The hulking mass of oak and fiber drifted closer as Procul propped a leg up on the wall of the ship. The Spanish vessel clunked ever-so-slightly into Procul's ship with a dull thud, and a slight rock passed across the ships. Two crewmen immediately came to their capitan's side as he stepped up and over into the foreign vessel. His crewmen vaulted over, running on all sides throughout the ship. Procul examined the yolk for a bit: a brass handle inside two metal rings, pivoting on different axes. He turned, and sauntered into the still-open entrance to the Capitan's Chamber.

The chamber was decorated lavishly. A bookcase with old, leather-bound tomes: "Cien Anos de Soledad," "The Illustrated History of Airships," and others with which Procul was unfamiliar. A green, leather reclining chair next to an electric-lamp. And a high-backed fabric chair at his desk! A beautiful chair: light red fabric with intricately woven white flowers on all ends. Procul ran his fingertips over it, feeling the woven flowers protrude gently. The young boy who picked daisys for his mother emerged in his breast. The memory of scent emerged. Scent other than damp steam and evening sky--

He turned his head away, hoisting himself to his feet. A tall draw, half as high as Procul himself, immediately drew his attention. He pulled the handle. It refused. Procul reached inside his coat and drew his service dagger, checking the hilt. The iron was certainly sturdy enough. With a quick jerk and a loud crack, he smashed the butt of his dagger into the wood. A whole appeared, through which a glimmer of glass was visible. His heart quickened. He smashed the draw again, again again, until finally the lock was merely decoration. He drew the instrument out.

A large phonograph horn with an exagerated bowl at the end was the first thing he noticed. It was red and shiny, similar to the one he had stolen from the French vessel. However, there was no space for vinyl in this device: the horn connected to the surface, on which a circular phosphorous screen lay above the decorated wooden chamber. There was a hand-crank on the right side. Procul ran his fingers over the sides of the device, and then clenched the handle. Slowly, he began to crank it.

The screen showed signs of life. In his excitement, Procul began to turn the crank faster. Steadily, the screen began to show a bright green dot, and the phonograph horn began to rotate. He continued to crank. The green dot became two, smaller green dots, right in the center of the screen. The dots pulsated, brighter and dimmer. Procul let go of the handle. The handle spun for a second or two more as the screen faded away and the horn slowly came to a halt.

Procul sat back. He put the tip of his index finger above his lip as his other fingers found their way below.

Procul's mind was usually as close to completely silent as is possible. If there was ever a thought in it, it was a thought Procul approved of. He was capable of devoting his entire mind to a single thought if need be, or devoting it to no thought at all if he thought it better. This was the true secret of his soft eyes.

A loud thump came from the doorway. "Sir?"

"Yes Smithen?"
"There's nothing here. No gin, no copper."
"That's alright. Smithen, can you show your gentler side and help me carry this broken phonograph to my Chamber?"

"Right away." Smithen scurried off. Procul watched as the ship drew slowly closer. The balloon of the craft was green, and the belly was a dark oak. A carving of a sword was affixed to the hull, with the words "auctorita ex gladie." Procul pondered the motto for a bit until he was interrupted with the re-appearance of a rank smell.

"We're ready, sir." Smithen held a musket in one hand and a wool sack filled with iron pellets in the other. Procul nodded to him. Smithen, though dull, was accustomed to Procul's signals, and stood still. No one, however, could stand quite a still as Procul. He was a statue dressed in a wig and a coat: his hair and Captain's uniform flapped in the gentle winds.

"Wait for my count," spoke Procul to Smithen. The Spanish vessel was coming closer. He could see a dark green figure at a yolk. "Load." Smithen bashed his foot against the floor. Clicks, snaps, and the skidding of metal on metal came from all over the ship. Procul saw the green figure's glasses glinting bright white. "Aim." Smithen bashed his foot twice. A creak from below, then silence.

The glint in the figure's face disappeared. Procul saw two eyes now, brown and commanding. He saw them gaze into his own, and then he saw them leave: they moved downwards. These eyes soon registered the black and deep red of Procul's overcoat: these eyes raised their respective eyebrows. The figure's right side flinched no more than a hair. A tiny, incalculable movement existing more in nuance than in reality.

"Fire." Smithen gave a barbaric yalp. Blasts echoed across the empty sky as splinters flew from the oak vessel. Two men in propelled-gliders whooshed over Procul's head, whirring as they soared onto the hostile deck. They released their legs from the gliders, touched their feet to the deck, and released their arms, letting the wood and fabric frame skid to a halt. One drew a musket, one a knife, pointing them at the Spanish Capitan. He shot his hands up in the air, confused. The knife-wielding crewman yanked his arm and dragged him from the yolk, as the muskett-wielder came to the controls and gently accelerated the vessel.

"Good work," Procul muttered. "Extra land time for everyone."

And his mind drifted upwards to meet the thuds of his tree-branch, all the way into the starry night as he drifted gently to sleep.

Far up in that sky and far East, where the sun was still shining, Procul held a dulled, brass compass in his left hand, his deep, red overcoat flapping in the high winds above the soft, peach-colored clouds. He gazed at his compass, turning his body slightly and watching the compass adjust itself. He stood proudly, his chest in the air, pivoting his body back and forth.
"Permission, sir?" a short man with a gruff beard asked. Procul nodded. "Why aren't we going anywhere?"
"We're waiting."
"For what, sir?"
"It's a surprise." The gruff man cleared his throat far too loudly to be socially acceptable. With the engines turned off, the deck of the ship was almost silent except for the hiss of steam from deeper in the ship's body. A shrill caw echoed through the air, and a large white bird emerged from the orange sky, and drifted gracefully onto the brass yolk of the ship, right next to the short, gruff man, who eyed the bird cautiously. Procul snapped the compass shut, putting in the breast pocket of his overcoat.

Suddenly, a sharp hiss sounded from the distance. A large aerocraft, much larger than Procul's, drifted a few hundred yards away. The Spanish flag flapped vigorously on the side of the ship.
"Smithen, release the aft valve," he said calmly.
"Sir?"
"Release the valve /please/, Smithen," he corrected himself. The gruff man pulled (with some effort) a lever next to him, causing the bird to ruffle her feathers. Smoke began to pour out the side of the airship. Procul quickly wiped one of his blonde locks out of his face, grabbed a long tube with a tin cone at the end, and placed the cone to his mouth. He cleared his throat.
"Your attention pleaze! Ze Glorious Nashion of France humbly requests asiztance from her Majesty's most powerful Spain! Pleaze azzist our vessel!" His voice was projected tinnily across the air.
"Sir, you speak French?"
"That was not actually French, Smithen," replied Procul. A moment passed. A horn sounded from the distant vessel, and steam ceased emanating from one of its two rear valves. It's starboard engine stopped, and the ship began to slowly rotate. "Smithen, go grab a gun and tell the crew to get ready."

An airship captain with a large white bird as a pet? Not an owl... more majestic. He's a pirate of sorts, I suppose, in an age that never was...

I'm thinking that he, the shepard, and the boy will re-occur in TBW. Your thoughts?

In the soft moonlight, a series of quick, dull thuds drifted up from the chilly grass into the desolate space above.

A young boy, armed fiercely with a stick, his earth-colored hound dancing excitedly around him, chasing his own tail, exhilarated by the change in daily routine. The boy swung his stick around, fending off invisible tribesmen, scampering about the fields outside his cottage. He cut, slashed, stabbed. The hound danced as the boy did: biting, prancing, stepping up on his hind legs and crashing back to earth again. The moon painted the world black, green, gray. The light played off the boy's fair skin; it glimmered on his ferocious weapon, a warning shot to the heavens. Soon both man and beast were panting and tired, and so they plopped themselves down.

Keeran felt a damp coldness through the seat of his ragged pants. He realized just how wet the grass was. His hound didn't seem to mind, and he curled up next to his master, his mouth open, his tongue bobbing up and down with each pant. He lied down on his back, gazing up at the brilliant stars.

"The world is quiet here," thought Keeran to himself.

If you haven't read my email yet, read that first.

-----------------------

You said to not get hung up on the "sorry"s, but I do have a few of them, so I'll put them here. If they tire you (and I'm sure they do), just skip this part. I just wanted to put it down.

I'm sorry I hurt you, obviously. But I'm sorry I was defensive, too. I'm sorry I even asked why it hurt, because it was so fxcking obvious, and that was a stupid question. I'm sorry for even telling you that you sounded heavy, because I should have known right after I said it that it was stupid. You know I never mean to hurt you, but I've been annoying enough to make you frustrated with me twice now, and I swear I'll do everything possible to make sure I don't make you frustrated or hurt anymore. I think it's more or less inevitable that I'm stupid occasionally, though. But I always try to be as perfect as possible for you. I've never said that to anyone. I've never tried to be perfect for anyone, and I've never told anyone I'd change for them. My attitude is usually "I'll never change for you." But for you, I'll change anything you tell me to. I'll do anything you tell me to do.

-------------------------

Midori Wada: YO!

Midori Wada: HI!
Midori Wada: sup?
Nick Merrill: not so much
Nick Merrill: adam's coming over in like an hout
Nick Merrill: hour*
Midori Wada: cool cool
Nick Merrill: yes
Nick Merrill: how's tokya
Nick Merrill: ...
Nick Merrill: tokyo*
Midori Wada: good one
Midori Wada: lol

SO cute.

Nick Merrill: i'm about to finish half life 2:
Nick Merrill: :D
Midori Wada: nice"
Midori Wada: *!
Midori Wada: tell me when you finish.
Nick Merrill: k
Nick Merrill: done
Nick Merrill: oh man
Midori Wada: nice!
Nick Merrill: that was the coolest ending of a game EVER.

It was the coolest. For real.

It's funny when I look back at old convos with people because my sense of humor was always different. With you I'm not sure I liked how my sense of humor was. It's always nice, I guess, to like yourself better now. In my case it's more or less a given because I have you in my life, but I distinctly remember looking back at convos during the time after Sarah broke up with me and thinking how I liked myself better before, if only a little. But no, I can honestly say I'm much better than I was before, no matter how stressed I am about finals. Because we love each other.

Forever.

Do you think I could be fluent in Japanese and good enough in writing to make it into Japanese IV Honors by my senior year? Do you think going to Japan with you for a week or so next year will do the trick?

--

I
This morning I awoke and heard
a tiny, half-black bird who found
her perch on my windowsill,
who chirped and sang until
she fled from fear of being still.
Most men have, I fear, been told
it's best to grin, and hold a peace
with an ungrateful fate
(and though for them it's far too late)
I think that fate is kind and fair
if you just realize why it's there.

Please don't let this make you sad. I'm telling you because I promised never to keep anything from you even if I don't know what it was myself, and I want to work it through with you. And if you turn this into "you shouldn't be with me" I'll be angry, so don't.

Ever since I got your email that one morning saying "that's an interesting way to look at things" I've just gotten a sinking feeling in my stomach whenever I talk to you. I love you more than anything. You're wonderful and perfect to me.. so that's probably part of why I'm upset. But I don't get what could be making me upset... I know you've noticed. I had trouble even responding to your email this morning.

I hope this doesn't ruin your day. If this interferes with your work I'll be mad at myself.

I love you, and I always will. I mean that.

You asked how to sell music:

Originally, putting music on a medium and selling the medium worked. The trouble began when the medium was irrelevant: now, the content and the medium are separable from one another, and the content can be transfered without medium. The reason piracy is an issue is because the content can no longer be controlled, and because the label industry is addicted to the concept of the medium.

The solution proposed currently is digital rights management, or DRM. The idea is to put limits on how exactly the content can be enjoyed; for example, The iTunes DRM allows the music to be played on a computer which is "authorized" by password to play it, it may be burned to a CD a certain number of times, and cannot be played on an unauthorized computer. Back in the first days of the iTunes Music store, the DRM was cracked very quickly by hackers, and a new DRM would be release, quickly followed by a brand new exploit to crack. The DRM has gotten better: after about 4 years, it has gotten to the point where it takes about 4 months to crack a new DRM. Superficially, the battle may seem to be between defective execution and the people who exploit it, but this is untrue: it is the battle between defective design and the unavoidable demographic of people who will be convinienced by the limitations of DRM. From a purely technical standpoint, DRM can never be succesful simply because consumers will resort to increasingly primitive ways to circumvent it, the simplest method being placing a microphone in front of one's speakers and recording. DRM is having a gumball machine with the top open. It is a broken idea.

Unfortunately, the medium and the content have been seperated for good. The internet is far too pervasive and the people who use it are far too clever. So why do people still buy CDs at all? Here's a better question: why does nobody pirate books? Some people would probably say its because less people read books or, at least, less people who are inclined to pirate something via the internet read books. Perhaps this is true. However, I read books, and I pirate music and movies. Why do I buy books but I don't buy music or movies? Let me tell you:

There's a writer named Cory Doctrow. You've probably never heard of him. He's the son of an accomplished novilist. He writes science fiction books and gives them away on the internet, and he sells printed copies as well. I read his first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, before internet piracy was an issue at all. I downloaded it for free and read it. The truth is, reading on my computer screen was crappy. It sucked. I read the book, but the experience of reading the book really sucked. So I went out and bought the book from his site. I knew the book was shitty. I had read the book, I had noticed it was shitty, but I had to have the shitty book in its tangible form. Why? Becuase I was getting something more. I got the feeling of the paper in my hands, I got the luxury of lying in my swiviling chair by my window and propping the book on my knee as I read it. The book was still shitty, but I payed Cory Doctrow 12.00 dollars.

Obviously people still buy CDs. But if you asked those people why, it's probably because they really like the band and the little piece of paper you get with it is important to them somehow. It adds to the experience. However, the vast majority of consumers are not getting anything more. Whether they buy the CD, get it from the DRM'd version from the iTunes music store, or pirate it, they experience the music in the excact same way: they listen to it with their computers or on their iPods. Buying music or movies does not give the consumer anything more, whereas buying a book does.

I'm not a fan of Nine Inch Nails. I wouldn't say Trent Reznor is untalented, I'm just not personally a fan. I am a fan, however, of Lao Tze. Lao Tze was born in China 5000 years before the internet or music piracy, but apparently Trent Reznor is familiar with his stuff. Trent Reznor put certain tracks from his upcoming album, Year Zero, and put them on thumb drives (DRM free!) and hid the thumb drives at concerts. Bit by bit, tracks were leacked individually. Pretty soon, the entire album was circulating throught the Internet, DRM free, and with no coorporation behind it. Reznor said:

"The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want — DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it."

By April, Reznor had the entire album available free to stream on the internet. In March, Reznor released a multitrack source file of one of the songs in Garageband format for anyone in the world to remix. The CD was finally released on thermo-dynamic chrome disk which was black upon purchase and, when played through the CD drive, the heat created by the computer erased the black paint to reveal a message:

"Consuming or spreading this material may be deemed subversive by the United States Bureau Of Morality. If you or someone you know has engaged in subversive acts or thoughts, call:
1-866-445-6580
BE A PATRIOT - BE AN INFORMER!"

The album has scored 2 on Billboard 200, 2 on United World, and 1 on Billboard Rock.

So if you want to sell music, give it away. [That's what Lao Tze would tell you.] The trick to getting people to buy it is to give them something else. Think outside the disc.

Unfortunately, balloons did not carry small boys to faraway kingdoms.

Keeran lived with his wretched mother, and he went to school with his wretched schoolteacher and his overwhelmingly wretched classmates. Of all the classmates, there was one boy less wretched than the others. A fourteen-year-old, already learning about geometry, the boy did not dare approach him. It was common social knowledge that boys who know geometry are not to be approached.

One Tuesday morning, with the sky still pale gray and the grass still wet and slippery (the sort of grass that made one's feet itchy), Keeran found a small tulip growing from the grass. Tulips in winter, even late winter, were unheard of. Struck in awe in the way only a small boy could, Keeran picked the tulip (since all beautiful things are meant to be snatched up, after all) and trotted along to the schoolhouse.

Upon arriving, he sat in his seat near the front of the room, listening to his wretched classmates jeer in the background. He sat spinning the tulip between his fingers, when he heard a deep voice behind him.

"A tulip in winter, eh?"

Keeran turned to find a fourteen-year-old standing to his right. He stood still, paralyzed in fear of the boy's knowledge of triangles and other regular shapes.

"I'm Samuel," the boy said.

"to show that the world isn't so serious"

----

The shepherd, while distraught, was always the entrepreneur. His flock may have (quite literally) vanished into thin air, but his relentless capitalist exploitation was just beginning.

He placed a bucket in front of his door, nailing a sign to his weathered, wooden walls: "Put your sheep outside and wait for a bit. I promise they will vanish eventually. One ducat per sheep in the milk bucket. Honor system."

----

Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths.

We have to write an autobiography for our deans, but when I sat down to write something, all I could think about was meeting you. I love you. I don't want you to be so apologetic. I'll tell you if you do something that irks me.

You never have to guess with me.

Sorry to have gone so long... I'm back now, though.

Faeber was Drystan's father. He was not Drystan's real father. Drystan did not know his real parents. He was a findenkilth, a bastard child. [lit: found-child, old Armourian] Faeber raised Drystan as his own child. Yet, despite Faeber's presence, he was in many ways as absent as Drystan's birth parents: Faeber, when he suspected his own thoughts may be more interesting than his surroundings, would tuck his circular, straw hat over his eyes so that one could just see the rough stubble over his weathered, darkened skin, and he would begin to wander and, when one begins to wander, it is often very difficult to stop. It is easy to lose track of one's wandering and lift one's straw hat up to find oneself in a completely foreign place, where people walk on their hands and have very dexterous toes to farm with. Usually, this is when Faeber realized he had fallen asleep. Sleep crawled up easily on Faeber. Aderyn suspected it was because the difference between Faeber's dreams and his waking life was slight, if there was a difference at all. When he did retire for the day, though, coming into his modest living room in the late afternoon, he would light his pipe, and remove his straw hat to reveal his wavy, lightly matted brown hair and his bright, piercing blue eyes. It was the alliance between his eyes and his voice that made his story-telling special. He would recline in his chair as Aderyn and Drystan sat cross-legged on the floor, and his eyes would dart between the two of them as a squirrel between branches of a tree. And his voice, the voice of a man who has been smoking since childhood, was rolling thunder over the farmland, threatening to those caught under its wrath while still placid, soothing those safely beneath a roof, lulling them to gentle sleep.

I had so much fun talking to you in Japanese today. We need to do that more often. Writing and learning from written words is a really great way to build vocab.

I love you.

I can't help but be concerned for you, but I understand when you don't want to talk about stuff. You know how much I love you, and I'm pretty much positive you love me the same, so I'll trust you on anything. You never have to thank me for understanding.

-------

At Operation Gratitude I was among The Others. The women with the blonde hair and the child-bearing hips, and the men with the portly build and American flag shirts. All of them screaming "support the troops" when they really want to say "kill the infidels." Four hours of stamping boxes, you cap yourself. You sedate yourself from the inside out, dressing up with that quiet optimism that helps you blend in.

But inside it was thoughtcrime. Looking at the "What are you doing for your country?" pamphlet, I could have smirked but... that would have been facecrime. God knows what would have happened. I could see it in them: "Jesus, guns, and the USA." (preferably in that order.)

Since when did you and I become thoughtciminals? we just don't belong.

Ever since you sent me the picture of the thousand cranes you made for C, I swore to do everything in your best interest just like my mother does for me, because you deserve to have someone like that. I want to sing you every lullabye your mother never sang to you, hold once for you every time your mother should've. I want to give you that feeling I got when I thought about watching Winnie the Pooh cartoons with you. I want to put you to sleep with a sweet, soft song and make you feel
completely
healed.

---------------------
Edit: 12.04

I had a dream where we were older and you were seeing another guy, and you graduated from college and decided to stay with the guy instead of me. I woke up crying, and it was unusually hard to convince myself that it wasn't real.