SecularProphet's profile

Kevin wanted to commit suicide. He was “trapped in a theater, watching a movie that he did not want to see the end to.” Suicide was not actually his term for it. He was just planning to remove himself from the picture. I had known him for over two years; he lived alone in the cramped basement of an old dump, in an area infested with drugs and prostitutes. Roaches aside, Kevin kept an immaculate apartment; his frequent scrubbings had left his quarters permeated with the reek of dis...

There comes a time, every once in a little while, sometimes at breakfast while chewing my Muesli, on other occasions catching me unawares while reading a book, when the sudden awareness kicks in that, for some inexplicable reason, I haven't done "it" in a while. Just like that, out of the blue - the thought hits me, my brow furrows and I think "Man! It's been at least six months..." Or longer. And I realize that somehow, amidst all the chaos and confusion, I just forgot to...

If you've ever taken a trip into the unknown, chartered yourself to a place of uncertainty and looming surprise, you will know how I felt like one my way to the Canadian north, sitting next to my brother Adrian as we drove our way out of civilization, headed for a distant wilderness neither one of us could really fathom. We'd been driving for three days, perched above the length of a snaking road in our rickety old camper, trying to fight the heat of a late summer with open windows and makesh...

The moon was barely a sliver above the mountains, hanging low between a dusk of midnight clouds. In a ring of rolling mist the clouds encircled the valley, the clear night sky rearing over them like a dome dusted with the powder of stars. It was a night of stillness and of peace; a hushed silence had come over the valley and even the mountains seemed to doze. They hid their peaks between the tufted clouds, rising above a distant forest that gazed dreamily into their heights. Far up the valley...

I stood shivering on the highway in the cold drizzle of an early night, my thumb poised for the passing cars streaking by with a hiss on the shining asphalt. Behind me the sign - San Carno 30 mi - reflected in the glare of lonely headlights and slick rain. I had been there for over two hours, my shoulders hunched with cold as I slowly tread backwards over crunched gravel and scoured the distance for a car that would be my salvation. My hair clung to my cheeks in sodden patches and the flannel...