V-Force

Tom landed on the floor safely. Looking up, he could see all of his comrades waiting to come down from the prison. Large, white, and cold. Rarely seeing daylight, all type V items were becoming ill and dying rapidly. This last alliance, titled “V-Force,” was on a mission to escape.

“Come down now, Aspar.”

Sliding down the make-shift string-cheese zip line, Aspar made it to the floor. Being the tallest member, this was no trouble. Next came Broc, the largest and strongest of V-Force. Oni came next. He was the strong-willed, quick-thinking, short-and-squat Force member. Then Pepre, the smallest member, imported from France some time ago. They had escaped the horrible cold of Fridgidarium!

Once they had themselves organized, Tom called a team meeting. They huddled together, linking all their leafy appendages.

“Okay, guys. We're out. Now we have to figure out how to get to the Wild.”

Aspar, being intelligent, remarked, “Well, we don't even know in which direction to start!”

“Wait,” said Pepre, with his thick French accent. “I have the map here.” And with that he whipped out a map of the realm of Kitchenea written on the virtually indestructible Lunchmeat paper. “It looks like we should go S.” he finally said.

“What does 'S' mean?” asked Broc.

“Um, let me look here.” said Pepre. “Okay, the legend says that 'S' mean Stove. We're supposed to go due Stove.”

“Okay, we've found our direction.” said Tom. “Enough chit-chat. Let's go.”

All green and leafy limbs stretched to the center of the circle.

“All for V, and V for all. V-FORCE!”

To be continued

Black

A little poem/story I thought would look better in its own page:

Black

Inverted

It begins at the Spring of Birth, at the Mountain of the Past. It then flows down the Stream of Childhood. Meeting the Waterfall of Reality, it plunges into the River of Life. After flowing through many dark and dangerous places, the River enters the Sea of Sorrow. The supernatural powers of Hope lift it to the Sky of Achievement, and around the clouds of Inspiration and Enlightenment. The Eternal Storm rips them out of the Sky, sending them downward towards the dry Riverbed of Experience. Then the demonic, decomposing creatures of Time enter. They tear them apart, leaving nothing behind.

This is the epitaph of an inverted universe. However bizarre and unthinkable it may appear, it is plausible. If one extreme exists, so can the other.

Love. Hate.

Hating love, loving hate. Two starkly different feelings, ways of life, frames of mind. Both so powerful, so intoxicating. Is to hate love to love hate? If you love hate, you obviously don't hate love, because you're loving your hate.

Loving love, hating hate.

Becoming numb to all emotion. A living shell. No feelings. Living without life.

Hating love, loving hate.

Immerse yourself in an emotion, a feeling, an instinct. Look around. What do you feel? Light, dark, smooth, rough, warm, cold? Hear it. Smell it. Taste it. Imagine experiencing this forever, having no escape. No way to change, no going back. The past is gone, the future doesn't exist, and the present is overtaken with this emotion. Live this feeling until you truly feel you understand it.

Now let go. Take a step back and admire it from the outside. Yes, even the dark and coarse feelings are beautiful in their own right. Mysterious, ominous, oppressing. Feel the temptation of the power, the seeming invincibility. Turn away if you can. If not, be lost to the vast world of emotion. If you can turn away, change yourself.

Change yourself, change your views, change the world. Inspire such lucid views and frames of mind that you overflow with imagination. Be the catalyst of the revolution. Reform the idea of what it means to love, to hate, to feel, to live. Do not shun change, embrace it.

Put yourself in the other's place. Understand fully what it means to be individual. It can be a lonely solitary life at times, but it is necessary. Comprehending others in detail is a monumental task, and should not be taken lightly. If you can truly understand another's intellect, you have succeeded in conquering emotion.

Use emotion and feelings as compliments to logic, and not the other way around. Use both together, and employ the synergy in your life. Account for “gut instincts,” but do not follow them blindly. Step back and take a critical look at your feelings from the outside. If they coincide with your logic, combine the two to make your decision.

Be the catalyst, change yourself, and revolutionize the world in the process.

Lord of the Rings, Abridged

I woke up, briefly looked at the ceiling, and promptly sat up only to bang my head and fall right back down again. While rubbing my sore cranium, I looked around the room. Wait, this wasn't my room! No wonder I'd smashed my skull on the ceiling, it was only three feet away! I gingerly sat up and slipped out of the bed.

It was a very small room with a domed ceiling, one perfectly round window, and various necessities such as a dresser and the bed. Just then, I heard a call from somewhere on the other side of the door.

“Bilbo? Bilbo! Are you in there?”

Then I heard another voice, this one much closer.

“I'm terribly ill, it's very contagious, and I wouldn't want to pass it on. Goodbye!”

This statement was followed by a fluent stream of muttering that I won't repeat here. There were some hurried footsteps, and I heard a door open. Being utterly confused and having nothing better to do, I opened my little round door also. A small figure with large hairy feet stood in front of me, glancing furtively out the windows. He noticed me.

“Oh, good you're up. I was wondering how long you'd sleep.” he said.
“Um...” I mumbled incoherently.
“Well, no time to lose. Tonight is the big party, you know. 111, can you believe it? Ah well, we'd best be going.”

With that he walked straight out a slightly larger round door at the front of the house, if you can call it that, and out into the bright sunshine. Once again being confused and unoccupied, I followed him.


Gandalf really didn't fit through the door. He banged his head just like I had earlier that morning. I stifled a laugh. He had lead me away from the glorious party, the dozens of little people running about, the fireworks, the food, everything. He wanted me to see something.

“Go in the kitchen, and don't let yourself be seen or heard.” he commanded.
“Um...” I stammered.
“Go!”

I shuffled into the adjoining kitchen from the main room and crouched next to the wall. Gandalf stood in a corner of the room. We waited for a few minutes, and then I heard somebody coming up to the door and muttering to himself. He came in the door and I saw that it was Bilbo. Maybe that copious amount of distress-sounding noise from the party had something to do with him dashing up here by himself. He walked into the main room, and Gandalf startled him.

“So you still have it, do you?”
“What? Have what?” Bilbo jumped. “Oh, this little thing, ha ha. Yes, I've kept it around all these years. Silly, I know...”
“No, it is not. You aren't fooling me, Bilbo. I know what that ring has done and what it can do.”
“I was only having a bit of fun!” Bilbo maintained.
“A bit of fun, eh? For all we know, all nine could be on their way here now because of your 'fun'!”

Gandalf was getting angry.

“Wait, all 'nine'? Nine what?” I stood up and interjected.

Gandalf turned to me.

“What did I tell you? Shut up!”

I meekly returned to my spot in the kitchen.

“What's he doing here?” asked Bilbo.
“Oh, now there is something I have never figured out.” stated Gandalf with a sigh.


“So how in the world, or Middle Earth I should say, are we supposed to get in there?”

I was beginning to get very frustrated sitting next to this ominous black pool of water and a sheer granite cliff with a strange illuminated door on it.

“We have to remember the password.” said Pippin.
“I know that, but what's the password?” I indignantly asked.
“Well, this is just a random guess, but what if it's a fruit or vegetable?” said Sam.
“Yeah, like a melon or something?” said Frodo.

And with that, the doors cracked open. Just the thought of cantaloupe was enough for those old dwarves to open the gates to their...palace. I looked in the black hole that had appeared in the cliff-side, and I couldn't see a thing. Nothing at all. I was expecting warm fires and more little hairy people and food and company! Dark, dank, and dismal was all I got. Why did I come on this trip again?

However much I despised that black hole, I was thankful for it. Because just then a monstrous octopus-type thing with a huge mouth came out of the water and started grabbing at us. Aragorn and Borimir valiantly chopped off some tentacles and Legolas shot it right in the spleen with a well-placed arrow, but that just ticked it off more. Realizing we were fighting a losing battle here, we all dashed into the unknown blackness that is Moria.


“He said their armor is weak below the shoulder.” said Aragorn.
“Thanks. I really wish I could understand Legolas when he starts speaking Elvish.”

I was worried he had said something like “Cover me, I'm going in.” or something else heroic like that.

“Yeah, learning Elven was definitely – hey, is that rain? Oh, man! This is terrible. I hate rain.”
Aragorn was glowering at the sky.
“Well, those 10,000 orcs out there don't seem to mind. They'll probably slay every last woman and child whether it rains or not.”
“Yeah, I guess you're right. Well, 'tally ho' as they say. Let's kick some orc butt!”


Ew, this stuff is sticky, he thought to himself. What is it?

Having just climbed a massive staircase (if you could call it that, it was more like a ladder without rungs), and being exhausted, Frodo was slightly out of sorts.

Well, I guess it doesn't matter. Just gotta keep -

“WOAH! Holy crap, what was that?!”

A supremely enormous arachnid had just made a swipe at him. Frodo was terrified beyond all reason, of course, and the spider was very annoyed that she had missed.


“Hey, uh, Gandalf?” Pippin looked concerned.
“Yes, Master Peregrine?”
“Yeah, uh, you might want to come give Denethor a talking to. He's, uh, trying to burn Faramir alive.”
“Hmm, that is a problem isn't it?” Gandalf thought deeply.
“I thought so, so I came to get you.”
“Well, alright. Shadowfax, let's go!”


“Well guys, we did it.” I said proudly.

The four hobbits and I were on our long journey back to the Shire.

“So what are all of you planning to do next?” I asked. “I mean, what could ever top saving the world?”
“I'm going straight to the Green Dragon and having a couple pints” said Pippin.
“I'll probably go make myself a new pipe. I haven't had a good smoke since Isengard.” said Merry.
“What about you, Frodo?” I asked.
“Oh, I've heard that Gray Havens place is pretty nice. I might see everybody back home and then go check it out.”

There was a long pause.

“And you, Sam?” I asked.

We all looked over at him. He was gazing off into the distance, a small smile and a look of wonder on his face. Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and I all looked at each other.

“Rosie.”

We all laughed heartily.

Expedient

Many have traveled before us, and many may come after. We have come far, and still have a great distance to go. Expediently; No other way is acceptable. We travel with haste, not knowing exactly what is happened ahead or behind of us. Haphazardly, we traverse the landscape with no purpose other than to maintain expedience.

Our point of departure was being torn apart. We left in the hope that there was something better, something out there, something. Something. We don't truly know what it is we're searching for, but we proceed towards it with all possible speed. The ones who remained behind will surely be engulfed by the overwhelming pressure: Conform. Any deviations from the form were not tolerated. We were on the brink of becoming outcasts, and our standards did not permit that. Our expedience was too open for them.

I have mentioned standards. They commended some for being "ahead" and having things "under control." They shunned some for staying behind, for thinking of their past experiences and letting them "interfere with their better logic." They shunned us for looking to the past for knowledge and experience, and thinking that their definition of "ahead" was, in all actuality, nowhere near our standard of expedience.

In the general sense, "they" refers to the establishment, the masses, the common frame of mind. Your frame of mind is very important to your window on life. Remember this. If your frame becomes covered in dust, warped, and not kept in good repair, your window may bend and possibly break.

We must be expedient in our expedition of searching for expedience. Don't live in your own world. Change the real world and make it your own.

Of course, call me a hypocrite, I am nothing but a member of this world we have created for ourselves. We ran from the pressure, the enormous analogy; We ran away from the world. You are still there, "there" being in the same general sense as "they," but you have the power. Change your surroundings, don't find new ones. Everything in moderation (including moderation) of course, but improving your environment will benefit you and others.

That is the ultimate purpose of life, no matter what window you're looking through. Improve yourself in the pursuit of helping others.

I now continue on my journey, expedient as ever. I shall never reach my destination, but when my time comes, I will have traveled far and seen many things. I am, and will always be, happy.

Life is a journey, not a destination.

Runny Babbit

Hey, I've just been added to a blog titled "Runny Babbit." It's all spoonerisms. If you don't know what that is, you'll just have to look at the blog.