Monday 24 June 2013

Welcome.

So what lays beneath this post, are twenty four, one thousand word short stories. That I wrote in twenty four hours. They are unedited, so forgive the typo's and occasional grammatical errors. It was a long day. I made it though, with four minutes left to spare. Please enjoy these stories, that's really all I can ask. Take a look, read them, enjoy them. Comment if you like, tell your friends about it. If you can, hire me to write something.

There was no reason for this project other than one thing.

Writers write.

And I'm a writer.

Much love,

S.R. Conley

Monday 27 May 2013

Balsam and Broadway Crow

The crows were being petty towards each other, which was especially hurtful, since this was the time of year that they were at war with the seagulls and on the defensive from the eagles.

It mostly bothered him, because every time he flew over to his two neighbours, who were never not seen together, they would fly away from him. And once when he tried to share the piece of bread that he had found, they took it from him completely and flew away.

What were they? Geese? It was outrageous. And he was going to finally squawk up the courage to mention something at the next city council meeting. There had to be a certain amount of solidarity. Wasn't it a rush when all three of them, just last year, attacked that large scary human on a bicycle? And now, he wanted to move. But he needed permission if he was going to have crow protection. Which he needed because he was truly hoping on starting his own nest this year.

Even on the way to the meeting, they completely ignored him whilst in flight. In fact, they all did. What the hell was going on here? I'm not some stupid Jonathan Livingston here. I'm a good crow. I do good crow work.

At the council meeting, before he could hope to raise his complaints he was called by name. “Balsam and Broadway” The mayor called out. “please glide forward.”

He was so nervous his feathers looked as if he had just been in a fight.

“Balsam and Broadway, your neighbours have been issuing reports of you, and your behaviour to the council. And we are afraid that we have some news for you.”

Oh God! He thought, they're going to make me into a Johnathan Livingston Crow! Why?

“You have been a good crow to your area, cawing bright and early near the windows the humans who inhabit your area, strutting around as if this great city were made solely for you. Yet, never carrying this behaviour forward to your fellow Crow.”

“Yes?” Was all he could muster.

“You have been kind and forgiving, and without complaint, despite the council sending you two horrendous birds to live next to you. In order for them to report back your reaction. It says here” the mayor rolled out one of the McDonald's napkins that crows are always writing on. “That you were going to complain about them in private with me, after the council.”

Where did he get that information? How could anyone have known that?

“Well, yes. Yes I was.”

“Good Crow! Good Crow!”

Now all of the crows were yelling this out together.

“You have been elected as my replacement as Mayor of Vancouver for next season, until such time that you choose to quit, or you die.”

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Mayor of Vancouver! Except, the spies that were sent from the council had lied.

So after the celebration, the next morning he approached his neighbours and asked them why they lied, that he was clearly going to shame them publicly and would not have been elected Mayor, had he done so.

They responded by saying one word at a time, forming a sentence ultimately together

“Because!”

“Now!”

“We!”

“Own!”

“You!”

It was clear to him that he was in trouble, that these crows were evil, these were not Vancouver crows, oh no, they must have originally hatched in Toronto, or Winnipeg, and found their way here because of lucky winds.

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The following season, when Balsam and Broadway became Mayor of Vancouver. He found out about a deal that the two neighbour birds that were making with the seagulls. They were negotiating egg swaps, that they would make look like Eagle attacks.

Balsam couldn't stand the thought of such deception, and he knew that they would expect him to go along with it, much like the last Mayor must have gone along with it, and the one before that.

Oh! To find out that this whole time the war between Seagulls and Crows had been a sham! Why, anything would be better than giving up crow eggs to seagulls! Anything!

Which is exactly what he chose. He found out when the meet for the exchange was supposed to happen. Right on Kits beach, right there in the open, for any and all to see! It was fine, it didn't effect his plan, he just couldn't imagine the gall that these two crows had.

His plan involved and awkward conversation, and approval from the council, even the Mayor can't make decisions like this without approval.

He was to approach the Eagles, and provide them the offer that was being given the Seagulls. For good Crows can fight Seagulls, but Eagles? Impossible. Eagles were huge, fast and noble. And clean. Never see the white on a Bald Eagle anything other than white. Never saw a Seagull like that. Not ever!

The conversation that he had with the Eagles went well, they were talonted speakers. And treated him with more respect than he thought they would.

“We agree to your terms Mayor. And we will act accordingly.”

The day of the meeting between the schemers and the seagulls, the Mayor of Vancouver watched from a distance and an Eagle swept in and took the eggs from both the Seagulls and the Crows, and then watched as another Eagle came down and ripped up the two crows with his massive talons.

The deaths were barely thought of, the missing eggs were accounted for. And all was well. Balsam and Broadway got himself two good new neighbours, the squawk as loudly as they can together near any open window they can find in the morning. They attack anyone who lingers too long or too close to their nests.

And they always walk around, as if they own the place.

Because they do. And always will.

Tennis.

On a bright sunny day, with an average temperature of close to thirty five degrees Celsius. The waves of heat could be seen from any angle, pouring down on the pavement of the street. The grass in the parks. And on the asphalt on the Tennis court. Where a father and son, were playing the hardest game of tennis they had ever had against each other.

The game was tight and nearing its end, or at least, it should have. They had been playing tennis for a solid four hours, which was a lot for them. The hot sun was beading down, and they each had their own advantages and disadvantages. The young ones advantage was that he was fourteen years old. So he had lots of energy, and great stamina. The older ones disadvantage was that he was fifty years old. He had bad knees and, although good stamina, not a teenagers. Something his son pointed out to him, repeatedly.

The fourteen year old disadvantage was that he was fourteen years old. And every time, anything that remotely resembled a woman, he would tense up and screw up his serve, or his back hand. And then the old man would tease him

The old man's advantage was that he was fifty years old and had been married for twenty five years, and could give two shits about the young girls that were walking past the tennis court.

However, the old man had also taught his son everything that he knew about tennis, so there skill level was equal. And it had become pretty vicious.

They were in the final set, and they were in the final tie breaker. And they kept on bouncing back and forth between deuce and advantage. Over and over.

The other people on the court had stopped to watch. It was in itself, too amazing to see these rallies. The ball moving faster than they had ever hit before, each desperate to win. Each for their own reasons, or maybe the same one. Sometimes, you just have to win.

The will power that they were displaying now against each other had begun to more like a chess game than a game of tennis. As neither of them were above taunting.

“Hey! Boy! Which one of those girls is your girlfriend?” The father threw at him

“What's that? I couldn't hear you, I think my serve broke the sound barrier, you sounded really whiny and like you were about ready to give up. Was that it?” A solit parry from the boy

“You little shit.” Clearly a hit for the boy.

“I love you too Dad, try not to break any bones while you swing and miss on this one, okay?” In for a kill shot.

“I'm trying to be nice to you because I know you're young, and you still cry so easily, and I didn't want to mention that in front of any of these girls.” A cheap, but effective blow.

“Hurmph” The boy had nothing.

And then back into play. The boy advantage, deuce, the boy advantage, deuce, water break. The old man advantage, deuce.

“At some point we have to go home and have dinner, you know.” The old man, aware of the time.

“Oh yeah, well if you want to quit.” Smirked the boy.

“Your serve.”

In a tennis tie breaker, you have to win by at least two points. Or it can go on forever, tie breaker or not.
It went on forever. All the people had left, not because they wanted to, but because they had to for whatever reason.

Finally, the old man won the game.

The boy lost his cool, his rage unleashed on the court. It was a sight to see. The threw his racket and it shattered into pieces.

A few girls that had been watching him because he looked so cute while playing his dad, quickly left. And that made the rage worse.

The father came up to his son and tried to be stern, but he had no idea what was going on.

“Stop it son, it's just a game.” Confused at the behaviour, unaware what could have caused this.

“Oh yeah, sure. Just a GAME!” he screamed at him.

Then the father tried to hug his boy. And his boy thrashed and yelled. And eventually collapsed into his fathers arms.

And he cried. They both did. And then softly, to his son:

“Good game though, real close”

“Chhhuk.. huh. Yeah. I would have won a while ago if your eyes could actually see when the ball hit the line instead of just yelling out because you're blind.”

“At least it's just my eyes, you just cheat!” He exaggerates this exclamation, as if he's flabbergasted.

“Do not!”

“Do so! I had at least, five balls that were on the line.” Another gross exaggeration.

“You're blind. What the hell do you know?” Good point.

“You're a child, what the hell do you know?”Better point.

“Yeah.”

And then they packed up the equipment, and the boy had to carry the rackets. They were both exhausted. Usually after they played tennis, they would race each other home. Through the park, mostly to get through the mosquitoes as quickly as possible.

“No race today son, okay?”

“Okay. Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Because you have no hope of beating me!” and he broke off into a dead sprint laughing maniacally.

Good luck old man!” And he bolted after his dad. And they raced home, yelling out and arguing over what the finish line was.

First to hit the garage door!”

Noo, first one inside the house.”

Okay, you have to hit the garage door first and then get inside to win.”

Stop. Making. Me. Talk.”

Wuss.”

And then the boy won the race home. Because his father let him.

Because that's what fathers do sometimes.


Alfredo The Magic Blue Cat

In a dark alley, just off of Broadway, there was a man who could make cats disappear. The logistics of this magic ability were very limited. It had to be at three thirty three in the morning. There had to be more than five cats. And less than thirteen. And he could only make one disappear.

Anyone who has seen anywhere between five and thirteen cats mulling around a back alley, would say it be hard to notice if one just disappeared. It also could have just run off. Not the point though.

The point was that a lot of fortunes were won and lost over this strange little man's magic powers. Betting on which cat would disappear, as he claimed that he also had no control over which cat would disappear.

There was also great speculation and side betting as to where the cats went. No one wanted to find out the answer that badly though.

There was one time that Mickey, who was known as sort of the village idiot, brought in his own cat. And bet on him to disappear. After that day, since they all knew the cat and Mickey so well, no one even thought to ask the man where the cats went.

Which was a good thing. Because the cats were not going to a nice place.

They were going to hell, and demons were eating them. Except for Mickey's cat. This is his story: The story of Mickey's cat. Alfredo.

Alfredo was a blue cat. A very rare thing for a cat to be blue, not light blue, not grey in some light. Alfredo looked as blue as cobalt blue. Not as shiny, but similar shade. That's how everyone knew Mickey's cat. Because of the blue fur that he had.

As it happens, blue cats are also magic. So when the man made Alfredo disappear. He only disappeared because he wanted to disappear. Alfredo had never been to hell and wanted to see what it was all about.

As soon as Alfredo entered hell, he turned himself into a huge, unsightly blue Manticore. And started using his stinger to sting and the demons until they backed off enough that he could run around through hell, and be generally left alone.

He also learned how to do the trick that the man Off-Broadway had done, that Alfredo could do it again, but better, because he could do it at will, and to whatever he wanted.

Alfredo was a magical cat. Alfredo had been worshipped for thousands of years. The only reason Alfredo stopped being worshipped was because it got boring. Otherwise we would be worshipping Alfredo to this day.

There isn't much to see in Hell, and after about six months Alfredo got bored with it. And dissapeared back into the world. Where he found out that he made a huge mistake.

Because Alfredo was a magic cat. When he went through to hell, he accidentally created a portal between the earth and hell. And the real reason that he was left alone for all those months while hanging out in Hell, was because demons were using to the portal to hop, skip, jump there way onto Earth. To kill and eat not just cats. But everything that on the planet that had a soul.

All cats have souls. Only blue ones are magic.

Blue cats are magic because they are blue, and they are blue because they are magic.

Alfredo felt horrible about all of this soul eating business that had been going on for the past six months and so he promised himself that he would round up all of the demons that escaped from hell, and send them back.

So Alfredo made a special demon cage. And he made a special demon locator, his demon locate hit on his neck like a collar. It was gold and had diamond studs. It was also where he would trap the demons. He also closed the portal. So that no more demons could get onto Earth.

Demons are very fast, and most of them can fly and are completely invisible to most humans. So he had his work cut out for him. But after an exhaustive twenty five years. Alfredo had rounded up all of the demons, except for one.

The man that made cats disappear? Demon. Had to go. Alfredo felt bad about this, as he knew how much the guys liked to bet on the cats disappearing. Had to be stopped though. Since cats have souls.
So do Demons, by the way. Just broken ones. A soul can be evil. In fact, there is nothing more evil than an evil soul. This writer digresses.

When Alfredo came into the alley, the man that made cats disappear, screamed at him.

“But I made you disappear! I made you!” He knew right then that Alfredo was a magic cat.

To which, Alfredo promptly responded.

“Meow.” Which was not just any meow. Oh no! It was a special meow. It was the meow that trapped all of the demons in his collar. Except, he made it one too small. So when he made the man who made cats disappear warp into his collar prison. It exploded letting all of the demons out.

They all flew away almost immediately and Alfredo couldn't catch them, because Alfredo couldn't fly.

At that point, Alfredo gave up, he wasn't about to spend another twenty five years chasing after demons. Once, sure. But twice? Nope, no way.

So, twenty five years and six months after he disappeared. Alfredo returned to Mickey. It was the happiest day of Mickey's life, since he had spent every single day, for the past twenty five years and six months, looking for Alfredo. Which was why Alfredo went back to him. Worshipping is one thing, loyalty is another. And they lived happily ever after.

Until one night, Mickey went out to place bets on which cat was going to disappear, and a demon ate his soul.

Alfredo didn't mind. He's a cat.

God, Satan, Luck and Butterflies.

Ah, it's a boy and a girl, and they're going somewhere, and something is going to happen. Because this is a story, and those types of things are required.

They were driving in the car and they were fighting, and that's why they crashed the car. It flipped and rolled and crashed into a cow. The cow felt no pain. They died a bit more slowly. The sky was pretty that night though. The Northern Lights made a special appearance, looked like a phoenix in the sky. Burning bright. As if it were waiting for them to be reborn, if they survived.

Them surviving depended on a lot of things. God was already unwilling to help them, since he had plans for the cow, that cow was going to become a happy meal, that would be given to the kid that was going to cure cancer and make him a little bit happier that day. The kid was still going to get a happy meal, and he was still going to cure cancer. But the burger won't taste as good. Because this cow was supposed to get accidentally transferred into the factory farm used the McDonald's.

It was a whole elaborate plan. And it was just ruined by a couple of eighteen year old kids fighting over what they were going to name their kids, if they ever had them. Well God knew the answer to that. They weren't going to have kids. And now maybe they weren't going to even live through this. He washed his hands of their fate. Because he's allowed to do that.

So here was a young couple in love, who were going to probably die, because the car was leaking gas, and the engine was still running. Satan was still in play here, so it came down to this; was Satan aware how much it would piss God off if the couple lived? Or would he just let them die because a young couple dying is always so much fun for Satan to see?

In truth, Satan wasn't paying attention, he hadn't been since the atomic bomb was invented. He figured he couldn't top that, and spends most of his time now asking God for forgiveness and being somewhat upset that the human race is still his favourite. Although on this day of days, it seemed that God favoured Cow's more. Which was a rare day for Cows, that's for sure.

So no God, no Satan. Just a couple of kids were stuck in a car that was about to explode, and they were both unconscious. Holding each others hands.

Did they have luck on their side? Well, so far no. But maybe the farmer, the guy who owned the cow, had heard the crash? Or would he come to check on his cow?

Nope, as luck would have it, the farmer was off on a mini Vacation that he had won in a sweepstake of some sort. So he was off with his wife enjoying Atlantic City, all expenses paid.

No God. No Satan. No Luck.

Chaos wasn't overly working in their favour either, but there was always a chance that butterfly could flap it's wings.

It came down to whether or not one of them would be woken up by the smell of gasoline, with enough time left after that point before the car exploded.

Flap, Flap, Flap.

Drip, drip, drip.

Sniff? Sniff? Cough! Cough!

Hey! The girl is waking up. She's coughing, and the gas is leaking faster now. Butterfly flapped the wrong way because the flow is moving faster and not slower.
Wake up! Wake up!” Ah, she's stuck in her seat belt, he's not. But she's awake...and time is running out.

It felt as if there situation was entirely dependent on the whim of a overtired author. Who had to pee.

Never make a decision when you have to pee. Leonard Cohen said that.

Ah. Better.

The boy woke up. Coughing and scrambling. At this point the girl was screaming, the reality of the situation was dawning on her. If the boy had been in her situation, he would have been screaming too. But he had just woken up.

Calm down! Calm down! I'll get you.”

He unbuckled himself and tried to unfasten her best. He couldn't though.

It would be important to ask God, if the reason that they didn't have kids, was because one of them was supposed to die in a car accident.

She was panicking. Because, it was time to panic. But the boy wasn't about to leave her behind. He loved her. Sometimes you don't have to love someone enough to be with them forever, in order to love them enough to be willing to die for them.

Butterfly flaps its wings again! Flap, Flap, Flap.

He remembered that he had a pocket knife (convenient?) and went to his back pack. He started to saw through the seat belt. But before he did that he did something even more important.

He turned the car off. Then he continued to cut the seat belt. They finally got out of the car. When they made it about twenty feet away, it exploded anyway. No one knows why. Butterflies just go flap, flap, flap sometimes.

They had to walk twenty miles before they got into cell phone range to call and ambulance. And then they were fine. At the hospital, they were already arguing again.

Which was fine by all involved. God barely noticed, he'd moved on to caring about the Pope again. It's actually getting hard to figure out who's worshipping whom on some days.

Satan didn't find out about the whole thing until way after it happened. He still doesn't know what he would have done.

Luck wasn't too pleased about the whole thing.

Chaos continues to make butterflies play larger parts in the day to day function of the known world than they have any right to.

And years later the couple had a baby, and named her Briony.

Wisps

“Give me a toothpick and I'll knock that rock back!” A ambiguously gendered person was yelling as we stood outside smoking.

“Yeah! You guys know, you smoke what you want.” We quickly finished and went back inside.

It was that kind of night. It was that part of town. But this is the kind of thing that my friend was into. He was the hacker, or whatever they like to call themselves now. Computer expert. Computer terrorist. Whatever. I don't know. I'm the kind of guy that get's malware from trying to download Microsoft Office.

I'm muscle, and he's brains. In a world where muscle ain't what it used to be. He takes most of the take. I take what I can get. But he takes care of me. I keep him away from the crazies. And I keep him grounded when he goes off into the new world.

I remember when we thought that the new worlds were going to be actual worlds. Now they're all per-created. You can't imagine your own worlds now, they all belong to someone else pretty much.

Money to be made though, and that's the point.

We were meeting a guy that needed into something, for whatever reason. And my pal, was the guy to do the thing, that would make it better. I just wait beside him, protecting his body, unless something goes bad, then I plug myself in and pull him out. In there he's the muscles though, I've never been in. Don't want to.

No avatars, or projections, it's all just mind energy or some shit now. Too much energy wasted and making yourself look special. Now, you might as well be an astral projection in cyberspace. It makes it more dangerous though. Get the wrong clouds mixing together and you have psychotic break downs. I've met to many of his friends, not to be a little worried about every time he does a job.

The guy was late. Most of the guys usually were. When you get lost in the cloud, time doesn't seem to matter so much is what they say. I've never been in the cloud. I'm a body guy. I like my body. I know what I can do with it. Never been too much of a mind. Never had too much use for it.

I'm a big guy, a real big guy. Always have been, maybe after years of being the big guy, I've been afraid to use my mind. That's not true though, I just don't use it the way that people use there minds these days. I like learning about the world around me. The ones that we didn't make. The ones that we can't make.

Big Sugar was playing in the pub we were in, I hadn't heard Haven in Alberta in maybe over twenty five years? I must have been a kid.

I liked the place.

Until the guy showed up. With six of his own guys. I figured I could take all of em. But it wouldn't be pretty.

I stepped in right away, because you have to assert control right off the bat in these situations.

Hey, what the fuck do you think that you're doing, bringing six guys to a simple fucking deal?”
And that's when I got hit in the back of the head. By my partner.

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I woke up, and couldn't see my hands. My feet. Nothing. There was grey around me. Like a haze. And when I tried walking forward, I couldn't. It was crazy though, it was as if I could see a perfect three hundred and sixty degrees around me. And that's when I knew what I was looking at. I was looking at the new world. I was looking at the cloud. A tactile, non tactile world was how it was best described to me now. Things were passing through me like kinetic electricity, but it was other peoples thoughts, telling me to get out of the way and to fuck off.

There was one thing I knew how to do in this hell hole. And that was check my messages.

Hey budday! Sorry. Had to take your body for a spin, don't want you in mine, so I double crossed you. If your body lives through this...I'll give you a higher cut. No hard feeling. PEACE!”

I already knew what I was going to do to him if I got my body back. Wait, if they had taken my body, that meant that I was fully in the cloud. Not a visit, or temp download. I was going to become part of the cloud.

I'd heard stories of when the new world, the cloud was being made. And the guys that went fully in. They say they're the ghosts of the new world. The wisps of the cloud. Driven insane because they could only feel each others thoughts. Tactile but not tactile. Not only did they go crazy. But after they did, whenever anybody went fully in. They would hunt that brain down. And they would feel the thoughts of that mind until he was a wisp like them.

I never believed it. Because I had never really been in before. And now I was fully in, and the people telling me to fuck off was like a truck hitting me in my forehead. But I didn't have a forehead anymore.

Then I heard the first one. It was a haunting, It was a scream, and I couldn't tell if it was coming from me or it. I needed to learn how to move, how to get out of the way, but I didn't know! Or I was disabled for that part of the ability. By the time I even thought of that there was another scream. And another. And another.

The wisps formed around me, and slowly squeezed in around me, making me feel everything that I ever felt, every idea that I ever thought. Until I stopped screaming, or never stopped screaming.

And then there were only wisps in the cloud.

Brothers and Sisters...

There was nothing of value to look at when you looked at her. Yet people seemed to adore her. There was nothing to adore. She was a lunatic. A legitimate, down to the very core of her being psychopath. She liked to hurt people, she had probably killed people. If eyes are the gateway to the soul. These wouldn’t just swallow you up. These would turn you into something just like her if you stared for long enough. And there was no one to stop her.

She was my big sister.

It's not funny, this is what she was, and we had to live with her. I couldn't have any pets because they went missing or seemed to commit suicide at about the same rate that her boyfriends and husbands would later on in life.

No one ever believes me.

She's good at crying. Which is something that you learn to do, in order to get what you want from others as far as I'm concerned. Because no matter how hard I tried. I could never cry like her. Her cry was too perfect. Too much of what people want from a girl crying, no character to it. Always freaked me out. Plus she always managed to be able to convey that she knew that I knew. And there was nothing I could do about. Or she would kill me.

It's hard to love a psychopath. But I swear to God that I tried. I tried to accept her for who she was, but they are robots, and I grew up with a robot. A killer robot. Like the terminator.

And then as it happens we glorify these people! Apparently they're fascinating! That's why you keep on reading this isn't it? It's not because of me? Who am I? I'm a victim? I don't think so. I'll show you how much of a victim I am.

Well, I was a victim. For a time, it's impossible not to be when you have an older sister that has no soul. Not a trace of humanity other than a shell exterior, that and no one believes you for the first thirty years of your life.

Christmas with psychopath. Easter? Hilarious. She always gave the most perfect gifts for everyone at Christmas too, except when, well, when it came to me. They were always a little off, a little disturbing. Too dark. Too creepy. Like she was trying to pass me off like I liked all that dark stuff. It was really her. But I let my family accept her image of me.

It was when she killed her first husband that I had to plan it. I had to kill her. You know that I had to. Fire with fire.

The problem with killing her, was that I'm sure she was prepared for me to come after her one day. She knew that I was the only one that knew, and she knew that I had tried to convince others to no avail.

That didn't stop what had to happen though. So I set in motion a plan to kill my own sister. Which sounds much worse unless I remind you consistently that she's a psychopath.

She was getting married again, and that's when I knew she would be most vulnerable. She knew that too, but she had too many faces to show to people. Too much energy and control needed to be put into simply looking human.

She still had it covered pretty nicely, she made it so that under no circumstances would she be alone in a room with me. Always surrounded by people. But there had to be a way to get the job done.

I pretended to get drunk. Very drunk. I wasn't aloud to give a speech, because everyone knew I openly hated my sister. So I pretended to get drunk and while they were about to cut the cake. I grabbed the mike and made a speech, and scene.

Sister! Sister! I loooove you! You. Hurp. Make me happy, when I know you are happy. You're happy right sis? This guy is a good guy? Looks like he loves you. I've bet you've told stories about me.”

I was hoping that she would do the cry thing. But she felt like on her special day, that it would be okay to treat me the way that she always wanted to.

“I'm going to KILL YOU!” and she came at me. Not with a knife or anything, it was just dramatic, probably going to use me as an excuse not to have sex with her new husband.

It was all I needed, I slipped the knife out of my pocket and she fell right on it.

Have you ever seen the life go out of a monster before? You can't see the change.

They pulled me off of her. And I got away with it. Six months later I was acquitted, drunken self-defence is still self-defence.

It's a good thing that none of the cops that night did a breathalyser test on me. I didn't have drop. To tell you the full truth. My plan was to just walk up to her and try to hug while while she did her great cry game. And stab her until she died.

The one time that she let go. I won.

I am in a hospital now though. Turns out I'm a bit of a sociopath. In fact, I might have been completely wrong about my sister this entire time, and I am simply severely disturbed. I might not have been honest before, when I said I saw nothing in my sister. I'm here to tell you right now. I see nothing in anyone.

I mean a psychopath and sociopath? What are our parents like? Oh right, my sister wasn't a psycho. Turns out.

I should have known. I should have known.

Turns out that when you look into somebodies eyes, and you see nothing there, and feel nothing but hate for them. Well, that's more your problem.

I should have known though.

All those years I looked at myself in the mirror.

I saw my sister.