Wanderlust and the Painful Urges to Travel

They say that if you want the greatest espresso in the world you should go to Italy.  If you want the greatest enchiladas then Mexico.  The greatest steak, possibly Brazil, but since I don't eat beef then you'd be a better guess at the answer to that one.

The best music comes out of Europe.  The best dancing from South America - probably also falls in line with why their soccer teams are so good, that fancy foot work.

Aside from the music aspect, how can any of us truly know without the experience of travel?  What is it about flowing gradually from location to location that terrifies people so much that they refrain from doing it?

Sure, France is far more peaceful place to go than, say, Syria currently, but Syria has just as much culture to offer (provided it weren't extraordinarily difficult to get into the country due to current war-like "conflict" happening there currently) as the most pleasant of the European countries, surely.

I've always been one to be far more attracted to the side of life that involves more struggle, more pain, more suffering than that of the happy go lucky, nothing ever goes wrong side.  Is it more dangerous?  Absolutely, but the majority of those you encounter will treat you millions of times better simply because they understand a very simplistic concept - if you don't work together as a community, even if it is just neighbors, then you simply don't survive.

It builds character, as they say.

Of course, the benefits from a society with minimal turmoil allows for certain types of personal growth - we'd never have espresso or soccer or dancing if it weren't for people's ability to feel secure enough to do those things.  Alright, we'd probably still have dancing, but have you ever seen a Brazilian dance?

Needless to say, as well, you can get all these things in pretty much any first world country around the world.  People of the United States can imitate those Brazilian dance moves that are so enthralling to watch.  There is a Starbucks on nearly every corner that will serve you an espresso.  That music I mentioned earlier?  The internet exists for a reason.

Perhaps those imitations are good enough for you, but for me it simply makes me more curious about what other little treasures the rest of the planet has to offer.

-Dustin S. Stover

The Hunt and the Hunter

The beast that beckons and howls, he grows delightfully close.  I suppose it could be a she, but the more terrifying a thing is the more masculine it is presumed to be.

There has been a hunt ages and ages long raging in the heart and soul of my people.  We are taught from birth to chase this beast and that obtaining it as a carcass is the way to become the noblest.  Men hunting alongside women for this creature of obscurity and amazement.

Few and far between have any of us seen what this demon creature looks like, yet when one of us do peer at it, even if only for a second, it encourages every last one of us to rise earlier in the morn and hunt later into the night.  This elegant beast, loud and ferocious, massive in size and legend, yet as elusive as the tiniest object in the universe.

Yet here we are again, hearing the thunderous roar of this confounding creature.  He cannot be far from here as the tracks are laid out so steadily before us, clear for all of us to see in the clearest of blue skies.

This is going to be my day.  I will have this beast with no name.  I will sit atop my chair as the most masterful, most praised tribesman to ever live.  The one who slayed the beast, the master of the trickiest creature alive.

Another roar from just out of eye sight, too many trees blocking my view.  Certainly, though, the beast cannot hear me nearing in on him.

The other hunters decided to travel together in a pack, a decent group of five.  We always come back with game when we travel in a pack, but we never get the prize in which we all truly seek.  Some claim that they are satisfied with a good sized deer, maybe even a buffalo.  They are lying to themselves, though.  They want the creature who cannot be caught.  That is why they go out on a hunt the day after capturing a big meal for all of us to share.

I, however, had to venture out alone.  I can't lie to myself any longer.  I want the beast we all know exists, yet cannot find.  I found him.  He is just on the other side of this shrubbery.  His grunt is patterned the way a man snoring in the middle of the night might be.  It is harsh, it is loud, it is angry, and it is big.

The tales report the beast being ten or fifteen feet tall and just as wide.  Enough to feed the entire village for months, or make us all fatter than we could imagine.  The one who captures it decides, though, how it is dispersed and I want it all for myself.  I want to live off of it for the remainder of my life.  I could finally stop hunting.

Some of the other hunters say that they'd share with everyone.  They say that everyone is equal, but they are a liar.  Even if that were the case, someone would try to steal extra for themselves.  Do you know how many furs could be cut from a beast that size?

Sure, some of them would be satisfied just having slightly more than everyone else, but not me.  I want it all.  I want everyone to see me with the furs as I pack the pounds onto my now tiny little frame.  Tiny because I don't eat enough.  Tiny because I spend so much time and effort trying to hunt.

I find myself still standing on the wrong side of the bush - a bush so massive that it would be the only one to hide this beast from my sight now.  I must be clever if I'm to take him down.  Strategy is everything.  My attack must be swift and precise.  I've trained my whole life for this and the time is finally here.

Some of the other tribesman weigh more than I, and I do not understand how.  They hunt small game, squirrels, rabbits, and the like.  They always have food, though.

As I'm rounding the corner the loud noises start to fade.  Is the beast aware of my presence?  How could the beast know?  No, he surely cannot know.  I've been as silent as silent can be.

I creep even more slowly around the corner.  The noise is still there and still does not sound startled; however, it doesn't sound as intense as it once did.  It does not sound as intense as it did while I was further away.

As I finish rounding the corner, I see nothing.  The sound is louder than it has ever been, yet nothing.

No, there is something there.  The beast to end all beasts, however, is no beast at all.  It is tiny.  It is the size of a small rodent, a mouse perhaps.  It opens its mouth and lets out the most ferocious and loud noise I have ever heard before it scurries into the shrubbery.  It is gone, gone now and forever.

Now I'm faced with a choice.  Did I find the fifteen foot monster and let him get away or did I fail at another hunting excursion?

-Dustin S. Stover

For more pleasures reading my work, click below!
Kindle: Happiness in a Void of Darkness
Nook: Happiness in a Void of Darkness

Dip Your Toes in the Ocean

Sometimes I like to pretend I got to have a do over as a child.  You know, have that red bike instead of the blue.  Maybe saved up chore money a little bit longer to afford the bigger super soaker to blast my neighbors with.

It is a long, slippery slope, though, and I soon have to come back to reality before I'm sifting through the millions of variables that would have changed over the course of a single year.

It is interesting, then, whenever someone I come into contact with can just make actions and stick with them.  I try to do that, and I have done that to quite a good deal of success, but to live like that... to live like that is something very admirable to me.

It always seems as though those people are happiest as well.  Being able to take in the moment for everything it is worth, being able to throw consequences to the side and say, "this is what I'm doing and to Hell with the rest of it."  It is beautiful in a way.  Perhaps one of the most beautiful things a person can see in another.

I often times from myself at odds with people like that, however.  Well, not always, but the majority of the time.  What happens, then, when someone finds a healthy balance between that fun loving nature of being in the now and being able to balance consequences of actions?

I'd like to imagine it would go a little something like this - things still stay exciting to them, and when making the choices they make they still make the better of the choices at hand.  Meaning, just because they expose themselves to greater risks doesn't mean they are actually in any more of a dangerous scenario.

A person can die doing the exact same thing every day as easily as a person can die jumping out of an airplane, provided proper attention to detail has been given to preparations for the sky diving excursion, but is it really a life worth living if everything becomes so stale that the very air being breathed in feels more like poison?

And the opposite, of course, is true.  Someone who takes no precautions in their actions can run a pretty severe risk of ruining their lives with bad choices.

One might argue that so long as someone is breathing then their life hasn't been ruined, which of course is a fair assessment.  Where someone desires something strongly enough, things can change for the better at any given point.

Perhaps, then, everyone should take more risks in their lives.  Feel that fresh air.  Let the turbulence shake you up a bit.  Let the waves crash upon your chest.  Just be smart about it.

-Dustin S. Stover

A Short Story Dedicated to Someone Nice

I shrug my shoulders at the end of yet another date.  A meaningless, trivial date that goes nowhere in a hurry and finds itself sitting at that place of nonexistence yet trying to force something to grow.

She looks at me and asks me how I feel about the weather.  I look at her and tell her it is hot, sweltering, and close enough to Hell that it would easily be mistaken.  We both laugh as she agrees, but the conversation, again, falls flat.

And at the end of the night we go our separate ways.  We parked near one another so we did an awkward walk in silence in similar directions until we end the short stroll by saying it was fun - it wasn't - and that we should do it again - we won't, but we agree upon it anyway.

Once I sit in my car, the sound of John Zorn's barely considered music playing in the background, I let out a sigh and think about how, yet again, I've led another friend to their perfect match.  Yet, of course, I can't find anyone that sits well with me.

I suppose at this time I should reflect back a bit into my past.  See, I moved to this suck fest of a town a few years back.  Desperately searching for a place through various shady websites, I finally met someone who didn't creep me out.  The room mates name - Peter.  Well, it was Pete, but he introduced himself as Peter at first.

Pete was the type of guy who had a genuine heart but couldn't really express himself effectively enough to win someone over well enough for a second date, but there was a girl I worked with that had a bit of an awkwardness to her.  After schmoozing it up a bit during the work shift, months of schmoozing, it dawned on me that Pete and the coworker - Ashley - had a lot in common.  

I asked Pete how he felt about throwing a bit of a house party and he got excited to bust out some old board games he had never gotten a chance to play.  I asked some coworkers.  He asked some friends.  It turned out to be quite the event - that's a total lie, actually.  It was five people sitting around a house, casually drinking beers and trying best to make conversation even though we had nothing really in common other than work.

Well, except Ashley and Pete.  They spent the entire night talking.  In fact, she ended up spending the night on the couch that night because once their conversation ended she was too tired to drive home.  

When the lease for that house ended, Ashley and Pete got their own place and back to the shady internet I went.

I had a string of bad experiences.  A room mate who decided that three a.m. was the perfect time to clean house using, I'm fairly certain, a sledgehammer and chainsaw.  I lasted a couple weeks before I found myself in another house.  The second place was listed as a straight laced, no frills kind of house.  What I got was a complete stoner who always had company.  It was a good thing my job didn't do random piss tests as I'd have failed by second hand inhalation alone.  I lasted a little bit longer by staying for a couple days more than a month.

Then I found myself roomed up with a girl.  I'm not going to lie, she was quite attractive.  I was afraid initially that I was going to make some kind of move on her and ruin everything but we soon discovered that we didn't care at all for one another romantically.  Something about our personalities didn't mesh that way, but we became good friends.  

Jamie was her name.  She became a sister to me, but when I moved in she had just went through a pretty rough break up.  She was engaged to a guy for almost a year, and dated for four years prior to that.  Typical story of walking in on him with her best friend.  Well, not so typical considering it was actually her mom and not best friend.  And her dad was watching.  Talk about weird stories.

Jamie went up and down with it.  Not only did she lose her lover, she cut her folks out of the picture, too.  

As she was getting emotionally stable again, however, I found myself introducing her to a guy I was trying to start a band with.  Tommy.  

Now, Tommy is a guy that when you look at him all that you can think is tattooed freak.  Piercings, tattoos, scruffy beard, long hair.  Jamie, on the other hand, was an understated kind of beauty.  No tattoos, no piercings, raised relatively conservative - probably why we'd have never worked out - and someone you'd never peg to be into a rock star.

It happened, though.  To be fair, Tommy is one of the nicest guys in the world.  The band didn't work out - all because of my lack of motivation - but Jamie and Tommy sure as hell did.  They are married and just adopted their second dog.  They also just bought their own place, which means I'm back out.  She still doesn't have any tattoos or piercings, though.

I've had my fair share of dates throughout that time - even had a bit of sex, too.  None of them stuck, though.  A crazy girl who, on a first date no less, asked me how I felt about knives being used during sex.  Another girl fell asleep while we were on a coffee date.  One girl lacked the intelligence to hold a conversation about anything deeper than the latest chick flick she watched.  

I finally met one I could talk to, hold conversation with.  Actually, it filled me with hope for the first time in years.  Then I found out she was married.

The sex that came and went was only ever so-so, but that is because, as everyone should know, great sex comes from emotions and comfort.  That's something that no amount of talent can replace.

And now here I find myself, once again, ending a date with a someone, while I'm sure is a perfectly good person, I have no connection with. 

I start the move in process for my new place tomorrow.  Another single room mate.  Another match made in heaven coming up.  It just won't be mine.

-Dustin S. Stover

For my collection of short stories, click below.

Kindle: Happiness in a Void of Darkness

Nook: Happiness in a Void of Darkness