Tuesday 24 January 2012

*short story* Elizabeth Everstone part 2

Attaching C4 to the vault door it was clear that they hadn’t wasted their time on Earth, they had definitely kept up with the times, and by the sounds of the police sirens wailing outside the police had been alerted to what was going down here. Entering the vault another security guard inside hit the floor, looking at Nikita I couldn’t help but feel a little sick she was condoning this murder, where these really the kind of people she wanted to hang around with? I couldn’t tell just what she was thinking and it made me feel a little empty.

Once inside they started to rummage through the safety deposit boxes, countless millions in unmarked notes and gems littered the floor within minutes, the vault looked like King Soloman’s tomb in no time. “Hey, Elizabeth we have got to get out of here! These guys are killers!” Tugging at my sleeve and whispering quietly below the sound of cheers Nikita was having a good of a time at this party as I was it seemed, I couldn’t help but feel warm inside at the thought.

“Huh, I thought they were your friends?”

“Yeah! Before I met you and to a lesser extent Leon,” smiling as she said I melted a little. “When you’re dead you can’t be choosey with your friends. We need a plan, how can we get out of here? They are psychos we can’t say; oh yeah we’re just leaving; mass murder always dampens my partying mood! And with how freely they revealed themselves I can’t imagine they are going to leave anyone alive” Speaking in an angry whisper I couldn’t help but agree, and not just because of the reason you are thinking, it didn’t look like this was going to end well, all we could do is go along with it and bolt when the chance arose. But the army of police officers out there were not making things easy. While our hosts were invincible me, Nikita and everyone else trapped inside the bank were most definitely not.

“Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up! We have you completely surrounded there is no escape, we suggest you give up now, release the hostages and we will take you peacefully” A gruff policeman’s voice blared out over the banks intercom, looking at Nikita I could tell by her expression she was expecting me to do something, but what option did I have?

“Oh man I love this part! You might wanna stand aside girls, things are about to get real nasty here” Cortez’s suddenly shone a brighter, deeper red, his stained white teeth grew sharper and longer, even the contours of his skull appeared more threatening until his expression once cold and dead became a discernible grimace of malice. Taking off their gloves and masks in turn they all transformed until standing before us were a gang of monstrous Zombies, their claws protruding from decaying flesh, their bodies a mesh of brownish skin, organs dripping greenish ooze, a foul stench filled the air that I had not noticed before. The sounds of salivating and heavy breathing surrounding my head and made me feel dizzy and confused. “Yeah man, this is the part I “live” for.” The one who before I pegged as the mastermind most definitely was such, his body muscular and heavy set, his flesh somehow not decayed or as ruined as the others. His claws long and red, encrusted with what I assumed what flesh, human flesh, peering DOWN at me he laughed throatily before walking past out in to the banks main hall. Shrieks soon overpowered the sound of the police siren orchestra, I closed my eyes and waited for the dull thud of claw meeting flesh and the panicked clank of shoes upon the hard floor.

“Aye ye think you’re an hard fucker just because you’re a big lad don’t ya?”

“Please don’t let that be who I think it is!” Shouting to myself I thought I was more frightened than I thought because I could have sworn heard Leon’s gruff, Scottish accent shouting from in the hall. Nikita ran to the door of the vault, calling me over she pointed enthusiastically at the unmistakable sight of Leon running around the feet of an infuriated Zombie scrambling to claw at him. Looking over at Nikita she seemed relieved, I really didn’t want to think she was placing over lives in the hands of a lion fetus, I really didn’t.

“Come on ye big bastard! Come and get me if ye can!” I hated to admit but he wasn’t doing all that bad, I have no idea how he was able to survive outside of his tank, or how within minutes he had sent the biggest Zombie there to the floor and any description I can give will never truly live up to the sight of a fetus jumping up and punching a near seven foot Zombie Spaniard in the face so you will have to imagine it for yourselves. The rest of the group seemed to be dumbstruck at this turn of events and within minutes Cortez had grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and walked me out to the main hall, pointing a gun at my head Leon took a few steps back and clenched his, I suppose you would call them fists or something. “This your friend little man? If you don’t back off she will deader than us and their wont be enough of her head to bring back!”

In life sometimes we do stupid things, very, very stupid things, what happened next was worse than those times. Remembering the gun I had strapped to my side I reached up with my arm and delivered as hard of a blow to his decaying rib cage as I possibly and leaped out of the way to hear a gun shot go off and pulled my gun on him delivering a full clip to his body. I didn’t think, I just acted and when he fell to the floor in a heap of guts I fell to my knees only to be grabbed by Nikita, sinking in to her hair I breathed heavily, her cherry blossom scented hair taking me for a few seconds away from this carnage.

“You two can cuddle up later, we’ve got a job to do here, in case you lovers hadn’t noticed there are still some more walking kebabs who wanna tangle” I looked up and saw Leon wrestling with two of them at once. Jumping over there shoulders and down their he delivered blows when and where he could, surprisingly with each punch they seemed to stumble, how was he so strong? Getting up I quickly reloaded and dismayed at only carrying enough bullets for one reload, would have to do the best with what I have it seemed. Behind me the sickly thud on the floor meant Leon had taken down another one. in the vault the remaining two left both charged at me and Nikita, sliding out the way I managed to trip one up though not without hearing a crunch from ankle, ignoring the pain I twisted around and sent two bullets in to the things head. The other one was chasing Nikita around the room, she ducked and dodge his blows gracefully. Pointing my gun at them I was too scared of hitting her, I wasn’t the best shot in the world by any stretch, fortunately Leon didn’t have such a crisis of conscience when deciding to throw a Zombie head in their direction, hitting the hulk of muscle he stopped and staggered in shock long enough for me to send him back to his grave. And when he went down I wanted to make sure he stayed down. A swift chair to his face wrecked any chance of even slight brain function still going on.

That brings us up to speed pretty much. We quickly closed the door to the vault while the hostages ran outside screaming, barricading us in it did not seem the best idea to us that we let the cops finds us; a woman with glowing green eyes, a walking, talking fetus and me, a private detective holding a gun and covered in blood and guts…..

The phone rang, picking up it might not have been the best idea to argue with the head of London’s police force but its not like things could get much worse, or weirder. Well the sounds of gun shots and police officers storming the bank was one thing.

“We really, really have got to get out of here! I can’t go to jail I’m too pretty and dead!”

“Isn’t there anything you can do Leon? You stormed in here and got us this far, in fact since we are probably going to be dead in the next few minutes, you wanna tell me how you did all that Rambo stuff?”

“What stuff? I’ve always been able to do that, you just didn’t ask me before, your always running around after her!” Pointing at Nikita I knew that if a dead person could blush she would be, she got what Leon meant and in that moment I was happy I was going to be dead soon . I’d hate to have even a corpse reject me. “And I can only leave me tank for short bursts of time so I think we best find a way out of here before we all die”

“Might I offer you some assistance?” turning around in fright we were greeted with a tall, thin man dressed in an all black, double breasted suits, his grey hair neatly parted to the side, high cheekbones and thin cheeks show he was in remarkable health for a man his age. His eyes concealed by blue lensed sunglasses his perfectly defined eyebrows perked up above them when he spoke, a man of obvious confidence given the situation and the almost excitable tinge to his voice, as if he savoured every word he spoke, impressed by himself constantly. Standing with a black cane that had a brass eagle top to it I could have sworn I had seen it somewhere before. “Elizabeth Everstone, I have been hearing all about you lately, it is an honour to finally meet you I must confess. Anybody who can have the entire London police force after her and with nothing but a Zombie and a fetus take down eight Zombies is a woman I would like to count among my friends. But excuse me, where are my manners? I am Nicholas Clermont, head of Sister Ray.”

“Sister Ray? Sounds like some government secret agent group, how did you get in here anyway?”

“All will be revealed in time and I can assure you if the government does know of us then we are not doing our job properly. We are nothing so pedestrian as you might imagine. We are made of “special” people with unsual skills. You seem to all have two choices you can come with me and I will explain to you exactly what is going on, or you cant take your chances with the police” stepping aside he revealed a glowing blue portal in mid air. Taking a deep breath we really had no choice. Suddenly I felt Nikita’s cold skin against mine, glancing at me she flashed a small, cute smile. With that the three of us walked together in to the unknown.
“Elizabeth Everstone, welcome to Sister Ray"

*short story* Elizabeth Everstone-We come to you now live from the crime scene

“We are coming to you now live from the scene of the crime”

“What, who is this?”

“You rang us, means you gotta go first. Look I think police and criminal relations are a bit low these days, I’ve had some real personal talks with the boys here and if you let us get out of here we will all promise to be good little bank robbers and never do it again. You’ve got twenty four hours to think things through” For those of you just joining us my name is Elizabeth Everstone, Private Detective, not someone you would think right now is trapped in the vault of The Bank of London surrounded by God knows how many police officers all waiting to get trigger happy. But that was before last week, before I became friends with Nikita, a knockout Zombie babe and Leon a talking lion fetus with a severe penchant for karaoke. Sorry, am I getting ahead of myself here? Lets go back to where all this started, while it seems a lifetime ago for me it was actually only this morning that it all went nasty.

“Is he gone?”

“I can’t hear anything, but you can never be too sure with these parasites, I’m not sure if they can touch the ground, I think most of them just glide over it because its too pure it burns their flesh” In case you were wondering no I wasn’t embroiled in a case or fighting some Hellish demon, we were on the floor underneath the window of my one bedroom flat hiding from a debt collector. Money was tight before but I got by fine enough, my flat wasn’t in the best area of London nor was it particularly stylish but I was never chased by debt collectors. That was before the previous week, before I had roommates. After rescuing Leon and Nikita from the clutches of some wannabe mad scientist we had decided that it might be a bad idea for them to be running around London so I offered to let them crash at my place and I will tell you this; finding a constant source of formaldehyde isn’t easy, luckily enough I found a website to get it from, scarily none of the people buying it seem to be in the medical profession but whatever,  oh and it isn’t cheap. Also, Zombies get through skin care cream like neckbeards get through achievements, but that’s a reasonable expense because seeing her “moisturize” does never fail to make me feel tingly, and you can’t put a price on moments like that. Well that’s what I thought, apparently you can and its steep, very, very steep. I had tried to get cases but with all the extra expenses and the fact that mass murderers appeared to be taking a break had got me in to some severe debt.

One night while me and Leon were sat around marveling at how little fun a TV is when your electric has been turned off Nikita suddenly burst in the room, ah Nikita my undead Queen, “you will never guess what I found! Look at this.” Jumping on to the settee next to me she shoved a small, green card in to my face. “I found it in a pocket of that dominatrix outfit I had on when you found me,” oh yes, that outfit. One of the few perks I had in my life, but for some reason she insisted on borrowing some of my clothes, to “feel more normal” she claimed. Looking at her now I couldn’t help but cry a little inside at how “normal” she was; a pair of white, skinny fit jeans that hugged the curves of her shapely thighs and clung to her slim calves, a pair of cool, green converse and an old Nine Inch Nails tee with the logo in pink across her chest, of course the shirt was quite long so it looked quite “dressy” that too definitely clung to her, she wasn’t big at all but she was far more curvy than me and she looked like she was poured in to that shirt. Her red draped down her shoulders and fell over her left shoulder, framing her slim, pale face. If it wasn’t for her glowing green eyes you would think she was another pale goth girl, but Zombie or not, broke as Hell or not having her around had noticeably improved my often sour mood. I’d even started speaking to my family more…. Well, at weekends, to say hi.

“I want you to meet my family!”

“Huh?” I had got to stop blurting out romantic sentiments to her! She probably thinks I have some kind of weird, emotional form of Tourette’s. But how could I not hit on her? She is utterly perfect, of course since having her move in with me I still had no idea if she was a lesbian or what, or if being a Zombie meant she had no sexual urges, then again, gay, straight or whatever I couldn’t see anything happening between us. Looking at my own body I had the sudden realization she was pretty far out my league. My golden blonde was fashioned to its usual spiky, side parting that my mother says makes me look like I got off the stage at a Gary Numan show, currently dressed in a mans suit; black trousers, black blazer, white shirt, suspenders and black tie pretty much made me look like a very effeminate James Bond. Still I did have quite small, delicate facial features and high cheek bones so despite my fashion sense I wasn’t all that masculine in appearance. Oddly enough the mans shirt I was wearing accentuated my chest and the suit was tight and gave me the effect of having a more hourglass shape than I really had.

“Hello, Elizabeth, are you with us?”

“If she dies I wish to have the brain”

“Leon!”

“What? It made you snap out of it didn’t it lass?”

“Yes but I’m starting to think its not a joke when you say things like that”

“Oh aye, just because I’m a fetus in a jar I have to be insane is that what your saying? I never had any o’ this lark when I lived on the Highlands”

“You never lived on the Highlands, you’re a lion fetus some mad guy stole from the London Zoo!”

“Heeelllooooo, guys, got some big news here, take a look at this” Interrupting one of mine and Leon’s many arguments Nikita once more shoved the small, green card in our faces. “Now don’t ask what pocket it was, I’d rather forget myself, but I thought maybe tomorrow we could head down to the bank and see if there is any money inside it, now I know my real name, Michelle Summercrow, I bet I can fake my signature, worth a try don’t you think?”

“Yeah lets get down there as soon as they open up” Truth be told I was just hoping some people would see us and think we were a couple.

“Great I’ll just put on a little foundation, some cool shades and we can hit the town! Since moving in here I haven’t really gotten out so for me this is quite exciting”

“Oh aye and what about me?” Turning to face Leon neither me or Nikita really wanted to state the obvious, he was oddly touchy about not being allowed out, you know, despite being a living fetus in a gigantic glass jar. “I’m supposed to just wait around the house am i? Fine I don’t need ya, ya couple ingrates!” When he gets like this we usually just throw a towel over his jar and leave him in hopes he will think its nighttime and fall to sleep.

The next day we set off for the bank in a torrent of abuse that to be honest I didn’t understand a word of due to his accent getting thicker when he is pissed and so simply left imagining he was giving endless compliments. Nikita, who had decided not to go back to her original name, was dressed in black, leather boots, fishnet tights and a very frilly, black and dark blue skirt and a basque over a long sleeve, black tee. To disguise her eyes she had borrowed a pair of my purple lens sunglasses. Her hair was platted and hung down her back adding a slight cute touch to her gothic outfit. Myself in hopes of making us look more like a convincing couple had ditched my usual fashion and stepped out in green skinny fit jeans, red converse, a colourful, wool jumper and the same sunglasses Nikita had on. I made sure to walk close to her, in case something happened of course, or that’s what I told her at least. Being honest I couldn’t shake the grim feeling that had hung over me since rescuing her and Leon, I was constantly on my guard for any other weirdness that might happen. I could feel my revolver pressing in to my side that I wore strapped to my body under my jumper.

Inside the bank we struggled to even get across the hall to the bank tellers, throngs of people pushed and shoved around like Ants in the hive, more than one man had to be taught a lesson that you don’t grope nice, young ladies when walking past them. Another thing about me that had changed since the last case was I found I was quicker in dealing out left hooks.

Finally at the front of the queue some snooty women who looked as uptight as her was tight, pinned to her scalp pretty much with hairpins that she probably bought from the pound shop. She sneered down at us over the rims of her half moon spectacles and spoke with a voice matured for a century in pure gin. “What do you two ladies want today then? Come and please hurry up there is a queue behind you.” I felt my nails dig in to the skin off my palms, normally in these situations I would take hours just to annoy them but Nikita seemed a little nervous, she ignored the question of how long she had trapped in that basement. Sure she may have been strong there but it must have took a toll on her, despite not knowing how she felt towards me she had barely left my side since moving in with me. Another reason I put up with that stumpy, motormouthed fetus; the comfort of the familiar.

“I wish to check what is in my account” standing tall she was trying to give off the appearance of confidence, I was trying not to leap through the glass and penetrate her ocularly with the free pens. With a loud sigh she took her card and much to my admitted amazement Nikita managed to forge her own signature, that or she wanted to get rid of us quickly since while I couldn’t say anything about her rude behavior I had spent the entire fifteen minutes very obviously staring at her breasts with a grin on my face. While I was unsure of Nikita’s sexuality I at least knew I had zero chance with a mid-70s bank teller! And that ladies and gentlemen is a comfort to know.

“Oh my God Elizabeth check this out!” Leaning over her shoulder perhaps a little too far for our lovely tellers comfort, by the way she may have been up tight but that’s obviously just a front since her lacy, pink bra tells me otherwise, I jumped back instantly and gave a high pitched squeal. “We’re rich Elizabeth! Can you believe it? We can move out an buy a nice place and Leon can have fresh formelda… Or, we are just rich” Don’t ask me how but in Nikita’s we found millions, she must have been some kind of trust fund baby to have that much.

Jumping in to her arms, I might not have been that happy for the money but lets say I was shall we? I caught angry glances from everyone around us but so what? We were rich I could buy all new friends and pay for them to have plastic surgery to look just my old ones!

I saw we “were” rich because just as I let Nikita go from a hug far too close for “just friends” I turned around and was face to face for the second time in two weeks with the barrel of a shotgun. A tall, stocky man with a face covered by a black balaclava and eyes shielded by black designer sunglasses spoke in an accent I could not make out, a thick, amalgamation of predominantly cockney and some Spanish oddly enough. “Actually darlin’ we are rich, ALRIGHT EVERYONE THIS IS A HOLD UP, GET ON THE FLOOR NOW!” Suddenly the whole bank joined together in screaming out a crescendo of fear and panick. The mighty walls shook with the weight of hundreds instantly jumping to the floor. A few pathetic security attempted to demand the men to drop their guns but all that got them was an early grave, these guys obviously were not kidding around. I noticed a few of them near the door picked off any remaining guards in case they got an idea for heroics.  

“Well, this fun isn’t it?” Laying on the floor next to Nikita I saw a panicked in her eyes, or as much as I could discern from eyes that glow in the dark, trying to keep up a sarcastic front I lay there honestly not knowing what to do. Looking around there were eight men in total, each one carrying a sawn off shotgun and judging by the looks of their bomber jackets had another side arm concealed, they were professionals not just some young kids looking to get on the news. I had to think of a way to get out of there alive.

“Michelle? My God Michelle Summercrow is that you?” Walking over to us with a spring in his step one of the goons motioned for me and Nikita to get up, standing up he placed his shotgun at his side and embraced Nikita and myself in turn in a hug. “God its been what, two years since we last saw each other? Time does fly doesn’t it? Even when your dead you wonder where the days go!” Dead, what, did he just say dead? This goon was noticeably thinner than the others, his balaclava hung over his face like a sheet draped over nothing but bone. Unfortunately I found out too soon that was the case. Lifting up his balaclava he revealed a skull, a SKULL! No skin, no nothing, just a skull and two dim red lights glowing in his SKULL! I suddenly knew why they all had accents I couldn’t place, we were in a bank making polite chit chat with our undead who presumably had lived in London for so long their old world accents had been diluted.

“Cortez its you! God you’re right it has been years, you were at the plot down the hill from mine right?” Nikita’s face lighted up at this revelation, it didn’t seem like we were going to die but I felt pangs of jealously nonetheless. My day had just gone downhill.

“Well of course, you were from the posh side of the cemetery, back in our day we didn’t have all that fancy preservatives like you’ve got, hence the face” he pointed at his skull with his shotgun, classy guy. “And not to mention that lovely lining and nice, varnished coffins.” If he saw the inside of her coffin I will……… Wait a minute, he’s a skeleton, how would they? It didn’t matter to me then and it doesn’t matter looking back. He will die, again, if he did!

“So you are…… Like Michelle? I’m taking it? Were you brought back by the good doctor as well?” I wasn’t quite sure how to broach the subject but seeing Cortez’s face made me wonder if my bride to be would go the same way as Faceless.

“Oh no, no! Me and the boys were members of the Spanish Inquisition, a little tid bit kept out of the history books was that after we was all captured we got cursed, to always remain at the gates of Heaven and rot, not the best deal in the world but at least its not literal, hate to be stuck up there sat around for an eternity, can have a lot more fun down here. But do you know how hard it is getting a job when you don’t have face? And contrary to popular belief we have to eat too!”

“But Michelle doesn’t eat? And how did you two meet, I thought you were stolen from your grave and brought back to life by the doctor?” Somehow, this conversation was making less sense to me than originally.

“I was, but I escaped a few times and with nowhere else to go I went back to my grave, which is where I met Cortez and everyone” Putting her hand up to the others each one of them gave a polite wave. If you could have seen it…… “whatever it was that I was injected with stops the decaying process and I don’t have to eat. Guess that’s one point to man made Zombies!”

“Well I guess it my love, but we do have super strength and all that!” They were playing a game of Zombie one upmanship… But at least then I learned that my beautiful rose of the cematary would always be young and beautiful, when I was 70 I would have the sexiest dead girlfriend in the old folks home, which in an old folks home must be a difficult contest to win indeed.

“Yo Cortez man we gotta get to the vault” calling over friend over the one who pointed his gun at me waved him over to join them on the way to the vault. Judging by how we was at the front and was the one who gave the signal for them to attack he must have been the mastermind of this tea party. “Be there in a second man, hate to cut our reuinion short but got a job to do. Wait a minute why don’t you and your “friend” join us? Be fun and we can talk about the good old days” Okay the way he said “friend made me like him slightly more, but while I wasn’t one for robbing banks I hadn’t eaten in four days and I was curious to see where all this would lead.

With that I headed with undead “friend” Nikita and a group of bank robbing, Zombies soldiers from the Spanish Inquisition.  

Monday 23 January 2012

Sadly with this I can no longer keep up my pretense of insanity

Now after two rather strange posts from your humblest of writers I am doing a much more conventional post now.

What am I doing tomorrow you ask? Well not what I originally planned which is playing Half Life 2 and making sweet, sweet, salty lovin’ to Headcrabs with my beautiful red crowbar! No instead I have to go in to IT whereupon I will be tempted to use that red crowbar to remove my tutors gums without anesthetic. You see before Christmas I passed my final IT exam and had handed all of my coursework, which he marked one by one and then asked me to send it to him through email so he can go over it during Christmas but not to worry since he didn’t think he would find anything wrong. But if he did he would email me, well I never got an email and then when I went to hand in my final criminal law and history essays to the course overhead she asked me why hadn’t I been in to IT lately…. So tomorrow I need to go in and be lectured on how I am a very naughty girl for not going in to college on days when I wasn’t even supposed to!!! The last time I was in there he was being supervised because he had had so many complaints from students, I can see why now! I suspect I’ve been called in to make up the numbers because so many people have left his class. If tomorrow you see in the news an IT teacher has been gone at with a razor and salt you know who has done it.

On lighter news though me and me GFs relationship is looking up, we told her parents that we have broken up and now her father leaves her alone. No more ten hour scream-A-thons at how I am a immoral blight upon the beautiful straight race :P you know, despite that his DAUGHTER got with and has been going out with a GIRL for four years, its my fault for corrupting her and dragging in to my sleazy world of showtunes, Judy Garland music and clubs with hundreds of women but we all have the same haircut O_O yep, my fault that ladies and gentleman…. Her mother knows we are still together and doesn’t care as long as we don’t mention until he has moved back to his own house and can’t scream at her or anything like that. So now that’s out of the way we are happier than ever and these days I am always reminded of why I fell in love with the most beautiful Goddess in all of creation. Its good that I can at last see some light at the end of the tunnel of this situation. As for dealing with what he says when he finds out, well he won’t be living with my GF and that’s really a problem for future Jessica to handle, not mine :P

All around at the minute I suppose I cant really complain, even college tomorrow isn’t that big of a deal, yes I shouldn’t be called in but I wont have to do any work anyway. Ive already done it and when I get home I can back to listening to White Zombie Astro Creep 2000 and playing that most beautiful game Half Life 2, I didn’t think it was possible for them to top the first one or the brilliant expansion pack Opposing Force but they did. Now they just need to get around to doing Episode 3, if that becomes another Duke Nukem Forever I will send my loyal teddy minions out in to the night to kill! Or just go on the GameFAQs forums and bitch and stuffs, whichever one seems most appropriate at the time.  

At this point I am really wondering if their is much of a point to anything I write

The other night I was laying in bed and my phone went off, it was around 2:30am which is not anything out of the ordinary for many of my friends to text me at this time so I wasn’t confused. That is until I checked what the text was, it was from a number I didn’t recognize and was, shall we say, explicit in nature. Also it was from someone who was referring to me as “Ronaldo” and asking me to do something rather explicit. Ignoring as I thought texting back may make the sender feel embarrassed I kept getting them, over and over again, Ronaldo was evidently quite the stud if the messages are to be believed. But I still didn’t reply and tell them they had the wrong number. You would think that would be the end of it as eventually they stopped, but being me I couldn’t help but wonder if I hadn’t participated somehow in the break up of the century.

What if Ronaldo and his “buxom wench” as she called herself were on the rocks, maybe a simple cyber sex session through text was a way to help spice up their marriage that was on its last legs? Perhaps he was a tall, muscular God of a man whom she met on a holiday with friends and became instantly drawn to his charms and could not help but move back to the Uk with him? Perhaps she was there to get over a bad break up and didn’t expect to meet him said Adonis? The heir to a wealthy tycoon family who had picked for her a dull, skinny, bookish man that they thought would help run the company after her father died? Maybe her younger brother had been planning his ultimely death so he could inherit the family but could only get the company if his sister was not married so helped pick someone he knew she could not love! 0_o when they divorced he was happy, her father knowing of his sons dark heart was worried so sent her on a holiday where perhaps she would meet the tropical man of her dreams! Coming back with Ronaldo, an opera singer with a heart of gold and very, very tight trousers, the family rejoiced, except for her brother, Tony, who wore red suits and had a thing for patrolling BDSM clubs with his wife Veronica, they also had a very evil looking cat that seemed to purr when they plotted their evil schemes. I don’t know but I think the cat, Mittens, was somehow the mastermind behind this scheme. Oh Mittens you are as cute as you are evil! As the celebrations went on the couple, with Mittens in tow, went to the drawing room to concoct an evil scheme. What they did was this; they got their friend, Beth, to come on to Ronaldo and throw herself at him, when she did they were looking through a two way mirror and took photos of it. Even though Ronaldo told her he did not want to have an affair he was a trusting type of opera singer/actor who didn’t expect such behavior and was not able to move away fast enough to escape her jumping on top him. When his wife saw the photos she was crushed, he tried to tell her the truth but having a company to run, that is possibly an oil company, she could not risk further events that may become public or need the stress when trying to set up the third world orphanages she plans to build in hopes of easing her conscience at making money from oil. No, she must go the next step of her life with her dear, sultry Ronaldo!

But she could not stay away from him, his brown eyes, tanned skin and accent made him too tempting, after a few midnight meetings on the grounds of her manor house home they began and this was a way for them to have fun while becoming closer. And I, through not wanting to offend ruined it. Believing her to be gone from his life he moved back home never to be seen on British shores again L

Somewhere in an opera house far away Ronaldo is singing a mournful dirge, beautiful as it is no one really knows the truth behind his song!!!!

*short story* Elizabeth Everstone and the Talking Fetus

Today I am writing another short story, a friend of mine asked me why haven’t I updated my blog for a few days and that she wants something new from me to read. Now I already had two blog posts in my mind to write that hopefully I will have time after this one to finish and get up today as well. But she said to me she wants a bedtime story now being the wonderfully Aspergers  girl I am took that literally and decided to write a short story. Since I didn’t really have anything in mind and don’t like the thought of going through my pile of old manuscripts and writings I had the idea of sitting at my keyboard and just writing, see what happens, nothing else. So now I am going to write with no forethought, no destination in mind and once its done I will do no corrections of any kind. With that in mind, on with the show is it?

If my mom could see me now she would probably moan at me for how much I’m drinking, she was always like that, proper uptight, straight laced whose idea of a good time is playing board games and talking to her equally “Stepford” friends about how much weight they’ve lost this week and all the money their husbands make and all the things they buy them, probably as a way to ease the conscience for the “business trip” they took with their secretaries the week before.

Well if she could see me now she wouldn’t judge me for drinking, I mean how could you? If you were at a the bar of some dive club chatting to some bartender who looks set for a night out at the opera in 1882 with a knockout, red headed dominatrix who literally could cast a spell on you sitting to your right and a fetus who keeps bitching at you for not changing the water in his jar and a penchant for karaoke you would drink too.

I’m not crazy if that’s what your thinking, well six shots of Jack ago I was a lot more certain of that, and six shots of Jack ago the fetus didn’t sound this good doing Celine Dion songs with the cowboy so lets not split hairs here shall we?  I guess you won’t be believe I’m not crazy until I explain how I ended up in this situation so lets go back to the beginning.

My name is Elizabeth Everstone and I’m a private detective, mostly I get asked to follow husbands around or investigate their bank accounts and spending, I guess a lot of women feel more comfortable going to a woman for these kinda things, maybe they think I understand more or some such. But one night I was getting ready to down a couple shots of whiskey and zone out to the sounds of some God awful punk band who lived in the flat below me and evidently couldn’t tune their instruments or write songs without the repition of the word “bugger” or some variation of it. A good night I am sure you will agree.

Well my night was ruined when suddenly my front door swings open and in walks a guy who didn’t seem to know when he’d reached the moment you get up out of the barbers chair, I knew this on account of the fact he didn’t have the top half of his head. For that matter he didn’t have eyes, skin or teeth and looked like he had spent a couple months too long in the tanning bed, but whatever I’m sure the dead chicks, or dudes, he hung with thought he rocked the shit out of the zombie look. Jumping up from my chair I draw my revolver only to see him fall to the floor and start bleeding all over the rug I stole from my above neighbors bin after she died. Looking at my watch and seeing it was only 10:30pm I got the feeling this was going to be a long night indeed.

“Victo….ria Streeettt” In case you haven’t ever spoken to a dead guy who doesn’t have a tongue before, take it from me its not the easiest thing in the world to do. Kneeling down beside him and making sure not to stop pointing my gun at his head, not sure what good a bullet would do, I tried to understand why he had ruined what was going to be a good night in.

“Dude, your bleeding on my carpet, wanna stop that anytime soon?” Don’t judge me, like you would think of anything better to say in this situation. Also it was a lovely carpet.

“Victoria…. Streeettt”

“Victoria Street? Do you want me to go there or do you just want money for a taxi because if that’s what you want do you really think I look like I have money to spare? Also maybe you want to think about spending some money on a good skin moisturizer?”

“Victoriiaaaa…”

“Yes I get it, stop bugging me already, I’ll go to Victoria Street!” Getting up and grabbing my grey trench coat before shoving as many bullets in the large pockets as I could I took one last swig of whiskey and headed out to Victoria Street. Not before I warned my friend Crispy what would happen if he didn’t get his undead arse off of my carpet and stop bleeding promptly.

Driving to Victoria Street I couldn’t help but think that maybe my mom was right, perhaps I should have gone in to nursing. Wait scratch that, talking dead guys with half a head and my mountain of debt aside my mom is NOT right. Man I wish I had brought the bottle with me if I’m thinking crazy stuff like that.

Parking my car on Victoria Street I get out and take a look around while lighting a cigarette. Taking care to keep my other hand on my revolver in my pocket I straight away notice that…… Nothing seems out of place, nothing, the street is dead, a calm silence hangs over everything, the only light coming from the sickly, orange glow of streetlights and a few bedroom windows. I hate when Zombies trick you in to going on a wild goose chase so they can rob you. Undead, skinless bastards, all of them! Where is Leon Kennady when you need him? He wouldn’t stand for this shit!

My watch read 11:10pm and things were going exactly as I expected them to. I was gonna kick his arse when I get home… If he has one that is.

Leaning against the rusted bonnet of my car I take another draw on my cigarette and take one last look around the street to make sure nothing outside of the bedrooms that still had the light on was going down. Now I’m not a girl who likes being proven wrong but I can admit when I have made a mistake and from where I was stood something did seem to be going down on Victoria Street, how did I know? Well for starters when you see a guy hunched over carrying a big, bulging burlap bag with dark stains on it you start to feel suspicious, so that’s clue number one, clue number two was the way he laughed manically in way you should only ever do when tying kids to train tracks and curling your mustache because you are devilishly evil. Still not convinced? Well the Zombie walking behind him picking up the body parts that kept falling out of the aforementioned burlap sack made me think all was not well on Victoria Street.

Drawing my gun I started to slowly follow them, leading me to a non-assuming, semi-detached house at the far end of the street I wondered if being an evil scientist doesn’t pay so well these days. All those other evil scientists had big castles that just made you want to wear lots of white foundation and talk in a mock German accent. This one just made me wonder where the mini van and screaming kids and two minutes of missionary position sex was at. Wonder if he shared with his mom? I was interested to find these things out.

Staying a few feet behind them I watched them slink down through the open basement window, well the Zombie at least slinked, our mad scientist friend sort of squeezed through and then spent ten minutes trying to pull his “body bag” through the window, after watching that I’m afraid I just can’t stomach minced beef anymore. I reminded myself to put a bullet in him for ruining shepherds pie for me!

Once they were all in the basement I moved closer to get a good look at them and what they were doing. The Zombie was around 6ft4 and dressed in what I’m sure was once a very nice pinstriped suit. He had all of his head too but his skin and pretty much everything else had been toasted off, he looked like he had a permanent grin on his face. So I shall call him “Smiley” the other guy was short, dumpy and bald as a Crenshaw melon, rummaging through his bag he kept laughing to himself, standing up with an arm in his hand I saw he had beady eyes and milk bottle glasses, a pencil mustache that made me decide to put another bullet in him for crimes against fashion and wore a doctors coat now covered in blood.

“This is it Victor, everything we have worked for is now coming to fruition! On this night they will see I am not crazy, I do not care what that team of psychotherapists said, or that brain scan! I am not crazy!” Judging by how Smiley only responded with a thumbs up I assumed he couldn’t talk, God typical mad scientist, loves the sound of his own voice and by coincidence has an assistant who cant talk so can’t tell him he’s a ranting idiot.

“God, will you just shut the Hell up already? You’re harshing on my mellow you ranting git!” Now that didn’t come from me, I’m almost certain I wasn’t that drunk I could have shouted something and not realized it. I’ve been that drunk before but Crispy stopped me when I was around half an hour away from reaching that blissful stage. But that voice, so sultry, so sexy! Moving in closer I catch sight of a tall, leggy and very curvy red head dressed in latex and PVC straight from the BDSM club of my dreams! *I will leave the specifics out of this as I am currently trying my luck and don’t wanna seem overeager and drooling while describing counts I believe* currently she was in a cage at the back of this nutbars basement that did not help my concentration on the case any. What she was doing there I have no idea but it seemed a crime that a guy like that had a woman like her caged and was not only far too ugly for her but was spending anything but a woman like her in a cage. So that was bullets number three and four I owed him.

“Can I have one moments peace from you! Just once can you keep your opinions to yourself?! You miserable little failure! Tonight I correct all the wrongs I made with you” Failure? Oh he did not just insult my future wife!

“Of course you are, we’ve heard it all before, you’re going to prove them all wrong, you’re not insane, blah, blah, blah! Going through the moments like always” Did she just say we? Hm I’m starting to like this case, I really should thank Crispy, he is a good guy, I like him. He introduced me to the twins, sultry, dominatrix twins. At least that’s what I suspected. Well not so much suspected as hoped.

Ignoring the continued insults from my future wife he moved over to some large, mechanical contraption that was covered in bloods and other things I was glad I couldn’t name and began connecting the body parts to it by means of various tubes and wires. You maybe asking yourself what my plan was at this point and I want to assure you I had a plan, I had a very good one but it reached a snag round about the point I heard a gun click and felt a cold barrel against the back of my head. Slowly turning around I looked up at a third Zombie, I wasn’t sure what the time was but, yes, the night had somehow gotten worse and from the looks of that fully loaded shotgun was about to get worse before the morning. I should have been a nurse I thought.

I finally reached the party and had been there for only two seconds before I wanted to leave. The stench was horrendous, standing next to the cage I got a good look at the women and realized this was it, I was truly in love. She would make a beautiful, pale, winter bride. “Well, well have you come to witness the end of the world?” The evil scientist greeted me with another cliché and a torrent of bad breath.

“Actually I just came over to borrow some sugar, but now I’m here; babe in a cage, Zombie, gangster henchman and a bunch of body parts, I can see you are a guy I wanna party with! So what do you say we just break out some beers, your lady friend here can do a dance and we’ll just forget all about this whole taking over the world stick?” Apparently he didn’t share my sense of humour. With a click of his fingers Smiley cracked me one in the jaw, that was one owed straight to Smiley, I can take a punch but 6ft of dead meat straight at your face hurts no matter who you are. Doubling over I obviously wasn’t seen as much of a threat as they went straight back to what they were doing. Moving over to the cage I thought I’d be respectful and not yet ask her to lick it better but rather get the lowdown on whats going on here.

“Basic mad scientist, trying to take over the world by building an army of indestructible Zombies, very cliché”

“So what are you doing here?” Besides walking right in to my dreams….

“I was his first experiment, he stole me from the morgue, thought the fresher the better you know, but he couldn’t control me like he does those two. My brain hadn’t decayed enough for that to work but the longer they’ve been dead, well, I’ve been here a few months and lets say its messy..”

“So, basically you’re a Zombie? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, can’t remember much of how I died or my life before, but I can gather enough from the clothes to get a good idea of what I was up to”

“That’s okay you’re a Zombie, we can still make it work!”

“Huh”

“Nothing, just thinking out loud”

The fact she was a Zombie aside she was still hot and Elizabeth never leaves a babe in distress, dead or not! I was pretty certain that no matter how dead these mobsters a few bullets would make them deader, but I couldn’t do anything with that goon pointing a shotgun at me. The moment I reach for my revolver he’d put two slugs in me and I at least wanted to live until our wedding night.

“You there, skinny blonde girl, come here!” Always nice being spoken to so respectfully…  Walking over to my host I took one look at what he was doing with the machine and now I can’t have kebab either.

“I need an extra pair of hands and apart from handling guns my friends have very little skills and I refuse to ASK FOR HELP FROM THAT WITCH!” He shouted in the direction of Mrs Everstone. “While I load the machine I need you to pour the mixture in to the tubes there.” Picking up a bowl of what smelled like liquid funk and not in the good way I noticed it bubbling and spitting. Shotgun wielding goon was standing next to me, out the corner of my eye I could see Smiley was a few paces away and he wasn’t holding any weapons, our host was so wrapped up in what he was doing and so assured of his victory he didn’t even look up from his work. I suddenly decided if I was going to get out of this nuthouse I had to do something, and it was very stupid, but I had to try, I was going to die no matter what I did so may as well try and do a majorly stupid thing and impress a babe, right?

Spinning round I threw the boil of funky liquid at the rotund goons head and judging by the shrill scream he let out and the way he fell back the liquid burned and he didn’t have a tongue either. Smiley instantly leapt for me and it was time I figured to pay him back for that cheap shot he got in earlier. Reaching back I hit him square in the head as hard as I could, feeling my knuckles crack I wondered who that hurt more but at least I was still on my feet. Moving against the wall so I could survey the scene, I drew my gun, now my chunky friend wasn’t exactly doing terribly well in the life stakes as was but somehow he had even less flesh and even less life than before so at least someone was having a worse night than myself. Smiley was about to get up for round three but a few bullets made him think twice and he stayed down.

“You idiot! What have you done you stupid girl! I am the future ruler of the….” Four bullets I owed him was it? I may have miscounted and he got a few more, I wanted to make sure when I put him down he stayed down. Perhaps relaoading and going again was a bit much but I’m a careful girl you see.

“Now lets get you out of here,” at that moment I was on top of the world, opening the cage I helped her out and I know she was impressed.

“Well you sure know how to use that gun”

“I don’t like to brag, I’m not the best shot in the world but she carries real big bullets” I am not sure if this was a flirty conversation or not…..

“Have you forget about me now the blonde piece is here?” I suddenly remembered there was another prisoner here, a shrill voice piped up and moving away from the cage I peered in but all I could see was a small, dirty jar with green water in it at the back.

“Oh I’m sorry Jon! Let me get you” Bending down to pick the JAR up I got a good luck at what was inside.

“Is that a fetus, with a Scottish accent?!”

“Don’t you be thinking about throwing around insults lass, you humans don’t look so good to me!”

“Humans? You. Aren’t. Human?”

“Can ye not tell? I’m a Lion! King of Beasts”

“It’s a long story I’m sure you can imagine and I am not drunk enough for that yet. By the way I’m Nikita, well, that’s what I call myself, can’t really remember my old name” Ahhh Nikita Everstone, what a ring to it.

That’s basically my story, leaving the house we decided to head out to the bar for a drink where Lion or not, fetus in a jar or not that little dude belts out a tune. Before you walked in with all the questions we decided since Nikita doesn’t have anywhere else to go and Leon *he picked it* is, well, a talking Lion fetus in a jar with a Scottish they are gonna come home with me. Maybe now with some extra help I can take on more cases. Gonna need a bigger flat that is for sure. 1:30am…….. You know the rest, I need another drink.

Thursday 19 January 2012

Soul Mates never die

This is quite a personal blog post born from recent experiences that have happened to me and to a number of my friends, born as much from my own observations of these events and conversations I have had of late. I do not know if many will agree with my thoughts here but it is a mixture of what I believe and what I hope so dearly to be true.

Soul Mates has been a concept that has always fascinated, two people destined to meet who are so utterly perfect for each other that they are inseparable through life and in to whatever lies beyond. Now I am a romantic in the purest of sense *and a romantic with a capital R if anyone gets that* I love candlelit dinners, long walks under the moonlight and everything else that goes along with relationships. So it is only natural that I would think quite often upon Soul Mates, especially since so many of my friends are going through tough times in their relationships right now, it seems no one I know is truly happy in love these days and after many conversations and trying to offer some advice and guidance I decided to share my thoughts with the blogging world.

It seems odd to me that when relationships break down there are rallying cries of “but we are perfect for each other” and “how could it go so wrong when we are truly in love” perfectly normal responses but when it all finally breaks down and the couple go their separate ways they often times forget each other, never speak again and want to banish any memory they ever had of one another before starting a new relationship, but why? This is someone whom you loved dearly with you very heart and soul. Maybe it did not work out, maybe you hurt each other in the end but you did love them at one time. They seemed so very perfect for you, and why were they not just because it ended? I find the belief of one utterly perfect being for you so completely benign, maybe we have more than one soul mate? I am not the same person I was at 14 when I first felt real feelings for someone, and I most certainly am not the same person I was back then, but does that mean they were never right for me? I don’t want to think so at all, to love and be loved for your life does not mean never changing so the relationship lasts, we all change even if we do not realize it, its surely not hindsight only that means I would go back and do things differently, nor is it the knowledge I have accumulated in the interim. Its simply because I am no longer that girl. So that person is not right for me, but they were once upon a time, they were my soul mate for that phase of my life, they were what I wanted back then and unfortunately I want different things now. But I do not regret and no one should regret a relationship when it ends, because you were looking for something you wouldn’t look for now, don’t feel bad please, just see it as a person who came along and helped you from one phase of your life to the next, you may longer have need of them but you have memories, try to look at the pictures from the eyes of the person you once were and you just may see them with more love.

When a relationship ends through one of you falling out of love, is it because they hate you? Because they feel you are ugly or no longer meet their standards or because they have grown apart, become someone else, moved on to another place in their life and you have gone with them as far as you need to. Its sad indeed but that leaves you open to finding someone new, someone right for you are in your life. As I said above just see it as life has gifted you with more than one soul mate, one for each person you have been and will become.

Another thing I have been wondering lately is people who fall in love with more than one person. Granted I do not believe everyone can do this, only a few, is it through a deeper understanding of their own emotions or maybe a lack there of? Its not for me to choose or say since I have never really felt these strong emotions. I do still feel love for people in my past, it is no longer a love that would make me want to be with them nor is it as strong as my love for my GF, no one could ever take her place in my heart. But love was once there for those people and when you feel it can never truly go away unless it was never real to begin with. Sometimes I sit and think back to those cherished moments with them and my eyes mist over, because I did feel for them. I am not sorry it happened only sad as to how it ended, I think that’s a nice way to look at it. To feel blessed you met them and were gifted their company for a short time and that you will soon be gifted with someone new. I digress however, maybe loving more than one is something that does not replace the love you have for someone, it only compliments it, runs alongside each other for you are someone with multi facets to your personality that one person cannot fulfill?

In closing I have not forgotten that there are people who live their whole lives with one person. Maybe they are lucky? Maybe they simply grow together and change in to such similar people? Or they may not be soul mates, its strange to me that most people proclaim they have met their soul mate in the area in which they grew up. How do they not know that the person who is most right for them is not on the other side of the world? Why is it always so convenient? I know a few couples who have been together their whole lives and do not to me seem in love, merely confusing friendship for love, they are so alike they have fooled themselves in to thinking that is a Soul Mate, not someone who challenges them, accepts their differences and goes along with it, but a person who is so alike to them that they are good friends. Then again, it is not for me to judge, this is just my observations and opinions. I hope people agree with me *I do love that* or comment below and share their opinions J now go and comment minions!

Sunday 15 January 2012

I'm feeling low today, is this the latest fashion?

For the few of you out there that read my blog regularly and will one day surely amass yourselves in to an army and overthrow the world like the good little minions that you are will surely know your humble narrator has not been going through the best of times at the minute. Well, let me rephrase that its as if Satan came up from Hell, interrupted me while throwing a dinner party for my family and friends, urinated in my soup *my favvy food* strapped me to the table, carved out my heart with a spoon, then went at the remains with a razor and lemon juice while telling my parents where my porn collection is, what’s in it and having a depressed violinist play Chopin in drop E *the saddest of all musical notes* oh and the violinists girlfriend left him this morning. No, I am not happy.

In short my girlfriends parents have forbid me from ever going to their houses again, and when in a long distance relationship that’s a pretty big problem. In any other situation I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad, lots of parents don’t like nor want to ever speak to their children’s choice of partner, but when I have to go and stay at their house to see my girlfriend well it makes things pretty awkward if they wanna run me down in their car. Aside from this they have took to taking every chance they can to run me down to her, which is making her feel pretty ill and unhappy to be stuck in the middle. I am not exactly sure why they have done this, I think at this point they haven’t got much of an idea either, its more like Jessica=SCUM! In their books. Though I think a big part is me being transgender, not so much I’m trans but that I’m a trans girl and they don’t like their daughter being in a lesbian relationship, I bet they also hate it at that gay people don’t get chased with pitchforks everywhere we go and that people no longer believe the Earth is flat. In case you are wondering why this has never been an issue before in our relationship I honestly don’t know, if I got their logic I would be worried I’m as loony as they are.

But I digress, if I continue down that path of bile and venom I won’t stop and my parents will find me in the morning in a cold bath clutching a toaster, knowing my luck just as I get in we will have a power shortage….. The reason I am telling you this is because the universities I applied to are around where my girlfriend lives and I simply don’t have the money to support myself over there and my family cant either. I was banking on staying with her family, getting a part time job when I can and avoiding a lot of the debt and costs of uni, isn’t it nice when a plan works out? Now that’s out the window I am going to have to apply to the Open University *do a uni course from home* but that means staying at home and transitioning! So not only have they stopped me seeing my girlfriend pretty much completely as her schedule is so busy she doesn’t have much time to come and see me, messed up my uni plans but also my transition. My family while not as bad as hers aren’t totally comfortable with the situation so transitioning here is not an idea I am looking forward to. But you gotta do what you gotta do, I was so looking forward to this year, I had so much hope and everything just seems to have fallen apart, everything I had in place has gone to wreck and ruin and I don’t know how it will all work out in the end. What goes through my mind is that her family were so close to me, so behind me and my transition and our relationship and now they have made a complete about face and wrecked all my plans.

This is a pretty personal post, and maybe tomorrow I will regret writing it but right now at 3 30am I really wanna get all this off my chest. I have heard good things about the OU courses and maybe if things ever improve with my girlfriends parents it means I can travel easily without it affecting my work as I can take it with me, also while I am transitioning and in early stages not having to go to uni, travel and all that is pretty good for me. I am free to do a lot of things that uni might get in the way of, so maybe this is all for the best but Goddamn I wish it had come about in an easier way.


Together we move through life hand in hand

Lately I have been playing the final installment in a game series I love so very dearly; Legacy of Kain, released back in the early 90s starting with the game Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain centered around the character of Kain, a nobleman murdered by thieves in the night and brought back as a Vampire to slay his murderers. Of course on paper this sounds like a pretty good deal he soon realizes things are not as they seem and his helpful benefactor has his own ulterior motives for bringing him back as a vampire. Now I wont spoil it for anyone who is going to play the series or is currently in the process of playing them and does not know the ending.

The series then branched off and became Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain centered around Raziel, Kain’s first vampiric lieutenant who is murdered by Kain and brought back as a wraith, a creature that feeds on souls and sets about wanting to put the boot to Kain’s empire as being burned alive is not something he found enjoyable or polite to do to ones friends. Murdering a friend in such a fashion really does ruin a perfectly good dinner and is not something I recommend any of you do.

Now I played the first of the series back when I was around 10 in primary school and played the others as they came out, right the way through to the very last game in the series “Defiance” but when it came out I just couldn’t play it, it felt like I was losing good friends, being turned away from somewhere I had always called home, I knew the dank, destroyed terrain of Nosgoth as well as I know my own village. I wasn’t ready for it to end. I suddenly realized that when things in my life were bad I always had Kain and Raziel there to pick me up, there to comfort and give me a distraction from my own pain. I could slip away in to a world of vampires, monsters and mystery, I felt like I belonged in their world more than my own. They may have reached the end of their journey and were about to find a resolution but I was not at the end of mine, I had found no resolution to my problems. So on release date I put my £40 down on the counter and took it home, scouring the manual and pouring over the artwork I took it all in, this may be the last time I see two dear friends. Before last week I had never even played it, not even once to see the opening cut scene. I finally decided to play it when things became unbearable for me and I needed something familiar, a relic from my childhood, I desired the comfort of familiarity and loaded it up, now Kain and Raziel were finally together in one game, both playable, a sign they had at last reached the end of a journey I began with them ten years ago or more.

It suddenly hit me, I was sad because as they grew and matured so did I, as they move through their misery and anguish I moved through mine. The three of us were going through the worst times of our lives, but whereas they were seeing an ending to such torment mine seeing to be beginning. I couldn’t stand the thought that I was going to have to go the rest of my journey alone without them.

Realizing this I thought about how in the past I have watched friends and family go through a bad time and have latched on to a particular TV series or game series and played it relentlessly for comfort, for a distraction. But maybe its not really an escape as we so often think it is. Why I believe I have latched on to Legacy of Kain and was so bent on not giving it up is because as I watched Raziel and Kain move through their adventure, solving puzzles and fighting demons I felt as I uncovered another piece of their story and beat a boss it was like in my mind a piece of my torment had been lifting, that things in my life were getting better. It felt like by the end of their story a resolution would have been made in my own story. Then when I saw the end was near and my life was getting worse if anything I didn’t want to finish it, I couldn’t accept with the end of their story my own would be no better so I denied, just didn’t play it. Even now playing the game I feel hope in the back of my mind that when I say goodbye to Nosgoth for the last time I hope things for me are better, I hope things just will be a little better.

I am reminded of a plotline in the TV series Twin Peaks, when a main character suffers a breakdown he believes he is a general in the American Civil War and that people have to act it out with him for when he turns it around and the South wins he will return to normal, because he changed this and brought the story to a conclusion then he feels his own life and troubles can get better.
I am interested to hear what others feel about this, if anything :)

Yeah, well the Hammer Horror version was better so SCREW YOU!

As I am now back at college my blog posts will probably be based around what is going there and my attempt to get to uni as well as the work I am doing in my classes, friendships etc  Going to college this year as a fully out Transgender woman my experiences with college and meeting people is noticeably a lot different to what it was last year. Hopefully people will find this interesting.

This week I had to give a presentation for literary studies based around either Mary Shelley and her knowledge of the social climate of the day and how she integrated that in to her novel Frankenstein or her knowledge of the science of the day and how that affected the writing of the novel. When this was given to me it sounded rather interesting, as a big fan of the novel and my interest in Shelley and the social circles she travelled in I had been eagerly learning of her and her life. But this presentation was different, I had been expecting to have to compose a detailed essay on this topic, I picked science, who wouldn’t want to do an essay based Galvinism and experiments conducted upon the dead using electricity? It is just so positively fascinating to me! But despite this being LITERARY studies we had to give a presentation based around a poster showing the information, I could not wrap my head around this, and all around the class their were cries of “when did this become art class?” My sentiments exactly.  I could not and still cannot see what this had to with literary studies or how we could really get to grips with the source topic and give an in depth analysis worthy of such a woman and her greatest work.

But due to my personal life still conflicting with my work I forgot all about it *spoke about in one of my previous posts* and had to stay up late working on it. I did something of a poster on Paint and then wrote about 2-3 pages to read out to the class. I thought this was good enough, as surely the poster is secondary to the material I have written myself, as long as it shows through pictures Mary’s life and influences science wise what more can I do really? Well I was wrong. When I got in to class I saw people had gone to town with glue and other materials that when they brought the posters in it seemed more like arts and craft time at my old nursery. Big bright colourful posters filled the room and all of a sudden any literary merit I felt this assignment had went straight out the window. Ten minute presentations were given that no more delved in to the creation of this work than the Hammer Horror Frankenstein brought it to life on the silver screen. Most of them spent more time focusing on the film adaptions than anything else! Something I had failed to do….

By my turn I was feeling rather nervy about my own presentation and asked to do it with the tutor and a few friends, which he didn’t look terribly pleased about. Something that slightly irked me, when I asked that and said I was nervy the whole class turned to face me, because when someone is genuinely nervous the thing you do is turn and stare them down with everyone else right? Even a few people who hadn’t even prepared a presentation and still now haven’t done it stared at me accusingly! But I gave it and my tutor didn’t seem terribly impressed at my poster, I did pass it but he said that my poster should have been better…. I thought content wise it was pretty good but I do not profess to have terribly fantastic artistic skills so what can I do? If I was good at art I would be in an art class not a literary studies one. I just cannot help but feel a little irked about people with less content but better artistic skills than myself getting higher marks. It just does not seem right.

Well that’s my rant over and done with, looking over it now it seems a bit pompous but I really did work hard on it and feel I got cheated due to my lack of artistic, plus I cant see how it’s a viable assignment for my class.

Wednesday 11 January 2012

The long night of the soul.... Or mind as it were

Today is a post on why I shall not be making a post *don't act like that doesn't make sense*
Well I went back to college today and met up with a friend before class who asked me if I am ready for the literary studies presentation tomorrow.... -_- Inside I was screaming, on the outside I was struggling to scream through tears :P I have been so consumed with the fact that my personal life has just descended to the seventh layer of Hell itself I had completely forgotten about it! Luckily it seems I am not the only one who had forgotten, before we broke for Christmas we could not decide when to have the presentation before or after, well actually it was only one person who wanted it after Christmas since they had a lot of work to catch up on before. And since we never really officially set the date many of us are more than a little unprepared for it. But since my grades are pretty high and have been through the course I really do not want to suffer just because of what is happening to me outside of college, that would be laying down and dying, I refuse to let things affect my education, if I do then my life will never get better!

Of course since its my life it couldn't just be this, no, after she went to her class I saw another friend who asked me if I am ready for the history exam we are about to have O_O its moments like this I like to believe in God because it gives me someone to pray to and curse all at once. She basically had to collar me and drag me in to class after drugging me and I sat down and realised I actually had no idea what the exam was on. It was such a wonderous surprise to see the question there and realise I haven't opened a text book on history since before Christmas *I only did my law essay the night before I handed it in, got full marks BTW* so I finished the exam in 25min, had two hours, not sure if thats either because I had so little to say or because I did really well but the answers came pretty easy to me. Fingers crossed for me, and for a normal post tomorrow :)

Tonight I will be working in to the night to get this presentation done, gonna stick some Elton John, make a massive cup of damn good black coffee and hope if I get it done then tomorrow I won't look so bad I don't look like I crawled out of the primordial ooze but the primoridal ooze itself

Tuesday 10 January 2012

I'm gonna DJ at the end of the world

I thought today here I would make a post of my favourite videos from the top three albums on the previous list. If you enjoy them please tell me what you think, always happy to discuss music with anyone.

Elton John-The Captain and the Kid, beautiful song looking back over a lifetime of friendship. Always makes me tear up a little bit, what a way to end the album!

A touching love song, quite subdued compared to the rest of the album. Never fails to make me think of my beautiful GF, I just love it.

My all time favvy song :) its impossible to not get up and dance around the room like an idiot singing in to your hairbrush

Dancing at the dawn of Armageddon part 2

I must apologize for not updating yesterday but had to work on an essay for my criminal law class such fun but I did it get ready in time and can now finish part 2 of my top ten favvy albums of all time! Now that apologies are out of the way we shall get on with the show.

5. Insane Clown Posse-Hells Pit

Release date: 2004

Genre: Horrorcore rap

Now this one will probably turn a few heads, but I absolutely love the Insane Clown Posse, yes they wear clown make up, yes they do have a few silly songs but at heart, in my opinion, they do have a serious message and a large amount of talent. They can rap and they do rap, just a little differently to other more mainstream rappers but each rapper has their own unique style, you can’t compare one to another. On this album it is the last of the first series of Jokers Cards, and the "other half" to The Wraith, this one shows the listener what will happen if they live a life of evil and show no compassion for others. The Wraith on the front cover is outstretching its hand to take you on a tour of Hells Pit. The lyrics are some of the darkest they have written, mostly devoid of their trademark humour that helps break up the seriousness of their message and with a production that is both murky and heavy on the bass. The band were at the time not speaking to their usual producer Mike E Clark and have got Esham on board, what else would you expect from the rapper responsible for the album "Kill The Fetus"? As with its sister album "Shangri La" the albums comes with either a concert CD or a mini film to their song "Bowling Balls"

4. The Smashing Pumpkins-MACHINA/The Machines of God

Release date: 2000

Genre: alternative rock

The last album recorded by what many consider to be the "real" Pumpkins, or you could say the last album before Billy Corgan’s ego caused them to implode. An album that was originally meant to be a two disc album about a rockstar living in a futuristic world named Glass who becomes some sort of a messiah figure and……… Yeah, Virgin Records for some reason thought a two disc album like this wouldn’t sell very well, especially after their previous album "Adore" had made fans feel distant from them and grunge was in its death throes and metal was all the rage. So Billy Corgan trimmed it down to one disc and released the incomplete disc 2 for free on the internet. *its still available and despite its convulted plot if you listen to it all at once its amazing!* Billy Corgan’s is raw and rough throughout the record, the guitars are tuned up high and dominate the sound once more like on their debut "Gish" sweeping syth sounds undercut the guitars giving the slow songs a little bit of a softer but for the most part this is a raw album and one that was made to be played live. While the plotline is a little thin on the ground, the lyrics are some of the best of Corgan’s songwriting career, I challenge anyone to listen to Eye of the Morning without feeling misty eyed. They are personal and definitely display how alienated the band where feeling at the time.

3. Elton John-Captain and the Kid

Release date: 2006

Genre: rock

The nights me and Mark have spent drink in hand playing this album in the early hours of the morning are too numerous to mention but its one that has many fond memories for me. Elton’s paino is finally back at the forefront after years of soft rock and soppy love balladeering, and he sounds like he is having an amazing time and bashing out honky tonk contempary country style music. His voice is rough from his, at the time, recent throat operation. The album is a sequel to his and Bernie’s early 70s masterpiece "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" finishing the story of Elton and Bernie’s rise to the top filled with all of the broken relationships, drug addictions and reflections upon dear friends lost to the terrible AIDs virus. It’s a touching and intensely emotional album, one that when you listen to it you should have a good friend and even better drink with which to while away the night talking of adventures and friends and lovers long since past, because that is what this album is, it’s a conversation between Elton and Bernie about their lives together. Its short, sharp and maybe only ten tracks long but it gets in plenty of punches during that time.

2. Darren Hayes-The Tension and the Spark

Release date: 2007

Genre: Pop/electronic/dance

So this album effectively killed Darren Hayes’ career for a few years and sent in to his record company in to panic mode, they expected another album in the style of his first solo album "Spin" a flashy pop album filled with light lyrics and dancefloor grooves. What they get was an album spawned from his divorce, his recent coming out and attempt to become involved in the gay scene and find love. So not a cheerful one. Whereas the previous album has many happy memories for me this is one I return to when feeling lost in love and life, an album that helps me reflect upon my problems, feel like I am not alone. I cannot believe that anyone in the world will not relate to at least one of these songs here. The music is cutting edge dark dance music, as usual he works with a team of collaborators’ and here is probably the tightest team he has ever worked with, never since the early days of Savage Garden has he been so at the fore front of dance music, the lyrics talk of the struggle between light and darkness, sex and love, friendship and hatred, and the music moves from orchestral synths and low, murky erotic dancefloor grooves. This is an album to be played alone, early in the morning, in bed and with a decent pair of headphones on. Only then can you experience the meaning of his lyrics and the subtleties of music. The NME called him a genius, they were not wrong.

1. David Bowie-Never Let Me Down

Release date: 1987

Genre: New wave/rock/pop

David Bowie apologised for this album publically saying how much he hated it and did not want his fans to hear it. Well I adore this album, its brilliant, never before or since have Bowie's lyrics been so socially conscious, has he sounded like he is actually having fun on record! His voice was sweet with enough ageing to give it a rich, deep sound and helps the listener get that Bowie knows what he is talking about, that the songs are lived in and well worn. This album was Bowie's full embracement of the new wave movement, a movement born from people who were know of age but in youth inspired by his "Berlin" trilogy of albums. Well that genre birthed some brilliant bands but it all sounded trite when Bowie himself stepped in to the scene. its an album that sounds sunny, the music is drenched in 80s excess and conjures up images of Miami Vice, every track on this album is simply begging to be played in a club, as with Blind Melon every party I have stuck this album on at has gotten people moving straight to their feet and started dancing. My all time favorite album, I never get bored of it and it never fails to put a smile on my face.

Well there you have it, my top ten favvy albums, these are the stories of my life, each one is connected to my life in some way, each one has a handful of good and bad memories.

I hope if you listen to any of these albums or songs from them you will please tell me in the comments below.