The rain washed over the lush green ground in soothing ocean waves. Beautiful trees surrounded this place of mystery. Through their foliage a dark path cut to a place unseen. This, I knew, would be a good dream.
In a carefree spirit, I took my first steps. The forest plants pulled at my clothes lightly, but they failed to slow my pace. "I wonder what I'll find," I thought. The mysterious black heart of the forest drew me closer and closer.
With each step, night defeated day, until not a ray shone around me. I turned to look back, only to find my path was but a faded illusion. The darkness was like a warm blanket, forever protecting me; but, from what?
Lightning cracked the sky and the forest reappeared. It was raining again. Blood rain. My heart pounded as the raging tempest held me hostage. The horrible fantasy world became frighteningly real, and it drove me to run at a maddeningly slow speed, as if the sheer fear of a chase hindered me. Where was the path? No sense of direction could be found; the same trees and plants were everywhere.
Lungs bursting and legs throbbing, I finally stopped to catch my breath. Around me was a very familiar place. A quiet rustling in a nearby bush all but escaped the corner of my eye.
With the confidence of a lion, and the curious oddity of a bat, a small, green creature with pointed ears crawled from the plant. Its liquid black eyes fixed on mine as it walked toward me. Though its mouth never opened, in a moment of universal silence, I heard its voice in my head as our eyes never blinked from their stare:
"The beast is dead."
I nodded, but the creature stood motionless.
"What are you going to do now?" I said without words. "Leave me alone."
The mouth opened, and it said, "Grak op hum sah, ya wask ez mun."
"What?" I asked in bewilderment. Its mouth closed, and it looked at me with its black eyes again. Nothing moved in the forest.
In the same way as before, the mysterious black pools of his eyes lured me in deeper and deeper, until I was utterly lost in an abyss of confusion. I swam through my thoughts the creature had conjured, the simple phrase puzzling me. What beast was the creature talking about? What did he mean?
I had nearly given up hope, when a solitary beam of healing light reached out to me in my despair. Growing in brightness and size, it invited me into its safety and warmth--a different kind of warmth than the blanket of darkness. I didn't really understand what was happening, but I felt the comfort that an infant feels in the arms of its mother.
"And what was in the museum of your mind, Ben?" The voice of my psychology teacher ended the dream as I left the tunnel of unconsciousness behind me. I thought for a moment, about the forest, the creature, the strange phrase it had uttered, and then answered.
"The beast is dead."
With expected confusion, the class stared at me, waiting for explanation.
"The past is behind me and unchangeable. But the future is ‘grak op hum sah, ya wask ez mun.' It is just a garbled fate that I can and must write on my own."--11/1/00 Ben
Nonsense and Nothingness
A million years ago and several galaxies away, it seemed an interesting phenomenon was beginning to capture the interest of a highly intellectual audience--aliens. The small salamander like creatures were perplexed by the sheer drama and aura of awe generated at the nucleus of such aforementioned phenomenon. To the humble but wise beings, nanoseconds became as eons in a flux of space time that seemed to solely destroy the interrogative natures of the benign organisms. Celebratively, each tribe of powerfully equipped reptilians catalyzed what was to become their revolutionary approach towards inactivity. Without further consideration over such a ponderous ordeal, the excellence of the epiphany was fully realized. Hence, procrastination transgressed beyond the cosmic boundaries of space and time to inhabit the slowly evolving species of a blue planet and infect them with its consuming addictiveness. In conclusion, earth is this planet. Lesson learned.
An intelligent young man named Norman had many great dreams for the future and wished to someday own a successful multi-million dollar company. He fancied himself smarter than the average person and walked with a superior stride. He attended school every day without fail. He studied for at least 3 hours a night. He stayed up late and spent hours at a time working on school projects. He stayed home every weekend and never dated, although he had several crushes on girls at his school, but never had the courage to ask them out. He stayed awake at night, lying in his bed, worrying about the future. He saved every penny he made and never bought anything for himself to enjoy. He never drank, never did drugs, never smoked, never went to parties. He drove beneath the speed limit. He laughed at all of the others at school who went out and had fun and never took anything serious, thinking that someday he would be much better off then they would be. He knew he was destined for greatness, but was then run over by a cement mixer that he never saw while crossing the street one day. THE END.
Once upon a time, an average but wise man attempted to discover the meaning of life. All thruout his life he observed horrible things happening to good people. He pondered and beat his head against the wall every day and every night. The world was full of pain and it seemed that existance was meaningless. All this changed one night when he had a dream of being crucified. He was in immense pain and wished to die so that he could transcend existence and live in a land without pain, fear and hatred. Sometimes the pain lessened to a point where it could hardly be felt, and he was able to watch beautiful sunsets and birds fly by, but then sometimes it came back with a vengence and all he could do was to cry out to god to take him away. And then he awoke and realized that this was not just a mere dream, but that it was life itself.