Sin City

Posted by Otto Robba in Prose on 27. Oct, 2009 | No Comments

They tried to chain me up and throw away the key. Enslave me and kill my spirit.
Bastards.

I choked them with the very chains they tried to use, peering into their lifeless eyes as the realized their situation, gasping for an air they could not have it. Maybe now this means I’m a criminal and seeing as how I feel no regret, I might even be considered a psychopath. So be it.

Living in a forsaken city such as this one doesn’t really entice fighting for what is right nor for freedom and when crooks are the lawmakers, is abiding by the law right at all?

All I know is that I had scores to settle and someone was going down tonight and it was either me or him. I’m sure as hell that it will be him.

Is Anybody There?

Posted by Otto Robba in Prose on 10. Oct, 2009 | No Comments

If we know it is all an illusion, why do we believe in magic? It is because we want to. Maybe it is a way to see the world through a different point of view, one that allows a sliver of fantasy to permeate the air and make us wonder “How did he do that?”. Maybe we are so appalled by our own frail and fallible existence that we want to believe there is something… more, something magical.

When you experience magic, you are not truly witnessing an illusion but a different thing altogether. You are staring death in the face and saying that you will live through it, you are telling yourself that loved ones that have passed away are still with you, you are telling yourself that there is, simple as that, magic.
After taking a look at life can we really say that there is no magic out there?

Sometimes life presents to us strangers that we will hate only to love after and then hate again, or maybe it will introduce us to people we seem to think are shallow only to find that, in reality, they are like us, all too human and too afraid, maybe they need to see more magic, maybe they need to witness a bit of the wonder of the illusion and laugh a little at life – and death. To understand that we are not a single piece on a lone puzzle but all part of an intricate and elaborate chain, we are the links to our past and, as the Iroquois would have it, we are the ones who must attend our children’s land until they can attend that of their own kids.

We are not a single person. We are young, we are old, we embrace the arcane and the cutting-edge. We are naive and jaded, we live by contradictions trying to find home, trying to give life meaning, trying to find for ourselves the right trick so that one might look back in life with no regrets. We will cry, we will laugh, we will change opinions, we will sway – some more, some less – as life whims it. And as those before us have it, so will we, as will those that come after us.

Maybe I’m a silly bugger for knowingly embracing the magic act but I’ll be damned if life isn’t all about making connections or rather, the human connection. At the end of the day, when asking myself to an empty room “Is Anybody There?”, I know that no answer will come because the room is empty and all it can tell me is that there is no such things as ghosts and magic. But if I shout it through my window… an angry neighbor will most definitely reply and we will both know we are not alone and that our actions… they carry on like ripples on a lake.
Seeing the power every choice we make carries, can anyone really say that there is no such thing as magic?

The Young Baroness

Posted by Otto Robba in Prose on 23. Sep, 2009 | No Comments

She tried to find the exit sign but oh, there was no sign of it, anywhere. She expected to be sure and reassured but oh, it was all for naught. He knew her all too well and, while she might have eluded others, he could see right through her veiled secrets. She was so tired of never letting go, it had been a long year since she had last put her head on the pillows to actually get some sleep.

She wondered if he was just a hallucination caused by the lack of sleep but again, she knew it was for naught because he was all too real. She screamed and ran trying to get out but there was nowhere to go – trapped in a daydream inside her own mind, alone with him.

Lord listen to love, she is losing life, the alliteration of all the things she won’t, wouldn’t and didn’t.
She won’t listen, she wouldn’t love and she didn’t live. And for this we are all forever afflicted.

Bravado

Posted by Otto Robba in Prose on 07. Sep, 2009 | No Comments

The sand runs down on my worn out clothes. Rugged hands, leather gloves. I stare into the horizon to face my enemy, he stares back in disdain. The town is quiet with speechless folks staring at a true horror show, the debacle of human condition, soon to be forgotten. This was not just a firefight, this was the end of an era.

Our glances met before we could withdraw the firearms and we knew, we knew it was too late. The dust would corroborate our history but not this moment, not our glory. That would be left alone for the bystanders, for all there that did not dare to take action and just stood… gazing into a scene that was over all too soon.

We fell apart, exposing our human condition as we bleed to death on the dirt, the Sun burning the skin on our bones. But midnight would come and we would rise to fight again. It was the ballad of the Western Night, it was our way to fight the good fight. And as each speckle of dust flew, so did the story. As candle-light burnt, so did our glory.
We were real characters of fiction.

Burn Alive

Posted by Otto Robba in Prose on 23. Aug, 2009 | No Comments

The rain poured from the skies, the grass once dry was now drowning in irony. The Dark Horseman came riding towards the Widow, climbing down from his mount only to bow before her in a quick and formal manner. He stood up and looked straight into her eyes and, without faltering, said:

-I made a promise to come back here today, so, you see, I had to come back here. Today, not a day later.

-But that was a promise you made when we were just kids, surely you mustn’t hold onto it.

-I know what you are going to say, I see the ring in your hand, I know what happened. But I… I made a promise and even if I fail, I will not be the one to break it.

-… Why so much commitment to words you ushered so long ago?

-Because… man have grow to learn that words have no meaning, that love is merely a game of deception and that the truth is best kept safe fully hidden. They have masked their actions while belittling those of us who keep our words. There was a time when a man’s word was proof enough but now… people know words dissipate into thin air and that memories become hazy with time. The only thing they fail to realize is that… my dear… we are only as eternal as we last.

-But… are you sure?

-As sure as one can be.

They kissed, a tender kiss that had waited aeons to happen. And it was only that, a kiss. They knew they would never see each other again. He would die in the war, she would die within the motherland. They were never to see each other ever again, he was never to smell her sweet perfume nor would she ever slide her hand on the back of his neck.
This was goodbye and yet… they didn’t cry, it was raining so much… That it seemed a waste that the last thing they would ever do together would be crying.
They died with that kiss still on their lips and even if the story goes about unheard and untold… that moment, that face of human reality – It was there. And I’ll never forget as long as I last.