Tend To Be

For years, the green vines in the backyard sprawled, and climbed over the fence, occupying territories that were once somebody else's property. The dogs at home, in their unleashed collar, always went on a brawl when Igaras Caeffur left them untied to the big pine trees on either sides.

Caeffur got calls everyday, almost everyday. There were days when he had heard the phantom ringtones deafening his insignificant ears. And no one, absolutely no one had called, and the phone stayed in boredom for the whole day. Those were the days when Igaras Caeffur would started to get anxious about things. He would pave around in his house with his narrow selections of beach pants, and his upper body naked. And he would soon get worked up with all sort of house cleaning tasks that he felt a caged animal raging inside him, which he would promptly rush to the pool and cool himself down. But his eyes would always reach over to the screen of his phone, checking to make sure he didn't missed any call.

This phone he had, it could only receive calls. So every call he got, could possibly be the last call in his life, if he was to think so negatively. There wasn't a bright side living out here in the middle of a desert with a fluctuating population and unstable connections for outside communication. And the only thing for Caeffur that seemed to look up, which was months ago, had began to act weird. It was the power generator.

The Military promised to drop supplies every two weeks when Igaras Caeffur and others were evacuated here for safety measures. And as years passed, the drops began to go thin, and the timing often changes. Two people had been killed from the crates falling from the sky, and the military didn't seem willing to take up the responsibility.

Caeffur used to be one of them, all suited up and ready for whatever wars and battles that was coming for his country. Until the radiation leakage happened and almost everyone he knew had to be relocated to somewhere in the desert. He had tried to run away in the first few month, but every time he thought he was out of the zone, he would see the sand walls that surrounded the inner city where he lived, and he would return, and told kids in the hospital of the imaginative creatures he encountered in the depth of the sand. Kids used to love him, for his charm and the stories that he had to tell, and mostly his great long beard that would rustle in the wind.

It'd been five years and three months since they were exposed to the radioactive waste, and many had given their lives to it. The remaining survivors had less and less of the past to talk about, the distant memory faded, the once familiar voices disappeared.

Under the request of people, mobile phone with sophisticated connections to the satellite were distributed to the citizen. Many broke down crying and drowned in happiness when they had heard voices of their friends and families that were not affected in the incidents.

Caeffur received no calls the first day. Everyone he knew had died a horrible death, and he was, at a time, completely lonely.

Then calls from people he doesn't know started to place in. And when he told people that they had called a wrong number, they would typically reply, "do you mean this isn't the Smithsonian office hotline?"

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Papa Jones & Sally Francis Jones

Papa Jones had not always had a big heart. Now that he did, he had no doubt that his daughter, Sally Francis Jones, would run around telling their neighbors and her girlfriends about the luxury suite he would be staying at the St. Clare Hospital for Elders. It was the very first thing Papa Jones could think of when Doctor North broke the news to him, after his health report was retrieved from a pile of medical waste due to a human error. Which was safe to say that the recently hired nurse, Gwen Tracy, would not outlast the previous two nurses in St. Clare. Talk about longevity in an elderly hospital.

For a brief moment, Papa Jones could hear nothing Doctor North was saying to him, as he began to remember Sally Francis Jones' red cheeks under the summer sun, and Sally Francis Jones' soft, long blonde hairs in the candle light. He did not, for one second, think of his two late wives, but the daughter of his mistress.

Sally Francis Jones is a miracle.

When Sally Francis Jones first came into Papa Jones' then hairy arms, she giggled melody of dreams in nights, and sobbed tunes of nightmares during days. It was horrible. So horrible that Papa Jones had to hire a professional to take care of her, immediately after the Agency for Nannies had opened in the morning. It was there when Papa Jones felt his inner peace had returned, that his ears no longer chant the acoustic Soviet Union national anthem.

That was almost six years ago. Today, Sally Francis Jones is not an infant that sucks milk from a plastic bottle anymore. She's grown up into a little miss, and has a bedroom to herself.

"How much time do I have left, Doctor North, Conservatively?" Papa Jones coughed, "Look at me. Do not lie to an old man."

Doctor North didn't look directly into Papa Jones' grey eyes, instead he raised his left hand and showed two fingers.

"Two years? That's not bad news at all. That's fantastic. Maybe I'll still be walking after two years," Papa Jones smiled. "Who knows?"

Papa Jones was about to stand up and give Doctor North a handshake when the opposite head shook lightly.

"Two months then? That's plenty of time for a pre-funeral memorial. I'd like to hear what people have to say about me. After all, I'd be too dead to hear," Papa Jones cracked into a laughter and his face flared up in flame.

"You don't have two years or two months. You have two days. After that, you'll probably, you know," Doctor North said, staring at the report.

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DayZ Ops One

[Watching the twitch.tv live stream of 5hizzle as he plays Dayz. Wrote this as his character explore Dayz. Overly exaggerated description and undermined story flow.]

Hiding behind the concrete wall, still heaving loud and audible in the quiet surroundings, Carl could not believe his arms was still holding the fully-loaded fire extinguisher high in the air, and next to his shoulder.

Bang.

The next thing Carl knew when he woke up, he was in a field of golden willow, and a vast, open field with trees scattered around. The cool season wind swept by, caress his glinting forehead. The dampness clung to his back renewed the sensation of a different kind of pain, which ripples in waves, stinging the shallowness of his skins, the depth of his bones. Carl bent his arms and heard a crack, followed by the suppressed cry.

Emptiness and loneliness lingered at his feet. The ruffled trees and tall grasses signified his sole existence at this space. His left foot followed his right foot, while his right foot stepped after his left foot. Carl could not remember which foot first started the walk, but he was glad, when, after a few minutes of solitary walk, he arrived at the edge of a town. A sand-washed place, buildings with broken windows and fallen red bricks. His steps resonated loudly as he walked through a street.

After he had crossed the town, a grey smoke signaled him to move forward. And at the foot of that cloud of smoke, Carl found the place familiar, a strange feeling filled his chest and messed with his brain. He seemed to be here just moments ago. Then as he continued circling around the area, the dusty, red extinguisher waved at him.

So strange, too strange. Carl wandered off mindlessly until he stumbled over something and fell into a tall brush. His hands, scared, his lips leaking red, but he felt no pain, but fear. Right before him, the corpse,  fresh with a puddle of dark red blood creeping away, had the look of being frozen suddenly in time. That unnaturally wild eyes and dropping cheeks seemed to be sending some kind of message. An army poked Carl at his stomach, and he could felt them rushing through his throat and nose.

Bang.

The gravel road ran long, and straight. On the other end, the currently visible end, was the reflection of the a magical palace, a place where Carl could seek the asylum of peace. Though its bare existence was being questioned by Carl's master degree.

Things were a little bit easier this time. Carl jogged and ran and skipped instead of walking the loser walk. His black t-shirt was gone when he found a long, green jacket on a shabby pick-up truck. He discovered now that he had a long sleeves, his forearms no longer stung him when sweat ran past, reaching for the finger tips.

The golden sun blinded him as he ran on the soft yellow grass. The sandy soil underneath, almost uninhabitable, catered for these lowly plant as if to redeem for their sins unbeknownst to human.

The spot of the sun's glare remained as Carl stumbled into another town, with more unattended houses and lonely barn houses. Every room he entered, he saw the purple spot on the center left of his sight. It was as annoying as the sweat on his forehead that would occasionally be absorbed by his eyelids.

Quitting the abandoned town, a moist wind touched Carl's torched lips. His eyes, darting around, surveying the empty landscape, could not find a hint as where the spring was. So he went with the second best option, he followed his nose, his lips, and his guts. He went left, always correcting himself over the general direction toward the stream. Sometimes he stop and scatter his ears out into the wild; sometimes he lay down on the ground, almost kissing the dirt, and listen to the advice  from the earth.

His nose moved left and right. The closer he thought he was there, the more aggressive he stepped on the grass, leaving a visible footprint on the soft dirt.

He knew he had made the right choices when he plunged into the stream and opened his mouth and galloped water into his body like a fish. Except human is not fish, and when he eventually rose to the surface and had his breath of air, he was immediately coughing and gasping and choking, it all happened at once. His eyes did not open until his body resumed full  air circulation.

Bang.

Somehow, on his hand, lit a bright red object. It hurt him like the sun, but he was in a dark room, and he could not have found it more useful than annoying.

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