LEONARD ARTHUR MCLEOD

Application for City of Straits

I’m not much for introductions, but I’ll do my best here. My name is David Reece and this is a picture of me looking better than I usually do. I often smile in real life (as opposed to picture-life) but I don’t generally do that in pictures because I look like a dork.

See. A dork.

I’ve recently turned 30. This is usually a cause for celebration, or at least self-examination. I’ve done neither. Mostly, I’m just relieved that I’ve made it another year.

I’m a Pisces. Pisces, according to the internet, includes the following positive traits: idealism, wisdom, intuition, empathy, imagination, creativity, adaptability, compassion, and an uncanny connection to all that is spiritual and otherworldly; and the following negative traits : easily influenced by other people, gullibility, a lack of backbone, escapism, addictive personality, impracticality, emotional game-playing, delusion, and a total inability to say "no.“

Yeah, that’s pretty accurate.

I live here. Hardly impressive. And hardly ever this clean.

My former minions. I have attachment issues

Work projects; sometimes I work from here. Really.

Why yes, I DO have a Mac.

Very ugly bedspread, but warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

Ikea closet. No, I don’t own grown-up furniture.

More work projects.

This is my office at work.

Much fancier, isn’t it? I had zero to do with that. I work with architects to validate their designs for code violations. That requires a lot of dealings with the City of So And So, so you can imagine how fun my days generally are.

The light for my draft table

Another Mac! I’m starting to detect a theme…

These are absolutely stock pictures. Like I said, zero to do with décor.

Ruby. More on her later.

I lead a purposefully dull, unobtrusive life. Very quiet. Very lonely.

I change jobs a lot.

I move a lot.

David is not my real name

You see… the thing is …

there are a lot of people who want me dead.

That was kind of awkward.

Sorry.

Let’s try this again.

My name is Leonard McLeod. Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not some former mobster and I didn’t witness anyone get killed – I’m not in the Witness Protection Program or anything. Nor am I hiding from my family because of some reckless/drug-induced/shameful act that I cannot speak of. In short, I really have no logical reason to be in hiding.

Still a dork. And 30.And a Pisces.

I want you to stay with me as I explain this to you, okay?

Because this isn’t logical. You just have to roll with it.

Think back to when you were a child. Think back to watching Peter Pan for the first time and staying up all night in the hopes that he’d come for a story. Think back to when your dolls had individual personalities and every branch was a sword. Think back to when you had an imagination that worked.

Are you there?

OK

I am a mage. It’s a nice, gender-neutral term for magic user that has grown popular over the years because it doesn’t have the same… oh, animosity of other descriptors.

Witches are either wizened hags, mistakenly persecuted colonials, or young women of a certain age who revere nature to the point of self-delusion.

Warlocks are either evil male magic users coming to destroy the purity of nature/female magic, or the selected striker class of those severely addicting online games.

And anyone who calls themselves a wizard is an idiot, but everyone knows that.

At any rate, I’m a mage. A structural mage, specifically. Even more specifically, I Make these:

Really, though, I make these:

This is Bear. I don’t remember ever consciously deciding to animate him – it was too long ago for me to remember – but he’s been my conscience, my co-hort, and my companion since before I was old enough to walk.

He’s adorable, I know. Don’t let that fool you though- my personality is inexorably imprinted upon him.

I can really make anything come to life. Well… life; I have to remind myself of the difference most of the time.

It’s my blood that does it.

My blood that marks me as worthy of death. I am a cancer on society for what I can create, supposedly.

Maybe I am something to be feared. I could build tireless armies that would feel no pain, never eat or sleep. I could take an item and bid it to tell me all it’s seen. My grasp and power just might be limitless. If God made Adam out of clay and breathed life into him… what’s to say what I do is any different? Maybe I am something to be feared.

But I don’t think so.

Bear is my co-pilot. Oh yeah.

I AM FEROCIOUS!

As I’ve said, people want me dead. But the thing is, people have wanted me dead since I was a kid. My family is one of the oldest of our kind in the US and we have been hunted since before Salem.

Not that I’m THAT old.

You get the point.

I grew up outside of regular society, fully immersed in the Delirium. The real world (your world) was simply there for providing the essentials (stores to buy food, dealerships to buy cars, etc.)

We were always on the move , living but staying one step ahead of the Witchfinders. They would find us and there would be fights. People would die. We’d continue on.

My mother and eldest sister were killed when I was nine. My father has been gone 6 years now.

This is what remains of my family.

This is my eldest brother, Elwood. He is a goofy, lazy oaf with a lightning temper. He grants wishes, although he maintains that he only grants small ones. He continues to travel heavily with his wife Lena and his son Saul.

This is my youngest brother, Gregory. As that smirking smile suggests, he’s a rogue who pretty much thinks he’s the most awesome thing on Earth. He is a Dreamer and I’m fairly sure the movie Inception is based upon him.

This is Ruby. She’s my twin sister – isn’t she pretty? She’s my other half and when I close my eyes and stay real quiet, I can feel her on the other end of myself. She’s a Conduit and brings things from other planes here. It’s put a darkness in her recently and I wish I could be there to comfort her. Sometimes the Othersides are too much to bear.

This picture was taken 2 years ago in one of our infrequent meet-ups –this particular one in St. Louis. For the most part, it’s Gregory that knits our dreams together so we can see each other on a regular basis, free from interference. But nothing is like being in a real room together.

I’m smiling like a dork again.

We were attacked four hours after this was taken. Two people ended up dead, fortunately none of them being us.

This is why we stay apart.

So that is who I am. Just someone trying to survive in this world. I’ve been in Detroit for two months now and everything has been okay. I just hope that it stays that way. That it doesn’t end up like everywhere else I’ve been.

Yeah. I’m not so hopefully either.

Someday, I’ll find a place to stay where I don’t have to watch over my shoulder and mistrust everyone I meet. Someday, I’ll have my siblings and I’ll get married and have a family. Someday, I’ll be free.

Doesn’t make any sense, does it?

I’m just kidding. It’s a good story though,

isn’t it?

isn’t it?