Acid Burn

Originally written April 14, 2006

There are still stories to tell. With the barbarians at the gates, I confess to everything and nothing at all. Months ago in "Rebirth and Dissolution Part 2" I wrote about the troubling transition from the life in D.C. to the sophomore year in Kansas. In the only way the narrator would have it, I couldn't sleep. By my own admission at some point I simply stopped trying, and I would entertain myself for those quiet few hours from dusk to dawn. I would break into the football stadium across the street, walk around campus, wander aimlessly through town in the middle of the night.

People ask me why Kansas, why did I transfer to Kansas when my life was in northern Illinois. In the most honest fashion, I have never had an answer. Sometimes these things just happen, and we just have to accept that for what it is.

By the time I settled into my pissant basement apartment, I had forgotten the lessons and promises that I had seen in D.C. These were different people, a world I was not used to or expecting. Lessons to be learned Jay, for your (possible) Hong Kong adventure. There are stories from D.C. that I cannot tell. They planted a seed of doubt in my mind that wouldn't take shape for years to come. There are stories from that first year in Kansas that although give sense of how this all came to be, sometimes, even in confessional, you have to keep the priest in the dark.

It all came back...I couldn't sleep. I knew that there was someplace else I had to be. Someone else I had to be. Chicago was closed, D.C. was and still is a lifetime away. I started over like everyone does, and it took years to build the empire. Jason Hwang, in geography of all things, introduced me to Matt Flynn, who later would introduce me to Pete Sweers. You trace back everything in Kansas, it was those among those 27 hours of geography where the political and cult like following began. Simply, that second year was turned me into a ridiculous student, but unknown to me the seeds for the empire were being set in place. Without Jason, I would never have met Matt, and Matt would go on to beat me in my first political election. All this wouldn't have been possible without Matt defeating me, for he needed to split the group so I could come in and play the uniter. Without Jason, I would never have met Pete, my roommate of three years and my brother to the end.

And yet, for that first year in Kansas, I couldn't sleep. This year was my acid burn without the vinegar, there was no forest, no power cave to take me away, it existed to teach me the lesson that I could do anything. I wouldn't sleep. My mind kept racing, thinking of the days of future past, and what dreams may come.