The battle had waged on for hours now, Motus Invidia and Motus Timor had been battling such a great foe and their efforts had been in vain. They stood winded and battered, their beautiful gowns and wands torn and broken, the villain simply puffed their chest in pride at their disdain.

I’ve known these girls for a few months now, becoming fast friends in our collective literature class in college, and not long after knowing them I became privy to their secondary lifestyles of magical girls. They referred to themselves as “Motus” and were given names upon their “re-birth” as they so-called it. My classmate, Naili, and I watched on in horror as they waged their battle, concerned that their attacks wouldn’t be able to stop their great adversary.

“The dance of the black swan!” Motus Timor called out, one of her beautiful signature moves. The black sparkles scattered and exploded around the villain with gorgeous intricacies that could only be attributed to ancient magic that we regular humans were still too unfamiliar with.

The move simply dissipated into thin air over the side of the cliff, the battle taking place on a high plateau away from most civilians save for Naili and myself. Motus Invidia cast another spell, plethoras of large green orbs surrounding her, suddenly shooting towards their foe. With a wave of their hand, they had cast the orbs away, heading in every direction.

One was heading straight for me and Naili.

It landed with a large ‘boom’ at our feet, just barely missing us as we tried to rush out of its path, but the ground below our feet began to crumble. The rock was sliding off the side of the plateau with me on it. Naili called for me, rushing to me as quickly as she could while I simply held my hand out to her in fright, surely this would be my end.

I closed my eyes, resigned to my fate when I felt Naili's soft hand grasp my own. I was pulled with great force towards her as she used her entire body weight to toss me to safe ground.

But she was now falling into the abyss in my stead.

A scream ripped through my throat as I reached out for her, already too far out of my reach as I watched her plummet to the ground. Tears flooded my vision as I did my best to focus on her, only catching one last glimpse of her tanned skin and brown locks flying around her face.

She was smiling up at me, she had saved me.

She fell for quite some time before I heard the loud thud of her body hitting the ground. Her limbs were mangled and her body contorted in odd ways, blood pooled around her lifeless form as I wept and screamed out to her. She was gone.

The Motus were a strange thing, unsure of their power themselves in some cases, but they had never told either me or Naili how to become magical girls ourselves. They had kept their origins a secret and would either quickly change the subject or shut us down entirely when we asked to become like them. Saying that what they had to give up wasn’t worth the power they were given in return. However, for the first time since I had asked since finding out about their powers all the time ago, I was finally given the answers that I sought but realized now that I did not want them.

From my height on the plateau, I could make out Naili’s body fairly well, I could still see the morbid smile plastered on her face as her body began to convulse. Her chest sunk in deeply as she shook, and I felt goosebumps rise on my skin.

A hand had burst from her chest, covered in blood and gore, and the familiar sight of Naili’s smiling face stared back up to me from within her chest.

A new Motus had been born.

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

Inspiring, right??

Abraham Lincoln is trying to say what you want in your future, work for it in your present.

Then you will have the future you want.

But when you have it in the future which would be your present then, you would not be able to enjoy it.

Why??

Cause you'll be working for you then "FUTURE TO COME".

And the cycle continues.

Then a time comes when you realize

" I have never fully enjoyed anything I worked for!"

But now, it's time to go ad leave this world.

So, in my opinion, present is the most important time in your life. No matter how little you have but Always cherish what you have.

That doesn't mean that you should be lazy or you should slack off. Abraham Lincoln has said wise words. You should aim big and work for it.

I don't encourage you to waste your time and life,

But,

If you have to sacrifice one for the other,

Don't sacrifice your present for your future,

You never know how long you're gonna live.

So live while you still can, have dreams and aims, work hard for them, but not to the extent of making your present hell!

Good luck!

A thousand candles in the sky

A million more flames burning high

Ten streams of wax represent how you sinned

One single wick extinguished by the wind

A thousand candles in the trees

A million more flames burning these

Ten streams of wax represent how you hurt

One single wick extinguished by the dirt

A thousand candles in the pond

A million more flames burning beyond

Ten streams of wax represent all your pain

One single wick extinguished by the rain

A thousand candles in the home

A million more flames burning the dome

Ten streams of wax represent what you stole

One single wick extinguished by the soul

A thousand candles in the night

A million more flames burning bright

Ten streams of wax represent how you felt

One single wick extinguished by itself

Speaking to the dead is really nothing new. You see it all the time in movies and television. Of course, in most of these depictions, the ghosts in question have some “unfinished business” that they need help taking care of, some task that was left incomplete in life or some mess that they need someone to tidy up. It is a trope that, in its overuse, has become quite cliché. It’s also pretty much bullshit.

I have been speaking to the dead for as long as I can remember. As a young child I would be greeted by strange people I had never seen before, and most of the time, would never see again. It was a while before I realized that I was the only person in my family that could actually see these people. My mother would often ask who it was I had been talking to while I was out in the yard. When I would tell her that I had been talking to a pilot that had crashed his plane in the woods near our house twenty years ago, or that there was a baker who had accidently burned up along with his bakery downtown, a few summers ago, My mother would just ruffle my hair and remark on how fine an imagination I seemed to have. From then on, I pretty much kept my conversations with the dead to myself. I never really felt the need to tell anyone, as I knew, most likely, not a single person would believe me.

I learned that the dead don't really have any lingering regrets about their lives, or have something left undone that was causes them unrest. The simple truth, is that many of them are incredibly lonely. Most of the conversations I have had were simply about how my day was going. Did I have any plans for the future? What was the last thing I had eaten? Was that old bat Mrs. Gerrinson still ruling the third grade classroom with a bee-hive hairdo and an iron ruler?

I’ve said all this so that you understand that thirty years later, when I woke up one morning feeling a presence sitting on the foot of my bed, it was really not very surprising to me. It wasn't until I saw the thin black mustache that used to be famous for the actor who wore it, before it was infamous for the dictator that burned it into the history books.

When I first opened my eyes, he was just sitting, staring at the floor, but as I stirred, he turned and looked straight at me. "Oh, you are awake!" I was surprised again, to hear him speaking in English, albeit with a very thick German accent. As he spoke a little flap of skin jiggled just below the very obvious gunshot wound in his head. For some reason, I was just as astounded by this small detail as I was by the fact that the father of the third Reich was sitting on the edge of my bed.

"Um, hello ... Adolf?" I stammered.

"Oh, you know who I am, dear boy? Good, good. I was a little nervous about introducing myself."

Page 1.

The blue in the Southern California sky has always been misleading. For as long as I can remember, Fox 11 News would report it to be 70 degrees, partly cloudy, but when the peak of the day arose, it’d be 80 degrees with rain. When the broadcasters would report light showers, they really meant “light beams of sunshine to be drifted through the bipolar skies”. Nothing has ever been what it seems here and nothing ever stayed as promised. In a similar way, my entire world revolved around misleading information and bipolar scenarios. Scenarios where I thought I knew what was going on but in fact had no idea. So many secrets that shaped the troubles I face today; with family and loved ones. I never knew why people said what they said or did what they did. I was left to dissect certain situations that made no sense at all. Like the Southern California skies, I was, and shamefully still, left with the curiosity of what the weather will truly be once I step outside.

One of my fondest and clearest memories I have as a child is being thrown up into the sky by one of my older cousins, Tony. I must have been around four or five years old because the adrenaline of actually flying raced through my body. I felt invincible for nearly a whole minute, until he put my feet back on the ground. Tony lived in Washington State and it was rare that he would come down to California. The few times I remember him as a child was when something horrible was happening. Situations were always changing in my childhood and now that I think about it, I wonder what traumatic event had happen that incited Tony’s visit. Isn’t it remarkable that when the brain of a traumatized woman cannot think that the possibility of someone visiting from out of town was and is for something positive? There could have been a party, or a graduation going on at this time but my mind instantly tries to recounter “what horrible thing happened that day that I had to shove it to the back of my brain like the rest of the stuff I've had to shove over the years?”

The first therapist I ever had said that it could have been that my mind was filled with distorted and false memories. She concluded that that was the true reason as to why I made myself believe that my childhood was worse than it actually was. The only thing that comment did was make me go into a deeper depression than what I was already in. I did not return to her. I wasn’t familiar with the concept of "therapy" at the time, but somehow, I knew that perhaps that was not the correct diagnosis that someone with PTSD could have received on the first session.

Seldom in the history of Hollywood has the perfect ensemble cast been built in the way Mel Brooks did with the inimitable 1974 classic, Young Frankenstein. It wasn't a flashy production, and it didn't use any of the special effects that were the hallmark of the theater during the 1970's and beyond, but it remains one of the most endearing and well-crafted cinematic masterpieces this writer has ever had the joy to watch over and over again.

The deadpan delivery that was presented on the theater screen was, based on the outtakes and b-roll bloopers, a very small percentage of what was filmed, and must have been almost as much fun to edit and produce as it was for them to perform. The chemistry between the actors was magic, the direction was inspired, and the writing was a level unto itself.

Sadly, most of this brilliant cast is either no longer with us, but such is the fate of all great movies as they approach their 50th birthday. Thankfully, the movie itself will live on indefinitely, and generations to come will get to experience the sheer joy that this movie embodies.

Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman were an incredible backbone for the movie, and brilliant supporting roles by Teri Garr, Peter Boyle, Madeline Kahn, and the legendary Cloris Leachman, were bolstered by cameos from Leon Askin, Kenneth Mars, and no less than Gene Hackman himself. Together, they helped to create a movie that was not only witty and hilarious, but beautifully vibrant even while being presented in black and white.

The one-liners in this movie are still some of the best remembered utterances ever filmed. In many ways, this movie was the pinnacle of Mel Brooks's creative endeavors, and deserves to be enshrined in the Cinematic Hall of Fame.

I remember that day - March Tenth, Twenty-Fourteen - when I sank my teeth into the best damn chicken wings ever and washed them down with some whiskey that was old enough to legally drink itself, listening to the author whose mind caught lightning in its bottle - top-shelf lightning - and hearing the sparks of "Prose." fly with absolute freedom, savoring the freedom that was this idea, so pure, so beautiful, the best of social media married with the best of writing, a place not for the eyes, not for the mind, but for the heart and soul, for the highest echelons of our very being - for us to consume bite-sized amounts of the very finest written word, as if we were at a Michelin-star diner disguised as a casual, unsuspecting street kitchen - and for us then to be taken on the most winding road, most agonizing and scintillating journey, to have experienced the most medieval of all dark nights of any app's soul, only to escape that prison, as of late, in a way that gives Shawshank a sprint for its motherfucking mint.

Every ending has a new beginning.

Well, I ended him all right. He shouldn’t have done it but he did. So I did – end him I mean.

I carefully stirred antifreeze into one of two glasses and handed the spiked tea to him as I smiled and kissed him. He never realized that It was a goodbye kiss as he contemplated leading me to the bedroom. II enjoyed it thoroughly as I watched him swig his tea with its lovely dose of antifreeze. It was no secret to me that he was both a cheater and a liar but I really did not care anymore because I knew I was about to have a new beginning.

If only I had realized that the outcome of my new beginning might not be a good one! As I walked away from his very stiff body, I decided to take a swig of the other tea which I had not spiked. Unfortunately, he had surreptitiously spiked my tea when I went to wash my hands. Not only was he a cheater and a liar but I found out the hard way that he was also was a murderer. In retrospect, my ending wasn’t that bad as I floated off into oblivion, hoping for a new beginning.

When I finished traveling to my new beginning, to my horror, there he was with a malevolent smirk on his face!