The T.V.

T.V., arguably the best and the worst invention of all time. Right now I think it is the cat's pajamas, the bee's knees, and any other outdated 20's slang that one can think of. The T.V. is great for relaxing. It is even better for gaining information. I'm not talking about the news either. Hardly ever do I learn something new from there. I'm talking about cartoons, movies and the occasional sit com. You laugh, but there is so much one can learn from a well written story. I believe that one of the most important things in life great imagination. The better the imagination is defined, the easier it will be for the individual to navigate through the obstacles of life and find creative solutions to problems. So T.V. , I ask you now to give me your weirdest, wildest, most out there shows you can find. let them seek into my subconscious mind. I have work to do.

Walk on

Want to hear something pathetic? I am a hero who lacks courage. If there is anyone out there who has been following my adventures I guess it is safe to say that that is fairly obvious. But that's me, I am the cowardly lion. Do I enjoy being this way? No, I find walls of any sort to be infuriating. Mental restraints are tough to break. I think there are many people in the world who don't quite understand that. The trick is to keep walking though. Take a deep breath, or two, or three and walk on through the mud. It may be hard at first, but the mud will eventually turn into dirt, and the dirt will be a paved road. Honestly, I am having trouble believing my own words, but I too will walk. I will walk on and on.

Rats!

There is relaxing, and then there is being comatose. I feel as if the the doctor put a spell on me. The past couple of days seemed as if there was a fog on my brain. I could not think much at all. At least not deeply. But I think the fog is starting to lift now. My focus is not quite where is was. It's getting there though. Ready for a new adventure, I get in the shower. I like to make the water as hot as I can before it starts to burn. Keeps me warm, wakes me, and creates a nice level of steam that surrounds me. I enjoy this morning ritual until the water becomes violent. The pouring water turns into a whirl pool that encircles me. The water runs faster and faster. A dead mouse washes up in my periphery. Slightly grossed out, I jump through the whirl pool with minimal struggle and land on the tile floor. Once I am out of the whirl pool, the water calms down and drains. I walk over to the bathtub to investigate the poor, dead mouse. In its place I see two dead rats with their heads stuck in the drain. I jolt out of the bathroom not knowing what I want to do first. Vomit, bleach my eyes, or take another shower. I don't quite know what is going on, but it is strange and disgusting. Something is about to happen, or has already happened.

Doctor's Orders

After the incident with the treadmill, I was taken to the emergency room. Just to make sure everything was ok. I was put on a bed, and left over night. They performed countless tests on me. As far as I can tell there is nothing physiologically wrong with me. It appears to be psychosomatic. I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse. The fact that it can be all boiled down to stress. The doctor told me to use a day to myself. Relax, don't try and venture into the unknown. Don't try and figure things. Don't even think that hard. All he wants me to do is relax. Honestly, I feel like I do a lot of that anyways. Perhaps too much. But if that's what he wants, if that is what he thinks that I should do, maybe I should listen. At least for today.... until I get bored.

Semi Trucks and Video Games

Turns out the mother is a hardcore driver. I watched as day turned into night and we drove across countless state lines. This is just the first time we're stopping all day. I'm sure glad I decided not to get the Big Gulp from 711 before I began this journey. I unbuckle, let out a big yawn and stretch my arms and legs. I glance over at the girl, she is fast asleep. The mother looks at me through the rear view mirror once more. "You wanna get out and explore?" She asks me. "I do." "Go ahead." "I don't know where I'm going or if I'll be back though." "Don't worry, we'll be alright. Thank you for your company." I smile. "The pleasure was all mine." I exit the mini van and I see a crowd of people gathered around a semi truck further down the parking lot. Letting my curiosity get the best of me, I walked up to the Semi truck. It was some sort of video game tour. It was a test audience for whatever this latest video game system is. At any rate, everyone was thrilled. They were all pushing and shoving in hopes that they would be the next one to test out the product. I was not that interested in playing it. I wanted only to see what it looked like. I stood calmly in the back of the line. Guess that was enough to draw attention to myself. "You there!" A middle aged man with a Sonic the Hedgehog shirt shouts to me from inside the truck. "Me?" I say somewhat timidly pointing to myself. "Yes you." He replies. "How you like to be the next one to play?" "Um yeah sure." I say. The crowd begrudgingly parts for me. I hear a lot of "Are you serious?" and "Why him ?" as I draw closer. As I'm about to climb into the back of the truck the man with the sonic t shirt puts a microphone to my face. "You ready to be a part of history?" He asks. "Yes." I reply simply. He takes the mic away from my face. I look around. There are many gigantic flat screens everywhere. All of them displaying what would be considered by today's standards archaic graphics. If this were 1996, it would be cutting edge. But it's 2013 and the graphics look more boxy than realistic. In the center of the truck is a treadmill that hooks up to the screens. "Ok." The man says to me. "All you have to do is get on the treadmill and run." "That's it?" "That's all. This game you are a marathon runner. All you gotta do is run and run fast." I walk on to the treadmill. " I think I can do this." The man goes over to the control panel, throws some switches, and before I know it, the treadmill starts up. It seemed a breeze at first keeping up with my boxy avatar. However, it became increasingly difficult to run on the treadmill. It was as if it was getting stuck and I had to apply pressure just to get it to move. "Go in the opposite direction! It's easier that way!" The man shouts to me. I turn around and run in the opposite direction. For a while it is easier and in fact even fun. But then it becomes increasingly difficult to run. I try and apply pressure like before. No luck. I can't run it's like my leg's don't work. "Stop the machine!" I scream as I jump off the treadmill. The man rushes over to me. "What's the matter? What happened?" He asks me in a panic. I take a deep breath. "I just can't run anymore."

Road Trip

Normally I wouldn't think to hitch hike, but I wanted to change things up a little bit. Plus, I'm currently at a busy intersection and I don't feel like walking anymore. So here I am like a jackass with my thumb out in the air. No one seems to notice or care. All the cars zoom past me. Eventually a bluish, rusty, mini van pulls up along the side of the road. From what I can tell it looks like a mother, about mid thirties, and her little girl. The girl looks like she could be about six or seven. The mother rolls down her window and shouts to me " You gonna come in or you gonna stand there?" I walk over to the mini van and try to pull open the one side door. It's stuck. I yank as hard as I can and the door flies open. "Whoa there superman." The mother says to me. I don't say anything, I just buckle myself into the middle seat. The mother looks at me through the rear view mirror. " That's sweet of you, that you're keeping my daughter company." I glance over at her daughter who is looking out the window. I hadn't even realized that is what I was doing. I knew it seemed odd at the time to open the sliding door instead of taking the front seat, but I went with it as if it was my plan all along and I nodded. The mother smiled, started her car and took off. "So, where are you driving to?" I asked. "Not sure, we just wanted to take a road trip across the country. where are you going?" I shrugged. "I don't know." "That's ok, you'll figure it out." The mother reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out an ice cream cone. It looks fresh, as if there is a secret ice cream making machine in her glove compartment. Everything is still perfectly and professionally intact too. Two nice rounded scoops of blueberry ice cream on top of a pointed waffle cone. "Here sweetie, I completely forgot about this." She says to her daughter while extending her arm with the ice cream. The girl's eyes light up. "Thanks mommy." The daughter grabs the ice cream from her mother's hand. The daughter proceeds to open her side window. I look on at the daughter in awe. Now the daughter sticks the ice cream out the window. "I think she's gonna drop it out the window." I shout. "It's her ice cream, she can do with it whatever she pleases." The mother says to me. Hearing this, the daughter takes her ice cream out of the window and offers it to me. " You want it?" "No, I couldn't take that." "It's ok I just remembered you saying blueberry is one of your favorite, but you can never find it." " Wait how did you know that?" I ask her. " I don't know, I just remember." "But I never told you." "Guess I just know." The girl smiles to herself and continues to look out her window. The mother looks back at me again. "So where did you want to go?" "I don't know, I have a feeling I already went somewhere."

The Guards

I am surrounded by darkness, but luckily I have a pack of matches for such a case. I reach into my pocket and grab the pack of matches. I strike a match, but unfortunately it does not stay lit long enough to give me any indication of where I am. So I rely partially on my other senses. I creep down the hallway, listening carefully for any noises that would be out of the ordinary. Every so often I strike another match. It is almost like a less obnoxious version of a strobe lite. All I get are fragments here and there. A stone floor, a leaky roof, spiders, rats, but nothing could prepare me for what I was about to see. A huge wooden door guarded by three adult bengal tigers. I tried to remain absolutely, absolutely calm as the tigers stared me down. Then my last match went out. If I wasn't in danger before, I surely was now. I didn't know what do to. They had already seen me, and turning around seemed just as if not more dangerous. So I persued. I walked on, hoping that I would not be mauled. I literally tip toed and stepped lightly. I could hear their yawns and feel their breaths on my ankles. After what felt like an eternity, I felt my hand on the wooden door. I searched for the handle. The door was unlocked and I there was no fight from the tigers. I opened the door and was greeted with a ray of sunlight.

P.E. Revisited

Despite the face that I have been out of high school for years, I have some how found myself back in a P.E. class. It is exactly how I remember it. There are the "built" kids who get way too into the class. There are the wallflowers (that would be me.) They just want to show up for class dressed in uniform, get an easy A, and be the first one's out at dodge ball so they can sit on the bleachers for the rest of the time. However, the overly enthusiastic P.E. teacher will never let them off that easily. Right now I have an ape like instructor shouting at me. "Come back here right now and play the right way." He shouts to me. "What's the right way?" I ask. "Don't be smart." He cautions me. "I thought that's what school was for." "I don't have time for your mouth. Get back here" "No." I insist. "What do you mean no?" He asks. "I did what I was saposed to do and now I'm out." "You need to apply yourself." "I think I did." The teacher clenches his fists. "Randal, get the flail." Randal a jockish, built classmate walks over to wall and breaks open an emergency case containing the medieval weapon with a spiked ball and chain. Randal swings the flail around his head. "What the hell is this?" I ask, startled. " You wont do it the easy way, guess it's gonna be the hard way." The gym teacher says in a very matter of fact way. Randal runs towards me. I jump off the bleachers and head out the exit. The hallway outside the gym is completely dark. As I can hear Randal's footsteps barreling closing, I realize that the darkened hallways are the least of my worries. There are gated fences up everywhere. I am in a maze. I try hallway after hallway after hallway. They all lead to fenced dead ends. The footsteps are now closer than ever. I know I have no choice. I climb a random fence. "Here's hoping there's something better on the other side." With that I hop off the fence in what appears to be a dark abyss.

To Do

Love is the answer. Love is the answer to just about everything. The only acception to the rule I can think of is a math related question. One can't really raise their hand and say "Love" when asked about algebra. Otherwise, everything goes back to love or a lack there of. I know it sounds simple and childish, but it makes sense. At least to me it does. Some of the most amazing, beautiful creations have been formed out of love. Some of the most chaotic, nightmarish, gruesome scenes were created as a result of a lack of love....It's strange, I feel very New Agey today. Maybe It's something going around. Maybe I'm just getting older. Don't worry though, I have no plans to retire my red hood and cape. I don't think I could ever do that. If I live to be one hundred I'll still be going on adventures. Still be questioning things. The world needs me. I'm not sure of what just yet, but I know it does. What will change is that I'm going to try to get rid of my inner conflict. The one that tells me I can't do things. The one that tells me I'll always fail. It does not serve me much good, and I know no one would like to hear me complain. I don't want to hear myself complain. Transformation is not an easy task, but I do know it is possible. The road ahead is uncertain. This I have known for quite some time. I will try harder than ever to get past every obstacle, if nothing more just for my next grand adventure.

Jackie Boy

Whoever said "There's no time like the present" obviously never spent time in limbo. I shouldn't complain. It could be worse. Much worse. Jackie Boy(turns out that was my Jack- O- Lantern's name) took me to a bar. Let me tell you, Jackie Boy was the life of the party. I know he's a fucking Jack-O-Lantern, but it's true. Women wanted him and Men wanted to be him. He ordered rounds for everybody. Kinda makes me wonder how he paid for it. The bartender didn't seem to mind though. He knew Jackie Boy was good for it. All night long he cracked jokes and told stories. The stories mostly revolved around him growing up in a pumpkin patch. He was very animated though, and the people hung on to his every word. I laughed and I smiled. It made me wish I was him. So confident, so sure of himself. Eventually the crowd thinned out and the lights dimmed. It was time to go home. I had spent a decent amount of time in heaven, but it was time to go back to what most refer to as reality. I asked Jackie Boy if he was coming back with me. He shook and said no because his journey is elsewhere. I asked what he meant by that. "I'm a pumpkin.Who knows how long I have until I rot. I want to see the world." He told me. He then went on to explain I could join him. I declined his offer stateing that I couldn't go just yet for I was still needed. What I was needed for, I have absolutely no idea. At that hour though it made perfect sense to say. Maybe years later it would be perfectly clear. But Jackie boy smiled a knowing pumpkin smile. As Jack - O - Lanterns often do. Just then I heard the roaring of a loud motorcycle , and who should I see walking into the bar, but none other than Mike Pumpkin head. Made perfect sense to me. Except this time he was not expecting to see me at all. "Hey buddy." He shouted to me. "What brought you here?" I asked him even though I knew this was more his domain then mine. He pointed to Jackie Boy. "You know him?" I asked. "Fuck yeah I know him. We're going a road trip of America. You wanna come with us?" I gave him the same line that I gave Jackie Boy. However, this time there was slightly less certainty in my voice. "Alight, we should take off then." He grabbed Jackie Boy and started to exit. "I'll see you around." I said, trying to covince myself that I was reassuring him. "You know you will." He said with grin. He then took off into the night going back to wherever he came from.