What the Morning Brought Me

Last night I made heavenly red velvet cupcakes, with some help. The importance of my contributions may not have been obvious, but without the cupcakes I had custody over, by comparison the others would not have looked nearly so delectable. Today I ate them, and life was good. Indeed I ate a tremendous amount of other foods as well, such as unprecedented amounts of tortilla chips supporting bold, toothsome buffalo chicken dip; pumpkin beer bread half plunged into warm, thick spinach and artichoke spread; hot chicken wings that peeled as easily from the bone as they crunched zestfully between my jaws; sticky maple frosted cider doughnuts hung by a string from an archway; hot beef, sausage, and been chili slow cooked in crockpot to provide a thick saucy medium for the exquisit blend of peppers and spices that accompanied; skull shaped gushers and gummy constructed 'Krabby Patties'; the act of my consuming which I am sure was a truly wondrous and grizzly sight. To get to the point, making those cupcakes kept me up late, and therefore this morning I slept in- walked down stairs- walked up stairs- and slept in some more. It was delightful, though I find that when I do this, it is when I go back to sleep that I have the most vivid dreams. This morning brought me quite the interesting one, along with a flavorful idea. Here is what the morning brought me.

Notice: The following story contains graphic detail.

     Just a point of darkness on a grey horizon. A seamless thickness of cloud did its best to keep secret the sun as it presumably made its daily resurrection out of darkness. Still, the darkness of night had abated and light dimly pervaded, as if coming out of the world itself to satisfy the day in the absence of the sun. The air was heavy with salt that mixed with the sweat covering his chest and neck, but at least the flies had not yet found him. The tall man sat stiffly in his tree, sentry for the ghosts of the island and his mind. Holding up in a tree at the edge of beach had been his only option to perserve him from those awful beasts. What bad beasts, never sleeping, never gone for long... what do they want from me? He glanced around with sharp movements, sweat flinging from soaked hair to nearby branches as he jerked his head this way and that. Back to the horizon. They ask me to watch for them almost every night now. What are they looking for? Why won't they just let me be? He just wanted to be left alone with the lights... his lights. He knew they were his, that the beasts were not aware of them, and all he wanted to do was care for them, watch them. His lights. They came every now and then, and if he concentrated hard enough, some of them turned into images; faces of others like him, the sounds of the words he knew in his head, voices.
     "My lights." he grunted almost intelligibly, smiling at the unfamiliar but satisfying use of his own voice. Words had been so useless without anyone to share them with, and the beasts that asked him to do things in his mind were not likely to be happy if they heard him speak. They were unforgiving. Making him crush his own fingers beneath stones when they were disappointed with him, or carve the skin from his legs and abdomen, or pull out his own teeth. When they were happy, the simply left him alone. Alone to eat the grass or grubs or crabs that composed his diet, never truly feeling full or satisfied despite his overly distended stomach. Alone, not like now. Now they watched, silently in the shadows in his head. Terror gripped him as he suddenly remembered their presence, feeling the pressure of their observation and expectation of him to watch. Quickly his eyes found the horizon and locked in. The dark point in the morning haze was still there, though he could not be sure. It was so small.
     As he stared as fixedly as possible towards the far edge of the water, his vision morphed and flowed with the sea, hypnotic. Hardly a few moments passed before his sleep deprived mind began to cause him to digress from his mission. Then he found the lights. They were so comfortable, coating his thoughts with a shimmering warmth, washing his fears and stress in a stream of bubbling golden luminescence. The tension in his neck started to leave, his shoulders slumped and the hand holding the trunk to his left slid slowly along the bark to rest a few inches lower. The lights were nice. So much nicer than the beasts. So much more like him. Faces. Voices. Hello friends. His eyelids already halfway closed now, seemed to grow unimaginably heavier, being pulled down as if by some other hands. My lights. So light... so many lights.... My li-. The spine at the base of his skull departed his neck in an instant, the bolt encouraging it easily along through thick tendons and sinew before slamming solidly in a neighboring tree. The force of the blow destabilized the body, flinging it backwards from its perch even before the muscles in the limbs had gone limp. Cascading down towards the inevitable floor and nearly getting hung up a lower branch, the body was followed by a slower sticky mist of red, coloring laves and sticks in the pale morning haze. A portion of the spine remained in the canopy, pressed against a tree by the bolt jutting from its center. A mass of flesh laid hopelessly motionless the base of tree, while transient circuitry stopped forever making beasts and lights.
     The shot had been exemplary, precise, just as calculated. The captain moved the half mask back over the right side of his face before turning from the prow to face the crew. He untied the leather binding that laced the length of his arm from wrist to shoulder with his left hand, and smoothly pulled the device off. What a marvelous machine.

There you have it, the gift of my morning. Now for a promised flavorful idea. I get the beginning of this story that, when I wake up, I am really excited about. I cannot tell you why, but this small scene really was fascinating to me. Before I ever got out of bed my mind went in a thousand directions with it, and it just kept becoming more elaborate and involved, and I thought... I should blog this. Not only write it down, but see what other people thought of it. And even more excitingly, I was hoping that some may even continue it! I had the idea that anyone who read this could offer their 'next scene' to the story, and then we could look at all of the different directions and creative writings. You can post what you write in the comments or email them to me at bigfootisking@gmail.com and I'll get them on here. If nobody responds to this, despite the scores of followers attending this blog, I will likely just continue it myself. But seriously do consider it all of you. I love reading, and sharing, and this takes those two things and brings them together. Also, enjoy the extra hour of sleep tonight friends!