Beauty for the Day

The Temporary Home of Visual Obscurities

If there actually exists a person who's eyes look upon the words of this blog and the words of my stories... let me apologize to you for my lack of new material. I have not been writing short stories for a while due to a sudden motivation to continue on my novel. This is why you do not see any new words upon this page, well at least any words of great significance. So while I continue to write my novel, I'll post pictures and this blog will be the temporary Visual Obscurities.
Enjoy.

P.S If you are wanting to know, I am 38,000 words into my novel.

Head in the Clouds

I've been intrigued by skies lately...everywhere I go, I see something breathtaking. It's amazing that I always seem to have my camera with me.

Social Skills of a Calico

This cat keeps appearing at my door, its green bulging eyes staring me down as a I eat my dinner. My own cat, I've noticed, has no social skills whatsoever. If my cat was a human and wanted to get to know a person, she'd wait outside this person's favourite restaurant and when they leave, she would run up and smell their napkin. For instance, she watches this cat from a bush and then when the cat leaves, she runs up and sniffs the grass. My cat is a pure bread stalker.

Spread Your Wings

Travel With Me

Travel with me.
Our lives are winding down like the roads on which we'll drive.
So in those last years lets challenge what we can.
See things we have not seen.
Open our eyes wider than this wrinkled, papered skin will allow.
Travel with me.
Across this star spangled country we'll see many things.
We'll sit atop a hill and gaze out onto a field stretching wider than imagined.
Our lives will stretch wider than imagined.
Travel with me.
Our hearts will beat as one like the pulsing of the engine below our bodies.
We'll see life sprout from the ground
While watching our own lives sprout like never before.
Travel with me.
I'll whisper I love you
As we watch a golden sunset say goodbye to the only world it knows.
And as it falls beneath the hills,
Your eyes mirror the glowing orb and in the last light of day
I'll whisper goodbye to the only world that I ever knew.
Travel your last travels with me.

Picture Perfect

It always leaves me disappointed.
Closing my eyes and hoping,
Yearning,
Expecting.
Then I open them to a picture
A picture known too well
And it’s harder to breath.
Harder to see the beauty in this world.
It’s becoming layered with grime,
Layered with dirt,
Layered with blood.
The iron hands of humans reach higher to the sky.
Grasping what is left of our air supply.
And with each grasp,
I feel it in my lungs,
I feel the strain,
The weight,
The smoke,
The pain.
Soon there won’t be much more to grasp.
I feel it disappearing around me,
Falling,
Crumbling,
Into nothing.
And as I close my eyes,
I hope,
Yearn,
Expect something to come to view.
Then I open them to the same old picture,
And I’m always left disappointed.

Charcoal

They stand baron, lifeless, charred.
Their blackened bark a memory of when the sky was once aglow.
Light.
Natural light.
Pulsing in the clouds,
Hugging the black,
Painting it orange.
It piles out from their limbs,
Pumping,
Pumping,
Like blood from an opened wound.
If no one's there to witness its death, does a tree still scream?

Its stopping now.
The black disappearing.
Dissipating.
Gone.
The Sky left a mournful grey.
The product of the terror crumpled,
Its bark a reminder of its death.
Charcoal.
Like that within the artists hand,
A sad portrait drawn.

They stand baron, lifeless, charred.
Footprints indent the muddied ground,
A reminder of the crime.

He Grasps Another Year in His Artist's Hand

He sits at the sheltered point where the waves lap hungrily against the weathered rocks and plots his evil with his dark graphite. With age his plots grow thicker and his lines darker, their pixilated splendor connecting to form an intricate design. As you approach him, he shields his plans and looks over at you, darkness emitting from the brown of his iris. You catch a glance of his design and draw back in awe and shock muttering to yourself “Beware thine eyes of thy twenty year old... for they hold a grand idea."

It was my brother's birthday this past weekend and this is an excerpt from a card that I made him.

80 AP (80 Years After Peace)

There’s an exact moment of our perfectly planned lives where everyone walks the streets at the same time and we lie in wait for it. Each of us, stationed at different points throughout the city holding a stack of cleanly pressed papers. If we had covered our steps well enough, no one will know we are here, maybe no one knows we even exist.
By now the school should have realized that I was no longer going to be present in class. Who would come to school when they are wanted for murder? And not just murder but the murder of one’s own grandfather. Who would risk being arrested let alone live through the great shame that comes with such an accusation? I for one cannot risk either because I am innocent.
For eighty years, our world has been perfect and peaceful, that is in the eyes of our esteemed government. The world before that was in turmoil. Wars plagued the earth killing innocent people, whether they had held a gun or just walked the streets hoping for a normal life. Human inventions also littered the earth, their fumes destroying what was last of our air and new wars over whose resources belonged to who began.
When nation’s populations decreased due to the killing and famine, a group of humans stood up, wishing the turmoil to end. The group was led by a man named Villo, a man whose wealth and eloquence won the hearts of many individuals. Villo had a plan to unite the world and using his skills, he was able to do so. It took many years, but soon the wars and greed diminished and people began to call the era a time of peace. But in order to achieve what he would call peace, Villo had to change the world using specific rules and regulations. He started with the banning of vehicles and then after much convincing, he was able to ban books.
He told the world that books were the main source for all new ideas and new ideas were what birthed war. This was a time of fire. Police came knocking on our doors as families handed over their books that they had collected and treasured over the years. Bonfires littered the streets and townspeople stood gazing into the coals, watching the only source of their history go up in flames.
For a time, the world was happy… then Villo became power hungry. He felt that the only way for his world to be truly perfect was to create a race that was once called superhuman. Anyone without blonde hair or blue eyes was frowned upon and teachers were told to re-enforce this.
I remember sitting in my hard school seat, my blonde hair and my blue eyes sparkling, watching as my brown haired and brown eyed teacher instructed that we were all better than her. Soon, we all believed her. I was praised for the beauty of my appearance and my head became filled with arrogance. I would scoff at those not like me as they passed me in the streets.
My grandfather tried to teach me differently but it was difficult, especially when you’re conditioned your entire life to think otherwise. Then his words began to sink in.
I was walking home from school one day when I witnessed one of the abductions. In our world, there are things that we do not speak of. The abductions are a form of some of those things. The non blonde blue eyed population was increasing, and they were seen as a threat until slowly some people belonging to this group began to disappear.
The girl was hunched over, carrying a large sack of grains. I watched from the street corner as she put down the sack and wiped her tanned brow. As her eyes were closed, men dressed in black slipped from the shadows of a nearby alleyway and grabbed a hold of her. She fought back, her legs kicking in the air, her skirt tearing. The men yelled at her to stop but she only continued to retaliate so one of the bigger men took a bayonet from his side and hit her over the head with it. Her body went limp and she sunk to her knees. The black hair covered her face as blood dripped from the wood on her head, down her chin, and onto the cobblestone street. She looked up from the ground, hair falling from her face, and looked over to me with golden eyes.
I stood still, shocked at what I’d just seen. The men quickly pulled the girl from the ground and dragged her into the alley. I didn’t move for a long time after that. I remember my grandfather getting angry with me as I walked in the door, late for supper. I listened more to what he had said after that day.
He would tell me stories he knew from books that his parents used to read and stories about what the world used to be like when people were free to do as the pleased, men and woman could choose their jobs instead of getting them handed to them by the government. I began to feel hopeful for our world, hopeful that it could change and young girls wouldn’t get beaten on the road just for the way they looked. I began to treasure what my grandfather told me.
They killed him for his beliefs. That’s what Finn had told me, they distinguished him as a threat, assassinated him, and then accused me. I remember the smell that filled my house that night. It was the smell of iron, dirt, and blood. The blood that painted his walls and the sheet that was wrapped around his lifeless body. When I was kneeling at his side, his blood poured onto my hands…

I looked at my hands in the light of the evening sun, and the pit of grief reformed itself in my stomach. Finn looked over at me from where he was perched on the building rooftop.
“Are you okay Colin?” He asked, looking at my hands.
I nodded curtly, “Yeah… just remembering…”
“He died for a great cause.” Finn said, smiling sympathetically. I smiled back; I knew the cause he was speaking of, me. I was the one that decided it was time for my grandfather’s idea to become a reality.

After he’d been killed, I found a hatch in the shed as I looked for a shovel to bury him with. I’d never seen the hatch before but deep within myself, I knew my grandfather wanted me to find it. So I opened it and climbed down into a dark room.
Matches and a lamp lay in wait for me and as I put the match to the wick, I jumped back in surprise. Books. They lined whatever space was available in the walls. Thousands of them, some piled on the floor, some piled on a series of desks placed around the room. There was an entire nation’s history lying in secret beneath my shed and my grandfather had never told me.
At first I felt anger, anger for his secrecy, and anger that he hadn’t shared these with more people. Then I felt an immense amount of yearning and I dove into the pile of books. It was when I came across a book entitled the Holocaust, that I stopped. He’d mentioned this word before.
I opened its pages and began to read. Word after word of pure terror and slowly as I read further into the book, I began to feel fear. This piece of history had repeated itself and no one was aware of it. The dictatorship of Hitler… the discrimination…. The Arian race…. The genocide…. It had all happened again. I sat crying in that room for a long time, crying for my nation, and crying for numbers of people that had been killed all because we’d thought we were better than them. A rumbling shook the room…

I looked down below the building. People were walking out onto the streets, men heading home from their jobs, woman from their socials, and children from their schooling. This was the exact moment when everyone poured into the streets at the same time.
“Are you ready?” Finn called from the other side of the roof.
I smiled and looked down at the papers I held in my hands. He’d been planning this for years …

The police had come to arrest me but Finn rescued me. It turned out that while he was busy guarding his secret, he’d made a large amount of friends who shared his belief in the matter. Finn was the first to approach my grandfather and because of this, they had become great friends. He was the man that my grandfather had appointed to me if ever something were to happen to me since I had no parents to go to. The time I spent with Finn, was the first time I had actually felt like I had a father. My grandfather was always the wise one but with Finn, I felt like I had someone who could be both a provider of wisdom, and my friend.
My grandfather had been making plans behind my back. In the woods far back behind my house, a lodge had been built, and within that lodge, a printing press. After a week of working alongside these people who wished the world to change. I decided it was time to put the printing press to work. We were going to mass produce pages and pages displaying excerpts from the book describing the holocaust. And when the town’s people walked into the streets, we would throw those papers down from the roofs and it would rain the truth upon them.

I looked at the paper that I held in my hands, and smiled. It was time.
Finn looked over at me, his face matching my smile, and took a mirror from his pocket. The sun reflected down onto his mirror and suddenly a chain of flashing lights reached across our town. Footsteps reached my ears.
I looked behind just as the rooftop door burst open, and police ran onto the tarmac. Someone had not covered their steps.
“Now!” Finn shouted, panicking. And he threw his papers down just as a gunshot sounded and my papers went flying. White mixed with red, and I was falling. I looked up to the rooftop, Finn’s tear soaked face looking down. He had been like a father to me… I looked beside him and saw my grandfather smiling down upon me. Then my body hit the cobblestone, and the last thing I could think was “don’t shoot the messenger.” My blood flowed through the cracks in the road as fingers picked up the papers strewn on the ground. Red stains accompanied the ink. People all over the town were reading the truth and those first lines “it all started with a man named Adolf Hitler.” Eighty years After Peace and we would have it again.

Iron

There is an old man who sits on the corner of Beth and McKay Avenue and talks. To any passerby, his words would sound like the ramblings of an insane man, but if you listen, if you truly tune into what he is saying, something within you is stirred because deep down, you feel that whatever he is saying is the truth.
I was walking to work when I first listened to him. My mind was empty as I walked down those busy streets, too used to my daily routine. At times like that, any thought could have popped into my head but instead of my own voice filling my empty mind, his voice took over.
“Iron.” He had said and it was the seriousness, the sheer intensity of how he delivered that one word which caused me to look over and meet the emerald green eyes of the pale old man. His facial expression did not change and he kept his piercing stare as he continued to speak.
“Iron fills this city and people do not understand the poison that it holds for both the mind and the body. The buildings poison the mind to believe there’s nothing else out there and the body becomes polluted, impure, plagued with disturbance. I see the evidence in the sunken faces of youth and the bodies lying broken on the sidewalks. This is why they exile us here from my world. They exile us to become poisoned and die.”
A tear formed at the edge of the old man’s eye and I stood back in alarm. A pit formed at the base of my stomach and I turned away from him, too afraid to stay. I tried to push his words from my mind and hurried on to my office.
The words came flooding back to me around midday and they peeled away at my mind until they were the only thing I could think of. Something about what he had said disturbed me and I knew I had to go back to him. So I gathered my things and slipped out of the door unnoticed.
He was not in the same place as he was in the morning. I scanned the corner for him until finally my eyes caught the sight of a pale figure sitting in the darkness of an alleyway.
“I’ve been sitting here for two years and never have one of you creatures come back.” He said as I slowly sat in front of him and gazed into his weathered face.
“Your world.” I whispered, hoping he would take the prompt, and he did.
“Ah yes,” He sighed, “my world.”
He smiled nostalgically and began to tell me the story of his world. There is no iron in his world, he explained, for his people are allergic to it. His cities are built with stone and wood. He told me that humans don’t realize that they too are allergic to the iron. The body requires wilderness and nature to be truly calm. When he finished, he told me he was exiled by his people and left here to die.
Slowly, his eyes closed and he fell into a deep sleep. I knew then that it was my time to leave. His story lulled me to sleep later that night.
The next morning, I looked for him again on the street corner but he wasn’t there. I walked to the alleyway and searched for that pale face. There was a quilt with beautiful patchwork lying in the dirt of the ground. I walked into the darkness to get a closer look.
The quilt moved suddenly and a hand shot out grabbing my own. I looked down upon the old man but his face was so caved in and ill looking that he was almost unrecognizable.
He smiled and whispered, “Thank you for coming back.” Then he closed his eyes and continued to sleep with a smile on his face. I shook my head sadly and wondered if I’d ever see him again after today.
I left for work early the next morning before the sun rose and quickly ran back to the alleyway. It was empty and the darkness seemed sad and haunting. I knew deep down that the old man would not be there anymore.
His quilt lay in the dirt but this time, it did not cradle the old man beneath its patchwork. I put my bag down and sat on his empty quilt. I watched as the sun rose beyond the city, painting it in gold and I swear, just then, that I caught a glimpse of another world, his world, just beyond those buildings.

Homicidal Acts of Kindness

The title Homicidal Acts of Kindness sounds intriguing to me.

Help me understand.

Help me understand why the shadows move in constant direction, disappearing, overlapping, contorting the situation at hand.

Help me understand why the sun never rises any more to cast our shadows.

Help me understand why when it does, mine is the only one I can see.

Help me understand.

Because I don't understand.

Today walking home, I passed a hedge who's leaves were made of sparrows chirping excitedly and I jumped over a gushing river made by someone's burst water pipe.

Theo and the Sky Captain

The crash happened around midnight and Theo awoke with fright. What was it? He wondered as he pushed himself out of bed. He stood still for a moment trying to make out the sounds of his parents awakening but instead all he heard was a faint snore coming from their room. He decided it was safe to move about.
The crash had come from the roof and Theo figured that the only way to figure out what caused it was to go outside and look. So he tiptoed out into the family room, grabbed his sweater and his shoes then made his way out into the night.
The night sky was littered with stars and the moon was full. There was not a cloud in sight. Theo spun in a circle watching as the stars spun with him until his eyes fell on a dark shadow hanging in the sky. It could not be a cloud because it was too dark and its shape too round. As Theo squinted to make out the shape, he realized that there was a long ladder hanging down from it all the way down onto his roof.
“Excuse me my boy!” a booming voice called from his rooftop, “Can you give us a hand here?”
Theo stood in awe as a tall bearded man made his way out of the darkness. His coat was fitted with brass buttons, his britches held tight to his calves with strong leather boots and on top of his head there lay a beautiful captain’s hat. This man was everything he aspired to be.
Through his amazement, Theo managed a small nod.
“I’ll send a ladder down for you lad!” The man said and immediately a ladder was thrown from the top of the roof to the ground.
Theo hesitated for a moment then ran to the base of the ladder with excitement. When he made it to the top, the man reached out a strong callused hand to help him up.
“The name’s Captain Vaughn, nice to meet you!” The captain said shaking Theo’s hand. It looked like a doll’s hand compared to the captain’s.
When on his feet, Theo looked around at the circle of men standing around on his roof. “Um, excuse me, Captain Vaughn?” Theo asked.
“Yes my boy?” The Captain answered.
“Why are you all on my roof?”
“Well,” Captain Vaughn began, “We need your help.”
Theo looked at the captain skeptically, “Help with what?”
Captain Vaughn beamed and crossed his arms, “HIT THE LIGHTS BOYS!” he yelled and pointed up with his free hand.
Theo’s eyes grew wide as he looked up and a shiver of excitement crawled down his spine. One by one various lights began to light up on the side of the huge shadow revealing the most magnificent airship.
“That,” Captain Vaughn said with pride, “is The Sylph.”
“It’s amazing!” Theo gasps walking around the roof to get better views of the base of the ship, “I can’t believe something like this actually exists!”
“Well yes, it is amazing.” The Captain sighed, “But at the moment, it’s not exactly mobile. This is why we need your help.”
“Sure! Anything!” Theo said enthusiastically.
Captain Vaughn smiled and clapped the crew to their feet, ordering them around and assigning different jobs
“You,” He said pointing at Theo, “will accompany me up to the control car.”
“Really?” Theo asked excitedly.
“Of course! You want to help don’t you?”
Theo nodded and followed Captain Vaughn to the base of the rope ladder hanging from The Sylph. It was a long way to the top and Theo was frightened that he wouldn’t make it. But as he and the Captain grabbed hold of the first steps, the ladder began to retract and they were reaching the ship faster than they would have if they had climbed.
“Even though they look quite tough,” The Captain explained, “The crew still gets scared when it comes to that ladder.”
Theo laughed and then looked around the control room. There were maps, charts, and compasses sprawled everywhere. The walls were lined with tall paned glass windows and in the centre of the room; there lay a huge wooden wheel as though straight from a pirate ship. Small screens flashed diagrams of the interior and exterior of the ship and levers sprouted out from dashboards circling the car.
“Wow.” Theo breathed, amazed at all the various trinkets.
“Now lad, I need you on that lever over there.” Captain Vaughn instructed pointing at the lever nearest to Theo. “When I say go, pull ‘er down for me, okay?”
Theo nodded and placed both his hands on the handle.
“Alright men, turning the engine propeller!” The Captain yelled through a microphone hanging from the ceiling. “Okay, Theo, pull the lever!”
Theo pulled down with all his might, there was a sudden jerk, a bang, and then a low hum could be heard throughout the airship.
“Great job Theo!” The captain beamed and turned back to the microphone, “Regulating the hydrogen! Cut those ropes men, and climb aboard! Let’s get this ship moving!” Captain Vaughn turned a wheel on the dash and soon Theo could hear the sound of the ladder retracting.
A young woman with short hair stuck her head into the control car, “Sir, the crews all on board.”
“Alright Casey, tell everyone to get to they’re posts.” Captain Vaughn said and turned to the microphone, “LET LOOSE THE BALLAST!” He shouted.
Theo heard a rumbling come from within the shift, the diagram changed on the screen in front of him, and as he turned to look out of the window, he noticed the ship gaining elevation.
“Alright Theo, how about that ride?” Captain Vaughn said turning to him.
Theo shook his head, “I can’t, I have to get back to bed before my parents wake up.”
The Captain looked at Theo with confusion for a moment then smiled, “Of course we’ll get you down on the ground and back to bed in no ---
Suddenly a red light began to flash and a siren sounded throughout the giant airship. Theo jumped with fright.
The woman, Casey, stuck her head back into the control car, “There’s a distress signal coming from an airship within the clouds Captain. They say it’s urgent”
The Captain flashed a sympathetic look at Theo, “Sorry lad, but we have to take this. The Sylph is a rescue boat, there’s no time to get you back on the ground!”
“But--!” Theo tried to call but before he knew it, the captain was already at the wheel and increasing the ship’s speed. Casey entered the control car and sat down at a stool in front of one of the control boards.
“8,000 ft.” She read marking it down on one of the charts. Theo figured she must be the navigator.
He walked slowly to the window, put his fingers to the glass and watched as his town disappeared in a mess of clouds.
“10, 000 ft.” Casey said in a monotone voice.
Theo watched the wisps of cloud pass by, wrapping its white hands around the shape of the airship. Then the clouds gave way to clear air. Theo gasped and stepped back from the window. The scenery had changed drastically, the sky could not be seen but was covered by what seemed like a dome shaped cloud and floating islands could be spotted in the distance.
A giant shadow began to fall over the control car as a glorious whale shaped creature flew by the window, flapping it featherless wings. Theo became entranced in the creature’s movement; his eyes followed the wings as the seemed to ripple with the air.
“Welcome,” The Captain boomed, “to The Land within the Clouds!”
“This is real?” Theo cried excitedly.
“You better believe it!” Captain Vaughn said, “Now, lets go find us a ship in distress.”
“The signal originates from this area right here.” Casey said pointing to a spot on her map.
“Okay, set the coordinates to that location.” Captain Vaughn ordered turning his wheel. Theo watched as the ship began to turn towards a patch of clouds that appeared darker than the rest.
“It’s a storm.” Theo said his brow furrowed.
“That it is.” Captain Vaughn answered, “Looks like this ship is having a little trouble with the lighting.”
Slowly, Theo watched as the shape of a smaller airship appeared within the storm. Forks of lighting were striking all around it and wind was pushing it around in circles.
“Alright men, we’ve approached the ship! Everyone to their positions, let’s reel her in!” Captain Vaughn called into the microphone.
“Theo, grab onto something!” The captain yelled, “We’re heading into some unstable air!”
Immediately, Theo’s hand shot out to grab hold of the railing circling to the control car. As The Sylph began to close in on the ship in distress, the control car began to shake tossing some of Casey’s tools about. Theo tightened his grasp.
Cables began to shoot out from the sides of the airship and attaching themselves onto the sides of the ship in distress, stabilizing it from the wind.
“Nice work gentlemen, now lets reel ‘er in.” The captain ordered into the microphone.
Slowly the ship began to move closer to The Sylph until it was bound still up against the ship’s side. Theo sighed a sigh of relief but just then a fork of lighting branched out from the dark clouds and kissed the top of the other ship sprouting fire where it touched.
“Captain, they’re hit!” Casey yelled, running to the window.
The Captain frowned and wiped his brow, “Theo! Take the wheel!” He called motioning for Theo, “I have to go help put out the fire!”
“What?” The asked suddenly nervous, “But I can’t fly this ship!”
“Theo, please! You can do it, I have faith in you!” The Captain grabbed Theo’s hand and placed it on the wheel, “You’ll make a great captain!” Captain Vaughn said and then raced out of the control car door.
Theo looked to Casey for help but received none as he noticed that she was too involved in her own work of measuring the altitude of the ship. Realizing it was all up to him; Theo grasped the wheel tightly and took a deep breath. He could feel a slight pull of the wheel but he fought it with all his might and tried to remain stable.
Through the side of his eye, Theo could see the fire on the other ship slowly go out as a stream of water was sent over it.
“They did it!” He cried with relief.
“You did it!” Captain Vaughn said as he re-entered the room, “Now Theo, lets get out of this storm.”
“But…” Theo began.
“Just turn the wheel slightly and watch as the ship turns.” Captain Vaughn instructed as he moved to Theo’s side.
Feelings of pride washed over Theo as he saw the ship turn away from the lighting and exit the dark perilous clouds back into the clear air. He let go a loud breath and a yawn.
“Very well done Captain Theo. But I think its time you went to bed.” The Captain gestured to a hammock hanging in the corner of the control car and giving back the wheel, Theo made his way towards it. He was asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.
The bells of his alarm clock rang throughout his room and Theo’s eyes jutted open. He was back in his room. Theo frowned and a vast feeling of disappointment came over him. He slowly got out of bed and made his way towards the kitchen where he poured himself a bowl of cornflakes.
Sad, Theo sat down at the table and put his head in his hand. He gazed out the window at the bright blue sky with a yearning to be flying once again.
His mother yawned as she walked into the room, “Good morning Theo.” She said.
“Morning…” Theo mumbled, he didn’t think it was a particularly good morning.
“Hey Theo,” His mom asked, “Do you know what that bang was on the roof last night?”
Theo’s eyes widened in shock, he quickly turned to his mother, spilling his cereal on the table. Happiness washed over him and he beamed as he ran out the door…

"We need your help again Theo."