The Mountains

I was on a horse. It rocked and swayed back and forth. Being on it was really fun, but it was more fun to toss pine cones behind us and yell ka-boom as they hit the ground. My Aunt Dianne sat in front of me "driving" the horse. I didn't really make sense to me how one drives a horse because it's a living animal that has a mind of its own but that wasn't my problem. Occasionally Aunt Dianne would hand me a Slim Jim. Those are the best snack while on a horse. Then after we rounded a corner, everyone stopped to wait for us. How nice of them, I remember thinking. Then, as we drew even with them, we saw the real reason all of those smiling faces had stopped smiling. Aunt Sandy and Gandpa and Grandma and Uncle Jean and Mom and Dad all sat staring off the cliffs. Looking off the cliffs it seemed like the whole world could have fit into the valley between the mountain peaks. I knew better though but still, the valley was gargantuan. The valley itself wasn't what was so fascinating but it was the forest withing. Thousands and thousands of trees sat barren and lifeless. Scorched by fire the entire valley lay lifeless. How could so much death happen? My mind flashed to the scene from Bambi where the forest is on fire and all the animals are running away. It was sad. So sad I couldn't handle it. The tears began to flow and I couldn't stop them. No amount of Slim Jims could stop the tears. Aunt Dianne told me that fires can be good for the forest. Some trees could only release their seeds in the heat of a fire and that fires make the ground good for trees. She was trying to tell me that out of death, some life can spring forth. For days and weeks after that image of a dead forest was burned in my brain. Why did the trees have to die? They had been alive for lots and lots of years but now were dead. An entire world wasn't there anymore. That day, death got a face in my mind.

Memoir exigency

Throughout my memoirs my exigency is going to be me trying to make sense of the world through my memories. I see the world differently than most people and sometimes things don't make sense to me that other people see with perfect clarity and I want people (including myself) to understand things that don't make sense. Making people see the world through my eyes is my exigency and I hope that it will make sense to my readers.

Evil and Good

Once, there was an angel. His favorite hobby was to watch mankind as he floated through the heavens. It intrigued him because the minds of the divine are so different from the minds of mortal men. It would be like men trying to figure out the intricacies of the minds of ants.  The more he watched, the more he learned and quite quickly he figured out that although our world is diverse, on the whole we are a good species. As the angel came to this conclusion he also recognized the presence of evil in our world. This bothered the angel, so in secret from the other divine beings of his realm, he gathered his mighty strength and with a sweep of an arm, banished evil from this world. With that simple motion, the world of men screeched to a halt. With that wave, the angel made all men equal but all of them different. Many ran wild committing countless, horrible sins because without that anchor of morality they were free to run rampant and there was nothing their conscience could do about it. Displeased, the Almighty summoned the angel to his throne. The angel then argued with the all powerful figure, because in his mind, he had done nothing wrong, all he had done was rid the humans of evil which is a good thing. The being on the throne tried to explain to the angel that there needed to be evil in the world for good to exist and without evil the world was out of balance. The angel disagreed and continued to argue his point. Displeased, the shining figure banished the angel from the heavens for all time. Outraged, the angel started a war with the Almighty, recruiting like minded angels to fight on his side. This war in the heavens rained fire down on the world of men and there was much sorrow. In the end, the Almighty defeated the rebel angels, set the world of men back to normal, and created a special, dark world for the fallen angel where he could punish those who had been evil. This angels name for all time was known as Satan.

A Good Reader

Flat, faint, and foggy

Indistinct and quite unformed

Empty,

like the souls of men.

It lies barren

Lifeless

Dead

But then the wind starts,

The hand of God

Brushing away the faint wisps,

Then as the window clears

Everything stops

A pause in the gigantic gears of time

Then the words begin to flow

Cities rise

And fall

Mountains break the ground

Challenging the sky

Life forms, and races around

 In all of its beautiful,

Twisted shapes

The universe explodes with

Possibilities, and constantly they change

Monsters run rampant

With angels chasing them

Back o’er the hills

Into the mouth of Hell

Or maybe we see the castle and the

Plumber chasing his lost princess

Or a political struggle within

Or the attackers

Just outside the walls

Or maybe all we can see

In the window

In the page

In the word

Is us.