A Mind in Motion

     He whistled softly as he left his cubical and stepped out into the open hallway, his eyes fixed on the paperwork in front of him that needed copying. The tune he could faintly recall drifted in the air along with the hum of the ducts above pushing recycled stale air out like it would make a difference to the smells that every other office he had ever worked in seemed to create--a melting pot of metal, plastic, food and bodies.      Watching the slight gleam of light kick off from the still rather large device--he often wondered how technology could make smart phones with scanners but copiers still stood like sentries hogging corner space--he caught a glimpse of movement behind him and turned slightly to catch a shadow quickly dart out of sight. It had been getting bolder over the last few weeks, more willing to let him see clearer shapes of its form, but it still kept to itself during the daylight hours.      He hadn't decided yet if ...

     As many of you know, I started the year off with a fresh notebook I intended to fill up with drawings on a daily basis until it was full. It's a simple sketch pad with 70 pages in it and I thought I could easily do a doodle a day as I am often sketching one thing or another. And it was simple, for the first few days, perhaps even into the first few weeks. Then I felt something I had not experience before--a dry well.      It wasn't that my imagination was empty, in fact it daily over flows with ideas and visuals, but my drive, my energy to give them an outlet, started running low. There were many days I only had an hour to get a sketch in and, with so much going on in my life as it was, I felt like I was just dropping little random lines with very little emotion behind them just to say I had done it. Pride is an awful creature that can push you forward when your feet can barely hold you.      It got to the point I had to evaluate wha...

     He remembered the first time he had heard the tale--the Haunting Story of a beautiful woman swallowed by the sea who beckons men with phantom lips to a watery doom--and though he had been but a boy, he had pulsed with heartache. How unfair, he had thought, for such a creature to be lost under the sway of Poseidon. His imagination painted many vast imageries over the years of what she would be like--swirls of cerulean blue, sea foam green with obsidian eyes--and he yearned with curiosity to capture a glimpse of her.      It was no surprise then that, as soon as he was able, he had traded dry land for long nights on rocking wood and sea legs that jellied at ocean born squalls. Wet ropes tore and calloused his young hands, rum became a permanent taste upon his tongue and salt water dripped from his pores. Each night, as the stars glittered above and the lapping waves rocked against the side of weathered wood, he would hang a lantern over the railing of ...

     The wood in my hand creaked under the strength of my grip but I know its sturdiness and it will never fail me under the strain I will put it through.      When I had first felt the rush inside of me, the hair raising electrical charge that revealed itself to be Magic coursing through my veins, I dreamed of the day I would wield it as strongly as I do a sword.      It took years to master--a n uneasy road of many failures with few triumphs.     I courted the scattered training grounds, seeking tutelage under as many practitioners who would grant me time and attention. Some taught me wisdom beyond my age, others kept me up to pace as I grew, and the few who failed me, betrayed my innocence--engraining in me both mental and physical scars that drive me still today towards righteousness.      Over the years there has been much blood on my hands--those of monsters and demons that dwell in caves and nightmares--an...

     He was a blacksmith's son, a weaver's lover, a nobleman in his dreams.      His skin was the shade of night, his spirit a Wanderlust , and his body a riddle of chiseled lines earned through hard work with long travels upon the land and sea.      There had never been a song on his lips or a ripple in his pains that gasped with each beat of his heart. He knew not the swell of despair or the ache of lost that rattled bones.      But the day the Knights rode in to the small port he had just spent his last dime to reach, his skin tingled with a pulse of something he could not place but felt so deeply it spoke of truths unseen.      There, as they trotted past, a single pair of stormy grey eyes surrounded by gleaming gold in the light of the fading sun caught his own. They grazed him with phantom touches as they swept up and down his form, then returned their focus to the ships docking in the distance, but ...

[ Previously ]    ..."They will not accept you," she reasoned.      His maniacal laughter bubbled up out of him again and she did not need to see his eyes to know the glint in them now.      "They do not need to, they simply just have to kneel before me." *****      The cavern rumbled again and loose rocks tumbled from the ceiling around them. She was not sure if this network of tunnels would remain stable after the tremors ceased or if it would collapse altogether. Kek hanu seemed not to care either way as he continued stepping back towards the shadows.      "I cannot let you abuse innocents like this," she warned him. She had hoped for reason, but prepared for a fight nonetheless if he was unwilling to see things her way.      "I know, mother," he replied, a hint of resignation in his words.       Her shoulders fell slightly at the reality they bot...

[ Previously ] ..... "We do not play with mortals," her commanding tone cracked, but the whip of her words fell short upon his deaf ears.      He cocked his head, so much like his simian descent, and questioned childishly, "Why not?" *****      She felt her temper flair at his willful ignorance. From the day she had brought him home, set on giving him every opportunity lost to him when his lineage faded in a haze of madness and blood, he had pushed back at her with defiance. At first she assumed it was due to the trauma of his past and his inability to deal with his emotions. Then she chalked it up to his irrational rage, brought on by his basic animal nature--his hormones--his physical separation from others as he aged--and any other excuse she could find to lie to herself.      Eventually, though, she had to accept that he was defiant because it was part of his nature. He could not fit in, could not settle...