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Friday, February 10, 2012

Project Searchman: Ready to Launch

Konbanwa!

Okay guys, so to start off today, we have some business. First off, the blog has been secretly working underground on a very special surprise. Alex and I will reveal more and more about this as the month moves along, so you should stay tuned and attentive! What I can tell you today is that L.I.F. is getting a major overhaul, and I mean MAJOR changes, in order to get our readers more interactive with the site as a whole! That way, it'll be your heads soaring the clouds with us instead of having only us stuck on Cloud Nine. ;)

©2011-2012 ~FoReal100
Now, as many of you know, I have been working on plenty of projects since the creation of this site. But I have yet to finish any of them... until now. At last, I have finished a project! Project Searchman is done at last! Now, for those who are unaware of what Project Searchman is, Project Searchman is a series I started in order to dive deeper into who I am and the story that began it. Through multiple poems, short stories, and prose, I have finally develop three layered pieces that detail the depths of my soul. The finished product is called: "Searching For Cloud Nine"!!!!! Each of these pieces will be split into two parts: a piece of prose, and a short story. This will be a Friday exclusive series, opposite of Alex. Hopefully you all will enjoy it. Well then enough rambling, on to the piece!

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Suicide; considered a sin in most cultures. The strength it takes to kill one's self is miraculous. Ironically, it comes from losing all the strength to live in this world. One day, I found myself surfing Facebook, where multiple of my friends from Ohio were posting R.I.P. statuses. I was completely confused, so I messaged a friend to see what was going on. She told me a classmate of ours from while I was in High School there had committed suicide. She was apparently bullied so much that she couldn’t take it. 

I was speechless. I was no stranger to death. I had lost my share of close friends to death. Yet this struck me the wrong way. I was moody, attacking my friends, completely upset. Yet I truly had no reason why. I had no business caring so much. I wasn’t close to her. I barely knew who she was. Hell, I had never spoken to her before in my life. Yet I still cared. I saw her face. I heard her voice. I saw her smile, heard her laugh, like another human being. She was no different than me. I was there when people made fun of her, yet I did nothing. I may not have said a word to her, but by ignoring the situation, I might as well have said, “I don’t care what they do to you honestly.” Why do I care so much? Because I watched it happen to a friend once before. I was the one who let it pass, who didn’t care, until it was too late. I remember what it was like to know someone was in pain, yet I did nothing. I said to myself, “Nah, it’ll be okay. Things will work themselves out.” Yet they didn’t. She lost her life, because we… I…left her for dead. Once again. Oops, there I go, being dramatic again. Time to put back on this mask, and be someone else for a change.
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Dim lights illuminating my path, I trekked through the snow-covered streets of downtown Cincinnati. Nose chilled and runny, I dragged my way through the snow as I attempted to reach my destination. At the edge of my vision I noticed a couple cuddled together as they walked down the street. I zipped up my coat and put my hands in my pockets.

“Cold huh?” a voice spoke in my head. “Don’t expect to ever be like that guy.”

I watch as the man smiled at the girl draped on his shoulder. Gay expressions spread across their faces; they embraced momentarily to kiss one another before heading into the theater across the street from me. I quickly caught myself staring and moved on, accidentally running into a passing businessman.

“Sorry…” I said embarrassed, but the man continued without a word.
“Don’t bother, you’re invisible remember?” the voice said again.

I continued to my destination, arriving at a small café on the corner of the street. I took a quick peek inside and found it empty. Confused, I pull out my sidekick and dialed my friend’s number. After about five rings, she picked up.

“Hello?” she asked the sound of music almost louder than her.
“Hello, Ashley? I’m at the café,” I said.
“Oh, Rey babe, I’m sorry we won’t make it tonight.”
“Oh I see… another day perhaps?”
“Um yeah sure sweetie, another week… hey stop I’m on the phone!... Okay, well bye!” Ashley hung up.
“More like never again,” the voice chuckled. I dropped my head, and entered the café alone. The bartender was cleaning glasses when he noticed me. He gave me a concerned look.
“Alone tonight?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“When is it ever more than just us?” the voice said sarcastically.
“I’ll get you the special,” the bartender said. I spun around in my chair, before I noticed the piano in the corner of the café. It was made of black wood from what my eyes told me at the current distance. “Just got it in, you can go play if you like,” the bartender said softly.

I dashed from my seat over to the piano, where I took a seat and slowly ran my hand over the fine black wood. I lifted a finger to touch a key. I hesitated for a moment, then lightly pressed the B-flat key. The beautiful tone of my favorite note infected the air. I closed my eyes and let the note vibrate in my ears. I reached into my pocket and took out a beat-up crimson journal. I opened to where the bookmark was and placed the small book on the stand in front of me. I strained myself to read the hand-written notes before me.

“You know you really are a piece of work.” The voice said.
“F sharp, E, B…” I said as I began to play.
“Too much of a worm to be loved…”
“E, G, A, E, E…”
“…The pen that writes your life in everyone else’s hand…”
“G…”
“…Invisible to the entire world…”
“F sharp, G, A, D…”
“…Even when one girl gave you a shot…”
“B, A…”
“She loses her life while you chase another!”
“F sharp, E, B….”
“You even got three chances with one…”
“E, G, A, E, E…”
“…But in the end…”
“G…”
“…when they find who they are…”
“F sharp… G… A, D, E…”
“…They’ll forget about you.”
“…I know.”
“Oh? So why would you insist on continuing?”
“But one day, that won’t be the case…”
“What makes you think you’ll be a special case?”
“I don’t think I will be; I hope I will be.”
“How do you ever expect to be happy like that?”
“Well you’ve got to think about it: What is happiness to anyone? What you find depressing I may find inspiring. What you find garbage I may find to be a treasure. What you find to be solitude, I may find to be loneliness… But you see these notes never seem to change among those of this world, so I’ll keep playing until someone… anyone… hears them.”
“You ignorant little rat! You fucked up bro! There is no saving you anymore! No hope! You’ll fail at everything you’ll ever do! Haven’t enough people told you how weird you are? Stop being your friend because of it? You have no RIGHT to be happy!”
“….I know that.”
“Do you truly understand? If you did you wouldn’t continue this charade…”

“What else do you want William?!” I rose up shouting, the bartender with a puzzled look on his face now. “I have nothing left! Nothing! With all the hardships we have endured, we, yes ‘we’, are still to blame for our problems. We screwed up in the end! We didn’t fight our parents hard enough to stay put! We let our immaturity get in the way of the only one who cared for us! We let the next one walk three times because we didn’t know how to finish a sentence! We make ourselves forgettable! We chose to be like this! We could have practiced night and day! Studied around the clock instead of writing our lives away! But guess what? We chose to whine. Sure we caught some bad breaks, but it was our own lies, misses, and mistakes that landed us here! So give it up already… I’m tired of blaming others for being such a screw-up… I’ll perfect something in order to make up for it… so either keep complaining or make yourself useful. Because whether you like it or not, we are built to shoulder our burdens alone now and forever…”

I flip the small pages, sit back down, and begin to play again. The voice continues his monologue, as the sound of the piano creates the voice for the sorrow in my soul. The rain falls outside, as the teardrops on my own face refuse to fall.

~APLIW~


~Edited by: TMH, Elizabeth, AAA

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