Echo

Do you remember the winter of '93?

Thirteen years ago? Not much.

Specifically, the trip that you made with your entire family back to LA to spend the holidays?

Ah. That trip. Bits and pieces, I'm afraid.

Do you remember how you felt during that trip?

I felt like shit, honestly. I had just got over a case of... bronchitis? Yeah, I think that was it. I remember coughing like a jackal the whole time.

I meant emotionally.

I felt happy. I remember just feeling like everything was right with the world. The whole family gathered one last time before...

Before '95, you mean.

Yeah. Everything changed in '95. Everything. The whole family dynamic shifted.

You afraid of change?

Haven't always been. There were times when I was practically dragged kicking and screaming, or so it felt.

Getting back to the trip you made in '93, what was the one memory that you recall most vividly?

The blowout that we had just 50 miles short of home. That sucked.

Why that? I would have thought you'd say the dinner you had or some other aspect of the visit.

I think it was because it was the first time my dad ever truly apologized to me and told me that he was proud of how I had handled the emergency. And that was after I seriously backsassed him for trying to crank up the heater. It was cold, but when it gets to be 3 AM, the heater is my worst enemy.

I love my dad, but I always had a hard time seeing eye to eye with him. I felt a lot closer after that moment mostly because I realized that he was a human being as well.

Apart from that, the visit just stuck in my mind as happy fun time. I wish I had been able to appreciate it more, but teenagers are rather ungrateful, emotional savages, no?

So, talk about this past Christmas. How did it make you feel?

Well, it was odd in some ways, fun in others.

Odd?

Yeah. Having worked around a retail environment for so many years, the "Christmas spirit" as I've known it has been rather faint. I just don't feel it. Don't feel the magic, nor the 'warm holiday spirit' that I used to have when I was a kid.

Just feel, well, dead. I went through the motions, bought presents, found myself saying "Merry Christmas" to people, but when the day actually came I felt... Well, like it was just Monday.

Scrooge much?

C'mon, Voice, you know better than that. It's not about the Scrooge Paradigm, more like a general sense of overall sensory burnout.

Ever hear "Green Chri$tma$" by Stan Freberg? It kind of sets up the sense of what I'm talking about. The "Spirit of Christmas" is converted into a currency of sentimentalism fed into the machinery of capitalism. Without it, most retailers would never see a profit, at least that's how it feels.

Meanwhile, the meaning behind the season is lost; shielded behind walls of profit and commercialism.

Cynic, I may be, but there's still enough humanity left in me to feel guilty about being part of the machine this time of year. The only counterbalance I have for this is in the fact that I have family and friends that I love and who love me and that regardless of the season, it's always great to spend time with them. That's Christmas's one true saving grace for me the past few years, the chance to hang with those I love.

One would argue that 'family' 'friends' and 'love' are what the true meanings of Christmas are, you know?

Well, I would say that it's good to not suck as much as I thought I did. In fact that does make me feel better in general.

In fact, I hoist this glass of Sierra in honor of that. Merry Christmas, one and all!

Delta.

You stand there looking at the wreckage that you have wrought. The skyline is clear, plenty of room to breathe and walk around.

You heft the sledgehamm...

Oy. When you said "to be continued," I had no idea that meant over TWO FREAKING WEEKS.

Oh, great. It's you. It's been a while, hasn't it Voice #7?

Seriously, man, what the Hell are you writing about now? Do you fancy youself the modern Aesop or something?

What? I'm not writing fables here, Voice, I'm writing a series about self-exploration and change.

Self-exploration and change? More like an essay into existential boredom and literary masturbation. I've read ingredient labels more entertaining than this.

You can't be serious. This isn't about amusing the masses, this is about providing another way of looking at one's internal struggles.

Good lord. Lemme ask you something. When was the moment when you decided to become egotistical and boring? If you ask me...

Piss off, Voice. I'm doing this because...

IF YOU ASK ME, I'm fairly certain that you've lost focus. Remember when we used to write? I mean ACTUALLY write?

I AM writing.

Oh, really? What, besides bitchy, whiny and depresssive self-important tretises on life's cruelty, have you written lately? Writing with you used to be fun, full of fart jokes and bullshit. Now it's like writing with... With a... With a third-level Chaucer wannabe.

Look, Voice, if you don't like it, why don't you just fuck off 'til I'm through? I'm happy doing this. It gives me a sense of release to vent what I've been dealing with for years.

Say after me: Literary. Masturbation.

What, you're so damn smart?

Never claimed to be, but I probably am more right about this than you can see objectively.

Fine. You want to hash this out or do we just ignore each other like we've done over the past few years?

Though I may have been silent, I haven't ignored you.

Oh, so you have been paying attention? Alright. Go on then, if you must...

----+----

To be continued...

Charlie

You spend some time sizing up the job ahead. Realizing the amount of strength that you will need to muster, you pause for a moment to reevaluate.

* Am I so reliant on measures of safety that I required these walls to be built?
* Am I so insecure in my life that I allowed these walls to be maintained?
* Am I truly happy with the way that things are and feel so powerless to change them?

You heft the sledgehammer, raise it above your head and take your first mighty swing.

----+----

To be continued...

Bravo

You stare at the wall directly opposite to you. The colour of the paint isn't noticed so much as the texture of the wall itself.

You notice each bump, each crater in the drywall. The wall isn't perfectly smooth but it is sturdy. Fulfilling its purpose as quietly as it has since it was first constructed.

Walls are little more than an idea; made with a combination of wood, steel, iron, glass, rock or a combination of materials. Walls are constructed, some with a purpose of keeping things in, some with a purpose of keeping things out.

You consider that for a moment. Behind that wall is opportunity. Chances for bliss or for tragedy.

You stare at that wall because you are unsure about something, your life perhaps. What frightens is the idea that you stare at that wall because you have nothing better to do.

There are usually four walls to a room, each obscuring a direction that your life would take if you were willing to step outside and walk. If you were not so ashamed of yourself for being yourself, you probably would.

You have been a prisoner locked up inside a prison of your own design, escaping only long enough to show up for work detail during the week. The weekends have long since become 60 hours of home arrest except when your wife sends you out to get the groceries.

But then you see the axe and the sledgehammer. The axe brings comfort. The sledgehammer brings freedom.

----+----

To be continued...

Alpha

It starts with a downward glance.

A failure to acknowledge or an attempt to hide one's soul from someone's direct eyesight. You hurt. You know you hurt but feel that you can bear that weight just *that* much longer without asking for help.

After all, to show such emotions to other people makes one weaker, right?

You spend the first few days trying to figure things out for yourself. The task ahead is daunting and you meditate way longer on these issues then you intended to.

Days turn into weeks turn into months and sooner or later you are at war with yourself. You withdraw behind mental bars of titanium steel, locked safely away from the world in your reinforced bunker. Occasionally, you stick your head outside to sniff the air and survey the damage outside your lair. The air smells fresh, but you can hear perceived danger approaching from outside your battlements.

Years pass and you have fortified yourself behind thicker walls. You fake emotions now. After the years pass, you've learned how to fake being happy just for the comfort of those around you. Inwardly, you writhe in agony.

You want to shout against the injustices of the world, about bad relationships, lack of true job security, wars fought in distant lands that are actually closer now than ever before, thanks to technological advances that as little as 100 years ago were just some poor sucker's pipe dream that would never work. Such ideas.

You struggle through the daily grind, hoping to find some validation for your very existence. You surround yourself with those you can tolerate, promising friendship on the outside yet listening to the ever-present ticking of the internal chronometer.

Ten years have now passed since this began and you are now even more lost than before. You struggle to find inner meaning but find nothing. The kid who dreamed of being an astronaut is now an automaton, lost in a career that was chosen out of college as a stepping stone but ended up as a thick patch of swampland instead.

Now you can't even remember how this even started, let alone explain it to someone else. Your life, once filled with promise and hope, has been replaced by a mortgage, a wife who you married so that you just wouldn't be alone anymore and a lot of sleepless nights because you feel guilty about it.

You contemplated suicide for 2.6 seconds a few years ago, but quickly decided against it. You put the kibosh on those thoughts because then your life really was a total waste and you realize also that the pain you'd leave behind is infinitely worse than any trivial pains that you are going through now.

Besides, you know in your heart that you can turn your life around; if you weren't having such a enjoyable time being miserable that is. You just wish that the solution would present itself because you are just too full of excuses and bullshit to take charge of it yourself.

And then one day, it does...

---+To Be Continued+---

Oy.

Having a rough moment.

A client of mine has asked me today to enhance the sound on some footage that contains some highly sensitive information on it. While I will not go into detail about the contents of the footage, I have to say that whatever compensation this person is seeking, it will not be anywhere near enough to what they deserve. I can hardly look at it without a twinge of deep sadness for what the client is going through after something like this.

Meanwhile, I'm transferring footage for someone's 35th anniversary, some kid's dance recital, some guy's hunting trip, a baby's first steps and a ton of slides that someone took during their vacation to Utah.

Life as a professional video editor is not without its odd balance.

Tea & Theatre

Will you have some tea
at the theatre with me?

We did it all - didn't we?
Jumped every wall - instinctively
Unravelled codes - ingeniously
Wired all the roads - so seemlessly

We made it work
But one of us failed
That makes it so sad
A great dream derailed

One of us gone
One of us mad
One of us, me
All of us sad

All of us sad - lean on my shoulder now
The story is done - it's getting colder now
A thousand songs - still smoulder now
We played them as one - we're older now

All of us sad
All of us free
Before we walk from the stage
Two of us
Will you have some tea?
Will you have some tea
At the theatre with me?

-The Who

Just the song that's been playing through my head the past few days.