The most magical day of my life was when I got my wisdom teeth out. They just told me to take nice slow yoga breaths, and bam next thing I know I got 4 gaping holes in the my gum. And they want me to stand up and sit in this chair. Boy, were my legs heavy.

The dentist was real nice he said that he would take real good care of me. Well I guess he did. Because I got a little dog bag with some gauze, a syringe, and 4 bloody teeth wrapped in gauze.

You know wisdom teeth extractions really set you back, and I remeber back when my baby teeth caught a pretty penny. Those pearls were small, and if the tooth fairy is harvesting teeth then she would hit the motherload with these teeth! By goly the holes are like wells that just keep going on and on and on. So I would say that I would get a mighty nice fee for these wonderful teeth I shall put under my pillow tonight.

Just so you know Ms. Tooth Fairy that 123 Willard Drive.

My body is whooshed through space and my chest feels funny and oh great I need to... urgh. Hurl. I lay nestled in a pile of garbage bags, and boy if that doesn't make my impeding nauseau any worse. I quickly skitter up and brush off the seat of my pant. No thank you. Not today.

Okay, let's not panic. Just take notes of our surrondings. Dark, brick, alley. Smells like it is drenched in urine. And that guy over there, who is clearly just taking a smoke break, looks like he just saw a ghost, the devil incarnate, and his previous seven exes all in one spot. Give him a wave, he'll be useful for information. Yep, just start moving over slowly, give him a nice smile. And he is frozen their like an ice pop.

"Hey," I start out. He squeaks and smothers his cigarette under his sole letting the ashes smolder out like the dust of a dying pixie, "where am I?"

Instead of answering he bolts. Clearly the non-confrontational type, defintely ran away from his seven previous relationships. I wait a couple moments and set my hair straight, and then walk out. When I walk out I see to my suprise my favorite take out place.

I walk to the resturant and gape at the sign. People are pushing past me as I stand their in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at the Noodle Shanghai sign flashing above me. I was just on my way to home on the subway and now I'm here.

I'm at least 17 blocks closer than I was 30 seconds ago. I'll even be home earlier. Except I don't have my wallet, phone, or keys. I'm going to need to get that train, or a phone. Something to contact them to explain all of this weird teleportation thing.

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This is Day 29.

I didn not teleport. I travelled through universes, and here my friends don't know me and my parent's hate me. I recovered my phone and got all these contacts. But I just don't know them, and I've been getting calls from work. So I went there, but I don't know how to do the job. I've been faking it as I go. Thankfully my boss seems impressed or at least understanding. But with the contacts I've been just to scared to contact them. They would notice that I don't know them that well. And some of them are getting pretty upset that I'm not contacting them.

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The door rang, and I trembled as I opened it. I felt sick when I opened the door to an unfamilar face.

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At first this was an oppurtunity to start a new, but now it is a curse. I'm stuck in this unfamiliar world, missing the wonderful life I used to have.

Congrats to the people willing to go against the grain and make their own reality. The people who don’t squirm underneath the eyeing stares of society and dart the tight grasp of the barbed wire keeping you in this box. The people who aren’t afraid to laugh and smile when everyone else paints on the socially appropriate face. Those who shed away the cloak infused in tradition and hypocrisy. I really do admire them, because sometimes I sit here cowering away, too scared to stop myself from thinking that who I am is what society wants me to be. They are the ones who are living the realist life.

For this first assignment, please make up a fictional context for this image.  If this were a film that was just paused on this frame, who are the characters?  What is their story? 

Bobo the Bear has never seen life outside of this cage, as he was born here. The trainers come every day to feed him. There is the sweet middle-aged woman who always smells like honey and strawberries and comes to give him his food. She teeters around him carefully, and sometimes she conjures up enough courage to give a light pat on the rump or even a little rub on the head. Other than that gentle safe reassurance every day there are certain uncertainties of the many faces that all blur together. The aromas of great foods on the outside entice him. Salty and sweet and oily. But they're also all the other smells that come from the smelly creatures that ooh and aah and gaze at him.

Everyone else is gathered together around the sides but towards the third of the screen (third rule) where the sea of humans is parted is a little boy. And he doesn't look towards the bear, he looks onward. And the same light that barely touches the bear in shadow's mangy coat douses the young boy in sunlight. His mother gleams at the bear and is enraptured in the creature tossling about its cage. But her young boy, Josef, is enraptured is something more real than a creature grafted into a little collection of animals and he looks towards the real world. The boy wanders off and his parents so caught up in the show they paid for, the silly little game they decided to participate in that they miss him walking off.

For once the bear feels a tingle of something that has been jarred from him, something that he lost but never had. He felt a wild desire. The bear imagines the boy scrambling into the woods, with his eyes set on the Heavens. The boy, six at most, struggles up the mountainside until he reaches the top of the crest and the soft evening glow falls upon him. The bear sees through his eyes the zoo and the parking lot a tiny little speck compared to the glorious trees along the mountainside, and the sun-kissed fields beyond. His envy of the boy's freedom makes a growl in his stomach. A hunger that can be staved by the food here; dog chow, beef, fish, fruit, veggie, hard boiled eggs, peanuts, grapes, cereal, and whatever kids throw in. Both of these spirits are born to be free.

The boy is caught before he makes it to the parking lot. In one fist he is grasping a soft pretzel. His mom worried that he stole the pretzel insists to know where he got it, and insists to know where he got it. Josef replies, "Someone gave me the pretzel. They said... they said... I would need food for my journey."

Sand drifts down to the bottom of the hourglass

Pendulums sway to the seconds

Digital screens switch as time ticks away

The sand slips through your fingers

Time can never be caught

Life is not timed

Just session of Nows

And Thens

And What Could Have Been Thens

Even as we run

Time seems to elude us

It goes faster and slower

It can go from night and day

To millisecond to millisecond

Time doesn't exist

So there is just Now

And our need for time

The games

The games are so much fun

You get caught up in the game

With so much influence and power

You torture the other players

Players even if they don’t even know it

You make choices with no consequences

Because it is all just a game

You keep telling yourself that

It is all just a game

It is all just a game

That is quite dandy and all

But what about when it isn’t

Just all a game

All a game

And the game blurs with your life

You get so caught up in the game

And the consequences catch up too

Because the game is dangerous

It is all how you perceive it

The game has consequences

You just didn’t seem them

Because you didn’t want to perceive them

The game with the great choices

Well that comes with great consequences

Because it is not all just a game

It is the game of the Devil

A game that pretends to pretend

When it really is

Life or death

Life is just a game

The gun went off, and the women fell to her knees and let the gun drop. She had done what she had to do. She killed them, because she had to and she doesn’t care if she gets caught. She did what was right.

Blood pooled and seeped into the dress. It was her only good church dress. The pastor always commented on how beautiful it was. The blue flowers were “Naturely,” he always said, “You’ll be a good mother.” The older woman looked upon her pleased compared to their distasteful looks on the teens in short skirts and tight shirts. The dress went pass her knees for there is no God if the knees are out.

How do you get blood out? Cold water or hot water, and aren’t you supposed to rinse it immediately?

Her eyes slithered down to the gaping mouth of the man gurgling blood.

The blood probably wasn’t going to come out. It is a white dress. It’s old anyway. It was second hand when she got it. A new dress will do just as well. Maybe this time the priest will say something like she looks, “holy” or “virtuous” or maybe even “innocent”. That would do.

Sirens, foreboding creatures, try luring you. Maybe that is why there are sirens on cop cars, to catch people. She will be alright. She will not be convicted. She just killed a man.

His eyes were still open. How long does it take to go to Heaven? A pitch black void filled his socket. The lights were out, no one is home. He would not be going to Heaven. She bowed her head and steepled her finger with her palms pressing together. Softly her mouth moved to fit around the words.

“PUT YOUR HANDS UP!”

“Please forgive me.”

“PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!”

“Amen.” Her arms stood above her head, and she looked towards the pool again. Then again she doesn’t have enough money for a church dress. Bleach may work. It could wash out all the red, maybe some of the flowers as well. At least it is only towards the bottom. Maybe it is decorative.

Parachutes are dandy features, but too bad when people don't want you to survive the fall they fail to include them in the "Let Me Push You Off a Building" package. Firm hands easily pushed my clawing efforts overboard into the vast empty space. My claws failed to grab onto anything except tufts of wispy clouds.

My final resting ground, an unexpected street. A young toddler grasps onto his mother's hand walking closer, and by silent estimation, they would be right about where I am going to be in only a couple minutes. Just close your eyes little one, please, please.

Peaceful moments like these, ones where externally you wail your arms about and scream bloody murder for that dear child to back away, for people to look up and make an inflatable mattress appear or even a bounce house. Yet internally all gawking movements and one last attempt to fly by flapping your wings are out of the body, irrelevant. Suddenly everything is irrelevant. The debt, the rent, the job, the food, the clothing, all that matters is life. Those moments where you were living. That trip to Morroco, Indiana, the near-death experience of falling into the toilet, and the touching moments of your mother smiling and loving you up while that backstabber took pieces of your dessert.

Everything is released like a flood gate. You learn the meaning of life - I'm not supposed to tell. The jaunty attempts to flutter like a bird transform into powerful thrust and the reality hits you hard. We could always fly.

A beautiful macaw just barely grazes the bottom and soars off into the heavenly gates. While down below my mangled body stares off solemnly in the world of finding life. It is going to take a while to take the brains out of the sidewalk.

The thoughts came in this order: dance under the moonlight, black robes, cult, sacrifice. It wasn't my first thought, but the first thing I thought of writing.

Everyone likes to dance under the moonlight. Crescent light slopes down the jiving moves, and gravy graces every sickly poke. The baritone hums and bums disturbed the sonar of the searching submarines in the Marina Trench. Sloped black fabric scraped at the stars, and little bits of dust floomed down in clouds. The ground illuminated the abnormal dodecagon.

“Yaga dooba yaga dooba, da da da da daaaaa...” The sweeping robes encircled the spiked points on the dodecagon. The Lamb laid collapsed in the middle. A heavy chain dragged against the ground as the priest bowed and nodded, he pulled the heavy weight on his neck upwards. The stony face looked off into the crowd of obidently standing shadows.

“God Bless!” the tamberone ringed his vocal chords.

Recanting the statement, their tongues nimbly replied, “God Bless!”

“Today young Jacob gets his first chance at the sacred ritual.” A ceramic blue bowl rushed into Priests outstretched hand, “First he will drink the liquid of the God and he will blessed upon his journey into Purgotary and hopefully he will return.”

Jacob’s feet felled over the ground and he dropped to silvery chain lifted above the ground. The penchant swung. Mossy ground soaked his knees. Foreign Latin ran over Priest’s tongue. When the chant stopped Jacob looked up. Expectant eyes looked down, and he extended his hands out. The blue and china bowl, or the Crucible, weighed his hands towards the ground. His lips touched the edge and the bitter drink sloshed down his pipe. He had to drink it in one draw. Once he finished, he placed the bowl on the ground. Meancing watching pulled his eyesight towards him. “Now you’ll continue, Jacob” insticually Priest’s hand darted to his waist and he drawled the eerily wrapped knobbly knife.

The young boy whimpered as the cool metal touched his palms, “Are you sure I’m ready Al... Priest.” A full bodily shake rushed through his body, he knew the slip would be reprimanded. Reprimation was never taken lightly. Imprints burned him and reminded him of the last “reprimation” he had looked it up. He was underage and he defintely did not consent. What they had done was illegal and unsavory. Putrid liquid swelled in the back of his throat. How had his parents managed to watch on as they had move there hands in places unventeured.

“Fourteen is surely old enough. We do not want to loose you to the Evil.”

Reassurance glided past his parents lips that morning, “Just do the procedure and it will be over soon enough. The wounds will scab soon enough, and, if you are lucky enough, scar.” Softly her mothers hands brushed through his hair, “Soon you will be part of the Purge, and we will have our true dream, a pure son, devoted to the Light.”

Liquid still burning carnage through his stomach, he stood over the Lamb her eyes were closed, a mercy the Light gives on the first Scarlet Mission. The mercy is a gift that could be taken away if failure follows, or if behavior permits.

Posed there on his aching knees he waited. The knife did not just drop and sever the precious heart line. His own arm would have to guide it towards it target. Water escaped past his eyes. God, what was wrong with him! Reluctantly fingers found the soft wool of the lamb. Warmth radiated into his palms, and the whole ribcage jambored. Tears matted the wool, and his cheek dropped onto the lambs chest. Shivers wrecked his entire form, and sniffles greived the lives he would take.

Hood yanked off, he ripped himself away and took the steel viciously to his skin carving the Light onto his left wrist. Crimison stained the ground, the robe, the sheep.

A collective swoop brushed off the hoods as they basked in the creamy light plastering the milky complexion of the body laid still with soft breaths. “KILL THE LAMB BOY!” A roar ripped across the evening night and even knocked a star or two out of place.

Tears now eroded pathways down his cheek, and he got up. Barefeet stampeded over the pine needles and the rocks jabbed and poked. The forest rustled pass him, and the cool night air envigorated his lungs. God forbid the Light ever finds him.