Betrayal

Betrayal.

Often, I've found that the smallest of actions carry the greatest significance. The "casually" smoked cigarette, the little red pill, the un-clicked seatbelt: all small actions, and yet all so full of meaning.

Not hours ago, I made some “small” actions of my own.

Did it happen when I sent the text message, or was it when I whispered into his ear? Did it come to pass as I linked his fingers with mine, or when I brushed my lips against his? Small things, some would say, and yet they all lead to the same conclusion: I cheated.

I betrayed.

***

It's dark outside, and we're bored.

Somehow, in the space of a few hours, we’ve managed to exhaust the one major source of entertainment that suburbia has to offer: the mall has gotten old, and we’re at a loss for what to do with ourselves.

That’s when I get a text message; salvation from boredom.

Minutes later and I find myself driving, heading towards a coffeeshop being held at a semi-local Church. We decide to listen to the spanish station for kicks during the drive... The word corazon jumps out at me, though with the cheesy melody I could have told anyone that it was a song about love. Music is universal.

Caught up in the music, I drive right by the Church, no matter the enormous, glowing letters pointing out the proverbial house of God.

I laugh at myself and wonder if it's a sign that I missed seeing the signage that could put even the most glorious of billboards to shame. Maybe I'm just not meant for GRACE.

We enter the Church, and it quickly becomes apparent that we've stumbled upon a somewhat typical scene: a darkly lit room filled with candles, a smoke machine and semi-decent singers. The outlines of awkward teenage bodies are everywhere.

We make our way into the lair, only to find that the music is actually decent. The room is full of good vibes, and we start to enjoy ourselves. Someone has a lighter out and is waving it back and forth in honor of the pianist/singer on the stage.

The music ends, and suddenly I find myself being preached at. The lighter disappears.

"All you need to do is believe." States a bright-eyed boy with the assurance of one who knows. "Believe, and you will be forgiven. You'll go to Heaven!"

His words leave a sour taste in my mouth; How can belief exonerate one from one's actions?

Following that tenant, a person could rape, pillage, and kill to their hearts content, and in the end they would be forgiven.

I smirk. No wonder it was so easy to convert the pagans to Christianity.

***

I sit here post betrayal, and the words of the bright-eyed boy are still sour in my mouth.

The difference now is that I wish that they weren't; I wish with all of my heart that I could bring myself to believe that faith in a human who died two Millennia ago could lead to my forgiveness.

It is a simple thing to fall. The part that takes effort is admitting it: to oneself and to one's family. To that special someone...

I've just admitted it.

Now I have to live with it.

Orcinus Orca: Killer Whale

One moment the audience is all smiles as the whale trainer, an attractive woman with looks suited to the sunny Floridian clime, “plays” with the whale. Somewhere in the audience, a fat baby gurgles.

The whale strikes.

All conversation ceases. The audience is silent; the entire world is silent save for the violent splash of water as the trainer is dragged to the depths by the whale that has acted out its bloody namesake. (So much for being politically correct and referring to them as Orca.)

The first scream is loosed, breaking what was until that moment an almost holy silence. A stampede follows, the audience all but trampling one another in their rush to be anywhere but Sea World.

The crowd acts as if there is something to fear from the whale contained behind the six inches of impenetrable plastic, or from the broken corpse floating at the bottom of the tank. Even the fat baby cries.

Is there something to fear?

Perhaps the crowd runs from the reality of life: it’s not easy to admit to oneself just how uncertain a thing our lives really are- that one moment you really are the windshield, the next the bug.

The whale and trainer both are given media coverage: it's unearthed that this was just another in what are a string of deaths that have been associated with the whale.

If you play with fire, you’re going to get burnt, and yet it seems that everyone has a source of fire in their life: whether it be scuba diving, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, rock climbing, or even spicy food, the reality is that everyone takes risks.

The trainer took a risk in working with a killer whale/orca. She loved her work, and probably would have been miserable with a safe, ordinary desk job.

Now she’s dead, and can’t tell anyone whether it was worth it, whether or not she’d have died at the bottom of a fish tank or withered and old, without a clue who she was.

I would have run, too.

Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi is lifeless.

The eternal darkness of space stretches out in all directions above the crater; if ever there was a sky here, no trace of it remains, no wisp of cloud or glimpse of blue to lighten the heart.

It is a cold, hard place.

Gray rock; pumice; ash; darkness: lit only by cold and distant starlight, it is a 400 km graveyard. In Ferdowsi, one can mourn that which never was, and that which never will be. In Ferdowsi, one can witness the eventual fate of the Earth.

In Ferdowsi, one can learn to appreciate.

SO I really don't like writing about extra-terrestrials, out of any sub-genre it's my least favorite. When we were told to write about one of the craters of Mercury, this was my attempt at writing anything BUT a story about aliens.

Loss

I agree that it’s better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all. What I don’t understand is why it has to hurt so much.

Loving him is the warmth of the sun on a cloudless summer's day, the taste of chocolate melting in my mouth, and the comfort of the doll or security blanket that we all carried around as children.

Losing him is another story entirely.

Losing him is waking up to find that it’s somehow winter again, that the chocolate that tasted so good in my mouth has done Mariah Carey proud and migrated to my thighs, and that the cherished security blanket has been lost to the big wide world…

It's standing in the center of a gale as the wind screams around me and being stuck deaf, and standing at the veterinarian's side as he injects that lethal shot: necessary, but more painful than anything has a right to be.

I did this to myself.

I didn’t lose him: I gave him up.

I listened to logic and I tore my heart out.

*******************************

He said he wasn’t satisfied.

Complicated, that’s what he classified.
There weren’t any commonalities.
It was a clash of our personalities.
I wanted to work this out.
He couldn’t think anything but doubt.
He did it.
He said this time it was legit.
He broke my heart.
Into a million little parts.
He was my soul mate.
But now it’s too late.
I will always love him, till the day I die.
That was never a lie.
He was not only my lover, but my best friend.
My heart will need time to mend.
Always, I will love you George Nelson Hathaway.
Please don’t ever go away
☹

-Michael Alexander Castanon

The Little, Pecking Bird

“I saw a bird,” my teacher began, “and it had found a mirror.” He paused, as though to let it sink in. “It was pecking at its reflection!” he burst out, grinning.

It hates itself, I think.

“…It was like it was in love with its reflection.”

My train of thought comes to a screeching halt with those words. Another thought overtakes it, racing through my mind on smoldering, black wheels. I wince as unwelcome implications begin to sink in: Introspection at its best.

Negativity. Loathing. Pettiness; the darker of the human emotions were the first things that filled my mind on hearing the tale of the little, pecking bird.

My teacher, with his silly mop of hair and awkwardly striped polo, had a completely different thought process. I almost look over to see if there’ll be a halo hanging over him. Almost.

Whereas I heard of the bird and thought of loathing, Mr. Obrien thought of love.

It might mean nothing… or it might not. Whatever it means, I breathe a little sigh of relief. Thank god O’Brien is a teacher…

And the silent, almost unvoiced thought: Thank god I’m not.

Finger Puppets

11:00 A.M. and I’m trapped in Spanish class.

On a normal day, I’d be resigned to the two hours of tedium that constitute Spanish 4: The teacher’s continual demands for, “¡Espanol o Silencio!” The lewd remarks of the boy behind me as he talks to his friends. The constant ticking of the ancient looking clock above the door. On a normal day, none of this would bother me.

Today is anything but a normal day, and I’m trapped in Spanish class. The brown paper bag, sitting innocently on the desk, makes it anything but a normal day.

I know what’s inside that brown paper bag, and it sets my nerves on edge.

Suddenly, I don’t want to deal with the teachers ineffectual demands; I want her to shut the **** up (callate.) Suddenly, I want to turn around and tell the lewd-mouthed boy that girls aren’t items to be used and discarded. Suddenly, I want to disregard the clock, to get up and leave; ditch.

*sigh*

It’s all the finger-puppets' faults. Nothing can get to a person unless they let it, but the finger-puppets, with their tiny flannel selves, have gotten to me.

I suppose it’s because they remind me of clowns: guilt by association (but that’s a whole other blog post.) Or maybe it’s because I hate the way flannel feels as it engulfs my finger; the list of things I’d rather stick my finger into would shock even the lewd boy behind me, I’m sure. It could even be vanity: I like my fingers and my nailbeds, and I just don’t want them covered up by a few inches of neon fabric.

Whatever the reason, I want to scream when I put my finger-puppet on, and instead dissolve into a fit of hysterical laughter in the middle of my group’s puppet show. The junior girls in my group, the ones who still need good grades, don’t seem pleased.

12:35 P.M and I’ve never been happier to leave Spanish class. Ever.