Entropic Meditations

Evolution & the Origin of Life

2009-06-24T09:13:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a bit about this topic lately. All you have to do is spend a little time browsing the internet to find the wildly varying information available. From researchers publishing their latest breakthroughs, to supporters of intelligent design offering supposedly scientific counterpoints, and everything in between. Honestly, it can be pretty confusing to those unfamiliar with the subject and downright frustrating to those who feel passionate about the issue.

I am not an expert. I might sometimes talk like I am, but I have no degrees or formal training on the topic, save for a year in college studying molecular biology (when that was my major). I'm not claiming to know anything absolutely, and quite frankly, I feel more comfortable when people concede a lack of perfect knowledge. For me, one of the strongest ideals of science is that it recognizes that data may someday appear that challenges even our most fundamental understanding of the way things work. Theories are only as certain as the data they describe, and their predictive power only indicates a reasonable confidence in their conclusions but never absolute certitude.

That certitude which exists in the minds of supporters of religious explanations for the origin of life (and everything else) is actually a weakness. It may seem counterintuitive, but this sense of an absolute truth that can be fully known prevents the believer from acknowledging new information that, though it may strongly contradict his belief, is strongly supported by objective evidence. If a believer could absolutely be shown to be wrong (not that I'm saying that can be done), I'm pretty sure he would still deny the evidence, because his belief system does not allow for the acceptance of such evidence. If, however, a scientist could be shown absolutely to be wrong (which is possible and has happened many times), she would simply have to reassess her understanding of that data and would have to offer an alternative theory that doesn't just account for this new data, but is highly predictive of it.

That is the strength of science. It is not a house of cards that relies on every theory it puts forth being true to hold it up. Science is more like a clay sculpture that can always be refined to a more accurate representation of reality, though perhaps never a perfect duplication of it.

To some degree, the intelligent supporters of creationism or ID recognize that it is impossible to argue against science without science, so they try to incorporate science into their explanations and refutations, confident that their assertions are a death knell to science. This is amusing because if you could prove the scientific method was faulty by using the scientific method, wouldn't that indicate that the process you used to prove it was faulty was, itself, faulty? This is a paradox of the same order of the statement "this statement is false". Fortunately, no such paradoxical proof has ever been offered, and I'm fairly sure that no such proof exists.

Instead of attacking the methods of science, creationists and ID'ers attack the data by cherry picking some data of their own. They often present physical evidence that might be interpreted in such a way as to support their beliefs, but ignore other evidence that refutes it or alternative explanations for their supposed evidence. Probability is also a favorite tool, as it is easily manipulated to achieve results that could support any number of viewpoints.

For example, many creation "scientists" boggle at the odds they calculate for the random creation of life. Their argument goes something like this:

"In the simplest known organism, there are about 5,000 genes. These genes must be in a certain configuration for that organism to exist. If you do the math, you find that there are 4.8 x 10⁵⁰ possible arrangements of those genes. Hence, the odds of that particular strand of DNA forming are 1 in 480,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000."

Wow, that number sure is impressive when you write out all the zeros. When you consider that the best estimates of the number of unique species on the Earth are about 10 million (and there may well be significantly more), it seems staggering to suggest that all that happened by chance.

Well, sure. Ok. If one were to suggest that at some instant in the past, atoms suddenly arranged themselves in the perfect configuration to build E. Coli bacteria, I would demand some pretty compelling proof. If you then went on to tell me that this happened randomly, I would probably walk away thinking you were crazy.

This is one of the major disconnects in arguments between evolutionists and creationists. Oftentimes, creationists go into a debate with an idea about what the evolutionist believes that is so far removed from reality, one can hardly blame them for questioning it. In fact, any evolutionist who believes that lightning struck a puddle of various chemicals, which then arranged itself into a perfect DNA molecule, is ignorant to the process proposed by most scientists.

It is important to note that, while we don't understand all of the processes involved in DNA or how it came to be, there is nothing in the structure or function of DNA that suggests it is defying the laws of chemistry. There are no remarkable compounds that just shouldn't be there, there are no chemical combinations that are impossible according to our current understanding.

That said, it is not absolutely impossible for these processes to have happened by chance. These staggering numbers that creationists offer (which I will demonstrate are misleading) still mean that it is possible, though highly unlikely by their numbers, that such things would have happened by chance. If you can prove that the chance that something occurs is not zero, you have just proved that it is possible.

Consider, for a moment, the following text: q@0oDt61m^eIDy%ag#eV4ivpws)h9r.

This text is a random string of 30 symbols from the set of all lower and upper case letters on a standard US keyboard as well as the numbers 0-9 and all the alternate symbols on those number keys. That means that any one of those symbols in that string has a 1 in 72 chance of being chosen at random (26 upper case + 26 lower case + 10 numbers + 10 symbols). That means that the odds of randomly typing that specific string of 30 characters is 1 in 5.25 x 10⁵⁵.

Wow! That's even less likely than the odds that the 5,000 genes in E. Coli bacteria just randomly flying together! And yet, there it is. It happened. Is it a miracle? No. Granted, that string of 30 characters doesn't mean anything, at least, it isn't intended to mean anything. Similarly, genetic code was never "intended" to mean something. Life didn't form based on chemistry's intentions, just the laws that govern it. That distinction is important because creationists need to think that the complex chemical reactions that are involved in life are somehow more special or remarkable than the thermonuclear reactions that power stars or the complex system of gravitational interaction that comprises a galaxy. The only remarkable thing about us is our ability to reason about whether or not we are remarkable.

Regardless, no reputable scientist is arguing that those 5,000 genes of E. Coli just suddenly assembled. Instead, scientists propose the very reasonable suggestion that on the early Earth, where organic compounds (those containing carbon and that are necessary for life as we know it) were in abundance and bombarded with all kinds of possible energies, from ultraviolet solar radiation to the still cooling planet's internal heat, assembled into more complex molecules over time. This is merely chemistry. One can perform experiments with chemicals thought to be in existence in early Earth and easily create amino acids, which are again a crucial part of life on this planet.

Over the course of probably geologic time scales, chemical reactions with organic molecules were happening simultaneously all over the Earth. In one of these reactions, the result ended up being some kind of molecule that was capable of replicating itself to some extent. There is nothing magical about this, nothing that requires supernatural explanation. Within the context of the laws of chemistry, it is perfectly possible for a molecule to exist that is able to replicate itself within a solution of its component parts. This self-replicating molecule was the precursor to our DNA.

There are numerous theories as to how DNA may have ended up within the nucleus of a cell, or within any part of a cell, but I will leave readers to investigate those on their own. If you haven't agreed with me thus far, you won't agree with any of the stuff that comes after. ID proponents often start with DNA in their arguments, especially because of the impressive probabilities against abiogenesis that can be derived (and exaggerated), so I thought I'd start there too.

Another favorite supposed science "gotcha" is the infamous and inviolable second law of thermodynamics. Specifically, this law states: The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.

It is the more general interpretation of this law, however, that creationists jump on. That interpretation states that the amount of order in any system will reduce over time rather than increase, unless there is some external force that acts to increase it. It should be pretty clear why this seems so significant to those who seek to prove that life was created by a divine intelligence.

The argument goes like this: A pocket watch is a highly ordered state of matter. It contains several tiny gears, cogs and springs, all perfectly suited to a specific purpose. If one were to come upon a pocket watch on a tree stump in the woods, it would be absurd to the highest degree to assume the pocket watch had assembled through some sequence of random events, especially if its discoverer knew about the second law of thermodynamics. The most logical conclusion, given the evidence, is that the pocket watch had an intelligent creator who cleverly crafted the watch with his own hands.

On the surface, that certainly seems reasonable. The parallels between a pocket watch and a living creature seem clear in this context. Living beings are also made up of many meticulously integrated parts that are perfectly suited for functioning in their native environments. If you remove one of its fundamental parts, it will cease to function (or at least cease to function as well as it once did).

So, what could possibly be wrong about this analogy? Furthermore, if the random assemblage of a pocket watch would be a violation of the second law of thermodynamics, then why isn't the random assemblage of a living creature? Well, keep in mind that what science claims about life is hardly random. Again, science believes that life originated via deterministic chemical processes, not that chemicals randomly combined in impossible ways. A pocket watch does not function through chemical processes. This is a pretty important point because there are no laws of chemistry that we know of that would govern a reaction that would result in even a single gear or cog in a pocket watch. Through non-chemical means, the natural formation of any part of such a watch in probabilistic terms is far less likely, by orders of magnitude, than the odds of a natural chemical reaction resulting in the precursors of DNA, which through natural selection evolved into increasingly more complex structures resulting in living cells.

So what of thermodynamics? Isn't a living creature a more ordered state than a pile of the same atoms sitting on the ground? How would one propose to explain that living things appear to violate the second law? For starters, let's revisit that pesky law:

The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.

Notice how I highlighted the word "tend" there. What the second law is referring to is a statistical reality that may not represent specific instances within that isolated system. Rest assured, over the course of time, the second law will result in an even distribution of entropy throughout the universe. That is, of course, unless the force of gravity in the universe is strong enough to overtake our expansion, but that's a whole other conversation.

Now, that last paragraph might seem like hand-waving. Verbal prestidigitation to allow for decreased entropy in living systems on a technicality. Well, if you think that's a poor explanation, you're right. The truth is, we don't need such technicalities to explain the supposed decreased entropy of a living system. This is true for two reasons.

First, even if a living system represents a higher state of order than a random pile of the elements that make it up, there were plenty of sources of energy that were around to be added to the system on ancient Earth. The planet was significantly less hospitable to modern life as we know it, but it was a boon to the chemical reactions that would give rise to life. Solar radiation, geothermal activity, cosmic rays, lightning and fiery impacts from the debris that littered the early solar system, just to name a few. Any or all of these sources could have provided significant energy to the chemical system that preceded life. This might suggest that life is one of the results of the entropy in the solar system moving toward equilibrium.

Second, consider for a moment some properties that all living things share. One of the fundamental properties of all life is a metabolism. All organisms must expend energy to perform the tasks of living, and so must obtain that energy from somewhere. Metabolism is the process by which organisms extract energy from their surroundings. We eat food and our body breaks that food down chemically to provide us with the energy we need to live. The most important thing about this system is that an organism's metabolism converts chemical energy into other forms of energy that are dissipated back into the environment, creating more disorder than the order required for a living thing to exist.

Just think about that. Simply by sitting there, your body is generating 98.6 degrees of heat by breaking down the food you've ingested and providing energy for respiration, circulation and all the other autonomic functions of your body. That heat is energy that radiates into the universe and heats it up. Even at rest, you increase the entropy in the universe every second. This energy exchange happens at all levels of life, and it is the crucial element to answering whether or not life violates thermodynamics.

With the points covered in the above paragraphs, it is pretty easy to demonstrate that life as a chemical process could have certainly arisen on ancient Earth without any direction from a greater intelligence. Once a molecule forms that can crudely copy itself, it is trivial to show that variation would have given rise to natural selection, which would have resulted in a more robust molecule. Further interactions with the environment and possibly ongoing chemical reactions would have gotten the ball rolling toward something we would consider life. All that would have been necessary from that point forward was time.

What really amazes me is that this whole process is stunning, a beautifully entwined confluence of physics, yet those who are opposed to these ideas seem convinced that science is somehow reducing life to something empty, hollow. The explanations of science don't allow for a soul or a divine creator, and this somehow lessens life's beauty and significance. Having an omnipotent being will into existence the diversity of life, fully formed, makes for great mythology, but it is truly awe-inspiring to know that the laws of physics alone are sufficient to account for all the wonder that surrounds us.

Pale Blue Dot

2009-06-05T15:39:00.005-05:00

Sometime in the first half of 1990, as the Voyager 1 spacecraft hurtled beyond the edge of our planetary system, it spun around to take one final photo of the place from whence it had come, perhaps never to return again. Actually, Voyager 1 took several images in an attempt to capture a snapshot of the entire planetary system as each world orbits the sun. One of these pictures in particular, however, stands out as perhaps one of the most awe-inspiring and humbling images ever captured in the entirety of human civilization. It was entitled "Pale Blue Dot" by the man who campaigned to have the picture taken and who, in 1980, formally introduced the world to the "Cosmos". That man was Carl Sagan, astronomer, author and arguably the greatest contributor to our common understanding of the universe in modern history.

Sagan's words reflecting upon the significance of the "Pale Blue Dot" have been quoted and paraphrased many times. One wonders if it could ever be said better than this:

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

The sheer sense of humility inspired by such musings is chilling, and yet we should also be reminded of what we don't see beyond the confines of that photo. The image shows us as a part of the much larger grandeur of the universe. Granted, it is a very small part, but it is still a part. Carl Sagan also said, "We are a way for the universe to know itself," and while the universe may not have planned us for this purpose, or even planned us at all, I think we should rise to that challenge. This picture of a minuscule Earth sparkling in a ray of light is just a glimpse of the amazing perspectives that await us as we strive to meet that challenge.

To know the universe is a pretty enormous undertaking. We're making some strides, but we still have quite a way to go. Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 and took about 12.5 years to travel to a point where it would be about 6.1 billion kilometers from Earth, the distance from which the "Pale Blue Dot" photo was taken. A distance of 6.1 billion km is pretty far when you consider the distances we typically travel on the Earth, but on a universal scale, it isn't even a drop in the bucket.

Consider these points:

The universe was recently estimated to be 156 billion light years wide. As many of you probably know by now, a light year is the distance light travels in a single Earth year. Since light moves incredibly fast (a bit under 300 million meters a second), to say 156 billion light years definitely sounds like a lot, but words like "light year" and "billion" are simply words that we use to make it more convenient to talk about distances and numbers most humans couldn't even imagine. For the sake of demonstration, I am going to try to stop using these words to give you a little better idea of how mind boggling these numbers really are. My standard measurements will be in kilometers (km) and meters (m), admittedly abstractions themselves.

If the universe is 156 billion light years wide and there are (get ready) 9,500,000,000,000 (that's 9.5 trillion!) kilometers in just one light year, that means that the universe is 1,482,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1.5 septillion) km wide! Looking at the distance at which the "Pale Blue Dot" was taken, which was probably about 6,054,558,968 km (give or take a few million km), we can do some simple math to figure out how that compares to the universe.

*doing calculations*

That means that the distance at which Voyager 1 snapped that picture was 1/242,950,819,672,131^th of the total diameter of the universe. To put that into perspective, if the width of the universe were 1 meter, the distance from Voyager 1 to the Earth in 1990 would be about .00000000000000412 meters. The shorthand for this tiny distance is 4.12 femtometers, which is about the diameter of an atomic nucleus (depending on the atom). This calculation, comparatively, reduces the Earth to a size smaller than a proton or neutron, probably smaller even than a quark.

While this comparison seems to relegate us to some insignificant proportion of the universe, that's only true looking down on this tiny blue speck from afar. If we instead look outward at the vast reaches of our universe, we see that there is so much yet to discover. We are travelers on a quest to answer every question that can be conceived. The universe offers us no shortage of opportunities to drive and satisfy our uniquely human brand of curiosity.

It's not going to be easy. Many things stand in our way, the most perplexing being the universal speed limit, the speed of light. Even significant fractions of the speed of light seem difficult to fathom given our understanding of relativistic speeds and the current level of our space travel technology. Even at the relatively impressive speed that Voyager 1 shoots out of our solar system, it is still only moving at 1/18,000^th the speed of light. We're going to have to come up with something a lot faster than that if we're going to explore even the closest corners of our interstellar neighborhood. I believe, however, that we are propelled by such an intense need to know, we will find some way to overcome these obstacles. Far in the future, when the intelligent descendants of the human species look back on this pale blue dot, I hope they will look on it with fondness as the starting point of the incredible journey that brought them to every corner of the galaxy and maybe, just maybe, to their first steps into the larger universe.

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 20

2009-05-22T08:49:00.000-05:00

"Mike."

Whose voice is that?

"Hey, Mike."

Is he talking to me?

"Mike, buddy. I know you're awake."

Man, it's bright in here. I blink slowly and the world starts to resolve itself.

"There he is," the voice by the bed says encouragingly.

"Hello?" I ask dumbly, not recognizing the face that enters my vision.

"Mike, it's Tom."

I blink a few more times. Now that he mentions it, he does look like Tom...I think. I smile at him. "Yeah, hey Tom. Don't mind me. I'm just a little..." I sit up look around in confusion. "Am I in a hospital?"

Tom nods. "Yeah. Listen, Mike, don't worry. The doctors say you'll be fine. You just had a minor heart attack. If you just take it-"

"Heart attack?" I ask, bewildered.

"Yeah," Tom says calmly, "if you just take it easy, you're gonna be alright."

I lay back against the pillow. I can feel my heart pumping. It makes me feel a little light headed.

"Now look, Mike. I need to ask you something pretty important. I need you to relax and try to remember," he says to me in a very serious tone.

I look at him. "What is it?"

Tom sighs. "You remember the new girl at the office?" he asks.

My heart beats a little faster for some reason. "Uh, yeah. Lori, er, uh...Loretta?"

"Loretta, that's right," Tom nods. "Well, she's missing."

"Ok," I say hesitantly. While I'm sure I don't know what he's talking about, my chest seems to be pounding an answer. This can't be good for someone who recently had a heart attack.

"Well, Mike, the last time anyone saw her was with you," Tom says pointedly.

I shake my head. "What are you asking?"

He gives me a long hard look, then sighs again. "Mike, it's hard for me to say this because I know things have been difficult for you, but everyone knows about you two."

"Knows about...about what?" I ask, my nervousness matched only by my confusion.

Tom shrugs. "That you've been...y'know seeing each other," he answers, looking away.

I stare in disbelief, my head shaking of its own accord. "Tom, I...Linda..." is all I can manage to stutter.

"Linda's gone, Mike," he says sympathetically. "It's ok to move on."

It all rushes back to me. The bank. Linda's blood. Her lips moving. "No!" I shout, curling over onto my side and shielding my head.

"Mike, it's ok. Calm down," Tom tells me.

My sleeve is quickly soaked with tears. "Linda..." I whisper between sobs.

"Mike, we just need to know where Loretta is," he says with a hint of urgency.

Something about that tone tears me from my self pity. I look up at Tom. His eyes are quietly demanding. "Who's 'we'?" I ask suspiciously.

Tom leans back and looks up in thought. "Look, I didn't want to tell you this, but the police think..." he trails off.

"What?" I urge him on.

He looks at me with a pained expression. "Mike, they think you may have had something to do with it," he explains. "I'm here to help you before they get their hands on you."

"Tom," I begin, but I'm not really sure what to follow it up with.

"Is there anything you can tell me?" he asks, looking sympathetic again. "Is there some place where you guys usually meet?"

The memory of a church flashes through my mind. A small room. A syringe. Someone injecting me with something. I look up at Tom and shake my head.

He sighs. "Ok, you obviously need some time to rest. I'm going to be in the lobby. Call for me if you can remember anything."

Without pausing for my reaction, he walks out of the room.

I take a moment to look around the room. It's pretty sparse. There's no window. Not even a TV. Seems more like a prison cell than a hospital room. I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Man, I feel really weak. I wonder if this is what it feels like after a heart attack.

Taking a breath, I slide myself onto my feet and stand. This is a very shaky process. My legs feel like they haven't worked in weeks, maybe more. I step carefully over to the door and turn the handle. At least, I try to turn the handle. It's locked. Why am I locked in my room?

Something definitely doesn't feel right about this. What's really going on here? I try to think back to where I was before I woke up here. I was at work. The day was pretty normal. I went home and fell asleep. But if I went home and fell asleep, where did I have the heart attack? How did anyone find me? Think!

I was home asleep and then... Oh yeah, there was that crazy dream about Linda. She was on the table. She turned to look at me. She said something that freaked me out. What was it? I close my eyes and concentrate.

"Richard..."

My eyes snap open. I shudder at the memory of Linda's lifeless corpse looking up at me. Why did she call me Richard? Does it have anything to do with my heart attack? She said that; then I woke up. I got some water. Then I got into the car and went...

Went where? Where would I have gone? Dammit, think, Rick!

Rick. Why did I just call myself Rick? What the hell is wrong with me?

"...we erased your memory..." a female voice echoes from the recesses of my mind. I close my eyes and try to remember more.

"...most of the subjects reported a surrealism to their memories. Some even had odd things go on, like what you might expect in a dream," the woman's voice explains to me from some time in the recent past.

When did that happen? It seems so familiar, but I don't know why.

"...come to this address: 1420 Mission Avenue. It's an abandoned church near the city limits..."

The image of a run down building with a steeple stretching into the night sky fades into view behind my eyelids.

"If you manage to get out, don't wait for me. We'll meet here."

Loretta. It must be. So, Tom was right; we were meeting somewhere, but it wasn't for the reason he thought. She was saying something about...erasing my memory? But she had said 'we'. What did she have to do with it and why did she tell me? I didn't actually do something to her, did I?

Again, I briefly recall someone injecting something into my forearm. Was that her? Maybe she did something to me...aside from erasing my memory. Maybe she's the reason I had a heart attack. I wish I could remember all of it!

The sound of someone turning the door handle catches my attention. I back away from the door to avoid being hit as it swings open. Someone outside says something I can't hear, then steps into the room.

"Mr. Menda, you really should be resting," the nurse says to me as she walks in.

I look out into the hallway before the door closes. It seems empty. "Yeah. I, uh, was just wondering why the door was locked," I say to her.

She smiles and says, "I'm sorry about that. Must've been locked by accident."

"Ok," I say hesitantly. "Does that mean I can leave whenever I want?"

"Well, Mr. Menda," she begins, "you've just undergone treatment for a heart attack. You've only been here for a day. We'd like to observe you for at least two more days before we start talking about whether it's ok for you to go home."

"Of course," I say, not bothering to keep the sarcasm from my voice.

"Now, come back to your bed and I'll go get you some lunch," the nurse promises. She adds, after looking around the room, "Let's get you a TV too, so you're not bored to death."

Eyeing her warily, I make my way back to the bed. If I weren't suddenly so hungry, I'd keep pressing her for more answers. Really, though, just her presence and the promise of lunch and a TV makes this seem more like a hospital than I thought it did a few minutes ago. Maybe that's just a justification for the other reasons I don't want to leave just yet. I definitely don't feel 100%. It won't do me any good to get out of here and have another heart attack in the parking lot. I'll wait another two days, but that's it. If they don't let me out, I'm leaving of my own accord.

Time passes interminably slowly. If it weren't for the clock on the wall, I'd swear they were lying about the passage of days. I try to distract myself with TV. When that doesn't work, I try sleep, but I'm just not tired. I feel like I've slept for months and just don't need to anymore.

On the second day, Tom comes to talk to me again. He pries pretty insistently about Loretta, but I still don't remember everything, so I let on nothing. He leaves, seemingly a little more frustrated than I might have expected. On the third day, a couple of cops show up.

"Good morning, Mr. Menda," on of them greets me. "If you have a minute, we'd like to ask you some questions."

I look around the hospital room and say in a sardonic tone, "I think I could free up a few seconds."

He smiles tightly. "I'm Detective Haskell with the Madison PD, and this is my partner, Detective Allen."

Detective Allen nods, looking stern.

I reach up and shake Det. Haskell's hand. "How can I help you, gentlemen?" I ask.

"Mr. Menda, we were wondering if you knew the whereabouts of a Miss Loretta Vine. She was reported missing three days ago and you were the last person seen with her," Haskell explains.

"Really?" I ask. "Where were we seen together?"

The detectives exchange a glance. This time, Allen is the one who speaks. "It was reported to us that the two of you are involved in a relationship. The last time Miss Vine was seen, she was getting into your car as you were leaving your mutual workplace. No one has seen her since."

I shake my head slowly. "I'm sorry, gentlemen. I have no recollection of any of this. I mean, I spoke to her a few times at the office, but that's it."

"I understand," Det. Haskell says with a furrowed brow. "We know you recently lost your wife. It's hard. You have feelings for someone and you're afraid it might be too soon. You're worried that you're dishonoring your wife's memory."

I look away, but say nothing.

"Did something happen?" Det. Allen asks, trying on the same reassuring voice his partner just used. "Maybe you got into an argument over your doubts about the relationship and things got out of hand."

I turn my gaze back toward them, narrowing my eyes. "What, so I just lost my wife and then turned around and kidnapped this woman?"

Det. Allen jumps at the opening. "Nobody said anything about kidnapping. Did you kidnap her?"

"No!" I snap, rolling my eyes.

"Where is she?" he shouts back.

Haskell puts his hands up and gives his partner a calming look. "Mr. Menda," he says, turning back to me, "no one is suggesting you did anything to her...yet. We have to investigate all leads. If someone says they saw you together, we have to check it out."

"So, I'm a suspect," I growl accusingly.

"You're a person of interest," he corrects me, "but if you have some idea of where Miss Vine might be, you would do well to tell us. People who care are worried about her. They just want to know where she is. If there's anything...anything at all you can tell us..."

"I'm sorry," I insist. "I don't know where she is."

Haskell sighs and reaches into his jacket. "Very well. Thank you for your time. If you think of anything, please give me a call," he says, handing me a business card.

I take the card, but offer no response. The two men leave me alone, once again, with my thoughts. My confusion remains, but above that is a resolve to find out exactly what's going on. It will be interesting to see if I am actually released today. Either way, I'm leaving this hospital tonight, come hell or high water.

"Good Morning, Mr. Menda," a chipper voice interrupts my thoughts.

I look up at the nurse who just stepped in. "Oh, uh, morning," I reply.

"Ready to go home today?" she asks me.

My surprise renders me momentarily speechless.

"We're going to get the doctor in here to check on you one more time. If he says you're ok, we'll send you on your way!" she explains with way more excitement than I'm sure she actually feels.

"Oh. That's great," I manage to say.

"Uh-huh," she says absently as she comes over and starts checking my vitals. She sticks my finger in a clip hooked up to a machine and also takes my blood pressure.

After writing a few things down, she smiles at me. "Ok, he should just be a few minutes," she reassures me before hurrying back out the door.

Well, that's interesting. I'm not going to get my hopes up, though. Just watch, there will be some kind of heart murmur or my blood pressure will be too high or something. They'll figure out something to keep me here for 'a few more days'.

About 15 minutes later, a young guy in a lab coat walks in with a stethoscope across his shoulders and a clipboard in his hand. He looks like he's fresh out of med school.

"Good morning, Mr..." He flips to the front of the file. "Ah, Mr. Menda. I'm Doctor Fulton."

I nod to him.

"Doctor Patel is on call today, so I'm going to be checking you out before you go home."

"Ok," I say.

He looks at the stuff the nurse wrote on my file. "Ok, that looks ok," he mutters. "Let's take a listen," he says, grabbing his stethoscope.

I pull off my shirt and sit up straight.

He listens to my chest for a few seconds, then tells me to take a deep breath. He repeats this in a few places on my chest and back. When he's done, he nods and slings the stethoscope back over his shoulders.

"Ok, Mr. Menda," he says, "you're heart sounds okay, breathing sounds normal. You're blood pressure's ok and everything else checks out."

While I find it hard to believe that my blood pressure is ok, given my brief grilling by the detectives, I'm greatly relieved.

"The nurse will stop by in a few minutes to give you some literature," he tells me. "You've just had a heart attack, so you should take it easy. I'd recommend maybe taking a few more days off from work. The stuff the nurse will bring will give you some info on how to proceed from here, foods you should avoid, exercise regimens, that kind of thing."

"Ok," I nod.

"Ok?" the doctor repeats, heading toward the door. "Great, you take care." With that, he quickly exits.

So...how about that? It seems like I actually will be leaving today. The nurse pops in just a few minutes later to give me the aforementioned 'literature', then wishes me well. Everybody seems to be in a hurry today, which suits me just fine.

I get up and put on my clothes. After making sure I have everything, I take one last look at the room and step out into the hallway. I half expect to see armed guards, or at least the two detectives hovering around, but there's no one. I look down the hall and see a green exit sign. I head toward it.

With every step that brings me closer to that sign, my belief that I'm actually getting out of here increases. By the end of the hallway, I feel better than I can remember feeling in quite a while. It's so strange. I've only been here for three days. Still, my excitement continues to mount as I follow the next exit sign, and then the next.

My heart skips a beat when, as I'm walking toward a set of doors through which I can see the parking lot outside, someone calls my name.

"Mike!" the voice repeats.

I look around. Tom comes jogging up to me. "Hey, buddy!" he says jovially.

Glancing back toward the doors, I return the greeting. "Hey, Tom. You still here?"

"Yeah, I stopped by to see if they were releasing you today," he says. "I guess they are."

I nod, "Yep."

"Well, good thing I got here when I did," he chuckles.

"Oh yeah?" I ask absently, eyeing the doors again.

"Well, yeah!" he says incredulously. "Otherwise you'd be walking home."

"Oh."

"What, did you think you drove yourself here in the throes of a heart attack?" he laughs.

"Hey, thanks for picking me up," I tell him sincerely.

Tom nods. "No problem, buddy. Now, let's get you out of here."

"Yeah," I agree enthusiastically.

Tom is pretty talkative as we make our way to my house. I have a hard time paying attention. The warmth of the sun on my face and the spectacle of the city distract me. I don't get it. I wasn't even in the hospital for a week. I apologize to Tom several times for spacing out on him. He just shrugs it off and continues talking. Oddly, he doesn't mention Loretta at all.

When Tom's car rolls to a stop in front of a vaguely familiar house, I look around in confusion. "Are we here already?" I ask.

"Yeah," he answers with a hint of concern. "You feeling ok?"

I take a long look at my house. I guess it's how I remember it. Something just seems...out of place.

"Listen, you want me to hang out for a while?" Tom asks.

I blink away my distracted expression and look over at him. "Thanks, Tom, but I think I'd just like to relax by myself for a while."

He nods. "Ok," he says, "but you call me if you need anything."

"I will," I assure him.

"Ok, buddy. Take care," he calls as I exit the vehicle.

"Yep, you too," I reply, pushing the passenger door closed.

I watch him drive off until he turns the corner at the end of the street, then turn to look again at my house. Everything feels a bit surreal. My house seems like something out of a distant memory, but I know I was here four days ago. Taking a deep breath, I walk up the driveway and step over to the front door. I easily extract my keys from my pocket and pick the right one with barely a glance. In a motion that definitely feels automatic, I unlock the door and walk in.

This place is empty. It's nice enough. I can see hints of my tastes here and there. I recognize everything and know my way around, and yet it feels like something's missing or maybe like it doesn't quite look like I remember it. It all serves to make me feel like I need to find out what's going on...now.

I lock the front door behind me and cross the living room, walk through the kitchen and out the side door to the garage. My awkward feelings persist as I quickly hop into my car and hit the button for the automatic garage door opener. As I back down the driveway and into the road, I look around to make sure no one's watching me. Guided by only the vaguest sense that I know where I'm going, I put the car in drive and proceed down the road.

I find myself wondering, oddly enough, if I'll ever make it back.

* * * * *

More on Determinism...

2009-05-13T14:29:00.000-05:00

So, I recently read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Given my interests, it's surprising it's taken me this long to get around to reading it. I have to say that I'm sorry I didn't read it sooner. It's quite fascinating, if a bit over my head at times. It's amazing to me how counter-intuitive physics becomes when you break it down to the quantum level or try to stretch it back to the beginning of time. It's even more amazing that we've managed to figure out any of the parts beyond Newtonian physics, which is, relatively speaking, pretty easy to observe.

I can't imagine the internal conflict for the first physicists to investigate these advanced concepts. Bohr, Schrödinger, Einstein, just to name a few, must have been stunned by the things they discovered. Indeed, Einstein's objections to some of the conclusions he and his colleagues were coming to are well documented. I'm reminded somewhat of Darwin's inner struggle with the reality he observed with evolution and natural selection versus what his lifelong faith told him about the origin of species.

Most interesting, though, is what these researches discovered about what we don't know and, indeed, perhaps can never know. The most significant of these, in my opinion, is Werner Heisenberg’s formulation of the uncertainty principle. I have to admit, this is one of those things that kind of goes over my head. I'm sure if I were a better mathematician, I might "get it" a bit more, but I'm not, so I don't.

I understand only the most basic concepts that come from uncertainty. Let me sum it up in my own words. Uncertainty basically tells us that there are certain variables that cannot be known to the same level of precision simultaneously. These variables seem to be somehow complementary to one another, or at least, the possible methods of measuring them seem to be complementary in such a fashion that the more precisely you know one, the less precisely you can know the other. For example, if you measure the position of some particle with high degree of precision, you will be unable to measure its momentum with much precision at all. Conversely, if you've measured its exact momentum, its position will be a mystery.

I've actually known this specific example of the uncertainty principle for quite some time, but I always thought that it was merely a matter of weakness in our measuring capabilities. According to Heisenberg's work, however, uncertainty is actually a feature of the universe. It wouldn't matter how advanced our instruments were, we could never measure these things simultaneously to the same level of precision.

I was thinking about this the other day, trying to figure out if I could come up with a macroscopic example that would demonstrate how this could possibly be true, and I think I came up with one. Please bear with me as I try to set it up...

Have you ever played Outburst? How about Password? In these games, and a few others, you have a card with some words written on them in light blue ink. Then, over the entire surface of the card, there are a bunch of small, randomly-shaped, and transparent red splotches. The purpose of this red pattern is to obscure the words written in blue so that they cannot be read at a glance. The only way to read them clearly is to insert the card into this little red plastic window that comes with the game. The clear red window cancels out the red on the card and the light blue ink of the words stand out as a dark purple.

Another example of this same concept is those old red and blue 3-D glasses. When I was a kid, I had this book with a bunch of drawings of dinosaurs in this blue and red ink. When you looked at it through the 3-D glasses, the dinosaurs seemed to jump off the page. I noticed that when I put the red eye of the glasses over a part of the drawing, the red lines would disappear. Similarly, when I put the blue eye of the glasses over the drawing, the blue lines would disappear.

Ok, going back to the Outburst example, say you wanted to read the words on the card as clearly as you possibly could. The best way to do that would be to slip the card into the red window. Now, say you wanted to see the random red splotches as clearly as you could. To do that, you'd put the card into a blue window. Now, it is true that green would contrast best with the red splotches, but you would still barely be able to see the word in blue ink, which might interfere with how well you were able to see the detailed shape of the red splotches over that word.

So, what if you wanted to be able to see both the words and the red splotches in the best detail possible simultaneously? One might suppose that a purple window might work, but probably not very well. I doubt you could see either the blue or the red ink any better than you could in regular light. Even if it was better, it still wouldn't be as good as seeing either one color or the other in the windows specifically designed to cancel out the color you wanted it to.

Wow, are you still with me?

So, translating this example to uncertainty, the words in blue ink represent a particle's position and the red splotches represent its momentum. To know its position with a high degree of precision, you have to put it in the red window. For its momentum, the blue window is best. There exists no window, however, that would reveal both simultaneously as nicely as the red and blue windows reveal the blue and red ink respectively.

Well, how do you like that? I've just reduced one of the most puzzling (to me) aspects of quantum physics to the simple pieces of a family game. Though I admit, this may just as well describe a lack of understanding as it does the basic concept of uncertainty. I'd be curious to know what a physicist thinks of it.

Ok, so what the hell does this have to do with determinism? Well, when I first read that uncertainty was "built in" to the universe and is something we are not likely to be able to overcome, my whole idea of a deterministic universe started crashing around me. Now, keep in mind that I was sleepily reading this on a flight to L.A., so my brain wasn't at its peak. What I later realized was that it still doesn't necessarily rule out determinism. All it does is solidify the idea that the universe is ultimately unpredictable. Uncertainty assures that we will never have all the information necessary to propagate the laws of physics out theoretically to some future moment.

In my last post about determinism, I hypothesized about a computer that was powerful enough to hold all the information and perform all the calculations necessary to predict the future. I reasoned that such a computer could not be built because it would require infinite resources. Thinking about it now, I realize I may have been wrong about not only the reason it was impossible, but also its requirements. The reason it would be impossible is because uncertainty guarantees that we will never have all the information necessary to load into the computer. So, even if we had infinite memory, we wouldn't be able to fill it with the necessary information to perform our calculations.

Which brings me to its requirements. Would it really need infinite memory? My reasoning was that such a computer would have to include a simulation of itself resident in memory, which would set up an infinitely recursive situation. If we're talking about building a computer in the sense of a modern-day computer, that might not be far off. In A Brief History of Time, Hawking talks about the laws of thermodynamics and entropy. He says that in the process of storing data in memory or processing that data, a computer generates heat, which increases the overall entropy in the universe by a much higher degree than the order that is created by the memory storage or processing. So, my future-gazing computer would have to at least include in its simulation the amount of heat it outputs into the universe, which would require more memory and processing, which would increase the heat further...etc.

But, let's say we don't build the computer like a modern-day computer. Instead, we'll let the universe run the simulation itself. Or, at least, we'll have half the universe run the simulation. So, let's ignore uncertainty for a moment. All we have to do is freeze time and build a huge partition that splits the universe exactly in half and prevents any energy transfer between the two. Then, we arrange every particle in one half in exactly the same position as the particles in the other half. Once that's done, we use the laws of physics to manipulate one half as it will appear at some arbitrary point in the future. Now the only thing left is to start up time again. If you want to know what's going to happen in the future of the one half, you just have to look at the other half. Simple, no?

Actually, it's not simple. In fact, it's ridiculous. You have to throw out so many physical laws to accomplish this, in the end you're just dealing with fantasy. Ignore uncertainty? Freeze time? Build a perfect barrier between two halves of the universe? Even if you could do these things, what do you then do to calculate out the future of each particle in the half that's going to be your future universe? You can't use a computer, because that's what you're building. It's the whole reason for this insane project! The only option that leaves is to do it by hand or incrementally using weaker computers. Even so, if you could freeze time, you could take the preposterously ponderous amount of time required to calculate the future incrementally using your weaker computers.

I could go on, but it doesn't serve my point, which is that even if the universe is deterministic, which I believe it to be, it may as well not be. Daunting does not even begin to describe the most trivial of steps in calculating the exact future of the universe, and that's even ignoring uncertainty. Throw uncertainty into the picture and your nearly infinitely difficult task literally becomes impossible.

Now, let me propose a thought experiment to you. I'm not sure what conclusions you might draw from it, but I think its purpose is more to evaluate how you think about time (and time travel) than to determine whether or not the universe is deterministic. However, if any definite conclusions could be reached with this experiment, they might have some interesting implications about determinism. So, here goes:

Suppose I approached you and asked you at some specific moment to choose a random number between 1 and 100. If there are truly random events in the universe and human free will is a consequence of that randomness, then there is a 1 in 100 chance that you will pick a particular number within that range, regardless of any events that occurred in all of the universe's history before I asked you to choose.

Now, suppose at some arbitrary point in the future I traveled back in time to a point before I asked you to choose a number and, taking the place of my past self, I approach you at the same moment I did previously and ask you in exactly the same way to choose a random number between 1 and 100. Again, we are assuming that there are truly random events and our free will is a consequence of them. It shouldn't matter, then, that this already happened in the past I know. There should still be a 1 in 100 chance that you will pick a specific number in that range, which means that the number you choose this time might not be the same as the number you chose last time.

Think about how time travel is represented in science fiction. Does this thought experiment agree with that representation? Consider the hypothetical "what if you could go back and kill Hitler?" question. Well, what if you went back far enough that enough events that depended upon the random elements of a non-deterministic universe played out differently and maybe Hitler wasn't even born, or maybe he made different decisions that led to a different history than the one we know? In this hypothetical universe where random events truly happen and have noticeable effects, you wouldn't necessarily have to do anything to stop Hitler. It might just work out that Hitler never ends up doing what he did in our history, if he even exists at all.

There is, of course, one minor kink in this experiment. If the universe is deterministic, then the amount of entropy you inject into the past universe by arriving there via time travel might have a significant effect on future events as well. Just by being there, the energy your body gives off as it metabolizes calories might change how history plays out. Unless you can figure out how to travel to the past without adding more entropy to the past universe, you'd never be able to completely rely upon your observations to prove randomness. But to talk about figuring out how to prevent contamination of your experiment while traveling to the past, you have to figure out how to travel to the past in the first place.

Ultimately, we're no further along in figuring out whether or not the universe is deterministic. I still believe that it is, but I also still believe that it doesn't matter. And it seems like the more we know, the more we're starting to understand that we'll never know it all. We may end up knowing a lot of it, but some things in the universe will still remain a mystery. I'm ok with that.

* * * * *

Another Funny Thing Happened...

2009-03-11T14:28:00.003-05:00

Oh, those college days. Who among us, the various alumni of higher learning institutions, does not have some crazy story highlighting the triumphs and terrors of that first taste of freedom mixed with responsibility? Maybe not everyone has such stories, but most do. Even so, I bet few have a story as crazy as this.

It was a Thursday, probably my favorite school day. Thursdays were great, first of all, because they were just before Friday, which was a pretty cool day in and of itself, being right before the weekend. Friday's only weakness was that, like Mondays and Wednesdays, they were likely to have the most hours of class if you were attending school full time. Tuesdays and Thursdays were great, though. Maybe one or two classes, usually electives if I had them on my schedule that semester.

Anyways, it was mid afternoon and I was taking a long detour off campus before heading back to my dorm. It was a moderate trek to the grocery store down the road, probably a half-hour each way, but it made for an invigorating stroll. The road took me by Professor Deepti's house. She was by far the best teacher in the whole university. Her house was modest, though I'm sure her salary wasn't. She lived there with her husband and her three young children, two girls and one boy.

Professor Deepti had a very generous open-door policy, even inviting students to her home for extra help. Her husband was also a professor and was just as brilliant, though in a different way. His explanations were always wordy and thorough, but his wife had a way of explaining things that was always simple and elegant. Whatever she said seemed to fool your brain into thinking it was relaxing rather than learning, so it soaked in the information until it was waterlogged with knowledge.

I hadn't visited in a while, seeing as how it had been two semesters since my last class with her, but we always greeted each other when we passed on campus. School must have just let out for the youngsters too because I saw those familiar three adorable faces bounding down the sidewalk toward the house.

"Mr. Jeff! Mr. Jeff!" they called out as they got close enough to recognize me.

"Hey, kiddos!" I yelled back cheerily.

The youngest, Anuj, got to me first and threw his arms around my legs. "Mr. Jeff, why haven't you been to visit?" he asked with a mild tone of accusation.

I laughed as the others caught up to their brother and joined the hug. They were a gregarious bunch, cute as buttons and sharp as tacks, all traits clearly inherited from their parents. I really felt bad for not coming to visit more often, but school usually kept me busy, and when it didn't, my social life did.

"I'm sorry, guys," I offered, kneeling down to be eye to eye with them. "I promise I'll come over more from now on." I really meant it.

"C'mon inside, Mr. Jeff!" Gita, the eldest, invited. "Dad will be happy to see you."

I doubted that. It's not that I thought Dr. Deepti disliked me. He just never seemed to show much emotion toward students. His passion was digital logic, and he only became animated and emotional when talking about it. The only reason he might have been happy to see me is because he would be able to shout binary and discrete math at me, rather than just at the air, which I often imagine he did when he was alone.

"I can't, guys, I'm sorry," I apologize again. "I'm expecting some guests tonight and I need to pick up a few things from the store." It was true. A couple of friends were going to come over around five and we were going to hang out for a while before going out.

"Aw!" the three kids shouted in unison.

"I'll be by soon, though, I promise."

"Ok," they said with more than a hint of disappointment.

"Really," I assured them with a grin. "Now, go do your homework!"

"Ok!" they laughed, bounding happily once again toward their house.

What a bunch of characters. I continued down the road, letting my mind wander back to Professor Deepti's class and how much fun it was. My thoughts meandered between that and all the other things going on in my life at the time. Two semesters ago didn't seem like a long time ago, and yet there were times when it seemed like an eternity. Lost in thought, I hardly noticed the rest of the walk to the end of the road.

I finally became aware of how far I'd come when the number of people on the sidewalk seemed to suddenly increase dramatically. As I turned the corner to continue on the last block before the store, I was suddenly in a crowd. People were everywhere, waiting on either side of the road like a parade was going to come pounding down the pavement at any moment. I heard no signs of a parade and wasn't aware of any holiday that usually justified a parade, so I just pressed on, walking in the bike lane to avoid pushing through the throng.

I made it to the store with no idea of what these people were hanging around for. I quickly got some drinks and chips and made my way to the register. I almost asked the cashier what was going on outside, but I figured I would figure it out sooner or later. As I stepped out of the store, I soon regretted not driving there. The drinks I bought weren't particularly heavy, but the handle on the plastic bag was cutting off the circulation in my fingers. It was rather uncomfortable.

Stoically, I shifted my grip on the bag and strode back toward the road. As I made my way through the store parking lot, I heard an odd buzzing sound approaching from the left. The crowd, which started just to my right, began to murmur. I looked left down the road.

Bicyclists. A large number of bicyclists, more than I had ever seen before or since, were speeding down the blacktop, their legs pumping as they advanced. The crowd started to cheer. It would have been cool, if only I weren't trying to get back to my dorm. I'm sure I wouldn't have had to wait very long for the bikes to pass, but I really didn't feel like navigating the crowd. Instead, I turned around and took the longer way back to the school down the next street over.

My detour didn't add that much time to the return trip, but I was bit tired by the time I got back to campus. I trudged up the few front steps to my dorm, plastic bags slung over my shoulder, and crossed the lobby to the hall that lead to my room. At least I was on the first floor.

The hall was pretty empty, which was unusual for this time of day. Usually residents had their doors open and a few people were coming and going. Most of the doors, though, were closed today and just one person was walking down the hall aside from me. She seemed to be a little older than most of the students here, but I couldn't be sure since her back was to me. I'm not sure if she came from another room, but it didn't really strike me as odd. It didn't strike me as odd, that is, until she reached the end of the hall, turned left, opened a certain door and walked in.

"What the..." I trailed off as I stared down the hall at the now closed door of the room she entered. It was mine.

I hurried down the hall, never taking my eyes off the door. When I got there, I dropped the bags and tried the knob. It was locked, just as I left it. I didn't see that the woman had used a key. It looked like she just opened the door and walked in. I fumbled through my pockets for my keys, unlocked the door and threw it open. I hurried into the room.

Empty. Everything just as I left it. I knelt down and looked under the bed. Nothing. There was only one more place to check. I ran over to the storage closet and whipped open the door. I looked around suspiciously.

Normally in a dorm room, checking out your closet wouldn't be much of an effort. In my case, I was what some of the students in my building called "lucky". I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but this building apparently underwent a major overhaul back in the 70's. It somehow worked out that there was a large shaft in one corner that went straight up to the roof of the building. The entryway to this shaft was my closet door. The dorm was only three stories, so it's not like it went all that high, but it was pretty deep from front to back, and when you were using the bottom of the shaft as your closet, it seemed fairly cavernous.

Like I said, I'm not sure how it worked out this way. We all guessed that they screwed up and had this corner that they weren't sure what to do with left over. On the upper two floors, everyone else's closet was on the other side of the room. I don't know why they didn't just put a ceiling in the space on the first floor to make it just like a big walk-in closet. I didn't complain. It was pretty cool. There was a little ledge at the back of the closet, at about the height that my ceiling would have been, that opened into some kind of duct, like for a massive AC unit. Up around the level of the third floor there was another ledge on the left wall, toward the inside of the building. The ledge couldn't have been more than a foot or two wide before it was walled off. There was also a large window against the back wall at about third-floor level that kept it pretty well lit during the day.

Normally, this was the most awesome closet ever. Right now, its size made it seem insanely dangerous. Granted, the only places to hide were the "ledge of death" and the "duct of doom", but seeing as how I just saw someone walk into my room, I had to check all the possibilities. I didn't have enough stuff in here to create any hiding places on my level, so I peered up at the ledge on the third floor. The sun hadn't set yet, and this side of the building faced west, so it was pretty bright.

As I looked at the empty recess in the wall, I suddenly felt foolish. There is no way anybody could get up there without a ladder, and it would have taken significantly longer than I had taken to run down the hall and into my room. The only other option was the duct.

At first, I only stepped back toward the front of the closet and craned my neck to try to get more perspective on it, but I could only see the wide metal tube curving downward behind my wall. I had to try to climb up there.

The shelf in my closet was off to the right, and a pole ran the length of the wall right underneath for me to hang my clothes. The back wall was pretty bare. My bike was leaning there, as well as some tennis rackets and a life size cardboard cutout of Angelina Jolie from a movie theater display. I moved the bike and jumped up, grabbing onto the ledge. It was a little slippery from all the dust up there. I pulled myself up, trying to get my foot against the side wall for leverage. Dust flew into the air and went up my nose.

Trying to hold back a sneeze, I squinted into the duct. It was dark. I looked along the ledge. There was a thick layer of dust all the way across, except for where my fingers had disturbed it. I didn't see any way somebody could have hoisted themselves into this duct without kicking up most of the dust that was there. Maybe I was just going a little crazy. Or maybe I was just tired. It could be that this woman didn't go into my room after all. Maybe she went in the door just before mine. I could have sworn...

"What the hell are you doing?"

The voice scared the living hell out of me. I lost my grip on the ledge and fell to the floor. I hit my head, but not hard. It was mostly my pride that was hurt.

"Oh my god! Are you ok?" Stephie asked, running into the closet to help me up.

Stephie was one of the friends I was expecting tonight. She was an almost-too-thin blonde girl, a little ditzy, but cute and sweet just the same. She wasn't my typical type, but I liked her anyways. I don't think she ever noticed, but she never treated me like I wasn't good enough for her either. I had just never made a move on her for some reason.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," I insisted as I accepted her hand and stood, my ears burning with embarrassment.

"what were you doing up there?" she reiterated, shaking her head in confusion.

I briefly considered telling her the truth. "Ah, I don't know," I shrugged. "I was just checkin' it out."

"Oh," Stephie said. "See anything?"

"Nah."

She looked around the closet. "I never got how you could stand this place. If this was my room I would be creeped out all the time."

A chill went through me, but I played it off. "Are you kidding, this is the most awesome closet ever!"

She shook her head again. "If you say so."

We walked out of the closet and I went out to the hallway to get the bags with the soda and chips.

Stephie gave me a funny look. "Why'd you leave that stuff out there?"

"O-oh," I stuttered. "I, uh, was just tired from carrying them from the store. I walked. I put them down when I went to unlock my door," I explained. It was all technically true.

Over the course of the next hour, Stephie and I just chatted while waiting for the others to arrive. The memory of the weirdness earlier faded a bit until I was sure that had just been mistaken about which room I saw that woman walk into. Pretty soon, Wendy and Eric showed up.

"Ok, time to get this party started!" Eric bellowed as he walked in the door, handing me a bottle in a paper bag.

Eric was a trip. Very boisterous, but always funny. He had short brown hair like mine, but he was a little bit taller than me and was definitely way cockier. I pulled the bottle out of the paper bag he handed me, already knowing full well what it would be. Grey Goose. Eric drank the stuff like water. I was sure he was an alcoholic, but he always bought the good stuff and brought it to parties, so nobody complained. College is pretty messed up like that.

Wendy was Eric's girlfriend, and as usual, she was hauling the bag of ice. She was practically Stephie's exact opposite, which made it so funny that they were best friends. She was a tall redhead, very sharp. She could be a little snooty sometimes, but once you got to know her, she wasn't that bad. You could tell she was probably picked on when she was a kid for being so smart and maybe not so attractive, but I bet anyone who picked on her then would be shocked now; she was a knockout.

I went into the closet and dragged out my cooler, which was pretty small, but it served its purpose. Wendy dumped in her ice and Eric put in the drinks I had bought. Stephie was regaling them with the story of my closet wall climbing and subsequent tumble. We all had a good laugh. The minutes flew and it started to get pretty dark out. Eric and Wendy were lounging on the bed, Stephie was in my desk chair and I was leaning against the wall.

Suddenly, Stephie leaned over and peered into my still-open closet.

"What is it, Steph?" Wendy asked.

Stephie shook her head and laughed a little nervously. "I don't know. Jeff's clothes are freaking me out over there. It looked like something was standing there in bandages, but I can see now that they're just t-shirts all bunched together on the hangers. Go shut the door, will ya?" she explained, aiming the last part at me.

Wendy and Eric laughed while I walked over to close the door. Stephie was always creeped out by the closet, but this time it was rubbing off on me. I had shrugged off my earlier experience, but now I felt a little uneasy. As I reached the door, I looked around inside the closet just to make sure everything was still normal. My eyes trailed up the wall to the third story ledge.

"What the..."

Since the sun had set, it was fairly dark up there, but the lights out in the courtyard shined almost right on the nook in the wall. I could have sworn I saw an arm pull back from the ledge and into the shadows.

"What is it?" Stephie called.

I stepped to the left to try to get a better angle on the ledge. It was too dark to make out a definite shape, but it seemed like there was something lying still in the far corner, about human sized, perhaps wrapped in bandages.

"Hello?" I called, reaching for the light switch.

Before my fingers could find it, another shape popped out from the other corner of the third-floor ledge. The eerie light provided by the lamps outside illuminated the pale visage of someone or something staring down at me. Thin, wisps of white hair clung to a nearly bald head glistening with sweat. It leaned unnaturally far over the ledge to get a closer look at me, its wide eyes unblinking, its head leaning from side to side as it considered me like a predator considers its prey. It looked only vaguely human, and it looked angry.

* * * * *

I know this sounds like the beginning of a really bad horror movie. It was actually a dream I had the other night, and it scared the crap out of me. It loses something in the translation I think. I wish I could tell it in a way that would terrify you as much as it terrified me. Hope you enjoyed it either way.

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 19

2009-03-10T10:10:00.007-05:00

4:26 AM.

The numbers shine through the darkness and sear onto my retina. Even when I blink, I see the green hour floating in nothingness, contrasting the dim red light that floods my bedroom. It's an ungodly hour, but strangely familiar. Who would be calling so early?

"Richard," the faint voice on the other end says.

"Mmm?" I mumble.

"Meet me again tonight. I think I have an idea."

There's a click followed by the dial tone. Sleepily, I hang up the phone. I hate when dreams filter through to reality. It isn't long before sleep claims me again; the green numbers superimposed on my retina fade to blackness.

6:30 AM.

Once again, I'm awakened by noise. The alarm clock blares its monotone Reveille, dragging me unceremoniously from the depths of unconsciousness. I walk across the room and turn the damned thing off. Once more, my day has begun.

All-in-all, the day seems pretty normal. People at work don't seem to be that bad today. Even the events of that day three months ago seem more distant. The pain seems dulled. I almost feel...happy. Crazy dreams from the night before fade away until I no longer remember why they seemed so important. I went to bed really early. Must've slept thirteen hours or so. This must be what it feels like to be well rested. Maybe I'll try it again tonight.

The hours at work don't necessarily fly by, but at least they don't drag. When five o'clock arrives, I'm pleasantly surprised. I wish Tom a good night and head home, eager to find the comfort of the bedcovers waiting to envelope me once again. As I get closer to home, I start feeling pretty tired. I don't know how that's possible, given how much I slept last night. I barely notice pulling into the driveway and stumbling through the door. My head hitting the pillow is not an event I can recall.

*     *     *     *     *

What is this place? It gives the impression of a white hallway. It is so brightly lit that all the corners blend in with the walls, floor and ceiling. As I walk its length, I get the impression of doors passing on either side of me. Straight ahead, a black rectangle marks an open door at the end of the hallway. I step toward it through a silence so pervasive, not even my feet make a sound as they hit the floor. The doorway looms before me.

Inside, the room is dark. A single light shines on a long metal table. The figure of a woman lay beneath a white sheet upon the table. Holding my breath, I step up to it. The silence is unnerving. I almost can't work up the courage to pull back the sheet.

Linda's face, a very pale blue, stares lifelessly up at me as I take away the covering. There is a large opening in the side of her skull that is caked with dried blood. Fear and sadness well up within me.

The milky eyes snap to me with surreal speed. The mouth of Linda's corpse moves sickeningly, her jaw locked in rigor mortis, but her lips squirming over her white teeth. Her neck snaps and jerks as she turns her head toward me.

"Richard," she says with a deep, guttural whisper.

It takes some time for the screams in my bedroom to die down. It takes some time for me to realize they're coming from me. Being in a waking state takes some time to provide me with comfort.

*     *     *     *     *

11:20 PM.

I sip my water slowly and wonder what the hell happened to my life. More immediately, what happened to my day? Now that I'm here, sitting awake in my bed, the whole day seemed like a dream. Last night was the first time I've felt like things have been real for a long time. I remember during the day thinking that everything that happened last night was a dream, and I gladly forgot about it. Now, as I struggle with myself about whether I'm going to drive out to the church again, it all seems like crystal clear memory.

I have to go. One thing's for sure, I can't sleep now. Every time I think my dreams can't get any worse, I wake up in more terror than I've ever felt. I don't know how my brain can possibly manufacture such twisted imagery. If this is all a side effect of memory programming, I need to get away. I'll try anything.

The poorly-lit streets of the city outskirts seem even scarier than last night. More streetlamps are out. The various boarded up, chained or otherwise barred windows and doors look more disheveled and creepy. Suspicious characters hiding back in the shadows seem to watch me, the whites of their eyes reflecting more of my headlights than I seem to think they should. I know it's just my paranoia, but I feel like everyone and everything is focused squarely on me tonight.

When I finally pull up in front of the church, I quickly jump out of the car and hurry to the back. The moon is obscured by clouds, so my footing isn't nearly as sure as it was before. Still, I manage to make my way to the door that once again stands open to receive me.

I take another glance around before venturing into the shadows with a, "Hello?"

As it did last night, another door opens inside the church and I hurry over to Loretta, who's waving me over nervously.

"Hi again," I greet her, my casual tone belying my own anxiety.

She offers me a quick smile and indicates the chair, closing the door behind her. "Let's get right to it," she says, moving quickly to her own seat.

"Why, what's up?" I ask, sensing a hint of concern in her voice.

She sighs. "I'm not sure if we have much longer. I expected you a little sooner."

"I'm sorry, I..." I begin apologizing.

Loretta holds up her hand. "No time for that," she says. She reaches over to a little table beside her and picks up something wrapped in a handkerchief. She unfolds it and pulls out a vial and two syringes.

"What's that?" I ask apprehensively.

"It's an anesthetic," she says simply.

I swallow. "What for?"

She looks at the floor for a moment, seemingly gathering her thoughts. "Richard, we are not going to hack our way out of here," she says.

"Oh?" I ask, eyeing the needles.

She shakes her head. "I've been thinking and thinking and I can't come up with a way that we're going to do it without them figuring out what we're up to first. I think it might already be too late for that. Given what I felt about today, I think they may already suspect that something is up. They're changing the treatment."

"Uh-huh," I nod distractedly. Then, I realize what she just said. "Wait, why wouldn't they just separate our link or pull one or both of us out?"

Loretta shrugs. "I don't know. The thing you have to remember is that time for us in here isn't the same as it is in the real world. If all these memories were written in real-time, this treatment would be useless. We can write an entire lifetime up to middle-age in a matter of six months or so in most cases, even less in a few others."

"So, it might have been only minutes or even seconds since the last time we saw each other?" I ask.

"Yes," she answers.

My eyes travel back to the needles. "So, what's with the anesthetic?"

"It's called bupivicaine. It's usually given in an epidural, but I'd like to administer it to both of us intravenously..." she explains quietly, trailing at the end.

"Right, and you make that sound bad," I say, my concern growing every second.

She nods. "It isn't good. Intravenous administration can lead to hypoxemia and cardiac arrest, as well as a host of other effec-."

"Wait, I don't get it," I interrupt her, my tone rising. "Are you saying you want to commit suicide? How is that possible, isn't this all fake?"

"Richard, calm down," she orders, her own voice unnaturally serene. "I'm not talking about suicide, though the risk of death might be as high as in the real world. The thing is, what happens to us in here often has an effect on us out there. The first time you woke up and spoke to me, you told me you thought you had been shot in the side. Well, a short time before that you had started bleeding internally. That's what happened before Dr. Spector had me start you on the new program. Something caused you to believe that you were suddenly shot, which caused you to hemorrhage in the place you perceived the bullet hit."

I blink silently for a moment. "So, how is this not suicide again?"

Loretta sighs heavily. "Again, there is a risk involved, but here's what I think will happen. I'll administer the shot in a dosage that will, hopefully, not kill us. We'll simultaneously go into cardiac arrest. Out there, they may think it's due to what they're doing to Mnemosyne. Either way, they'll have to disconnect us from the machine to treat us. They'll probably inject us with epinephrine and defibrillate our hearts and, well, you get the idea."

I nod skeptically. "Right, and if we're not dead by then?" I ask.

"Well, if we're not dead, we should be ok. Maybe a bit weakened by the treatment. I don't really know. I've never done this before. The most important thing is, though, that they will have to keep us disconnected from Mnemosyne for a little while, and I suspect they will probably refrain from administering sedatives until they can figure out what happened or until they decide what to do with us," she explained.

"And in the meanwhile we..." I prompt, still not really sure what this will buy us.

"It will buy us time, Richard," she says, reading my mind. She leans across the space between us and puts her hand on mine. "This is the only option I think we realistically have. As long as we don't let on that we know anything's up, there's no reason we can't fool them while we look for an opening."

"Unless they already know about..." I wave my hands at the room around us. "This."

She shakes her head. "About this specifically, they don't. And even if they do, it doesn't do us any good to think that way."

I sigh. "Do you really think we have a shot with this?"

Loretta shrugs. "I don't think we have a shot without it."

I lean back in my chair. As much as I'd like to think there's another way, I have to agree with her. I don't see how we could figure anything else out that wouldn't alert the outside to what we were doing. Clenching my jaw, I nod and roll up my sleeve.

"Ok," she says with a hint of relief. "We might not be in the same room. If you manage to get out, don't wait for me. We'll meet here."

"Wait, here?" I ask, confused.

She nods. "This address actually exists. I believe it really is an abandoned church," she says.

"Yeah, but what if they-" I begin to ask.

"If they know about this place, then they'll know about any other place we agree to meet. At least this place is outside their facility. We'll have an easier time getting away if we meet up somewhere else. Just be careful when you try to get here. I have the feeling that won't be a problem for you."

I think about that for a moment. Sounds awfully risky to me, but she's right. What other choice is there? I offer her my arm. "This better work," I muse.

"I think it will," she reassures me.

She takes my wrist and pulls my arm a little closer so she can look for a vein. She pushes a likely suspect on my upper forearm with her finger, feeling its contour under my skin. With a satisfied nod, she pulls the cap off the needle and pushes the tip into the vial, drawing out the liquid slowly as she peers at the graduated marks on the side of the syringe.

"Ready?" she asks as she pulls the needle out of the bottle and ensures there are no air bubbles.

I nod. "As I'll ever be."

With an almost apologetic smile, she takes my arm again and gives one last preliminary probe for my vein before sticking in the needle. It's a slight sting followed by a vaguely cool sensation creeping up my arm. Loretta's smile widens and she steps back and promptly disappears. The room goes black.

What is this? I spin around in the darkness, stumbling across a creaky wood floor. A chill descends through my whole body and I start to shiver. I need to get out of here. I feel my way through the darkness and bump into a wall. It feels like peeling paint on drywall. Continuing along the wall, my fingers reach what seems to be a doorway.

Throwing open the door, I trip into the next room. My body feels so cold. I'm starting to feel a bit like the world is spinning. I can vaguely see a door in the darkness leading to the outside. I move toward it shakily. The edges of the door seem to keep wavering. My head starts pounding. Why can't I breathe?

Gasping for air, I tumble through the door and onto the dried grass outside. Wheezing sounds escape between my lips as my racing heart keeps pumping blood to my head. I think I'm going to explode...or suffocate...or freeze to death. Blackness creeps in. I think I'm dead. I'm dead...

*     *     *     *     *

The world beyond the darkness is a flurry of activity. Beeps and voices send ripples through the void, showing me the way. The sound is muffled, but it's getting louder. Where am I?

"Charging."

"Wait...we have sinus rhythm. He's back."

I'm back. Good, there's something I'm supposed to do. What was it? The sounds are getting muffled again. Maybe I'm not back. I'm so cold. It feels like I'm lying on a bed of ice. People are talking still. What are they saying? I hear the steady beep of a machine. A steady beep, that's a good thing, right? I don't know. All I want to do right now is sleep. Blackness creeps in. I think I'm alive...

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 18

2008-11-13T14:41:00.001-05:00

"Honey...honey..."

"Hmm?"

"Are you awake?"

I crack open my eyes. It's dark, but in the dim glow of the alarm clock and the cable box, I can see Linda's face smiling at me, cradled by her pillow.

"Well, I am now."

She frowns teasingly. "Aw, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I smile back at her. "It's good to see you. I missed you today."

She reaches over and caresses my cheek. "I missed you too. Did you have a good nap?"

I think about it for a second. "Bizarre dreams."

"Oh? What about?"

I pause to think again. "Don't remember."

"Well, I hate to interrupt your bizarre-dreamy nap, but you have a meeting to get to," she says.

I push myself up on my elbow. "What?" I ask, perplexed.

She turns her head to look up at me, and I notice a dark stain on the pillow. "Mission Avenue. Don't you remember?"

My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. The entire side of her face is covered in some kind of dark liquid.

"Honey, what's wrong?" she asks, sitting up. Some more fluid drips from her head onto the pillow.

Not looking away, I grope behind me for the lamp switch. The room floods with light and I can see that Linda's entire side of the bed is soaked red. Blood drips freely from a gaping hole in the side of her head. She stares at me curiously.

"Baby, you're really starting to scare me. What's wrong?" she pleads, reaching out to touch me with a blood-covered hand.

I jerk backwards, falling out of bed in the process. I hit my head on the bedside table. The lights go out, and I mean that literally. The room is dark again. I jump to my feet and press my back against the wall, looking at the now apparently empty bed in terror and holding a swelling bump on my scalp. Cautiously, I reach over and try the lamp switch. To my surprise, it works. As if I had never turned it on in the first place.

That's because I didn't. I am alone in the room. The bed is empty and the only thing the sheets are soaked with is my own sweat. It was a nightmare.

"Damn right it was," I say out loud, just to reassure myself.

The human mind is messed up. Why would it ever show someone something like that? Makes me wish I could erase my memor-...

10:55 PM.

Damn. My brain is devious. How am I going to justify avoiding this meeting now? If I don't go at this point, I doubt I'll be able to sleep for the rest of the night. Besides, if it is all just a delusion, how far could I possibly delude myself? I hope I don't regret asking that, even if it is only in my head.

*****

I tell you one thing, driving around in this part of town at this hour definitely makes me wonder how the hell a delusion would think this could possibly help me. The neighborhoods near the outskirts are pretty rough. Buildings in disrepair, people on street corners, cars creeping along the road without their headlights on. It's a pretty scary place, but as I head toward Mission Ave., things get a bit sparser.

I pull up to a rusty mailbox barely hanging onto its post. Turning my head sideways, I see the faded numbers.

1240

This doesn't look like a church. It looks like a house, or what used to be a house. There is broken yellow tape tied around the posts of the front porch. In the faint light of the streetlight, I can see white lettering on a red sign that says "CONDEMNED" and smaller writing under it that's too tiny to make out from here. I must have the number wrong.

I continue driving slowly down the avenue, ticking off the address numbers as I go, looking for something resembling a church. Several minutes later, I see the silhouette of a cross rising against the moonlit clouds in the distance. That must be the place.

1420

Oh yeah. This is the place. Honestly, it doesn't look much better than the house I just looked at. It's faded and stained with age. The windows and doors are boarded up. There's a chain across the entryway to the parking lot, so I pull a little forward and park on the street out front. I haven't seen a car since I got on this road, so I doubt anyone will complain. I get out of the car and make my way toward the front doors of the church.

It seems boarded up pretty solidly. So do the windows. Maybe there's something around back. I make my way around the side of the church. The ground is really uneven and is covered with several layers of dead leaves in various stages of decomposition. They crunch far more than I feel comfortable with. A nice layer of ivy blankets almost this entire side of the building. In the back, there's a wide open space and I can barely make out the outline of several dilapidated picnic tables. Against the wall there leans what looks like some broken pews and a few chipped plaster statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. In the center of the back wall, a door stands open.

"How inviting," I mutter to myself.

I make my way to the door. It's pitch black inside...of course. I look around behind me. There are a few clouds here and there in the sky, but for the most part, the practically full moon illuminates most of the area. I don't know what I expect to see out there. Reasonably satisfied that no one's sneaking up behind me, I peer into the church.

"Hello?" I call, though not too loudly.

Something inside shifts and there's a rapid whipping sound like the flapping of wings. Okay...this is a little creepy.

"Loretta?" I venture with a bit more volume.

Several feet away, a narrow slit of light appears and widens into a doorway. A woman stands just inside the open door and waves me over.

The light from the next room doesn't offer too many details of the one I have to cross to get there, but it seems way less sinister now. I walk to the doorway and stand before the woman with an inquisitive stare.

"Oh, Richard," she says, sounding relieved. She steps forward and gives me a hug.

I stand frozen, not sure how to react. I know I don't know this woman, but she seems somehow familiar. She's dressed a bit shabbily, but she has a pretty face and well-kept blond hair. The feeling that I've seen her somewhere before gets stronger.

"In the car," I blurt out.

She steps back and looks at me curiously. "What?" she asks.

"I saw you in my car. After the accident. It was upside down and you were hanging from the passenger seat."

She shakes her head. "No, Richard. The accident was in an ambulance, and I was the one driving."

Images flash through my head of a grassy field at night rotating around and around. The sound of sirens echo over the smashing of glass and the scraping of metal.

"C'mon," the woman says. "Come inside and I'll explain everything, like I promised. I'm sure you're a little confused right now."

"Hmm," I say noncommittally. I have to remember, if this is a delusion, I can't let it convince me that it isn't. Of course, if it isn't a delusion... Man, this sucks.

The woman leads me into the room. It actually doesn't look all that bad in here. It seems clean and well-tended. There is a nice rug over the hardwood floor and a couple of cozy looking chairs. There's a small fire crackling in a brick fireplace against the far wall. I turn around and look back out the door. I can barely see the rectangle of light that is the church's back door leading outside, the one I had originally entered through. It looks dreary out there. The woman walks over and closes the door.

"Have a seat, Richard," she says, indicating one of the chairs.

"Wait a minute," I snap. "Is there any way that you can prove to me that any of this is real? That it's not just some delusion?"

She shrugs helplessly. "I can't. Because it isn't real. Besides, perception is reality, so how could I even prove it in the real world?"

"Wait, did you just say this isn't real?" I ask.

She nods. "It's as real as your brain tells you it is, which makes it real enough. But strictly speaking, no. None of this is real. That's what I've been trying to explain to you. Please, sit down and we'll talk about it."

Hesitantly, I take a seat. Heat radiates from the fireplace. It feels pretty good. It wasn't exactly cold out, but it wasn't warm either. It makes it hard to believe it's not real. But when your delusion confesses right away that it's a delusion, what can you do?

"I'm not a delusion, Richard," the woman says.

"How did you-?"

"I can sense some of your thoughts. It's the nature of what we're dealing with here," she explains.

"What exactly are we dealing with here?" I ask, shaking my head in disbelief.

"Let me start at the beginning," she says. "First, in case you don't remember, my name is Loretta Vine. I am, or was, a nurse working in a classified government medical research facility. I had higher aspirations, maybe go to medical school and become a doctor, but something happened about a year-and-a-half ago that put all that on hold.

"I was approached by one of the doctors at the facility. A brilliant man by the name of Hans Spector. Everyone in the facility respected and/or feared him. He wielded a lot of power for a researcher, but that's because his discoveries were so significant, they promised to change the face of, not just medicine, but almost every scientific discipline in the world. He said he had his eye on me. Said that I showed a lot of promise and would make a great researcher someday. He said he could put me on the fast track.

"I later found out that this was the kind of fancy talk he layed on most of his recruits, especially the women. I didn't care, though, because I believed this would be my fast track. I was sure that I could make enough of an impression to get me where I wanted to go. I got particularly excited when I heard what project we were recruited for."

I take advantage of her pause to venture a guess. "Brainwashing?"

Loretta smiles. "Not quite. It was actual memory reprogramming. This was not just conditioning someone's responses to a stimulus. This was literally rewriting every memory in their brains and giving them a whole new life. The implications were enormous. Just imagine the applications: treatment of post traumatic stress disorder, witness protection, criminal rehabilitation-"

"Brainwashing," I interrupt, finishing her list.

She looks away, embarrassed. "Admittedly, we hadn't really considered the ways this technology might be misused."

"Really?" I ask. "'Cause it's the first thing that springs to my mind."

"I know how foolish it sounds, but when you're so close to such brilliance and significance, it blinds you to the potential consequences. I assure you, we all believed, at the very least, that it wouldn't happen in the experimental phase. We figured the problem would come once the technology was out there, and we figured the government would regulate it so heavily that we wouldn't have it on our conscience."

She looks away, staring into the fire and seemingly holding her breath. "My ambition help blind me too," she continues. "I was a nurse. The reality of it is, we're not likely to make much of an impact. In fact, we weren't likely to learn much about the technology at all and probably wouldn't be let in on any of the finer details. Check vitals, report to doctors, take on the drudge work."

"But you didn't let that be it?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "No. I tried and tried. Took advantage of every opportunity and went through every door that was even slightly ajar. I even tried to get...close to Dr. Spector."

"Hmm," I acknowledge.

"Actually, it turns out the advantage was mine," she continues. "The truth is, they were seriously understaffed for the scale of the project. At any one time we had fifteen to twenty subjects in the experimental group. Then there were the controls, but they were actually a lot easier to manage. Most of the nurses and assistants ended up with a lot more responsibilities than we expected. When I learned how to read the reports from the monitoring system and a little bit about Mnemosyne, I jumped at the chance to show my worth and soaked up every bit of knowledge I could."

"Wait a minute," I interject. "Mnemosyne?"

"Yes," Loretta nods. "Mnemosyne is the system that does all the magic. It is responsible for the erasure and implantation of memory via electrical and chemical stimulation. It's named after the Greek goddess of memory, a Titan and the mother of the Muses."

I sigh and roll my eyes. "How epic."

Loretta smirks. "Yes, our hubris knew no bounds."

"What happened next?"

"Well," Loretta says, pausing to remember her place, "I was working with Mnemosyne, actually starting subjects on the program. Really just automated stuff. They never let me touch the individual memory scripts, but I saw some of them. I'm not really sure I would know where to begin with that stuff anyways. I'm pretty technical, but that was a little over my head. Eventually, my curiosity about the project grew into a curiosity about the subjects.

"See, they had me do some of the 'exit interviews', as they called them. When a patient completed a course, they would be woken up and interviewed to see what was sticking. Getting the interview didn't actually mean you exited the program. It was just an incremental check of the progress. Honestly, some people took to it really quickly. Dr. Spector said it wasn't like you write this life story and save it to their brains like you would a computer's hard drive, but some of the subjects made it seem that way."

I shudder at the creepiness factor.

Loretta looks at me in surprise. "You know, I never had that perception of it."

It's even creepier when she reads my mind.

"I'm sorry, I'll try to stop," she reassures me. "Anyways, about ten months into my involvement in the project, you showed up."

I raise my eyebrows. "I did?"

She nods. "Yeah. You were in pretty bad shape. They said you were in a car accident, but I didn't believe it. I know what gunshot wounds look like."

"I was shot?" I ask incredulously.

"Yep," she confirms. "At least three times, from what I could see. It didn't really surprise me that much. I mean, it surprised me that they tried to lie about it, but not that you were shot. You see, most of our subjects were volunteers from prison. A few were soldiers suffering from severe PTSD. Many had wounds, though they had long since been treated for them elsewhere. You were the first we treated for injuries at the facility before beginning the Mnemosyne program."

This is definitely eerie. "Why would anyone volunteer for this?" I ask.

"For the prisoners, it came with the promise of a commuted sentence, depending upon their response to the treatment. Naturally, we only offered them limited information about what they were volunteering for, but think about it. They would walk out of there not remembering that they committed a crime, not remembering that they spent time in prison, but what's more important, not remembering the events in their lives that caused them to commit the crime in the first place. Is that so bad?

"And the soldiers. Well, some of them had seen some pretty terrible things in their service. The experiences hamper them from leading the normal lives they should deserve after an honorable discharge. Instead, they go home and have constant nightmares and flashbacks. They avoid interpersonal interactions so they aren't faced with the possibility of having to talk about their experiences. They're angry, paranoid, sometimes violent. All the while, they're aware that something is wrong and want to do something to stop it, but they don't know what."

Loretta levels me with an intense stare. "If it were you," she says, "wouldn't you want it to go away?"

I swallow. "Yeah," I nod.

"But you," she continues, "I wasn't sure why you were there. No one knew, or at least, no one discussed it. Dr. Spector told me you were just another criminal, but I didn't believe it. When you resisted the treatment more strongly than the rest... Well, I'm not sure why, but I had a hunch there was something really fishy going on."

"Yeah, you were trying to erase my memory," I suggest.

She shakes her head. "No, we erased your memory, or so we thought. It was the memory programming that you were resistant to. I wasn't able to conduct any of your exit interviews, Dr. Spector handled that personally, but I heard some pretty wild things.

"In the beginning, most of the subjects reported a surrealism to their memories. Some even had odd things go on, like what you might expect in a dream. I don't know everything you told him, he kept many of the specifics to himself, but almost all your new memories were...trippy."

"Tell me about it, sister," I snicker.

"There was something about it, though," she goes on. "Whatever you were telling him made him believe the treatment was failing altogether. He ordered a fresh wipe and some of the technicians to come in and make some custom tweaks to your device and its programming. He was convinced you could be treated; he just had to figure out how. You were actually blanked out for a couple of weeks. You woke up once or twice, which was unexpected due to the amount of medication in your system, but you seemed...I would say, alert. Not like the vegetable that was suggested you would be without new memories.

"During those two weeks, my curiosity was killing me. There was definitely something up with your inclusion in this program, so I decided to do some snooping. I, shall we say, 'acquired' a password from a colleague for the project's records. They contained detailed files on every subject in the experiment. Oddly enough, I was only able to come up with your name, date of birth and a picture. All other information in your file was restricted to users with a higher security clearance than my colleague. Yours was the only file with any such restriction. Now I knew I was on to something."

The fire crackles in a punctuated kind of way. I take a deep breath.

"Then the strangest thing happened," Loretta starts again. "Dr. Spector asked me to go in and start you on your new program. Again, it was all automated, of course. I just had to push a button and make sure your IV dosage was correct. I was in there, checking all the stuff, wondering who the hell you were, when you woke up."

"I did, huh?"

She nods. "You woke up, and what's really strange, you said my name. Now that was just odd. I thought for a second I had to have imagined it. Then you started demanding to know where you were and said you remembered being shot in the side. At the time, even though I thought there was something weird going on, I still ultimately believed Dr. Spector was trying to help you, so I convinced you to calm down and accept the treatment. I don't regret that. The less they know something's up, the less likely they are to erase and try again."

"What changed your mind?" I ask.

"Hmm?"

"About believing Dr. Spector was trying to help me," I clarify.

Loretta shakes her head. "Dr. Spector never wanted to 'help' anyone. He was in it for the glory. He's actually a very small man inside. He's got a Napoleon complex. This is a realization I slowly came to as time progressed, especially watching him react to your response to the treatment.

"One day he came to me. He was very angry. He said I was tainting the experiment. He said you had mentioned my name in an exit interview. He said the only way that could have happened was by waking you up in secret and talking to you. The only reason I didn't confess to him about the day we did speak is because you already knew my name. I wasn't wearing a name badge, and most of the time people referred to me as 'Nurse Vine'. I told him I didn't know how it could have possibly happened, and that was the truth."

"What did he do?" I ask.

"Nothing except threaten me. He said if I interfered again, I would be thrown off the project and find myself just an RN at a local hospital. After that, he didn't let me anywhere near you. The funny thing is, he also said that you had been responding better to the treatment than you ever had before. I guess he figured it was due to the machine tweaks, but I don't think so.

"See, all the other people who responded so well, they wanted to be treated. At least, there was something in it for them. They were either naturally more suggestible or they wanted to be. You, though... I don't think you wanted to be there. I don't think you were ready to let go of your life. I think you were fighting against it, but when I reassured you, I think you stopped fighting so much."

"Yeah, thanks," I say in an exaggerated tone.

Loretta gives me a serious look. "You should be grateful. If it weren't for that, I might not be here talking to you now. You would have been reset and maybe even buying this lie. You would have been treated and released, none the wiser about what had been taken away."

"Ignorance is bliss," I argue.

She shakes her head. "Willful ignorance is bliss," she counters. "I don't think your will has anything to do with this life."

"All this based on a hunch?" I ask.

"At first," she admits. "But then something happened that clinched it for me. A group of men showed up at the facility. They were all dressed in suits. One of Dr. Spector's assistants said they were auditors from the DoD."

"Department of Defense?"

Loretta nods. "That's what we thought at first. It turns out they were part of a classified agency that was assembled by the DoD. All I know is that they called themselves the NIA. I don't know what it stands for or what they're actually in charge of, but it sure did get the conspiracy theories flowing."

"National Intelligence Alliance."

Loretta blinks at me a few times.

"Right around the time congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which established the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the DoD collaborated with the Department of Homeland Security to create the NIA," I blurt out.

She looks shocked. "How-... How do you know that?"

I also look shocked. "I'm not sure..."

"Do you remember anything else about it?"

I think. "Uh, well... After the DNI took the reigns of the U.S. Intelligence Community, which had been previously been held by the CIA, the DoD and DHS, uh...formed the NIA to, uh..."

Nope, I'm losing it.

"It's okay, Richard," Loretta reassures me with wide eyes. "I'm amazed you remember that much. What's even more amazing is that you actually know that much."

I nod. "I don't know how I know it..."

"It only seems to confirm my suspicions that there was more to your admittance to the program than appeared on the surface."

"So what did these NIA guys do?" I ask, eager to see if more memories could be triggered. "You said they were auditors?"

"Well," says Loretta, "that's what the story was. I guess it probably wasn't too inaccurate. They went to find Dr. Spector, then immediately went to your room. Nobody else was invited to that meeting. They came out about 45 minutes later and left. Dr. Spector came out ecstatic."

"What pleased him so much?"

Loretta shrugs. "We weren't sure at the time. Shortly after that, though, the project got a huge grant. Dr. Spector said that the current set of subjects had finished their treatment and proved the project's success and that they were all to be released so we could move on to the next phase of the project with a new set of subjects."

"Released?"

"That's what we were told," Loretta clarifies.

"But not what happened?" I ask.

"All the subjects were taken off the treatment and given final exit interviews. I even performed a few of them. It had really seemed to work. They had vivid memories of specific things that we had programmed, and what's better, they had no recollection of anything being amiss in their lives. No memories of criminal behavior. No memories of war trauma. It was truly amazing."

"But?"

She sighs. "But...once the novelty of the end of this phase of the program faded, my suspicions started to arise once again. I started wondering how they were going to explain the final exit interview process to them. How they were going to explain why they all ended up in a fenced off hospital away from the city and why they were all loaded onto a bus at the same time to go for 'reintegration', as we were told. It didn't seem to make sense. That's when I started snooping around again.

"I logged back into the project records to see if there was any information on what was happening to them or where they were going, but now they were all restricted files. I couldn't get any more info on the rest of them than I could get on you. So, I started kind of following people around. Eavesdropping. Almost everyone was careful about what they said, even when they thought no one else was listening. They did drop one clue, though."

"What's that?" I ask, leaning forward in suspense.

"Well, the other researchers kept mentioning a room number on the 25th floor. Now, we all knew that's where they kept their labs, and it was all restricted, so none of us were allowed up there. But we had always heard them say stuff like, 'lab 2' or 'lab 7'. They never referred to room numbers up there before this new phase of the project. And they only referred to this one room, but they never specifically spoke about what was in there."

"What was in there?" I ask impatiently.

"You were," she tells me. "I couldn't watch them load everyone on the bus from beginning to end, but from what I did see, you weren't among them. After the visit from the 'auditors', I was keeping my eyes open. I think Dr. Spector was trying to keep me busy in particular, so I wouldn't notice they had kept you at the facility. I knew you had to be in that room, and I was right."

"How did you find out?"

Loretta stares toward the fire, but her eyes seem out of focus. "I went up there. It was probably a dumb thing to do, but I couldn't help it. I was really starting to get a bad feeling about the whole project. After all the researchers left one night, I sneaked into the locker room."

She looks at me with a sly expression. "See, none of them were supposed to keep anything important in there, but I had been watching for days and noticed that one of them put his lab coat in the locker with his security badge still clipped to it. So, I broke into his locker and stole the badge and slipped it behind my own."

"Wait a minute," I interrupt her. "Why the hell would you do that? What if you got caught? There's no telling what they did to the other subjects in the experiment, and there's no telling what they would do to you."

She smirks. "I know what they did to me," she says matter-of-factly.

I look around. "Oh. You did get caught."

"We both did," she says with a nod. "Even knowing that, I still would have tried. There is something big going on here, and if we were able to figure it out, I think we could have easily negotiated our freedom."

"Could have..." I muse.

Loretta nods slowly and goes back to staring at nothing behind the fire. "We almost got out too. I used the security badge to get in through the stairwell doors, smooth-talked the guard to let me in the room, called him in and knocked him out with a sedative, and we made it all the way downstairs without alerting security. It was only after we tried to leave through the lobby that the receptionist sounded the alarm. We took one of the facilities ambulances and actually made through the back gate. There was already a roadblock set up right outside, so I rammed through it off the road. I guess we lost traction on the wet grass and flipped."

All of this sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't conjure any specific memories about it. "How do you remember all that?"

She shrugs. "Don't know. The only thing I can think is that I was right about the subject needing to be willing for the treatment to have maximum effect. I'm also not sure why we're able to be here and communicate together right now. Somehow the Mnemosyne systems have to be linked already. I don't think the devices that we had attached to each subject had the processing power on their own to handle what we were doing. I think there was a central server on the 25th floor that handled most of the data. The actual devices were probably just an interface. I think there's got to be a huge repository of information on that server too, so that subjects could be provided with accurate data in real time regardless of what they decided to do."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," she replies, "say a subject wanted to take a trip outside the confines of what we've specifically set up for them. Say they go to Europe or the Caribbean, the details about those places and the trips there would have to be accurate experiences. Once they were released, we wouldn't want them to go back to those places to find that it's nothing like they remember it. We have no idea what effect it would have on the treatment, but it can't be good."

"You mean you couldn't control that? Whether or not they went on a trip?" I ask.

She nods. "We probably could have, but we didn't want to be too restrictive, especially if it stretched the imagination or their perceived reality. Besides, that was just an extreme example. There are much more mundane details, like reading a book or surfing the internet."

I blink. "Wait, are you saying this system is hooked up to the internet?" I scoff in disbelief.

"No, no," she amends. "I mean, I don't know for sure, but I can't imagine that it is. I'm just saying, they must have some kind of representation of the internet on their server, or maybe some kind of filtered connection or something."

"I'm sure they couldn't represent the entire internet," I say. "The space requirements would be staggering."

"Again, I don't know for sure," she reiterates. "But what's clear is that we are both somehow connected to the same system and that's why we are able to be here at the same time right now."

I grow thoughtful. "Is this what you really look like?"

Now she blinks at me. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, are you using someone else's body the way you..." I trail off, not really wanting to talk about Linda right now.

Loretta sighs. "Richard, I'm really sorry about that, but you have to know now that what happened in the bank wasn't real. The bank wasn't real, the people weren't real, what you saw wasn't real," she explained.

"Why did it happen then?" I ask.

"I don't know," she says softly. "But after it did, I knew I had to find a better way to do this. I did what I'm good at; I snooped around. I don't know how or why, but it seems that I'm able to directly interface with parts of Mnemosyne. During the time you didn't hear from me, I was figuring out how to set this up. I think they made a serious mistake in our favor when they hooked me up to this thing."

"Yeah, until they figure out what we're doing," I point out. "Didn't you say this thing has some kind of output? Aren't the researchers monitoring us right now?"

She nods. "They could be. But I doubt they'll see anything that raises their suspicions. I've managed to set it up so that the output from this will look like nothing more than dreams with no real details that would raise any flags. I've done that for you before, after you woke up while I was monitoring you. I'm pretty sure I've figured out how to do the same thing from in here. If I was wrong, I doubt we'd still be here."

"Well, even so," I say. "What good is all this going to do?"

"I figured that, between the two of us, we would be able to figure something out," she replies in a hopeful tone.

I lean back in my chair and rub my temples. "I don't know, Loretta. I mean, what can we possibly do from in here?"

"I don't know, Richard," she answers. "We have to try, though. Maybe we can take advantage of the fact the whole system is linked together. Maybe there's some kind of way to, I don't know, hack the system."

"Do you think you can do that?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "I don't think so. I mean, I can tweak Mnemosyne here and there, but that's because I have some experience with it. I don't know the first thing about hacking servers or whatever it is they have."

"Yeah, I can write some code, but I wouldn't know how to exploit security holes or what to do to bring down the system," I add.

"If only we had Neo," she laughs.

I can't help but grin. "You mean from, like, the Matrix? Funny."

We quickly get serious again. "I don't know what we'll do," Loretta says. "But we're out of time to think about it tonight."

"What time is it?" I ask, looking at my watch.

"It doesn't matter," she replies. "If we go on too much longer, they might start to notice that this is a really long REM cycle. Might raise a few flags."

"Okay, I guess I'll go then," I say.

Loretta nods. "Listen; go straight to bed as soon as you get home. And try not to think too much about what we've discussed tonight when you get up tomorrow. Someone might notice, and if our programs are reset, I doubt they'll let this happen again."

"Okay," I tell her, though I know it's going to be next to impossible not to think about everything I learned tonight. I'll have to do my best.

With little delay, I leave the church. Loretta assures me that I'll hear from her again soon. I hope so, though I'm not sure what good it will do. This can only go on so long before we're found out; I don't care how confident she is. We have to figure out a way to get out of here before that happens. We just can't figure it out right now. As I drive home, I practice not thinking about the most important thing I have to think about at the moment.

I hardly notice the drive as I pull up into the driveway at home. I didn't have much success keeping the thoughts away. Maybe once I've had a chance to sleep on it I'll have better luck. The bed calls to me the moment I walk in the door. I'm actually pretty tired. I collapse onto the soft bedspread and pull a pillow under my arm. It isn't long before the darkness creeps in.

I'm free...

*****

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 17

2008-11-10T17:17:00.004-05:00

I have him on the run. For the first time, I have the upper hand. I see a glimpse of fluttering black fabric disappear around a corner. I bolt down the bare white hallway in hot pursuit. He's not going to get away from me this time.

The length of the next hallway opens up before me and seems to stretch for miles. In the far off distance, a cloaked figure slips into an open doorway. How the hell did he get down there so fast? I take off at a full sprint. The bare walls provide no perspective for me to mark my progress. It seems like I'm going nowhere.

Then, slowly, the door starts to get bigger. I'm getting closer. I lean into the run and really pump my legs. I'm going to catch this sonofabitch...

The apparent blackness of the room through the doorway was only an effect of the brightness from outside. There is a single dim spotlight in the center of the room shining down onto a hospital bed. There's a guy lying there under the covers with some kind of device attached to his head. The black-cloaked figure is leaning over him.

"Hey!" I yell.

The hood jerks as the head underneath looks up quickly. I can't see the face through the shadows of his cowl.

"Who are you?" I demand.

The figure shakes his head. "Don't be afraid of me, Rick...I'm who you want to be," his low voice sounds evenly from the shadows. It sends a chill up my spine.

"No!" I scream, but it's too late. The figure rolls onto the bed and disappears into the man's body. I run a few steps toward the bed, but a noise from behind has me spinning to find its source.

"What are you doing out of bed, Mr. Menda?" the creepy black-haired doctor in the doorway asks with a German accent.

I look back toward the bed. It's still occupied. "Stay away from me!" I shout at the doctor.

In a blur of motion, the doctor suddenly stands before me, staring at me with a perverse hunger that makes me want to retch. I stumble backwards.

"If you keep resisting, we will have to terminate the experiment," he says to me, grinning.

I continue to step backward until I bump into the bed. I look down at the man laying there. I see my own face cradled in the pillow. Startled, I look back toward the doctor.

"There is nothing to worry about, Mr. Menda. Just relax. This is for your own good."

I look down again. The man with my face opens his eyes and suddenly lunges for me. He grabs me and pulls me onto the bed while the doctor rushes forward to help.

"Trust me, Mr. Menda, you would thank me for this if you could," the doctor says calmly over the commotion.

A machine somewhere in the room begins beeping rapidly. I struggle against the two men, but they're both incredibly strong. They're both trying to push me into...into...

The beeping comes faster and louder. It actually sounds more like...

Ringing. I jolt upright, the restraining arms around me suddenly gone. I look around, panting. The room is dark, save for six red, glowing symbols.

4:26 AM.

The phone rings again. I reach blindly over to the bedside table. "Hello?" I ask groggily, pressing the handset to my ear.

"Richard?" a familiar voice crackles on the other end.

I freeze, catching my breath. Am I still dreaming?

"Hello?" I ask again out of confusion.

"Richard, can you hear me?" The connection isn't so good, but I'm sure I know that voice.

"Who is this?" I demand.

There's a pause. "Richard, this is Loretta," the woman's voice says.

I squeeze my eyes shut. "Okay, you're not real. I'm going to hang up the pho-"

"No, Richard, wait!" Loretta's voice pleads. "I am real. Please, you have to trust me."

"What do you want?" I ask impatiently, thinking to condescendingly humor my delusion for just a moment.

"I need to meet with you. We have to talk. I know this is hard for you to understand right now, but please believe me. Both our lives as we once knew them depend upon it."

"Why can't we talk right now?" I ask.

"There isn't enough time," she responds. "Listen, at eleven pm tonight, come to this address: 1420 Mission Avenue. It's an abandoned church near the city limits. I should have everything set up by then and we can talk safely. Just make sure you get ready for bed and actually lie down before you leave. Got it?"

This sounds absurd. "Yeah, sure," I lie.

"Richard, please. You're not crazy. Come tonight and I'll explain everything."

"Uh-huh, ok," I say with a patronizing tone.

"Fourteen-twenty Mission Ave., you're sure you got that?" she asks.

"I got it."

"Say it," she says.

"Forty-twenty Mission Ave.," I repeat with a sigh.

"No, FOURTEEN-twenty," she corrects me.

"Okay, I got it."

"I really hope to see you there, Richard."

There's a click, then a buzz. I hang up the handset and stare into the darkness for a few minutes. What time is it?

4:31 AM.

Damn, it's early. I doubt I'm going to get back to sleep, though. With the threat of dawn right around the corner, I might as well go ahead and start the day.

Work has been really weird ever since...Linda. People either avoid eye contact, or when they do get up the nerve to interact with me, it's always with a tone and expression that comes off as, well, forced sympathy. I took a week off after it happened. They wanted me to take more, but what the hell? Yeah, as if I don't already spend every unoccupied waking moment thinking about what happened and how much I wish...

Well, the point is, the last thing I need is more time to myself. Work is an excellent distraction, and it would work even better if everyone would stop walking on friggin' eggshells around me. Every hushed whisper I walk up on or furrowed brow that greets me is just another deafening drumbeat extending my already seemingly endless mourning. I swear it would be easier for me to get over if everyone else would get over it first. Maybe.

And so, I scrub off the previous day's muck and gloom in my morning shower. I get dressed in a daze, choke down an antidepressant in lieu of breakfast and coffee, then get straight on the road. At work, I'm greeted with surprise and faux empathy.

"Mike! You're here early this morning," some random guy whose name I don't remember yelps. Already looks like he's squirming to get away.

"Yeah, couldn't sleep."

"Oh," the guy says heavily. "Well, I'll see ya around. Try not to work to hard."

I nod. You are hereby released from this uncomfortable situation. This place is seriously depressing, but it's a tad bit less depressing than home, which is why I'm here. Ah, cubicle sweet cubicle.

"Hey, Mike."

I nod to my neighbor. "Hey, Tom. How's it going?" Tom practically lives here.

"Oh, y'know...it's going," he says, rolling his eyes.

Tom actually hasn't been that bad. He makes work tolerable.

"You look tired," he notes.

"Oh, yeah," I agree. "Weird phone call this morning. Woke me up at 4:30."

"Really?" asked Tom with a curious expression. "Who the hell would call that early?"

I stare at my desk for a second. "I don't know," I lie. "Must've been a crank call or something."

"Huh," Tom offers. "Well listen, I've already gotten a call from Greer about the meeting this afternoon."

"So early?" I ask.

"Yeah, he's such a dick, but what else is new?"

"What did he say?"

Tom shrugs. "I don't know, some bullshit about crossing the i's and dotting the t's on the reports. I was only half listening."

I laugh. I do that infrequently lately, as I'm sure you can imagine. It's another reason why I come to work. Tom can usually get a laugh out of me. So while I'm here I'm either working my ass off or laughing at Tom. It keeps the pain at bay until punchout time.

And so the day goes by. I get some work done. Laugh at Tom's quips. We go to the afternoon meeting. Greer is a raging douchebag, like always. Tom does most of the talking while I nod in a manner that I hope is intelligent. Nobody really pays me that much attention, which is kind of how I prefer it. We grab a late lunch, and all too soon, 5:00 rolls around.

"I'll see ya tomorrow, Mike. I'm outie," Tom offers as he skips out of the office.

"Later," I call after him.

Well, I guess this means I have to go home too. I clean up around my desk, close the files on my pc and generally just delay the inevitable. Having no more options, I gather myself up and head out. On the way home, I contemplate stopping all sorts of places and doing all sorts of things, but really, I think I just want to go home and sleep. I've been doing that a lot lately. Sleep is the other way I avoid my problems.

I step in the door and take off my belt and throw it on the couch. Lacking the motivation to remove anything else, I turn down the hall and plop into bed. It wouldn't be the first time I've slept in my clothes over the past few months. I roll over and look at the alarm clock.

5:54 PM.

Not that it matters. I'm not going anywhere tonight. There was no phone call this morning. It was just a continuation of my weird dreams...and yet...

Where did that address come from? Is there even a Mission Street on the edge of the city? Morbid curiosity drags me out of bed, but only far enough to bring the laptop back with me. I pile up the pillows behind me and open the cover. Let's see what MapQuest has to say on the matter.

Now, what was that address again? It was something like...1240 Mission Street. I type that in. MapQuest loads a page with 1240 Mission Avenue. That's right, it was an avenue. Well, the street is real, and it is about at the city limits. I just don't know if I have the number right.

Not that it matters. I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, so, I looked it up and it exists. So what? Maybe I passed by that street once on my way out of town. I don't know. Of course, I don't remember ever being in that area, but that doesn't mean anything. I might have heard about it from someone else. Who knows what my deluded mind has incorporated into its wild fabrications?

Resolute, I close the laptop lid and roll over. I'm not going anywhere, except maybe to sleep. I feel pretty weary, actually. I close my eyes and stretch out. I can feel myself being pulled deeper. Deeper into...what are they pulling me into?

"Trust me, Mr. Menda, stop struggling. You would thank us if you could."

*****

The Visitor of the Beast!

2008-09-30T08:56:00.001-05:00

I would like to congratulate the visitor from Willis, Texas who visited my blog on September twenty-ninth, this year of our Lord two-thousand and eight. You are visitor number six-hundred and sixty-six. You viewed the blog, in all its glory, through Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 rendered at a resolution of 1280 x 800 on your widescreen monitor. It seems rather poignant that you clicked in through google.com with a serch term of "biblical good vs evil pictures", for I'm sure that this visit is an omen of the imminent apocalypse. It is my hope that you are one of the relatively few who are bodily taken up to the glories of god's kingdom. I, unfortunately, will probably be stuck down here. I'll try to wave to you.

Revelation 13:18 (KJV)

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 16

2008-09-23T16:30:00.003-05:00

"Tell me again about this woman. This...Loretta was it?" Dr. Kenner asks.

I nod slowly. "Yeah. I don't really know much about her. She was this...voice that used Linda's mouth to talk," I tell him.

"And she wasn't aware of it," he confirms, though I've already told him before.

I shake my head. "No. Nobody was. I was the only one who could hear her. I know it sounds crazy."

"And what did she say to you?"

Taking a deep breath, I sigh. "Well, she told me nothing was real. I mean, that everything that was happening was fake."

The doctor scribbles a little on his notepad. "Linda's death?" he asks.

"Well, yeah, but it was more than that," I say.

"Like what?"

I shrug. "I don't know. Everything, I guess. My whole life was some...experiment or something."

"And you say this happened before you went into the bank?" Kenner probes.

"Uh, yeah," I nod. "A few days before."

"When you were in the hospital for your accident," he says, flipping through my chart.

"Wonderful week..." I say dryly.

"Hmm," Kenner sounds thoughtfully. "The ER doctor says you reported hallucinations in relation to your concussion."

"That's right," I answer. "I thought there was someone else in the wreck."

"A woman," he says.

"Do you think it's related?" I ask him.

He smiles briefly. "Well, I'm not sure, though I do think that the concussion may have resulted in you being in a highly suggestive state. Tell me, Mike, have you heard the woman at all in the past three months?"

Three months...has it been that long? Come to think of it... "No, I haven't," I say.

Kenner nods and scribbles some more. "How have you been sleeping?" he asks, still writing.

I sigh again. "Oh, I don't know. Y'know, ok I guess. I get these weird dreams every once in a while."

"Tell me about those," he says, looking up from the notes.

"Well, they start off pretty normal for dreams, I guess. Sometimes I only remember from the middle or only the very end. There's always this...I don't know, guy. He's wearing this long black robe with a hood. Kinda' like death, y'know? Anyways, he attacks me..." I trail off, trying to remember.

"And what happens when he attacks you?"

I shrug. "I don't know. I black out. Or wake up."

"How often do you have this dream?" Kenner asks.

"Uh," I think aloud. "Maybe once or twice a week."

"Mm-hmm," he mumbles, scribbling once again.

I wait expectantly for his response to all of this, but the doctor simply takes more notes and rummages through a desk drawer for a few moments. He pulls out what looks like a small pad of paper and begins writing again.

"Am I going crazy?" I ask him impatiently.

He looks up with surprise. "I don't think you're crazy, Mike. You've been through a pretty tough time. Sometimes our brains do things that don't seem to make sense to protect us from things that would seriously harm our mental well-being," he explains.

I nod slowly. "So, Loretta?" I ask.

The doctor looks down at his desk for a moment and sighs. "Mike," he begins delicately, "I think Loretta was something that your mind created after the fact, again to protect you. I mean, think about her message that none of it was real. It may even be that she was created after your accident to reassure you about that, but when you lost Linda the a few days later, she arose once more."

All I can do is stare off into space. It seemed so real.

"Anyways, what I'd like to do is give you a prescription," he continues.

I swallow. "Anti-psychotics?"

He chuckles a bit at that. "No, no, Mike. This is a drug called EuphorZen. It's a mild anti-depressant. I'm going to start you off on a low dose. I think you'll find it will help you do what you need to do to get through this tough time."

To get through this 'tough time', eh? Do doctors have a knack for understating things? Is it something they teach in med school? Or psych school, in Kenner's case, if there even is such a thing.

The doctor tears off the script and hands it over the desk. "Take one a day and we'll continue our weekly sessions. You got a thirty day supply there, so we'll see how you feel in a month. If we need to adjust your dosage, we will then. Keep in mind that it usually takes a week or so for your body to adjust to either starting or stopping this medication, so you might feel some minor muscular fatigue and stomach upset. Just be patient and stick with it. You'll be glad you did."

"Ok." Great. Isn't that always the way? These drugs are miracles of modern medical science, but oh-by-the-way, they'll make you feel worse before they'll make you feel better. I guess I gotta try something, though. I've been pretty low key the last several weeks, but I'm not so sure that I've been taking things well. I've been seeing Kenner since about a month after...well, you know.

Honestly, I think I would feel a lot better if I didn't have the district attorney’s office calling me every other day. They want me to testify against the bastard that...that shot Linda. It sounds great in theory. They'll try him and seek the death penalty. His partner will go to jail for years for driving that car too. Justice will be served and everyone will be happy. Except Linda's still gone. She's gone...

I wonder how many of these pills I'd have to take to...

Stop. Stop thinking that crap. I'm gonna testify and get that sonofabitch what he has coming to him. And then...then I'll figure out what's going to happen next. I'll move on, never forgetting her, of course, but living the full life she would have wanted me to.

Yet, I can't help but wonder. If I died right now, would I see her? Was there something keeping me around besides her?

Let's go fill this script and just make it to tomorrow. That's how I got to today, except without the drugs. The past three months have been day after day of just delaying my decision about what to do with myself. Maybe the meds will make the decision to go on easier. God, I hope so...

"Race" Relations

2008-09-22T09:08:00.003-05:00

I use quotes around the word "race" because it's a problematic word that has some very specific definitions that often get blurred together. On the one hand, race comes from an Old Italian word, razza, which means "lineage". In many ways, we use this word the same way today. At some point, though, biology commandeered "race" and applied it to animals that were part of a taxonomic category within a species, or a subspecies. And here's where part of the problem arises. There is a danger with these two definitions of people believing that the different "races" of humans are "subspecies" of humans.

Let's be clear about this. There is a human race. We are all members of the human race. There are not enough genetic differences between any two people of any two heritages to squeeze them into separate taxonomic categories. The differences in our appearances, from a biological standpoint, are purely superficial.

The other problem in the whole "race" thought process is the perceived differences between us. For the most part, these differences are based upon cultural perceptions, but the most problematic perceived differences are due to stereotypes. Stereotypes happen when someone interacts with a particular group of people and notices that multiple members of that group share certain personality traits. The fallacy in stereotypes is the assumption that these traits are inherent to all members of that group.

In a recent and fascinating Associated-Press Yahoo! News poll, conducted with Stanford University, one fourth of white Democrats ascribed at least two negative traits to blacks. Now, they didn't go on to specify whether blacks ascribed similar traits to whites or whether either blacks or whites ascribed similar traits to themselves. I would be curious to know how those questions stack up against one another. Some of the negative traits listed in the poll included "boastful", "irresponsible" and "lazy".

One wonders, though, whether or not the people who attributed these stereotypes to blacks understood the dynamics behind what might have caused these behaviors that they have either observed or have heard others observe. Surely, it is easy to understand why someone might be boastful when they think or know that most people don't expect much out of them. A similar argument might be proposed for irresponsibility or laziness. The question then becomes, are these traits really inherent to black people? Or are these traits you might possibly witness in any group of people who are part of a minority who, until fairly recently, were actually legally repressed? When prejudice and racism are a reality in your life and you don't get EVERY SINGLE opportunity that others in your supposedly egalitarian nation get, doesn't it seem reasonable that members of such a group might feel disheartened to the point of apathy or desperation?

I know that there are some who might read the above paragraph and roll their eyes and say something about picking oneself up by one's bootstraps and rising above. There are those who say that blacks are just complainers who scream "racism" at the slightest provocation, maybe even none at all. If you would say that, then I would place you in the group of people who do the exact opposite. That is to say, there are those who minimalize, even deny, the existence and effect of racism in our society. This Associated-Press Yahoo! poll seems to back this up. Whereas 57% of blacks said that the amount of "discrimination against blacks" that exists is "a lot" and all but a fraction of the rest said "some", only 10% of whites said "a lot" and 45% said "some".

That's quite a discrepancy. So, who's right? I don't think it's as clear as that. As I've said before in other posts, I think there's more racism in this country than the majority of whites are willing to admit or recognize, but there's also less than the majority of blacks claim. Regardless, any amount is unacceptable. We are not subspecies of one another, so we are all physically capable of the same things, and we are all susceptible to the same emotions and weaknesses. Before you ascribe negative qualities to someone of another "race", think about how you would react if you had to deal with the same kinds of things in your life. Also, ask yourself if you really can't think of someone, anyone, who has overcome such difficult odds to laugh in the face of such ridiculous stereotypes. Need some hints? How about Harriet Tubman? Frederick Douglass? Booker T. Washington? George Washington Carver? W.E.B. Du Bois? Rosa Parks? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? Colin Powell? Barack Obama?

These are only a handful of the most well-known names in the proud tapestry of African American history. These are people who rose up to fight the misguided perceptions of a resistant society. Despite the great impact of these men and women, the perceptions they struggled to overcome still exist. We need to open our eyes as a society and stand up to fear and oppression. We are one race, the human race. Let's stand united and achieve everything we can achieve together.

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 15

2008-09-09T09:50:00.007-05:00

"This is nice," Linda says cheerily, turning down the radio.

I nod with a smile. I should probably be home in bed, but I felt pretty good today and was already starting to get cabin fever. I haven't heard from Loretta since she started doing whatever she said she was going to do yesterday morning. For now, I'm just going to enjoy some time with Linda, for whatever it might be worth.

"We're going to make a little stop, hon," she informs me. "Have to deposit Bree's check."

"Oh..." I'm totally drawing a blank. Of course, there's no reason to let her know that.

"Remember?" she asks, catching on to my confused tone. "I took those photos for Jim's birthday."

Oh yeah. Linda's a photographer. How could I forget that? "No, I remembered," I cover. "I just thought you had already deposited it, that's all."

Linda's smile dissipates. "I was going to, but something more important came up." She glances at me with the remnants of concern.

I can only nod.

"It's okay, though," she says, the cheeriness returning. "Everything's back to normal."

And here we are. She turns into the bank entrance and takes a second row parking spot in front of the entrance.

"No drive thru?" I ask.

She frowns apologetically. "No deposit slips," she explains. "Want to come in? It should be real quick."

I shake my head. "I'll be fine here."

She grins and leans over to give me a kiss. "I'll leave the car running," she says, making sure the AC is on. It's pretty warm out. "Love you!" she calls as she opens the door.

"Love you too!" I call back.

I watch her step quickly up the walkway and into the bank. She's really attractive. If she isn't real, someone made a pretty nice attempt at making her likeable. Loveable even. I hope she is real. I hope I have a shot at finding her when I get out of this and...what the hell is this?

A gray station wagon pulls up to the entrance and some dude jumps out of the passenger side, runs to the rear of the vehicle and opens up the back. He rifles around back there for a few seconds, then steps back and glances around furtively. He pulls on a ski mask and walks into the bank.

"What the..." I start to say. Linda. I need to get in there. I reach over and turn off the car and exit the vehicle. Trying to look nonchalant, I stride toward the bank. I can't help but glance at the driver of the wagon. He's eyeing me like I just spit in his face, but he doesn't move. Trying to act dumb, I grin at him and nod. He squints at me, but nods back.

Okay... I have to make an effort not to pause at the door. It's bright out, and the tint on the glass doors of the bank entrance makes it next to impossible to see inside. I step into the vestibule. It's much easier to see through the second set of glass doors, and I see there are people on the ground, but no sign of the guy in the ski mask. I walk in as though nothing were amiss.

A little electronic doorbell beeps as I enter. Immediately, I hear a gruff voice say, "Don't move!" At first, I think it's directed at me, then I realize it came from around the corner and was directed at someone over there. I vaguely recall being in this bank before and remember that the vault is down the hall around that corner. I hear some shuffling and a figure steps out from behind the corner. It's the guy in the ski mask. He's got Linda's head squeezed under his arm and a gun pointed to her head.

My heart practically leaps out of my chest. I put my hands up immediately. "Don't...don't hurt her..."

"Get down!" the man shouts, pushing the gun harder against her scalp.

"Ok," I say meekly, getting to my knees. "Just, don't hurt her, Ok?"

"Michael?" Linda weeps.

"Shut up, bitch!" the robber snaps, tapping her head with the muzzle.

She shrieks briefly, then says, "You shouldn't have come in here, Richard."

Loretta! "What should I do?" I plead with her, my pulse racing and sweat forming on my brow.

The crook answers for her, "You should get down on the floor before I decorate the wall with her pretty little brains."

"Ok! Ok!" I say a little more insistently, lying face down on the floor.

"Richard," I hear Loretta call to me from under the man's arm. "No matter what happens, stay there and don't move!"

No one has ever asked me to do anything more difficult. I breathe heavily, my cheek pressed against the lobby's cool tile.

"Remember," she calls out as the thief drags Linda back toward the vault, "none of this is real!"

If it isn't real, why does it have to feel that way? I wish this would all just end. I wish I would just wake up. Wake up, dammit! WAKE UP!!!

A deafening shot rings out. My heart freezes as I hear a thud and footsteps pounding around the corner. I can't help but look up. The thug is running toward me, the gun in his right hand and some glistening red on his left arm.

"Head down!" he roars as he stumbles over me toward the door. He hits me with it as he throws it open and bursts through the second door to the outside. "Go! Go!" he shouts at the driver. Tires squeal and the sound of the car's engine fades into the distance.

I quickly push myself up, ignoring the pain in my still sore muscles. I run across the lobby and around the corner and stop. The bank manager, huddled against the vault door, looks up at me with a terrified expression. I look at the wall next to me. There's a circle of red splatters dripping down toward the floor. My eyes follow their path reluctantly to Linda. She's lying there, still. A red puddle grows larger under her head.

"Oh no, Linda, no, no, no, no..." I sputter as I drop to my knees to turn her. Tears fill my eyes and I breath fast to try to fend off the crippling truth of what I see before me. Linda blinks and her eyes roll back and forth slowly.

"Linda?" I ask, wiping my tears away to make sure they're not fooling me.

"Mike?" she asks weakly. Her face looks ghostly white.

"I'm here, baby, I'm here," I reassure her, tears blurring my vision again.

"Mike, I...I think I'm bleeding," she tells me.

"Shhh," I tell her, my body shaking uncontrollably with sobs as I try to hold her this last time.

"In case I can't say it later..." she whispers.

I shake my head, unable to say anything to stop her.

"...I love you. Remember that."

I nod, tears rolling freely down my face. I try to tell her I love her too, but I can only mouth it. My shaky breath only allows weeping, not speech.

Still, she smiles, though it fades quickly. I can see her eyes trying to keep focus.

"Richard," Loretta's voice says with a hint of sympathy.

"No!" I force out. I can hear sirens.

"Richard," she repeats.

"NO!" I scream.

"I can't imagine how this feels, but try to remember..."

Who the hell is this woman? Making my dead wife's lips move. Talking to me morbidly in the midst of this tragedy as though nothing were happening. You're perverting my wife's memory! Stop it! Stop it!

"STOP IT!" I yell out with all the will I can muster. I stand up, Linda's now lifeless form rolling away. I need to get out of here.

"Stop right there!" a stern voice commands as I stumble out into the sunlight.

Squinting in the brightness, I can see the bank is surrounded by squad cars. Several police stand behind their vehicles with guns pointed squarely at me.

I raise my hands, only now realizing that they are covered in blood. Linda's blood. I don't care anymore. I don't care about anything. The police shout missives at me and I lay down, though not because of anything they're saying. I just lay down. I give up. I surrender. I don't want to do this anymore. Just take me. Take me away. Take me from this world of pain. I close my eyes and remember...nothing.

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 14

2008-09-08T08:03:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I wake up and, stumbling through the semi-conscious haze that obscures wakefulness, I think about all the other mornings stretching behind me to the earliest memories I can muster. The most memorable ones are the Christmas and birthday mornings of my childhood, but a few others stick out here and there. For the most part, though, they all blend together into a blurry amalgam of alarms, showers, breakfasts and haphazard commutes. But this morning, I find myself wondering about all those memories. I even find myself wondering if I've ever really wondered about them before.

"Are you awake, hon?" a sleepy voice next to me asks.

"Mm-hmm."

"Are you feeling okay? Do you need some meds?" my wife yawns.

I know I'm not feeling pain right now only because I'm lying here, perfectly still. "No, I'm fine," I tell her. Besides, I wonder if pain medication is the best thing for me right now. If things really are as that woman's voice said, I need to be as clear headed as I can be.

"You should try going back to sleep," Linda says. "And don't even think about work today."

I wasn't. Hadn't planned on it. Besides, is my job even real? How can anyone sleep when all of reality is in question? If I'm hooked up in some kind of lab with my thoughts being controlled by some computer, am I not actually asleep already?

"Richard."

I jump at the sound of the woman's voice. Pain spiders through my bruised muscles. I groan loudly.

"Oh, honey, are you okay?" my wife chokes with a hint of panic.

I take a few breaths as the pain notches down a bit. "Fine," I say through clenched teeth. "Just a little spasm."

"I'm so sorry, Richard," the woman's voice says. "You should take some of your medication."

I register my confusion in the clearest, most silent way I can.

"Trust me," she says.

"You know what, babe?" I whisper to my wife. "I think I will go ahead and take some of those meds."

"Okay," she replies, hurriedly jumping out of bed.

She's gone for a few moments, then returns carrying the biggest pill I've ever seen and a glass of water. I struggle to sit up as Linda tries to help. It's a moderately painful affair, but I finally make it and eagerly swallow the massive tablet followed by some enthusiastic gulps of the water. I can feel the medication creeping down my throat. If this all isn't real, why does it have to feel so...real?

"Stop thinking about it, Richard," the other woman's voice says. "I'm sorry to have startled you earlier, but when you spend a lot of time thinking about none of this being real, you run the risk of calling attention to yourself."

"Better?" Linda asks.

I stare at her for a moment. "Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, I still hurt, but this should kick in soon and I'll feel much better," I reassure her.

"Good," she smiles. "More water?"

I shake my head. "Nope, I'm good."

She smiles again and gets back into bed.

I wonder if she's still here...

"I'm here, Richard."

I wonder why I can't think about...you know...it, but she can sit here and talk to me about...it.

"Like I told you before," the woman's voice says from my wife's side of the bed, "I hacked the system. I might not be quite the computer whiz you are, but I do know the monitoring system back and forth. I worked with it quite a bit on you."

I squirm a little internally. That sounds really creepy.

"I'm going to try to do the same things for you that I did for myself. After that we should be able to talk pretty freely," she explains. "Well, not really talk. And you'll still have to act fairly naturally, but you'll be able to think openly."

Oh, how nice. I'll be able to think openly. Such a luxury.

"Don't worry, Richard. We're going to get out of this."

"Hmm," I can't help but say out loud.

"What's up, baby?" Linda asks.

"Hmm? Oh, nothing," I lie. "Must've started to doze."

"Mmm, that's good. Doze away," she encourages me with a yawn.

"She's right, Richard, you should sleep. I'm going to get to work here."

"Okay," I say to both of them. I look down at Linda. Her eyes are closed and she's breathing slowly. For the first time that I'm aware of, I wonder what will happen to her through all this. Is she another patient going through this memory therapy? Is she really my wife on the outside? When my treatment is over, will they send me to her? I feel like I have so many memories with her, like I feel so much emotion for her. Of everything, Linda's the one thing I think I would miss about this if it really was all fake.

I pause and look around the dark bedroom. Are you still here...Loretta? That is your name, right?

Silence. Dark silence. I should be used to that by now, I think. Shouldn't I? I look back down at Linda. "Love you, babe," I whisper.

"Mmm," she moans sleepily, a hint of a smile showing in the dim red light of our alarm clock.

I lay back gently, the pain in my muscles just a hint of an ache, more a tightness. My head begins to feel a little light. I close my eyes and breathe. The darkness closes in. My only reality.

Petty, Partisan Palin

2008-09-04T08:41:00.004-05:00

Well, I watched Sarah Palin's historic acceptance speech last night and was moderately impressed. She proved that, despite her relative inexperience and apparently nonexistent vetting process, she is just as capable of toeing the party line, stretching the facts and playing the same petty, partisan politics that a certain presidential candidate has beseeched us to change. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I didn't expect the RNC to descend to the lowest common denominator of political publicity. I just hadn't expected Palin would come off like such a pro at it.

I didn't hear anything that I haven't heard the broken-record Republicans spout every time an election comes around. "The opponent is a tax and spend liberal!" "The opponent is inexperienced (either politically or militarily or both)!" "The opponent is the anti-Christ, just look at how much people love him!" Blah, blah, blah. You know, when Obama started shooting barbs at his opponents during his acceptance speech, I thought, "Yeah, you get'em!" Now I realize, with the benefit of hindsight, he may as well have been singing their praise. His campaign's reasonable, accurate criticisms of the "McPalin" ticket pale in comparison to the outright warping of the facts and tainting of American perceptions that the Republicans have shown they will employ throughout this election cycle.

A little research will show that Obama's tax plans will actually leave the majority of American families with more income, rather than less. That coupled with the strong economy that has historically coincided with a democrat in office will mean that most come out on top. The only people who won't come out on top are the minority who already sit at the top. I know that those of you Republicans who make $250,000+ a year have to stretch yourselves to survive, but you'll somehow have to muddle through for the greater good of the American people that you so desperately wish to serve.

One of the things in Palin's speech that really tickled every incredulous bone in my body was when she said, "Though both Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden have been going on lately about how they are always, quote, 'fighting for you,' let us face the matter squarely. There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you." I think my reaction hovered somewhere between hilariously bemused and disbelievingly outraged.

Look, don't misunderstand me. I completely realize that those who choose to serve our country in the military and who protect our rights and way of life from external threats are deserving of our highest respect for their sacrifices. However, to suggest that the people who fight to protect us from internal threats to the same are somehow comparatively less qualified is preposterous to the extreme. There are plenty of politicians who have not served (Palin, for one), and there have been several presidents who did not serve either (12, to be exact). Of those who did serve, six did not see action (including George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan). There is no doubt that there is a lot of potential to learn about leadership from the military, but that isn't the only source. If it were, we'd probably be a society of shiftless vagrants waiting for officers to retire or be discharged and whip us into shape. In case you weren't sure, that's not the case.

The point is, such rhetoric only appeals to the knee-jerk fears that our commander-in-chief won't be ready to make the necessary decisions should a military conflict arise. But let us remember, for a moment, that a president is not an island. Though some may buck the desires of a congress elected by the American people and make decisions that hurt our reputation, economy and the American families who have to subsequently make sacrifices, others serve as president always with the will and well-being of the people driving them and with the help and counsel of the many experienced and similarly elected public servants around them. Let's make sure that's the kind of leader our next president is.

Obama 2008: Change We Can Believe In

Determinism in a Chaotic Universe

2008-09-02T15:25:00.005-05:00

Lately, I find myself frequently thinking of determinism. I'd like to put down some of my thoughts, though I doubt I have anything new to say on the matter. It's one of those things, like so many, that we probably can't really know the answer to, but that's one of the reasons these kinds questions are so intriguing. It's only when our questions are finally fully answered that we will stop asking them. So, let's hope for the sake of human intellectual development that some of these questions never get answered, or that, if they do, others take their place.

Anyhow, on to determinism. The question in most people's minds, I think, when they think about determinism is whether a deterministic universe can allow free will. Also, many proponents of free will often wonder how a belief in determinism does not result in fatalism or defeatism. Ostensibly, it does seem rather contradictory to believe in both determinism and free will. It's a complicated question, and not one that I'm all that sure I can even begin to answer. I don't think my purpose is really to answer any questions, rather to hypothesize, or at least to ramble thoughtfully. What I'm trying to say is, don't take me too seriously.

Okay, so as a basic definition, determinism is the belief that every event, from the most trivial to the most significant, has a cause or set of causes. Physics suggests that the universe is at least partially deterministic. Psychology tells us that human behavior is deterministic to some degree. Causality is a deterministic concept and popular fodder for time-travel-loving sci-fi writers.

For society in general, feelings about determinism are complicated. Some say there's a reason for everything. Concepts of fate and destiny are romanticized in popular culture. When we see someone we pity doing something horrible, we say he can't help it. It's just the way he was raised, or he doesn't know any better. If some tragedy befalls us, it's not our fault. There were events beyond your control. Suggest to the average person, however, that every decision she makes or feeling she has is the end result of a sequence of events that chains back to the beginning of existence, and she will likely feel insulted, or at least be a little indignant at the suggestion that her thoughts are not completely her choice.

That is not to say that all determinists believe that our actions are predetermined. There are those who also believe in free will and even those who say that, despite the deterministic nature of the universe and its influence on our thoughts and feelings, we are still ultimately in control. As I've already said, I don't think I can answer the obvious questions that spring from this stance. All I can do is discuss my thoughts.

So, do I think our thoughts and feelings are predetermined? Well, as uncomfortable as the idea makes me, I'm kind of leaning towards yes. To me, thoughts and feelings are simply a sequence of complex chemical and electrical interactions. It might seem cold to reduce them to that, and I confess it is rather an oversimplification, but it's difficult for me to think otherwise, given my interpretation of what science has to say on the matter. If it can really be reduced to simply a sequence of chemical and electrical interactions, which by their nature are governed by the laws of physics, then how they could possibly be non-deterministic is beyond me.

Then what's the point of doing anything? Or deciding anything? If everything is predetermined, then what is the point of anything? Well, that attitude is fatalist, and I think you'll find that there are few determinists who are fatalists. Why? Well, to put it obviously, events that depend upon you doing them to get done won't get done if you decide not to do them. Of course, if that decision is not really in your control, that is to say, if whether or not you make that decision is based on every event in history since the beginning of time, then, again I ask, what is the point of "deciding" anything? Enough commas in that sentence for you?

Here's the problem with thinking of the universe in deterministic terms. It always leads to cyclic or self referential arguments. Whether it's about whether our decisions are our own or about the origin of a deterministic universe, we find ourselves getting caught up in the pointless infinite loop of logic that our limited brains must do when we try to reason about the unknowable.

The thing is, nothing is gained from the knowledge of whether or not the universe is deterministic. Even if we knew for certain that it was, it still wouldn't make the universe predictable. If the universe is truly deterministic, that would mean that if we knew every governing rule of existence and every single state of every infinitesimal piece therein, we could extrapolate future events with 100% accuracy. The problem is, that is not possible for us. No human brain, no matter how evolved, could hold that much information and process it fast enough to glean any useful information from it. Similarly, we could never build a computer that could do it either. In order to hold the state of every infinitesimal piece of existence, first of all, we would have to have discovered them all first, and second of all, we would have to be able to hold an infinite amount of stuff in memory. Even if there is only a finite amount of information in a single slice of time in existence, the computer would also have to have a simulation of itself in its simulation of the universe. And we're back to the self-referencing problem we had earlier. Even the finite information would become infinite because the simulation of the computer simulating the universe would have the same simulation of the universe running inside it, which would contain the same simulated computer running a simulation...ad infinitum.

Let me explain why it doesn't matter in simpler terms. Pick a random number between 1 and 100. Ok, now I'm going to guess what it is. Are you thinking of it? Good.

It's 68.

Was I right? According to probability, I'm not likely to be. According to probability, on the average I would guess correctly for 1 out of every 100 people who read this post. I would guess that, given a large enough sample, it probably works out that way too. Does that mean people are actually capable of choosing random numbers? Would I be able to guess any better if I knew every experience you had ever had since birth? Probably not, but that doesn't mean that your choice wasn't influenced by those experiences.

Now take this little JavaScript I wrote to generate a random Sudoku puzzle. It generates a bunch of random numbers to fill in a grid, then randomly deletes pairs of cells such that it doesn't end up in multiple solutions. Now, is it truly random? No. I know for sure that it isn't. I know that when the script requests a random number, it looks at the system time, does some kind of math with it and returns the result. If I knew the exact system times when each random request was made and the math that was used to generate the number, I could calculate by hand the solution to the Sudoku puzzle the same way the computer did.

Ah, now we're getting to the heart of my point. Here's the thing, even if I could know all of the starting information and solve it by doing exactly what the computer did by hand, why the hell would I want to do that? What's the point? Is it faster that way? Not with my math skills. Is it more fun? I daresay it isn't. Similarly, even if I could somehow calculate "by hand" which random number you would have chosen, is it worth our time? Is nearly as amazing as my simply guessing it "at random" (assuming either one of those is amazing to any degree)?

See, the thing is, JavaScript’s random number generator is "good enough", as it serves our purposes for such a trivial task. Just like the number I asked you to choose randomly. Even if it wasn't random, it might as well be. It works the same for the universe. It might be deterministic, but it may as well be at least a little random because we can't ever know every state in one timeslice of existence and thus the starting conditions for it all.

I don't know that this argues that we should be mindful of our decisions and keep trying to improve our lives, but the possibility that it doesn't matter isn't going to stop me. If the universe IS deterministic, then things aren't going to just get better randomly. It's going to require the initial condition of effort on my part. My decision to make that effort might be predetermined, but I'm grateful that it is if that's the case. I also take comfort, like many people, in the fact that, whether the universe is random or deterministic, some events (most of them, in fact) really are beyond our control. It might not be the highest note to end on, but it serves its purpose.

Vote or...Regret Not Having Voted

2008-03-06T09:17:00.002-05:00

Okay America, I'm not going to threaten you with death if you don't go to the polls for any of your states' primaries or for the general election in the fall. I will say, though, that it has never been clearer in the history of our "democracy" (really a republic) that your vote does count, and with so many elections in the past several years being won, or even stolen, by such small margins, it is crucial that everyone who is concerned with the state of our government or our future as a country gets out and votes.

I definitely understand that the system can be frustrating sometimes, and I know how hard working up the motivation to participate can be. Trust me; I was there. It's the age old reasoning of, "I'm just one person in a country of 300 million. How does my vote even count?" Well, I'm here to tell you, it friggin' counts. If everyone in the country had this philosophy, we'd have to revamp the entire system so that people in power get to decide who the torch gets passed to, if it gets passed at all. There are many examples throughout history of governments set up that way. How many of them have been successful? How many of the people living under those types of rule have been happy?

Okay, so it's unlikely that it would ever happen that no one in the country went to the polls during an election, but let's look at something more realistic. Do you know what kind of people consistently head to the polls without fail? It is people who are passionate about the issues. And while the breakdown of voters registered as either Republican, Democrat or Other is pretty even, people who lean far left or far right on the issues are more likely to be passionate about the issues than someone who is more toward the center.

Before I continue, let me just say that the above statement is merely an observation from my own experience. I do not have any hard research to back this up, but aside from anecdotal evidence, there is a dynamic in this country's politics that seems to support it. Look at how polarized politics have become. Of course, there have been some pretty important issues to get people on both sides of "the aisle" worked up, but it has only helped to solidify and exacerbate a system of opposition that has been building for decades. The rhetoric out of Washington almost forces us to choose a side all the way. There's almost no middle ground any more.

But if you want my opinion, our country by its very nature is not "far left" or "far right". When I talk to people casually on the issues, there is usually a gray area. People who say, for example, that they agree with the war but not how we went about it, or that they don't agree with it but that now that we're in, we just can't leave. Sure, there are those Bush-is-right-always-has-been-and-always-will-be people out there, just as there are those on the opposite side, but there aren't as many as the current state of politics and the media would have us believe. The problem is that the people on the outer extremes of the scale have the loudest, and often most obnoxious voices.

I say let the voices in the middle rise up and drown out the fanatics who want to turn our country into either a left wing Utopia or a right wing Paradise. Because either case would be neither Utopia nor Paradise. Be passionate about the issues without being extreme. Vote always to help make our government more effective instead of more factional. And you do have the right to bitch, even if you don't vote, but realize that if you didn't contribute, it's your own damn fault.

Obama'08: Change We Can Believe In.

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 13

2008-03-05T11:14:00.004-05:00

"You have a concussion," the doctor answers. "It's not uncommon to have feelings of displacement or hallucinations. Your brain took quite a rap."

I nod. "Makes sense, I guess." I really wish I knew more about medicine. I have no way to verify what he's saying. All I know is, something weird is going on.

"The most important thing," the doctor adds, "is that you get some rest. Your body needs to heal after that accident."

Again, I nod.

A nurse walks in. "Mr. Menda? You have a visitor."

I look around. The doctor and I are the only two people in the room. I point to myself with a puzzled expression.

"You are Michael Menda, correct?" the nurse asks.

Something about that sounds familiar. With both the doctor and nurse staring at me concernedly, I nod.

"You have a visitor," the nurse informs me. She steps away from the door. A woman enters from the hallway. It's my wife, Linda.

She runs to my bedside. "Oh, Mike, are you okay?" she asks, relieved tears in her eyes.

"I think so," I tell her, "but I'm pretty beat up. Doctor says I need to rest."

She nods, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. "I was so worried. Thank God you're okay," she sighs as she pulls me into a tight embrace.

The hug is a little uncomfortable physically, but it's very comforting and familiar. I can feel the confusion starting to lift as bits of my life come back to me.

"Listen to me, Richard," Linda says gravely in another woman's voice.

Great... Just when things are starting to make sense again.

"Don't react," she says calmly. "Don't let on to the doctor that you can hear me. Just act like nothing is out of the ordinary."

Sure, and after that maybe I'll levitate off my bed and recite Pi to 1200 places. Nothing could be easier.

"I know it's tough, Richard," the strange voice coming from my wife says, while she straightens the bed sheets over me. Her eyes do not betray any hint of this conversation.

"Okay," I say, trying to look comfortable.

"Don't say anything," she whispers quickly. "I know it seems like I'm talking to you through someone, but that's only in your mind."

Only in my mind. Fantastic. I'm going crazy.

"Your not crazy, Richard," the woman's voice reassures me.

Okay, that's kind of freaky. Did she just read my thoughts?

"I can hear some of what you're thinking," she confirms. "But it's only the more simple thoughts right now. As we figure this out more, it should become easier for you."

What the hell is going on?

Just then, the doctor looks up from his notes. "If you're feeling fine right now, Mr. Menda, I will go ahead and take my leave. The nurse will be in to check on you periodically."

I blink at him for a few seconds, having completely forgotten he was even in the room. "Oh, yeah," I mumble.

"We'll probably keep you overnight for observation, but you should be able to go home tomorrow," he explains.

"Oh, okay," I say dumbly.

"Thank you so much, doctor," my wife says in her own voice.

I glance at her suspiciously. She returns my look with a loving smile.

"My pleasure," the doctor says, standing and hurrying out of the room.

Linda gazes down at me and runs her fingers through my hair gently. "Okay, now listen closely," she says in the other woman's voice.

"Do you really have to do that? It totally freaks me out," I snap.

Linda freezes and drops her hand back to her side. "I'm sorry, honey, I'm just trying to comfort you," she says in her own, hurt voice.

"Apologize to her," the other woman's voice says.

Jesus, this is confusing. "I'm sorry, babe. I don't know why I said that. Must've bumped my head pretty bad."

"It's okay," Linda nods, patting my hand.

"I'm sorry about how uncomfortable this is, Richard," the other woman says through my wife's freakishly moving lips. "It's the only way I can talk to you without raising suspicion. Well, that and I can't really figure out another way. If you just act naturally, I will try to explain."

I lay back and try to look comfortable...and comforted.

"My name is Loretta Vine," the woman's voice says. "I was once the assistant of a Doctor Hans Spector, a medical researcher employed by a U.S. government agency. You and I are currently undergoing experimental rehabilitation treatment. Nothing that you currently see around you is really happening. It is all a fabrication generated by a computer that is directly stimulating nerve cells in your brain.

"Richard," she sighs apologetically, "they've erased our memories and are trying to program us with new ones. They're trying to give us new lives against our wills."

I lay there in stunned silence. Slowly, I begin to realize that something doesn't quite make sense with her story. If her memory was erased as well, then how is she here explaining all this to me?

"I know you're confused," Loretta's voice says. "It's quiet in here, want to watch TV?"

"Huh?" I can't help but ask.

My wife repeats, "Want to watch TV? It's just so quiet."

"Oh," I nod. "Sure."

"You feeling alright, baby?" she asks.

"Yeah, just tired," I reply. Tired and utterly perplexed.

She picks up the remote. "TV will help. Maybe you'll fall asleep to it," she suggests.

"Maybe," I agree, managing a smile.

"I know your confused, Richard," Loretta's voice repeats as my wife turns on the television and begins to channel surf.

Damn straight...

"I'm trying to hack my way into other parts of the system so that we can make this a little easier or maybe even get out of here," Loretta tells me.

"The truth is," she continues, "I'm not really even sure how I've managed to get to where I am, but somebody must have really overlooked my readouts. It's too late now. I've set it up so that everything will look normal for a while. I'll need to go soon so I can shore it up a little better though."

How do I even know any of this is real?

"It's real, Richard," Loretta answers my unspoken question. "You know it's real, deep down inside. Just keep acting natural, no matter what happens. If something seems out of the ordinary, it is your brain trying to reject the programming and remember its true life. If you react too much to it, it will set off alarms in the monitoring program, which will increase the amount of medication flowing into you and cause the program to refocus its attention on the part of your brain that's rebelling. If it gets too bad, Dr. Spector and his team will go in manually to reset the project. I'm not sure how I'll get to you again if that happens."

Chills shoot up and down my spine. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck bristles. I really don't like the sound of that last part.

***

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 12

2007-10-11T11:17:00.003-05:00

Simple efficiency is so easily screwed up. And the alarm clock isn't always so effective, especially when you forget to set it. This is how I find myself standing in line at the local bookstore coffee shop for a breakfast of espresso and a blueberry cream cheese muffin. There's something I resent about this, but I can't figure out exactly what it is. Maybe I'm mad because I know I'm going to crash hard about thirty minutes after wolfing this down. Or maybe it's just that the girl behind the counter doesn't seem to realize that people have to get to work at this hour of the morning.

Ten aggravating minutes later, I step out of the bookstore, artery-clogging, heart-hasting breakfast in-hand. Immediately, I am accosted by a man who has obviously seen better days. His tattered jeans and filthy winter jacket worn in the toasty mid-summer morning seem to do nothing to draw attention from his few splayed brown teeth or the way the dirt on his face transitions evenly into his patchy brown stubble. He's carrying what looks like a big black blanket under his arm.

"Hey, listen, man," he says to me, his slurred speech propelling his sour, alcohol-laden breath toward my unprepared nose. "Listen, I got my wife and kid in the car two miles up the road. We ran outta gas last night and I been tryin' to get some help. If you could just spare five bucks, it would really help me out."

I can't help but raise a skeptical eyebrow. "I'm sorry, man, I never carry cash," I lie.

He eyes the bag containing my muffin hungrily. "Well, if you could just spare some change, maybe. We're tryin' to get to the hospital. See, I broke my thumb and the veteran's hospital won't see me 'cause they lost my paperwork. Gave ten years of my life for this country and got an honorable discharge and now they won't even help."

I grit my teeth impatiently. "Hey, man, I really am sorry. I don't have any change. I wish you the best of luck," I tell him, turning to hurry back to the car.

"I'm awfully hungry, walking up and down all night," he calls after me. "Gotta get to the hospital and see Dr. Spector. He'll help."

I freeze. Looking back slowly, I ask, "What did you just say?"

"I said I gotta get to the hospital and get my thumb looked at," he says, holding up the grimy digit.

"What was the doctor's name?" I clarify insistently.

His thick eyebrows come together. "I don't know, man, I ain't been there yet."

For the first time, I'm really looking at him. Now that I'm taking the time to study his features, there's something eerily familiar about him. I narrow my eyes. "Who are you?" I ask.

"I'm, uh..." he says uncertainly.

"What's your name?" I demand loudly. Bookstore patrons coming through the parking lot look over curiously.

"I...I don't remember," he stammers.

"You're lying!" I shout. "Tell me your name!"

He flinches and recoils a bit, starting to step backwards. "Listen, man, I don't know who you are, but you're starting to freak me out."

"Is there a problem here?" a stern voice calls out from nearby.

I look at the source of the voice. A police officer is walking up, hand on the gun by his hip.

"Oh...no, officer, it's fine. I was just..." I look back to indicate the strange homeless guy, but he's gone. I look around in confusion.

"Are you feeling all right, sir?" the policeman asks me with a tone of suspicion.

I nod slowly, staring at the spot where that guy was just standing. "I'm fine, officer. Sorry for the disturbance." I look over at him and force a smile. "It's early," I explain weakly.

The cop nods back, still eyeing me with uncertainty.

"I'll just be...heading to work now," I tell him with a questioning tone.

"Maybe you had better do that," he suggests.

I take the hint, and my leave. As I weave my way through traffic and sip my coffee, the whole incident fades in my memory until it seems almost like a strange dream. Could I really have just randomly started yelling at a homeless guy? All he did was ask me for change. And he said something else...what was it? And where did he go when the cop came up?

It's too early for this. I just shake it off and continue sipping my coffee as I hurtle down the highway at 80 mph. My muffin is calling to me through the bag. I glance over at it, my mouth watering. Setting my cup in the holder, I reach for my breakfast.

The sudden blare of a horn snaps my attention back to the road. I've drifted dangerously close to a car in the next lane. I swerve to get back into my lane. For a sickening moment, I feel the tires lose traction. I spin the wheel in the opposite direction. Rubber catches asphalt and there's a screech as the back end of my car swings around in an arc. For an instant, I see the terrified face of the guy passing me as my car spins to face his. He accelerates and the last thing I see before the world flips upside down is his receding rear bumper.

Hot coffee splashes onto my right hand, but my scream is drowned out by the breaking of glass and the groaning din of metal hitting the asphalt at high velocity. Though I try to regain my bearings in the rotating crash, my limbs flop around limply, smashing into various surfaces and breaking or bruising more than I care to think about. The seatbelt suddenly strains against my hips as my roof smacks once more into the ground. I close my eyes and try to cover myself while glass, metal and plastic bombard me from all angles. Over the noise of my vehicle succumbing inevitably to the laws of physics, I can hear tires squealing and horns sounding from various directions.

After what seems like an hour, the car stops rolling and comes to a rocking halt in the middle of the road. It smells like burnt motor oil and coffee. Somehow, I lived through it. I can't help but wonder if the muffin was really worth all this. I open my eyes and look over. The bag with the muffin is sitting on the roof next to me. The odd placement of it and the building pressure in my head helps me realize that I'm upside down. Trying to place myself in a position that won't leave me falling on my head, I undo my seatbelt. I guess those things really do save lives.

I squirm out of my seat and start crawling toward the opening where there used to be a windshield. The distant sound of sirens drifts over the hum of a freshly made traffic jam. As broken glass crunches under me, I realize how much pain I'm in. I'm sure I have a few broken bones, not to mention several cuts, scrapes and bruises.

"Hey, you okay, buddy?" a voice calls out to me. There's a guy kneeling in front of my overturned car reaching for me. "Gimme your hand."

I reach over and he helps pull me out from under the wreckage. I nod to him gratefully and turn to survey the damage. It's pretty bad. The sound of sirens gets closer. An intense feeling of déjà vu washes over me. I'm pretty sure I've never been in an accident like this, but there's something about it that seems really familiar.

"Let's move away," the helpful guy tells me, nodding toward the smoke beginning to rise from the engine.

With his help, I limp away from the mess, eying it as though it were a ticking bomb. The volume of the sirens increases significantly. I can see the fire rescue speeding toward us on the shoulder. I look back toward the wreck. A prickly chill runs all through my body...there's a woman in my car.

Hanging upside down from the driver's seat is a blonde woman, her eyes closed, scratches and bruises all over her face. "Oh my god," I say, starting to walk back toward the vehicle.

"Whoa! Whoa, hey buddy. You should stay here," the guy who helped me says.

I look back at him incredulously. "But, we have to save that woman," I explain.

He looks over to the wreckage. "What woman?"

"That wom-" I start to point out to him, but when I turn back to the car, she's gone.

"It's okay, man," the guy reassures me. "Listen, the paramedics are here. Let's get them to take a look at you."

I nod slowly and let him guide me to the approaching help. Maybe I'm in shock. I can do little else besides stare blankly as the paramedics look me over. They decide I need a hospital visit and close me into the ambulance and take off. Through the back window, I can see the smoke from my wreck rising into the sky. What the hell is going on with this morning?

The ride to the hospital seems to go by in a flash, though that might be because I was spacing out the whole time. They bring me in on a stretcher. It feels good to lie down. I'm feeling pretty tired at this point, but one of the paramedics warns me about going to sleep. He says I might have a concussion. They wheel me into a hospital room and a nurse comes in and hands them some paperwork and starts checking me over.

"Richard, it's me...Loretta," she says.

I sit up quickly. "What?" I shout.

"Sir, please lie down and remain calm," the nurse urges. She looks slightly different than she did just a moment ago.

"B-but..." I stammer in confusion.

"Loretta, Richard. C'mon, remember," the nurse's mouth moves as she appears to go about her business.

"My name isn't Richard, it's..." I start to explain to her, but for some reason, I just can't remember my name.

The nurse looks concerned. "Okay, sir. I'm going to go get the doctor," she says to me, then to one of the paramedics, "Keep an eye on him."

I watch her go. My head starts to hurt. Everything's swimming. I hear the paramedic start to say something to me. His voice sounds muffled. He's shaking me. It's no use, buddy. I'm going down. The darkness creeps in from the edges of my vision. Ah, blissful unconsciousness.

***

Sticks and Stones...

2007-09-24T14:59:00.002-05:00

Poor Gen. Dave Petraeus. It must be difficult to be a man in his position. On one side he has the perpetrators of the biggest conflict of this generation putting him in charge of said conflict and asking him to give America a warm fuzzy about its progress. On the other side he has a wiser American public, weary and wary of the misinformation, propaganda and all-out deception of a war-hungry administration, futilely grasping at any defense of its poor decisions.

MoveOn.org purchased an ad in the New York Times featuring a large photo of the general and a headline that pondered, "General Petraeus, or General Betray Us?" It accuses Petraeus of "cooking the books" on the progress in the Iraq conflict. No doubt, things are not going as swimmingly as the general's report seemed to suggest (not that I'm saying he thinks it's going swimmingly). Time after time we hear word from the administration that progress is being made, only to have that word contradicted and dashed by the media, who continue to report the unabated deaths of Iraqis and Americans alike in this increasingly thickening "quagmire".

At this point, it's difficult to take any positive reports on the situation in Iraq seriously, and as responsible citizens, it is our duty to question our leadership for nothing less than the truth. As such, it's not surprising to see public outcries like MoveOn.org's in the New York Times. The wording of the ad was, perhaps, a bit harsh, and those of us who speak out should be sure to phrase our dissent in a way that doesn't give the opposition more ammunition to help redirect the focus of the issues at hand.

Case in point, Senate voted on a bill to "strongly condemn personal attacks" on the general and the US military. This resolution, proposed by Republican John Cornyn (R-TX), and subsequent overwhelming majority approval just shows how desperate defenders of the war are to...well, defend the war. With so many important issues the senate could be resolving right now, they actually took the time to vote on a resolution that brushes dangerously with the first amendment, not a first for our demonstrably capable (read with sarcasm) congress.

And before anyone pipes up about libel and slander, I urge you to look up those concepts and do your homework before you say something that tells all of us that you have no idea what you're talking about. Libel has to be falsifiable for it to be considered as such, and try all you like, there's nothing you can say to convince the American public in general that Petraeus and the administration isn't heavily sugar-coating the information. The MoveOn.org ad doesn't qualify, but Senate's actions come frighteningly close to censorship, and you all know how I feel about that!

My point is, in these emotionally and politically charged times, lots of words are flung around by all sides. It's easy to get caught up in the game of language when quippy headlines, powerful speeches, and mudslinging advertising are given so much attention, but we must remember that words are not actions. If they were, the current administration would be able to turn Iraq around by merely continuing to say that everything's okey-dokey. Neither "side" should be bothered by the other wielding words as weapons because words are only as powerful as we allow them to be, and Senate made MoveOn.org's words powerful indeed.

Letters From the Lost Man, Part 11

2007-09-17T13:51:00.002-05:00

It's Dark. But this isn't the usual darkness. There's light somewhere. Instead of the regular inky blackness, there's a reddish hue to everything. And it's not silent. Voices are murmuring all around me. I'm compelled to open my eyes.

Yes, that's what it was. My eyes were closed. I feel a little woozy. It's kind of nice, actually. I try to sit up. My body feels really heavy for some reason. I look down at my chest. A large brown leather strap has me buckled securely to the bed. My wrists and ankles are likewise bound. I feel like I should be panicked, but I can't seem to get up the energy.

"Dr. Spector, the patient's awake," I hear a voice say.

That visage, that awful gap-toothed smile, enters my vision. "Well, hello there," Dr. Spector says with a kind of creepy joy that makes me wonder what he's done to me while I was unconscious.

"I was afraid we lost you there, for a moment," he says as his beady eyes flick rapidly over me.

"What are you doing to me?" I demand, my speech sounding sluggish.

Dr. Spector feigns offense. "Why, we're helping you," he says in a creaky voice that is in no way reassuring. "It's better you don't think about it. The treatment works better that way."

"Treatment?" I repeat with disgust.

The doctor clucks and shakes his head. "My, what stories has that horrible Ms. Vine told you? That we're performing inhumane experiments on you?" he asks, his expression becoming sincerely grave and a bit angry.

"It is true," he continues, "your treatment is experimental, but it is for your own good. Trust me; it is better than the alternative. If we are successful, it will revolutionize the way people with your...condition...are treated."

Something about the conviction in his voice prompts me to ask, "What is my condition?"

Dr. Spector's serious tone vanishes and he shows the gap in his teeth prominently. "Never you mind. If we are successful, you will never even know anything was ever wrong."

"Yes I will," I reply defiantly.

The doctor's smile fades. "You won't," he says quietly, drawing close, "and don't expect Ms. Vine to come to your rescue any more."

From his tone, it's obvious he's insinuating something. "What have you done to her?" I ask.

"I haven't done anything," Dr. Spector says, straightening up. "What has been done to her she did herself. That little escapade you two went on nearly killed her. It still might, but never mind that for now."

I don't reply. An image of Loretta hooked up to a bunch of machines flashes through my mind. I barely register the prick of a hypodermic jabbed into my arm. Whatever the nurse is injecting, it works fast. I can already feel reality swirling.

"You see," Dr. Spector's voice echoes through the drugs rushing in my ears, "the next time you wake up, your life will be normal. And you won't even remember any of this. A pity...you would probably thank me if you knew what I'd given you."

I strain my eyes looking sideways to focus on him through the dancing imagery that's playing across my vision. "I'll...remember," I struggle to insist.

"Ri-chard...my name is..."

Welcome back to the blackness.

***

I jump suddenly to a sitting position. My breathing is heavy. I'm drenched in a cold sweat. I look to my right. Through the darkness I see the red symbols: 4:26 AM. Damn, woke up too early. I still have two hours to sleep. These nightmares are getting ridiculous. What was this one about?

Hmm, don't remember. Oh well, guess I'll go to the bathroom and try to get back to my precious sleep. I get out of bed slowly, careful not to wake Linda, walk across the hall and empty my bladder. My wife stirs slightly as I climb back into bed, but stays asleep. Pretty soon, I'm...drifting...off...

Why do cheap alarm clocks emit the most horrific electronic screeching imaginable? I guess it's 1) because they're cheap and 2) because it's effective. They should try using these things on people in comas. If I was half dead, I would still jump up and race to the snooze button. It takes incredible self control to not turn it off with a baseball bat.

Ok, so I guess I'm awake. I kiss Linda, who greets me with a sleepy smile.

"Mornin', dear," she offers consolingly.

Off to the shower. I scrub myself as clean as someone who is half conscious can, exit the shower and brush my teeth. After the deodorant, the clothes go on and I run a comb through my slightly damp hair. Then it's down to the kitchen for breakfast. I bolt down some cereal and gulp some coffee before kissing Linda farewell and hurrying out the door to make it to work.

It's a nice little routine, simple and efficient. It gets me clean, fed and out the door to get to work relatively on time. Not that I have much to look forward to at work. By day, I'm a mild-mannered database programmer for a large government agency. Trust me, it's not as glamorous as it sounds.

"Hey, Mike," a familiar voice greets me.

"Hey, Tom," I reply. Tom is my cubicle neighbor. Something funny strikes me about his greeting. "What did you call me?"

Tom blinks. "Mike," he answers, "that is your name, isn't it?"

I think for a second. "I'm sorry, Tom...I'm not quite awake," I explain.

"Yeah, tell me about it," he agrees. "Good thing our jobs are so interesting and keep us awake throughout the day."

"Oh, yeah!" I agree with exaggerated enthusiasm.

"Listen, just a head's up," Tom says, "Greer's going to be making his rounds early today, so..."

I roll my eyes. "Man, that guy's a dick. How do I get his job?"

"Easy. Go bang your head against a filing cabinet for a few hours. By the time you're done, your IQ should be low enough to qualify."

"Morning gentlemen." Ah, just the voice we didn't want to hear.

"Hi, Ted," I greet as Greer takes the last few steps to our cubicles.

He shoots me a nasty glare. He hates it when people call him by his first name. "Hard at work, I trust," he says through a plastic smile.

"Oh, you know us," Tom answers. "Busy as beavers."

"Good," Greer says, "because Mr. Weisman is getting a bit anxious about the NetBox project deadline. I'm sure I don't have to remind you how important this is to the agency."

"Well, the last two modules are going to be ready for test by the end of the month. You know that's weeks ahead of our deadline," I say, unable to stop myself from sounding a bit defensive.

Tom chimes in, "Yeah, besides, you know all the tables are already built and most of the interface is there. Hell, they could start using it now if they wanted to."

Greer looks back and forth between me and Tom. "Well, then... Don't let me keep you from your hard work." With that he walks off with his nose in the air.

"Man, what the hell is his problem?" Tom asks as Greer turns the corner.

I shake my head. "Someone shoved a larger than usual stick up his ass," I suggest.

Tom nods. "Well, I guess we should probably get to work."

I nod back in agreement. Well, time to turn toward my monitor and start hacking away at the keyboard. I look at the screen. A cursor blinks next to the SQL command prompt. I'm drawing a blank. After staring for 10 minutes, what I'm supposed to be doing becomes no clearer to me. Not knowing what else to do, I type 'help' at the command line.

A bunch of sql commands scroll up the screen followed by short descriptions. The only thing that stands out is the 'use' command. It seems to be the only one that actually manipulates anything. I type 'use' and a space. I think for a moment as the cursor blinks patiently at me. My fingers move absently over the keys and a database name appears on the screen.

sql> use med_proj3

I hit enter. The command line outputs 'Database changed'. The prompt flashes at me again. Without realizing what I'm doing I type, 'select * from exp_inp where lead_last=spector;' and hit enter.

Data begins scrolling rapidly down the screen. There's a lot of information here. If I want to look at it all, I'll have to print it. I'm not really sure how to do that. Actually, I'm not even really sure how I just did what I did. I'm supposed to be a database programmer, but none of what I just typed looks familiar to me. I've obviously retrieved some kind of data from a database, but I don't know why or even how to interpret it.

"Hey, buddy. Whatcha doin'?" Tom says suddenly. His voice sounds really close.

I look over. He's standing right next to me and leaning over to peer at the screen. "Oh, ah..." I respond nervously.

"That doesn't look like NetBox to me," he says seriously. "You're not poking in anything you shouldn't be, are you?"

I glance at my screen. "Honestly, I don't really know how I got this," I explain.

Tom nods. "Listen, Mike, why don't we go for a little break. We'll get some coffee...clear our heads."

"Ok," I say distantly, feeling a bit like I need a break. I stand up to go, and Tom switches off my monitor.

"You'll come back to it later," he assures me when I look at him questioningly.

Coffee is very refreshing. The caffeine gives me just the boost I need to refocus on my work. All thoughts of this morning's strangeness fade away as Tom and I collaborate on the next steps in the project. The day passes quickly and, before I realize it, five o'clock rolls around. I pack up for the day, wish Tom a good night and head home.

"How was work, hon?" Linda asks as I lean over to kiss her hello.

"It was good," I reply. "Actually, it was really good. We made some good headway on NetBox. Greer came by and harassed us early in the morning, but he's going to feel like an idiot when we wrap this up 3 weeks early."

"Aw, that's my brilliant programmer," she beams.

The evening passes like most others. We watch a little TV, eat dinner, watch some more TV, then go to bed and read for a while before going to sleep. It's a routine much like the morning one. Simple...efficient. As I close my eyes to sleep, I welcome the coming darkness. It embraces me. I let go of this world.

***

"Suck it, Censorship!"

2007-09-12T09:17:00.001-05:00

Well, well, it seems Kathy Griffin has won an Emmy for pointing out to the world how unsuccessful she is. I wonder if next season her show will be called My Life on the C-List: Movin' On Up! But titular ramifications aside, something else happened when the D-Lister stepped up to accept the award, and it was made into an even bigger deal than the fact that Kathy Griffin...WON A FRIKKEN EMMY!

Apparently, Ms. Griffin doesn't put much stock in Jesus’ role in her personal achievements, as evidenced by her telling Jesus to "suck it" in her acceptance speech. This, of course, has raised many a religious hackle and has prompted E! to edit the telecast of her speech in a manner found acceptable by our fundamentalist overlords, may God bless them forever. Most of these are the same people, mind you, who probably chuckled at the emails forwarded to them by their friends with attachments showing the Muhammad cartoons that got certain European countries in trouble in recent years.

Now listen, I'm not saying that people shouldn't be considerate of other people's sensitivities, but you can't criticize people for being PC (that's political correctness) Nazi's out of one side of your mouth and express outrage at people for singling you out in their political incorrectness out of the other. That makes you a hypocrite. It's irrational and catches you up in logic that makes you have to either stop making fun of other people or deal with it when you’re made fun of.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why it's called political correctness? Because it's for politicians. Most of the country would never vote for a candidate who stood up and made very public derogatory comments about someone's religion, race or gender... Well, maybe not never, but still. It's damaging to a politician to even be connected with statements that could be considered prejudiced in any way. It is helpful to their campaigns if they can be as inoffensive as possible. This is a dynamic they created, so I say let them have it, but don't mistake their self-imposed restrictions as commandments for the rest of us.

Comedians make their livings being offensive in some way. Maybe not all of them do, but they do by at least pointing out the offensive things in life. It is difficult nowadays for a really successful comedian to go very long without offending somebody, and it's usually the people who have the least reason to be offended that are. Comedians tell jokes. Grow a sense of humor. I can laugh at myself when my friends are poking fun, and I do it right back to them, but we all know it's not for real.

Maybe it's not the most well-formed argument, but there is clearly something wrong in this country if we have to censor a comedian for being funny. You know the old question of whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound when no one's around to hear it? Well, it makes one wonder, is free speech really free when no one's allowed to hear it? Censorship sucks, and that's straight from the liberal, left-wing nut job's mouth.

Letters From the Lost Man, Part 10

2007-08-23T16:32:00.001-05:00

The silent black...what a welcome feeling. Here, where death is my friend, my confidant, nothing can hurt me. One would think the emptiness would drive you mad, but this is where I find no less than my self...my true self. Unless, of course, I'm already crazy. But how can I be crazy? That doctor bored open my skull and took out...

What? What's been taken from me?

I reach up and feel my head. It's wrapped in gauze. I feel a soft pressure over my entire back...the bed. I'm in a hospital bed. It's dark.

"Richard!" a voice whispers insistently.

I blink a few times...still dark. "Hmm?" I moan.

"Shh!" the voice urges.

"Who's there?" I whisper back.

There's a pause. "Richard, I don't know if you remember me, but I'm an assistant to the doctor who's...treating you. My name is Loretta Vine."

The way she hesitated before choosing the word "treating" resonates in my head. I sit up, feeling a little woozy doing so. "I sort of remember," I mutter quietly.

"Richard, there's something terrible going on. I...I don't have much time."

"What's wrong?" I ask dumbly.

Loretta sighs anxiously. "Everything is a lie," she hisses.

That seems to make sense, but at the same time, I'm a little confused. "Everything?" I prompt.

"Yes, everything you remember...everything they told me. This whole project is a lie," she answers.

I shake my head, a pointless motion in the darkness. "Wait, start from the beginning."

"Not now," she whispers hurriedly. "We need to try to get out of here before they find out I'm gone."

I swing my legs over the side of the bed. "Let's go," I say eagerly.

"There's a guard outside the door," Loretta explains. "I need to deal with him first."

A little light suddenly clicks on. At first it seems blinding, but as my eyes adjust, it becomes clear that it's just a pen light. Loretta holds it in her mouth while manipulating a syringe and vial.

"What's that for?" I ask a bit nervously.

"The guard," she says, clicking off the light. "Lay back down."

I'm not entirely sure of what's going on, but seeing as how it's a familiar feeling for me, I obey. I hear her walk across the room and open a door.

"Guard," she says with slight concern in her voice, "I need your assistance, please."

There's some shuffling as the guard enters the room. "Are the lights work- Ah!" exclaims suddenly. "What the hell was that?" I hear him ask.

"I'm sorry," Loretta says mechanically.

"What did you do?" the guard asks. His speech sounds slurred. There's a thud.

"Okay, Richard," she calls to me.

I sit up. From the light coming through the open door I can see the silhouette of the guard slumped on the floor. My heartbeat quickens as I feel what I can only describe as reality. Stepping out of the bed and onto the cold floor intensifies the sensation that I am finally in the real world. My legs shake a little as I stand on them for the first time in...well, who knows how long? They feel weird, kind of like I've been bicycling nonstop for days. I steady myself against the bed.

"Are you okay?" Loretta asks.

"Hang on," I answer, "let me get my bearings." I rock from side to side and try lifting my legs one after the other. I can sense Loretta's impatience, but she says nothing as I try to reacquaint myself with using my muscles this much. At least I can stand. I couldn't have been confined to a bed for too long.

I take a step away from the bed. Then another one. It seems to be working. I move toward the door. I'm a little stiff, and I imagine I won't be able to move too quickly just yet, but with the possibility of finding out what's really going on seeming finally within reach, I'm sure I can hold it together long enough to get out of here.

Loretta stands from searching the guard. "You don't, by any chance, happen to know how to use one of these?" she asks tentatively, holding out a familiar shape.

I take it in my hands. It feels as familiar as it looks. Somehow, even in the dim light offered by the corridor outside my room, I can tell it's a Smith & Wesson SW40 Sigma series semi automatic pistol. It's very comfortable in my hands. I can't help but worry that this feels a little surreal all of the sudden. Loretta snaps me back to reality.

"Let's go," she says, stepping into the hall and hurrying out of sight.

I follow as quickly as I can, sliding against the wall where I can. I meet her at the end of the corridor. I can't help but noticed that she's dressed like me. She doesn't look official at all, not like the last time I saw her. Maybe that should worry me, but it doesn't.

"Hide that somewhere," Loretta says with a nod to the gun. "If someone notices us on the camera it will be a lot better if they don't think we're armed."

I look at my clothes. While the airy light-blue pants and white short-sleeve shirt are better than a hospital gown, they are definitely not made for every day use, and certainly not for concealing weapons. I tuck the gun as best as I can into my waistband and try to cover it with the shirt. I'm not convinced, but it should be hidden to a security camera.

Loretta nods in apparent agreement. "The way down this hall is clear," she tells me. "We need to get on the elevator and go down to the ground floor. There's a rear entrance that's used for subject transport. We might be able to make it out that way, but we'll have to sneak past the night receptionist."

"Will that be a problem?" I ask, not really sure if I want to know.

"Not compared with what we'll have to get through to leave the compound," she says ominously. "Let's go quickly."

Together we run down the hall and to the elevator. When the door opens, we step in and Loretta presses "1". I look at the numbers over the door. We are on the 25th floor. It seems to take forever to make it all the way down, but we do without interruption. It's silent most of the way down.

"Loretta?" I ask as something occurs to me.

"Hmm?" she replies, watching the floor numbers tick down.

"Was my door the only one with a guard in front of it?"

For the first time tonight, she really seems to look at me. It's only for a second, though, as she turns away almost immediately. "Well, one of very few," she says softly.

The ensuing silence almost becomes uncomfortable, but fortunately the elevator doors slide open into an empty hallway. Loretta steps out and waves for me to follow. I can feel my heart beating in every part of my body as I watch the end of the hall. Please, no one come marching around the turn.

We make it to the end and Loretta peeks around the corner. "No one in the lobby. The receptionist is sitting at the desk. I can see her reflection on the door," she informs me.

I lean over her to get a glimpse at the scene. There's a plain lobby with drab carpeting and a few simple chairs. A set of glass double doors reveals little about the world outside in the dark of night, but the resultant reflection shows the receptionist is indeed seated behind a counter, staring at a computer screen.

"Okay," Loretta says, pushing me back in hiding. "You stay here. I'm going to go distract her. When she gets up, come quickly down the hallway and we'll both leave. Our time will probably be up after that. Security will be hot on our tails. Just stay with me and do everything I say."

"Yes, ma'am," I say as she heads toward the lobby.

Loretta walks up to the counter and smiles at the receptionist. "Hey, Rebecca, how are you?"

Rebecca blinks. "Oh, hey Loretta. I'm doing pretty good. I almost didn't recognize you in that getup. Were you in surgery with Dr. Spector today?"

"Oh yeah," Loretta says with a roll of her eyes. "It got a little messy. Can't wait to get home and out of these. Listen, I think Dr. Sandeep sent me a fax to the number back here. Can you check on that for me?"

The receptionist cocks her head quizzically. "Here?"

Loretta nods. "Yep. You know, it's on the transfer form. I gave him the office fax number, but he didn't write it down...or he lost it. You know doctors."

Rebecca snickers at that. "Okay. Let me go check," she says cheerfully as she gets up.

"Thanks," Loretta calls after her, but she's looking at me.

I bolt down the hall as quietly as I can. My legs feel even more odd while I'm running. My feet thud strangely on the carpet. The door gets closer and closer and my gut clenches as I reach for it. Loretta is right behind me. The phone behind the counter rings, and the sudden noise breaks my concentration. I leap for the door and push it open, but trip on myself before I can get all the way out.

"Nurse Vine?" Rebecca's voice calls curiously from behind the counter.

Loretta doesn't even glance at her. She hurriedly helps me back to my feet and rushes me out onto the bare concrete. Just before the door closes all the way, I can hear the receptionist’s voice one last time.

"I need building D security to ST entrance! We have a-"

"Quick," Loretta says, "this way."

I go in the direction she pushes me. I barely have time to register the scrapes on my elbows from my fall as alarms all over the compound begin to sound. We're running toward a parking area lined with what look like ambulances.

"This one," Loretta indicates one of the vehicles. She pulls open the driver's side door as I struggle to push myself into the passenger seat. All this activity is very taxing on my atrophied muscles.

I'm barely able to close the door before we back out of the spot very quickly. The tires squeal as Loretta throws it into drive and hits the accelerator. I can see the shadows of people running out of the building we just exited. A voice echoes over the compound through a loudspeaker system, though I can't tell whether it's shouting commands to security or to us. I'm thrown against the door as Loretta cuts a sharp left.

"Guess I'd better buckle up," I say dryly. She doesn't seem to notice.

We swerve through the parking lot and small roads that wind around the facility. Wherever this place is, it must be massive. The blare of sirens begin to rise over the sound of the security alarm as other vehicles take up the chase. Loretta peers grimly out through the windshield and handles the ambulance like a racecar. We speed toward a small security booth. Without even slowing down, she tears through the lowered security gate. The guard inside the booth doesn't look surprised, but he does huddle against the wall to avoid flying debris.

"We out?" I ask hopefully.

"No," is Loretta's only answer.

I look ahead. A little down the road in front of us is a high chain-link fence capped with a nice coil of barbed wire. Blue and red lights flash on the road beyond. Police cars pull up and blockade the fence.

"Shit!" Loretta hisses through clenched teeth. She veers off the road and onto the uneven grassy earth. The ambulance bounces wildly as she struggles to control the steering wheel.

We're thrown forward as we hit the fence and lose some serious momentum, but we make it through. Broken and warped chain-link screeches against the hood and roof of the vehicle. The back of the ambulance slides to the right, and for a moment we're facing the stunned police. Loretta whips the steering wheel around and I can feel us completely lose traction.

We spin left. As soon as we're perpendicular to the direction we're sliding, the ambulance lurches and the world outside the windshield begins to spin sickeningly. We're thrown from our seats as the ambulance roof hits the ground and we're propelled into another gut-wrenching roll. For what seems like an eternity, we crash into the earth from every side and personally meet every surface of the inside of the cab. Every deafening thud and creaking shatter brings another painful beating from plastic, metal and broken glass. Loretta yelps at each hit. Reality begins to ripple. The pain is taking me away.

"No," I mutter, vaguely aware of a rocking sensation. We've stopped rolling. I can hear the sirens getting closer. Now they're fading.

"No," I whisper one more time as the pervasive darkness creeps in. I think I can hear voices. I'm slipping from existence yet again. Please don't forget this. Richard...my name is Richard...

***

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 9

2007-03-15T21:52:00.001-05:00

Yes, I'm alive...and yes, this is the latest in the Letters from the Lost Man saga!

***

For the first time, I welcome the darkness. Any reprieve from my "waking world" has become something to be anticipated. I'm remembering more and more every time, and I feel like I'll be able to figure this all out if I just concentrate. So, here I am...clearing my mind.

That almost sounds funny. Here in the darkness, I can only assume I am within the recesses of my own consciousness, and it's empty in here. Even when I speak to myself, it sounds hollow, devoid of any real life or thought. Here meditation is easy. I simply relax and let my mind expand into the nothingness. Maybe if it expands enough, I'll reach the edge of this darkness and find myself again...my real self.

***

"Richard!"

Who is that? The voice sounds familiar.

"Richard!"

She isn't calling me, is she? Is my name really...

"Richard?" the young woman prompts with a puzzled expression as she approaches, panting from her run up the grassy hill.

I blink at her a few times. "Jane, I'm sorry...I must have been daydreaming," I explain haltingly in a British accent.

"You must come quickly," she urges. "They've found Elizabeth."

My eyes widen and I take off down the hill while Jane stumbles to keep up. The possibilities of where and how Liz was found race through my mind, and most of them are quite unpleasant. Despite the fact that I can't exactly recall when she went missing and why it's important to me, my stomach twists anxiously, hoping against hope that she's okay.

I burst through the huge double doors at the front of her family's luxurious estate. No one is there to greet me, but I can hear voices in the study to the left. I dash toward that room just as Jane rushes in the front doors behind me. We both run into the study and push our way through a small crowd of family members and servants.

Stretched out on the sofa is the small, delicate form of Elizabeth, her dress torn in filthy tatters, her face smudged with dirt. A doctor kneels before her, examining her thoroughly. After several minutes, he stands and addresses the room.

"She is going to be fine," he reassures us. "She needs some rest and a good bath. She may have a few bruises, but she is otherwise unharmed."

Through the many sighs of relief, a small, shaky voice calls out, "...Richard."

I look past the doctor to see Elizabeth looking up at me weakly. I move past him to kneel at her side. "What is it, my dear?" I ask, taking her hand in mine.

Instead of a smile, she responds with a look of distrust mixed with fear. "How could you?" she asks, tears welling in her eyes.

I can only react with confusion. "I'm afraid I don't understand, love."

"How could you?" she shouts as tears stream down her cheeks in rivulets.

"What is the meaning of this?" her father demands, stepping out of the crowd.

I shake my head. "I assure you, sir, I don't know," I say bewildered.

"Constable, take this man away!" he shouts, his face flushing with anger.

A uniformed man advances from the back of the room and grabs me by the shoulders. "Come on, gov, lets go 'ave a chat," he says firmly.

Reeling in utter perplexion, I can only obey. Certainly there's been some sort of misunderstanding. Once I speak with the constable, this will be all cleared up. Surely Elizabeth is confused by her ordeal. After she's had a chance to rest, everything will be back to normal.

***

"Alrigh', you swine, I'm goin' to ask you once more!" the constable howls threateningly. "Where were you on the nigh' Miss Evansworth disappeared?"

Even with my face in my hands, the stark stone walls of the interrogation room loom around me forebodingly. The dank smell of the place makes me feel a little sick, not because of the odor itself but more that it reminds me of a dungeon...a place I'm sure I'll get to know very soon.

"I told you, I don't remember," I insist. "I wish I knew, but I don't. You have to believe me. I would never do anything to harm Elizabeth. I love her." While I'm not sure why I just said that, it feels like truth on my lips.

"Obsessed with 'er, more likely!" the constable accuses. "An' I suppose you also 'ave no recollection of the little room in you cellar where you kep' the poor girl? Or of the black cloak she described you as wearin' while she begged for you to le'er go? This is the same cloak, I remind you, as the one we found 'angin' in your wardrobe in your very own bedroom in your very own 'ouse!"

I rub my eyes, hoping to awaken from this nightmare. "Yes, constable," I say in a wearied tone. "I quite recall those details, and as I told you before, I have no explanation for them. Perhaps someone is trying to make it appear as though I am the guilty party, which I assure you, I am not."

"So you keep sayin'," the constable sighs. "But the thing is...I don' believe you."

***

"My name is Elizabeth Evansworth. My father is Charles Evansworth, a civil engineer. On 12 July I was reading a book alone on a hill by my father's estate. I heard a noise from behind me. It sounded like a footstep. When I turned to see who it was, I was struck on the head. I do not remember anything for some time after that."

The prosecutor steps toward Elizabeth with a sympathetic expression. "Miss Evansworth, did you see who had struck you?" he asks.

Elizabeth shakes her head. "No. At least, if I did, I don't recall it. I think I was struck before I turned fully."

The prosecutor nods. "Very well. Tell us, if you can, what you remember next," he directs her.

A sadness seems to come over her as she takes a breath to answer. "Well," she begins with a pause, "I awoke in a darkened room of rough stone, a cellar I think. I was tied to a chair. Pieces of my dress had been...torn."

"It's alright, Elizabeth," the prosecutor reassures her. "Go on."

"There was a figure," she continues in a small voice, "a man. He wore a long black cloak with a hood which obscured him from me. He then spoke to me, and it was then I realized who it was."

"Tell us," the prosecutor urges. "Who was it?"

"It was..." Elizabeth pauses for several moments, struggling with the hard truth she is about to reveal. "It was the prisoner. Richard...my own Richard. He spoke to me in a strange manner. He sounded almost foreign, but he could not disguise that voice from me. I know it too well."

The prosecutor faces the jury with a raised eyebrow. "Did he say why he had done this? Why he had taken you?"

She shakes her head resignedly. "No. He simply kept asking me who he was. I told him that I knew it was him, but he went on asking me to tell him about himself...about his life. It was as if he had gone mad."

***

Well, this is different. Somehow I ended up in the middle of this strange, messed-up situation. Who knows, maybe I am crazy. It would be a really convenient explanation for all of this. But, y'know, even though everything seems out of place and completely wrong, I find myself thinking only how this verdict and subsequent sentence is going to take me away from Elizabeth. I can't help but feel like I've made some sort of awful mistake that's taking me further and further away from recapturing my life.

Oh, the judge is talking. I should probably listen to this.

"...has been found guilty of taking by force and carrying away Elizabeth Evansworth with intent to hold her from her family. It is this court's determination that the prisoner was non compos mentis throughout the duration of the crime. As such, the sentence of seven years confinement shall take place within the Greater Wisconsin Mental Institute under the care of Drs. Hanz Spector and Friedrich Golz. Their record for rehabilitation of criminals with mental defect is exemplary."

May god have mercy upon my soul. It might as well be a death sentence...

***

"Don't you worry," a young Dr. Golz tries to reassure me with a slight German accent. "Dr. Spector is a brilliant doctor and scientist. He has made great strides in the study of the brain's role in violent and criminal behavior."

I'm not reassured. What I am is tied down to a table in some kind of laboratory/operating room. I couldn't be further from reassured. As enthusiastic as Dr. Golz is, none of what he's explained to me so far sounds like science or medicine. I'd like to protest, believe me, but my mouth has been taped shut.

"Now, let's just get rid of the rest of this," Dr. Golz mutters to himself as he picks up the sharp razor from the stand next to my bed. He holds the shining metal blade over me for a moment, inspecting its edge. I can only stare up in blank terror. He brings it down and slides it down my wet scalp, shaving off what little hair was left after my earlier trim.

"There!" he exclaims as he finishes. "Now, I will administer something to dull the pain. While it is taking effect, I will go get Dr. Spector and we can begin."

Again, the urge to protest comes on, but I can only watch as Dr. Golz fills a syringe and empties it into my veins. Almost immediately euphoria begins to wash over me. I try to fight it, but every cell in my body urges me to just relax. I barely register the doctor's exit to find his colleague.

The next thing I see is the blurry image of a man's face. The face is long and cracked by a thin-lipped mouth filled with widely-gapped teeth. In the center of the face is a hawkish nose on which sits a pair of round glasses that magnify a set of black, beady eyes. The whole thing is topped by a slick of jet black hair, parted on the left.

"Now, Friedrich," the face says with a distant voice. "We will begin by drilling a hole in the top of the skull."

I feel a cold sensation as something is spread on my bare scalp. Then comes a feeling like someone is rubbing a blunt stone against the top of my head. There is a slow grinding sound echoing everywhere. Red fills my vision. I scream, but the sound is muted by tape and drowned out by the constant drilling. I give in to the blackness.

***

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 8

2006-11-21T17:10:00.001-05:00

I'm a ghost. There is no afterlife, but here I am. A lone spirit in the eternal black. How long have I been here? Does it really matter? There is no time when there is only you and nothing else. I am the universe, and the universe is empty...and surrounding me is nothing.

Are people naturally existential in the dark? I wish I could figure all this out. Every time I'm here I remember a little bit more of my crazy visions, but none of it brings me any closer to understanding who I am or why this is happening to me. Then again, maybe I don't even exist at all. Maybe I am simply the byproduct of random neurons firing in some sleeping organism's brain. Maybe even that is giving myself too much credit. I want to know that I'm real...

"Easy there, partner," a drawling voice cautions.

"Where am I?"

"Wisconsin," comes the obvious reply.

"Oh yeah..."

"You took quite a shot to the side. I managed to fish out the slug. It's the darnedest thing...missed all your organs."

I peek out through heavy eyelids. A short man with a neatly-trimmed, yellowish-gray beard and wrinkled eyes that look through a pair of round spectacles stoops over me. "I wouldn't say darnedest, doc...more like blessed."

The doctor chuckles.

"Didja catch the coward what done it?" I ask.

"Yep," he affirms. "One o' Pete's cronies. Hidin' up there on Madame Penny's establishment."

"Coward," I repeat bitterly.

"Well, he won't be bothering nobody no more," the doc says. "Got him up in a cedar box right next to his buddy in the center o' town."

I grimace. "Cedar's too good for 'em. Oughtta jes leave 'em in the desert to be picked clean by the vultures."

The doc just nods in reflection.

"How's Loretta takin' all this," I ask in a gentler voice.

Doc smiles. "Oh, Loretta's a smart girl. She knows she's better off now that Pete's gone. She's here y'know."

I look up at him expectantly. "Yeah?"

He chuckles again and nods. "Sure is. She's downstairs. Let me tell her you're awake."

The doc hobbles out of the room, his limp making his footsteps ring out with an uneven thud-thud, thud-thud. As I listen to it fade down the stairs outside my room, I take the opportunity to look around. This looks like a room over the saloon. It's pretty sparse. Just the bed, a desk and a chair. And then there's me...lying here like just another piece of furniture.

"Hey there, cowboy," a familiar voice beckons from the doorway.

"Loretta," I say, unsure of what to follow it up with. She looks beautiful leaning there at the threshold to my room, one hand on her hip.

She steps inside and glides over to the bed. Sitting next to me, she wipes my hair away from my forehead. "You look tired," she whispers.

I blink. "Yes, ma'am, maybe a little. Gettin' shot in the side has a way of taking the wind out of a man." Do I really sound that dumb?

Loretta doesn't seem to notice. She smiles at me and says, "Well, we'll just have to work hard on makin' you better, then. Is there anything I can do to make you more...comfortable?"

It's probably just me, but that pause before the work "comfortable" sounded awfully suggestive. My mind races with ways Loretta could make me feel better, but none of them involve relaxation, which I'm sure my body could use.

"I tell you what," she says as if reading my mind, "Why don't I let you rest a bit more for right now? I'll be back to tend to you later, okay?"

I nod dumbly, though other parts of me are screaming for a good tending to. To make matters worse, she leans down and plants a long, deep kiss on my lips. My guess is that she's not at all sorry that Tex...er Pete, is dead. I almost ask her to stay, but I'm suddenly feeling really tired.

"All right, Loretta," the doc calls from the doorway. "Let the man get some more sleep."

She smiles down at me again. "You get some rest, cowboy," she winks.

Again, I can only nod. My head feels really heavy.

"Okay, Dr. Spector...he's all yours."

I try to open my eyes wider, but my vision is so blurry. Did she just say Dr. Spector? That name sounds awfully familiar and in a bad way. Even though my brain is commanding my muscles to move me, I barely feel my body twitch. I can hear the thud-thud of the doc approaching. A dark figure hunches over me, but I can't make out any details.

"Don't worry, son," the doc's voice creeps eerily from the shadow. "We'll get you back to normal in no time."

I am not reassured. I go now back to death's waiting room.

***

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 7

2006-08-15T15:16:00.001-05:00

"How long was I out?" I ask, the pain in my side giving a polite little reminder that it was still there.

"Twenty-four hours," the nurse answers as she bounces around the room looking busy.

I blink. "You're serious..."

She nods. "Uh-huh."

There's no way I was asleep that long. It just doesn't seem possible. I feel like I closed my eyes minutes ago.

"That's the thing about dreams," the nurse continues. "Especially drug-induced dreams...nothing is as it appears."

"Yeah, tell me about it," I snort. But it's strange that she should say that. It seems that nothing really is as it appears lately...dream or no.

"Are you hungry?" she asks cheerily.

Without even thinking about it, I nod. I'm famished actually. I can't remember the last time I ate. As if it knows we're talking about it, my stomach growls. Not to be outdone, my side aches defiantly.

"Maybe we'll give you something for the pain as dessert," the nurse offers.

"Maybe," I say doubtfully. "Though not the same thing as last time. I'd like to stay conscious for a while."

"Okay," she beams.

"Say, why does my side hurt so bad anyways?"

The nurse sighs. "You mean you forgot again? You were hit by a truck."

I shake my head. "No, that I remember. What I mean is, what's broken or bruised or whatever."

"Oh," she says, glancing at the chart on her clipboard. "Um, a few broken ribs, some bad bruising obviously..."

"That's it?" I ask incredulously. "No road rash or broken limbs?"

The nurse raises her eyebrows at me. "Would you prefer to have more injuries?"

"No..."

"You were very lucky. The truck hit you right before it stopped."

"I see..."

Did you ever have the feeling that somebody was just totally winging it? Just improvising lie after lie to make you believe some story that is fairly plausible anyways. No, you probably haven't. It's a really strange and unlikely situation to be in...very disconcerting. Some things are starting to come back to me now.

Loretta told me to just go with the images. She's the real one, not like this nurse here. And yet, I can't bring myself to go along with her instructions. I just don't remember what all this is about...and I don't think I'm supposed to. You have no idea what it's like not to know what in your life is real and what is a dream. Well, if this is a dream, I'm taking control.

A few minutes after my exceedingly happy "nurse" leaves the room, I find myself hatching a plan. I'm going to get off this trippy little amusement park ride. I sit up in bed... Ouch, that hurts! It's okay. Just ease yourself out of bed. That's right. Now, tiptoe over to the door and peek out.

The coast appears to be clear. Now, slowly step out of the room. Creep down the hallway. Excellent, so far so good. Oh crap, who's that?

"Hi, I need to transfer this patient to the psych wing," some guy in scrubs says to the lady behind the counter up ahead. He has a patient in a wheelchair next to him.

"Name?"

"Vine, Loretta," he replies.

"Okay," the lady says. "Here's the papers. You know the drill."

"Yeah," he answers with a snicker.

Loretta? It has to be a coincidence. It also has to be a coincidence that the woman in the wheelchair looks exactly like the Loretta I remember. Oh hell, they're coming this way.

"Do you need anything, sir?" the guy in scrubs asks.

I shake my head dumbly. Is that really Loretta? "I, uh..." I hear myself begin to speak. "I, uh, think I work with this woman. When did she come in?"

The guy looks at me suspiciously. "I doubt it, sir. She's being transferred in from another hospital. She's been there for years," he explains.

I take a good look at her. Her hair is stringy and greasy. The stare in her eyes is vacant. She's made no indication that she's even aware we've been talking right in front of her. But still...underneath her ragged exterior, I can still see the one person I can really recognize.

"Hmm..." I say. "I guess I'm mistaken."

The guy nods and continues pushing her down the corridor quickly.

Yeah, mistaken my foot. I'd like to follow them, but I'm sure it would arouse some attention, especially since this guy seems to think I'm as crazy as Loretta apparently is. This can't be right at all. I know I saw Loretta in a hospital room as my nurse no more than a week ago. And then again as the new girl at the office. What should I do? Should I forget about seeing her just now and keep making my way toward the exit, or should I stay and try to figure out what's going on?

I turn to look down the hallway at the exit sign. Someone is standing right below it...it's a figure in a dark black robe. Damn it...not this guy again. Well, I'm going to turn the other way. Last time I saw this guy, I got hit by a truck. I'm not playing this game again.

Pivoting on my foot, I step the other way with one last glance over my shoulder. The figure is gone. See? It's all in your imagination. But as I face forward to look where I'm going, I bump right into him...er, it.

"Oh, uh...I'm so...ah, excuse..." I mumble lamely.

The black figure leans back, then shoots forth his fist. The world explodes into little shooting stars. Everything goes dark. Here I am again...

...

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 6

2006-08-09T21:56:00.001-05:00

Hit by a truck? That doesn't sound right. Wasn't that a dream? Maybe the other thing was a dream. What was that other thing again? Man, this is confusing. And that feels really good.

A warm numbness spreads over me. It doesn't really take the pain away; it just distracts me from it with more insistent sensations of happy-time goodness. I love opiates. The problem is they really don't help me sort all this out.

"How long have I been here?" I ask woozily.

"About three days. Well...four as of this morning," Nurse Bubbly answers.

Three days? I wonder if my wife knows. I do have a wife, don't I? Man, I'm feeling really tired.

"You should go to sleep, then," the nurse answers.

Holy crap! Did I say that out loud? I thought I was just thinking it. Wow, this stuff is really strong. I don't even feel the pain anymore. That's good. Now I have nothing distracting me from...

From what?

The darkness... It's calling to me. What before seemed such a scary and lonely place, now seemed peaceful and comforting. The sweet solitude is so welcoming after...all this.

No. This isn't the darkness. Where the hell am I?

...

"Oh, don't you just love a good book?"

"Mm..." I find myself compelled to say in response.

"Darling?"

I blink.

"Are you quite alright?"

"Oh yes, dear," I reply instinctively, but I'm not really sure I'm alright at all. Looking around, I take in the rolling green hills of the countryside. It's a lovely setting, if a bit overcast, though it doesn't really look as though it will rain. And even more beautiful is the young lady across from me. She grins and bats her eyelashes at me, clutching her book to her breast.

"If we leave now, we shall be back in time for tea," she says.

"Then let's hurry," I answer. I grin mischievously and jump up at a run.

The young lady chases after me, giggling the whole way.

I can't help but wonder what's going on. Though I don't feel like I've ever been here before, my feet carry me on a path they seem to know quite well. I can't really say I know who this girl is, but she seems quite familiar with me as she calls playfully to me in what I can only describe as "The Queen's English". Ah well, here I am. I suppose there's not much for me to do but watch what happens.

...

"Well, where have you two been?"

My companion wrinkles her nose at her elder sister. "We were out basking in the joy another day in each other's arms!" she shouts dramatically.

Her sister gasps and covers her mouth. "Elizabeth! Don't let mother hear you say such things. It isn't proper for a girl your age."

Liz scowls. "I'll be sixteen in but a few short weeks, Jane. I'm practically a woman."

Oh, jeez...she's underage. This is bad.

"That may be so," Jane concedes, "but until then, you have other obligations."

I clear my throat uncomfortably. "Perhaps I should be going."

"Nonsense!" Liz cries. "Stay for tea."

"Oh, indeed," Jane sighs. "You may as well."

"Really, Jane, jealousy doesn't suite you," the younger girl teases her sibling.

Jane looks appalled. "You...you horrid little beast!"

"No, really," I insist. "I do have to be going."

Jane smiles politely. "Yes, it might be for the best. Father is home, and he may not be in the mood to entertain company."

"Why wouldn't he be?" Elizabeth prods.

"Well," Jane begins matter-of-factly, "Reginald saw a man in a black robe in the garden last night. Father had to speak with the constable, and now he's all out of sorts. I shouldn't be surpri-"

"Wait," I interrupt. "Did you say a man in a black robe?"

"Yes, I did." Jane confirms. "Why do you ask?"

I shake my head. "I thought I saw the same..."

What did I see? When was that? This isn't right. I don't belong here.

Wake up!

...

"Good morning, sleepyhead."

Damn...Nurse Bubbly again. The other place was better. This has got to stop.

...

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 5.5

2006-08-08T15:52:00.001-05:00

Now, where was I?

Oh, yeah...the darkness.

No, that isn't right at all. I was...in a hospital...a medical facility. There was a doct-, no wait, a nurse. That's right. Loretta. There was something about my memory...obviously. What was it?

But I'm in back in the darkness now. Or is it just dark in here? I have the distinct feeling I'm in some sort of "here". The question is, just where would that here be? It smells like gauze and alcohol swabs. I guess that answers that question.

What's that over there? A window... I don't remember there being a window there. Of course, that's why I'm here, isn't it? I can't remember. Loretta told me something...something I wasn't supposed to know. She was trying to help me, wasn't she?

Man, it's a bit chilly in here. This blanket isn't really doing much for me.

I look around as all my surroundings become more defined. The light is increasing slowly. I realize it's the sunrise through the window. It's a plain, white little room. There's another bed closer to the door, but it's empty. A TV hangs on the opposite wall. And what's this?

CALL NURSE

That's weird. For some reason, I don't think this call button is supposed to be here, just like the window. Let's push the button and see what happens.

...

"Good morning! Comfy?" a particularly bubbly nurse chirps as she pops into the room

Well, she's perky. "Not really. I'm cold," I explain, not really sure what else to say.

She frowns. "Aw, well, let's get you some more blankets, 'kay?"

Man, if she does that squeaky thing with her voice one more time, I'm going to get up out of this bed and knock her out.

"How are we feeling today, other than cold and cranky?" she asks as she closes the window.

I'm about to be a bit more than cranky, but to her I say, "Fine, I guess. Where's Loretta?"

Blank stare. "Loretta?" she parrots.

"Yes," I confirm testily, "The nurse who was here yesterday."

She shakes her head. "I don't know any Loretta that works here. I attended to you yesterday and the day before that."

I squint at her. Okay...I'm definitely getting weird vibes. And, man, does my side hurt! Just then, it occurs to me to ask, "Say, where am I, anyway?"

"West Wisconsin University Medical Center," she answers matter-of-factly.

Hmm...I think she just made that up. "Ah," I say, wincing through the pain that has now decided to start throbbing.

The nurse nods in feigned sympathy. "Looks like it's time for somebody's medicine," she coos.

"Why am I here?" seems the next logical question.

"Well, honey," she explains as she fills a hypodermic with what I hope is morphine, "You were hit by a truck."

...

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 5

2006-08-03T15:35:00.001-05:00

The silence is so peaceful. The darkness, so idyllic. Here everything is simple. I was afraid of the dark before. Why? Ah yes, the unknown. But when there is the darkness, there is nothing else. No pressures, no expectations. Here in the vast nothing, with only my solitude beside me, I exist in a one-man utopia...

What the hell am I talking about?

I blink a few times and lift my head. The surface below me feels soft, like fabric. I notice a blanket draped over my body. And what's that shape over there? Is that a door? I look over my shoulder.

4:26 AM

Those glowing red symbols...that's the time. Man, I still have two hours. Wait...two hours for what? Well, for sleep, of course. I have to be at work at eight. How do I know that? Because this is my life, of course. Ugh, it's too early to get philosophical. Just try to get some more sleep.

"Are you okay, dear?"

I freeze. Who was that? Will you relax! It's only your wife. Oh yeah, of course...I, uh, forgot. "I'm fine...just really weird dreams tonight."

"Aw...well, try to go back to sleep, 'kay?"

"Yeah."

Yeah. Just try to go back to sleep. No problem. Just close my eyes and relax. Drift gently off to...pee. Damn it! I have to go to the bathroom. Do I really have to go that badly? Okay, if I don't go, I know I'm going to roll around half-asleep for the next two hours while I convince my body it can hold it 'till the alarm goes off. Yeah, this feels a lot more like reality.

Well, off to the bathroom with me. I stumble to the door and across the hall. The night light in the bathroom greets me as I empty my bladder. I really hope I don't dream for the rest of the night. I'm not sure I remember everything, but I know there was lots of strangeness while I was asleep. I gently tuck myself back in and drift off to...sleep.

...

"Honey, wake up...c'mon, babe, rise'n shine."

Oh jeez...did I sleep at all. Somebody turn off that damn alarm! Oh, wait...that's my job. Okay, up I get. I roll out of bed and walk around to the bedside table, eyes still closed, and swat the snooze button.

"All the way off," my wife reminds me. "It'll go off while you're in the shower and scare the hell out of me."

"Mmmnfrrn," I mumble, switching the alarm completely off.

Honestly, though, a shower sounds really nice about now. I give her a kiss and make my way to the bathroom. Man, my side is stiff. I'll have to stretch it out while I'm washing up.

Mornings are mundane. They have to be. We wake to semi-consciousness, and if things weren't absolutely normal and utterly routine, we'd be in a poor state to handle it. So, we walk zombified through our schedule. Hop in the shower. Dry off. Eat breakfast. Have coffee. Brush teeth. Get dressed. Hope you've regained enough self-awareness to drive yourself to work. Kiss wife. Leave house. If only once I got to work I could slip back into a half-comatose state and operate on this level of automation.

...

"Hey, man, how's it goin'?"

That's Tom. He sits in the cubicle next to mine. Nice guy. "I'm tired."

"Yeah, you look like crap."

"Gee, thanks."

"No prob. So, what happened? Linda keep you up all night? Rowr..."

I give him an unamused look. "No. Just had weird dreams... Actually, I think you might have been in one of them."

Tom laughs. "Hey, I like you, buddy, but keep that stuff to yourself."

I shake my head. "No, no. You were like a bartender or something."

"Yeah, I wish!" he snorts. "It'd be better than this place."

I nod enthusiastically in agreement.

"Hey, listen, that reminds me. Greer is probably going to come by looking for those edits later this morning. I overheard him bitching about them by the snack bar."

"Great..."

Greer is technically my boss in that he has the power to delegate assignments to me and complain to the higher ups when I don't do them to his liking. It's the higher ups, though, that I need to impress to get my ass out of this euphoria-inspiring cubicle siesta. Ah well, let's get to it.

"Hey, check it out," Tom grins, nodding towards, "the new girl."

Wow, she looks awfully familiar.

Tom pants, "Pretty hot, huh?"

I nod absently. Where have I seen that girl before? I watch her walk down the hall and into the copy room. I know I know her. I glance at my desk.

"I, uh...need to go make some copies," I mumble.

"Yeah, I bet you do," Tom chuckles. "Hey, make me some too, huh?"

I walk off, not even bothering to take some papers with me.

"Don't make me have to call Linda!" Tom warns my back.

Man, I look like an idiot. I should have grabbed something to take with me into the copy room. Now I'm standing here in the door, empty handed, just staring at this woman making copies. She's going to think I'm a stalker or something. No, no, it's okay. I'll just pretend to be getting some staples or something.

"Hi!" she says to me with a friendly smile.

"Staples!" I blurt out. Smooth... "I mean, hi. I'm, uh, looking for some staples."

She looks around briefly. "Hmm..." she says, "I'm kind of new around here. I'm not really sure where they keep them."

"Oh, there over here," I point to the supply cabinet. Brilliant. This is working just like it did in my head.

"Ah," she nods. "So, why did you ask me?"

I shake my head. "I'm sorry. It's been a bit of a rough morning." I step over to the cabinet. "Let me just get these and I'll be out of your way."

She giggles and puts out her hand. "Let me introduce myself. My name's-"

"Loretta."

Silence...when it's between two people, it has a way of making them feel uncomfortable. That or whatever was said before the silence is what makes it uncomfortable.

"How did you know my name?"

I take a deep breath. "Oh, well, I happened to overhear. By the snack bar this morning I overheard someone saying that new girl Loretta would be starting today. I just assumed it was you."

Nice...now that really was smooth.

"Oh," is all she can manage.

"I'm going to go ahead and get those staples now," I tell her.

"Okay," she says as she goes about her copying. "It was nice meeting you," she calls as I walk out the door.

I turn. "It was nice meeting you too."

Well, that was interesting. What's even more interesting is how I really did know her name. Now that I think about it, she may have been in one of my dreams last night, but...how could I possibly know? I must have seen her come in for an interview or something. Maybe I really did overhear it. There has to be a logical expla-

Who the hell is that? Some guy in a huge black robe is standing by my cubicle. Is this some kind of joke? He's dressed up like death, but it isn't my birthday. This is definitely near the top of my list of weird days.

"Hey, who are you?" I ask.

The robed figure turns. His hood is pulled to low for me to make out his face. Before I can say anything else, he turns and runs.

"Hey! Come back here!" I demand. When he doesn't, I chase after him.

Wait a minute...why am I doing this? I turn down the main corridor just in time to see the back of a black robe disappear around the next corner. Why would I chase this guy? I reach the end of the corridor as the door to the stairwell clicks shut. This doesn't make sense. I throw open the door and bound down steps several at a time, almost killing myself in the process. This is important for some reason. I bolt out into the ground floor lobby and see the figure dashing across the street outside. I have to find out who this guy is. I explode out the building entrance and run into the street. Where'd he go?

The sudden blast of a loud horn shatters the moment. I look just in time to see the semi trying to screech to a halt. Well, this sucks.

Pain!

Nothing.

...

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 4

2006-08-01T13:34:00.002-05:00

"You're in a medical facility. There was...an accident, and well...the doctors are trying to help you," Loretta explains.

"You'll have to do a little better than that," I tell her skeptically with narrowed eyes.

She sighs. "Listen, I can't tell you too much information. The doctors are trying to rebuild your life for you. They're trying to give you...your memories back."

My brow furrows reflexively. Something about that doesn't quite make sense. "Why do it this way? Why not just tell me about my life and see if I remember?" I ask.

"Well...we've tried that," she answers.

"Really?" I say with continued disbelief. "I don't remember that."

"Precisely," Loretta rebuts gravely. "Dr. Spector's technique is revolutionary. It will change the way we treat...uh, people in your condition. The benefit to society and the individual is immeasurable."

"Dr. Spector, huh? Sounds like a spook to me. Not like anyone I want to have bouncing around in my head. And besides, his 'technique' seems to be flawed." I indicate my still aching side.

Loretta closes her eyes and nods. "Yes, it still has to be perfected, but once we figure out how to better control the images, you'll be as good as new...better even."

"Really?" I repeat with the same doubt. "Sounds an awful lot like I'm a guinea pig. Especially with that business you mentioned about the doctors erasing my memory if they found me awake. I don't know that I like that idea... No, actually, I'm certain I don't like that idea."

"Please, Mr..." she pauses again at the slip, "please relax. Like I said, I'm trying to help you."

"And what's with this 'Mr...' stuff?" I demand. "What is it you keep almost calling me?"

"I can't tell you that," she says firmly. "Listen, I've probably already tainted the experiment beyond repair, but so far nothing else has really worked. I don't like what they're doing to you either, but I do like what it will mean for the world if we succeed. So, I'm asking you, please cooperate. Help me and you help yourself."

Quite frankly, this is outrageous. Here I am, lying in a hospital bed, listening to this chick telling me that they're basically doing some kind of mind control experiments on me to supposedly help me regain my memory. How do I know they're not the reason it's gone in the first place? This really sucks, but at the moment, I'm not really sure that I have many other options but to trust her. That is, if any of this is even real in the first place.

"If I were so inclined to help you, what would I do?" I find myself compelled to ask.

Loretta smiles. It's a damn good thing for her that she's so attractive. Otherwise I don't think I'd be as friendly as I've been so far. "Well," she says, "the main thing is just to be receptive. If you keep an open mind and go with it when things seem, well, normal...you should be okay. After a while, it should start feeling familiar to you, and once all the memories are there, they'll let you out of here."

"I would be very surprised if things started to get normal," I put in dryly.

"They should soon," she assures me. "We're on the verge. For now I'll try to fudge the data so that the Dr. Spector doesn't think it's to the point where we need to start over again. As it stands, you could have easily written off any strange experiences as bad dreams. That's how I'll make it seem."

I can't help but snicker sarcastically. "Honey, this is all just one big bad dream."

Loretta eyes me seriously. "So, will you help?" she asks.

I stare back at her. "Well, just out of curiosity, what's to stop me from just waltzing out of here right now?"

"This is a heavily guarded location," she explains. "I assure you, if you tried, you wouldn't get far."

"And then they wipe my slate..." I finish.

"Pretty much."

It is chilling to me that a technology exists to simply erase who I am from even myself. Identity theft, fraud, even total deletion from society would be tolerable when compared with the idea of losing every memory that made you who you are today. I don't know who I am, and even what little I know of myself now could be completely taken away...and the scary part is I might never know. Well, damn it, I'm not going to let them take it anymore. I'm going to get through this...experiment, and when they let me out, I'm going to do everything in my power to find out what happened to me and who I really am, assuming I'm not who they make me think I am.

"Okay then," I say after that thoughtful pause. "I'll help you to help me. But if you're lying to me, you better hope they erase my memory...and you better hope it sticks." I don't feel I need to say anything else.

Loretta nods, though the look in her eyes seems hesitant. "I want to help you, and that's the truth."

Well, though all kinds of alarms are going off about the rest of it, I do believe her about that. Reluctantly, I nod. "Do what you must," I tell her.

With that she reaches over to a nearby stand and grabs a hypodermic and a vial. She draws out a measure of the colorless liquid in the vial and clears the needle of air bubbles. With a sympathetic look, she puts the needle into my arm and slowly pushes down the plunger.

"Good night..." she whispers.

Thoughts come swirling at me from all directions. Half-formed hallucinations of memories I'm not sure I've ever had pelt me without end. Sounds of music, voices, explosions ring through my ears. All my senses are overwhelmed by stimuli screaming all the experiences of life at me until I wake up, once again, in darkness. Curled up in the loneliness, I am content to just rest for a while. Where was I just a moment ago...?

...

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 3

2006-07-28T22:23:00.002-05:00

"Go on, friend. Why don't you go on and git on outta here," the guy says to me as he wipes a grimy mug with an even grimier rag.

Hmm...this is looking like a rough scene. I'd better not argue. Just nodding, I step slowly toward the door. The second I step outside I hear the saloon piano start up and the sounds of the usual festivities happening inside. I hoist up my pants, which seem a little low on my hips. Glancing down I realize how disheveled I really look.

"Howdy there, partner."

Well hellooo. Just who is this fine lady? "Howdy, ma'am," is all I can manage. What's up with my accent? This is not how the voice in my head sounds.

"Man like you shouldn't walk around town without some respect," she says to me, smiling sweetly.

I'm merely confused. "Respect?" I drawl intelligently.

"Why, sure. I know just where you can get some too..."

I look her up and down again, raising an eyebrow. I wonder what she's talking about. Honestly, she looks like she could be a working girl. Whatever she means by "respect" can't be all bad.

"Well, I'd be mighty obliged, ma'am. I'm new around here, and a little...uh...respect might be just what I need. The thing is, well..."

With a flutter of her eyelashes she asks, "Well, what is it?"

"Well, see, I'm a bit short on cash. Ain't had time to find me some work yet."

"A man with respect doesn't need to find work," she tells me.

I'm not only intrigued, but a little perplexed. "Well, again, I'd be mighty obliged, ma'am. Say...just where am I?" I feel dumb for not having asked earlier.

She giggles. "Why, you’re in Wisconsin, cowboy."

"Wisconsin..." I repeat in disbelief. It's about 90 degrees out, dusty, bright, and dry. If this is Wisconsin, I'm Santa Claus.

"That's right," she confirms, "now, follow me."

As I trail behind this lady, I can't help but think this is nothing more than a dream. Not that I'm complaining. Whatever it is, it's a whole lot better than where I was just a few moments ago...in nothingness.
So, if this is a dream, and I'm aware of it, I should be able to do whatever I want, right? I always loved flying dreams. Maybe I should try that.

"Why, sugar, what are you doin'?" the pretty woman asks as she helps me up off the ground.

"Sorry. I'm not really sure what happened myself. Must'a tripped."

Well, that was embarrassing. I probably won't try that again. I haven't necessarily ruled out the dream possibility, though. This is just too strange to be reality. Well...what have we here? This is a cathouse if I ever saw one.

"Step inside cowboy," she says, opening the door with a grin.

"Thank you, ma'am."

Oh yeah...this has got to be a dream. All these fine ladies sitting here smiling and waving at me. And I get the feeling that whatever I get here, I'm not going to have to pay for it. Score...

"Right this way, cowboy," she directs.

I follow her up the stairs and down the hall into a rather nondescript bedroom. So far this is going just the way I had hoped. I watch her step over to the armoire and pull something out of it. She turns toward me, hiding whatever it is behind her back. She steps over to me and gets close...very close.

"You want some respect?" she asks softly.

All I can do is nod. With a sly half-smile, she produces the hidden item. Ok, this is just...odd.

"A gun..."

She nods. "Well, of course it's a gun. What did you think it would be?"

I shrug, lost for words. I take it from her with uncertainty. It's in a nice leather holster with a bullet-lined belt. At least my pants will stop creeping down on my hips. I put it on and draw the weapon. It's a Smith & Wesson SW40 Sigma series semi automatic. Not only is it horrendously out of place in this setting, but it seems totally strange to me that I recognize it.

"Feels good in your hand, doesn't it?" she asks, excitement in her voice.

I look up with a start, but then sort of smile. "Yeah, she's a beaut. Say, what's your name anyway?"

She leans in closer and puts her hand on my chest with that sexy little half grin. What a magnificent time for all hell to break loose...

The door busts in with a bang and the massive guy standing on the other side answers my question with, "Loretta!"

He pounds over to her and pushes her out of the way. Baring his teeth at me, he grabs me by my shirt and lifts me straight into the air. His breath smells like he uses manure for toothpaste and whiskey for mouthwash.

"What're you doin' with my girl, boy?" he asks, each word punctuated by a blast of fetid odor.

Despite the obvious seriousness of the situation, my first instinct is to be a comedian. "Well, nothin' yet, Tex...you interrupted me before I got the chance."

As expected, this is the wrong response. He heaves me backward and ho's me through the window. The world is a spinning blur as I hurtle away surrounded by exploded glass. More seconds than I will prefer to recall later, I hit the ground hard. Some of the glass is driven into my skin. At this moment, this is about the most painful dream I've ever experienced. I roll around for a few minutes then stumble to my feet. Yeah, I hurt, but I don't think anything's broken...yet. That'll probably change soon. Loretta's boyfriend is blundering out the cathouse door headed my way. This can only get worse. I draw out my gun.

"Now...now..." I manage to sputter out. "Now, you hold it right there, Tex."

"If you wanna live, boy, you'll quit callin' me Tex," he replies, eyeing my gun with interest.

Pulling back the slide on the weapon, I grin through the pain. "I think I'm in a position to call you whatever I like."

Tex throws his head back and laughs...man, is he a big guy. His neck looks like a tree trunk when he does that. I'm not really sure how much better I feel with the gun in my hand. It does fire a .40 caliber round, but I honestly think this guy might be able to take a couple if my aim isn't just right. He might live just long enough to get to me and break me in half.

"You wanna settle this like a man, boy?" he asks me.

I shrug.

He whistles back to one of his cronies who tosses him a revolver. "Twenty paces!" he yells out to the whole town, which by now is intent on the exchange.

So, we make our way to the center of Main Street and stand back to back. As I step forward, counting out my twenty paces, it occurs to me that this might be a bit dangerous. I have no idea what's really going on. After that fall out the window, I can't really be all that sure I'm not awake. While everything seems to be completely weird, I don't really remember everything to begin with, so I can't know if it really is weird or if its my amnesia. One thing's for sure. I had better be quick on the draw, and my aim better be true. I don't want to find out what happens if Tex wins this duel.

"Nineteen...Twenty!"

Oh, crap! I just realized I have no idea what I'm doing. Do I turn and fire, or do we turn and stare each other down while our fingers twitch? Only one thing to do...
Silence follows the boom of my pistol and the supersonic crack of my bullet as it tears down Main Street and embeds itself into Tex's face. He drops his half-drawn weapon and topples backward. Good thing for me.

Or maybe not...did somebody just shoot me in the side? Warm wetness spreads over my ribs and the pain really starts to register. Now who would do a thing like that?
I fall over onto my back and look up. Over on the roof on the building to my left is the silhouette of a hooded figure holding a rifle. It rises from the roof and hangs in midair for a moment before drifting down slowly to the ground to stand over me.

"Who are you?" I manage to moan at the figure. It says nothing to me. It just stands there in its black robe, its hood pulled too low for me to make out a face. Blackness is creeping into the edges of my vision. No, please, no more blackness. I don't want to die now...

Light... Light streams in from everywhere. I feel like I'm waking up. It takes several minutes for my eyes to adjust.

"Are you ok?" the girl in white asks tenderly.

"Loretta?"

She blinks back at me in surprise. "How do you know my name?"

I look around. Everything's white and sterile. I try to sit up, but a tearing pain in my side forces me back down.

"Please, Mr., uh...sir. Lay back. You need to take it easy," she urges.

"What happened?" I ask. "Was I in an accident?"

Loretta, who is obviously a nurse, bites her lip. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Well..." I begin, rubbing my head. "I think I was shot in the side, but that might have been a dream."

She nods. "The images can be very real. You have to be careful. You could very well die from injuries you sustain while you're under."

"What? Under where? What the hell's going on here?"

"Please, Mr...um...please be calm," she pleads, looking over her shoulder. "If the doctors hear you, they'll come in and put you back under before I can help you. Then they'll erase your memory and start all over again. Please trust me.

All I can do is stare at her. What would you say? I must still be dreaming. I still feel a bit weird, and who knows if I'm really in pain. My memory of pain might only be a fabrication of the dream. Oh, just wake up already...please wake up.

"Now, tell me, how did you know my name?" Loretta asks.

I blink at her. "Oh, no...First of all, I think you owe me some answers long before I give any to you. Second of all, you can't-"

"Sshhh!" she interrupts. "Please. Okay, I'll tell you what I can, but please listen closely because I'll have to put you back under before the doctors get here. Trust me, if you don't argue with me, we can get through this much faster and you can leave this place."

I stare at her with uncertainty for a little while. Well, what choice do I have? "Ok...I'm listening."

...

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 2

2006-07-27T07:30:00.001-05:00

The dark accentuates loneliness. It accentuates fear and refines sadness. The encompassing, oppressive dark, perfect only in its emptiness. It's enough to drive a man insane.
Time has passed. Hours, days, weeks...who knows? I sure don't. I haven't seen any light or heard any voices. In fact, now I'm not even convinced I heard them in the first place. So, now I'm just sitting here, holding my arms.
But, y'know...I'm not really sure I'm holding my arms. I think I'm holding the memory of my arms. It seems strange to me how the memory of something seems so solid here in the nothingness. I think the dark is so complete that even the concept of something feels corporeal.
No, that isn't it at all. I know exactly what it is. I'm not really in the dark. I'm not really standing in the middle of a huge nothingness. What's really happening is that I'm trapped in my own mind. It's the only thing that makes sense. I was in some horrible accident, and this is what it's like to be in a coma.
But why is it so empty in here? Where are my memories? Where are my dreams? If I'm aware of myself, shouldn't I be aware of these things? Unless I received some kind of massive head trauma...then maybe I have amnesia. Or maybe worse. Maybe I'm a vegetable...trapped in my empty mind...my brain wiped clean by a huge jolt. Great. I'm a human Etch-a-Sketch.
It still doesn't make sense, though. How can I be a vegetable while being stuck in my head rationalizing about being a vegetable? I just wish I could peek outside and get a little glimpse of what's going on.
Better yet, I wish I could be like all those people who almost die then go on to write a book and go on talk shows. "Then I saw this light. It was swirling and flashing and was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. It felt like home." A trigger release of brain chemicals from a body in extreme duress causes hallucinations that make people think they're going to heaven. People using illusions to support their delusions...how fitting. Notice how many people write books about the other place...the bad place...or how many of them write about experiences like this. I think this is worse. At least in hell I would know if I was dead.

"Are you gonna order somethin'? 'Cause if you ain't, you better move along."

"What the..?"

Whoa! Did I just say that? Who the hell is this guy? He looks like something out of a bad western. How did I get in this bar? Where did these clothes come from? Why is everyone eyeing me like I'm about to be shot? What the hell is going on!

...

Letters from the Lost Man, Part 1

2006-07-25T13:47:00.001-05:00

It's dark...like my eyes are just floating in nothingness. The kind of black that makes you start to wonder where the rest of your body is. If it weren't for your sense of touch, you might think you had died. That's scary: to die and find that not only is there nothing, but also that you are completely aware of it. Maybe that's why the dark is so unnerving. No, I don't think that's it. I think we're just afraid of the unknown. That's kind of dumb, though, isn't it? I mean, if some huge, many-fanged beast from hell were standing over me ready to devour, I think it would be more scary to see it. But it's dark, and here I am...scared.
I feel around for some reminder of my surroundings. Where was I last? What do I remember before lamely opening my eyes to see the same thing I saw when they were closed? Nothing. I remember nothing. I call out, but I hear no sound. Even my own voice is rendered useless in this dead place. There I go, thinking about death again. Where the hell is everybody? Who the hell is everybody?
My fingers brush nothing. I take a few unsteady steps, but they don't really seem to take me anywhere because none of my senses are telling me anything different than they were just a second ago. What the hell is going on here? Where the hell is here anyways?
Did I get really drunk somewhere last night? I would assume if I did I would have a hangover, but I don't. Actually, aside from the disorienting sensation that I am nowhere right now, I feel great. So, what is this? What's going on?
Ok, start from square one. First of all, do I know who I am? Of course I do, that's a dumb question. I'm...uh. Well, I'm... Hmm, that's funny...of all the things to forget. If I did any sort of mind-altering drug last night, it was sure as hell a lot more potent than alcohol. How do you forget your own name?
Ok, don't panic. I'm sure I knew my name just a second ago. It feels like it's about to drop from my lips, but I just can't seem to give it that last shove. I'm not sure what good it would do. Even if I said it, I wouldn't hear myself. Man, I am really starting to feel uncomfortable about this. I walk forward a bit with my arms stretched out before me. When I run into nothing, I walk a little faster. Ok, so how do I know I'm not dead right now?

"Pulse, 82 bea-..."

What the hell was that? Out of nowhere there's a flash of light. If it weren't for the fact that I'm not all that sure I can see in the first place, I would think the light blinded me. But what was that voice? It said something about a pulse. Maybe she was talking about my pulse. Could I be in the hospital? Maybe I'm in the emergency room. I might have been in some terrible accident, and they're working feverishly to save my life.
But then, her voice sounded pretty calm. There were no other sounds. Maybe the hint of a beep from, say, a heart monitor. That must be it. I'm in the hospital. But why? What happened? My name is-... Damn, why can't I remember? Anyways, ok, so I'm in the hospital. I don't know why, but I don't think I'm in any immediate danger of dying...not that that's overly comforting right now.

"...you sure he isn't aware of anything, docto-"

There it is again! That voice. Yes! Yes, I am aware! Help me! I don't know where I am or what's going on!

...

Hello!

...

Damn... I'm not sure why I thought that would work. Ok, then. I'll just wait. Let me just try to relax. I must be wavering in and out of consciousness. I'm waking up; I'm sure of it. In a few minutes I'll find out what's going on. Just wait. Relax...and wait...

To be continued...

Lending Credence to Disbelief

2006-07-17T18:50:00.003-05:00

Here's a recommendation for those philosophical free thinkers out there who aren't afraid to challenge their own beliefs. If you regularly read the comments on my posts you might have noticed that my buddy Megan posted a link to my new favorite website: whywontgodhealamputees.com.

Now, you know how I hate to stir the pot, so I'm warning those who are religious and rigid in the literal interpretation of their specific brand of faith. The website is written from an atheist's point of view. If you're not willing to seriously look at the questions the author poses and examine the way they fit into the dynamic of your belief system, don't bother visiting. Hey, I'm just trying to save you some time.

If, however, you're an atheist who doesn't know how to argue his own point, or you're a follower of an "alternate" faith who wants a really good way to diffuse a zealous conversion attempt by a fanatical Christian, Muslim, or for some strange reason, Jew (I don't know too many Jews that try to convert people), this is the website for you.

I feel it's only fair to say, though, that I don't agree completely with all of the author's conclusions. I agree with most of them and with the most important ones. I just feel he's to quick to assume that everyone's on board with his view of what his questions mean. And his disgust for believers comes through a little too much later in the text, but I did find his questions fascinating and poignant. I will undoubtedly use the material I gleaned from this website in the future, but I will cast it in my own, less disdainful light.

One Down...

2006-07-17T18:46:00.001-05:00

A few thousand more to go...

Well, I got my response back from the publisher. It basically said that due to difficult economic times they decided it might be unwise to invest in an unknown author, especially when they didn't think my book would be a "commercial success". The wording of the letter sounds a lot like the one they sent to my friend Elgon, who also sent his book to them. I don't feel too terrible about it because they didn't take the time to specifically craft a letter telling me not to quit my day job. Really, if I were going to craft a generic letter to politely let down an aspiring author seeking my resources in the incredibly competitive world of publishing, it would sound a lot like DAW's.

Anyhow, the thing that kind of stresses me out about this is that not too many recognized names in publishing make open submission as easy as DAW. I knew that when I set out, so I was really hoping they would pick it up. The battle only goes uphill from here. I think my next course of action will be to query Tor. Their process is a little more complicated, but they still take open submissions.

While the first three chapters of my manuscript swims through the treacherous slush pile at Tor, I think I'll be actively searching for an agent. After Tor, I'm not really sure who else in the fantasy genre I would trust to send my book to as an open submission. It would be really great if someone like Del Rey would pick me up, but I won't hold my breath. I know you take what you can get in this business, so we'll just have to see what turns up.

I'm not discouraged, though. Admittedly, I was a little sad to see the box containing my manuscript returned to me so quickly, but after that moment of sore disappointment, my resolve was strengthened even further. I'm going to get this thing published, damn it. Come hell or high water, by hook or by crook, someday you're going to walk into a bookstore and pick up the latest J.A. Goguen, with those letters in big, embossed script.

Get What you deserve...

2006-06-08T12:21:00.003-05:00

This is really a random post. My intention is to provide those who are about to give up on coming here a tantalizing hint that I am, as I always insist, still alive and working. I suppose there will be a common theme, hence the title, but a cannot guarantee complete lucidity, so please bear with me.

So, what's been going on lately? Well, first of all, my retarded ass earned itself a speeding ticket the other day. Plus I didn't have my most recent insurance card, so I got a ticket for that. I'd like to say that I had a good reason for speeding, like the posted limit was lower than I thought it was (wich it was) or I was on my way to the emergency room (which I wasn't), but really, I was just pissed off at traffic. The second I found an opening, I got a little overzealous on the accelerator. The cop happened to be in the right place at the right time. I totally admit that I deserved to be pulled over.

On the other hand, I wish other things I deserved came to me so quickly. I specifically mean the good things. Did you ever notice how you can do magnificent things, or even just a really good job at something you do all the time, and no one will notice...but the minute you screw up, everyone is all too happy to point it out to you and chew you out. I know I'm hardly the first to notice, but it's a common lament for a reason. Just because something is cliché, doesn't mean it isn't true.

I don't want to give the impression that I believe the world owes me a living, because I know the parts I've had to play in my lack of success in life, but sometimes I think it's the ease with which people ignore my "good" work that discourages me. It's a major flaw of mine; I am easily discouraged. Unless, of course, I am really passionate about something.

Speaking of things I'm passionate about, I sent my manuscript out into the wild...hopefully it comes back with a hardcover and distribution. My friend Elgon mentioned that DAW Books takes open submissions, so I formatted the thing, printed it, shipped it, and now I'm waiting. It'll be another three or four months before I hear about it, so...

But, man, I really hope the universe sees this as one of those "good things" I deserve. I did work very hard on it, and I am completely willing to invest more time and energy to get it out there. Is it magnificent? Probably not. Is it really good? I hope the editor will think so. The only thing I can say about it for sure is that it is my vision and I love it. I want to spend my life expanding upon it and sharing it with as many people as are interested.

Tears for Gehenna

2006-04-28T20:27:00.001-05:00

Okay, so if a post ever deserved a disclaimer, this is probably the one. This is a little bit of hypothetical biblical fiction for you. Kind of mythical Judeo-Christian prophecy type stuff. I really tried to go for a psuedo-biblical feel with the style. I hope that comes through. Keep in mind though, this is fiction. Please don't ask me if I've ever read Revelation (yes, I have) or any other part of the bible for that matter. Oh, and don't tell me I'm going to hell either. As the author of this work, I think I already know that, or at least I would if I believed any of what the bible has to say on the matter. I advise those who are sensitive to issues of religion, especially of Judeo-Christian religion, to skip this post and probably most of my other ones. Oh, and a warning for those with little free time or who bore easily: this one's kind of long...
* * * * *
And the LORD took up all the righteous in His creation and presented to each of them a dwelling that He had made in His heavenly kingdom, Zion, the new Jerusalem. To all the faithful He gave lavish gifts, and they wanted for no object, for there was nothing the LORD could not provide. So, He sent them all to live in His city in heaven, and His followers rejoiced in the fulfillment of His covenant with them...

Then the LORD turned his eye to earth and saw the wicked that remained and those who had made war against him and the unfaithful. It grieved Him to see so many who had strayed from the path. The children of sin awaited their punishment, many of them still unaccepting of their inevitable fate, even after the Rapture, the Tribulation and Armageddon. For a moment, the LORD considered mercy. But this had been their decision.

"If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna," the LORD said aloud. With a deep breath, He prepared to unleash the permanent fire into which the souls of the wicked in heaven and on earth would be cast for eternity.

"O LORD, my savior, Light of Heaven, please hear me, your servant!" a voice cried out.

The LORD held his strike and looked toward Zion. "What is it, my child?" He asked the woman who had called to Him.

"LORD, if you please, I am Lilly," the woman said. "I come to you to plead for mercy."

"Mercy?" He asked. "You are not punished, my child. Indeed, you reward for faithfulness is great."

"I plead not for myself, but for my brother," she amended.

"Your brother was wicked, and thus he must be punished. Surely, a righteous spirit knows this."

"Yea, I know LORD," Lilly confessed, "but his one sin was to doubt your existence. He was otherwise a good man, and did many great things to help those who suffered."

"This is one thing I will not do," the LORD told her, "to save someone who chooses not to be saved. I cannot do it because I created man with free will, and it is by your brother's will that he is damned."

"Please, LORD!" Lilly cried. "Please forgive him for his sin as you have forgiven us for ours."

The LORD smiled and shone the light of joy upon her heart. "You have all you will ever need here, my child. Be happy and go rejoice with your heavenly family. You have many brothers and sisters here who were good, as you were. Be at peace, and worry not for the sinners and the eternity that they have decided."

And so He turned and exhaled upon the earth, and the ground became soft and boiled red. There the souls of the damned in heaven and on earth were cast. Satan and his angels were sent down to burn in anguish with the sinners for all eternity. All that was left of His creation was the fire of Gehenna and his city in the glory of heaven.

Lilly turned away from the fire that had once been the earth and she wept for her brother.

"Nay, Lilly, do not cry!" one of the cherubim, Rhamiel, called to her. "There are no tears of sorrow or pain in His kingdom!"

Nevertheless, the tears came, and the ground upon which they fell became dim. The cherubim saw this, and three of them left to comfort the woman. They pitied her, and they pitied her brother, but they could not save him against God's will, and nor did they question the punishment of the wicked.

"Come, sister," they said to Lilly. "Come back to Zion with us and rejoice in eternal life and peace."

"Alas, I cannot be at peace," said Lilly. "I cannot be at peace until my brother is at peace."

Lilly returned to the LORD's city, and the people saw she was not happy. "Why are you sad, sister?" they asked. "The LORD has wiped away all tears and there is no sorrow or pain in His kingdom."

"Has He wiped away the tears of my brother?" she asked in return.

"Does not a loving father punish the bad and reward the good?" they asked.

"My brother was a good man!" Lilly shouted. "Surely, you knew and loved people whose sin was no more grave than yours or mine but for their lack of faith. Do you know where they are? Not here in this glorious city the LORD has shared with us. They burn in Gehenna forever, never to sleep or be consumed. The LORD has not been merciful to them as he has been to us. Is their sin so great to deserve such punishment?"

"That is for the LORD to decide, and He has," the people answered. "Do not question His will, for He is the Almighty, who created the heavens and the earth. There is nothing He cannot do and that He has not done for us."

But some of the people remembered the loved ones who now burned in the fires of Gehenna. Though their reward and happiness in God's kingdom was great, they pitied the damned who would never sleep or be consumed.

"Come Lilly," the sympathetics said, "Let us petition the LORD once more for mercy upon the tormented."

So Lilly and a third of the people in the LORD's city and the three cherubim went to petition Him. They begged for mercy upon the kind among the wicked. "My brother was a physician," Lilly called. "He healed the wounds of the injured and suffering. He never raised his hand against you, O LORD, or your warriors of heaven. Please have mercy upon him and those who suffer for this one sin against you!"

"Their sin was most grievous," the LORD told them. "To disbelieve when I have given such wonders is to raise your hand against me. Am I not the Almighty, who created the heavens and the earth? Is there nothing I have not done for you? I gave you life and life eternal and lavish reward for your faith in me. Those without faith are sinners, and I have set my face against them. They have listened to the lies of Satan and believed. They cannot be forgiven."

"O LORD, they did not know they were being deceived!" cried Lilly. "Surely, their punishment has been fulfilled and they can now be forgiven."

"Their punishment has been fulfilled," the LORD answered. "And it shall continue to be fulfilled for eternity."

Then Lilly and one third of the people in the LORD's city wept. Their tears came, and the ground upon which they fell became dim. The three cherubim, who were Rhamiel, Appoloin and Balthial, saw this and appealed to the LORD on their behalf. "Please, Father," they cried, "have pity upon the good men in Gehenna. Surely, they believe now and will not sin against you again. Give them a place in heaven without lavish reward, for they were not faithful, but allay their torment."

"I will not," the LORD said. "Now go away from here and speak not of this to me. Bring these people back to their dwellings that I have made for them." And with these words he wiped away the tears of the people, and the ground upon which they had fallen became bright again.

But the people could not be soothed by the wealth of the kingdom of heaven. They went back to their homes, which felt empty without their loved ones who burned in Gehenna. The cherubim comforted them as they could, but the brightness was not returned to their hearts. And the cherubim asked, "O sister, how can we make you glad again?"

And Lilly answered, "Bring us to the earth that we may comfort those we love if we cannot take away their pain."

"Nay!" cried the cherubim in fear. "You will invoke the LORD's anger if you do this."

"The LORD knows that we love them and that we wish to comfort their spirits. It will not lessen their punishment, which will last forever, for they will never sleep or be consumed," Lilly explained.

So one of the cherubim, who was Rhamiel, said, "I will bring you close to the fires of Gehenna to feel the heat on your face and hear the cries of the damned. If this comforts you, so be it."

Lilly and one third of the people in the LORD's city and three cherubim went out of Zion and to earth where the fires burned eternal, and they felt the heat on their faces and heard the cries of the damned. Then Lilly and the people wept for the tormented, but the ground where their tears fell did not grow dim, for they were not in the LORD's city.

And the people saw their loved ones and became sick with grief. The sinners were blackened with soot and burnt from skin to bone, but they were not consumed. Maggots crawled from their eye sockets and nostrils and mouths and fingertips, but they were not consumed. The thrashing of the beasts that were cast down with them tore at their skin, which bubbled red like the ground, but they were not consumed. And when the damned souls spoke it was in a voice as a hundred thousand screams of agony.

When the people could stand no more they asked the cherubim to bring them back. But when they returned to the gates of the LORD's city, they found Him waiting for them.

"What is this thing you have done?" the LORD demanded. "Why have you gone close to the fires of Gehenna? You have disobeyed me and set yourself against my will. Am I not the Almighty, who created the heavens and the earth? Now you cannot enter the city, for you bring with you sin and sorrow."

"Please, LORD," the cherubim begged, "show them mercy. They only longed to see their loved ones. They did not lessen their punishment, which will last forever, for they will never sleep or be consumed. Let them back into the city, for they are the faithful who were righteous before your judgment."

"I will not cast them into the fire," the LORD answered, "but the people will be punished. They have sinned against me, and I have set my face against them. They will not come back into Zion. They will not partake of the rewards I have set aside for them. Now they will only know the hardship they knew on earth before the Rapture for all the days of my new kingdom."

And the LORD closed the gate, and it could not be opened neither by the people or the cherubim. So the people traveled to the place between Zion and Gehenna, and there they built a city. The city they named Hetsia, for it lay halfway between heaven and hell, and there they labored to grow fruit to eat and to make wine to drink. There they knew only the hardship they knew on earth before the Rapture.

The cherubim brought them back to each place often to reflect upon what they had lost. And soon the people came less to the gates of the LORD's city and went more to the fires of Gehenna to feel the heat on their faces and hear the cries of the damned.

Lilly went to her brother and wept to see him blackened with soot and burnt from skin to bone. And her brother called out to her, and his voice was as a hundred thousand screams of agony. "The fire burns us, sister, but your tears comfort my spirit, if but for a short while. Take me from here that I might know some relief from the eternal flames."

So Lilly called to one of the cherubim, who was Appoloin. "Help my brother up," she asked. "I will take him to stay with me for a time in Hetsia."

"Nay!" cried Appoloin in fear. "I will invoke the LORD's anger if I do this."

"The LORD has already punished us," Lilly reasoned with him. "To comfort him for a time will not lessen his punishment, which will last forever."

So Appoloin went down and burnt his hand to help her brother up from the fire. He was still blackened with soot and burnt from skin to bone, but he was not consumed. Maggots still crawled from his eye sockets and nostrils and mouth and fingertips, but he was not consumed. The tears in his skin still bubbled red like the ground, but he was not consumed. And he followed them back to Hetsia, which lay halfway between Zion and Gehenna.

But when Lilly and her brother came to Hetsia, maggots crawled from his mouth and fell to the ground. And the maggots became serpents that slithered through their gardens and set them afire.

"Please, sister," the people cried to Lilly, "take your brother back to Gehenna where the fires burn eternal. His presence is a pestilence upon all for which we have been forced to labor."

"Nay!" cried Lilly's brother in a voice as a hundred thousand screams of agony. "My skin still burns, but not as it does in the eternal flames. Please don't cast me back into the torment of Gehenna!"

So Lilly called to the cherubim. "Come; take us to the gates of Zion where my brother can plead for mercy."

"Nay!" cried the cherubim in fear. "We will invoke the LORD's anger if we do this."

"The LORD is merciful," Lilly said. "He forgave us our sins for our faithfulness and did not send us to Gehenna when we left His city. Perhaps time has lessened our sin in His eyes and He will take pity upon us and those who suffer to excess in the eternal flames."

So the cherubim brought Lilly and her brother up to the gates of Zion and prayed for the LORD to come speak with them. And the LORD came, and they cowered at his wrath.

"What is this thing you have done?" the LORD demanded. "You have gone again to the fires of Gehenna to feel the heat on your faces and hear the cries of the damned. You have burnt your hand to help this man up from the fire, who I have punished for his wickedness. Am I not the Almighty, who created the heavens and the earth?"

"Yea, LORD, you are He!" they called out.

"Leave this place or be cast into Gehenna," the LORD commanded.

"But LORD," cried Lilly's brother in a voice as a hundred thousand screams of agony, "I am blackened with soot and burnt from skin to bone. Maggots crawl from my eye sockets and nostrils and mouth and fingertips, but I am not consumed. I repent of my sins and beg your forgiveness. You who are merciful, the Almighty, who created the heavens and the earth, have mercy upon me."

"Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed," the LORD said. "Your fate is decided already. Go to lie down again and writhe in the fire you have made."

And the LORD turned away from them and would not speak again. Lilly and her brother and the cherubim were saddened and they left to walk away. But when they turned maggots crawled from his mouth and fell to the ground. And the maggots became serpents that slithered through the bars of the gate and up the side of the mountain to set the dwellings afire. The LORD picked up the serpents and threw them out of Zion and put out the fires and said to the people, "Do not fear the serpents. I will build a wall before the gate that they cannot come through."

But the people in the city began to wonder at the serpents and at the absence of Lilly and the three cherubim and one third of the people in the LORD's city. "From whence did the serpents come? Where have our brothers and sisters and the three cherubim gone, O LORD?" they asked.

"They have been exiled from the city," the LORD answered.

"Why have you exiled them, O LORD?" The people asked.

"They left the city and brought back with them sin and sorrow," the LORD told them. "There will be no pain or tears but those of joy in my kingdom. This is truth, for I have said it."

"O LORD, have mercy upon our brethren. They are the faithful who were righteous before your judgment. Forgive them and let them come into the city again," the people said.

"I will not. They must be punished. They have sinned against me, and I have set my face against them. They will not come back into Zion. They will not partake of the rewards I have set aside for them. They will only know the hardship they knew on earth before the Rapture for all the days of my new kingdom. I am not a man, that I should lie, nor a son of man, that I should change my mind. Do I speak and then not act? Do I promise and not fulfill?"

"But we will be sorrowful without our loved ones near, who were built dwellings and promised eternal life," the people cried.

"Those who will be sorrowful without their loved ones near may go out of the city to be with them, but know that once you leave, you will not reenter, for you will bring back with you sin and sorrow," the LORD said.

So ten thousand people went out from the LORD's city to Hetsia, which lay halfway between Zion and Gehenna. And there they labored to grow fruit to eat and to make wine to drink. There they knew only the hardship they knew on earth before the Rapture. And a wall was built before the gate of Zion so that nothing could come through the bars.

Then it came that the cherubim had to return Lilly's brother to the fires of Gehenna, for the maggots would fall from his mouth and become serpents that slithered through the gardens of Hetsia and set them afire. And when the cherubim came to the fires of Gehenna to feel the heat on their faces and hear the cries of the damned, the fallen called to them, "O brothers, why are you not in the LORD's city?"

And the cherubim answered, "We were cast out, for we helped the people in their sin against the LORD."

"But you are Sons of God and Princes of Heaven," the fallen cried in a voice as a hundred thousand thousand screams of agony. "You have served the LORD since the beginning of time. Surely, He must forgive you for your transgression, for you have not been as wicked as we."

"We have not," agreed the cherub, who was Balthial. "If the LORD will forgive us, He decided to do so before we transgressed, and we will know of it when He tells us. If He will not, we will live in Hetsia to the end of eternity."

"Then you should begin to mark your last days in Hetsia, for eternity ends only at the LORD's word, when He relinquishes his kingdom," the fallen told them.

The cherubim heard this and became fearful and fled from the fires of Gehenna and back to Hetsia, which lay halfway between Zion and Gehenna. In Hetsia they ate fruit and drank wine with the people to forget what the fallen had told them.

So Appoloin went out of Hetsia to the gates of Zion heavy with wine. He called out to the LORD, "Why have you set your face against us, Father? My hand is burnt and my thoughts are black. And the fallen have told us to mark our last days in Hetsia." And Appoloin drew out his sword and severed his hand, which was burnt, and threw it over the wall.

And the ground in Zion became dim, and the people in the LORD's city were fearful to see it. They cried out, "O LORD, why is the ground dim, and whose hand lies inside the gate? It is blackened with soot and burnt from skin to bone, and maggots crawl from its fingertips."

"It is Appoloin's hand," answered the LORD. "Do not fear, for no harm can come to you in my kingdom." And with these words the LORD took away the hand and the ground became bright again.

But the people said, "O LORD, we long to see the faces of Appoloin and Balthial and Rhamiel and our brethren who left to live in Hetsia, which lay halfway between Zion and Gehenna. Forgive them for their transgressions and let them into your city."

"I am not a man, that I should lie, nor a son of man, that I should change my mind," the LORD answered. "I have cast them out of the city and shall not let them back in. Those who will be sorrowful without their loved ones near may go out of the city to be with them, but know that once you leave, you will not reenter, for you will bring back with you sin and sorrow."

So one hundred thousand people went out from the LORD's city to Hetsia, which lay halfway between Zion and Gehenna. And there they labored to grow fruit to eat and to make wine to drink. There they knew only the hardship they knew on earth before the Rapture. And a great covering was placed over Zion so that nothing cold be thrown over the wall.

Lilly returned often to Gehenna to see her brother, followed by others whose loved ones burned in the eternal flame. The tormented came to the threshold of the fire to talk to their family in voices as a hundred thousand screams of agony. When the people could bear the pain no longer, they returned to Hetsia and ate fruit and drank wine to help them forget.

And sometimes the fallen called to them and told them to mark their last days in Hetsia, for eternity ends only at the LORD's word. And the people became fearful and fled from the fires of Gehenna back to Hetsia.

The people of Hetsia were sorrowful of all they had lost. Their lives were filled with hardship and tears for the tormented in Gehenna. So one of the cherubim, who was Balthial, said to them, "Come, brothers and sisters, let us go once more to the gates of Zion to plead for mercy. Perhaps time has lessened our sin in the LORD's eyes and He will take pity upon us and those who suffer to excess in the eternal flames."

"Nay!" cried Rhamiel and Appoloin in fear. "You will invoke the LORD's anger if you do this."

"The LORD is merciful," said Balthial. "I will go ask Him if He has decided to bestow His forgiveness upon us."

So Balthial went to the gates of Zion and prayed for the LORD to come speak with him. And when the LORD came, Balthial cowered at His wrath.

"Why have you come here again?" the LORD demanded.

"Please, Father, I have come to ask forgiveness for those who live in Hetsia and the good among the wicked in Gehenna," Balthial answered. "You have been merciful to us before, please show us mercy now."

"I said I would not speak of this," the LORD told him. "Am I not a just god? Obedience and faith are all I require of my people. One without the other is deserving of punishment. The wicked are so because it is in their souls, and it will reveal itself sooner than later. Those who show their wickedness shall be punished for it, though the punishment may never remove it. There is no room for the wicked in my new kingdom."

"But, Father, the people in Hetsia have been faithful and obedient their whole lives. This is not the eternity they were promised," Balthial explained.

The LORD's voice grew to deafen all that were left in His creation. "The people broke their covenant with me! I am not a man, that I should lie, nor a son of man, that I should change my mind! And you are not a god that I should explain my acts to you!" And He cast Balthial into Gehenna, where the fire burned eternal.

So one thousand cherubim silently left the LORD's city to live in Hetsia, which lay halfway between Zion and Gehenna. They were saddened by Balthial's fate but would not open their mouths to question the LORD. They took their sadness out of Zion and to Hetsia, where they labored with the people to make fruit to eat and wine to drink.

The people welcomed them and took them to Gehenna to feel the heat on their faces and hear the cries of the damned. And the fallen called to them and told them to mark their last days in Hetsia. And they became fearful and fled from the fires of Gehenna back to Hetsia. And the one thousand cherubim wept with the people for the tormented in Gehenna and for Balthial, who would never sleep or be consumed.

After a time, the one thousand cherubim helped the people build a separate garden outside of Hetsia so that they could bring their loved ones from Gehenna. And when the damned came into Hetsia, the maggots crawled from their mouths and fell to the ground where they became serpents of fire. But they could not find the garden, so they burned upon the ground until they were consumed. And the people in Hetsia rejoiced to have their loved ones so near.

But soon the LORD came thundering down from Zion. "What is this thing you have done?" He demanded of the people. "You have taken the damned from Gehenna. Now they will be like lepers, spreading their torment to all of you! This will be your punishment for defying your LORD!"

So Appoloin and Rhamiel and all the people in Hetsia and the one thousand cherubim became blackened with soot and burnt from skin to bone, but they were not consumed. Maggots crawled from their eye sockets and nostrils and mouths and fingertips, but they were not consumed. The thrashing of the damned that they had brought back from Gehenna tore at their skin, which bubbled red, but they were not consumed. And when they spoke it was in a voice as a hundred thousand screams of agony.

And when the LORD returned to Zion, the people asked Him, "O LORD, what has happened to our brethren in Hetsia?"

"They have been cursed to feel the torment of those who burn in Gehenna," the LORD told them.

And when the people wondered if the punishment was just, the LORD said, "Those who think the newly damned should be forgiven and those who feel saddened by their fate, leave the city now, and any who would feel longing for those who leave should go with them. There will be no pain or tears but those of joy in my kingdom."

So people began to leave, and as they left, even more decided to leave. While they found the happiness they had been promised in Zion, they could not be without those they loved. Soon the LORD's city was empty but for a few homes, and the people who lived in these became lonely. So the LORD sent out the cherubim who were left to comfort them, but they could not give the people the companionship they wanted.

In Hetsia, every space was occupied by people, and all the people were blackened with soot and burnt from skin to bone. They were all who had left Zion and all who had been brought from Gehenna. The sound of the city that lay halfway between Zion and Gehenna was that of one hundred billion souls each with a voice as a hundred thousand screams of agony. The sound echoed across all of the LORD's creation.

The LORD heard the sound and it repented Him that His creation had become as it was. In His infinite wisdom He knew that only one outcome would ensure His promise had been kept. He called out to all that were of His creation.

"I am the LORD, creator of the heavens and the earth. To the faithful and obedient I have promised eternal life and happiness. To the unbelievers and disobedient I have promised eternal torment and sorrow. I have promised these things for all the days of my kingdom unto the end of eternity. Now that my promise is fulfilled, time is resolved. Eternity is over."

And with these words all was without form, and void. And there was silence. And the LORD rested.

Modern Convenience

2006-04-16T16:37:00.001-05:00

I figured I'd take a break from my lately typical political ramblings to talk about something else that pisses me off...namely my computer. There is nothing on this planet, and I mean nothing, that can more quickly get me frustrated than my computer. Nothing can ever be simple with this machine! I try to do something; it doesn't work. I try to fix it; something else doesn't work. Aaargh!

You know what really makes me angry about it, though? There is one thing that all my years of education and experience in the computer science field have taught me, and that is computers don't do anything you don't, at some point, tell them to do. Ok, yeah, if the power flickers while you're flashing the BIOS or the flasher program just freezes on its own, that's not necessarily your fault. But if you update one piece of software and install another after months of surfing the web without virus and/or spyware protection, guess what...that's your bad.

I want to be mad at my computer. I really do. It's easy to do. It's an inanimate object that won't get offended my projecting my own stupidity onto it. There's one problem, though. I can't just do that. When I know it's me...I know it's me. My conscious mind won't let me just pass the blame off on my dumb computer with its ineffable will and proven nefarious intent toward me. And that just make me madder.

Usually I just end up throwing up my hands and walking away. Well, I do that after I spend about an hour and a half yelling at the poor machine (okay, so I start off blaming it a little bit). Little by little I troubleshoot over a couple of days and either figure it out or end up doing a complete reinstall, which I hate to do, but it is my last resort solution.

Anyways, needless to say, I've been having some trouble lately. Whether it's with me or my computer, well...I'd have to say it's probably me. I just hate that my computer feels the need to constantly remind me why I am no better than any of the users who have come to me whining, "My computer doesn't work...piece of sh!t!" That's why I refuse to call tech support. It isn't that I think I couldn’t possibly have caused the problem or that it couldn't possibly be a problem I can't fix. It's that I know I did cause it and probably can't fix it without losing a lot of hair.

There you go. The reason we haven't figured out a cure for baldness is because we keep inventing things that are more efficient at making us rip our hair out. And before you ask, I am not bald...I have a full, thick head of hair. I'm just not sure how long it will last if my computer doesn't start doing what I want it to do instead of what I tell it to do.

E = mt$

2006-04-13T13:58:00.001-05:00

Have you seen this new formula? It's apparently a breakthrough in energy cost analysis. Basically it states that as my energy needs are fulfilled, my rate of financial decrease approaches the speed of light.

Look, I know anyone and everyone is bitching about energy costs right now, especially as it pertains to refueling at the pump, but I can't help but join in. That's the beauty of the internet. You can rant uninterrupted, and those who want to listen can while those who don't go search for porn. Of course, some might say that's also the bad thing about the internet, but that's a discussion for another day.

There are a lot of things contributing to the cost of oil right now. The war (oh wait, isn't that over?), I mean the civil war in Iraq (what? there's no civil war), regulations placed on oil corporations (poor oil corporations), the quest for greater profits (ok, maybe not so poor), insane state and local taxes (Uncle Sam wants you...to grab your ankles), and our insatiable appetite for the slick, inky liquid. But it really is that last one that drives all the ones before it. If only there were some sort of lubricant, perhaps petroleum based, that Uncle Sam and the oil companies could use before raping us. K - Y? Because they like to.

If I went to the store to shop for, oh I don't know, say a DVD player, I could easily just raise an incredulous eyebrow and say, "They're crazy if they think I'm going to pay more than forty bucks for this!" Gas, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. The inconvenience of not having a car is so not worth it. I'd love to do my part in saving the environment and sticking it to the man, but it just doesn't seem feasible, financially and otherwise. So when I fill up at the pump and the total comes to over $40, all I can do is grumble and pay. It's like a utility bill...except this one I pay three or four times a month instead of once.

So now the question becomes, where's the top? How much can gas prices rise? Well, like a pubescent teen, the oil corporations will keep pushing and pushing until they find this capitalist society's limit. So, ultimately, the choice is ours...it's not much of a choice, though. Somebody needs to just hurry up and invent some kind of teleportation device. Preferably one that doesn't run on diamond-crusted platinum.

Profiling III...The Elaboration

2006-04-10T12:50:00.001-05:00

Okay, for those of you who haven't been paying attention, the running conversation has been about racial profiling. The reason why this has taken up multiple posts? Well, my buddy Justin, who is usually very sympathetic with my rants, has been making some decent counterpoints that have caused me to further explain my bleeding-heart-liberal tirade. Sure, I could just post follow-up comments, but I don't think everyone reads those, and I think these are some good points to cover in the main blog.

I think the main issue here is that I'm not making my point clearly enough, so it's easily misunderstood. There have been places in my two previous posts where people might think I'm saying that we should totally ignore the fact that militant Islamic groups have committed more severe and simply more terrorist attacks than any other ethnic group in recent history. Well, I'm not saying that at all. Like I said in my last post, I don't think we should be cowed by the PC police either. To treat somebody differently from anyone else because you fear public retribution from the politically-correct watchdogs is reverse racism, and it's not any better than just plain old racism. I do, however, feel a lot of sympathy for the innocent people that have to deal with all the backlash generated by the actions of the crazed members of their ethnic group.

Look, I'm not saying that we should just let Mamoud, Fahid, and Ahmed walk through the beeping metal detector unmolested while we strip search Grandma, John, and Jim-Bob; that's foolish. But I am saying that the exact reverse of that is racist and equally foolish. Islamic terror groups have sent out pleas for sympathetic westerners to join them and help carry out attacks because they know this kind of behavior is going on. So, if I hear one more well-to-do white man bitching about being held up an extra hour or two at the airport while we ensure, not only his safety, but the safety of everyone else on his flight, I'm going to punch him in the face! I am not a criminal. I will gladly let security check my luggage and me before I get on an "airborne missile, complete with a human payload and a thousand pounds of jet fuel" (isn't "airborne" implied in "missile"?).

And yes, while some sort of x-ray device that everyone walked through like in Total Recall would help, people can get pretty inventive when they have a goal in mind. I'm sure a resourceful terrorist group could figure out how to carry out an attack with very little carry-on accoutrements. A sort of "MacGyver Jihad" if you will. I think the only effective technological tool would be a device that can sense resolved malintent. Or perhaps we can station some Care Bears in airports to vanquish the hate from terrorist hearts.

If only we lived in a fantasy world...

Grandma, what a great profile you have!

2006-04-08T21:44:00.001-05:00

A few short words on profiling. It's really easy to say as a white American that racial profiling is a good idea in some instances. It's really easy because white Americans have no fear of being profiled. Imagine, however, someone stopping you in an airport or in traffic because you were a member of an ethnic group of which several members have performed or are performing serial criminal acts. Would you not resent the implication that just because you're a member of that ethnic group, you have some part in those activities?

Let's also be clear about something. There's racial profiling, then there's criminal profiling. There's a big difference between these. One is a valid and effective law enforcement tool. The other is manipulating statistics to support prejudice and bigotry.

I mentioned in the previous post about the Belgian woman who suicide bombed troops in Iraq, but let's not forget Timothy McVeigh. He was a home-grown terrorist, right here in the good old US of A. And how about the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski? Did they have to carpet bomb the mountains of some Middle Eastern country to find him? No, he was hiding in a cabin in the mountains of Montana.

I understand that we do have to be realistic. There are a considerable amount of organized terrorist attacks committed by extremist Muslims, but to discount the possibility of a western terrorist out of hand is not just dangerous; it's foolish. I certainly think there needs to be more brains in our security, and I don't believe we should be cowed by the PC police either, but I do believe that there's a lot of sentiment in this that promotes the idea of racial profiling being a good way to keep us safe. That kind of thinking is insidious. It's racism that benignly slips in as a warm fuzzy of security for the greater good. It ends with the average citizen feeling vindicated for treating foreigners like criminals, especially if they have a beard and are wearing a turban.

Yeah, Hitler was eloquent too...

2006-04-07T18:22:00.001-05:00

The word being muttered on conservative blogs and other sympathetic information sources is that they have the key to better understanding the situation in Iraq and a crucial element in the "War on Terror". The simple fact, they say, stems from the nature of the single driving force of these terrorists that have us so on edge. What is this force? Religion...but not just any religion. This religion is an irredeemably violent one. The religion, of course, is Islam.

The suggestion is that violence is inherent to Islam, and that the only logical outcome for a person raised in such an environment is fanatical, militant behavior. Therefore, the best way to ward against becoming the victim of terrorist violence is to beware those who practice the Muslim faith. Let's only stop people who "look like Muslims" at the airport. Let's hold Muslim suspects in prison for an invariably long period of time, even though we have no evidence other than their heritage and their religion.

Along a similar vein, these apparent experts in terrorist psychology say we should be wary of those who claim that Islam is a "peaceful religion". They quote organizations like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) with sarcasm and disdain. They frequently ask why prominent Muslims who speak of a "peaceful" Islam don't condemn horrific acts we hear of in tyrannical Islamic theocracies. Clearly their only interest, some conservatives insist, is in furthering the illusion of a nonviolent faith that is the victim of the terrible publicity of a smaller set of fanatics that happen to have a disproportional amount of influence.

Well, folks...in my opinion, this is all an excuse for bigotry. I know my last post was about racism, and I hate to beat a dead horse, but this stuff really gets me worked up. You see, there are some very educated, well-read individuals spouting this ethnocentric bullsh!t. They go and quote passages from the Koran out of context with a sort of smug satisfaction, as if to say, "See? Doesn't that prove it?"

Well, don't get me started quoting the bible out of context...or referring to several of the crusades that were started, not by Muslims, but Europeans. Oh, hey, let's not forget...

The Inquisition
What a show!
The Inquisition
Here we go!
We know you're wishin' that we'd go away!
But the Inquisition's here and it's here to stay!

It's real easy to take select samples of anything and make it seem like anything you want. Sure, the Koran does say some pretty violent things, and there are places were it seems to be saying some unflattering things about Christians and Jews, but much of the history of the Koran seems to suggest that a lot of this was fabricated or possibly even mistranslated.

The thing that really gets me is that there are people out there reading this conservative stuff and saying to themselves, "Wow, this guy is really eloquent and obviously well read. What he's saying must be true!" Let's not forget how Hitler practically spellbound Germans with his impassioned speeches. These modern day Torquemadas would have us round up every Muslim in the known universe and interrogate them until they "confessed" to some kind of maligned intent and converted to a more "peaceful" religion...say, Christianity. Sound familiar?

No, of course they don't say this outright. They’d even deny it if you suggested it to them. But what other logical inference can you make from their racist ramblings? If the problem in the Middle East is because of the predominant religion, then what is the most logical solution? Theological cleansing?

Here's the real problem...the tyrannical theocracies and fanatical groups that hold so much sway in that area of the world. They warp the philosophies of Allah's followers and mold the religion's influence to their will. And this isn't a recent thing. Caliphs had been twisting the words of the Koran for centuries to suit their own greedy ends. It's no wonder so much intolerant invective can be extracted from the book. The conservative psuedo-nazi's conveniently overlook passages like the following:

Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve. [2:62]

Hmm...sounds dangerous. But what's really dangerous is people just reading the state-sponsored propaganda without seeing what the real deal is. At least if I hear something that makes me mad or that seems like important information for me as it pertains to my freedom and safety, I go check it out. I go look at all the sources, then make a decision for myself. There are people who are going to read this prejudiced drivel, and they won't bother to check the author on his sources. They won't go and look through the Koran to see what it really says, or investigate the history to see why it says it. They'll just take it for granted that the author is offering sound advice.

Well, I have some advice of my own. Let's not be so short sighted and narrow minded. Some say it's ridiculous to search old ladies with walkers and clean-cut, western businessmen at airports. I say if we officially take a stance to not search them, terrorists will search for them. Terrorists will begin using sympathetic westerners to suicide bomb for them or will slip bombs into the little old ladies' carry-on luggage. Granny will unknowingly become a martyr for a terror organization she's never even heard of. And let's not forget the Belgian woman who became a suicide bomber in Iraq, targeting American troops. In this case, judging a book by its cover could turn out to be a deadly mistake.

Don't Judge Me...

2006-04-06T14:25:00.001-05:00

AT least not by my cover. Today's post is about prejudice in general but racism in particular. You want to hear a sweeping generalization? All racists are ignorant. I know there are educated racists out there, but an attitude so heinous as racism is a choice made despite what knowledge you may have to the contrary. That's ignorance on a level that seems unfathomable to me. But it happens...

So, what brings on this latest tirade? I was watching this reality show called "Black. White." I know, I know, I hate reality TV too, but this is a fascinating premise. Take two families, one white, one black, and make them up to look like the opposite family's race. Then have these two families go out into the community and see what happens. Yes, a fascinating premise indeed, but I don't think they could have chosen two worse families to do this with. Granted, the choice was proabably made due to the high level of drama it would generate, but I think that messes up some the experiment. Let me explain what bugs me.

First, let's take the white family. What a bunch of hippie-turned-yuppie, strange, ignorant people they are. The mother is ablsolutely insane. Her brain is simply not connected to her mouth. She says things that she seriously believes will be taken positively, or at least in jest, and it's actually something that even I would find offensive, and believe it or not, I'm pretty easygoing. The father just seems oblivious. It's not very far into the show, but so far he almost seems like a nonentity. He thinks he knows what it means to be black or how to fit in as a black man...he's totally oblivious. About the only decent one of all of them is their teenage daughter, who revealed to the black poetry group she had been hanging out with that she was actually a white girk in black make-up. I think that was pretty ballsy. Fortunately, only one person freaked out, and he may well have been speaking about his own ambiguous lifestyle when chastizing her for her deception.

Now, the black family. The mom is okay. At least she's not as insane as the white mom, but she's easily offended, a drama factor that plays well with the white mom's hair trigger tear ducts. The dad is likewise sensitive, but it seems like he's scrutinizing every little reaction, statement, etc. for anything that might possibly be construed in some alternate universe in another dimension as even slightly racist. So far they haven't really followed the son around very much, but his attitude seems to be a mix of his parents'.

While the producers have tailor made a volatile situation, as is the requisite for "good" reality TV, it does seem to highlight an issue that I think is important in understanding the state of racism today. There are really two dynamics going on that exacerbate the existing racism in this country. One is that racism is not nearly as omnipresent as some blacks (and a few other minority members) would like to believe. The other, of course, is that it's far more prevalent than most white people care to admit. I don't think one side is any worse than the other. Ignoring racism won't make it go away, and assuming all people of a specific ethnicity are racist is, in itself, racist.

I'd like to think I am not racist. When I look at another person, I see just a person, regardless of ethnicity, heritage, color, etc. These two dynamics I spoke of, however, sometimes have me thinking of things in more complex ways than should be necessary. When I see a black man, I make no assumptions about how amiable he will be, what his job is, what his family situation is, but if I interact with him, I sometimes find myself unconsciously running everything I say and do through this little filter in my head that asks, "Okay, could this be even unreasonably interpreted as racist?" That sucks! It's totally unfair. I want to be in total control of my thoughts, words and actions, but society has me and everyone else so keyed up about race, it's making almost all of us at least a little bit racist. Because once you start to change how you act and even think around someone based on their race, that's racism, even if it's with good intentions.

I don't want to be racist, and I don't want anyone else to be either. This failure for each side to tone down the exaggeration is almost worse than having them be straight up racist. Like the black family's mom said, at least in the old days, before the civil rights movement, you knew what you were dealing with. The black father was sort of right in saying that racism is a little more covert. Yes, there are probably plenty of straight up racists that are just faking tolerance because of the modern push for true equality, but I think the real covert racism is the unconscious kind of "hyporacism" that most of us are guilty of nowadays. We don't think we're racist, but we're exercising racism by either ignoring it, assuming it, or going to extremes to make people think we aren't.

When it comes right down to it...I guess I really am straight up racist: I have something against the human race, which biologically speaking, is the only true race of homo sapiens sapiens. Humans are dumb. There are a few shining hopefuls among us, but we are, on the whole, pretty stupid. We do the dumbest, most backwards things and don't even realize how we're hindering our own progress. If I were an alien, I think I'd have to insist you drink from your own fountain, and I would definitely make you sit at the back of the spaceship...

A Funny Thing Happened...

2006-02-28T16:23:00.001-05:00

On the way back from a friend's house the other night. We had decided to walk home because it was so nice out. It had just rained, and everything had a clean, cloud-baptized scent. On a whim, I hopped onto my stilts and began running, one of my friends following closely behind on his extended legs. It was exhilarating. The air rushed at us playfully as we bounded along down a dark-brown dirt-covered road lined with tall evergreens. We could have fallen and broken our necks at any moment, but that was the fun of it.

I slowed down. Something to the left caught my attention. On either side of the road, behind the trees, a short cliff confined us in a mini-canyon. My eyes trailed up the icy boughs of a venerable pine. Beyond, above the cliff, a snow-covered mountain called to me. I knew what would be there if I climbed. Without a thought to any danger, I began scaling the mighty tree.

Pure white snow clung stubbornly to the branches, but that didn't bother me. I was warmed by the thought of what lay ahead. It got a little tricky near the top. The plateau was encased in thick ice. I leveraged myself against slippery pipes that stuck up out of the ground surrounding some kind of pump. Eventually, I hauled myself up.

There was the playground I remembered, and looming before me was my elementary school. It was so familiar. Once it had rung with the sounds of me and the other kids bounding down the halls or playing at recess. Those sounds of innocent ignorance echoed across my memory, and I felt a longing for those days I had never really known.

I blinked the thoughts away. They were merely a distraction. The sounds and memories faded, and I was alone in the silence. My gaze shifted past the school, and there was the mountain. I had to get to it. I set out on the slippery ground, a soothing, warm sun high overhead.

Dusk grew nearer as I reached the foot of the mountain. Now that I was there, it didn't really seem all that big. I was glad of that. I wanted to get to my destination before the sun set completely. Clenching my jaw, I began to hike up the rather hillish mountain, marking my ascent with a set of deep footprints in the snow.

As the sun finally closed its eye on the horizon, I stepped up to the abandoned mansion. To anyone else's eye, this place probably seemed cold and uninviting. Knowing better, I pushed open the front door and stepped in. The familiar emptiness welcomed me back.

A layer of dust carpeted the floor and the walls were draped with a light cobweb in a kind of spooky-chic style. I took a deep lungful of stale air.

"What the hell are we doing here?" my wife asked skeptically.

As my eyes reacquainted themselves with the foyer, I reassured her, "Trust me."

I stepped lightly toward a side door, leaning in and looking up the winding set of stairs that lay beyond. The dusty stairwell, lit nicely by the afternoon sun streaming through stained-glass windows, once again reminded me of my childhood. The creaky wooden steps felt and sounded just like the ones in that three tenement in Lawrence. It was comforting because it was a silent place where almost no one else ever went.

I made my way up slowly, though I was eager to get to my destination. I didn't let my excitement spoil the magic of the moment as little motes sparkled in their dance through the air. I relished the memory of the unassuming companionship that loneliness offered when I was little, all the while glad that I didn't need it anymore. Just as the strangely good feelings of a dysfunctional childhood dissolved into the empty space around me, I realized I had reached the top.

Without a moment's hesitation, I stepped through the open door and into a hallway. At the end, a door stood ajar. Almost imperceptibly, more voices of the past called to me from that door.

"I really don't think I like this place," my wife said. She saw and heard completely different things here.

"It's okay," I insisted. "Follow me."

I continued down the hallway to the door. The voices were getting louder. The feeling of homecoming was getting more intense. I pushed the door all the way open. It creaked its greeting and revealed a room, empty but for the dust. I stepped in and turned left.

There was the closet, standing open, its light on. I hurried in and climbed up on the shelves. With a firm push on the ceiling, I revealed the entrance to a small storage space above the closet. The space was just large enough for a person to curl up with a good book. Indeed, there lay my old sleeping bag, one of the first bound copies of my book, and a crumpled pastry wrapper.

I flipped the book over in my hands and leafed through, noting the comments in red pen scribbled on the margins. I chuckled to myself as I recalled the days and nights I had spent here reading this. Everything was so cozy, I almost snuggled right down to begin reading again.

"Hey, what's in this chest?" asked my wife.

I looked down from my perch and saw the plain wooden chest at the back of the closet. It sat there quietly, looking like it just wanted to be left alone. I climbed down to get a closer look. A twinge of nervousness began slithering in my belly. I had the feeling that I knew exactly what was in that box. But it couldn't be. They had taken that away years ago. Tentatively, I flipped back the latch and opened the chest.

Blankets. That's all; nice woolen blankets. "See?" I said relieved. "Nothing to worry about, just blankets." I reached in and pulled one out and began to unfold it. Something brown and dry fell lightly from between the folds and fluttered like a sheet of paper onto the bare mattress on the floor.

My wife screamed, "What the hell is that."

I felt so terrible. "I'm sorry, baby," I offered lamely. "I really thought all of this had been taken away by the police."

"But...what is it?" she demanded.

I looked down and the small brown mummified face that stared up from the mattress. "She was twelve. He killed her...skinned her alive. He kept her here in his closet. In that very chest, in fact. Again, I'm sorry. I thought it had all been taken away."

"Well, get it out of here!" she pleaded.

"Okay," I nodded. I picked up the leathery visage and placed it gently back into the folds of the blanket along with the rest of the skin. "Before we go, let me make sure the mattress is clean," I said. The dead left a part of them on everything they touched. I didn't want the girl's spirit to revisit us later.

Fire was a good purifier. With a flick of my lighter, the mattress went up in flames. The synthetic fibers were apparently very flammable. The sheet burned away quickly, and I began to smell burning plastic. I quickly took a spare blanket and smothered the flames. It immediately became eerily dark.

After a few moments of awkward silence, I said, "Let's go." I left the room, my wife eager to follow, the girl's remains tucked in a blanket under my arm. We were going to finally put her to rest. I knew the perfect place...
* * * * *
Let me assure you that I am not on drugs. I just go to sleep and dream. I thought you might find this one interesting...in a train wreck sort of way. Some of the narrative is slightly dramaticized for...uh...dramatic effect, but it is as accurate an account of the actual dream as I can recall. It's much easier to read if you remember that dreams don't have to have continuity...or logic for that matter.

I hope you were adequately disturbed.

Free Tibet!

2006-02-16T00:50:00.001-05:00

And while we're at it, free China too. Here's the problem: an oppressive communist government. When I look at what's happening in the world today (and what has happened throughout much of 'modern' history), I can't help but wonder what the hell is taking us so long to wake up! Humanity as a whole needs to realize what it can accomplish...as a whole.

So, Google is censoring search results in China, preventing the people there from tracking down the injustices done to them and others who the government deems unworthy of basic human rights. Instead of finding links to sites about Tibet (and other topics of concern), Chinese citizens will be redirected to a friendly government page that tells them how they should think and feel (if in a subtle, roundabout way). This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you build a utopia of Orwellian proportions.

Look, I'm not a big proponent in meddling in the affairs of other nations. I don't take the GWB tack of bomb first, bomb again, bomb a little bit more, then try to sort it all out later...oh, and uh, drop another bomb if you have to. That's why I wish I could urge the Chinese people, and people in all places of such oppression, to bring their government to justice for their crimes against them. I really wish I could inspire them all to take matters into their own hands. Unfortunately, Google will probably filter my blog out of their search results.

Wake up!!!

Happy St. Valentine's Day

2006-02-14T16:48:00.001-05:00

Well, happy Valentine's Day all! Yes, once again it's our favorite commercial holiday, February 14th. The day we're supposed to run out and buy flowers and a teddy bear (or maybe just a teddy) at the last minute and try to squeeze our way into a packed restaurant that we didn't have the foresight to get a reservation for. As it turns out, Valentine's Day often ends up being an event that shows how thoughtless we are, rather than how thoughtful we are.

So, did you remember to get your sweetie something? If not, just keep these few points in mind. Unless your partner really likes roses and boxes of random chocolates, these gifts are passé. That said, it's not like you have to break the bank to show you care. Instead of roses, give a bouquet of flowers you know your honey will like. This not only shows that you know something about her (or him), but it's usually also the cheaper option. My wife really likes cherry cordials. So, instead of the heart-shaped box that, like the Nirvana song, doesn't always have the best stuff in it, I would spring for the box of cordials...of course, that does leave less chocolate for me, but oh well.

But listen; let's be real for a moment. Strip away all the commercial craziness of a day that seems to have become about romantic obligation, and what are you left with? The reason why people get so crazy on Feb 14 is because each of us in a relationship desires to know that the other is thinking of them. We know that it's fulfilling to know that someone loves you enough to set aside your own personal space in her (or his) mind. Knowing this, we want to show our lover that we do think of them, and we secretly (or sometimes not so secretly) hope that they want to do the same.

Valentine's Day, despite all the retail influence, is not about how much or even whether or not you spent money on your honey. It's about showing her (him) that you care enough to show how much your care. It's a day that reminds us to do those things we really should do every day despite the craziness of our daily lives. Maybe you'll think I'm just a silly, sentimental, sappy, romantic fool, but it makes my wife happy, and that makes me happy.

There's life in the ol' boy yet...

2006-01-28T01:09:00.001-05:00

As much as I absolutely despise the concept, I'm putting up the token I'm-too-busy-to-write-a-real-post-but-I-want-to-reassure-the- three-people-who-at-one-time-regularly-visited-my-blog-that-I'm- still-alive-and-haven't-forgotten-about-them post. (Phew!) Anyhow, it's business as usual here. Still wrestling with my book, but I'm starting to think maybe I'm getting the upper hand. The only problem is that 'loving to make work for myself' thing. I'm working on an adventure for a tabletop role playing game I'm hosting. I'm working with my mom on her business site (link forthcoming). For some strange reason, I'm trying to learn a little bit of SDL (that's a graphics programming platform in c++ for those who don't know). Not to mention the host of half-started projects lying around here just waiting for my interest to rekindle. And somewhere in between all this I have to work a day job.

Oy!

Writing Books Is Hard...

2005-12-20T22:29:00.001-05:00

You know, I really like to think of myself as modest. I am, perhaps, a bit self conscious about even the things I know I do well. That said, I think I'm pretty proud of this blog overall. Whenever I come here to express what I happen to be feeling, I almost always come away feeling satisfied. Even if nobody pays attention, I've said what's on my mind just about as well as I think it could be said. Sometimes I need to add a few things here and there, but in general, I'm happy with it.

At this juncture, I should probably mention...writing a blog post...a whole lot easier than writing a book. When I write to my blog, I don't have to keep track of all these interdependencies for continuity. I don't get supremely disheartened when I know I have to change something that's going to have to be propagated throughout. I don't have to worry about whether or not secondary characters are overshadowing the main character. I don't have to go through this whole process of creating an entirely new world with elements that are familiar enough for the audience to be comfortable but different enough for them to be excited. I don't have to edit each blog post four, five, six times on my own before a professional editor gets a hold of it.

It's a damn good thing I've invested over six years in this book. Otherwise I might scrap the whole thing. That's a little harsh. Actually, I really like the story as it is for the most part. I really like most of the characters, especially the potential they have to be great characters. I like all the ideas I've had for continuing this as a series, including a prequel.

Here's a piece of advice for those of you blessed and cursed with inspiration. Don't be disillusioned. If you think you really have something, stick with it, even if the tweaking you still have to do looks daunting. Take a step back and look at the big picture. Think of your vision manifested in this world in all its glory. If that doesn't get you going again, well, sometimes you just need to start over from the beginning. Just remember, nothing you create is a complete waste.

Don't you just love giving yourself little pep talks?

Something Different

2005-12-14T23:22:00.001-05:00

If I may be allowed a little hyperbole, Peter Jackson is a god. He creates worlds, characters, and situations that are real. Watch one of his films and you will suddenly find yourself in another place where the extraordinary and epic are commonplace. If you experience his work and do not come away inspired, I would take my muses in for a check-up if I were you.

So, what's with all the Jackson praise? Well, we just got back from seeing King Kong, and let me just say...wow. I know, I know, it's not like he actually wrote the original story. Nor did he for Lord of the Rings, but Peter Jackson's gift transcends such trifling details. He has a way of capturing the very essence of what makes a story special to us, distilling it, and adding a dash of his own personal flair, which culminates in a synergistic explosion of images that weaves pure artistry and emotion into our very souls.

All that said, would I go so far as to say Kong was perfect? Well, no, of course not, but the things that made it imperfect were the kinds of things that moviegoers can and will easily overlook. We can nitpick all we like, but if we were only to accept entertainment based upon its realism, our lives would be pretty boring.

The CG was amazing, but there were a few places where, like in LOTR, you could easily tell the difference between the real elements and the CG, especially when they were in frame together. It doesn't happen often, but I noticed a couple of times. Overall, I am still astounded by how far the envelope gets pushed every time with these special effects. Kong was truly majestic, and a very humble tip of the hat goes to Andy Serkis once again for his amazing physical acting. Without him, we would not be so convinced by characters like Kong and Gollum.

Aside from some of the inherent problems of a heavily CG film, the only other thing was that there were several times where I think many characters should have definitely died. I mean, it made for some really breathless action sequences, but these have to be the luckiest damn people ever. A lot of people did die, but not nearly the amount you would have thought based upon what happened on the screen.

But really, all in all, it doesn't matter what the body count was, the not-quite-seamless level of CG we're capable of, or how strangely sad the story of Kong is. What matters is that you're there, believing every second of it from the first frame to the last, until the house lights come up and remind you that you don't live in a world where 25 foot gorillas fall in love with beautiful blondes and tear up New York looking for them. Welcome back to reality. Enjoy your stay.

Jihad for Christmas

2005-12-07T23:23:00.001-05:00

Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here. I have to say something because things have gotten to a level of ridiculousness that I simply cannot tolerate quietly. I had the displeasure of reading an article today on MSN about how Christian conservatives are up in arms over the White House holiday card and the genericizing of retail holiday promotions. Because I don't want to end up with dead links on the blog later, allow me to summarize the article:

Once again this year, President Bush sent out 1.4 million holiday cards to his close friends and supporters. The card wishes recipients a happy "holiday season", but for some, the friendly message rings hollow. In a time when the more equally applicable "happy holidays" replaces the previously common "merry Christmas", conservative Christians are crying out in defiance of consideration for a more diverse population.

This cry is being heard more and more every year as retailers abandon Christmas sales for holiday specials and public events such as tree lightings are given more "politically correct" titles. Conservative groups claim that there is a "war on Christmas" and have taken actions to boycott retailers and events that have given into the public trend and removed specifically Christian references from public scrutiny. They hope to put pressure on decision-makers and put the "Christ" back into Christmas.

Now, let me go over some specific things in this article that got me worked up.

~ This first one is actually kind of good. It's nice to see that some Christians understand. In this article, Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches is quoted as saying, "I think it's more important to put Christ back into our war planning than into our Christmas cards."

Touché

~ Next, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss. said, "Sometimes it's hard to tell whether this is sinister -- it's the purging of Christ from Christmas -- or whether it's just political correctness run amok..."

Uh, sinister? Yeah, that's right. Satan lurks in the good intentions we have to not only refrain from offending those who don't celebrate Christmas, but also the friendly act of including them in the celebration of a holiday season that has been sacred for the majority of human beings since even before the supposed birth of Christ...

~ On the flipside, "It bothers me that the White House card leaves off any reference to Jesus, while we've got Ramadan celebrations in the White House," Wildmon said. "What's going on there?"

I reluctantly have to say that I agree. If the White House is not so eager to endorse Christmas, they should also keep away from other religions' holiday celebrations. Conversely, I wouldn't mind if the White House honored the diversity of our country and humanity in general by celebrating all kinds of holiday traditions, including Christmas.

~ William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, announced a boycott of the Lands' End catalogue when he received his White House holiday card. True, he said, the Bushes included a verse from Psalm 28, but Psalms are in the Old Testament and do not mention Jesus' birth.

Oh brother! What the hell is wrong with people? This one got me really steamed. I make it halfway through the article merely rolling my eyes, then I find out that there is actually a biblical verse on the card! How finely can we split hairs? Regardless if it is an Old Testament verse, it is still a Christian reference. Okay, so some Jews might dig the message...heaven forbid!

~ Donohue said that Wal-Mart, facing a threatened boycott, added a Christmas page to its Web site and fired a customer relations employee who wrote a letter linking Christmas to "Siberian shamanism."

If I were that employee...I would be dialing me a lawyer. Let's face it, folks, most Christmas traditions are taken from much older religious practices. For example, where in the Bible is the Christmas tree mentioned? Actually, where in the Bible does it even mention the time of year Christ was born? There are clues in the Bible that very strongly suggest it was much earlier in the year than December. If that's so, why do you think the church eventually settled on December 25th? Take a look at religions from around the world and research some ancient religions as well. I think you'll find compelling information about many significant dates at or around the winter solstice, usually around December 22nd.

~ "Ninety-six percent of Americans celebrate Christmas," Donohue said. "Spare me the diversity lecture."

Ah yes, statistics, because we all know how accurate they can be. What that beefed up 96% number doesn't say is how many of those people are conservative Christians who actually care that government, schools and retailers are being considerate to those of alternate or no faith. It also doesn't say how many of them celebrate it as the birth of Christ. Granted, it is probably still a majority, but that should not be the point. And no, Donahue, we will not spare the diversity lecture as long as ignorant, intolerant blowhards like you prefer to ignore the fact that there are other human beings on this planet.

~ And finally, "There's a verse from Scripture in it. I don't mind that at all, as long as we don't try to pretend we're not a nation under God," said the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Ah yes, let us not forget words of wisdom from the infamous, intractable Rev. Falwell. Jerry's "nation under God" phrase is, of course, a reference to the pledge of allegiance, another hotbed of conservative contention. But what I bet the good reverend doesn't know is that the phrase was added to the pledge in the 1950's along with several other religious references in government in order to separate the U.S. culture from communism, whose adopters were typically atheists. Let us not forget that our forefathers had a preference towards deism and transcendentalism and that the original motto of the U.S. is not "In God We Trust", but the more appropriate, and I think poignant, "E Pluribus Unum", "One From Many".

Addendum posted Dec. 9, 2005:

As I look over the content of this post and receive feedback from visitors, I think a little bit of clarification might be in order. I want to make it understood that I am not one of these Political Correctness (PC) enforcers. To me, PC is akin to censorship, which is something I also generally disagree with. I do have a tendency to use some PC terms in my own speech and writing, but my use of them is inconsistent and is occasionally situation sensitive.

The point is, when somebody says "Merry Christmas" to me, I usually smile and wish them the same, or I at least wish them "Happy Holidays". I agree with Elgon in his comment; I do not draw back in horror or tell the well-wisher off. I don't see anything wrong with "Merry Christmas" appearing in holiday retail promotions either. If retailers want to give me a discount, I don't care if they call it the "Go to Hell, You White Honkey Bastard" sale. Just make sure my items ring up right, dammit.

This is my problem with the article, and the concept in general: Conservative Christians are asking us to be PC to the minutest possible detail. Now we can't just offer a generic holiday greeting to cover all of our bases. No, now we have to know exactly what sect of exactly which faith the recipients of our message will be and tailor each individual message accordingly. The Christians will get special promotional ads from retailers that say "Merry Christmas", while Jews will get ones that specify "Happy Chanukah", and Wiccans will get ones that say "Solstice Blessings", etc. Talk about ridiculous!

Ok, so retailers use generic holiday wishes to appeal to the widest demographic possible. They're businesses, that is what it is in their best interest to do. Get over it already. By boycotting them you're only making your holiday shopping more expensive! Wake up and start caring about things that really matter, like the fact that yet another holiday season is passing by, regardless of our faith, and we all still have loved ones risking their lives overseas for a cause that many of us either never believed in or are just starting to doubt. Why don't we worry about how to get George W. to bring our troops back home, rather than what he's putting on his friggin' Christmas cards!

And speaking of W., I just wanted to add this one last thing. He's a politician, so I think the generic holiday greeting is a good move. I know he's a Christian, and however he wants to celebrate the holiday season is fine, but politicians have to be careful about the message they send to the public. Politicians are the ones for whom political correctness is the most important. We must be wary of any message a politician sends to the people that even hints at the public endorsement of a particular faith. Regardless of what the majority of the people in this country believe spiritually, we must not become a religious state. Once religion officially starts meddling in politics, the door is open for the government to begin stripping us of our constitutional rights under the guise of divine reason.

*lays down two pennies*

The Dragon's Duel

2005-12-01T21:38:00.001-05:00

Hello all! Once again I come bearing samples of my writing. This one should seem a bit familiar. In an earlier post I submitted a clipping from my fantasy novel. It involved one of the misadventures of a secondary character named Su-Ni. Well, again I'm offering a piece of Su-Ni's story, but this one comes from the next book in the series, which, aside from this bit, hasn't even been written yet. Since I haven't even begun to write the next book, I hope you'll see through the rough nature of this section to the glimpse of my vision hidden therein.

* * * * *
Su-Ni gaped in awe as she watched the strange black-clad figure effortlessly scale the side of the scorched two story building and flip up onto the roof. Turning away, she looked into the sky, trying to catch a glimpse of the beast that had wreaked all this havoc. It was swooping this way and that in the distance, but considering its ever increasing size, she knew it was getting closer. The flames that consumed the homes around her lashed out, filling the air with a stinging heat, but she did not flinch. She would not take her eyes off the approaching creature.

As it came on, Su-Ni saw another white spray of fire spew forth from the dragon's mouth and descend on the buildings below. Smoke began to rise instantly in the beast's wake. It was a nightmare come alive. Tears of anger filled her eyes as she drew back on her bow, knowing that her arrows would likely be useless against the armored hide of her foe. Regardless, she blinked away the tears and took aim at the dragon as it sped closer.

It was nearly on top of her when she loosed her arrow. Its trajectory was completely lost in the slinking pattern of scales that wound by in the sky. She fell over at the sudden rush of painfully hot air that tackled her as the beast swept past. Flipping over quickly, Su-Ni scrambled to her feet, looked up, and gasped.

The warrior in black leapt as the dragon passed overhead. It was no small jump. This mysterious man shot up from the roof and somehow latched onto the side of the beast, which could not have been less than thirty feet above him. Su-Ni could do nothing in that moment other than stare in amazement.

It was clear that the dragon knew something was wrong because it suddenly began to coil around itself and emit a deafening screech. She couldn't quite make out what was going on, but whatever it was, it had the dragon momentarily distracted. Su-Ni put two fingers into her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. Not waiting for a response, she ran up to the building that the dark warrior had climbed and began looking for a way up.

When it quickly became apparent to her that there were no hand or footholds in the smooth wall, she ran to the front door and pushed it open. Before going in, she looked back out into the street. When she saw no one coming, she let out another whistle and ducked inside.

A few seconds later, a door opened in the floor of the roof and Su-Ni pulled herself out of it. She looked up and saw that the dragon was still thrashing, though now it seemed more desperate. She still could not see the warrior in black through the blur of the creature's scaly body. Running over to the edge of the roof, she looked down at the street. At one end, two men came running around the corner.

With a satisfied nod to herself, she turned back to the fight overhead and drew an arrow from her quiver. She didn't know how much good she would do, but as long as she was still standing, she would not do nothing. Drawing a bead on a specific part of the constantly twisting mass that was the dragon was difficult. But the beast was huge and, thus, difficult to miss. She let the arrow fly, hoping that it wouldn't hit their mysterious ally, assuming he wasn't already dead.

This time, she saw her arrow bounce off the hard scales of her target. She sighed in frustration as she drew another. If only she could find a chink in that armor. As she scanned the writhing mass above her for some hint of weakness, something dropped away from the beast. Su-Ni flinched as she realized it was man shaped.

A second or two later, the dark warrior hit the roof a few feet away from her and fell right through. The impact was too much for the brittle dwelling, scorched by the dragon's fire. With a loud creaking and cracking, the building collapsed in on itself. The debris swallowed up Su-Ni and the mysterious black-clad man.

"Su-Ni!" called out Denlin as he and O'eintsu made it to the building just as it crumbled to the ground.

O'eintsu immediately hopped up onto the still settling remains of the structure as his comrade scrambled to follow. They began to sift through the rubble that had, only moments ago, supported their friend and fellow soldier. The danger in the sky above was momentarily forgotten as they searched frantically. Each second that passed without finding her seemed like minutes.

They became so desperate that they almost didn't notice a soot-blackened board shifting seemingly of its own free will. Denlin looked over just in time to see a slightly battered Su-Ni emerge from a pile of broken wood and mortar. The normally sure-footed warrior stumbled hurriedly over to her. O'eintsu was not far behind.

"Are you alright?" Denlin asked.

Su-Ni nodded and looked up. "It's gone..." she trailed.

Her two friends followed her gaze. The dragon was nowhere in sight. The settlement was suddenly strangely calm.

"Come, help me find him," she urged them.

"Who?" asked O'eintsu.

"Didn't you see him fall?" Su-Ni asked. "It was the warrior in black."

There was a momentary pause as the two men digested what she had just said. Then, they quickly joined her in searching for the warrior. It did not take the three of them long to find him. The dark warrior was lying under a section of collapsed roof. When they cleared away the debris, they saw clutched in one of his hands, a bloody shortsword, and in the other, two thick dragon scales.

"Who is he?" muttered Denlin in awe, voicing the same question that had been on the lips of half the empire for the past few weeks.

Su-Ni knelt next to the prone warrior's body. His head was wrapped in the same black fabric as the rest of his clothing, and his eyes were the only exposed part of his flesh, except for a fresh wound on his side. The young woman reached out and touched the wrappings that obscured his face. He moaned weakly.

"Let's get him out of here," Su-Ni said distantly. In her head she was denying her suspicion of the mysterious man's identity with all her will. It was impossible. She bit her lip and tried to push down her desperately wishful thinking. As her two companions carefully lifted the warrior out of the ruins, she followed closely behind, wondering...

Demon's Revenge

2005-11-22T20:02:00.001-05:00

We have a double feature today. After posting earlier today (see post below) I got to thinking. I mentioned that at one time I was a bit into poetry. One of the things that makes me a bit leery of poetry is the fact that so much of it is produced by average people in the throes of passionate lust. As such, much of it is trite and cliché. Don't get me wrong, there is some really great love poetry out there, and I've written my fair share of trite cliché. Well, what follows is a non-love poem that I wrote several years ago. I'm pretty proud of it. The rhythm is kind of variable throughout, but I feel that the rhymes are solid and that the story is pretty good.

A moment of darkness clouds the room
As drums beat out the rhythm of doom
A moment of silence ensues in the place
And a bright light shines on every face
Quite suddenly, a loud voice booms
And suspense rises and terror blooms
Steel-clad opponents step into the ring
Their eyes begin to stare, their weapons to sing
Beads of sweat shine throughout the room
And the feeling of terror begins to loom
The gong sounds and weapons fly
Muscles clench and hot air blows by
Nervous hands grip crumpled tickets
And heavy betting quickly empties pockets
A flash of silver, a flash of red
A clearing of dust shows one lying dead
A gasp, a sigh, a shout of joy
A cry from the mother of the boy
"He was mine! My only one!
Oh, they’ve killed him, my only son!"
"I’ve won! I’ve won!" shouts one man
And money passes from hand to hand
"Have you no hearts?" the mother cries
"My son, he lives, he fights, he dies!"
"Shut up, old hag!" the crowd echoes
And murmurs of, "It’s the law! She knows!"

Her son was chosen, he fought, he died
And for a moment, his mother cried
But now she runs into the ring
Holds her son and begins to sing
A song to bring him to another world
Thankful he'll not see her fury unfurled
She turns and faces the killer of her son
She says to him, "He was my only one"
Her tone is low, her voice is calm
Her eyes are closed, her will is strong
He looks her up, he looks her down
His lips curl into a terrible frown
He yells to her, "You know not what you do!
If you defy me, I’ll kill you too!"
She walks to him, from her soul she spits
He raises his arm and her face he hits
She falls to her knees, tasting blood in her mouth
As black and red clouds gather to the south
"A curse on you!" she says, red on her lips
The clouds roll in as she sinks to her hips
He looks around and sees the fiery sky
Then runs her through and watches her die
His lips curl in triumph, his big arms cross
But the crowd does not cheer him; they seem at a loss
He looks and snarls and shouts, "What is wrong?!"
And a low, dull murmur seeps out from the throng
The skies churn and seem almost to boil
Smoke pours out from the gray, damp soil
A figure large and imposing forms
And the clouds sink low, as if heavy with storms
The figure with a voice deep and loud
Calls out to the frightened crowd
"The woman was right, you mortal fools,
But now here she lies while her blood pools
And in her arms, her only son
Killed, not just by this man, but by everyone!"
As the voice booms, the crowd grows stiff
Frozen in fear, their gaze does not drift
"And now, like her blood, a curse fresh on her lips
I swear to you all, you’ll all pay for this!"
The clouds burst forth a rain of pure fire
And it sweeps through the crowd as if it were briar
And the people, they burn, like the money they won
All this for the mother, and her only son
"And now for you," the loud voice booms
And the man trembles at what terror looms
"Let me begin to say what I’ll do
I daresay it will sound quite unpleasant to you"
The large figure ponders, planning his worst
"Ah! I know! Here’s what I’ll do first:
I’ll tear off each finger, as retribution demands
Pull apart every knuckle with my own bare hands
I’ll bore through your skull, drill holes in your head
But not to your brain, I don’t yet want you dead
I’ll sew shut your eyes and then pull them open
Ripping your eyelids, the skin will be broken
I’ll curl your feet backward to roll to your knees
My, are you all right? You’re starting to wheeze!
As I was saying, I’ll rip off your nose
And then I’ll clip off your ears, I suppose
Then, after I remove your lips and your tongue,
I’ll knock out your teeth and then I’ll be done
What say you? What think you? Does it sound like enough?
Perhaps I should make this punishment tough"
As the beast ponders, the man says not a word
But turns and impales himself on his sword

The Loneliness of Silence

2005-11-17T18:41:00.001-05:00

Often when I come to speak with you, my mind is overflowing with words. Ideas, heated from the friction of bouncing excitedly around my mind, come bubbling forth from me, boiling over in a seemingly endless stream of language. But today is odd. Today, my mind is empty. No thoughts fill the void as they often do, yet I am still compelled to come and talk. Usually, I speak to clear my mind and find some much needed silence. Now, here I am, casting my voice into the emptiness, trying in vain to fill the cavernous, echoing nothing with anything.

Shouldn't I just be quiet every once in a while? I know there are some who wish I would. How can I be quiet? I have been for so long. I have a lot of lost time to make up for. That's why sometimes I speak even when I have nothing to say. Or maybe it's because I think some might see my silence as a weakness. I have many weaknesses. I like to hide as many of them as I can.

Isn't that funny? As humans, we are inherently flawed creatures, but we don't like others to know about our individual flaws. Shouldn't it be good enough for them to know that my main flaw is that I'm human? I think we think too much. At least, I know I do. Well, maybe it's better to say I think too much about some things and not enough about others. Does it balance out somehow in the end?

See? We're always seeking external affirmation. What's wrong with us? We know that reality is based on perceptions, so our best source of affirmation is ourselves. If we perceive ourselves as confident, intelligent, funny, beautiful, sexy, and just generally wonderful people, then we will be. But we don't. We're always looking for someone else to tell us what to love about ourselves. I say "we", but maybe I'm just speaking for "me". I hope not.

And there goes the insecurity. My mind just manifested an imagined world where I'm the only screwed up person. I know that's not true. I know it's not. I know it's not. Please, don't interrupt my litany; it's the only thing that keeps me from breaking down. Don't contradict me with your silence. Someone tell me I'm not the only one.

You know...until someone answers, I'm just talking to myself. That's scary. I talk to myself a lot. I call it "thinking aloud". I've done it ever since I can remember. It's gotten to the point where I almost can't think in my head anymore. I have to sound it out or write it down. Sometimes, I think about that and I wonder if I'm not crazy. I know what someone else would think if they walked in on me while I was "thinking".

But why should I care what someone else thinks? At this point in my life, I am who I'm always going to be, right? So, if someone doesn't like it, they're not worth wasting my time. Oh, how effortlessly those words come out. As if doing it were as easy as saying it. I only wish.

See why I hate when it's quiet up there? It's almost as chaotic as the alternative. At least if I have all this other stuff running around in my head, there's little room left over for the inevitable self doubt. Well, until things get back to normal, I guess I'll have to sit here and talk to myself, reassure myself that my usual company is not gone for good. That is, of course, unless you would like to join the conversation...

Speaking of Dumb Questions...

2005-11-12T16:26:00.001-05:00

Back in the early infancy of this blog (and I have to specify early infancy because it is still quite young), I wrote a post about stupid questions. I said that there did indeed have to be stupid questions, otherwise we would have to conclude that there are just a whole bunch of stupid people. I mean, I guess we can still come to that conclusion if we like, but I like to at least start out giving people the benefit of the doubt.

In a later post, I spoke about government, politics, faith, and religion. Somewhere in there, I mentioned in passing a question that has been asked by many to call into question the omnipotence of God. I dismissed the question then, but I would like to address it now. And before some of you start worrying about how the rest of this post is going to go, don't. This is merely a hypothetical philosophical discussion that I think anyone, regardless of his or her beliefs, will enjoy.

The question I am referencing, of course, is the one that begs whether God is capable of creating a stone so heavy that he himself could not lift it. When I mentioned it many posts ago, I said that the question simply shows the inability of a creation to understand the incomprehensible nature of its creator. I've come to believe, however, that it's even more basic than that.

God is supposed to be an omnipotent being. This is why the question is asked. If he were capable of making such a stone, it indicates a limit to his power. Likewise, if he couldn't, he is once again limited. But let us, for a moment, remove the identity of this being. Let us instead ask if any omnipotent being could do this. Or more accurately, let's ask if the meaning of omnipotence includes having the ability of one so endowed to create objects heavier than he can lift.

Humans are pretty funny. We spend so much time trying to alter the environment to suit our needs, tastes and whims. In the end, all of what we do in the physical world is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. We are hardly omnipotent, but we pretty frequently make things that are too heavy for us to lift. If we can do it, and do it quite handily, shouldn't a being infinitely more powerful than us be able to do it?

Before we get all high and mighty and say, "Aha! We can make objects so heavy even we can't lift them! Take THAT, omnipotent being," let's just think about this for a moment. Being able to accomplish this task only shows us how weak we really are. Wouldn't it be nice if members of land survey committees could just pick up a skyscraper with their bare hands and move it over just slightly if it overlapped city property? Wouldn't we really be something if we could effortlessly hurl the SUV that stole our parking space?

But that's the point, isn't it? What do I gain from arguing the above? If, by this argument, I'm claiming that said omnipotent being couldn't make an object heavier than she could lift, am I not also claiming a limit to that omnipotence?

Ah! Well, now we come to it. What does omnipotent mean? Houghton-Mifflin has this to say on the matter:

om·nip'·o·tent

Adjective:
~ Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful.

Ok now, using this definition of omnipotence, let me rephrase the question to say what it is truly asking:

Does an all-powerful being also have the power to limit his own power?

If we answer yes to this, then the moment this being exercises this power, he strips himself of his omnipotence and is, therefore, no longer all-powerful. So, here we go again, around in a circle, right? Well, think about it. What kind of limitation is there really to not being able to do anything that in some way exceeds at least one of your other abilities?

Let me put it this way, what if God can't make a stone so heavy that even he can't lift it? That means that not only could God make a stone of infinite volume and density (i.e. mass) and the requisite source of gravity to make the force of weight appropriately infinite, but he could also lift that very same stone. Omnipotence is pretty cool, isn't it?

What it comes down to is that we have a basic misunderstanding of the word omnipotence. Because of the nature of our language, we're able to make paradoxical statements. For example, what is the truth value of the following statement: this statement is false. If it's true, it's false and vice versa. Obviously, such statements are anomalies caused by the rules of syntax and how we represent words in our minds. The truth value of the statement is moot because no one would ever be inspired to state it as a self-contained statement in a real-world situation. Likewise, as incomprehensible as God's will supposedly is, I am quite certain that such a being would not engage himself in such an endeavor as is posed by the question we're talking about.

So, when you come right down to it, I seem to be saying that God cannot make a stone so heavy that he can't lift it, right?

Right.

So, that does mean there's a limit to his power, Right?

Well, I suppose, technically.

But then, that means he's not omnipotent, right?

No.

Huh?

Okay...here's my proposed solution. We need to redefine the word omnipotent because that is really where the problem is. I'm sorry, but not being able to limit your own power is no kind of limit. Here is my new proposed definition:

om·nip'·o·tent

Adjective:
~ Having the power, authority, or force to do anything and everything aside from anything that minimalizes or contradicts that power; essentially all-powerful.

It may not be perfect, but there it is. Also, just as a note, this is not meant to be a proof of God's existence nor a proof of his omnipotence if he does indeed exist. This is actually a proof of the inadequacy of our understanding of the nature of omnipotence. In essence, we are impotent to comprehend omnipotence...whatever that means.

Good vs. Evil

2005-11-05T21:23:00.001-05:00

The deep rumble of thunder reverberates across the barren countryside. A shadow looms over the craggy desert landscape as dark clouds fill the sky from seemingly nowhere. Pulsating flashes of light illuminate portions of the dense ceiling, revealing illusions of flickering shapes that skitter along the ground. The air grows heavy with a sudden stifling humidity and a sense that something other than a simple summer storm is afoot.

Soon, the sky's thick shroud obscures the corpse of the land from sight. The intermittent flashes of lightening reveal glimpses of the macabre features below. Jagged formations of red stone jut from the uneven ground, and here and there great gashes in the earth open to depths unseeable. The wounded desert floor ripples and heaves as the spidering veins of electric light in the sky inspire the shadows to take up a lively, if stilted, dance.

Slowly, as the ancient wounds stretch, the very blood of the land rises up to the surface. In its bright yellows, oranges and reds it oozes up through the cracks, steaming from the earth's body heat. And there, crawling from the tainted blood as if a parasitic infection, an angular perversion of all that is natural stretches its oddly-jointed limbs in the open for the first time in millennia. With a gaping yawn, the beast reveals row upon row of perfectly-aligned and deadly sharp fangs. Its eyes glow with the same hue of the fiery lake to which it and its brethren were condemned in a time before written history.

All around, more of these creatures, different in shape but similar in utter contradiction to what had been intended by Him, emerge from the earthblood and flex their tortured joints and muscles. Hell is emptying upon the world, and its inhabitants are ready to exercise their demonic will. Woe be unto the heirs of God's creation on this day of Armageddon.

A light of brightness and purity not seen in two millennia cleaves through the churning blackness above, blinding to those who shun it but enlightening to those who embrace it. The celestial radiance streaks outward in all directions and casts away the troubled sky. The creatures on the ground shrink back in terror, the light burning their otherwise impervious skin.

As the intensity fades, figures can be seen approaching on beams of holy luminance. Astride heavenly steeds of righteousness, the seraphim boldly gallop forth, incarnations of God's perfection of beauty. At their head rides the son of man, His gleaming sword pointing the way, its fateful edge hungry to unleash His wrath upon the wicked.

Arrows of the seraphim, blessed by the very will of God, precede them to the ground, each perfectly aimed to vanquish one of Satan's minions. Lightning infused with His fury erupts from His sword and lays low many a demon. Evil scrambles to be out of the Lord's sight, but there is no place to hide from Him that is called I AM. The devil's soldiers are sent one by one to the only place worse than that from whence they came, their wickedness stripped away. For how can one be wicked when one can no longer be at all?

Almost as quickly as they appeared, the interlopers are gone, dispelled by the power of Him. Up from the lifeless ground springs miraculous greenery, nourished by the light of the Lord. Here they will stand, these cousins of the garden, as guardians over this land, keeping Hell locked in the fire until God Himself decides that the end of time has come. Once again, unbeknownst to His mortal children, premature apocalypse has been turned aside.

*****
Since the beginning of recorded history, and we assume before it as well, humans have been fascinated by the battle between good and evil. It's an ongoing struggle that has raged for millennia and will continue until the end of time. There are some who believe this battle is as concrete and unambiguous as the one described above, but in reality, the various complexities of the good-evil dynamic are tough to pin down. If we want to better understand these standards to which we hold ourselves, we need to figure out where they came from and what their purpose is.

The Christian bible tells us that knowledge of good and evil was imparted to humanity when Eve disobeyed God and ate from the tree that He forbade. She shared this fruit with Adam, hence condemning all future generations of humans to suffer the wages of sin. The story of Adam and Eve, while fascinating mythology, simply cannot be a literal accounting of history. Several obvious logistical problems contraindicate its veracity. Many of these problems are presented elsewhere, so they will not be included here.

So, if we accept that the story of Adam and Eve is mythology, where did the concepts of good and evil come from? Cultures all over the world, some without any exposure to the biblical origins of sin, have a general agreement with each other on what constitutes a good or evil act. Clearly, there is something deep within the human psyche, perhaps something instinctual, that separates these two concepts for us.

Recent research has revealed that humans (and, interestingly enough, macaque monkeys) have an area of the brain that appears to be dedicated to empathy. Specifically localized brain activity suggests that when we see others of our species in pain or pleasure, we simulate the event in our minds, placing ourselves in the situation. This simulation causes a chain reaction that results in sympathetic emotions, as if we were experiencing the event ourselves. People shown images of one of their own in distress ended up having brain activity similar to what would occur if they were in distress as well, likewise for images of happiness and pleasure.

Either way, empathy is certainly a crucial element in our understanding of good and evil. It evokes a "treat others as you would like to be treated" philosophy. Indeed, much of what is considered evil involves bringing harm to others. Murder, thievery and adultery, all fairly prominent in their persistence as acts that are considered sinful, are certainly events that bring people distress. Being instinctually empathetic creatures, we wish to avoid inflicting this distress on others because we are able to manufacture within ourselves the resultant emotions, and we don't like them.

It seems strange that nature would imbue us with something as complex as empathy. After a bit of thought, though, it should become clear why such a trait would be beneficial. Humans typically live in communities. We interact with each other on a regular basis and, for the most part, depend upon each other for survival. Even though one of us is capable of surviving alone, it is obvious by simple observation that we are communal creatures by nature.

Being communal creatures, our chances of mutual survival are maximized when we are able to cooperate with optimal efficiency. Certainly, it is a lot easier to coordinate between individuals who are capable of understanding to some degree the emotional mindset of others. A community is easier to keep together when members generally forgo violent competition with one another because they not only want to avoid distress to themselves, but also to avoid feeling the distress of others. These are just a couple of the reasons why empathy is an advantageous adaptation.

Empathy, however, cannot be the whole picture. Not everyone seems to have the ability to interpret empathy accurately. The most extreme example is seen in individuals with autism. The study mentioned above showed that the same brain activity was not observed in autistic subjects. This may be one of the reasons autistic individuals don't seem to be able to foresee the consequences of their actions. The part of their brains that simulates circumstances to their end results doesn't function properly.

Still, even some without autism seem able to remorselessly commit acts that defy the idea of empathy. There are many factors aside from empathy that dictate people's actions. Given this fact, what is it that prevents us from overriding our empathic judgment? Is there another major influence that determines how we interpret good acts versus evil acts?

Self preservation is a good candidate for this secondary influence. As communal beings, it is in our interest to protect those in our community, if for no other reason than so that they return the favor. This common interest brings about the formation of values and morals, an agreed upon code that protects the health and well being of the community as a whole. Any violation of this code usually carries some undesirable consequence for the offender.

Really, empathy and self preservation provoke one another. It is the general empathic concurrence of a society that determines what the code of morals will be and what the consequences are for violators, and it is the selfish interest of personal safety and well being that ensures that we listen to our empathic voice, even if immediate circumstances are inspiring us otherwise. A sense of self preservation indicates at least a basic ability to understand when our safety is threatened by a potentially dangerous situation. A sense of empathy indicates the same understanding about the safety of other individuals.

In conclusion, the difference between basic good and evil is not only perceptual, but it is also fundamentally based on a selfish desire to remain content and safe. Empathy causes us to be in distress when we witness others in distress. It is a mechanism without which we would not have a moral code for society. We would only have our sense of self preservation to guide us, meaning we could watch others suffering without emotion as long as our own safety was ensured. Even with empathy, we shun evil acts only to protect our physical, emotional and mental well being, while we engage in good acts to promote the same. Regardless, its side effects work out for the benefit of the entire community, which helps make us a very successful species, meaning that the concepts of good and evil are likely to be around for a very long time.

Vanessa's Reflection

2005-11-01T17:07:00.001-05:00

Okay, everybody. I have something a little different for you today. It's a bit long, 42 pages according to Word, but I think it's decent. Many posts ago, I mentioned being suddenly inspired before getting my hair cut. Well, this is the story that came from that inspiration. I posted a link to it because it's far too long to put up here. If you'd like to see how I perform in the genre of drama, check it out. It's about a young, professional woman who finds out that going to great lengths to change her appearance "for the better" may not have been worth all the trouble.

Vanesa's Reflection