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A timelapse of the sunset over the partially frozen Little Cranberry Lake. I’m not sure if I ran out of space on my SD card, or if my batteries died, but either way, I wasn’t fully prepared for this timelapse, because I missed the end of the sunset. I couldn’t think of a decent title that I haven’t used already, so I went with generic numbering, and I’m kind of surprised I haven’t made it past 1000 time stacks yet, but I guess it’s because not all timelapse work well for stacking.
Visit my instagram page to see the timelapse video, www.instagram.com/mattmolloyphoto/
I made this time stack by combining 239 photos into one image. Here’s a quick and easy Photoshop tutorial of the process I use to make time stacks. https://youtu.be/oTfp47jTzWc14
Reflection - Yellow One
Engine walked through the park at the foot of the tower. He stopped a moment to watch Mikendo try to teach Clora how to skate. She wore his hat for good luck, looking like a real punk with her bandages fingers and a scratch on her face. He chuckled as her face contorted in focus and he realized he didn’t have the heart to remind her that Mikendo had no idea what he was doing. He continued on the thin path that wrapped around the tower, as he had places to be. He grabbed a small violet growing from one of the planters and slipped it into his vest pocket.
Engine finally got to the mirror door to the Reflection Room. Miss Aria was within, waiting for their talk. Sitting on the wicker bench was Lexi, bending a metal wire into a dragonfly shape. “Heya there Alexia. Waiting to see Miss Aria?”
She looked up at him momentarily before her gaze fell back to the wire insect. “Nah, I’m hanging out with Bastion today. We have a task.”
Engine looked around, toward the park and then toward the residential district. He didn’t see Bash anywhere. After a moment he turned his gaze to the mirror. “Wait, in there? Bastion? Like the real Bastion?”
She blinked slowly, and then finally looked up to Engine. “Is there a fake Bastion?”
“Um, well no. I mean-“
The door whipped open and a thoroughly annoyed Bastion stormed out of it. “What a waste of time. Come on, Lexi. We’re going.” He noticed Engine and pointed his thumb at the door. “I half expected you to be in there. I thought I was going to interrupt you.”
Engine smiled wide. “I got distracted and I’m running late! Excuse me.” He walked over to the door and gave the glass handle a soft tug. Before he stepped through he glanced back to them long enough to see them head into the lower levels.
Engine stepped into a room that reflected himself. A pale purple near the ceiling bled darker and darker until the color was thick and dark on the carpeted floor. To the left he had a few pieces of art. The closest was not hanging, but resting awkwardly on the counter. He lifted it, examining. There was a celestial body in the center. The sun shone to the left, an inverted angelic being reaching down from the sky and holding it up. The right had a skeletal figure exuding darkness reaching out and placing a hand on the moon. The two together symbolized a duality. He hung it up and glanced at a couple more pieces, each with these two tones as a theme. Two serpents curled around each other, a brightly lit pond with a dark reflection, and more. He smiled at it rested level and then turned to the small chair there, a small angle on the back for support. He sat straight in it with a sincere smile. “Hello Miss Aria. You look a bit troubled.”
Aria stared down into one of her desk drawers, her brow lowered. “Yeah…” She closed the drawer and then grabbed a folder off of her desk, closing it and sorting it away. Engine noted Bastion’s name on the file, but it seemed so thin. She turned back toward Engine with his own file, one with several tabs and a bit more bulk. A sketch of a notebook was on the front of it. “All righty Engine. Last time we talked about uhh…”
“Please smile, Miss. A grimace doesn’t suit your face, and the stress will wrinkle you.”
Her tired face looked up at him, her eyes widening a bit until they met his. After a soft scoff she smiled genuinely back at him. “Thank you, Engine. I’m afraid I’m just having a stressful day. It should pass soon.” She feathered through his folder and Engine was quite sure that Bastion had ruined her mood. He said nothing. “So we were talking about your containment?”
Engine nodded. “Yeah, I think I remember that.” He looked at the tall metal table before him, where a Newton’s cradle, an hour glass, and a fidget spinner all rested. He flipped the hourglass. “I forget where I was so I’ll start over. My book was damaged during the Flood, y'know? I exerted a lot of my energy to hold back that big red monster so I can’t remember that part too well. I remember waking up though, and seeing Clora and Lexi trying to fix my brother and I. Lexi got all the pages and put them back together and she was binding them to a new spine.” He reached into his vest and pulled out a small book with a fresh white spine and a thick black binding string. The pages had begun to turn brown from use and age. He placed this onto the table next to the hourglass. “I recovered quickly but I do have some new scars. They’re gonna need some work to cover up.” Aria stared for a moment with curiosity. He stood and slipped his vest onto the seat’s back, and then crossed his arms to lift his long sleeve shirt off. Aria’s eyes fixed onto his skin as he disrobed, catching attention on his forearm tattoos first. The one on his right arm – a metal cross used as a projectile weapon in combat with “Redemption” written across it - was old. On the left arm was a perfect reflection, but this one was fresh and the flesh was still raw from the process. This one read “Penance.” Engine did them himself. Her eyes followed up to his shoulder, where the skin was torn and rippled all around. This is where his arm had been removed. The skin was paler, his muscle atrophied and his fingers slender. One wouldn’t notice while he was clothed, but topless it quickly became apparent. He turned, revealing a long polearm tattoo down his spine. As he lifted his arm, however, a long tear down his left side under his arm quickly became visible. It was sewn shut with a thick black cord similar to the thread that now bound his book. “I got the design for Penance done, so now it matches Redemption on my right arm. I gotta figure out something for this scar on the side though because it isn’t very aesthetic.”
Aria took in all of the details. She winced at the marring of his flesh. “You uh… You took a lot of damage in the Flood, huh?”
He nodded, his goofy grin firmly remaining in place. “Yeah! Lexi tells me that thing ripped my arm off, but Vedroh gave my his so I’m all right. The tear down my side is actually Vedroh’s fault so I might make that tat looks like him. It’s kinda shaped like him, yeah?”
Aria stared at the scar in silence for longer than Engine felt comfortable with. When she noticed his discomfort she cleared her throat and looked down to the folder for a moment. A twinge of guilt rang through her like the chime of a bell. “Your recovery took a while, yeah? It took a couple months for you to get back to normal.”
“I mean, yeah. But still, that’s better than how long Damien had to wait. And anyways, I still have an arm so that’s pretty great!” He quickly grabbed his shirt and slipped it back on, it fitting his form like a glove. It was pretty clear that he hadn’t expected his wounds to make her so uneasy. He didn’t want her to suffer the sight any longer.
She tried to move the conversation forward. “So you mentioned before that you’ve been feeling different? You never went into detail with that.”
A light slowly faded from Engine’s eye, although his smile remained on him like a statue’s would. “Heh… Yeah, I’m a little tense lately. I seem pretty quick to get agitated, and to top it off I don’t seem to be able to make my words come out the way I’d like them to. There’s been a lot to do lately and it’s left me pretty tired all the time, but I’m proud to say I’ve kept it all in line despite sometimes burning the candle at both ends or staying awake way too long. It doesn’t bother me or anything but somehow whenever I bring it up about how I’m holding together I somehow make it sound like a bad thing. I stopped talking about it to be honest. It only seems to make the Missus mad when I bring up my exhaustion and she has so much going on already. Trying to find the right thing to say has been really difficult lately and I’m wondering if I’m being insensitive, rude, or maybe I’ve just said it the wrong way, maybe with the wrong tone?” Engine noticed the hourglass emptied and he pulled a ball back on the Cradle, starting the melodic clicks.
Aria tapped her pen in tune to the clicks as she thought. “Well those are possibilities, but I think it’s far more likely that your Missus is under a lot of stress. Her own doubt likely makes her feel like a burden and that’s coming out when she hears about your exertion. She has trouble with herself a lot of days so my guess is that she has the impression that you’re overworked.”
“I like my work though.”
“Well En, it’s always possible that she thinks you’re being insincere sometimes when you tell her not to worry. If you don’t speak out when you are tired or stressed, then she’s going to start assuming when.”
Engine’s eyes widened. “Holy whoa! I didn’t think of that!”
Aria couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Did you think she was psychic, or something? Or perhaps you actually believe she presumes you have infinite stamina.”
Engine shrugged. “I dunno. I guess I don’t really want to add to an already unbearable burden. I can handle myself just fine, but it’s her I worry about. I’m very certain of my limits because every day it’s the same, with a minor variable of sleep. She has a different threshold each day, and if she passes that it can wreck her. I don’t want her to push too hard and get worse, or loose focus when she needs it. If I help with everything I can be more certain that she is okay. I need her to be okay, you know? I want her to get better and be happy, so I will push myself a little bit to make it happen. I know sometimes I ask a lot so the least I can do is give back.”
“I’m sure she wants the same for you though.” Aria tilted her head with a small frown showing her concern.
“Yes. But no, I can handle a lot more right now so that’s what I’ll do. I support my little family. I make sure to rest and say no when I need to, it’s just not as often as others may like.”
“Burning the candle at both ends isn’t sustainable, En.” Her tapping slowed as the cradle’s did.
Engine picked up the fidget and began spinning it the moment the cradle ceased it’s clacking. “Well my candle is reeeeaaally big, and if I don’t burn enough of it then I can’t even sleep. Like walking home for example; it helps me burn off extra energy from work, killing some of my momentum. If I skip that then sometimes I am really talkative when I get home, and then I feel really annoying. I don’t wanna be annoying, I wanna be helpful and a benefit to my family. I wanna know my siblings, and help them grow. I wanna be there for my wife when her doctors don’t listen. I wanna be a great husband and sometimes that means taking a little extra of the load and using the power I have. It isn’t more than I’m capable of, and it isn’t more than my fair share. She took a lot of the labor at first, and found us a home, and got me work. She’s done a whole lot of tiring work for me and I’m sure as hell gonna pay it back with interest. Maybe it’s only something I think about, but I recover pretty quickly and if a bad time comes up I want her to be able to handle it with me. I’m unwilling to let her suffer when I can stop it, especially if it’s not a bother for me. It usually isn’t to be honest, and even when it’s a lot for me to handle I am there because I want to be. It’s my choice.”
“Have you considered how that makes her feel?”
Engine placed the fidget down and stood, grabbing his vest. As he did so, there was a soft tone throughout the room. “I would hope that she’s proud to have a guy who is willing to put Us first instead of just me. I do plenty to work on myself, and the things I am not working on have more to do with my own shortcomings then they do her. I’m imperfect, but I try to be the perfect husband. It’s just who I am.” He pulled his vest on as she closed the folder. “Thanks for having me again, Miss Aria. It’s always a pleasure.” He held his hand out and took a step toward her desk, to where the rug ended, perfectly in line with the window.
“NO, EN!” She spoke a moment too late as he reached the edge and instead of stepping onto the gray wood floor he came to a hard stop, faceplanting into an invisible wall right in front of her desk. The air rippled out like the surface of water as she let out a long sigh. “Engine, must you do that every time?”
With a bit of a blush, Engine rubbed his nose and picked up his notebook. “Eheh… yeah I keep forgetting that we cant cross there. Sorry. Uhhh… Oh! I got this for you!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small violet flower. He gently tossed it over the divide and it landed on her desk. “There we go! You said you wanted to see the Park last time but I remembered you can’t leave, so I brought some of the park to you! Hopefully you can keep it alive for a while, Miss Aria. Have a good day, okay?” He turned toward the door and happily pulled it open.
As the door closed, Aria smiled and lifted up the violet. “Beautiful…”
0First thought of the morning: Why did Narcissus looked into the pond?
Now I think I would be either conciously reflecting on it or maybe pondering about it at the back of my mind the whole day.
0If Friends is a primer on how to write a love letter to your soulmate, Inner Child is how to write a love letter to yourself and your long-held dreams.
1
More than anything, I hope that they are proud of their extraordinary accomplishments with this album and their journey over the past seven years, and that they know their fans feel every ounce of passion, struggle, love, and triumph that they poured into the creation of Map of the Soul 7.
2
Cleaning time. But stopped for a moment to be thankful for my creativity and the sunlight that God allowed you cast on the earth.
3Iron John Chapter 4
Reflection
It worries me hearing the relationships with men being so difficult and conflicting for young men. I have had complex relationships with all male authority figures in my life. I am not opposed to them, and I don’t want to hurt or take vengeance, but I worry that my complex and previously lacking relationship with my father makes it difficult for me to bond with men, despite my desire to. I tend to struggle the most with male relationships.
I don’t know if I really had a good enough relationship with my mother, however, to allow the feminine perspective to warp my perception of my father. I don’t think I did, but it would be worth meditating on to discern if I need to let go of anything when viewing my father, even in our positive relationship.
I need to reflect on what’s holding me back from bonding with other men better than I do, and if there’s any issues with my father that I have not examined properly since moving out of his household. I wish I could have a male authority in my life, but I’m lacking something like that and I’m not sure I’ll ever receive it. Still, these are valuable lessons for me now to be able to provide for young men in the future, and to provide for my future son should I adopt one.
On another note, I need to add the book “Society Without the Father: a Contribution to Social Psychology” by Alexander Mitscherlich. Bly references it at the beginning of this section, I’m interested to know more about it.
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