Versemaker Technic & co.

I was never good with other people, and dear God, they weren't good with me either. I got lonelier with time.

When I waited for someone to wish me a happy birthday, I would wait until the end of the day, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the wait would continue next year. When I got my inheritance, people remembered me.

Good on them, as I gave more than I should have. Though I do not want anyone deprived, I got left with too little.

I would give them everything again; my suffering is lesser than someone else's. Only I suffer. I will sell the house, the property, I will buy a room, and I will have enough money to survive for a few more years with dignity.

When I remember my young days, when I ran around the house and counted the flowers on the wallpaper, I always thought I would live here like my father. Don't people know I was a child, that I'm like them? Will the one who buys all this be able to sleep at night, knowing I will end up on the street?

There has always been an evil circumstance around me. I had abilities, but I didn't use them. When they wrote my destiny, they ran out of nice words, so they used the mediocre and shoddy ones. I could have been a friend and a husband, but I became a stranger.

Simon, in his bed, is looking at the window and sees the Sun's rays evading the blinds and entering his room. He rises and will relieve himself of yesterday in the stillness. When he clicks a button, the blinds in his one-bedroom apartment open, allowing light to enter his abode and seed his microcosm with its influence. The only command of the gentle tyrant, the Sun, was 'move.'

He curses the Sun under his breath, knowing of its weird ways, but avails to the prompt.

He turned on his stereo and connected it to his phone while his tea steeps. As he plans for a job interview, one he has faint hope for, he hears the Tune. She is akin to other melodies, but her metaphor is altogether different. He sees the name on his smartphone, and as he taps it, the program crashes. Simon is surprised and tries the search box after the app restarts, but the resolution does not come. He feels a slight fear; and leaps to the conclusion of strange influences quite quickly.

He cautiously drinks his tea as concerns pass through his mind, but he rejects them and tells himself he was never easily spooked. When he emptied the cup, he picked up his keys and walked out the door.

Driving his car to the business he is interviewing at, he hears some songs he has heard before. They sound different—the phrases sung and the notes played do not add together to what he previously believed they did. He notices a theme and a moral to the musical stories, and they all say: “Recommence and sustain the system.” He rejects the perceived message as he enters the building. A person leads Simon to the waiting room. He puts in his earphones and waits, and as he opens his phone, he sees the song recommended on the lock screen.

He touches the 'play' button without hesitation. This time, listening to the Tune, he hears the words: “Break and dissolve.” By the time the song ended, the door was wide open. Simon sees with supernatural clarity his name on the desk in the office as a luminous fog whirls in it.

Every day I want to write, but I don't. Too much has already been revealed. If I write, I will unleash more of it into the world. If I write, I'll want to share it with somebody else. I can't even hide it when talking to people. The weight of it is too much for me, and my mind is too feeble to comprehend half of it.

What I imagined felt all too real, and if there's any truth to it, we're in for a much darker fate than we all assume, with no escape. What can be said of our world if what I imagined is true and what can be said of it if it can unearth such images to an ordinary writer, dismissing the subject of their veracity? Since it came into my consciousness, all my emotions are shades of fear.

If I write, I might see it confirmed.

Richard felt it was inappropriate to do it this way, but he meant to break up with Angela. He video-called her to talk, laying in his bed in his modern bedroom, with a view of just one star outside alongside the Moon.

“Can we hear each other?” said Angela, with a backdrop of her kitchen behind her. “I can hear you,” Richard responded. “You said you wanted to talk.”

And talk they did, about their relationship and their feelings, but Richard didn't quite feel he steered the conversation in the right direction and was starting to bite his lip in the pauses and periods when she talked. Suddenly, as he pulled his head down to look at the letters on his laptop's keyboard, Angela's voice came sliced up, out of order, and corrupted.

“We're breaking up,” Richard said with emphasis as his tongue slipped. “... you s—, breaking up?” “I said you're breaking up,” Richard fibbed after an overly long pause.

Angela told him he was full of it rudely and asked him if he intended to end his relationship with her, after which silence fell. Her short outburst of anger was a disappointment but also a grain of comfort for Richard, as he had accomplished what he set out to do but in the wrong way.

Jenny was under a tree she didn't know the name of, sitting on a park bench with a book. While she got books at the library for a nominal monthly fee, friends and lovers were luxuries she didn't have. Jen felt like a single red rose, a present received only once by her. The book told of one man's journey through India, and the hues of the leaves slowly shifted as she read through it, from an inviting green to melancholic orange and yellow, but they remained primarily green by the day she finished it.

When she closed the book, rays of sunlight passed through the leaves to speckle the paperback with shadow and shine. She looked at the pattern and the branches and sun above and saw no connection between the abstract artwork and its makers. Throwing her gaze at the cover, the library behind her with its columns embodying civilization, the fountain right in front of her which bragged about the passage of time, she felt the wind pass politely by her and recollected the stories she had read so far.

Jenny stepped on the gravel, traveling to the repository of books, and felt an ice-cold river pass through her heart. Arriving, she chose a classic novel set in bygone times and thought about this possibly being the last book she will ever read. A mysterious feeling had shown up in her head, and the birds sang along with it in the park. Her bench was still free, and after sitting down, she looked at the cover speckled with light.

Jack was in a tastefully lit bar, sitting next to a woman he found suitably attractive. His suit was tailored, and his movements were measured. He sliced the silence with words extracted from nonexistent bestsellers, his drink laying undisturbed by anything but the vibrations of his voice and motions of the establishment and its neighbors.

The woman he spoke to swirled and took sips of whiskey, her responses were curt, and she showed slight amusement. A woman with hair of golden springs and fur on her neck touched his shoulder and tried to steal his attention, but his efficient mating dance would not be interrupted. He, however, soon watched the woman he had courted leave, giving a tip and payment for the bar.

The rejected suitor returned to his place of residence, an empty suburban house. He sets out to dream. At the beginning of it, the black hair and red lipstick of the woman came alive, the words “No thanks” materialized and dissipated repeatedly. He dreamt vividly, and after he saw the woman come into his imagined villa on the beach, surrounded by safes full of money and diamonds, and she said clearly: “Not for sale by money or words.”

When he woke, he read his mail, tapped fingers lightly on his table, and reasoned himself to a previously unrealized truth. His lack of love was self-caused, as he sought to conquer with wit what he should have harbored in his heart. He must capture love, a feeling foreign to him, and he starts by trying to love himself.

Every day, after his morning ablutions, Mark opened and read from two books, two books written together by a great poet—a pair of a happy collection of poems and a sad one—and from his preference concluded how his day would go on. He found this method infallible, as when he preferred the joyous book, he would be happy, a logical consequence of some internal decision of the carbon-based computer in his head. Fortunately, Mark thought, his inclinations changed from time to time, so he was not bored with his emotions and even postulated that the mechanism was designed to keep him involved.

Today, Mark was glad to prefer the happy poetry because he will have the chance to meet the author of these fate-deciding books and, barring any inconvenience, get them both signed by him. Since the day would be filled with joy either way, Mark desired for his brain to play along and make this day one to remember by its feelings, as well as by its events. On the journey to the bookstore in which the writer would be, he allowed himself to enjoy the trees, persons going about their day, cars whizzing by, nature's allowances of happiness for Mark, and a gift from the heavens. This day.

When he arrived at the shop of wonders, he saw a sign saying: “Only one signing by Mr. Gordon,” and was deeply disappointed. He would not be able to get both books signed. Getting one inscribed by the author he respected, the other remaining plain, would disrupt Mark's equilibrium of emotional evaluation. When his wait in the line of patient fans was over, he met his role model and shared his story, secretly and lightly hoping of getting a boon of an additional signing.

The poet listened carefully, nodded along, uttered generously insightful notes, and offered to sign a piece of paper that Mark could copy and stick to the first page of either book, a mark of wisdom, empathy, and fairness. On the mentioned piece of paper Mark produced, he had written swiftly and signed it:

Dear Mark,

When it waxes and when it wanes, just remember who is to blame.

I am sitting in a place nobody wants to be, thinking of my girl. Baby, who is going through that thick head of hair? There was a time I'd give my neck to be near her, but now I'm feeling a noose tighten around it when I'm by her. I desire for her to feel the same, and there is no going back. She'll still be as bright and clear as a summer's day. Her hobbies are all winners, I can't get over her beauty, and she's a brunette from hell.

I'm thirty-two years old, and I live alone. I have a house, but I won't go into it. You might think that I'm a loser, and you'd be right. I got my heart shattered so many times, like you wouldn't believe it if you're lucky. In a twist, it was all by one, one horrid girl. I'm on a park bench throwing bread at pigeons, nature's little flying rats, and it's gratifying enough to forget my predicament, old wounds itching in my heart.

Two years ago, I was sitting at this bench feeding the little shits. Now they're annoying me and my new girl, my only girl. We have a history, but the future is where it is at. She met me here, and now we can't even kiss because of these damn pigeons. I grab her knee, and she grows hot and cold, I can see. I can see myself as a masterful blacksmith, heating and submerging in a bucket of water a piece of metal.

She is singing. Today, she crashed against me like a wave, in a good way. Her talents are golden coins in a leather bag, and she has many talents. I could take her outside, but I'm not going to. I'm putting my arm around her, and this night we could spend together, alone in silent love. She's an icebreaker, and her hair is blonde sea-foam at a sunny isle. She is singing a different tune, one I also like.

She isn't even similar to the other girl, and, boy, that is a good thing.