The night I saw my third roommate.

This was a regular Sunday night. I remember Sunday because I usually do laundry and watch Game of Thrones. I usually wait until the last day before work to get all my cleaning done.

So I have a roommate his name is Daniel, and we’ve known each other for over 15 years but really been good friends for the last five years, and I wouldn’t be where I’m at without his influence and I hope that I have influenced him as well.

Daniel was in his room, close to the entrance of the apartment, watching a show or a movie with his girlfriend. The center of the apartment is the living room and kitchen itself along with the dining room and a balcony at the end of the living room. I’m walking from my room to the kitchen, taking dishes, and empty water bottles and what not.

Across my room is the guest bathroom and to the right in between is the laundry where I’m walking back and forth while doing loads and hanging clothes.

I feel like I need to explain my room layout as well for you to get a grasp of how I saw my third roommate. So my bed’s at the center of my room to the wall, there’s space to both sides from the bed around 3 feet wide. On one end there’s a window and on the other is the closet. Across the bed there’s quite some space for whatever I need, So I have a corner computer desk across the bed with two monitors and a chair. When going into my room this would be directly in front of you and most likely the first thing you would notice.

My computer chair is a gaming chair, it’s red and white in the center and the rest is black. with arm recliners that can be lifted up or down depending on preference. I’m sitting in this chair right now as I write this.

So this is what happened that Sunday night, as I walk back from the kitchen towards the laundry I go by my room which is on the right side, the door is open and i take a quick glance in my room and in my chair is someone sitting, who’s looking at the monitor but turns around and looks at me. The best way I can describe this person is he was pale white, unreal white, a male, they had a white shirt, and his skin was extremely white, whiter than the shirt. but he had dark hair and black eyes, No mouth or nose.

So I turn around and continue walking towards the laundry and of course all of this is happening in the span of 1 second and my brain is trying to process everything and when it does… I stop what I’m doing and I lift my hands up to touch my head, fingers between my hair, chills going down my arms and spine and I shout. “Okay, holy what the hell, what was that!?” And I turn back around to look in my room again, and of course now it’s like it was supposed to be in the first place. I shout more profanity trying to make sense of what I saw.

I’m a logical person, and I don’t believe on things that can’t be proven. And the most logical thing I could think of was that my brain made this up, some kind of optical illusion it played on me based on how things were arranged in my room at that point in time.

But another part of me thinks who was that? A ghost? Someone I knew? A 4th or 5th dimensional being that I can’t usually see but that is here, right now, standing behind me? My gut tells me it was me for some reason, it was me looking at myself, from the past or from the future, maybe from an alternate dimension.

Maybe he was watching some kind of video on the computer, and saw someone walk past towards the laundry, extremely pale white, whiter than his shirt, with black hair and black eyes. And looked at him and continued walking. If this is the truth then I can’t imagine how terrified that other me felt.

 

The Roof – Journal

I had such a workout yesterday. Instead of my regular sleep-in late Saturday, I woke up and got ready to work again. But instead of dressing in a fancy suit, I dressed in old jeans, ripped working shoes and a regular long sleeve shirt. My father, brother, and I were ready by 8 a.m. and so we went to work with my cousin Diego.

At 9 a.m. we started working. The roof was tall and slanted; I knew I wouldn’t get up there. I’ve never been fond of heights however when the roof is sort of plain I make the effort to help up there, but not this time. I didn’t feel so useless however, as the other four people who could do roof work got up there.

At first my brother and I watched the guys climb up there like spider men, then as the trash went down the roof we watched that, we helped as we could bringing tools, materials, and drinks to the pros. After they got down with one side, the amount of trash was much that it covered the grass. We started picking it up, big pieces first and left everything else on sailcloth to pick it up later. For hours we did this, it was longer than I initially thought. After we were done with one side we went to the other, however we had to take trips to the trash dumpster this time. And with time the trips got tougher, our legs were giving out, I can feel the numbness of my legs now as it’s hard to walk, every time we go roofing though I can expect this.

It’s a terrible feeling when you see someone fall from such a height, while my brother and I were on break, we sat on a bench and watched the guys work. Two of them were stepping on the same 2×4 wood that was holding them while they walked on the roof, and the thing gave up on them and broke. Incapable of holding anything they both fell down as we watched from a distance, impotent and useless, we seemed so slow when trying to run to see if they were okay. A few scratches and back pain it was, and they both were okay, but the scare was enough. It’s nothing like the movies, usually things like that are never like in the movies, more like in books though, when you read it on a book that you’re into you feel it more. First thing you hope is “I hope they are conscious” then you thinking “I hope they didn’t break anything”.

Well apart from that we carried some shingles onto the lifting ladder that takes them to the roofing people, who then carries them on his shoulder through a ladder that is actually lying on the roof (sounds crazy) and places it across the roof for easier retrieval. We finished at 8 p.m. and our whole body ached, we had arm, leg, back, chest workout in every way. I bet if you get someone to do that every day and drink their protein shake at the end of the day they would bulk up in no time.

–          Zogyark

The Final Element…

The Final Element… Wait…

Currently reading: Under the Dome, pretty cool book.

It’s a story alright, that’s been on my head for quite some time, actually first story I’ve ever thought of and story I have never written. I think it’s the beginning that gets me and I’ve figured that if I could finally manage to decide on how things should start the rest will write itself. I can’t tell you how many times I started on it, get about 5,000 words and just scrap it all. I feel like I want to make it just too epic, is there such a thing. A story that has you hooked all the way.

So I’ve been busy alright. My part-time has been slowly but surely turning into a full-time. Also I’ve done a couple more translation jobs along the way and leaving that out the way I also have gone out for a few days leaving little to no time to have some free time. I’ve worked on the quest line for the game Robin is making, though I haven’t seen him in a while I’m waiting on him for that. I was also offered to write news and articles for an online gaming site, but sadly I haven’t been able to attend any of the trainings because of my schedule.

Last time I had some free time to do anything I tried playing this game called “Two Worlds II” which was okay but didn’t really get much into it, haven’t touched it since. Besides all that I’ve spent some quality time with my girlfriend, and also the less I write the less the ideas come to my head and the worse my writing gets. But I’m decided to change that today. First things first though. I have to get some Chapter Outlines done on my three stories and my other story, The Final Element. I figure this will help a hell of a lot in writing and getting creative in each chapter. However this means that I won’t write much until I’ve outlined plenty of Chapters, also I will probably stop posting a story on my blog when I’m like 5-10 chapters in depending on how long it is. For personal reasons you know, I mean someone can easily take your work online and make it their own, it’s possible and scary in a way.

I almost took a writing job on a freelancing site, it dealt with ghost writing a thrill novel, chapters outlined and all, I submitted a proposal with some writing I’ve done in one of my stories (won’t say which) and it was to their liking. Then I asked myself: Am I ready for this? Well I wished I was; I wanted to jump in and write it all. For a novel with almost 100,000 words, in-your-face style of writing. I would’ve had to give up my job to write it, the job I just got. Of course it would pay more, a lot more, but I had to do well or I would’ve been out and lost both ways. And after that who can say that I would’ve gotten more jobs? I decided I wasn’t ready yet, you just sort of know when you are, and until I’ve written a couple for myself I don’t think I’ll be able to write one for someone else, actually I sort of really don’t want to, I want all the stories I write for me.

– Zogyark

Untitled Zombie Story – Chapter 1

Thanks to my brother for the idea, hopefully I can make this into a nice, sweet, long, horror story.

Chapter 1

Michael Grey exited the CVS pharmacy on June 1st, 2019 at 9:30a.m. Though summer was barely arriving the warm days had already made their appearance. At 75 degrees this morning, it was a day good enough for a nice short-sleeve shirt and some shorts. Yet Michael was wearing a jacket and jeans. He felt so cold, and found it strange for him to get sick on warm days. It was usually in the winter that he would have a runny nose, and get a cold once or twice at most. He was usually a healthy man, but had recently caught some bug from who knows where. He was feeling so bad today that he had to call in sick at his Lawyer firm. “I feel like shit, man. I’m sorry.” He told his colleague, who by hearing Michael’s voice knew he wasn’t kidding. He sounded like a long time heavy smoker that was never wise enough to quit altogether.  “It’s okay, go buy some medicine and rest, we’ll reschedule the appointments for next week.” He let him off and that’s exactly what Michael did. Except the Michael he knew would be no more in a couple of hours.

Michael had a terrible headache; he felt his head constantly pulsating as if his brain would be exploding any minute now. His nose wouldn’t stop running no matter how many times he cleared it. He felt weak, light headed, his eyes were sunken in. His hands and legs sometimes started shaking out of the nowhere.

He got on his 2014 Mustang, and headed out to airport dr. He was feeling very hungry even though he was sick. I guess a nice breakfast wouldn’t hurt; no cold or flu is going to stop my stomach. Once at Williamsburg Rd, he made a right to the Waffle House he was so accustomed too. He started coughing as he drove in. Then he started coughing as he parked. The coughing had been going on for a while, since this morning. He found this cold weird, he had no previous symptoms and he doesn’t remember having had contact with anyone that had it. He was a very clean person, always washed his hands and even usually held the door knob with a paper towel to cover his hands.

He sneezed and coughed again. He turned the car off and looked at himself in the mirror while clearing his nose with a tissue, he looked like shit. “Damn if I could recall all the colds in my life, this is the fucking worst of them all.” He said in his car. He got out and closed the door, and then with his control remote key, he locked and set the alarm on. He opened the door to the Waffle House and went inside.

“Morning Mikie, how are you doing today?” One of the servers asked, a thin lady in her 50’s. In this restaurant, Michael was a usual customer who would usually joke around with the workers and brighten up their mornings.

“As you can see, terrible. I’m hoping some food will cheer me up.” He replied and started coughing again. Even talking was now too hard for him. He stood behind some of the stools, looking down at the menus. The letters seemed to move around. He started to misunderstand words and the images started to make no sense.

“Well, sit down; I will get you your drink, Pepsi right?” The lady asked to confirm Michael’s usual drink. Michael still stood behind the cash register blocking the way for other people. He looked at the menu, filling dizzy, realizing this was a bad idea, he was losing his mind, he needed a doctor but wondered if he should say anything.

“Yes” he said. Still standing, blocking the way for the other customers that were coming in, they were also wondering what was wrong with him, annoyed that this man was blocking their way. Michael finally managed to get some sense and moved to a table. He sat down and ordered his favorite meal; an egg and sausage Texas melt with large hash browns. After ordering he took a napkin and cleared his nose again. This time he found blood on the napkin. He got up and walked towards the bathroom.

A few minutes later, the server lady, Mrs. Ruth, put Michael’s meal on the table. Mikie she had always called him since he was a little kid. She had known Michael for most of his life. She met him on his birthday party when she was invited to a friend’s friend birthday party to talk about a job. Mrs. Ruth had high expectations of herself back then, planning on becoming a nurse for one of the top hospitals in the region. She became great friends with Michael’s mother, often going out with them to restaurants and shopping. After years she wasn’t able to fulfill her dreams, her husband died and her will started diminishing. She got a job at the current waffle house and had been working in it for the last 8 years, often taking Michael’s order and chatting with him about his job and how his mother was doing. Today would be different though.

Michael took a good look at himself, stood there alone in the bathroom in front of the mirror, “What am I?” he asked himself, in a distorted, barely understandable voice. He stood there looking at the strange figure in the mirror. He looked pale; his eyes were sunk in his eye pockets, with dark circles under his eyes. His nose was running, his mouth was drooling, but he did not care about this anymore. Michael sneezed and coughed a few times in the bathroom. Then there was a sudden urge to go back to his table.

He finally went out the door back to his table, hungrier than ever. He sat at his table and stared at his food. Ignoring forks and knives, he started eating like a starving man, with his hands. He ate fast and swallowed a bunch of food at a time, he would start to choke and cough the food out at times. People started to notice this and looked at him in disgust, some even left. Michael ignored this and ate and ate, suddenly he stopped. He realized this was repugnant food, it made him feel sick. This wasn’t the type of food he should be eating, the thought made his stomach turn upside down and he started vomiting over his food.

“Sir, you seem very sick, I think you ought to go to a hospital.” One lady said who had taken notice of Michael since he got out of the bathroom.

“Mikie, I’m going to call an ambulance okay, you seem really sick.” Mrs. Ruth told him, she was worried for Mikie, and she had never seen him look so bad before.

But Michael just sat at his table, he could no longer distinguish voices, faces had changed, his blood started to boil. If someone were to take Michael’s temperature they would find out that it was much higher than what was necessary to live, Michael should have died a couple of minutes ago.

He started making growling noises, like a dog does when its meal is disturbed. He looked up, his eyes were red, he made quick precise movements with his head, looking up, left, right, around the restaurant with his new vision. His vision was different, he saw everything in a red shade, and people for some reason looked very appetizing. This was the food he really wanted, the food that would satisfy his craving, especially that old lady that he once played toys with, held hands with, smiled with.

Michael stood up and then jumped on the table, his head making quick movements, his nose and mouth running with blood, his eyes red, his veins popping. He made a loud shriek that scared some people out of the restaurant, other stood in awe. It was something you would only see in horror movies. He started running and jumped from the table over the counter aiming for Mrs. Ruth, who scared to her soon death put her hands in front of her for protection, but that wouldn’t be any help. Michael grabbed her below her arms and carried her forward about 10 feet before hitting her against the counter. Both fell to the ground and Michael fell on top of her, he started biting off her neck, her arms, and her breasts. This happened so fast that the other workers had little chance to react; finally when one reacted he tried to help her. A tall male cook grabbed a big cutting knife and started running towards Michael, stabbing the knife in the back. Michael felt the sharp pain and started shrieking again, he looked back and smacked the cook with great force, the cook fell back and hit a stove. He moved his arms back trying to reach the knife stuck to his back, but it was in such a way he couldn’t reach it.

People ran out of the place, the ambulance finally got to the scene and luckily also a few cops. Meanwhile inside Michael was still in pain, the cook was getting back up after that hit, and Mrs. Ruth was on the ground convulsing and bleeding to death. Michael noticed the cook and went right after him, the cook got up, stepped his foot forward and tripped Michael into the stove, he was knocked out. The cook got up, breathing fast trying to catch some breath. “You crazy son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you now!” He yelled. He grabbed another knife from the counter, held it up and started stabbing Michael who couldn’t do much the way he was being held.

Mrs. Ruth stood behind the cook, twitching, bleeding, drooling, just as Michael did before. “Oh My God…” one of the scared customers said from behind. Mrs. Ruth led a loud shriek and jumped on the cook, holding onto his shoulders with her arms and started biting his neck; this peaceful Waffle House had turned into a deadly nightmare.

“What the hell’s going on here?” A cop said as he opened the door and went in the Waffle House. Mrs. Ruth noticed him and let go off the cook, she let another loud cry and went for the cop this time. “Shoot her!” someone told the cop. The cop reached for the gun, scared, shaking. This was taking him by surprise and Mrs. Ruth’s speed was a little too much for him. She jumped on him and started punching him in the face and biting it.

“John!” another cop yelled from outside and rushed towards the Waffle House, he took out his gun and aimed at Mrs. Ruth, who looked up, opened her mouth and showed her teeth while growling one last time before being shot in the head.

 

First Job as a Freelancer

A month or so ago I applied to a freelance site called http://www.elance.com I had been out of school for about half a year and out of work for even longer. After applying and failing to get any jobs for the past 6 months I couldn’t take it any longer and decided to look for “something” online. My girlfriend suggested http://www.snagajob.com, which seemed good at the time, until no one ever called me back. I filled out every single position I could: Manager, Assistant Manager, Cashier, Server, Dishwasher, Cook, Bathroom Cleaner and when I never got hired in one of these jobs, I realized that the lack of jobs in this country really is bad.

So I looked online, and call it greedy but this blog is also one of the works in progress. Don’t get me wrong I love writing, but I also want to make a living out of it. My dad has always told me throughout my life “Whatever you do chino (I’ll tell you the story of my nickname another time), do what you like. There’s nothing worse than a man going to work and do something he doesn’t love. If you do what you love, you’ll be successful”. It was until lately that I had really started to do what I like, because I wasn’t quite sure of what it was.

But because it’s little hard to get recognized by writing, there’s just so many people that do it because its right there, in your room, you just need to get the will to do it, a will I lacked the last couple of days.

It’s not unexcused though, I frankly had no time to write. Last Wednesday I started my work at the bank, and Monday I went back to work. When I first started this blog I was out of a job. I started strong, with so many words. The everyday practice of journals and stories were keeping me together in writing, and then I also got my first freelancer job.

For those of you who don’t know how some of these freelancing websites work I’ll tell you. A client posts a job they need done. A contractor “bids” on the job and submits his proposal, completion time, and price. But wait, it’s not just one contractor… IT’S MANY. Any freelancer will tell you the mean competition there’s for online jobs nowadays just like regular jobs. So I offer my services as a translator, I speak Spanish perfectly and can write it well. I thought it was the best chance. However it’s not a guaranteed job, English-Spanish-English translations are one of the most bids jobs on freelancing websites. There’s literally people, refreshing the page waiting for a translating job to be posted, after a while you know who are going to be your main competition.

Signing on this site wasn’t easy though. Its not like I signed up and applied right away, no sir. There was a procedure to go through, I had to edit my profile, create sample work, confirm my telephone number, add where my funds would go, take a test understanding the terms of agreements in the jobs, i had to take a translating test! And on top of that I didn’t have the job guaranteed, it really was a long process.

So after a month of bidding for jobs I finally got one, my first online job as a freelance translator. $80.00 for a simple job that would take a day or so. It’s not so bad, to do it from the comfort of your home, taking breaks when you want, working on Microsoft Word. It’s as close to writing to get paid as it gets. The problem was, The job was due on Thursday, and I only had Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday to do it. Any other day this would’ve been fine, but I had just got my job. So I had to work from 7-4p.m. get home at 5p.m. then work for about 4 hours on my translating job.

I ended sleeping at 12 a.m. and getting up at 6a.m. to get ready for the bank again. This was really affecting my health. Lack of sleep, headaches, the turnaround was a little too brisk for me. I went from not working for months to working nonstop for days… No good. AND on top of that I got a cold on Tuesday morning. I felt like lightheaded, cold, with a runny nose which wouldn’t stop running. And I still had to get home and work, there was no break. During this time many things happened, ideas for stories came, from real life too. Things like a drunk man on drugs yelling outside in the neighborhood at 12.a.m. saying how he was going to kill himself and reciting the Declaration of independence word for word. The cold also gave me awesome new ideas for my Zombie story, which I’m editing, which is a mess at the moment but I’ll get around to it. I also got to hear how surgeons talk, what a hospital cafeteria is like, I imagined the hospital empty and I sitting by myself and I got another idea…

Oh another reason why I haven’t been writing much on here is that I have a little project going on writing the quest line for a videogame someone is in the process of making, however since it’s top secret I can’t let loose of them on public, not like many would read it anyway. But it’s cool, I like that part, I want to write this text and look back someday at this game, if it ever makes it on the market, and say: “Hey, I wrote the quest line for that game” That would be awesome.

However back to the freelancing job. Thursday morning came, when my client sent their review and loved my job and I got my $80.00, oh man did that feel good. I felt like doing it all over again. I guess the lesson is after trying hard enough things will come to you. And sometimes they will come out altogether at you, and this tests you if you can take the pressure or if you’re going to break out and fail. But you don’t want to fail, you want to succeed and you do everything in your hands, give away your sanity, your sleep, your time in order to do so… Sometimes it’s the only way.

Anyways I wrote this because I feel to let out of somethings, to let my writing flow because I need my practice back, to be able to move on with my stories and quests and jobs. I shall get back to this blog good this weekend, of course unless I get another job, which I hope I will, because I’m really into the whole freelancing too. So many things it’s very exciting, the only thing that’s not so much is this cold, I can’t wait for that one to go away.

– Zogyark

The Four Legged Grasshopper

Grasshoppers have six legs, the front four are used for slow regular walking, like we do. The two in the very back are called hind legs, much bigger than the other four, they are used for those big jumps you often see grasshoppers do. When Nicole found Jene, she was missing her right hind leg, and her left was broken. She was helpless and would probably not survive the next 24 hours as she was. She was mainly subject to being prey for other animals, secondly she would probably be stepped on and the person would not even notice, just like she probably was before she lost her hind legs.

It was a regular school day in the spring. Nicole was in her 3rd grade and was outside in the playground for her recess. The kids were playing hide and seek. Nicole was very good at hiding, behind a tree she would hide and looked to see if she was being looked for. She turned around and giggled, the kid kept looking for her but could not figure out where she was. She looked around and stared at the grass for a minute and saw a strange insect. A young grasshopper, its wings still not grown, was missing a hind leg, and the other was broken.

“Awww” she expressed sadly feeling pity for the poor insect. She grabbed it and held it in her palm, the grasshopper barely moved around, probably wondering where he had suddenly gone to. “Poor thing, I can’t leave you here or you will probably die, I’ll take care of you” she said as she carefully put it in her pocket. Nicole came out from behind the tree and the kid said “I found you!”

“I don’t want to play anymore, I’m going in the class.” Nicole said, with her hands in her pockets.

For the next three hours the grasshopper was in the pocket. In this dark place it could only see darkness, moved a bit but wouldn’t get far. It would often feel something slowly coming into the darkness, carefully to feel if it was still there. It was during these moments, which were very regular that it would manage to see some light. It was finally until the final third hour that Nicole finally grabbed it  and took it out. In the school bus, Nicole examined it a little longer. Its eyes seem sad, probably because of its misfortune she thought. “Don’t worry, I will help you.” She told it. The kids behind her seat looked over and started whispering.

“Look! Nic has a grasshopper!” one yelled. “Oh can I see it?” another said, “Let me see what it feels like” another one exclaimed and just like that, the whole school bus full of kids were all intrigued by the grasshopper. “What’s its name?” One of the kids asked.

“Jene, she’s a girl.” Nicole said.

“How do you know she’s a girl?” another kid asked, a boy.

“I just know okay.” Nicole replied confident.

When Nicole finally got to her house, she opened the door, which was usually left open for her and went straight to her room. She took out the Jene out of her pocket and put it on her bed. Nicole laid on the bed and watched Jene barely move. Nicole offered her finger as to play with her and Jene tried to climb the finger with its working legs, this made Nicole smile.

“Well what’s so urgent that you come home and not say hello to your mother?” a woman’s voice said from the door.

“Hi mommy! look, it’s my new pet!” Nicole replied

“You know we can’t have pets in the apartment? But what is it? I don’t see it” her mom said. Nicole grabbed Jene and put her in her hands, then she closed her hands as if praying but left space for Jene. She then walked toward her mother and opened her hands to reveal Jene. “She’s Jene, she can’t jump!” she exclaimed.

“Aw poor bug” her mom also couldn’t help but feel pity for Jene.

“Please can we keep it?” Nicole asked.

“Okay, but keep it inside something, or you might lose it.” her mom told her. They found one of those long cans of chips, about the size of a ruler and Nicole would then put Jene in there and take her with her every time she went out. Jene would survive more than the 24 hours she would have lived at most. She survived days, and weeks, and maybe years.

Nicole always took Jene to school with her, she didn’t want to leave it alone because her little brother might find it and let it out, to forever be lost. She kept the can in her backpack and took it with her at all times, she was very protective of Jene. Jene didn’t mind at all, it often was exploring the can it was in and was not always caged. Sometimes the can would be open for whatever reason and explored outside of the can. Often it would find a place similar to her home, with plenty of food that she would feed on. Often Jene met strange figures that looked like Nicole but much smaller, they moved though. Jene tried to touch them a couple of times but they felt a little weird so she would let go, a lot of the times the figures simply disappeared. Then she would be put back in the place where she usually was and be moved around pretty fast as if flying. Someday she would fly too Jene knew, she could feel it would be soon. Jene looked outside the can, at the concrete, the trees, the grass. Her can had been upgraded from a normal one, to a transparent one, so now she could see things through the plastic.

It was because of this that one of the kids saw Jene in Nicole’s open backpack. “Look Mr. Susaki! Nicole’s got a bug in her backpack!” the kid yelled it out in the classroom. Mr. Susaki was her substitute teacher for this day, and he was interested in this as so were all the other kids. Nicole having no choice showed Jene to Mr. Susaki. Jene, who’s wings were almost fully grown was starting to learn how to fly around the can. It was her new hobby. Jene was excited about this, finally she could travel much faster than what she usually could. Back when Nicole found her she almost had given complete hope, but now, she knew that she could finally travel farther to places she couldn’t reach before.

“I only got one word to say about this…” Mr. Susaki said, “Awesome” he said. He stopped inspecting Jene and gave her back to Nicole. Nicole then took it to her backpack again and put it in there. She stuck her tongue out at the kid celebrating her victory.

The last day Nicole saw Jene was three weeks after she had found her. It was a morning before class. Nicole had woken up late and was in a rush to get her things so she could catch the bus. In the rush of things the bus came so she left with what she could, and later on the bus, she realized she had left Jene. All day, Nicole had been worried about Jene, she knew her little 5yr old brother Jack would go into her room and try to play with her. He always would go in her room and ask Nicole if she could, a few times she had but other times she told him no.

When Nicole got home, she rushed through the living room and went in her bedroom to look for Jene, she went to her can was and there it was, but it was open, just as she had suspected. She searched front and back, second and first floor, moved her stuff around, asked Jack, then asked her mom, but nothing.

“Nicole, Jene fly, she fly.” Jack told her.

“Listen to what he says hun, she must have flew out of the house.” her mom explained to her.

“But it was closed, maybe its lost, she doesn’t have her legs, I promised I would take care of her.” Nicole cried, the loss of her first real pet was very upsetting for her. That night, Nicole was awake for a while, hoping that suddenly Jene would come back to her, the night was quiet, the moon was full. But nothing, no Jene, all there was, was a far away noise, a sound, a song maybe and with this she finally went to sleep. A few weeks later she got over Jene, she made up with the idea that she went back home with her parents maybe, or other grasshoppers.

Jene stood on the tree branch at its usual time, around 9:00 p.m. She would fold her wing and lift her broken leg up and rubbed it against her wings as if playing the violin, this produced a grasshopper song, she would always play it for Nicole to help her go to sleep. Sometimes she would play something different, sometimes she would sing with her wings. She would rub both wings together and produce a beautiful sleep song that would play in Nicole’s dreams, a thank you song for Nicole. (To be Edited)

January 21, 2012 – Mr. Dr. Professor Landon

When I turned in one of my first papers in my English Class. Mr. Landon looked at it, then made into a little paper ball and threw it in the trash basket. Then he said “Write it again, this time go straight to the point.” so I did, and the story suddenly was more readable after skipping boring introductions and pointless descriptions. “See how better that looks?” he said.

I guess this is my theme when I write nowadays. In whatever I write, I try to go straight to the point, avoiding details and descriptions of the characters. It’s not just about going to the point, but if you can describe and give details as the story moves along it kind of flows more nicely. I hate when I’m reading a book and in the beginning I’m being thrown different, irrelevant things such as the shape of some building, the color skin of some people, the background or fictional background of someone much irrelevant to the plot. It seems that many writers do this to fill up space and add words to their count. I remember I won a book in an English Contest for top 3 writings of the college. The book choice was minimal, about five books, with authors I didn’t know. I don’t blame them though I know few authors, I’m more of a writer than a reader.

It’s hard to draw some people in the story, specially if you’re not very popular like Stephen King or James Patterson. I read the book, I tried my best, but after the 30th page I thought. I think I’m done with this story, whatever it is about. I closed the book and never read it again. It’s still gathering dust in one of my shelves, it had a nice cover that’s how I picked it. Make sure your book has an interesting cover and people might pick it.

Jeff Landon was my English II teacher, and he was good at what he did, and probably still does. The man would give you English puzzles, writing scenarios to work with, random stuff. He threw three words at you and said “Write me a story about these three things.” Some stories came around good, some not, others were funny, I liked the funny ones. But to me funny stories are just two or three pages long. The man had a good sense of humor, he was funny and could come up with some funny stuff, something I’m not so great at.

Landon published a few stories and poems. He wasn’t no one, he had some skill, he was good. There was this guy in this class, funny dude. He would always call him “Mr. Dr. Professor Landon” Sort of as to make him seem like some godly teacher. He asked Landon if he ever wrote a novel. Landon said he had tried, many times, but at could not get past a point. I remember this well and hope that this curse doesn’t stay with me, since after some point I want to move on.

I got three stories I’m working on now, and I think that should be plenty to keep the creativeness going. Now I just need to fill in the gaps and whichever I’m in the mood in I could work on. I like variety because when I stick to continuing only one, i sometimes get bored and can’t come up with anything goo.

I haven’t seen Landon in years, but let’s hope that this post helps me get in contact with him again, he’s a good teacher to have.

Pizza and Movie time for now, a break is sometimes necessary.

– Zogyark

January 19, 2012 – Limitless

Writers, if you’ve never seen Limitless you have to see it… Now.

Movies are always good. Watching movies often will improve your writing skills. You watch a scene and you think “Hey, I could make more of that.” or “I would’ve done this instead” It might not seem relevant at that moment but it will be in the future, in the near future I hope.

I often write about my day if I have nothing else to write about. But who wants to read that right? I’ll write about anything that I can get a hold of. Oh yeah, so why is Limitless a writers movie? Well I’ve been reading through some posts, and I often catch some writers get that infamous writer’s block. When your mind goes blank and nothing comes up, and whatever comes up seems so stupid you just want to quit altogether and eat something, play a game, or do whatever other things you do to pass the time. Limitless is a story about such a writer who seems like he’s going nowhere.. until he finds a little wonderful pill that we all wish we had, and would all probably try it regarding the side effects.

My favorite part of the movie (and I’ll try not to spoil it too much) is when he starts writing, when everything is clear, when the words are flowing through the screen. If you’re really passionate about writing and have written stories, you can tell which moment that is. That’s the moment that you just type, and type, and don’t stop. You don’t want to stop or get interrupted, you’ll miss phone calls, not open the door, not want to eat. Because that moment may not come back soon. All the words come together into nice structured sentences and all the commas and periods fall in the right place. A writer’s dream is to be able to write this way, everyday. If you can do this, you can get far at it, you’ll have hundreds of thousands of words in a few weeks and out of so much words, something good must have come out of it. Unfortunately for most of us, half of the time its not like that. I for example can write a lot sometimes, but more often than not I make grammatical mistakes. Then I have to go back and edit once I’m done and that holds me back for a while from writing the next great chapter, or starting the next great story.

What the movie teaches us, is to use up every minute of our time doing something productive, anything. Go out, learn things, write, apply for a job, talk to people. All of these things will help you. If you find yourself searching on google… What to do when you’re bored. It’s time to change that. And by the way, when you’re bored you can search things starting with what, how, why, when or who and see what the top most searched things are, you’ll have a blast with what you find. Not that I do that, but I’m just saying.

Anyways, I wrote just a little today, There’s always something else to do, chores to attend. I wrote Chapter 2 of Syphon Soul, I think it’s an interesting name for a story, I bet no one’s used that one. I edited that and Chapter 1, though I’m sure there’s still some mistakes. I finished Chapter 1 of The Bond, but I got lazy and didn’t edit that, maybe Mr. Landon could help me out, best English teacher there is, take it from me. I’ll write about him next time maybe unless something else comes up, he’s the man that inspired me to take writing more serious.

I’ll be spending time with a special someone this weekend so I won’t write much unless I have the chance or unless there’s something brilliant that I have to write then I’m sorry for her. I’ll be sure to write at least a post a day, they help a lot, I can see the words in my head just waiting to be released to this page like in the movie.

– Zogyark

Syphon Soul – Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Becky was doing some cleaning today, while watching an episode of The young and the restless. The show had Phyllis and Ronan talking about dropping some charges against some person. Becky was intrigued by this and stopped where she was. When the soap took a commercial break she went ahead and put the rest of the trash in the bag and tied it. She lifted the bag up while holding the can, unusually heavier this time she thought there must be some sort of animal in there. She opened the door and took the trash out. She looked around the neighborhood but there were no people outside today. Must be because days like these are stay-inside days, unless you work of course. Becky had been laid off her DMV job the past summer and had been out of work since. Not that she minded, after working for five years she thought a break might be just what she needed to change from the routine that she had been gotten used to. She would never get a job again.

She heard the howling sound the wind makes and quickly put the trash in the dumpster as if there was something after her. She felt the strong wind coming and going right by her, for a split second she thought she saw something but it all happened too fast. Holding one hand on the dumpster, she almost tripped and heard the door to the house shut. Everything was a little more calm again but she was startled by all of this. She stood up again and took a breath. “Holy shit” she told herself, “I guess that’s why people call it a stay at home day, these winds will kill you.” She was damn right about that one. She started walking fast towards the door, with her hands in her pocket to cover the cold. Her hands were thin and were the coldest part of her body. On a really cold day her body stayed normal, but if someone were to take Becky’s hands out of her pockets and take her gloves off, they would find purple hands underneath. She hated this and was a little self-conscious about it.

She started to open the door and heard that howling sound again, but this time from the inside of the house. She continued slowly and placed her ear on the crack of the door as if to hear what it was. At this point she stopped worrying about her hands and started to get a little frightened of what could possibly be inside her house. She knew the wind had closed the door, but it all seemed too freaky now that she heard this noise from the inside. She opened slowly, a little more, and more… and more…

Then she felt the cold wind open the door, rushing outside as if it was all compressed inside the house with no way out. The door hit her nose and the cold wind rushed outside hitting her head. At this moment she instinctively held her right side of the face, which was against the open part of the door. She felt like the wind hit her face harder than the door hit her nose, even though her nose started bleeding. Her face was red, almost purple and her ear kept pulsating to the beat of her heart along with the loud and continuous sound you would hear out of a hospital heart monitor. The sound of death.

“Ow, what the fuck?” She said to herself as she tried to get back up. Ashamed that anyone would notice her, she rushed inside the house and closed the door. She started rushing to the bathroom for the first aid kit that was there. She turned right past the wall and headed for the bathroom door. She opened and closed it and looked at herself. She looked like if she had been punched on the face, as if she had been in a fight with a neighbor. What’s Nathan going to think when he gets home she thought. She reached out for some cotton to clean her nose and some warm cloth to put on her face, her ear was feeling a little better. She was starting to calm down now and when she did she realized something. She couldn’t hear the television in the living room. She didn’t realize it when she came in a rush but now she did, the T.V. was off when she came in, someone is in the house.

She came out of the bathroom and looked around, a little frightened, hearing that howling sound all over outside the house, it would take a minute or two and then it would come back again, hitting the outside of the house. She was frightened, she grabbed one of those big cutting knifes from the kitchen and held it in her hand. She knew someone was in, why would the television be turned off otherwise. She went back to the living room and looked around, She saw a hand. There was a hand holding onto the sofa as if there was a body behind it. She needed to get closer to see the body, but she knew someone must be there. Then the hand let go and she couldn’t see anyone as if the position she was in could be more inconvenient. She walked closer to the sofa, slowly so her footsteps wouldn’t be heard, however she knew that whoever was hiding behind the sofa must already know she was there. So when she got close enough she rushed, through the left side of the sofa where there would be less resistance. Her heart racing fast she raised her hand that held the kitchen knife tight and ready to strike. No one. No one was behind it.

The television turned on and she heard the power come back on. She was startled, scared to death by this, she let go off the knife and it fell on the floor. She gasped for a second and let out a quick yell followed by her hands to cover her mouth. She started breathing fast. She was sweating, specially her hands. “Oh my god.” She said, relaxing, feeling better. The power went out because of the wind, that’s why the T.V. was off… but that hand… she looked around. The knife was gone! Her relief only lasted a few seconds and she was more terrified than before. There was definitely someone in there.

“Becky Becky Becky” She heard someone talk, “You’re too slow, by the time you figure out one thing I’m already planning the next.. It’s no fun like this.” The voice said. This voice wasn’t human though, it’s an alien she thought at first, the most reasonable thing that came to mind. It sounded like a distorted monster, if a dog could talk it would probably sound like this. She looked around for this person, behind her, and behind her again, that’s where the sound was coming from but she saw no one.

“Please take what you want, but don’t hurt me! I have done nothing to you!” She yelled, then she rushed toward the door. Since she couldn’t find the voice, she figured she could escape, and this would be the best time. The door was locked though, and probably the rest also. “No escaping today, I need to feed.” The voice said. This sent her the chills, her mouth started twitching, this thing whatever it was was going to kill her.

“Show yourself!” she yelled out loud and when she did she felt something, on her waist, lifting up her shirt and sweater, she felt hands with sharp nails feeling up her stomach. “Well why, I’ve been right here with you” The voice said. She turned around and tried to grab the hands at the same time but nothing. She put her sweater and shirt back down. “What the hell are you!?” She yelled in desperation, drenched in fear. “I eat souls, I’m here for yours.” At this very moment she felt something go inside of her, another energy, an entity. She froze, she got quiet, her fear, her thoughts stopped. It was fast whatever it was and what it came to do it was done with. After a few hours of standing still, Becky finally moved again and sat on the sofa. She turned the T.V. on  and sat, not blinking, her eyes were grey now and her mouth started drooling eventually. She sat there watching cartoons until Nathan got home.

The Bond

Chapter 1

The first time Daryl set eyes on Stacey was at 5:42p.m. January 2^nd, 2012 at the Barnes and Noble next to the mall. Maybe it was the exciting feeling of a new year and the loneliness of the last one that made Daryl so crazy for Stacey, love at first sight some call it, others call it pure obsession. Daryl grabbed a fictional book called “The Five Elements of Power”. Daryl thought he could achieve many things through literature and learning from books. He had tried the most popular music instruments and a various of sports, learned games and tried out about five different languages, in a way they worked, but learning by reading he never seemed to learned the fullest as someone that learned by growing with the art throughout their life.

Daryl then looked around at the tables and seats in the starbucks, he was very aware of his surroundings. Always picking out who might be hunting or giving welcome signals in the book store. Often than not he was always interested in other people wether it were their mood, their attitude, appearance, relationships and such. Daryl often liked to play out scenarios of the lives of people he would randomly see and make out their life. He often liked to go out to his local shopping mall at Ashton and watch people in the Dining area. He would have a blast there, specially on a Saturday afternoon he would see what he would call “humanity at its best.” A few hundreds of people just living, people he wouldn’t see or remember again yet in that moment, they would serve him for entertainment purposes. These people had no idea and never would, nor would they care of secretly being watched. Daryl of course, like any straight man in the state of Virginia, would watch and appreciate the many beautiful women that roamed the Dining Area. But never he thought, like Stacey. Daryl knows a beautiful woman when he sees her, and that day Stacey was sitting at a table that faced the window. Daryl knew she was the one that very moment, in that split second, he scanned her the way only he knew how. Every single part of her body was now imprinted on his head and his blood started to boil, his heart beating fast and his hands started to shake nervously in his jean pockets.

He walked towards her table, decided on what to do and say, yet as he walked closer his will walked farther away. The more he saw her the more he realized how more perfect she was. It was an instant attraction, the fact that he could not nitpick a single defect on her made him more nervous, and it was sad that for such a good looking guy like Daryl to have such problems when approaching women, often not knowing what to say he would ruin the talk by boring out the conversation with pointless questions that women often heard. Well maybe not all women, but defintely the ones he tried talking to. Very few times had his attempts worked and that was because of his good looks and the drunkness of the women, often leading to regrets the next day and if not short-lasting relationships that lasted no more than three months.

However not this time, Daryl would not ruin his chance at the love of his life. If something he had learned during the past years was that if he were to approach this woman in the current state, he would have about 65% chance of failure, 10% chance of a number, with 5% chance of being fake, plus that he would have 5% chance of her answering it and another 5% chance of getting a date. With all the math he figured out he had about 1% chance of sleeping with the woman of his dreams, and he would not let such chances decide this one.

Daryl sat a few tables across from her and took one quick glance, he tried to read for a bit, “tried” because it wasn’t possible for him to concentrate on any words at that very moment, all the words in the book seemed to switch from its first letter to something else such as “ass”, “beautiful”, “cute”, “dream”, “exotic”, “fuck” and so on until the end of the abecedary, then it would start all over again with different words. After that he took out his phone and pretended to text, but in reality he was typing what she looked like. Blue eyes, dark hair, sexy lips, perfect cheeks, sweet, sexy smile. Beautiful, woman eyebrows, long sexy legs, yummy breasts and booty. Then he thought that wouldn’t be enough, a picture would be. At first he was a little nervous he would get caught, but across from the table and lifting the phone a bit to get her in the camera would not be so difficult, not if done quick. Luckily for him his phone was one of the best in the country. With installed GPS and zoom in and out camera he could take High Definition pictures at any time. He took it out and pretended as if doing something on the phone that wasn’t taking a picture, he turned the volume off to shut the camera shoot sound it would make. He zoomed in to get the full picture of her and took it, then turn the phone as fast as he could. Daryl then knew his job was done for now and before the woman left he had to hurry up and leave himself first if he ever wanted to see her again. He got up, took his book and put it back on a shelf that wasn’t where the book originally was. When he took it he pretended to buy it but he would set that back to another day.

After walking through the parking lot and to his car, he got in and tried to figure out if he could see her from there. He then took out his phone and switched to the picture he took of her. “So Beautiful.” He said as he put his index and middle fingers on the phone and try to feel her in the picture, he couldn’t wait for her. He turned on his car as soon as a car left on the other parking lane and went towards it. His new parking spot was just what he needed, it gave him view of both the window where she was at and the exit of the Barnes and Nobles, there was no way she was getting away from him. He took out his phone and switched to video mode, zooming in on her, he took video of her. Smiling he was excited about it, about now being able to have her in movement, he could distinguish her purple dress in which she looked amazing in. He thought about the chances of her figuring that he was watching her but they were pretty slim to none. He was pretty far away to make out from her distance, she was on her computer doing god knows what, and to make out someone in a car and even the phone, you would have to really pay attention to your surroundings and be someone as observative as Daryl was and for someone to be doing that in a Barnes and Noble while reading who knows what was pretty much not going to happen.

Daryl sat for another 15 minutes, then she finally closed her computer and got up from her seat. Daryl surprised of this quickly sat up straight, he watched as she went out of sight inside the store then ended the video and turned his phone off. Daryl then waited, not taking his eyes out of the door, waited for the moment she would walk out, patiently, then impatiently. Another 15 minutes had passed and no sign of her, could he have missed her? It seemed impossible, he started to impatiently tap his foot. It was a bad habit that he had tried to stop many times and often succeeded, but it often came back to him at important events. After 45 minutes had passed, she finally came out the door, by then Daryl had already given up hope and had calmed down. This however, made him sit up fast again and made him stare at her to make sure she was the one. After a few seconds there was no doubt in this mind. There was that tall, beautiful woman, walking down the parking lot into her car. Daryl took note of the cars plate numbers in case he lost her. He then started to follow. (Needs Editing)*