J'ai Fait Une Promesse

We live and die in an approximately same manner ... that is alone.

And then we realise it's all a lie.

Social norms, the search for our other half, all a bogus plan to make us go through a lifetime of deception.

The art of magic is to turn the audience's attention to where they think they want to look at ...

As I listen to the last song, I ponder ...

We spend a life trying to be unattached. Unmoved and unfazed by what is happening around us. We call this freedom, or so we are told ...

The defining moments are scarce but they are there. Yet we choose to ignore them, since the safety of mediocrity is reassuring.

Can one live in society and at the same time manage to live outside its boundaries, its social codes of conduct and the everlasting feeling of decay as days wither by?

If only we could remember, the day we chose to forget, what it was like when we could still dream of a better tomorrow. If only we could still remember, the last day we wished to be different.

And in case you are wondering, this was meant for everyone who wishes to listen ...

Ego sum qui sum

What was it that held those people back from looking for a better life? Was it that they hoped for a better tomorrow? For a day when the sun would shine brighter for them? Or was it that they had no hope left anymore?

Drake started to observe the sweatshops more carefully. He would visit them every night and observe from afar. People were working silently  there, non-stop. He asked to be assigned to the southern projects for his daily cop patrols and since there was no high demand in the task force for those areas, the patrol shifts for the projects were all his.

It didn't take Drake long to notice that some of the people working at the sweatshops were doing 10 and 12 hour shifts day in and day out. What was it that forced those people to work that hard. The sweatshop owners were supposedly running a legit business and Drake's reports about the workers' exploitation were completely ignored by his superiors until at some point, they decided to rid themselves from his nuisance and got him transferred to the traffic department.

Well, Drake was as stubborn as a mule. And being a traffic warden during the day, was not going to stop him from being a superhero at night ...

Iniurias oblivisci

Drake was back to his old self. He was back to saving people in despair and having his underground fights again.

He was leading a normal life by his standards but at times he felt unrest. He could not decipher his recent dreams and they kept coming back time and again.

All he could figure out from the dreams were some dark alleys which seemed to fit in the southern parts of town.

He started scouring the alleys in the southern projects. They were some of the nastiest parts of town. They were packed with immigrants and criminality there was on a rampage. The police was not even bothering to patrol those areas.

The sweatshops in the southern projects were working day and night. The workers there were treated like slaves and were working practically for nothing. Just for the right of living, eating and sleeping in the city of lost promises; in the city of New Atlantica ...

And so they wept, as night went by, for all their dreams were lost. And life is not worth living anymore, when you lose your will to dream ...

Quos amor verus tenuit, tenebit

Drake wanted to meet up last night but he wouldn't say why.

"I just want to talk for a while, you know ..." he said when I asked him what it was all about. He talked of his childhood.

"Even cloudy skies have their days of sunshine. My days of sunshine were those I spent with my uncle, from my mother's side. He was adopted by my mother's family before she was born but they were as close as any two siblings can be. He would come and take me to the seaside and he would sit by me for hours, just gazing at the waves. He taught me that sometimes it's better if you listen because a person who knows how to really listen, bears no arrogance. He taught me how to love myself and accept myself for what I was. Those were the days I hated myself and my father would see to it that I hated my existence more by the day.
Small details can change a whole life. My uncle always strived to make me love my father. In the end he got me to accept the fact that my father and I could not lead separate lives. Maybe, that's the reason why I'm still looking after my old man.

Eventually my father learned to accept me as well. But that is a story to be told in another day. And it's not as peachy as the one you've just been told ..."

Occasio aegre offertur

Drake was working on the docks that day. He was monitoring the ships, and the fresh bunch of immigrants arriving at New Atlantica.

They came from all over the world. Immigrants from Africa, Asia and Europe, all looking for a better life. An opportunity, their personal breakthrough to a life they were dealt the wrong hand.

A new group of Serbian immigrants were arriving at the port that day. The had been arriving in small but steady groups for the past few weeks, after God knows what trouble had been brewing in their country.

They were all arriving in families and were placed in pick up trucks as soon as they set foot on land and had their papers cleared. A guy from the Union, a Serb himself, was getting all the details sorted, so that the process would move along real fast. Who knows what sweatshop in town needed those poor souls' hands for work.

A fight broke in the docks. Some of the families were squaring off and all of a sudden a girl was pushed in the water. Drake heard the splash and raced towards her but she was sinking fast. When he got her out, she was already dead.

I could have saved her, he kept saying to himself. If only I had reacted faster, if only I could have seen that coming. He couldn't sleep that night. After all, the only way he could get to sleep after he stopped seeing his dreams was by drowning himself with booze but he didn't want to drink that night. The alcohol was making him groggy and slower at reacting than usual. He kept saying that he could have saved that girl. But he didn't ...

When he finally managed to sleep that night, the nightmares, his twisted allies from the past, were back. And the city of New Atlantica got its guardian angel back.

At spes non fracta

The sun sets and rises when we least expect it,
as if time was never meant to touch a star as bright as this.

When we least expect it, beauty passes by,
it touches us and glorifies a moment which we might consider lost.

If you ever were to touch me ... time would stop
All would wither, as would I ...

But I would finally see beauty passing by ...

Before I died ...

Ama Nesciri ... Ars Amandi

Llorando

Drake did as he was told. He dropped the first two rounds, then came back to win the third round on the third minute of the fight. He dropped his opponent with an overhand right, as the crowd was booing his performance. Nobody saw that coming, appart from Mr Caceres and his daughter who managed quite a profit that night.

He was crying when he went back home. He was crying like a little child and he couldn't stop. He just wouldn't stop.

That night he went back to his old habbits. He drunk and drunk until he fell asleep. But his nightly visitors who he came to feel accustomed with did not visit him that night; neither the next one; nor the night after.


His dreams had deserted him. There were times when he wished they would seize to torment him. But in the few months that had passed prior to the last fight, he got used to his nightmares. Deep down inside, he wanted to dream, he wanted to find out more and more people who needed his help.

He felt like a man who had it all and now he had lost it.

And that's how Marcus Drake and his archenemy met.

The city of New Atlantica was about to live a rivalry  like none other it had lived before ...

But for the time being, my superhero was weeping bitterly as night fell, because the visitors that were haunting his dreams, would appear no more ...

Nemo sine vitio est

As time passed by, Drake started getting at ease with his life. He started accepting things and he felt better with himself and with what he was doing. At times, he was even content with the police tasks he was assigned at.

But things were soon to change. The war amongst the crime families in New Atlantica was about to seize and that wasn't a good thing for all things good and just. As the dust settled the new force of sovereignty on town was Anthony Cacaveras. And now that his ruling over the city was unquestionable the city's new crime boss would never accept hearing no for an answer.

Mr Cacaveras caught wind of Drake's success in the fighting circuit. So, naturally, he asked for a meeting. Whenever he asked for a meeting, it was almost certain that the outcome of that meeting was going to be mighty dubious ... at best.

"How certain are you of yourself?" he asked Drake the minute he saw him. Drake paused and pondered what that question was all about but the crime boss carried on and explained himself. He needed Drake to fix a fight. He needed him to take a beating for 2 rounds and then drop his opponent on the 3rd minute of the third round. Sounded like a painful plan, yet simple.

Drake told him right in his face that he was not interested. As the situation started to get tense, that was when fate kicked in. He fell in love with her, the minute he set eyes on her. She was exotic in beauty and her voice was captivating. She smiled at him and asked him with her sweet voice: "You wouldn't want to disappoint my father now would you Mr Drake. Your fame precedes you, but so does my father's and I believe that men of your stature shouldn't be enemies but friends. Let me escort you downstairs so as to speak matters in private and I will then let my father know of your decision."

Which man could say no to such a woman. And Drake naturally agreed. He would set the fight as Anthony Cacavera's, Tamara's father, asked him to. He was now in the kingpin's pocket, but he wouldn't mind. As long as he could make her smile and see those brown eyes with the long eye lashes gaze upon. Her looks her deadly. And now he was at her hands.

Cum grano salis

As time passed, Drake learned to get accustomed to his dreams. The dreams always followed the same pattern. They would show the person or people in distress and the person who was hurting them.

All Drake had to do was find the criminal and rain punishment on him. He found a mask to cover his face and he would wear it whenever he would endeavour himself in one of his superhero escapades and this would make him look mythical to the people he saved. Slowly but steadily, he started building up a reputation for himself. Some would call him "The masked Avenger", others "The Unbreakable Punisher", whereas the press would portray him as "The Vigilante in the Black Mask".

Drake did not particularly enjoy the attention he was drawing but he was not detesting it either. He didn't mind really, what the people were saying about him. He was all so satisfied, just as long as he would get a good night's sleep and usually that meant him freeing up a person in need, saving someone's life or crashing a villain's head up against the wall. With him serving justice, the nightmares would stop for a day or two and as soon as they re-appeared, he knew what he had to do.

It was a messy and bloody work but he was Nemesis's sole adversary, so I guess the Goddess of Justice would take this with no complaints.

But at some point, Drake realised that the attention he was drawing, was bound to cause him troubles. And he was soon proven right ...

Deo volente

Drake stormed into the cabin like a raging bull. He saw the guy and picked up from where he stopped by literally picking him apart.

The three boys kept in there were meant to be sold in the black market and shipped abroad. The organ market was at a peak at this time of the year and the three boys were going to produce a handsome profit for the man in the cabin and whomever else he was collaborating with.

"He saw your face" I told Drake cynically the minute he stepped out of the cabin.

"Take the kids out of here. Get them straight to a police station. We will meet again tomorrow. I have some unfinished business to take care of."

We met up the following day but we did not exchange a single word about yesterday's event. Actually, Drake never really discussed what he did in the woods after I took off with the kids. The only certainty was that the man in the cabin, was not seen in New Atlantica ever again.

Nil sine numine

That night, Drake's opponent was the man from his dreams. Drake would see that man in his dreams, locking up three boys in a small hut deep in the woods.

Drake had a really bad feeling about him and beat him up viciously during their fight. But that wasn't enough.

We followed the man after all the fights were over. He stayed up until the end, wanting to collect his purse and speak to the promoters about booking a future fight most likely.

After we all left the slaughterhouse the mysterious man stopped for a quick meal at a diner and then headed to a small apartment downtown. It was in the projects, in one of the nastiest neighbourhoods of the town and I was getting more worried by the minute whilst waiting for him in the car.

Drake insisted that we waited. And he was proven right eventually. The mysterious man, after several strenuous hours of driving and then walking into the muddy woods, we were led to a small wooden shack, much like the one in Drake's dreams ....

Cedo Nulli

Prior to that night's fight, Marcus Drake was quite on the edge. Be it the sleepless nights, the haunting nightmares, or knowing that this was going to be another night of pain and anguish for him, he could not find a minute's rest.

The crowd was raucous that night. The atmosphere in the southern slaughterhouses, were the fights were held, was heavy and the fighters felt that blood was to be shed if they were to quench the crowd's thirst.

Drake was going to face a guy from the projects. He was bulky and twice Drake's size but the superhero had built up quite a reputation for himself. So his opponents grew bigger and scarier the more he would win.

Drake finished the fight in the first round. He was fighting like a wild animal and at some point he was pummelling the guy's head to the ground. The referee stopped the fight and had to pull him off the sorry bastard since he was beating the living daylights out of him.

"What got into you?" I asked him when he got out of the ring?

He just said, "It's him ...." and walked away.

Quo Vadis

The nightmares were getting worse. Not even drinking could stop them anymore. He kept seeing the same dream, over and over again; three boys locked up in a cabin and all three crying. Sometimes, one of them would whisper ... "Help us". And that would end the dream abruptly.

Last night, for the first time he managed to see a face. That face was familiar. He had seen it before. He just needed to figure out where and when ...

We had a fight tonight. So he needed to get things sorted and try to pick of himself for three rounds. Marcus was a wreck because the lack of sleep was killing him. But he was going to fight. He was definitely going to fight ...

Flet victus, victor interiit

The underground world of New Atlantica had been divided for years. The good news was, this was a town that had it all; the prostitution cartel the drug trafficking ring the loan sharks and the illegal gambling. The bad news was the crime families of the town were at war.

The war was ravaging and bodies were piling up as weeks went by. The police was turning a blind eye to the whole situation, to put it mildly and were letting the families sort things out by themselves.

There was one family which was building up its reputation quite admirably. It was one of the oldest crime families in town and the family patriarch, a certain Mr Anthony Cacaveras, was imposing his rule of authority, as viciously as he could. He was not a man who would shy away from getting his hands dirty and his personal stamp was becoming even more apparent as the crime rampage was escalating in town.

Both Drake and I knew that it was only a matter of time before the superhero and arch villain crossed roads. And we needed to get prepared; for what was coming ...

Praevenire melius

Peace is only found, when we find our cause in Universe. In the case of a superhero, that cause is an enemy, an arch-rival who poses real threat to the world but to the hero as well. Peace is only found, when we have something to fight for. A reason to wake up in the mornings and try to make things work out ...

Deserta faciunt et pacem appellant

"I have these dreams, from time to time" Drake once told me. "And when I wake up, I go into the deepest of melancholies."

"Is it a recurring dream?" I asked.

"No, it's not. It's always different. It's always about a person crying, they are all crying you know. And when I wake up, I can still see their faces and hear their voice, calling for help. One dream, one person at a time, one cry for help. And then I wake up and I can't sleep no more. The past few years, the dreams are there, almost every night. And I only get rid of them by drinking. That's the reason why I was at the pub the other day. I was fighting my demons. And then I met you.
I do not know what these dreams are all about. But they hurt more than the bruises I get from all that fighting.

Help me get rid of them. Help me find peace, once again ..."

Experto Credite

I never managed to realise why people say that it is calm before the storm. Maybe, this is what we like to believe but this is definitely not the case.

The signs are there. The signs are always there.

And the irony is that we can all read them. Life sees to it that we are trained well. But the human being's impulsive stubbornness is greater than a lifetime of learning.

Diem Perdidi

Every day I woke up, getting out of bed seemed like a lost cause. The hospital I was working at was always packed and always understaffed. I never expected my job to be easy, being a male nurse rarely gets you an ounce of respect but I was certainly unprepared for what I was facing day in and day out.

And there was no way I could get used to the whole routine. Or it could be the case that in the back of my mind, I could never let myself to come to terms with the idea that what I was going through was acceptable, that it was the norm. I kept saying that to myself, over and over again, right before I'd go to sleep. But each time I went to sleep, I could find no reason to wake up again. Writing would get me out of that loophole. It would break that vicious circle of depression and anguish but there were times when writing just wouldn't cut it. When the negatives outnumbered the positives by a ridiculously high ratio, then there was nothing left to write about ...

Marcus Drake would face the same inner struggle on a daily basis as well. And all that fighting seemed to have gotten to him. His behaviour changed. And he started to enjoy the adrenaline kick he would get from the fights even more as days went by.

Nothing good lasts forever. We build a shallow world from superficial lies and find casual excuses to believe into what suits us the most.

And then the day goes by. Another 24 hours from our lives. Sadly, we all forgot the day we sold the faith in exchange for oblivion.

And then the day goes by ....

Causa finita est

We went back to his place and I started tending his wounds and bruises. He wasn't bleeding, and no bones of his were broken but the pain was excruciating.

I asked him about his "gift". I wanted to know the whole story behind it, how he got it and when it first occurred.

He paused for a minute but after I insisted he replied.

He was born this way. And he learned that in the hard way. His father went to a great length to help him realise his ... potential. At some point he would beat him on a daily basis. One day, he tried to burn him with a blowtorch. That hurt like hell, Drake said. Nothing that his father did could actually damage his body, but the pain was there. As his body was indestructible, so were his nerves and boy, they would transmit every ounce of pain that he could possibly feel to his brain.

When his narration of pain and anguish finished, I stood and watched him there, still wincing in pain, from the blows of today's match and the wounds of the years past.

"Rome has spoken and the cause is finished ..."

Blog listed at Technorati

The blog has been aknowledged and listed at Technorati. I consider that to be a big success. Here's to hoping that more readers will stumble on the blog.

Once again, thank you all for reading. Have a nice day.

Update: Also trying to list the blog at Sync.