Sleepless in...Superior Township?

Crunch crunch.  The sound of corn flakes seemingly echoes in the spacious kitchen-living room.  A boy, unsure of what he is to do at...2:42am.  Why doesn't he sleep, you ask?  Oh, legend has it that he doesn't need sleep.  Some people say that he draws energy from people.  Rumor has it that he's just...different.  Regardless of the reason, here he is, typing away at a familiar bright screen, staring out through the windows facing the kitchen table.

It's going to be a long night, he thinks to himself.  The dark clouds appear almost like charred marshmellows against a black cardstock canvas.  Everything seems so...stagnant.  The real reason of why he can't sleep, is much deeper than even the most ridiculous rumors, and yet...it's normal.

He's having recurrent nightmares, you see.  If I don't fall asleep, then I can't have the nightmares...simple enough.  Ha.  Simple enough.  The boy's eyes slowly defy his wishes and start sliding down, just as the show curtains are about to rise.

Our boy finds himself on a boat, tossed and turned by stormy seas.  He looks down, he's already geared up in a full rainsuit, hands on the rope, trying to hold the sails steady.  The ocean's sure feisty today...I wonder what's bothering her?  No answer, merely a lash out from the ocean, resulting in a giant wave.  Is this how it's going to end?  Come at me, ocean, I'll be yours, dead or alive!  Almost seeming like it understood the boy's commitment, the ocean's waves calmed down merely a tad.  As the boy breaths a sigh of relief, his hand slips from the ropes of the sails, and his boat blows out of control.  As the boy fumbles to hang on, the rain is blinding and crippling.  A sudden swell from the starboard side knocks the boy off his boat and into the ocean.  As the boy is sinking into the ocean and all starts fading to black, an image of his love turning and walking away haunts him still.  Noooo...come back!!!

The boy wakes up, heart pounding, eyes alert.  It's going to be a long night.

Her

All it takes is her handwriting,
and it makes me giddy.

All it takes is her smile,
and it gives me goosebumps.

All it takes is her kiss,
and it makes my legs weak.

All it takes is her happiness,
and my heart swells with glee.

All it takes is
Her.

The Test

It's strange, sometimes when I've had a deep discussion about something that really got me thinking, my mind decides to make it into a realistic puzzle game.

I found myself not knowing where I am or how I got to where I am. I am in an odd room, resembling a classroom but almost completely cleaned out, with the door open, and the only window revealing light so bright it blinds if and when you try to look out.

On the blackboard, is a message, written out in all capitals: "CHOOSE WISELY."

I look around, and at the only chair and desk in the room, a piece of green paper with the word "Fortune" on it and a piece of red paper with the word "Power" on it lie seemingly harmless. Is this what the message was talking about? Which piece of paper do I choose? I sat on the chair, staring at the desk with these two colored pieces of paper; perhaps there was a message on the back of these sheets of paper. What would happen if I decided to look at both?

After a while, I finally flipped over the red piece of paper, partly out of boredom, and partly just because curiosity got the better of me. On the back was scribbled, "Don't look at the green piece of paper." To make matters worse, the door that was open suddenly closed and locked. Now what do I do? Flipping over the red piece of paper has only left me with even more questions than before, my curiosity unfulfilled, on top of now being trapped in the room. Do I flip over the green one now? Or do I listen to the warning on the red sheet of paper? I decide that I might as well flip over the green piece of paper too, since I had nothing better to do, the door was closed and locked, at any rate.

That was a mistake.

Flipping over the green piece of paper, I was shocked to read, "Don't look at the red piece of paper." The window slowly started to creaked shut. As the light in the room was being consumed by darkness, I realized it was too late; the wise choice that the message on the board was talking about, was to simply leave the room.

As my vision blacked out, I woke up.

**********************************

**********************************

Temptation is everywhere and unexpected, will you choose wisely?

Skeletons

I find myself sitting awake, late at night [inclined to say, as usual]; the room light is off, although my desk lamp is still glowing weakly. Some Coldplay track is playing softly in the background, and a book of bones and skeletons lies open on my desk. Pictures of skeletons in various pictures and poses shimmer off the limited light in the room. How creepy.

I've actually never understood the scare factor of skeletons. They're the structural portion of something formerly living, merely giving us a very good clue of what the organism would have looked like when it was alive. After all is said and done, we have our own skeletons inside of us [and other stuff that we tend to hide], and we cannot separate that from ourselves. I am most likely analyzing this too scientifically to deem scary. That's no fun, oh well.

Perhaps the whole horror genre has taken this to the next level with skeletons that move and have been reanimated with "dark magic." Plenty of fantasy games, RPG or not, have used skeletons as an integral part of their mystical, mythical brutes of some diabolical mastermind's evil horde. What that says about what people view about the skeleton, I won't be able to even scrape the surface; all I know is that it would seem that culture has deemed the skeleton an object to be feared and the cause of many children's nightmares.

I suppose that's why the phrase "skeletons in the closet" is deemed so apt and appropriate about nasty little secrets that people hide. Now those, not skeletons, are truly scary.

The Mad Scientist

Thunder booms, lighting strikes, a house in the middle of the forest.

The house is empty, a few creaks from the doors, but otherwise silence rules. Suddenly, a shadowy figure appears from an upstairs study, flies down the stairs, and dashes across the foyer. The flash from the lightning gives a glimpse on the shadow's face: one of a young man. The man disappears behind shelf. Closing the door behind him, he puts on his sound-canceling headphones. Let the experimentation begin! A lone smirk is seen on the young man's face.

As he stretches his arms and flexes his long fingers, he thinks on which instrument he shall work with. Looking around, he smiles at the large one, standing upright in the corner. Bigger is better, hmm? A marvelous machine of creation, black and white with gold imprints, the young man is happy with his choice. As the young man's fingers fly across its studded surface, the instrument responds quickly and pumps out waves of consciousness.

He is manufacturing mellow melodies, hinting at haunting harmonies, singing slick syncopations, and dancing with dangerous dissonance duos. They call him a madman, trying things that no one has tried before, mixing things that no one has dared mixed before. The young man pays them no heed; this is what he does best, what he loves: that is all that matters.

The trees outside are swinging back and forth, humming to a beat in the wind, jamming to the techno-esque lightning flashes; in the background, a soft bass-line of laughter is heard echoing.

Love, Unrequited.

Sitting outside on the steps of the apartment complex, a lone voice is heard at 3 in the morning. He is calm, having conversed with the stars in the peaceful night sky; now listening on the phone, where a girl's crying leaks out.

A young soul that cannot love in return is a soul in trouble indeed; but is that truly possible? Can there really be a love, unrequited in all forms? Oh, the good and the hurt that can come from such a predicament.

Love is not governed by laws like nature, how would it actually be possible to have a situation in which love continuously flows in one direction, like a stubborn stream, laboriously cutting through solid rock? This is not to say that love isn't natural; rather, it is a delicate thing, held in balance, nurtured by people. Given such resistance, love isn't as persistent as the wind that blows past him; love isn't as everlasting as the earth under him; love isn't as absolute as the fire that glows in the distance.

He comes back inside, the leak from his phone now fixed, but the question remains. If it isn't dictated by laws of, and like nature, then what controls how love is given and received? Is it not unsettling when one cannot return love and caring that one receives? Is it not so upsetting when one does not receive love in return for all that one has given? If that was the case, could love ever be unrequited? Can't love be given without expectations, without the strings of custom, under the influence of the puppeteer of social norms?

Unresolved, his mind wanders, perhaps there is no answer just yet. As the sun slowly rises, the stars go to back to sleep, and he follows suit.

The Study Break

It's late. Real late. Unfortunately for Jacob, this isn't, and won't be for a long while (he thinks), bedtime. He stares down at the tiny text that lay in front of him. Things are starting to blend into one incomprehensible jumble of letters. Formulas, main thesis of passage, enzymes...it's all a mess.

With nothing but the slight buzzing of his room lamp, the silence is again broken with the closing of his book. Jacob isn't content with how he's been scoring. Too inconsistent. I'm still making really stupid mistakes. The test is staring me in the face, why can't I get this down? Jacob's frustration comes with good reason. This test will literally decide his future.

He turns away from his book. He picks ups the cans of energy drinks that litter the floor of his room, and after throwing them away, Jacob can't stop pacing back and forth. Perhaps my mind is too cluttered to study right now. Looking at his online buddies list, he chuckles to himself, realizing no one is on at this hour. Well that plan fell flat on its face.

He's trapped, Jacob is; if he tries to continue to study, the effectiveness of his stressed mind dwindles like a flickering flame in the wind. On the other hand, if he tries to do anything other than study, he feels guilty in not "trying his hardest." What if that one mini-review was what got me that extra point in Physics? Jacob can't stop psyching himself out.

I'm not normally like this; this is probably a testament to how important this test is, compared to whatever other exam I've taken before. Jacob breathes in deeply a few times, and looks out the window. The sun is rising, and an incoming chat comes in: "Boy, you should go to sleep soon." Words of wisdom. Jacob takes another glance at his stack of books, shaking his head, he turns off the light and pulls the covers over his head, knowing that the stack of books will still be there when he awakens.

Dear Friend

It's certainly been a while since I last got to see you.

What would I do without you?

I just wanted to take the time to say thank you, for being there, friend.

You are always a call or text away; even though we live so far apart, you'll always let me know if you're stopping by near my room. I'm so grateful we've taken time to get to know each other so much more, we're a lot more alike than I originally thought! We can talk literally for hours, and I don't mind putting those hours aside just for you. To be perfectly honest, I don't know if there is anything we can't talk about, our experiences seem to mesh very similarly; it makes for a great support system.

I know you've talked me through some hard times, and you know I'm more than willing to do the same for you. Your good news makes me happier; your bad news makes me sadder than any equivalents in my own life. The level of understanding that we have between us is most likely something no one else can quite grasp or ever experience; it's almost like it's imaginary, too good to be real...

I'm so thankful that I know you, friend; you are irreplaceable in my mind, my heart, and my prayers.

You are a blessing in my life.

Yours,

Friend

Sounds of the Night

Tick, Tick, Tick.

Time on the clock is perpetually winding down.

Staring at all the work, the kid says, "Frick."

Instead, he looks outside, only to see the moon frown.

Tock, tock, tock.

The text in his books getting small and blurry;

He looks at a blank paper, writer's block.

The kid rubs his forehead; his mind a flurry.

Drip, drip, drip.

The kid hears from across the suite, the leaky sink;

The most inconceivable, yet irritating blip.

The ruckus, the writer can't think.

Drop, drop, drop.

Why won't this paper write itself?

He looks at his bed, covers and pillows on top.

With a sigh, he puts his books back on the shelf.

Creak, creak, creak.

The boy closes his room door, and off goes the light.

"Perhaps sleep will give me the answers I seek."

Good night.

Circadian

Eliot lay on his bed. The blinds shut the moonlight from entering, and his room door closed to the late night stirring of his suitemates. For now, it was only the little green flashing light of the smoke detector, and the eerie glow of Eliot's labtop computer, slowly playing his playlist of Coldplay.

Eliot sits up, and turns his head to his desk clock. 4:02AM. "One of those nights again," he sighs to himself. As he gets out of his bed, Eliot looks at the stack of paper messily compiled in the TO-DO box, clearly the only offending piece of his otherwise neatly kept room. After a slight hesitation, Eliot elects to not to dig into the pile. "I'll get to it tomorrow," he reassures himself.

"What to do now then?"

He thinks of the past; his life has just been a blur. A messy collage assembled with only half the effort, and a fourth of the time. As he sits in front of his computer, Eliot rubs his eyes, so many questions. Where did his motivation go? Where is his youthful drive? What is he doing with his life?

Coldplay's The Scientist comes on:

Nobody said it was easy.

Nobody ever said it would be so hard.

Oh, take me back to the start.

It was time for Eliot to go back to the start. As the song ended, Eliot climbed back into bed, awaiting his fresh start, one that would come with the newborn sun of tomorrow.