For You

I came across this quote by Johnny Depp during one of my many random readings. he says “If someone were to harm my family or a friend or somebody I love, I would eat them. I might end up in jail for 500 years, but I would eat them.” I feel the same way. there is nothing I would not do to keep the people I love safe.

For You
I'd leave the world behind.
I'd sell my soul,
for Your life.
I'd watch all of my senses die.
I'd burn the whole world
and Never more know Love,
just to see you smile.
I would die
just so You can live
and be free,
and take all of Your hurt
deep inside of me.
rip out my heart
and give it away for free,
just to know that
You will always know Joy
and not sorrow.
You will never more know
pain.
or be hurt again.
for You
I will lose myself
for evermore.
just to keep You safe.

Bad Poetry

I realized that I used to write a lot of poetry and hardly any prose, but now I'm starting to realize that things have changed. I rarely write poetry anymore and I wondered why. Now I know.

I can't write bad poetry

no more.

all my thoughts

locked up in my head

so tight so tight

and I threw away the key

sometime ago sometime sometime ago

and I can't write poetry

no more.

the words refuse to flow

they wont go

where I want them to 

or show

what I want them to show

what's deep inside my mind

anymore

I can't write love poetry

no more.

the soft turn of phrase

that I need to say

Baby I LOVE You

be mine Forever

is gone

locked in the brain box

and I threw away the key

short time ago short short time ago

I can't write hate poetry

no more.

I can't say you Bastard you Ruined my life

I Hate You I Hate You

SCUM

my able sharpness is gone

my soul song is gone

locked in the mind box

and I threw away the key

long ago long long ago

and I don't can't won't

write bad poetry

no more.

Minions. A.K.A Shashi’s Evil Overlord List

Minions. They’re not an essential requirement for someone like me, but darkness knows they’re useful. In fact, many of our kind depend on having a decent posse of minions to take care of their dirty work, to take the fall for their evil deeds, and/or to be experimented upon. But like any other sort of raw material, they come in a wide variety of qualities, shapes, and sizes. And as always, some are more suited to the task at hand than others. Therefore, it is a very serious life decision to decide whether or not to put yourself and your empire in the rather grubby hands of a lowly minion. So you ask, what sort of qualities does a good minion need?

First and foremost is Loyalty. A good minion MUST be loyal. To ME. The important factor here is that a minion has to follow ME. Not my partner. Not my buddy. Not my dog (though that may at times be more tempting), and definitely not some hero, who can imbue him with an insignificant moral compass that can one day be used to turn him against me. If the minion does not serve me wholeheartedly with all his mind, body, and soul, then either his priorities need to be straightened out, or he needs to be permanently terminated and removed from his position. Because if he can be turned against me, anything I've trusted him with is going to go against me too. So I demand absolute control over their teeny tiny little brains! 

Next is Survivability. No, I do not mean serviceability! I maybe a few ants short of a picnic, but I know the difference between the two words!  Sure, I can just replace them, but that means finding and training the new minions, fitting them for uniforms, having to worry about personnel shortages and/or difficulties with finding cheap labor. I also have to deal with the general decreases in morale due to the a) constant losses at the hands of the heroes, b) the fact that either the numbers are changing every "incident" or c) I’m getting cases where number 152 has seniority over number 3 because I hired him 5 minutes before, for the simple reason that I needed to fill in the gaps left by those who came (and went) before them.  But if my minions are tough and difficult to kill, not only do I not have to worry about replacing them, but hopefully they will come back with some useful information, possibly learn from their mistakes (I wouldn't count on it, though), and maybe even lull the heroes into overconfidence because they always seem to lose so miserably.

Then if possible, a minion must be competent and useful. (Though chaos knows that’s impossible! I know! I've looked in the darkest pits, on the tallest mountains and everywhere in between!! Good help is so hard to find!!!!!) If for instance a minion is supposed to be able to take on ten normal men at one go, I would also normally make sure they can also handle women, children, abnormal men, nonhuman species, things without concept of gender, shape, form etc, etc...  This would be a consideration in applicable sorts of contests of say, intimidation or general destruction, rather than being able to outwit them (because most minions I know aren't that gifted in the brains department). Basically, these creatures are supposed to be instrumental in carrying out my evil plans. If they can’t carry them out, why would I waste my valuable, albeit ill-gotten resources on them?

I also prefer my minions to be primarily accustomed to taking orders without asking too many questions. No one likes a lippy minion when they are trying to concentrate on a particularly fiddly dastardly deed. On the other hand, I cannot have minions who only have the brain capacity to follow orders, because they freeze up when acting on their own, and that’s just not pretty. Besides, minions with a few working brain cells in their heads tend to come in handy from time to time; I can steal their ideas, take the credit, and maybe even save my own skin when  the lowly minion turns out to be right. They also make good bait to put angry mobs off my trail, because they, the minions, can be torn apart and poked with pitchforks and all manner of murderous sharp objects that mobs may prefer, while I make good my escape. Therefore, I find followers in the I.Q range of 75-80% to be optimal. 

Finally, I do not settle for substandard minions! They break under stress, crack and disintegrate under pressure, slow me down, and generally make trying to execute an evil plan even more difficult than it would be otherwise. Scrupulous Standards are EVERYTHING to someone like me. So if YOU feel you fulfill my minionic requirements... please do not hesitate to apply. Great rewards (I offer no guarantees) await the members of my horde! Join me! Travel to exotic places. Meet new people! Kill them! It’s the minion’s life for YOU!

The Secret Caterpillar

Let me tell you a story. This story is not a very long story. Nor is it a short one. It is a sort of mediumy slightly longish possibly shorter than you think story about a caterpillar.  But why would you tell me a story about a caterpillar you ask? Well it’s not a story about just any caterpillar. It is a story about a secret caterpillar. But why is it a ‘secret caterpillar’ you ask? Why isn’t it a normal every day non secret possibly green caterpillar with fur you ask?  Well that’s because no one has ever told anyone a story about a secret caterpillar before. The reason being they are very, very, very secret and no one even knows what they look like! No one except me that is… because I am the only person in the whole wide world who has ever seen a secret caterpillar! It’s true I tell you! I am most certainly not lying. Why would I lie to you?

It all started one morning or maybe it was afternoon, or was it evening? I’m getting forgetful in my old age… but I am quite sure it was not so long ago that I was sitting in my granny’s garden watching her flowers grow. As you all know, flowers when they want to grow, take their own sweet time doing it. They sit there in their buds, not really doing much apart from flirting half heartedly with a passing bee and enjoying the sun on their faces, or in this case, the sun on their bums ( am I allowed to say bums I wonder?) but wait… I’m going off my point… I tend to ramble a bit in my old age. I was sitting quite still, watching the flowers grow, when I heard a slight scuffle, scuffle, dig, dig, snarff, dig, dig, snarff… under my grannies fattest leafiest plant… at first I thought it was the flowers giggling at an earthworm passing  wind deep underground… But no, the flowers were quiet and dozing in the sun.

So I decided to sit there and be still and quiet. I was going to be the kind of quiet that a mouse is when the cat is sitting by his door. As quiet as a little girl who is trying to fall asleep and hears the monster under her bed snore. I was going to be as still as every lost thing is when someone searching for it is near. I was going to be as still as a frog, waiting on a fly to fly past his nose.  I sat there, not moving and hardly breathing and trying hard to listen and concentrate, while the sun was warm the birds were too tired to yell… and the whole world was silent, holding its breath.

Then suddenly, oh so carefully, I saw a teeny tiny face poke carefully around the fattest root of the fattest leafiest plant in my grannies garden. I blinked and he was gone and I blinked again and he was back. A secret caterpillar! The first of his kind to ever be seen by a person, and that person was me! What is that you say? It couldn’t possibly be so? But it is true; I swear it on the slime of the snails, and the wag in my dog’s tails, the song in the breeze and a cat’s sneeze. There he was, with his furry little face, his 10 feet and 6 arms, his long yellowy orangey blue green body, squinting at me through caterpillar glasses. He was as surprised to see me, as I was to see him. I did tell you, they were very, very, secret so it was not a great big surprise that he had never seen a creature quite like me before.

We stared at each other, him with his black button caterpillar eyes through caterpillar glasses, me with my big brown girl eyes thorough the wind and the air. He looked at me up and down and seemed sad that I had only two hands and two legs. He seemed to think it was unfair that he had so many arms and legs when I had only two of each. He looked some more, and then squeaked what I took to be a caterpillar ‘Hello!’ so I waved and smiled because  I didn’t want to scare him with a loud booming girl ‘hello’. It was also very sad to know… sadder than a lost friend, sadder than a closed door, sadder even than a broken heart that I didn’t speak him and he didn’t speak me. He said something more in his small caterpillar voice and I smiled and nodded and he seemed pleased.

So we sat there, the secret caterpillar and I. He, munching quietly on the fattest leaf of the fattest plant in my granny’s garden, and me letting him do just that. It was a quiet day, a good day for dreams. A day when the bees took a nap and the medicine went down with no spoon of sugar. It was a long day, a warm day, a day for finding what is lost and losing what is found. Such days are rare and come along once in a cheese green moon, such are the days of the secret caterpillar. He left after his meal and walked down the plant, putting one caterpillar foot in front of the other. He looked back once nodding his furry face in the thoughtful way that caterpillars have, as he waved his third favorite arm at me. Then he was gone, like he never was there, like he was a dream, a memory of a story and a whisper in the wind.

I probably fell asleep you say? It was a dream you say? Just a story to make children laugh and adults smile and nod wisely you say? Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. It happened a long, long, time ago, or a short, short, time ago. I am old, forgive me, and forgetful.  And the days of the green cheese moon don’t come often.  My mind goes on its own long walks, and sometimes I wonder if I remember things right. I wonder if the colour of loneliness is purple and the colour of happiness is a bright dazzling blue. I wonder where lost friends go to be found. I wonder how to mend something that I don’t know how I broke. I wonder most of all if I am a girl with a memory and a story of a secret caterpillar, and if somewhere, somehow, I am the counter creature of a secret caterpillar with a memory and a story of a girl.

Pish you say? Apple tosh, tweezle and piffle for good measure? There’s no such thing as a secret caterpillar you say? It’s all stiff and nonsense, fairy stories and cobwebs in the sun?  Ah… but I know a secret caterpillar you see, and the secret caterpillar? He knows me!