Regal (Taken with instagram)

Lincoln slowly came out of his dream state and stared at his ceiling again. Listening to the sounds of Craven’s breathing and staring at the ceiling, putting together pieces of a puzzle some would say.
“Give me strength for the things I cannot change” he said as he turned his head to stare his companion in the eye. Craven stared back at him, Lincoln sat up and crossed his legs; the two of them had a stare down. Lincoln was looking for an answer. Craven was seeking to give comfort. All the concentration was broken in a matter of seconds when a girl came crashing through the window.
PASH-INKT!
The window exploded, and glass went flying every where. Neither Lincoln or Craven flinched and looked away too see who it was.
“Hello boyfriend!” said the girl in a cheery, but out of breathe voice as she was brushing debris off herself. 
“Hello Brianna” replied Lincoln, still staring into Craven.

Brianna was a long time friend Lincoln’s. She wasn’t his girlfriend, she’s just the type of girl to take the social norms of any situation and make them seem irrelevant. Lincoln was a boy, and her friend, therefore he was her boy-friend. That’s just the way she worked.
The met during the summer, during the years of Cruel and Unusual Punishment (A.K.A. Middle school years). Lincoln was a much fatter kid back then who had glasses and braces, the epitome of a leper in those years. Brianna was much more rebellious, wearing her hair folded, so it seemed short and dying it every color she could imagine. (The day she unfolded it and revealed that it was never cut, sent one teacher to the nurses office. Teachers hate being deceived by anybody, this sent them off the deep end) These two were by far the last people any clique or group wanted to inherit. Eventually, they were bound to find each other. The summer day that they met, Lincoln was sitting to himself humming Nietzsche quotes to himself as the kids swam in the river; it was known for it’s very big pollution. Brianna noticed him. She went up to him, commenting on how he had no friends. He politely stated that neither did she. She smiled, threw her arms around him, and as they say, the rest was history.

“What’s with the showdown? Did he insult your mother again?” Brianna said, picking shards of broken glass out of her hair.
“Even if he did, I don’t think she’ll be back for awhile to complain” said Lincoln.
“Where are they this time?” asked Brianna, as she examined the freshly painted walls.
“Palo Alto, Morroco, Tierra Del Fuego, Ohio. Any place that ends with an ‘O’, that’s as good a guess as any.”

 Lincoln got up off the floor and took a good look at Brianna. She stood at a good five feet and eight inches. Lincoln himself was a good six foot two, or was it three? Either way, he was a bit taller than most.  Her hair was a dark brown now. His the same. And her eyes were what most would call ‘Notes of Autumn’. Many admired her very unique looks, all except for her. She felt the need to constantly change up her looks to keep herself interesting or appealing to others eyes. His eyes, just a plain brown.

He began picking up the cans of paint and the clothing he used to brush the paint on the walls.
“Oh!” Brianna exclaimed “The tree’s on fire again.”

Lincoln let out a sigh as he cleaned up his room, his feet gliding around the wooden floors. 
“Aren’t you going to put it out?” Brianna asked as she watched Lincoln cleaning up his room.
“What’s the point of it’s just bound to catch fire over and over.”
“I think it’s pretty! ” Brianna said to Craven as she was holding his paws. “Craven, you are the prettiest bulldog or cat or pet anybody could ask for.”

Lincoln gathered everything up and went to the living room, sure enough behind the tv in front of the window there was a massive wooden oak tree engulfed in a sea of orange, yellow, and red flames. He walked through the front door, sat on the porch and watched it crackle and burp with flames. This would be terrifying for most, if this were the first time a thing like this happened. He had grown accustomed to seeing its spontaneous combustion by now. Craven was slowly waltzing to his master, as Brianna followed behind him, hair now in a sheen of orange matching the color of the tree. She sat beside them, the three of them staring at the flames in the tree branches. The flames never touched the ground, just seemed to stay suspended in air. Brianna waved emphatically to the people walking by, while Lincoln’s only concentration was the tree. It was almost poetic of a scene, how mesmerizing the tree was. And how much it said about the world Lincoln lived in.
“Accept the things you cannot change” Lincoln whispered as he put his hand on top of Craven’s head.

“Do you believe in voices?” Lincoln breaking the melody of the flames.
“I believe I have a voice, last I checked” Brianna said tapping her toes together.
“Do you believe…” Lincoln began rephrasing his question “That there’s a voice out there that…. Talks to us?”
Brianna sat there and thought about what he said.
“Maybe God was talking to you?” Brianna said
“No” Lincoln said automatically “He’s too busy to talk to me.”
“Maybe it was in your head” Brianna trying again.
“It couldn’t be” Lincoln said, “I would be familiar with what I have to say”
Again. Silence. The only noises, the melody of the flames, the beat of Craven’s panting.
“Maybe there is no explanation” said in a serious tone
“No” Lincoln said punctually “That’s not what life is about. It’s all questions and answers. Haven’t you read the newspapers? There’s always going to be answers for everything. That’s a fact. There is no unknown to the world. There is no uncertainty there’s always something that….”
Lincoln began to choke on his words, he felt helpless knowing that what he was saying didn’t make any sense. His tangled dialogue made sense only to him.
“Maybe not making sense, is making sense” Brianna said cheerily

Craven stopped his panting, and stared at her. He understood the power to that statement and wanted to soak in it’s contents.
“Maybe not making sense, is making sense” Craven thought to himself.
He liked that.
Craven walked up to the tree and started to howl, he howled as loud as he could in such a deep register that it shook the branches. He kept howling until branches shook so hard that flames wore out, and then ceased. Brianna’s hair faded back to it’s normal dark brown, and Lincoln just stared at the trunk of the tree.

“Well” Brianna said while getting up “There’s something that you don’t see any day. A dog that can stop an element of nature”
Craven looked at her with an innocent puppy dog look, as if what he just did was something bad and that he might be in trouble for it.
Brianna just smiled at him, sticking out her tongue and biting it at him. Craven nodded in respect.
And Lincoln just sat there. Lost within his mind. Lost in the world. Lost in what was unexplained, and what the world provided.
Lincoln never wanted to explore the unknown, he wanted to keep everything within his realm and in his control. He wanted to know that he was the master of his universe, and there’s nothing beyond that.
But it’s hard to face the facts sometimes, when the world gives you something confusing. Give it something back.

“Why did you name him Craven?” Brianna asked as she watched the clouds race one another in the sky. 
“It means ‘Unheroic’. I took him because a voice told me too, I stopped being me and did something without question. And as a reminder of how I caved in, I named him ‘Craven’” Lincoln said as he bounced his feet back and forth on the steps.
“Funny” Brianna replied “I figured it’s because you are always ‘Craving’ knowledge, that this dog was your light for answers”
Lincoln thought about it. He began calling the dog Craven almost the moment he got him, without thinking any other names.

Brianna could tell by the reaction on his face, she knew she put some good thinking in his head.
“Ho-ho, I did good didn’t I” she said as she picked Craven away from the tree.
“Yeah” Lincoln said, receiving his dog from her “You did good”.
“Are you still going to the dinner tonight?” Brianna asked.
Lincoln could tell that by the tone in her voice, she needed a date and that it was him.
“You know I don’t like those” Lincoln said holding Craven under one arm
“Come on!” Brianna yelled, “You know who’s going to be there. And you know that if you ask them any of these things, they’ll give you exactly what you are longing for. Hell, they probably could give you a mindgasm and the rest of us can finally see you smile again” 
Craven’s panting was soothing to Lincoln, released endorphins. Finally, after spacing out for awhile, he said yes. 
Brianna squealed, and gave Craven a kiss on the nose.
“Hip-Hop-Hooray! I’ll pick you up at midnight! See you later boyfriend” She called as she ran down the road.

Craven could understand his master was still frustrated. He hobbled back into the house, and came back outside with a beer in it’s mouth. Dropping it into his masters lap. Lincoln stared at the beer, and felt a smirk on his face swell.
Man’s best friend, they’ll always know what to do at the most inconvenient moments.
And that’s what best friends, those who know what to do in moments of inconvenience.
Lincoln couldn’t see it now, but Craven is there to make all this inconvenience go away. His uncertainty will be put away. His lack of understanding will stop lacking soon enough. Craven held the answers to the questions. Lincoln rested his back on the column of the porch and stared at the clouds in the sky, still racing one another. Not sure of where they’re going, but knowing they needed to be the first to get there.
Drinking the beer, it spoke to him. 

The beginnings of this story are not important. Much like all others. They just build a foundation. Foundation, reader, gives us something to go off of. Something to walk on. Not having to be like Peter in the Red Sea, worrying about sinking. None of us want to worry about sinking. Even though we will regardless we want to or not. But for now, you’ll have to trust me on where we go. Let me be that guide that you are unaware of. Always taking you in the right direction. But never telling you where you’re going. It’s a blind trust, reader, that we’re building. You won’t have to worry on where our end destination is. The trip in itself is what all the fun is about. Uncertainty…. It is without a doubt God’s bliss upon the world. The more we question it. The more it loses it’s ‘Shine’. What may seem confusing isn’t so confusing once you really begin to try and understand what it is your reading.

Hell. A ‘shine’ could be considered a discrepancy. Before I ramble too much. Let us ‘Begin’.

Lincoln was laying his head on his bulldog, Craven, while staring at the ceiling of his freshly orange painted room. Lincoln had begun his first stage of remodeling his room in his parents townhouse. He had been feeling a little blue lately. So he decided that painting his room orange could give his emotion a different flesh of color. It was a soft autumn day and he hadn’t had a clue in the world what this day had in store for him. So for now, he decided that resting his blank mind on Craven could bring more insight on what his next move should be. His long time friend was breathing in and out slowly, knowing his very loving master needed time to just be. As Lincoln eyes slowly decended into darkness, his eyes began to wander into light. He closed his eyes and remembers like yesterday standing on Landley Stretch. 

 Landley Stretch was also known as “Nowhere Road”. The road that literally lead nowhere, all it had to it was dense fog (One could see the sun, but couldn’t see the sky), an old gravel road, and Apple trees as far as the eye could see. One would accidentally walk on this road. There is one road, with a slight difference in it. On the left side of the road, it slowly went up and to the right. On left side it went slightly down and to the left, and a person wouldn’t notice this road unless they had been walking for an hour without thinking. Walking down the road could lead on for days, quite literally. Many had tried to make it to the end. But none had ever came close. Everybody knew of Landley Stretch. But nobody knew who actually owned it. The trees, the road, everything just seemed as if they belonged to the earth alone. And the most peculiar thing about this place was that when you were there. Everything was gray. As if the clouds were covering the sun, but none were in the sky. Just gray. Nobody could quite explain why this was. The birds on the telephone wire had a field day with this. ‘An act of God’ some would say. A ‘Scientific anomoly’ others would boast. The battle between god and science was a never ending one, especially when it came to reason. And eventually the arguments became so great that everyone just dropped it all together. Lincoln found himself walking down that road on the exact day it was meant to change his being.

In his senior year of high school, his lab partner, Heidi, in his 3rd period AP Chemistry class had died in a car accident. Being an overachiever had it’s downfalls, as the community came to realize, when poor old Heidi had ran into a tree. Swerving to avoid a baby deer that was being chased by a mountain lion, Heidi, being an animal lover gave up her life for a helpless animal that still died anyways. Thus proving, a genius could die in even the most simple matters. When the news hit the high school, it hit hard, it seemed that everyone in the entire town, knowing Heidi, or not; was hurting. Except for Lincoln… He never cried, even though Heidi and him were in no way close. Her kindness spoke volumes about her and made anyone talking to her feel welcome. When she died, everyone felt a little colder.

At her funeral service, there must have been hundreds of people there. All paying their respects to the unfortunate demise of a very fortune girl. Lincoln, in his brightly colored attire, just like everyone else. Sat in the church while others were crying uncontrollably and people continuously shook Heidi in her coffin in the disbelief of her passing. Never once, did a  tear trail down Lincolns face. He sat there in a dead emotion. Almost staring at the lips of the priest, as he began his eulogy. This was a forbidden act, staring at somebody’s lips meant that you were analyzing what they were saying. And this was especially forbidden at a funeral. Finding all the imperfections to a continually repeated speech made everyone realize how un-unique it was. So Lincoln sat, feeling strange about the world around him. And just felt sad that he couldn’t produce tears. As everyone left the church, behind the coffin getting loaded into the hearse, Heidi’s mother was laughing with a couple of Heidi’s ex-boyfriends. Joking about how ridiculous that she lost such a beautiful and promising girl in such a way. And how it’s a shame that Heidi never had the chance of reproducing, and that her father and her mother decided that one child was all the investment they needed into securing their financial future when they were too old to work or take care of themselves. Lincoln just stared at that, wondering how is it possible to laugh at a time like this. But then again, as he knew, humans never did things that made much sense. So like all else, he accepted it and moved along; following the hearse to the cemetery that is. As they walked along, people were singing Heidi’s favorite songs. Ranging from blues to country to blues again. Lincoln didn’t join in. He just walked, stuck on the thought that kept bugging him.
“Why haven’t I cried?”

As the trek commenced, Lincoln didn’t speak. He just kept thinking. All he was looking at was his feet, as the right when in front of the left, and the left went over the right as the grass on the sides of the road just hummed to itself about how long it’s getting. Lincoln ignored him, and his mind was transfixed on tears and feet. He never noticed that the road he had blindly following was the one of Landley and that the rest of the funeral procession didn’t care to warn him he was going the wrong way. Everyone found him to be a little too strange for their own taste. And they thought him going off on his own is just what he needed. Lincoln walked for what must have been hours, not even noticing where he was heading because his being was disturbed by his lack of tears. Eventually though, he stopped.
“Maybe I don’t care enough” he said to himself. That sentence stopped him dead in his tracks and that’s when he finally looked around to see where he was. He was at Nowhere Road, and right in the center of it; or so he believed. The first thing he noticed was how foggy it was. It was a lot more thick than he had heard others say. It was so bright at the same time. Almost as if he was in a heaven that was meant to be a little too cloudy, but compensated by making you feel like the sun is there to wrap it’s arms around you. He felt comfortable… And uncomfortable. It pleased him… Then it made him feel morbid. 
“Anomaly road” he whispered to himself as he stood there staring at the sky.

He looked at the sides of the road, to his left, apple trees. To his right, apple trees. Down the road, gray. Up the road, fog. So he stood there, considering which of his options seemed the most appealing. He couldn’t quite come to a decision, so he began to move his neck around in a circular motion around, his bones made little cracks. Almost as if he was popping his fingers. All he felt like he could do was stand there and breathe. Give himself a moment to actually breathe in the world around him.

“Hello Link” said a soft and harmonic voice.
Lincoln was startled, but didn’t show it. He turned to see where the voice came from. When he looked for the source of the voice, but all he could see was gray.
“Don’t speak,” Lincoln said “Unless you’re willing to speak”
“What do you want to hear?” said the voice
Lincoln took his time responding, considering his options and his possibilities. Possibly his options can lead to more.
“Why did Heidi die?” he finally asked
The voice didn’t say anything for a long time. He felt like an eternity passed before he had an answer.
“Because” the voice responded.
Lincoln wasn’t amused by the answer.
“Because what?” Lincoln asked, patiently.
“The fact is” the voice began “You won’t get all the answers you were looking for. You are to play the cards you are dealt-“
“Bullshit” Lincoln responded “That’s bullshit. We can’t just accept the cards we are dealt. We need to know more”
“What makes you think you deserve anything?” the voice responded
“We’re the ones who live a practical joke every day. As if we’re invincible and life will never go black, when we know in the back of our heads the lights eventually go out. I want to know why Heidi died, she was a beautiful human being and was only kind to the world. Why did she have to die when all she was trying to do was good?”
There was the long silence… The long silence when it seems like the whole world was listening in and was in such awe of the statement that they too pondered what was said. Everything seemed as if it was moving in suspense.
Finally Lincoln began to walk forward to where he heard the voice. He felt his last statement hang in his throat. As if he swallowed hot lemon tea and his eyes were praying the price for it. 
“Is there ever an answer that’s satisfactory enough?” the voice asked him
And with that. Lincoln finally cried. Not in bitter sadness, but in acceptance that things will always happen for no reason at all. And that all we can do is accept it. He cried because he knew he was supposed to accept the way things are, but he didn’t want to. But he would.

He kept walking in the direction of the voice, until he found something in the middle of the road.
There in the middle of the road, laid a basket. An old wooden basket, when Lincoln looked in. He saw a small sleeping bulldog.

“Take him” said the voice “Not everything is explained, but life will always have compensations”
Lincoln, stared at the bulldog, his tears stopped. Confused, he understood at the same time.
He picked up the basket and went back the way he came.
He knew what he would name the dog.

To Be Continued… 

BEST.MOVIE.EVER.

Kittens in a crate.
Kittens in a crate.
Everything’s fun with Kittens in a crate.
(Inspired by Meg Hainz)

Well played.

House Brawl.

…. But I’ll be back before you know it.

I like that a lot actually, let’s try it.