Thursday, February 28, 2013

Beginning the Cosmic Journey

Now it is getting close to the end of my journey here in Japan. Even though I feel a great joy and excitement there is still a sadness and loneliness that tugs at my heart. Here I am in the present moment but I am finding it hard to still my mind and heart.

For many years I have spent in this country. A place and people I have grown to love, even though there are many things I have found that have sickened and even caused my greater sorrow. Coming to realize that there is little I can do to change the things I have found that decays the very foundation of humanity has not given me solace, rather it has deepen this sorrow. The lessons I have learned and the experiences I have lived I believe have made me stronger in many ways, have fortified me for the path I will soon walk.

Though in the physical I will be leaving this land to walk among my high mountains those who have touched me and I them in that special way my former teacher Father John Kirsch had taught as kything will always be with me and I with them. This fact, so simple and pure gives me a greater strength for the next chapter of my life.

The love that I have cannot be explained in mere words, all the pain, joy, sorrow, laughter has all been melted down into compassion and love without words. For through word the Essenes and true meaning is stripped away.

To this I have learned many great lessons in my eight plus years here in Japan. As I prepare for my next step I will live fully in the present moment. Taking a moment to watch a child smile, a sparrow play, the sun warming my skin and the gentle caress of the breeze upon my cheeks. I would invite each and every person to do the same, to empty yourself and to feel the spirit of the place where you are at now in the present moment, there you will find your center.

'For when you are at your center and I am at mine, we are one.' Sitting Bull, Lakota Chief.

We are not separate, in our most finite being, our core Essenes we are all intertwined. Not just all of humanity but every bird, tree, stone, animal, fish, mountain, sea... The whole cosmos in one living, breathing pulse of beauty and sacredness. We are not separate from one another we are all one, intertwined and interdependent on one another.

Take the time to stop and empty yourself even just for a moment. Open yourself. See with your heart and touch with your soul. Find your center and when you have arrived at your center in the present moment all will be right and all, you and I and the whole of the cosmos will be one again.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Collaboration Challenge: Part 3


Xav was the first to fire his weapon at semi-rapid lock thru a small firing pit door. What they saw amazed and terrified them both as the being seemed to turn to mist or dust.

Anika try the UV light in the back seat.” Xav commanded.

Scared nearly motionless Anika slowly reached around a fumbled for the light.

Hurry your lead.” Xav nearly screamed as the beings neared to no more than five feet.

When Anika had the light in her lap Xav grabbed it and turned the dial all the up and hit the trigger. A blinding flash of light appeared momentary blinding both Anika and Xav. When they regained their sight the being seemed to have created one large mass. A barrier of some type.

What's happening” Anika asked.

I have no idea, but whatever is it doesn't look good.”

The creatures didn't move from their five foot distant circular wall. Anika opened the phone but found it was drained of all power. Xav looked at his watch and it too had stopped.

What the hell?” Xav murmured under his breath.

In a few minutes that seemed like hours a small pathway was formed by the beings directly in front of them. Soon a small robed figure appeared. It came to stand right in front of the Humvee, it raised its head to bear a face that seemed to be rotting as he looked at them.

Their blood began to chill from it stare until it seemed that they were frozen. They watched the creature peel it's figure nail into the paint as it wrote something out. Then it was like they had fallen into sleep. When they came to the beings were gone and the sound of sirens could be heard headed in their direction.

Xav glanced at his watch, it was working and only three minutes had past since the last time he looked at it. Anika stuck her head out the window to read the message on the hood.

'You released us. Vamprye the true.'

She was white as death when she looked at Xav and lipped the word Vamprye.

What you mean vampires?” Xav asked with sarcasm in his voice.

Worse. Vampire as we know them are fantasy. Vamprye are the true type who have been called back from the dead and they don't drink blood. The feed on human energy so much so that it kills. Vamprye means soul sucked.

So how do you killed them?

I have no idea.” Anika retorted. 

To back read this collaboration please refer to the following links

Part 1
Part 2

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Serpent's Fire


Serpent's Fire (a Suspense/Romance)
By Azure Boone and Gavril Mikhailovich Pryedveshatin
Azure Boone is a writer of Paranormal/Romance and Romance/Erotica
Gavril Mikhailovich well you all know me as a writer of Suspense/Mystery.
Excerpts to come in March 1st edition of Muse E-Magazine
 
Assignment

Drying himself off, Alex took care not to look at his own haunting image in the mirror. Grabbing his tags hanging from the towel rack, he held them in a clinched fist for his routine silent prayer to the unknown before putting them around his neck. Throwing on his t-shirt and grabbing a fresh pair of starched Dickies from his duffle, he suited up and laced his boots.

Alex took a deep breath through the ever-present weight that had settled upon his life as he strapped on his watch. Already thirty-five and not a damn thing. My how time seems to pass when you’re living in a hell.

Lighting up a cigarette, he left his apartment to meet Tran at the nearby pub. Damn leg was
starting to hurt again. A block away from the joint, Alex stopped to watch a couple of kids race by on their bikes. Memories of his brother and him riding that way gave him a moment of relief from the daily living drudgery.

Entering the pub, Alex's nerves and bearing tensed from all the human interaction and years of training. Without looking around, he walked over to their usual table in the corner where two full beer glasses sit. The bartender waved at him and bowed, Alex did the same in return. Moments later, Tran joined him at the table.

Alex lifted his glass for his first sip. “Tran.”

“Damn bro you look like crap.” His friend’s voice was far too deep for his small body and quipped
with a slight Vietnamese accent.

“Yeah I feel it.” Alex lifted his glass up. “Cheers to this day finally being over and I haven't maimed or killed anyone, yet.”

They both chuckled and took a celebrated swig and lit up. Besides the noise of laughter,
electronic dart board, and the blaring TV, Alex and his friend were unnoticed in their own little world.

“Looks like company.” Alex nodded in the direction of a man with military stature scanning the bar.

“Maybe we toasted too soon.”

The medium sized man’s eyes stopped on them and with quick steady steps, he made his way to them. “Excuse me, which one of you is Captain Faulkner?”

“That would be me, and I’m retired so you don't need to call me Captain,” Alex said.

“Yes Sir,” he said.

“Don't need to say sir either.”

“Yes... I mean okay.” The stammered response told of this young man's rank, a Petty Officer. For them, there was no structure or order without yes sir. “I have an urgent message for you Mr. Faulkner.”

Tran grinned. “Looks like the Agency lost another one of their tit suckers.”

The young man handed a sealed file to Alex. Alex eyed the red stamp that said 'Eyes Only'. Shit not this again. He opened it and read it over a couple of times then put the document back into the envelope and handed it to the Petty Officer. “Dismissed.”

“Yes... Mr. Faulkner.” The man turned and left.

“What is it Alex?”

“You know the rumors we heard about that Canadian agent getting whacked in Tokyo?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“He had a partner who squirreled and went into hiding. They want me to get her out.”

“Scotch?”

“Looks like I’ll need it if I’m going to be babysitting some girl.” Alex raised his hand to signal the
bartender. “You know Tran, I really hate this life sometimes.”

“I hear you Alex. I hear you. So did the file say where she might be, or have a photo? Was she good
looking?”

“No, just a four line description and maybe in Kansai. The description was so great that it could be
a thousand women just in Osaka alone.”

“So in other words you’re screwed.”

“Basically.”

They got their scotch and sat there, lost in their own thoughts. Alex mentally reviewed what he had
memorized from the document. Four lines. Four feakin lines. A slight commotion started on the other side of the bar. A man forcefully took a hold of one of the female customer's arms, yelling at the dude next to him. The two bartenders tried to calm the aggressor but it seemed to only fuel his drunken anger.

“Yours or mine?” Alex gave a half-cocked grin.

“Have at it Alex.”

Alex stood and lit another cigarette. All eyes locked on the loud mouth, Alex moved freely and without notice until he was within one step of the aggressor. In one flawless move, Alex wrapped the prick up like a constrictor until the man went limp. “Good Night knot-head,” Alex snarled, dropping the unconscious man to the floor and returning to his friend and drink. It was going to be a long night.

Back at the apartment complex around midnight, Tran paused before heading up the stairs to his
own rat hole above Alex’s. “Forgot to tell you, you have a new neighbor.”

“Yeah I know, seen her this morning pass by my window. Not too bad.”

“Night bro.”

Checkmate by Azure Boone

Checkmate

An Erotic Romance to be featured in online Muse Magazine March 1, 2013
By: Azure Boone.

Web-sites: www.azureboone.com
www.archangelscreed.com 
Technical Adviser: Gavril Mikhailovich Pryedveshation.

Chapter One

Raven sucked down half of her beer. He was late. Why hadn't she found out if he was a punctual man in their yearlong online conversations? Far too practical for her. She was having too much fun exploring the logic of illogic, the order of chaos, Heaven and Hell, good and evil. Passion and desire.  

She signaled the bartender with a small wag of her empty beer bottle. Hopefully one more would finally take the edge off. Her nerves screamed straight up whisky was in order, but she didn't want to risk cracking her engine block.

The pub’s appeal sure as hell didn't help to curb the need, either. Reminded her of a social facade at a mental ward where broken people pretended to live in their fast retiring existences. She didn't want to be among the walking dead. And yet there she sat, three thousand miles from her old life in some shitty little Hong Kong tavern, or bar, or whatever the hell they called it. Funny how the alternate reality still retained the ruined aspect, like it was the main theme of the universe. 

She took a deep breath around the dread in her chest, filling up on the smoky, skanky beer flavored air, getting a dose of nausea instead of the extra oxygen she needed. She glanced over at the antiquated jukebox in the center of one wall that spewed foreign lyrics. Oh but the tune was the same, waltzing you into yesterdays never to be regained, and tomorrows never to be realized, effectively stealing the here and now. 

 Her gut twisted with nervous energy and she again contemplated a shot of whisky. Her temper tantrum that had her ass on that barstool waiting for the Mr. Amazing Dante Grayson waned at such close proximity.
 
Her heart stopped in her chest when a man came through the rectangular cavity in the antique colored wall. Since Dante had no clue what she actually looked like, staring was permitted. 

It was him. Finally. 

The butterflies in her stomach whipped out chainsaws and went to work taking apart her spine. Should’ve had that whisky. He sat maybe three seats away from the far end of the bar, still close enough for her to observe. And observe she did. God, look at him. The bastard was cuter in real life. And he was clean shaven! Fate was such a bastard prick. Probably Dante’s first cousin. Her hands tingled with the urge to touch him. Everywhere. All at once.

She wiggled in her seat, only adding to the sudden frustration between her thighs. How many times had she experienced that sweet torment with him? And now that the man sat in walking distance, she had an oh shit, what am I doing moment. She was such a fool to pretend she’d ever had some kind of power over her heart with him, all while pain bled her soul with the brutal indifference of…Dante fucking Grayson.
 
The mocking echo, how could you let this happen, how could you let this happenhummed through her head. She avoided the question of how could he? That one, she’d reserved to ask in person. If she were able to gain an audience beyond the exterior of the man.   

Dumb bitch. That’s what he made her feel like. With no effort whatsoever, he just made her feel feel feel like a dumb stupid bitch. She had to finish this with him. She couldn’t dangle like a loose tooth by a string of bleeding flesh, she had to fucking end this and how else but to confront him. In person. She would make him say it. That he had no interest in her beyond intellectual frolicking.

He glanced her way and she held her breath. Her heart throbbed in her chest in that painful rhythm. That was his rhythm. He’d put it there. Anytime she thought of him, every buried passion she’d possessed, bloomed and bled to its tune.

She released a light gasp when his gaze pin-balled back to home base—the counter and all things opposite her. First test passed. Well sort of. He’d claimed he wasn’t swayed by women’s beauty. Not that she was gorgeous, but surely worth a lingering stare, or second glance. 

Her heart raced with each passing minute. She gripped her beer bottle and watched him light up one of those strange looking cigarettes. Her eyes zeroed in on his lips as they parted to cradle the cancer device. All those fantasies of him kissing her surfaced like the mad cow disease. She swallowed the raw passion and hunger, hardening her jaw. She didn’t need his kiss. She wouldn’t pretend she didn’t want it. Maybe she should take it. Just to show him she could. 

A scenario of pressing her mouth to his ensued from the hellish passion. She bit her lower lip. Could she? Dare she?

She spent the next minute working up the nerve to kick off the first play. The play that bypassed his own game of sifting women before saying yes to bringing them home. And the golden key was using other means besides sex. Her heart ached at remembering how utterly beautiful he was inside. His heart, his brain. God his brain. Talking to him had been like foreplay for her. How many times had she considered touching herself while engaging him in paragraphs of orgasmic smartness?

Shame burned her cheeks at what he'd reduced her to. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the fire had burned both ways.  But his emotions toward her were dead as a dead end street
.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Coming March 1st.

We here at Rayder Publications are proud to announce the release of Muse E-magazine. This magazine is designed to charter to the arts and you are interesting in the arts. Whether you are into literary, graphic or audio when hope share this passion with you in the coming months and hopefully longer. We sincerely hope that you will join here at Rayder Publications and Laughing Horse Media.


CGI now a Service.

Over the coming months our parent company Laughing Horse Media will be offering Computer Graphic Imagery to our customers. Within the last month they have had requests for such imagery from clients of the indie literary world. Here we present a few examples. Hope you enjoy and should you have any questions or which to inquire about our product please feel free to contact me. This is only the beginning.