yeah, she finished her drink. she really did.

One morning, everyone woke up feeling kinda good.
And looking forward to the day.
And everyone knew exactly how to solve all the problems that had appeared previously over the course of their lives. Unconditional love all over the place.
It somehow felt.. well, wrong. This sudden warmth and clarity surrounding everybody was simply not natural.
Although, as humans remain humans, the clarity was rather limited. Not one had the foggiest idea of what the cause of all this could be. So, they carried on as well as they could with this new-found peace, and instead the animals held a conference, their minds in a bubble of consciousness, an agreement of peace between them in this void.
The butterflies and dolphins thought that nothing needed to be found out, that all life was better off this way. The dogs agreed heartily, so did the tuna, and the monkeys concurred after a while. The seals remained indifferent, but the sloths thought it was an outrage. The armadillos couldn't decide, and the slugs kept getting distracted. The cats, great and small, held their silence, but everybody knew they were against the new order, most of them, anyway. It was too innocent for their taste. The jellyfish were silent as well, but no one knew what they thought, as no one does still. The snakes and spiders spoke amongst themselves, and were taking awfully long, but eventually a black widow crawled over to explain that they thought it was no use to participate in the larger discussion, as it was improbable that much could be changed.
More time passed, then, caving in to the impatience humming in the air, the horseshoe crabs decided to take action. They voiced their idea. Upon hearing it, a great squabble arose, the peace momentarily forgotten. Finally, the animals managed to find a calm of sorts - and took a vote. It was close, but it turned out in the favour of the crabs. So they sent an armadillo, (who wouldn't be biased) down to hell, to see where all the evils had gone. It got help from the underground beings, and got there within three days, but nonetheless suffered many a hardship on the way.
Hell. Fire. There, in a great, dark cave the Evils sat, their presence filling the air. Some were spinning, some smouldering, screeching, staring, wailing, laughing.. but most of them reminiscing in some way or another. The armadillo went up to them and asked them what they had done, and why. Silence. The armadillo, now taking in all the terrible power around it, started trembling. But it knew that no harm would come to it, as this was such a grave matter. That fact not one of the beings in the cave was ignorant of. It took a breath, raised it's voice, and asked again. Silence. At last, Famine stepped forwards. "Very well. You may receive your answer. We kill. We destroy. We do all imaginable and unimaginable things to those souls up there. Is it right? Is it wrong? We had been discussing this amongst ourselves for a few hundred years, but a number of us had had our doubts for far longer. We wanted difference, an answer, perspective, a pause. So we left. The younger ones persuaded the old to participate in this chance, this change, and see how it felt to leave things be. Feel guilt, if one had the capacity. Those who couldn't be persuaded otherwise regard this as an experiment, to see if the humans are capable of handling good in a much purer form. Not completely, mind you, we left a very few of us up there, as not to throw off the balance completely. Still, we wonder if this wasn't foolish, extraordinarily so. However, most of us refuse to return."
"Will you stay down here forever?" the armadillo asked.
"We don't know," Famine replied.
Suddenly, with a terrifying rumble, the ceiling of the cave was no more, and shining, shouting furiously, was the angel of justice - Raguel. His eyes blazed, and his presence was overwhelming to even the most ruthless of the bad that stood there.. You see, no one dared attack or even look him in the eye, because they knew they had disrupted what Raguel stood for. If you tear apart, in such a way, what a god, and angel or any other immortal being protects, you know you bow to them, and either flee or beg for mercy. Such were the rules of existence. The Evils were muted in their shame.
What the angel said to them the armadillo, upon returning, could not repeat, but he said it had something to do with the balance and harmony of the universe, and in each and every heart of the beings of earth, which were also the universe, and at this point the armadillo got a bit confused, doubled back and started muttering to itself, so the rest of the animal kingdom gave up trying to get to the bottom of it. The Evils were returning, and that was enough.
After another few days, most of humanity started getting reluctant to get out of bed again, started shouting at their kin, cradling their own swollen pride, stomping on the helpless and all the usual bullshit we all know we get up to. Balance was being restored.
The armadillo remembered one more thing, in the end. He said that before leaving, Raguel had mentioned the souls that needed to learn.. that they could not do it any other way, if they were to proceed  to something else in the afterlife, or next life, or whatever happens next. The armadillo did not know what that meant, but it was glad to have escaped such an ordeal without too much trouble, but it would rather not repeat it, even in it's mind, too disturbing.
So it tried to forget about it.

encounter.

Harmony was bored. This happened very rarely, but when it did, she usually did something that scared others, and the boredom was very much dealt with for the rest of the day. She wandered around the train station for a bit, watching the people, selecting her prey.. Then she noticed a girl who looked like she might keel over at any moment, skipped up to her, and said. "Hi. I'm Harmony. Let's go get ice cream."

**

Clara stared at this girl who had suddenly appeared out out the hurrying masses and introduced herself. She had shortish, naturally black hair which nearly covered her right eye, headphones that looked well loved and worn, a pair of drumsticks sticking out of her bag, multicoloured beads around her wrist, green fingernails.. Funky. Her eyes were a pale grey and her voice was low and pleasant to the ear.

Clara wondered how often something like this happened to the average person. She wondered why the girl had picked her. She found herself considering the girl's offer. Did she say Harriet? Ha-, oh, Harmony, that was it.. Harmony made no move to hide her impatience, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Clara, having thought about it, realised that ice cream sounded like a very good idea, so she croaked, cleared her throat and tried again, this time with success: "Okay."

**

Harmony grinned, congratulated herself inwardly and set off, followed by a slightly bemused Clara.

Harmony.

There was a sting in her side, her feet were protesting, and the rain was making it hard to see where she was going, but she was running. Quite fast. In fact, we might as well go as far as to say that she was running as if she was running for her life. If that was the case, then her chances would not be bad at all, because Harmony was a very good runner. She enjoyed running, most of the time, as long as it didn't go on for too long, or was slow enough to be called jogging. She hated jogging with a passion. Harmony did a lot of things with passion. Or, more precisely - enthusiastically. On fact, one should say that's the most adequate word for her you'll find in the dictionary.
Back to the running, then. She wasn't running for her life. She was following a tune. A little tune known well by all the children in the neighbourhood. Namely, the one played by the local ice cream truck. The driver of this truck knew Harmony, too, and he, indeed, feared for his life when he saw this multi-coloured girl sprinting towards his vehicle. He simply couldn't put his finger on it, but there was something about that girl that he found exclusively terrifying. On these occasions he would hurriedly finish up with whatever customers he had at the moment, and drive away as fast as he could, Harmony close behind. He often lay awake at night, wondering why no one had thought of making the damn truck go faster. Surely, someone must have thought at least some situation where it would be useful to have a fast ice cream truck. Or a truck so fast, it could race keep up with other cars on the highway. Now, wouldn't that be a great investment for the company? The driver sure thought it would. Damn that girl.

dialouge3

 - Argh!

 - Argh?

 - Argh!

 - *giggle*

 - Is that Blur on the radio?

 - Yeah.

 - Nice.

 - a moment of silence of the shorter kind -

   ...argh.

 - *giggle*

dialouge2

 - But meow.

 - 'scuse me?

 - *cat meows once, insistently*

 - Oh..
What do you want?

 - Nothing.

 - I don't think I believe you.

 - Everything.

 - No! *comes out as more of a gasp*

 - At least I'm confident about it. Just listen t' yourself. "I don't think I believe you." 

Were you really not sure, or did you just want to soften the sentence in case it offended me?

 - I just thought I'd make it a little more flexible. 'Nothing' is a pretty sneaky word, you know.

 - Yes. It is. Can you play the flute?

 - Can I make a suggestion?

 - Another soft-ish sentence. Sure, go ahead.

 - Don't ask me personal questions.

 - You know, you revealed quite a lot by saying that. 'Yes' or 'No' or 'A little' would have saved you the trouble.

 - But I thought you were going to ask me, um, to play. Also, what trouble?

 - I'm curious now.

 - Don't be.

 - That's a terrible thing to say.

 - Is it? I'm sorry.

 - And again! Find a stable inner ground, man! You don't even know what you're apologising for!

 - Stop shouting. And just because I'm considerate doesn't mean I'm feeble.

 - Now that was much better.

 - *sigh*

 - So, d'ya play any other instruments?

Clara. Continuing chpt. 1

Clara entered her room and flopped onto the bed, next to her grey tabby, Antoine, who ignored her. She lay there for about 5 minutes before summoning the energy to lift herself off of it and persuade her feet to support her weight again. Silly that long bus-rides take away so much energy, when you do practically nothing at all. Well, nothing physical. Maybe it's all the thinking that tires you out. She yawned, searched through her bag to find her uneaten lunch of an apple and a bag of crackers, also a nearly empty bottle of water. These she put on the table, pointedly pushed the crackers away, lifted the apple to her mouth, put it down again, rummaged in the bag a bit more, pulled out her notebook, and then proceeded down to the kitchen to make herself some hot cocoa. That would cheer her up. Not that she was feeling particularly down or anything, just demotivated. Halfway down the stairs she retraced her steps to her room, picked up the apple and the crackers, then again proceeded to the kitchen. She put the uninteresting crackers away, put the milk on to heat, then sat down to review what she had written down during the ride. Halfway through the first page she realised she was staring at it without reading much at all, so she looked at the wall instead. That was more comforting, because there was this old painting on the wall, of a view of an alien planet. Or something. But the sight was extremely pretty - a plain, stretched out, covered with tallish grass, dotted by a few european-looking trees here and there. And, quite low, (but not too low) over the horizon there were five suns of variating sizes, laid out approximately like this: {pic here}
Clara jumped up when she noticed the milk was boiling over, cursed herself for being so absent, caught herself, shook her head, then cursed the milk instead.

somber

I never water the plants.
I never wanted to.
It makes no difference, they'll thrive anyway.
The Others admonish me, they do.
But they don't know.
The plants don't need me.
No one does.
Maybe the spiders on the walls have become somewhat fond of me.
Probably on account of that their numbers don't bother me.
But that's just because I don't care.
About much.
Hardly anything at all.
I couldn't care less.
I think the Others should care less. Or more.
They admonish me for not watering the plants.
The plants don't care.
They thrive anyway.

Typewriter!! (alternate intro?)

Amongst the smouldering remains of a newly burned down building is a place you will generally be advised not to be. If the creature slowly shuffling around a barely recognisable chair had received any such advice, it had chosen to ignore it. A rather peculiar-looking thing. The creature, that is. Well, the chair was too, at this point, but that is irrelevant.
Anyway, the creature looked like something might if a cat, a polar bear, and a barn owl had submerged and somehow managed to make something adorable out of the combination. It was roughly the size of a toddler, and had light brown, almost beige fur on its body, a tail that was little more than a stump, pointy ears, and nimble, hand-like paws, the fingers being black, tapered, sharp claws. It's face was honest and aww-inspiring (and yes, I mean aww, not awe), with a tiny black nose and very large green eyes. It's chest was flecked with white spots, and it had a heartbreakingly tiny pair of wings on it's back, most likely useless in flight.
Having successfully avoided being singed by any of the surrounding objects, most of them still smoking, the creature approached the only four walls that were still in tact. tactful walls This, you would agree, was also peculiar, as the rest of the building basically lay in ruin. The creature tentatively opened the charred door..
The inside of the room looked exactly as it did before the fire, perhaps with the exception of a lack of ceiling. In the centre of the room there sat a shivering figure, arms wrapped around itself. It was a boy, with sandy hair and wide eyes, with which, having been startled by the sound, he cautiously regarded this strange thing approaching him.
"Don't be scared," it said. "not of me. I'm here to help."
The boy, still shaking, tried to decide whether it or not it was okay to trust the creature. It was not as if he had anyone else to trust..
"Dante. You don't have to be afraid anymore."
Whoa. It knew his name. But, suspicious as it might seem, it really seemed to be sort of honest. So he would trust it. For now. Just a little.

chapter 1ɐ

"I can kind of see how looking at nature makes people smarter. And I'd like to say that it works vice versa, but that's just too good.. too weird to be true," Clara thought to herself, staring out the rather dirty window of the bus, bumping along the gravel road. She stretched, a bit stiff from sitting still for so long. A slender girl on the short side, she was sixteen years old, with dark blond hair down to her shoulders, blue-grey eyes, and nice hips, ones she took a little bit of pride in herself.
On her way home, which was a ways off from the city, she had to pass through a semi-wilderness, and right now she was enjoying the forest-y part of the view. She'd seen it hundreds of times before, yet it never failed to give at least a little bit of comfort. Watching the swaying of the greenery took her mind off things, one of the little gifts of not living among the streets day in and day out. Clara was starting to daydream, a bit lost in the rhythm of the forest, when the thickly growing fir and pine trees were unexpectedly interrupted by a huge billboard, telling her all about this astoundingly wonderful brand of tooth paste. New, of course. Because all the forest animals needed to know about it, certainly. "Fuck you, humanity.." Clara thought loud enough, she hoped, for the stupid billboard to hear her. Maybe not the most appropriate thing to think, less than the entirety of humanity being at fault, but good enough for the billboard to get the vibe of what her opinion of it was.
She closed her nicely-sized notebook of a pleasant darker blue and then bent down to pick up her bag, fumbling with her pen and successfully leaving a mark on her bare leg, where it would be just visible, peeking out from under the hem of her dress, which was a light green with tiny, detailed black flowers covering every available space. She cursed in her mind again, wondered briefly why she was cursing so much, and put the notebook and pen away.
Leaning back, she looked at her phone and discovered she had another 20 minutes before her stop. Then she closed her eyes, because there was a slanting beam of sunlight rather intent on getting into them. Since the bus kept moving, she was quickly relieved of this inconvenience, but she kept her eyes closed. This was because at times like these, the remnant of the sunbeam would create pretty patterns behind her eyelids, and the patterns would soon turn into delicate shapes and bizarre creatures and generally dream-like happenings, all of which were very intriguing to look at. Other sunbeams occasionally reaching her face only added to the effect.

A sharp turn of the road made the bus lurch, startling Clara back into reality. "Just in time.." 
The bus was turning into a little lane, at the end of which she had to get off. Hoisting her bag up on her shoulder, she brushed off her dress, and walked in a wobbly way to the front of this rickety thing on wheels.

dialouge

 - Hi.
 - Hey.
 - Hay.
 - Horse.
 - Manure.
 - Hey!
 - What?
 - That's not fair!
 - Did you say hey or hay?
 - I don't suppose it matters, but it's still not fair!
 - That's a moot point, if it qualifies as one at all.
 - *annoyed mph*
 - Alright, alright, why's it not fair?
 - I'm not telling. It gives me something to complain about.
 - I'm going back to sleep.
 - Ok.

(conversation with Death, Clara much younger)

A scattered introduction.

The frame of your mind is a funny thing.

"Frame of mind" also a funny expression.

...fitting, though. *cough*

Frames can be curlicued or plain, modern or charmingly old-fashioned, sometimes very solid, sometimes willingly adjustable.
They can also be taken apart and rearranged, or put to a different, possibly better, use.
In rare cases there is no frame at all, which is rather risky for the photo, painting, collage, or, indeed, mind in question.
Don't you hate these endless comparisons used to make people get the whole picture? Actually, this is a rather bad one for the point I wanted to make.
(Feet are weird.)*
And, come to think of it, I don't think I'm going to make that point at all. It's nothing you haven't heard before, or at least something like it. Moving on.


Before I start with the actual story, I'm going to suggest a couple things, things you by no means have to take into any regard.
First, what I'd like to ask of you is to realize what you can get out of this, namely, using your imagination, instead of just seeing words on a page. Getting the "full experience" as they tend to put it so distastefully.
I also suggest you read at least part of this while traveling somewhere, whether literally or mentally, doesn't matter.
And last, don't read the ending first. If you do, all manner of demonic horror and fires of hell will engulf you and your soul, leaving you to writhe in agony forever. And ever.

Ah - and do forgive me if I keep sticking to certain ideas, phrases or mentalities, repeating them a tad too often throughout the book, but that's just because I like them so very much. (Yes, I know, lame excuse, shut up.)

*Footnote:
And hey - did you notice that I used 'your' instead of 'the' in the first sentence? 

Alright, then.

..since I've had this extra blog for a while, might as well put it to good use.

I've been wanting to write a book for quite a few years now, and there have been a few awkward starts and stops, and here's another start, a bit more inspired, and, hopefully, long-lasting.
Random bits and pieces of what might use will be compiled here.