zandd.com: The following are a set of sketches, short fictional pieces that should be read as individualistic, yet evolving and connected within the same body. The last sketch is a sort of semi-prologue to the 5-part series to follow called Hakre Forlan Janktha. This is the transitional point between two stories, Quest of a Solitary and the series to come.

Sketch I
Bitterness is the drug injected into my veins intravenously, against my will. I wander through a mansion filled with ghosts and decrepit walls. The ghosts are white and translucent and I can only see them from the corner of my eye. The drops drip on the staircase. I think of events and memories as caverns full of stalactites and stalagmites, icicles forming clear walls, melting and shattering with the passing of a season. Dead words and Latin, words that once meant something, antiquity, lost in a gutter of new languages and lexicons. Fighting over translations and interpretations when in my heart is one desire, one aspiration. One Hope. Like a little orphan coming across a world in which he is loved, to traverse the deepest anguish and despair, to lose everything in nothingness only to find a part of the needle of a spine, a switchblade melded into a universal remote control that can turn things on and off as it pleases, enameled gloves and aquiline leers, climbing a tree top-down, rowing straight for the vortex of a maelstrom.

Finding her like a dog, a grunting monkey, what other choice did I have?

I've torn out her eyes, only the corpse, the stench. I loved her. More than anything or anyone that I'd ever met. The eyes and they way they deceived, taking photographs of oneself in the mirror, catching spirits in the background, a man warring on the stars only to find he is a scratch on one's ass, an excuse for idiots to kill or be killed, I ran and flew and jumped and you tore me from my place in the depths of neither Tartarus nor Maginot but Mariana and Hellas/Pellas/Kellas/Tellas.

How it writhes through me, that old bitterness. That old, old bitterness- that I left beyond at the last cemetery. The way it knows me, the way it taunts, threatens, tells me the ways it is right, torturing my wretched inner chambers, the furnace that evolves and coughs involuntarily, spasming somatically, autonomically, a man thrown against a thousand syringes or bee stingers, unable to move, neither assaulted nor terminated, left to feel/fear death and pain.

Sketche II
One night, I met a woman who loved me for me being me and nobody else. She did not say much and did not have many reasons for her love. I could tell from her eyes that she cared about me. She was like the Juliet of Shakespeare, except a little less dramatic and far more beautiful. By beauty, I don't mean in the aesthetic sense/pleasing-delectable. I mean there was something that emanated from within her- an effusion of selfless concern and compassion that animated her cheeks in a slightly vermilion blush. I'm not sure what we talked about but we talked for two weeks straight before I realized it was a dream (while it was happening, a part of me desired so deeply that the dream be true that a part of my consciousness awoke, realizing the subconscious was at helm). There is an old wives tale that if one believes a dream is real, one can die from a dream.

For a moment, perhaps there was a slight distortion in reality, in four dimensional space. Maybe in between streams of perceptual influx, a part of my existence was made privy to the millions of alternate realities and I had caught a glimpse of a conversation in another lifetime. Like one existence in a necklace of precious gems and pearls, I had merely traversed from one existence to another.

I awoke and did not sleep again that night.

It wasn't her that I thought about as I awoke from my nocturnal excursion, even though her face slithered and hovered and whispered in the dim verge of my dream substantia.

It was me, myself, wondering how it was possible for a man to fall in love with a dream. No matter how much one didactically proclaims narcissistic inclinations in the human mind/homo sapia species, falling in love with a dream is not a rational idea. Something a bit transcendent in comparison to primates.

But then again, maybe primates, monkeys, apes, chimps, do dream of planets full of apes. No one knows what they dream. Or maybe we all do. And I'm the only one who doesn't know. And this is really their world...

Sketch III
Whenever I feel depressed about humanity, I go to the subway and think about all the people I don't know. The million faces I will never converse with, never see again.

True, internally, I feel even more hopeless at the sheer voluminousness. voluble.weight * density of civilization. But I remember that there is no such thing as a generalization on 'humanity' as a whole. Generalizations on humanity more often than not are an indicator, a reflection (not in a mirror but within a distorted prism) of the individual making the generalization than anything else.

For example, any woman or man who thinks humanity is a lot like a butterfly is really saying that life is a lot like a butterfly. Or anyone who compares humanity to a ship at sea should really try traveling in space. And to all those who compare life to a drama or theatric play- they should really take the time to go down an alleyway in a war-torn country, being shot at, watching people massacred, then clap and laugh at the high entertainment value, realism, of such moving lyricism and vivid imagery.

Make sure to format everything in the correct resolution for the television screen. Blue screen out everything that appears dull and commonplace (books/movies). Emphasize luridity. Grab a controller and play the game of hookers and pimps, selling, then sold.

The subway jolts me up from my trance. I get on and ride away.

Sketche IV
There are some books I hate. Or so I tell myself. I press on my toothpaste and out come a series of beetles. I am about to wash my face using the soap but notice several worms and maggots that have made an abode out of my humble bar of soap. In the shower, a horde of roaches has set up camp and the bathroom tiles are busy with ceramic termites, having made a moveable feast of algae and corroded wetworks.

[Hemingway is a damn good writer. It's the other ones I don't like. The one that use a diarrhea of embellished varnish to cover the essential lifelessness in their content, the fact that the biggest drama or dilemma in their life was the inability to assert themselves in a perpetual recurrence of bug-hood]

The mile long centipede crushes a part of my porch and the mantis' are making their rounds, digesting cats and dogs as snacks. Sometimes, I put myself to sleep by listening to the beat of dragonflies and moths flapping in recurrent flaps.

They see me through a thousand different lenses, each lens seeing a specific aspect of my persona. The mosquito humanoid comes over and we watch the Super Bowl together. He really likes cow blood (which I had to specially order from across-state). Not sure why. I personally prefer dodo's.

Sketch V
Stores at the Mall:
A Child's Delight/Aftershock/American Storage/Animal Kingdom/Axis Luggage and Leather/Bank of America ATM/Bath and Body Works/Battens and Boards/Bay View Bank/Beauty Store and Salon/Blockbuster Video/Candle House/Cards N' Such/Champs Sports/China Villa/Choice Fashsions/City Hall at the Mall/Claire's Accessories/Combo King/Consumer Opinion Center/Crimpers Salon/Designs for a Living/Dollar Plus/Edo Japan/ Electronics Boutique/Fairfax French Cleaners/Fantasy Jewelry/Footaction USA/Frederick's of Hollywood/Fresh Bakery and Café/Future Paging and Cellular/General Nutrition Center/Gingiss Formalwear/Gloria Jean's Coffee Bean/Gymboree/Intrigue Jewelry/Jhan Thong/Journeys/Kay Bee Toy Stores/Kay Jewelers/Land of the Sun/Lane Bryant/Las Manos/Lecht Housewares/ Lencrafters/Let's Talk Cellular/Macy's/Mall Management Office/Mall Security/Mark's Hallmark/ McDonald's Restaurant/Merchant Jewelrers/Mervyn's/Mobile System Wireless/ Mrs. Field's Cookies/New York Burrito/Northgate Florist/Ollini Home Furniture/Orange Julius/Oreck Floor Care/Pacific Sunware/Pacific Theaters/Papyrus/Payless Shoesource/Picture People/ Pretzelmaker/Prints Plus/Radio Shack/Regis Hairstylists/Rite Aid/Roma's Italian Food/Sbarro Italian Eattery/Sears/See's Candy/Shiekh Shoes/Shoe Stop Shoe Repair/Skewers/Sonoma Silver/ Stars Burgers and Malts/Stride Rites/Styles/Suncoast Motion Pictures/Sunglass Hut Intertional/Sweet Factory/Taco Bell/The Gap/The Northgate Kids Club/Sport Pro/The Wherehouse/Things Remembered/Thomas Kinkade Gallery/Time Out/Toy Symphony/Unique Creations/Victoria's Secret/Visionary Opticians/Waldenbooks/Wet Seal/Yogurtworld USA

So many damn stores and not one that will help me to find the one thing I'm really looking for- a piece of candy so meaty that I will never be hungry again...

Sketche VI
Speaking of parallel dimensions, there is a fall of water- my days flow by and I don't know what I do anymore- I wake up and I work but work is slow and I sit and do nothing but I feel like a vat dried of embryonic materials, sapped vapid and sick from the f***in fakes and artificial f***ers who lie all f***in day and kiss ass and bitch about you behind your back but smile when they really wanna just stick a shovel down your throat just to get ahead. And suddenly, I am looking down at New York City from an airship and a young lady captain asks me if I am okay. I nod and she says I should get below deck since they are closing the light absorbers (those convert solar energy into quantifiable produce that power the ship). The city is bright from the celebrations the day before commemorating the first joint "Terran Colony" established on Mars. The celebrations commemorating a complete end to pestilence, war, and disease, have already taken place in the years before. A young man asks me if I would like a towel. I don't feel like swimming but there is an old couple that smiles so gracefully that I get into my swim trunks and flaunt about in the clouds before the krakens decide to throw a feast in honor of the great leaders of the Genetic Unity.

Abandon to alcohol, foreign substances designed specifically to induce euphoria and memory loss, a brave new world not really all that new and a slight hum and buzz from lovers and soldiers of centuries long past, envious of our breath, our toxic lungs, beat on a man and he will either explode or internalize it and if he keeps internalizing everything, bitterness will kill the organs inside him, will cyborgify him into something cynical, conniving, ambitious without any real ambition.

A woman chants alone and I listen to her and cry because her voice is so pure and pristine.

[whatever happened to youthful innocence- now everyone is proud to be corrupt and stupid]

Her voice is like an untouched forest or field. She reminds me of days that never existed. Slowly, she sucks the bitterness out of my "infected compositional transitory" vessel. She does not look at me nor anyone else. Her eyes are staring up into the heavens. She will die as she lived, pure.

The only difference in this reality and the other is that in this new dimension, I never existed. My mother was a whore and decided to abort me using an old witches brew. God curse her for her inherent selfishness.

And how come in all the worlds I have been to, this is the only one in which I've heard the voice, the voice of someone heavenly, celestial, one who allows me to envision sleeping at night in peace?

Because in this world, I never existed. Meaning it never existed for me. Except in...

Sketch VII: A Finality and a Prologue
A sword in his hand. It is really my hand and arm.

The castle is old. Made of harsh materials slapped together. In their unity though, there is something that is very appealing. The armor is stained crimson blood. They attacked and we were outnumbered so I ran. A man who runs lives to fight another day. And life is more honorable than an honorable death.

It is supposedly easier to die than to live. I can't confirm that since the only people I've known who've told me this statement were alive. I sometimes wish I knew a few more dead people though. Excusing the malador and odorosity, the stories they would tell. Like the rich man indifferent to a pitiful Lazarus, begging to go back to warn the living. The dead would lament and cry and laugh and jump and smell and defecate and drone...

I don't know exactly how it began. I can't say I don't understand him. I think there is something tenuous, almost flimsy in wrath. The way it can possess a man, then dispossess him in the next moment. But his was not wrath. At least I don't think it was. No, I think it was something deeper, rooted inside him like dormant poison or a benign cancer, tumoring, ulcerating, incinerating through his veins, his blood, crying for retribution, for justice, for anything other than the gnarling parasitic organism that withered away at his very being. It happens to every man or woman at one point or another. Most hide from it or ignore it. He, he held it in, let it rot away at his ventricles, then embraced it when it was too late. We call him heretic because we are too afraid to examine, to "see" what he meant. I call him heretic for breaking the rules.

He- he was like a man turned child, seeing his family and friends shredded to pieces, silent, observant, mute, then vomiting his rage and fury, his sense of justice in a deluge of violence, of pure violence embodied in the distortion of genitalia, the disfigurement of pretty/handsome faces, the shattering of all things sacred, a beast deified in the masque of wrath when he was but a pawn of the emotion within him, damned from the start but not giving a damn...

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