Thoughts from the Rock

by UW Rock County

  He could kill his father. He had no accomplices. His plan would be ruined. No one would die in China. No war would start with Hearth. It would definitely be the logical choice: trading one life for hundreds, thousands, or tens of millions. But still, to Ian one life lost was still too many. Not even to mention that the man was his father. He was the only family member still in contact with Ian. No one else was family to him. If he killed him now, he would be alone.

  No. Ian made himself remember what was fair– what was right. If killing his father was the only way to stop the destruction, he would do it. He would clear his mind completely, take up the family sword, and kill a man to protect his home, just like the samurai who walked this land before him. The romantic allusion did not last long, though. This was real, and Ian was choosing to become a murderer.

  “Even if you wanted to kill me, you could not.” He gave a nod to the katana which hung being Ian. “That sword has never been used since the day it was forged, and you cannot kill me with it either. It’s too far away, and I have a gun.”

  Ian knew this, and he tried his best not to let his frustration show on his face, but he was foolish if he didn’t think he was failing. A thought rushed quickly into Ian’s mind, but he would have to act fast on it before his poor poker face gave away his intentions, or a wave of emotion made him hesitate. He stood up in the chair, rather unexpectedly for his father, who sat up straighter and aimed his pistol. It was a short range, and the man did not need to look down the sights; he kept his armed hand barely hovering over the empty desk. Ian left a pause to show his father this was not an attack, but changed that intention as he swept his hand in an arc in front of him and batted the pistol in his father's hands. The man lost control of the weapon and it tumbled onto the floor behind the desk, far out of Ian's reach, but accessible to his father.

  Ian did not control his body; he let it move from a mysterious instinct which he could not locate. Perhaps it was an evolutionary adaptation that allowed ancient fighting men to survive in battle, or maybe a muscle memory passed down from a warrior of many generations ago. Whatever it was, it controlled Ian as he turned about, grasped the sword by the hilt, and drew it, leaving the scabbard lodged in its place on the mount. A curved sword like this was meant to attack in the same movement as it was drawn, and that is exactly what Ian did. From its sheath he swung downward, adding his second hand to the hilt and he completed a diagonal, downward slash just as his father was beginning to stand up having retrieved his gun.

  Mr. Keisuke Imagawa stumbled until he impacted the bookshelf behind him. He then slid his back down its face until he sat on the floor. The pistol remained in his hand, but that hand lay on the floor, pointing harmlessly away. His other hand crossed over his body to touch and cover the red, bleeding wound on the right side of his neck. He looked up at Ian, who held the stained sword ready with both hands, panting from adrenaline.

  “You beat me.” His father spoke slowly but with only a very slight weakness of tone. Ian said nothing.

  “I am finished, it seems. There is no surviving a wound like this,” he said, resuming a normal speaking pace but adding noticeable pauses between his sentences. “I think that inside, maybe I hoped that this would happen. I wanted you to stand up for yourself. I just wish I didn't have to die for it.”

  After saying this, Ian noticed his father growing weaker by the second. His breathing slowed, his muscles relaxed, and his eyes began to close. A few seconds later, his father was dead.

  Ian wiped the blood off of the blade on a polishing cloth that hung near the weapon's mount before returning it to its scabbard. Just like his family, he wanted to leave his family's prized sword with as little blood as possible. Ian drew his phone from his pocket. He needed to call Tommy before enough realization and emotion set in to paralyze him.

  The usual spot was a certain corner inside of a video arcade. The wide room was noisy with teenagers playing the newest video games that were too big for home use. The corner was a convenient location for any sort of secret discussion. The noise made it impossible to be overheard from a distance, and anyone approaching would be spotted before they came too close. Tomoya Shikimori was already waiting when Ian arrived. Ian was thankful that he didn't arrive first; he might stick out if he was fidgeting nervously in the corner by himself.

  “Tommy,” Ian called out.

  “Ian,” Tommy said, “what's happened?”

  “I need to get away somewhere and hide.”

  “Hide? Well, I can get you a ticket to Hearth or another Alliance world.”

  “Hearth isn't good enough. I need a place where the government won't find me, even if it's still on Earth.”

  “From the government?” Tommy asked confusedly. “Why is the government after you?”

  Ian swallowed hard. “I killed my father.”

  Tommy ran a hand through his hair. “No shit...”

  “He was planning a terrorist attack in China‒ something to blame on Hearth and start a war with the Alliance,” Ian explained. “I had to kill him; there was no other way. He destroyed all the evidence. There would never have been enough for the police to use until he had already done it.”

  “Alright, well, I don't think you're here for my sympathy.”

  “No,” Ian said, “I want a solution.”

  Tommy thought for a few more moments, covering his ears and staring at the floor to lessen the outside distractions of the loud and flashing arcade. “Okay,” he said, looking up once more. “Do you know of the planet Garden?”

  “Yes,” Ian said quickly.

  “Well, Garden isn't part of any empire or alliance, and they're not really speaking to either Earth or Hearth. I also know that the nobility there likes taking foreigners as servants, and treats them rather well. This means that a lot of people who need to run away head there. Now, I know a guy in China who has his own spacecraft, and he uses it to smuggle all sorts of things into Jade and Gaia. Garden isn't too far away, and if you pay him enough, I'm sure he will smuggle you into there too. Once you're there, I don't think anyone from Earth will be able to touch you. The government of Garden won't negotiate with them, and the noble families won't want to give up one of their servants. They're weird people, especially when that’s their diplomatic policy, but you'll be safe there.”

  Ian took a deep breath and gave a relieving sigh. Tommy's plan seemed like it would work. “Okay, thanks, man, he said. He spent a moment just looking at his friend. “I think this will be the last time we see each other,” he said.

  “Hey, don't get romantic on me,” Tommy joked.

  “Well, anyways, thank you.” Ian said before giving Tommy a hug. “I better go and get all my money from the bank before anyone finds my father. I have tickets to buy and strangers to meet.”

  “Yeah. See you never,” Tommy said with a smile.

  “See you never,” Ian returned.

  Ian left the arcade and headed down the street to the bank. He did not think himself a hero for what he did, even though many others would. The choice to kill his father to prevent terrorism may have looked noble from a distance, but Ian felt none of that. But neither did he feel like a murderer. All he knew was that he was a scared boy who needed to run. Not just from the law either. Deep inside himself, Ian knew he was running away for his own reasons as well, although he could not say quite what they were. Hopefully after this, he thought, he could live a life of safety in a mansion on the planet Garden.

  “D3V10U50N3”

  BY LEAH JACKSON

  Some time twelve years ago we met in a yahoo pool game, D3v10u50n3. There was something about his sarcastic attitude that drew me in; perhaps it was just the young, naïve girl in me longing for a friend. Whatever it was, I was hooked. I gave him my email address and we began emailing back and forth. Next we switched to instant messenger and of course we exchanged phone numbers. For these twelve years, we spoke almost daily.

  My feelings for him grew with every conversation we had, although most of the
m were relatively pointless. He would tell me about himself and how his life was going and at the time it wasn’t going well, but neither was mine. Perhaps there was a reason we had found each other. He divulged his secrets to me, and I divulged mine to him. Some traumatic things had happened to the both of us, but we had nobody to tell but each other. I was to the point where I would cut myself just as a release to all the stress and the hurt. I wanted to die. But something about him had made me want to keep going, keep pressing on with my life. He began drinking, and heavily at that. He, too, was also a cutter but more extreme than me. Maybe our purpose was to save each other.

  The more we spoke, I realized that my life was worth living, and I had quit cutting. He on the other hand only gotten worse. The drinking kept escalating to the point where he was drinking almost a liter of vodka on days when he was really depressed. The cutting became more frequent, and I wasn’t sure what to do. We talked about it for days on end, and I told him how much it broke my heart to see him so miserable. I explained that he was my saving grace and that I wanted to do the same for him and finally things began to settle down, the drinking went from a daily thing to maybe once or twice a week and the cutting had ended. I felt great.

  After about three years of talking, he confessed that he had fallen for me. I was speechless. I thought I was the only person crazy enough to actually have a crush on someone via the internet. It seemed so strange. I discussed the situation with my parents who were none too happy that I was talking to a stranger from the internet let alone the fact that I had given him my number.  Their only real concern about it was what if he was a serial killer? I then had become paranoid, and when we spoke, it was all I could think about. But finally, I stopped caring about it. I figured if he was going to kill me, he probably would have at least made an effort to try to get together with me.

  Much to my surprise, about six years into the friendship, we actually discussed the possibility of us hanging out. My fears had then come back, what if we do hang out? Is he going to murder me? Am I going to be raped? What should I expect? He told me that he was going to come here and that he was looking into plane tickets and that he would try to be down within a month but he ended up not being able to come. I was actually disappointed.

  Time had passed, and he got a decent paying job and had again said that he was going to come down. This time he had promised. No more than two weeks later, he texted me telling me that he had bought a plane ticket. I was ecstatic. I told my parents who, at this point, weren’t really concerned about it. My mother actually considered him part of our family. My parents had seen him on Skype and talked to him via telephone so the worries of him being a killer subsided. He would be arriving at the end of July of 2013. I took off of work as soon as I knew the exact dates, and I began to countdown the days.

  The day finally arrived- the one I’ve been waiting to come for years. I was nervous and excited at the same time. The night prior, I couldn’t sleep. I had friends over since I didn’t want to go to the airport alone in case anything were to go awry and everyone had gone to bed around midnight, but I had only slept for an hour or two at the most. We were up at the crack of dawn getting ready to leave. My friends were astonished at how beautiful I looked since they had rarely seen me dress up. That was the moment they had realized all of the anxiety and fear that I had been bottling up for weeks. I was paranoid that I didn’t look good enough, I couldn’t stop talking, I was shaking and I kept asking them the same questions over and over again. What do I do? What do I say? Do I hug him? Do I kiss him? Do I act like this is just another day of the week?

  We arrived at the airport about forty-five minutes early, because I refused to be late and had preferred to be early anyways just in case the flight was early. But it was quite the opposite; it had been delayed about fifteen minutes. The closer it was to his arrival, the more anxious I had become. I was pacing around the airport as my friends tried to get me to relax.

   The plane landed. I was thrilled and my friends we’re as nearly excited as I was. This was the moment we would finally meet. He walked into the airport, and we all said hello and went to retrieve his luggage. He was thin, I didn’t know he lost weight, last I knew he weighed two hundred and fifty pounds now he hardly weighed more than me. I hardly recognized him. It was apparent he was nervous, he laughed quietly at nearly everything. It was an awkward greeting, but it wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated it to be. We left the airport and walked around parts of Milwaukee; we had talked and laughed for about an hour, then decided it was time we would do something else. We went to a Tibetan museum which had been fascinating. I figured it was something he’d be into, and I was right. After the museum we went for lunch and drove around, it was relatively quiet.

  When we finally got back to my place and the friends who had accompanied me on my trip had left, he was more at ease which was to be expected. He finally met my parents who had been eagerly waiting for our arrival. After all was said and done, I took him to the place where he would be staying which was a bed and breakfast near downtown. He had dropped off all of his belongings and we had gone back to my place. We sat around watching movies and just talking when another friend of mine, Samantha, showed up. We decided that we would take him to Frostie Freeze and then around town. We had played the same repetitive country songs until he finally started to sing along. Then we took him back to the bed and breakfast.

  The next morning, I picked him up and we went to McDonald’s for breakfast. Then we went back to my house for a bit and watched a movie. We had then decided we would go to the mall because we truly had nothing better to do. He had been amazed at how cheap everything was here compared to where he lived, a rich suburb in Canada. After mindlessly wasting the day, Sam came back over and had suggested that we go four wheeling. We did just that. My friend, he had never been on one and was not too thrilled with the idea. Reluctantly, he went and much to his surprise had a blast. So much so that Sam and I could not get him to stop driving around.

  For most of the week we had done the same exact things since there isn’t much to do in the area besides get wasted. We did go out to the bar one night with some of my friends who had wanted to meet him. The night after we had gone out to the bar, had been a beautiful one. A sky full of stars and no clouds didn’t get to much better than that. So we had sat out on my deck and talked and he told me that he loved me. I was shocked. Me, being the emotionless person I am, didn’t know how to respond. I knew exactly how I felt in my heart, but I just couldn’t vocalize how I had felt. I didn’t say anything except to acknowledge the fact I heard everything he had said. Then he asked me how I had felt about him. I simply replied “you know, I don’t really talk about my emotions.” I could tell that he had been hurt by what I said and there was an awkward silence before he said that he was tired and wanted to go to bed. I could not have hated myself more at that moment.

  The next day was the day he had to go back home. I felt miserable. I wasn’t ready for the week to end, and I had been regretting not saying that I loved him. We got to the airport and said our good-byes, hugged and he was on his way. Tears filled my eyes as he had walked away. How could I have been so stupid? Why didn’t I say anything before he walked away? Maybe at heart I was still that young naïve girl.

  He has texted me once he had arrived home saying that he made the trip safely and that he was glad to spend the week here. After months had passed we were beginning to talk less and less. After a while I had asked how come we didn’t speak as much, and he told me about how he was really hurt about the night he had confessed his feelings to me, and I didn’t respond. I understood. I apologized and explained something I never told anyone. He felt guilty for being upset about the situation after hearing this, and we had been speaking more frequently again. But this only lasted a short while until he had completely stopped talking to me again.

  I have accepted the fact that we no longer speak, although it still hurts me every day because of all the regret I carry I feel like
I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. So now, Aman is again just D3V10U50N3.

  Poetry by Jeremy Brooks

  Every night,

  I run away.

  I run outside.

  I never pack any bags.

  I run to downtown Chicago.

  Nobody ever knows that I left,

  I run to Cairo.

  There’s no need for a jacket.

  I run across oceans.

  I’m weightless.

  I run to the sun.

  I’m finally free.

  I run into war.

  I’ve never felt more at peace.

  And after a long night of running, I close my eyes and

  wake up.

 

  Heroes fight wars with a sword, and

  I write poems with a pen, but

  while they use their tool to slice everybody else open;

  I only use mine to open myself.

  I guess I’ve never donated blood before, but

  I would like to pretend that

  my thoughts are my veins-

  the ink swimming through the pen is

  my blood rushing through an I.V.-

  this journal is a plastic bag labeled “Type ‘O’”-

  because;

  the words inside are as selfless as

  Gandhi, and I would

  love if they

  could help