and stronger, and faster, and smarter.

And we managed that! Years ago some split finally made a new version smart enough to protect not only itself but also those around it. It made fire, and wheel, and weapon. It made shelter and clothing. It learned to eat the weak and feed on opposition. There wasn't just one of these smart ones though, there were many. So many in fact that the strong and the fast and the big and the smart started to work together in order to prevent opposing clans from stomping them all out forever. Because splitting was what they wanted. And if they vanished, well, they couldn't split.

So now these different groups, they formed stronger and weaker clans respectively. And some were slaughtered, destroyed by the power and speed and mass and cunning of those against them. And then the victors, they created institutions to prevent the splitting of those they ruled over. And this went on for years upon years more.

And one day, separate of all the rest, the clans now countries created - for the benefit of all - widespread safety. They created immunizations, and laws, and structures, and these countries and the societies within them benefited in such a manner that those who otherwise wouldn't have survived, who wouldn't have been able to find the resources and space and overcome opposition (because those things were sparse now) were able to split. And split and split. And so did the smart and big and strong and fast. But now they carried the splitting of the weak and frail and dumb and small along with them. And rather than crush them for resources and space, those in power were told to be fair and just and civil to all or to face the consequences they themselves created. And in doing so, the world eliminated the only purpose it had: to split and continue splitting.

The people, for these organisms had turned into something else entirely, they decided that there needed to be a higher law then survival. A higher law than splitting. So they created things to believe in. Unseen forces to follow, to blindly follow. Like the force that demanded splitting, except that came from within and was screamed by every cell in every cellular structure. But they no longer listened. Instead they thought the purpose was to help the rest, and to be what they themselves shouldn't be.

Now the world wanted to be happy, and to be benevolent. To be philanthropic and kind. The world wanted to help everyone, even those who without help wouldn't help themselves. The world screwed up.

And since individuals no longer followed that which every cell in their body demanded, since they followed an arbitrary system of rules and orders and commandments and pillars and procedures, since the individuals didn't do what they were meant to do, they no longer served a purpose.

So when a certain individual pondered the point, the meaning of his hungered existence, he came up empty. His cells screamed to split, to make more and more and more. But he laughed and realized that to live is simply to recreated. To force genetic continuance upon the world. That to pledge allegiance to a self-induced imaginary force was sheer folly. And without genetic continuance, what purpose did existence truly serve?

And knowing that there is nothing left to know, the purpose for myself is to be happy. To enjoy my life. Because I'm not interested in punching that ticket. All that shit can wait. And doing what's best for me, that means being happy. And in order to get happy, sometimes you have to get really sad. Sometimes you have to throw away something perfect and start over. Start fresh.

But like she said, you have to do whats best for you. So here I am world. Sitting in a dust filled box, building up my strength and my speed and my size and my cunning. And why?

Because this is what is best. For me. And only me.

Sorry for the lack of updating....

If anyone is interested in reading about my new adventures, which have me returning to Iraq as a contractor, check them out here:

backinthesand.blogspot.com

And when I'm done with all of that, I'll be back here posting. I know its been a long time and I have some adventures I still need to upload, which I'll have plenty of time to do soon enough.

Thank everyone for following.

No Title is...Well, titleless

So much has been going on lately but none of it really seems worth writing about. Training, studying, and killing time until I end up moving out to California. But when that happens, adventures galore. For sure.

War is hell. Pt 2

A few days later corpses lay strewn across the floor. Most of them, surprisingly, were cockroaches. I’d love to say that the insecticides we (as a household, personally I participated in none of this malarkey) laid down had been steadily eliminated the cockroach invaders, but my imagination knew better. The ants, quite similar to a swarm of bees slaughtering some no-named pointless character in one of those terrible made for TV Killer Bees movie, had ambushed the quarter sized cockroaches. Though certainly some of the ants perished in the attacks, the cockroaches had ultimately expired on the cold wooden landscape of the cold wooden floor. At least five of their upside down, thousand mile stare corpses littered the realm. The ant tally was incalculable.

The ants, a more civilized society, collected their dead for burial tributes and memorials. No doubt little baby ants were already hearing stories of how their valiant brethren fell bravely on the battlefield. Or they were being recycled in one of the many awful ant genetic experiment labs. One can never be too certain. Regardless, it appeared on the surface that no ants had been harmed in the battles. Not in any of the major assaults that is.

In the bathroom, home once to ant and spider peace accords, chaos reigned. Ants, caught up in spider webs and dust bunnies, lay crippled from 8 legged furies. It seems that the cockroaches, in a final move of desperation, had driven a wedge between the ant and spider alliance by offering up previously disputed lands to the cockroaches.

Clearly, I needed to look at the former cockroach holdings and analyze them for new and upcoming spider holdings. The ants as it were, remain strong in their dominance of kitchen counter and abandoned What-A-Burger wrappings spaces. But the cockroaches remain no more. All are gone now, except the lone sentry standing guard on the cockroach cache. I wish him the best in his journeys, for it will be long and arduous as long as the ants and the spiders wage war. For none are safe.

*And this entry? Total crap. But I have a head cold and felt like writing something. So fuck off.