Tales of Destruction, part III   
09:48pm 27/05/2003
  Once upon a time, I was walking along the highway. It was a cold and dark night, and not a thing alive could be seen. The nearest town was 4 miles away, but that was not exactly where I was heading. For my road didn't have really a target. I walked numbly, the relization that there was really no solution, just as there was no end to this road. My mind was blank and I was tired, but I relly couldn't feel anything at all, except for eternal sadness. I had lost something, and I didn't know what it was, but I knew there was no way I could find it again, that something for me was lost forever. My life seemed like a blank page to me, empty and thoughtless.
And at this point of the story, there should happen something to change the flow of all things, there should be someone I would meet, and he would tell me that there really is a reason for everything, or something would happen to make me understand and remember what it was I had lost. But it didn't happen. I was as alone as I wanted to be, because even if something like that happened, then deep within, I would have known it was a lie. Just a smokescreen, an illusion.
And tears started flowing down my face, seemingly without a reason, the tears of relief. Something was lost, for something else to be gained, my old temples had been burnt down, for new ones to be built. I had learned to let go something that had never been mine. The pain was sweet, and it taught me how to be strong, how to never cry again. And since that, I never have.		  
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Tales of Destruction, part II   
03:32am 11/05/2003
  Once upon a time in the very heart of a metropolis under the city lights, there lived a very intelligent and marvelous lady. She had climbed the stairs of life that had lead her from the lowest places in New York downtown to the highest skycrape in Manhattan. Maria was a strong woman, one she had to be to be what she was now. In a way, she was the Cindarella of the City.

And for all she had learned, for all she had done in her short life, there were two people she thanked the most of all, and those were her parents. Her father, an unemployed alcaholic who left her mother when Maria was eleven and was found dead shortly after, and her poor mother, a waitress in a nearby bar, depressed and histerycal woman. The typical story around the block. What she learned from both of them was to never repeat their mistakes, with one little difference from the others who promised the same - when all the others slipped, she didn't. Never ever would she go back in the dirt. And also one last advice that her drunk mother had given her at the time when her father had left them: "True love doen't exist, my child. It only destroys your dreams and hopes, love takes everything from you and leaves nothing. Just look at me."

Years had passed, and this Maria remembered. The only men she spent time with were the ones who were able to get her one step higher than she was. Never did she feel neither love nor affection towards a man, yet never did Maria feel lonely or incomplete. And she climbed higher and higher.

Until once, there appeared at the great oak door of her elegant office Alex, a man with eyes so penetrating she found hard to resist his invitation. But she did, just as she rejected him every time he claimed his love for her. Just once, he told her that if she'd say she didn't love him and she wished him to leave her, he would. Then, Maria said: "I do love you, you know. But I will never be with you." And Alex stayed near her, proposing her every day, and every day she said no.

A year after, he died in an car accident. In his funeral, Maria stayed at the church a little bit longer, and asked the priest, just as she would have when she'd been a little girl. "My mother loved, and my father destroyed her life. I chose not to, and I have destroyed my life myself. It was me who was buried in that grave. So what is the answer?"

The priest looked at her sadly and said, "There aren't answers to everything, my child." And he left her at the alone in the church, the Cindarella of the city.		  
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Tales of Destruction, part I   
10:54pm 08/05/2003
  Once, there was a faraway village high in the mountains, where life was calm and peaceful, and people were as happy and satisfied as they thought it was possible to be. The village was far and distant from others, so the only ones who ever came there were lonely wanderers and monks, who slept their night and left before the sun rose again. Whenever the rare ocassion came, and an earthquake came tumbling down, destroying their homes and cattle, they hid in the secret caves inside the mountain. When the disaster was over, the people came out of the caves and looked at their ruined homes, mourned the loved ones they had lost, and then thanked the skies for the ones who were alive. They rebuilt their homes anew, made sacrifices to the skies, and never ever in their lives asked for the reason why this had come to them. And so they lived for many centuries, in peace and harmony.

But as the village stayed the same, the world had moved on. And there came a time when the villagers didn't have a choice if they wanted to face it or not.

One night, when the skies were darkest and the stars couldn't be seen, a tribe of assassins and thieves on wild horses rode in the village with bows and swords. People, who had always lived in harmony and had never seen any horse or metal, thought they were sent by the skies and had a message for the people, so they didn't hide in the caves but instead came to greet the strangers. But the hunters didn't feel compassion or show mercy, they killed every man and woman to the last, stole their belongings and burnt down their houses, until there was nothing left.

Only two had lived through the night, two fair-haired boys who had ran away, into the forest. In the morning, they stood on the end of the forest and watched the rain silence the last flames on the smoking ruins of their homes in a quiet apprehension. The view was something of another reality. And then the younger boy turned his head to his brother standing beside him. He wanted to speak, but somehow the words didn't come over his lips. Instead, his brother whispered quietly, his gaze still on the ruins.

"We were weak, and now we have been made stronger. Nothing will be the way it was before, and that was what the skies wanted to tell us. We were blind, and now we can see. And for the first time, I do not know either to be thankful or not."

Then, both boys went into the forest, and hunted the last sacrifice for the skies. When it was done, they left the village and never came back.		  
      2 storytellers - tell me a story
 
Confessions   
05:00pm 08/05/2003
  I watch the blood drip down your skin
And I sigh, because I know you’re alive.

Only when letting go all the negative emotions people show who they really were inside. Anger, tears, cruelty, depression. Only then they allowed themselves to be who they really are, only then all masks and walls came tumbling down, whether they are conscious or not. Then, you can see their souls.

Because everyone has their own demons within, their own skeletons in the closet. No matter what they say, everyone has something they want to hide from the sun, from the eyes of everyone. And that thing, that something is never a sweet and positive thing. It’s a devilish, sinful, unforgivable emotion.

For such a long time, she hadn't felt anything. Unconsciously, she had built her own wall. But then, she realized there was nothing for the wall to guard. Inside, it is empty. As time passes, she had just stopped caring. Stopped feeling so many things.

And if she couldn’t feel, she would feel through them.		  
      3 storytellers - tell me a story
 
 
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