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anthemis2890
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Name: mckenzie
Country: United States
State: Texas
Metro: College Station
Gender: Male
Interests: Goliath's Sword, The Mighty Men, Nephilim, angelical hierarchies, the four horsemen, weaponry in all its states, prose in all its forms, poetry to an extent, most applications of theory and logic, psychology, politics, and the list does go on...
Expertise: General firearms Knowledge, to an extent prose, history somewhat,
Occupation: Prose Assassin/ Literary Merc.
Industry: Blackmarket Ltd.
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  anthemis020890
Member Since:
4/19/2006
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| it's strange to me, how quickly in life something so bizarre can become so routine and comfortable. a little while ago, something changed. and it was strange, terrifying really, and completely foreign to me. and yet now, it's become a routine, a comfort, and trusty blanket or a familiar old coat. this thing, so totally alien before, is now just another part of daily life that i can not only accept, but gladly embrace. No more do i lay awake at night worrying about it. now, the assurance of it helps me sleep. before, it was a specter i fled from, yet now, so short afterward, it is an old friend that strolls leisurely beside me.
and, surprising though it is to me...
...i find that i like it quite a bit. nay, i adore this situation, i welcome it! a grin is never far from me, summoned by the mere thought of it. i cannot stop laughing at life, relishing it.
but, cynical as always, i find that somewhat worrisome. | | |
| yeah, that's pretty much all of it. i did something, said some things, without actually thinking it through first.
sure, everything i said was true, but is it always okay to say something just because it's true? well, to be honest, i don't know. the idealistic side of me says that i just spoke the truth as best as i could, and because it was the truth, nothing bad could come of it.
the other part of me assures me i'm an idiot.
and therein lies my problem. once again, i'm in a place in my life where the right way and wrong way are not clearly marked, where the right choice is not a huge, flashing sign.
all of the roads look exactly the same. so my logic and faith and sensibilities tell me that means i should pick to the best of my knowledge and with great prayer, and that so long as my intentions are pure and i'm striving to do the right thing, it'll turn out okay.
but experience,cynicism, and more than a few biblical passages hasten to inform me that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that there's often only one right choice.
so, where does that leave me?
for now: on my knees, praying for the wisdom and insight to find the right path. | | |
| it's odd, how my mind works. or mayhap i should say instead: how my mind doesn't work.
it doesn't make sense, it doesn't conform to the status quo, it refuses to just behave as others do. i did not, as much as others sometimes assert otherwise, intentionally make myself this way. there never came an epiphanic moment when i realized i wished to be different, i wished to eschew traditional schemas and operatives and simply mentally run amok. it just happened. for some reason, i received a consciousness that seems to defy most explanations. it's composed, primarily, of quirks and eccentricities, crosswired synapses and imperatives that are off just enough, over a lifetime, to change everything.
and to be honest, it doesn't vex me in the slightest. Hubristic though it may be, sometimes i suspect that maybe i'm the one who actually understands, or comes closest to it, while others are merely flailing in the dark, blinded by their own understandings. it seems, at times, that i stand at the precipice of it all, that i'm brushing against the veil, behind which lies everything, while others pass unnoticing. it seems sometimes, that light is clawing at the dark edges of my mind, hiding just beyond my comprehension. but suspect i'm close, closer than many others. Closer, certainly, than i've ever been before.
the thing about it that is truly and genuinely vexing, however, is that i've no clue nor idea what this grand revelation is. this dawning that i feel, that i sense right at the edges of perception, is an enigma to me. i know not what wisdom it is, what truth it is formed around.
i merely know it is there, something deep inside this labyrinthian consciousness of mine knows it. i know it as surely as i know the sun will rise tomorrow, nay, surer still than that. i have the sensation of being perched on the edge of something more massive than I, more massive than any man, more incomprehensibly large than anything else. i simply know it.
and yet....
and yet i have to wonder, if i'm clawing at the lock of a door never meant for me. i have to sometimes wonder if maybe i'm just an intruder on this stage, the sheer scale of which defies all understanding. i have to wonder if i've wandered into something larger than i am capable of understanding. the query, incessant and unflappable, gnaws at me. am i scrabbling at a veil that hides the truth, or am i simply scrabbling at the limits of my own mind? | | |
| It’s odd, how simple text can summon a voice to memory. How words typed, so obviously cold, can convey so much more. How simple syllables can strike with force of hammer-blow, rob the breath, fill the mind with query and wonder. It started simply. A “Hello. How are you.” To a friend long-lost. But the mere appearance of pixels as words has managed to steal all else from my mind, to fill it instead with one simple thought: What does this mean? The timing, the preceding contemplations and considerations, the sudden whim that led to it all? Is it mere coincidence? Is it serendipity? Or is it more than either? Is it, perchance, some intervention on a scale larger than can be imagined? All these questions purged all thoughts of passing trivialities as I watched that screen. The words popped up, and as I read them, as odd as it may sound, I heard them, in my head, a voice echoing back from memories lost to once again dominate my consciousness. How is this happening? How can this personage, this character once lost so readily, now surge back into my life again with such Force? Such vitality? Such inescapability, such inevitability? And now, sleep eludes me, also chased to the winds by thoughts and reminiscences, of forgotten dreams and abandoned hopes. The memories, so long dormant, now flash by at fever pace, a never-ending loop of times, experiences, conversations past. Old decisions are revived, re-evaluated under the harsh light of hindsight and imagined possibility. Conversations, once engaged in so wantonly and mindlessly, now seem filled with new significance, new meaning. Damn my mind, damn my contemplation, damn this terminal hope. Why now? Why these questions, Lord? Is this You, or me that summons these thoughts to the forefront? What are you trying to tell me? Teach me? Why did this simple exchange seem so laden with purpose, so filled with meaning? Seriously though, what the hell? | | |
| We swept in low and fast, skimming just above the treetops, the engines howling at full blast. The trees, mere feet below us, whipped about in the downdraft as our three fully-loaded UH-1 Iroquois shot past. I tore my gaze away from the window and reoriented it on the civy who was supposed to be briefing us. At least he looked like a civy. But I had heard the whispers, the rumors.
They said he was an agency man, a black-bag specialist. The whole thing made me uneasy.
He had a map duct-taped to the aluminum wall of the Huey, and was drawing all over it with a red marker as he spoke.
“It seems that most of our losses have been centered around this area, here.” He pointed to a red circle roughly 3 miles wide. “We’ve lost two Abrams and a full Stryker squad, as well as an AH-1.”
I heard the man next to me, Rawlins, curse under his breath. If they could take down Cobras, then what was going to be coming to back us up?
The agency man continued.
“We’ve gotten no visual confirmation of these enemies, nor have we any transmissions or descriptions of the lost troops. It seems that who, or what, is out there, hits too fast. Be on your toes boys.”
I exchanged a glance with Rawlins. We didn’t miss the “what” part. This was getting weird fast…
The pilot’s voice came over the headset.
“LZ in sight, 2 minutes.”
And then all hell broke loose. Harsh, mechanical feedback screamed through the headset. The bird started shaking violently; the pilot screamed something about the tail rotor not responding. The bird jolted, and my face slammed into the window. In that brief instant, I saw a halo of fire and smoke, rapidly growing. I didn’t think, I didn’t’ speak. I just ducked and screamed.
There was a horrendously loud noise, and I felt a wall of heat wash over me, ripping the breath from my lungs and scorching my skin. When I looked up, the empennage of the bird was gone. Just gone, and the world beyond the hole was spinning crazily.
The agency man, who had refused to strap in, slid past me haphazardly, his leg at an odd angle. Before I could respond, he slid out the rear of the bird and vanished.
Six hellacious seconds later, we hit. It was louder even than the explosion, a sound so loud that it had its own physical force to it. The windows exploded, metal groaned, and men screamed. I tried to surge towards the door, but the seatbelt, so precious moments before, became an impediment as fire began to spread through the cabin. I scrabbled for my Ka-Bar, wrapped two fingers around it, and yanked it loose, almost losing it in the process. Without further preamble, I slashed at the belt. It parted under the blade, and I felt a stinging sensation across my chest, where the knife bit through belt and cloth and into my flesh. The pain, however, was inconsequential next to the flames. I threw myself out the hole, and began crawling as soon as I hit the ground.
A few crazy minutes later, I looked back. The bird was engulfed in flame; a steady roaring blaze accentuated by occasional flares as the stacked ammo and loaded weapons cooked off.
I took stock of my surroundings. A large field, dotted here and there with classical Dutch style windmills. No rebels or enemy combatants to be seen.
Because it wasn’t rebels. It wasn’t enemy combatants. Heck, it wasn’t even humans.
As I watched, the nearest windmill began to shift. Components slid and rotated, legs appeared, as did a head and one arm. Panels of cold steel slid aside to reveal rotating gun barrels, hibernating missiles of every make imaginable, and radar components.
A second arm appeared from the morphous mass. It bore a colossal lance, easily the size of a telephone pole that terminated in a razor sharp point. It flashed towards me. The last words I ever spoke?
“Holy crap… Quixote was rig-…”
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