Fade to Splat- A Cockroach's Demise

  There once was a little cockroach named Chester, or Chico to his friends.  Chico lived a simple life.  He spent his days scavenging from place to place to feed his 977 children and his 32 wives.  Some days were better than others and some  days...well they just sucked.  Today definitely ranked number one on the suck-o-meter.  

Chico had spent his entire morning going from one trash can to the next in search of anything to feed his small family.  He was actually luckier than some of his friends that had much larger families to provide for, so he rarely complained about the task of feeding his own.  In fact, he quite often was found helping his friends hunt for food if he had already found enough for his needs. He was one of the nicest cockroaches in nearly the whole city.

It was nearing the end of the day and Chico had very little to show for his work.  He had managed to find enough to maybe feed half of his children, but he wasn't about to let the other half go hungry.  With his antennae pointing him onward, he came across a potential gold mine when he picked up the slight trace of food coming from the tall trashcan in a bathroom.  Bathrooms weren't his usual gig, but every once in awhile they paid off.  Knowing how many more hungry mouths there were at home, Chico starts the long climb up the outside of the can with his antennae crossed for luck.

As he reaches the top rim, his eyes widen with amazement at the treasure within.  Nearly an entire chili dog and order of cheese fries had been discarded inside.  "Looks like were eating good tonight" Chico says to himself as he prepares to ascend to the reward below.  

As he lowers himself over the rim, he is taken by surprise as a human hand brushes by him to dispose of a wet paper towel.  He had been so distracted by his excitement that he hadn't even noticed the human enter the restroom.  With no time to scurry, Chico loses balance as the hand passes him and he falls helplessly on top of the hand that had caused him to lose his balance.  

He should have run away.  It was the first thing his parents taught him as a young roachling.  "You see a human, You run!"  They had told him that over and over.  He has told his own roachlings the same thing.  But when it came time to follow that life saving advice...he couldn't.  He stood perfectly still and slowly looked up at the enormous being hovering over him.  Their eyes locked and Chico was mesmerized.  "Wait" he pondered. "Why isn't he running away?  Isn't that what humans do when they see us too?"   He couldn't fathom why they eyes staring back at him seemed as perplexed by their stand off as he was.

Chico felt a rush of invincibility as he stared down one of the insect world's most feared enemies.  "He's not so tough" Chico convinced himself and raised his antennae slightly to show his own fearlessness.  "That's right human" he taunted "That's my Chili dog.  Keep your germ infested hands off!"  The human didn't react at first but after another long second passed, the other hand of the human raised and one of the long fingers extended toward Chico in a gesture of war.
Suddenly it clicked.  "He isn't afraid of me"  That's when Chico broke out of his trance like immobility and ran.  He dove beneath the paper towel and around the long cylindrical cup.  As he went deeper and deeper into the trash can, the humans hand came closer and closer, removing every item in its path and tossing it out of the can and onto the floor. 

 When Chico reached the bottom of the can, he ran in terrified circles trying to find his escape.  "A door!!! There has to be a door!"  There were no doors.  No holes.  No cracks.  Nowhere else to run except under the chili dog wrapper.  Chico stood in his hiding spot hoping beyond hope that the human would tire in his quest and move on, but this did not happen.

The wrapper slowly lifted and Chico was left exposed in the bottom of the big empty trash receptacle.  "Why didn't I run sooner?" He scolded himself as he looked up at the human pleadingly in hopes he would be shown mercy. 

Chico knew his time was up when the human leaned in showing no sign of sympathy.  Thoughts of his 977 children flew through his mind and he comforted himself in the belief that his 32 wives would somehow provide for them once he was gone.  He locks eyes with the human again as he prepares to meet his fate.  The stare seemed to linger for a moment, but not like it had when first they met.  This time it was different.  It was almost respectful.  As the human prepared to end Chico's short but purposeful life, he honored him as any warrior would.  He looked him in the eye as he died.

A Zombie's Point of View

It ended quicker than you could imagine.  One moment the spark was there, the next...it was gone.   That small spark of life extinguished itself in my mind and the world, as I once knew, went with it.  At first, there was only darkness.  I could feel everything that I was, slowly fading away.  The muffled sounds of my loved ones crying over my body barely registering.  Soon those sounds drifted away and I was left in silence.  It was unbelievably cold, yet I felt no discomfort.   I felt no fear or sense of loss either.  I willed my fingers to move and although I know they responded to my body's command with a twitch, I still felt nothing.  NOTHING...except this one thing.  All I felt was hunger and the feeling was quickly becoming maddening.
My clouded eyes opened slowly and looked around with a new sense of purpose.  .  Slowly as I stood up from the hard concrete ground of the parking lot, I looked around for something to satisfy my new needs.  It was really more of a need.  A single driven compulsion.  There was nothing in sight, but that did not discourage me.  I walked.  I had no direction in mind.  The direction I was facing seemed as good as any other.  I walked out of the parking lot onto the road and kept walking.  Step after slow step, I continued to move forward.  Some unseen force telling me which way to go.  After several hours, I saw them.  Others like myself, blindly dragging their decaying bodies in search of what?  I don't know...but I followed their lead and trailed behind the pack of them.  My eyes would occasionally meet with another and cross over them as they came near to me.  I should have feared their rotting flesh.  I don't know how the the smell of death did not sicken me.  But with no more interest, we both would look away from one another and to continue to walk.  We did not rest.  We did not drink.  We did not speak.
The sounds of voices shouting in the distance brought a murmur of groaning excitement to the pack.  Our heads seem to shoot up in unison in the direction of the sound and, as if choreographed, we all turned toward it.  The pace seem quickened now and the reason for it became clear around the next corner.  A small group of people were huddled protectively around an injured man.  The man lied on the ground grasping his leg as a steady flow of blood gushed from it.  The looks of horror on their faces as we approached should have registered to me, but they did not.  I never realized how strong the scent of blood was before.  It floated into my nose and I could almost feel my mouth water.
"Leave me!" the injured man pleaded to the others.  "Save yourselves!"  The three around him refused to move.  A woman tried lifting the man from the ground as we came closer to them.  "NO...we won't leave you John.  Get up!  You can't just give up on us."  The two other men stood firmly in front of the injured man and woman.  They raised their weapons at us ready to put up a fight.  The one called John struggled to get on his feet but his weight was too much for the small woman.
The first of us reached them and attacked but quickly had a pick axe crashed into his skull.  He fell but there was still about a dozen more of us to fight off.  The second man managed to slam a shovel into the closest one of us, but we were advancing too quickly and I heard one of the men scream in terrified pain as he was grabbed and bitten on the shoulder from behind.  The fresh gush of blood from his wound sending the remainder of us into a frenzy.  Myself included.
The remaining man walks backward with his weapon raised and with his free arm he manages to get a hold of John.  "Let's try to make a run for it.  There's too many of them."  The woman looks over at him and nods her head but even she knows they won't get far carrying their injured friend.   BANG!  One gunshot goes off and the one next to me goes down.  Heads jerk in all directions as we try to see the source of the new sound and enemy.  BANG!  BANG!  Two more fall.  I see the man with the gun as he approaches from the far end of the street.  His clothes appear symbolic in some way and the light glimmers off the small metallic object on his chest.  More of us fall as two more shots go off.  Most of us have fallen and the few remaining are still drawn to the scent of fresh blood.  I turn back and look at the one still devouring the man caught off guard and bitten.  That is when I see him.  Another man was quietly coming up from behind us.  His arms raised as he pulls back his one arm and the swoosh flies by my ear.  I look next to me as an arrow goes into the skull of another one of us.  I stand still and look back at the man who shot the arrow.  I tilt my head as he moves closer to me and I notice a strange furry object hanging from his belt.  I could tell the object was freshly killed by the new scent of blood.  My eyes drift back over to the one feeding on the poor man just as the loud sound of a bullet fires and enters his skull.
I am the last of my group.  Even though I had only been with them for a very short time, they were my group in the fact that I too would have fed upon the others if these two men had not shown up.  I looked at the man staring back at me with his crossbow raised and slowly nodded my head.  I wanted him to finish me.  I had no understanding of anything, but somehow I knew this is not what I wanted to be.  The man's eyes crease as he hesitates releasing his arrow.  "What the fuck?" he mumbles and the other man turns around. "Daryl?  You alright?"  Daryl looks at the man and nods.  "I'm alright Rick.  It kinda looked like this one wants me to kill it."  The man called Daryl shakes his head in disbelief. "Nah, that's not possible.  Go check on the survivors.  I got this."  He looks back at me for a moment before aiming his bow at my head.  As the muscle tensed in Daryl's arm, I closed my eyes and waited for the swoosh of air once more.  This time there was no sound.  Only a quick flash as the arrow pierced my skull and then, once again, darkness.  Beautiful, sweet darkness.

---- Written by V. Blood  ( @TheLadyBlood )

The Danger of the Word No

How many of you went to your prom?  Your Junior formal?  Your Spring fling?  I attended those in my far off days of youth.  Most did.  My dates were friends not boyfriends and those nights came and went like a teenage right of passage.  Important when you are at the age to attend them and a hopefully pleasant memory of growing up when you look back.

At least it's supposed to be.  Tragically, this years prom will not be a memory that the students of John Law High School in Milford CT, will want to keep.  It is however, one that will torment them for the rest of their lives.   And sadly it is one that is becoming frighteningly more common.
One of their classmates, a 16 year old girl, was stabbed and killed this morning.  Tonight would have been her prom.
Why was she killed?  Did she witness a crime?  Walk in on a robbery?  No....
She told a boy no when he asked her to go to the prom with him.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/girl-16-fatally-stabbed-on-day-of-prom-at-connecticut-high-school/

No.  That little word.  Its been said to all of us.  We've said it to others.  It sucks to hear, I admit that.  But rejection is part of life.  Failing is part of life.  Losing is a part of life.  All of it.  Facing the bad and working through it is how we learn and how we grow.
What terrifies me is that the youth of today are being shielded from it.  Take for example children's sports teams... there are no losers.  Everyone gets a trophy.    How does a child learn to handle defeat if they never have to face failure?  How do they learn to strive for improvement if the status quo is perfectly acceptable?  And how do they handle life once they're grown,  if they aren't prepared to fail or be rejected once in a while?
  Life does not hand out trophies for last place.  It flings out rejection and failure at every turn and sometimes you will get hit by it and knocked down.  Children need to learn that, not be shielded from it.  They need to feel sting of failure so they can work harder for the success.  They need to hear that little word No.  If they are allowed to believe it doesn't exist.... as though its opposite is their given right...then we all fail together.

Shining in the Dark

Anyone can Shine when the sky is bright.
But it's so much harder to do so, when your world is not quite right.
It's easier to feel the motivation when everything is going your way.
But what happens when it doesn't?  How long will your shine stay?

When life turns against you and slowly falls apart.
Do you let yourself crumble?  Do you let the darkness into your heart?
When you feel the shadow pushing and  the doubt begins to grow.  You start to think you don't know how. Which way will you go.

How to keep on pushing.  How to not give in.
How to keep the darkness from crushing you from within.
You can't look to others for the answer that hides inside of you.
You need to pick yourself back up and pull yourself right through.

You can't let the shine extinguish beneath a flood of doubt.
You need to search inside yourself and find what your shine is all about.
For if you truly want it, you will find it somewhere deep.
You need to believe in yourself and take a hopeful leap.

If you can pull the shine back out, even in the dark.
Then you will reach what you're aiming for.  You will hit the mark.
For the shine isn't about what comes easy.  It's a struggle to keep it lit.
Daylight or in darkness.  A shiner doesn't quit.

                                                                  - V. Blood

Shine Until Tomorrow

This is not tomorrow
But it's not that far away.
Just a little longer.
Keep doing your best today.

Work a little harder.
Push a little more.
Finish what you started.
Tomorrow is just beyond the door.

If you never stop believing
 From sunrise until sunset.
That you can keep on shining
Success is what you'll get.

When the sun returns the next day
Again you have to shine.
For you still haven't reached tomorrow
That day is just a little down the line.

Every day keep going
Keep reaching for your goal.
Tomorrow will get closer
It will shine upon your soul.