Only Once

I don't know why, nobody told you, how to unfold your love.

Mood: Not bad not good.
Physical Condition: Not in TOO much pain, just not comfortable.
Mental Condition: Actually a little annoyed, but nothing intolerable.
Music: Don't Cry - Guns N' Roses
Food: Sammich.
Location: Pincher Creek Alberta.
Current Thoughts: This room has so much echo it's unbelievable. That piano is SO out of tune. AH!

Pincher Creek, lovely little town, well kept museum, and quite pleasant people. That last post sounded a touch dark, but it's just something that came to mind. Now I have something to explain it next time someone asks me. It's nice to know I can explain things, they just come at the wrong time.

I've been so all over the place lately it's ridiculous. I've been really high, then really low repeatedly. I think I've worn my body down so much that I'm beginning to get a repeated case of the shakes. Oh well, I've got something working for me though. I entered another relationship.

As trivial as that sounds for someone my age, I'm really happy with it. The circumstances under which it's started though are somewhat dubious. He's a failed social experiment of mine. Now we're dating. Either I am weak in my resolve, or he's absolutely amazing. I think it must be about half and half.

I was talking with Dan, and he was telling me how he's had crushes on girls since we split but apparently none of them feels the same way I did to him. Personally I think he might be being a little melodramatic, but honestly I think I get how he feels. It's supposed to be like that though, I mean, no two people are the same. I loved him, I still do, it's just not the same though. And it's putting a lot of pressure on me to try and deal with everything. I don't want to tell him though, because I want to help; but before I help him, I think I've got to help myself.

It's nice to feel love in that sense again though, I'm not going to deny it. I really enjoy the feeling. I hope Dan can get back up after what we went through and get to it again. He really deserves to be able to. He's a sweetie.

Anyways, I've got to head off. I'm on a break. I've been performing at the Pincher Creek Harvest Festival all day, and I'm starting to get pretty wiped, but I've got another set to go do.

And Steph, my condolences.

Concrete

Cause surrounded by these walls, just makes me feel uneasy.

Mood: Detached.

Physical Condition: Half beaten to death.

Overview: Do I have to?

Music: Papercut Skins - The Matches

Current Thoughts: Being lost in one's head is not pleasant. One cannot escape. Even with the promise of sunshine on a stormy day, one still cannot unearth what lurks therein.

Being concrete doesn't mean much to me. Am I made of stone? Am I as strong as I appear to be? Am I lucidly dreaming my entire reality? Where am I?

I am lost.

Yes, that's where I am, somewhere lost deep within the depths of a world I've created. It's littered with shattered memories of seamless pasts; it's soft sand screaming underfoot. A place of dark existence with small pinnacles of light too far away to grasp, yet close enough to hope. A place of musical silence as if a greater power has pressed the mute button, yet the song continues. This is a place outside of the exterior of the inside. This is my place. This is where I reside.

Welcome to my central desert of forgotten indulgence, where the night terrors creep and the sun rises only to set. Welcome to the hole. Welcome to the activities taking place inside the scum of the world. Welcome to the nightmare of false reality. Welcome to the past. Welcome to the present. Welcome to the future.

Hello.

How kind of you to join me. I know you're not really here, but that's okay, mirages are a rare sight in the pit of the blind. You may stay as long as you'd like. If you like.

Oh... Right. You're a figment of my imagination. So I suppose you're leaving again like all the others.

That's fine. I knew it all along. You haven't hurt me this time. You haven't caught me. Because I knew. Because I am capable of learning. That's where the stars come from.

Good bye.

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Do you want to go to the seaside? I'm not trying to say that everybody wants to go. But I fell in love with the seaside.

Physical Condition: Ouch. Ouch. OUCH. My hip is dislocated. Woohoo...
Mental Condition: Confused mainly, but becoming more lucidly pensive.
Time: 10:52 pm.
Mood: Grey.
Colour: Grey.
Sky: Grey (Alright, I made that one up, but for some reason everything feels grey.)
Music: Epitaph - King Crimson.

It really has been one of those five day spans of "I'm sorry but, what the FUCK is going on in my life??!?" I've been up, down, upside down, and thrown around. I still don't know where I stand, much less if it's solid ground. It's been um, interesting at best.

School life has been pretty much same old same old. I have teachers, most of which I don't like, I have homework, most of which I don't want to do, and I have people around me, which doesn't hurt. I have decided that social studies this year is going to be terrible, as is french. I think I might be able to pull math out of my hat, only because for the time being I'm amused with it. Bio so far has actually been a blast, so no complaints there. Plus I like the teacher. That pretty much sums up school though.

Social life has been good. I miss hanging with Katie and Josh hither and dither, but I'm enjoying greatly the company I've been with lately as well.

Love life. Oh god. 'Nuff said. I don't really know what I'm doing with it. I think I'm coming closer to a decision though. I'm going to give it... Maybe another week or two though just to be sure. Am I too cautious? Who knows.

Life on the inside has been revealing. I know have fully identified my illogical logic circle complex. Now I just need to approach it and disable it. That'll take time, but at least I know what it is, and what must be done. It's nice to know small things about yourself from time to time.

Anyways, that's just a brief update on my life as Joi Grey in the real world.

Sometimes I really wonder how real it all is.

How Am I In Grade 11?

And the walls came down, all the way to hell.

Music: Tweeter and the Monkey Man - The Traveling Wilburys
Mood: Resigned
Physical Health: Sore back and head, but limber legs. Tired.
Current Thoughts: What the hell kind of drugs do you have to be on to write the song Tweeter and the Monkey Man?


So tomorrow is the first day of grade 11. Holy shit tomorrow is the first day of grade 11. I think I really want to prove myself this year. I'll work hard and try to get it to pay off. I want to impress myself, prove to myself I can be more than a lost cause. I want to make myself better. I have so many demons in my head, and not enough time or effort to get them out. I want to get them out so bad. I hope that if I just work at it that they'll leave, or I'll resolve them.

So my timetable first semester looks terrifying. I've got Biology 20, Social 20 PF, FLA 20 and Math 20 PF. It looks ferocious. Yeah so what, I'm not in the highest classes, but I think I'll do just fine. I don't want to be perfect, I want to make mistakes and learn from them.

I cried my eyes out last night. I blame Norm, he pretty much showed me exactly where my problems are and kinda stabbed them. It was disheartening. Everyone thinks I'm so strong, like a rock. Like I'll always be their rock. But I'm so weak, and even though I hate being perceived as so, I can't change a fact about myself that fast. It'll take work.

I suppose I'm to go to bed in order to wake tomorrow. I'm interested in seeing what the day will bring.

Wish me luck.

Her Name Is Stella

Her name is Stella, and she calls to me.

I started hearing her four years ago after my accident. She never spoke her name, but somehow I was certain she was called Stella; so that's who I thought of her as.

I had been climbing without a harness; one of the greatest thrills imaginable. I died that day. I trained for over a year, and I died. I had almost reached the top of the cliff when I slipped on some loose shale.

Suddenly there was no solid life supporting ground beneath my feet. I was falling. I don't remember hitting the ground, but I do recall the sound of shattering bones upon impact. Then I died.

My name is Gregory Slom, Greg for short. I am twenty-four years old, and a medical miracle. I am also terrified of heights.

The first memory I have of after my accident is the sound of her soothing voice. It reached deep into my coma and pulled me like a rip tide to the surface, towards my conscious life.

I awoke with her heeding calls still ringing in my ears. I don't suppose the doctors expected me to wake, and I'm sure they were truly surprised when I opened my eyes and groaned. I was in the ICU at the time, lying face down on an operating table with a scalpel in my spine. I then felt the icy kiss of a hypodermic syringe, and darkness returned with Stella's voice riding hauntingly atop the waves of sleep.

I don't think I could have made it through the healing process without her. I felt I owed it to her, as though she'd been there all my life, calling my name in her lilting voice. I had to relearn how to walk, and after many weeks in physiotherapy with her gentle coaxing in my ear, I was nearly back to my healthy self.

She never spoke anything other than my name, but it was comforting to know she was there - that she cared. Around this time I began to doubt my sanity, as any sane person would do. As it turned out, Dr. Harper doubted my mental stability as well. After a period of observation I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, and send to a mental institute just off the coast of Ireland.

The island was... green. As the ferry approached the shore I was able to discern a series of jagged bluffs on either side of the landing. Terror raced through my entire body as a bolt of lightning through a glass of water. My already weak knees crumbled under my weight as I relived the past four years of my life at a glance.

"It all happened so fast." I stammered, "I haven't been near a cliff for the past four years, and I just- I didn't expect it to have that effect on me." I finished meekly.

"That's perfectly normal after the trauma you experience; Christ son, that fall killed you! Your heart was stopped for over an hour, it's a miracle you're even here to faint at all!" My psychologist exclaimed. Great two days in and everyone already knew my life's story.

As my papers ordered I was assigned to a room with no windows on the first floor. They claimed this precaution was to keep my vertigo at bay. My suspicions told me they thought I was suicidal and at risk of jumping. Either way I was grateful.

Stella's summons still grew stronger, in spite of the doctor's claims that I was getting better. She began to contact me through dreams. She showed me pictures of ocean spray and high rolling clouds. Though pleasant they still gave me an eerie feeling of being watched. My sleep grew restless as I struggled not to cry out as she showed me the bluffs at the edge of the island.

The reoccurring dream haunted me for over a week.

"Gregory Slom" the shadow presence of Stella called. She then turned into mist shrouding the cliff. I understood she wanted me to follow her, and it was painfully obvious she wouldn't leave me alone until I did.

Many of the other patients either kept to themselves or kept away from me. Word had gotten out that I had died several years before, and those who knew kept a fair distance. Perhaps their medication addled brains concluded that death was contagious; I'm not too certain on that subject myself.

The dreams had changed into strange and exotic sights. Beautiful gardens, bountiful orchards, clean streams, a snake, my name and then the cliff all rotated through my subconscious. Everything- as strange and random as it seemed- was completely familiar and well known to me. I decided it was time to find Stella.

Leaving the institute at night was easier said then done, so I waited until after my session to depart.

It was raining, as per usual, and the clouds hung low over the verdant fields. I zipped up my jacket and bowed my head in order to shield my eyes from the persistent downpour.

"Gregory Slom." Stella's voice urged.

"I'm coming."

"Gregory Slom." She called again.

"I told you already, I'M COMING!" I shouted impatiently into the gloom. After having your name called in your head non stop for four years, you begin to lose patience and get snippy. It's human nature, another few minutes couldn't possibly make a difference.

I approached the edge of the cliff and recoiled. There before me lay my entire dream sequence from a bird's eye view. The mist swirled about the bluffs as the ocean crashed forcefully against the jagged boulders. I shuddered at my next thought. I was going to have to go down there. I despised the idea with every fiver of my being, and several fibers of my clothing. This was to be unpleasant at best.

The slope was treacherous and slick with rain and wild ocean spray. I' not even sure what compelled me to go down there. I think I may have been desperate. Desperate for peace of mind, there's a new one.

Clinging to the slippery face of the cliff I peered through the fog, attempting to distinguish shadow from stone. To my left there came the sound of metal on rock. Shocked to actually discover life on this inhospitable frontier I quickly climbed towards the source of the motion. I had found Stella.

She was nothing more than a skeleton really, with a few scraps of clothing hanging from her narrow frame. She stood on a six inch ledge and her arms were shackled above her head to keep her from falling into the ocean.

I don't know why I approached her. She was terrifying and repulsive, yet I could not keep from creeping towards her along the ledge. My mind screamed for me to stop, to leave, to even jump if that's what it would take to get away from her. Still I drew nearer. It was as if she had a grip on my very soul, and continued to pull it forwards dragging my defeated body along with it.

Six meters away- no movement. Four, two -- no movement. Closer she pulled me. One meter - her head snapped up. She looked up at me, two fading green eyes set deep within her hollowed sockets.

"Gregory Slom." Her mouth remained motionless as the words echoed through my ringing ears.

It came in a flash of understanding. The stream, the snake, and the orchards all seemed so familiar because I was there. I had been there before. I was Adam, and Stella, well, Stella was Eve. It was an amazing sensation, reliving a life in an instant. I looked into her dying eyes and I suddenly knew; this was a continuation of our punishment for the creation of original sin.

We were each to be shackled to the bluff, trading off once every five hundred years. It was impossible to die until the other had come to claim their position upon the smooth face of the bluff.

This realization came seconds too late, before I could protest I was shackled to the bluff and Stella was released. The last I saw of her was the dim glow of her green eyes thanking me as she plummeted to the jagged salt corroded rocks below.

Sometimes, as I hang here, I wonder if things would have been different had I died during my climbing accident. Perhaps I never did wake from my coma, perhaps this is my own personal hell, playing off my fear of heights. I have nothing left but my thoughts and pleas- always calling.

Her name is Stella, and I call to her.