The boy watched as the soldiers ran through the streets dusted with bullet casings. The gunfire often kept him up at night fearing for the lives of his friends and family. He was not like the other boys. He did not want to join the fight against the foreigners. He wanted to dream. He wanted fly. He wanted to see the world and he wanted to be remembered forever for doing something amazing. He knew he was never going to get out of his country, or even his house for that matter. But dreaming kept him from thinking about the war in front of him. His father had been killed almost a year ago by stray fire from a nearby firefight. He was protecting his children from harm when in fact it was he who needed saving.

The boy thought about it now and realized there were no tears rolling down his cheek. He never cried anymore, as if all emotion had been drained from his soul. It just happened without his knowledge now. He feared he would never feel again. Never love again, never smile again, never laugh again, never cry again.

As he rose from his prayer an explosion shook his house and he fell to his knees. He heard his mother scream and immediately ran to the kitchen below him to face whatever danger lay waiting. As he came down the stairs he heard the shot. It was not like the millions of shots he had heard before, this one was special. This one was the one that killed his mother. The soldier stood over her body with an eerie smile on his face, clearly proud of the life he had just stolen. The boy stood in a fiery mix of shock and rage staring at the soldier, unable to look at his mother. He ran at the devil before him and swung violently in a crazed attempt to avenge his mothers death. He was knocked to the ground and immediately everything went dark.

The sound of crying was all around him. The gentle reassurance of mothers to their children that everything would be alright could be heard somewhere in the room. As he opened his eyes the boy saw before him maybe 30 people, most of whom he knew. All of them with their children rocking them in their arms whispering gentle assurances that everything will be alright and that they will be enjoying their favorite dinner in just a few hours. That this was just a big misunderstanding. They all knew it was a lie, there was no comfort in the words themselves, it was the thought that maybe it could happen that put the minds at ease. And just like that all of their dreams were shattered as a loud crack from an assault rifle echoed through the room. The man attached to the gun was yelling in a language none of them understood. And after what felt like an hour of his yelling more men stormed into the room and dragged each of the hostages outside and threw them to the ground before what seemed like millions of eyes begging for another’s blood to be spilt so that theirs may be kept warm for one more night.

In the midst of all the commotion the boy didn’t think to look for his sister, she must be horrified. She must be lost and afraid and alone. He scanned the area for her and saw no sign of her. He began to worry and hoped she had done as she had been told so many times before and hidden. Just as he had convinced himself she was safe his world was shattered. He saw the man with the rifle dragging her out in front of everyone yelling once again. He lowered the rifle to her head and resumed screaming at the people before him. He did not care that they could not understand him, he knew the girl in danger would provoke a response. He never would have guessed the response that was to come.

The boy was swallowed by rage and acted solely on instinct. He ran directly at the man and pushed him to the grand standing firm between the man and his sister. He screamed at the man cursing him in ways he wasn’t aware he knew existed. He was swearing the man to an eternity in hell without forgiveness. And just as he finished he realized something. He was crying. There were tears pacing down his face and he looked around and saw the eyes of his countrymen looking upon him.

Looking upon this 13 year old boy who had more strength than every man in the village. The boy realized something else at that moment. He was making a difference, he would be remembered forever. He had saved his people. Even if they all died there that day, he had shown these intruders that they could no longer push them without consequence. And then it happened. He heard chant slowly rise from the back of the crowd and quickly it was booming louder than any gun could ever hope to be. He heard the words, and he knew immediately. He had saved his people. Then the gun went off. The boy fell to his knees, with a smile on his face. With his last breath he repeated the words to his countrymen. “Through hope, we are invincible”.

Love is Found in a Smile

“Hello, Mr. Dearborn, my name is David Everly. We spoke on the telephone, I’m here for what we spoke about. You were going to tell me about how you and your wife fell in live for the valentines day piece.”

“Oh yes, Mr. Everly, please come in, would you like to get started immediately?”

“If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to get to work on this immediately.”

“Of course, now what is it I should tell you?”

“Well sir, I’m looking for a story that will really compel our readers. Something romantic and wonderful, but real. We’re trying to capture true love, instead of just a story.”

“Well then I believe you have come to the right place. I’m one of the few people left who knows what it was, and still is, like to be in love to the point where your own life has no meaning if that one person isn’t around. I have the perfect story for you.”

It’s funny what you remember about people. The smells, facial expressions and for me, I always seem to recall the way they smile the first time we meet. When you develop these kind of habits you look for the ones that stand out, the ones you don’t ever want to forget, the ones you see right before you fall asleep at night. That was her. Everything about her, but especially that first smile. It came so easily, like she had been holding it in all day to avoid seeming crazy. That smile was always there. Even when she cried she had that damn smile. It’s little things like that I miss the most. But you should probably hear the whole story so it makes more sense. By the time I’m done, I guarantee, you’ll miss her too.

She walked into the café and everything and everyone stopped all at once. It was like a scene from a movie. (I found out later that it was in fact just me falling madly in love, but I think this gives the story a special flavor too it.) As soon as she sat down there were not a pair of eyes in the room that weren’t fixated on her (minus maybe one from the crazy homeless guy outside with the lazy eye, but the good one was on her). Within a span of three minutes she had walked into a diner, sat down, and obtained the kind of following Angelina Jolie dreamt about.

Everything had seemed so slow and absorbing I hadn’t even noticed that she had sat right next to me at an obviously barren counter. I began to suspect that either something very good or something very embarrassing was about to ensue and it was a crap shoot over which one it would be once I made my move. The only thing I really remember from this encounter and several after it were small things about her, like that smile. The one I got as soon as I said something to her. The truth is I don’t quite remember what it was that I said to her, I wish I could be for reason’s I can’t explain it has left my memory. But it was good and, the best part was, it worked.

For the next five or six weeks we would call each other on the telephone and make dates to walk through the city together. I would make her laugh which would bring out that smile. That was all I ever needed to feel like I was in heaven. I grew crazier about her by the day, and just when it seemed that I would have an aneurysm and die from pressure I asked her to be my one and only. In case you were wondering, she said yes.

It was in the beginning of this relationship that our love was really forged. I had been working as a staff writer for rolling stone when it first started up. It had become an instant hit overnight and I was lucky enough to be along for the ride. My job had awarded me with a lot more money than I was used to, and I was able to afford a bigger more comfortable and inviting apartment. When I got it I made sure it was big enough for two, and she moved in with me as we rolled into our sixth month of dating. Every day I saw her smile was one more day that I could live, she had become as important to me as the oxygen I breathed. It made my heart swell with warmth when she told me this same thing our first night in the new apartment. I had officially become happy for the first time in my life. All because of her.

After being in the new place for about 3 months she came home with the great news that she had gotten the job she had been trying for, for years. She had been signed on as the new director of creativity at a local, and rather prominent, theater. She had always loved the arts and had even graduated from college with an art history degree. This had brought her into a new world of happiness, as well as money. We decided to start saving for something we might want. Which, one year later, was a trip to Bermuda. Which entailed tanning on the beach, eating fresh seafood at romantic restaurants, and a proposal which became and engagement. When we got back she had a unique glow about her which never seemed to fade even in the later years. The wedding was seven months later. Four months after that we moved into a house outside of the city.

I remember one of the nights of the first few weeks we had been in the new house. I was laying in bed next to her. She was looking at me with her smile beaming her energy into the room. A long time ago before I had even thought about girls, my father told me a story about when he met my mother. He said one day after they had been dating for a while he looked at her, and he said what he saw was the most beautiful sight in the world, and at that moment he knew he was in love. When I asked him what he meant by love he only had one thing to say. “Falling in love is the most important thing you will ever do, and when you do there will be no doubt in your mind that, that is exactly what is going on. The mind doesn’t need to understand when all the heart needs to do is feel.” And this moment was the first moment in my life that I truly understood what he meant when he said that. Nine months later he passed away. Nine months after that night with her our first child was born, a son. I named him Thomas, after my father.

We had three more kids after Tom, who now is a creative writing and romantic literature professor at Leslie College. Two years later we had Vincent who now looks exactly as I did 30 years ago and is now a CEO of a major marketing firm. One year after him we had Alice. She was just as if not more beautiful than her mother. Our only daughter, she married to a very successful doctor and holds a similar position to her mothers as the creative director at the Smithsonian. She looks just like her mother now and has two kids of her own. Two girls; Ellen and Grace. Both are incredibly beautiful girls, just like their mother. And our last was Eric. He now is a famous author with 5 books in circulation and a sixth on the way. Having never been able to write anything myself, after years of trying, I was, and still are to this day, the happiest father in the world.

For my seventy fifth birthday the kids all got the two of us a vacation package to go back to Bermuda to revisit the place where I proposed. I had never in all my years seen a smile so honest and happy as I did that day. I laugh when I think about it. The most beautiful she ever was, in my eyes, was when she was seventy two. Four months later, and two weeks before the trip, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. And it was then, in those fifteen minutes at the doctors office, the dream I had been living for all these years had become a nightmare.

For three years she fought tooth and nail, and for a while it looked as though she was going to pull through. But then, in the last three months of her life she got really bad. She was in chemo all the time, her hair had fallen out and showed no signs of growing back. But through all of it, even when the pain and depression were at their worst, she was always smiling. All she would ever say was she was sorry for ruining the trip. All I could tell her was that Bermuda was simply a place, the vacation was being with her. For three months I barely slept and laid with her at the hospital. And then that day came. The one I’ll never forget.

It’s kind of sad how you remember people. The smells, facial expressions, and for me I always seem to remember what they say before they go. When you develop these kind of habits you look for the ones that stand out, the ones you don’t ever want to forget, the ones you hear right before you fall asleep at night. That was her. I woke up that morning knowing it would be that day. I could see in her eyes that she knew it too. Knowing there was nothing we could do, we did our best to make the most of our last day. We did what anyone would have done, we laid inside holding each other talking about the past. Smiling.

As she was fading out and I could feel she was leaving she said something to me. And I was happy that of all the last statements she could have made, that was it. What she said was; “That first day we met what you said to me was, ‘Excuse me but I noticed you are eating alone, would you mind if I join you? Someone with such a beautiful smile should not have to eat in solitude,’ I memorized those words and I hear them every night before I go to sleep. That was the moment I fell in love with you and decided to spend the rest of my life by your side. I know your upset. I know you’re going to miss me. Just remember that no matter what, my love for you will always be there. As will I, just close your eyes.” As she finished talking her eyes closed and gracefully she passed on. At that moment in time a part of me left along with her. I suppose I’ll get it back when I see her again. Whenever that is.



Four months after this interview Brian Dearborn died of natural causes. He was seventy seven years old. He was cremated and upon his directions his wives ashes, along with his own, were placed in the same container and have been spread under the new construction site of where the diner they first met used to be.

Several weeks after his death I met his son Eric at his newest books premiere signing, he told me the night his father died he, and all his siblings, shared the same dream. The dream was of Brian and his wife in their younger years sitting on a beach in Bermuda sharing a kiss, both with smiles on their faces, both glowing, and both in love.

The pen is truly mightier than the sword.

As the lightning crashes above the battle field a similar clashing occurs below the booming chaos. Swords collide as the remaining soldiers strike down upon each other claiming the lives if their enemies and losing their own in the process. As the terror ensues both on the battle field and in the sky hundreds are killed. After what seems like hours the sides retreat for a time to recover and plan their next attack.

As the rain falls over head a young boy writes his father a letter explaining to him what has changed since he has left to fight for reasons unknown to all but the rich who started this power battle. He writes about his schooling and friends. He mentions his god who as he writes this lays beside him, feeling the sadness of the boy he has not left his side since his fathers departure. As he continues writing the focus of the letter turns to his sadness in his fathers absence. He talks about how he cries at night from the darkness his father, being so far away, can not protect him from. He tells his father of the sounds of crying he hears from his mothers bedroom and the overall look of sadness that has fallen over her face days of late. He tells him of the pain that has corrupted his family, and overturned their lives. Most importantly of all, he tells him he misses him. He tells him him this, as his tears stain the letter.

As darkness looms over a quiet battlefield, a father weeps over fallen friends and finds a letter addressed to him from his son. A face he can no longer remember. A youthful and wondrous warmth he can no longer feel. And he reads. As he reads the tears originally wept from sadness, turn into those of guilt. A man fighting for a cause not his own, is losing what truly does belong to him. He is torn between honor and love. And as he finishes the letter he feels the tears stop. He is not relieved of sadness, but rather drained of the ability to cry. His emotions have been stripped and all that remains is what once was a proud and happy man. He has lost his will to exist. As he decides to give up he drops the letter. On its reverse side he catches something scribbled in ink and looks closer. A short notation has been left for him by his son. "Dad, I love you. If you come home tomorrow, or in three years, I love you. I will never stop and I know that my love will protect you and bring you home. Don't ever forget, and come home OK." His heart is warmed, his tears return.

As a bright and inviting sun shines over a small village, a wife is shopping for that evenings dinner. Her head held low and tears help back on the verge of explosion. A son by her side feeling her sadness and sharing the emotion. The warmth of the sun hits their backs and a gentle breeze massages their faces. As they raise their heads in hopes that the beauty of the day will lift their spirits, a face appears in front of them and the tears they worked so hard to held back come crashing through. A father stands before them home before his time, where he should have been all along.

Once again, you will be remembered forever

The darkness of your sleep slowly brightens and you groggily roll out of bed, wishing silently to yourself you never had to leave again. As you get ready to go out and walk and think about what has happened unwelcome tears roll down your cheek. There is nothing that will make this loss go away, nothing that will make it not have happened there is only the reality that it is. As you leave the house you can't help but fall to your knees and cry uncontrollably for what feels like hours.

The sun is shining on your face and shines into your heart, but not your eyes. As if someone were keeping them shielded but your mind is elsewhere, and you come across the trees in bloom and the flowers sprouting with colors so pure heaven itself seems to be sub-par. As you walk the sounds of the birds harmonize in a way so beautiful the ears can't help but fall in love, but your mind wanders still. The wind blows gently in your face and open mouth and a sweet taste over comes your taste buds making them dance, but your thoughts are lost within the darkness your heart has leaked. As you turn the next corner you reach your destination. The field where it happened. This is where he died. This is where his heart stopped and you could do nothing but watch as your best friend left you forever. As you lay down in the grass your nose tickles from the sweet scent of the flowers now strangely growing all around where it happened. But your heart is sick with pain and thus your senses have gone limp. You are alone and no amount of anything whether it be the sweetest taste, the most extravagant and gorgeous surroundings, the most beautiful sounds, the warmest sun or the most euphoric scent could ever make this better. If only he were here. And then you feel it and you hear his voice.

My friend, I miss you. My passing has been tough for you. And for that I am truly sorry, but you have been mistaken. I have not left, I am with you as we speak right now. I am with you, in your heart and in all the things around you. You just have to look for it. Your eyes may not see me, but I am alive in beauty you see. Your nose may never know my scent again, but I am alive in things that bring your nose comfort. Your skin my never again feel my embrace, but I am alive in the warmth of the sun. Your ears may never hear my voice again, but I am alive in the music of the world around you. Your mouth may never smile again because of me, but I am alive in the sweetest of tastes and the happiest of times. My friend. My friend who is lost within himself. You have all these things around you to remind you of me and yet you still feel as though I am gone. My friend, your heart may never shine because of me, but I am alive in the friends around you that keep it lit. My friend, those we love never leave. They just become a part of the things we love.

Life Lesson #1

Looking back on everything I have experienced in my small portion of a lifetime I think I have had my fair share of experiences, as far as being 20 goes. I would certainly say that I have fallen a lot more than most, and would certainly not do it the same again. Although without my failures I would never have found some great friends and weeded out some not so great ones. Despite my regrets, which I have quite a few of, I think that I will look back and smile at these days when I am old and my kids ask me why I'm such a miserable prick; if I haven't killed them yet.

What I mean to say with all of this irrelevant pansy non sense is that people all too often seem to remember the bad and let it deteriorate their lives. I don't think this is a good way to live at all. i have always believed that no matter what, you always need to look back with a smile. I still believe that despite my life choices. I may have made things a lot harder for myself in the long run, but that only means I will work harder to get what i want and i will be better for it in the end.

Making the right choices and being a responsible person is what everyone wants to be seen as. However, without kicking up some dust you wont know to close your eyes when it comes. What that means, for those of you too incompetent or 'well off' to understand, if you don't get into trouble every once in a while you are going to fall to pieces later on in life when something goes wrong. Just like everything else in life, you need some practice getting in trouble so you don't cry when you're forty and your boss finds out you weren't really sick last Monday when you called in and were on the big screen of the Sox game that same day. That would just be sad, and he would probably have to fire you just on principle.

This does not mean, of course, that you need to blow up a cop car and steal a baby just so you can be productive in the work place. But some mischief is expected of us and without it there's a certain emptiness we feel in its absence. So for those of you without a bad ass asterisk on your resume for life. Grab some eggs and a Hilary Clinton mask, leave them on your porch for a couple of weeks, get in your car and drive to your bosses house.

WARNING THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS GRAPHIC. THOSE IN THE AUDIENCE WITH AN INSUFFICIENT AMOUNT OF METAPHORICAL TESTICLES OR AN OVER-ABUNDANCE OF MATURITY SHOULD READ CAREFULLY AND LEARN SOMETHING.

Now, when you arrive at your bosses house there are three things you need to do. They are risky, but the end of result is usually worth it. First, yell something obscene pertaining to your bosses lack of sexual adequacy(for Male bosses only) or there is always the old fail safe of "This is for leaving you miserable whore."(for highest humor response be sure to be same sex as boss). After this proceed to throw the eggs at and around the house and do not neglect the front door. It is essential that you make sure when visitors come they smell your mark. Now once this is done people will most likely be awake and watching. After a substantial amount of people are watching be sure to moon your employers house and immediately run like hell towards your car for the police have most assuredly been called and you will not do well in prison.

This concludes our bad-ass lesson for today. I hope you have found this helpful and please refrain from asking me questions. I have little to no desire to speak to you.

Really world, we're gunna do this?

So swine flu is here. AWESOME. And to make things even better, apparently the approved vaccinations don't work against this strain. So now we are taking every precaution to prevent it's spreading. People are ordering masks like crazy, vacations to Mexico are being postponed and canceled, and Northeastern kept their students from shaking hands at graduation...? Listen kids this is the Flu, not Ebola. If I go to introduce myself to someone and they don't shake my hand because I might get Flu cooties, there will be blood.

I understand that this is an illness for which there is no vaccine at the moment. I understand that it has the capability of killing, I understand that it's highly contagious, and I also understand that it is attacking healthy 18-40 year-olds immune systems and creating adverse effects. What I don't understand is why we can't at least pretend that we aren't doomed. I have done an excellent job of keeping my panic attacks to a minimum in public, although when I hear someone cough I do pee a little.

For all of those reading this with no understanding of sarcasm you can relax and stop judging me, I am kidding.

I just feel as though people are taking this way too seriously. There is, of course, some reason to be concerned. But this is the same for all new strains of a disease and hey guys guess what, people are still here. We have yet to become extinct despite years of religious intolerance, a hunger for war, a lack of available resources and an overall addiction to ignorance. So, I think we're going to make it through Miss Piggy coughing on someone. Just relax people. If you feel you're going to cry because of the intense pressure this is putting on you do the world a favor, dig a hole and stay there because you have a stress tolerance of negative 30 and are unfit for society.

Hope you enjoyed it. If not then stop reading and get over yourself

A loss is never forgotten, A love is never lost

Throughout our lives we all experience a loss of some kind. There are those of us who see very little of it, and the unlucky ones who experience more than they should ever have to. There are those who will tell us that there is an average number of deaths to be seen throughout ones life, but this could not be farther from the truth. No number of deaths, small or large, is ever going to be average.

The most difficult aspect of a loss is usually seen as letting the person go. However I feel that the true challenge is moving on once they have left. Of course I don't mean leaving them behind and living your life as if they were never a part of it; but rather finding a way to continue with your life even though a part of it is now missing. This is where we all reach that rope none of us can climb.

Something we all seem to overlook is the multitude of other people who are feeling our same pain.

When our friends leave us, they leave all of us. And it is through all of us that we can climb this metaphorical rope. When we become close to someone a part of their soul is intertwined with our own. And it is through this connection that we can feel so strongly about someone. When this person leaves us, their place in our soul is left behind and kept alive through us. Each of us holds a small part of this person, but not a whole. However when all of us whom they touched are together, the pieces of the puzzle are complete and it is as if they were never really gone.

To put this plainly, remembering alone only helps us remember a part of that person. Remembering together allows us to see them in their entirety. Together we will always be able to talk about the laughs shared, pains endured, lessons learned and trouble caused. As long as we are here to remember them, a person can never truly die. To all of you who have lost a loved one, a friend, or even someone you shared no more than one memory with. Remember that they will never truly die so long as you keep them alive in your heart.

There are a lot of regrets that people carry with them for, in some cases, the entirety of their lives. I am not saying that everything should be shared with the world; however living with the knowledge that you are responsible for something and not doing anything to fix it can be fatal. In some cases you may even be wrong. How great would that be? Then there are the people who are very much responsible for their regrets, guilt etc. Screw you guys, you dug your hole. Now grab a latter, climb out and join the rest of us in pretending there's nothing wrong. Then there are those of us who are not responsible for the burden we carry, are aware of this, and still carry it. For us, we have two options. Suck it up and smile, or make the world feel bad for us and thrive off of the pity thrown at our feet. Personally, I feel the former is a much safer approach. Then you don't have to deal with the whole 'self-pity isn't healthy' thing. No, heroine is not healthy. Self-pity is a result of too much attention and the need for more, or the complete and total non-existence of said attention.

Recently I had become aware of a situation where I was nothing more than an observer. By this I mean that I was not involved in what was happening and any issues I had were secondary at most. The situation continued and I became increasingly aware that even though I was not directly effected, someone very close to me was. So I decided to rethink my involvement. This was the moment in my life where i stood up and realized that I was doing something terrible, with the best intentions. Intentions that at the moment, I felt were justifiable and there would be no argument from the other end.

Isn't it funny how even though sometimes you can be one hundred and ten percent sure about something and still get dirt kicked in your face. Just like having a pair of aces on the table and just as you begin to float away, a second pair of twos are set down and your luxury flight becomes that unlucky duck hit by the very lucky hunter. Isn't life just one big great slap in the face.

Ehem, so before I so rudely interrupted myself with a tangent none of us really needed to hear. I was saying that the intentions I had laid before myself were being pillaged and raped by the reactions of the person I had set out to liberate from their unknown situation of badness. In the end, my decision led me to crash and burn and ultimately lose a good friend. Although for the moment it is just one, I fear that after some time has lapsed, there will be more.

So I write this in warning for all you impulsive people. Doing the right thing is always bad. When you get the urge to do good. Slap yourself, and smoke weed.

Whether they understand it or not each person has a set list of things they would like to accomplish in their life. This list is edited as time goes on, and eventually you are left with a document littered with check-marks and scribbles, or for those of us with class; white-out. However despite the editing the basic flow never really changes. There are the pipe-dreams, the obvious, the hopes, and of course the 'avoid at all costs'. Being as young as I am the final print of my list has yet to even be drafted. However I have a few things looming around my hope column. One, as I am sure you could have discovered on your own by now, would be to get published one day. I am not exactly trying with all my heart to accomplish that goal seeing as how very little of my writing is finished, even these posts that I leave for you are incomplete. I just write until i start pulling at my hair and gnawing on my arms and legs, and once I draw blood I publish the post. So at this point my writing is not so much to further myself but more to keep myself from becoming deformed, any more than already.

But I always find it interesting to ask people about their dreams and such. The answers are occasionally interesting, although mostly they are just repetitive. An answer that I frequently encounter and one I have grown to hate considerably is; "I don't know, I don't think about these things." ....... This is normally the part where I turn several shades of red and proceed to beat the person in question unmercifully with a phone book, in my head of course.

I suppose it's just me, but I truly believe that a person should have some idea of what they want to establish in their life time. I mean yeah, there are those hidden talents that we don't discover until later on in life, but it's not like everything we do as children and teenagers just leaves us once we enter the real world. Right?

What if, for arguments sake we said that the previous statement was true. How could anyone be productive or successful. We don't just leave college and say, alright time to acquire some skills. What we do is a result of who we are, these things don't just appear. These things are given to us, for the most part, at birth. So stop being nearsighted assholes. Look somewhat to the future, because there's nothing to see in the present that can't be seen in the past.

So for all of you who believe I may some day ask you this question. Think about it. Because the next time I receive an "I don't know" I may very well be carrying a phone book.