Last Wish of the Djinni

The lamp looked to be something straight out of the stories.  Covered in sand, sitting by itself in the middle of nowhere, gilded gold and gems adorning the outside.  The young boy stared at it for some time, unbelieving what he was seeing.  He loosened the wrapping around his face for a moment, trying to get a better look at it.  Unable to contain his curiosity, he lifted the lamp for a closer look.

He first tried to lift the top off.  It would not budge; unlike a normal lamp, the top seemed sealed.  He got more and more excited; why would anyone prevent the top from opening, unless it’s not a normal lamp?

It took him two tries to get his courage up to rub the lamp with his sleeve, cleaning it off.  The dust that arose from him made him cough, like a sudden sandstorm had come from the lamp itself.  He dropped the lamp, shutting his eyes against the sand that erupted.

When he finally was able to open his eyes again, a man appeared before him.  The dark-skinned, well-dressed man was missing everything below the waist, having it replaced by a small whirlwind of dust and sand.  The cone cause sand to kick up at its base, but little else now.

“What is your wish, young one?” The man spoke in even tones, as if repeating something he’s said innumerable times.

“What do you mean?” the boy asked.  He did not need to force the nervousness in his voice, although he did feign the ignorance.

“You may have any three wishes granted that your heart may desire,” the Djinn said with immeasurable patience.  “You may never have more than three wishes, no matter what you say or do, and you may not give a wish to another.  You may have anything that is within my power to give you; however, you may not wish to influence the mind or heart of another of your kind.”

The boy was smart, and thoughtful, and caring.  He had heard many tales of the Djinn in all forms, from stories told in his town to things he read in books from foreign lands.  Even the times he played with his friends, new stories of the Djinn would appear.  None would end well for the one making the wish, and sometimes even worse for those around him.

“My first wish,” the boy said after much thought, “is for you to answer a question from me truthfully.”

“As you wish,” the Djinn said.  His expression and tone changed little, as yet only showing patience.

“Is what they say true, that many have asked you of wishes, and it ends poorly every time?”  The boy rushed his words, unable to disguise his hope that stories were just fables of caution.

“It is true, I am afraid.”  The Djinn frowned, dejected at his own answer but pleased to deal with such an honest patron.

The boy stood with his bowed, obviously upset by the answer and wishing to take his time to decide just what his few remaining wishes should be.

“My second wish,” the boy said, raising his head to look at the Djinn in the eye once more, “is for you to answer another question from me truthfully.”

The Djinn looked at him, unable to hide the dubious expression.  “As you wish,” he responded after a moment.

“Why?  Why do people who have their wishes granted always regret it being so?”

The Djinn smiled.  This was indeed a smart boy.  “Because no person truly knows their desires; they only perceive problems, and wish for such things to fixed without effort.  No one’s problems can ever be simply fixed however; no person’s life is so simple.”

The boy thought about this.  It was hard to understand, but he believed the Djinn’s word, and strived to do so.  “So, then the problem is not the one who grants the wishes, or the nature of the wishes, but the desire to have wishes granted.”

“It is so.”  The Djinn crossed his arms, wondering what the boy could possibly have for his last wish.

The boy nodded, a serious look on his face.  “Then for sake for all who follow, there is only one wish that my heart will allow me to make.

“I wish that none that find this lamp, from this time on until time ends, will ever have a wish granted.”

The sandstorm below the Djinn died suddenly.  He fell to the ground, clutching at his chest, gasping in pain, struggling to draw breath.  He looked at the boy, anger in his eyes.  The boy stared at the writhing Djinn, coldly.

“Do not blame me,” he told the dying form beneath him.  “You could have told any of those before me what you told me.  Perhaps they would have been wise enough to turn you down, perhaps not; but this is the only end for those of you who lay curses among us willingly.”

“Don’t believe yourself righteous, child,” the djinn said, with its final breaths.  “Don’t believe yourself a savior.  I am not the only Djinn; your kind will forever seek us, for they are forever corrupted, and must always see their folly.”

The Djinn finally let go its corporeal form, becoming so much sand and joining the desert around them in which the boy had found it.  “Then I shall find your kin,” the boy swore to desert, “and I will wish them all to the Desert, so that ‘my kind’ can instead find their wishes in hard work and purposeful effort.”

He picked up the lantern, dusting it off.  No further dust spewed from the lantern, no sandstorm erupted from within.  He took its loop, running it through his belt so it hung from his waist, a reminder and trophy of his new quest of vengeance.  He wrapped his head in cloth once more, and took the first steps in his new life and purpose.

Monkey Leather

It seemed like such a simple thing at first. I mean, it was just a wallet.  Small, brown, folding and unassuming, it sat there on the edge of the street, leaning against the curb as if it were placed there on purpose.  All I was thinking of doing was picking it up, figure out who it went to, and either return it or bringing it to the police department. 

I didn’t even have a moment to open it before it was snatched from my hands.  The figure that leapt away only stayed in my sight for a moment, ducking around a corner.  I shrugged; it wasn’t my wallet after all, and chasing after someone who could have easily arrived shortly before I did seemed like more trouble than it would be worth.  The metallic sound from the alleyway meant that he was either jumping a fence or climbing onto the fire escape of the building, so either way I didn’t stand much of a chance catching him.


So you can imagine my surprise when, rounding the next corner on the same block, I find the wallet on the ground in front of me, lazily laying on the sidewalk as if it were tired of waiting for me.  It took me a moment to notice the nearby pool of blood that didn’t quite make it all the way to the soft brown leather.  I picked up the wallet once again and followed the path.  Afraid to look but unable to stop myself, I pushed myself around the corner to look down the nearby alleyway.  All I managed to see before I pulled myself back was a human body, broken on the ground, its head twisted at an impossible angle and far smaller than it should have been.


The police station was only two blocks away, and I don’t believe I have run faster in my life.  I escorted an officer to the scene, explaining what had happened and handing over the wallet afterward.  She was quite kind, doing her best to make sure I was ok after encountering my first dead body.  After checking with a few people who were standing nearby, she insisted I go home.


Knowing she was one of the few good police officers I had dealt with in my life made it that much harder when I found her body near my front door, two small, neat holes steaming in her chest right near her heart.  The wallet stood nonchalantly nearby in the grass, open curiously but with no signs of being disturbed.


I looked inside.  There were few identifying objects; no credit cards, no license, just a few of those discount grocer deals and a few business cards, none of which matched.  One of them stood out: a collectibles shop that seemed to sell leather items.  Seemed as good a place to start as any.


The owner of the place seemed as confused as I was when I showed him the wallet.  He did manage to tell me one thing before the display of swords behind him dropped suddenly off the wall, a well-honed katana slicing his hand off at the wrist, the wallet tumbling from his grip and coming to a gentle rest against the inside of my foot.


He told me that the leather was made from the hide of a monkey.  It was enough told that I was not surprised when his hand stood up and ran off on its own long before the paramedics arrived to try and save him.


So please, guy with the gun outside the subway station, I’m telling you one last time, for your own sake: Do not take my wallet.

Rant at people ranting at ME3 ending

Ok, if it wasn't obvious to those reading my G+ post, I'm a little peeved about this whole "Let's bitch at Bioware for the ending they put into the game that I love!" rant that seemingly everyone with the Internet as decided to get behind.  it's absolutely ridiculous on many, many levels.

I'm not going to cross post it, so if you want to read my original rant, go here.

Let me put a warning here: I'm going to be spoilerific.  The reason why I'm posting this on my blog is so that I CAN be spoilerific.  For the most part, I don't think people are going to come read this unless they expect this, so if somehow, you've gotten this far and don't want to read on about the endings of Mass Effect 3, STOP READING NOW.  Thank you.

Now, I've done a little more research, having a few more in-depth conversations with people, read a few blogs, looked up some rants on Youtube, checked out a few more of the endings myself, etc.   I get it a bit more.  I can sort of see why a lot of people are angry.

It's still REALLY DUMB.  But I get it.  If I made a bunch of stupid assumptions about what was going on without examining anything for myself, or decided to make enormous jumps in my conclusions as to what things mean, sure, I'd be pissed too.  I'd be stupid, but I'd be pissed (but then, those two tend to go hand in hand pretty often).

There are a few, specific issues that have been brought up multiple times in multiple ways that I simply feel are inaccurate at best, and presumptive at worse.  I'm going to start with the simpler ones.

There's been a lot of complaints that Shepherd's team somehow "miraculously" made it back to Normandy.  Despite a clearing of the hot-zone you performed not too long ago, the fact that there are multiple Makos and other vehicles in the area, and the fact that the team all left you in the damn ship when it last exploded, seemingly everyone is SHOCKED that somehow, for some reason, your surviving team left for and made it to the Normandy while you died.  Not sure how this is surprising, nor why people had to make up stories about teleporters.  

Many people complained about the emotional connection, that they wouldn't have left it in that situation.  Well, I'm sorry, but it came down to two things.  Your team either saw you dead, or they saw you limp your way into the lift.  The lift that took you to the Citadel, where you most likely weren't going to be returning to Earth unless the Citadel crashed.  You limped through that damn place for the better part of an hour. It's not suprising that, when someone gave the order to retreat, your damn team beat feet.

The next issue I had is with people wanting to tell the little robot-child-thing off, shoot it or otherwise do something else than submit to the choices in that situation.  My question is: what the fuck do you want Shepherd to do??  Bleed on it?  It's a hologram!  It's a program!  It's NOT THERE!!  You want to kill it?  Well, low and behold, that's one of the GORRAM CHOICES!!  Destroying the Repears destroys it too (and if you think about it, you're actually doing it the other way around: destory IT is what destroys the Reapers)!  This isn't hard, people.

Seriously, what the hell else would Shepherd do in that situation?? Bleed out? The longer you wait, the more people die.  Decisions are made.  And when you're stuck in a room, dying, with a few decisions in front of you, not making a decision, or telling the child to fuck off without doing anything, is dying, and condemning everyone else to dying.  Seriously, what else do you want?  Getting three options (assuming you came fully prepared) was a bit shocking, in my opinion.

Ok, now to get all pseudo-gaming-science all up in this bitch.

First of all: This whole "People are stranded here" thing.

They have said MULTIPLE TIMES throughout the games--twice in ME3 alone!!--that FTL travel between systems is entirely possible.  it just takes years, instead of seconds. The relays were a convenience more than anything else...  In fact, some times when you escape a system from the Reapers, Evi says, "Faster than light jump successful."  

So, they're not fucking stranded. If the ships they are using can use the stupid relays, they can use FTL.  Granted, it's just gonna take the better part of a decade (for some, like the Quarians and the Geth, it's could take almost half a century, but they're the best equipped to handle it anyway).   Seriously, if you think they're stranded their, either (a) you haven't been paying attention the entire game, or (b) you're stupid, and you're not thinking about it.

Ok, second: Joker running away.

First of all, if I saw a giant wave of destructive energy shooting out at me, and Shepherd was confirmed dead... HELL YEAH I'D RUN!!  His loyalty is to the friggin' ship. That was made obvious at the beginning. 
My only problem is that he was smiling when he got off the crashed ship. He should have been pissed, and definitely shouldn't be the first one off the ship. 

Setting that aside...

The reviews and rants I have read lead me to believe that everyone assumes Joker went to a Mass Effect relay and jumped.  Assuming he did so, yeah, this entire ending would be ridiculous.  With this assumption, you also had to be assuming that Joker pretty much had to start running almost as soon as Shepherd got hit with the laser-blast-thing.  

Ok, let's just assume this is wrong because it's stupid.  Why would anyone write an ending where that kind of simple physics issue is overlooked?  Heck, they even mentioned something in game about on-board sound-synthesizers that make it sound like an explosion happens in space when there isn't one (although, scientifically, that's still in question).  If you take away that assumption, and just assume that Joker hit the ship's FTL when crazy-ray-of-WTF-ness started happening, it doesn't seem that illogical anymore, right?  Why did anyone even jump to this conclusion?

To make it worse, the ending pretty much takes us by the hand, doing its best to try to show us that this didn't happen in a Mass Relay jump.

Three considerations: One, he's making adjustments and piloting. This means he is NOT traveling via the Relays, as that is near-instantaneous, and he's said before that he makes all adjustments for jumps before he touches the relay.  Two: the beam *caught him*. No way it could do that in near-instantaneous travel.  Three: The beam that caught him was a wave, not the destructive-looking-lazer-thing shot out by the relays, but the wave that came of the Crucible.  That means he's not on the relay's path.

The only logical thing was that, as crazy shit started to go down, he hit FTL tried to escape with the fleet, and got caught in the blast from the Crucible.  Regardless of which ending you choose, the subsequent change to Edi would mess with the ship, pull it out of FTL, and cause the ship to crash. 

Ok, that is done.

So this pretty much reduces the complaints the fact that they haven't wrapped up everyone elses' stories (which I hope they do in comics and books, and not in this game, because I loved the other media), the lack of more variation in the endings (ok, seriously, I don't know what you were expecting here, high quality CG is expensive especially in design, and what they pulled off was great-looking, and IMO it all had to end somewhat the same way anyway), and the fact that the endings were color-coded.
I do have to admit, I am kind of irritated by the color-coded-morality endings (although I don't think they correspond entirely).  Still, I understand why they did it: Because they took us by the fucking hand while trying to still do a decent, somewhat artistic ending, and we still didn't get it.  

So shut up.  However much I don't like including myself in this, it's our fault this crap is happening, and our bitching and whining just means we're going to have more Navis in our future.

Hope

Man, I fucking hate that word.

Hope has this connotation, this idea in mainstream that it's actually a good thing.  Where this came from, I have no idea, but it's used constantly to invoke some sort of positive response in people.  In this time when our language is being redefined on a daily basis, when people are getting to the reality of what it means to "have faith" or what have you, why is "hope" taboo?

Dictionaries break down the word to even make sure that there's this idea persists.  For instance, the definition: a "person or thing in which expectations are centered" seems like a valid, non-connotation-based definition until the example sentence afterwards: The medicine was her last hope.  Seriously, how did this become the example?  The last of the sick dying of the black plague was man's only hope for survival.  There.  An example that is much more "gray" than disturbingly positive.


You know what?  I'm gonna redefine the word here.  Screw the 40 different definitions for the word, I'm going to give one (ok, two, because you gotta verb it as well) that fits them all.


hope [hohp] 1. Noun. A desire that has no basis in reality to come true, but we wish for it to be so regardless.  2. Verb. The act of having hope.


Seriously, that's it.  Let me break it down for you.  Hoping is simply wanting something, but not having any idea whether or not you're really going to get it.  Sure, you can work at it, do what you can to make it happen, but if any action you take would assuredly make it happen, then it's no long hope.  It's simply an action (or for you physicists out there who probably aren't reading this, a reaction).


So in truth, it's just a baseless desire.  Now THERE'S a word that has changed meaning in the last few decades. Used to be you could wake up in the morning and desire toast for breakfast.  Now if desire is one of the first words out of your mouth in the morning, someone is bound to have a snarky giggle before you even finish the sentence.


What's to stop hope from having the same connotation?  After all, most likely as your reading this, that guy nearby is hoping to have sex with you anyway.  He's got no basis for this; he doesn't know who you are, what sexuality you may be, and probably doesn't even know how to start up a conversation.  Hell, he's probably trying to get a look at what you're reading in hopes he can use it as an icebreaker.  Won't he feel awkward when he sees the title and starts yammering about starving kids in Africa, or how his parents died, or 9/11.  


We've taken the time to redefine Belief and Faith as modern-day consumers.  Since Hope is really their relative, we really should not still be blindly considering it to be a positive thing.  Hope is the waiting room attendee's hope that something will cure someone's cancer before they die as much as it it is the psychotic's hope that the next kill can stop the voices in his head.  Neither has much basis in reality, neither knows for certain whether or not the actions taken can truly make a difference, but they both hope it's true.


Seriously, the only line between Hope and its ugly cousins is sacrifice.  Hope can still maintain some sort of innocence only in the fact that it can be completely internal; one doesn't have to act on one's hopes, and in fact acting on it often defines it as something else, although it still remains a hope.  The willingness to sacrifice someone else or someone else's hope turns it into a belief, whereas the willingness to sacrifice yourself or something you believe turns it into faith.  One can fervently hope that the heathens will come to realize their ways are destroying the core of humanity; the believers gather followers and launch wars against their enemies with hopes of converting them through martial prowess; the faithful strap bombs to their chests in hopes that their sacrifice will teach others the evils of their ways.


Seriously, fuck that word.  Every time I see it now, it just makes me angry.  It's constantly used as a trap to elicit feelings of guilt for things that, in truth, we hold no real responsibility.  Fuck sending money in some sort of hope that it'll do some good.  If you really feel that guilty about starving kids in Africa, pack up your own bag of money and catch a plane.  See how much good that bag of money will do out there.  Or get a job working for the cause, and make sure the donations are going somewhere good.  Then tell those you trust that you know this is going to make a difference, not simply hoping it is.  Take away the hope and just it into a want.  Make it something you can actually do something about, instead of hoping that your random donation is going to a good cause.


I hope you didn't read this hoping for some sort of positive twist at the end; but then, neither of us have any basis in reality for that, so screw it.

There was a door inside my head.

I've gone on trips inside my own mind on many occasions.  Some are more successful than others.  Sometimes it feels like a simple exercise in imagination, but other times I can put myself into a state I cant only describe as a waking dream.  I see people I don't recognize, places I've never seen, sometimes even creatures that are beyond even what I would believe I could imagine.  I consider it a trip to my subconscious, a way for me to explore my dreams from the outside in a way.  I don't have control; these aren't the "lucid dreams," I've had before.  These are more of a viewing, a playback of something.  At least, that's how it feels.

This was unlike either of those.

My eyes were closed, but I was still awake.  I was in a meditative state of sorts, a technique for concentration that I've gotten better at assuming over the last few years.  I'll be honest: I first learned it merely as a means to help me get rid of hiccups.  Now it's useful in all sorts of situations, from work to normally uncontrollable anxieties.  It also helps me get into a mindset that I can normally go on these little trips.

I blacked my mind.  It's one of three ways I normally do this: blacking it out, filling it with light, or (if I've got a bit more time) picturing my thoughts being thrown into a fire.  For stronger meditative states, the ones that tend to affect my physical body as well as my head, I use numbers and imagine them being created in fire and steel.  This particular time, as I only thought to do so quickly, was a blacking.

When I first saw the door in my head, I was very confused.  Blacking doesn't normally leave anything, especially not something quite as specific as this.  Sometimes there are distractions and sounds that get through, but a large, wooden, double-door and frame, floating in the darkness?  This was strange.

I pictured myself walking to the door.  I'm still not sure how this worked, to be honest.  I was aware in my mind that I was still standing at the door, but somehow I imagined what would happen should I choose to open it.  This second me, the fiction inside of fiction, came to the and cracked it.  All this me could see on the other side an orange dancing light like a fire, and eyes that stared back at me, through me.  I gasped within my head, and the image was lost.  I found myself once again outside the door.

I was unsure what to do.  The door hid something.  It felt like a necessity; I felt that behind that door, there was something important, a part of me that I didn't understand or accept or something.  I went through my head, recognizing some of the strange and dangerous thoughts I've had in the past, but I did not move from in front of the door.  Did I construct it?  Did my subconscious construct it for me?  I've done and planned terrible things in my past.  What is behind that door that frightens me so?

Emotion started to make my concentration waver.  I knew I didn't have much time, and it felt dangerous to throw open the doors when I could not spend the time to deal with what I might discovered.  I turned, or, perhaps, it moved to the side.  I cannot say for certain.  All I know is I made movement to distance myself from it for now.

I opened my eyes.  A face appeared surrounding my vision, as suddenly as the door appeared behind my eyelids.  It was white and hollow, almost more of a skull than a face but it stretched and moved like skin.  It wailed, silently, before fading into my peripheral vision.  I closed my eyes, and I could see it again.  I shuddered, wondering if this is a sign of a good decision, or a bad one.

I don't suppose I will know, until the time I open the door, and see which truth lies behind.