Page 108

She stopped before the bridge, knowing that once she crossed she wouldn't, couldn't look back. She promised herself that she wouldn't look back. But promises are meant to be broken after all and she could feel this one crumbling like her own heart. It ached for one last view of her home. Well, home for the past year, but home none the less. After all, home is where your family is and they were all like family by now. All the people she met, liked, loved, and even hated. All of them family. Like Brothers, Sisters, Long-Lost Cousins, Step-Siblings. So she stopped and placed her suitcases on the ground, slowly-as if to stall the inevitable-and reluctantly-giving into the desires she tried to restrain. Taking a deep breath and steeling her nerves, she turned. She could feel the tears starting to form in her eyes but she continued to hold them there as not to allow them to stream down her face. Held them as tight as she would forever hold onto the memories that caused them. She refused to let sadness take her tears. Unlike what happened just outside the dorm. And then again several feet from the entrance. And again just a couple of stops after that. She needed to sprint the last ten meters just to stop herself from turning back between there and here. But stopping here was important. It was, after all, the last place where she would be able to get a glimpse of the place she called home for the last year. She could see the boring brown structure, equally boring as the building next door and probably built by the same unimaginative builder. So she stands, staring and reflectiing and ignoring all the people squeezing passed her and her two jumbo suitcases that currently block the bridge like a traffic accident on a two lane road. A bridge, how appropriate. She was going back to reality, but crossing as a new person. Wiser, experienced, hopeful, and all those other good things a year abroad brings. And a setting sun-for the end of this journey-or should it be the start of a new one? But now we're getting too sentimental so let's leave it at that. But it is a perfect moment. She digs through her backpack and pulls out her treasure. Or is it more appropriate to call it her sword? Like a sword it does take the souls of its victims. Maybe more appropriately, its like a sword because though equally treasured and valuable it cannot, could not ever compare to the riches it has helped her take and capture-memories. So she aims through the lens of her camera and with a click, captures her last memory of Japan and with it seals away all the memories from just one of her many adventures, but one that she will hold onto forever. Again she picks up her suitcases and walks across the bridge, back to the world she knew just a year ago-back home. And again she stops and turns back

*note: picture taken from page 108 from Allison O'Connor's photobook "24:00 Japan in Film Photography". You can also check out more pictures on her blog- 24:00 http://urbanresearch.wordpress.com/

i seem to find pictures more helpful to get over writer's block than just staring at a blank sheet of paper. no idea why

Chance's story

It was heavier than he anticipated, especially since it was only his first week with his own Blade. His arms shook under the sword's weight until finally, unable to keep it raised any longer, he let it fall, burying its edge into the dirt.
"You're Resolve still is not strong enough," his master said as he whacked him in the back of the head yet again. Chance tried again to lift his Blade, raising it out of the dirt before dropping the sword completely this time.
Master _____ (I'll think of a name later) let out a sigh. "Let's go get lunch now and you can tell me all about why you are such a failure afterwards." He turned his back and proceeded to exit the training arena, gesturing for Chance to follow.
Now Chance let out a sigh, watching Master _____ exit the room without so much as a glance backwards. He looked down at his Blade, a simple double-edged longsword measuring four feet from tip of blade to the end of the handle. Master ____ told him that it would change as he got stronger, as his Resolve grew but for now it would remain a simple sword meant purely for hacking, slashing, and piercing. He looked around the room several times before pulling out a small piece of leather fabric from his pocket. Placing the blade of the sword into the middle of the leather, he pulled the material as hard as he could but it still refused the sword's cutting edge. "Guess my Resolve still isn't that strong at all."
Chance stood, alone in the empty training arena, the dirt from the floor blowing around in the wind. After a couple of minutes, he heard the doors open followed by the chatter of the grounds crew in charge of preparing the room for whoever reserved the room next. Guess its time to go. He lifted the sword with relative ease this time. The sword, though normally heavy during his training sessions, became relatively light when it knew Chance wanted to sheathe it. He hefted the sword and pointed tip of the blade toward his chest. He could feel the eyes of the grounds crew on him as he proceeded to move the point closer to his chest. Really hope I don't fuck this up. As far as Chance knew, no one had ever stabbed themselves while sheathing their own Blade. Still, being the first week of his training, Chance felt the tingle of fear until he saw the bluish glow where the point of the sword met with his chest. He could feel the awe of everyone in the arena as they watched him continue to shove the sword further and further into his chest, into the light until there was nothing left except his own hand placed upon his heart, the blue light gone as mysteriously as it came.

note: all names are subject to change. "Chance" is just a good standby name though

Jacob

A picture of one taking a picture of him taking a picture of one. This could go on forever, so I guess I'll stop...and yet stopping equates defeat, that writer's block remains victorious in this struggle. So maybe it'll take some dissection to get the story to this picture started.

Maybe he's wishing I captured him doing something more impressive, spectacular even. Right now I'm just wishing I had a better picture to work from than this. But maybe this is the essence of of improv, to work with what you've got. Just as he utilizes a cigarette box to filter the flash of the camera. And so we must use what we've got to do and create to the fullest of our abilities. It really is powerful, isn't it, improv.

Or maybe it just needs another angle (to look at the picture, not how the picture should be taken). A picture after all is not just the way the photographer sees the world, but how the subject wants to be seen by the photographer. Capturing the world for himself, preserving its essence as memories, relived later when they have all but faded, vived as if it happened only yesterday, only several hours ago, only within the last minute. Its what a camera is for after all and the strap around his neck shows his seriousness on the subject, keeping the camera always at hand to capture the images, moments, stories that depict the life he lives at this time in his life. Keeping it always at hand to capture what is essentially a photo timeline of his life. And a filter, a filter, a cigarette box to filter out the artificial light cast on the scene, preserving it as purely as the eyes see it, keeping the memory untarnished and as close to the way the mind will see it (the scene, not the photograph) in the years to come. And so the subject becomes a Keeper of Time, one who preserves it as fully as possible until the time when the memory is no longer needed and can be cast into oblivion along with other moments washed away by a cleansing rainfall.

guess I'll start with an intro...

He sits, staring across the river, seeing so much more. Or does he see nothing at all? Even I don't know where she (his Muse, not her) took him this time, what images and fantasies he finds himself in. He lights up another cigareete, another to add to the collection growing in the weeds behind him. Trading a step closer to death for a couple more pages in the story, maybe even an entire chapter this time. All great artists would trade precious hours, days, even years for a chance at a masterpiece, after all. If only the words came as easily as he hoped. His Muse only guides his thoughts after all, not his actions. Only shows him a piece of the story, but never puts it on the page. And so he inhales again and looks for her to be walking along the bridge above the river (the girl, not the Muse). She's not there, never there. In the dreams she walks across the bridge, but nothing more. Nothing more that he knows of because The Muse will always interfere, taking him away from dreams of hopeless infatuation to hopeless situations. Situations he can always escape from nonetheless. After all, that's a hero's job, to survive The Funhouse. But that's enough about heroes since he's yet to move past envisioning and onto creation. Instead he sits at the river with a slowly vanishing pack of cigarettes, a pen, and a blank notebook marked only with scrawls of unfinished thoughts, half sentences if you will, like an open-ended straight draw. But Poker isn't his game (it's mine) and so he has no place here. What belongs here are Immortality, Fate, Serendipity, Blades and Fangs, Trials and Tribulations, and her (the girl and the Muse). Essentially the tools and materials to build the Funhouse for his (or is it mine? or our?) characters to get lost in, hallways turning into stories as the lovers fade into one another while we, he, I tilt at the windmills that never will be.