Saddlebrook Village

A cold breeze blows through the hallway
of an apartment complex soon to be abandoned
for another location equally worthy of the memories
that were made in the last year, memories
both ugly and beautiful, many, yet few
in the grand timeline that frames our lifetime,
some insignificant looking back,
others that form the newest outer-layer
of my existence,
fragile, yet strengthening,
fragments slowly forming a whole,
the man I always knew myself to be
is slowly coming into focus
when I look at myself in the mirror,
once a sad, lonely man who
struggled by the day
has broken into ash
for the chance to be born again
as a better man,
the first shoot
of a majestic redwood emerges
from the ashes of a lesser tree,
its peak is unknown, probably farther
than the eyes can see,
yet its highest branch
is only a green nub today,
it will grow higher than anyone
could dare to dream of,
and it happens by the day.

Future Focus

The future is a gray amorphous blob waiting to be given a form.
Our past decisions form the core if we wish them to,
for its our conscious decisions that determine its shape and color.

Should we allow our past to make our decisions for the future,
I believe that's how we stumble along our journey,
time and time again.
Instead, let us take the past as a roadmap for the future,
marking the potholes and shortcuts.
The past exists behind us for a reason,
that reason being that it has taught us lessons
time and time again;
Mistakes of the past should never haunt us,
because they are behind us and cannot catch up to the present
as long as we keep a strong, steady momentum
towards tomorrow.

What our future becomes is entirely up to you and I.
The present is that canvas, and the past is the failed works
of yesterday.
Make this next piece your masterpiece
if only to make an even greater expression tomorrow.
The future is upon you, it is upon me.
Don't make the same mistakes today
that you made yesterday.
Learn from the past, live in the present, strive for the future
of yourself and the world as a whole.

The Valkyrie and the Jester

There were three on the floor, and two in the back,
for the workers of Starbucks, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was like a break from the busiest times of the year.
Kasey, the best if the best of the Baristas, didn't bother taking that break, for she knew what loomed just over the horizon.
With a fire in a soul and a sip of caramel brulee frapuccino snaking its way through her intestines, she worked as hard as she had on that blackest of Fridays, regardless of it being a slow, Wednesday afternoon.

Armed with a hair tie, her green apron, and the fighting spirit of a Valkyrie queen, her very calling up drink orders motivated a full-on caffeinated conquest.
The sheer number of tipped dollar bills could very well build her a castle that reaches from one coast of Florida to the next.

Her fellow-in-espresso, Yoandy the Vargas, helps to chew the fat and re-energize the spirits of all around him, each and everyday... except on sick days, where he practices his craft of mischief to the trees in his back yard.
His verbal antics both shock and astonish, delivering a Shoryuken of service to both his workers and the customers alike.

He brushes the light fixture with his barista visor, and sets off fire alarms with his white-hot wit, and when paired with his partner, the Nordic Destroyer of non-fat lattes, the day is safe from the onslaught of snappy snowbirds.

Let me tell you a tale of one such exploit;
Once upon a time... about two or three weeks ago, when the Spirit of Black Friday was making his yearly rounds, stirring up chaos in every corner of this proud country, it made a personal visit to this simple, yet lavish coffee shop in the heart of Naples, Florida. When push came to shove, and aggravated shopper after aggravated shopper filled that small space in a matter of minutes, demanding the most complicated and sugary of beverages be made when and where they wanted, the Tooth and the Nail went to work, both of them refusing to succumb to the ensuing madness that particular day brought with it when it rose out of hell's fiery chasm.

It was at this time the most locally famous of duos, Kasey the Valkyrie and Yoandy the Jester, sprung into action, leaving no ounce of milk unsteamed and no cranberry bliss bar unserved.
Low-fat, low sugar cardboard frapuccinos were served by the trayful to appease the tastebuds deadened from months of fad-dieting and artificial sweeteners alike.
All the while, the master wordsmith Yoandy served his share of drinks and jokes to keep the air fresh from the imported air of the Northeast.

The other baristas stood not a chance to be noticed, as it was these two valiant and unshakable souls that stole the spotlight on that night of darkened flight.
Venits were filled, and gift cards were depleted, all in the name of fueling caffeinated rage to be projected on the hapless storeworkers caught up in the maelstrom of Black Friday's spite.
Regardless of the fight nobody believed they would win, the dynamic duo took orders through the earliest hours of the day without breaking away from the forces that would see them sway.
The night drug on, and many of the baristas lost to Black Friday, but when the first light of dawn rose over Golden Gate Parkway and Goodlette Frank Rd, Black Friday was driven away from the masses of civilians, who were left fawning proudly over their newest consumer-goods, and dreamily returned to their vehicles, gift receipts in-hand.

Likewise, when the time came for the heroes of the night to part ways,
The Jester awarded the Valkyrie with a hug and words of fellowship,
departing the scene with a head full of pride at the victory the night left behind.
As for the Valkyrie, she knew the war over Black Friday was far from over,
and she drove her Scion xB to the gates of Valhalla for a short break of recuperation.

Even If You Could, Chapter 1

It was dusk already, the fighting from the night before continued on, lingering like the dust spit up from the hours of gun fighting. It wasn't just the fighting from that last night, either. Night after night for the last six days they battled one another, all of it over a disagreement from a hundred years ago that grew like a cancer until there wasn't enough room for more than one tumor. Regardless of how it came to be, it had become the full-scale war that it was on that day, and there were bullets to be fired, curses to be shot, and blood to be spilled.

---

"Sarge, we can take them out if we utilize our remaining mortars to take out multiple enemy units all at once." Hopkins' eyes remained focused on his commander, he tried keeping a half-smirk on his face, but his hope kept running dry, and his expression failed him. Sergeant Petronus wasting as little precious time as he could spat to his Specialist, "That's your plan? All of our mortars are being shot at those mother fuckers to keep them from encircling us. If we could Somehow get God to grant us the time we needed, we'd be defenseless."

Hopkins inched towards the ledge overlooking a valley of despair, but only for a moment. His will overpowered him and he stepped away. "Sergeant, with all due respect, we have to do something or we're going to run out of ammunition. Gather Cavan, Reinheil, and Deffer and instruct them to order or forces to focus their fire to keep the enemy back at all costs while we gather the mortars. We'll fire into the larger clusters of enemy troops and reduce their numbers. Once that's accomplished we'll use the opportunity to launch an offensive and gain a foothold on them."

Sergeant Petronus turned to look at Hopkins from his seated position. "You are not the commanding officer, Specialist Hopkins," emphasis was placed on his rank, "your plan has such a high probability of failure that we have a better chance of surviving by continuing as we are. We Will hold them off until their ammunition runs low. We will strike then."

Specialist Hopkins knew there was nothing more he could do. He questioned why he enlisted in the army to begin with when he entered this "plane of death," the proud battlefield that lay around him on all sides. He wanted the easy way out of life. He didn't want to go to college, but he wanted to make something of himself at the same time. He thought the military would be his ticket to life, but now it threatened to end everything. Now he stood in place, unable to confront his officer further, he felt the blood of his brothers in the soil beneath him, and they wanted him to join them. He refused such temptations, his will to live had overcome any of his fear at that moment, he knew that if he didn't do everything he could to defeat the enemy, he faced certain death. Sergeant Petronus dismissed Hopkins, who saluted his commanding officer and joined Reinheil and Alpha company.

M-16 at his waist, Hopkins fell in line next to Sergeant Reinheil and double-checked his weapon. "You're back already. It didn't go over as we'd hoped, did it?" Hopkins answered Sergeant Reinheil by jumping above the trenches and firing in quick bursts. Reinheil did the same, taking extreme care to conserve his ammunition.

The whole of Alpha company spoke not a word for four hours. The monotony of exchanging fire with their enemies was their only expression, and the company as a whole took part in it. The fires of hell tore at their bodies, while their minds had remained safe havens... for a while.

As the battle dragged on, the number of casualties grew, and the black hand of despair caught up to the lesser soldiers and dragged their hearts into the bottomless valley of despair. For soldiers like Hopkins and Reinheil, the hand was simply too slow to catch up to them. For the fallen soldiers, their weapons came to embody their souls, so they could continue the fight from beyond the grave, and as each clip ran empty for the soldiers still fighting, they turned to their fallen brothers for support.

Then the mortars came.

The first one took out just one soldier, but the ones following were fired with climbing accuracy, and became a real threat. Reinheil hit Hopkins in the chest with the butt of his gun, "look over there," he instructed, pointing to the company to Hopkins' rear.

What he saw was unbelievable.

Concentrated mortars to high-density areas, the very strategy he suggested to Sergeant Petronus. Hopkins turned back to Reinheil, "I can't believe this shit," Hopkins fired at a mortar hanging in the air, but couldn't take it out in time. Luckily, it wasn't a good shot and nobody was injured. Hopkins continued firing as he had, simply trying to take out as many soldiers that he could. He was fully aware that consuming all of his ammunition is what the enemy wanted him to do, but he would much rather fight back and face a probable death than a certain one. Reinheil, however, saw it differently. He had tried yelling at Hopkins for him to stand down, but it was to little effect. In fact, Hopkins was the only soldier from Alpha Company still firing.