TWO HEARTBEATS, ONE BODY

I found a beach. I can't remember the last time I saw so much water, but  I found one.

I inhaled it, the air,  it was different too, different from  the stench. I walked tentatively towards it, my feet, my hair, my brow, all feeling sensations they hadn't felt in a while. It was beautiful.

I was standing  in the water now, it pushed out, then pulled back, pulling  me with it. The  waves were hypnotic, they  made me want to forget, they made me want to  drift.

I closed my eyes and let my other senses take it all in.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

The breeze was smooth on my skin, my feet were flush in the....the  water! It was thick now, almost to the point of coagulation. With my eyes still closed I lifted my legs up, one after the other; the water didn't drip, instead it seemed to stick to my ankles and the corners of my toes. Then it hit me, right across  the face like a sucker punch. Then  another, and  another, and another.  Till I was engulfed in  a storm of the sea, raining down on me.

I  felt heavy. The water wasn't refreshing, it seemed to drench me then drain me, this torrid rain. I opened my mouth, let loose my tongue to taste  it, it  was blood!

I woke up in it, but  not at the beach,  I awoke on sand-not like the  moist  grainy sand of the beach.  No, forest sand, sand that had dirt, leaves,insects and  a billion  other things. I  woke  up with my face and feet in  a sea of red.

Negan was still chortling and  cleaning Lucille-a baseball bat coated in barbwire.

I was almost drowning  in  it,  the blood, but I couldn't  lift  my head up. I couldn't for the life of me  look  up  and see  what  the  monster had done. He  had paced around, pointing that prickled bat  at  us,  trying  to  decide who would  be on the receiving end of it. Now  he had  done it, he  had killed one  of  us with unabashed cruelty.  He chose then he executed.  Well, I couldn't look then and for  the life  of me, I couldn't look  now.

The  mad man still  chuckled.  I saw him there, looking down amused, his  craft-a caved  in skull, staring up  at  him. I heard it went  it cracked. I  heard as the skull  was  undressed by the  impact of solid  wood  and  barbwire.  I  screamed at  first, but my screams couldn't drown it out. I heard  it all.

Bmf!

Bmf!

Bmf!

Blmp!

Squish!

I heard it all  and  even now I listened.

Listened to Ricks whimpering, Dylans nervous shuffling, Aarons sobs, Rositas even  and Abraham, but  I could  not hear  her. And that's why I didn't want to look  up, I couldn't hear Maggie.

A  cry, not even her voice, that was the  best  I  could hope  for  and I couldn't hear it. I was  waiting for  my ears to nullify something  my eyes  couldn't, shouldn't see.

Suddenly Negan stepped towards  me till he  stood over my  kneeling, humbled  self. My  heightened auditory  senses could  pick up his bat, wafting  through the air, but  I couldn't hear her, my Maggie.

What a shame, Negan  began bemused. She was  a  pretty one too, he trailed and  moved away from  me, then I  heard him kneel.

I heard  him put his  hand in the sea of  red, but I must've  only imagined  it.  He scooped  it up with two  fingers.  He brought the two fingers  to  his nose and sniffed.

It's sad  he  said. I heard the leaves  of trees rustle, the crickets afar off,  but  when he  said his  next words, I went  deaf!

The realy painful thing  is  you'll never  know if  this  is  just her blood or the baby's  too.

I  screamed. 

I  know  I  screamed not  because I heard it,  but  because I saw it,  I  saw myself  bent over,  mouth  agape, wailing. But I couldn't hear it, I was separate  from myself  it  seemed. I was screaming under water, inaudible, drowning in despair.

I  must  have been that way for five minutes, screaming my lungs  out  in  my  one  man  rock band of  grief.

It all came back  to me slowly,  like I stirred from sleep  to  hear her voice over the shouting and  thrashing  of a nightmare. Glenn!  Glenn!! She  said. My name flung out her  mouth with  as much  urgency  in her voice as there was  in  mine.

I looked up to find her, still there, still  kneeling,  still breathing. That  maniac  Negan was  still  laughing at his  own joke, but I  didn't care, my  Maggie  was  still  here  and even though my super sensitivity was gone, I  knew that  if  I  put my ears against her stomach, I  would , maybe, hear  two  heartbeats, my love and my child, alive, at least  for now.

“ There is no illusion greater than fear."
Lao Tzu

MANCHESTER UNITED CIVIL WAR -Pt. 2

The apparition was Rio Ferdinand. He looked around the room at the downcast faces and he laughed out loud. He found them pathetic, and said as much.

They were momentarily stunned by his sudden manifestation, but soon the mist of mystery cleared and they began to ask pertinent questions.

How do we save the club?

How do we save United?

Ferdinand began to lift up his hand, as though to make a gesture, but he paused mid-air, and laughed again.

You're all a bunch of fools. He said.

The room fell dead silent.

They only had 15 minutes for the break but it seemed an eternity passed before Ferdinand opened his mouth to speak again.

You say, you want to save the club? But you go out there and do the very thing you are fighting against? You go out there and play to win? You are fools! It's never about winning! Ferdinand said this and hit his hands agains his chest.

It's about love for the game. If you must go out there, you must go out there with a heart full of love, not one of competition, you must not see your backslidden team mates as threats to be eliminated, but  friends to be reaquainted with.

Just then Rio Ferdinand dematirialised again and the rebellion was left in silence.

Rooney was the first to break it.

You heard him boys, let's get back out there, but not to win: to love.

Second half began.

Michael Carrick passed the ball to Rooney. Rooney returned the ball to Carrick. Carrick fed a long ball back to Young. Young gave the ball back to Rooney.

Rooney was dead calm.

His breath was easy.

He moved lightly as a feather in a gale. Before him he did not see defenders, or obstacles, he saw colleagues, more so, he saw brothers. He got to the 10 metre box almost effortlessly. His foot struck the ball, and it found the lower right net. Just out of the reach of the keeper.

It was a goal!

The coach smirked at this. He wasn't worried. Not yet at least.

Ander was at it again, he cut through the midfield like a chopping knife, sprinting. His shot was from a long way out. Van Der Sar saw it coming. He managed to tap it out. Scholes was there for the rebound, but there were too many defenders on him. He lost the ball, it found it's way back to the feet of Rooney.

Rooney ran with it. He ran like he had never run his whole life, like a certain darkness chased after him. And indeed it did.

He had barely made his way into the penalty box when a careless tackle brought him down. There were no arguments. It was a foul. Rooney got a free kick. The keeper flew in the opposite direction. Rooney had scored the second goal! Presently  all they needed was a third goal to clinch the  win.

The yellow jerseys rejoiced, but as Rooney jumped up triumphantly, he realised that he had been hurt by the tackle. His left leg hurt. He turned to Van Der Sar.

Van Der Sar saw his predicament.

They switched places. Van Der Sar went out to strike, Rooney-a terror to the post-stood in defence of the post. 

The game began again.

Both sides gave it everything they had. Fatigue set in, but neither side faltered. The lemon green side would push and the yellow side would push back. Rooney watched all of this, hoping the other side wouldn't test his goal keeping ability.

But seconds later. They did.

They tore through the defence with a set of sleek passes. It was tic tac toe, just a little bit more sophisticated. Rooneys head was spinning, but he managed to keep the  ball out the net.

Time was ticking, the game was almost over. The next goal would be the decisive one. Rooney shot the ball far wide.

Van Der Sar with long legs outpaced his marker and found the ball.

There was one minute left,

Van Ser Sar ran. He could feel two players hounding him, but he kept his balance and focused on the ball in front of him. Finally, it was just him and the young keeper, De Gea. Van Der Sar knew how the fledgling would think. So he stopped abruptly, mid-sprint. The defenders unwittingly ran past him and blocked the view of the young goal keeper.

Van Der Sar struck the ball, it flew through the air like a missle in slow motion. It torpedoed-spinning as it went. The young keeper jumped a split second too late, but the tip of his finger still grazed the ball.

It wasn't enough.

The ball  found a cozy corner of the net. The pitch grew cold. The coach sprang up to his feet and ran over to the post. Rooney as well left his station, as did Carrick and other members of the rebellion. They all gathered round Van Der Sar and the coach.

A frown was set in the Coaches face. He seemed sour displeased. But then members of the lemon green side began to hug members of the yellow side, and a smile slowly crept onto the coaches face.

And so it was that finally, the war was over. The occupants of Old Trafford, became one again.

"A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand"- Jesus Christ.

MANCHESTER UNITED CIVIL WAR

Wayne Rooney paced back and forth in the closet room. His jersey number stared at him through a thin pale of glass, and he could almost see his reflection, the misty image of a desperate man.

He rested his knuckles on his waist and let out a sigh. He knew what he had to do, but how would anyone understand? For too long he had been playing a game he did not like. Yes, it was still the same game he fell in love with, in the club that afforded his affection, but something had changed. 



Old Trafford stood watchful over a new team, and that team did not rever old trafford. Indeed that team spat in its face as in the grass. The team had lost its heart, all it was now was a bunch of limbs, effective, but souless.

It all started when the new coach switched things up a bit. He benched Van Der Sar and used a younger, more promising keeper. He put the midfield in offence and the offence in midfield. He cranked up the training sessions, which was normal, but he also discouraged camaraderie. He believed that it was counterproductive for the team to train together, for when they went out into the real games, it would not be playing together that would secure victory, but playing against the opposition.

"Playing anti" is what he called it. Therefore in training he did more than split the team into two opposing groups. He made them two opposing peoples. They were no longer playing to make eachother better, they were playing simply to win.

And they did.

The psychological game worked. The strikers became more aggresive, in training all the way to the leagues final. It became second nature to them,  there were no friends and no friendlys, just an enemy to be defeated. The only thing that was not prey on the field was whatever wore red, not the numbers or names or familiar faces, it was the jersey, simple and short. They were no longer a team, they were an onslaught, and they were victorious.

Rooney enjoyed the glory for a time, but then he realised Manchester United was now  divided.




After the  games there was no more goofing around in the locker room. No bubbling conversations and  unaffected guffaws. There was just the pants and the grunts, and the growls. He realised they were now always on the offence, even after the game was over. They weren't a pack of wolves. They were just wolves, feral and hungry for goals.




Rooney didn't remember the last time he had a casual conversation with his team mates.

But enough was enough. And he did talk to them, not a casual conversation, but a conversation all the same. And those who cared to listen agreed with him. Winning was a noble venture, but it wasn't the only venture. It was the icing on the cake, saccharine and unhealthy in excess, like too much sugar in a little tea. Something had to be done, a revolution had to be staged. Or else Manchester United  would no longer be made up of men, but machines.

Van Der Sar came up with the idea first, over a cup of Coffee. They were at the restaurant across the street from the stadium. It used to be a regular spot for the team, but with the coaches new approach they had visited there less and less, become all work and no breakfast.

Now it was their hide out- the place were they used to share chilhood memories was now the conclave for a rebellion. Rooney didn't like it, but they had no choice. Van Der Sar suggested that if the coaches sole aim for breaking the team apart was to make them better, then all they had to do was challenge the means to his end. All they had to do was show the coach that a team made up of friends, was just as good as a team made up of players.

The coach was amused when he heard it. He green lit the exhibition almost immediately and called all the players to Old Trafford. On one side he had his insentient elite wearing lemon-green and the dissenters wearing yellow. They would face off for two halfs of 15 minutes each, and at the end of it they would see if heart triumphed over intellect.

A coin was flipped.

The lemons would start first half.

Ander charged forward, dribbling past everything in site. Literally everything, what he saw between him and his goal was not his concerned teammates trying to save a club, what he saw were things, to be defeated. Within seconds he was in the 10 meter box, he struck. He scored.

The game started again. Rooney pressed into the Lemons midfield, he could barely hold his own for 5 seconds. He passed back to his central midfield. The pass was intercepted. Two passes later, the ball was at the feet of Ander again. Ander didn't go all the way this time, he sprinted into the left wing and crossed to Martial whose head connected to it right at the curve.



It was a goal.

First half was over, and Rooney was seeing his plan fail. He punched a whole in his locker during the break. He was upset. Perhaps the coach was right, perhaps the science of the game prevailed against the art.

Just then a great and mighty wind rushed in, and with it, bodies formed. First feet, then calves, then laps, a torso, a head and a neck. It all happened before Rooneys very eyes.



Van Der Sar was taken aback. What's going on here? He wondered out loud.

When the body finished forming, an apparition stood facing the rebellious players.The apparition was no stranger however, the apparition was Rio Ferdinand.................

To Be Continued.

Matt Murdock in DEVIL MAY CRY

A dark ghoulish cloud has descended upon Hells Kitchen and the smell of looming catastrophe has been suffocating our hero. But what troubles him the most is not the bruises and the cuts and the blunt force traumas to come, no, his body can take a beating, what troubles Matthew Murdock most is what would happen to his heart.

Indeed he should have seen it coming, like cows grazing on a vast expanse of pasture his romantic interests would not leave him wiithout some dung to deal with in their aftermath. It seemed to him that whether or not the sky fell, whether good or evil should prevail, he would not be the victor, an active, maybe even decisive warrior, but not the victor.

He poured himself another glass of bourborn, his 4th that night, Foggys cover up may not have been too far from the truth afterall, maybe he really was an alcoholic. His glasses were off and the night around him burned in streaks of orange, gold and red, almost as if he were peering at the world through the lens of a flaring sun.

He wished she was there. He knew he wanted her there. What he didn't know know was who, who did he actually want of the three....Peggy?

Peggy was frail to behold, but in her eyes was a sttength that was almost intimidating. She was always fidgeting, and nervous, wanting you to understand, expecting that you wouldn't. She was uncertain yet endlessly charging down a singular path, she was the only hero he knew who didn't need to turn her hands into fists. And she was beautiful, everything she did was beautiful; the way she smiled that half smile, looked at you out of the corner of her eye, tucked her hair beneath her ear.  Just beautiful, tender yet suspect, much unlike Elektra.

Elektra was the epitome of trouble, and what's more attractive than trouble? She had all the charm of vanity; consuming, fast, unpredictable, she kept you at the edge of your seat, always guessing she was up to no good and proving you right every single time.Elektra was easy, she was like nightlife. His nightlife. Dangerous, but containable, extreme but survivable, isn't life all about survival?

Survival, if anyone could revive him and save him from any future physical, maybe even emotional harm, it was the 'night nurse'. Yeah, that's what she'd been reduced to. He couldn't call her by name anymore, not with how far they'd drifted. Night nurse was both mountain and wind, pliable yet unmoving, fixed in her ways so that even her compromises were laden with virtue. She was easily the most formed of the three, the mos well rounded. She could anchor him, keep him from billowing in the storms that were coming. Night nurse would not merely string him up and have him restrained like a kite. No, she would shelter him, they would weather it, tpgether.

He stepped out of his apartment and onto the roof. The night was alive with crime. He could smell the steel of knives in the air. His ears heard the bullets shifting sightly in their chambers. Finally he settled his senses on the harmless, the innocent, the decent, these were the people that became prey to the cruel. These were the people he had to proctect, so that they would be unscarred, so that they would not have to become him.

As he listened he heard them, the three, the trinity of his heart. Their hearts were beating rapidly!

Peggy kept muttering oh my god over and over again, panicked.

Elektra said just wait till I get out of this, then I'll tie you to this chair with your own intestines. They slapped her. He heard knives approach, he started to head out when he heard the third.

The night nurse, his Claire, she was begging, saying please don't kill me.....

For a moment he was sure where he would go to first, based on proximity, but then he heard all of their captors say, all at once. You have 15 minutes to save her.

His head snapped left, then right, then forward, but his feet, were fixed to the ground.

"It is in your moments of indecision, that your dreams are destroyed."-Dr.Marc Dussault

DRAKE~THE SCORCH TRIALS

I just want some h--d in a comfortable bed, it could all be so simple. Well I've got a 5 ft 9 brunette on a 5 by 4 king size. There's some Don Perion champagne in a cauldron of ice; compliments of the hotel manager. My top floor room has a sky line of the better half of New York and if I squint a little, I can see the streets below, everything and everyone that is beneath me; that's a lot of people.

The brunette stirs. She's prettier than I remember, with high cheekbones and legs for days. For a second or two I consider going in for a second helping, but then, it's the morning after a one night stand, no need to ruin things.

So far it's a slow morning and I'm winging it. For the first time in a while I don't know what I want to do next. Not that there aren't events and schedules-I've got things to do, but nothing I want to do. Perhaps the brunette will make for some fine conversation.

Hey, I say and panic for a bit. What if she doesn't speak English?

Hey, she says back with a wry smile, like she had read my mind.

How'd you sleep? I ask.

Like a baby, you?

Nightmares.

Gangsters have nightmares too? She says, shocked. A moment passes and then there's a paroxysm of laughter.

You're funny. I say.

Funnier than you. She quips. So what was the dream about?

It's weird.

Spill.

Well I was standing over this pond, a real big pond. A pond that has all these twists and turns like one of them water park rides, only it's flat not vertical.

Interesting she says. Pretending  not to be amused, all the while making it obvious that she is

No, the interesting thing is what was inside the pond.

Pray tell.

Sharks. Big ones and little ones and some medium sized ones.

Fascinating!

No, what's fascinating is it felt like I was rearing them. Like they were pets or something, and the ironic thing is, I hate sharks! Literally AND figuratively. I mean, their survival is based on hunting after the weak. So one minute your swimming side by side, fin to fin in perfect harmony, next thing you're injured and just when you need help the most they turn on you.

Wow, what did sharks ever do to you?

Let's just say I've known some walking, talking sharks in my time.

Hm.A dangerous game...

What? I ask, snapped out of my reveriè.

A dangerous game. She gets off the bed then, and prances off to the bathroom.

When she returns I ask her. What's a dangerous game?

She gets back under the covers, swinging one unending leg after the other till she's swallowed in a river of white. Well, she begins, I spent the first dozen years of my life growing up on a quaint little street in Russia.

Russia? I didn't spot an accent.

Shut up. As I was saying. There was an old woman who lived a couple houses down from us. One of those really old sagacious types that read palms and can tell a witch from a cat.

I see.

Shut up. She was really nice and sweet and I used to go over to her place a lot. On one of those days she sits me down and tells me a story about some old slavers who used to live up north. They sold and bought women until one day, the girls formed a union and rebelled.

Awn, that's a nice human rights story. I say half mocking. What's it got to do with my dream though?

I wasn't finished. When the girls got liberated, they made a good life for themselves, and it was legal too. They thrived for so long and they kept in touch.

Sweet, sweet, sweet. Still looking for relevance.

Have you no chill? One day they had a full scale reunion. And after the drinks, and the laughs and the tears. You know what these middle aged upper middle class women decided?

What?

To open a brothel.

Wow. Why?

That's the same thing I asked her, and she said sometimes we exorcise our demons, only to become them.

I don't get it.

She called it the scorch trials. You get exposed to some fire, you flinch, you recoil, but even though you're scalded a part of you liked the warmth, and it's a trial in that you must decide whether to stay away, or to return...

Like a moth to a flame. I interject.

Yes, like a moth to a flame. She concurs.

So you're saying I've become a shark.

I'm saying just because you got away from something, doesn't mean you got over it and it's a beautiful thing to go from being tormented by a thing to becoming master of it, despite the consequences.

At this I turn aside and a silence creeps upon us.

Get out, I say gravelly, finally.

What? She's shocked. She sits up on the bed, but only a little.

I said, please leave. I turn back to her now. She looks in my eyes and determines I'm serious. She gets up and slowly starts to pick her things off of the ground-trails of clothing that lead away from the bed and towards the door. After she's done she begins dressing up, till finally she's clutching her matching bag and heels to her chest and boring a hole in the back of my head.

Why? She asks after she's done glaring.

Because I still really hate sharks.

"When a defiling evil spirit is expelled from someone, it drifts along through the desert looking for an oasis, some unsuspecting soul it can bedevil. When it doesn't find anyone, it says, 'I'll go back to my old haunt.' On return it finds the person spotlessly clean, but vacant. It then runs out and rounds up seven other spirits more evil than itself and they all move in, whooping it up. That person ends up far worse off than if he'd never gotten cleaned up in the first place."- Jesus Christ.

Taylor Swift-Two Words Too Soon

I dream about it sometimes. The kind of dream that isn't a memory, but an earmark of a moment passed. 

In the dream I'm floating through a garden of lush flowers, with petals that gleam and radiate a soft glow. My gown barely touches the ground as I glide over light stems. The trunks bow at my passing then resume their stature of pristine beauty. Sometime in the dream, I sit somewhere in the garden, and my being encircles you.




My knees rest in a tent created by my gown and I hold you in my hands, like a little bird with broken wings. But in the dream you are no bird, you are a flower. With blade like petals that couldn't cut butter and yet, administer the deepest wound, in the dream. In the dream I play 'I love you, I love you not', and with each petal of yours that I strip away to ask those two silly questions, you die. But only in the dream.



Morning, New York. I'm at least a couple of miles away from the train station but I feel like I can hear it. The city is alive with activity, like veins during a panic attack.



I'm not panicked, not even a little, but Fluffy doesn't like the noise, or the feet. She furrows deeper into my chest. We've got to catch a cab. But as my eyes dart back and forth, they catch you instead. I don't know it's you till the tinted windows slide down and you smile up at me.


You're going my way so I hop in.


It's awkward.

I know its awkward because the smell of leather is heavy on my nose and the seat is warm beneath me. You just got the car and dropped someone off before you happened upon me. I know these things because my mind is working overtime trying to dustract me. I can feel you squirm and grope for something solid enough to break the ice, if it merely thaws you know we would probably never speak again, because old friends seldom ever make reacquaintance if they fail at the first attempt.



You see Fluffy and a smile breaks out like dawn on your face, you reach over and pet her. She purs. I suddenly speak feline and know she's ratting me out. Snitching about my sleepless nights and our pillow talks. You ask me how old she is now and after that the awkwardness passes quickly and we play catch up with a flourish of characters and events and moments that we should've shared, but the latter goes without mentioning. Because it's the elephant in the room, it announces itself.



You drop me off and I promise to call, there's sadness in your eye because you know, like I do, that I never will, I almost do, but never.



As I watch you speed tentatively off, I think of that day. The day that haunts my dreams with allegories.



On that day we were in your apartment, not a  garden. You'd paused mid sentence and begun looking past me, staring down my soul.



"What's wrong?" I asked. Stupid question, because nothing was wrong, the vein in your neck, the moist on your lips the song on the radio all pointed to the fact that everything was terribly perfect. Maybe that's what scared me. It was all too good to be true.


"I love you." You said and my fear became horror. I swallowed, I staggered and found myself on the edge of your couch. My head dipped into my hands and made as if to cry, but instead they floated back up again.


You ran to me as though sensing I was on the brink of flight, you landed on your knees and said it again. "I swear to god that I love you. And I know that you love me too."


"I don't." I said, and I had spoken too soon.



"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life."-King David.

The Weekend-ShadowLands

In my head it always plays out the same, this night, like all the others. I arrive and the silver of the moon is caught in the black of my cadillac. My hair rises softly and quickly blends in with the bustles of smoke in the air. The entire club is waiting for me, it seems.

There's music, and noise, and bodies. More bodies than belong in such little space. VIP is different though, like a new planet. It has more suns and more stars that boom bright in the darkness that surrounds. I fit right in here.

A nod here, a smile there, a squint and I've more or less acknowledged the presence of the noteworthy. The rest will have to acknowledge me, fawn at my feet, oogle at my coiffure, the same old song.

They smell different though, the girls. It's spring and they've got on the new scents, that Mariah Carey Dream, that Dior Passion. It's nice. I can close my eyes and maybe they'll feel different. I doubt it though. It's always the same old song.


The waiter brings drinks, the usual. It's red, it stings, I ask for another. About six shots in I no longer feel separate from the atmosphere. I'm spinning with the lights, I'm jumping with the feet. The only thing I'm not doing is wafting through the air like the smoke.

The following morning I deal with one of my easier hangovers, there's two girls lying where my memory used to be and as I kick myself mentally for not taking them to a hotel instead. A call comes in on my phone.

It's Chris, my manager. He wants to know if I took home a short Asian chick with a tattoo on her left thigh. A quick glance back tells us both I didn't.

Good he says. She was underage and her dad-some enterprising billionaire-is rousing up a storm.

I feel a little saddened at this. Such unprecedented conflict might have been fun.

The rest of the day is more of the same, except my mind keeps going back to the Asian chick with the tattoo on her left thigh. What did he mean by underage?


This is Toronto, so that would mean she's anything between 15 and 20. The higher end of that wasn't a problem to me. Maybe I ought to find her, I thought. Do her pops a solid.

I call one of the bouncers and I find her. She's not at a guys place, she's with her girls.

45 minutes later I'm standing at their hotel door like it's Christmas and I'm Santa, they've gotta love what I'm carrying.

A blonde model type opens the door, all wide eyed and wide mouthed-this should be fun.

There's at least six of them, all aware of all the possibilities of all of this.  Six wouldn't be my max, but it wasn't me on a bad day either.

They're creative enough. It's all slow and sensual like D'Angelos beats. But I wasn't in there tryna make music. I was tryna make a memory.

The groping, the fondling, it all felt like golf to me. Each swing looking like the last, each stroke to the same end, inevitably getting some ball, into some hole. It was all par the course, some woods, alot of ponds, but my double entendres were wearing thin though, I needed life, not lyrics. Maybe like the filmakers, they'd saved  the best for last.

The Asian.

She danced and she giggled and she let down her hair, but when everything came off there was little more than more of the same there.


Two nights later I found myself back at the same club. Sitting in my cadillac for a bit, bracing myself. There was a super pissed father somewhere wanting my head on a stake. A part of me wished he could have it. I stepped out of the car, the entire club is waiting for me, it seems.

“ Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?

William Makepeace Thackeray

Miley Cyrus-What The Other Girls Won't Tell You

Here's what the other girls won't tell you, with their fitted frills and their batted eyes and their puckered little lips.



They won't tell you that it's almost never what it seems. Not with a dash of lies and a truckload of 'I don't know....all I'm saying is....I don't know." The truth is we know, better than anyone else that the reason you can't get us to commit to some prissy little flight of fancy is because frankly, you wouldn't be able to afford the plane tickets.



Let me put it more mildly, you're broke.





Not the good kind of broke were you've got your hands in your pocket because everything you touch turns into gold and you'd just like to lay low for a while, no. The kind of broke were your hands are flailing because you're drowning in a cesspool of your own worthlessness and can't seem to grab on to anything tangible. Anything tangible like say us-good women- so why should we stay, or even come into your secondhand arms in the first place? Bear with me I've only begun.





Exhibit A, Lola. Lola is a girl. A good girl. Lola just wants a good man with a good head on his shoulders. Lola finds said man and said man finds Lola quite attractive (but frankly, a bones a bone to a dog anyway, a man will almost always dig you if you dig him and generic affection is never a nice hole to be buried in). Said man marrys Lola and Lola begins the utterly romantic but downright stupid activity of 'starting with him from scratch.' Not knowing that love is not martyrdom, and love doesn't grow on trees and money doesn't either. So Lola quickly becomes despondent because both those trees are now withered away with no signs of life in the near future. Such a waste isn't it? Lola then realises that love doesn't cost a thing but the rent, kids tuition and extended family's upkeep certainly do. But girls aren't the only ones erring in this field, meet Charles!



Charles was the star football player in High School. Oddly enough, he was also quite intelligent, seemed to know what he wanted out of life. Unfortunately knowing what you want and knowing how to get it are two variant things. Charles finishes school. Charles goes to college, Charles then meets Charlene sitting on a tree, k-I-S-S-I-N-G ensues and then comes a baby, sleeping in a carriage. Like so many others, they skipped the marriage part. And now Charles is so bogged down by the pressure to be a father and or a husband he can't hold more than two jobs for fear of losing his woman or losing his kid. But hey, he still makes a very good striker down at the local community stadium where he plays ball with his friends on the weekends.



But still, is that what you really want? Blind trust, love, whatever, is that what you want her, me, to feel for you? Think about it. Shouldn't she see you for everything you are, all your potent and latent glory and decide that she trusts you to be captain enough to brave whatever storms may come in life? Because believe me there are storms, storms so strong that the strongest ships can't help but capsize, but no matter what, a great captain is invariably a great swimmer. Why would you want to be anything less? why would you want to be the first open door to a lost puppy? They're cute I know, they're adorable yes yes, but  you're a man. You don't do cute and adorable, you do strong and expedient.



What the other Charlenes and Lolas won't tell you is yes, they're not gold diggers. But there's not a woman-no not one!-that doesn't want to strike gold and to do that, recquires a certain amount of digging. She needs you to dig for greatness in yourself because not a tree, not a house and not a pipeline ever sprang up, without first breaking some ground.

 "Being a woman is a terribly          difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men. Joseph Conrad"

@

ADELE: THE LONG DRIVE HOME

His memory came back to me like splinters, small, obscure and unnerving. Such that they sat wedged beneath my skin, intimate yet unreachable, unalterable in the same frustrating way as nightmares when-waking up and realizing it was just a dream- you mourn that you didn’t do better, react better.

 I wanted to call him, reach out to him in some off-handed way that didn't reek of desperation, but I knew he would see right through it like a paper thin veil. He knew me, and with that knowing was a lack of a place to hide.

I scrolled through my contact list nevertheless. There were acquaintances and colleagues and family and just a handful of friends, because anyone who really mattered had their number memorized, which was ironic because there his name was sitting between my travel agent and my accountant, there he was unofficiously, yet he mattered still, and mattered a lot.

I won't have you calling me that. He said one spring morning as a regally restrained ray of sunlight cut across the sky.I find it pretentious, and frankly, not quite you.

I see, and you've suddenly become the expert on just who exactly I am? I said teasingly, hands propped on shoulders, smile on my face, an expectation of joy, because joy was all that ever became of our pseudo-philosophical arguments.

I'd like to think so. He responded matter of factly. Let’s say if you ever for some reason stared into a mirror that's been cracked and-having a million different reflections- wondered which was truly yours. I'd be  able to tell you.

Quite hauteur isn't it? To insist that looking through your eyes and not mine is the only way in which I'd see the true image of myself? My hands were in his now, fitting perfectly, being.

He looked at our hands together, seemed to reach my conclusion about them, smiled and said. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder not the beheld, then who you are is who you are perceived to be, and who better to perceive you than I? I who have loved you, sensed you, breathed you.

Now you just sound like a serial killer. I said pulling my hand playfully and abruptly from his.

Do you love me? He asked, sincerely.

I guffawed. Wow, all this just because I called you munchkin?

He got on his arms now, so that we were facing each other, head to head, chin to chin. If you trust me enough to love me, then you must know that I see you, the you that is you that is you. He said and squeezed my nose.

That's how he was; able to vacillate from graveness to levity in the blink of an eye. I loved him for this. It made our dark moments easier to bear. And now here I was, pining over him, the butt of the joke, the punch line.

What if he didn't think of me as often, or at all? What if, in my wistfulness I had painted a picture of him that was just as invested and intrigued by the relationship as I was? What if he had forgotten, was I to take so bold a step? Why did I have to be the one to feel regret so strongly? He always used to say that mutual feelings bred mutual actions. So that if one leaned in for a kiss, the other leaned in as well. Where was his leaning now? Surely he still had my number. I'd kept it and guarded it for just that reason. Made myself very accessible so that on the day he decided to turn around, he would find the road back to me quite encouraging, road map, arrows and all.

I felt alone in my longing, and with that lonesomeness came a sense of betrayal. How could he move on so suddenly? Move to another state, get with another woman, co-habit with her? It seemed chimerical to believe anything else of him. To believe he was waiting.

I tossed the phone aside then and decided I wouldn't give in, not if it killed me, which was likely. I would die with my pride firmly grasped in my hands. The woman is to be pursued and not be the pursuer after all.  My independence was relevant only as far as it was mine and not subservient to unrequited feelings.

My phone that usually buzzed incessantly didn't ring for the entirety of that night. As if the universe had decided to call my bluff.

You will do no such thing my mother stated the following morning when I told her I was driving down to Charlottesville to see him. At the very least take a flight, buy two tickets now! One to and another fro, she said when she saw I was unrelenting. Don't stay too long, really you deserve better.

Thing is I didn't want better, I wanted him. So I called to give him a heads up.

His voice was groggy; it seemed I had woken him up. I should’ve considered the time difference. Nevertheless I could hear him sit up in bed when he heard my voice.

Oh my god, it's so good to hear your voice. It's been so long, are you in town? He said, a little enthusiastically, perhaps even hopeful.

No, but I will be. I paused, swallowed hard. I'm coming, I'm coming for you.

There was a long silence, as though he was taken aback. The silence lasted long enough to make me nervous. Hello, are you there?

Yeah, sorry, I was just trying to make sure this wasn't a dream. I've had many like it. When are you coming?

Now.

Okay. He said and I could feel him clutch the phone, reaching for me. Adele?

Yeah?

I never stopped loving you.

And that was all I needed to hear, to make the long drive home.

 “For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.” 

― Stephanie Perkins

 “Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire.” 

― Dan Brown

Ronaldo v Messi: Dawn of Justice

In my world, there are only three things that matter, the ball, the pitch and the game, nothing more, nothing less. My name is Jermaine Justice, and this is the story of how I became the greatest footballer of all time.

It all began in 2012, Cristiano Ronaldo was at his peak, and it seemed there was no stopping Lionel Messi. They were the gods of the game, but the heavens could only harbor one ruler at a time. Needless to say the ocean had room for only one titanic, constantly at cross hares, one always trying to outdo the other, but little did the world know that these two forces of nature shared a strange relationship. A relationship that thrived outside the stadium, behind closed doors. 

They were friends.

The truth is they had always been friends, but the powers that be paid them to keep up appearances, encouraging a celebrity feud that gave fans of both their clubs something to bicker about. Off pitch they shared dating tips and talked about gardening. Messi was always having trouble pruning and Ronaldo just couldn't get the ladies to stop calling. But lately, the two had found something heavier to talk about. A dark cloud had cast its shadow upon football, and they found themselves in a precarious situation.

It's not like it used to be. Messi confessed. The spark man, it's gone. Everything's so predictable now. The league starts and you kind of already know the teams in regulation and the teams vying for the cup. There are no underdogs, no black horses, just winners and losers. It's no longer a game man, it's a corporation.

Ronaldo who was always the quieter of the two, just nodded his head as if to say, I feel you bro.

We've got to do something man. I mean me and you, we can hold our own, and we can thrill the crowd. But in the next 10 years, we'll be gone, and then what? This game is bigger than just the two of us man, we've got to leave the fans with something more than a memory.

What do you suggest? Ronaldo asked.

Messi thought about it, long and hard. Let’s find a protegè. Someone we can train, mold into a paragon, a model of the perfect footballer, to inspire the next generation.

Let us make man in our own image. Ronaldo mused and the both of them shared a hearty laugh.

Their joy didn't last too long as they would soon find that their task was easier said than done.Everywhere they looked, they found either talent without skill or skill without talent. Ronaldo favoured the latter whilst Messi preferred the former, but they could never agree. Only the perfect blend would do.

That's where I came in, they found me in some little corner somewhere, playing street football. They were impressed and theytook me in.

For 12 months they trained me secretly, dragging me through the dessert heat and the forest rain, trying to force me to shed off all my excesses. They worked me so hard I couldn't feel my legs and arms anymore. It was like I ran on air. Fatigue became a stranger. They pushed and they pushed till I could hold nothing back, I became the perfect hybrid, the ultimate player, in theory of course.

But it wasn't enough. Ronaldo needed to know that I could maintain the skill, that I could carry on without them. So they weaned me off all support and put me back on the streets where they found me, to fend for myself. 

I'll tell you up front. It was horrible! Every one and every game was just too slow for me, the kids I used to look up to suddenly became pushovers, nobody played with the intensity I needed. But I was determined to stay focused; I wasn't going to let their drizzle dampen my storm. I played ferociously, like a wounded beast on the pitch; the ball was mine and no one elses.

By the time they came back for me, I was better than ever or at least by my own estimates. They had one final test for me. It was Messi’s idea.

The test was to play a one on one game of two halves, the first half with Messi, the latter with Ronaldo. I protested of course, it just wasn't fair. I'd be comparatively fatigued if I was playing with a fresh of the bench opponent the second half. I threw their challenge back in their face. I said I would take them both on, in 10 minutes with a Golden goal in effect.

They did not restrain themselves, nor did they relent. They came at me with all their firepower. Messi dazzled me with his legs. They went left and right, and left and right, then right again, but he just couldn't clear me. He passed to Ronaldo and who tried to use his stature to prevail against me physically, but I held my ground, even if I was to lose, I would not make it easy for them.

The ball was at the feet of Messi again. He accelerated. Not ran, accelerated, it was like he had 10 gears and all the horsepower in the world, but I knew something most didn't. One light little touch and he would go tumbling to the ground. I did it, he was flat on his butt. Then all I had to do was get past the imposing figure of Ronaldo.

He marked me, and it seemed no matter what I did, he wouldn't budge. I spun left, and right, and flicked the ball. But I just couldn't shake him. Messi was back on his feet and sprinting towards us. My window of opportunity was slipping away. I had only one option. I took a deep breath and charged forward. My plan had a two to one chance of success. It was either our impact would floor him, or floor me, or floor us both. I was just inches away from him. I could see his broad chest heaving in anticipation of defense, but I never got to find out what would happen if I struck Goliath. Right there, at the very last split second, I decided against my plan and did a 180 degree spin with the ball. I stood back to back with Ronaldo facing the post. I struckt he ball and it began to roll rapidly to the goal line. 

That was when I felt it.

A strong wind blew past me. It was Messi, no longer sprinting but on full speed, he was going to intercept my goal kick. I began to wish I had struck the ball even harder. I'd never seen a human being move so fast. It was as though the clothes he wore would tear off his skin!

He kicked the ball away....

.... a second too late. It had already passed the goal line. I had won! I had beaten the two great gods of football. The both of them ran and embraced me, as though we were all on the same team and shared the goal. They bore me up on their shoulders, and the champions proclaimed me to be a champion.

"True leaders don't invest in buildings. Jesus never built a building. They invest in people. Why? Because success without a successor is failure."Myles Munroe.

JB-FEVERS RUN DEEP

I still see it now, erratic waves crashing against stoic rocks-at the base. At the base we're all faced with waves, but me, I saw it, chipping away, softening the surfaces, slowly, surely, till it gave way, a mountain parted like the red sea, and all because of her.

She still hung around in shadows, edging her way across my corners, mocking me, with the same passion she was loving me, once.

The ribbons in her hair billowed when she was in the light, but in the light she was never with me, always a gaze way. In the light she smiled easily, bit her lower lip and turned away.

I'd call it stalking if it was anyone but me, but I just couldn't shake the fever. It ran, like electric bolts torturing me, jolting me from semblances of dreams. Volts and streaks of white, they formed crooked flags in my dead of night.

She reigned like the rains in their season. I remember one evening, beans fresh on the stove, I told her we could while away time, swore to Jove that it would not burn this time. Again I was wrong, her laughter rung in my ears for an eternity, her words were jittery, a lifetime of speech, when she held me I could no longer feel the watch on my wrist. Beans burnt and I wondered what sort of love is this? the sort that seals promises, and is too fervent to honour it.

The strange kind the preacher called it. The kind that had a man losing his purpose, pon a roof. Same man had a lion by the tooth, but facts so seldom mean a thing to the truth-he was weak! Weak at the knees like the rest of us, the sort of weakness that always gets the best of us, by playing on the worst, like a pun playing on the words-it was cheap. Bought us at a price that meant nothing to it, brought us to our lives and made us throw a punch into it, and why won't we do it? Be victimised by our own affections, the things that dominate our attention.

It's a garden you see. Flower beds cushioning the fall, roses overpowering the stink of it all. A garden if ever there was and a maze of thorns, stay away from the walls. It cuts you, you bleed, you cut it, and she bleeds. You're without enough root to stem the flow, in a vein she lets no needle go, and if there's a red streak of tears, it's all show and no tells. It's all wood and no bells, no space on the door frames for knuckles, just nails pon nails reinforcing its purpose.

"I don't want to talk about it." Stay away from the walls.

I loved.

By Jove I loved and by Jove I lost, but the consequence of what it cost caused a crevice to constitute the berth where once was, my heart.

Tattered, a bullet hole through a tat, bloodied picture of a man, I demanded this. Holding her wrist, loving it, loving the bracelet and its glint, loving it because I got it, I bought it, and she brought it, because she thought it looked good on her. And you never care for fashion, just the look of you on her.

I'd give two for her, heck I wouldn't fret an extinction level event just for a view of her, smiling, biting and not turning away.

One end of a day, she called, cold on her breath. She coughed when she spoke, and I remember clutching the phone, because I wanted to be there, but she told me not to come, the weather was for flu and the flu was for one. She told me not to come, her angelic voice ruffled at the edges-a spooked peacock of words I still saw beauty when she said this, saw beauty in her wreckage.

By jove I loved and by Jove I lost. A similar call, that morning, day breaking, light dawning, noise forming in the womb of the street, sun dispelling all the night had conceived, it was that moment between the cold and the heat, she called and I picked.

Hey babe

Hey.

You still coming over later?

Silence.

Babe you okay?

More silence. Then a no.

What's wrong?

You Justin. You're wrong.

What did I do?

Tope told me you have like a shrine of my pictures in your room.

Well I wouldn't call it a shrine but....

That's not normal Justin.

Okay. I guess I'll take it down.

I don't know anymore...

Know what?

I'm sorry.

For?

"Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma."- Victor Hugo

"He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity."- King Solomon