100 entries. What is human?

                       If it wasn't for the subtle words, hugs and shoves, I would not have hit 100 posts. Of the globe, Gretchen, I bow to you!


               Look at all the lonely people: Where do they all come from?

                                             by Mark William Darus.

             This is a milestone in my life on the many areas I wish to explore both from mental and physical senses as I hope to gain further understanding. Humanity is so cluttered and merely blinded with what we perceive as the worst and best of intentions as we trundle about our lives.

       We weigh the odds, doing this from expressions read from those just lately known against those that have spent decades with us, disregarding their, unthreatening sincerest of glances given to us. We do this as we do. We disregard all else and do this for the sake of love.

        One must ask: Why do we continually do this?



           Simple: Humans do not wish to feel that sense of alone-ness for more than a few minutes in today’s age. God forbid, they in their forties and such, aging faster, feeling plastered walls closing fastly around them, gripping on them, closing in…

           Settling in, like colonists finding a pastures opening near a stream. A land hopefully bearing plentiful vegetables. They stake their place, build homes cut from nearby trees and bare children as they work the lands creating HOME.



             Modern humans do what they do.

`                             Humanities past did things a bit different.

                 Since my first entry on Psychopathy: Another Life.



               I have studied history from so many aspects it gets a tad blurry at times. The history of humanity going back to the Crusades to modern day military attitudes. I have seen the rise and fall of political figures when popular scandal flared like a fourth of July skyrocket and trashed them. I’ve seen things written with such passion and those with total cruelness to my email address.

             I have seen, heard, read and spoken with enough that this one hundredth entry will write itself if I can stay the course.





             First of all let me thank you, the readers and contributors to Psychopathy: Another Life. This entry would not have been possible without all of you from around the globe!

　

             Give me some freedom here.

       I was granted stories of Nonviolent Psychopaths as they used others. Granted the flipside as many were so horribly used by predators. Propelled faster and running forth, diving into other areas that delved into bleaker and less explored areas of the darkest points of humanity, I ran with it.

        I still continue to do so.




                Welcome to my One Hundredth Entry to P:SA.

　

             After a usual day leaving work, shedding sweat drenched clothing behind her, cranking up the shower before her. Entering it, lifting her face to the heavens with the hope this flowing water showers off all the bullshit she’s had to deal with this day.

         Driving home, as traffic lights create pause, thinking of him. What would he like for dinner, she ponders.

            This woman cannot stand one of her mans family. This bothers her to no end. Not so many years ago she’d suggested her sister to gain closeness to this parasite full throttle. This man loves his daughter, go figure. This man has hope.

            A hope the woman driving home, while thinking of him, has no concept of.



              “What would you like for dinner? “ her voice giving him the most positive of vibes, hiding her depths shedding a day like so many before her.

            “Hi’ya! Anythings fine. You want to do Eat-n-Park?” He of chirper voice, at peace with himself, speaking to her.

           “I got a pork loin from DrugMark I can cook for us.”

              “That’ll be fine. See you then.”

            Clack of the impersonal as connection gets cut with the cold closing of high-tech plastic.

             Her blood nephew has a concert in two days, though she gracefully keeps her distance and won’t attend.

        Over the decades, she has separated herself from her nieces lives as well.

          “I had to maintain objectivity….” she’d say over the decades.

        Objectivity? What does this mean as a parent explains your lack of wanting a part in their life?

       Objectivity in relationships to those of blood lineage. Be cold, objective, shedding emotion to maintain your normalcy.



         Call me nuts, but this has a firm place in the land of psychopathic behavior.



Authors Note: I learned a great deal from this.

There must be some more psychopathic than me. I am elated by this!



　

                                                    Part two.



     “LORD KNOWS, WHAT I HAVE DONE TO DESERVE THIS…”

             Fall leafed fill embankment to her right, casting colours of orange and reds against dying browns. The enthusiastic cries of horny males yell about as Karen walks from her car, standing erect.

          Totally naked like some deer standing proud amidst a concrete jungle most defiant , she gives little bother. Eyes set, wanting reaction, on all fours, she romps about madly.

          “What the fuck is that?” a gay male proclaims in the best falsetto sounding like Frankie Avalon.

                  “ Shit!” a long haired redhead cries as she lowers her head, not wanting to to see what comes next.

                SCREEEEEEEEEEEECH! As the six wheeled conveyance reaches halt with blue-white smoke rising from wheel-wells from burning rubber filling the sky.

\

                             THUD!

                  Karen’s head, fully leaned over hits to side of the bus.

                  Constellations display worlds to her as she gains microscopic grip to a world she gave up on days ago. Flashing images of lights and darks, wanting water, taking each breath into her like it was her last.

            “BP, Dropping!” hearing, watching the statistics of humanity, the hired help do what they can. Concerned glances through eyes alone above the greenish masks on face to prevent infection.

                Over shredded fragments of time, mans machinery gives birth to a solid:

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!



                              “Call the time of death, doctor,”\



                                    “NONSENSE! CLEAR! “



                                             THUMP!

                       Again.,… THUMP resounds as the flesh and blood on a cotton covered bed respond from voltage alone, writhing about frantically on the single bed they inhabit.

            To many, the dead through either dedication or those of disbelief will not let happen on their watch: CLEAR!

                  “ doctor, she’d dead.” tired short haired blond nurse shares with the doctor.

                      “FUCK YOU! Get clear,,, CLEAR!!”

                                     THUUUUUUUUMP!

                      “time of death: 17:05 Monday the  seventh…..”

　

　

　



                   Karen’s physically wasted body lays on a blood and piss soaked bed.

　

                   Karen looks down at herself and those around what was the containment vessel holding her.

                New nurses, training in an Operating Room , wondering how things occur speak idly about.

            Attending doctor: “It happens, trust me. I’ve seen th-..+

               “Oh!” an RN of twenty years experience, cutting him off, speaks confidently “ And how many times have you seen this, doctor. Please educate and share this with us.”

              Looking at the firm RN and her words his eyes begin to swell tears.

                His mind thrusting backward, his education, his long sleepless days as an intern. He is used to treating burns, accidental cuts from chainsaws, child and spousal abuse. Oddly, so far away from the death before him is his here-and-now.

                His freely weeping eyes meet the RN’s. His mask getting darker to the right and left and that not from sweat so much as those feeling the sincerest sense of loss.

               Knowing where this doctor is at, the RN: “ Doctor! You’ve announced the time of death. We’ve got this. Can we, someone, please play Mozart?!?!”

              Doctor leaves the operating theatre, head down and slump shouldered.

            “Cover me!” The lead nurse says to those before her. She is second in command in the warfare of singular humanity. Pulling useless mask off open-bodied possible infection from her, angrily throwing it to her right.

             “n-nur,”

              “Have you not been trained? Keep this in mind and never far from it: you
ARE being taped.” Curt voice mixing emotions she’s share with the doctor of this event.



          Karen, seeing lands she’d known many times, spiraling to poles she’s never been graced with before, traveling, free.

            Sobbing, not yet lacking emotion, a highly educated doctor lays on cold industrial tiled flooring. Laying flat, arms and legs quivering, head bobbing about madly.

                Flat voice speaks to him as he lays on the floor. “ Would you like a Starbucks, Doctor?”

               Knowing the difference when one should stand, and one should accept.

“Love t-t-too, Nurse.”

Full body, a place where the educated and grave digger hold common  ground, that being death,

“Decaf or Reg,” pulling doctor up, lifting him up, as only the best surgical nurses could read this with confidence.

Faces squared, noses less than an inch away. Arms surrounding one another.

“Did you think you were god”

Pulling away from her, staring up to the RN. “Yeah, I kind of thought that way. I failed!”

“Failed? Nope, not at all. C’mon, we got us a good 30 minutes before a bowel retraction, doctor. I’m slated with you.”

“Really,, “

“yes, sir….”

Her school band plays louie loiiue and final countdown.

　

Karen: I see my family. Wow, my high school football team.

Coursing through hallways, passing cronies, colours blurred with the turn of the head, memories of the dying.

　

I met the bus as it met me.

I’m glad to be dead.\

Cancer is such a fucked up way to die at 21


When we meet again,

Karen.

　

　

____________________________________________________________________________

　

                   In the Heart and Soul of my writing and studies, I stay to a course so hard to alienate ones so close to me. Their hurt is most real yet I cannot feel it. I can hug you as life signs fail, share your discontent as your stocks go south, embrace you as those closest to you aim toward heaven. As they die, I can give you sound reason for their earning such a place. I never give up hope since my ex-wife thirty years ago was given a 6 months sentence and still lives on.

                   In my life, I have seen the best and the worst and was given sound mind to describe such.

                 What I have witnessed, in the l;ast 100 entries:

                As my word count goes over 151.000 words

                   I have reached over 63 countries

                     Total page count: 396.…

　

Good god in Heaven. All things considered, this is a book!

　

If I WERE TO DIE SHORTLY, THIS IS MY LEGACY.

By Mark William Darus


NOTE worthy of mention.
At the corner where the westside market go to the north.
I saw a woman in a wheelchair fail trying to get on a bus. Being in SUV looking left, i saw a dark haired on a tenspeed see her fail the side of the bus.

          Light going green, kid dropping bike.
          Pause in rushhour once again.
          Lady lifted to bus.
 
         Black haired white kid om front of the Westside market.



             Seeing this kid do this, made me believe what is Human.


                               by Mark William Darus 09123023

Worth a thousand words: An unexpected marriage.

                       Worth a thousand words: An unexpected marriage.

             I find it amazing how the many months of writing refueled my interest in photography.

             I have little idea what made me buy the Kodak EasyShare camera from Big Lots that 90 degree day in July. After posting photos on Facebook, a coworker gave me her camera when her husband bought her a much better Canon outfit. I later traded that in adding a few extra dollars on my part, I purchased the FujiFilm S4200 I use today from Dodd Camera.

           Not two months after starting digital photography an odd thing occured. I began to realize that writing made me take more photos  and taking pics made me write more.

           I began to think: What a perfect marriage of creativity.

           I humbly wish to share with you what I believe to be my best photographs to date.

           I hope you like them as much as I enjoyed taking them.

           Mark William Darus 09102012

                      <click on the Photographs below to see full form.>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                           This was the first time I caught lightening.

                      

                         Thank you for taking the time to look at them.

                          All photographs taken by Mark William Darus.
                                   Can be used with permission.

 

 

 

Time passing as I sit motionless.

                               Time passing as I sit motionless.
                                      By Mark William Darus

　

      The scenery changes but only so with the passing of technology and those that enter my room.

      As I look down, bodies change on an almost daily basis. Sometimes the bed shifts, but only slightly so with the shifting of the one laying on it or as the nurses change their position.

      I’ve smelled it all over the years.

      The stench of infections surging through the afflicted, strong whiffs of fecal matter when bed-pan is not met in time as it blasts against sweaty skin and mates with cotton sheets. Sweet smells of fresh roses, carnations, and the myriad of flowers plucked from loved ones own gardens. I smell fresh oxygen, mild perfume aroma from care-takers and the stench of the feet of visitors.

      Between those that visit my space, the gross fragrance of floor cleaner/sanitizer greets me, giving me the knowledge I won’t be alone for long as those wielding mop sing to music heard through tiny plugs in their ears.

      Once, just once, I’d like to hear one of them sing well and hold a note most worthy.

       Yeah, I’ve heard it all.

       I’ve heard the whooshing of air and the pulsating sound as it is pressed into the human before me. Granted, most times it’s merely a steady, almost calming, ’hisssssss’ of white noise I do find tranquil. The amazing sound of ‘white noise’, though different than the bubbling sound of a fish tank in a dentists office yet having the same effect.

         Over my decades here, I have become an expert witness to the advances of technology brought into my tiny world. Once given the ‘clacking’, sometimes rhythmic sound of printers charting EEG’s and EKG’s that over time gave way to the ‘beeping and booping’. These tones telling people where the one on the bed before was at without words unspoken yet telling them much in regard.

Back to the smells that reach me. Why do so many wear so much heavily laden perfume, aftershave or cologne when they travel into my land? For crying out loud, do they not think this doesn’t gag the one fighting for life with 02 getting blasted into them? What are they afraid of? A urine bad letting go and splashing to floor, an unexpected bowel movement? The rich smell of iron, not much different than that of a woman's period, as a central line goes astray when white sheets go crimson?

      While we’re at it, besides me, there is one gross olfactory offense that never ever changes over time though I really wish it would. The food served here. Damn, if you want a gauge on how people are doing, just take a full inhale on what is given to those that can actually eat solid food. Just once I’d like to smell salt or garlic on a regular basis. Sure, they eat this because it’s all they can have unless a visitor smuggles them in a meatball sandwich or prime rib dinner. God how I love the smell of beef gravy at sunset. Smells like: happiness to the one laying before me, their smiles, wetness filling mouth with anticipation relishing the first bite. It also does me a world of good, let me tell you!

       Sometimes I witness the visitors praying, speaking in voices both sweet and hopeful. I see some cry to soon blow their noses afterward as they let out a sigh.

       Visitors giving idle small talk directed with significance to those unable to respond yet can hear things in their mind. Even those tranq’d in my room can still hear, their minds taking pieces of information. They hear the loved, cherished visitors speak words of love, hope and sheer whimsical nonsense.

       I also take in the tones of utter hatred and anger as they speak such hideous things to the one below me. “Damn, would you just die already.” “He did fill out a will, didn’t he?” “Fuck this, I’ve got a Tupperware party to prepare for…” C’mon, look at things from my perspective, will ‘ya? Is it wrong of me to wish them a well earned fall down a flight of stairs, a sudden heart attack miles from a hospital or a really good case of crotch-rot?

       I have seen so many die before me as I have seen so many come back to live further.

       I am not god.

       I am the one, as they come back and are completely bored, look up to as they gain consciousness.

        I have never been far from them as they visit my small place on this planet.

       I have seen it all.

       Never more than a  few feet from them.

       Time passes by as I sit motionless.

         I am a ceiling tile.

　

         Mark William Darus 0909102012

Authors note: Profound thanks to Gretchen. Hours before writing this I had asked what I should write about tonight. She gave me suggestions after I shared with her how I felt blank about tonight's writing. Light bulb, albeit that of a 10 watt, dimly illuminates my tired mind. I look at her and say: Imagine what a hospital room clock sees? The procession of people, smells and sounds as science changes but wall clocks never do….

Gretchen, I could not have written this without you!

To Carol Golias, for bringing memories back to me. Can’t wait to make you baked beans again!

Amazing Grace: Mark's prayer to Christ and God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Af_TEN7Yc

                           Amazing Grace and a wretch like me.
                                   by Mark William Darus

            Christ almighty, you give me direction and guidance in the oddest of fashion. I only write what you wish, take photos of wondrous things you give to us and guide me to shoot.

            To you, my Christ, I will never doubt you and your father as you both shape me from the thin and watered down clay I am before you.

          As you spin the potters wheel, I in weak and fragile form spitting water from mixtures of mud, fecal matter and dirt, shedding past life created by me, you reform me.

         Knowing I will never call myself a 'born-again' you accept this and hold me fast in your arms. You both always take me as I am.

        I am the wretch sung about in Amazing Grace. Yet you and your father have never left me though many times i turned my back to you both. I cursed you, took your names in worst order as my jagged tongue spilled out blasphemy most loud.

         Yet you still gave and give me signs in the darkest of hour and give me a beauty to see and share with others.

 

         The both of you keep me positive and gentle in nature.

          You guide me and never give up.

         You had me begin to write again months ago and display it to the electric circus of the Internet. Reaching others on the Earth God gave us to live on.

        You give me the strength to continue this and preserver unfavorable comments.

        Christ and the Father of all: You made me and keep working me. I have little doubt you helped me trash my emotions so long ago for the benefit of others. I am sure you, Christ, like any father and son argue over what should be and how its done. I believe I to be some bastard son of you both, a joining of the Old Testament and the New. The lands where ones breaking down and wandering journeys <old testament> are granted total forgiveness and redemption <new testament from Christ>.

        Some question if I am being guided by Satan in current standing and beliefs.

        Does that really mean anything as i look up to you both?

 

        God and Christ: Amazing Grace.

        I am the wretch in that song.

        I thank you both for what you have shown me.

 

        Mark William Darus

 

Some thoughts on Immigration: by Ryn Cricket

                         Some thoughts on Immigration.
                                      by Ryn Cricket

I have taught about the Immigration Period in America for several years now. I know what the push and pull factors are as to why people immigrate, and I know the various stages that they and their later generations experience after immigration. In fact, I have not only taught this, I have researched this. Last month, however, was the beginning of my first-hand experience. I mean I lived in Thailand before, but it was temporary, and I was only responsible for myself. This is a HUGE jump from that.

Exactly one hundred years ago, from the same month I immigrated, my then seventeen year-old Great-grandmother and her mother boarded the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse with a hundreds of other Bohemians fleeing ethnic cleansing, and took the14 day trip from Bremen, Germany to Ellis Island. She moved to Cleveland because her step-father was here, as was a very large Slovak-Catholic community. She knew eight languages, but English wasn’t one of them. One-hundred years later, I boarded a plane with my two very young daughters, and flew 26 hours to Bangkok and then moved on to Khon Kaen, because I had a teaching position at a university waiting, and friends all around –even in the same city.

I find it so interesting what Americans think of immigration, and how they truly don’t understand it. I find it interesting that they get mad that immigrants are there, that they don’t speak English, that they “take our jobs” (that one always makes me laugh), that they aren’t Christian, and that they wear their clothes and eat their food. I think so many forget that they are products of immigrants.

I had always read that immigrants are the brave risk-takers. That is who almost all of us are descendants of –brave risk-takers. What happened to that? When did we not become accepting of that, and why? It’s not easy to learn another language. Most second generation and third generations Americans don’t know more than one language. Studying 2 years in high school doesn’t count, because you don’t use it daily; you don’t dream in it; it’s not the same.

I picked Thailand because I used to be fluent in Thai. Notice, I said “used to be.” I used to have entire 3-day workshops, in Thai. But after ten years, I find myself asking students, “What the word for ‘see’ again?” No one here gets mad or frustrated with me when I can’t speak Thai. No one says, “Wait, you live and work here, why don’t you speak Thai?” In fact, if I say “hello” or some other phrase, I get praised for what I know. When I taught in America, a lot of my students, who were studying English full-time, would get bothered and harassed for not knowing English.

As far as taking jobs, I can guarantee that no Mexican fruit picker, no Chinese scientist and no Indian doctor is taking any jobs from any Americans. In fact, in the professional world, they have to jump through hoops to have the privilege of working in the U.S. On the other hand, in Asia, being a native-speaker, almost assures you of a teaching position. I don’t know any Americans who come to Asia to be doctors, scientist, or manual laborers. If they did, they would probably get that position easily too. Accountants –maybe not.

Which leads me to an even bigger point. So many Americans want to put these big walls up. Place military and police around our borders to stop people from coming in, and yet, they have become blind to people who are leaving. Foreigners know about the “brain drain.” I had never heard of it. I thought I had this brilliant idea on how to take care of my family. Turns out, 16 of my friends had this idea first. They are all teachers.

So why are so many teachers fleeing to Asia and the Middle-East for jobs? Well, you can live on what you make. As a single mother, and as a highly-evaluated teacher with 20 years experience, I still qualified for government assistance. It’s understood that teachers certainly don’t get into to the field for the money. They don’t expect to drive BMWs, or eat steak everyday. They do expect, and should expect to be able to feed their families and own a car. They shouldn’t have to make a choice between paying for that used car or buying groceries. I’ve had friends with higher qualifications than me, working part time so they could stay in the system, because if they got out of the system, they would have to make those choices. When you need daycare until a child is 12, and 50% of your income goes to that, how do you survive? By the way, contrary to popular belief, it is most often not the single mother’s fault she is a single mother. She is the responsible one trying to take care of her kids and doing what she has to do. Just a reminder there.

But also, in the rest of the world, teachers are highly-respected. I don’t know how or when teachers became the bad guys in America in the past few decades, and specifically in the past year, but that alone is not worth the very little pay you receive. Yes, there are bad teachers. There are bad EVERYTHING. People often forget that. There are bad doctors, engineers, mothers, politicians. There are amazing teachers too. If you close your eyes right now, you can think of that one teacher who just really changed your life. Maybe they showed you something you didn’t think was possible, maybe they explained things in a way you could finally understand, maybe they prompted an epiphany, maybe they inspired you to do something you hadn’t even thought of. You know right now who that teacher is. In fact, you might have more than one. What other profession has that effect on people –that is why the rest of the world respects them so much, as they would their own parents. Oh, wait, we have a problem with that too. Ahh, now I see the connection.

But as for immigrants not “Becoming American,” eating our food, dressing the same, and all of that, many first-generations do. And to a much greater extent than an American would. If I want to find an American here, all I have to do is go to the nearest KFC. They are the ones who ordered mashed potatoes with their chicken. I won’t find them at the corner noodle stand. If I go to their house, I might find soy sauce, but probably not fish sauce. Their eggs will be in the refrigerator with the bread, and the rice cooker will be put away in a cupboard to be used once in a while. (I say this because in Asia, people leave their eggs out, they don’t often eat bread, and the rice cooker is always out and on). And yet the host country residents are usually very interested in what we are eating, how we made it, and can they try.
Nor will I find foreigners wearing silk on Tuesday, denim on Friday, or padded bras on any day. Children will wear uniforms, but foreign children are not expected to have uniform hair cuts like the nationals. In fact, there are a lot of “rules” we just don’t have to follow. There are other “rules” we have to be constantly aware of, so I guess it balances out.

And then Christmas comes around, and you think, “What do you mean I have to work on Christmas?” Christmas is not a holiday in a Buddhist country, just like Eid and Chinese New Years are not holidays in our country. It was a process for our forefathers to create our holidays, and an even bigger process for our mass media outlets to blow them completely out of proportion. America is made up of Eastern Europeans, who, as a culture, think 3 Kings Day is just as important as Christmas, and people from the UK who like Boxing day even more than Christmas. How did those two days get left out? And then when you think that there are more Irish in America than in Ireland, why do they not know that Saint Patrick’s day is quiet saints day that involves going to church and having dinner with your family, not drinking green beer at 5am?

I think the biggest difference is communication. Yes, the world is becoming more globalized and therefore much smaller. But also, with the internet, skype, and cell phones, we can talk to our loved ones anytime. There are no letters that take weeks anymore, there are no final good-byes. My great-grandmother got to go back and visit her home village 62 years after she immigrated. Who was even left? The whole world is becoming Western. Maybe it’s not so bad to try to hold on to your culture a bit before the KFCs take over the world. And maybe it’s not so bad if I try to have the most American house in Khon Kaen.

by Ryn Cricket 12072011

Value of lacking emotions. How it can give others peace.

                                   The value of lacking emotion
                                        by Mark William Darus

　

Mack got the call from Greta about five minutes after he arrived at the Brookgate Lanes.

“Hi, Greta. How’s your mom?” he asked, sounding positive as ever.



Greta’s mom had spent the last two days in the hospital. She had had congestive heart failure. This woman of eighty years old had a history of bad hips, failing knees and a host of other debilitating ailments. He’d just seen her last weekend and she seemed herself, though now needing her walker to simply get around her house.

“Mack, she’s on a vent, “ Greta’s voice quivering with sadness, the verge of tears and in utter pain.

“You want me there?” he said with even voice.

“Do you have enough gas to get here?” Not thinking of herself and what she was going through. This woman has grown so very much in the last three years that sometimes Mack had hardly recognized her at times.

“Of course I’ll get there. Just let me hang a minute here for Sean or one of the other guys so I can give them my bowling money.”

“Thu-thank you,” Her shaky sound wobbling like a tiny acorn on a fence as winds begin to pick up to knock her down.

“You’ve always been there for me. Always. Hold tight and I will be there.”

“I love you….”

“I know you do, Greta. I’ll be with you in no time.”

Conversation ended with the dry closing of the cellphone.

Evan, Mack’s teammate arrived and he met him by his Explorer.

“Evan, I gotta go, man.” He told him about his girlfriend's mom and her failing situation.

“GO! Get out of here,” Evan said as Mack gave him his bowling money.



Climbing back into his Trailblazer, syncing his phone to his GPS to hands-free inbound calls, he fires up the engine. Setting it into gear, he drives from the bowling alley.

Calmly driving toward a hospital to aide someone in need, clearing mind of no longer important thoughts. Onward to yet another hospital never known, another ICU he‘d never visited, comforted by his ability to do what he does best.

25 minutes later, pulling into one of the many University Hospital campuses in Northeast Ohio, the delicate sound of thunder begins to pound from darkened clouds to his south. Pausing, looking at them, staring with both fascination and learned behavior, no longer needing to make himself numb. Numbness became his steadfast companion so very long ago.

Not knowing if the music he was hearing was the result of a passing car on Harvard avenue or coming from his inside his brain. “IIIIIII have become, comfortably numb…“ he sang aloud to humid air as the boomers and flashes to his south droned on.

Memory rising within him and the end stages of his mother as she reached her passing and how he’d played that song over and over during her process of dying. Louder and louder he’d played it, hammering nails soundly into a coffin that would hold any and all emotion far away from him.

Forever.

Looking to the sky above him, sensing his dead parents and grand parents were watching him, knowing how he’d handle this. They’d be neither proud nor disapproving. He knew they would never pass judgment.

“What can’t be cured, must be endured,” he’d heard his mother’s mantra a thousand times in his earlier years. He chuckled at that and how it played so firmly in his life.

Walking through a huge revolving door, he is greeted by a well dressed woman who was eager to aide him needing directions.

“First we need to sign in right here.” Walking to a large reception desk of solid mahogany, he signs the book with both name and time placed in military numbers.

“Military time, very good.”

“I never served a day in my life.”

No matter how many hospitals he’d entered, regardless of all the plants and flowers they displayed, they all smelled the same.

After thanking her for directions to the ICU, he walked to the bank of elevators down the hallway to his right.

Mind totally cleared, free of garbage of things pressing, entering the pregnant dumb-waiter, he presses the button marked 4.

Exiting the up and down box of travel, going to his right, he hears his name called by Greta’s brother. Turning, he takes in the troubled, pained looks of Greta’s family. He says hello to them as some greet him while others don’t.

Standing speechless for a moment, he looks through the wall of glass to the outside world.

“Now that is a view!” he says evening with a hint of excitement, causing their heads to turn with what he believed was a needed distraction for them. As he sits on the oddest set of chairs and couches he has ever seen. The center of the couches had no back areas and were not against a wall.

Greta taps him on the shoulder and he immediately rises to grasp her with tight embrace.

Wearing the prettiest, brightest dress he has ever seen her in the over ten years he’d known her, she looked very bad. She looked utterly miserable in all aspects, eyes puffy, nasal tones as she spoke, her clutching him harder than ever before.

She is lost in the dark place, he thought. A place where those with failing parents descend as the growing knowledge there is little they can do to help the ones that gave them life and cared for them so diligently over the decades.

Helpless, as emotions course through every inch of their bodies and minds. Her family, shifting from place to place in the waiting area of the ICU, handling their unease through movement. Remembering his childhood and early adult life, he had done the same to keep from climbing out of his skin and exploding.

Greta sits next to Mack slowly and he cautions her not to lean backward. She turns to see why he’d said this, noting there is no backrest. She absently cocks her head, understanding.

“Granted, if you had fallen backward and split your head open, I can’t think of better place for that to happen,” he said with a flat dryness he knew would make her smile.

Smiling as he placed his arms around her, she said “you goof!” Giving out a tiny chuckle, he drew his arms from her.

With unsure feet, she quickly arose and said she was thirsty. He walked with her to the vending machines hidden from sight behind a wall. Fumbling through her purse, her muttering about a lack of change, he hands her enough for her to get a Lipton Green Tea.

He thinks: My god, she is so much like a child asking for a drink of water…

Mack takes her hands into his. Looking into her almost tearing eyes, she says, “ I love you…”

“I know you do, Greta!.” he says with enthusiasm as his sends his eyes attention deeper into hers. “I never doubted that about you, honey.”

They go back to the human parking lot where the worried families await to see loved ones hooked up to ‘pinging’ machines with massive multicolored read-outs.

Mere moment in time to him, probably an eternity to family, a doctor greets them.

“you can see her now, “ he speaks with a smile that matched his eyes and calming face.

At once, everyone stands. Heading toward room 435, passing the nurses station and its huge monitored arena, Mack hears them taking gulps of air as they get closer and closer to their mothers room.

As they enter, taking in the ghastly sight of their mother with a tube down her throat to keep her breathing, finding temporary stations around her. Speechless, on foreign grounds being strangers here.

Greta, not unfamiliar to lands like this through a lifetime of nursing, takes a suction tube in hand to clear the fluid that constantly fills her mothers mouth, giving her some ease. Giving comfort as she knows how, slowly taking her fragile mothers hand into hers, she speaks to her.

“we’re all here, mom…” her voice so calm and reassuring. Soft expression crossing her face, looking down at the elderly woman on the bed before her.

Mack gazes at the monitor. O2 fluctuating between 95 and a hundred. BP holding at 106 over 102, pulse at an even 61. He watches Greta’s mothers eyes open and close slowly in sporadic intervals, wondering as well as remembering his past and what they must think/feel as they cannot speak and so wish to do so. The hell of a Never-world, being unable to respond except through sedated eyes.

As Time passes and Greta’s family peal off and leave, Greta stands fast by her mothers side, periodically relieving the fluid from her mothers mouth.

A half hour further, being totally exhausted, Greta asks her mother if she’d like the TV on? She knows the comfort TV brings to her with its ‘cookwear for sale programs and reruns of shows shes seen a thousand times. Perhaps thinking about how her big screen, rear projection box of enjoyment failed her a slender few days before and how her and Mack checked the stores she’d requested for its replacement.

Eyes darting about, her mother slowly motions her head to the right and left, not wanting TV.

She asks her mother, unlike the others, if she’d like her to leave.

Once again, the frail woman looks upward with uncertain eyes. Head moving from right to left while raising her left hand as she begins to draw letters in the air.

Communication. Contact. She begins to spell words.

Deciphering letters, Greta begins to understand.

Mack looks at her on the bed, saying with to her with peaceful and positive voice, “When you bust out of here, I’m gonna make some baked beans like you’ve never had!” She so loved his beans and all the odd forms they’d taken over the years. She smiled at him as best she could with a tube set into her mouth. He’d made contact, hopefully giving her some amount of comfort.



Minutes tick away as life sustaining machines, lacking a metronome for rhythm, go on.

Rubbing her back with right hand softly placed, he tells her how exhausted her looks and needs sleep.

Greta kisses her mother gently on the forehead just before her and Mack exited room 435.

Going to the nurses station, innocently asking the lead RN if her mother would remember her leaving.

“She won’t remember anything with the meds we’re giving her, “ the slender brunette in green said.

As they walked to parking lot, she asked him for a lighter. Just a few feet from the monstrous revolving door, he suggests they wait til the get to her car.

“Wow, the humidity is gone, “ he says with the keenest of flat voice.

“You’re right. It’s gone. Huh!”

She opens to passenger side door of her Kia Soul and grabs a Bic. Flame meeting long menthol cigarette, inhaling deeply like seldom before, finally exhaling with a sigh, standing on firmer ground.

They share idle small talk most needed after such an event, Mack takes her into his arms.

He lights his L&M and gazes to the bluest of skies.

Greta’s eyes begin to leak tears, yet no sobs be heard or heavings from stomach as her overly tired frame rests on the passenger seat.

Mack, knowing tissue would be needed, pulls them from his left front pocket and wipes her cheeks and eyes. Looking down at her, feeling far too familiar with such things, he puts his right hand under her chin, lifting it ever so slowly. His eyes ready to meet hers as tears run freely.

“Greta, it’s in gods hands. God does what god does.”

“She-she’s my m-m-mother…”

“I know, honey. I know.”

“I’m so tired, Mack.”

He tells her to call him when she returns home.

“I love you!”

“I know you do, Greta. I do what I can.”

She stares at him with trashed eyes and trembling face.

He mouths the three words she so desperately wants to hear.

She looks a bit more peaceful as she drives off.

As she pulls away, he takes photographs of the hospital as the angry grey/white clouds in the background threaten the deep blue sky.

As Greta drives to her home, he travels to his dwelling.

Stopping at the Giant Eagle on Transportation blvd for needed food, he notices some volting thunderheads to the southwest. He sets his tripod up and places camera firmly in its grasp. Snapping shots in rapid succession he finally catches a bolt of lightening.


For him, this a first most welcome on an evening that takes him backward. A memory so completely set that would lead him to where he has been for decades.

He looks to a hostile sky and thanks god.

Speaking aloud: “Thank you, Jesus, for the value of lacking emotion and how it helps others in pain.”



Mark William Darus: 0906072012

A Comfortably Numb production.

Huge thanks to Ryn Cricket for editing this as she read it, correcting my errors via Facebook chat.

 

Wisdom. by Ryn Cricket

                                            Wisdom
                                        by Ryn Cricket

“Mom, you have to see this. Come on!” Jeremy said urgently.

I wiped my hands on the dish towel hanging from my apron string and followed him out the back door. He led me over to the chicken pen. Some of the chickens were squawking hysterically, but there on the side of the chicken coop, the rooster sat sleeping with a black, pig-nosed snake curled up next to him.

What does this mean? I said to no one in particular. And then I turned to Jeremy, “Is one of them dead?” He shook his head, but he knew that disturbing them to show me could prove fatal.

“What do you think we should do?”

“Let them sleep.” He said.

Children are wise like that.

by Ryn Cricket 01232010

Untreatable? Six months of writing Psychopathy: Another Life.

 

                              6 Months of writing without stopping.
             Throwing my thoughts out there for all to see and interpret.
      Never knowing who would read them, nor where they would travel.

                                                  Untreatable?




                                                   Six Months.
                                           by Mark William Darus.

　

           Psychopathy: Another Life was started on 3 March 2012 on a warmer than normal Saturday afternoon. Visually starting with a solid black background and white standard font lettering. On its first entry I gave a basic definition of psychopathy and how some believed there to be a nonviolent aspect of it that went much further than serial killers, serial rapists, thrill killers and the run of the mill homicidal maniacs that make headlines. Those gifted Psychologists believed, as did I reading through their work , there were elements of historical significance, modern day events and strong beliefs that some nonviolent psychopaths reach areas in society that are not only accepted, but applauded by the masses.

         On the Title Screen I gave a brief explanation and how people could reach me.

　

          I went on to state theories that I hoped to prove as to why some people do the things they do without guilt, remorse or conscience, inflicting pain in a myriad of forms on others.

　

          I delved into nonviolent psychopathic areas of childhood, dating, relationships with parents, their schools and early work worlds as they learned to become better predators. Taking a shot at adult sexual and parasitic relationships and how to spot those that would use, abuse and trash lives for their own guiltless gain. Eventually diving into Corporate America, the military as well as some in the medical and psychological professions. I found areas of that I would believe total and complete forms of the type of psychopathy that never hit the mainstream public. In short, areas that never make the 6 or 11 o’clock news, yet their prey get nailed many times in their lives as a result of either falling into their line-of-sight or innocently being employed by them.



         Going to possible factors where nonviolent psychopaths are made to be such. Factors of which upbringing, circumstances such as recurring family illnesses, constant emotional upheaval at young developmental stages and areas where their systematically killing their emotions became more a survival mechanism than born sense to trash and devour others.

　

        Often playing the Iron Maiden song: Can I Play With Madness via Youtube, I would write about observations I had witnessed over time. I would catch glimmering thoughts in respects as I’d known and those of friends and family that had shared with me. I found myself to looking backward at memories and rethinking them in the here-and-now. Perhaps growing from age, maturity and dare I say, patience, I looked at things from a totally different aspect and more and more things began to make sense to me. I felt the desire to go into those areas further, dig deeper, probe farther and ask more questions of others.



        I was given a diagnosis that went far and beyond the initial bipolar issue I became medicated for. This ’other’ diagnosis is untreatable. Most in the psychological community refuse to treat those like me. These psychological <mind-helpers if you will> professionals, either from personal experience or the knowledge of colleagues passed to them, decline strolling a road descending to remorseless areas of the pure animalistic aspects of humanity where the patient is not behind the safety of iron bar shielded incarceration for killing someone but out and about in the general public.

　

       In all honesty, I cannot find myself to blame them for their views, fears, or so say the least, them following their animal instinct fears of a predator. They either learn what happens when their swimming abilities fail and they become sucked into a whirlpools vortex and drown, or they don’t. Oddly, perhaps through sheer curiosity or ego, many choose to embrace the world of such psychopaths and lose all perspective as they do not possess the skills learned over years, decades of those they attempt to treat.

　

        Over weeks and months, P:SA took on different colours and backgrounds. Text fonts changed, and the Pink Floyd-ish The Wall background took form. Having been told back-when the style of font used looked girl-ish and not caring I left it as is.

　

       Receiving email feedback thrust at me like an unseen freight train on a dark night, its engine lacking a Mars light. I stood on the tracks and was soundly nailed by a sweeping mass of thoughtful and written weight. Launching me in ways not uncomfortable, I went with its flow that has taken me to places I never imagined possible.

　

        Getting braver and being innocent to this area, I tossed my F-Book name to the P:SA summary. From that event, my F-Book world exploded by readers friending me from other countries. They connected with me through my writing.

　

        Time passing faster and faster, seasons changing a third time, I learning to place my photographs and music links to entries.

　



               In conclusion please allow me to say these thoughts:

If current statistics are remotely correct, 4 percent of our population are psychopathic in nature. The biggest segment of that pie chart of that 4 percent are not violent. They are not rapists, pedophiles or homicidal maniacs.

Psychopaths: To act without a sense of guilt, remorse or emotion for the single-minded self gratitude for their desire to get what they can when they can.

There are approximately 330 million people in America. That means over 12-13 million either possess the strong ability to be or are psychopathic.

Imagine that same 4 percent statistic globally.

I firmly believe this can also can be said: What of the impressionable young learning to be psychopathic, this being reinforced by our totally self centered view to attain what we can at all costs. This reinforcement coming from ignorant parents, the mass media or simply corporate America and how we place success by all means necessary over failure.

Untreatable? Can such a thing be so boldly stated in our enlightened age of mental awareness and expansion? Less than a century and a half ago, many died of fever before penicillin was found. Did mankind not find a cure for polio, syphilis, small pox?

Do you mean to tell me there can not be a holistic cure for something that makes up four percent of our population?

I unequivocally state this: I started my study a half a year ago with finding an explanation for what made me as I am. However, from written, vocal and physical encounters with nonviolent psychopaths has lead me to reach this conclusion. My findings being that many of them know no other way of life or have simply forgotten the ability to allow themselves feeling, emotion and consequences others face by their actions.

Based on my limited, though expanding scope, I cannot believe there is no cure for nonviolent psychopathy. I find this totally inconceivable in a day and age where we hand out Social Security Disability checks to the growing number of the under 25 year old set that didn’t even work twelve months in their entire lives.

To the twelve to thirteen million like me that share a single area of life-connection, isn’t it time our voice gets heard? Doesn’t America love minorities? Doesn’t America embrace underdogs?

Untreatable?

To you that would proclaim that: Where’d you give up hope with your massive educations and your sense of hope for humanity? What caused you to stop trying? Was it some repressed childhood memory brought back with perverse clarity from treating others in your later years that caused you to jet? Perhaps a sense of self-preservation and your lack of staying the course and holding objectivity in the highest of regards to your patients wellbeing that causes you to think this way?

Untreatable?

I do not believe this.

I will continue to fight this thought process.

6 months now, going strong, forward.

Mark William Darus

　
There is one constant that remains with Psychopathy: Another Life that still lives on from its inception: The want of a steadfast editor. Perhaps one will step forward in earnest the next six months. God knows, I really need an editor.

Getting Terminated by Progressive Insurance

                   Where I am now: Let the games begin. Through written
                                          word alone, going Ballistic.

                         Disposable Humans II. Mark William Darus
                  Life since getting terminated from Progressive Insurance.

                     And yes, I request an audience with Peter B. Lewis
                                            by Mark William Darus.

　

　

Mark awakens this moon shedding, sun light rising morning as his AC comforts him with its 66 degree temperature as yet another humid Northeastern Ohio day threatens to climb high. He throws the Monet’-type print comforter from his embrace to back of his couch. Again, on autopilot like every single day since his unjust termination some two and a half weeks ago, going through motions of uncertainty, in areas of Lake Erie seas unknown.

Where did Mark place signature to any warning before in ten years of service?

Sure, there were warnings of attendance issues, to which he freely signed, agreeing with their reason of origin.

A mere year and a quarter ago <perhaps off on this figure by a month or two> , at the suggestion from the manager he had then, looked toward FMLA.

The Family Medical Leave Act. The United States government gives job protection to those seeking, medical or psychological leave with documented help for areas that present themselves as life changes present themselves. Without forthcoming knowledge or with, for requesting their leave for immediate family aide by the employee for <those being either children, their spawn being a result of their giving birth to or the result of male impregnating and creating a child/children in need , mother or father, grand parent or siblings of biological nature> or to for the employee.

Be it alcoholism, depression, a family member needing a kidney, a cherished loved one dying of cancer desperately needing immediate physical aid , or the employees self with living and adjusting to meds of either psychological need or physically related, imbalanced in nature with side effects of from either causing issue.

A mere five days before, he received a correspondence by an HR representative about a further possible need for him to file an FMLA claim for the previous week, this being sent to HR by his manager in regards to his absence of several days. He even responded with concern to this via his managers personal <cellphone voice mail>. Her words and it source are recorded. He responded with what was going on with him and how he held a doctors note in regards. When eventually seeing her, he freely shared with her what was going on with him. This event occurring after her lack of physical presence a mere number of days after he made a human error on Monday August Six Two Thousand and Twelve in regards to his time card.

Thinking a single documented case of singular human error should not create such upheaval in a decade of giving to an American Company that they should fire him. Working many a Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial or Labor day he could have shared with his family and receiving emotional, verbal flack from them in that process. Working untold hours of overtime based on Progressive Scheduling need either through their schedule system several days in advance or their ROCCs COBOX top of monitor display asking for such on sudden need. Weighing the pros and cons, against thoughts of time spent with friends and family, Mark did this many times, not for time and a half, but to keep Progressive staffed by his sacrifice of manning phones.

Mind unsettled, memory reeling backward like some eight-track tape replaying prior shards of music as it goes to the next channel. Bumpy, without lack of balance. Stumbling about as some insane Bela Lugosi voice in Glen or Glenda screams: “PULL THE STRINGS! PULL THE STRINGS!”

The aroma of his Eight O’clock coffee meets him firmly. Letting Frodo and Nuq back in. Feeding them as dog food dwindles.

Unemployment denied.

Online: looking as his checking account.

16 dollars left.

Looking back on how so many others of standing were so easily disregarded by Progressive Insurance after grand numbers of years, how so easily they were either terminated or given the option of sizable pay cuts if they stayed,  or pay-offs if they left.

The music stopped suddenly, Mark having no chair to sit on, eliminated.

Like a kite with tether cut...

Mark has nothing to lose.

Mark William Darus August 31 to September 1 2012

Red Dust by Ryn Cricket

                                             Red Dust
                                         by Ryn Cricket

“A rooster can eat a snake, you know.” Li told the older boy in the school yard.

“No, it can’t.” The boy countered. “The snake would kill it before it could even try.”

“Each animal has its own strength.” She insisted. “And if the rooster were provoked. It would kill a snake.”

“I don’t believe you.” The boy taunted.

“Alright, you go get a snake, and I’ll get my rooster.”

The boy ran off into the trees behind the school and Li crossed the dry, red, dirt road to her house on the other side. Her parents weren’t home, so they wouldn’t know that she had taken “Sawan,” her father’s prized rooster. She had to be right.

They met back up in the dusty school yard within minutes. “Alright,” the boy said. “When I count to three, we will both drop them in front of us. Ready? One…two…three.” And the boy almost threw the snake on the ground and it started to slither until Li released Sawan.

Sawan started squawking as if he had already been caught. He ruffled his feathers and flapped his wings in a frenzy. The snake just watched quietly and hissed; watching and waiting. Sawan almost caused himself a heart attack in his noisy display, but he must have known that if he ran away, he could be swiftly attacked.

“Come on, Sawan! Eat him!” Li half-cheered and half-pleaded. Sawan started to calm down. The snake was not attacking him. Maybe he was safe. And in that very moment, the snake lunged, biting Sawan perfectly on the neck. The rooster collapsed almost immediately into a mound of flesh and feathers.

Li fell on her knees in the dry dirt next to the bird and her little mind began to connect the dots.

They found her body floating in the river hours later because she understood that she would always be the victim of snakes.

by Ryn Cricket 07152010