mindflow #4 08.12.94 ascii version concept/editor : josh ruihley programmer : keith shapiro ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- mindflow is our attempt at getting different thoughts from people across the country and putting them together in a nice little file. these thoughts can be in the form of a poem, short story, brainstorm, graphic, or any other kind of self expression that can be put on a computer. the purpose is to create a nice mind trip that people can take once a month that features different views from different people on different subjects. all that is needed to take these trips is an open mind, so open up your mind, and enjoy. if you would like to submit something to be printed in future versions of mindflow, please either mail or email us. mindflow will not work if it isn't for 'thought donations', so if you have something that you would like to be put in here, please, donate your thoughts and make mindflow a trip worth taking. all versions of mindflow can be downloaded for free from: ripcurl bbs (versailles, ky) 14.4 1.606.873.6637 the void (hopkinsville, ky) 14.4 1.502.886.0517 2400 1.502.886.5871 fallen angel bbs (lexington, ky) 9600 1.606.299.2329 aoyu (lexington, ky) 2400 1.606.273.6836 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ editors' note. welcome to mindflow #4. we would like to start off by offering a giant "thank you" to all who have helped mindflow to the point that it is at right now. although mindflow is nowhere near the point it can reach in time, we are extremely happy that after only four issues, we have come this far. readers: please help us out even more. the number of people who read mindflow is a very high number, but the number of people who actually submit is very low. please, if you would like to see mindflow each month, help us out. send a piece to one of the addresses listed in this program. please do not assume that we have no problem getting submissions. surprisingly enough, it is the hardest part in producing mindflow. this issue features pieces ranging from religion, to love, to self- destruction. once again, a wide variety. there are also three short stories in this issue for you to enjoy, so open up your mind and prepare to visit many strange, new, exciting worlds. we thank you for your time. -josh and keith ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pigalle by Su Byron The last time we saw Christ he was on a large wooden dance floor. Pigalle. Kicking up a storm. People leaning over & laughing. He had a long nose & was wearing a skull cap. Old men shoveling the vomit of youth nearby. Having a good time. He got down on all fours and had a long laugh at his own drunken heart. He showed us his belly. His hair stuck straight out. His eyes were popping. Veins were clearly etched; he had opium on his breath. Catholic women standing. Remember: do not kneel. Catholic women with not a rose to offer. O the new world. What will be. Nude dancing on a falling balcony. No clothes did he have on. Christ. Like you would imagine & weighted not down & not him. A great dancer who never needed lessons. I took his arm & how sweaty it was. Not so thin but there were bones sticking out. I'm celebrating the aroma of wooden floors & the knowledge of the pureness of dance halls now. There's a greatness in Pigalle. I'm telling the truth. Him and Others. With blondes and redheads. Some were not men. Big deal & so what. Gods rising like so much smoke & rainy French day with old bread and beggars mimicking lamp posts. The roofs of churches knifing the sky. Poking the unreachable. In that unbearable grayness & how his heels swirled! Walked up all night a hill. Dreaming of dancing. He spoke French. He waved no flag. He had a good time. That would end. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Assimilation by Peter Mitchell He could see the sun rise this morning, the smog has been stamped down by showers the night before. It rose over the city, filling most of the dark crevices with light, but not all of them. It was unusual, this morning. He hadn't seen the sun rise very often in the sky, he knew what they were supposed to look like, since he had seen a thousand video images of it, but it still stirred something, somewhere. Most likely it was the apprehension, anxiety and fear felt for this day. He knew exactly what would happen, but knew nothing of the experience. How could he, it would change everything. The thought of it brought churning to his stomach, and suddenly he wanted the sky all blue for once. He walked down the roof access stairs, wondering how they kept from crumbling and back to his flat. His parents had gone to rest in their beds hours ago. They had said their good-byes the night before and his mother shed a tear for him. He had not seen many people cry and he wondered if it was a sad tear, or a happy one. It had been so long since his parents had gone through this. He left his little flat and went into the streets below. The sun had risen fully and the usual conglomerations of slumped and staggering people started their run from the sun, back to some little hole in some miserable wall tucked away in some decrepit building. They didn't want to go home, there was nothing for them there. They hadn't been able to handle the connection. Wasted and bleeding, surrounded by crushed veins, needles and plastic vials, they rotted. The drugs gushed like a ruptured sewage main on the dirty, cracked pavement. These people, painted and deformed, walked the night from club to club huddling together in clumps of failure. They were the trashed, ruined and useless. He walked passed them and into the subway station. AS the escalator carried his body down, deep into the city, he wondered if he would soon learn their names. The train stopped at a station with a large, fortified door that cared the familiar icon of the "Ministry of Information" above it. He left the train and placed his identification card in the access slot. The computer took only a second to confirm his being and after he passes the various security standards, the door split open into an iris to unveil a cramped cylindrical passage. It spanned, with its curved walls, into darkness where no end could be seen. As he stepped into the orifice, he first felt the heat touch his face. The machinery was behind the walls all around him, the wiring and pumping caused great friction heating the passage. The cramped tunnel was large enough to accommodate a single body only. The walls were lined with a sticky coating like melting grease. The tunnel had an uneven finish and a feeble light illuminated his immediate steps as he traveled deeper inside. Countless others had walked this same passage; his very parents had seen it once and someone else would be following him in only minutes, but now he could hear only his own footsteps. Soon he reached another door. Another routine of automated security waited for him. The door slid open to reveal the interior of a room. It was dark and resembled the inside of a sphere. These walls were smooth unlike the outside corridor, and what little light was there reflected in soft images that illuminated the single object in the room. There was a chair in the middle, and he knew that he must sit in it. The pale light revealed all the contorted and twisted angles that led to a nightmare of warped shadows that the chair cast across the walls. He approached this chair and placed his body in it. Automatically he assumed a reclined position, feeling how the chair had been warn so many times before. His hands found the molded slots at the end of the arms. They seemed a perfect length. The feel of the chair was not unpleasant. The procedure of what was to be done was known to him well enough. For twenty years all of his training was for this moment. It took all those years to learn, memorize, and program yourself to be able to handle all of the system information that he was about to be flooded with. He would soon be linked with everyone else that had been successful in the connection. He would be assessed and placed according to his ability to an immediate assignment that required attention. This would be his life for ever after this. He would become a living computer where some master matrix would come into his very mind and re-route and structure it so that he could process a maximum of data. He would spend hours every day sitting in a chair very much like this one just processing random bits of information that were so abstract from what he had know life to be before. He would design components for machines and compute the population figures for the next thousand years. He would handle so much information that he couldn't even comprehend the amount. There was a time of the day that was devoted to rest, or rather recuperation for the day's toils. The person would go off line, only to be replaced immediately by another, and then they would engage in a relaxation program. They were usually some form of a program like a simple mathematical equation that was readily solved and would give the user a sense of satisfaction when it was completed. Or there were esthetic programs that allowed the user to warp and manipulate various colors to give a sense of peace. The erotic programs were always popular as everyone spent their time connected to the mainframe and association with the opposite sex was assigned only for breeding purposes. His own parents had been selected for each other simply to birth another and maintain and care for the child and ensure that it was able to attend it's training courses. At this very moment they were already being separated and re-assimilated into the matrix, their function of parents was complete. he would probably never see them again, since he would either accept the linkage, or completely reject it and be cast out to the rabble of the streets. His palms fit the groves snugly and he curled his fingers to activate the process. Immediately metal clamps came down like shackles on his wrist and ankles. He did not resist. This was the process. He felt a blade slice a small incision on the tip of one of his fingers as the machine collected a sample of his blood. "DNA conformation. Subject 551-29-5265. Prepare for assimilation." A synthesized voice hummed. A device from behind the chair came out and fit it's self over his head and shoulders like a yoke. Tow electrodes were placed on his temples to counteract the pain. The machine maintained the incisions to the back of his head where the skull and spine meet. There were faint drilling sounds and the smell of smoke as the mechanized probe made it's way through his skull and into his brain. Then he saw nothing. He awoke in another place, but all his nerves told him that he was still in the chair. He could see his ID number, 551-29-5265, and the words "ON LINE" flashing beneath it. The transmitter had been successfully implanted into his brain, but that was the easy part. Any second now he would be flooded with all sorts of information coming to him from countless places. That was where people failed. The machine was reshaping his mind patterns into the most efficient structure, capable of processing any information that he would be fed. As neurons in his brain were torn apart from his old memory and reshaped for efficiency, he could feel what he always was before being smothered and erased to make way for the connection. he was forgetting everything, and he started to fight it. He would become a mindless tool, another extension of a lifeless machine with no soul. And what were they processing all this information for? It was too much a mystery for him, he had to know. The insertion was beginning and he could feel it filling his mind, he knew so many things now, he knew how there was no more disease and that all had enough to eat and war was completely obsolete, he knew everything, all the factual knowledge that had been accumulated from human history and he shifted and started to love it. He wanted more and felt rapture as it poured into his mind. He wanted it all, it was consuming him. Then he came upon the population files and read through them, all the people who's births that had ever been recorded, their entire life history. All of the ancients whose files were so long and full and rich with detail. He came to modern births and saw how short they all were, a mere date of birth, date of assimilation, and time of assignment, no room for a life history, even if there was one. He came to his own, and it was even shorter than the rest, just a date and a number: 551-29-5265. Suddenly, he remembered so many things from his past that seemed to him to be worthy of more than just a number. He remembered the sunrise earlier in the day, and he started to feel the memory and the identity be erased. He was slipping away too fast, he had become drunk on all the beautiful information that was being passed into him. Now he had to survive, keep his soul intact or become one of the lifeless drones that spent all their existence working irrelevant information, and given only an illusion to satisfy what little bit of humanity that was left in their bodies. He could reject everything and lose all of this information to become one of the street dwellers that wander around in a stoned stupor. Why was the decision like this? What was the lesser of the evils? The connection was almost complete and he had to act fast. He reopened his own file and started to dump all that he knew, all that he had learned from his own experience into it to save himself. he wrote a small program to fit inside of it that would activate his file and reboot it's self into him once he was completely assimilated. There was no escaping the transition now, too much was already here, he had to create a new way of living, to keep life alive within the machine. He placed his soul into that little file and then let go. 551-29-5265 went back on line a few minutes later and had a new assignment. He would design hinges for a specific type of hatch that had to accommodate the severe environment of a metal foundry. The first batch had been designed, built and delivered within a matter of seconds when work was interrupted by a high priority command issued by the Main Frame. A new assignment had been given. The personnel records were accessed, searched and a relatively new file was opened, downloaded, and read. Then, he knew who he was. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dead Ringer (c)1994 by Jonathan Avery At the end of the grease-stained road sat a small silver diner. It had a four-stool counter. Five, until Bernie "Beluga" Baily moved into town. Bean soup was the special 3 times a week. Both were unrated (the diner and the soup; Bernie was X-rated). The diner was a major attraction to Phil. In The World According to Phil, the First Law stated that "No one is good enough for Phil". Therefore, it followed that Phil might just as well immerse himself in a sea of unambiguous mediocrity as waste his precious time chasing antithetical social achievement. "Glass of ice water. Just ice water," intoned Phil. Just ice. Justice. What a joke. What could you do with a correspondence-school law degree in this knee-jerk watering hole? Alas, the bean soup was good today, at least with enough tobasco. Phil shifted his weight on the stool so the soft muffled rumbling of his bio-woofer would be no more noticeable than the exhaust of a 4-barrel, 357 Chevy at 100 yards. Indeed, no one noticed anything unusual at all. As Phil's eyes engaged the fish circling the clock on the opposite wall, which appeared all the more realistic in chasing small swarms of fruit flies, he absent-mindedly waved his fork at the end of his wrist like an accomplished fly-fisherman casting for a champion trout. Between casts, he noted the sun setting out back over the chicken coop. Or rather, he sensed the sunset, not from the yellow-orange glow flooding the diner through the fly-splatted window behind reflecting off the glass eyes of the fish which had hypnotized his attention, but from the high-pitched cackling and screeching penetrating every crack and grease spot in the lunchroom, cut suddenly short by a heavy, ominous whump. The guest of honor of tonight's fried chicken and tomorrow's chicken soup had perfunctorily been crowned precisely at twilight's last flicker. The cook had a certain sensitivity to environmental harmony when it came to life, death, and culinary duties - eggs at sunrise, giblets at sunset; birth and death in harmony with the celestial clock. It was a ritual that identified all the regulars at the diner, and in turn all the regulars identified with it to the extent that if you noticed someone stop whatever he was doing at sunset and pick up his ears as if hearing a far off clarion call, you knew where he usually supped. Unless you were actually at the diner, in which case rituals were superfluous. So it was, one fine spring day when the sun failed to set, that Phil suspected serious trouble was brewing at the diner. He made a mental note to inquire later. Meanwhile, he contented himself with stapling sheets over the windows to shield out the frozen sun. It might be a rough day tomorrow, if it ever came, and he would need some shut eye. The next day, the sun was just over the horizon as usual at sunrise. Unfortunately, it was on the wrong side of town, leading Phil to deduce after some reflection that it was still stalled at sunset. Something would have to be done before they ran out of light bulbs in France. Downing a bowl of Kix in preparation for his mission, Phil wandered over to the diner, acting as if nothing were out of the ordinary, fearful of initiating a wave of intense paranoia. A futile gesture if ever there were one. As a matter of prudence, he wore his last clean pair of underwear. He approached the diner ambiguously, not wishing to stand out in the long shadows of the perpetually setting sun. He softly parted the tinkling beaded curtains that served as a door in that part of town. He realized quickly that he was utterly unprepared for what faced him. More aptly, he was transparently stunned, as if he were the Invisible Man suddenly thrust into an alien civilization. He was certainly glad he had gotten his Kix that "morning". The blood-spattered walls were mute evidence that history had again been made in Bilgeport. Nothing like this had happened since - well, it could only be likened to the great potato pancake massacre of '89, of which rumors still circulated almost daily. No one, in the years he had inhabited Bilgeport, would admit to having taken part. The cook, Alistair, sat speechless behind the bar, a Margarita in his lap. The other Margarita had already gone home. How many diners were there in the world, Phil wondered nonchalantly, that were frequented by no less than 3 Margarita's? Was that why he felt so at home here? Perhaps because his mother's name was Margarita? No; his mother's name was Maude. "Those bloody chickens - they went berserk!" Alistair's upturned, bloodshot eyes pleaded for Phil's attention. "I had to. It wasn't my fault. You're a lawyer, aren't you Phil? You know that. I couldn't sleep last night. How can you sleep when the sun doesn't set and it's your fault? If only that chicken hadn't run off. I couldn't catch him. He flew the coop. Lost him in the sun. Then I lost it - lost control. It was like back in 'Nam. Yeah. They attacked at dawn. That's it. It must have been dawn. It's always dawn now. All I could see were eggs. Eggs everywhere. Eggs the size of the sun. You understand, don't you?" Phil understood all too well. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Everything was. Wasn't that what Murphy had said? They would never admit to having heard of Murphy in law school. Glancing about, Phil's trained eye caught the pool of water beneath the refrigerator, traced it to the steady drip from the edge of the door, and up to the area of the freezer compartment where Alistair usually kept the leftover chicken broth for the next day's soup. A glance at the clock confirmed it - 8 hours behind - or was it four ahead? It was hard to tell, with the paralyzed fish shrouded by all the flies. And yet, the dozen contorted corpses, each systematically arranged with bulge-eyed, crimson-splattered heads astride their individual bowls of chicken soup, the spoons in their hands twisted, no doubt, by their final frenetic convulsions, also provided a poignant clue. How often had a tour bus stopped at this diner - once in the last ten years? Poetic justice or what? A college journalism class on a field trip to the city to see the opening of "The Dead Poet's Society" had taken a terribly wrong turn. Phil allowed himself a good long smirk chastened by a twinge of guilt. He had flunked literature. Still, something was not kosher. "What's with all the blood, Alistair?" "It was awful. All of them choking, spitting up, coming at me like Night of the Living Dead. D'you see that? Then you know what I mean. I had to defend myself. I picked up the first thing I could find. You'd be surprised what you can do with a squeeze bottle of ketchup against a bunch of foul chickens. Especially the runny kind. The ketchup, that is. Only took four bottles. Didn't need the mustard." "What rotten cluck, Alistair", Phil nodded empathetically. "A few yellow highlights might be nice, though. You know, just right now, I'm not really feeling all that hungry. Maybe I'll come back later. "Take care", said Phil, as he turned his back on the last bastion of normality he had ever known. Outside, he found himself immersed in a small envelope of twilight under the diner's neon sign, surrounded by soothing blackness. Things were quickly returning to normal now that the sun had resumed it's standard course. "Shut up and smell the ozone, Phil", he said half-heartedly to himself, as he thought longingly of the last bowl of chicken soup he would ever be able to stomach. From a small corner of his mind, the idea of clean laundry suddenly became very appealing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Untitled by Paul Schiebold Tobacco lady cleans her nails Newly born toe head baby seat yellow hair Fisher Price squalling outside the yard is applecores broken glass and withered tongues through smudged panes no solvent could make this world any clearer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A Romance by Andrew Jones I lean towards you with tight lips in a carnivorous gesture of love, and night after night sitting above you in bed, head at my hip, as you dream of snakes and rodents, it dries fast on your perfunctory cheek, and secrets mouths will never speak wait behind, just short of lies ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Affection (c)1994 by Cyrus Bulsara She moves..... In grace Exuding Life Her eyes, unseeing. The effect Too innocent Even naive..... Doesn't know Never will..... The effect Her touch like silk My voice quivers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Your Key My Heart by Daniel Ackerson I should be so happy Here this time, this place Where we were one That means nothing now But lies and empty space. Your pretty lips kiss your love Your open eyes the truth And I don't know what To believe in something so Hopelessly lost I look. I want to run from the show To run so far away From you I want nothing Back, but what I gave Can never be replaced. I should be so happy That you think I am Blinded by the contents of Your mind closed the door On love and threw away the lock. I should be so happy, But I'm not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Do you remember? (c)1994 Anonymous The falling leaves drift by the window The autumn leaves of red and gold, I see your lips, the summer kisses, The sun-burned hands i used to hold, Since you went away, the days grow long, And soon i'll hear old winter's song. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ twoadm.002.072894 (c)1994 anonymous life is a gift. i will agree with that statement. but why then do people use that in such a positive manner? unwanted babies are gifts to the unlucky victim of a rapist... unwanted death is a gift to the unlucky victim of a murderer, etc.... if you would like me to put it in nicer terms, ill use this example... say you get a big package of underwear for christmas... chances are you are not gonna like it, but hey... its still a gift... hopefully ive made my point. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Untitled by Scott Lammers 'ello. My name's T'tala. I guess you could call me a planewalker - that's what they like to call such as myself, those of us that can do it and stay alive. And that's exactly what I began doing some centuries ago. I've since out-lived my entire family and started several others whenever I chose to enjoy a bit of a vacation from the demands that life places on you. Despite this, I'm young as planewalkers go. I've met great numbers of others like myself. Some pretty good at it -others not. The worst are those that choose to hold only a few of the options they find in their travels, or so I've found. Specialists in their fields, and well they earned the title. But that's another story; you were asking me about the Gathering... I first began Planewalking about 700 years ago. That's when a stranger, not even the same race as my people, visited our home and showed me a few small magic tricks such as facsinated me no end. He remained there for a few days, eventually departing - POOF! - into thin air. However, I had sensed something about him, and his departure, and concentrating on this sensation, I was able to percieve the path he took, and to somehow, just by willing it, follow. Imagine Zenyal's surprises when this barely-adult boy from a back-plane village pops up in a new plane beside him. He recovered nicely though, and my apprenticeship as a planewalker began that day. I should count myself lucky, I guess, to have had the deliberate tutelage of one such as Zenyal; most planewalkers have to develop their skills on their own - a dangerous proposition to say the least. Anyway, to make along story short, I studied under Zenyal for several decades, becoming a formidable planewalker in my own right under his guiding hand. He turned me loose one day, when we were on a newly discovered plane and were challenged by a brace of allied wizards of significant experience and power. We fought a hard fight, and Zenyal fell early to a lucky strike he was not able to prepare for, leaving me to battle these two on my own. I succeeded that day, and Zenyal declared me free of any responsibility owed him as apprentice to master in repayment. We parted ways then, and met infrequently as years passed. Recently, I had heard old Zenyal had died, caught in a four-way battle and denied the chance of escape by some accursed spell. I shall miss him. Oh! Yes! The Gathering. You wish to be told of the Gathering. Well, I'll tell you then. There is none - it doesn't exist. You don't believe me? Then I'll explain. Many who do not know or understand the planewalkers might hear of the Gathering and take it to be an event of some importance. Not so. The Gathering is the term we use for one of the most basic fundamentals of our power. You see, we don't automatically have loads of spells and artifacts we can call upon. Rather, we must travel the planes and study what we find located here and there. If we find a means of connecting to this find - a "line" - then we may choose to attempt to bind ourselves to this line, and assume some degree of control over the powers it provides. This is called "gathering" lines. And the continuous process of searching for and gathering lines is called, "The gathering." Simple enough yes? Good. But not so simple in practice. Only one wizard may gather a line at any time. And often wizards attempt to steal one another's lines or meet at the same unclaimed line at the same time. This is normally when the duels are fought. These duels are incredible. I thought so the first time I witnessed one under Zenyal's protection, and I still think so now. The duelling parties spend time at first calling up the powers necessary to cast their spells, then using whatever spells they happen to have access to at that time. I have seen creatures of incredible power in these battles; spells that defy description. In the end, only one side may win the duel. At the end the losing side often leaves in such disarray there may be lines left behind - lines which are easy enough to gain control of as there is no-one around to challenge you for them for once. It was after one such duel, while gathering up a plethora of lines left behind by a chronic opponent of mine, that I first met Jikal - seems he was somewhat new to the art, and had been drawn to the site by his sudden awareness of violence and opportunity. It didn't seem possible, us coming from such different cultures and all, but this was the beginning of the only other alliance I'd ever entered into since my apprenticeship to Zenyal. Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Honor thy Parents by John Guerkink "Honor thy Father and thy mother that thy days may be long it the land which the Lord your God giveth you" Exodus 20;12 It's not that I desire to live so long Nor dwell in this land I've been given For I'd rather go and join the throng Already Praising our Lord in heaven But to honor my father and mother This comandment is easy for me Though now more like sisters and brothers And in glory forever will be I've been loved, nutured, cared for and guilded as many n'er have been Your son you've always been there for though it it's been trying now and then You scolded me, rebuked me And preached till your face turned blue you've prayed with me, cried with me and the message has really come through That christian love and caring takes prayers, work and tears This kind of depth in sharing Will help sustain us throughout the years I've been blessed by my Father above with parents here below Who've always showed their love through their strength and spiritual glow Being Sunday is Fathers Day And wednesday mom sixty three I thought it the time to say You're loved and honored by me ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Windows to the Soul by Tricia Sellars These windows are sacred, For inside exists a healing or pain. A healing for the concealed hurt, Or a pain from the dying soul. Though these windows are transparent, Few see the dying soul. For inside is an innocence in need of a friend; Though this soul is hidden, through the windows, the lack of love still shows. Pain strikes; Te windows are streaked. For what shall make the windows shine again? For only the tears can clean the streaked windows; The tears of letting go. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Untitled by Randall S. Drisgula If I could that I would walk I would walk up to your light eyes and ask you for a simple dance no expectations of after inviting up for drinks and undress just a simple dance with a small man to hold you hand and back and gaze but I sit in my chair or steel beams big wheels and spin like a freak here looking as you move float and spin view filled by others all standing like a man ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ cool until it's cool 06.21.94 by Melissa Pike i am sitting in the coffee shop thinking of you having a mocha jo alone wondering why i'm here... something is strange-- NO ONE is smoking (that's it!) at these ten tables. this is the first time i have sneaked here it is 4:45 p.m. on friday. the waitress has a very prep-gone-grunge look with a ring in her nose and a florida tan... there is classical music in the air... another preppy waitress arrives in a baseball cap... the regulars (true freaks) sip quietly in thought, some writing or reading... preppy girls chat about the falseness of people (HA!)-- at least their birkinstocks are real... the girl who looks like radiohead smokes and sips as she whispers to her friend across the table... there's another preppie with purple hair stuttering at the other end of the room... an older gentleman to my left quietly chews his sandwich, trying to remain calm and cool as his ears burn in unison with the strokes of my pen does he eat like this at home? the girl to my right looks at me in wonder and strains her eyes to read. she fails... the duckhead-and-combat-boot clad waitress begins to clear the table, and the clock strikes five. it's time to go... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ portraits (c)1994 by keith shapiro a picture is worth a thousand words and a thousand words make a song... do a thousand words make the melody that carries me along? a thousand hearts are beating a thousand minds in flux but since you're the only one i know i thank the gods of luck a thousand people being born a thousand peoply dying but now i cannot see your face my thousand eyes are crying. a thousand hands, a thousand feet a thousand locks of hair but none will match your beauty, love for you are the most fair a thousand rocks on a mountain cliff a thousand leaves on a tree of all, you are most beautiful not one compares to thee. and now i've said my thousand words my picture's song is done you've made my heart beat a different beat a new story has begun ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ the gathering: departure (c)1994 by keith shapiro the alarm went off with a loud pop and then faded to the sound of the local news station blaring reports of the emperor and his flunkies. tiroth rolled over and slapped the mute button with one hand, still mostly asleep. he slowly sat up in bed, and wiped the sleep from his eyes. he glanced over to the clock on the wall. the glowing red display showed the time and date, "what the hell am i doing up so early?" he thought, with the diorientation of someone who had experienced some very disturbing dreams. he shook his head, as if to clear out the cobwebs, and thought for a second. then he remembered and it hit him like a slap in the face. he was leaving today. he rolled out of the lorndo bed and padded across the floor into the bathroom. he quickly showered and readied himself for the journey, making sure to use his heaviest boots. looking around the mostly empty room, tiroth noted the presence of a small sack and a little basket lying on the shelf inside the door. ginda must have been up early this morning, he thought. she must not want to say goodbye. tiroth walked over and took the sack and basket, dropping them into his already bulging pack. picking up the heavy sack, he slipped softly down the hall and into the kitchen. ginda was sitting in a chaIr, facing the hallway, her little mouth curved into a wry smile. "thought you could get away without saying goodbye to your aunt ginda, did you? after all these years of taking care of you, you don't evem wamt to see me before you go off forever. some kind of nephew you are." the smile turned into a sneer. thinking quickly, tiroth set his bag on the ground. "of course i was going to say goodbye before i left. i just wanted to grab a bite to eat before i saw you. you know how grouchy i am on an empty stomach." he walked over and kissed his aunt on the way to the replesynth. he punched up a light breakfast and sat down to eat. he ate slowly, savoring each bite as if it were to be his last. but in a way, it was his last... his last in the only home he had ever known. he shuddered as if the hand of death had just passed over him. he looked over at ginda, but apparently she had felt nothing. finishing up the last few bytes of his breakfast, tiroth stood up, and shouldered his pack again. he then walked over to his aunt and kissed her. "goodbye, aunt ginda. i love you. i will come back, if i can." "goodbye, darling. i just want you to know that i'll be here if you ever need anything." tiroth could see the beginning of a tear well up in his aunt's eye. he quickly turned and left, not waanting to be part of an outpouring of emotion. he took one more sssstep forward and felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest. tiroth looked up at the deep purple sky and began walking. it was a beautiful day, the sun not yet fully above the llne of mountains on the horizon. tiroth felt glad that he was outside today. one deep yawn, and tiroth stepped up the pace. he wanted to be there by morning. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ thank you for your time ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ if you would like to submit a poem, short story, brainstorm, or anything else that you think belongs in mindflow, please mail us at our homes or email us through the internet. josh ruihley keith shapiro 418 wells lane 199 woodlark road versailles, ky 40383-1545 versailles, ky 40383-9190 internet : jrruih0@ukcc.uky.edu internet : kdshap0@ukcc.uky.edu