I will, Mom.

"Are you ok?", the paramedic screamed. I nodded. "We need to check her, son." There was no need... she was gone. He grabbed her wrist, trying to find a heartbeat, and sighed heavily while his stare went blank.

...

"This is RAID 800.75 FM! The time is 8:15 am, time for you to wake up, sleepy bird!" While a big yawn poured out of my mouth, I looked at the ceiling and the absence of the scent of burnt toast filled the air. "Happy birthday, son!", dad yelled. "Yeah, yeah..." They don't matter anymore; not without her. "Ok, mom, you're right," climbing out of bed, I yelled back, "Thanks, dad."

"I'll try to smile a little today for you, mom," I walked out the door, turning my music player as a distraction, but I know, she knows, it's of no use. The bus was late, as always, "I'll try to be patient, I know, mom."

"Are you sure about that theorem? I'm not convinced of the validity of your mathematical proof", the Professor threatened, with his usual pompous stare. "I know you have proven the reverse of this", I replied, staring back. "But your assumptions are too strict. If we loosen the restrictions, my proof is valid. Believe me, it's correct." Her stare filled me with acceptance. She knew I was right; I knew I was right; that's all that mattered.

Afterwards, at the bar, some friends and family gathered for a brief drink. "Good job on defending your work, bro!", a friend cheered. "Thanks", I replied. "Oh, don't be modest! You looked at the Professor right at the eye and basically said his long-proven theorem was outdated. You have balls, man!", he insisted. "He got that from our mom", my brother replied. I felt a little smile come upon my face. Then, perhaps out of too much alcohol in his blood stream, my friend slurred out, "Have you ever thought what would it be like if your mom would still be around?".

The silence in the table woke up everybody for their drunken daze. "No. And to answer your other question: Would I bring her back If I had the chance? No, I wouldn't", I calmly said back. The oxygen inside the bar went down a couple of litters, as everybody gasped simultaneously. "I'm proud of who I am, and am such because of her and what happened to her. To want her back would be an insult of her doing, of her sacrifice. She gave her life for me to be who I am. What mother hasn't done the same thing for her son?"

...

As I looked at my mother's blood-stained face, she looked upon my tear-filled eyes. "Don't worry, baby. You're ready. Make me proud."

"I will, mom."

Where I'm Going

"I don't know where I'm going", one of the many themes of my life throughout it. It has been plaguing my conscience since I was given the gift of memory... or, depending how you see it, the curse of remembrance. It is this lack of knowledge that has, ironically, made me who I am: lonely, confused, and detoured.

Little by little I've been finding peace in that confusion: the fact of not having control on everything has evolved from being torture to a feeling of liberation; loneliness has finally uncovered itself as something that my subconscious yearns for, so I shouldn't escape from it; the sun has its virtues, and the moon isn't perfect.

I tend to write these posts as a way of freeing from me my demons and my angels, to communicate to the world what I'm feeling, and, thus, let go. However, as I read through my life, there hasn't been the change that I was trying to accomplish: I still don't know where I'm going. I find myself wanting my past, probably because I know how it ends. I keep seeing in others those entities that have followed me here, and they don't let me grasp on the current situation of uncertainty. I keep recognising patterns that are probably not there, and I cry and follow them as if I'm back then. There have been a couple of times in which nobody could deny the familiarity between the two instances (past and present), and it has been those couple of times that have been (and are) difficult.

However (oh, how I'm loving that word right now), a thought has come to me, for which I'm ever so eternally grateful for. That is the next step, that is the next peaceful confusion that I need to conquer and, from what I'm recollecting, I am (we are) doing slow-but-steady progress on:

No se a dónde voy, pero sé con quién voy.

I don't know where I'm going, but I know who I'm going with.

Alejandro Jodorowsky

Thank you... thank you so much, my love.

Crosses

I haven't written or recorded in a long time, so I've decided to do both:

The song has greatly impacted me since I knew of the existence of José González. I first heard it when he was touring with Zero 7, where they played their version of the song. It sounded like that kind of sound that could mean different things to different people, each, in essence, hearing a different song.

It's interesting how people do that. One person says one thing, and the other understands another. Not because of stupidity or ignorance, but because it's our nature. We carry baggage that gets in the way. Our sub-conscience is very powerful and sometimes can distort things to a point of creating misunderstandings. I've tried leaving some of my baggage to rest with some success, but I think that such baggage can identify a great deal who we are. It's in that decision of what we carry and what we leave in the road that truly defines us.

Coincidentally, what I hear from the song is exactly that: crossroads, decisions, and the baggage that goes with it. This recording shows how I listened to it... this is my version.

Diary Entry of Pilates

...DATE UNKNOWN...

My spies came to me with the news of gross behaviour of an individual inside Palestine, preaching words of cannibalism and vampirism. I've heard some of these stories before, from fairy tales of the old Druids up in the Celtic territories.

The reports informed me that he had illegally gathered twelve slaves, "disciples" he called them, showing them examples of his mind-numbing powers. He apparently also worked well with hypnosis, as many peasants had said of him doing miraculous things. My men described these "miracles" as only foolery and illusion; I thank the Roman Gods, as they protect us well. Still, he seemed strong and potentially dangerous, so we had him followed and seized. One of his slaves was freed off his power by one of our most powerful priests; it was at a high cost, though, as our priest went into a comma for forty days from the effort. When freed, the slave pointed us to him. Interestingly, his mind went numb again shortly after and crawled back to his owner in remorse, as if he wanted to be enslaved again. My scouts found the slave's body under a tree afterwards... poor fool, one even comes to pity such blind obedience... we did pay him a fair amount for his deed.

When the man was brought in front of me, I asked him for his name. He said that it wasn't relevant, as he was just one of many that would come. He told me that his denominated "angels" would fall from the sky and grant my kin immortality by only drinking their blood, which rang congruent with the Druids' tales. These stories also describe horrid nightmares, and constant pains and suffering endured by these "angels", also known as vampires. Immortal, yes, but in a repeating cycle of hunger and hunt that no man should confuse as a divine reward; it is a condemning punishment. Death should be the only true reward for any Roman.

His stare dug inside my head, and his smile left no room for doubt of the truth of not only his words but of the thoughts that I just described. His teeth, salivating over the sight of my naked throat, sent chills through my spine. I knew this being should not be let loose, but, under Roman Law, the only judge for this was the will of the Jewish people, a favour from the emperor to their kind. Before the hearing, we tortured the being to try and weaken its power over the crowd. I also sent several incitators into the crowd to cheer for the petty thieve I put at the beast's side as the alternative. Who knew that the love of the family of this thieve would win over so many of the hearts of the crowd and momentarily overcome the being's numbing power? Who knew that mankind's ability to love by means of empathy would be its true saviour?

After the thieve was proclaimed as free, we set our eyes to the beast. We made it bleed to see if it secreted any clues, but our alchemists found an enigma with no resolution: its blood was human, but didn't carry any life. I ordered a handful of guards to angry the beast, to taunt him into attack and see how strong its power was against the protection of our Gods. The being didn't react however, his stance expressed weakness and relinquish; pity, I would've enjoyed to see a test of our Gods' powers.

We let it carry its cross over the hill, like any Jew, while many of its followers wallowed. Some helped, but the rest just watched. I don't understand the usefulness of such power: the only thing you can do with it is force people to praise and follow you, but not to protect you, that is left to their own will. This makes me believe that it is possible that this vampire wasn't fully matured and hadn't developed that part of his ability yet. If this is true, it was a fatal judgement on the timing of when to come to our plane; a simple, idiotic mistake. Mankind is truly lucky.

Some of my spies have reported some peasants describing a resurrection, which may appear to be worrisome, but precautions were taken. The guards watching over the cross of this being took the necessary steps, described in the Druids' tales, to kill a vampire: through a punctured heart. This "resurrection" story must be an invention of the peasants, trying to deviate some attention off from the beast onto them... it wouldn't be the first time.

I've been also informed that some followers "converted" to a new religion, having this being as their prophet with the name of Christ, or the Appointed One; appointed by who, I wonder. Others report that some "disciples" are starting to preach of a new, unifying god that has befallen over us, and that the recent earthquake is evidence of his anger towards the Roman empire.

I am not worried, in fact, I'm even amused by the whole thing. Our astronomers knew of such an earthquake, and laugh at the coincidence. I suspect that this following is just some residue of the being's power, and that this "Christianity" is just a fad that will die on its own in the coming years.

Similar and Details

My thoughts began to wonder today of the similarity between you and me. I always thought that we were different: I was special, and that you are as well... but, then, everybody is and, thus, isn't.

So that thought came on to me today (well, frankly, for the last few days)... similar. Interesting, as that word is probably one of the most similarly used word throughout the world (it means the same thing in many languages). But as I turn around to you, I can only see differences: skin color, height, character, points of view, etc. We are different.

You see, that's the beauty of this word: it doesn't mean "equal", it's more like "not the same, but close enough". And that's exactly what we are, the rest are details; but it is on those details that wars are fought, genocide after genocide is justified, and blind-hatred is harvested. "God is in the details", they say. Coincidentally, I know of others that say "The devil is in the details". Minor detail, I suppose.

So they are important (ask the wife of a 20-year-old marriage that didn't get a Valentine's Day present if they are or not). Doesn't that tell you of the mass obsessive-compulsive disorder that we as a global community suffer? Those details are all minor, no two words about it: everything you see in others as different is minor, irrelevant, unimportant... at least they should be. The human body as a concept is so similar all over humanity that it is the sole reason we are considered as one species. If we go over to the thoughts section of the body, at the end of the day every human out there desires the same thing, just have different, conflicting ways to get there. Minor detail, I suppose.

Mayonnaise? Ketchup? Mass on Sunday? Prayer on Friday? It's been over 5,000 years, and we still haven't agreed on any of these? For the looks of it, it seems that we don't even want to. What is there to gain if we do come to an agreement? Peace? Guess that it isn't as much fun as seeing people getting tortured to "save" the other side.

"We're right, they're wrong. Stick with that story until you die."

What about "we're both wrong"? Because, I'm pretty sure none of us is right. We're human, we're bred to be wrong.

"I'm entitled to my opinion", yeah and it's wrong. There's always going to be something that you haven't considered, a detail you've overlooked; there lies the problem with everybody. For some reason, we've always assumed the other side knows the details that we know, and when they violate those details, an Inquisition of the Spanish kind takes place. It isn't their fault they don't know our details; in the most part, it's ours: we haven't been communicating them enough, or haven't got the vision of others needing to know them because we always think that our side is the 'normal', universal one. And, when the dust clears, the suspects are questioned/purified and the rest are exiled. The details are known, yes, but it's either too late (with nobody else there to applaud you) or too lame (killing any good argument you may have had).

So, we're both wrong.
Well, it's obvious how you're wrong: you're missing my A and B... How am I wrong?
... I'm missing your X and Y? You're kidding! Really? Hmm. Minor detail, I suppose.