I take back what I said before

Notre-Dame de Paris, aka The Hunchback of Notre Dame, is hella good, once you get past the boring.

Also

I must have fallen asleep because I woke up somewhere different

When I opened my eyes I saw bright white walls shining with hand painted oil from my palms and the soles of a man who feels harder than the rain, but softer than the pain that sinks into my hips when his rough fingertips
search my whole body to discover the bone.
He also feels like too much sun and makes my pupils dilate and red spread underneath my skin until my limbs are fresh with heat, and my heart stops keeping beat as it slows, sinks, and swells, to the dismay of my cells
who come in the millions, and yet feel quite alone.
My head hangs on my spine like a broken streetlight
while my skirt is flying upward like your wanton kite
I want to be the one girl that you want to treat right
and not just in case you might get cold at night.
There are days when the sky is the film in my eyes, and it's hard to believe that the world isn't changing when my heart is expanding every day. But sometimes these feelings, they only can taunt me, when I can't imagine the reasons you want me, and the way that I feel is too good to be real
so this must be a dream that we've made.
And for those two weeks, I was tobacco free. Now your lungs are expanding, and your muscles stretch beneath me, and your soul drips like water onto a fever as my head becomes bright and increasingly warm, but before the words I choke on finally form, you have figured it out, and now love kills all doubt.
You know what I am, and you still aren't afraid.

i don't understand

i mean, sure, i WANT to dance, but i don't LONG to dance.

part three

It was my third night in this cave I had found.
I had a faulty compass. It was the only explaination. I had followed it east for exactly 1.7 miles from the exact point they had left. Something went wrong.
Maybe I shouldn't have trusted that woman. Maybe she was protecting them.
I was starving. It was September and each hour was colder than the last. It had to have been midnight by now.
The first couple of nights, I was having visions. It could have been hallucinations from lack of sleep, but even then I held on to my superstition. Regardless, something about these were different. In them, my wife came to me. My wife had died soon after I left for the Navy. Even in death, she had a reason for everything. She told me why I was here.
She told me that I would die here, that my own evil heart led to my demise, while contributing to the greater good of future societies, and so on and so forth. If it weren't for my weakness, the world would never be strong. Just like a woman.
So was I chosen at random to accomplish this task? If so, these kids were probably chosen at random, too. I guess anyone can change the world these days.
I asked my wife to forgive me. I haven't had another vision since.
I was angry. I could feel my body failing me.
I decided to actively choose not to die. Fate is something we make for ourselves. I know taking it into my own hands was how I had got myself here, but sometimes bad things happen. It doesn't mean it was destiny. Either way, I wasn't going to just sit in this cave and wait for death to find me. If I was going to die, I would die looking for those children, the children who brought me here in the first place. If they live beyond my years, the only family I've ever known--sea-faring, dangerously strong and intensely loyal men--would never see the day they would finally be recognized and placed in the positions of power they surely deserve.
So, yeah, I would die to defend the pirate life, but that sounds a little stupid. Althought it most certainly isn't! It's a noble cause! Seriously.
So I would set out to find them in the morning. The forest was only so big. We would have to run into each other eventually. And when I finally found them, I could put a stop to this nonsense. Even if I were to perish shortly thereafter, at least they couldn't rid the evil that deserves a place in our world.
They didn't understand what they were getting themselves into. Who were they to be saviors of the planet? Evil hardly gets enough credit. People spend their whole lives praising the light and worshipping the sun, but how would we live if there was no night? Without evil, there would be no good! And in the depths of all our hearts, even in the purest and most righteous of specimens, there will always be darkness. If they were to "save the earth", surely it would be the apocalypse. The world could not go on without anger and envy, fear and revenge. The skeleton of humanity is built with strong bones of good, but they are filled with the vital marrow of evil. How could mere children rid us of something that is so firmly tucked into our mortal fabric?
I'm not a bad person simply because I choose to indulge in reality. People don't want to admit it, but everything I speak is the truth. I am just not as weak as they are. Instead of wishing someone dead, I will take the intiative to kill them. Instead of wanting something, I will take it. But I am just like everyone else, because we all want the same, sinful things, and we all think the same, impure thoughts. So why am I considered so bad just because I act on the very things the ones who persecute me struggle with? People hate those that embody the things they hate most about themselves. The ones who pursue me the hardest are the ones who relate to me the most. I'm pretty sure that scares them to death. I wonder how many people look at my scarred and burned up face and see themselves, because I can see my own eyes in many pairs that have stared me down.
I once believed in fate, but now I was coming to realize that life isn't something that is black and white. Everything changes, and nothing is determined. If I wanted the world to be a certain way, I was going to have to make it that way. I can't rely on anything but my own will and my own strength.
Because I am strong. I don't need anything but the muscles beneath my flesh and the grit between my teeth.
Soon, the fear of my circumstances dwindled. I reminded myself that I have weathered far worse and have conquered far greater. In the morning, I would do what I set out to do.

The Real Hansel and Gretel...part two

"It's been THREE DAYS!" I screamed at her. "THREE DAYS!! And you keep telling me we're going to be okay? We're running out of food, we don't even HAVE water. Not to mention we have some crazy pirate trying to kill us, and could be anywhere in these woods!"
"Oh, so you're going to just give up?" Gretel cried. "You're not even going to try to find our way home?" She kicked a rock in my general direction, but we all know girls have bad aim. "Why are you yelling at me, anyway? It's that evil woman who left us out here by ourselves!"
"I wouldn't yell at you if you would shut up about getting out of here, because it's obviously never going to happen," I said defeatedly, slumping up against a tree. "We're not going ANYWHERE."
I shot a string of spit out of the side of my mouth. "Where is that stupid pirate anyway? Wasn't he supposed to have killed us, like, days ago?"
Gretel shrugged. "Maybe he's not GOING to kill us."
"Or maybe he figured we would die out here anyway, so what's the point in overexerting himself?"
She ran to sit down next to me.
"But what about the prophecy?"
"WHAT prophecy? I didn't see any stupid prophecy, YOU did. How do you know you aren't wrong?"
"What are the odds of two people kilometers and kilometers away from each other having the same prophecy?"
"It doesn't make it any less crazy. And how does that bring us here in the woods? Does that make any sense?"
"Maybe not," she said gently. "Listen, Hansel. We're smart, we can figure this out."
"Yeah, that bread crumb idea was REAL genius. We wasted valuable bread, and the birds ate them anyway."
"Come on, we have survival skills!"
"Gretel, we're in grade school."
"Yeah, but you graduate in two and a half months!"
"True."
"And what about all the trouble we get ourselves out of at school?" She stood up and began putting on her shoes. "Look, I'm sure someone has to live out here." She looked around frantically, and then pointed back over to the tree I was sitting up against.
"Moss points towards civilization, right?"
"No."
She sighed heavily. "Sure it does." She pulled me up by my wrist, practically tearing my arm out of its socket. "I think we should go this way."
"According to what, moss?"
"Okay, then which way do YOU think we should go?"
"Down. I want to rest. We only have a couple more hours of sunlight, anyway," I sat back down. "It gets so much darker out here with all these trees."
I couldn't help but feel terribly scared. I knew Gretel was scared, too, but she was so set in the idea that we wouldn't die out here, that we COULDN'T die out here. Not with the way that things were going to turn out, as told to her by God.
Poor Gretel.
"Okay, we'll rest here," she said. "I'll try to find food. But in the morning, we HAVE to look for a way out of here. We have to meet our mentor, and soon."
"Whatever." I turned my head up toward the sky. "I'll start a fire."

The Real Hansel and Gretel...part one

When he came up to the table, I took note of his tattoos. He had a scribble of an anchor on his right shoulder, and on the back of his calf was a ship poorly constructed of wood chips and withered sails. The web between his thumb and index finger said MOM, and two doves held a ribbon over his belly button with a birth date and what I assumed to be a death date of a person he never spoke of. It was all done poorly in crude, blue ink, and I assumed he was a navy man or a pirate.
His eye patch and pegged leg revealed to me it was the latter.
But, really, it was both.
He started out in the Navy after the Great War (although it's hard to choose, because all of the wars were excellent, everybody did great), but then turned to a life of plundering and pillaging after a long stay in the Philippines. After meeting the right people, he found work on an old, rickety ship, which, as I'm sure you've guessed, turned out to be a pirate ship. He rubbed shoulders with the gnarliest of the grimiest, whom he met at the bars in port towns all around the world, and he soon fell sweetly in love with wearing face masks and carrying torches and lighting houses on fire unbeknownst to the farming families or college students inside of them. He liked the authority his gold teeth and missing limbs gave him, as it granted him the ability to enter homes without calling first, eat legs of mutton, and fill his knapsack full of silver rings, golden goblets, and other miscellaneous treasure. And he could do it all at the same time.
He also couldn't refuse his new and sudden luck with women. Apparently, everybody loves a pirate, especially one who was the strong, silent type, as this man was. He got girls of all types, but they really were all the same. It wasn't until one night at the docks of a port in the northwest Persian Gulf when a woman would change his life for the first time. She was a prophetess, and she told a story of two children who would bring truth and justice to the world and rid all evil from mankind. She told him that he had the opportunity to change the world if he would only deliver the children to this one person who would be their mentor and lead them on the path to greatness. She gave him the exact coordinates of their location and said, "The fate of the world is up to you."
Being an unwavering believer in the supernatural, he took her words very seriously. However, to him, her message meant something different. While the man was superstitious, he was also, and always, very evil. He decided to take fate into his own hands. To him, it could only mean one thing: find these children and kill them.
So that's how he ended up at my small town in the countryside of Holland. I had seen him at the marketplace and approached him with the original intention of seeing if he had any poison for murderous reasons, cause he looked like the kind of guy who would sell toxins to total strangers in the town square. But before I could give him details, he said that he was looking for someone and told me openly what he had come to Holland for. I have that kind of face where I just seem easy to talk to, I guess. Well, the news was the stuff dreams were made out of. It was very good luck that of all the shady looking men in the surrounding Naardan area, I found the one who wanted to kill the same people I did! Money had been tight lately, and I was not really all that interested in feeding children whom I didn't even give birth to. He offered me money, more money than I had seen in a while, to hand over my step-children to him. I didn't want to talk about it in public, because most of the town knew me, so I arranged to meet him at a bar. It was the saddest bar in town, where everyone is so busy wallowing into their pints that they are unaware of conversations that could incriminate a woman when her two adorable step-kids went missing.
Lucky for me, our supreme court banned hypnosis.
He sat down at my table in a remote corner of the dark side of the room, where he explained the full story of the prophecy. He went on to say that he was really moving up the corporate ladder in the pirate world and would soon be a renowned captain. And with the right connections, he knew he was capable of taking over the world.
"Apparently, she wasn't a very good prophetess," he said, finishing his long (a little too long) story.
"Well, maybe not," I thought. "I mean, what if she knew this would happen all along by telling you?"
"Hey, maybe she's an evil prophetess!" he mused. "But really, can I kill your kids or what?'
"I would be more than happy to get rid of the children," I explained, "but I WOULD need to be compensated for my husband's sake."
"I assure you, lady, I am a very prominent and successful pirate," he said. "But I can only pay you in treasure. I don't really deal with too many transactions that involve...actual currency or anything."
"Okay, good. The other thing is that we have to make it look good. I don't want to be hanged because I did a guy a favor."
"Hmm, you're right." He pulled on his beard, which was braided, making me wonder if he actually took the time to do that himself. "Well, how old are they?"
"They're both eleven."
"Twins?'
"Ten months apart. Turns out that can be harmful to your health, which is why their mother is no longer with us."
"Alright, well, why don't we stage a kidnapping?"
"Not a bad idea," I nodded. "I don't really want to have to recreate the scene when I talk to the police, though. They always catch you in minute details, and I know I'd crack under the pressure."
"Oh, totally, I know what you mean," he said, taking his wallet out of its holster (he had a wallet holster next to his dagger holster). He put it down in front of him and said, using bunny quotes, "Why don't you 'lose them in the woods'? If you catch my drift."
"Go on..."
"Okay, see, you'll take them out to pick some fruit with you or something. Take them very deep into the woods, and just leave them there. I'll take care of the rest of the details."
"That I can do. I'm a great actress."
"I'll bet."
We worked out the details in a short matter of time. I would leave them exactly 1.7 miles directly east into the woods from the log pile in my front yard. It was to take place tomorrow at noon. Being the gentleman that I couldn't have guessed that he was, he took a couple of rubies out of his (very deep) wallet to pay for the buffalo wings.
So the next day, I woke up and took the kids out to chop wood. I gave them each a loaf of bread and told them to make it last all day, just to be nice about it and all. They looked at me silently, and put the bread in their pockets. It was harder than I thought, because they looked pretty cute, and kind of sad. But it was too late at that point, and the money was already mine, so I went through with it.
I started a fire for them at the designated area and took out my pocket watch. It was 11:55.
"Well, I'll be right back," I said with a stretch, trying to casually make my exit. "Gonna go pick some berries or something..." They glared at me silently.
"What's your problem?" I asked. "What are you staring at?"
"We know what you're doing," the boy stated simply. I felt heat spreading across my cheeks as my face flushed instantly.
"Uh...what are you talking about?" I asked, cautious of seeming guilty.
"Where's your basket?" he inquired sharply.
"Wh..what?'
"Your basket?"
I stared at him blankly.
"You know, for picking berries?"
Damn. I had forgotten a basket.
"Uhhh..umm...I was going to use my apron...?"
"Right," he said. "Look, my friend James was hiding in the bathrooms in that bar last night. He told me about the pirate coming to kill us."
"Your friend James is lying!" I shouted. "Wait, your friend James is twelve."
"So??
"So what was he doing in the bar?"
"He sneaks in every once in a while. He was in the bathroom because he had one two many Long Island iced teas, and apparently, you were there, too, and not in the best of company."
Busted. I tried explaining, but they just stared at me blankly.
"Does Dad know?" he asked finally.
"No," His expression lifted. "But I don't understand," I went on. "Why did you come out here with me if you knew what I was going to do?"
"We know about the prophecy, too," Gretel said. "Fate cannot be changed, so if this is ours, we have no say in the matter."
"Not to mention, we left a trail of breadcrumbs," Hansel added.
"But you're not fulfilling the prophecy by coming here!" I said angrily. "The prophetess was wrong! She couldn't foresee your death."
"You really think that fat old pirate is going to kill us?" she laughed. "Fate cannot be changed."
"Whatever. I have more faith in a pirate with a sword than a stupid dream. You're unwise if you don't think the same."
"I'm not afraid," Gretel said boldly. "God will protect us." Hansel sighed and rubbed his sinuses.
I couldn't help but laugh myself. "YEAH! Right! If you somehow escape the pirate, tell that one to the wolves. SEE ya!"
Part of me was relieved, and a part of me wasn't. But it was too late to think about any of that now.
I somehow found my way home before nightfall, and explained to my husband that I had been out looking for the children, etc. etc, that they were lost and we had to send people to search for them right away.
The neighborhood helped us look with their torches, which they had on reserve just for a mob-appropriate occasion such as this, but no one found the children, and there was no sign of any pirate-type presence. I wouldn't really expect him to leave one. I did, however, expect him to leave their bodies, but maybe he was a trophy kind of guy.
All I know is I didn't sleep that night. I guess a part of me was a little hopeful that they were still alive. Another part of me was feeling guilty because I knew that they weren't. But like I said, it was too late for any of that now. And if Gretel was right, and everything does happen for a reason, I was pretty much off the hook.
But I haven't been hungry since.