HATEBREED! God their live shows kick ass. The only downside to the show was I almost had to kick somebody's ass because they grabbed my friend by the head and pulled them down to the ground, but luckily I know an old cop trick that'd make anyone drop a "million dollar diamond." But after that it was cool, me and my friend Scott got mike time on almost every song and I got a drumstick and a guitar pick
Here's a new story, I thought Lucy might like it because it's about losing a loved one and how they can affect/effect (I can never get that one right) your life after they're gone. To all the rest of you, hope you enjoy it. It's longer than the last one.
Catharsis Rev. 3
Justin sat in his living room staring at the blank television. The set was on, but the only signal coming through was a blue screen. God, how long have I been sitting here? I cant remember when I sat down. Has it been an hour, a day? What kind of life is this? These thoughts began to stream through his head as his mind awoke from its trance. He turned his head around to look at the sty that had once been his house. The movement made his neck creak, like a scratched up old door that no longer fit into its jam. He couldnt tell quite when, but a subtle lethargy had crept into his once boisterous lifestyle. His well kept bachelor pad had now become consumed with filth. Paper plates and food wrappers laid claim to his coffee table, and the corners of his spotted carpet had grown hair. His entertainment center and CD tower were covered with thick layers of dust. Next to them was a secondhand armchair had turned green with mold. Justin tried to get up but lost momentum halfway through, falling back into the couch. Its seat was beaten down and when he fell back into it his knees were almost level with his collarbone. He strained to get up again, this time successfully. His knees made the same creaking noise as his neck, and his back popped as he straightened his posture. He must have been sitting there for most of the day. As he walked from the living room to the bathroom he looked at the clock in his kitchen. It was 3:15 in the afternoon.
Justin flipped the bathroom switch on and the light responded harshly, making him squint. He never understood why he had such a hard time with bright lights, because he had always been told that the darker a persons eyes, the less sensitive they would be to light, and his eyes were very dark, almost black. People found this startling when they met him because at first it appeared as if he had no iris, just large dilated pupils taking everything in, like the patron of some intense acid trip from which there was no return.
Justin shielded his eyes until he could keep them open and looked into the mirror. His face was expressionless and pale. Stringy hair, sun bleached from hundreds of hours spent outside picking up construction sites, adorned his gaunt face. He was the only white guy on his crew. Everyone else was Mexican. They all took turns driving the old red F-150 around while the others picked up pieces of 2x4s, sheetrock, plywood, and other miscellaneous garbage left behind by the journeymen that made too much money to clean up after themselves. He made $5.65 an hour, but that wasnt what bothered him about the job. His coworkers always spoke in Spanish and would occasionally glance at him in mid sentence and laugh. Justin didnt know Spanish, but he knew enough to figure out that they were making fun of him. He hated that feeling he got when foreigners were talking in a language he didnt understand. It made him nervous. It didnt matter what they were saying, he always assumed it was about him. Sometimes he caught an occasional gringo and puto scattered amongst their sentences, but there was nothing he could really do about it. If he bitch-slapped one of their skinny brown asses in the mouth then hed probably just get the shit kicked out of him by the other three and then get fired. He could barely afford to keep up with the requirements of his section eight living quarters, and to lose his job meant to be on the street. So he kept his mouth shut.
Justin stopped looking at his hair and focused on his tanned body. He never wore a shirt anymore. He didnt have to at work because it was summertime, and at home it just made things easier because there was less laundry, plus he didnt have air conditioning. He liked his mirror. Its old warped surface stretched out his image making him look buff. He flexed his pecks and his biceps and grinned. That was one of the few pleasures he had in life, admiring himself in the mirror. It was short lived though. What kind of life is this? Again the thought crept into his head making his smile melt into the dreary blank stare he had gotten to know too well. He focused deep into the abyss of his black eyes and tried to decipher what had happened. He had broken down somewhere along the path and was now entrenched in a meaningless circle of monotony. He was miserable at work, miserable at home, he had no friends, and all of his family had either died or moved away. He thought hard to look back and see what had made him into this thing that scraped through life and went nowhere, but it was useless. The truth was that there was no one event that could describe his decline. Pieces of his life had gone missing, one by one, and soon too many were gone. Trying to remember what life had been was like trying to make out the picture on a puzzle with half the pieces. Justin turned away from the mirror. Whatever rut he had ground himself into was not going to go away by thinking about the past. Things could only be done in the present. The past and the future were only instruments of pain to him. His past was cluttered with the pieces of broken relationships, and the future held only the promise of more monotony and disillusion. These thoughts tired him. All the sitting had stifled his energy. Sleep made up more and more of each day. He made his way out of the bathroom and turned to his bedroom, shutting off the light as he left.
Justins bed was made out of on old king size frame, two pieces of three quarter inch particle board, and a used queen size mattress his parents had given him. Nothing really held the bed together except gravity. The frame was three pieces that overlapped such that they stood by falling onto one another. This served as the base upon which he laid the particle board and the mattress. Every time he got onto the bed he did so with caution because putting too much weight on one section would crack the particle board and possibly collapse the entire bed. He moved the twisted sheets and comforter until he got a sufficient amount to cover himself and then jostled around until he was comfortable enough to fall asleep.
Justin always knew when he was dreaming. The difference between reality and the subconscious was too radical for him not to realize. In his dreams he actually interacted with people, things happened. In his reality there was nothing. He enjoyed the control he had over his dream world. The power of knowing made him God to the people and things that came streaming from his subconscious as he slept. The only disadvantage to this was that he never fully felt asleep. He would crash for ten hours at a time and wake up tired. In this particular dream he was talking to his mother. A lot of his dreams were about her. She had died almost a year before and he had been there during the final stages of her disease. Neuropathy caused a terrible death. Your nervous system slowly deteriorates, leaving you nearly blind and virtually numb during the last weeks of your life. This sensory depravation caused vivid hallucinations of memories mixed with what little could still be experienced from the real world. This stage also causes your smaller appendages (fingers and toes) to loose blood flow and turn black. Justins mother died in this manner, and now he was talking to her.
I miss you, Justin said to his mom. I wish you were still here, with me. I feel so lost.
I know honey, his mother said, but I cant be there anymore, my time has passed. I know youll find your way. You always were such a smart boy.
But what if I dont? Its like Im already dying. I have no energy to do anything or go anywhere. All I do is sit in my house, alone. I feel like Im trapped within a cycle of living death.
Dont worry sweetheart. Youll find your way. You always were such a smart boy, his mother said again. She had always repeated words and phrases as a nervous tick. Justin reached out to touch his mothers shoulder but she stopped his arm by grabbing it with her hand. It was cold, like it had been when he touched it in her coffin.
What are you doing? Justin asked.
I just wanted to show you
Show me what? Justin asked, but she gave no answer. She only grabbed his hand tighter, and then quickly pulled his wrist to her mouth, biting deeply into it.
Justin snapped back into his body and immediately grabbed his wrist. It still had that pinched feeling like it had been bitten by dull teeth. His sheets and pants were stuck to his body with sweat. After a few moments he had gathered himself and noticed the darkness that filled him room. He didnt know why he had gone to sleep. He hated waking up when it was dark, it made him feel panicky and alone, like while he had been sleeping the world passed him by. He climbed out of bed and left his room, walking directly to the couch. Once sitting he arched his back so that his head was between his knees. He put his long thin hands over his eyes, pressing on them with his palms. The image of his mother biting down onto his wrist was still burned into his head and closing his eyes only made it worse. It was like he had stared at the sun too long and was still seeing spots on his retina, a terrifying image that would not fade. Fuck, what does that mean? He asked himself. He exhaled, trying to push out the nervousness and fear. What the hell is that? Im losing my fuckin mind! Sane people dont see their dead mother biting chunks out of them! What does it mean? What am I trying to tell myself? Goddamnt whats wrong with me? He rammed these same questions through his head again and again, but no answers came. The questions just kept posing themselves. They were stuck there with the image of his mother like scars on his mind. He turned his head, resting it on his palm, and looked at the clock. It was 11:17. Eight hours. He had slept for eight hours and had only that dream. That never happened. He always had multiple dreams. He wrote them all down in a log so he could remember. He grabbed the journal from a shelf underneath his coffee table and thumbed through it. Every entry had at least three or four separate dreams. What did it mean? He thought about calling his father, but it was almost one oclock where he was, long past the old mans bedtime. He felt antsy. He couldnt sit still any longer. Something had awoken in him. Justin looked around at his house and this time felt disgusted by its appearance. He raised himself off the couch and stretched out his long thin body. Then he started picking up the wrappers and paper plates that were covering his coffee table. He had to see it clean again. After all the garbage was cleared from his table Justin walked over to his trash can and shoved it all down into it. The sight of the clean table gave him a shallow sense of peace that he desperately needed.
Justin spent the rest of the night picking up trash, dusting, vacuuming, and cleaning other miscellaneous messes around his house. Because of the rest from earlier, he didnt feel tired, he felt invigorated. Once finished he stood, looking what he had reclaimed. Satisfaction flooded through him for the first time in months. The cleaning was therapeutic. It gave him that sense of control he lusted for in his dreams. Every time he wiped something clean the horrid image of his mother faded. Justin could feel the energy swirling inside him. It had settled down from of all the lethargy and was now being shaken back up like the good ingredients in a vinaigrette. Blueness from the new day crept through his open shades and saturated everything he could see. The brilliance of the morning humbled him. He didnt bother to look at the clock, not now. Justin thought about the dream again with understanding.
Here's a new story, I thought Lucy might like it because it's about losing a loved one and how they can affect/effect (I can never get that one right) your life after they're gone. To all the rest of you, hope you enjoy it. It's longer than the last one.
Catharsis Rev. 3
Justin sat in his living room staring at the blank television. The set was on, but the only signal coming through was a blue screen. God, how long have I been sitting here? I cant remember when I sat down. Has it been an hour, a day? What kind of life is this? These thoughts began to stream through his head as his mind awoke from its trance. He turned his head around to look at the sty that had once been his house. The movement made his neck creak, like a scratched up old door that no longer fit into its jam. He couldnt tell quite when, but a subtle lethargy had crept into his once boisterous lifestyle. His well kept bachelor pad had now become consumed with filth. Paper plates and food wrappers laid claim to his coffee table, and the corners of his spotted carpet had grown hair. His entertainment center and CD tower were covered with thick layers of dust. Next to them was a secondhand armchair had turned green with mold. Justin tried to get up but lost momentum halfway through, falling back into the couch. Its seat was beaten down and when he fell back into it his knees were almost level with his collarbone. He strained to get up again, this time successfully. His knees made the same creaking noise as his neck, and his back popped as he straightened his posture. He must have been sitting there for most of the day. As he walked from the living room to the bathroom he looked at the clock in his kitchen. It was 3:15 in the afternoon.
Justin flipped the bathroom switch on and the light responded harshly, making him squint. He never understood why he had such a hard time with bright lights, because he had always been told that the darker a persons eyes, the less sensitive they would be to light, and his eyes were very dark, almost black. People found this startling when they met him because at first it appeared as if he had no iris, just large dilated pupils taking everything in, like the patron of some intense acid trip from which there was no return.
Justin shielded his eyes until he could keep them open and looked into the mirror. His face was expressionless and pale. Stringy hair, sun bleached from hundreds of hours spent outside picking up construction sites, adorned his gaunt face. He was the only white guy on his crew. Everyone else was Mexican. They all took turns driving the old red F-150 around while the others picked up pieces of 2x4s, sheetrock, plywood, and other miscellaneous garbage left behind by the journeymen that made too much money to clean up after themselves. He made $5.65 an hour, but that wasnt what bothered him about the job. His coworkers always spoke in Spanish and would occasionally glance at him in mid sentence and laugh. Justin didnt know Spanish, but he knew enough to figure out that they were making fun of him. He hated that feeling he got when foreigners were talking in a language he didnt understand. It made him nervous. It didnt matter what they were saying, he always assumed it was about him. Sometimes he caught an occasional gringo and puto scattered amongst their sentences, but there was nothing he could really do about it. If he bitch-slapped one of their skinny brown asses in the mouth then hed probably just get the shit kicked out of him by the other three and then get fired. He could barely afford to keep up with the requirements of his section eight living quarters, and to lose his job meant to be on the street. So he kept his mouth shut.
Justin stopped looking at his hair and focused on his tanned body. He never wore a shirt anymore. He didnt have to at work because it was summertime, and at home it just made things easier because there was less laundry, plus he didnt have air conditioning. He liked his mirror. Its old warped surface stretched out his image making him look buff. He flexed his pecks and his biceps and grinned. That was one of the few pleasures he had in life, admiring himself in the mirror. It was short lived though. What kind of life is this? Again the thought crept into his head making his smile melt into the dreary blank stare he had gotten to know too well. He focused deep into the abyss of his black eyes and tried to decipher what had happened. He had broken down somewhere along the path and was now entrenched in a meaningless circle of monotony. He was miserable at work, miserable at home, he had no friends, and all of his family had either died or moved away. He thought hard to look back and see what had made him into this thing that scraped through life and went nowhere, but it was useless. The truth was that there was no one event that could describe his decline. Pieces of his life had gone missing, one by one, and soon too many were gone. Trying to remember what life had been was like trying to make out the picture on a puzzle with half the pieces. Justin turned away from the mirror. Whatever rut he had ground himself into was not going to go away by thinking about the past. Things could only be done in the present. The past and the future were only instruments of pain to him. His past was cluttered with the pieces of broken relationships, and the future held only the promise of more monotony and disillusion. These thoughts tired him. All the sitting had stifled his energy. Sleep made up more and more of each day. He made his way out of the bathroom and turned to his bedroom, shutting off the light as he left.
Justins bed was made out of on old king size frame, two pieces of three quarter inch particle board, and a used queen size mattress his parents had given him. Nothing really held the bed together except gravity. The frame was three pieces that overlapped such that they stood by falling onto one another. This served as the base upon which he laid the particle board and the mattress. Every time he got onto the bed he did so with caution because putting too much weight on one section would crack the particle board and possibly collapse the entire bed. He moved the twisted sheets and comforter until he got a sufficient amount to cover himself and then jostled around until he was comfortable enough to fall asleep.
Justin always knew when he was dreaming. The difference between reality and the subconscious was too radical for him not to realize. In his dreams he actually interacted with people, things happened. In his reality there was nothing. He enjoyed the control he had over his dream world. The power of knowing made him God to the people and things that came streaming from his subconscious as he slept. The only disadvantage to this was that he never fully felt asleep. He would crash for ten hours at a time and wake up tired. In this particular dream he was talking to his mother. A lot of his dreams were about her. She had died almost a year before and he had been there during the final stages of her disease. Neuropathy caused a terrible death. Your nervous system slowly deteriorates, leaving you nearly blind and virtually numb during the last weeks of your life. This sensory depravation caused vivid hallucinations of memories mixed with what little could still be experienced from the real world. This stage also causes your smaller appendages (fingers and toes) to loose blood flow and turn black. Justins mother died in this manner, and now he was talking to her.
I miss you, Justin said to his mom. I wish you were still here, with me. I feel so lost.
I know honey, his mother said, but I cant be there anymore, my time has passed. I know youll find your way. You always were such a smart boy.
But what if I dont? Its like Im already dying. I have no energy to do anything or go anywhere. All I do is sit in my house, alone. I feel like Im trapped within a cycle of living death.
Dont worry sweetheart. Youll find your way. You always were such a smart boy, his mother said again. She had always repeated words and phrases as a nervous tick. Justin reached out to touch his mothers shoulder but she stopped his arm by grabbing it with her hand. It was cold, like it had been when he touched it in her coffin.
What are you doing? Justin asked.
I just wanted to show you
Show me what? Justin asked, but she gave no answer. She only grabbed his hand tighter, and then quickly pulled his wrist to her mouth, biting deeply into it.
Justin snapped back into his body and immediately grabbed his wrist. It still had that pinched feeling like it had been bitten by dull teeth. His sheets and pants were stuck to his body with sweat. After a few moments he had gathered himself and noticed the darkness that filled him room. He didnt know why he had gone to sleep. He hated waking up when it was dark, it made him feel panicky and alone, like while he had been sleeping the world passed him by. He climbed out of bed and left his room, walking directly to the couch. Once sitting he arched his back so that his head was between his knees. He put his long thin hands over his eyes, pressing on them with his palms. The image of his mother biting down onto his wrist was still burned into his head and closing his eyes only made it worse. It was like he had stared at the sun too long and was still seeing spots on his retina, a terrifying image that would not fade. Fuck, what does that mean? He asked himself. He exhaled, trying to push out the nervousness and fear. What the hell is that? Im losing my fuckin mind! Sane people dont see their dead mother biting chunks out of them! What does it mean? What am I trying to tell myself? Goddamnt whats wrong with me? He rammed these same questions through his head again and again, but no answers came. The questions just kept posing themselves. They were stuck there with the image of his mother like scars on his mind. He turned his head, resting it on his palm, and looked at the clock. It was 11:17. Eight hours. He had slept for eight hours and had only that dream. That never happened. He always had multiple dreams. He wrote them all down in a log so he could remember. He grabbed the journal from a shelf underneath his coffee table and thumbed through it. Every entry had at least three or four separate dreams. What did it mean? He thought about calling his father, but it was almost one oclock where he was, long past the old mans bedtime. He felt antsy. He couldnt sit still any longer. Something had awoken in him. Justin looked around at his house and this time felt disgusted by its appearance. He raised himself off the couch and stretched out his long thin body. Then he started picking up the wrappers and paper plates that were covering his coffee table. He had to see it clean again. After all the garbage was cleared from his table Justin walked over to his trash can and shoved it all down into it. The sight of the clean table gave him a shallow sense of peace that he desperately needed.
Justin spent the rest of the night picking up trash, dusting, vacuuming, and cleaning other miscellaneous messes around his house. Because of the rest from earlier, he didnt feel tired, he felt invigorated. Once finished he stood, looking what he had reclaimed. Satisfaction flooded through him for the first time in months. The cleaning was therapeutic. It gave him that sense of control he lusted for in his dreams. Every time he wiped something clean the horrid image of his mother faded. Justin could feel the energy swirling inside him. It had settled down from of all the lethargy and was now being shaken back up like the good ingredients in a vinaigrette. Blueness from the new day crept through his open shades and saturated everything he could see. The brilliance of the morning humbled him. He didnt bother to look at the clock, not now. Justin thought about the dream again with understanding.
And HI by the way