[RBSAAUT] - A wild Christmas appears

... It uses family. It's super effective.

But enough with the lame jokes that haven't been funny during the last two years or so. As I've hinted on in my last blog post, which should be from Friday the 16th, I'm currently at my mom's and grandma's house in Saxony enjoying the good life.

I'm aware of the lack of updates during the last week and I originally intended to not let it slip but in the end, all that's left is for me to apologize and tell you that the regular schedule will pick up again after Christmas, or at least in the new year (latest time to kick it off again would be the 3rd of January).

But for the time being, I've been thinking about a couple of things for Loner's Peak and Fool's Flight. For the latter of the two I put a code together on the train ride here which will be of some importance for the story, but for obvious reasons I can't quite tell you all too much about it.

I've also got to meet my new "little sister". Mauzi III, she's quite the lively one I have to say but most of all she's not too fond of sleeping through the whole of the night (I know, I know, most cats aren't) as she takes particular interest in waking me every couple of hours mainly for the sake of it.
Ever been woken up by your cat because she's sitting on your chest, loudly purring and frantically shoving her cold nose into your face over and over again?

Aside from that I had the opportunity to torture a couple of unsuspecting students last Thursday morning as I took part in an oral examination... as the examiner... I've been fighting against being dragged into the teacher's role my whole (short) life long... and now... at the age of 23 ... I've already lost. To make things even more drastic... It turns out it was kinda fun.

So anyways... Enjoy your holidays! If you're from Germany: Merry Christmas and have fun getting together and celebrating later on today. For the rest of the world, enjoy your Christmas, holidays or whatever today, tomorrow or whenever it's time to celebrate anything! It might even be your birthday.

As always, thanks for reading. I'll be baaaaack.
Marc, somewhat tired due to kitteh.

[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 5: The Room

Welcome my dear readers. Yes! It's Friday! And as on every Friday, I have a new part of my short story The Bamboo Labyrinth for you! So let's get started right away!

If you are a first time reader though, I'd recommend starting off with part one. You..., well you know why.

[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 1: Introduction
[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 2: Delving Deeper
[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 3: A Memory's Embrace
[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 4: Treacherous Darkness


Well, then... enjoy!


*~*

The gloom of the night only crept by agonizingly slowly, I can still remember that much. Minutes turned into hours and hours into days as sleep was a rare treat I apparently wasn’t worthy of. And even now it feels nothing short but the same, although I can easily skip through the pictures of my mind within mere seconds after they appear.    

I’m not entirely sure anymore but I can only assume that my ears still tried to catch a glimpse of the mysterious sound at that time. My thoughts running haywire and my heartbeat uneasy, as I had no real other option left than to just continue watching the nothingness of the night revolve around me.

Luckily for me, it would all clear up rather soon.

Daybreak follows. It brings along all the pleasant noises of the forest outside, replacing the humming of insects and remote rustlings of all kind with the light headed songs of the birds in the treetops. A welcome change in the scenery my brother would never come to enjoy in either way.

The usual pleasantries were exchanged at breakfast as most of both families met yet again. Remarkable and utmost strange how happy my mother was to see these faceless individuals. But yet again my real attention was taken by an unoccupied chair. Inconspicuous at first, it’s true, somewhat insidious nature managed to escape me for a good while. I kept asking myself who this seating could have belonged to, especially as everybody we had met as soon as we had arrived were already here together with us, glaring at us from their strange distorted faces, the demented voices of this past echo even now still ringing in the far back of what is my mind.

Afterwards we were set free to explore whatever the grounds would hold in store for us at our own ends. Finally, nobody holding me back anymore, I surely said to myself. The faint prayer of thankfulness directed to the heavens despite being as close to an atheist as you could probably be at that age.

Just as quickly as my brother ventured back to our room, begging for this nightmare to end, I picked up back on the trail of what might have rested hidden directly under my sight.

The bowels of this manor slowly start contracting as my past self keeps on venturing straight through his dull surroundings, not paying any attention to such a pointless abnormality.

It was on this day, that I first stumbled upon this very special room.

The sight of it now unfolding right in front of me again, it’s interior somewhat resembling old eastern architecture. Using the term loosely as surely images of my past life intruded even into this utmost sacred of territories.

Along the outside of this room a wooden way seems to be keeping its shape, holding it together, preventing the contractions from outside doing any damage to this sanctuary. But what lies of more importance was the floor in the middle. It was crafted from only the finest and sturdiest bamboo, ensuring it would last at least a lifetime. It all had a rather simple appeal to it..., at least at first glance but as I stepped beyond this wooden walkway I soon discovered a detail I had overlooked before. Fine straps of cut bamboo were arranged along the surface of my new found footing. But as I was still thinking of them as something simple like decoration or even worse, a means to an end, a very different feeling crept up upon me, tearing apart the feeling of security that rested within.

I quickly realized though... I was not alone anymore.

*~*

*click here to keep on reading with part 6*

What is the meaning behind the mysterious room? And more so, who or what is there with our protagonist? Find out next week on the 23rd!

As always, thanks to everybody for stopping by, reading and all that good jazz. I'm sorry, I can't concentrate to save my life today... so it'll be better if I'll just leave it at that.
Have a great weekend.
Marc, mentally unfocused

[SUM] - Some mixed up world we have here

So, here's the deal... originally I had planned on letting you all have part in on some crazy, dark place in the back of my head and how it works, maybe even explain how it comes up with all those shenanigans and whatnot... buuut... as Sunday was more of a content update ... or at least a content-filler... I'll switch it up for you and give you something else entirely.

Apples.

You may now wonder... apples?

Uhm.... that's why -> Apples

Do yourself a favor though and turn down the volume ... its rather loud... and might be disturbing for ... uhm... younger audience(?)


In any case... enjoy your apples...
And as always thanks for reading,
Marc, nope... not a bro-nie

P.S.: For those of you who might actually be wondering and waiting for some actual stuff..., fear not, there will be more, and you might want to check out Sunday's post on all that, if you haven't already.

[RBS] - Green Stuff everywhere!

...at least when I turn my head to the right.
Those lights... It really is pathetically easy to make me happy if you know how...

Anyways, I've been taking my old warlock out, giving him a spin for a change as the weekend slowly but surely comes to a close here in Germany. But I'm well aware that you aren't necessarily interested in knowing precisely how I wasted my time during the last couple of days so I'll keep it to a minimum on that account.

And I'm well aware that I'm currently not posting too many updates on actual stuff I'm working on. That's because, as I've mentioned already, there isn't much to talk about. Loner's Peak reached the stage where I can do hardly anything but play a waiting game on, believe me, several different levels. Yet that's how the world apparently rolls with these kinds of things.
And Fool's Flight is mainly about gathering and sorting out plot elements in my head and offline-notes at the moment and even that is going rather... slow. I've reached a point where my head starts spewing out 'critical errors' when I rethink a few things,  because I want to go too deep into matter that I, well, don't really understand at the moment. And writing stuff you don't know about? It's not too uncommon when you think about most Sci-Fi or Fantasy stuff and is usually solved by putting up your own rules for the world you're creating, but yeah... seems I'm not totally happy with those rules right now. And for all our sakes... I'd be better if I take the time and do it properly and be satisfied with the results.
Maybe the upcoming change of scenery will help me out on those accounts as in a week from now, I'll be posting my Sunday update from my mom's place back in good ol' Saxony. Meeting the newest addition to the family... our new little kitty-cat. I'll upload a picture of the young mistress, promise.

Besides, I wanted to use the week before Christmas to get some work done anyhow.
But until then, there's still some time to use wisely (a.k.a. waste) and get a few things sorted out. Like getting a new passport... or putting up the pin board I got presented with yesterday.

So as always, thanks for staying around, listening to my ramblings. Enjoy your third of advent or just the weekend in general, light a candle or something like that.
Marc, the Mesmerized

[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 4: Treacherous Darkness

Hello once again to all of you, my dear readers. It's already Friday again and therefore time for yet another part of my short 'The Bamboo Labyrinth'.

For those who are new to the site and haven't already checked out the previous parts, it's only natural for me to recommend starting right at the beginning. Just follow the links below and delve right into it! And trust me, it'll all make more sense if you get to see the whole picture.

The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 1: Introduction
The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 2: Delving Deeper
The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 3: A Memory's Embrace


So without further ado, I present to you part four! Enjoy!


*~*

You see... within in the walls of this truly majestic building, something was lying in wait for me, something which I had still to discover until those days. Dangerous, yet strangely magnificent in its ways, how wisely it kept itself hidden away, but I was still too young and by all means too daft and curious to be fooled into giving up on finding it so easily. I was still on the hunt for all the sweet treasures life had to offer for me, despite of not even being aware of what they might turn out to be.

I can still recall a situation after entering this unknown realm in which I found myself hastily turning around upon hearing the faintest of noises coming from somewhere in the far back of one of the many hallways haply scattered out around me. Yet neither my parents nor my brother noticed it at that point in time. They were all by far too caught up by their own nonsensical means.  

The sound itself now is presented to me distorted by the ages, torn apart and quickly sewn back together again without any form of care tended to it, as I came to search for it once more. Calling it a shriek should probably serve as most fitting.

The darkness lingering in the hallway beyond, that I was staring at so eagerly, is in this picture still as smothering as it had been in that very moment. The shade dances in front of me with a certain vile lust for freshly spilled blood. But it appears that this is something I never really took notice of at such a young age. And coming back to the scene like this, I now fully realize how it all had been for the better.

As the minutes continue to creep past and my parents still rest caught up on exchanging their shallow welcomings with these unknown entities, I on the other hand started to grow uneasy. And no matter how hard I tried my eyes were unable to catch even only a glimpse of whatever it was that I had managed to hear in this one second of utmost importance.

From then on I only wanted to be set free.

I wanted to investigate.

And never being a friend of these pointless rituals, I had to urge myself, almost forcing my feet into resting in this one place and not blindly follow my instincts into this obscure chasm opening an arm length before me. Without doubt, no matter when the moment would come that they would call my name and summon me, only to tell me I was allowed to roam around this place freely, it would have been too late for my past self.

My left hand started slightly twitching, a quirk I had picked up as a teenager, as my ears continued to block out everything else around me which I thought of as insignificant. I had to be able to hear it clearly again, should the sound reemerge, not disturbed by any unimportant chattering.

It has become rather difficult to say what I really thought in such a moment. I was clearly ridden by tension, driven by curiosity and held back solely by obligation. Also, the thoughts rushing through my mind are long gone, erased and overwritten now telling strange stories of their own. They spew out random facts about Newton or Nietzsche as they are loitering in the far back of my head giving their personal tribute to my intellect as well as my insanity.

To my own disappointment I didn’t hear it again. At least not this early and..., not on this day... I dearly hoped for it to come back maybe even to show itself, but now, by all means, I came to know better.

Bestowed with the knowledge of experience and years I can now safely tell you... It won’t be returning so easily.

But this is when we encounter another rip in the fabric that is my mind. The scene skips forwards into a bleak and dark room governed by silence. It might not be complete, but surely it is close. Faint breathing being the only thing breaking it up as the moon now slowly wanders along the heavens.

Why I came back to this exact place in time?

In all honesty..., I cannot tell you for I do not know either. Memories often seem somewhat random and incontrollable. A judgment more than rightfully passed.

Yet what I know is the place and the time. It took place in the room appointed to me and my brother. I had just managed to talk him into finally being able to sleep. The afternoon took his toll on him, but he kept it sealed away until we were alone. A moment of weakness as pristine as it might be utterly unimaginable, it was sometime more than simply strange to witness. 

And of course it again came down to me to swallow my own urge to talk about a few things I was confronted with today so I could sooth somebody else’s savage soul. He never really thanked me for that either...

*~*

*click here to keep on reading with part 5*

Ominous sounds, washed out memories, inner conflincts... but yet we still move on a clear path through the apparitions of a sole mind, as we continue to venture towards the secrets that lie burried within the past.

As always thanks for reading, enjoy the upcoming weekend and by all means... feel free to comment, subscribe to the blog and/or send me messages telling me to get the hell off the interwebz.
Marc, in-search-for-a-suitable-sword

[SUM] - Crushing some Space

Aw yeah... And no, please don't ask. Just don't. Not much to be seen or to be known anyhow.

As for today and as far as short updates in my utter madness go ... I found a chocolate Santa in front of door to my apartment this morning... Yeah! And not even one of those puny, small ones... but noooo, a big one!
Apparently somebody who moved in to the empty apartment a couple of floors below me only recently wanted to say hello to the rest of the house that way. Good to see there are still a couple of nice people out there.

Anyways..., a new novel isn't a real novel if it doesn't get rejected at least once when searching for an agent, right?

Back to the drawing board for now! Or... writing board... or the PC ... or... just... whatever.

I'm already going to leave you for today, need to get a few things sorted out in my head. Hopefully that'll work out while chillaxing. If not, then I've got not much of a choice but to focus.

As a last piece of info you probably did not care about at all... a few sole snowflakes seem able to make their way down to earth in my general vicinity, although mostly followed or even directly accompanied by rain.

But as always... thanks for reading.
Marc, owner and friend to Beni James Honeypaw - probably happiest plush bear on the planet

P.S.: New Kitteh going up soon.
P.S.S. addet 3 1/2 hours later: Oops... forgot about the Kitteh... but its up now ... My bad.

[RBS] - Comfy & Cozy

Ah yes... yet another Sunday awaits us in world demanding to claim our place in life and the part of the the great cake everybody wants to have a piece of which.
BUT it is also the second advent and another great opportunity to enjoy yourself with a hot cup of coffee or tea next a pleasantly warm fireplace... or at least light a candle (or rather two) to cherish the Christmas spirit as it slowly descends upon people.

Yeah, I'll stop there for now... there's enough of a chance that I'll get enough shit for those few lines as they stand already and well, there's enough people in this world who simply can't stand this holiday / don't celebrate it / think of it as way too commercialised nowadays. Admittedly, concerning the last part - they have a point. Nevertheless it remains to each person individually to make of these few days a year what they believe in is the best. (So... stop hatin'!)

For me, the last weeks been a whole lot of nothing, except for me mesmerized by a chain of green lights. For today I got my hands on a shiny new notebook to write more stuff down into and I'm currently looking forward to that, though I'm not entirely sure for what story I should use it. Or if I should reserve it for something completely different.

The things I still got planned for the remainder of the day include going ahead in buying a train-ticket to Saxony for the Sunday in two weeks - for visiting the family - drinking the tea that's already going cold as I'm still typing away and maybe lighting a couple of candles on my own. Not to forget the whole 'staring at the green lights' nonsense from the last few days.

By the way... If you haven't had the chance to do so already. I'd recommend checking out the latest part of my short "The Bamboo Labyrinth" that I uploaded the other day. It's right over here and should provide a bit more entertainment value than me going on about, well, stuff.

And just if you were wondering... I originally had something planned for today... something to talk about and give this post an actual reason behind its existence... but... I forgot. I know, I know... I should just make a list... write stuff down. It's not like that's the usual stuff I do, isn't it? But it's too late now! Deal with it... especially if you read this far.
Nevertheless... I will try to waste less of your precious time in the future, my dearest readers. I could go ahead and turn the good old Short-update-madness into a two-per-week thing... it's not that short honestly and well... why not, eh? That way I'd be forced to come up with more new content and not only ramblings...
I'll think about it and maybe a couple of other possibilities...

For now... thanks for reading despite the pointless nature of today, enjoy your weekend, cherish the [insert holiday name here] spirit and give a bit of warmth to the people you like/love or just goddamn know.
Marc, who still can't get over those green lights...

[ST] - The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 3: A Memory's Embrace

Hello and welcome to everybody who managed to find his or her way to this site and today's post!
You are right on time to get the opportunity to read the third part of my short story "The Bamboo Labyrinth"!

For those who are here for the first time - please, head two these two pages first. It's only natural to start off with part 1. And this way you will get a better idea of the story as a whole and you'll make sure you didn't miss out on anything!

The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 1: Introduction
The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 2: Delving Deeper

For those of you who already had the chance to check out the first two parts - just keep on reading and enjoy!


*~*

I remember how we, my brother and I were sitting in the back of my father’s car, slowly making our way across a dark and bumpy path, leading straight past the vast number of trees, clearing a way through this ocean of plants and shade in a way perfectly fine for an off-roader like my father's.

It should have been a fairly quiet afternoon, only broken up by the sound of the motor, not roaring up but constantly humming, giving away how it felt not challenged enough by the road we picked for our venture, as well as the occasional scratching along the outside of the windows as we graze twigs and branches along the side that had been reaching out towards us. They left behind a terrifying sound, something that could only come from an unseen monstrosity stalking us, at least in the eyes and ears of my brother at that time. I can still see him in front of my eyes..., how he was writhing next to me as we ventured deeper and deeper into the forest. On that day I felt like being part of one of the older versions of Little Red Riding Hood, slightly even fearing what might happen to us, ignoring that I knew any better and the strange setting it had to it on top of it all.

As I let the events unfold around me I noticed my mother turning to us, she showed a strange smile whilst saying something. Words I can't hear anymore, carefully erased and replaced with silent echoes. Also..., she looks a lot older than she should have been. More wrinkles and signs of age spread out across her face as she keeps on speaking in silence, a tongue never to be heard, yet without distorting it enough so it would become unrecognizable for me. She might look old, but she's still the same.

From that moment on things speed up for a brief period of time. Within mere seconds we find ourselves still sitting in the car, but now standing in front of a large metal gateway. There's a speaker on the side of it, faint rustling and the scratching of feedback the only things that successfully were able to make their way to my ears. Meanwhile my brother kept on panicking on the inside. He tried to play it cool, to pose as the strong one, but you can clearly tell how he suffered on that day..., in that particular moment. Only by having a single look at his eyes it immediately turned crystal clear for me just how frightened he still was. Harmless and frail like an infant...

All of a sudden the feedback from the speakers was broken up and replaced by a brief click before it died down completely. Moments later the gate would open and make way for us to enter this protected little place.

Slowly the car rolled into something that looked like a courtyard. It's size was most definitely decent, but I would have to lie nonetheless should any of you want me to give you any kind of more detailed estimate. Though I can say... it was most certainly green.

Carefully my father let the vehicle creep along the stony surface below, pushing constantly forward, deeper towards something I would have never come to imagine.

The house wasn't bearing too much that I would have called remarkable at that time, so I assume it has been replaced over the years with a mash-up of pictures from all over the world, forming something I would find more suitable for its appearance. The architecture remained to be European, French, British maybe partly German too..., yet the building itself changed shape to something more like a castle than an ordinary house, despite still looking at a wooden front with large panes of glass breaking it up. It even had a tower on its side, a gazebo as some of my British friends would probably call it. Everything else... utterly irrelevant.

The flowers probably blossoming around us? Did not care.

The trees dimming out, letting the sun shine through freely, now even down to us? Did not care.

The neatly trimmed hedges? Did .. not... care...

And why should I really? I was young, never too interested in those, for me, bland things like architecture or gardening. And I can't say it changed too much over the years. Most things I look at either hold some beauty to them, which I admire, or only the lifelessness I regret to have seen afterwards. So I had no reason to keep track of something this trivial to my likings.

As the doors of our car finally opened and our venture came to an end I stepped out into the open, facing a strange new world with faceless people already waiting at the main entrance to greet us.

We step forth without any fear as there shouldn't be any. My mother almost hurried towards them, but only after a soothing gaze of my father rested upon her she gave in.

Quickly she embraced this old friend of hers. A woman at that time not much older than herself, her husband I guess, standing close by her side. My memory slowly falls apart further as it now presents to me my elderly mother dearly hugging a creature..., the shadow of a person maybe, not even bearing a face.

There aren't any words left in this place. Most of them lost track of what happened here and fled to somewhere safer from decay. The treasury of words is a place in our personality where hardly any things are to be discarded or found unworthy of their appointed seat amongst the masses.

And as we proceed into the house itself, the shadow spreads out as wide as it can, covering up pictures on the walls as well as still living flowers decorating the small entrance hall alike. But it all does not matter much as we continue to venture on closer to the core of this memory of mine. None of these idle things, the tapestry or even the people my mother wanted to see are of yet any importance to me.

But just as the darkness grows in intensity, a glow arises, looming beyond the borders of my mind which creates this vision before my very eyes.

It is pushing me onwards and away from the things of no value to me. I by myself am urging me to skip all the pointless distorted chatter I might still come up with and hurry over to the parts I actually want to revisit.

*~*

*click here to keep on reading with part 4*

And there you go. I hope you enjoy today's brief venture into the mind of our, so far, unnamed narrator and I hope for you all to return for part 4 of the story, next Friday.

Have a great weekend!
As always thanks for reading.
Marc, happy about his new chain of LED-lights... they're green!

P.S.: New Kitteh uploaded ^.^