The Migration Patterns of Imaginary Birds

And we are back...

So after a long unadvised break for soul searching and working on the manuscript for my fairy tales. I've decided that this site is basically fine as it is, with the exception that I'm going to be trending towards more polished content, and less of it, as well as larger social network integration. The main reason being that now I have a finished manuscript that I want to promote.

Anyways, I'm not going to be posting more of the fairy tales, unless they come with some add on content. I'll be making Youtube clips for some, as well as posting some original artwork from me and my friends. I'll also switch the ones I've already posted with some more polished versions. (I've done a first edit of all the stories, and now I'm just smoothing out the language). All the other projects will still be on the site, but they will take a back seat to my promoting of the stories.

Love Letter 23: Long ago there was a kingdom which dedicated its great resources of science to the study of light

Long ago there was a kingdom which dedicated its great resources to the study of light. The earliest advances they made were in the area of painting. They managed a basic understanding of perspective 2000 years before the renaissance. Shortly afterwards they developed photography, the motion picture, and they were able to create creatures that to all extent looked exactly like a human, but were in fact only moving patterns of light. They were able to project a person so his light reflection was in two places at once, and he could see two places at once (used for lovers so they never had to be separate). They finally invested a weapon that removed light from a persons being, either making him invisible, or effectively killing him by removing all traces of his existence. The most common words of pleasure from lovers mouths was "I think I'm turning into light." Those lovers were many, but since then, this kingdom and all information related to it has been covered in shadows.

Love Letter 22: "A great inventor once made a replica of himself out of wires..."

A great inventor once made a replica of himself out of wire, gears, and paper mache. He did this for practical reasons, because although the machine had very little will of his own, he was a good enough doppleganger that he could run errands and go to meetings that the inventor did not wish to go to, and few people could tell the difference. The inventor was thus able to work on his other inventions without interruption. This went on peacefully until one day the Doppleganger did not come back when it was supposed to. The inventor worrying that his double would be getting into trouble in his name quickly took off to search the city. He searched high and low, and eventually he found the doppleganger sitting with a pretty girl, both of them laughing about some unknown joke. He watched from a distance, worried how the girl would react if she met the double of the double she was talking with. Worried that she might expose his anti-social behavior to the world. As soon as they separated though he rounded up the robot, and took him back to the lab. There he questioned him on all the aspects of the relationship he had started, he got very few answers, the automaton discussed the smell of her perfume and the timbre of her vocie. As far as he coudl tell they talked only about what they could see, squirells, birds, trees, shadows, sun, people, they occasionally talked about what they though, but they never talked about themselves, and their thoughts never revealed anythong about themselves other than things that anyone could be thinking, perceptions of the outside world and how it fit together. The inventor was curious about this, so he set up some recording equipment and recorded the next few meetings. He studied the recordings till one day he felt he could switch with his doppleganger. He copied all the persoalities of the doppleganger, which were visual mimics of his own personality. He went out many times with the girl, always keeping the personality of the doppleganger, in fact a non-personality. He wanted to get to know the girl, find out the reason for the affection she held for the doppleganger, but he never discovered anything about her, he just slowly fell in love with her, as both of them reflected everything they saw.

As delving into the non-personalities of both her and the Doppleganger he slowly forgot that he was a thing with personal feelings and anxieties. If asked about himself he would only talk about her smell, the feeling of her skin, her lips on his, his ability to move his hands, animals that he saw on winter days, men walking down the street, the shadow that followed him.

L... you,

Brad

Love Letter 21: Once there was a king who lived in an odd corner of the world that no one really cared about...

Once there was a king who lived in an odd corner of the world that no one really cared about. He tried to go to international finance meetings, but no one would listen to him, then he'd try to go to king parties, and the doorman wouldn't believe he was a king at all. So he thought about ways to increase his status, and he thought people would surely pay attention to him if he married the most beautiful princess in the world.

So he studied up a bit, discovred the most beautiful princess in the world, and then set about trying to charm the pants off her. He succeeded (he was quite dashing you see, and very nice and charming), and took her back to his Kingdom. He hadn't told her though that his Kingdom was little more than some houses in the middle of a forest. She still loved him, but she knew she couldn't live a glamourous life here. The King hoped this would be fixed by his new queen, that would bring respect to his Empire, but when it didn't he fashioned another plan. He would build his queen a might palace.

There were only trees in the Kingdom though, not enough fancy stones to build a palace, but the King was clever and fashioned the entire palace using trees as the foundation. Corridors, stairways, balconies, were all fashioned using the trees, and the top of the palace overlooked the entire forest. 

The queen was ecstatic, and would spend days just wandering the hallways. And soon people from other countries came to see this wonder of architecture. Some stayed and turned the small village into a bustling metropolis, kings came and visited the Kingdom everyday. The Queen and King were so overjoyed by their castle that they didn't care about the other Kings anymore, they just wanted to run through the hallways together. When Kings insisted on an audience, they'd come angrily, being very rude to the other kings. Eventually they banned all foreign dignitaries, and spent the rest of their days together in their grand kingdom. Until the forest swallowed them once again.

Love Letter 20: One day in a world full of innocuous things, there lived two shadows

One day in a world full of innocuous things there lived two shadows. These two shadows were the best of lovers, but, being shadows, they were only able to communicate through meaningless things.

They would meet every morning and communicate differently: for a month the girl shadow couldn't talk, and for a while the boy shadow was just communicated in hand signals. Despite these problems they developed quite a nice relationship, where each seemed to understand the signals of the other.

The problem began one day when the girl took to the habit of speaking to him in pleasantries. "good morning Mr. smith, it sure is a nice day today," he whistled back at her, as it was his only means of communication for the day. THey went through the day doing their household chores, with her occasionally saying things like "you're looking awfully nice today Mr. Smith," or "the Greenberg kids are growing up fine." While he whistled back at her like a friendly bird.

He didn't notice anything wrong with this, until she passed him in the living room and whispered into his ear. "I'm so glad you could come to my party." This triggered a memory in him, these words languorously whispered into his ear brought up images of a time long past, but he wasn't sure when, after all, he wasn't sure he had a past. This was the first he remembered it, as shadows live a day today, or streetlight to streetlight existence, think of the past as a fairy tale, if that.

So he was suspicious of these memories, but since this was his first experience of things of the type, it was enough to arouse his curiosity. From that point forward he began paying much more attention to what she said or did and would take notes on what he felt was important, and he could then study by candlelight (a candle he lit in the daytime to give him more time to work).

She asked him about this new found interest in her slightest actions, but on that day he could only answer by breathing on her face, and the next day when he tried again he was only able to run his figers through her hair. She seemed to vaguely understand and took his new hobby in stride. As he studied over the weeks and months and years (a shadow's life is very slow) he began to notice patterns and sometimes these patterns would trigger memories.

The memories didn't seem to be his though, they were those of a man, not a shadow but a real man, and a girl he met somewhere. They communicated normally, and one day they decided they were in love. He could only remember bits and pieces at a time, and as he did he'd write them down, then he would try to write stories to connect the memories together. Sometimes he write wrong, which he'd discover when a contradicting memory came up, but increasingly he wrote right.

He had noticed that her communication only slowly changes from day to day, she never changed from yelling to pleasurable talking in one day, but would slowly lover her voice over the course of two weeks, then piecing together these two weeks he'd have a vague story of an argument that would refer back to a memory immediately, but the sequences were disconnected, so they at one time had a lovers spat, and then after that sequence met for the first time.

He knew how these two met, he had seen them make love, have arguements, have children, die of old age, he slowly recreated pieces of this couple's life together, but he couldn't find out their relationship to him and his lover.

He eventually worked out a theory. Over the course of several nights he drew a portrait of the tman in the memories, then when complete he showed it to his woman. She was emotional when she saw it, and he immediately understood. She kept on repeating "you are my man," which was the only thing she could say that day, but she also grabbed him and kissed him in that all enveloping way that shadows kiss. She had recognized him, or at least who he really ways, his doppleganger, his person. Her lover for all the years of her life.

They as shadows after their owners death had to live the moments of their lives in minute details. This they had to do forever. He wanted to communicate to her all the things he found, he wanted to tell her the story of their love, but ever day she cried and screamed louder at him, and threatened to leave him, even though she made it quite clear that as a shadow she didn't mean that, they couldn't find the space to sign about their new discovery.

It wasn't long until she was gone. She was actually still there, but they couldn't see each other because at that time the people shadows weren't in each others presence. He did the work and remembered the time she left him for a long time, a lonely period in his life, that now he'd have to repeat in every day to day minute detail. But he had seen them die together and he knew she was coming back to him. It would be a long, long time, but when she got back he'd explain it to her somehow, with sign language, whispers, or tears of joy.

Love Letter 19: These days in the Kingdom of the birds they still do the mating rituals that societies did in the oldest days

These days in the Kingdom of the birds they still do the mating rituals that societies did in the oldest days. The birds cover two large trees, the boys on one side and the girls on the other. On even years the boys tie ribbons around their necks, and hide a ribbon of the same color somewhere in the kingdom, on the odd years the girls do the same. The birds from the other tree all fly into the air at once, blacking out the sky, darting here and there looking for the ribbon of the handsomest man or the prettiest girl, or just their personal favorite.

This year being an odd year, 2005 in human years, 13275 in bird years, is the year the girls tie ribbons around their neck and wait for their lovers of the year. The men all flew into the air and everyone noticed one sparrow, faster and quicker than the rest, doing tricks in the air before he took off.

It was another sparrow girl who was especially impressed, and when she twittered for him he went looking for the ribbon to match the color around her neck.

He found it and flew back first among the men. They flew off together talking about whatever came into their mind, but since birds have no language they just hopped along and chirped and were generally happy, till the next year came along, they picked a place before hand to hide his ribbon, so she would be the first to find it. In this way they spent year after year together hiding their ribbons in stranger and stranger places so they wouldn't chance another bird finding it.

One year they made a plan. They hid the ribbon together and then went off to their respective trees, all the men flew up in the air, but as they all rushed off the sparrow stopped, looked back at his woman, did a few flips in the air, and flew as fast as he could to the West.

He never came back, eventually all the other birds came back to get their mates, but the girls ribbon was never found. She didn't seem to mind, while all the other birds frolicking together, she hopped along like a widow collecting nuts, bugs, or whatever it is that widow birds like. Until next years mating ritual took place. This year when all the ladies flew up into the air, the sparrow made her way slowly to the west, never looking behind her again.

She too was never seen again. Many stories were told of those two lovers. Some said she flew over the ocean, some said she died, some said she flew to the land in the clouds, but all the different stories that are told these days in the land of the birds, her and her lover met on the green shore of an Island somewhere, where he had been waiting with her ribbon in his beak. Now they spend their days on that island hopping around, catching bugs, finding nuts, chirping, flying every which way, what ever it is birds do when they are in love, things we'll never know about.

Love Letter 18: The prettiest boy in the world has now gone without a trace...

The prettiest boy in the world has now gone without a trace. This is not for th ereasons one might suspect. Given the long length of human existence, one might figure that the prettiest boy in world history was an Ancient Greek, an African 6000 years agao, or the first emperor of Japan, none of who had their features recorded. The truth is though, that the prettiest boy in the world was born inconspicuously in 1913. Though he wasn't born into great wealth, he lived a charmed life, as is the habit of the beautiful. He also didn't seem to know his beauty, despite the hordes of women after him, he always thought himself rather ordinary, never spent much money on clothes (though companies gave him tons of clothes for modeling). He married for love, grew old, and died comfortably in 1988. People had taken photographs, even movies of him all his life. He was beautiful until the day he died, and people never tired of watching and recording his existance. But after he died he died from all time. Memories of him became indistinct, photographs of him were as though he was never there. In movies he was inconspicuously absent. All that was left were pictures of trees, buildings, benches, water, animals, people he loved, and people he never knew.

Love Letter 17: Once there was a princess, the wild type of princess, not the type you give the crown to...

Once there was a princess, the wild type of princess, not the type you give the crown to, nevertheless the crown was going to her. She had many suitors, but they were all constrained by the rules of decorum, and she really wanted to run around and be wild.

A few of the princes were the wild type, though there were 5 of them, minor princes, 6th in line for the kingdom of who knows where, but they used to sneak her out in the middle of the night and take her to parties, casinos, dances, or just wandering around the city, they all wanted to marry her, not only for the kingdom but also for the plain affection brought about by youthful adventures. Still they treated her like one of the guys, and there were never disagreements arising from their affections, she spent time with who she felt with, and there was little worry.

She had to choose a husband though, and she knew she had to choose one fo them so she wouldn't have to marry one of those silly old people. So they all got together, and asked what they could do to help her choose, she sighed and said "if one of you could make it so I were young with no worries forever I'd marry you in a moment." They thought it over for a moment until the youngest finally said to give him 2 weeks and he'll have it figured out.

Everyone assumed he'd find some responsible person to run the government while they travelled for "diplomatic" purposes. He actually had no intention of the sort. He came back two weeks later with an old withered man. The man said that he had heard her wish and he had come to grant it. When asked how, he simply explained that he was a great wizard. She smiled and all the other princes laughed she said unfortunately she didn't think magic could help in this regard. The wizard talked to the youngest prince aside for a moment, then said he'd be willing to grant the wish anyways, just due to the kindness of the young man. He took out some ointment, put it on his finger, and made a line from her forehead to the tip of her nose. After he finished his incantation she smiled and thanked him.

She didn't marry the youngest prince, but the second oldest of the five, she lived a relatively dull life as queen until she was 30. She may have lived a dull life after that, but she was not sure, because on her 30th birthday she woke up as a 16 year old girl, she found out it was 14 years earlier, and she relieved one day in her life with the strange knowledge that she had lived the moment before. She couldn't change any of the decisions she made, all her actions & words were the same, though it seemed as though she had control of them. The next morning she was 23, then 19, she lived like this for some time, at first with discomfort, but soon she started enjoying it.

After what must have been a year and a half of living like this, she began to realize that most days she went back to involved the youngest prince. The days she spent loving him were repeated a number of times, more and more as the years went on did she find herself respending the times when she felt more for him than any of the others.

She only realized the trick when she put toegether that they had been married for 20 years. Though she eventually she forgot all that, and just went back to living every day like it was the first time she'd done so.

Love Letter 16: When Christianity took over Europe....

When Christianity first took over Europe, all the Greek gods sailed over the great ocean to America. They weren't heard of for a long time, but there was one interaction people know about. 

Though Americans have been strongly Chrisitian people since the first European migrants, the old Gods hadn't yet retreated by the 19th century, when one Kasey Jones found out he was going to die in a train wreck. Three ladies told him this, three ladies who lived in a cave sharing one eye between them. Kasey knew they were telling the truth, or at least he was willing to believe it after seeing their countenance, and finding they knew he was a railroad conductor. 

With this thought hanging over him he went to see a girl he once loved. They went drinking together, they talked about old times, and at the end of the night they made it. In bed with her he thought about his death, his cold body, this lovers warm one. He thought of his train, he thought of running from it, but saw no use. He left his lover sleeping, and called his wife, but it was too late and she didn't answer.

It wasn't many days later that his train jumped the rail and smashed him against the rocks. When he woke up in the afterlife he met Achilles and Aeneis, they talked about kingdoms and histories, but he couldn't join them, he found his voice had been replaced by the sound of a train whistle. So he just listened for as many years as he could.

Shortly after he died though his lover gave birth to a child that could be none other than his. When the child reached a certain age the lover took him on a long journey, over hills and fields, until, without knowing why, she understood there was a special purpose to the river sitting in front of her. She dipped the child head first into the river, holding on only by the heel.

In his adulthood the kid traveled the land, until a gunshot wound put an end to his long life of dreaming.

Love Letter 15: In a little town by the ocean they often tell the story of a young man who used to live there an indeterminate number of years back.

In a little town by the ocean they often tell the story of a young man who used to live there an indeterminate number of years back. He was a diver who searched for shellfish, clams, the occasional oyster to sell at the market. He was the type that could hold his breath for eight to ten minutes while searching the ocean floor. He was an upstanding member of the community and liked by everyone, though he never married he was getting to the age where he would most certainly mary one of the young ladies of the families who had shown interest in him. He wasn't rich, but proper, he'd never have a rich wife, but a pretty one who may have loved him, had he not met his true love first.

This love was the ocean itself. She had noticed him while he was working, and not only wished him for a lover, but wished him for a love. The man was seduced when a bottle reached the shore with a note giving the coordinates of a location out on the open sea.

Curious as to what this note meant, he took his boat to the coordinates and did a dive, there were lots of sea plants around that area, but he dived deeper and deeper through them, till they broke and he saw at the bottom of the ocean the ruins of an old city, completely covered with clams, oysters and all the treasure the sea could offer.

He grabbed a large oyster and took it to the top, planning to come back for more later. ON the way up though he swore he saw a woman swimming among the buildings. He blamed it on funny lightand swam up to the surface, forgetting all about it.

Whe he got to the town he knew he should keep all this quiet, but the oyster he found had the largest pearl he had ever seen in it, when he sold it the fuss was so great that people treated him as though he would soon be a changed man, richer, able to succeeed. He admitted he had a secret, but no more.

The next day many of the townspeople came to see him off. He took off from port with cheers and waves, all hoping he did well, and was generous with his new found money. He got to his stopping point, anchored, and dove. Suddenly, very suddenly, a storm broke out. The people were all concerned for their new hero, but where the man was, at the depths of the ocean, there was complete calm. He broke through the weeds and reached the city. As he began collecting things and putting them in his bag, he noticed the city was actually made out of coral, just with astounding similarity to human architecture.

When his bag was almost full he began noticing something moving around him. A number of fish of some sort, but as they got closer he realized they were people, mermaids. They seemed to have sinister intent, so he tried to get away, but they quickly caught up and grabbed him. They held him until he stopped struggling because he was running out of breath. Then the one in charge kissed him. The kiss forced breath into his lungs, and he was only kept alive breathing the breath of the ocean. Drifting to the bottom to be laid down with his love in a bed of clams.

The people on the shore watched worriedly, but the ocean calmed fairly quickly. After that everyone noticed something different about the ocean. People from other villages wouldn't have been able to tell, but the ones who had always lived near the ocean noticed the silent beating of the surf sounded almost like moaning, and the water shimmered and trembled in a way they'd never seen before.

Still the man never came back.