Is it better to be innocent, I wondered. Is it even possible? Certainly one could not survive… my thought trailed off. No, if a person led a life where their innocence was never threatened, they would certainly survive. That is in fact a bald certainty. An entirely innocent life would be safe, easy. But what sort of life would it be?

Static. Motionless. Protected by something or someone so that the world would never get too close. Fantasy. For is that not what innocence is? Ignorance, a state before an understanding of reality contaminates the private, pure thoughts of a young mind. Before all the preconceptions and ideals are broken. Anyone who live in innocence was living in ignorance.

Is that better? Maybe happier… well, no. Not happier. Innocence does not allow for real happiness, because only after tasting true grief can joy be appreciated. Innocence dilutes all emotion to the point of a practical apathy.

"No. It is not better," I finally replied.

"Then why avoid change?" she asked instantly, almost as if I’d never paused.

"Because… it causes pain. I don’t want that responsibility."

"Only pain comes from change?"

"No. That’s not true… Sometimes pain is necessary. It teaches us about happiness," I said.

"You don’t want to be responsible for that?"

"I don’t know."

"What about her, why is she not responsible for what happens to her?"

"Because she is innocent- and I am not."

"You said before you didn’t know her- how can you know her innocence?"

"I," paused, "can tell."

"Tell? Deduce? Or assume?" she replied. Her tone was changing gradually. I realised it soon.

"Assume." I admitted. "I still don’t understand."

"You do not want to ask anything of her because you are afraid of the responsibility for the pain it might cause. But, what if she is not allowing you to assume that responsibility? What if she already knows?"

"Then she’s not innocent anyway."

"And, if not, then you are trying to take away her responsibility for herself. Attempting to put her back into innocent helplessness- not allowing her to be herself. Changing her indeed- only in your eyes -and only for the worse."

Not innocent. Not innocent at all, and definitely not ignorant. A sense of childish shame creapt over me.

"I’m sorry."

"Don’t be. Learn. Pain is useful sometimes." With that she slapped the back of my head, hard enough to punctuate her statement.

Hello all, how’s things? I feel like just talking a little bit here, see who responds.

I am a little bit amused by the fact that I get far more different users commenting when I do NOT write, than on the pieces that I do. Where are all those complaining bastards when I’m actually publishing things hmmm?

Next item: my little cousin got herself published in her high school’s newspaper, I am so jealous! My one piece I was led to believe would be in last week’s paper at uni was NOT included, so I’m a little put out about that. But the other one, which is in my opinion much better, is still in the works. Its the inagurual edition of this journal, it should be out mid-October. Meanwhile I have lots of skeletons for articles to write which I hope to have some time to do, and get published. I won’t post them here until they have been printed, as to ensure the you know, genuine ‘not published before’ status of the work.

Oh lets see what else. I bought my first Hunter S. Thompson today, got Hell’s Angels. Refrained from picking up Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as well, even though that’s the one that I saw with my best friend Johnny Depp in the movie, and thought it was hell-funny. I was looking for Henry Miller but guess what… somehow the two bookstores here in my shopping centre do not have a single Miller book! Sometimes I forget I live in middle-class suburbia.

Hopefully I shall be out soon, in the city, close to the uni. I’ll get one of those sweet little pads and become a full-time artsy-fartsy writer, wine-drinking musician PhD student, teacher, and if anyone wants to volunteer, genuine all-around practicing sex-addict. Oh wait a second… hold the phone, I think that position has already been filled. Sorry people

Now, read on, and if you read, comment. That is an order!

edit OH I remembered the last thing I was going to ask: is everyone else getting bumped to a blank white page after commenting? My blog is misbehaving, I think.

We walked together through those teeth of desolation in near silence. Only the sounds of our movement narrated our passing. The quiet syllables of clothing rustling against itself and the gentle whisper of our two breaths both punctuated by the sharp crunch of her pointed heels. Without words our bodies spoke to each other, measuring out the length and timing of steps and inhalations to keep in rhythm.

Describing this feels truly irrelevant, in a way, because the feeling, the experience was so unlike any other that no one who was not there could comprehend it. And I, having never quite understood it myself, have no way to express the timelessness in a language of words. The isolation became for me so complete that nothing else mattered. My surroundings were meaningless. Time was a fantasy, something I remembered from a dream that had no place here. My world collapsed to become only my internal self- and the tiny, exquisite girl who so inexplicably walked beside me.

I had no context within which to place her- yet I felt so deeply connected to her that her being was as familiar as my own. I felt like she’d always been there. The sensation was most unsettling. I knew I could ask anything of her, and she would respond. What did that make her? Was she but an aspect of myself, or an entire being of her own? I feared to even ask her- I would not put her at the mercy of my confusion. To force her to define herself in my own terms, to me, would be to change her very nature.

What terms? Nothing I had known before seemed plausible here. Perhaps it was I who needed a redefinition. Of course… here, how can I even assume that anything actually claims definition? I scanned the turbulant, misty field of the obscure horizon. Where were we walking towards again? Everything here, even the ground I walked on seemed so mutable, ephemeral even. What would definition mean here? In a place where mere thought was manifest into reality, everything was the way it was believed to be.

By whome? By me? Had I the power? Could I find my own answers in plain belief? I had witnessed my hands disappear and reappear- or at least I felt as though I had that memory. I had annihilated creatures I could plainly see, with my very gaze- again, as I recalled. Could I not then answer my own questions, and in that, create truth? Could I live in a world of my own making? Was I already? Had I always been, even before?

"John," she said. "You worry so much."

I only looked at her, but my expression must have belied my surprise.

"I can feel you, John, as a sensation on my skin, as a colour to my eyes," she replied. Her eyes were so dark, so black they could conceal anything, everything. When I looked into them, I felt compelled to search, to probe… for something.

"I don’t understand, this…" I managed to say.

"Why do you feel you must understand?" she asked.

"I don’t know, I guess." I tried to make the words, it took a few tries. "I don’t know what to do, unless I understand things, how they work."

"You are helpless to act unless you understand?"

"Well, no. I can do things, but how do I know what I’m doing is right?" I asked her. "You know, the right thing to do. I don’t want to hurt… anyone." There was no anyone, only her. And for her I felt responsible. She seemed so fragile. So innocent. And I . . . not.

"What does ‘right’ mean?" she asked. "There is only one ‘right’ thing to do?"

Her genuine confusion paused me for a moment. How can I explain right and wrong? In that moment I came to appreciate how much expression is comparative. As in attempting to describe a totally unique place such as this one I found myself in, how can I express right and wrong with nothing to compare?

"There are… actions, they have consequences. Good actions are the ones with the best consequences. They are right. Wrong actions result in pain- suffering for someone." I said finally, feeling entirely inadequate.

"For who?"

"Anyone."

"For you?"

"Not me, I . . . well, maybe me. But I can withstand much suffering. I am strong, so if my actions are hard for me, that is better than the consequences being hard for someone who isn’t as strong."

"How can you know what suffering someone else can withstand before you understand them? What makes you stronger?" she asked.

I couldn’t answer for a moment, and she asked another question.

"What do you mean withstand? Will a weak person… what happens to them?"

"They… wouldn’t be the same as they were, before. Their suffering would damage their personality maybe. Change them." I replied. "It would take away who she is."

"Who is she?"

"I don’t know." I said.

"Why would she want to stay the same forever? Were you always this way?"

"No, I wasn’t. I…things happened to me, and I changed."

"Is that how you become strong? Is that what changed?"

"Partly, yes. I lost things and so . . . its harder to hurt me now."

"You are harder to change?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Is it better to be weak? To keep those things that make you easier to change?"

I had to think about this one a while. And she, despite her obvious curiousity, seemed not to mind waiting for me.

That which is so wanted, the sweet intersection of flesh
that final consummation to justify the rest
of ephemeral feelings kept so long at bay, Lest
they be in folly, lest they be in vain
now so fleetingly granted only to be stolen again
does test my tenacity, does fan the flame
of my desire so awoken
and though left unspoken, powerful words do hang
in the air between us,
right beside those who’ve not seen us
and would by chance, by right, by whim
keep us apart.
Would what we tasted so exquisitely wilt before this first test,
this first adversity?
Are we either so powerless to be cast aside by what fortune favours?
Or do we outlast this tiny storm, bend a little in the gale, so at our leisure
each other’s pleasure
will once again we savour?
The answer is all to clear, they are writ between each line
those words we long to hear
that incantation I do yet fear.
But let me atop the mountain cry, it is not they that I fear,
and no such small thing will stop me now
not ever. not me. not I.

Reclining into soft pillows stuffed with fluffy euphoria, her slight, momentous weight presses warmly against me. Primal calm, an essential sort of balance pervaded body and mind. My new-found equilibrium spoke of questions answered and needs sated.

A new sense of tenderness seeped from my fingertips as I helplessly, almost unconsciously caressed her delicate skin. She spoke to me in her absence of words, her breath and heartbeat a chorus of perfect harmony with mine. She called a new tone, one that rang out clear and shimmering in purity; with the deepest of satisfaction do I answer.

Knowing now that the pleasure is found in the song, in its complexity, its shifts and progressions and not in its nascent notes, I fill my lungs with musical breath. Fear and doubt are banished to memory, and resiliant joy returns to me. To us. The echo of past is drowned in the symphonic present.

The here and now fills my eyes with sights unseen, and only seen, by my own. Dark shadows of hesitant memory give way to vitreous white skin. Her blue eyes are calm now, closed in the aftermath. Mine remain half-open, as I flirt between the now and the moments ago.

And I smile. For coming this far, for realizing this sojourn is one-way, for finding a new path, and maybe, a new compaion for the journey. No- not maybe. For until our path forks in this adventure, we are neither one alone.

Order amid Chaos: Kindred is a saga.

Their supine figures pressed close to me on either side. Two sets of arms – oh yes, two of them at once – encircled my chest and hips. Four hands touching and teasing atop and beneath my clothing. My excited skin quivered and almost orgasmic waves of pleasure rippled out from every contact. I swayed off-balance but they guided me as we walked. I don’t think my feet really touched the ground.

My head grew lighter while my body heavier. I leaned into one of the girls heavily. She smelled of heat, and smiled at me. Her face was dark, perfect, pale, all things at once. I faded into her eyes.

When I awoke, I was on my back and shirtless, leaning into a cushioned softness that dwarfed me. Pressed against me on all sides were other bodies. Warm fleshy creatures moving even closer to each other than to me.

My skin was still electrified. I could feel their pleasure through them. Every one of their sighs could have been mine. Only a moment later, one moan was mine. A girl’s naked torso lifted from the murky red gloom – I was having a little trouble seeing clearly in the crimson haze. I did not have a clear view below her waist, but the half-eyed smile she wore told me the bliss she was enjoying. When she placed a hand a hand on my stomach, I could suddenly feel a soft, insistant tongue caressing flesh I did not have. I gasped aloud, my head rocking back and my hands lifting into the air uselessly.

What I felt when her lips went around the flesh I could call my own blew away my rational cognition so completely that I am unable to actually concieve it fully in mere memory.

*****
"Good evening Lucius," I greeted my maker without opening my eyes. From my cross-legged, meditative position in front of my open glass doors, I had detected his approach long ago. I could tell he was surprised.

"Your senses become you, Serai," he said from the balcony outside so I rose slowly to join him there. The waning moon hung noble above the city, mocking its cheap, artificial radiance so modern and brief.

"Your kindred is causing a great disturbance among the covens here," he said. "He begins to attract the attention of more dangerous immortals."

"Jarrod’s strength is surprising, he will be more than a match for any local younglings already," I replied. Only a day had passed since Jarrod had managed to strike me. A very long time had gone since the last time anyone had managed to deal me a blow as solidly as he had; of course I was not expecting it at all, but even still there was no denying his speed.

Lucius and I stood side-by-side, looking over the flickering water, not at each other.

"Not so surprising," Lucius paused. "When focused, aye, formidable is he. But now, his mind is sullied, and those of any wisdom will preserve his weakness, intoxicate his senses, confuse his thoughts. They will push his passions to the brink, and feed on him. His human energy is still raw, they connect him to something greater. I can feel it even in this place, far from him."

I could not reply. I was preoccupied with the awakening revulsion that Lucius’ words evoked. I had realized that he would seek out, or be sought out by, other vampires. I had not entertained the idea that he would become their prey, I fancied him too powerful for that already.

"They will use him Serai, for their own ends, and he will not escape – not unharmed, not unchanged. And not at all, alone." The old vampire turned as I strode back inside, feeling strangely lucid suddenly. My purpose, shimmering in its clarity, was echoed in Lucius’ words.

"You will have to free him."

I opened the door to what could have been a study in someone else’s home, but in mine was, not. Emerging a moment later, I slung my favorite katana on one shoulder and looked to Lucius.

"You know I never intended otherwise," I told him.

*****
I’d grown bolder over the uncounted hours I spent experiencing their perpetual orgy. The change came slowly. First, I found it difficult to focus enough to even watch what was being done to my body. So purely, flatly overwhelming were the physical sensations that my mind had no capacity to comprehend the psychological pleasures. Gradually though, I witnessed the mouths of two, three and four of the most painfully desirable young women imaginable caress my most delicate flesh.

As I looked down at them, the infant of power spawned in me. I guided two of the mouths to work in unison. I reveled in the tiny victory, and grew more bold. I drew a third girl up to my level, such that I could explore her flesh with more than my eyes. This one I eventually gave the first chance to take me inside her.

Deeply I delved into a sea of flesh, probing their secrets with my extremities. At first, I lay still, as I bade each to kneel atop my hips and work down onto me. At first I watched as their faces showed me the dark pleasure my invasion brought. At first.

Swiftly my lust grew until I could no longer lay complicit. I reached out with hungry hands and moved the girl who happened to be there upwards and downwards without strain. Her nubile figure felt as light as air, and as tight as I could have fantisized. Faster I lifted and dropped, with each repetition faster and faster again. Quite suddenly she was not enough. So I tossed her aside, and swiveled to my knees.

Through the red haze clouding my vision I searched. Music I had not noticed before permeated the air, lending the organic throbbing of bodies around me a rhythmic pulse. My head swam. Quickly now, find it, find what you want, what you need. I needed . . . her.

I blinked, and beckoned. She came as she had so many times before – still, how I craved more. Hunger burned in my guts and my loins screamed for hers. So long, it had been so long since the last time. I’d never let her leave again. So I took her dark body in my arms and lay atop her. I held her down and fucked like we used to. It felt the same; it felt perfect again.

My shadow arched across my wall, stretched fantastically by the flickering candlelight. I rocked against her carefully so my bed frame would not squeal too loudly. One of our many favorite songs left my stereo and reached into me to caress my memory. I felt her arms go around me, holding me as I held her, keeping me close. We whispered into each other’s ears the things said in movies, the promises scripted for thousands of years – only I meant them. I pressed inside deeply, where no one else ever had or would, and looked down into her dark eyes to utter those final sealing words . . .

The red mist thinned and she disappeared, leaving a paler, younger, replacement. I leapt up, screaming in shock and horror and rage. Deception and illusion! My own mind betraying me. I felt hell erupt inside me as hate for that girl poured into my veins. I stood for only the briefest of seconds, then like a predator attacked. I leapt atop body after body, taking whatever I found. Mostly female, but some male, I used them all. I could not stop, I had to escape the memory, I had to replace it, burn it, destroy it so it could not hurt me anymore. In a frenzy, I threw delicate bodies against the floor and impaled them on my fleshy blade. Sweat beaded into rivulets and dripped from my face. I watched the salty liquid splash tiny drops onto the faces of the girls I held below me. They looked straight into my eyes, their faces – all the same to me now – frozen in a state of shocked, agonizing joy. Their mouths always just slightly open, their eyes slightly too wide.

In my black fury, I took what I thought I wanted. Like cauterizing a weeping wound, I incinerated her memory. Never again would I bleed for her, but always would the twisted scar remain.

My dear readers, all three of you, this is not a creative post! Oh wow! Sorry to disappoint. I just realized that it’s actually been close to TWO weeks since I wrote anything for flickeringcolours. Speaking of which, I should change the name of this blog eventually. Heh. Well that’s one of the things I’m working on…

1. I have been writing up a storm, its just not appeared here yet. I am actually working on getting two pieces published as we speak. I have unofficial “I loved it, you got anything else we can put in?” approval for one publication on campus, and am battling with what appears to be a down email server to submit my other one. Once I get word one way or the other, I will put the two articles online here, so I can brag lots. Heheheh.

2. Did I really need to number this? I have forgotten what 2. was going to be. No… seriously… Oh, well I was going to ask a general forum question about your level of education. I’ve been looking at my options lately for doing some post-graduate study, and am taking the first baby steps towards continuing beyond a Bachelor’s degree. Soooo you may have the chance to see lots of academic pieces up here over the next couple years.

3. I am also (very) slowly putting together, or at least experimenting with, a new site to house my work, and maybe much more. This project is rather tied up with what I’d like to research in my later study, so it may take a long time to eventuate, but hey. I’m just rambling here, so you will have to read it, and like it!

So, how is everyone?