"We bought a zoo!" It's a line exclaimed by precocious, cherry-haired Rosie throughout the film to anyone in earshot. Strangers. Animals. Herself. And every time, her voice is pure. It's the embodiment of optimism. It'sjoy. Complete, unadulterated joy. There's a reason—sure, among more obvious ones—We Bought a Zoo is titled as such. It's that line. But, really, it's the emotion that line evokes. That joy. Cameron Crowe is a filmmaker who is able to capture, personify, and epitomize emotion better than most other filmmakers. Emotion is his currency. And he doles it out with impunity. 

So, for someone like myself whose life is lived—more often than not to a fault—through emotion rather than logic, Crowe hits a sweet spot that few others, if any, can touch. He gets me, and I him. I think he even wrote a line about completing something or other one time that still holds true...

What I'm hemming and hawing about here is that I'd always rather feel something deeply, feel something honestly that is flawed rather than admire something from a distance that, while beautiful and perfect, is abstinent. We Bought a Zoo is flawed. But it is so joyous, soulful, and lovely that I couldn't care less.

But now that I'm out of the theater, wiped away the tears, and downloaded Jonsi's score and deleted every other track on my iPhone, it's the film's flaws that are just sort of floating there in front of my face like dust caught in the sun. But let me try and look past the dust to the sun a bit first.

...

I suppose I'm so frustrated with this film because its flaws are so small yet so visible and even more fixable. The way it made me feel is the way I feel when watching my favorite movies. The way I felt in the theater, though, just didn't carry over as I drove home. The film should have been—could have been—amazing with a few tweaks, less over-writing, less contrivance. And I'm saying this while still feeling my love for it.

Most of the film is so assured, trusting itself as it thrives in emotion born of its mostly fantastic characters that feel real even if there's no way they are, expressing emotion in ways that feel even more real. (It doesn't hurt that Crowe pulled some truly phenomenal performances from his actors, young and seasoned alike. Elle Fanning is especially exceptional. She's a beacon on screen. The film's brightest spot.) Yet, can it be that all of that just isn't good enough? You know what, I'm going to take a page out of the Mee playbook: I'm going to take Cameron Crowe's hand and cross party lines. I'm going to buy a zoo and damn the consequences. Hell, I've already bought the zoo. Feels good, man. Feels like joy.

What I didn't say, above, is how directly I connected with Dylan, Benjamin Mee's son. I was an angry kid. I couldn't control it and, most of the time, I didn't even know I was flying off the handle when I so obviously was. I punched holes in drywall, tried to punch holes in concrete, tore my larnyx and ruined my voice for screaming.

There's a VHS tape of my sister and me just as we arrive at a cabin our family rented for our vacation in North Carolina; I was to be the audience's—inevitably me, twenty years later—tour guide through the cabin. I showed the bedrooms, kitchen, bathrooms, and original hardwood banisters like a realtor selling for his right to live. My sister, though, she always wanted to be involved. She wanted to be there for it, right there in the middle, no matter what it was. I love that about her, now. But then, despite the grain and failing tracking of the VHS, you can see the anger setting on my face like concrete over top a coffin. Thinking about it makes me cringe. Watching it makes me recoil.

What did I have to be so angry about? Dylan lost his mother, lost his friends, was moved from the city to a run-down zoo in the middle of nowhere... I didn't have any of that fuel. But seeing Dylan there on screen, I felt his anger so deeply. His cynicism. His frustration.

I'm often called a cynic, still. Usually, it's when I walk out of a movie theatre. There's nothing I love more than feeling deeply. Feeling honestly and purely. But there's nothing I do better than analyze. I can't not see flaws. I can't not fix them, even if fixing them happens only in my mind. I can see how frustrating it must be for those around me when all they want to do is express how wonderful something was or how truly awesome this one thing made them feel... while I physically, literally can't not talk about what was wrong around those things. But it's never from a place of malice. It's because I want it, whatever it is, to be better. And I think it, whatever it is, can be better! I don't think that sounds like something a cynic would say. Or maybe it's exactly what a cynic would say.

This internal gladiatorship is why We Bought a Zoo has me so conflicted. It's a film that, no matter how real it is, it feels like it kills cynicism. Dead. Gone. Joy and optimism and idealism win, once and for all. And I felt that there in the theatre. But, here I am... saying it can be better...

Maybe it's me that can be better. All I know is that I don't feel like a cynic. And I totally want to buy a zoo.

We hope you all enjoy reading this as much as we enjoyed writing it. And, hey, if in five years when Netflix decides to defrost the then long-since-cryogenically frozen Community, David and I will be ready. But not in a creepy way. Like, a totally inncocent, in no way still-wearing-a-Human-Being-unitard-under-all-of-our-outfits-like-Spider-Man-but-way-less-cool kind of way.

So, here it is: "The Human Portrait," a spec episode of Community, written by Brandon Lee Tenney & David Sigurani. Pop! Pop!

  "That's it."

"Just like that?"

"Try not to think about it like that. In those terms. You understand how it's been up here, it's not black and white--"

"Apparently not, no. What other terms though? Yesterday I'm here... tomorrow? Enlighten me."

"Come on, Jack, don't--"

"Jackson."

"Jackson--"

"You're grinding my goddamned bones to dust. That's what you're doing, Brian. Everything I've fucking worked for. I pioneered this, in on the ground floor. And for what?"

"For what? You just said for what. We wouldn't be up here, doing what we're doing today, if not for you."

"That supposed to make me feel better? Don't fucking flatter me. What happened? Am I that irrelevant?"

"Of course not. Jackson, you know damn well what happened. You know how it's been up here. There are directions we should've been exploring six months ago. Directions, if I recall correctly, that you were unwilling to entertain."

"Is this the part where I beg for my job? 'I'll come back, I'll be a good boy, I'll do what I'm told, it won't happen again, honest--'"

"No, it's already too late for that."

"What then?"

"You're not honestly worried about finding work, are you?"

"'Course not. Some ozone filtered sun will be a fucking godsend."

"Then what?"

"When's the next shuttle?"

"That's the kicker--"

"This is the kicker? Oh, good. Now that I know this is the kicker, I think I can get my head to touch all the way to my knees."

"Three months."

"Three months?:

"Three months."

"Three fucking goddamned months? What the fuck am I supposed to do up here for three months without a project to work on, without security clearance, without motherfucking pay? We're on the Moon, Brian. You remember the Moon, right?"

"Your severance is good through your time here, plus an additional three."

"How generous of you."

"Think of it as a vacation. You've been up here for four years. There has to be a book you've wanted to read."

"A vacation. Like working at a five-star beach resort and vacationing under the boardwalk on the goddamned Jersey shore. Besides, I fucking hate to read."

"You've got a goddamned mouth on you. That didn't help your case."

"Fuck you, Brian."

"Three months, Jack."

"So, that's it, then."

"That's it."

I hope to be paid for my art—these words you're reading may, one day, someday, not be free—so I've been known to take this sentiment (too) personally from time to time to always.

Of course, when I say art, I mean to say any and all artistic endevours: drawing and painting, sculpting and dancing, poetry, prose, sequential storytelling, filmmaking, and all things music alike. To me, all of the above are worth money. Because all of the above, and those pursuits I haven't even listed, are worth preserving. Art is who we humans are. Art is culture. And culture is us. 

But without a demand for art, art dwindles. It'll always exist, sure. No one commissioned the caves at Lascaux. But without a fostering of demand, those without the means to create now may never have the possibility of the means later; so their art is lost before it's had a chance to grow. What the diminishing of art begets is the genocide of artisitc potential.

So, when I buy an album from a band I particulary enjoy or pay to see a film from a writer or director I admire or purchase a painting from a local artist whose works affects me, I'm not only supporting those artists individually, I'm supporting art on a macro level. I'm supporting art culture. I'm supporting the potential, the possibility of more artists like them. Those artists who sit with their guitar in their lap or stare at a blank canvas and say, yes, this is viable. I can do this. It won't be easy, but I choose to try. Because there is someone out there right now who is doing what I want to do and they have support. I'm supporting the license to try.

Perhaps all of the above is a bit lofty an idea to ponder each time you're clicking Buy Album in iTunes.

Especially when this generation—my generation—are the digital pirates of culture. It's so damned easy. Too damned easy. I guarantee I could not spend a cent on art if I didn't want to and still experience and imbibe just as much as those who choose to pay. The Internet is a vast sea of immediate availability. And, sadly, the experience of piracy is often much more pleasurable than the compensated alternative.

Movies are available without fine print and advertising and menus. It's just the movie. It's what I expect. It's what I want. And only what I want.

Television shows are available without commercials. Even via online, paid streaming services that solve the problem of immediacy and anywhere availability, the pirated option is just easier. A universal file format. The ability to play a show anywhere on anything.

Comic books are higher quality and readable anywhere on any device.

Music, well, like the rest of that above, is free.

So, while some attempt to solve the piracy issue by bringing compensated outlets of art delivery as close to their no-holds-barred, high-seas antitheses, I say it's not the method or the practice that needs to be changed; it's the mindset.

It's that dangerous opinion that art, because all I know it to be is free, immediate, and everywhere, is worth only that: nothing at all.

Fostering a love for art and its importance is what's, well, important. Shifting the paradigm so the question isn't Why should I pay for art? but Why wouldn't I pay for art? 

Did you torrent their latest album? No. Because I want there to be another latest album after this one.

Why would you buy that? Because it's beautiful. And I want her to make more things that are beautiful.

Did you see that, I just downloaded it last night? And so you may never see anything like it again because of it.

The opinion that art is a luxury and that it's lesser and other and unimportant is wrong. I've utilized the more artistic-centric aspects of my education far more than important subjects like mathematics. There's a calculator on my phone. Google can teach me how to balance an equation or find the circumference of a circle. But neither my phone nor Google can cause me to feel the importance of Cormac McCarthy's words or Kate Beaton's sequential humor or the potential of some unnamed, unrecognized, possibly unborn artist.

Unfortunately, compliments and Likes just aren't enough in the way of compensation and recognition. Capitalism remains our overlord. So it's with money with which we must speak. Money toward representation in our government that will choose not to limit artistic programs in public schools. Money toward artistic centers in your city where this sentiment can be fostered after our kids leave the school where their artistic programs were cut. Money toward those kids who became local artists. Money toward local artists who became our culture.

And, if not with money—because the consumption of art can be expensive—then perhaps speak with time. The time it takes to say a word of encouragement and provide someone the potential to make great art. Because it's the potential for art that's most important. Without the potential for art, we cease to exist. 

For nothing speaks more about a culture than its art.

Art is the definition of one's culture. One's culture, the reason for one's art.

Though, there is an episode of Doctor Who I missed last week. And I did want to see that Kristen Wiig movie when it was out... just never got around to it...

...I wonder if they're both online. Maybe I'll pick up a few of DC's New 52 while I'm there.

However, then, we rarely agreed on… much of anything. 

Especially politics. The one topic, above all else, that we were forbidden to debate on air. The one topic, above all else, that, with all our teenaged wisdom and cunning, we attempted to debate on air most often.

I was no stranger to receiving calls from teachers and administrators after broadcasts regarding my editorializing and sensationalizing and, most often, my inappropriate appearance—I've had tattoos since I was eighteen, one of which was visible on the inside of my left bicep during broadcasts. Oh, and I've had my ears pierced since fifth grade and gauged since I was fifteen. To those teachers and administrators who weren't familiar with my excellent academic performance and thoughtful, straight-laced personality, I was an… undesirable.

So, during the 2004 presidential election, it should have been no surprise that both my co-anchor's and my fervor would reach its crescendo. The first election either of us could participate in. The first moment our voices could be heard. Our time to take part in a tradition at our nation's very heart; the very reason for our nation's existence.

Sadly, we were two among thousands. Thousands who fit the stereotype of the youth vote perfectly. Apathetic, ignorant, and puppets of their parents. I suppose I, and she, were also puppets to a point. Products of our environment. But more the Scarecrow after he's bestowed a brain rather than before.

And then I wore a John Kerry t-shirt on air. And then I was called to the principal's office while still on air. And I was told that without equal promotional time given to each candidate on air, my t-shirt is in violation of the law. Not the rules, but the law. Me, a teenaged anchor of a close-circuited high school news program, breaking the law because my t-shirt was giving unfair promotional time to a presidential candidate. Uh huh, sure.

That next day, I wore the shirt again. And sitting beside me, my co-anchor wore a George W. Bush t-shirt. Equal time. Equal promotion. We didn't debate or even mention our attire. We read the news, signed off, and, quite pleased with ourselves, walked from the studio to the adjacent classroom where we were forbidden to do that ever again lest we be replaced entirely.

It's only taken me seven years to become disenchanted with politics writ large to the point of that same apathy my classmates showed during the very zenith of my own political interest when I sat behind that news desk donning my support quite literally on my sleeve. 

And I hate it. I hate that I feel more strongly about my apathy than I do about the reason for my apathy. 

And even more so, I hate that the only thing I feel more than apathy is anger. But it's impotent anger. It's useless.

I can't even laugh at shows like The Daily Show or The Colbert Report anymore because the jokes are no longer funny because they're true. They're infuriating because they're so fucking real.

I feel underrepresented, misrepresented, not represented at all. And in a representative democracy, isn't that the fucking point? Especially when they guy I voted for is seated at the top.

But, like most of the elected officials currently in office right now, I don't have any answers. I don't know what to do. Our political system isn't about doing what's right for the people. It isn't about representation. It's a battle of morals. A war of ideals. A church of extremists and fanatics that speak the loudest and say the most and overwhelm the majority. How did the outliers become the mean?

Perhaps I'm naive, but isn't the whole point of our government to compromise? Do we not elect those who we feel will represent us most, send them to speak on our behalf, and trust that they will do their best to compromise in our favor in the pursuit of progress? Differing viewpoints leading to new, different ideas leading to compromised progress for the good of the nation as a whole. Not as a party. Not as a group. Not as one side or the other. Progress for us all, together.

Is not progress the whole point?

Though, I am not unable to see the reasons why political and social progress is at a standstill.

Both parties are so well branded that to step outside their brand in the pursuit of compromise is to betray itself, its constituents, its ideal. Both operate on fear. They're backed against a wall. And that fear turns everything to black and white, fight or flight. So we're left with absolutes. We're left with closed ears and closed minds.

But I'm guilty of the same thing. I recognize that. In the simplest of terms: I think I'm right. When I listen to Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin speak, I know I'm right. Scientifically, logically, objectively, I am right when it comes to their "opinions," their false knowledge about science. It's maddening and infuriating I'm so right. The very idea that they can argue with facts. With scientifically proven facts. The fact that they use the word theory incorrectly when in a scientific context. The fact that they are able to turn logic and proven science into pejoratives, into rallying points for ignorance. 

I know I'm right in dismissing that. In closing my ears. My mind.

But it's the very government that I'm speaking of that provides them the unalienable right to dismiss me. To know that they are right. To close their ears and minds. It's for this same government that I fight.

And so it goes. The unanswerable question. The unpassable impasse.

Suppose I'll just continue to hope—while the other side continues to pray—that those elected, those with power, those who act as our representation will be better than me. Better than them. Better than us. That they'll act on our behalf. That they'll act for us, not because of us or in reaction to us or for fear of us.

That compromise is achievable and necessary and important.

That change is possible.

Yeah, right.

It's usually an off-hand comment that, unbeknownst to my significant other, cements itself as a symbol of our slowly decaying romance. Like when, in college, a girlfriend stormed from my living room after I flicked on a Discovery Health channel show about the morbidly obese—a show I happen to find particularly amusing—and, after I caught up with her and with tears painting her cheeks, said Those poor people. What if they were here? Would you laugh at them, then? I thought you were a better person than this, Brandon.

I knew we were done. Right then. No question about it. A better person? I don't know who she thought she was dating, but a show titled The Half-Ton Man is inherently humorous. An adult human, an animal of my own species, who is so large the only possible way to transport him is via forklift. And the only reason he needs to be transported via forklift in the first place is to visit a doctor for the very reason he's being hauled... by a forklift! Morbidly hilarious is more like it. 

Of course, I didn't say any of that. And the relationship lasted another six or seven months. A cowardly move on my part, for sure. But what if I had just ended it there? Is that a seriously dick move? How superficial is that? When does knowing what you feel align with societal morality?

"Why'd you two split?"

"Oh, yeah. So, you see, I was watching The Half-Ton Man on Discovery Health--"

"Yes! That show is hilarious!"

"Right?! I know, I know--"

"A forklift? You've gotta be kidding me--"

"I know! They drove him through town on a forklift. Just, him sitting on his all-but disintegrated California King mattress hovering above the ground like he's on Jabba's barge, supported by what is basically a giant, mechanical eating utensil."

"Holy shit. I never even--"

"Why do you think it's so funny?! A morbidly obese man—a man who, undoubtedly, knows his way around a fork—is forced to be carried atop the very thing that's aided him in becoming what he is! I don't care that he's fat. It's the irony of the thing."

"Holy shit."

"I guess it really wouldn't work if he wasn't fat though..."

"How'd we get on The Half-Ton Man? ...what were we even talking about?"

"Oh, right. Uh, yeah, she saw me watching it and laughing and told me she thought I was a better person than that. So I broke up with her."

"A better person than what? Laughing at a fat guy on a forklift?"

"I guess."

"So, you two broke up over... The Half-Ton Man."

"Looks that way."

"That's not gonna look too good on you, is it?"

"No. No it's not."

"Don't worry. It's still hilarious."

"It's a fat guy. On a forklift. It'll always be hilarious. That's never not been hilarious."

Suppose what I'm trying to say here, is, with that situation in particular, even though I knew it was over, I didn't really know it was over. Or, I didn't want to know it was over. I was still gathering evidence. If I'm going to eject at the first sight of a bad-clapper or a fist-pumper or a movie theatre drink-slurper, what the hell kind of person am I? Not that those things won't be entered into the record, of course. ...and not that each one doesn't raise the probability of ejection exponentially.

So here's a simple test for all of you who are blissfully unaware that your relationship is clinging to a cliff's edge like so many fingers in so many '80s action movies:

Plan a day for just the two of you. Preferably a weekend, Saturday. Preferably in the morning so you'll have to wake up early. Now, take your significant other to a state park or national forest or somewhere with a lake or river where you can rent a canoe. Now, rent a canoe. Sit in the back, allowing your partner to sit in front of you. Finally, canoe.

Sounds like a pretty relaxing occasion, right? If it is, congratulations, you two are going to make it.

If your day, however, breaks you over its knee and causes the non-religious to talk to God and the religious to forsake His guidance, then, well, I've saved you a lot of time and excess pain.

Canoeing relies on teamwork. Really, it's the perfect distillation of a romantic relationship.

To move forward and accomplish your main goal, you have to paddle together, but independently, one oar on one side, the other oar on the other. You must be in unison, yet able to retain your own independence.

To turn, you must compromise. One oar must lift from the water while the other steers toward this new goal. However, that other oar must remain poised just above the water for support, lest the canoe turn too quickly and lose control, sending itself into a circular spin that is all but inescapble.

To travel upstream, you must be willing to work together, adjusting frequently, with flexibility. With patience and poise. Paddling harder than you've had to in the past. Fighting for calmer current.

And, above all, both parties must remain committed to the canoe ride. In the canoe, it's just the two of you. If you can't stand staring at the back of your partner's head while they stare at the beautiful view in front of them, well, like I said, you'll know it's over.

I failed my canoe test. Wasn't too long before, like our canoe that day, we ran aground. Then again, I've always hated boats. Then again, then again... she should have just let me steer like I asked her to in the first place and just maybe we could have avoided that piece of driftwood and I wouldn't have had to get out in alligator infested waters and shove us from that thatch of mangrove roots.

That's all in the past now, though.

Totally in the past.

...a FORKlift! Come on!

I've been working on something about politics—hey, wake up—for a little under a month. See it at the top of the page here-- oh, yeah, right. 'Cause of the not posting.

I don't know what it is lately. I'm writing fairly consistently. For me, anyway. I have a few things in progress. That blog post about politics I mentioned. An original television pilot script I'm writing with my writing partner, David, about magic and rebellion, responsibility and crawling from your father's shadow. A short story about a scientist who's shit-canned 'cause he refuses a military contract and then gets caught up in the project's experimental procedures anyway. (Oh, yeah, that short story takes place on the Moon.) (I need to work on my pitches.) And, of course, there's the feature script I return to once every couple weeks. For maybe an hour or so. Sometimes as short as a few minutes.

What I'm getting at here is pretty well decreed there in the title. I need to be writing every day. Some will just be days. Most, days that feel damned. That's just how it works. But the days and goddamned days alike need words all the same.

I have a tendency to overthink and overanalyze and overplan. Too many outlines—and I used to fucking hate outlines. I still hate outlines. I just want to ...write. So that's what I'm going to do here. I'll save the outlining and overanalyzation for the scripts and short stories. Here, it's going to be a little more raw than it's been in the past.

So, every goddamned day. Or, you know, more frequently than every. goddamned. seven. months.

At least more frequently than that.

Oh, and today, my upper left cheek beneath my eye and along the inside of the bridge of my nose began going numb at infrequent intervals throughout the day. I Googled that shit and caused an already-in-progress panic attack to escalate into a chest-clenching walk around the block talking to myself while the oppressive heat soldered my boxer-briefs to my balls. But I'm sure it's fine. Or in a month I'll look like Sly Stallone. As they say, ce la Rocky.

Oh, that's not what they say? I was never the best French student.

There's a theory—a hypothesis, actually—that our Universe isn't the product of the first and only Big Bang. It's a hypothesis that postulates that our Universe is cyclical and never-ending. No beginning and no end at all. There's just Everything and always has been Everything, and when Everything is destroyed there's just Everything again. 

In that Universe there is no Before.

Now, just imagine, that there is. Imagine before what has no Before.

Just, imagine.

The word: Before. Just the word. And then nothing. Not blackness, there is no blackness. Not whiteness, there are no colors to combine to create it. Not even nothing, it doesn't exist yet.

It's blankness, but without the word. Just the feeling. But it doesn't feel like anything, there's nothing to which it can compare. Just the instinct.

Blank. Before.

Then, impossibly, a whisper. You can't even hear the whisper. You can't even hear the echo of the whisper. You can just barely make out the echo of the echo of the whisper and it's saying

"How did you know to clean the coffee maker?" 

…what?

"How did you know to clean the coffee maker?"

And you realize the blankness is just your brain attempting to process the unprocessable.

The above is as blank as my brain has ever been. Terminally blank.

As a new hire, it continues to amaze me that every new boss is impressed with my ability to clean a coffee maker. More specifically, that I can clean the coffee maker without being asked to do so.

Seven-thirty strikes and I start to pack my things. Did you take out the trash? Yes, it's my job. Did you straighten up the offices; the writers are kind of a mess. Yeah, I know, and I did. The, uh, coffee maker? Yes. The coffee maker is clean. There's a fresh filter ready to go for the morning.

Oh, well. I guess you're good to go. Okay, thanks--

How'd you know to clean the coffee maker? I'm sorry, what? It's your first day, so, how did you know the routine?

I… I dunno. I, uh, what.

This is where the blankness happens. The Universe before that doesn't have a before and none of that.

It's my brain stopped completely and spinning off its axis at once. Chock empty. Full out. Stuffed to starvation.

I could answer honestly. "Oh, thank you. I've done this before. (You saw my résumé.) At my last job (it was on my résumé). Cleaning the coffee maker at the end of the night is just something I've been doing. Figured this job wouldn't be any different (than my last job… that one on my résumé, yeah, right there). With respect to the routine, anyway."

Probably too sarcastic. Probably.

I could answer sincerely. "Just figured it's something that needs to get done and I'm the guy who's here to do it." 

Maybe, yeah. That one's okay--

How about… actually honestly. "Because I'm not a lazy, inconsiderate idiot. I'm an adult. Why are you surprised? Who have you been working with prior to hiring me? Who are these fucktards swimming in the job-pool with me?--" 

"Fucktard" is more than likely the downfall of that one. Or, you know, everything plus.

Then again I could laugh it off. Or just be gracious. Or just be thankful I have a job and say nothing at all.

That last one, that's where my brain finally stops whirring. 'Cause I am. I'm very thankful to be working. To be emptying the trash. And straightening the offices at the end of the night. And cleaning out the coffee maker.

The despondency only flickers when I realize I'm competing against people who aren't thankful to be doing those things. That aren't capable of doing those things. And yet, every new boss is impressed that I am capable. Meaning just before me… someone who wasn't occupied the very same position I'm occupying now. They were hired just the same. 

And then that blankness floods back.

And I just smile and nod and continue to scrape the wet grinds from the bucket and reservoir. Someone forgot to use a filter again. Next time, let me make the coffee, too.

When I was nine or ten or maybe eight for that matter, one of those ages that only matters at the time, but in retrospect blurs together in a flurry of confusion and discomfort without specificity, I awoke to a rumble outside my bedroom window. My room was an addition to the house proper and therefore jutted into the dense thicket of wilderness even farther than the back of the house previously had. Even during the day, the ground was cast in shadow back there. The damp, dead leaves in a perpetual state of decomposition. But it was at night that the dark flaunted its true cowl. The darkness was fluid. It would bubble up like oil from the brown vegetation and coat the world around it. And I hated it. I hated the dark.

In a feeble attempt to keep the dark at bay, my dad had a high-voltage insect lamp installed directly above my bedroom window. When outside, it was difficult to decide which I hated more: that buzzing, blue lamp or the dark itself. When inside, though, the blue glow and white-noise buzz was soothing. Even the crackling carapaces of the insects singing in one, final electric jolt became a necessary element for a good night's sleep.

And it was the lack of that crackle and buzz that first stirred me awake.

It was the rumble outside my bedroom window that caused me to sit upright, wide-eyed and out of breath.

And then, there was an eye. Dark chocolate brown, massive, split horizontally over and over by the blinds shielding my window. But an eye, one eye, nonetheless. Then it blinked. I could feel the puff of air erupt from the crack beneath the half-open window. It was searching, most probably as curious of what it was seeing as I was curious of it, though, most likely, less terrified. With another rumble—what I recognized now as a footstep—the eye was gone.

The house became eerily quiet. My sister wasn't in her room. In fact, her room wasn't even there. My parents, either asleep soundly in their bed or missing. Either way, their door was closed and remained so. By now, I'd ventured into the play-room boxes of board games, Rubbermaid bins of stuffed animals and action figures, an old air-hockey table, a long-unused changing table when another rumble broke the still. Two. Four. Footsteps.

The roof was gone before I had time to react.

The moon was surprisingly bright, the air crisp, the sky clear. There, above me, was a gargantuan ape. The gargantuan ape. King Kong, himself. In his massive hands, he held the roof. And with the flick of his wrists, he cast it behind him like I might a pebble. I darted under the air-hockey table, unsure if my shivering was due to the rush of chilled, autumn air or the sheer terror gripping the muscles just beneath my skin. That ceased to matter when Kong's fingers plucked the air-hockey table upward.

Then it was just him and me.

I didn't resist when he lifted me up between his thumb and index finger. He rolled me into the palm of his hand, held me close to his hairy face. And he smiled. His breath smelled of fresh bananas. His palm coarse like worn burlap. And then--

I woke up.

Between my face-to-face with Kong and my next fully remembered dream, thirteen years passed. Coincidentally, this second of three dreams begins with an eye, too.

But an eye of nebulous, brilliant blue.

I met her at school. I was a sophomore at university, too eager to start living the life I was studying for, too focused on the future. It was in a lecture hall with a capacity of four-hundred. If the ratios are to be believed, one hundred fifty other men saw her eyes at the same time as me. But mine are the only eyes she saw. When I looked away—for to continue to stare would have turned my smile to flint, striking a spark to my skin, igniting myself and those innocent bystanders around me; I could have killed hundreds had I not averted my gaze; I could not have lived myself—but she did not look away. So, when I looked back to her—for to continue to avert my stare would have sublimated my self from solid to gas to stardust, killing me just as quickly—only then did she smile. Just the left corner of her mouth. Just the left corner of her top lip. It looked like a wilted tulip petal that only just remembered how to drink water. It was the most staggering--

We became inseparable. We lived our lives with, through, and for one another. We graduated together. We moved together. We lived together. Our relationship was utopia. Ours was heaven actual. Her hair became grey along with mine as years fell beneath our wrinkled toes. We shared a glass of water that with each sip dripped from that same left corner of her mouth. Her eyes never dulled. She died in my arms. She left me alone. And so I drifted away, holding her frail frame--

And then I woke up

in my college dorm room with tears streaking my cheeks and staining my pillow. I felt hollow and without purpose and alone. I felt abandoned. I turned to check the pillow beside me, expecting her there... I'd lived an entire lifetime with her and she'd left me. I tossed and turned and flicked on the TV. And there she was. A blonde instead of a brunette, but her eyes hadn't dulled.

There was Zooey Deschanel on my television screen.

I'd dreamed of an actress and singer and married woman. Watching her recite lines and perform the director's blocking, I knew her. Not a feeling of recognition or passing fancy, but... I knew her. I know I didn't... but, for that day, nothing else made sense but to know her and expect her reflection next to mine in every mirror.

It wasn't until two years later that I dreamed of Nicole. From a lifetime to a moment.

Nicole walked to me, barefoot, atop the greenest grass I'd ever seen. Her hair was short, even though I know it'd grown long. She said goodbye. Her lips didn't move. Nor her tongue. Nor throat. The word seeped from her, blistering from the blades of grass or the air just around my ears or both, in concert. I couldn't speak as I had no mouth with which to make any sound audible.

I tore the grass and wrecked the air around me, but the word only gained strength as it echoed just for me.

And she kept walking to me. Calm. Determined.

And when she placed a single finger to my missing mouth, lips grew. And when she outlined my lips, they parted. And when they parted, a tongue was shaped behind brand new teeth. My throat tightened as I realized I had a throat at all. Then I yawned and a sound escaped the prison she'd built for me.

I said goodbye and the grass charred black. Mine was not an echo or a whisper or a word. It was a creature terrible. It was torrential.

And she was gone, swept away. But I still smelled burning... I smelled her goodbye lingering on my tongue... I tasted salt and heard the fire on my fingertips--

And then I woke up.

Another warm body beside me. Female. Freckled.

I felt my lips and tongue, satisfied with their placement. I whispered. I heard. Satisfied with its sound.

I drifted back to sleep, I think. Or else I laid there until I couldn't lay there any longer.

And I haven't remembered a dream since.

I hope for nothing else, every night.

But I do sleep well. And without fear of the dark. Without fear of the death of my future and the death of my present. Without fear of loss.

I do sleep well, if but darkly; I forge my own dreams, if but lit by the light of the sun.

I do sleep well.

But I can't help but want to sleep vividly again.

But, sometimes, none of the above helps. Sometimes, the light just goes out. The light's out.

I was laid off one week ago on my first day back to work after my two-week holiday.

I'm jealous of my friends. I'm angry with myself. I'm angry. I'm concerned with choices made and choices about to be made. I'm afraid there won't be any choices to be made. I want to do well. But, most of all, I want to do good. I don't think I've done either. I'm where confidence meets arrogance meets insecurity. I'm lonely. I'm not alone. Sometimes I want to be...

I really do want to do good. Be important. Do something important. Be a part of something important. Be a part of a part of something important.

I'm crippled. I want to be unfiltered. But I still feel pressed against a chain link fence. Pressed between a chain link fence. Cut into chunks. I like to imagine each chunk would fight for superiority, for the right to be the heart of where I'd coalesce back into a human. Less "like to," more I just do. They'd probably become warring factions. Brain chunks against Heart chunks against Body chunks. Brain would convince Heart and Body of each of their respective treachery. Heart would lash out. Body would fight, but die. Wither from a fatal wound. It'd die beneath a rock, holed away. Heart would realize Brain's cunning. It would charge into battle, reckless, but sure. Brain would foresee this. He's watched it all their lives. He knows Heart is only strong when active. Brain knows Heart hasn't been in years. It's weak. It's small. But Brain wouldn't know that Heart has started to petrify. It's calloused. And he always forgets that Heart always wins. Brain, with his last breath, would deny it. Heart would cry over Brain. And then put me all back together.

But incomplete.

I don't know if I've ever been.

There's always a piece missing.

There's a darkness there. Sometimes a glow. That keeps me going. There's a darkness.

But I like knowing it's there. (Brain died, remember. And Heart's never been much of one for rational thought.)

Something about crows. Something about a metal hand. Something something something about a lake and sinking stones and how I'll forget.

Something about how I hope there is something to forget.