<Argyle>

It rolled up and down and all around the train car. The steady, rhythmic rocking of the train sent the half empty water bottle into something resembling the stumbling of the drunken frat boy who dropped it. The train rocked left, the bottle rolled left. The train rocked right, the bottle rolled right, until the off center of balance sent it straight down the center of the isle.

At two in the morning, there aren't many feet for the bottle to get stuck on, so it made a v-line towards me. I concluded, it sought me out. It needed to rest at my feet. I lifted my foot and released it after watching it for a few moments. No, thats a lie, I wasn't just watching it, I had the extreme focus one can only get at two in the morning after nine hours of pure, exhaustive, hard work. Everything else disappeared. There was only me, the bottle, and the train. The three of us, was all that mattered. We were driving down tracks coming from no where and leading into dark, empty space. I was trying to find meaning in this . . .

"This is . Door's open on the at ." The slightly effeminate, computerized voice spoke. He spoke as a computer, with a set script and certain variables changing at each stop. He spoke as a computer, with little, almost in-autible, pauses between the words while his computerized brain double checks the bits. He spoke as a computer, with synthetic emotion, which turns into negative emotion, making him less human then the computer his voice is coming from.

This voice draws me back into the real world. I shake my head, I shake out the philosophical thoughts. I'm tired, and when I'm tired I get stupid and lose track of the real world, which is the definition of Philosophical thoughts. That is when I released the bottle, let it continue on it's own track in life.

I looked up, for the first time for about thirty minutes, and saw who I was riding with. Only the right corner was occupied. Occupied by kids, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year olds--laughing, joking, acting wild as only chemicals can influence. I accidently locked eyes with the nearest to me. He stopped talking, stopped laughing, and started to smile, a glazed over smile.

"Aw fuck." I thought to myself. I did it. I started shit, and now my peaceful ride home is going to fly the fuck away.

Quickly I look back at the bottle. Focus even more intently on what its doing, where its going.

"Come to papa." I hear to my left. "Oh yeah, Oh yeah. Fifty-one potato. Thats just what I need." Some how, I missed the crumpled, lump of trash and newspapers, of a man, 3 rows to my left. This man, this bum, has lived his life so far by being invisible. He can shot at the top of his lungs and still not be seen.

He shot his hand down and met the bottle. "Water' is free," He laughed, "but bottled water is faaarrreeee-dom." He stuffed it into his shirt and retreated back into his pile.

"This is . Door's open on the at ." The voice again. It shocks me how middle of the road he is. This voice is effeminate, like I mentioned, but also has an underlined masculinity. When I hear him, I think of early T.V. sitcoms. I picture a middle aged, white man, with a wife, and a son, and a dog, and a two story house. He dresses nice, tie and suit and hat and all. He smells good, and enjoys a martin or some other acceptable mixed drink. He is secretly what every American wants to be, but not because he wants to be that man, but because he is supposed to want to be that man.

The door shuts and I stand up to get off at the next stop. The kids stand up as well. "Fuck, are they going to annoy me, or are they getting off here." They surrounded me, trapped me between them and the door. I feel trapped, claustrophobic. My heart pumps harder, I sweat, my fight or flight reflex is overwelmed. I think to myself, "If these kids where white would I be so freaked out?"

I don't recognize them as like me. They are not people I know and they don't look like me. We are all people, we have evolved into creatures that can look past these superficial ideas. No we haven't. We just tell ourselves we have. We just want--need--to feel better, but it's in all of us. Some where. Regardless, I'm not human right now. My mind has been taken over by animal instinct. I have changed, I grow fir, my spine contorts and I am on all fours. Now I'm a wolf trapped by members of someone else's pack, and I am alone.

One grabs my head and smack it into the door. Thump, Thump, Thump. Pause. I find myself questioning why my head sounds like a rip mellon. Thump. And I was down.

"Oh shit. Oh shit. It's going down." The bum said, burrowing even more. He whispers, "They coming . . . who killed J.F.K? I did, and I'll kill him again."

Finally blood gushed from my nose. A sharp pain at the side of my head, and in my stomach and then darkens. I was only vaguely aware of them going though my pockets, vaguely aware of them running out at my stop, vaguely aware of the train leaving. "The next stop is . Doors open on the at ."

* * *

I woke up at Howard, with the man announcing it was the end of the line. I stood up and walk out and sat down to collect my thoughts. The digital clock hanging from the celling said it was almost 2:30. "OK, to late to call anyone. . . um do I have my phone still?" I checked my pockets, frantically. "Wow, they left my phone, my keys, my wallet's gone. No surprise there."

That was the first time I was accosted, mugged I guess. I felt abused, I felt wronged, I felt misled. These kids hurt me, they took from me, but they did much less to me then what they did to themselves. What I did to them. These kids fit perfectly into their nitch, they fit perfectly into their stereotype, and I hated them for that. Everything they took was replaceable, I would heal, I would get a new wallet, but I could never forgive them for fitting into my overt, but accidental, racism.
They tore me down physically, but they tore themselves down in an infinitely worse way.

Web 2.0 . . . ED

"I've been doing an independent study of the internet."

"Really, me too, kind of. Really Independent."

"Isn't it so interesting. It's so big, and yet everyone can see it."

"Well, really I have just been looking around for myself, scents I was a kid. I mostly look. . ."

"Yeah, its something we have grown up with. It's such second nature to our generation. But past generations know almost nothing about it. There has been nothing like it in the history of the world."

"I mostly look at the porn."

"There is so much porn on the Internet. I've heard almost 90% of the Internet is porn. Any kind too. Everything that anyone could be into. Gay, lesbian, anal, oral."

"All those names make me kind of nervous. I once found a site with normal looking couples only doing machinery style. That one disturbed me the most. That was the only porn site I deleted off my history and cash. I felt dirty watching actual love making."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

The silence disturbed them both.

"So . . . an Independent study of the internet."

"Yep."

"For who?"

"School."

"What do you do?"

"Well! I search all over the Internet, finding everything important--design schemes, interactivity, content, anything Web 2.0 really--and then I will write a thesis paper on my findings."

"You have to condense the entire Internet into a paper?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't that going to be difficult?"

"Oh no. It should be fine."

Another awkward silence.

"So what new and interesting sites have you found."

"Oh well . . . uh . . . well you know, like, Myspace, YouTube. Things like that, a lot of things interactive and great designs."

"Yeah you've said that. Haven't those websites been around for a while now?"

"Well yeah, but there still there. Probably some of the best online right now."

"But both of those are already past there prime. I mean YouTube was just bought up by Google, and News corp. has owned Myspace for a while now, right?"

"Well I guess you could say that. But they are still some of the best designed Web 2.0's."

"Myspace is?"

"Sure."

IOU: 2 stores

1 story for Monday January 22nd
1 story for Wednesday January 24th

P.S. I am sorry for the half assed attempt of a SciFi story. I was just trying something new. Now I know I am no SciFi writer.

Nano-Net

I was very much alone. More alone then I have ever felt. More alone then anyone born in this century has the right to feel. Well no, that was my beautiful view on the world, us Americans are so well known for. Fuck there are people who have never even touched a computer, let alone have thousands and thousands of them traveling though veins and arteries, bouncing off synapse after synapse. There is still a huge distention between the worlds rich and poor. They will never feel the true community that comes from the nano-net. And neither will I, if I don't find the money I owe.

The life--It's not a counter-culture, cult, church; it's the life. Anyway, the life is a lot like the drug culture used to be. In developing the nano-net, scientists would inject thousands of nano-nettles into the leg and thread to the brain. This was stupid and slow as hell. Then the pill came out. Thousands of stuff, I guess, compressed into one pill. It would last 24 hours and take 2 hours to take hold. I crush up the pills to dust and snort. A friend of mine cooks it up and injects it. Any way to get it into our minds faster. You used to be able to buy it at any grocery store or 7/11, but the lines became to much. Now online companies are springing up, Google has there manufactures.

The war on drugs is over. They made drug use legal. But no one cared. As long as people are connected to the nano-net, no one wants to escape. Well not when they are connected. When they are alone, people will do anything to hook up again. The same problems arise from the illegal drugs of old. Crime, theft, murder come from junkies looking for a connection. It's legal but more additive then any natural drug. We need it. I need it.

Open Water

"Lets go for a walk."

"Meh."

I got up and slapped her on the knee. "Come on I can't see straight--I've been reading to much." After about an hour of reading, my eyes start to turn nearsighted--or is it farsighted. My eyes turn red and everything further then a foot in front of my face, looks blurry. The longer I read, the more disoriented I become. It grows exponentially.

"You go." Finished with the paragraph, she looked at me. "It's cold, I don't want to go."

"Oh bitch, bitch, bitch."

After marking her page, she threw her book at me. It hit me in the knee. "Jesus Christ. What the fuck?" She giggled at me.

I thew her coat at her and pushed her over and ran out the door. She ran after me.

It's beautiful outside. Chicago in winter with this woman: my favorite place, time, and person combination. I like walking in the snow. Everything seems to go more slowly; I take more time moving contemplating every step. If I stop watching my every foot step, for even a second, I know I'll slip and fall. Which, really, wouldn't be a problem. I enjoyed the few times I have fallen on ice. My feet fly up, over my head. My hands, grasping for any kind of stabilizer, drop anything they are holding. Generally a box, some food, mail. Never anything breakable, never anything that will hurt me, and never anything alive. This is one of the few times I am completely unaffected by gravity. It's the same feeling as landing in an airplane, or going over a big hill in a fast car. I am free and I am weightless, and it always gives me that funny feeling in my stomach. The one that feels almost like an orgasm. Almost. The only problem is, I never have time to enjoy the fall. Before I know it I brace for impact and its already happened.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

"Mmm."

"What do you want to do tonight?"

"Shhh."

She slugged me in the shoulder. It hurt a lot--she's amazingly strong--but I brush off the pain by comically overcompensating.

"Sorry." I pointed to the ground a few feet in front of us. "You can tell it's cold when the snow snakes across the road."

"Stop quoting your dad."

"I'm not quoting my dad . . . I'm quoting my mom, quoting my dad."

"Still, it's not something original. It was cute and insightful the first time you said it."

"Hey, fuck you."

"Shhhh."

We were lucky enough to live in a quite neighborhood near the lake. I love the lake. Lake Michigan, has the scope of the ocean, but reacts nothing like the salty sea. You can see forever--infinite water on the horizon, but the fresh water freezes. Sometimes instantly, showing ripples and waves.

"Wait here." I run off before she could say anything.

"Hey. Where are you going?" I hear behind me. I ignore her, knowing that if I run fast enough she wont fallow. I dash across the intersection diagonally, and into the, normally sandy but now snowy white, beach. I sprinted toward the shore, being careful not to slip on the semi-frozen sand. The water was a few feet farther then usual. As the waves crashed onto the beach and the temperature drops, ice forms and juts out five or six feet into the lake. I scan the beach and, after finding what I want, run back.

"Shut your eyes."

"What?"

"Just shut your eyes and come with me."

She shut her eyes and completely put her trust in me. I drag her to the beach and the furthest outcropping of ice. "Careful." I tell her and stop her at the very edge of the ice. I stand behind her and look over her head. My eye line is her eye line. I aim her in between the lighthouse on the right and the skyscrapers on the left, to completely rid them from our peripheral vision.

"Listen."

"What, I hear cars and birds and people over there."

"No, ignore them, do you hear anything else?"

"No."

"Isn't that nice."

"Mmm."

"Now open your eyes, but don't move your head."

She opened her eyes and gasped. "Wow. It's beautiful. I feel like I'm standing on open water."

"Cool. No?"

"Shhh."

Untitled

"Get that God Damn gun out of my face." He brushed off the gun waving two inches from his forehead. "What are you, James Bond? You in a fucking movie?"

Hugh was trying not to show off his nervousness, but it didn't work. His only tell, his gun moveing up and down between the eye line and the widows peek, was picked up immediately by the old man. The man giggled, he actually giggled. Usually, when a man, this age, giggles it either starts from dementia, or ends in a coughing fit, but this man was in peak mental and physical health. He was not going away, naturally, any time soon, and that's why Huge was here, at night, in ridiculous black clothing, pointing a gun at this man's frontal lobe. This was, technically, his first hit, and by the way the man was laughing, the last time he was going to go after an ex-hit man.

"This your first 'hit' isn't it, greenhorn." His voice faltered sarcastically on hit. "By the way, I heard you coming when you parked a block away . . . and you probably should have gotten new shoes. Police like a nice, big, bloody, foot print to match to someone. You might want to get rid of them and buy some used shoes tomorrow. Jesus," he still giggled. "Where did they pick you up. Do they honesty think that lowly of me, to send you after me."

Thinking back, while trying not to show it, he remembered his briefing. "Now this fucker is fucked up in the head, a bit." Mobsters like to articulate themselves using the F-word and sometimes Bitch and Shit and Douche. It's a general stereotype, but Huge likes to say it fits. His employer paces back and forth. Nervous ticks to show he is still thinking this though. Since his teenage years, Huge was taught in the art of reading people. He thought back to his mother--god rest her recently deceased soul--perhaps the only woman who had any power in the mob, and his father, the abusive peace of shit. Huge had mixed feelings about the mystery around his "disappearance," but he knew not to ask any questions of favors, especially from your mother. He had a strange upbringing, but he learned a lot of interesting things.

"Hey, pig fucker," Hugh made a mental note of that new description. He has been called a pig and a fucker, but never both in that order. "Wake up. Come back to me and listen. This shit's important."

Hugh did take it a bit to far.

"Why do you want me to do this? What'd this guy do?"

"None of your damn business. Just do what I tell you."

"What's his name?"

"Stop askin' stupid questions. I'll tell you everything you need to know. Just watch yourself. He's fucking crazy. He'll talk your head off and may or may not try somethin'."

The target got up and started across the room. This made Hugh snap back from his memories. "What the fuck, sit back down." He didn't want to speak, but it just came out.

The old man looked back. "Can't an old man poor himself a drink?" Looking back to his bar, he mixes himself a rum and coke. "You want something."

"No."

"Sit down son. Do you even know what your doing here."

"I'm here to kill you."

"Why?"

Hugh felt he said to much.

"I didn't do anything to you?"

"That doesn't matter. I'm here on a job."

The man turned around and for the first time he looked deadly serous. "That's the only thing that matters, son." A smile creeps along his face. "Drink?"

Hugh stays silent.

"This is your job, obviously your first. Why be a hit man?"

Hugh still said nothing.

"Come on buddy. Drink. Drink is good, drink is important, drink is life. Alcohol is what made us wholly human. Beer and bread where the first scientifically found ideas. First time humans looked around at nature for information. Plus it's tasty."

Still Hugh made no move. Still Hugh aimed the gun at the old mans head.

"Can you please put down the gun. I'm not going to do anything. Just want to drink in peace."

Hugh hesitated but eventually dropped his gun and took the drink the old man waved in the air. "There you go."

"I only want to kill bad people, anyone who deserves to die." He thought more. "I guess I don't want to think of the ones I kill them for."

"Shut up, kid." the old man paused and seemed a bit disappointed in Hugh's outburst of emotion. "By the way guns don't kill people, they scare people--knives kill people."

"What?"

"Guns are loud. They leave gun powder all over you. They have trails that are hard to get rid of. Knives, on the other hand, are everywhere. If you know what your doing, there is no link to you. Guns are scary to people not in the business, because guns look scary in the movies."

Hugh had to laugh at the absurdity of his situation. After the first drink, he sat down and smiled more. After the second, he relaxed like he was with an old friend. Now he was laughing. He was sitting down for cocktail hour with the man he was sent to kill not thirty minutes ago.

"I was standing over this guy, holding Betty in my hand. Betty was my machete--I had two knives, one small for the killin' and one machete for intimidation . . . and maybe to take a few fingers. Anyway this guy is so scarred he pisses himself. Now I can't help myself, I'm falling over laughing my ass off . . . "

Both men are giggling now. After another hour of drinking they where all over each other. The old man had Hugh in a head lock with a small blade to his throat. "Now you dig the knife into the opposite jugular and pull across, under the chin."

"Ok. Ok let me try." Hugh laughed. "So you hold there head like this. And jam the knife in the jugular." He practiced in the air first, and then asked for the mans head. "Ok. Hold still." He grabbed the old mans head. Hugh's face morphed from happily drunk to emotionless. Instead of pretending to stick him, Hugh actually slices from jugular to jugular under the old mans chin. He dropped down to the ground, smiled, and gurgled. Hugh saw the old man slowly, mouth. "Good job son."

Hugh cleaned the knife and slipped it into his pocket. He looked around for any evidence that he was there. He purposefully didn't touch anything with ungloved hands. He didn't worry about a stay hair and grabbed the glass he drank from and though it in his trunk along with his shoes and gun. He made a mental note to get a new pair of used shoes tomorrow. And drove back to his employer to drop everything off and pick up his money.

The Statue

Bright, bright light covered the entire room I found myself in. Completely empty, but full of light and me. No, it wasn't a room, it was a never ending white light. I open my eyes and blink instinctively, attempting to adjust, but found there was no need. There is no horizon, no way to perceive distance. I look full circle around me, and find nothing. I try to look up or down, but can not move my head. With some force, I can jerk my head striate up, but somehow my feet sweep out from under me to level off with my eye line. So I am looking at where the horizon should be. You would think this would be disorienting, but it took me a few moments to realize something unnatural even happened.

I have no idea where I am, but that never concerned me. I need to find something or someone specific. I start by calmly scanning the area around me. Being very careful not to lose myself, and mentally noting every place I've looked. But soon I become frantic. After circling three or four times and finding nothing, I lose my mind. I am turning round and round, breathing hard, and seeing nothing still. I am loosing my humanity, turning into an animal with no ability to understand my surroundings. I am completely lost and I haven't moved an inch.

But then I see it. Something. Anything would help me, but I know exactly what this is. And I know this will help me find what I need. I run toward it. I sprint toward it. My legs are pumping harder then ever before. My feet slam down at every long stride, but I'm not moving anywhere. The spot, the only way I can judge distance, is not coming any closer. I looked over my shoulder and saw nothing. Not the nothing that I saw before, the nothing that was bright and constant, but a nothing that is dark and deep and frightening. It was looming on me, getting closer and closer and closer.

Turning toward the dot again, I run faster then I had been. I run faster then I have ever before. The darkness triggered my instinct, adrenalin pumped into my vines, though my heart, to my body. My muscles grew and my legs hardened. I ripped out of my stuck position. It felt like a piece of me ripped apart, too. I looked down and realized that a part of me was, in fact, missing. My right arm had been perfectly sliced at the shoulder and was lying on the ground. I stopped and looked down to see the darkness swallow it up. Horrified, I run faster toward the dot, which wasn't a dot any more. The faster I ran, the more my left arm hurt, and soon that fell to the side also.

Closer and closer I get. Faster and faster I run, but the darkness is always right behind me. Being armless makes it that much more difficult to run. The dot has turned into a vague shape, that was still unidentifiable, but I saw it was a statue. Faster and faster I run, and never out running my fear. My legs hurt. Aching. And then I couldn't feel the left one, and I was on the ground. The leg lay behind me being swallowed by my fear. Some how I pick myself up. It felt like I was helped by some outside and heavenly presence. Or maybe it was in myself. Closer and closer, I can see the statue bigger, but still can't make it out. Something, some haze is obscuring my sight. Now I'm hopping on my one foot left. Some how I am keeping the same pace. Closer and closer, I fall again and tumble with out my last limb. Behind me it disappears. I stop at the base of what I have been pursuing. I look back and see the darkness, I look forward and for the first time I see my savour. The statue was less then the length of my arms away from me. If I hadn't lost my limbs I would have been fine, I would have been safe, I would have been saved. I look up and see it. I see a life size, life like, statue of a penguin. Standing tall and proud, protecting an egg in-between her feet. She looked down at me, and I saw her cry. I tried to scream, but the darkness took over me. The air in my lungs disappeared, my body devolved, and my mind was taken over. That was the last thing I saw. My savour, my protector, my one true love crying over my loss.

I woke with a start, jumping out of my bed and breathing hard. It took me a few moments to realize where I was. In the past a voice would take me out of my nightmares, but it isn't here now. It took me longer to get a hold of my self, and to realize I was crying. I have had this dream before, but I didn't understand it, couldn't understand what it meant. I am lost. I am swallowed in darkness. The statue would have saved me, if only I had the ability to reach out and hold on. If only I knew how to reach out. If only it wasn't to late. I can't sleep now. I can't sleep ever.