When I was a kid, there was a Life Cereal commercial with a cute little boy named Mikey. In the commercial he is at the kitchen table with his brothers who won't eat the Life Cereal, "because it's supposed to be good for you". The brothers pass the bowl over to Mikey, assuming he won't eat it because, "he hates everything". Mikey surprises his brothers and eats the cereal, and they say to him, "he likes it, hey Mikey!"

Years later, when Mikey became a teenager, an urban legend arose that Mikey died. The cause of Mikey's death was that his stomach exploded because he ate Pop Rocks and washed them down with soda...SILLY!!!

I am round

I am flat

I am super thin.

I taste good hot or cold.

I go well with other things.

You can pick me up or I can be delivered.

Choice is yours.

What am I?

when you fell asleep at my house,

i traced my finger down your cheek

over the freckles sprinkled across your face

over your hidden dimples

over your sweet cherry lips

i leaned down,

feeling your breath on my cheek

your soft lips parted

and it took all i had

not to kiss you.

because we're just friends,

you and i,

we braid each others hair

sleepover every other day

whisper velvet secrets

but you smell so sweet

and when i look into your eyes,

i forget to breathe

your dimples

were they left by the deep kiss of an angel?

at school when you run to him

and he kisses you

you look at him with your soft doe eyes

i clench my fists

my fingernails dig into my skin

until they draw blood

you're so cruel

when will you realize?

that you torture me

with your smile

and

your

dimples

I had everything.

Some had nothing. Or very little, at least.

But it makes no difference. My master spreads lies, anything, anything at all to reap souls into the Throes of Doom. The ones that matter here are that villains are either born or created.

Villains are not created, except when they choose so. The petty mortals crumble under the influence we pound into them from every direction...ah yes, we are very good at this business. I've handed out a good few magic rings in my day.

And I know villains cannot be born. I was created before the world even began. I watched it come into being. I was created good. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the mortals are too, only they have deep flaws in their nature, courtesy of my master's brilliance, of course. I was there, you see. I listened, I heard the most powerful of us all sing, and knew, one day, when I could, I would go. I had chosen.

So many tell you, 'you chose poorly.' I mean, I know. Have I? But there is no turning back for me--a couple from our ranks left and a couple joined but now the cut off has come. The fates of us and our brethren are sealed.

As for me, (my favorite subject) I had grace, I had status (the most powerful of all the Ero'a) I sang amid the stars with my old master, the lady of music. I was perfectly content. I had a family, I had friends, including the boy who became the prince of all of those upstarts, I even had a beautiful girl.

Buuuuuuuuuut the most powerful of us sang, offered us a place in his rebellion, and I accepted. I left everything behind and now every one else has what I don't have. Even the mortals have gifts we pure spirits lack.

Destruction and mocking to the Maker, since we cannot hurt him directly, but we sure as hell destroy his creation. Oh, and his creatures too--those little mortals have a choice, and we make sure they make the wrong one.

- Mordred

True, she was new to our family and she has a strong position as my stepmom. But I have a strong intuition and her vibes were toxic. Yes, she was beautiful and soft spoken and my father loved her. But I could tell that her intentions were going left! I watched her from a distance. She never looked directly in my eyes. No, I didn't call her mom. One night she brought home something called Amsterdam. The name alone sounds like torture. In a joking way she convinced my father to give us each a little shot glass full. I don't drink, it affects me funny. My father begged for me to drink it to be social with her. So we did. When I woke up, i I was in my neighbors garage sore and tied to a chair. I saw a very blurry stepmom and my neighbor was about to perform what looked like surgery on me. I heard a noise that sounded like a drill for dentistry. Still blurry, I saw her lean forward at my arm. I felt a stinging pain that felt like a needle. I just knew I was doomed. I felt this pain for about five minutes. Terrible, terrible pain. The whole time I was wondering about my father did they torture and killed him first. My neighbor bandaged me up and untied my hands and body. My father walks out. I said, "What the fudge!" Suddenly, my stepmom removed the bandage. I looked at my arm. I saw a huge tattoo of my mother's face on my arm with the words "I will love you forever". My father said now she will always be around. I couldn't for the life of me understand their tactics but I gave them an "E" for effort. It was the best gift I could've ever received. I cried, then I smiled.

Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

We are proud to announce our new method for picking our poison, so check the YouTube video beneath the link for our Challenge of the Week CCXXVI right after this message. In today's video, we congratulate last week's winner, who wrote a hell of a piece to take her fella out to lunch, should she decide to do so.

-Hope your long weekend means a short hangover.

https://theprose.com/challenge/14041

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQggQwrIsPQ

And.

As Always...

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

At first glance. I knew there wasn’t a chance. I would go on, and never give it another thought. In the blink of the eye that you caught. We already had a story past. (Wink Wink) As I daydream more often than I do not. In no time at all a whole affair, I would plot. The length of which only being cut short. If something more interesting, I imagine, enticed me into instead connecting those dots.

I know what you’re thinking. And where your thoughts, take you when your mind is not otherwise engaged. In more critical ways. (Wink Wink) Those dreams of grandeur we all entertain. Devoid of the failures that have left our realities stained. You got a pay to play it no longer pains me to say. Comes with the territory. Storytellers explore paradise and purgatory. One can’t be ignored.

We are not so different you and I. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last to fall for, or tell any number of lies. I’ve been your age. Took the same pages. Out of the same book. Fell for the same traps. And was left wearing a similar look. Jaw on the floor. Surprised and feeling like a total rook.

We are all at times consumed by thoughts, lustful, loving, lurid, hateful, thoughtful, and/or loathsome, etc. etc. But only admit to having had a smattering of the most pedestrian. Shaking off anyone suggesting going into any length describing the darkest. Thoughts considered so outrageous and shameful. We‘d never allow ourselves to be heard speaking of such out loud. Afraid they’d be attached to forever thereafter.

So we’ve come to recognize an awkward wink. As all on need do to describe. An innumerable number of embarrassing and unspeakable thoughts. Because all that wink is said to define. Is just as easily denied. (Wink) Says it all in the awkward blink of an eye.

After many hours, many long dark hours, something like consciousness returned, and I began to try to make sense of what had happened. They are still cleaning scrubbing the floors and ceiling from our remains. i was a mess.

I recall in my teens crying into pillowcases, whenever something grave would happen, fearing that God was finally taking my death wish seriously and issuing it always at the worst possible moment, when things were starting to go alright... But then it dawned in the morning, that it was only farce, construed to make one pathetic and humbled in hindsight. As it be, we know not what we want, but blunder like mules in the dark with our shadow burdens along the pathologic. While I pulled my soul together, following the most recent pyrotechnics, I saw that you read my letters by the firelight... and cried. Though no sadness contained therein... to be sure only a sharing of thoughts. All four binders in one night! I was truly impressed.

The pages add up night after night of letter writing. I was delusional, even then; i appreciate your leading me back to my essay in Prose on evil. Haha! that bit about having snapped long ago, or long before, made me laugh out loud at this self, and as luck would have it, the irony of life. You've been examining iron fists lately yourself.

That is the box.

I had a fantasy. Yes i. I went behind the Iron Curtain. I wandered the Old City, a place I vowed not to go back to, though it was not me who had been there before. So, notion in itself, this a great breaking of barriers. I spoke there with one renown Alexander Luria. I had always thought that having stores of miscellaneous knowledge readily at hand (as to names, numbers, dates, events, whatnots of historical significance) were hallmarks of high intellect and in any case utilitarian in conviction to build an argument in conversation... he blah-hah-ed it as mnemonics (memorization requiring applications that even the average might attain results in...). The vagueness of my thinking he applauded as leaving room for doubt and inquiry (he was a neuro pathologist) and reminded me that in last materialization i was born in the year of the Solidarity Movement and Postmodernism, fragments which had drilled into my psyche the importance of "having a concept." I was comforted for an undefined moment. But I walked away from our tête-à-tête over thé with a fire under foot none the wiser, staring into my calloused palms seeing no concept... only empty hands.

You see how pragmatic my imaginings! i quote Voltaire: "Everyman is guilty of all the good he didn't do."

Failing to act, failing to act that is the phantom spur of the artist. And yet, i recall the wisdom underscored in the sacred texts:

BG 4.18: Those who see action in inaction and inaction in action are truly wise amongst humans. Although performing all kinds of actions, they are yogis and masters of all their actions. The Bhagadava Gita, Chapter 4, Verse 18.

That must be why i am so committed to understanding the wasting of Time.

A thing which i know we are beyond. Thx for transcribing thoughts with me <3U