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Morning. July the twenty third, two-thousand, fifteen.

It feels like a day from the Future. I say that having recently watched Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd's antics, on a big screen--

In my own living room.

Has time really passed, that fast?

So today, I wake up, in a different house than that of my parents' for what is nearly the fourth month in a row. The paper kitsune on the pillow next door greets me, and reminds,

"You are a furry, and you came here from Japan."

I smile. In truth, I come from Ohio, but it may as well have been another lifetime. I still remember Voltron's five lions, and Sailor Moon doing battle against gay men in circus costume drag. But I shuffle out of my second-floor apartment's bedroom, leaving the blinds closed for the moment to the dawn outside. A black and fuzzy cat, there greets me, nips my ankle, and rubs against me for attention, on his way from my roommate's room.

The old home that sheltered my childhood, is long a slum, and those old memories stay locked inside the notebook I carry with me. In the front pocket is Sailor Moon--on a Pokemon Card, of all things. One my next door neighbor in those times, drew for me on construction paper. The art is redrawn from a paused VHS scene of her transformation, but the hand that drew it sits there still, on a newspaper article--his face forever smiling at me.

It's not like in the films. He's not dead or anything, from some terrible childhood tragedy. Well, I won't say that. He's not physically dead. The loss of my childhood was a moderate tragedy, and we no longer speak--but I know he's in a good place, and one here on earth--not some made-up shithole in the sky, where you give lip service to your jealous god.

I let the hate for the past surge a little in my soul. I know that if things play out like my old teachers and preachers and friends' parents say, I'm going to some place called Hell.

But the kitsune, lady-haired, nine-tailed fox that she is, will not stop smiling. And neither will my old neighbor. I feel as if I'm destined for the body of the former, and the egress of the latter--black lad who crawled out of the ghetto and a divorced family, to seek success in art and business, over sports.

I feel that if I must burn, it will be in the state most suited to relish the flames--a fire breather who transforms into flame.

And then I realize, it's like a deep scratch, cut in the record of my mind, that skips from time to time. I abandon the notions of vindictiveness, and the fantasies of being a devil's wife.

My attention shifts, and suddenly it's upon the face of the Baphomet Satan--that dark goat figure. Immediately, my mind snaps back to gaming. The Binding of Isaac has me anchored solidly in the past five years of my memory, now. He's not exactly what I would call a bad lay, Lucifer. But between the gore and poop jokes of the game, my mind has now shifted to a playful state again. Supernatural sensuality is the last thing on my mind.

Funny though, how thoughts of the devil can bring a strange mind like this, to either lust, or play, rather than outrage. Then, it makes sense, why I chose the name Romero. DOOM.

"DOOM will have a remake soon," Gameinformer tells me, for maybe the third or fourth time I've heard the news. I smile at the thought of the game that made PC entertainment a thing--that brought it beyond the realm of simple text adventures, and gave America a unique culture bubble in the midst of the NES days. I shake my head mirthfully a bit, at how it's become a drop in a bucket. Funny though. I probably wouldn't have touched a computer without DOOM. I might not be the person I am today.

I laugh a little. In a sense, everything the plebeian pastors' wives fear, is in things like Dungeons & Dragons, DOOM, and even Pokemon. Not so much what they think they fear--chimerical evil influence--but rather, the things they don't understand. Culture. Intimacy. Playfulness.

Sex.

"Oh yeah." I nod. "I'm a gamer too."

So as I'm sitting there, I contemplate a game, but nothing comes to my mind, lately. It's not so much that their world has sucked the life or energy out of my own, but it certainly turns me from creative thoughts, to whittling away my time trying to prove my right to be considered human.

And then I think of the conservatives. Humans who at both moments, demand cultural integrity, preservation of values--and who yet, will argue the value of a barren teat--of failing to nurture, in order to expose their young to trial.

They think they know what that trial will bring. Another them. And another.

Not so much how I see things. Things that burn tend to be transformed, not sustained, as is. Funny to think that, their fear of spoiling the youth, is what leads their children to shun their upbringing, and flee it.

I perhaps presume too much, but my mother, at least, was like this. 'Tough love', they like to call it. It feels more like 'stunted love', to me. People who cannot express anything but their fears, because they fear experiences so much, that they have few things to share, save their pursuit of nourishment. Some badge of honor, putting food on your plate. Worthy the highest human commendations. Hah.

I smile. A boot-strapper has to occupy their time with animal things. Food, shelter, a wage. I may need the same things, but I've had the chance to contemplate needs higher on the priority list. At least, according to Maslow. By his hierarchy, I now sit atop the pyramid. As for many of them, they contemplate this life as a trial. Something temporary, and ephemeral, that will blow away to show their true life--a life of contentment bought at the price of blind faith and repentance for themselves. In the meantime, they talk about the virtue of being able to 'feed themselves', as if it's mankind's greatest innovation.

"What a fucking cop-out." I scoff. "They'll feed their faces, til they're dead and not a problem to their taskmasters, and then roll the dice on their faith."

I am a smarter speculator than that. Then I realize--"I am a gambler, as well." Indeed, yet another vice-turned-virtue, to pin to my shirt. I don't go into a situation of ambiguous outcome, without the full will to either win or lose. Assured victory is for con-victims and egotists. No. I've played my several hands of poker and blackjack, and I begin to contemplate my odds at the table now. If I ration a reasonable amount out to play, sometime, in Cherokee, I might make a helpful sum to buy a gun, a television, or a new mattress.

"The House Always Wins," I remember. It's a good saying for all things in life. In a world of seven billion-some humans, let alone all the hungry bugs and pathogens feasting for your flesh, it's nice to remember that there's that many entities working with dissonant values, against your immediate interests--the House, as it were. I don't expect to play all of those cards to my advantage. I'll win for awhile, and know when to fold and walk away. Eventually, I'll lose, as all mortal beings do. I don't need false reassurances of heaven or damnation. I'm content to die when it's time, and make room for the new.

In the meantime, I'm going to have some fun. I'll also likely have some sex. Procreating a child who gets to live an even more qualitative life than mine, has become one of my warmest goals. Simple biological purpose, has offered me hope that no theologue or their deity can.

I laugh, then, because I was born a man. And yet, I have experienced this intense yearning--a sensation of a missing child, that needs to be nursed. Like a phantom limb that needs scratched, it dogs my mind, while I wash dishes for my roomie.

The hot water on my hands makes me think I am taking a bath, and the bowls and glasses become my child, that I must clean. In my cold apartment, I long to take that bath. The shower's not especially clean, and I 'am' squeamish at the notion, as I sidestep the dead roach on the floor.

So as I yearn for this supernatural maternity, I sit and clean in an apartment of squalor. Okay, so there's much worse than this, I've even seen it, but I do not want to compete for the most miserable conditions. I would prefer to be seen as a rebel, and extremist, and fight for contentment, instead. Especially while my dollars are spent on invasions and penthouses, and turning a blind eye over business fiascos. "Sound economy." I laugh. "Sound people, more like: The Few, the Old."

I ask myself if I'm ballsy enough, as a canine growl enters the back of my throat.

"Don't do something stupid," my inner mom replies.

So there's a little bit of conservative nature in me, still. That feral mom, that wants to protect a nonexistent child, tells me to hold back from stupid stunts, and crazed shootings, and all the other things the anarchists are ill-reputed for. The child--the child I do not have, demands it. To have a future, I must cool my wits, and save my fight.

Instead, I seek my pair of breasts, my lady curves. Knowing full well, we are on the bleeding cusp of medicine, that might enable me to grow a womb, and that my change is just out of reach.

But I will stretch, to get there.

I am not sick, as many might carelessly imagine. I had my period of sickness. It was in my youth, and it was called other people. Explicitly, those who could not stray from their neighbor's business, trying constantly to broker false salvation, and peddling drugs instead. But I overcame the old misdiagnosis, and I will overcome the new. My only affliction is human desire. And that is one disease I'll readily die from, so long as there is also purpose.

So long as there is the thought of the child, and of the adult me, that grows from the fiery, ashen cocoon of my youth.

Again, the needle of the player strokes the deep and jarring scar of my past. Again I revisit brimstone and damnation, tirelessly working to apply itself to every aspect of my life. Because I cannot silence those noisome voices, I instead entertain their fantasy of my suffering, for crimes I have not committed.

But in my dream, I rise above the flame. I dream of eating sin and bathing in fire. I dream of giving sinners to my child, to feast upon their bodies--those who were weak, and turned to excuses for their cruelty and indifference. My burning, animal Heaven, that proves once and for all, that not everyone's salvation and direction in contentment, is unanimous.

So long as I have the child, I can show that I am affectionate--a loving caregiver, and not the true horror, of humanity.

"Reality check time," my male voice says.

I chuckle in mild irony, when it's the voice of Handsome Jack I hear. Have I become so detached, that I can swim for hours in these analogies and this symbolism? Reality feels like the critical, bad father, that character was, though. Bad dad. I can't be that. Won't let it happen. Won't lose a baby girl, won't father one to use--to make miserable.

My mind snaps to 2K, and hopes for a second sequel, better than the last. Knowing the laws of sequels, the third will atrociously suck, though.

Then, I'm reminded of the present, and my boredom. I think to put on some music, but my mind seems at a loss.

Finally, it seems my inspiration to write has dwindled, in the face of scorn and smoldering past regrets, and physiological yearnings, and fictional bad dads. I break for a piss, and press the 'Publish' button on the text editor.