On top of a twelve mile tower of rock which grew from the plane of heaven to far above the clouds sat a man in a white plastic garden chair. He was an old man, and his hair had gone gray years ago. He was sitting watching the sun rise when the first visitor walked out of the elevator. The old man did not recognize this person as one of the regular visitors.

“Can I help you?” said the old man.
“Not really,” said the visitor. “Although I suppose you could tell me which side is best to jump from.”
“Do you really intend to jump?”
“Sure. Why not? This is heaven isn’t it? What reason is there that I shouldn’t be able to fly? People say this is the best place to learn,” said the visitor.
“I really don’t recommend jumping from here without a parachute.”
“Why? It won’t kill me.”
“No, it won’t kill you. It won’t do anything lasting damage either if that’s what you are going to ask next,” the old man was forced to admit.
“Then what reason is there that I should wear something as restrictive as parachute?”
“Oh, never mind. I am not going to be able to convince you. I have this conversation every time someone new arrives. The best side to jump from is next to where I am sitting.”

The visitor walked to the edge of the tower. He stretched his arms out as if he was a bird. He took a deep breath and then stopped.
“I won’t die,” he said.
“You won’t die,” said the old man. “Just jump already. There will be more people wanting to jump soon and you’ll hold them up if you dither.”

The visitor leapt out from the side of the tower and dropped towards the clouds. The old man leaned out over the side and shouted, “buy me some breakfast will you,” but the visitor had already fallen from earshot.

It was the middle of the day when the visitor arrived at the peak of the tower again. He looked shaken and shamed. He had brought a parachute up with him this time. The old man was eating a salad lunch that one of the regular fliers had brought him.
“You never told me that it would feel like death,” said the visitor.
“No. I only said that you wouldn’t die,” said the old man.
“Why didn’t you say?”
“I have tried. Honestly I have. But most people don’t listen, and they jump regardless of my warnings.”
“It was magical though. That feeling of weightlessness and the feeling of the air rushing past you. The sight of the tower passing by you at such a unbelievable speed. The sight of gliders flying on the horizon, circling on the winds was utterly magical,” said the visitor. “Can you teach me how to put this on? I want to learn how to fly.”

The old man stood up from his chair. “Of course I can.”
He started to put his own parachute on as well. “First you need to put it on like a backpack. Make sure all the straps are tight and firm. Then you need to do the same thing with the leg loops.”
The visitor started to put the parachute. “What do I do to use it? Do I pull a ripcord or something?”
“Yes, something like that. I’ll get to it,” said the old man, who looked over the visitor strapping themselves into the parachute. The old man found the pilot chute and gave it to the visitor.
“This bit is easy. You have in your hand the pilot chute. When you want to open the parachute throw that behind you,” said the old man.
“Is it that easy?” said the visitor.
“Not really. But you’ll pick it up.”

Just leaving the lift and walking towards the old man was Alyssa. She had a parachute already on. The old man waved her over.
“Hey Alyssa, can you just check over this parachute?” said the old man.
“Sure,” she said. Alyassa walked around the visitor examining them. “Looks good.”
“Then you are good to go,” said the old man. “Another person has taken the first steps in learning to fly.”

The visitor walked to the edge of the tower. “What I don’t understand,” said the visitor, “is why the pain when you hit the ground? Why can’t we just fly like angels?”
“Because without risk there is no reward,” said the old man.
The visitor started to count down from three until they jumped. The old man watched the visitor fall into the clouds.

“Are you going to jump today?” said Allyssa to the old man.
“Later, at sunset,” said the old man. “I have still got people to warn about the first jump, and people to teach how to fly.”
“Are you ever going to quit?”
“I don’t think so,” said the old man. “I enjoy the teaching as much as the flying.”
“Were you a flight instructor before you died?” said Allyssa.
“Sometimes I was. Mostly I inspected sewers in Coventry,” said the old man.
“Oh, who’d have thought?”
“You should jump soon if you want to get more than one jump done before dark,” said the old man.

Allyassa smiled and jumped from the tower. The old man took off his parachute and sat down. Just as he picked his plate up he saw someone he did not recognize come out of the elevator.
“Hello, can I help you?” he said.

The Tower of Heaven by VKlaus

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There are many reasons why rock climbing is a great activity. It’s a good stress relief activity and the virtues of climbing speak for themselves. There is of course the chemical high that comes from temporally beating nature and avoiding death or horrible injury for just a moment. There are the great views seen from unique vantage points. There is the pleasure doing something because you can and the joy of movement over rock. I also claim there is a deep primal desire to climb.

I first started climbing seriously in the Spring of 2007. But to be honest I have been climbing on things all my life. It started really before I could walk. My parents have told me stories from this time and their are photographs that show the evidence of this behaviour. If I was left alone for a short period of time in my parent’s typically suburban living room. I think a fairly typical arrangement of a TV, two arm chairs and a sofa. When my parents returned to the room I would be in the process of ascending the back of the sofa. Or balanced on the top of the thing trying to work out how to get down. Photographs from that time always show the chairs for the dining table on top of the table. This was because I was in the habit of climbing onto the table surface (about a meter and a half high) and adopting the ‘bungee jump’ position. As some babies are drawn to water, I was drawn to altitude.

There are other more prosaic reasons to go rock climbing apart from the joy of movement. It is after all a holistic exercise. This can be attested to by the fact the day after a good session at the climbing wall my entire body aches.

This is not to say that climbing requires any great strength or physical fitness. Such things do not hurt. But the most important part of climbing which allows up to quite a high standard maximum enjoyment is good technique. The need for flexibility and strength come later, and are gained through climbing.

I have avoided mentioning the different types of climbing. For me they are all expressions of the same basic delight in movement and exploration. The Wikipedia page explains better the different aspects of the sport better than I can.

Ultimately for many people the reason for climbing is as simple as the fact that the rock and mountains are there. After all the basic equipment is a good pair of rock shoe and the wish to climb.

- Will.

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Earlier today I spent some time shifting through old notebooks of mine. I was looking at notebooks from just after high-school. A period which I have through accident lost a large part of my memory of. While I have reclaimed many of the memories which others can provide accounts for there are still gaps of time which remain unaccounted for. I found this extract interesting enough to warrant reposting. I do not know who this monologue is intended for. However I find it hard to believe that the feelings expressed are entirely fictional.

ACT V

Scene 1

The whole cast are on stage in a semicircle. Jacob is standing in the center of the stage, surrounded by the entirety of the cast. He faces the audience.

JACOB

You have the Promethean fire deep within you at the very core of your being. You are an expression of the creative forces we all wish to have within us. You use that divine spark to craft objects of exquisite beauty beyond comparison. I have known geniuses as dull and uncreative as an automaton. But you abstain from such profane mediocrity. Your personality glows with that still same innate fire, and, it gives you a curious and unmalicious desire for to know the world and her people. What’s more you have a physical beauty is greater than that of the Muses and comparable to only to Venus the abstract ideal from which beauty is defined. I am only worthy to gaze upon your form because the smallest glimpse of your heavenly form improves my heart, mind and soul beyond all other means. This improvement is always total and draws me away from my corrupted half-life to the edge of your godly presence. Only through my own weakness do I decay once more into the shadows. If I was as strong as you I would remain a virtuous soul. I would appeal to you to let me spend an eternity in your presence. However such an decision should be made only by yourself unprompted at your volition. I ask only that you gift me a minor token created by your awe inspiring abilities. A token to amplify my fallible memory of your being for when I inevitably decay in to corruption.

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Tea fields (Will Ellis) 2008-07-06 via Wikimedia Commons

I was dozing on the side of the hill watching the sunset with a bottle of Jameson whiskey when I first saw her. She was a new arrival to the land of the dead and was heading into the woods. That was where everyone went once the night had started. I drained my glass and started on walking down the hill. In the woods I gave the bottle of whiskey to Bertrand and ask him if he’d seen a new raven haired girl. He shook his head and poured himself a glass.
“Maybe you should go looking by the kitchens. Most new people are hungry. When you got here you spend three nights just eating pasta,” said Bertrand.
He was correct in telling me to look there. I found her heaping salted fish onto a plate.
“Hello,” I said. “Are you new here?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I’m Jason.”
“I’m Hildur. I’ve got some questions about this place. Can you help me?”
“Sure,” I said.

Hildur had been here for a year now and still hadn’t adjusted fully. We often spent hours on the side of the hill. In the day we’d watch people go about their business. Attending to vineyards and fields in the day and at night we’d watch the stars. She still hadn’t grasped everything about how the underworld works.
“Is that a satyr I see over there?” I said pointing at long grass in the distance.
“Do they have those here? Oh, I think I see it moving.” She said as the grass swayed in the wind.
I smiled. She looked at me. “You’re making fun of me aren’t you? Next you’ll be saying that the woods are full of fairies and goblins.”
“There are,” I said.
“You tell some terrible white lies.” Hildur laughed. “Now pass me the wine.”

“How come the season hasn’t changed since I got here? It’s been summer for a year,” asked Hildur as we sat under the trees in the forest drinking gin.
“The year’s longer here. About a century in the land of the living is a year here. I got here in the winter and it was magical,” I said.
“You did? How long have you been here?”
This is the hardest question to as a citizen of the underworld. Almost as sensitive as asking how someone died. “Sixty-one years.”
She stopped to think. “Do you know when I was born?”
“No,” I said.
“Twenty Fifty. You died forty years before I was born. Can I ask how you died?”
“Sure, there isn’t much to the story. It was a few days after President Obama had been elected.”
“I remember him.”
“Well I was crossing the street and then I was here. Veles, god of this place said I’d been hit by a car and died instantly. Not a big deal really. I didn’t even notice.”
Hildur looked away from me.
“Can I ask about your death?”
“I’d rather you didn’t. But I have to tell someone sometime.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I said.
“I’ll tell you. Just don’t ask more questions beyond the basic facts.”
I was getting worried that it was something ugly.
“I was murdered,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. She’d died a few years younger than me and it always made me feel guilty to meet dead people younger than me. Hearing that she’d been murdered made that feel worse.
“Don’t be. That was when I was alive and the land of the dead is better.” Hildur finished her gin.

The leaves of the forest had changed into gold and scarlet paper and the gentle summer rains became day long deluges. It was Autumn and I was sitting under a canvas canopy with a bottle of whiskey and a book. I hadn’t seen Hildur for weeks. She’d grown sick of my drinking. Not because I was drinking too much, because this land of the dead is for those that love liquor, art and discussion. She drank as much as me in the end. But where she decided to never get drunk and only keep a mild tipsy buzz so she wouldn’t slur her words. I’d falling into a habit from life. I drinking until it hurt me and those around me. I tried to explain that was who I was. Hildur just shouted at me and said that was why I’d been ran over. That hurt because it wasn’t true and because I’d decided to quit drinking the day I’d died. She didn’t believe me. Called me a lying drunk before walking off beyond the forest and the green fields claiming she was sick of this pastoral bullshit and that she wanted to be in a city.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that underworld was all like this. Ten perfect square miles of green fields and idyllic forests tessellated over infinity. It reminded me of my first and only break down. I’d been sober for ages and was starting to become a real bore to those around me. It was Bertrand who told me that I was ignoring my essential nature by not drinking. He’d spent his life trying to be rational, and always attempting to have a explanation for everything. When he’d died and found himself standing next to Veles, the snake that encircles the world tree he decided to accept it. He then carry on as he had before. Edmund, who in life had been a great mountain climber had confided in me that at first he thought the low rolling hills to be a terrible place to spend forever explained that he’d started making wine to distract himself.

Hildur wrote me a letter once. I sent a short reply back wishing her luck in finding the edge of heaven saying no more. I went back to drinking, waiting for the world above to be reborn and waiting for someone to spend the middle of winter with. But mostly I spent my time drinking under the trees and arguing with Bertrand.

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I feel like describing the two dreams I had this morning.

Stoic Will: Seriously writing a blog post about your dreams. How lame.
Other Will: Shut mate. There’s a serious health and safety warning here.
Stoic Will: Well I suppose he could have been in the dreamlands.
Other Will: Stop with the Lovecraft shite. This is more like Dada.
Stoic Will: Oh like Dali?
[Other Will picks up a empty bottle of Corona.]
Stoic Will: You’ve been drinking Corona. How sad.
[Other Will smashes the bottle against a nearby table.]
Stoic Will: Drinking Corona and blogging about dreams. What next?
[Other Will stabs Stoic Will in the face.]
Other Will: Shut up and listen before being a prick.
[Unintelligible screams from Stoic Will.]

Erm, yes, what ‘Other Will’ did there I don’t condone that. Although ‘Stoic Will’ was being a thorough prick. Ah well. Those two dreams. I suppose first I should give a little context.

I’ve been attempting to wake up earlier in the day. Say 07:30 in the morning and not 14:00. It’s working. Working because I’ve had the assistance of a radio being shoved next to my head with it tuned to BBC Radio 5 Live’s Breakfast program. Now personally I’d have rather had the ‘Today Show’ on Radio Four to drag me kicking and screaming from unconsciousness. But it’s better than Chris ‘Arsehole’ Moyles. Anyway for those that don’t know 5 Live is about it has a slogan that explains what the station does quite well: “Live news, live sport – this is Five Live.”

Onto the dreams.

Dream the first.

I’m in a courtyard. Not some posh castle, but the courtyard of some brutalist concrete office buildings about five stories tall. I’m getting the impression it’s a University campus. The sun is shining strong on the courtyard. It’s probably summer because of that. I’m sitting on a raised block of concrete. A seating area of some kind, maybe. In the distance (well 20 meters away) there is a group of people doing calisthenics. Star jumps I think. At this point I think I know a few people in the group. The group of happy exercisers starts to disperse and one of them starts to walk towards me.

Shit, I know who she is. It’s the person in the cropped half of my Twitter icon. I last saw her a year and a half ago standing in a crowed bus the night before I left Switzerland. Just before we’d been watching some National Day fireworks in park on the outskirts of Basel. Day before we’d hung out by going rock climbing and seeing ‘Transformers’. Few days before that spent a few days in the mountains climbing a mountain. I’d sort of like to think we were good friends. I did teach her the basics of rock climbing after all (how to belay and stuff).

Anyway we’ve not spoken to ages. I’ve not really kept up with the people I met in Switzerland. Because I’m terrible at social stuff like that and find it hard to make the effort. So this is kinda odd. She’s right in my face at this point and we start a normal conversation for about two forgettable lines. Then it gets weird. She starts reciting sports results.

Then I wake up and Radio 5 Live is giving the sports results.

Dream the Second.

I bet you can guess the cause of the next dream.

I can’t remember all of the facts on this one. Just a few details of the locations. One scene I’m in an unknown bedroom and one I’m sitting on a blue sofa. The one I’m currently sitting on right now in fact. In this it’s me and a girl. A vague hazy version of a girl I know from the anime society. A caricature really since the most vivid image of her I can imagine in my minds eye while writing this is a really warm smile.

The dream’s about engagement rings. Engagement rings for men. The caricature is spouting off an adapted version of of the radio broadcast playing into my ears. Which is about engagement rings. I wake up in time to hear an ex-jeweller talking about how it wasn’t a new thing. Apparently when you go to buy an engagement ring one of the things they try to do is sell the man one. Who knew, eh? The guy sounded like a dickhead.

Stoic Will [mumbling through a stitched up face]: That’s it?
Other Will: Yes, that was it. A poignant warning against leaving talk radio playing while you sleep in the morning.
Stoic Will: It’s still stupid.
Other Will: Don’t make me pull the stitches out.
Stoic Will: Lame.
[Scenes of violence that put the Saw films to shame.]

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That was a good speech wasn’t it? I was sitting in The Gateway pub just next door to my old university with a bunch of friends still there. I had a good pint in my hand and the past eight years seemed to have a band-aid applied by lady liberty.

I was impressed by the speech. I’m young, so can’t remember Bush in 2000, let alone Clinton or Kennedy. Although I’m told that I watched the Clinton inauguration with my Mum and Grandma back in 1993. I was seven and have no memories of the event. Truth be told I do not have many memories of 2000. Just an abstract sense of disappointment that the wrong guy won.

The truth is that I don’t know shit about American politics in the first person. I have no real reference to say that the impact of Obama’s speech is like that of Kennedy’s. All I really remember is the speech in 2004 oozed of a smug contempt for the world that didn’t vote for Bush. This didn’t. This was full of hope. This set the bar high and if he accomplishes half of what he’s promised he’s done good.

I’ll let the words of an acquaintance of mine via Twitter describe the speech in less than 160 characters.

“Speech writers knocked it out of the park, delivery propelled to orbit.”
Ryan G. Biv

So well done America. You have gone a long way towards closing old wounds and you have gotten a better leader than I could have voted for. As much as I think that Gordon Brown is a professional, with his mind set on the problems that face Great Britain currently. He isn’t as inspiring as Barack Hussein Obama. Not by a long shot which is a shame. Since I believe that politics should be inspiring.

The future is ahead of you and the past eight years might begin to heal soon.

Peace and love,

Will.

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I’ll have you know that this was that the reason I first went on YouTube was to find the music video for this song. Sad isn’t it? Most people went there to find video of cats being insufferably cute. Well I’m a heartless cock who wants to watch Britpop era music videos before I’m a cat lover.

I still use YouTube mostly for music videos (kind of obvious really), although I’ve slowly diverged into the realm of pirated TV cartoons and cute cats. One can only grow after all.

The novel writing is going quite well. I’ve got so much to write before midnight that it’s now very funny and painful. But that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Deadlines mean more power and a sense of urgent awesome in my work. Or do they mean nervous breakdowns and cries for “moar drugs”? I quite honestly forget I’ve had so many close to the deadline moments they’ve all blurred together.

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More 1960s love! It’s not a coincience that the baby boomers invented all the good music. They had the right politcal situation, the right drugs, none of the AIDS and the right economic situation.

The world isn’t in the right place to throw off the shackles of the baby boomers. I doubt we’ll be free of them until they all die. Even then….

The only promise I make now is to pick something more recent. Would anyone care to select a decade?

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I have nothing to say.

These videos should explain everything perfectly well.

Incidently I’ve just past the half way mark of my novel. That’s the only explanation you’re going to get.

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I can’t remember when I first heard this song. I’m not from a family that listened to Neil Young when I was a kid. So if I was to put an age on it’d be around 17 or 18. When I was out there discovering music to listen to of my own. This would definitely be the first Neil Young Song I heard. It’s a “classic” of is. The song that got him to the top of the charts and is the song he loathes to play. It also isn’t his best song.

But it’s a damn good song none the less. It speaks of many themes that I find compelling. The weariness of life spent in constant search for the perfect place and moment. But I can’t stop searching and I can’t stop moving in life. Ah well at least I’ve got my passport.

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