Round and round a circlet of fire or water

Tapping into vague or clear energies

Broken wax on a sinless alter

Discerning the One Thing from plastic effigies

Solar figments hanging from a point of darkness

While the living walk in rigged fields of twisted allegories

A hallowed night to search tombs for frogtten contentedness

Because even the dead tell stories

January 9th, 2014 (Eric)

The New Year has just started and people are already calling me Tweedle Dumb. I feel like a somber, pitiless acorn falling from a tree to a never ending drop. My gut is wretched and my intestines coil like some constrictor out of another continent. I haven’t even written anything this year; not one sentence. And everyone is calling Laura Tweedle Dee. We’re always walking around together on campus getting called names from every passerby. It makes me sick, absolutely sick. To top it all off, we got rained on today on the way to grab something to eat. I had forgotten my umbrella. It’s always me that has the umbrella when we get caught in the rain. I was the one that messed up. I couldn’t help but wonder if Laura had spent time on her hair that morning, and if I had ruined it. I certainly hope not. That would ruin me.

Here’s to something better, Eric

January 9th, 2014 (Laura)

This is just the best start to a year that I have had yet. Actually, 2011 was probably the best. That was the year I met Eric. He was pouting mercilessly by a tree, sitting all alone, and I thought he just looked so funny. It was a terrifically beautiful day, and there he was summoning the dark lord with his facial expression. It was amazing. I ran up and asked what class he had first, and lo and behold, I had never heard of that class. In fact, I didn’t see him again until two semesters later. He occasionally would pass me in the hallways, or somewhere else on campus, giving me an evil eye that could have bewitched the sun into eternal darkness, and I would just laugh after he had passed. What a funny guy. But this year is almost as good as that year. I got to walk all around campus with Eric in the rain. It was absolutely amazing. My hair got wet, his hair got wet, and there were so many puddles. People had been calling us nicknames all day and it felt like we were a true pair. I just hope we end up going somewhere similar after we graduate. He feels like some part of me that I didn’t know until I met him.

We’ll see what happens, Laura

March 14th, 2014 (Eric)

Maybe things are getting better. No, they’re not. I might fail a really important class. Well, I’d have to do really bad for three weeks in a row to drop below a solid B+. Never mind. There really aren’t too many things externally off right now. I did make Laura unhappy the other day. It drove me to drink alone under a tree far away from campus in some field. I first met her while I was sitting under a tree you know. Earlier I told her that I didn’t want to move to New York. She has some opportunities to interview for some magazines as a writer. I told her the hustle and bustle and pure filth of that city was not for me. I even knew that she had loved that place since she was a kid and I still said that. She looked completely heart broken and just stared back at me for a little while. And then she walked away. I’m back at my dorm now, and you know what? I’m thinking maybe I can learn to like New York if it means she’ll never have to feel that way again.

Feeling better now, Eric

It had been knocking all night. Thump thump. Thump thump. I had been home alone all weekend, wondering where this sound was coming from. I chose the middle of the night to walk down into the basement with a torch. This was an old Victorian style home that belonged to my wife’s family going back generations. It was on our first date that she told me about some of the myths and legends surrounding the house--notably the game of hide n' seek where a kid from the surrounding area was never found during or after the game. His name was Sid. Sid Hornby. In the basement, there was a hatch that led by ladder down to a network of tunnels leading to various areas of the surrounding landscape. Around town there were manhole covers in different areas that these tunnels led to. I have never found out the original purpose of these tunnels, but many suspected that Sid Hornby tried to hide in the tunnels and got lost. The manhole that was the furthest distance away from the house was three miles out. Some believed that he climbed up one of the ladders and found himself lost, never to be found again. Or rather, never found by one of us. There was only one suspect in question while the police were thinking about a potential kidnapping. His name was Barnaby Winchester. He was a strange old man that lived alone at the end of Rat Street. On the day that Sid went missing nobody could provide an alibi for old Barnaby. He said he had gone to the store around the time that the game of hide and seek took place, but the young man that was working that day couldn’t remember him. The case was dropped when too little evidence was brought against him. Some say that he can occasionally be seen walking around town and abroad the landscape, sometimes near where the manhole covers lie, but I’ve never seen this, and others I know say that the old man stays in his house or goes to the store.

I made it to the bottom of the steps. The electricity in the basement had been out for a week. All I had was that torch. Somewhere there was dripping water. As a cold draft flew past me, a shiver went down my spine. Whatever lived down here didn’t know the sun. The ground was made of concrete and was cracked in many places. There were wooden beams to support the ceiling. They were covered in cobwebs that hung like silky strands of cloud. I started to wonder why I had even come down here in the first place. Was the sound really that important? I easily could have put on music, or the television, but my curiosity had gotten the best of me. I felt it might lead to my doom. I suddenly heard scuttling across the floor. I turned to my left and could have sworn I saw a dark figure darting into the shadows. My heart began to pound. I began to tremble. “H-hello?” No response. And then my blood turned to ice. Out of the corner of the basement, the form of a young boy crawling on all fours came out into the light of my torch. His eyes were bright red. He spoke, “…run.” Suddenly an old man came running out of the shadows right towards me. I fled upstairs. The second I was safely in the light I threw my torch back down at what I thought was the man. Something went up in flames. I slammed the door shut. And then it dawned on me—those wooden posts. Would the house somehow burn down? I did not know. All I knew was I just saw something…I didn’t want to think about it. I ran outside and looked back at the house. Something horrible, some horrible feeling was gripping me. Was that boy Sid? Was that old man Barnaby? I had no idea. I began to run away. I ran as fast as I could. And I never saw that house again.