Clarke's New Writeups

angel-bug (fiction)

2008-08-17T13:56:16Z

He opened his eyes, but nothing changed. It was dark.

The dull ache in his head grew, alarmingly fast. The darkness was like a hurricane of wet concrete, battering Jonas's skin and forcing its way into his nose and ears. First his lips, and then his teeth were shattered as it wormed its way down his throat, setting his insides to motion. His tongue was uprooted and shoved down into his stomach.

He tried to shield his face with his hands, but felt nothing. He couldn't move his arms. Were they still there?

He could feel it inside his body, pushing. He was being simultaneously crushed and torn apart. His throat muscles rippled, the only functioning part of his respiratory system trying to gasp for air.

A tiny light pulsed in front of him. It was small. No, it was far away. It pulsed again, slightly larger. He struggled to concentrate on the light, despite the agony of the pressing cold liquid dark. Another, off to the right, flashed larger. He could tell…

I do not fit inside my body (poetry)

2008-08-14T16:25:22Z

I do not fit inside my body.
Spilling over, I seep into the pores
in the bricks, and the cracks
in the floor, and the spaces
in between the leaves.
My arms, working their hardest,
cannot keep thought from pouring
between my fingers,
and out into the sky.

Thus, I do not feel my feet
on the ground, nor do I taste
the wet in the air, nor do I hear
the creak of the door.
Everything that matters is
somewhere else entirely,
and I cannot
get

back

In my dream, I cannot tell
whether I am flying
or falling.
I laugh and laugh.
This is usually when I wake up.

I do not like writing
nature poems – but here is one
anyway: the water
sledding from green to
green in its manic,
exhilarated flight makes
me think that maybe
after all
I am a giant among…

Self-defense (idea)

2008-08-13T20:46:13Z

I am a 6'3'' white American teenage guy. This fact can pose serious problems when I have to deal with the aggressive behavior of others. I am required by my culture to adhere to codes of behavior which are often contradictory. For example:

As a young, strong male, I am expected to be powerful both in body and will, and make this clear to those around me.

As a young, strong male, I am pretty much required by law not to act in an intimidating or threatening manner to anyone who is a public servant, female, significantly older or younger than me, smaller than me, in my temporary care, or a relative of a girl I am dating. No matter what the situation, as long as my life is not in danger, this rule applies.

Now, on the surface, there seems to be little contradiction between these two 'unwritten rules.' But in fact this makes self-defense very difficult. Consider the following situation:

A female friend of mine is upset with me. She begins to punch me, as hard…

Multiculturalism (idea)

2008-07-24T20:32:30Z

There are several problems with the way most of the free developed nations practice multiculturalism. While the idea of equality for all people is a worthy ideal, liberal reactions to diversity-based issues often make such problems worse. This generally happens in one of several ways:

1. Law enforcement refuses to accept that, in certain cases, crimes are motivated by minority ethno/racial/cultural grievances. They do this by failing to identify involved parties as members of a particular group (when that group's ideology is the motivating factor of the crime) or by absolving those involved of responsibility because they are a minority.

An example would be the riots in Evreux, France in August 2005. Somwhere between 100-200 French "youths" toting baseball bats rampaged through the streets, torching cars, chanting "allahu akhbar," and disrupting the annual fete de pomme, du cidre et du fromage (that's 'festival of apples, cider and cheese',…

Duster (fiction)

2008-07-17T19:14:10Z

When you punch a person in the face the right way, you are aware of him breaking.

If your mind is fast enough, you can feel his face rearranging itself, fluid, around your knuckles and hear the instinctive gasp of his throat closing. I've never bought into all that psychic crap, but as your hand remodels his attic a connection is formed, deeper than anything else I've felt. For a moment, joined by disaster, you are sharing each other's bodies. Both victims are intimately and painfully concious of the damage being done, and are powerless to stop it. Landing a hit like that is not a victory. As the contact breaks, so does the ball of energy inside your chest and suddenly you don't want to fight anymore. This would give your opponent a perfect opportunity to kill you, except that no one gets up from a hit like that.

I didn't even get blood on my hand. His head jerked away too quickly and it flew out in a spray to the left, away…

July 16, 2008 (idea)

2008-07-16T19:56:08Z

This writeup concerns the incident that occured several days ago involving a member of E2 experiencing a medical emergency. I am going to be extremely careful in what I say and how I say it here because I do not fully understand what went on in response to this emergency, or what is considered appropriate on E2 for discussing such things.

While, as far as I am aware, the involved noders quickly and inventively manged to alert the correct police force to the emergency and helped contain a potentially dangerous situation, it seems that it could have gone smoother and been accomplished more quickly. (NOTE: This is not a snipe at those involved. I think you all did a marvelous job, but there are ways it could have been improved.) Since, apparently, similar situations occured previous to this incident, I think that we should not rule out the possibility that such incidents involving any E2 user might happen again. I am therefore suggesting for your consideration the possibility of instituting…