A Mind in Motion

     He settled on the stone, his crinkled eyes sweeping over the faces gathered around him as he gripped the staff with the gleaming stone perched atop it warily in his hands. It all felt different--like he was suddenly alone, separated from them--and his shoulders curled a bit up and forward as if the sensation had weight and he wished to protect himself. Their stares no longer regarded him as father, grandfather, brother, ally or even enemy. No, they looked at him as something else now--something undefined but necessary.      He did not know what to expect of them and, he suppose in turn, they did not know the same of him as well.      This was all so...well, he had no comparison.      Perhaps, he thought, this was where they should begin.      Lifting his chin up, drawing their attention towards his face, he gestured to the vast plains and jungles around them--his hand slightly cupped to be clear he was d...

     The wood beneath her heeled feet thumped with the beat of the bass as she weaved her way along the far wall between the bodies hugging its graffiti framework and the masses gyrating against one another on the dance floor. The cocktail of scents that drifted from each glistening skin was driving her mad, her nostrils flaring in hunger as her mouth watered and her tongue kept scraping against her teeth. Golden irises flickered over the sea of swaying limbs, the blood pumping in their veins and the pheromones being expelled like pollen in a field of mixed flowers, tugged on threads deep in her belly like magnetic points driven by instinct to one another. She wanted to taste them, to lick the sweat and honey from their bodies, to bring them bucking and writhing against her in ecstasy.      But there was one--so sweet, so spicy, so unlike them--only one, she wanted the most.      In the Shadows of Twilight streaming into the warehouse, acr...

     So I sat watching tv a bit in my free time this weekend, taking in the very few currently airing shows that I like, as well as indulging in ones I have loved in the past. In doing so, I have come to see a shift in storytelling that I'm not fond of--and the more I see of it the less I understand it. There may be a proper term for it floating out there that I haven't seen or heard of yet, but in my little writer world, I'm calling it The Crowded Effect.      I know you have seen it.      I've even heard some of you complaining about it.      I just haven't seen the destructiveness of it until now.      Let's take your favorite show all the way back to season one. You remember that, don't you? The awesome intro to the world of characters A+B+C+whoever else that is the core of the show? The people who will be with us in the beginning, and though not all may make it, the one at the very least who will be ...

     His pen tapped erratically against the creaking oak beneath him--his right foot nestled in worn out docker shoes tapping out an inharmonious rhythm along with it--while his office chair creaked with each rocking of nervous energy as he bounced between the open book in front of him and the figure leaning against his doorframe. Stubble rubbed harshly against the collar of his open sweat stained button down and his nose twitched at the smoke curling up from the still lit cigarette he had put down in the overflowing ashtray just moments again.      But still his attention never wavered between the two entities that had the hairs on his unwashed body raised in alarm.      "An-...and that's all I have to do? That's it?"      He hated how his voice seemed to rasp so loudly in the narrow room, the sound of overwhelming city life somehow muffled out as if there was a bubble around them.      The figure nodded, a ...

     The dust drifted around her boots like a phantom snake slithering across the desert sands as glittering shards of fallen tears crystallized by the sun painted mirages in the distance that tempted her hungry eyes. Her skin prickled at the beads of sweat that railed like scorched rivers across her tanned plains, rolling steadily down into tattered clothes that clung to her aching frame, but she carried onward.      Vultures lurked in the shadows under the thick heat chocking the air, their beady eyes trailing every stumbling step she took, waiting for her knees to sink into the rusted land beneath her one last time. When one got bold enough to try and encourage her back into the grave she had pulled the knife they had so graciously buried into her back and drove it deep into the screaming birds eye, gouging as far as her own pain ran until it fell limp in the trail of her boot prints. None had bothered since to try and get close again.     ...

     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...