Love.

A good wingman will always be there to help you out.

Nawww Ethan..

Infinity

This is the sharpest image yet of the Orion Nebula.

Awestruck Ethan..

Oddi-ditty, #4

I'm glad they spelt kowtower with a 'k'. Using a 'c' would've created a very odd and confounding mental image indeed.

Odd Ethan..

Oddi-ditty, #3

Claiming that you're the Frogger will not get you out of a jaywalking ticket.

Odd Ethan..

Oddi-ditty, #2

I once killed a bear using only a fish bone. Didn't realise you had to take them out when cooking.

Odd Ethan..

Oddi-ditty, #1

I wear odd socks to let people know that I am psychotic, and not to be trifled with.

Odd Ethan..

My New Novella

Men, women and children ran screaming through the streets. The women were staring in terror at the sun, shrieking indiscernible cries of torment while they shepherded children into their homes. The uniformed men unslung their assault rifles but couldn’t bring themselves to fire. Instead they threw down their weapons, ran to their houses, and cowered between their wives and children.

A small dark spot in the sun grew larger, advancing quickly until a silhouetted figure began to form. The shadows of wings sprouted from the black profile and began to swing in monstrous thrusts that produced a deep resonating thump.

The shadow developed into the shape of a man.

The few soldiers remaining in the streets fell to their knees and began praying desperately to Allah, hoping for salvation from this angel of the apocalypse. Some picked up the fallen rifles of their comrades, closed their eyes and in a fit of utter terror, fired bursts of bullets wildly into the air. But the winged demon came closer, clutching a giant metal ball in its claws. Some men cried out in desperation, and turned the weapons on themselves.

***

Luke was shitting himself. Bullets whistled past his ears as he descended into view. He had to fight hard to stay in the air with the weight of the bomb grasped in his arms pulling him back to Earth. The zing of a close bullet prompted him to summon the remaining strength he had, and in a dim-witted attempt at self-preservation, he strained the bomb up to cover his face.

He peeked around the bomb and searched ahead to see the large building, almost a mile away, near the main square of the village. The target was a disused factory – now a headquarters for a terrorist sect bent on the elimination and repulsion of any American presence in Iraq. The uniformed men below were soldiers of the Iraqi Armed Forces, opposed to the radical extremists – allies to America.

Another bullet fizzed past Luke’s hip, tearing a hole in his desert-camouflaged cargo pants. He screamed and tore his eyes away from the target, searching for the source of the bullets.

He saw a number of scattered soldiers on the ground. Some men were kneeling quietly in a frighteningly bizarre exercise, and several were shooting up at him after apparently executing a number of their comrades.

To Luke, they were all psychopaths.

Another piece of lead shot through Luke’s left wing, sending a plume of white feathers into the air. Luke howled, “I’m hit! I’m hit!” into the tiny microphone secured to his collar. He turned his head away, unable to bear the sight of his grotesque, disfiguring wound. It became all the more difficult to stay airborne. He dropped his metal shield of ordnance, threw his arms in front of his face and turned to the south, flying for the horizon as fast as he could. He shut his eyes and prayed that God would save him from the insane anarchists below. After a few moments, there was a deafening explosion and the bullets stopped searching for him.

Luke began to cry. The only sounds that could be heard were his heaving sobs, and the thumping of his wings.

The Death of Heaven.

Laws, Commandments, and Heaven and Hell become redundant, when a single person is considerate of another.

Ethan..

My Cave of Wonders

A patchy varnished wooden box, about the size of a small book;

A redolent scent of tobacco, torpor and time;

Prying open the creaking lid, twisting the broken hinges;

There grows a shrub of paper, speckled with insignificant significance;

Filled with words and relics and mnemonic artefacts of happiness past;

The names at the bottom of letters begin to lose connection to a face;

The cracked paper of tributes, love and reminiscence turn yellow;

The artefacts I've so carefully carried from place to place, lose colour and sheen;

My only fear, is that the memories follow;

Fading, until the box is empty.

Ethan..

Happiness, Part II

Eponym? My, Nope.

I've been fiddling with palindromic sentences. It's an encapsulating, engaging, infuriating, engrossing, enlightening, invigorating, enveloping, enslaving, enthralling, inspiring, enchanting, entombing and enigmatic enterprise.

From the others that I've read, they all contained "O, ye, ay, eh" or some other outdated or irksome representation of sound. Or someone's name. It vexed me, so I've tried to write full, correct words, devoid of names or the use of letternapping apostrophes that are metaphoric of the raping of cheap prostitutes.

Here are a couple of ditties:

Wonder, ever evil. Interpret nil; I’ve revered Now.

Smart rats start rams.

I fear that their meanings will forever be my own.

Footnote:

This activity has been an interesting tool in perspective, causing me to discover anagrams in words that I've found quite evocative. For example, the word 'imagine' can be rearranged to form 'I, enigma'. I like that. Or letters can be repeated - "I am an enigma".

Also 'dream' backwards sounds like the French word for 'shit'.

Mirrored Ethan..

Ready To Fall

The Earth's salvation is not the prodigious burden of some, but in the miniscule efforts of all.

God had the luxury of a blank canvas.

Ethan..

Upon A Mackerel Sky

Clouds are capricious. They dance,

Contorted in pain; tortured by the winds,

Pierced by the sun, acquiescent to the whims of nature.

They gang in omnipotent rage, forming behind your vision,

And glowering menace as a reminder of their power.

Then melt and vanish over the world's edge,

Leaving only warmth, and infinity.

Precipitating Ethan..

Chameleons

There has been a lot of research, and many arguments and theories around the social construct of "fitting in". I've talked about it a few times - about how sometimes people try indefatigably and vociferously to be different, and end up being an indistinguishable pea in a homogenous pod. But I love how some people seem a dime a dozen, but are in fact, brilliantly unique.

I think of these brilliant people as being like chameleons: perfectly camouflaged into any environment, but look closely and you'll see a curious and beautifully peculiar creature.

Marbleless Ethan..

The Army Ant

It's been a while since I gave homage to an animal, but the Army Ant certainly deserves a mention.

As implied by its name, the Army Ant swarms in a massive throng of abdomen and pincers to overwhelm and kill their prey. Unlike other ant species, the Army Ants do not form permanent colonies, but rather are nomadic in nature, emigrating monthly. As Army Ants live for only sixty days, they build nests out of the living bodies of worker ants rather than sand or dirt, brooding new armies for the next migration. This is possible as the queen can lay 250,000 eggs in ten days. They can cover two hundred yards of rainforest floor in a day, but when the initial raid from the colony begins, they can cover twenty yards in an hour, devouring any animal in their path.

Relative in weight, the Army Ant has more fighting power and strength than any other creature on Earth. Their pincers cause massive pain to the individual it bites and causes welts as big as five cent pieces.

I mean seriously, look at the soldiers. Their heads and jaws are larger than the rest of their bodies. They are ferocious when attacking and can easily pierce human skin. These pincers enable the soldiers to tear apart spiders, scorpions, worms and other much larger animals so that they can be carried off by worker ants. They have even been known to eat tethered cows, as the venom in their sting liquifies the body tissue. When migrating, the soldier ants will form boundaries around the trails of the worker ants, up trees and over rocks, so that the worker ants can not fall.

What lovely chaps.

Ethan..