Blah!

As promised in Cyan Chat, here’s a small sample of K’laa Goes To The Zoo…

The book is, well, not 100% complete in the sense that I’m ready to throw it out there, but all the pages are at least constructed and presentable. I just want to polish it up some, add some more detail, stuff like that.

I was reminded of this book yesterday when some loser-publishing company called and asked about my book progress. I was sure they’d have given up after last time, when they were told I was going a different way, but, eh. The point is that I remembered K’laa’s little trip to the zoo, and I was able to work on it freshly after this long… lack of working on it.

So, yeah. TW.

Magi wanted to read this. So, here it is.

In the United States of America, the minimum drinking age is twenty-one. That’s right, twenty-one. At the age of eighteen, Americans can live on their own, drive, smoke, get married; in fact they can do pretty much everything but gamble and rent a car. One major exception is the purchase and consumption of alcohol, which an American does not have the right to until well past adulthood. While you’re quite likely to come across a fourteen-year-old practicing his or her skills at one of the most dangerous pieces of machinery known to every-day American life—the automobile—it is somehow legally forbidden for even a sixteen-year-old (who can, in most states, drive unsupervised) to practice his or her tastes at an alcoholic beverage.

Insane, isn’t it? One of the key concepts of childhood and adolescence is growing through experiences and learning important information and skills required for and beneficial to the adult life. And yet, handling of a substance as common, popular, celebrated, and even potentially dangerous as alcohol is forbidden to Americans until they reach an age where most of us think we know everything already. Yes, indeed, crazy.

Crazier still is how our laws—though broken so commonly that abstaining from violating them is considered abnormal—are still thought to be a-ok. With party life from high school through college often not only including, but revolving around the consumption of alcohol, you would think our society would come up with a better policy on protecting the lives and brain cells of our citizens than throwing out a few slogans against drunk driving and asking our rebellious youth to kindly do what we tell them to please with sugar on top.

The cold hard fact is this: young people are stupid. The very fact that alcohol consumption is prohibited from us, and reserved for those of an older (though not in all cases wiser) age dictates that of course people under the age of twenty-one are going to drink! Waving a law concerning a beverage that has crazy (and apparently enjoyable) effects in front of the youth of America is like setting a plate of cookies in front of a toddler and telling him or her not to touch them until after dinner. The difference is, in the case of alcohol consumption, the consequences of disobedience can be much more serious.

Irresponsible alcohol consumption can result in (as is most often the case) drunkenness, which in turn can lead to serious mistakes in judgment, such as drunk driving and rape. Even without crime, just the condition of drunkenness can do damage to the brain, liver, and other assorted body parts. Going another step back, just drinking without even getting drunk can lead to dependency and render a person alcoholic before he or she is even of legal age to drink.

While many may wish to use such unfortunate facts to discourage any consumption of alcohol, or perhaps increase laws pertaining to the purchase and consumption thereof, the real issue is not whether or not our laws are prepared to fine, jail, and shake a finger at violators of the law. The real issue is teaching the younger generation how to drink responsibly. Unfortunately, it’s hard to teach a child when that child is twenty-one.

Crazy crazy little things.
Crazy crazy little things;
Where’d you go to, little walk?
Where’d you go to, little talk?

Crazy crazy little things,
Crazy psycho; make you sing;
Make you dream a dream so large,
Waking bondage, sleeping charge.

Crazy crazy people cry,
Crazy crazy people die.
Why die now, you crazy one?
Why die now, you miss the fun!

Dying dying always so,
Living, living, always no.
Where’s death come from, where’s life go?
Why the dying, do you know?

Always death here in some form,
Always death, it is the norm.
Always pain to make you cry,
Always death to make you die.

Death and dying, dying death,
Breathing air and cool air’s breath,
Jumping down and tumbling up,
Drinking air, and breathing cup.

Always dying, as it’s prone,
Only difference the tombstone,
Is it you or is it death
Which now breathes its dying breath?

Always dying, that’s the way,
Always night begins the day,
Who’s to die? You, of course,
But don’t worry, could be worse.

Always dying, part of you,
Always dying, yes it’s true,
Piece by piece, one by one,
Until all of the dying’s done.

What will die, do you know?
What will stay, and what will go?
Make it die that pain you feel,
Put to death the nightmares real.

Always dying, death is here,
Put to death the death you fear,
Make it die, the hurt and hate,
Make it die, don’t let it wait.

Live a life, you shouldn’t die;
Shouldn’t stumble, shouldn’t cry.
Cry the pain you feel away,
Make it drown, just for a day.

Pain and hurt and hate and woe,
Bid it leave and watch it go,
On the pain just do not dwell,
Do not hold yourself in hell.

Pain and hurt and hate and woe,
Bid it leave and watch it go.
Always dying, death is here,
Put to death the death you fear.