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flansterthefilm · 6 months

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Kill Your Darlings

Do you see it now, the sea that lies before us? The droves of them, each unique in their own right yet, in a far larger scheme, no more important than the last. They stay in the order intended for them, the order that is able to convey ideas of sights and sounds, people and locations, feelings and experiences. Some glowing brighter than others, none glowing brighter than needed. Not any one of them is essential, but not any one of them can be removed for the structure of what has been created would topple, and all meaning would be lost. A lesson in utilitarianism, everyone you can see serves one purpose and nothing more. Even the flourishing, superfluous decorative as it may seem, serves only to further convey the message that they try to make clear. The picture is clear: If they’re down there they have a purpose. If they’re down there they must stay.

And that’s why, my beauty, you are with me for the time being.

As I hold your head in my hands I gaze into the eyes that try to remain shut. Tears escaping from the windows into your soul slide down my trembling thumbs and the salt burns the rough lining of wear my nails meet flesh. My fingers caress your wonderful, golden locks as your stress frizzes them and makes the head they’re bound to light. Your light summer dress becomes dotted by the markings of snot flung off your face by your shaking body.

Your beauty, a beauty blemished by a terminal existential fear, is not lost, and that is why you are with me.

You are gorgeous, a sight to behold, and the reason you were created, the reason you were taken. You were the garnish in the wondrous souffle I had made. You’d be the stand out, someone everyone would speak of, someone remembered long after the work you were born of was forgotten.

But can’t you see and understand now as we lay in this vantage? That beauty is why you’re here. Where you were made to belong wasn’t where you ought to be. Your glow, the same that illuminates the valley below us, burned too bright. You unknowingly sabotaged what I had envisioned as a masterpiece. Your actions, what you never paid mind to, to me served the purpose of crushing this extension of myself. You are not at fault, but rather I am for creating you only to serve as dressing, only to feed my ego. No one told me Frankenstien’s monster would be so gorgeous.

I will not forget you. Somewhere out there, in another world of my creation where you’ll fit. A world meant for beings like you. This is a promise.

Until then I have the unenviable task of keeping you locked in my psyche. There you’ll wonder in this endless labyrinth, a House of Leaves with an ever changing design and feng shui. When the time is right you will leave.

Even now I worry this is all in vain, this lesson I’m trying to teach. A kitsch attempt to capture the essence of works from which I take inspiration from. Kehlmannian shots toward grandeur.

But this is of no matter now. With this I leave you to be an unwilling part of me until the time is right.

Goodbye, my darling.

#short story #writing #amatuer writer #ethereal #kill your darlings

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flansterthefilm · 6 months

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Heaven was Empty

Heaven was empty last time I was there.

Not an angel in sight and not the slightest blow of a trumpet to greet my arrival.

The choir had gone silent.

Because no one was left to be in the choir.

Saint Peter rested at his podium, slumped over, barely on his chair.

His snores deafening amongst the silence, his halo atop his head, covering his eyes.

The gates left open and swayed in the breeze.

Angelic screeching of the rusted hinges

Past: a landscape of clouds broken by the piercing grassy knolls.

Knolls of orange grass that’d shimmered in the light.

Wherever that light now was.

I walked and my footsteps sunk when in these clouds.

Trying not to trip when my steps went too low.

Blinding light from below, rays from the floor.

No noise barring the breeze past my pinna.

God.

I lay down with him as we look above.

More clouds and more nothing.

My head lay on his robe.

Where did they go?

By their own accord, they didn’t belong

Silence again.

Then why am I here?

The dignity to give up.

You're all that's left.

Is that true?

I'm asking.

And you, you expect me to know?

Ridiculous.

#poetry #free verse #amatuer writer #amatuer poet #free verse poetry #religion #atheism #god

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flansterthefilm · 6 months

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The Museum of Fat Albert

The mega-structure, the mecca, The Museum of Fat Albert.

It stood before me as I observed from the parking lot, near speechless at the scale of it all. Only one story high high and yet glistening in the Ohio sunlight in its gold plated glory. The tops of the building domed, emulating a castle of a mythical world. The sign glowing, blinding me more than the sun’s puny light ever could, reading “Fat Alb rt Museum”. The lights of the first E had been burnt out but that wasn’t an issue, the rest of what captured my attention more than made up for it. Large agape double doors, both ten feet tall, greeted all those who dare have their minds warped by the treasure trove of knowledge that lay within. I would be one of those who dared, I would get to feel the pleasure of my favorite cartoon character.

The contrast between the indoor region of the complex was as palpable as it could get without it being visible. The blistering heat of the midwestern summer, tainted as it was by omnipresent greenhouse gasses, met a worthy foe in the form of the air conditioning that had been built in. The force of hundreds of hydrogen bombs blasted through the many thousands of vents allowing for a cool seventy degrees fahrenheit to permeate throughout the museum. All this led to my distraction at the lobby, what a sight.

A large open rotunda, a circular desk at its center. On either side of the desk, large inflatables of the cast of the show, the show of Fat Albert stood tall.

The clerk within this semi-circle desk looked dead inside. Her hair was uncombed and frizzed to hell. Her glasses were sliding down her face as did her skin, warped with her age. What stood out the most was the lack of others in the lobby.

As much as I looked around my eyes never landed on another soul barring the woman. Less of a wait to see the numerous exhibits I supposed. Still, the echoes of my footsteps bouncing around were notes of confusion as I walked.

The purchase of the ticket was swift. As I requested a day ticket the lady looked at me with her cold, dead eyes. Eyes that lived so many lives, eyes that weren’t happy in the life they did not find themselves in. She didn’t speak as she rang me up and this made me doubt that she even could. His lips sat pursed upon her face. They looked swelled, so much so that the possibility that her ability to open them was met with dubiousness as I pondered. When she handed me the stubs that’d get me in I took note of her hand, lord her hands. So boney, saying “skin and bones” would do a disservice to the slenderness of the digits. Liver spots dotted her hand and they shook, the weight of the ticket being almost too much to handle on her own in this frail age. What did they do to you?

As a boy I had seen these eyes before. My great aunt, mother’s side, fought in Vietnam during the war. However, whereas her compatriots fought with guns and planes, she stood behind friendly lines, she was a nurse. Seldom did she speak of her experience during her years of lucidity, haunted by whatever it was she saw while there. And these years brought intrigue, my younger self, oblivious to horrors, asked her again and again what it was she saw while overseas. And, of course, she never answered, why would she? It wasn't until her mind began to slip in what ended up becoming the latter days of her life. Diseases ate away at her brain. Trapped in a shriveled husk of a cranium, her memories forced her way out and they found themselves exiting through mouth as she spoke. Sometimes they’d come back, sometimes they were out permanently. She was relieved by what she had done, what she had seen. The injuries of the men, those she saved and those she had let slip. Cursed with the knowledge of the extent that which humans have the capacity to operate on. The look of this lady that I would never know was that of my great aunt.

What did they do to you?

Beyond the desk, the inflatables, was the ticket taker. In keeping with the trend of machines replacing the human work force, the being that would authorize my entrance was an automaton. A cutout of Rudy, legs bent, one hand on his hip and the other outstretched, a slit in it to feed my ticket into. And that’s what I did, and as I did the small, waist high gates opened and allowed me passage.

The astonishment that would’ve taken over my eyes and my attention had been hindered by the visions of my long deceased relative in the vestige of that woman. I stood at the precipice of a long hall, longer than it had any right to be, I could see this through my admiration for Fat Albert. I doubted that anything that originated from a show like Fat Albert could warrant a hall of this size, even if all of the accompanying Cosby Kids were represented.

Again my footsteps acted as notes. Echoing through the hall, not another being in sight, no clothes to absorb the sound.

On both sides of my body I saw artifacts encased in glass, artifacts I wouldn’t have expected to be physical.

Dumb Donald’s wool beanie and the orange cap of Rudy, the microphone that Fat Albert himself would sing into in the intro of every episode. The memorabilia was astounding to say the least. Each item I saw exceeded the quality of the last. The offputting sounds of my lone footsteps were drowned out by the tenacity of those who put together the museum. Every little item, down to the shoes Mushmouth wore and the slide Dennis ruined, was accounted for. My neurons were being fried by the rate of the internal fire raging in my head.

As a boy I would watch this show, this show with Fat Albert, and clap in delight as my favorite group of kids would find fun things to do together and find new solutions to tough problems. Every moral fiber of my body owes its existence and reinforcement to Fat Albert and those Cosby Kids.

The television, playing worn out VHS tapes and scratched DVDs, often was my only companion during the long nights. My parents worked late into the evening to make ends meet and hadn’t any siblings to speak of. So in the absence of anyone else I imprinted on whatever old cartoons we had laying around. Home release media was my first target of admiration, but it was Fat Albert and his shenanigans that was my first true love.

So it’s no wonder that the joy and euphoria of this place hit me like a dump truck filled to the brim with lead. I could have spent hours simply rummaging through the exhibits and taking it all in if it weren’t for the allure of whatever it was that I could next see. The only true consequence of this desire to see all on display was the speed at which I reached the end of the hall.

Contrary to my belief the hall didn’t twist or turn in order to fashion itself into a loop, something to guide the guests back to the lobby after a day well spent. It just… ended. Ended in a set of double doors, far less grand than the ones at the front entrance. They look like they’d be more at home in a restaurant’s back area, somewhere where the dingey nature of them couldn’t be seen by the public. Atop the doors sat a sign that read “UNDER RECONSTRUCTION”. Beneath the letters that had been crossed out was “CONSIDERATION”. A room under reconsideration rather than reconstruction was an oddity

I looked back at the hall I had just walked, then to the door, then back to the hall. No one in sight. Not a single person who cared enough to walk down. However this also meant that there wasn’t a single person to see me trespass. I paid for my tickets, it was only fair that I see more of what this place had to offer, sign be damned.

The doors opened slowly, the rusted hinges screaming as they did so. Neglect was the likely culprit. The “reconsideration” this section was being put under should have remained a reconstruction, or rather just a construction as this room was near barren. All that inhabited it was a glass casing, like the hall before it. However this casing was separated from the wall, it just sat square in what must’ve been the center of the room. I couldn’t be certain as to where it sight exactly, the room was dark, dark enough for the case in the center of a circle of light shining from a single lamp above, to be the only thing visible.

I walked, my footsteps did not echo.

I could hear my own breaths as they cautiously left my body. The cool climate of the rest of the museum had left me, and in its place was the warm stuffiness of where I found myself then. Humidity overtook me, just seconds in and I began to sweat from my brow.

Flight logs. Brown Hornet related handkerchiefs, an image of Fat Albert with an old man… Jeffery Epstein.

No… no… no no no no.

My eyes widened, being irritated by the wind of my heavy breaths. I stepped back from the case as I tried to muster the slightest peep from my lips, something to prove to myself that I could control the situation, something to prove that whatever happens could be handled.

Something from behind the case, a noise. The opening of a door hinges like the one from behind me. I stepped back further, nearing the exit, getting ready to make my escape at the slightest sign of danger.

Footsteps, not echoing, approaching me, from behind the case to the left. Large ones, a large man no doubt.

From behind the case emerged him: Fat Albert.

He saw the look of pure fear that had washed over my face. I could only assume that he knew that I knew too much. He reached his hand out.

“Hey kid…” he spoke to me in his deep, rough voice. “You ever wanted to meet Kevin Spacey?”

At near the speed of sound I whipped my body around and darted out the door. I sprinted down the hall, past all the artifacts I had once considered the highlight of my day, now painful reminders of the man I had once idolized. The absurd length of the hallway was being noticed by me now, it felt like I should’ve been at the exit by now, no avail.

But eventually I did, strafing left to avoid the center desk in the lobby. I took one last look at the clerk. Her boney hand reached out as her face gave me the impression that she’d been aware of everything and was here against her will. No matter, I needed to leave.

I still think about that place, The Museum of Fat Albert.

#fat albert #short story #jeffery epstein #comedic #horror #fiction #amatuer writer

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flansterthefilm · 6 months

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Wokeness

One of the most mind altering cringe things I've seen my entire life is a grown men, maybe in his thirties, losing his shit over the option to select your pronouns in Starfield. He yelled at the screen, he turned the game off, you could see the fires of rage in his eyes burn with the fury of a thousand suns. And one of the most captivating things that I saw said in response to this was that what he was facing mentally had to be some sort of cognitive illness. Holy shit, you're right.

I think that now more than ever there's a strong pushback against the inclusion of any type of marginalized group in media unless they submit to extremely tight standards: Women are fine as long as they're beautiful, black people are okay as long as they aren't too present and don't overshadow the white main character, and the LGBT community are tolerable permitted they aren't at all present. When media doesn't submit to this they face review bombing, unsuccessful boycotts, and even real world threats.

Most commonly we see that these aforementioned qualities not being stuck to birth Twitter rants made by people who paid $8 for a blue checkmark to appear next to their name. They'll write as much as the character limit permits about how whatever studio is responsible for the downfall of the West because some movie had a gay kiss scene or a video game let you play as a deaf black girl.

What you'll see as a pattern in a lot of cases of apparent "wokeness" is that the issue isn't so much what a character says or does but rather a character's inclusion in the first place. In a game like Horizon Forbidden West the main character, Aloy's, sexuality was met with harsh waves of criticism. She wasn't straight and that was an issue. The game didn't make a statement about gay validity vs straight validity, Aloy was just bi or lesbian, end of story. And in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 we have Hailey, a deaf black character who has an OPTIONAL side mission where things were as down to Earth as possible in a game like Spider-Man. She didn't save the day in the end, she didn't use her powers of being black and deaf to overpower the Spider-Men, she just existed. Both of these instances were met with controversy from former FASD babies who accidentally tricked themselves into thinking their opinion was worth hearing.

This criticism, however, goes beyond just dipshits on Twitter. A lot of the time we see major news outlets like Fox News take any given instance of non white, non straight, non male inclusion and turn it into a news story. Most common when Mr. Carlson was on the air, stories about the Little Mermaid being black or the Green M&M no longer being boner fuel because Mars doesn't want people to make their own salty M&Ms before they get their recipe right flooded the air. Tucker doing this unleashed the concept of wokeness unto his millions of fans, and from there conflation began.

Tucker's framing of wokeness made it seem as if any inclusion that didn't fit his ideal standards was inherently bad and worth fighting against. And his ideal standards often made it seem like marginalized groups aren't welcome when compared to straight white men when it comes to their involvement in media. Both are true. And when you have a man like him, the former most watched news personality in America, not only make it seem like the devilish concept of wokeness was just the inclusion of minorities but also validate those who already thought that way, disaster will and did strike.

(I don't believe Tucker is solely to blame however it stands to reason that he certainly didn't help the spread.)

So now we have the mere act of including and in some cases simply acknowledging these minority groups being framed as woke, and woke=bad if you haven't sumised by now.

This rather easily paves the way for any and all representation of marginalized people to be labeled as woke, and when it's labeled as such a pushback from a larger group of people is easy. Those who begin the pushback are simply angry that someone who doesn't look like them are in media they want to enjoy, that's what they see as woke. By using the word "woke" they enlist the help of the uninformed, those who think that the issue is the presence being forced or pandering, that is their version of woke. What they don't know is what they're rallying behind isn't a simple expression of proper inclusion, it's the erasure of inclusion.

From there and with repeated pushbacks the uninformed begin to conflate any inclusion with wokeness. They get mad that a gay person was on Sesame Street or The Simpsons is pro BLM. They think they're at war with pandering. This is not true, they've been radicalized.

Large, public, and vocal outcry leads to executives listening. If they believe that having a black main character is going to drop profits whereas a white one wouldn't, guess which path they'll take. And this will continue with two outcomes for each instance: the minority is replaced with future media or the minority stays and further radicalization happens.

With those who fall into the bigoted category of warriors against the "woke mob" in congress and various positions of power, fighting against what boils down to minorities being present in anything, with them being radicalized just as the uninformed had been or being radical to begin with, I hate to see what's on the horizon for my friends and I.

#lgbtqia #politics #wokeness #essay #personal essay #free write essay #civil rights

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