From Reddit user JosephGordonReddit:
"A monkey, who is dating a walrus, discovers that he has the ability to fly and takes the walrus on a flight. The walrus dies from falling out of the sky."
There are moments in a Walrus' life when he wonders to himself just what the hell he is doing, and for Virgil Fink this was one of those moments.
As they breached the cloud cover and approached 20,000 feet it was the bitter cold that Virgil felt first. At that altitude the temperature is around minus 40 Celsius, too much for most animals to handle. However, Virgil was a Walrus and therefore used to the chilling temperatures in the arctic seas. The cold was biting but not unbearable; the lack of oxygen however, was. As hypoxia set in and Virgil's brain was fighting to remain conscious, he thought back to how he ended up in this predicament...
It had been a beautiful Tuesday, six months ago to the very day of his fateful flight. Hanging out, as walruses do, on a rocky beach at the edge of a tropical island, Virgil was approached by a creature he had never seen before. Lanky and oblong, with long arms and stubby legs, a brown chest covered in thick black hair and a calming smile, Virgil didn't even know what to call this creature but he knew he wanted to be near. Flubbering his way over to where the forest met the beach, the creature was at first shy, but Virgil had a calming smile all his own and when he said hello the creature timidly walked up to shake his flipper.
Her name was Anya and she was a rather large Howler Monkey. Whereas a normal Howler is no more than a few feet tall, this Howler was nearly 5 feet in height. Her coat glistened in the sun and her shy smile melted Virgil's ocean-bound heart. For days, Anya would wait on Virgil while he hunted and then converse with him for hours upon his return. In a matter of weeks they were in love. But like all loves, there was a measure of the unknown waiting in the weeds. Anya was special.
Anya was larger than a normal Howler Monkey because she had been a Russian experiment gone bad. Virgil discovered this on the first night they shared a sandy nook to sleep, when her nightmares kept her up all night. He tried everything to console the poor monkey but nothing would work. She said she dreamed of flying- flying then falling. Virgil never knew what to say other than that everything would be okay. If only Virgil knew the truth...
Six months later, Virgil was returning from a hunt with a beautiful Marlin in his tusks for Anya but when he arrived at their nook she was nowhere to be seen. As he looked around a tap on the head startled him and he looked up to see Anya, floating in the air like an angel from Walrus Heaven. She told him of her amazing discovery: that she was able to fly, and not just soaring a few feet here or there, she had fantastic control and strength like she had never understood. She pressed her love to let her take him on a flight above the clouds, to see the world as he had never seen it before. Virgil, usually not a risk-taker, was reluctant at first but finally relented.
With her fantastical strength, Anya lifted her mammalian love into the sky, accelerating to 550 miles per hour within 60 seconds. Virgil had never felt happier as the wind raced past his face at a blinding speed. From 10,000 feet he could see the ocean- his home- like he had never seen it before. Entire schools were his to see at a glance; it was magnificent.
Magnificent until he reached 20,000 feet, that is. As the temperature plummeted and his brain's oxygen level depleted, Virgil knew the end was near. He no longer had the strength to move and being out of the water and in the cold so long had dried up his skin. His only warmth was from Anya's hands, clutching him tightly. He looked up at the love of his life and was able to push out a few more words before his body finally froze.
"I love you" He gasped as his body let out its last breath.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
The obligatory Sandy Hook post
So the United States is currently mourning the loss of some twenty of its citizens in one of the worst shootings since the Virginia Tech massacre a few years back, but what does it all mean?
To me, it means that the United States is in no better place in terms of gun control than it was when the VA Tech shooting happened. When that gunman opened fire in a college classroom, for weeks the media covered the story intently and our politicians rallied for tighter gun control. The result? The shooting in Sandy Hook this past week.
This time around, Congress and President Obama- who I support- are pressing for an assault weapons ban. This is all good and dandy, its absurd as it is that assault weapons have been legal since the ban expired several years ago. However, it is not going to do anything remotely like what is necessary: to approach the heart of the gun problem in the US.
Eighty seven. That is the number of people who die from gun deaths on average every day in this country, it is more than almost any other nation. The problem clearly is not that there is too easy access to assault weapons; the problem is that there is too easy access to weapons in general.
While the philosophy coined in Blitz era Britain is true that 'the bomber will always get through' (meaning that with such a large population, there will always be crazy murderers who get through our defenses) the reality is that if we are not doing everything we can, we are not doing enough. To prevent another Sandy Hook, the course of action as I see it is simple: rethink the second amendment.
To me, it means that the United States is in no better place in terms of gun control than it was when the VA Tech shooting happened. When that gunman opened fire in a college classroom, for weeks the media covered the story intently and our politicians rallied for tighter gun control. The result? The shooting in Sandy Hook this past week.
This time around, Congress and President Obama- who I support- are pressing for an assault weapons ban. This is all good and dandy, its absurd as it is that assault weapons have been legal since the ban expired several years ago. However, it is not going to do anything remotely like what is necessary: to approach the heart of the gun problem in the US.
Eighty seven. That is the number of people who die from gun deaths on average every day in this country, it is more than almost any other nation. The problem clearly is not that there is too easy access to assault weapons; the problem is that there is too easy access to weapons in general.
While the philosophy coined in Blitz era Britain is true that 'the bomber will always get through' (meaning that with such a large population, there will always be crazy murderers who get through our defenses) the reality is that if we are not doing everything we can, we are not doing enough. To prevent another Sandy Hook, the course of action as I see it is simple: rethink the second amendment.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Elections got me crazy, bro.
Seriously, this election cycle has been so intense that it has been hard to concentrate on anything else. Instead of using my energy to write, I'm using it to talk politics, yell and scream (in vain) at people with different viewpoints and wonder whether the next four years will be dominated my my guy or theirs...
The debates alone provide enough fodder for weeks of discussion and with one just finishing tonight and another next Tuesday, I have no idea when I'll be able to get back to writing. The story I started weeks ago still has a lot to go and the ideas are spinning around in my head all the time, but I feel like until I know who has won it's going to be hard to put words on paper.
So, instead of another section of my story about the sculptor, I'll leave you with this: I'm voting for Barack Obama; go ahead and debate me about it, I dare you.
The debates alone provide enough fodder for weeks of discussion and with one just finishing tonight and another next Tuesday, I have no idea when I'll be able to get back to writing. The story I started weeks ago still has a lot to go and the ideas are spinning around in my head all the time, but I feel like until I know who has won it's going to be hard to put words on paper.
So, instead of another section of my story about the sculptor, I'll leave you with this: I'm voting for Barack Obama; go ahead and debate me about it, I dare you.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
A story titled "The Sculptor"
Some people can't help but write, some people can't help but run, others can't stop creating beautiful music. Then there's me- I can't help but sculpt faces.
Since I was a child it was all I ever wanted to do. Before I knew how to sculpt, all I would do was draw faces; but they weren't like the other kids' drawings. From the time I was a toddler, the detail I was capable of was immense, rivaling the great portrait masters.
When I first discovered clay my results were even more dramatic- even in lifeless gray, I was able to bring soul and emotion to these faces. I started out just using my hands, but early on, around age five, one of my art teachers realized my talents and showed me tools. It takes a college student sometimes years to master the tools of sculpting and a lifetime to perfect the art itself- but for me, it took just one afternoon before I was using even the most basic schools available in a preschool to manipulate my clay in magnificent ways. My classroom teachers were dumbfounded, my peers were jealous and I simply didn't care enough to notice any of it.
Naturally, my parents thought something was wrong with me; they took me to the best shrinks and psychologists in the city thinking it might help. These accomplished doctors, with degrees from the best universities in the world adorning their walls, would stare intently at me for hours at a time while I sculpted away. By this time, I was about seven and I had taken to bringing clay and tools with me all the time in a small backpack. The shrinks tried to deduce things from who they thought I was sculpting, one of them figured I was portraying images of people who had hurt me, bullies and such. Another had suggested to my parents that perhaps I was sculpting the faces of would-be criminals, like that movie Minority Report. Thankfully my parents never took me back to that guy because I just don't think I could handle the pressures of working with Tom Cruise all the time.
In the end none of the highly paid professionals could come to any diagnosis. One my one they were dumbfounded by both my prowess at sculpting and my apparent lack of any cognitive detriments. A few of the doctors suggested various pills, antidepressants, ritalin, cocktails of the two and so on. My parents decided to give one of them a try only to discover that while on the pills I didn't just not sculpt- I didn't eat or sleep or talk to anyone. After a week of sleepless nights, memories of which are fuzzy at best, I was taken off the pills and left to my sculpting.
Now, it's not as if I didn't do anything else. I ate spoke, I at my meals and had proper manners at the table, I cleaned my dishes, I was polite (when not sculpting) and I even managed to make a few friends who were so impressed with my sculpting that they would come over for hours at a time to watch me sculpt and try to imitate me. Of course, no one could come close.
As I got older, I lost most of my friends who had moved on to other pursuits such as chasing girls, having drinks and playing video games. None of these things interested me in the slightest and high school was very difficult because of this. I had learned by this time not to sculpt in class, but I would still spend my lunch hours in a quiet corner making faces of whoever I saw passing by, or melding faces together. Their realism only increased as I grew, adding color and texture so detailed that from the right angle you could almost not tell it was a lump of molded and painted clay. And then there were my dreams.
My nights would be filled with vivid images of the faces I had created, whether they be familiar faces or faces I had invented out of the blue. This alone would not bother me, but it was the cryptic messages they would send me that did. Instructions for situations I had yet to encounter, formulas for mathematics I didn't understand and the names of people I had never met. It would not be until I entered college that I understood what the dreams were about.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Since I was a child it was all I ever wanted to do. Before I knew how to sculpt, all I would do was draw faces; but they weren't like the other kids' drawings. From the time I was a toddler, the detail I was capable of was immense, rivaling the great portrait masters.
When I first discovered clay my results were even more dramatic- even in lifeless gray, I was able to bring soul and emotion to these faces. I started out just using my hands, but early on, around age five, one of my art teachers realized my talents and showed me tools. It takes a college student sometimes years to master the tools of sculpting and a lifetime to perfect the art itself- but for me, it took just one afternoon before I was using even the most basic schools available in a preschool to manipulate my clay in magnificent ways. My classroom teachers were dumbfounded, my peers were jealous and I simply didn't care enough to notice any of it.
Naturally, my parents thought something was wrong with me; they took me to the best shrinks and psychologists in the city thinking it might help. These accomplished doctors, with degrees from the best universities in the world adorning their walls, would stare intently at me for hours at a time while I sculpted away. By this time, I was about seven and I had taken to bringing clay and tools with me all the time in a small backpack. The shrinks tried to deduce things from who they thought I was sculpting, one of them figured I was portraying images of people who had hurt me, bullies and such. Another had suggested to my parents that perhaps I was sculpting the faces of would-be criminals, like that movie Minority Report. Thankfully my parents never took me back to that guy because I just don't think I could handle the pressures of working with Tom Cruise all the time.
In the end none of the highly paid professionals could come to any diagnosis. One my one they were dumbfounded by both my prowess at sculpting and my apparent lack of any cognitive detriments. A few of the doctors suggested various pills, antidepressants, ritalin, cocktails of the two and so on. My parents decided to give one of them a try only to discover that while on the pills I didn't just not sculpt- I didn't eat or sleep or talk to anyone. After a week of sleepless nights, memories of which are fuzzy at best, I was taken off the pills and left to my sculpting.
Now, it's not as if I didn't do anything else. I ate spoke, I at my meals and had proper manners at the table, I cleaned my dishes, I was polite (when not sculpting) and I even managed to make a few friends who were so impressed with my sculpting that they would come over for hours at a time to watch me sculpt and try to imitate me. Of course, no one could come close.
As I got older, I lost most of my friends who had moved on to other pursuits such as chasing girls, having drinks and playing video games. None of these things interested me in the slightest and high school was very difficult because of this. I had learned by this time not to sculpt in class, but I would still spend my lunch hours in a quiet corner making faces of whoever I saw passing by, or melding faces together. Their realism only increased as I grew, adding color and texture so detailed that from the right angle you could almost not tell it was a lump of molded and painted clay. And then there were my dreams.
My nights would be filled with vivid images of the faces I had created, whether they be familiar faces or faces I had invented out of the blue. This alone would not bother me, but it was the cryptic messages they would send me that did. Instructions for situations I had yet to encounter, formulas for mathematics I didn't understand and the names of people I had never met. It would not be until I entered college that I understood what the dreams were about.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
To Astoria...
Astoria, we've had an interesting summer together...
We've had Shawarma, we've had laughs, we've had adventure.
I may not be able to stay, as forces beyond me are at work, this is surely a clencher.
Astoria, you taught me what it means to know a neighborhood. You taught me what it means to not care about living in Manhattan
When our time is finally up whether it be next month or next year, you'll have a place in my heart, never dead- unlike Latin.
I know that you're full of pride, with Greek life abound.
But when push comes to shove even if I'm in Brooklyn, I'll always be around.
We've had Shawarma, we've had laughs, we've had adventure.
I may not be able to stay, as forces beyond me are at work, this is surely a clencher.
Astoria, you taught me what it means to know a neighborhood. You taught me what it means to not care about living in Manhattan
When our time is finally up whether it be next month or next year, you'll have a place in my heart, never dead- unlike Latin.
I know that you're full of pride, with Greek life abound.
But when push comes to shove even if I'm in Brooklyn, I'll always be around.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Take a load off...
Whatever you're doing right now, take a load off and relax for a few minutes... Unless you're reading this, finish this up (please) then take a load off.
I'm living in the city that never sleeps and the times when I can just sit back, relax and let the city pass me by are some of the moments I've enjoyed most. My time in New York has been full of outrageous adventures, interesting new people and so much more than could fit into a few sentences on here; but sometimes you just have to sit down for a minute!
Sitting in a cafe, I'm staring out the windows at the corner of 39th and 5th Avenue. In the several hours I've been here, probably thousands of feet have passed in front of me, everyone on their way to live some part of their life. Tourists and businessmen, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons- everyone is living, and I have the divine pleasure of watching.
Try it some time and you might find there is more peace in people watching than there is in meditating. Put yourself in the mind's eye of those busy bodies and try to imagine what they are doing, where they are going and just enjoy. Take a load off.
Ferris may have not intended for his phrase to be used this way, but I love it anyway:
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
I'm living in the city that never sleeps and the times when I can just sit back, relax and let the city pass me by are some of the moments I've enjoyed most. My time in New York has been full of outrageous adventures, interesting new people and so much more than could fit into a few sentences on here; but sometimes you just have to sit down for a minute!
Sitting in a cafe, I'm staring out the windows at the corner of 39th and 5th Avenue. In the several hours I've been here, probably thousands of feet have passed in front of me, everyone on their way to live some part of their life. Tourists and businessmen, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons- everyone is living, and I have the divine pleasure of watching.
Try it some time and you might find there is more peace in people watching than there is in meditating. Put yourself in the mind's eye of those busy bodies and try to imagine what they are doing, where they are going and just enjoy. Take a load off.
Ferris may have not intended for his phrase to be used this way, but I love it anyway:
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Monday, September 3, 2012
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