Peaked

It being two o'clock in the morning and me getting the spontaneous night-owl urges that I do, I decided to travel up Paris Mountain earlier. I hadn't used my camera for anything like what it was made for in weeks and I'd been getting a twitchy feeling all night, as if it was my duty to go out at some point before daybreak. Usually when I get that feeling, I end up either helping someone with a flat tire or being questioned by the police. Go figure.

It was cold. Very cold. By the time I reached the summit, dodging leaves pretending to be squirrels all the way, the temperature had dropped by a degree with each chug of the engine. I didn't pass a single car the entire way, but my imagination concocted a fiery car crash at each curve, complete with bodies in the roadway and a knife-wielding dead-eye madman. I'd only ever been to the top a few times, all during the day. I knew it was a nice view on a clear day, but I had no idea of just how many lights there are in a single city. As I drove, I had to keep myself from running off the mountainside, so intrigued was I with the lights of my city. A few times, the darkness was so complete around me that I could almost put myself in the cockpit of a starship flying low over Coruscant. What, no one else does that?













I found company at the top. A sedan with no lights on, parked on the overlook. I didn't have to guess what was going on inside, what with the foggy nature of the windows, but I did have to let lose a little chuckle at the desperately frantic movement of arms and legs when my headlights poured through the back window.

I argued with myself for a moment about staying, wondering what exactly the etiquette was in such a situation. If I were polite and understanding, I would have turned around, leaving the overlook to teenaged shenanigans which such a place was made for. Oh well, I'd driven a long way to get a few pictures. I could almost feel the desperate eyes of Pressured Teen Girl on the back of my head as her eyes went from myself, setting up my camera tripod, to the rapidly deflating penis of Lucky Stud. My apologies, guy.

I took a few pictures, which didn't turn out very good, and then retreated down the mountainside, allowing NPR's piano concerto to drown out the renewed squeak of the sedan's suspension system.


















Lot of writing for not much of an adventure.
Forgive me, I haven't blogged in ages.

Pride

I love answerbag.

Someone told me today, "Nobody can make sense of your cryptic one-liners."
Such a sense of accomplishment.

Deflect

I was narrating a television episode, the first in a series that seemed to be some sort of kids show. The plot had something to do with a little girl who lived in a mansion, only the mansion wasn't like any other. From the outside, the house was very small, no bigger than a townhouse. On the inside, the mansion was constantly changing with new rooms, long hallways, hidden doors, etc. The mansion was a physical puzzle of sorts and the girl could only escape if she could outwit a series of increasingly dangerous villians who shared the mansion with her. Each villain would provide some sort of clue as to how the next could be beaten.

The first villain came in the form of Alan Tudyk... don't ask me why. I can't remember how he was finally beaten by our female protagonist, but I do remember that he was able to transform any door in the mansion into an impassable barrier, trapping the girl in certain rooms of the house. The barrier took the form of a shimmering mirror which moved as if made of liquid, but stayed upright. Alan was also a jokester, and didn't seem very dangerous.

The second vilain was somewhat more sinister. He wore a great overcoat that flew along behind him as he walked. He had black leather riding boots with spurs on his feet and a dark top hat on his head. He walked quickly, head bent forward, as if walking into a strong wind. He seemed to have a definite purpose and never faltered or hesitated. As he walked through the long hallways of the mansion, peering into each room he passed, his body flashed and shimmered, appearing to vanish and reappear ten times a second. In his hands, he carried a large metal lantern. His face was hidden in shadow.

The girl was visibly terrified of this man when she first saw him. When he would see her, he would raise his lantern to her. A bolt of light would fly from the lantern and hit the girl, causing her body to shimmer and flash just as his did. Each time she was hit, her energy would be sapped, making her flight through the mansion harder and harder. After many failed attempts at killing the man, the girl desperately grabbed one of the doors that Alan had transformed into a mirror barrier earlier. She pulled until it came loose from the wall and turned towards her pursuer just as he leveled his lantern at her. The bolt of light shot into the mirror and was reflected back at the man. He threw his hands up and his entire body lit up violently, as if struck by lightning. He disappeared in a puff of smoke, top hat and all.

Lets go fly a bike...

I was in a familiar place, very much like downtown Greenville, but with a feel of Broadway at the Beach too. There were lots of people, tourists mainly. It was a nice day; sunny and warm. The trees were all full of green and it was windy. Perfect for kite flying.

I was 'flying' a bicycle. My feet didn't touch the ground, I floated above it at about the height I would be if I were actually bicycling. Above me, a bike flew through the air, guided by some strange remote control in my hands. Not only was I floating a few feet of the ground, my feet were pedaling through the air as if I were bicycling. I watched the bicycle fly through the air and guided it carefully around trees, careful not to hit any of the buildings surrounding the streets. I was aware that the bicycle was very heavy, as a bicycle would be, and so was careful not to let it crash to the ground and hurt anyone. For this reason also, I had to keep it in sight at all times.

The people around me were all entranced, but not as they would be realistically. They had the sort of amazement on their faces as one of us would were we watching a unicyclist, not a man flying a bicycle. The crowds grew heavier and heavier, all of them very excited at my talent and I had to work harder and harder to keep the bicycle from killing someone. There were festival tents set up now.

Around a corner, I lost sight of my bike and panicked. I raced around the corner, trying to guess as to where it was, and finally saw it high above me, racing towards the clouds. I angled it back down and over-compensated. It nosedived and crashed violently into the ground. It suddenly dawned on everyone watching how dangerous this could be, and they looked at me as though I were insane. I picked the bike up, rode on it for a moment to get it up to speed and then jumped to the side, pulling the handlebar up into a wheelie and then letting it fly back into the air.

Help

The wet grass bent against our shins, wetting the front of our pants, as we sprinted across the field. One of them was standing in the far right side of the field, a machete grasped limply in her hand. Her long hair followed around her as she turned slowly in circles. Her head was down, staring at nothing at all.

I was in front, running towards the nearest building. It was a condo, made of brick, with a steep porch stair coming up to the glass screen door. I turned. The other two survivors I had been traveling with were behind me. The girl had changed direction and was now running directly towards the woman with the machete. "No!", I yelled. "No time!" She turned back.

I was at the front door. It was open, the screen door waving slightly in the wind. I motioned to my companions and stepped through the threshold. The room was dark, but the television was on. I could hear something from the back of the condo. My companions came through behind me, shutting the door, bolting it.

An old woman came into the room and we all jumped, leveling what weapons we had on her. "Stop! We're not here to hurt you ma'am, we just need a place to stay. It's not safe out there." I raised my hands to show my lack of ill intent and looked back, nodding for my group to lower their weapons and relax. "I understand, please, come in." She was wearing a nightgown and looked to be in her sixties. We all wondered how she'd made it this far.

She closed the two doors joining the front room to the rest of the condo, but I opened them immediately.
"Is there anyone else in this house with you?"
"No, no one."
"Are you sure?"
She nodded.

I checked the house and found no one. I ordered my companions and our new housemate to close all the window blinds, turn the lights off and make sure all windows and doors were locked and blocked. We found towels, blocked up the windows to keep what light we had from attracting them.

I sat with the old woman. She introduced herself as Jan.
"I'm glad you could make it. I was beginning to worry about myself."

Children's Crusade

In light of not having anything more interesting to talk about a lot of the time, I've decided that this blog will be home to some of my dreams. The ones I can remember and don't involve having sex with anyone who reads it anyway.


Last night:

kids at a pool, middle school age. boys and girls both, lots of them, enough to fill the pool almost completely. they're not swimming or anything and i'm one of the kids. i'm asking everyone why they're not doing anything, what are they afraid of, what's wrong with them. suddenly, the police come in and want to talk to some of us, mostly the boys. they capture some of us, but some run off and they give chase. they take about ten boys and chain them together, handcuffed at the wrist. one female cop starts to handcuff me, with two others standing nearby. i'm shouting at them to tell us what we've done wrong and why we're being arrested. they ignore me. the female cop isn't being quick with the handcuffs and isn't reading me my miranda rights. i ask her why not and tell her she should. if she doesn't read them to me by the time she gets the handcuffs on, that's illegal. she gives up, can't seem to figure out the handcuffs. she gives me over to her captain, so i start shouting to him, telling him i haven't been read my miranda rights. he ignores it at first until the handcuffs are almost on, then i say again that what they're doing is illegal without reading me my rights. he stops and it suddenly dawns on him and he says, 'that is illegal', but doesn't read them anyway. i say, 'yeah, it is illegal, you know how i know? because i'm fucking intelligent!" he handcuffs me and starts to lead me away. out a glass door and into a school hallway we go, with the ten chained boys about thirty feet ahead. i see the boys suddenly start to slink away, pulling their small hands through the handcuffs and leaving the cops holding a long chain of empty handcuffs. they run and the cops give chase. i wiggle my own hands out and run down a side hallway and back through the pool room. the kids who weren't arrested are still there, talking in the pool. they see me and say, 'here we go again'. i ignore them and run past.

the rest of the dream takes on a running commentary about this police crackdown on half a dozen school kids for unknown reasons. i hear a news broadcast. for the next few days, the kids who got away in the first 'raid' are on the run and the subject of a huge manhunt. some of the broadcasters sympathize with the police, calling the kids delinquents and runaways, some of them sympathize with the kids, saying they're trying to get home and don't have a reason for why they're being sought.

i see a girl, middle school age but older than she looks. she's running between buildings, alleyways near the school. there are plants and bushes to hide in and she's darting from place to place, trying not to be seen. there are windows everywhere in the buildings, so she can't stop for very long. she comes to the end of a long alleyway and finds a corner in one of the buildings. she crouches behind an air conditioning unit and against the L corner of the building. she can see the road from where she is, but she's hidden in shadow and bush. she rests there for a moment, panting heavily, catching her breath. a police car cruises by. she seems to be in the suburbs; there are homes everywhere. another police car cruises by, slowly. suddenly, there are trucks on the streets all around her, being escorted by intimidating police cruisers and swat vans. the trucks have city sanitation decals on them and some of them are equipped with the green recycling cages on the back. the convoy of trucks nearest her passes by with a police cruiser following behind moving backwards, keeping up speed with the trucks. the police man driving it goes too far off the road trying to drive backwards, so overcompensates the other way and ends up having to turn around. when he does turn around, it causes the cruiser behind him to stop for a minute to turn his wheel towards where the girl is hiding. he casually looks over to her, catches her slightest movement and accelerates over to block her escape. as soon as she catches his eye, she darts up and between the buildings. she knows they're right behind her on foot. she runs out into the road, not bothering to look both ways, and towards the sidewalk on the other side. she dodges one officer who is trying to intercept her and the another fires a taser at her. she avoids the taser, but know she's going to be hit. she charges the officer with the taser and grabs the officers wrist, bending her arm up towards her face. the officer grapples with her and fires the taser once more... into his neck. the girl turns and runs, dodging another officer on the sidewalk.

Aperture!

I finally realized what it is and how to change it properly. Sort of pathetic, seeing as I've had my camera for around eight months now. All it took was a 90 second tutorial on youtube. Maybe I should become bored out of my mind more often. It's the only time I think to learn anything.

With my newfound knowledge, I left for downtown Greenville and spent an hour or so taking repetitive pictures with different settings and times. It was a learning experience and there was an enormous improvement over the night pictures I took while in Myrtle Beach. I took quite a few photos of churches downtown, of which there is no shortage. For such a devout atheist, I seem to gravitate towards religious imagery pretty regularly.








































Predictably, I was stopped by the "man" about thirty minutes or so into my foray. I was taking pictures of the Academy St. bridge when I saw a cruiser speeding towards me, two lanes opposite my sidewalk. The flashing light on the camera caught his attention and he zoomed across to me, pulling up alongside. I waved to him and was about to ask him what the trouble was when he nodded and saw that I was taking pictures.

"I saw your light and thought you might be trying to flag me down."
"Nope, just taking some pictures," I responded, knowing that wouldn't be the end of it.
He almost started to pull away but suddenly stopped again and leaned towards me, "Hey, have you-"
His radio cut him off, but all I heard was, "...suspect last seen wearing..."

"Have you heard anything that sounded like gunshots?"


I'd heard what sounded like a car backfire about ten minutes before, so I told him this and pointed him in the direction of St. Mary's Catholic Church. He nodded graciously, gave me a hearty thank you and then zoomed off in that direction.


Even if all my pictures sucked, I can sleep well knowing I aided in the capture of a dangerous villain.