I don't remember exactly how or when I first discovered it. Strangely, I can't give you a date or a time. One day I just felt like I had done the same thing all over again. Deja Vu. And more and more so it kept happening. It was small at first, falling in the category of speech and movements, but afterwards it just seemed to spike.
That sick feeling of repeating something or being somewhere but you aren't really sure you have been. Trying to desperately remember when or where you had seen the same thing or if you heard it on the radio, convincing yourself that you arent going mad. Only it wasn't just me, there was a clerk at the front desk of that decrepid motel I was staying at who swore to me that I had just come last night to check out.
Exhasperatedly, she said I walked in and I told her to check me out of the hotel and send a bottle of rum to the room. I was livid, who the hell was this woman to tell me I had done something I had no memory of. My face was on fire and my fists balled into solid stone. I felt like smacking her. I realized how upset I was getting and it threw me off, I have never had a temper before.
That's when she showed me the security tape. Those closed caption ones that time lapse every second or two. And shit if it was clear, but in that split time video on the screen in front of me, I saw me, walk up to her and stand right in full view of the camera.
What the fuck was going on here? I starred at the man in the video wearing my jacket, wearing my boots and my torn up work jeans. And then I watched in horror as the man in the video wearing my face, stopped and looked directly at the camera and mouthed my name.
I yelled at the clerk to turn it off and stop fucking with me!! I was terrified and she was at my mercy. I screamed obscenities at her as I left the lobby in a maddened clamor, knocking things out of my way, delirious and trying to understand what the hell was happening.
Was I drunk? I must have been, I have had far too many beers in the last couple of days. But even in my drunken state I never have done so many conscious things while havng no cognitive memory of some sort afterwards.
I walked to where I had parked my car the night before, I was done, I was leaving Sacramento, fuck this, too much city, It's probably getting to me. I froze in a heat and a wave of pure anger as every sensible bone in my body exploded into fury and hate as I stood agaze of the giant hole in my car window. What the fuck?!?!
Yelling and cursing like a mad man I climbed onto the seat and brushed the shards of glass off the dahsboard, cutting my palm deeply in my haste to get into the car. I was so infurriated that I didnt stop to ask what had happened to and why the clerk had videos of me but not of some jerk off wrecking my car. Nothing seemed important, except for leaving the streets of this repetive hell. Even the track homes that surrounded the ciy were all the same.
I didnt even care for the two inch gash leaking on my lap and on my steering wheel. Blood everywhere but I didnt care, I was leaving. I didn't check the mirrors, I didn't connect the seat belt and I didnt even use my signals while I turned. I was getting the fuck outta Dodge.
Sacramento was a blur through the giant man sized breach in my windshield but I didnt care as I burst through red lights and stop signs. I didn't care when I went onto a one way street and clipped a car as I sped past. I didn't care as I tore the rear bumper off my car as the steel chasis ripped like paper on the concrete median of the road. I jumped on the freeway as the high rise buildings of downtown grew smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror.
Going over the speed limit by 50 miles shot a deafening flood of wind through the glass window and spun the interior of the little car into a frenzy of paper, glass and blood. I'll stop when I can't see the city anymore. I'll fix my hand then but only then. I'll be safe when I'm back at home. I'll be free when I can see the ocean, when I can smell the smog of Los Angeles and the traffic of the 57 freeway. I'll figure all this out when I'm far far away from Sacramento.
Speeding at over 100 miles an hour oblivious to my surroundings and what side of he road I was on, I smacked head long into a UHAUL pickup truck headed the wrong way. And as I sailed perfectly through the man sized hole of my front windshield, I couldn't help but feel like I had done this before....
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Kindle For Fire
By D. V. Cortez
I held my wife as she cried, the clouds covering the earth parted and the stars that were so very safe and far away were visible for the first time; so close, and so beautifully dotted in oblivion that it was all we could do to hold each other close and ignore them. I held her tight, my muscles taught as I dared not let go. I could smell her sweet scent, the kiwi-strawberry aroma of her conditioner, the light but perfumed smell of her almond skin. I took it all in deeply, holding my breath as I closed my eyes to her, remembering her this way, beautiful, my perfect angel. Elaine, her name rolled off my tongue the way that beads of sweat rolled off the backs of us two young lovers in heat in the back of my pickup. It was my shoulders she first held onto while I chose to hold onto her gaze, her breath cooling the moisture on my lips, rocking with her in the light of the moon so many ages ago. On this night though, it was not passion or friction of sexual embrace that heated the night air.
I held my wife as she cried, the clouds covering the earth parted and the stars that were so very safe and far away were visible for the first time; so close, and so beautifully dotted in oblivion that it was all we could do to hold each other close and ignore them. I held her tight, my muscles taught as I dared not let go. I could smell her sweet scent, the kiwi-strawberry aroma of her conditioner, the light but perfumed smell of her almond skin. I took it all in deeply, holding my breath as I closed my eyes to her, remembering her this way, beautiful, my perfect angel. Elaine, her name rolled off my tongue the way that beads of sweat rolled off the backs of us two young lovers in heat in the back of my pickup. It was my shoulders she first held onto while I chose to hold onto her gaze, her breath cooling the moisture on my lips, rocking with her in the light of the moon so many ages ago. On this night though, it was not passion or friction of sexual embrace that heated the night air.
I hoped at this moment, clutching her beneath the veil of stars that she thought of me as I did of her; my other, my best, and my love. We had returned to this place many times before, our tradition, our romance. I could feel the tremble of her body, but I wondered now if it were me, if it were her, or if it was the floor beneath us. And I knew as she knew the truth of it, we all were shaking.
The mountains had split open and the crust of our planet howled with a bellowing agony and anger, spewing geysers of white hot molten rock among the remains of our technic civilization. The oceans began to drain into the vast fissures of the planet as the Earth convulsed and vomited its inorganic molten organs onto the surface, singeing and devastating everything it touched. Trees collapsed or burned to a blackened husk, cars melted and exploded with the intense heat of the rivers of magma flowing through the canals of our sky scrapers and buildings. Steel, plastiform, concrete and brick ripped, tore and crumbled into mangled corpses of alien and painful architecture. Everywhere was burning; the night sky was blood red, aglow in the fires of hell on Earth; chaos incarnate. The day side of the shuddering planet was black with soot, smoke and ash while the night side glowed a ginger and crimson hue.
The sound of a dying planet was fearsome; a deep echoing howl beneath our feet, the smell of burnt wood, flesh and other-worldly stenches arose from every new break as the destruction tore at the artificial and fabricated and stung my eyes. The scent of my lover that had always calmed and soothed me ran together now, mixing with the choking sulfur and smoke of the world that smoldered around us. I looked at the remains of the horizon behind the woman in my arms, eerily stirring in the distance where I could see through the haze and the explosions of rock and earth.
Humankind had run its course. We were the inheritors of this mechanized automated world, with every tree cut down, every glacier melted for drinking water, every forest razed only to be covered with a metalloid concrete skin we called development. Streets and interways were cut and fabricated, interconnecting vast contaminating cities that grew as cancer, on the flesh of the world; imprisoning the globe beneath a synthetic prison of industry and technology. If the planet had a voice, its tranquil song would be tarnished with the weeping of its pain. And we, the idle and undeserving caretakers who had ignored her warnings and who had gutted out her every resource, would suffer as she suffered.
Everywhere man and machine cut into her body, she would remember it as trespass against her. For eons, she kept us safe from harm against the vastness of space and the unknowns of the universe, she had grown on us, and we on her. From the birth of our civilization to the age of space faring cultures she has nurtured and provided for us in her own way. Was I not a good mother? She was mother. We were her children. We have been disparaging, inconsiderate, and complacent. We have taken her and her gifts for granted, and out of her everlasting love for us, it was time to put us out of our misery. But still, I wanted life, I wanted time, I felt betrayed. I so much wanted to scream and punch the ground I stood on, and cry out to her, “Mother, Why?!” But she, bereft of patience would say, because I loved you, and you have abandoned me. But we would not hear her answer. In our selfish ways, we would simply ask why me?
I stood at the foot of the sea as it steamed and frothed angrily back into the crust of the planet, holding my wife Elaine as she cried, her gorgeous auburn hair more radiant than ever, her skin softer than I remembered, and her eyes so deeply amazingly blue when she starred at me by the receding waters. Make it stop… her eyes were saying. I can’t….
She clenched her eyes tightly shut and sunk back into my chest while we held each other in a place we knew so well. What I wouldn’t give for another hour with her, I yearned, as I rested my head onto hers. So much I should have said and done, so many things I wish I hadn’t. But I can be here…now. I held her tightly to my chest offering what little comfort I could. Words were fleeting, but as we huddled together in the silence of our breathing, I knew she loved me, and I her. In these last minutes I thought of my children grown and gone, the times we fought and screamed at each other, laughed at each other, and the day at the beach when my skinned burned red and Elaine, the most beautiful girl in my world, had offered me SPF 80.
I watched in awe as the atmosphere above us two split open, revealing the elegance of the midnight starscape in a thunderous clap. The earth trembled and ripped apart in her last convulsions throwing us to the sand of the beach where we returned. I got to my knees and grabbed for her and she crawled to me, tightly nestled into my arms we sank back to the ground. As the fires and flames of molten rock and ash began raining down from the sky about us, and the soft winds of the sea turned into a blistering wave of fire, all I could say to Elaine was, “Shhhh shhhh shhhh. Everything will be o...”
Friday, March 20, 2009
Origin of Ideas
In making this very clear, I don't want to dilute the meaning behind Cinders of Dreams. This is a journal, a diary, a canvas, for the purpose of getting my thoughts and stories out in writing as a compass to guide my ideas in both linear and non-linear directions for self expression. Many of the later additions are fictional with parts of my life experiences or desires intertwined, while others will follow a more true-to-life autobiography of my past and future endeavors. The distinction will not be inherently clear because as is true to my life, many things I wish for, want for and do are not so ordinary, as are the stories I write and the thoughts that pass through my mind at any given moment. Currently, while writing this, I am compelled to explain the reason for my writings and the courses they follow.
I am a novice writer of science fiction yet many of the stories I write and am working on have an element of drama, romance, erotica and/or connection on a very deep and humanistic level. Why?
I believe, based on an elementary set of traits that we are all born with, that one of the main driving traits that we all share is the idea of belonging. We wish to belong. Whether it be to a group, a clique, a family, or a relationship, we all desire meaningful, substantial and nourishing human connection. What is human connection?
In a sentence, it is the relationship between persons or people, built on trust that allows for the individuals the opportunity to be completely honest and genuine with private feelings and aspirations with the knowledge that no matter what, everything will be ok. It is my belief that we all have facades, even around many of our closest friends and relatives; we adorn ourselves with faces that hide our true feelings, thoughts and pains for fear of rejection. Though we yearn for the chance to be open and honest with another, we harbor our feelings and thoughts from each other for self preservation. However, if someone looks closely enough, as I do, that mask you wear becomes translucent. I would tell you that I understand what you are going through, and that you are in good company.
Why do so many of us live in fear of ourselves and each other? Why do so many seem to be superficial, fake and private when every person, regardless of appearance, age or virtue, share identical fears of acceptance on some level? Why is it so hard some times to share yourself with others and in some situations, with the person looking back at you in the mirror? My diagnosis, in a word, is Love. It is what we search for, fight for, hurt for , cry for.
We as complicated, emotional and spiritual beings, go through life with many things on our plates and on our shoulders. It can all seem so overwhelming at times. Even in the complications with socializing and the issues that life sometimes gives us to work through, financial, marital, occupational or physical, the simplest of gestures can be just what it takes to pull us back to normality.
Love, there are so many capacities in which it can be expressed, so many avenues it can take in deliverance. Hugs, as adolescent as they can sound, can make you feel in control in a world full of chaos. A kiss, can make you feel important and special in a society of ubiquitous individuality, where everyone is searching for their niche. The holding of a hand brings warmth and comfort, as if in a gesture, a message can be derived that says in its way, 'you are not alone.'
Alone, another concept that motivates or demotivates our actions in connecting with others. It is an ominous idea indeed, the thought of being or ending up alone, unloved and uninvolved. Many are stricken with it, many of us are emotionally paralyzed by it. What process of self deprecation is it that makes one feel so unimportant and/or undeserving? We are all born children, innocent and special. We all have memories of better times as care free spirits, but what systematic events take place in your life to eat away at individual self confidence? So many traumatic things happen in life that go without saying. It takes awhile to understand those things, to learn from those things, to grow from and away from those things to become, dare I say, human, again. But in retrospect, is it not human to grow and learn from our ailments?
I use the term human as the object of desire that many people unintentionally vie for. Simply because many people that suffer from depression, numbness and anxiety feel so disconnected from humanity that they do and act in certain ways to make themselves seem and feel human. Which at times works when in the company of others, but in reality, the act of pretending is just a social bandage, not a permanent fix to the heart of the problem. But what is it to be human?
To feel human is important, in many respects it is because feeling human is the act of being human, connected to others of the same nature, belonging to the same moment in time, and accepting of our frailties. We become part of a group, loved and cared for even when we seem strong and in control or lost and needing a hand. That is why many of us live our entire lives with basically the same groups of friends, live in the same place for years on end, and even find work close to home. It is so we are close to what we know, connected to what we are and who we have been, and most importantly , so we can be nearby to those who have come to love and accept us. Throughout our traversal of life we meet many people and experience a variety of conditions, yet those who we befriend and even fall in love with, are in many respects the people who make you feel whole.
Though it is not the entirety of humanity that falls within the category of those that yearn for loving assimilation, it is still acutely rational to surmise that in the end we all have that not so ambiguous desire...to be.
Allot of what I write and will post here, will fall within those devices, so that even you who don't know me intimately can still identify with my stories and feel connected. And perhaps, while reading and writing bits here and there that examine the human condition, together we can answer some of those questions that linger in our minds after the sun has set. Thank you for reading friend.
With Love, D.V. Cortez
I am a novice writer of science fiction yet many of the stories I write and am working on have an element of drama, romance, erotica and/or connection on a very deep and humanistic level. Why?
I believe, based on an elementary set of traits that we are all born with, that one of the main driving traits that we all share is the idea of belonging. We wish to belong. Whether it be to a group, a clique, a family, or a relationship, we all desire meaningful, substantial and nourishing human connection. What is human connection?
In a sentence, it is the relationship between persons or people, built on trust that allows for the individuals the opportunity to be completely honest and genuine with private feelings and aspirations with the knowledge that no matter what, everything will be ok. It is my belief that we all have facades, even around many of our closest friends and relatives; we adorn ourselves with faces that hide our true feelings, thoughts and pains for fear of rejection. Though we yearn for the chance to be open and honest with another, we harbor our feelings and thoughts from each other for self preservation. However, if someone looks closely enough, as I do, that mask you wear becomes translucent. I would tell you that I understand what you are going through, and that you are in good company.
Why do so many of us live in fear of ourselves and each other? Why do so many seem to be superficial, fake and private when every person, regardless of appearance, age or virtue, share identical fears of acceptance on some level? Why is it so hard some times to share yourself with others and in some situations, with the person looking back at you in the mirror? My diagnosis, in a word, is Love. It is what we search for, fight for, hurt for , cry for.
We as complicated, emotional and spiritual beings, go through life with many things on our plates and on our shoulders. It can all seem so overwhelming at times. Even in the complications with socializing and the issues that life sometimes gives us to work through, financial, marital, occupational or physical, the simplest of gestures can be just what it takes to pull us back to normality.
Love, there are so many capacities in which it can be expressed, so many avenues it can take in deliverance. Hugs, as adolescent as they can sound, can make you feel in control in a world full of chaos. A kiss, can make you feel important and special in a society of ubiquitous individuality, where everyone is searching for their niche. The holding of a hand brings warmth and comfort, as if in a gesture, a message can be derived that says in its way, 'you are not alone.'
Alone, another concept that motivates or demotivates our actions in connecting with others. It is an ominous idea indeed, the thought of being or ending up alone, unloved and uninvolved. Many are stricken with it, many of us are emotionally paralyzed by it. What process of self deprecation is it that makes one feel so unimportant and/or undeserving? We are all born children, innocent and special. We all have memories of better times as care free spirits, but what systematic events take place in your life to eat away at individual self confidence? So many traumatic things happen in life that go without saying. It takes awhile to understand those things, to learn from those things, to grow from and away from those things to become, dare I say, human, again. But in retrospect, is it not human to grow and learn from our ailments?
I use the term human as the object of desire that many people unintentionally vie for. Simply because many people that suffer from depression, numbness and anxiety feel so disconnected from humanity that they do and act in certain ways to make themselves seem and feel human. Which at times works when in the company of others, but in reality, the act of pretending is just a social bandage, not a permanent fix to the heart of the problem. But what is it to be human?
To feel human is important, in many respects it is because feeling human is the act of being human, connected to others of the same nature, belonging to the same moment in time, and accepting of our frailties. We become part of a group, loved and cared for even when we seem strong and in control or lost and needing a hand. That is why many of us live our entire lives with basically the same groups of friends, live in the same place for years on end, and even find work close to home. It is so we are close to what we know, connected to what we are and who we have been, and most importantly , so we can be nearby to those who have come to love and accept us. Throughout our traversal of life we meet many people and experience a variety of conditions, yet those who we befriend and even fall in love with, are in many respects the people who make you feel whole.
Though it is not the entirety of humanity that falls within the category of those that yearn for loving assimilation, it is still acutely rational to surmise that in the end we all have that not so ambiguous desire...to be.
Allot of what I write and will post here, will fall within those devices, so that even you who don't know me intimately can still identify with my stories and feel connected. And perhaps, while reading and writing bits here and there that examine the human condition, together we can answer some of those questions that linger in our minds after the sun has set. Thank you for reading friend.
With Love, D.V. Cortez
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
