From a lonely green stem

I stare out into the shadows, which come and go like ebbing black waters, lapping at my feet. My hands clenched tight to my sides, I decide whether to sprint or walk or die. When I run, I shall fall. Down, ripping skin from my palms and my knees, drawing blood from my beaten body and crushing me into the earth. My tears shall soak into the bloody ground but-

I shall laugh until my lungs burn, because the flowers will grow now. They shall feel their way through the misty darkness and push up through the oppressive dirt. They will penetrate the muddy ground and reach up with curling hand-like stems to the sky, never once seeing the sun in their pursuit, but hoping for it, and that is all that ever mattered.

Then, they will blossom. And I, in this shadowy place, watched by fantastically judgmental eyes, will look to them. They unravel their petals, opening up to the world, ready to embark upon their life after being a trapped, tiny seed caged within the ground. I will run among them, on them, they will push me forward, with their colours and their faces turned towards the not always visible sun. It's there, they'll shout. Keep running. Keep running.

The clouds will rage with angry rumbles across the dark sky, but the flowers of the night will grow with the rain that pours forth, and taller and taller they'll grow. Strength in their numbers, beauty in their strength, they will be with me until the seasons change, and we all return into the ground. But we'll be happy with our successes, because we kept running, kept moving forward, never laying down in defeat in the dark rain.

Listen to the flowers as they accept your heavenly tears. Listen to their voices as they travel towards the air above, unaware that life exists, but hoping that something is up there, with instinct their only companion. They live for only a moment here on earth, and you too have only a moment in comparison. Have the strength to feel your way blind as that lonely green stem. Have the belief that you will find the sun and be able to blossom just as nature had wanted.  

Red lights

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Desperate eyes calling for your attention, but not truly wanting it; defiant humiliation, naked embarrassment leaking through every look, every glance. But cold stares hiding fear and expressing false love conceal all, begging to be believed. And the men, they fall for it, like they've been shot by cupids from burning hell, they turn to those with nothing like nothing at all is wrong. Crisp paper makes for morals and all the world is of course reality. 

With God-made bodies pressed up against the glass, they entice what will keep them alive, masters of a desperate trade always to exist and always to be judged. Perhaps with children to feed, they must stand under the stares and look back, strong. Just a tool, a method of pleasure, to be used as if they are worthless, but yet they must be strong. Though even the strongest and the most experienced have eyes that flash with fury at the world, at themselves for standing sentinel to their stupid, sickening profession. Respect is false, love is false, their happiness and livelihoods are false.

All read in a glance, a quick peek through the glass at a pretty woman striking a sexy pose, looking back as if she seeps normality. But under the surface, desperation lurks like a sickening overwhelming disease, pulsating through the streets and through the very hearts of the fearful females. When you've hit the true depths of disaster, where do you go? To the place with the red lights, to the whore's death row.

Wheelchair bound

Wheelchair bound, who needs legs when you can fly around on wheels? I take the world by storm, rocking over pavements and rolling over pathways like a broken racer. But a racer just like anyone. Give me a helmet with a visor and I'll take you on anyway, young rookie. You'd wished you'd never asked.

Age is just a number and I'm wiser than you sonny boy, you can snigger all you like but the things I've seen, the things I've done - you've no clue. My life is in the past but now I'm a racer, and a bloody good one at that. I race to bingo because I like to conform to stereotypes sometimes, but then I race to the co-op to buy alcohol so I can get bloody silly drunk. Too old to drink my arse, I'd beat you at a boat race Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - any day kid!

Maybe when you're older you'll understand why I am so batty. Why I never slow down as I whiz along the footpath, regardless of old folks or women with buggies. I'm old kid. It happens, sometimes, but you gotta keep racing. Never jog, never take your hands off your wheels, because it's not over til the fat lady sings. My friends fat and she's not a singer, no sir she ain't that at all.

See me riding, cut me some slack for the wrinkles on my face. I never put them there I'm telling you. But I'd still take you on the final lap of a Grand Prix, and be home in time for my supper and coronation street on the box.

Journalism

“Louise, have you considered journalism?”

Simplistic though it sounds, this is a very complex question. The truth is, I have considered it. But this is probably not the answer they were expecting.

Journalism is just the manipulation of the public. It is an incredibly powerful force that is very often misused, as it can spark emotion and action in almost anybody. The power of words is such that it can cause death and destruction, anger and upset, or love and hate. It can twist things, brainwashing the public into believing what they are wanted to believe, cruelly misleading people into taking up different views.

It can be harsh, drastic and devastating, with cold hearted words causing suicide, or glorification throwing people into fame only to gleefully rip them to pieces months later. It is a place of greed, scandal and opinions which aims to mould the public like dough, and the sad thing is the majority don't even realise they are being fooled. They are spoon fed views and ideas, spitting them out on social networking sites and to their neighbours, following each other like sheep.

It angers me when I see these articles in the papers and I feel like I cannot believe a word that is being said, but it also fascinates me. The majority will sponge it up and it will be seen as truth, and the writer will be patted on the back for doing such a good job. How can the world be like this? It is not wrong to voice your opinions, so therefore this can never be disallowed. People will be forever humiliated on front page news, and disrespected in evil articles, which can inspire such hatred and misery against those who it is aimed at. Words are so much more powerful than people think, and you can do almost anything with them.

I often wonder, when I see an exposing article on a celebrity’s life, where did the crook who wrote this start out? Were they asked the same question? Did someone ask them if they had considered journalism, as they gazed innocently out from behind a school desk?

"The eyes are the windows to the soul."

Soft, Everything about him was soft. His hair, his skin, his heart - though that I could not see. All soft, all except those jewel-like eyes, which were stony hard: rough orbs of glassy mirror which shone like angry disaster, peering out of a velvet, beautiful, creamy white. Not his corruption, but the swimming memory of sickening horrors past just by, witnessed by this mere boy and trapped inside his tiny skull.

When asleep he was perfectly picturesque, but awake you could read his past and feel your own stomach turn. He's not old enough to see, to understand, such pain, but it's plain from one glance that he knows more than is imaginable. Unforgettable images in an irretrievable mind; damned to psychological hell when life was just beginning.

Life - what was the future when the past was filled with all that ever was? What was there to dream about when every nightmare was ignited, erupting in a flamed fury every minute of every hour, never letting go? He needs his mother's arms around him, for he's as soft as he seems. If you look into his eyes, you see he's breaking at the seams.

Racism rant

This is my first rant...and I regret to say that it has not been sparked in anyway itself, I had to stoop to the floor and create the fire manually, because it seems utterly pointless that this blog is called “the ranty shorts” when I have no rants to offer you. I'll talk about one of the things that has always, and will always bother me: racism.

So, racism. We should all, I know, be like Atticus Finch on this one ( if you don't know who that is, you pain me, go and read the best book of all time) but, we live in the 21^st century and we are supposed to be the most intelligent and most advanced our species has ever been...but still there are so many who judge people on the colour of their skin or the race they belong to. It honestly baffles me how people can actually be that stupid. Like, really, do you have a brain? How does skin colour affect a person's behaviour, actions, the way they function? How can it make them different in any way other than appearance?

Fear – fear of the unknown. Fear of something different, something that is unlike what we are surrounded by. That is what sparks it all and what allows us to create these disastrous prejudices that have the ability to tear our world apart. People are flawed within themselves and insecure, so they pick out a minority and target them. When in doubt, blame the foreigner, because the foreigner can do little to retaliate, and there is safety in numbers when everyone looks and acts the same.

But, people need to open their eyes. Diversity is not a hindrance, it is a blessing. Were we all the same not only would we all die – natural selection – but the world would be a dull, grey, boring place with no happiness or thriving colour brought by the differences and spontaneous joy of our race. It is just an excuse, we all need insight to see that. These people need a scapegoat for their own problems, or the societal problems, and those they are wary of, because of their unfamiliar faces or practices, are the ones to take the hit. It wasn't fair in the 1900's and with our new, intelligent and scientific approach to life, it certainly isn't fair now.

It's not just race, it's all kinds of differences. People are cruel because it is in their nature to do so, so this almost cannot be helped. But it is sad to see the larger vultures as they prey upon the weak, despite the fact nature made them that way. We need to become 21^st century people, not prehistoric beasts who fear that which they don't know or are not accustomed to. The vulture could be trained, eventually given time, to be vegetarian. We must train our next generations to eliminate racism and these absurd prejudices instilled in us since ancient times, because we have no need for them now. We are all a ball of mangled guts stuffed inside an exterior of skin, and we will all die, every one of us, just a corpse in the end (rather like my friend Shakespeare mentions through Shylock).

I've surely not said anything you haven't already heard...to be honest I'm not really sure what I have said, all I've done is type angrily at the keyboard until I have come to this point. It just frustrates me so much, the racism, the judging, but also the fact that it will always be like that, and there's pretty much nothing we can do about it. I can talk of training generations, but there will always be those with selfish intentions, who need someone to blame to purge themselves of guilt. What is my message? I'm making you think, that's all. Think about how messed up we as humans can be. And I'm done.  

The answer to everything

Floating in orbit, the answer to everything floats, untouched, unknown and undiscovered by the world. Beyond space and time, it turns to the laws of no one and it confines to nothing. It moves in the dark and the unforgivable blackness, alone with an incomprehensible understanding that no one will ever witness. Scientists, philosophers - they all think they may have grasped some of the concepts of the universe, and they smugly sit behind their earthly material desks and wrinkle in peaceful intelligence. But the answer to everything bobs in the spacious void of life its very self and watches it all unfold. What would life be to them if they knew? What was this thing called 'life' when you knew all the answers? It was a twisting mass of grey  knowledge for an eternity. When all the colours had been explained away, and all the beauties and magnificent sights have their black and white purpose, there is nothing left. Let them argue. Let them wonder. Let them think they know. It is the one joy of a cruel existence: to know truly nothing at all.