My Face Showed Nothing [Short Story]

I examined the scene from my crouched position near the body of Robin Pinchbeck. A knife lay across the kitchen floor, motionless where it rested close to the dead man’s hand. A small pool of blood lay near his head. I jotted a few notes down in my notebook. It looked simple and obvious to me. “Murder.” My heart beat slightly faster at the thought, and images of previous investigations flashed through my mind. I hated murder and violence, maybe that was why I worked so hard to banish it from the world. Or at least that’s what I told myself. I often wondered if I could be capable of murder. The answer I gave myself was usually a quiet yes. Hating people was one of my strong points, unfortunately. Maybe that was the real reason for my murder investigations. I wanted to pay penance for my guilt; the part I played in the horrible process.“Excuse me, sir, if I could just get in there for a moment,” a voice said politely. I was jolted from my thoughts as I stood up at the photographer’s prompt. “No problem, I was just finishing up.” I smiled somewhat nervously and walked out of the kitchen. Murder scenes always made me anxious. Part of it was the amount of murders that I had seen. All that violence took a toll on me. I was walking towards the door when I noticed a woman standing by herself in the doorway to the bedroom. It must be Robin Pinchbeck’s wife. She looked at me as I passed by. I made a note to myself to come back later and talk to her. But right now, the anxiety in my heart was too much to bear. I had to do something about it before I could concentrate on the task at hand. Back in my office, I tried to relax. Seeing a murder scene was always hard, but this was somehow worse, as if I had personally known the victim. I needed to relax; relaxing was key. I could feel anxiety building up in my chest, pushing at my skull. Gruesome memories flashed through my head; this often happened when I investigated a murder case. My anxiety rose to the surface, resulting in sweat on my forehead. I couldn’t always deal with these panic attacks. They got worse, case by case. I needed to free myself, to escape. Most of all, I needed my head in the game. Yes, that was it! I needed to concentrate. I had to keep my cool and focus. Find the killer of Mr. Robin Pinchbeck. But I couldn’t do that if I was falling apart on the inside. I couldn’t deal with it! I had to escape. The sweating on my brow worsened. My thoughts were screaming at me to free them, to let them wander in their own reality! I couldn’t take it, I let myself obey my feelings. I looked around to make sure I was alone, and reached into my drawer. I popped up the false bottom and pulled out a bag of psychological delinquents. I didn’t even know what kind of euphoria I kept, but it didn’t matter. Anything that could take my mind off the searing images of death. Pinchbeck’s murder wasn’t particularly brutal, just a trigger. I plunged my hand into the bag and came out with a syringe. I prepared my arm, and silently slid the needle into my vein. Within a few minutes of injecting the fluid into my body, the room began to waver and flicker. This was a particularly potent does of…whatever it was I had just taken. Lights seemed to grow brighter and every color was so vivid I felt I could practically taste them. My favorite part was coming up; the incarnations of a personal reality. They strutted past me like a marching band. I saw familiar faces, imaginary faces; really, any face that would fit into my delirium. They spoke to me, screamed at me, tried to provoke me. They made me hate them. Maybe they were real…was it so bad to believe they might exist? Of course not, they were real. I knew they were, but more importantly, I believed there were. This was my solace, because here, every victim I failed to save was alive and well. In this reality, I had never failed.The colors faded and I was sitting at my desk in a dusty old office, alone. I could not recall what had just happened. I noticed the bag of miscreants in my drawer and shoved them farther down and under the false bottom of the drawer. The mysterious syringe on the floor followed suit. I shook my head and took a deep breath. Then I remember what I had been doing before the mysterious gap in my memory; a murder investigation. That would explain the gap and the bag of unexplained runaways. I pulled out a photo we’d had on file of the murder victim and was examining it when suddenly, a strange feeling hit me. I knew this man, and not because I had seen him dead earlier this morning. I knew him from somewhere else. I recognized him. His face probed at images that I couldn’t quite recall. Where did I know him from? I froze as realization slowly dawned. I leapt up and grabbed my coat as an anxious feeling gripped my heart.My car screeched to a halt in front of the house I’d visited just that morning. The wife was still here, I knew that because her car was parked in the same spot. I was sure she could help me. Pictures of the dead man would confirm my theory; pictures of him when he was alive. I needed visual evidence to prove my theory.I walked up the pathway to the door and knocked hesitantly. I heard footsteps drawing near, and I waited as the door opened. What faced me very nearly destroyed my sanity.Robin Pinchbeck stood in the doorway of his house. A wide, surprised smile was on his face.“Jared! What are you doing here? Come on in!” He exclaimed. I couldn’t move. The shock of what I was seeing was tearing the fragile thing I called reality into shreds. This man was dead. I had seen him lying face down in his own blood just this morning. He was dead.“Um…please, come in?” The man asked uncomfortably. He was examining my face now. He must notice my shock. I simply stared back. Finally, I summoned enough courage to say something.“Um….is…is your wife home?” Now it was his turn to stare.“Jared, you know I’m not married, now what’s this all about?” That did it. I broke. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. “You’re dead,” I whispered.“You are dead! And there was a woman here and she was your wife and she knew you were dead too!” By now, I was practically screaming in hysteria. I couldn’t think straight, I could only scream at this apparition of a nightmare. “Oh Jared…I see what’s happened...” He suddenly looked regretful and tense at the same time. He took a small step forward. “I was afraid of this. I knew when you approached me about your idea, that there could be serious consequences. You said you needed your head in the game; you needed to concentrate on your murder investigations. You said that you’d pay me well. I went along with it. The supplies I provided for you did what you wanted…for a while. Don’t you remember your last visit? You became angry with me because I refused to continue providing you with those…deplorable things. I know you hated me for that, Jared, apparently bad enough that you had me killed; if only in your own reality.” He looked as if he were pleading with me. But I couldn’t listen to this. He was dead and I knew it! Whatever this…thing was, it wasn’t real. It was a shadow, a dream. I felt anxiety rising in my chest as I grasped at this thought. The panic swelled in my head and blocked everything out. I needed an escape and I needed it now; I knew where to find it too. Suddenly, I turned and ran to my car not looking back to respond to the gasp of surprise from behind me. I leapt into the driver’s seat, started the car and drove away.I tried to drive for a few minutes but the anxiety got the better of me. I pulled to the side and, with shaking hands, pulled a syringe from the glove compartment. I jabbed it into my neck and released its contents into my system. I smiled and waited for the familiar sense of euphoria. But instead, my heart began accelerating. The anxiety increased, the pressure mounted. I could only hear my heartbeat in my ears, a fevered pounding. With trembling hands I raised the syringe to the level of my eyes and looked at the label on the side. It read “epinephrine”. I had just injected myself with a highly concentrated dose of pure adrenaline. I smiled at the irony of it all as the pounding in my ears increased to a rate I couldn’t keep up with. My smile disappeared as my body began convulsing. I wanted to scream, my body was going to explode! I felt my heart gasp as it reached its breaking point. Suddenly, my body ceased its convulsions. And the pounding stopped.

Dear Obama

Dear Barack Obama,

Congratulations on winning the Presidency of the United States. I only ask a few things. Please be kind to your constituents and realize that raising taxes would hurt the middle class. Please respect my religious rights. Please respect my 2nd Amendment rights. I think what I'm saying is; don't touch my rights. They're mine, not yours. They are not given by the government and they are not man made. Don't assume that you have more power than you were given. Please, Mr. Obama, above all respect and obey the Constitution. It is there for a reason. I do, however, want to thank you for one thing. You have inspired me to blog again. Thank you, and good luck.

Sincerely,
Empyrean

The Angel's Cage

So I have been kind of busy with lots of stuff. But I might as well post a poem I wrote a while ago. I really don't have time to post anything else.

This is the untold story of the angel and her cage
The beauty that was broken, from another age.
Pushed behind iron bars, locked with bolts of hate,
The angel could not stand alone, nor touch her jailer’s fate.

She gazed beyond her wired cell, into the world beyond.
Seeing only the jailer she wished to help, of whom she was so fond.
But he had rejected her, her remedial powers
For he had locked both him and her, in steely graven towers.

A wound that he could not heal, inflicted by his hand
A pain of the conscience, searing like a hot iron brand.
He would not seek help, for he had a fierce pride.
Rather even, than look to the angel, he would hide.
But then, in this dark time, thru the door there came
A stallion, white and shining, the always and forever same.
He broke the cage and the angel ascended on his back
And together they swept up the jailer, and departed from that shack.

And thus this tale ends, for the beauty that was broken
Was once again made whole
And the jailers heart, all broken
Was once again made whole.

The angel represents healing and the jailer is someone who has blocked the power of healing in his life by putting up bars of resentment. The stallion represents Jesus Christ and his power to break the blocking power of hate and let healing do it's work in the jailer's heart.

April's Showers Bring May Flowers

I did not realize I didn't post at all in the month of April. How horrible. I must be slipping in my strict routine of blogginess. How about just a few quick thoughts then?

I often wonder how people who write lyrics are able to express their thoughts so eloquently. They say very obvious things, but in ways that you'd never thought of them before. For example, this line from Ivoryline "The outside doesn't feel, what the inside knows is real." Obviously, showing the disconnect between our actions and our feelings. Why couldn't you just say that? Well, you couldn't. It wouldn't be nearly as attractive. It's these little anecdotes that keep my faith in the poetic ability of my generation alive. They're quite rare, these little quotes, but they are gems in the rough indeed. You just have to say them with a little flair, and hope that the sun catches the drops as they fall. Bend them into little prisms of color, and enjoy it from a distance.

Well, that's all for now!!

Moral Relativism in America

So I haven’t posted in 21 days. I think I’ll post more frequently but shorter posts. Anyway, I said this would be about Emerson. For those of you who don’t know, Ralph Waldo Emerson was a 19th century American author who had some whacky beliefs. He is the author of “Self-Reliance” and a number of other humanistic works of literature. He was a great proponent of Transcendentalism, the philosophy that great truth was realized by one’s intuition and not through established religion. He was an influence on Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau (the land Thoreau lived on while writing Walden was owned by Emerson.) That’s just a little bit about the man. He believed in nature as an avenue to “great truth”. He hated established religion and the idea of a universal truth; Which brings me to my point. I am of the opinion that Mr. Emerson’s influential writings are a contributor to the moral relativism we now have. Observe this quote:

Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance", 1841

This is the attitude of people today. Truth is what feels right, and whatever feels right is truth. Today’s truth isn’t tomorrow’s truth; at least that’s not how it feels. It doesn’t matter if you contradict everything you said today, because if it is right for you, then it doesn’t matter what was right yesterday. This philosophy is a self contradiction, of course, and no society can function normally with it. It is horrifically unstable and will trip you up when you least expect it. Well, that’s all for now.

Emerson's Dragons

Like it? It will be coming soon. A post on Ralph Waldo Emerson. Intruiging, I know.

The War

Well, I never actually revised this but I'm putting it up anyway, and maybe I'll tweak it later on while it's up.


The War

"The year is 2295. It has been almost 300 years since the war. Nobody knew how devastating it would be; the destruction it brought with it mutilated the world for a half a century. We never saw it coming either, the events that led up to it were so perfect, as if the very hand of God had reached down and directed them. If there was a God, he wouldn’t have done this to us. Only our logic could explain this; humans were no longer the fittest to survive. We were almost entirely exterminated. It all began exactly two hundred and ninety-six years ago.
"It was the year 1999, and scientists and computer programmers and all sorts of people were worried about the effects the year 2000 would have on all our computers. Everyone came to fear what was known as Y2K. Simply stated, the problem was this: the computers of the day were relatively primitive in comparison to what we have today. There was great concern that the computers who used a binary dating system would date files with "00" and the suffix would be taken to mean "1900" by the computers. In theory, this would cause major corporations to have major setbacks in file keeping and documenting. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, right? Well, if Y2K happened, it could set the entire world back by 100 years. Practically every nation took major precautions, except America. We were too proud to even think that something could take down our computers. Such fools we were…Every prediction made about Y2K came true with drastic results. The stock market crashed and the entire financial sector of the American market was plunged into darkness. Companies that sold time sensitive material such as bonds went under from the confusion and chaos. Every computer on the face of the continent was offline; and because the computers were offline, everything became chaotic. Telephone communication was cut completely; it was run by computer programming. The government was completely helpless; they could do virtually nothing in the face of this technological nightmare. It was also very odd how it happened. America was the most powerful nation in the world, and the only one crippled by the devastation. And all of this was just the beginning. In essence, Y2K had crippled America and brought it to its knees.
"One year later, in 2001, the real war began. After nearly a year, much progress had been made, but in all the wrong areas of life. The government was the first to recover from the collapse. The military was built up almost instantly to guard against any attacks. The civilian population was still vastly without any technology. This didn’t help the morale of the citizens. Tension was building up. There were riots, protestors screaming at the government for help. But nothing happened to ease life for them. Their conditions became primitive. With the collapse of the stock market there was a huge depression that followed. Life was very harsh for the vast majority of America. All technology meant virtually nothing; all the computers that functioned were extremely expensive. People were literally scavenging on the street. Conditions were horrible. Then 9/11 happened. On September 11th, 2001 there was a terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in what was then New York City. The US government immediately lashed out in retaliation and declared war on Afghanistan. This was the final straw. The citizens did not appreciate their government declaring war. The civilian population had had enough of their government, and the biggest uprising in human history took place. The government was now fighting on two fronts. They couldn’t do both, nor were they going to surrender. So they did the unthinkable; they unleashed nuclear weapons. They pulled their troops out of the foreign nations and launched nuclear missiles, while they concentrated on putting down the civilian uprising. When the missiles hit their targets, it became the biggest genocide in the history of human warfare.
"Americans were outraged, and the revolution was brought to a new level of intensity. There was no turning back now. The foreign enemies of America were in no way united. As well as fighting the US, they were fighting amongst themselves. The entire planet was in one huge war. It went on for nearly ten years. Then, on January 23, 2011, the president of the United States was assassinated by a rebel vigilante. This effectively ended the civil war in the America, as well as the war with other countries. Soon, the wars in other countries gradually faded, as the will to fight diminished. The world was left to pick up the pieces of the global catastrophe. Over 5 billion people had been killed. Those that survived had to learn to live in a new world, one without any form of centralized government or governing authority. See, after the assassination of the president, there was a massive struggle for power. Politicians were killing each other just to get to the top. The military then enforced an overthrow, and took control. They didn’t help. The only thing that changed was the name. The military did nothing. But under the command of General Jacob Barker, a hope began to grow.
"But it wasn’t what anyone expected. The General built a new city out of what was New York City. It looked like a bunch of matchboxes standing on their own. It was all grey cement, everything was symmetrical. This was The General’s idea of Utopia. He had the power and authority to do what he wanted. And he did horrible things. He built three other cities on the continent of America. Once they were complete, he handpicked those he wanted from around the world. There were those who protested. If they did protest, he killed them. Remember that he was in charge of the military, a sum total of about half the remaining population on earth. And all his soldiers were his ardent followers. As soon as all preparations were complete, he moved his people into the Cities. Immediately, he started re-education programs for all the citizens. He adopted the name of The Magistrate. His society was cruel and emotionless. Bit by bit, he stripped away the individual rights of the citizens, until the only thing they had were their names. Then he took their names. He controlled everything. He had cameras put everywhere, and citizen monitoring took place. He made absurd laws; the most trivial offense was punishable by death. If you as much as thought against the government, you were exterminated for Violation. Soon, the minds and bodies of the world belonged to him and his regime.
"That was nearly three hundred years ago. The original Magistrate has since died, but there have been new ones in his place. That is how this society came into existence. That is why we have nothing but our thoughts, and even that the government tries to take from us. They tell us it is for our on protection. But we know better. One day, there will be justice, true justice! One day, we will truly have salvation. Who will save us? When he comes, we are prepared to meet him. We will not submit ourselves to be crushed. It is time to fight back. The time is coming. All there is to do now…is wait."