Illsyck
That's right, I'm back from the dead!!! :)
And now, I took some of my time off for my fans to get a short story going about the dark/light origins of Ghost. Hope you like it. Any comments are welcome, it's the first in a series of origins stories to come from me :).
MAYBE I could get them published, but it's probably wishful thinking on my part. :rolleyes: (If anyone knows how to get fanfic published, give me an email for chrissake. Now if I could turn this into a comic, that would be orgasmic!!...errm....fantasmic!!!!:D)
Ortus: Ghost
“Learn that you are not
Existent or living but
That you are nothing.”
“Damnit Tai, will you please start making some use of yourself instead of worshipping that damn statue!?!”
My parents didn’t understand. They never would.
“Hold on father. Just a second.”
I flew down the wooden stairs of my two-story tenement to do the job I loathed so much:
Cooking.
My family owned this run-down building next to the bustling streets of Sai Kung central, where we cooked for the poorest of the poor, the kind of people your stereotypical hobo would scoff at for being so disgustingly destitute. And these were my clients, day in and day out.
The only thing that kept me sane was my religion.
“I’m sorry father,” I said in most polite but regretful tone, hoping that he wouldn’t find the latter in my voice.
“You’re never truly sorry, you worthless brat. Now go get me some business before I have you directly conversing with my customers!”
Give me fire and brimstone and I’d likely give you my life.
I strode in to the kitchen to do my daily routine. Grab the pot. Put the meat in. Put it in the oven. Turn it on. Wait for three minutes…
…Take it out. Put some white rice around it to take the stench out of it.
Pour some water, or whatever you can scramble.
Repeat. Over and over and over and over…
Like a robot, a communist, doing his job, moving without hesitation, never looking back or thinking radically or planning a revolt against the system. Guess it’s just part of the tradition brought back from old China.
This is how the international district worked. And so did my household.
I strolled around the filth, the stench of this place. It disgusts me, makes me want to puke.
“Hey, Tai, bring me some coffee, will ya?” this half-naked man with a dirt-trodden ripped-up muscle shirt tells me.
“I don’t stray from my normal route,” I shout back.
“Normality is a disease, my child. You stay in it and you’ll end up like me.”
It’s these kind of things that creepy me out. Some of these guys think they’re real top-notch, they know everything.
What do they know, they’re the ones with rags and a putrid air surrounding their existence. Sure, they’ve been through life, but they’re taking the exact opposite route I plan to.
“Tai Jiang!” my mother yells to me. “You are not to be rude to our customers, understand?”
“Yes, mom,” I reply.
“You know, you should sound more convincing at times, dear.”
That’s the thing I hate about my parents. They sense everything about me.
Then again, I’m not good at conceiving my thoughts. That’s why I attempt to practice monotone, or I don’t speak at all.
Your tone and facial expressions reveal much, much more than you’d want to when you talk. That’s why I try to keep to myself.
You reveal the wrong stuff, and you end up like the guys I’m serving.
The rest of the day goes by in repetition. Same as usual…that’s what causes poverty here. No one’s innovative or smart enough to force change around here, so we go back to our mundane communist roots and work like they do in China.
Day after day, hard labor, working for the rich people, the ones who broke the chain, the ones who made their radical dreams into a reality.
That’s the problem with being stuck with a bunch of drones. Nothing is ever different.
Society’s plague has hit the International district the hardest…but yet…
I would always look forward to the end of my work. 6 o’clock, the end of the end, the beginning of the beginning, where I could concentrate, in a completely pacified environment, which are about as rare in Sai Kung as money in these parts.
And this is where nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.
And I loved every bit of it. No worrying, no working, where Nothing actually matters for once…
For hours on end, through the night, I would just sit there. Sit and lie totally still, like the great Siddhartha did himself during his pre-enlightened life. With Buddha, you didn’t need anything to be happy. That’s the best part of the religion.
The less you have, the better off you are. Which was perfect for my situation.
True happiness doesn’t lie within riches, power, glory, fame, even giving to the poor doesn’t gain you happiness. All of these are greedy, because, in the end, you are claiming each and every one of those titles just to make yourself better, whether taking away from the poor to add to your riches, or taking away from the rich to give to the poor. They are all just futile ways to provide “satisfaction.”
True satisfaction is nonexistent, and therefore is nothing.
I came closer to nothing than most during the night.
Every sound, blocked out. Every moment, rustle of the wind, the howling of the wolves, the prodding of the poor.
Everything becomes nothing.
I did this every night, for years on end. Days turned to months to years. Finally, one day, I saw the light.
But it came in a form I didn’t expect. I guess it comes differently for everyone.
As I was in my black zone, my zone of nothingness, something sparked. An electric shock, a dazzle of green and black, like a green-tinted firefly flaming up the night sky.
As I came back to existence, it stopped. But it felt great. I needed more, so I stepped back into nothing.
And it came again.
The green shock was stronger, more vicious this time around. It put my whole body into a rage, gave me energy, gave me life.
I figured that this was some sort of test, before I became the Ideal Nothing. So I kept going. I let the light engulf me, take my body, my soul, enraged into a green-black fury of energy that I couldn’t control.
I heard my parents screaming at me. “No!” they shouted. “What the hell is happening to him?”
They always sense these things.
“Please! Tai! We love you! Don’t do this to yourself! Please!”
“Stay here with us!”
Heh. I’m just another cog in their inner workings, nothing more. They never shared care for me.
So I let go of any care that I had left for them. Dove into the abyss.
And suddenly, nothing again. I thought this was victory for me, that I had truly reached Nothing, but I knew this was invalid when I was still thinking.
Then, an organic flush of red.
I felt exhausted. So completely exhausted. Something was sucking the energy out of me. Something was taking my soul away, I could feel it. My heart was pulsating so quickly, so loudly, I had never heard of this place in Buddha’s studies…
“Oh no,” I thought to myself.
I must have died, and am being reborn…
Why did I not reach nothingness yet? I tried so hard, I can’t go through life again!
Why? Why am I trapped in the defenses of life again, being born from a uterus?
Then suddenly, abruptly, the suction pulls me in, sweeping my entire body into a loss of functionality.
Born again. But not born into the Ideal Nothing.
I cried. I wept. I wish that I was in nothing, I had just glimpsed it in my past life, now I was hoping for the whole thing.
Then, a strange ship came out of nowhere, one of a huge metallic mass, barging its way through the narrow tunnels of the underground.
Then, the tentacles gripped me in their vile, wretched, consuming grip…
And I was gone…
Born again. Born again in a hell.
The truth set me free. But it also killed my soul and my belief.
Nothing is just a figment of the imagination. Nothing more. I learned this the hard way.
And now I do my job, like always.
Work the ship. Track the sentinels. Go into the matrix. Rescue someone. Jack him/her back out.
Repeat. Over and over and over…
But sometimes I remember the good old days of meditation. I made my own program, that simulates the environment I once used to live in.
And I meditate.
Maybe there is a Nothing. Maybe the One these Zionites keep preaching about can find the Nothing.
Or perhaps…
Everything.
:D :D :D
And now, I took some of my time off for my fans to get a short story going about the dark/light origins of Ghost. Hope you like it. Any comments are welcome, it's the first in a series of origins stories to come from me :).
MAYBE I could get them published, but it's probably wishful thinking on my part. :rolleyes: (If anyone knows how to get fanfic published, give me an email for chrissake. Now if I could turn this into a comic, that would be orgasmic!!...errm....fantasmic!!!!:D)
Ortus: Ghost
“Learn that you are not
Existent or living but
That you are nothing.”
“Damnit Tai, will you please start making some use of yourself instead of worshipping that damn statue!?!”
My parents didn’t understand. They never would.
“Hold on father. Just a second.”
I flew down the wooden stairs of my two-story tenement to do the job I loathed so much:
Cooking.
My family owned this run-down building next to the bustling streets of Sai Kung central, where we cooked for the poorest of the poor, the kind of people your stereotypical hobo would scoff at for being so disgustingly destitute. And these were my clients, day in and day out.
The only thing that kept me sane was my religion.
“I’m sorry father,” I said in most polite but regretful tone, hoping that he wouldn’t find the latter in my voice.
“You’re never truly sorry, you worthless brat. Now go get me some business before I have you directly conversing with my customers!”
Give me fire and brimstone and I’d likely give you my life.
I strode in to the kitchen to do my daily routine. Grab the pot. Put the meat in. Put it in the oven. Turn it on. Wait for three minutes…
…Take it out. Put some white rice around it to take the stench out of it.
Pour some water, or whatever you can scramble.
Repeat. Over and over and over and over…
Like a robot, a communist, doing his job, moving without hesitation, never looking back or thinking radically or planning a revolt against the system. Guess it’s just part of the tradition brought back from old China.
This is how the international district worked. And so did my household.
I strolled around the filth, the stench of this place. It disgusts me, makes me want to puke.
“Hey, Tai, bring me some coffee, will ya?” this half-naked man with a dirt-trodden ripped-up muscle shirt tells me.
“I don’t stray from my normal route,” I shout back.
“Normality is a disease, my child. You stay in it and you’ll end up like me.”
It’s these kind of things that creepy me out. Some of these guys think they’re real top-notch, they know everything.
What do they know, they’re the ones with rags and a putrid air surrounding their existence. Sure, they’ve been through life, but they’re taking the exact opposite route I plan to.
“Tai Jiang!” my mother yells to me. “You are not to be rude to our customers, understand?”
“Yes, mom,” I reply.
“You know, you should sound more convincing at times, dear.”
That’s the thing I hate about my parents. They sense everything about me.
Then again, I’m not good at conceiving my thoughts. That’s why I attempt to practice monotone, or I don’t speak at all.
Your tone and facial expressions reveal much, much more than you’d want to when you talk. That’s why I try to keep to myself.
You reveal the wrong stuff, and you end up like the guys I’m serving.
The rest of the day goes by in repetition. Same as usual…that’s what causes poverty here. No one’s innovative or smart enough to force change around here, so we go back to our mundane communist roots and work like they do in China.
Day after day, hard labor, working for the rich people, the ones who broke the chain, the ones who made their radical dreams into a reality.
That’s the problem with being stuck with a bunch of drones. Nothing is ever different.
Society’s plague has hit the International district the hardest…but yet…
I would always look forward to the end of my work. 6 o’clock, the end of the end, the beginning of the beginning, where I could concentrate, in a completely pacified environment, which are about as rare in Sai Kung as money in these parts.
And this is where nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.
And I loved every bit of it. No worrying, no working, where Nothing actually matters for once…
For hours on end, through the night, I would just sit there. Sit and lie totally still, like the great Siddhartha did himself during his pre-enlightened life. With Buddha, you didn’t need anything to be happy. That’s the best part of the religion.
The less you have, the better off you are. Which was perfect for my situation.
True happiness doesn’t lie within riches, power, glory, fame, even giving to the poor doesn’t gain you happiness. All of these are greedy, because, in the end, you are claiming each and every one of those titles just to make yourself better, whether taking away from the poor to add to your riches, or taking away from the rich to give to the poor. They are all just futile ways to provide “satisfaction.”
True satisfaction is nonexistent, and therefore is nothing.
I came closer to nothing than most during the night.
Every sound, blocked out. Every moment, rustle of the wind, the howling of the wolves, the prodding of the poor.
Everything becomes nothing.
I did this every night, for years on end. Days turned to months to years. Finally, one day, I saw the light.
But it came in a form I didn’t expect. I guess it comes differently for everyone.
As I was in my black zone, my zone of nothingness, something sparked. An electric shock, a dazzle of green and black, like a green-tinted firefly flaming up the night sky.
As I came back to existence, it stopped. But it felt great. I needed more, so I stepped back into nothing.
And it came again.
The green shock was stronger, more vicious this time around. It put my whole body into a rage, gave me energy, gave me life.
I figured that this was some sort of test, before I became the Ideal Nothing. So I kept going. I let the light engulf me, take my body, my soul, enraged into a green-black fury of energy that I couldn’t control.
I heard my parents screaming at me. “No!” they shouted. “What the hell is happening to him?”
They always sense these things.
“Please! Tai! We love you! Don’t do this to yourself! Please!”
“Stay here with us!”
Heh. I’m just another cog in their inner workings, nothing more. They never shared care for me.
So I let go of any care that I had left for them. Dove into the abyss.
And suddenly, nothing again. I thought this was victory for me, that I had truly reached Nothing, but I knew this was invalid when I was still thinking.
Then, an organic flush of red.
I felt exhausted. So completely exhausted. Something was sucking the energy out of me. Something was taking my soul away, I could feel it. My heart was pulsating so quickly, so loudly, I had never heard of this place in Buddha’s studies…
“Oh no,” I thought to myself.
I must have died, and am being reborn…
Why did I not reach nothingness yet? I tried so hard, I can’t go through life again!
Why? Why am I trapped in the defenses of life again, being born from a uterus?
Then suddenly, abruptly, the suction pulls me in, sweeping my entire body into a loss of functionality.
Born again. But not born into the Ideal Nothing.
I cried. I wept. I wish that I was in nothing, I had just glimpsed it in my past life, now I was hoping for the whole thing.
Then, a strange ship came out of nowhere, one of a huge metallic mass, barging its way through the narrow tunnels of the underground.
Then, the tentacles gripped me in their vile, wretched, consuming grip…
And I was gone…
Born again. Born again in a hell.
The truth set me free. But it also killed my soul and my belief.
Nothing is just a figment of the imagination. Nothing more. I learned this the hard way.
And now I do my job, like always.
Work the ship. Track the sentinels. Go into the matrix. Rescue someone. Jack him/her back out.
Repeat. Over and over and over…
But sometimes I remember the good old days of meditation. I made my own program, that simulates the environment I once used to live in.
And I meditate.
Maybe there is a Nothing. Maybe the One these Zionites keep preaching about can find the Nothing.
Or perhaps…
Everything.
:D :D :D