They were on the battlement looking out at the sea of fog that lay just a foot below them, so thick it looked like the edge of the world.
She was sitting in the embrasure, the tips of her feet brushing the clouds of opaque sea.
“Fog’s low tonight,” she said to him.
“Yes, it is.” His response was clipped and uncomfortable.
She kicked her leg up and folded it so she could rest her chin on her knee. “The stigma persists, even here.”
A light chuckle bubbled out of him. “Yes, you may be in a different Kingdom, but that doesn’t mean you’ve escaped the beliefs of Norinth. Don’t tell any of the bigots and loyalists this, but all of us, our kingdoms, they’re all derivatives of the same belief. They difference is in how we approach and enforce those beliefs.
“I am sorry if I seem uncomfortable around you. In my defense there aren’t many, well, really any women in this profession or anywhere near it, not to mention you are quite a case.”
A breeze blew through, ruffling the tops of the trees peeking through the fog.
“I could catch the stars,” she said, reaching toward the sky, “and still people wouldn’t believe in me.”
The moonlight reflected blue off her unusually short hair, and her hand seemed to glow.
“I’m sure they’ll believe you eventually.” He was staring at her, unsure of what she was, because she certainly wasn’t cut from the same cloth as any of the other soldiers.
Erasmus would never forget the first time he saw her. She was dressed like every other woman in court, wearing a bright color, white, a tight-fitted bodice and a loose skirt.
The white made the golden tones of her skin stand out, and her dark hair looked like liquid night. There was a layered gap where extensions had been added to adhere to court fashion. Her face was all sharp angles. Hunger and ice lived in her eyes. She was a waif, but her steps were steady.
No one knew yet why she was there. But once they learned, they wouldn’t look at her the same way.
She looked to everyone else like a visiting noble to be presented to the court, but she wasn’t.
It was in the subtle movements she made to catalogue the room – the way her hands never quite stopped moving.
Erasmus could tell she wasn’t a normal woman. She didn’t look like she was from this continent and he had never seen her before.
The room paid her no heed, there was no reason to, she wasn’t uncommonly pretty or striking, she had no particular air about her that asked the room to look at her, but Erasmus knew by the way the consul from Norinth was looking at her that she meant something more.
He reached the gate just as the sky overflowed, the new storm broke in the form of a huge bone-rattling boom of thunder. Raindrops as big as pebbles began falling at a rate so fast it was like peering though a veil.
The figure he had seen fighting its way up the flooding river toward the church was struggling significantly more as they neared the wall – their energy was clearly waning. The water had reached waist height.
There was a hunting call, and seconds later a group of soldiers broke through the forest across from the draining grate. They drew up short as their heavily booted feet slipped on the steep embankment.
The figure in the cloak stumbled and cursed as they looked back at the soldiers. The head of the group had a deep purple cape, turning almost black as it absorbed rain and mud – a leading officer.
But who was the figure in the river? He watched as they took their last, lunging steps toward the grate, pouring out the last of their strength. Thin, graceful hands gripped the bars, they looked in at him, his hand on the winch to raise the grate.
They were covered in filth and grime, and now closer to him he could see blood. As he peered at them, they became a she. Her eyes were a dark swirling brown, they were possibly warm another time, but now were cold enough to freeze hell.
Photo Credit: Trip Advisor
Otto couldn’t move, her outline was blurry with rain but her eyes shone through like beacons of frost.
Based on the horribly juxtaposed 13 book children’s series, Lemony Snicket’s A series of Unfortunate Events is back on the screen.
After an adaptation starring the ever bold and physical comedian Jim Carey, there was something missing – a certain element of discomfort that made your skin crawl. Long-time and new fans alike are excited to see the whimsical and dark series come to life in ways the movie didn’t.
Thanks to Netflix, 13 years after the movie, fans left wanting more are treated yet again to the world of the Baudelaire Orphans.
Photo Credit: Flickering Myth
Netflix is a growing empire, what with its ever-increasing show and movie collection complete with the little red Netflix stamp in the corner. But none of its other series’ are nearly as daring as Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Clocking in above The Crown as Netflix’s most expensive show to date, and aimed to appeal to every major viewing group, A Series of Unfortunate Events had to jump through all the hoops and stick the landing.
And stick the landing it has, masterfully translating a rich and vivid book series to the big screen.
With Daniel Handler (or better known to A Series of Unfortunate Events fans as none other than the Lemony Snicket) writing for the first two episodes detailing the first book, the show was off to a strong start.
The filming, dialogue and acting perfectly reflect the original material in ways that are often lost in book-to-screen translations. The actual visual and audio result is a style that is resonant with Wes Anderson’s later works like The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom and even Fantastic Mr. Fox, with vivid colors, sharp dialogue, specific score, and subtle etchings of humor in small, seemingly insignificant places that make all the difference.
Sticking pretty closely to the original books, the Netflix series has only upward to look. Having only covered four books of 13, and with the introduction of a secret organization only hinted at in the books, the show will undoubtedly grow in complexity and content as the series goes on.
Questions swirl: who am I, what am I doing, what do I plan to do?
I glance at the banister beneath my hands. It has a cool and smooth texture, but I can’t help but notice that every once in a while a splinter will prick my finger; one off-grain hair on the back of the hyena, one loose screw in a well-oiled machine.
Do I dare to be that screw, to be an off-grain hair?
The banister leers back at me, returning to its faux smoothness, mocking me – showing me that even those hairs are smoothed out. The bottom of the stairs approaches with a swirl of nonexistent dust soaked in blue lighting.
I can feel myself physically growing colder without anything else becoming chilled.
I imagine my breath swirling and dancing, taking to the air, oh how I long to dance that waltz, a waltz that is carefree. Of freedom, non-worry, to dance to an unknown beat, the beat that is all my own with no rules or steps, no one can dictate what it is, what I do, how I move, what I ask, how I ask, what answer I receive.
The end of the stairs comes faster than I want, as if telling me that my time for contemplative thought is over. I stare down the hallway, looking at the doorways – all the doors of different paths I can take; nothing black or white – all gray – all this sad, desolate gray, I can’t figure out what I should do.
Photo Credit: The Millions – The Shining
I know that I want to leave, but I can feel fear closing in around my resolve, fire to ice. Am I a glacier, with more to me than is seen, or am I an ice cube, simple and nothing beyond my square?
“You know it doesn’t work like that,” I say, trying to keep the shakiness from showing.
I feel cold and my eyes burn. I grasp the hemline of my loose tank top. The air around me swishes menacingly through the hair around my ears. I purse my lips making sure I don’t say anything I’ll regret. I nod as a way to say I’m not continuing the conversation, then stalk off down the hall.
I feel the faint sting of a layered label along my stomach. I know immediately what it is: odd. I frown, looking down trying to see my collarbone. I close my eyes, willing the red shadows away. I close my eyes and let out a breath of hot air. The hallway is small, confining, making it hard to expel the blackness rising in me.
The pastel yellow door of the bathroom mocks me. Smiling garishly at the obsidian ice building in me, I grab the handle pulling the door open violently. I get ready for a shower, careful to not bump the new lacerated label. I stare at myself in the mirror. There is black scrawling all over, at all angles.
I begin to rub the new label, causing twinges to run through my legs. As I turn the water on scalding, I scrub it gently at first, then furiously to where the pain is almost too much to bear. I keep scrubbing until it starts to bleed again. The sobs start coming as fast and easy as breathing. I sit down carefully, the snowy porcelain of the shower floor slowly becoming a pale pastel pink.
The tears and the hot water are mixing together. The water shuts off – the allotted time over. “There are other living souls in this house that need the shower!” my mom calls from outside the horrid yellow door.
I don’t justify her calling with a response.
I quickly stand up to grab the heavy-duty band aids out of the cupboard, praying that my mom doesn’t open the door and come barging in like a freight train. I struggle to cover the entire surface area of the label. “Sawyer!” I finish the sad attempt to bandage my leg and sling a towel around myself. Trying to look as dignified as possible, I leave the bathroom.
The path from the bathroom to my room is even narrower and lined with mirrors. A knot forms in the base of my throat. I stumble halfway to my haven without looking at a mirror. But I can’t help it.
I glance up at the mirror. The person that glances back is me but darker, more attractive, and has a murderous gleam in its sinisterly blackened eyes. Its elegantly sculpted brows raise, asking ‘what do you think?’ A slender finger beckons, a full red mouth pulls into a grin, revealing teeth sharpened into points. I can feel it pulling me forward. I struggle to pull myself out of its grasp, until I’m once again staring at my scrawled-on feet and the smooth clean floor.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
I lift my heavy, leaden feet and shuffle the rest of the way to my haven, my room. The dark wooden door opens without so much as a whisper. I make sure to turn on all the lights so there is no shadow left anywhere in the room. The rich cobalt walls reflect all the light, making it seem like I’m underwater.
The first time he saw her was in an airport. A Petri dish of festering emotion and sickening crowds. He’d caught a wisp of her trailing at the corner of his vision, it was only a glimpse, but as he straightened himself back to forward, he knew she wasn’t just a figment of his travel addled mind. As he took a breath and grabbed his bag, a woman in a tight pencil skirt and a ponytail that seemed to pull at even her toes, came and rammed into him, sending him rocking back onto his heels, his brain rattling around like a drunk entering a dark apartment.
He continued toward his connection flight. Through the stifling heat and the crying couples, the chauffeurs with the fancy polysyllabic names spewed across expensive card stock, the pilots walking around with more purpose in their gaze than the entirety of the travelers bulging around them. The click of heels, the swish of slippers and everything fuzzy. He hated flying. He hated the people rushing around like plague bacteria happy to infect the next and the next. He wished he had a storm of anesthetic to clear away the sappy couples, the reuniting, the departing, the people too important to even breathe.
The people with screaming kids were especially bad this time. He flew all the time. He flew in winter. He flew in summer. He flew in spring and sometimes he even flew in autumn. He found his terminal, it was crowded, with lines already formed and spilling out into the walkways. Making irritable people even more irate.
“No Todd I told you it was 6:30. How long has my mom been stuck in JFK?” A pause. “No Todd it’s not okay, it’s not okay at all. She’s eighty! And she’s been stuck in JFK for five hours!”
Now there. There is a relationship that is moving fast, slipping down a slippery slope. It’ll be done in three months tops. He put an earbud in and turned his attention to another airport conversation. His own.
“No, mom, it was delayed. I’m still in Dallas.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes I’ll make it back in time.” It was getting dark. His head was rattling with every breath he took. “Thanks, bye mom, I love you.” He was going to hang up before she said anything else. He did.
He could psychoanalyze himself, he was cynical, very much stuck, but he wasn’t going to do that. There was no fun in that.
Photo Credit: The Telegraph – Rex Features
There was a blip. It seemed as if someone had set the world back a half-minute or badly spliced an old movie together. He blinked. Pursed his lips to one side. That was definitely sleep deprivation and yet, there, there was that baby’s cry again. He inclined his head toward the sound but it was gone, lost in the cacophony of other airport noises. He turned back to forward, only to move six inches forward and hit another abrupt stop. He really hated airports. He ran a hand through his hair making a bad situation worse.
“Oh for God’s sake, how long can this take?” A stranger breathes out. He was a small wiry man with the barrel chest of a Doberman pincer. A contradiction in every sense of the word. The man was innately untrustworthy in his eyes, yet somehow he couldn’t help but agree with the man, a vaguely troubling notion. He shoved the other earbud in, content to cease in his airport judging.
By the time he reached the back of the plane he had exhausted all of his music, which wasn’t saying much. He had very little music, and even less photos. He didn’t have much of anything on his phone, in fact.
He was in the farthest row back, cramped by the window, stuck between life-preserving plastic and the man with the dog’s chest. He could feel it, this flight was going to be obscenely long.
The debates have finished and what’s left of the pure idiotic chaos is not only uncertainty but also fear, very real fear that all American people should feel.
United States! As the most powerful country the U.S. has shot itself in the foot and decided for some reason this was the best course. The U.S. believes its ideology is based on liberty and freedom, yet the two major Candidates running for presidency are: a xenophobic belligerent idiot and a fraudulent capitalist crook. Both of whom have ruined many people’s lives and may very well ruin another three hundred million.
The wickedest part is the idea that the American people have created this monster. Through negligence, polarized views, and civil unrest. Who else to blame for this outrageous race? The average American sees radical views from Trump and believes he’s right, change must happen. Conversely, others are scared as hell of Trump and his narrow views, so they hold on to the idea that Hillary won’t be as totally dishonest and corrupt as she has been in the past, and cling to her leg.
The U.S. is stuck in-between a wall and a hard place, so when given the option to vote, you better take it, otherwise in four years you might not have the chance.
It was snowing. It always seemed to be snowing, but it had gotten worse. Now it was red. The civil war had escalated and the world weeped in response.
It had been years since the snow had been white. Years since the first generation fighting the war had died. It had been years since I’d seen them. Years since they had seen me.
I remember seeing them disappear into the haze of steaming snow, the snow had only been a faint pink then. I remember watching them turn their backs on me.
Everything seemed bloody now. Everything had taken a side. Every decomposing body became part of the atmosphere.
Photo Credit: nachtstern.deviantart.com
The world had been falling apart for far too long. I never saw a time of a white snow. But I have heard it was truly beautiful.
I just want to see the snow fall in a white blanket, once.
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