Back again, for the last time.

Its all so familiar, fragments everywhere.  The day I got my first copy of WarCraft III, and I stayed up all night playing it here.  Then when I went to bed my brother sat down and played while I slept.  That was back before he changed, before the world changed him.  But not really, even then he was detached.  It had already started.  Funny, being in this place reminds me of the tales of how differently we see it here.

            Its been a decade.  How old was I?  13.  Christ.  Was I really?  How young I was then.  How… different.  I’ve changed much and more, but this place has remained the same.  Always the same.  Its so comforting to be here, I’ve lived here longer then anywhere else.  And its going away.  How sad, yet how joyful.  Its truly our past, and we should not fight its passing.

            That girl, who I tried to preach to from battle.net.  How did I work up the balls?  The things religion do to people.  What have you done to me?  And then she beats me at my own game, father an apologist, better equipped to shoot me down.  What a night that was.  I never really did talk to her again, not really.  Back again, for the last time.  That’s far in the past.  I never want to be so sure again, I never want to be so separate.  Will you forgive me?

            And even drowning in the past, I push back the veil a little bit each day.  Never have I seen the desert from the sky.  Its so dark out here, every star a blazing torch.  But its so different too, the skies have grown the same.  The city moved in.  Weird how it can affect the feeling of this place so.  What to do tomorrow I wonder?

            The old days on EverQuest, way back in the day.  WhiteWind and Jonze, Grindle and Fattious Ribsticker, and my friend who’s surname I stole and didn’t even remember his first.  Kasseopea, the bard.  Dozer, the paladin.  Smallwind and Roaringwind, Haeo and Haeoeo.  The day I flipped on the guild and gquit.  It didn’t last long.  That’s when I started Smallwind.  That was here too.  I couldn’t spell for shit back then.  How did they ever put up with me?

            What a weird trip its been here.  Life is a little bit crazy when it hits you all again.  I will miss this place, the last shreds of my childhood going away.

Cactus and Dust.

Star bursts of purple waving at the end of long green stalks, forever frozen, forever in motion. White stones in defensive tiers, guarding emerald leaves. A mottled canopy, casting distorted shadows in the soft wind. Slow and patient Ivy, crawling, waiting, twisting over everything. When no ones looking, in the dead of the night, it spreads its dominion, inch by inch. Up the pale sky blue walls, hiding away wide white trim. An inviting teal double door atop 3 stairs.

A tall and steep hill, crowned with sparse bushes. Each an invader, an outcast, surviving on an edge of two very different worlds. Natures mounded wall, a boarder between quiet suburbia and the wilds. A wall with towers and sentinels, long dead and silent, fallen to ruin. The watchers still there amid the white dusty skeleton of rock, melted into its walls, fused into stone. A graveyard of the ancient masters of a watery world. Cross over, and be confronted by a beautiful and savage vista. Shrub covered hills slopping away into obscurity. Meandering paths leading deep into fields of mustard, with small yellow flowers held high over our heads. A place to lose yourself.

Stands of cactus, sharp and unwelcoming. Keeping mostly to themselves, they grow in tight comities, spike covered havens. Amongst the thorns, purple and yellow flowers blossom with a hundred little fingers, each reaching out to the sun. Past them lay the hills. Rocks piled high with a light dusting of dirt, and a few hearty shrubs clinging on with all their might. And to those brave enough to climb their sides, a grand view and just the right number of seats. A place of rest and reflection, to watch the sun sink on another carefree evening.

For you see they really are fond childhood memories. Cactus and dust.

Once, in Solana Beach

I was sitting on a the platform of a train station, on a solid concrete bench. My back pressed to a wall that towered over me. This station is dug into a mountain, and the tracks lay at the bottom of a deep ravine with 40 foot walls, climbing sharply away into the clear blue sky. Sitting at the bottom, stuck uncomfortably close to the tracks, no where to go, no where to hide, no one around. The silence was a thick blanket, slowly working its way around me. Tighter and tighter, it enfolded me in its warm embrace, lulling me into peace.

From a long way off it came, quite at first, ignored and forgotten amid the drifting points of light in my mind. Each a little thought, waiting patiently for its chance to burst into a little flash under my minds wandering gaze. It flashed brighter and brighter, growing more insistent with each pulse. Soon I turned my attention to it, and knew that every pulse was a distant horn blowing. It wasn’t hard to guess what it meant, I was in a train station after all. But I also knew there was no trains scheduled for hours. When the lumbering beast finally came roaring and growling into view, it was a yellow goliath with miles of empty, multilevel car carriers. I expected to see it pass on by, but it came screeching to a noisy halt on the double track on the far side of the station. It slowed, and just as it came to stop, a thousand loose metal doors gave one last thunderous slam of protest, and then silence came slamming back into the gorge. The faceless beast sat quietly, and never have I heard such quiet.

Just as the stillness again entranced me back into a stupor, and my mind defocused among the dancing lights, a felt a strange tremor in the ground. Moments later I heard the first report of the horn. It was higher pitch then the first, and from the other direction. I looked on expectantly, but could see little. It got louder and louder, and it became hard to focus on anything else. When the yellow monstrosity finally came charging into sight, it was like a rabid bull, bellowing its protest at each of the master’s goads. It moved with the total assurance anything that would dare stand up to it would be destroyed, and it would hardly take notice. Unfathomable and impersonal, it came at me like it was hungering for my blood. I wanted to move, to run, ancient instincts were ripping at my mind. But there was no where to go, the walls pressed in all around. The horn screamed its challenge, the ground shook, and then it was on me. A blast of hellish air whipped my face, forcing me to turn away from the maelstrom. One moment suddenly stopped leading to another. Among the chaos, the whipping wind, the roaring sound, the shaking ground, I lost myself. Every point of light dancing in my mind was ripped away on the relentless wind from the wings of a thousand demons. In the storm there was nothing but madness and fury. The train seemed to go on forever, each car over 22 feet tall, clanging and banging, blocking out the sun. I just mere feet away, huddled on my bench, defenseless toward the onslaught. I felt like my mind fractured, and everything inside just came pouring out. Just as I thought it would go on forever, without warning, it stopped. It was over with such abruptness that it to was a great shock in its self. All of a sudden it was just over, and I felt helplessly empty.

Silence consumed the ashes of the conflagration. From a long way off thoughts came swirling back, timid and vigilant. Weaving closer and scattering away, then jagging back. Just as I reached out to embrace them, and comfort them, the forgotten machine made a piercing wail. With a lurch and a great crash of protest from a thousand angry doors, it returned to life. Thought scattered again to the winds. Digging deeply into its tracks, it started its headlong rush away. Moments past, and I was left in a daze as its last car disappeared like a dream come morning. Thoughts returned, one or two at a time, but I simply ignored them. They all felt so small, so meaningless, in the wake of passing gods. Tranquility packed in around the spaces between the soft glowing points, bringing their dance to a slow halt. I sat there in a daze.