Do you think I don't know of your actions, you serpentine vermin?? You try too hard to be the best and the smartest, you've forgotten how a mantis stalks a cicada only to find the oriole behind.

'You still talk like the world listens. I missed that about you' --- the world has gone deaf from the screams of the miserable. What I'm talking to is the hollow shell of its remembrance. All that's left unchanged in me is the naive hope that maybe one day- one day, I get a reply.

Hey guys, so I decided to post a little bit of some of the writing I did when I didn’t have internet. It’s really hard for me, because I haven’t felt as in-touch with my writing side as I’ve wanted to be in a really long time. 

It’s cool if you don’t like it, it’s cool if you do, this is just for me to edge back out there. I’m aware my grammar is probably crap, run on sentences, etc. it’s me trying to keep up with my brain. 

Anyway, this is “what is your favourite colour?” 

It comes around in different ways, different shades, more than a singular colour.

It’s there when you stretch out your stiffening body, your aching bones groaning as you change position for the first time in hours, too many hours, and before you know it you’re watching the sun quietly brighten the morning - it dances underneath the sun, those mingling shades that remind you of the beauty of a fresh start, and though your eyelids fight the too-real weight put on them, a faint smile pulls up the corners of your dry, cracked lips, it’s a glorious rebirth. 

It’s there when you’re laughing with a loved one, hand in hand as the autumn air dances around the two of you, and you zigzag back and forth to hear the satisfying crunch under the shoes your woollen sock-clad feet call home, because the fall has come to tell the leaves to kiss the trees goodbye, and their stunning array of vibrancy makes for a beautiful image.

It’s there when you’re a child, your skin kissed by the hot rays, droplets of water still falling from your hair as you lay out on your towel, squeezing your eyes shut as you look toward the sky, the blinding brightness of the sun illuminating the usual darkness behind your lids, revealing what you don’t normally see. 

It’s there when you watch the first splash of cream dance in a warm cup of Red Rose, inhaling deeply, eager for that first sip of liquid comfort as your hands wrap around the mug, the warmth radiating through when you need it the most.

It’s there in snippets of life. 

It’s the galaxy, even farther beyond what we could possibly imagine, peppered with stars, sprinkled with planets, the image so breathtaking, so one of a kind, that you wish you could dip a paintbrush in. 

It’s a pie, sitting on an overflowing table that draws people together, remains of the intricately carved gourd who just previously had cast it’s spectre-esque shadow shakily with the flickering light from within. 

It’s the dark swirling in a bruise, the boldness of a scar when the cold takes to your skin, a reminder that though you can be hurt, you are resilient, you are a walking story, and that story doesn’t have to be sad, it doesn’t have to hurt, too.

Some people spend their entire lives trying to avoid going to Hell so it might surprise you that some of the most superheroic individuals in history have willingly ventured into the Bad Place at one time or another for some reason or another.

There is a myriad of reasons for a superhero to have to or want to venture down into the mysterious beyond. Perhaps they are going to rescue the soul of a loved one or the wrongfully damned or a loved one of somebody who is blackmailing them (it’s very easy to find yourself being blackmailed into performing impossible tasks when you have a ginormous secret that you’re constantly trying to protect) maybe you’re returning a lost demon to the address on its collar, maybe you’re going down there to give Hades or the Devil or Greg the Skeleton King or whoever a good butt-kicking for some villainous action. Maybe an unfortunate side effect of your extreme power is that normal human, non-hellfire, saunas aren’t hot enough for you. Maybe you just lost a bet! Whatever the reason is, it often transpires that a hero needs to a quick way into the underworld.

One surefire way to get to the realm of the dead is to commit some evil acts and then die. The classic “push an old lady into oncoming traffic and then following her” move should do the trick. But then you’re condemning yourself to an eternity of torture and suffering and that’s probably not what you were looking for! So, for the still-living-and-still-loving-it crowd, getting to Tartarus is pretty much the same as getting anywhere else, public transportation. The Ferry to Heck runs eight times a day. You’d think it would run more often what with all the dead people it needs to cart around and you’d be right and it used to run every time someone died but then there was a strike and it was a whole mess so now it runs just eight times a day and the dead people just have to wait in an orderly fashion at the docks at the edge of the River Styx (just put edge of the River Styx into your navigation app of choice I’m not gonna sit here and draw you a map). So you’re gonna have to wait with them. And they smell bad. They smell like rotting flesh and regret. It’s a very uncomfortable experience. But on the bright side, dead people often are not in a rush to get to their eternal vacation at the damnation station. So they’ll usually let you cut in line. When you get on the boat make sure you say hello to Charon, the captain, and let him know that you are a living person. That’s the only way to secure a complimentary meal that isn’t worms or whatever it is dead people to eat (usually its worms but one time everybody got grilled cheese so you could risk it but I’d let somebody know that you’re not dead). When you meet Charon don’t be nervous, he can be a little bit scary but he’s a reasonable bloke. Try telling him a joke. He likes jokes and nobody ever tells him any. Say something like “Charon my good man you look stunning, drop-dead gorgeous.” He’ll laugh, you’ll laugh, you’ll get your grilled cheese, it will be a good time.

If you’re too fancy to ride on a ferry that floats on top of the souls of the damned there are some other options available to you. You or someone you know can conjure up a doorway to hell using the dark arts. Of course, this means going on a scavenger hunt to find lizard eyes and peacock feathers and Greek coins. If you’re in a rush you can always buy one of those prepackaged doorway to Hell kits that they sell in most Wal-Marts but those ingredients are usually artificial and don’t work nearly as well as fresh ones. You can also hire a wizard guide to the deadlands for pretty cheap, a lot of them deal in memories these days and those are priceless, so they don’t cost anything! Or you can jump on a demon right as they’re about to teleport back to their fiery homes (to lure a demon to your location in the first place I suggest using peanut butter, demons love peanut butter). Alternatively, if you’re already in Heaven, there’s a train that goes to Hel whenever you want it to. Lots of things happen whenever you want them to up there. It’s one of the perks of Heaven

Once you get to Hell there are  a variety of characters you might encounter. There’s Cerberus, the three headed literal guard dog from Hell but he (they?) are actually pretty easily dealt with. See, Cerberus is actually three times as much dog as regular doggos, so he (she?) loves dog things like playing fetch and belly rubs. If you’re going to play fetch though you need to bring three balls. For maximum distraction try throwing the three balls in three different directions. Additionally, music puts Cerberus to sleep (I wish music put me to sleep, then me and my neighbors who are in a band that I think is called “We Only Practice at Night and Gee Golly Are We Loud About It” would get along much better). Cerb’s favorite kind of music is heavy metal covers played on a harp but if you’re not strong enough or committed enough to lug a harp around with you into the afterlife he likes fiddles too. You’ll also encounter a variety of demons, dark angels, poltergeists, imps, telemarketers and all manner of ungodly evils. If you can avoid them great but if not you may have to fight some of them. They’ll probably try to stop you from freeing one of the souls they’ve come to love to torment so I hope you came prepared for fisticuffs. 

Stealing from Hell is a lot like stealing from anywhere. You’ll have to bypass the security guards as we’ve just discussed and then break any locks or riddles (they love riddles in Hell, also, speaking in rhyme) that stand between you and your goal. I actually recommend not going on this adventure by yourself. At the very least you’ll need someone who is familiar with the unholy magicks at work in the underworld but it would also be smart to bring someone who knows something about stealing things. If you can find a magician thief person that’d be ideal but there are only like seven of those and four of them are either in jail or already in Hell at any given time. You’re also going to want to avoid being noticed by whoever’s running the place on that day (all the major demons and Greg the Skeleton King have a rotation, just like I suggested superhero teams should do, maybe they read this blog). Once the Boss notices you mucking around stealing souls you’re almost certainly toast. Sometimes you can win your freedom by being a fiddle aficionado or by making some sort of horrific deal but usually that’s just instant damnation for you and your party. Then you’ll need someone else to come and save you and it becomes a whole cycle until everybody on Earth is in Hell because of you!

If you somehow, despite everything, manage to get to the soul that you’re after congratulations! Now what’re you gonna do with it? You need some means of transporting that sucker with you out of the underworld. Most jars can actually hold souls pretty well (But none as well as Jerry’s Homegrown Condiment Jars please think of us for all your eternally damned soul jarring needs!) But no containment will work as well as the person’s actual body. Plus if you get them back in their body you’ll have another couple of hands to help fight your way out of hell. Of course that means lugging around a lot of literal dead weight with you on the way in but I dunno, it might be worth it. (We did not actually authorize that advertisement and we don’t know how it got there.)

my vision teeters on the edge of a great crack, stained glass subdivisions dappling images of new planes. i stand in the cathedral alone. with god, of course, but alone. what's in that hole? i can't see.

do you know what it means? i don't. my hands are like pages rubbing against one another when i put my hands up like this. i am the confessional. saunter to the podium, get a good look at the angels peeking in through the windows.

i am the confessional. me like the priest, me like the pope. our finale consists of a man - only a man - who makes these walls sacred. but surely, you all know that. he says the kingdom was built on a rock and sand. he tells these stories of a great king, for he is there to promote the myth. but have you seen him?

he always slips out of the picture at just the right moment. its natural of course, waiting for the king. sometimes i slip out of the picture too, and i can't remember why. he tells me look at me, and i don't remember. the natural order of things, crimson hues sprouting across the sky. i ask him why we don't do it all over again. he doesn't reply.

i never really get a look at god, so i never quite understand his laws.

but as i was saying, the cathedral could burn with the king inside it you know. we'd never find out. the king doesn't tell the man these things, after all. that would remove the mystery. so i ask him "do you think god is listening?" and he never answers.

the power of the king is his ability to disappear from the narrative whenever he wants, pressing the sieve into my chest as he rushes off.

i see it in fractures, the land changes, it happens all at once. we are all moving at the same time, you me him do it again, you me him do it again, you me him do it again and so on so forth in an eternal dance opening into a sea of darkness. so thats why we dont, i guess. the rule is that the rule is that the rule is, well - it never ends.

and so the king makes sure his laws do the same. disappear, that is. is that why we die? certainly, at the right time. lush green growth echoes into glass, and i try to get a good look.

i wait for the sand to rebuild the temple into a cathedral, and the king will show up before the man ever does. the king will get sick of waiting and set about drafting and legislating and the man will be too late to make any changes.

time will slow to a halt so that i can break the first one. why did you do that!!! he will scream, apoplectic. the man! the man! and he'll go running off again. once more, i lose my memory in the sand. the man - i am - will tell me stories in the end, and my role is to feel horrible.

i made a grave mistake, coming here, doing all this, writing a rule that makes me the fool.

but in the end - all that will be left is the sand, the rock, and the trio moving like a timeless clock. set on a precise journey forced like marionettes to write rules and then lose them again.

Guarding the humble entrance of every Asian supermarket, flaps of plastic greeted her upon entry like squid tentacles. Like every other shop in Chinatown, this one boasted an impressive array of Asian spices, instant ramen and dried mushrooms. Splashes of yellow and green and blue yanked her gaze from shelf to shelf. They smudged away the golden treasure in her mind, even if only temporarily. She began detouring on a side quest… or two…

Why was she even here in the first place? And why did that matter? These thoughts replaced all else as she weaved from aisle to aisle, from dried foods to imported snacks to the marching-line of freezers. The constant, droning buzz of lights and freezers were indistinguishable from each other. Her friends would probably say they sounded like resilient houseflies, but to her, its incantations were almost ethereal.

Warm vermillion permeated every corner and every shelf, hugging her and offering solace. It was inescapable, but why would one even want to escape? Ten years ago, she clung onto frail, wrinkled hands through these very corridors. For a fleeting moment, she pictured her mother's gentle smile before realising she was staring blankly at nothing but a bottle of Kecap Manis.

Even so, the bottle glimmered under the humble shine of fluorescent LED lights. She cradled it in her arms, as if it were her own child. Again, her soft lips stung with the ghost of her mother's special fried rice and its secret ingredients: sweet soya sauce and love. This hidden treasure clinked as she carefully returned it to its shadowy, humble abode.

As she resumed her aimless adventure, the grasp of blinding LED lights slowly dissipated, replaced by the sleepy glow of natural sunlight. The drifting stench of crumpled cardboard boxes lured her back towards daylight. These boxes stank of a perilous journey across the seas, of a time and place long detached from this humble supermarket. They slept idly at her feet and she peered in.

Sparkling in a vibrant persimmon-orange, an alluring array of Teh Botol tea boxes grinned back. She furrowed her brow, organising jumbled thoughts. She blinked, then gasped, then laughed. Of course! The jasmine tea boxes gleamed a royal golden in the sunlight. The final treasure! X marks the spot!

With lanky, ecstatic arms, she heaved the cardboard treasure chest towards the counter. She rummaged through dusty pockets, slammed the extra change down, and dashed out, greeting plastic squid tentacles goodbye. In the broad, golden daylight, her friends beamed - though one rolled her eyes.

"What took you so long?"

"Sorry… I may have gotten a little distracted… but anyways, here you go!"

Again, he channelled all his energy into a single, swift lurch as he cast the rod. Small but mighty. Yet the bottle-green water remained still as ever, save for a pair of silent ripples. Cue the languid sigh from behind.

"You're such a grandpa!"

His sister's taunts were about sixty-five years too early. He merely rolled his eyes, saving his breath for something more worthwhile. Fervent eyes fixated on the idle river again.

It was a mirror reflecting the splatters of white in the endless sky above. More splatters of white, though less graceful and fluffy, also decorated the concrete around. Flocks of seagulls shamelessly painted the urban landscape, squawking their ravenous anthems. Another dropping fired beside him; a near miss. He grimaced. More droppings meant more birds, which meant less fish for him.

As if telepathic, the seagulls above cackled and jeered at his bad luck. They knew he would never rule these suburban seas like them. He swallowed back a salty pang of tears, replacing it with an indignant sniffle. If his sister caught him, he would blame it on hayfever and dust.

For what little comfort it offered, the highway bridge above cast cool shadows - pockets of heaven from the searing Aussie sunrays. Sniffling again, he cast a furtive glance behind his shoulder. The bridge lay in child's pose, its arms overstretched: protective, ancient, watchful. It was an urban deity, a concrete giant, breathing smog into the atmosphere with distant growling. Stained with freckles of rust and neon tattoos, here it wielded supreme reign. The mocking gulls were its naïve subjects - mere peasants. One day, their taunts would die along with them, but the bridge would keep on living. The boy wiped his sweaty forehead with wiry hands and choked his fishing rod again. Cue another cough from behind.

"Tired yet?"

"Are you?"

"Uh, yeah - I swear we've been here the whole arvo, and you haven't even gotten anything!"

"Just you hold on a little longer-"

Heaven is a place. Around the world and across the centuries, heaven was thought to be a place of spiritual purity, a place of home-cooked meals and a mother's loving gaze, a place of riches and gold and power. Today, it lay behind the green door.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of the Prohibition. Shielded under the deep violet veils of night and the mellow, sleepy streetlights, Charles ambled towards the green door. Around his feet, the sharp click-clack of heeled boots thrust invisible ripples of noise through the air. But other than that, silence. The distant whimpering of motor vehicles said their goodbyes. Even the yellow crescent in the sky lingered still. Idle and taciturn, it merely watched as Charles retreated into a secluded alley and knocked on the green door. Ancient hinges let out a single plea as Charles vanished inside. Like a tiger failing to capture its prey, the fatigued moon surrendered once again into its blanket of clouds.

Inside, boarded windows shut out any sense of time. Who needed to know the time, anyways? Here, night and day faded into irrelevance; the moon's ethereal rays were barred from entry. Only low, hanging lights, poised gracefully like ballerinas, spared their humble, dim glow for the few customers around. As far as Charles could see, the others slumped in their dilapidated seats, scattered around sparsely like lonely grains in a field. In this world, nobody was a stranger to solitude. Any chatter was hushed and anxious and only succeeded the occasional clink of a shifted glass.

As usual, Charles meandered and weaved through dented, wooden tables. He eyed his favourite, self-proclaimed throne: a faded, red high chair, waiting patiently for him. In a forgotten corner of the room sat a forgotten piano in time-out, its ancient melodies and symphonies long-forgotten. Tonight, it gathered dust, absorbing all the joy and life and music that once danced throughout. A wheezy cough broke the silence, yet only for a fleeting moment. A dirty yellow glow penetrated into the walls and their cracks, colouring all faces a sickly sallow. But to Charles, heaven is heaven. Gin is gin… but not always.

Craning his neck below, Charles swirled his chipped beer glass, his grey eyes boring into the hypnotic, yellow liquid. Around and around it swished and swashed. Tap, tap, tap. The faint tapping of impatient nails prodded his ears, as if scolding him for dawdling. Finally, he tilted his head back in a single, smooth, graceful movement. The liquid oozed between thin lips, tickled a ravenous tongue. Another wheezy cough. Tap, tap, tap. The sleepy lamps above were bright enough for the liquid to gleam and sparkle with hope, but dim enough for him to pretend it tasted like it used to. The moonlight's rays finally slithered through the cracks. A glass shattered.

A heavy knock on the door. No, this wasn't a knock, it was pounding. All eyes on the green gateway to heaven. The cacophonous, discordant mashing of piano keys seemed to echo in the walls of Charles' head. Another heavy knock, this time a threat. The hand that sent it must have been scarred, wiry, callous.

Creeping behind the horizon's curtain, rays of pale gold scatter into the sky.

Open your eyes.

The world is still dusted by shadow,

But brilliance rears its head from beneath.

Shine! O glorious light, unto the world!

Cotton candy pinks and pastel oranges

Fade into shimmering golds and brilliant blues.

See the horizon stretch into infinity

As the world lays aglow.

Stretch out your blinding arms

Until the bounds of time wrap close.

glow, o beautious light, upon the world.

lustrous sunbeams run back home

as soft shadows take their place.

close your eyes.

a curtain of stars closes over tonight's stage.

constellations slow dance together,

their partners light years away.

the moon does a lonesome waltz,

companion steadfastly slumbering.

but soon enough the orchestra tunes up