And so therefore I was.

Wafting through the placidness of the new cult.

Stepping at the edge of the steps... idling by for a few more seconds.

I turn back to the driver. He smiles and asks me to have a good day.

"Will ya?"

I smile back and acknowledge the answer as a yes. I'm ironic sometimes.

Walking along the path, all you see on either side is mountains of pine trees. All dead. Or they looked so. You'd never know. Green grass below, trampled by other peoples besides myself. Lovely gray of concrete. Lovely.

The poster of the States motto mocked you if ever you were to pass it, "Esse Quam Videri." Hanging up over the grayish school wall.

In an era of wish you were dead, there was coincidentally nobody outside. Except one girl. Really unconfident. She didn't wear a fashionable dress. Her face showed all that was needed.

I survived walking the fifty feet to the front door. It was an old one, white cover paint shedding some black spots of the old layer here and there. The girl stalked me up to the door and was right beside me. I was reluctant to do things like open doors. She stood there for a second. I opened. She flitted through and waited until i came in.

The place stood huge, ceiling one hundred feet high. Scary in a way. Mostly decorated in black and blue, the whole place seemed to just want to hide itself away. I wondered of the morale in the students with colors like these. They must like hiding away much.

"Meet you later," the girl flitted through the hall, with her dirty white dress, towards wherever she needed to go, reminding me of a beautiful song.


"Forty-two, Forty-two, Forty-two!" I heard in the hall. Repeat. A lecture of some sort. I was uninterested. I had a bag of some books, ready for any schooling needed to be done. I came here too early. I had a few hours to search the whole place, or sit down with a novel of some kind.

I sat down. Cussing from a point from the hall. Turning out to be the restroom, i approached it. It stopped. The lights seemed to slowly dim after a while of just thinking on the tiles.


"So you fall in love,

so you see the heavens,

so you see all this,

why can't I choose?"


Random thoughts chased through my mind.


There was this part of my mind that came to a white place. Other thoughts came in and ruined them. Or maybe I was just thinking of that place without knowing. Commercialism. That's what i get for not being innocent, I guess. Good thing everyone else is in the same boat as I am. I've been scared to look at my soul for a while. Just all around bad stuff I've been doing. Sometimes you don't know when to stop. Sometimes you do, you just don't.

Besides the hundred-foot high ceiling, the hall was pretty normal sized. White tile compared to everything else of gloom. Not much windows, no real windows anyway. There was privacy windows here and there, as to let in artificial light.

"Forty-two." It annoyed me.

I stood up, figuring I should find the main office, and tried to dust off my pants. The problem was, my pants were perfect and pristine, even had the seam of ironing welded on. I never steamed or ironed (if they're the same thing) my pants, or had the opportunity to. Others might've gotten to them. I looked spiffy though. A full suit. Intentionally for the first time I met my eyes on my peers, not for looks, just for feels. The feel for being in my suit in front of my teachers.

I'm not sure if it was intentional, but I left my bags and books and novels behind me for a while, except for a special book I kept in my pocket, miniature sized. A boy slowly approached my front-left from the distant scenery. The scenery was going on forever. In about half a minute he passed. He had too much money put into casual clothes. Blonde hair. It scared me how long this hall was. Separate halls jutted ninety degrees about every fifteen seconds. And the hall ended after a while. Not knowing what else to do, I made the mandatory turn and found myself at the office in thirty seconds.



The guy's name is Daniel. The office people handed me a letter (looking up swiftly and down swiftly back to their work.) His letter came all the way from China. I don't know much about China. He said he needed to go there to help. People needed him, he said. I live a comfortable life and I can't deal with not helping them, he said. It's my life's meaning, he ended. I slid it into my jacket for later, maybe I’d get lonely or something. I miss him. We spent summers over at his house. Talking about a Redeemer and the such. It all made perfect sense. He spoke with a confidence. He knew quite well what he said. A letter always followed me with his name on the inside, where ever I went. It made me feel comfortable.

I examined the office. People mumbling to themselves at fast pace. Never looking up at all. Walls bare with gray. Ugly sight. Good thing cult fashion didn't take root in here yet, would've just made it worse for some reason.

A closed bear trap sat present-fully, closed at a side of a desk. Phone ringing, ringing, ringing. Scratching and rubbing of hair constantly. Tapping of black high-heeled shoes back and forth somewhere in the invisible of my eyes. Sad, you never want to get a full view of a room in this building, or buildings...

As I walked out, the bland "Office" sign seemed to have stayed in the same place on the door as before. Quite unsatisfying. My mental beat started picking up pace.


Dark images shot out of dark places, the lights dimmed once again, bodies heading toward their predestined livelihoods. All seeming like sheep. Kind of off on their own in a way. They liked it. I sat huddled in a corner, where I wouldn't get trampled on, just watching faces. I could describe perfectly everything I saw there, dark eyes, baggy, very baggy, prim white skin, I just couldn't feel their thoughts.

Most people have this way of shedding emotion onto you without even looking at you, just walking by. Your attitude could change a slightest bit just because of the way they move, or don't look at you. These people had nothing. With faces or not, no feelings is more of a depression than depression. It's the lifesource, the Life Stream.

A clank sounded from nowhere.

A girl, the girl flitted out from a room, white dress, and just sped against the force of the migrating youth. I looked from the corner of my safety as she passed it. She looked back for a second. A light came off of her, and seemed to disappear every time she seemed out of sight.

Instinct led me to various places after the mob vanished. From windowed door to windowed door, showing a dark sky. From heightened ceiling to higher ceilings every space i moved.

Instinct also led me to a restroom. "Men" it read with unsatifaction on the door. Inside was a bright rich-type restroom. After looking at my eyes less out of boredom, but of wonder, seeing all the valleys and oceans put within them, a world of their own, I spotted some writing on the wall behind me with the mirror. It read,


"The falling....


the hollow...


the falling...


the mess..."


and it lead me into another frame of mind. Everything was dark, lights dimmed here also. Everything was dark before, I just didn't notice. Rusted urinals, cracked sinks, bruised stalls, misdrilled holes, graffiti more than covered the walls, it was the walls. The phrase was actually camouflaged in with the rest of the graffiti. I don't know how I saw it. Lost child.

The world around it seemed different outside the stalls, the mirrors, those stained mirrors, and into the courtyard, as I called it, or just the playful grass area. I noticed it as I was running away from that heart-wrenching place. The courtyard was named so by myself because of the enormous castle in the middle. All the wealthy shared stories of stealing from the poor there, or in their honest and most dignified opinion, how they reached the top and became what they call rich and elevated in social status. They ate mini-cakes as they stuffed their stuffs.

I couldn't help but wish for David to help.

I dared to walk across that green grass. And hoped to find a golden handle at my fingertips in a few seconds. Sure did.


"Forty-two!" was yelled. Trying to dignify what they couldn't prove. I didn't believe it, for sure.



In the middle a red chandelier represented the sight of awe for some, circled by two stair sets one-eighty degrees down and pointing to one of the most prominent things besides the chandelier itself, the dining table. Your imagination could carry away at the colorfulness of this place, drawing respects from everyone in the wealth industry, but it was all so ugly and unmatched.

A bell rang and many well-dressed men and women came dancing and frolicking out of rooms upstairs and slid down the rails with nothing to spare. Teeth gleaming, affection showing, faces radiating, and bodies racing. Once at the table, they all sat with a simultaneous, dignified flop. Funny, kind of. Funny, actually. And once again, their scene turned toward a white spotlight on the table, darkness everywhere else. The communication goes on around the table for a little bit when a question makes the table stop with silence.

The casually asked inquisition was, "but if we don't know the question to the answer, how do we know what the answer is?"

Pale faces.

And another, "If love exists, where shall it be found?" not to break the silence, just for the sake of it.

A whisper or so, red wine in a glass placed down, and fake thinking.

The spotlight goes out on them.

The girl sprung up at my side, right in front of my face now "In haunted attics, I suppose!"

I was a little dazed by that answer, but when she took my hand, the answer felt sort of right. Kind of when you're walking in a dark place where you don't know if you can trip or not, and you see that door at the end of the wide open hallway. It's comforting in an obscure way. She ran me into a kitchen, with swinging door and lights on. White. I sat up on a counter and read David's letter while she danced around.


'I know what you're thinking. Don't live in the facts. Live in the beauty. Whatever they say can be a lie to you, just don't deny your heart. Don't deny that deep love. That deep place inside of you. Don't sell out your thoughts, I know what it looks like, and it's more than i can describe. Just don't sell it away to those people. They don't care for it. Keep that beauty burning bright within you, ok?'


A photograph of a smiling kid from a distant land came with the envelope and letter. It was pretty, his face was shining with happiness.


The girl decided to give me a kiss on the cheek. My head was down reading when this happened, and when I looked up, she was leaving again. I was kinda shy about it also, but it was nice. She disappeared through the back door. Old-timey-like, faded white wicket colored. Something you'd see in the less rural 40's. I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm trying to think, more like the 30's if it helps anymore. The time when Scout and Jem ran around and broke their arms.

I followed unsuccessfully. When I opened the door, all I saw was dirt, dirtiness. It was the city. The city of the future was in the background, way in the horizon, kind of overruling this desolate one in a way. Everything you'd expect from a sad, criminal city was there. Straight in front of me laid heavy traffic. To the sides, multi-colored dark brick all along the sidewalk with alleys jutting in every once in a while. A tattered poster flapping in the wind, saying half a phrase "Watching You." With a sign saying the street's name was Golgotha, the place was made complete

"Sup nig..." I was confused.

"Don't run away," another voice beckoned. Them talking to someone besides me.

"UAGH!" a kid started running out of an alley. He stopped abruptly at the edge of traffic. Spinning his head left and right to see of any salvation. One big, tall and burly older kid came from the right, while another shorter scraggly rat-looking guy came from the left. Walking to slowly close in on him. He was staring at the death-trap of a street while double-taking many times to the apparent hate and fear behind him. He stopped a second and just stared at me. Sad blue eyes. No green, no brown. There was a purity in them. It lasted forever, and i started to reach out my hand and run for him. He turned and looked at his foes, mean eyes, and he turned back around with his white, dirty shirt and trash-found pants, and ran into traffic, satisfied that they'd never get him.

He was hit by a car and disappeared into the oblivion of a blur. Beautiful disaster.

In vain, "We should've lynched him," was the crude mark of the beast of their tongues, and they left, as a peculiar man came on stage.

This man held up his dignity. A large group behind him, making him carry the world. It sure didn't seem big enough to be the world, but fact-in-all, it had the weight. Everyone knew it, it was just apparent. Under this, he chanted:


For the love I see,

For the love I breathe,

For the hearts I bring,

For the hearts I seek.



It was rough as being in another language, but beautiful in the way he spoke it.

As he crossed the road, all traffic couldn't move on, either forced or something else, they stayed in neutral as long as that man was in the way, and instantly started again after he passed and left a difficulty for his angry mob.

A cap blown in from somewhere, it was one of those red hunting plaid caps with flaps for the ears. I picked it up, and put it on, despite the scene. It made me feel comfortable.

After that dirty, angry mob made it across, they successfully put the world up on a string and slowly lowered it on the willing man. I thought it was crazy, but it kind of looked beautiful from his perspective. He withstood it. They put a sign over him, unreadable, but apparently a mockery since they were laughing their heads off.

"It is finished..." proclaimed unlightly the man under the burdensome world. He died. One man came up crying. Out from one of the alleys.

"Abba!" he shouted. "Abba! What about me?! I'm sorry.... I'm sorry........" He walked away in solemn, authentic depression.

A river of blood started flowing out of the crushed man, and came to the edges of the seemingly endless sea of city and climbed up it. The blackness came, blacker than black. Cars crashing everywhere. A man of the meaningless anger-party had a heart-attack, and they all ran around, looking for distant help. I sat, back against the wall and saw all of this happen:

The curtain of the black sky ripped open. The light crept in. The saddened man, with his weeping eyes and hands weeping, looked up and heard a voice:

"I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."

He believed it, I believed it, and the girl in the white dress believed it. She came beside me, held my rough hand with her soft presence, and watched the dark world fall down like a cloth. She radiated so beautifully.

All life came into one time, everything, everywhere seemed to be there. It was beautiful. The cloth came down behind our backs and disappeared into the greenery of grass. I fell into sleep, a peaceful one. I think she did too. We never let each others' hand go.

It never became night before my eyes in that lengthened sleep. Years, it seemed like. Maybe it was. Maybe I slept for years holding her hand, her beautiful white, soft hand. Maybe I slept thousands of years beside the person I loved very much without knowing before. I knew, it was deep in there somewhere, that I loved her all along. How could I deny her radiant presence? I couldn't.

I slowly opened my eyes and stood up with ease. Sun was shining bright and beautiful with rays of it finding a place on my skin. I thought I saw the man who withstood the world and the solemn man. They were walking together and talking in the endless green plains and bright, beautiful sun. The blue eyed kid was spinning around in that radiance.

In the distance I saw a white, wooden building. I walked to it, no need to do anything else, all burdens gone.

It had a white steeple coming out of the top with bricks steps leading up the glass door, where the sun shown through. I sat on its lavender-colored pews after I entered its beautiful door. Walking through the median isle, I turned right and sat at the third from front pew. Everything seemed to come together. Sun rays coming from behind.

There was a man sitting at the other side of the isle, in the middle of the front pew. I looked at him. It was David, he smiled and nodded as he noticed me. The dancing girl came in from the glass door. Taking a place right beside me, she took my hand once again and forever.

Everything is alright. Everything will be alright. Everything was alright. Everything will always be alright. It's nice.






Mark 1:40-41
A leper came to him, begging on his knees, "If you want to, you can cleanse me."
Deeply moved, Jesus put out his hand, touched him, and said, "I want to. Be clean."





"And True Love Waits,
In haunted attics,
And True Love Lives,
On lollipops and crisps..."
-Thom Yorke