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“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
Barack Obama’s speech to supporters on 5th February 2008
www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/us/politics/05text-obama.html
The American Museum and Gardens is a museum of American art and culture based at Claverton, near Bath, England. Its world-renowned collections of American furniture, quilts and folk art are displayed in a Grade I listed 19th-century house, surrounded by gardens overlooking the valley of the River Avon. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Museum_and_Gardens
Public domain portrait of Barack Obama in the Oval Office by en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Souza via Wikimedia Commons w.wiki/aZC
My first try of using Jennifer's block stamping technique.
H4806 Dot Snowflake border
CL461 Wishes come true
Tumbled glass/Chipped sapphire distress inks, perfect pearl
Glitter button, rhinestone sticker, copic markers, Circle Nestabilities, watercolor paper
TFL!!!
Silly quick photos cause I could not have enough time to do what I wanted, so, just sharing a few that I like from today!
Eily is an IpleHouse SID Eva in Light Brown and Ronen is an IpleHouse EID Rex in Peach Gold
Lyrhiant © Eily Rainer and Aleksandr Ronen
A lot of time passed since that unfortunate event that revealed to me the low respect yahoo has for its users ... now I don't have any hard feelings anymore (that's life) but ipernity is still better (for the moment) :-)
However, I feel like spending more time around here because of the numerous really special, nice and sensitive people that one can meet at any time and give you a big surprise and hope for the future of this world ...
Long time no see. Not much to see here, just expressing the inside in those days of tests, homework, job and related
LE DA a lovely song goes with this photo
This is a rough mix I just recorded. The final version will come soon.
Violin Solo: Khac Quan. Arr. Nhat Trung. Violin mix: Cong Nguyen
*****HBW*****
Our Daily Challenge: Come on In (although not quite sure you want to as I have been fighting a nasty virus for over a week).
My images are posted here for your enjoyment only. All rights are reserved. Please contact me through flickr if you are interested in using one of my images for any reason.
Ecco avanzare i cavalieri in luccicanti armature sui loro agili destrieri. I giovani guerrieri sono pronti a distinguersi nel più importante torneo di tutti i tempi. E tra la polvere, alzata dal vento insistente, e il clangore delle spade si apre la sfida tra i due cavalieri.
Not many areas offer boating on Christmas Day, but here in the Daytona area, the temps can often be mild enough for a Christmas cruise down the river! That's when I spotted this pretty craft.
The last few days have been pretty chilly, and my boater friends have been sticking to shore. Choppy seas and wind don't make for pleasant voyages. This day was different, though, and somebody was having a great time enjoying the warm, beautiful day!
207
on the flight to atlanta. not that we needed to go to atlanta. there just aren't any flights from maryland to south carolina. whattheheck.
i don't get it either.
Raglan, New Zealand
Thank you for viewing my work. To see more, or to purchase it :) please go to Redbubble www.redbubble.com/people/bugidifino
Rewind to a miserable summer’s day in San Fransisco, 1985.
The bright blue sky is nowhere to be seen, overtook by a ruthless fog and deafening downpour, sporadically punctuated by the even louder sound of thunder.
On an upper floor of a cheap apartment complex, a six-year-old boy hides beneath a coffee table. He closes his eyes and plugs his ears, but just faintly, he hears the sound of his mother’s feet creaking the floorboards. They reach the table, toes pointed towards him, each wrapped in yellow knit yarn.
“Oh, Mal,” she sighs, a loving warmth in her cadence. She bends her knees, meets him eye-to-eye. “The weather’s got you worked up?”
He nods.
“Come ‘ere.” She reaches out to him, with both her arms. “Lemme show you something.”
“No,” he hastily replies. “I’m not going out there. It’s dangerous.”
“I promise it’s not.”
He crosses his arms, but soon after, she extends a pinkie finger - this is enough to persuade the boy. They lock pinkies, forming a swear of unbreakability. He crawls out, and she picks him up, despite a lasting look of weariness in his eyes. She walks over to the tallest window in the apartment, with a clear view of the city below.
“When I was a little girl,” she recounts, “the thunder scared me, too. I would hope, and hope, and hope for the sun to come back. But one day, I learned a new way of thinking.”
“What?”
“To love what we cannot change.”
“But what’s there to love? It’s all grey, boring, sad, loud…”
“Everything has something to love about it. The rain, it goes to the grass, and with the help of a chemical reaction from the lightning, the land is fertilized. That means the veggies can grow, and the flowers can bloom. It’s a beautiful thing, the world giving us a hand. Helping us out. And even the way it looks and sounds, I’ve learned to love those things, too. The rain is like a soothing drumbeat, the thunder and lightning are like exciting fireworks… It’s all so wonderful. If I could only teach you one thing, Malcolm, it would be this: there is always an upside, no matter the situation.”
These words touch Malcolm’s heart. All fear begins drifting from his eyes, now enlightened by a sense of wonder.
They smile to each other. She runs her fingers through his hair for a while, and he tells her, “I think I get it now.”
Time passes. Malcolm finds himself lying beneath the window, his stomach on the floorboards and his head rested on both his palms. His eyes don’t deviate from the window. With every moment, he finds a new thing to appreciate; like the traffic, jammed in the streets. ‘It’s not so bad’, he thinks to himself. From his perspective, it’s all these colourful cars in a slow parade. To some drivers, it’s not so bad, either; a family has a chat as they listen to the rain tapping on their car; a man sits alone, relaxed after a long day of work, listening to the radio and patiently waiting for the cars ahead to begin moving again, so he can complete his venture home; one young driver uses the slow of time as an excuse to confess her love to the woman in her passenger seat. These stories are real, but Malcolm makes up similar ones. After a while, he grabs his sketchbook from the shelf, and draws what he thinks the people in those stories might look like.
Behind Malcolm, his mother is laying out paperwork on the coffee table - bills, taxes, fines, so on. She rubs each of her temples, wishing hard that she could afford a bottle of ibuprofen.
But he pays no mind to her.
More time passes. Malcolm sees his favourite restaurant, through all the fog - The Quiet Ambassador. He draws the building, in as much detail as he can; the lower of brick, the upper of ridged wood, the doorway of glass, a window in the shape of a sunflower, a sign with a smiling egg yolk, and a graffiti portrait on the side wall; depicting a brave sailor, standing prideful on his bow with a rapier held tight in his fist, defending his frightened daughter from a gargantuan beast of tentacles that attempts to yank the man’s barque below the tide. That scene is something Malcolm appreciates every time he sees it, and he always finds something new to appreciate about it - like he’s doing now, on a broader scale. But with this newfound outlook, he questions now, in that bout of kraken versus seaman, who’s really the antagonist?
Behind Malcolm, there’s a knock at the door. The mother stands, walks, unlatches, opens, only to see the face of Malcolm’s father. Not a second goes by, before he begins sweating profusely, tripping on his own words, trying so hard to plead a case. Plead his innocence. Plead a right to be welcomed back into their family. Alas, he’s told again to stop following the mother and child. And the door is slammed in his face.
She’s right to set boundaries, despite his sorrows - nothing has ever seemed to work between the two. Yet part of her, always part of her, fails to let go of the fun they once had together.
All it takes for a headache to start are two thoughts contradicting one another;
I hate him, but I love him;
The mother already had a headache.
But now, she has two.
She falls to the floor, her head between her knees as she attempts to roll a blunt with a hand that shakes, uncontrollably.
Before her, Malcolm appears - he’s learned from the stories of other, and now reunites with the story of his own. He tilts his head.
He pays mind to her.
Maybe he doesn’t have her experience. Maybe he doesn’t have my vocabulary.
But he does have faith. Faith in that, he knows the right thing to do.
“Look on the upside,” he tells her. “There’s a storm going on. And storms are beautiful.”
Swing the clock hands forward - to a moment before we left off.
Malcolm and Cindy walk down a busy street, that’s getting busier by the minute; businessmen stumbling to work, older folks in pyjamas walking their dogs, graffiti artists trying to blend into the crowd as they make their way to the alleys, and many more. Some enter Dunkin’ Doughnuts, and all the various shops about, but only the most plain, unremarkable of the crowd enter the tall, grey, cylindrical skyscraper labeled Delevigne.
The Otherkind couple’s not dressed in their usual, no-frills street attire; Malcolm’s opted for a stylish black top, marmalade dress pants and a golden neck chain, while Cindy, her hair untied and unbraided, is clad in a floral dress with a violet cardigan overtop.
“…So even after you started a gang war-“
“Accidentally,” adds Malcolm.
“Sure,” Cindy giggles, “even after you accidentally started a gang war… Rip was fine with us going on a date?”
“He’s frazzled; I’m sure he would’ve said yes to anything.”
“Wow - The Rip, frazzled? Everything’s upside-down and backwards, that optimism of yours is more powerful than I thought!”
“It’s not my fault.”
“You’ve made it very clear you feel that way! I could start calling you Mr. Accidentally.”
“Upside’s fine,” Malcolm laughs, looking into her eyes but still walking toward their destination. “But for real, I think the Amy Winehouse guy was gonna start shit no matter what either of us said or did. Just the vibe he gives off; a shit-starter.”
“Oh, right, what did he look like?”
“Who?”
“The Amy Winehouse guy!”
“Oh, freaky. Real freaky, Boogieman kinda guy; eyes like The Emperor, pale blue skin, greasiest hair I’ve ever seen…”
“Judgemental much?”
“I’m not being judgmental, I’m just being accurately descriptive! Seriously, wait till you see the guy. Oh, wait, actually…” Malcolm ceases his saunter, to dig for an item from his pocket; a sort of pyramidal shape, with a thin box on both the top and the bottom, all made from a carved cyan gemstone. He presses it against his forehead, chants a brief spell. From it, with a flash of light, shoots a thin photograph. Cindy grabs it before it hits the ground, and looks at it.
This, is a memory photo - particularly, a clear image of Eldon Peck.
“Yeesh,” Cindy reacts, “you were not kidding.”
“Mhm,” Malcolm replies, beginning to walk again. Cindy follows.
“God, I hate that I can tell what he smells like; cacophony of blood, vomit, cigarettes…”
“Mhm.”
She analyzes the image for another moment or two. “…Hey, Malcolm?”
“Yeah?”
“When we go up against this guy, I think I wanna come with- and I don’t just mean sit in an alley.”
“Oh, yeah? You sure?”
“Yeah, like, I appreciate you looking out for me, but I wanna help where I can, y’know? And this guy, I’d particularly like to put a bullet in this guy’s head.”
When others on the sidewalk begin raising eyebrows and dropping jaws at that statement, Malcolm uses another pocket tool to erase it from their memories. “I was hoping we could handle this situation non-violently.”
“You told me Rip called him a ‘soul-trafficker’; I think anyone who’s an anything-trafficker should be shot - and, you know Rip doesn’t just throw around terms like that, so I feel pretty damn certain it’s accurate. Plus, you said Rip and this guy have history, yeah? Negative history?”
“‘The Otherkind’s arch-nemesis’, he called him.”
“I think we’re gonna have to kill this guy, Malcolm.”
“Damn,” Malcolm says under his breath, clicking the magic mind-wiper again. “But if you think it’s the right move, I’ll live with it.”
“Doesn’t matter what I think, either way; you know Rip.”
“Do I, though? Rip surprised me on that roof, I was able to persuade him-”
“-into a gang war. Maybe best we let the magic pedophile die, Mal, avoid the monkey’s paw shenanigans - I hardly see a downside to that.”
“…I see your point.”
The two reach their destination - The Quiet Ambassador - only for a young woman with black hair just leaving the establishment to brashly bump into Malcolm’s shoulder. He looks down at his hand, nearly stumbles, feeling as if he’s dropped the magic mind-wiper, but… He hasn’t. “That’s… Weird.”
“Oi, watch where you’re going!” Cindy shouts at the woman, before turning back to Malcolm. “That was that girl,” she whispers. “The magician girl you fought last year, remember? One Richie Rich got us to go after?”
“Right,” says Malcolm, watching as she continues to storm off. “Weird coincidence. But… I’m getting this weird sense of deja vu. Or, actually, opposite of deja vu? Not sure what you’d call it.”
“What do you mean? Cause of the girl?”
“No, not cause of the girl - cause of this,” he holds up the magic mind-wiper - fully intact. “I saw it break. I can see it so clear in my mind, it shattered on the sidewalk. But it… It didn’t.”
“Huh. Bit odd.”
“Yeah… Well. No point stressing about it,” Malcolm shrugs. “Least it didn’t break.”
The two walk through the doorway. To their right, they see a man with spiky blonde hair, scavenging through his wallet. To their left, they see a man wearing an olive baseball cap, holding an oblong duffel bag of some kind, tightly - what could be in there?
Before the duo, walks a hostess. “Hello there! Table for two, I presume?”
“Yep, I called about a reservation.”
“Ah, yes; Malcolm, was it?”
“Yep!”
“Alrighty, sit wherever you’d like.”
They do as invited, and choose a table near the back of the establishment, with a decent bay view out the window. Distantly, Malcolm sees a sort of factory building, with three smoke towers.
“This is my first time here,” says Cindy, looking over her menu.
“Oh, really? The Ambassador was my favourite growing up.”
Cindy looks up to a wood-carven sculpture in the upper-right corner of the room - in the shape of the sun, with a smiling face painted on. “That makes sense,” she snickers.
“I know off the top of my head what’s best on the menu, so if you need any help, just ask.”
“Oh, really? Did you already know what you were getting before we walked in?”
“Waffles, alamode - with cherries - and a glass of orange juice.”
Cindy laughs heartily. “Orange juice?”
“What?”
“Mimosas are on the menu!”
“So?”
“’So’? You’re 27 years old!”
“I don’t want champagne this early in the morning - I just want that sweet, sweet taste of orange juice. Good source of vitamin A, to boot.”
“Alright, alright, you do you, I’m just getting a coffee.” She looks at the menu again. “And some beans on toast, I think.”
“Beans on toast?”
“What? Nostalgia, Malcolm, childhood nostalgia!”
“Bread, beans, soup, that canned stuff is all we get most days at work! Why not treat yourself to something different? How often do we get this opportunity?”
Cindy rests her head on a limp fist, her index finger nudging her lower lip as she looks thoughtfully into Malcolm’s umber eyes. “You know what? Fuck it,” she announces at a polite volume, picking the menu back up again. “Think I’ll just have what you’re having- but, I’ll swap that OJ for a mimosa, since I, for one, could definitely use some champagne.”
A server appears at the table, visibly stressed by something that occurred at another, but she’s trying - emphasis on trying - to hide it. She pulls out her notepad. “Drinks to start?”
“Actually,” Malcolm begins, “I think we’ve figured out everything we’ll be ordering, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, go right ahead!”
Malcolm nods toward Cindy.
“I’ll have waffles alamode- with… Cherries?” She tilts her head at Malcolm, and is met with a thumbs-up. “And a mimosa to drink,” she concludes, looking back up to the server.
“And I,” Malcolm begins, “will get a black coffee, and some beans on toast. Thank you so much.”
“Alrighty, I’ll be right back,” the server assures.
Cindy bats her eyes at Malcolm. “Huh?”
“You made a switcheroo, why can’t I? I’m done being the predictable one.”
Cindy’s brows lower. “Oh my god, I haven’t been overstepping with the Upside thing, have I? I didn’t mean to make you feel like you were a cardboard cutout.”
“It’s not cause of anything you make me feel - you make me feel wonderful - I’m just, worried that maybe I am a cardboard cutout. And the last quality you’d want when going into a…” He looks behind himself, over his shoulders.“‘GW’, is predictability.”
“Uh-huh… You remember the magic mind-wiper didn’t break, right?” Cindy asks, acknowledging his hesitance to use the phrase ‘gang war’.
“Oh. Right. God, what’s going on with my head today?”
Cindy makes eye contact with the man in the olive cap, but immediately upon doing so he begins reading a newspaper - an act that’s blatant, to Cindy, as being in reaction. ‘Something’s up with that guy,’ she thinks to herself, but it doesn’t come up at the table.
“Uh… So,” says Malcolm, trying to change the subject, “you said beans on toast is nostalgic for you?”
“Think that was a given; British an’ all.”
“Sure, but it peaked my interest; you know practically all there is to know about my childhood, yet I rarely, if ever, hear about yours.”
“There’s not a lot to talk about.”
“Not true.”
“Why’s it not true?”
“You might not want to talk about it- and I won’t force you to, by the way,” he puts two palms up when he interjects himself, in a passive yet defensive gesture. “But there’s always something to talk about, when it comes to childhood. Especially if it’s one that lead to an adulthood like ours; bad lives make good stories.”
“Well.” She looks up at the ceiling, trying to decide what parts to keep in and out of the story. “I was adopted, by two chavs in Birmingham. Not quite sure what mind-fuckery took place in order for my bio mum to hand me over to them, of all people. Honestly, not sure why the two even wanted me in the first place, seeing as they were couch surfing drug dealers; one would think the stress of looking after a child would be the last thing they’d want to tack onto their already miserable lives.”
“Aren’t you being a little harsh?”
“Accurately descriptive,” she corrects, with a brief, and teetering on artificial, smirk. She lets out a sigh. “Fran and Shane, they were called - the adopters. They would squabble every day, but it wasn’t often to do with me. Rarely did they pay attention to me at all, actually. But I made friends; there was Baby, Linus, Zach, Walter… Gang of delinquents, we were. Vandals, at first. When we were old enough, we followed in Fran and Shane’s footsteps, one could say. Sold product. One day, Walter said we should use the money to go to California. Said it’s beautiful there. That we’d be better off.”
“It is beautiful here.”
“It was. Once.” She trips on a breath, but the server and hostess return before any tears start forming.
“Here you go! One mimosa, one black coffee, waffles alamode with cherries, and beans on toast - enjoy!”
“Thank you so much,” says Malcolm.
“I’m sorry,” Cindy tells Malcolm, a moment after the server and hostess walk away.
“Don’t be.” He puts out a hand, over the table. He may be muscular, but that hand, it’s that of a gentle giant; so harmless, so comforting. Cindy takes it. “I hope one day you’ll see the world as I do. Despite everything that’s bleak, despite all that we’ve gone through and will go through, there’s something so beautiful about the world we live in, and everything in it… Even beans on toast,” he laughs, moving his eyes to his plate.
She smiles earnestly, as her eyes trail from his plate to hers. She picks up her fork, uses it to rake a small portion of the vanilla ice cream onto the edge of the crispy, golden waffle. She jabs the fork deeper, separating piece from whole. She dips it into the viscous cherry grouping, crafting the perfect bite, and washing it down with the first sip of mimosa. “Holy…”
“Good, right?”
“The best. Thank you for taking me here.” As she swerves her fork back downward, a thought strikes her eyes up to meet his. “You wanna switch, though, yeah?”
“Nah, I’m good,” he assures, cutting a small square of toast topped with beans with his knife and fork, and slipping it between his teeth. He takes a gulp of coffee, but jolts it away, squinting his eyes. “I’ve aught to get used to that, though, damn... Bitter. You take it just like this?”
“Mhm. But, there is cream and sugar on the table, you know.”
“No, thanks; I wanna put myself in your shoes. See the world how you see it.”
“Thought you wanted me to see the world how you see it.”
“But I don’t wanna just, eradicate your perspective. I wanna meld, y’know? I like you a lot, Cin, I’m always eager to learn more about you.” He takes another sip from the coffee, already beginning to get a little more comfortable with the taste. “So, Fran and Shane.”
“What about ‘em?”
He shrugs. “Where’d they end up? Oh, they’re still… With us, right?”
She sighs again. “No idea, to be honest. Can’t say we really stayed in touch. If they didn’t both overdose, then they’re probably living more of the same.”
“But imagine, even for a second, that they aren’t. Imagine they, I dunno, won the lottery - or, like, moved somewhere new - turned a new leaf, beat their addictions, got stable jobs…”
“I sincerely doubt it.”
“Sure, but there’s no way of knowing. Unless you ever happen to run into them again, there’s nothing stopping us from believing any stories we wanna believe. It’s like Schrödinger’s box, yeah? Just, less animal murder.”
She holds back soft laughter, as she drinks more of her mimosa. “Happy until proven unhappy.”
“Yeah! Exactly.”
“I like that. That’s very sweet.” She taps on her cheek with two fingers sunnily, as her eyes wander across the floor. “Oh, Nikki,” she sighs with a passion, her eyes meeting her boyfriend’s yet again.
“What about my mom?” His brows go nervous, but his smile persists.
“We wouldn’t be here without her, now would we?”
“You say that like we’re brother and sister.”
“Pffft.”
“I get what you mean,” he chuckles. “I’m just being facetious.”
“Brilliant woman,” she goes on, “or, so I’m told. I hope I can meet her one day.”
“I hope so, too.”
“How is she, by the way?”
“It’s.” This might be the first time he’s frowned all day, and Cindy notices that. “Complicated.”
“Uh oh.”
“She’s okay. Don’t worry about her. Just… Can we change the subject?”
“Oh, for sure…” She nods, reaching the end of her meal. She’s never seen him that tense before. ‘Come to think of it, he’s never really mentioned where Nikki ended up. All this talk of childhood, but what ever happened between him and his mum when he grew up?’ “Oh,” she says, after a while of eating and thinking, “I stumbled on something a tad odd, on the laptop* the other day.”
*The Rip purchased a laptop for Cindy a few months ago, in order for her to check various online black markets for re-sellable magic goods. He told her that she was the only one of the three to be trusted with such a responsibility - ironically, she gets distracted on that computer rather often.
“Oh, yeah?” Malcolm asks.
“Some true crime podcast did an episode on us.”
He tilts his head.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, it’s only got like, 30 followers, tops. All the comments are calling bullshit, too.”
“Did you listen to it? How much did they get right?”
“About 50/50. They know we’re called Otherkind, they know our boss is a walking portal, they know a bit about our operation - but they made up a bunch of other shit, like, that we’re all vampires, and that Rip’s a forest demon who lures people with drawings he puts on the trees-”
“I thought you said 50/50 - beneath all the fan-fiction, they’ve got, like, 75%!”
“Math isn’t my strong suit,” she admits, flatly.
“Just, don’t tell Rip any of this - I worry he’d look for a snitch to blame, and then…” He raises an index finger, interrupting himself. “But, hey, thirty people - not a lot, but there’s bound to be at least one criminal in there, yeah?”
“Dunno about ‘bound’, but, it’s not impossible.”
“You just said math wasn’t your strong suit, what are you doing criticizing my statistic predictions?”
“Consistency isn’t my strong suit; I’m not put together like you are, I don’t have that core philosophy you do.”
“Sure you do, you just haven’t put a label on it,” he explains, taking the last bite of his beans on toast. “I had no idea I was Upside till I met you. Backtrack, all’s I was gonna say was, maybe a pod listener’ll become a new buyer - and more money, means more money to spare, means more dates.”
“Aww.”
“By the way… Why’s it called true crime?”
“What do you mean? Seems like a perfectly fitting title to me; it’s true, and it’s crime!”
“But like, nothing else has that naming convention; ‘reality TV’ isn’t called ‘true TV’. You’d think if there’s a ‘true crime’, there would also be a ‘true sci-fi’, ‘true fantasy’-“
“What the hell would ‘true fantasy’ even be, though? I mean, it’s not like there’s real wizards, or warlocks, or-”
A smile from Malcolm brings Cindy to a pause.
“…Touché,” she says.
The server returns, takes the dishes. The food is paid for at the front counter. The couple leaves the establishment.
As Malcolm and Cindy make their way back down the street, and he rests his arm around her shoulders, she places the amble at a halt with the question:
“Can I show you something I’ve been working on?”
“Absolutely.”
They make a turn for the alleyway, eyes now on a graffito;
a picture that covers the whole wall, intricate yet crude, Baquiatesque.
It depicts screaming parents, drawn with rash, angry lines;
Scared children, running to what looks like drugs, alcohol, other dangerous habits;
Hearts of love, between figures drawn in black and white; those with beaming optimism contrasted with those that have broken spirits, in a sort of yin yang;
Magic wands, wicked witches, goblins and ghouls -
all of this, every single piece, fits together like a jigsaw - in order to create one and only word:
‘Offspring’.
“What do you think?” asks Cindy. “It’s something I’ve been working on, every chance I get. Real passion project, expression of all that I’ve been feeling lately in one piece of art, y’know? I’m real happy with it.”
“I… Wow. Just. Wow. I’m at a loss for words, Cindy.”
“You like it, huh?”
“Like it? I love it.” He notices something, something that catches him off guard a little: this was painted over the kraken mural from his youth. That might have upset the Malcolm of old, and the Malcolm of now of course still adored that mural, yet, it’s not at all hard for him to find the upside here - it’s staring him in the face. “I’m big into abstract expressionism, this might be one of my new favourite works. But hang on, ‘Offspring’ - is that a tag?”
“Something like that.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Well, it’s sort of a, what came first, chicken or the egg, thing - the answer I’d give, is neither; we’re all offsprings. As far back as you go, in all of history, there’s never one thing that came from nothing. No matter how hard you fight for identity, we’re all shackled to legacy, and lineage...”
“Hm,” he nods. “Poignant - and I thought you said you had no core philosophy.”
“Oh,” she says, surprised. “I hadn’t really thought about it in the context of, me.”
“What do you mean? You said this depicts what’s been on your mind, and I absolutely see you in this. I think we’ve found who you are, Cin; I’m Upside, and you’re Offspring.”
“Hm,” she tilts her head, viewing her own work from a new perspective. “I like that.”
“I’ve got a question, though - about the piece.”
“Yeah?”
He points to what makes up the ‘O’ in ‘Offspring’. “You said Fran and Shane’s ‘squabbling’ - love that word, by the way - never had anything to do with you, and yet, that looks like parents yelling at a kid. What’s that image mean to you? And the kid, she’s running toward… That might be a cigarette, but it might be a magic wand-”
“Malcolm, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Oh?”
“When I told you about my childhood, I… Well, okay, most of it was true. But there was some stuff that…”
“You lied to me?”
“…”
“It’s okay if you did, I’m… I’m sure you had your reasons.”
“I was… Scared.”
“Not of me, right?”
“No, no, of course not- but there’s just this… Thing, about me, that I’ve never told anyone about in a long time. I tend to keep it a secret, but I like you a lot, Mal, so I think you deserve to know.”
“Alright. What is it?”
She pauses another long while, her eyes facing down at the pavement, her mouth sealed and stretched. “Fran and- Mum and Dad , they did their best. They really did; they gave me food, shelter, love, attention, all that, despite what they didn’t have. They resented their own parents, and it was a lifelong dream of theirs to be better than them. They absolutely achieved their goal, but I… Admittedly, I took them for granted.” She’s starting to tear up a little. “And I could’ve grown from that. It all could’ve been fine. They never blamed me for that, anyway; kids, they’re supposed to be rebellious, they understood that. But they… There’s something else, that came up. Something about me, that even they couldn’t support. When they found out about it, it was only then I’d heard them scream for the first time - and to this day, I’ve never heard anyone else scream quite like they did that night. They told me to get out. They told me they never, ever wanted to see me again. They told me I should burn.”
“Jesus, Cindy, that’s horrible! No one should ever, ever talk to a kid like that, especially not their own kid…” Sweat drips down his brow - lots of it. “…But, what was it, that made them say those things? Did you kill someone..?”
“God no!” She punches him in the chest - not exactly lightly , but light enough that he takes it without flinching. She looks up at him. “How could you ask that?”
His eyes don’t waver from hers. His visage starts perplexed, but reshapes into a grin. “You said you wanted to kill the Amy Winehouse guy, like, less than an hour ago.”
She looks back down, unable to contain her laughter, yet concealing it - mildly - via pressing her face into his chest. “Touché,” she says, for the second time this morning, more sigh-like than the last time.
“But for real,” asks Malcolm, “what was it?”
“I… Okay,” she lets out a quick exhale, and backs away from him slightly, shaking her arms about and stretching her calves. “I think it’s best I show you. Get ready, I assure you, this is… Weird. Just, take my hand.”
He takes her hand.
She says something under her breath, does some sort of hand motion.
In a poof of violet smoke, the couple finds themselves in
“A playground?” asks Malcolm. “How did you-… Where are we?”
“London! Little playground in London. I remember Mum and Dad taking me here when I was little - first park I ever went to, actually! They had to save up for a bus, but they said it was worth it, and that the parks in Birmingham were too drab for ‘a little princess’-“
“But, how did you do that - teleport, I mean. Like, did Rip give you a throw-pearl, or something?”
“I’m... Well, I’m not exactly human- or, well, I’m not a ‘homo sapien’. I’m more like Rip, you see-”
“Do the tentacle thing.”
“What?”
“Sorry, sorry,” he puts a hand to his forehead, “I’m just, a little confused, is all.”
“Well, lemme explain: biologists and historians tend to look at human evolution as a straight line, yeah?”
“Fish; fish with legs; and then at one point they realize they look a lot like fellows and blokes and such.”
“Yes, that - what not a lot of people mention, though, is that evolution began forking off in the later stages; homo sapiens make up most of the population today, but there’s a plethora of other forms our species took - like my form; I’m what’s called a ‘homo magi’; like a homo sapien, but with, y’know, magic powers.”
“And are those, like, limitless?”
“Kinda,” says Cindy, as they both start walking toward the empty structures in the playground. She steps onto the small metal carousel, kicks the ground a time or two in order for it to spin at a medium pace. “I had to learn the spells I know - it’s like, learning your first spell is learning how to walk, and then all the ones after are other, more complicated skills - like dance, or playing an instrument… Learning every spell ever is like, learning how to do every single thing the ‘normal’ body can do; learn how to do every job, skill, so on, but on an even larger scale… I think Rip might know all of them, though. Somehow.”
“Does he know you’re a homo magi?”
“No, and I’m not sure he would’ve hired me if he did; he might see another magic-user as more of a threat, compared to a ‘normal human’. I kinda think that’s why he surrounds himself with ‘normal humans’; less intimating. Deep down, I think he has a lot of fear and anxiety. I dunno. It’s just a theory I have.”
“Huh,” says Malcolm. “I never really thought about that. By the way, do we know for sure that he’s a homo magi? I mean, he doesn’t look especially human.”
“I’m… Not sure, actually. I was kinda just assuming, I’m not sure what else he could be.”
“What, are homo magis the only kinda people that can do magic?”
“For the most part; there’s some exceptions; I’ve read cases involving rituals with demon blood, which can grant powers. And, of course, there’s stuff like the tools we use, but I never took Rip to be a parlour trickster. If he’s not homo magi, then he’s, like, an entity, of some kind…” She stops spinning. “I’m sure the big question you’re wondering is, ‘why didn’t I use my powers to save Walter’.”
“That didn’t cross my mind. Even if it did, I wouldn’t have gone there.”
“Well, it’d be a fair question,” she tells him, getting up from the carousel and walking toward the swing-set - they sit beside one another. “And the answer’s,” she continues, looking forward, “I didn’t have enough experience. I didn’t know what spell could’ve saved him, and either way, I couldn’t think straight - my coordination was way off, I couldn’t get any magic words to come out… But, I’m not letting that happen again - I’m going to make sure of that.”
“I mean, that sounds good, but, just, don’t beat yourself up over what happened. Even if you were the most skilled, powerful wi-… zard there ever was, what happened wouldn’t have been your fault.”
She tilts back to him. “You’re very good with words.”
“Thank you.”
Her lip shakes. “Does it seriously not bother you?”
“What?”
“That I’m a… ‘Wizard’.”
“Cin, how could that possibly bother me?” He holds her hand. “You are the greatest person I’ve ever met, and it’d take something inconceivable for a single hole to be poked in the love I have for you. As far as I’m concerned, magic powers are just another upside; my girlfriend’s a wizard, how cool is that?”
She can’t begin to contain her tears, and yet, she smiles - wide. Widest she’s smiled in a long time. She nudges her swing toward his, and wraps her arms around him. “Thank you,” she tells him.
But.
Through her eyes in her head that lay atop his shoulder, she notices something behind the two of them - a man, on a bench.
Reading a newspaper.
She recognizes the colour of his trousers, the cap that pokes from behind the article…
It’s him .
And, he says something - one word.
And, despite how quiet he says it. Despite how distant the bench is. Despite the paper covering his mouth. The word is more than audible to Cindy’s ears. To her, it echoes.
“Witch.”
It’s enough for her to stumble out of her swing, and into the mass of pebbles that act as the floor to the playground.
“Are you okay?” Asks Malcolm, standing up from his swing.
“No.”
“Bleeding? Do you need ice?”
“No, that’s not what I…” She points toward the man on the bench. “Him,” she whispers. “He’s been following us, I’m sure of it.”
“Oh,” says Malcolm, turning his head. “We haven’t been here long, what do you mean he’s-“
“He was at the restaurant, Malcolm. He was in San Fransisco.”
“Oh.”
“What do we do?”
“Can’t you get us back to HQ?”
“What if us teleporting’s how he followed us - like, what if he’s got one of those tailer-hooks that Rip’s been warning us about?”
“Oh, shit… Uh.”
“How’s about we run in different directions, as fast as we can? Surely he can’t chase us both.”
“Alright, sounds like a plan.”
They do as agreed, but not for long; in a flash of green light, both of them return to the Otherkind headquarters.
“No!” Cindy exclaims. “No, no, no-“
“I sincerely apologize, Cindy,” says The Rip, standing before them, “but it was vital for me to put an end to your outing ahead of schedule; time is of the essence, due to the.” He looks to Malcolm. “Circumstances.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Cindy explains. “Somebody was following us! We think they had a tailer-hook!”
“…What did they look like?”
Cindy looks to Malcolm, her hand out toward him - he hands her the memory camera. She uses it on herself, and hands Rip the photo.
“…Kelly,” he growls, releasing his tendrils, and pivoting to look in all directions.
Alec reveals himself from the shadows, too - a vengeful anger in his eyes unlike any Malcolm and Cindy had ever seen in him. He uses one hand to take a pistol from his holster, and uses the other hand to open a locket that’s draped over his chest. He looks upon the picture in that locket, for quite some time. “He’s got a lot of nerve, if he’s gonna show himself here - after what he did.”
Malcolm and Cindy both wonder who’s face is in that locket, and what it was that Kelly ‘did’, but neither feel it’s the time to ask either of those questions.
“DON’T KILL ME!” a voice cries out. Out stumbles Kelly, into the middle of the room - his tailer-hook in one hand, his sword in the other, and a now-empty duffle bag dangling by its strap over his forearm. Tears are avalanching down his face.
“Is that a fairy?” Cindy whispers to Malcolm, gesturing toward Hannah - who, is tugging away desperately from Kelly’s blade, but to no success at escaping her restraints. Malcolm nods.
“Even if you managed to come up with one million reasons why I shouldn’t kill you,” The Rip tells Kelly, “it wouldn’t even be a fraction of enough to stop me.”
“I don’t need a million,” says Kelly, “I’ve got just the roight one to sway ya’! I’ve been ‘ere for bloody days, alroight?! Redone this entrance more toimes than I can count; spun ma’ sword so many toimes, I think I’ve got cahpal tunnel - and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! I’ve ‘ad my ahms and legs tahn off, ma’ stahmach burnt to bits! I been shot, stabbed, every single thing that even the sickest of sickos could possibly imagine! I may be back in one piece, but I am in AGONY - the feeling doesn’t go away, y’know! It’s loike, phanum pain, or some shite - I hate it, I hate it!!!”
“Don’t you dare pretend you’re the victim here,” says Hannah.
“Aren’t I? You just sat - flew - there, and watched!”
“You didn’t have to do any of it, though,” says Alec. “Everything you do, you choose to do it - that makes you far from a victim, dare I say the opposite of one.”
“But, I do have do it - for Mista’ Night! I’d do anything for ‘im! He’s the man who broke me outta prison, I ought to return the fava’! I’ll be ‘ere longer, if he wants me to be! Weeks? Months? Fockin’ years? I’d do it in a hahtbeat!”
One of The Rip’s tentacles shoots forth, faster than Kelly can even begin to turn his aching wrist - it wraps around his whole arm, making every inch of it immovable.
“Good luck,” says The Rip, “turning back time, now. If I’m being honest, thinking of the consequences of your theoretical infinite time loop was already giving me two or more headaches; what would happen, to the rest of the world, in that scenario? Would we all keep going back to that moment in time? Would all of this planet’s progress come to a halt, and forever be stuck in that moment? Would you be turning every single person alive right now into an immortal? I don’t think I’ve ever come to such a wall, such a lack of understanding, in all my years of being alive - what I do know, though, is that I’m not at all interested in that future, and I’d end a man’s life if it’s what I had to do to avoid it. Seems you’ve merely given me more reason to kill you, Asher Kelly - how funny is that?”
More of The Rip’s tentacles go flying at Kelly, Alec fires his gun several times.
And yet…
All the attacks are blocked off - by what seems to be an invisible force field.
“What?” asks Kelly, Hannah, Alec, Malcolm and The Rip, all in unison.
They look to Cindy - the only one who didn’t ask.
“I’m not sure,” she tells them, forcedly.
The Rip notices a few grains of white powder on the ground. “A salt circle,” he presumes, looking back up to Cindy.
‘Thank god’, she thinks to herself, silently. ‘He hasn’t caught on.’
“Cindy… Why?”
“I…” She looks to Malcolm, remembers what he told her about his encounter with Peck. “…What is it, that separates our gang from theirs? What quality?”
No one answers.
“…Decency. We don’t just, kill willy nilly - that’s what they do! They exploit, they expend, they traffic, they kill, but we, we’re better than that - we’re not ferocious predators, we’re, like, a business,” she looks to The Rip, “a family, even - I guess - anyway, we have morals, logic, decency- ”
“Are you suggesting we don’t kill him?” The Rip asks.
“Cindy, you have no idea what this man did,” says Alec.
“I didn’t say that,” Cindy tells The Rip, “all I’m saying is, if we’re to sentence him to the death penalty, the least we could do is…” She looks to Kelly. “Ask him what he wants for his last meal.”
123/365
Home again... back to reality, icky weather and I've brought home with me a grade A cold. I feel terrible, hence the lack of effort put forth into this image. But alas, we can't win them all.
foto por: Priscila Lima
banda: Come Alive (Campina Grande - PB)
evento: O Silêncio Mata
local: Vitrola Bar
cidade: Campina Grande - PB
dia: 29/07/2011
Agents audition and train in preparation for a performance at the travel giant's Strictly Come Dancing themed conference in Turkey
Inside the home of Anson Jones, last President of the Republic of Texas
Barrington Living History Farm
Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park,
Washington County, Texas
Long session today (9:30AM - 5:30PM) at my least favorite spot to flick graffiti, but one of my favorite spots for the amount of traffic this spot gets. There's also a crossing here, so lots of horn action! The engineers also know "railfans" come out here so sometimes they get a little creative with the honking.
Grand total of flicks taken, 803, total being posted, 616.
Right out of the gate I fucked up big time. First train I saw go by as I arrived was an Amtrak. Got down to the spot and immediately I hear the horns coming from behind the hill. Get the camera out, lens cap off and 30 seconds later and what do I see, autoracks, and lots of them. Sweet! I get in position, and they're coming by quick. I'm just barely framing them up and snapping the flicks. Saw my first Ichabod E2E car, Green/Black. Woah dude!! Cool. (my inner SoCal surfer came out). and then it's gone.
Sat down and looked through photos on little 3 in. screen on back of camera, not good. I zoom in, but I can't tell if photos are sharp or not. Lighting seems ok, but can't tell if sharp. Go to take a quick snap of a little tag on a fence post and camera will not focus. WTH?? Camera was switched into manual focus mode from a project I was working on days previously. ARRRGH!! So out of like 30-40 autoracks, they're all blurry.
Still posting 3 of them, just to document, but I will call them out as bad photos. I was so pissed that I almost went back to the car. Glad I didn't. Throughout the day I caught some really nice pieces from some of my favorite writers. I didn't give up, and came home with gold, as you'll see going through this latest set.
FYI I managed to catch up with some of the day's last autoracks and got shots of them in way better light. So 8-10 pieces shot today have doubles that were shot in two different locations.
Also ended up meeting up with (YouTube) Railroad Fans of the Cajon Pass. He was just down the road from where I was and came down for a bit. He even brought that vicious dog "Buddy" with him. Glad I survived the encounter.
If you want to see some of these cars rolling, here's the videos he shot while I was there. If you look close or not so close in one vid, you might see me in action down the line. Anyway......
As always, thanks to the writers, fellow benchers, old, and new friends, Stay safe out there!!!
For freight graffiti slideshows/videos hit up my YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/SilenceSeven
"Hän, joka näitä todistaa, sanoo:
"Totisesti, minä tulen pian".
Amen,
tule, Herra Jeesus!"
"Han som betygar detta säger:
»Ja, jag kommer snart.»
Amen.
Kom Herre Jesus!"
"He who testifies these things says,
"Yes, I come quickly."
Amen!
Yes, come, Lord Jesus."
Revelation 22:20
The free shuttle service will run at 0930 from Hanley Bus Station and every 30 mins thereafter until 1530 and from opposite Stoke Railway Station at 0940 and every 30 mins thereafter until 1540. Services will also operate to/from Foxfield Railway to coincide with train times. Links between Gladstone Pottery Museum and the Trentham Gardens Coach Stop (Shopping Village), Stone and Meir will run at regular intervals throughout the day.
More information at potteriesomnibus.wordpress.com/
this song has been stuck in my head for the past few days. i love regina spektor's voice, but i kinda wish it wasn't put into the Prince Caspian movie.