What a great idea.
A repository for all the various knowledge that one can learn, a place to collect all those semesters and semesters of notes that get painstakingly written. Pages upon pages of neat perfect writing. Paper that's already yellowed from age, the lines standing in pale contrast. File folders neatly alphabetized and tucked away behind the wooden doors of of an old school filing cabinet. Card catalog written and stored in it's own little box, with the cards filed inside. All the information needed to conduct research. Every thing learned stored away. Nothing ever forgotten.
Wouldn't it be nice if the brain worked like that. If you could just pull out a little call card and know that the information you learned 3, 4, 5, more... years ago was stored in such and such a location. Wouldn't it be nice if everything was done by hand. Written out on paper so you could see it's age. Dated and cataloged. Bound up in books with cloth and leather covers, stamped and embossed with gold leaf on the pages. What has academia become. All the books now have shiny pictures produced by national geographic. Slick pages, and quantized information fed to the reader in neat spoon-fulls. What happened to pens with real ink, the kind that flows out onto the page in a literal transference of ideas. Where are the scholars, the librarians, the keepers of information. There is something about cream-colored paper, something about a good pair of spectacles, something about caffeine coming by way of teacup late at night. Instead we have shiny silver laptops, contacts, and travel mugs stamped with the Starbucks logo. Information has grown, but knowledge has lost it's soul.
So I wright. I study. And I compile the Encyclopedia of Everything. It's more than a collection, it's the start of a life long project. It's the search for the lost soul of the scholar.

The motorcycle purrs louder as I nudge it off the entry ramp and onto the expressway.  I have to admit that I love that sound.  It’s a chopper, more comfortable than one of those little sporty things the kids ride, but still packs the power. I’ve got it painted a gleaming bronze and done up with chocolate leather seat and saddlebags. Pricy, but worth it. Even matches my custom job half helmet and authentic steam punk goggle set.

The moon is rising over my left shoulder as I race along. I have her kicked up to ninety for the thrill of it, knowing that cops won’t chase a bike. I exist solely in the bubble of thought and the music from the tiny speakers built into the helmet. Around me race images and lights, tiny fragments of reality broken off and thrown together again. It’s an exhilarating feeling to exist like this completely unafraid. Not something many people get, but I’ve lived a hundred and fifty years already, and have it on the highest authority that I’ve got another one-thirty or so left in me. No wheel chairs or hospital beds in my future either. You could probably throw me at a semi and I’d be more worried about the truck than me. Having an angel as your best friend has its perks when it comes to knowing things.

Don’t get the wrong impression, I’m not indestructible, or something. I’m not a messenger of God or undead or transform into something nasty with fangs at the full moon. As far as I know, my soul is entirely my own. I’m a remnant of something that used to make it into the storybooks, back when things like me were a lot more common. True, the bad guys were around more back then too. I just live a little longer than most people, and don’t really age the same. By little I mean about three times as long for a natural life span, and I have a talent with fire that most pyros would pay for. 

It runs in my family to be different. We’re not all fire-casters, but about once a generation or so someone interesting pops up. I just got unlucky to be the one.  My baby sister wasn’t, my niece is. I’ve got to say, the hardest thing I’ve faced so far was watching her die. It was over seventy years ago, a whole lifetime past, but the image of her so old and frail still haunts me. My own baby sister and there I was looking like her granddaughter. One thing I’ll never understand is how the god Carol speaks of so glowingly could have made me like this. Even if she is my best friend, I’m pretty damn godless.  I’m not sure why she puts up with me.

I top a rise and as always the city lights hit me full in the face. I gravitate to cities for some reason. They help me keep up with the times, and to someone like me that’s rather more important than to most. There are also typically more places to lose myself, and my peculiar talents in a city.  I like the bright lights, the nightlife and subculture.  I’m big into music and steam punk, fast cars and bikes. You just don’t get that much in the small towns.  The gothic metal crowd is at least open minded when it comes to angels and devils walking among us, even if they have some pretty damn funny misconceptions.

Reluctantly, I steer the bike off the highway and onto Main Street. Carol and I have been splitting a loft at 1350 South Main for about three years now. It’s just easier that way. Even though she’s an Angelic, her human body needs at least three hours of sleep to recharge itself, and I just live long. No promises on quality of life. We both end up having to move around a lot and as one of the few people I’ve met who makes me feel young I sort of crave her companionship. Long life really sucks when you’re forced to live it alone.

I wheel the bike around back and park, not even bothering to take the keys up with me. It’s pathetically easy to steal a motorcycle, keys or no keys, and I’ve got her ensured to the max. My high-heeled boots make the outdoor stairway rattle threateningly as I climb to the second story. I peel a notice from the landlord off the door, and let myself in. Dropping my helmet to a convenient chair-seat, I shake out my hair and throw Carol a mock salute before heading back to change into something more appropriate for tonight’s meeting.

There was an event happening tonight at a warehouse just south of the city.  Several up and coming metal and industrial bands were playing, and the usual crowd of oddballs would probably be there until the cops came to break things up. Mine probably wouldn’t be the only shady business deal going down tonight. My day job’s in retail, but that’s mostly a cover to keep the landlord happy. The main money comes from mercenary work. None of that holy warrior crap, not in a world where morality is relative.  I’m fairly choosy about my jobs, but absolutely refuse to take sides, officially speaking.

My black silk shirt will do for tonight, but I throw on a corset to goth it up a bit. The belt I strap around my hips looks the latest in steam punk, but most of the indefinable gadgets on it double as weapons.  The man I’m meeting tonight is an old acquaintance, and one whose motives are questionable at best. He tried to have me killed once, fifteen years ago. He and my employer at the time found one another on opposite sides of a property debate. Nothing personal, but call me paranoid if I never trust someone who’s ordered me dead once. I’ve been in the business a long time now, and there are very few people I trust completely.

Somehow, in this business, there are few enough of us that the good guys and the bad guys all kind of get thrown together. Sometimes I wish I could see things as clearly as Carol. Sure she’s got her thoughts and feelings, doubts and frailties, but her being is intrinsically good. It’s like she’s got a meter somewhere in her head that puts everything into instant perspective for her. She thinks there’s still hope for me. I’m not so sure. I think Carol would believe there was hope for the archfiend himself if he would only repent his ways. I’ve never met him, but I sort of doubt he’s big on repenting.

“What Faustian deal are you making tonight, my darling?” Carol asks as I re-enter our living room. Yeah, she really does talk like that. Her real name translates to something like ‘with god’s voice we sing truth’ but that’s a bit much to put on a driver’s license.

“I’m meeting with Dolom. My source says it’s property reclamation, but I’m sure I’ll get details tonight. He’s calling himself Casper Banks in this century.”

“You sure attract them.” Carol looked up at me from where she was curled up on the end of the sofa, television remote in hand. “Watch yourself tonight, Rachel, that old wizard switches sides quicker than blinking.”

I run my fingers through my black curls before braiding it up tight so the bike wouldn’t turn it into waist long tangles. “I’ll let you know if I need any backup, Hun, and you can talk with the old man up there and see if he knows what Dolom’s up to this time.”
“I’ll see what I can do. You have two hours before the police raid tonight.” As a cop, Carol would know.


The warehouse was crowded already by the time I arrived. I knew Dolom wouldn’t be there yet. We’d be cutting the meeting close if I was to get out of there before things came down, but industrial wasn’t really Dolom’s scene. They had turned several folding tables into a fully stocked bar to one side of the warehouse.  No carding either at the door or at the bar. If your money was good they’d serve you, but drinks and cover cost half again as much as some other places.

I sit myself down at the bar to wait and order a double shot of whisky—the good stuff. It comes by way of a red plastic cup and burns my throat as it goes down, but the fire it makes in my belly is very welcome. I hate waiting. It just gives the other guys more chances to surprise you. As long as I’m holding my cup, the girl tending bar seems content to let me sit here, so I take the chance to look around me.

The problem with these settings is just about anyone could be an operative. You do it long enough, you get a sort of sixth sense about it. For example, the thug with the kilt and the mohawk looks dangerous in a sort of punk rebel way. I don’t care how big the knife is that he’s got strapped to that kilt, he’s nothing to worry about. You can tell by the way he’s leaning on the bar that he’s so far out on some kinda trip the only way to get him into action would be to punch him repeatedly. The pair of thirteen-year-old girls next to me would probably be a bigger threat. At least they’re in the same world as the rest of us.

I slide my cup away from me and get up to walk a perimeter. It would be stupid in the extreme for Dolom not to have his people already in place. I know that no matter how casually I walk I won’t be fooling them, but it doesn’t hurt to exercise a little tact. After all, we’re all safe as long as we’re all playing the game together. Once someone stops the weapons typically start coming out. I don’t want to be the one responsible for putting this crowd over the edge into full-on riot.

I shuffle my way across the dance floor, keeping rough time with the music and using the customary bobbing movement to check the corners behind the standing speakers. Some nights I like coming here for something besides business, letting the strobe lights and thrumming beat work their hypnotic effect. The normal crowd recognizes me. I wave to DJ Anders and his posse, and continue on.  If business goes well, I’ll give him the heads up on the coming raid. If business goes poorly, I’ll get out and hope I’ve got my skin intact when I do.

Dolom’s guards are well trained, but I have the advantage of knowing familiar faces. The only people who can achieve a perfect cool in a place like this are the regular crowd and professionals trained in infiltration. There were six of them. Pretty much the max he could slip in without tipping off the bouncers. Two by the main entrance, one behind the DJ stand, two staggered around the back, and another who seemed to be patrolling like I was. There was a seventh man that I spotted when I returned to the bar. He was another to watch, but unless my informant was much slower than I paid him to be, this one didn’t work for Dolom—yet.

Drake. Sir Francis Drake is another like me, an opportunist with a checkered history on both sides of the moral line. I slip into a folding chair several patrons down from him and order another whisky.
 

      So last Monday I was diagnosed with depression. As soon as I start telling people, so that they know why I've been acting strange, I get this huge outpouring of understanding and several of my friends give me a hug and tell me 'I'm sorry you have depression... so do I'. It's really quite amazing how many of us there are when you come down to it. My doctor said that it was quite common among my age group. As an explanation she offered that life is hard on us, and we're hard on ourselves. I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but I certainly know I haven't been easy on myself. I'm not used to failure, and so there's a real bite to feeling it. I just want you to know, that if you're struggling I've been through it too. I know what it's like, and you're not alone. Because feeling alone is one of the hardest things to handle when everything else feels miserable. The truth is there are many of us out there, you just don't know us yet.
     If you work for a drug company, I suggest making a new and better medication to help people with depression. You'll be rich, because it turns out the world runs on happy pills.