Throawae, Part 3: Chasing a Forgotten Tune

        Like any good detective you must start from the scene of the crime. For this case that means the front steps of my apartment. It was here that I stood the fateful day I decided to throw my heart away. It was here that I stood the last time it was rejected. It was here that I stood in the rain and watched her walk away from me. It was as I watched her go that my grip loosened in preoccupation and my heart slipped from my fingers, landing on the ground with a splash. It began to cry and I looked down. It was crying so loud it hurt my ears, it hurt my mind, it hurt my everywhere. So I left it there; I shut the door and went to lay down in the dark where things were quiet.
        From these steps I had to start, but where to go from there? Left or Right? The answer struck me before I'd even finished asking the question: it would have gone after her. To the right and across the street. Past the diner where I first met her, over the sidewalk where she'd try to dodge the cracks. Under the overpass where it gets so icy every winter and she'd always slip and cling to me tighter. The route to her place was irreversibly intertwined with memories and I dashed along its course, but still no sign of what I'd lost.
        The sun began to peek out of the clouds as I ran, a ray hitting my eyes. I was putting my hand up to block the beam when I heard something that made me stop: a snatch of a faint tune I had long forgotten. I had to strain my ears to even hear it, but it was there. Where it was emanating from, however, was another thing. Left, right, back, front, up...down. It was coming from the gutter.
        It was pouring that night. The rain must've washed the heart into the gutter and down the drain. I had to go down. It was a challenge to get the cover of manhole off, but eventually it came loose and I began my descent into the darkness. The cover slipped back on easily, but tiny rays of sunlight were still seeping through. I began to walk, ever so cautiously, forward and disappeared into the darkness of the sewer's tunnels, following the sound of a forgotten tune.

Throawae, Part 2: A Use for the Useless

        I threw my heart away once. What did I need it for anyway? I wore it on my sleeve and it just got dirty. I gave it to another and it'd end up broken. Perhaps it just wasn't any good. Perhaps people could see a little sticker on its side telling them that this heart was passed its prime. So I did what you do with things that have gone bad: I threw it out.
        It isn't so bad really, living without a heart. Most of the time you hardly realize it's gone at all. Every once in awhile an emotion may come to the doorstep where your heart once lived but it would soon forget why it had come in the first place and slowly turn back from whence it came. It really isn't so bad.
        But if that's the case why am I doubting myself? Why am I beginning to wonder if I made a mistake? I already know the answer. She's smiling at me. This random stranger, this beautiful stranger, is smiling at me and for the first time I can feel the emptiness. Like swimming in a warm lake and suddenly coming across that cold spot. The illusion of warmth breaks with a slow and icy shock. Living without a heart isn't so bad, but it isn't so good either. It's just nothing.
        In the end, is the happiness really worth all the pain? Then my thoughts turn back to that girl. That girl and her coy smile and a look as if she could see something no one else could. Maybe she could. But what was she seeing that I've been missing?

        I need to find that heart.

        I need to ask it something.

Throawae, Part 1: The Golem of Waste

        Beneath the swirling soiled waters of the toilet bowl, down past the maze of u-bends and countless pipes, deep in the darkness of the sewers sits the home of the unwanted, the golem of waste, Throawae.
        Every hope, every dream, every wasted moment. When such things are cast aside they are forced to wander about the sewers lost and alone. When things are thrown out of sight, out of mind, they are thrown into a mind of their own. Sooner or later their blind stumbling will bring them to Throawae and he accepts them with open arms. Once you've kicked them out of your mind, he is there to welcome them into his. His body is made of time, his limbs are made of unwanted truths and his nails from the shards of broken promises. He sees through forgotten dreams and speaks with the low voice of an inconvenient conscious.
        But why should I bother to describe Throawae to you? You already know what he looks like. After all his pieces were once your pieces. We create these abstract ideas like truth and love out of nothing but imagination and breath life into them. However, everyone at some point or another will abandon one of their creations: in an attempt to drop ballast, to enable an excuse, or sometimes simply because it hurts to much to keep it around. Despite our reasoning we cannot help but feel guilty for what we've done. While we can run away from our ideas, the guilt remains to link us to the past. A stain upon our subconscious.
        It is no wonder people find him off putting. Not just because of his looks, nor even the smell of rot and waste emanating from him. No, it is what he represents. What he makes them remember. So he is ignored. Or at least we try to. Every once in a while we cannot help but to see him peeking through a sewer drain, or rummaging behind a garbage can, and then that ping of remembrance reverberating the hollow where what we've given up used to reside.
        So Throawae sits in the company of himself. Waiting to hear another cry from the tossed away, lost-their-way. But every once in a while he'll get a visitor of a different kind: someone who's realized their trash was treasure and needs it back.

        This is where I come into it.

Haikus: Love, Sex, and Heartache

Am I attractive?
Women always tell me so,
then again...moms lie...

Hello there ladies,
My package is kind of small,
but my heart's real big.

Pick-up lines are hard,
but so is my erection.
Let's go for coffee.

Innie or outie?
You mean my belly-button
or my genitals?

"You smell really good".
Did I just say that out loud?
"Such pretty eyes"...shit.

Excuse me...miss...miss?
Your laugh made my heart flutter.
...I think it likes you.

Set my heart aflame.
Just not like Temple of Doom.
...that part freaks me out.

Maybe I'm no good.
Maybe he lost my number?
Why won't he just call?

Your smile makes me smile,
so I don't want to forget,
when you smiled for me.

Yes, I'm over you.
Yes, you can date my brother.
...you're both dead to me.

You look beautiful.
You always look beautiful.
How could you not know?

Teeth Marks

        I think something bit me last night. My finger itches. Illuminated by my scratching, glowing white through the red, are two little sets of the same tiny bumps. But where on Earth did they come from? The remnants of some late night battle? Perhaps.


       Two spiders walk across the landscape of a slumbering giant. While not the most ideal path, it is the quickest. You couldn't tell from their movements that they were scared. To any observer it was just the same clamorous cacophony of legs which spiders exhibit. But they were scared. If they knew how to skulk back and slowly tip toe across this beast, trembling all the while, they would, but they didn't.
       Suddenly there is only one spider. The other has left to go investigate the great boulder which is the creature's head. It had been warned of the dangers, but it didn't care. It wanted to see what the fuss was about. The spider and the giant are face to face. The spider turns and calls to its brother, with hubris painted over its face it laughs.
       The impossible quiet of the laugh slips through the air before slowly echoing down a cavernous pit of an ear canal. And something wakes up. While the conscious mind is distracted by colors and lights of a dream, the lumbering subconscious rears forth like a lightening strike and the spider disappears down its gullet in a shower of chitin. In a rumble even lower and ever quieter than the spider's, the monstrous subconscious laughs last.
       The remaining spider is left to comprehend what has just occurred. The sight of its brother's demise searing into its memory 8 times over from 8 different angles. Why was he gone? What did he do to deserve such a thing! The spider lashes out and bites the closest piece of the giant. It bites down again and stops. If it knew how to cry it would, but it didn't. Just like it didn't know how to hang its head and slowly shuffle off.
       A single spider scuttles over the edge of slumbering giant and disappears.

       I think something bit me last night.

Letter Extravaganza '09: Part 4

      It's time for a new batch of letters! I'm happy to report that this batch puts me over the 50% hump and on my way into the home stretch. Hard to imagine that there are only 3 more batches until I'm done. Truthfully I'm looking forward to it. Not because I'm not enjoying writing letters, but just because I feel kind of bad for taking my sweet ass time writing them.
      I'm sorry! I'll get back to work on the next batch right away.


16.


17.

18.

19.

20.

Unicorns Vs. Narwhals (#17 even though I forgot to number that one *cough*) is copyright Adrian Molina and his outstanding animated short can be seen here. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (#20) was written by Lewis Carroll; its copyright has expired, but credit where credit is due.