Oh, by the way.

"This is my last gift to you motherfuckers before I blow my head off..."

He sits comfortably in his office, staring into the empty cityscape. The room looks out to the heart of the financial district in New York with nothing separating him from the rest of Manhattan but an inch or so of glass. The buildings in front of him are all empty-- strange considering the state of the economy. There's always someone working till sunrise, but coincidentally, not tonight. The street lights illuminate the view in front of him like a late 40's noir film as he calmly sips on his prized single malt scotch on the rocks that he proudly purchased when he made his first major deal. The asphalt of the streets are deep black while the city lights struggle to keep the surrounding darkness illuminated, almost as if they are desperately fighting the wicked shadows away. The cigarette between his index and middle finger, his fifth in the past ten minutes, is a only puff or two away from hitting the filter. On the stand next to his seat is a tape record, set to document every statement, mumble, or even stutter that he is able to make. And to the right of the recorder sits a loaded bronze revolver, a gift from his father-in-law for cheating his underlings out of millions in bonuses, successfully cutting overhead costs for the company to survive another day.

"I've sold my soul, but you assholes are no better than me. I had, and I have so much to give, but all of you just keep taking and taking. You're hungry for it as if you're the starving African kids you see in movies. No one believes in mutual benefit anymore. We're so damn hung up on the feeling we got the morning when we got to open Christmas presents when we were kids that we stopped caring about about the kid after us and you know we've already forgotten about the silly fucker before us. We're willing to tear apart the finer details, the wrapping paper, in order to get to the actual object itself. Did we ever care about the wrapping the first place? It was almost more fun to destroy the fucking gift wrap. We were and still are fucking godzillas preying on our victims. And fuck the person who was nice enough to go through the trouble of giving us a present-- they probably got it on sale anyway."

He forces the last gulp of the scotch down his throat while nodding his head to the smooth trumpet solo of Miles Davis.

"We always complain about how short life is and how we never have enough time to get anything important done while somehow, life is all we know. It's the longest thing that we will ever endure. I mean, it's scary, you know? The process of dying is not the scariest part, though. It's what happens after you die. We're all convinced that we're important. It's pretty goddamn reasonable, if you think about it. Our existence is the only thing that we can be fucking sure of. Descartes says, 'I think, therefore I am' while I say, 'I think, so fuck you.' But after we die, it's as if we were never here in the first place. So what the hell do the thing we do mean? Our dreams and aspirations, goals, and the suffering that we go through-- meaningless. Things go on, people do the same shit to each other over and over again. And trust me-- it's all the same shit. Lighten up and see it, come on, I believe in you even if nobody else fucking does. Actually, I was just fucking with you about that. I have no faith in you. I am killing myself because I've lost hope in mankind, after all."

"You've run me to the point of exhaustion. I tried playing your game, being the exception to your rules, and I simply can't do it anymore. I never wanted to be alone, even as a kid. I would beg until I shit in my pants for my only brother to play with me... and he was four years younger than me. That's right, imagine as my own feces marked my footsteps just as my shit words mark your memories of me. It wasn't until I didn't give a fuck about what others thought of me that I found my own identity. But even with this revelation, I still felt alone and I was never comfortable in my solitude. What better way to mark my independence than say goodbye forever? Is there a bigger, 'fuck you' than have you collect my brain from the wall?"

"Ow, fuck me." The cigarette has finally run its course and burns his finger. He flicks the bud, watching the ashes spark all over the glass.

"Oooh, how pretty," he says sarcastically. "Now let me make a simile about how life dwindles just like these sparks. I hate how some people have such a hard-on for finding meanings in things, whether it is cinema, literature, or life in general. Can't you just let it go and take it for what it is? While I understand that there are layers within subjects that must be scrutinized, it has become too much of an obsession for the wrong subjects. We have ceased to be interested in layers of ourselves, relying upon psychology and sciences to find general patterns of our being, and instead we have become addicted to analyzing artifacts of our expressions."

"Then on the other end of the spectrum, away from the rest of the pompous cocksuckers are the ones who I often wonder about the existence of their brains."

"... I forgot to tell you, this is to tell you what about and why I hate people."

He takes a sip of the scotch. By now, the taste of alcohol has stopped being apparent to his taste buds. He slouches slightly as his feet rest snugly on the coffee table in front of him. Comfortably numb from the alcohol and nicotine running through his veins, he takes a deep, smokeless breath, his first since he started talking, before he continues.

"I have a problem with incompetence. No, wait a second, I have a problem with the complacence of being incompetent. Half of the time, the attempt itself goes a long way. While I believe that there are certainly external factors that hind one's ability to see and be in touch with oneself, if you're not in control of yourself-- what the fuck are you in control of? You can't expect everyone to wipe your ass, and nobody-- and I mean nobody likes a whiner. If you're not willing to help yourself, you bet your ass that people are just going to leave you in the water and get mauled by the gigantic shark trying to bite your balls off. And trust me, you want your fucking balls close to you."

"Building up a wall to see who cares enough to break them down is bullshit. It's a self-assurance tactic to check that your left tit isn't hanging and touching your knee. There are way too many social expectations and conducts to follow. To be honest, I never had time to round the corners. Self-admittedly, sometimes the most straightforward thing is not the most practical or even effective plan. But fuck it, if the glove fits."

"We fucking love taking apart the world and fence ourselves in. It's a part of this territorial hunger that is embedded within our being. We enclose ourselves through social groups, occupations, interests, and try to justify it with whatever reason. I see no problem in handling the world in bite-sized pieces, but only if you don't lose sight in the larger picture. It's like Halloween candy-- your trick-or-treat stash looks pretty awesome when they're piled together, but you never know where to start. So you start finding the things you like: the fun-sized Starbursts, Crunch bars, Snickers , and everything familiar. Eventually you pick out all the ones you know you like and by the time you finish those, the other ones are now old and no good. You never got to try the Three Musketeers or Now and Laters... and fuck me, those are the best ones."

He sets the scotch glass down, and reaches for the cigarette pack. It's now an empty package. He pours the leftover down his esophagus and takes a deep breath as a closes his eyes. The air has never smelled so sweet and his shoulders have never felt so relaxed.

"Oh yeah, the million dollars is buried in..."

Click

Property of someone else

"Who so Pulleth Out This Sword of this Stone and Anvil, is Rightwise King Born of All England."

The bitter cold that the Christmas season brings is forgotten every year not because of the jolly spirit, but rather for the yearly jousting tournament that happens on New Year's Eve. The houses and cottages are empty as the townspeople gather in its central square. The work horses rest peacefully in their perspective stalls and brittle leaves gently sweep the dusty city streets. Branches on the trees dance swiftly to the rhythm of mother nature. The sun seems to shine brighter today, dutifully looking over the small, medieval English town as their protector and nurturer.

The radiant light couldn't be a bigger hassle to Lucien. Bruised, famished, and discouraged, he hides in the darkest corner he could find as beads of sweat slowly drip down his dried, muddied skin. Distraught at his own incompetence, he can think of nothing to do but to stare blankly into the distance. His gaze focused into nothing until everything in front of him became a blur. Today is the day that our young protagonist experienced a taste of heartbreak.

It all started off as a curious glance months ago to a forgotten challenge, a promise that has gone unnoticed from the passing of time. The sword stuck deep into the stone shot a blinding glare into Lucien's eyes one day as he strolled casually down the street. Before this incident, he had always dismissed the sword in the stone as an impossible task as the noblest men all across England have tried and failed to reach their goal. But this time it was different. A spark of hope mixed with curious infatuation ignited within him as if the sword had slithered into his heart and taken the liberty to make itself comfortable in its new home.

In the next upcoming months, the sword's attraction had taken a toll on Lucien. While he didn't necessarily live and breathe for the sword, he simply could not get it off his mind. Every mundane task related back to its brilliance. He would have trouble falling asleep and when he finally drifted off to another world, he would dream the most exciting, vivid dreams of the adventures that would never happen only to wake up with a head full of sweat and a startling splash of disappointment. He tried to forget because he knew that the sword was a useless thought that would get him nowhere fast, but something, whether it is his tragic sense of idealism or the simple of his being lonely, always pulled him back.

The sword stood statically within the stone, always. If you ask Lucien, however, he could have sworn that it budged at least once or twice.

Fast forward to present time, a boy known to his peers as "Wart" frantically roams the street towards the local inn to retrieve a forgotten sword only to find the door locked. Out of the corner of his eye, the same sparkle that had caught Lucien's eyes many months ago now catches his. Fast forward to future time, he becomes the once and future king.

And Lucien gets left behind, because the sword was never his to take.

Munition as my ammunition

With a wall broken down comes the arrival of stronger, sturdier, and most importantly, more permanent fortifications that take the original's place. The Great Wall of China was first built by rammed earth but when it eroded and failed, resulting great damages to crops and exposing the great empire to potentially devastating invasions, it was repaired and expanded upon by tougher bricks and stones. This cycle continued for centuries. The barrier protected ambitious warlords and mad dictators from disturbing the development of a sustained group of people.

But the materials that forms this palisade are pain, hurt, and affliction. It's built on a foundation of regret, false hopes, and unmet expectations. The very blocks that forms its shape are of disappointment and insecurities.
And the wall just keeps extending.
With each successive fracture comes the abundance of raw matter. The sacrifice for its existence is undeniable.

Because the people need to be protected.
That's why the wall is there, right?

Or are we just paranoid? Philosophers have long argued the elemental nature of man: benign, blank, or wicked. What if the invaders are the brilliant geniuses that shall help a civilization flourish and ignite the dream-- the single definitive dream of a civilization's existence. Ironically enough, it's a primitive fantasy that we have known and some argue, the only thing that we know. But it's an ideal, and arn't ideals suppose to be subjective?

Is the dream subjective?

What if that end does not exist or even scarier, it exists but is unachievable.

There would also be the assumption and misguided premise that the people are better left alone, and nobody is okay alone.

Either way, the creation of a wall, however necessary and however miniscule, serves as a source of protection.

And it's all that I've got.