Christmas Special Part One

Hello, my precious readers.  Wrote this up today for fun - part one of the Christmas special =)  hope you guys like it.

It was mid-December, where half the world was decorated with lights and trees and other festive symbols.  It was a time of great stress for many – the need to go out and drive one’s self crazy buying gifts for others while still making sure they can pay the bills, while still making sure they don’t kill extended family members who they’ve been dreading to see again.

                Despite this, it was also a more joyful time of year, where most people were just a teeny bit nicer than during any other time of year.  Yes, they were still awful to each other, but the ‘teeny bit’ was just enough to make a difference most of the time.  People love giving almost as much as they love receiving, and so it was with a warm heart that they handed a wrapped package over to a friend or family member, waiting to see the expression on their face once they saw what the gift was.

                Yes, aside from the stress it wasn’t such a bad time of year, especially if you also ignored the corporations that manipulated the masses into buying their products under the guise of helping them find something one of their dear ones really wants.  But who wants to care about all of that?  In the end, it’s the thought that counts, right?

                This was a special time of year for Sem and Sorena as well.  This was the time of year where Sem lost himself to all reason for the mere sake of beating his neighbors to a nasty pulp in the annual contest that took place in their community that judged which house was the best decorated.  Yes, he was simply filled with the spirit of the holidays.

                “What about these lights…” Sem murmured to himself, holding a package of multicolor outdoor lights.

                “I thought you had decided on white lights,” Sorena said dryly.  The middle-aged-looking woman stood in the aisle with Sem, staring into empty space, hands clasped together just below her chest, covered by long black sleeves.  She was incredibly bored.  Sem had been participating in the contest ever since they had moved into their current home, which was about ten years ago.  He had won every single year, save for the last.  A new neighbor snatched the top prize from under his nose, forcing him to settle for second place.

               

                “Hey, it’s me again,” he said when he and Sorena had gone over to her house after the contest had ended.  “I just wanted to say congratulations.  You have a beautiful home.”  Sem had a plate of gingerbread cookies with him.  His smile was warm and his eyes seemed genuine, but Sorena knew Sem was trying very hard not to suddenly burst every single pipe, faucet, toilet, and showerhead in the woman’s house.

                “Aw, thanks so much!” she had replied.  The woman was a professional football player’s wife and her voice was a bit shrill.  She had way too much makeup on.  “Better luck next year, right?” she added with a bit of sneer.  She was also stuck-up.

                At that there was a loud pop from somewhere within the home and her children ran across the hall screaming.  The sound of a lot of water pouring out onto the home’s very nice hardwood floors could be easily heard from the front door.

                The woman stifled a scream and ran to her kitchen, splashing through an inch of water that was running out into the hallway.  Sem casually stepped into the house and set the plate of cookies near the doorway.  On the plates there was a little card which read “Happy Holidays”.  The cookies were perfectly round and had smiley faces on them.  And then he and Sorena left, Sem having a wicked smile on his face.

                Sem wasn’t planning to lose this year, especially not to that woman who had somehow won with the most gaudy and awful decorations.  There was no coordination. There was no tact.

                “Yes, white lights,” Sem muttered, setting the package of multicolored lights down.  “I could do colored ones, though!” he expressed, turning around to face Sorena who was still staring into nothingness.  “I’d have to make a few adjustments to the overall plan, but I could!”

                Yes, there was a plan.  It was drawn out too.

                Sem unrolled a large white parchment that he had held between his arm and torso.  He studied it with his cerulean eyes, instantly picking out what would need to be changed if the lights for the house were suddenly multicolored.  If he weren’t so indecisive Sorena wouldn’t care so much, but he was always changing his mind and making adjustments to his overall grand scheme of things.

                “Can I help you?” asked a store employee very tentatively, casting multiple glances at the middle-aged-looking woman who was dressed in all black and looked like a witch.  Her expression said that she wasn’t being paid enough to work at a store visited by lunatics.

                “I’m fine, thank you,” Sem replied politely, looking away from his large scroll.

                “What about your grandmother?  I could get her a wheelchair or something…” she offered in a voice that was a bit more quiet.

                The comment snapped Sorena out of her reverie.

                “I could at least pass for his mother!” she said indignantly.

                “We’re fine, thank you,” Sem repeated, shooing the employee away.

                “Just hurry up and buy your lights,” Sorena uttered, settling back into her previous, statuesque posture.

                Of course, Sem’s phone began to ring.  He pulled it from his pocket and answered it before handing it to Sorena.

                The woman stared at the phone for a moment, seeing the caller ID, shot a glare at Sem, and then snatched the phone from his hand.

                “What do you want?” Sorena growled.

                “Well, I was hoping to talk to Sem.  If I had wanted you I would have called you.”  The voice on the other end of a line belonged to a young woman named Lysis.

                “What does she want?” Sem asked as he scanned through a row of white lights.

                “That’s what I just asked her!” Sorena replied. 

                “Well, seems you’re both a bit cranky today,” Lysis said.  “Ask Sem if he’s interested in helping me decorate my place.”

                “Oh, he’s quite busy trying to decorate our own house,” Sorena replied simply, putting a hand to her hip.

                “Please don’t use words like ‘ours’ – it makes you sound like a couple.”

                Sorena pressed the large red ‘End Call’ button on the touch screen and huffed.

                The phone rang again.

                “What?” Sorena answered with a flat expression.

                “Why is he decorating the house anyway?  Can’t you just use magic?  You know, bippity boppity boo?”

                “I’ll bippity boppity your boo,” Sorena muttered.  “No, he insists on doing it himself every year.  He wants to win this house decorating contest the neighborhood does annually.”

                “… Is that so?  Interesting…” Lysis mused.

                “These lights are a bit too small, but I like their more crystalline appearance versus the simple frosted bulbs of these lights, except the frosted bulbs are the size that I want,” Sem explained as he held two different packages of lights.

                “… It’s like a sickness,” Lysis commented.  “I thought only the hag had little mental issues like that.”

                “I’m going to hang up again,” Sorena said.

                “Fine.  I’ll just get Francis to help me.  He’s surely forgiven me by now…” The young woman’s voice trailed, recalling Thanksgiving incident just a few weeks prior.  “Ta-ta for now, loves,” she chimed before ending the call herself.

                “’Ta-ta for now, loves,’” Sorena mimicked in a ridiculing manner as she handed Sem’s phone back.  “Who does she think she is?”

                “She thinks a lot of things about herself,” Sem said as he glanced at a third kind of white lights.  “… or do I want icicle lights?”

                Only a couple hours had passed by the time the two walked out of the store, Sem feeling good about his choices this year.  However, things will not go as planned.

                      To be continued…

©2011 James Curry a.k.a Sem

Where then shall I go?

This wasn't planned but I had a sudden burst of inspiration so here it is.

Where then shall I go that takes me away from the pain of the world?

Perhaps I shall do as the Ancients did long ago and flee from the cares of the world into the darkness of the north.
Perhaps I shall settle down as they did in the desolate tundra, where the bitter winds shall tear my soul away from me.  Where shivering gales shall steal the breath from my lungs.
Where my bones shall turn to ice and my flesh to snow.
Where my eyes shall be fixed and clear like glass.
Where my ears shall be covered and deaf.
Where touch is numbed and smell is overwhelmed by the frost.
Where my mouth can utter no more as the warmth in me fades.
Where even the glorious dawn and its withering light will too be frozen by the time it reaches me.
And the rare soul who finds me - what shall they say? 
"Oh, he is but a carving in the ice.  He is not real.  He does not feel as I do.  He is only the hollow visage of a human.  Nothing more."
And then they shall go on their way.
That is fine, I shall say to myself.  I do not recall ever asking to feel. 
It was a choice someone else made for me.
I never asked to be human.
And so frozen I shall stay, isolated and free from binding thoughts. 

There is no other way, I realize. 
I believe I shall flee into the embrace of the eternal winter.
There is no alternative.

"Silly thing."

Pardon?
I wait.
Oh, it was nothing. 
Only a whisper on the wind.

©2011 James Curry a.k.a Sem

Character Analysis: Sem

I believe this will be my last character analysis for a while, as after this is done I'll have pretty much covered my more prominent characters.  This one is named Sem.

Origins
Sem is my oldest character, with his most earliest incarnation having been created back in 2005.  Unlike my other characters he is as much of a persona as he his a character, and he has gone through the most changes, since he is essentially a self-insert.  So, in other words, he changes along with me.  He probably wouldn't exist the way he does today if it weren't for a game called "Second Life", which I began playing rather heavily back in 2005 until late 2006.  Second Life is essentially a virtual life in a virtual world, in which you control your fully customizable avatar in a world in which you can do virtually anything.  I was pretty heavily addicted to it during that time, and spent much of my time building things, from buildings to vehicles, to avatars.  My username in the game was Semaj, which is James backwards. (Yes, I liked to think I was being clever back then.)  The friends I met in-game soon began to simply refer to me as Sem and the name has stuck ever since in my online life, and eventually Sem turned into not just a persona but an actual character separate from myself yet also tied to me directly.

During that time I took great interest in my avatar and up until then it changed with the day of the week, but I was looking to have a more permanent look, and so I set about creating it and eventually ended up with this:

I cringe looking at it now, simply because I wasn't the greatest at making avatars.  I was so much better at making buildings and objects, I loved it.  However, I must've not been too bad at the avatars because I was able to turn my hobby into a business.  See, the in-game currency was actual currency that you could exchange for USD or other currencies.  It was through my little business in Second Life that I was able to afford to buy the Wii on launch day =D  Anyway, I'm getting off-topic.

That in those pictures, comprised almost entirely of stretched out and sliced-up spheres, is Sem's first incarnation.  The thing on the floor is a posing stand, which is why he's floating - it's what I used to create and adjust my avatars.  His hat is also sort of purposely floating because I liked how that looked.  In my mind it was somewhat of a mix between an otter and a fish.  The right eye is also a lighter, more clouded color to represent my own actual blind eye.

Anyway, my time in Second Life came and went, though I still miss it sometimes and wonder if I could have taken my little business a bit further and actually made some good money from it.  There are people who do that and are actually able to support themselves, selling virtual clothing or virtual plots of land.  Pretty ridiculous if you think about it.

Sem changed in outward appearance very little throughout the next few years, though his fins changed to a blue color and he actually became more anatomically similar to an otter and not a freakish humanoid/furry.  For any of my readers who have no idea what a furry is the very last thing you should do is Google image it.

Isn't he adorable?  Yes, that was his face for a quite a while.  Also note that none of these were images were created by me - they were made by some very talented friends of mine and I have many more where they came from.  The animal itself that Sem was is a species I decided to unimpressively name the "aquamor" - taken from aqua and amor - water lover essentially.  I had always had it in mind that it was only a temporary name and that I would eventually give the species a better name.  I never did.

To be fair there have been a great many Sems, and I did have more human-looking ones for several different purposes that have existed for almost as long.  However, all of my Sems were essentially the identical in every way except for some minor differences, mostly aesthetic.  More than a year ago I "retired" the aquamor-form of Sem and I changed him entirely to look human, as well as actually starting to give him some concrete history, which up until that point had been rather wishy-washy.  I phased out the other Sems as well and basically reinvented him into what he is currently.

Sem comes entirely from my own dreaming and it has been almost entirely my own creative force that has molded him, more so than my other characters who had outside influences play roles in their creation.  He started out as and has always been a fantasized version of myself.

Personality
Since Sem is essentially a self-insert, his personality is rather similar to mine.  You think that that would make writing him easy but it actually makes it more difficult.  I've gotten better over the years, since I've been getting to know myself better in that time.  The only difference is that I try to imagine what I would be like, or rather, would like to be like personality-wise if I were alive for as long as he has.  He is obviously a lot more mature than I am and very much wiser than I am.

I suppose he would also be a slight parody of myself, in which I may over-exaggerate my own "dark" personality.


Appearance
Currently Sem looks human, though he technically isn't.  I would describe his overall appearance similar to mine, yet having the changes that I would make to myself if it were in my power to do so.  I like to think that if I were to suddenly look like him people would still be able to recognize me.  His skin is bronzed like mine, but a bit more olive-toned.  His eyes are cerulean-blue, and both work ;P  Hair color is about the same, though Sem has a streak of snow-white in his fringe.

Sem is also a bit shorter than I am.  I dunno why, but I always wish I had stopped growing years ago.  I wouldn't mind being 5'7" or something, which is about how tall Sem is.  His frame is also different.  I've lost a lot of weight in recent years, especially in the last year, but I know that I have a larger frame in general.  It's something about me I'm getting over slowly but surely, but I still decided to give him a different frame.  He's not super thin and lanky because I just wouldn't like that for him or myself.  He's in a good medium between the small and large frames and actually fit, unlike myself.

The face is the same, since I actually like my face, though his nose might be a bit smaller.  He's also looks about my age as well.  He dresses the same as me, though he actually has the money for all the nice things I wish I could have, so he looks nicer than I do.

History
Like Sorena, a huge part of Sem's history is underdeveloped since he was born in the 13th century, the year 1213 to be exact.  I haven't settled on a birthday for him.  His birthday will probably be January 11th like mine, or I may change him so that he's a Pisces, just for the symbology of it.

Sem wasn't born in the way humans are since he's not human.  He's part of a group that I've come to refer to as "True Elementals".  There are only seven of them in existence at any given time, one each to represent a traditional element as well as some non-traditional ones.  Fire, though plasma is more accurate, Water, Earth, Air, Plantlife, Light, and Darkness.  They are immortal by nature but can die - in the event of ones death a new one is immediately created to replace him/her.  True elementals are the embodiments of nature's raw power, and Sem represents the oceans, or water specifically.  True elementals are born in a variety of physical stages of development as far as humans are concerned.  If a true elemental is born in the image of a child then they may grow to apparent maturity, though not always.  Some of them are also born looking as if they are way past their twenties.  Sem himself has the body of someone in their early twenties, though he's often mistaken for someone younger.

Sorena was present during Sem's creation, and she took it upon himself to care for him until he was able to take care of himself.  He was created with a normal functioning mind, but obviously knew nothing of the world, or even how to speak.  Sorena was present during the death of Sem's predecessor, who she had come to know very well and care very much for, and so she promised that she would care for the next in line in place of the one who died.

Sem stayed with Sorena as the two had grown very closer, even closer than Sorena had grown to his predecessor.  They rode out the trials and waves of history together.  During that time Sem has "died" four times, though each time he came back stronger than before.  He has also had a large struggle to deal with for many years.

As he grew more and more in touch with his element Sem began to lose his organic qualities.  And as he became less and less flesh and blood he also began to care less and less about the world around him to the point where he was a apathetic and unbiased as the ocean itself.  Sorena was able to help him through it, and from then on Sem wears a pendant around his neck that looks like a raindrop.  It is a magical pendant that allows him to have his human appearance and the five senses, but he is now comprised entirely of water, having lost any of his organic structure.  So, he's really not joking when he says he's heartless, which he enjoys with his twisted sense of humor.

Because of this though he is fairly indestructible, as he can manipulate water in any of its stages, so freezing or evaporating him would do nothing.

Despite the pendant allowing him to feel more human, it actually does nothing to help him combat the apathy he can sometimes slide back into.  It is an ongoing struggle for him, but he has become more and more able to deal with it as the years go by, and Sorena does a great deal to remind him why he cared so much in the first place.  He also helps her as much as she helps him with her own personal struggles.

Personal Impact
"Personal impact" is the wrong title for this section but whatever.  Sem, unlike other characters, isn't very influential to me personally.  He is rather the personifications of my dreams, fantasies, and visions for my future.  I want to reach the end of my life satisfied with who I am, and even though Sem is immortal, he has achieved a state of mind where he is happy with his life and he is an effective carer for those around him.

I suppose that's all I can say right now.  Thanks for reading =)

The character Sem is ©2005 James Curry a.k.a Sem