This is my entry for The Clarity of Night’s Halo Short Fiction Contest. I might enter more of these contests in the future. They’re nice writing prompts, and it’s great to get a bit of immediate feedback. It was difficult to stay under 250 words, and this is the first piece of fiction I’ve written in ages, but here it is:

Guide Me Home

The blood pools under me, soaking my ragged tunic and turning the dirt into deep red mud.

This isn’t my war. This isn’t my land. This prairie is a sea of grass that drowns me, and I long for the forest like a warm blanket on a cool night.

I had always feared the pain of being stabbed, the tearing of skin and muscle, but that fear was misplaced. The blade slid into my shoulder so easily I thought I’d imagined it.

The pain was just delayed, though, for it came when the blade was pulled out. I felt every inch of it sliding back through the wound, every imperfection of the blade, every notch and scratch in its metal, tugging at the newly exposed flesh. Through that pain, that burning, I could feel battles long past and soldiers long dead. The cold blade screamed against my searing flesh, a silent scream that left my body stiff and trembling.

I see the grove behind my cottage back home. I can feel the beams of warm sunlight shining down through the trees, illuminating the hidden particles of dust floating in the air, like cracks in a wall revealing a glimpse into another world.

A soldier falls with a cry to my right, and the sounds of the surrounding battle come crashing back over me. I lift myself from the ground and feel the hilt of my sword at my fingertips. I will not die here. I will see home again.

I went for a hike last Sunday with a friend of mine, Cary. I hadn’t been hiking for a few years, so it was great to get out there and climb around a bit. We were at Goldstream Provincial Park, just outside of Victoria. A light drizzle of rain started just as we arrived, but we decided it wouldn’t bother us under the forest canopy.

We had an old map of the park and marked off a few areas we wanted to see. Cary’s really into photography, so the main focus of the trip was to get some good shots. We started with a waterfall they call Niagara Falls. Not as spectacular as the real thing, but still impressive. We then hiked over the waterfall and onwards up the mountain until we reached a railroad tressel. The walk up was maybe 150 to 200 metres, but it was quite steep, and I was a wobbly-kneed, sweaty mess by the time we reached the top. With the rain coming down, and the heat of the day, it felt like we were lost in a sauna. A gentle fog had rolled in and settled on the tips of the surrounding trees, and even with my clothing sticking to me like cling wrap, the view was worth the climb.

Hiking always makes me feel like a kid again. As soon as I’m pushing through overgrown brush on a narrow path, away from the sounds of the city, my mind seems to jump backwards a couple decades. Suddenly I’m a silent explorer discovering an exotic rain forest and tracking a legendary treasure, a young kung-fu apprentice on a journey to find his inner power, a lost boy learning to fend for himself after being left behind on an expedition. I’m once again an eight year old boy, walking through the forest with his father, letting his imagination stretch and grow.

The tressel was the highlight of the hike for me. Cary has a thing with heights, so he stayed off it. I decided the heights didn’t bother me too much and set out to stroll across the bridge. The gaps between each wet board were just enough to poke a foot through, so each step had to be placed with care. The longer you stare down through those gaps, the less substantial that bridge seems to be. When I finally made it to the mid-point, it was like walking on cardboard. With Stand By Me running through my mind, I brought my camera out to take a photo and found my hands trembling. After snapping a rushed shot, I calmly walked back to solid ground while having a minor internal panic attack. I guess heights do bother me a bit.

We then carried on deeper into the forest to find an abandoned mine shaft, which wasn’t as impressive as I thought it would be. The walk to get there was nice, however. It was getting fairly late by the time we found the shaft, so we made our way back to civilization. On the way back down I only managed to fall on my ass twice. I will be investing in a pair of hiking boots very soon.

The humidity seemed to murder my cheap camera. and all of my photos were corrupt. The tressel photo above is one of Cary’s.

For when the stress is just too much.

I read this article on Lifehack.org this morning, and this may be the early morning caffeine rush speaking, but I found it to be fairly insightful. It’s written by Adrian Savage, a retired business executive, and it lists fifteen life lessons he wishes he’d known in his youth. It’s all common sense really, and it borderlines on ’self-help’, but I enjoyed it.

Here are my favourite points:

• Waiting to do something until you can be sure of doing it exactly right means waiting for ever. One of the greatest advantages anyone can have is the willingness to make a fool of themselves publicly and often. There’s no better way to learn and develop. Heck, it’s fun too.
• The quickest and simplest way to wreck any relationship is to listen to gossip. The worst way to spend your time is spreading more. People who spread gossip are the plague-carriers of our day. Cockroaches are clean, kindly creatures in comparison.
• You can rarely, if ever, please, placate, change, or mollify an asshole. The best thing you can do is stay away from every one you encounter. Being an asshole is a contagious disease. The more time you spend around one, the more likely you are to catch it and become one too.
• The loudest noise in the world is the sound of people whining. Don’t add to it.

The point that really rung true with me is the first one I listed above. I spent most of my ‘transition to adulthood’ waiting. I spent my time in elementary school waiting for high school, my high school years waiting for university, and my university years waiting for working life. I held back on relationships, hobbies, and goals, thinking I’d be better equipped to enjoy them at the next stage in life. I think if there’s one thing I wish I’d known when I was younger, it would be to enjoy your life as it is instead of what it will be.

I look back at how together I thought I was when I was a teenager, and how not-at-all together I turned out to be, and I can’t help but wonder what I’ll think of my current self in ten years time. Maybe the best way to judge how you’re advancing in life is by how big of an idiot you think you were five years ago?

I found The Cat Empire on Pandora at the beginning of the year. They’re a jazzy ska band from Australia, and I’m not sure if they’ve caught on in North America yet. I hadn’t heard of them at all, but it seems they’ve played all the major Late Night shows this year, so maybe I’m just slow to catch up.

They have a refreshing sound with fun, uplifting lyrics. This is the title song from their Two Shoes album, but the entire CD is excellent.

How did I not know about this movie? I’m trying to reach into my memory, which is often like digging a hole and hitting clay, and I vaguely remember reading that it was going to be made, but I had no idea it was so near. In fact, I had completely forgotten it was being made until The Struggling Writer mentioned it.

It’s released on August 10th! That’s just around the corner. This is all Harry Potter’s fault. All of his fanboys have been filling my head with their useless theories and annoying anticipation. Stardust must have been lost in all that book-to-movie adaptation gossip traffic.

When I heard this was being made, I figured it would be fairly low budget, but it looks like it’s going to be a real movie. It has Robert De Niro and Claire Danes and Michelle Pfeiffer and Peter O’Toole and Ricky Gervais and Ian McKellen in it. Those are real actors, and it has a real trailer too:

I’m a huge Neil Gaiman fan, but I haven’t actually gotten to read Stardust yet. I was planning to finally pick up The Philosopher’s Stone next, but screw Harry Potter. I have Stardust on my shelf already, so as soon as I finish my current book, I’ll read it.

Last weekend I returned to Kamloops to witness a public incarceration of two souls, more commonly referred to as a wedding.

The bride, Tanya, is a very good friend of mine. We’ve known each other for most of our lives, and I think of her family as an extension of my own. We’ve been friends since we were only a few feet tall. Well, I was a few feet tall, she grew to her full height at the ripe age of four.

I believe we met in kindergarten, which is a very long time to know someone. My first impression of her was that she was a mean, violent girl with an unfortunate haircut. She may deny her violent tendencies now, but I vividly remember her chasing me down the street while her gang tied my friend to a pole with his fanny pack. It was around this time that I decided it was probably better to have her as an ally than an enemy, and I’ve been lucky enough to call her a close friend ever since.

I’m still really getting to know her new husband, Sean. I wasn’t his biggest fan at first. She did a terrible job of explaining who he was and how they met, so I don’t feel like I should really be to blame for my initial impression. She knows how quickly I judge puny mortals. That said, the more time I spend around him, the more I see he’s a cool guy. Even though I don’t know him as well as Tanya, I know he makes her very happy, and that’s enough for me.

The wedding was held in their back yard. In the middle of summer. In Kamloops, a town with a semi-desert climate. In 37 degree weather. With no shade. Yes, she’s still a mean, cruel girl. At least her hair is nice now.

They’re enjoying themselves in Hawaii at the moment. I want to wish them all the best in their lives together. Congratulations you two. Hope you’re having a great time.