The Dez lives!!!

[Harli]

POKE HIM WITH A STICK!

[Darkduskk]

I TOLD YOU I WAS GOING TO MAKE YOU WAIT FOREVER!!!!

Actually - I might take a while. Aaron's being wierd. o.o

[Harli]

Dez is an oldtimer...^^

Like I said...FREAKISHLY ACTIVE AM I.

[Dani]

He's probably masburbating mentally in his sleep XD

-prods you to reply-

[Harli]

-pokes Dani with stick-

[Darkduskk]

The Butterfly

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly
One day a small opening appeared
He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours
It struggled to force its body through that little hole
Then it seemed to stop making any progress
It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could
And it could go no farther.

So the man decided to help the butterfly
He took a pair of scissors and snipped off
The remaining bit of the cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily, BUT,
It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings
He continued to watch the butterfly
He expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge
And the body would contract
Neither happened!
In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling
Around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.
It was never able to fly.

The man acted with well-intentioned kindness
But he didn't understand the consequences.
The restricting cocoon and the struggle required to get
Through the tiny opening, were nature's way of forcing fluid
From the body of the butterfly once it achieved it's freedom
From the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.
If nature allowed us to go through life without any
Obstacles, it would cripple us.
We would not be as strong as we could have been
And we could never fly
Have a great day, great life, and struggle a little.
Then fly!

Nikos Kazantzakis

[Harli]

My science teacher read us that....0o

[Dani]

To small >.> -bites stick- No poking Dani

[Darkduskk]

xD Had to get one more in.

No, he's not doin' anything like that. It's like he's curled up in a ball - the only thing is that...ever since I've known him, he's not the type to do that unless something's wrong.

[Harli]

Bruce Holland Rogers

THE DEAD BOY AT YOUR WINDOW

In a distant country where the towns had improbable names, a woman looked upon the unmoving form of her newborn baby and refused to see what the midwife saw. This was her son. She had brought him forth in agony, and now he must suck. She pressed his lips to her breast.
"But he is dead!" said the midwife.
"No," his mother lied. "I felt him suck just now." Her lie was as milk to the baby, who really was dead but who now opened his dead eyes and began to kick his dead legs. "There, do you see?" And she made the midwife call the father in to know his son.
The dead boy never did suck at his mother's breast. He sipped no water, never took food of any kind, so of course he never grew. But his father, who was handy with all things mechanical, built a rack for stretching him so that, year by year, he could be as tall as the other children. When he had seen six winters, his parents sent him to school. Though he was as tall as the other students, the dead boy was strange to look upon. His bald head was almost the right size, but the rest of him was thin as a piece of leather and dry as a stick. He tried to make up for his ugliness with diligence, and every night he was up late practicing his letters and numbers. His voice was like the rasping of dry leaves. Because it was so hard to hear him, the teacher made all the other students hold their breaths when he gave an answer. She called on him often, and he was always right.
Naturally, the other children despised him. The bullies sometimes waited for him after school, but beating him, even with sticks, did him no harm. He wouldn't even cry out.
One windy day, the bullies stole a ball of twine from their teacher's desk, and after school, they held the dead boy on the ground with his arms out so that he took the shape of a cross. They ran a stick in through his left shirt sleeve and out through the right. They stretched his shirt tails down to his ankles, tied everything in place, fastened the ball of twine to a buttonhole, and launched him. To their delight, the dead boy made an excellent kite. It only added to their pleasure to see that owing to the weight of his head, he flew upside down.
When they were bored with watching the dead boy fly, they let go of the string. The dead boy did not drift back to earth, as any ordinary kite would do. He glided. He could steer a little, though he was mostly at the mercy of the winds. And he could not come down. Indeed, the wind blew him higher and higher.
The sun set, and still the dead boy rode the wind. The moon rose and by its glow he saw the fields and forests drifting by. He saw mountain ranges pass beneath him, and oceans and continents. At last the winds gentled, then ceased, and he glided down to the ground in a strange country. The ground was bare. The moon and stars had vanished from the sky. The air seemed gray and shrouded. The dead boy leaned to one side and shook himself until the stick fell from his shirt. He wound up the twine that had trailed behind him and waited for the sun to rise. Hour after long hour, there was only the same grayness. So he began to wander.
He encountered a man who looked much like himself, a bald head atop leathery limbs. "Where am I?" the dead boy asked.
The man looked at the grayness all around. "Where?" the man said. His voice, like the dead boy's, sounded like the whisper of dead leaves stirring.
A woman emerged from the grayness. Her head was bald, too, and her body dried out. "This!" she rasped, touching the dead boy's shirt. "I remember this!" She tugged on the dead boy's sleeve. "I had a thing like this!"
"Clothes?" said the dead boy.
"Clothes!" the woman cried. "That's what it is called!"
More shriveled people came out of the grayness. They crowded close to see the strange dead boy who wore clothes. Now the dead boy knew where he was. "This is the land of the dead."
"Why do you have clothes?" asked the dead woman. "We came here with nothing! Why do you have clothes?"
"I have always been dead," said the dead boy, "but I spent six years among the living."
"Six years!" said one of the dead. "And you have only just now come to us?"
"Did you know my wife?" asked a dead man. "Is she still among the living?"
"Give me news of my son!"
"What about my sister?"
The dead people crowded closer.
The dead boy said, "What is your sister's name?" But the dead could not remember the names of their loved ones. They did not even remember their own names. Likewise, the names of the places where they had lived, the numbers given to their years, the manners or fashions of their times, all of these they had forgotten.
"Well," said the dead boy, "in the town where I was born, there was a widow. Maybe she was your wife. I knew a boy whose mother had died, and an old woman who might have been your sister."
"Are you going back?"
"Of course not," said another dead person. "No one ever goes back."
"I think I might," the dead boy said. He explained about his flying. "When next the wind blows...."
"The wind never blows here," said a man so newly dead that he remembered wind.
"Then you could run with my string."
"Would that work?"
"Take a message to my husband!" said a dead woman.
"Tell my wife that I miss her!" said a dead man.
"Let my sister know I haven't forgotten her!"
"Say to my lover that I love him still!"
They gave him their messages, not knowing whether or not their loved ones were themselves long dead. Indeed, dead lovers might well be standing next to one another in the land of the dead, giving messages for each other to the dead boy. Still, he memorized them all. Then the dead put the stick back inside his shirt sleeves, tied everything in place, and unwound his string. Running as fast as their leathery legs could manage, they pulled the dead boy back into the sky, let go of the string, and watched with their dead eyes as he glided away.
He glided a long time over the gray stillness of death until at last a puff of wind blew him higher, until a breath of wind took him higher still, until a gust of wind carried him up above the grayness to where he could see the moon and the stars. Below he saw moonlight reflected in the ocean. In the distance rose mountain peaks. The dead boy came to earth in a little village.
He knew no one here, but he went to the first house he came to and rapped on the bedroom shutters. To the woman who answered, he said, "A message from the land of the dead," and gave her one of the messages. The woman wept, and gave him a message in return.
House by house, he delivered the messages. House by house, he collected messages for the dead. In the morning, he found some boys to fly him, to give him back to the wind's mercy so he could carry these new messages back to the land of the dead.
So it has been ever since. On any night, head full of messages, he may rap upon any window to remind someone - to remind you, perhaps - of love that outlives memory, of love that needs no names.

[Harli]

0o

[Dani]

Hmmm 0o besides being curled up in a ball..What else is he doing?

[Harli]

-pokes Aaron with telephone pole-

[Darkduskk]

He's sleeping. Looks like he's having one hell of a nightmare. Cold sweat and everything. Meh. I'm gunna scat for a bit and wake him - make sure he's alright and cuddle him for little bit. I'm all worried now.

Should be back in a little while, kids.

[Harli]

>3

-sticks out tongue-

Have fun you two.